The Irish Cairn Murder

by Dicey Deere

  Kate Burnside stopped. She looked back at O’Hare. “Dakin was worried that the blackmailer might retaliate by harming his mother. He was afraid for her. She was acting ‘off somewhere,’ as he put it—” Kate stopped.

  Inspector O’Hare waited with a vague feeling that he was on a path through a wilderness. Kate Burnside sat gazing into space. A silence, a waiting.

  Kate Burnside blinked as though coming back to herself. She said; “I wanted to help Natalie. We’d once been good friends. Best friends. And Dakin, so anxious, so worried! I didn’t know how I could help, but I’d try. So that Saturday, in Natalie’s stead, I went at noon to meet the blackmailer.” She stopped.

  Indrawn breaths; then the room was still. O’Hare, waiting, said at last, “And?”

  “He was there, at the cairn. A man, a Canadian, I know the accent, I’ve Canadian cousins. I told him I was a friend of Natalie’s and that she’d told me she’d no idea what secret she could possibly be hiding, that there was nothing she might be guilty of. Nothing about which to pay blackmail. It was all nonsense. She would never come to the cairn to pay blackmail. Never! He didn’t believe me. He was angry, impatient. But then he laughed. ‘I’ll write her again,’ he told me, ‘a letter that will bring her. Tuesday noon. She knows why I’m here. Otherwise, she’d have called the Gardai. So she’ll come.’

  “I didn’t know what else to do, how to help. But all Tuesday morning, while I was working on a painting, I felt drawn to the cairn to see for certain. I could see myself going to the cairn and saying to that blackmailer, ‘You see? You’ll get no money from Natalie. She’ll never come! Let her alone!’ And I’d even lie, and say, ‘I believe Natalie has already informed the Gardai.’

  “So I went, I couldn’t help it. But when I got to the cairn, he was lying there. The blood! My foot touched something. I picked it up. It was a penknife. At once I flung it away. And I thought, Natalie has come after all.”

  Indrawn breaths. Appalled faces turned to look at Natalie Cameron, who sat immobile. Sheila Flaxton made a mewling sound. Winifred Moore lit a cigarette with an unsteady hand, then at a reproving sign from Sergeant Bryson, crushed it out under her boot.

  Inspector O’Hare said, “That’s how your fingerprints got on the penknife, Ms. Burnside?”

  “That’s exactly how, Inspector.”

  “And then, Ms. Burnside? What did you do then?”

  Kate Burnside said, “What? Then? Oh, then I ran from there! I was so—But when I got back to my studio—it’s in that old O’Sullivan’s barn—I thought, maybe Natalie had gone to the cairn without bringing the blackmail money. So he’d lost his head and attacked her! Maybe in defending herself from him, she—” Ms. Burnside put a hand to her throat. “So I ran back to the cairn to take the penknife away. To save her.

  “But when I got back, coming out of the woods I saw several people standing over there beyond the meadow, at the cairn. You, Inspector, Sergeant Bryson. Others. I was too late.”

  52

  Inspector O’Hare, after a moment, nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Burnside.” He glanced from under his brows at Natalie Cameron. She was regarding her childhood friend with the incredulity of someone seeing a swan flying over the moon. Beside her, Dakin had flashed a startled glance at Kate Burnside, then away. As for Kate Burnside herself, she shot a challenging look around, as though daring anyone not to believe her.

  Inspector O’Hare’ waited until Kate Burnside, chin outthrust, looked back at him. Then, “So, Ms. Burnside, because of a childhood friendship, nothing more, you did what you could to help Natalie Cameron.” He frowned. “However, your fingerprints on the knife have muddied the—have created a complication. It is now not entirely clear that Natalie Cameron was the one who, with the penknife—”

  “What?” Kate Burnside’s voice was incredulous. “You can’t possibly mean, Inspector—But I’d have no reason to kill him! The man was a stranger to me!” Her paint-stained fingers clutched at the collar of her shirt. She gave a wild little laugh, “Oh, Christ! I have got myself in a mess!” Dazed, Kate Burnside sank back in her chair.

  Inspector O’Hare himself felt a bit of a shiver. Nothing involving the murder of Mr. Ricard was as it seemed. Fingerprints on the knife, other fingerprints besides Natalie Cameron’s, a nightmare of fingerprints. Get on with it, approach with caution, there are snakes in the box.

  O’Hare, with a sudden qualm, refrained from looking at Ms. Torrey Tunet standing back there with Nelson by the soda machine. Go along? Back out? Natalie Cameron had gone to the cairn, after all, to meet the blackmailer. But instead of bringing the blackmail money, she could have rushed out of Sylvester Hall with the penknife and a frightened, furious intent to kill. Seen departing Sylvester Hall in such a state—or otherwise?

  Inspector O’Hare looked over at Jessie Dugan, who was sitting beside Sean O’Boyle. “Jessie, if you don’t mind.”

  Jessie didn’t at all mind. She was, in fact, thrilled. She’d have tons to tell Hannah at Castle Moore after, her in her new jacket, and she’d washed her hair last night and it had come out just right, the little wisps around her cheeks curling up in spite of the dry weather.

  “Jessie,” Inspector O’Hare said, “would you tell us exactly what happened that Tuesday morning at Sylvester Hall? As nearly as you can remember.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jessie felt comfortable with Inspector O’Hare; she’d known him all her life and her mother had almost married him when she was a slip of a girl, so the story went, which meant he could almost have been her father. It made a bond.

  She said, “First thing that morning, a letter came in the post. It didn’t have a stamp. Someone had just stuck it in our postbox at the end of the avenue. It was the third letter to come like that in the last two weeks. The third! Just put there. Scary, somehow. Like I said to Mr. O’Boyle; he was working in the greenhouse that morning. ‘A third letter’, I told him.”

  Jessie looked over at Sean O’Boyle. He looked so different, clean-shaven, and in the brown jacket and clean white shirt, not in his usual greasy sweater. His sister, Caitlin, probably had made him shave and had ironed the shirt. He was always babying some plant or other, like whatever greens in that flower pot on his knees. She looked back at Inspector O’Hare:

  “Mr. O’Boyle said I was too jumpy. He said it was from seeing too many scary television movies. Grisly stuff and all. But I don’t know.

  “Anyway, Ms. Cameron had gone out early to Dunlavin, to some meeting. Low-cost housing. So she didn’t get to read the letter until she got back, almost noon. She must’ve read it soon’s she came in the door. I’d put the morning’s mail in the tray on the table in the front hall.”

  “‘Must’ve,’ Jessie?”

  “Well, I heard her cry out. It was an awful sound! Like something you’d read about in a book.”

  A silence, then a delighted whisper, Winifred Moore’s voice. “I know exactly. Sheila, this young woman’s a poet!”

  O’Hare said, louder than usual, in a reprimand to Winifred Moore, “And then, Jessie?”

  “I came from the kitchen right away. It’d frightened me, her crying out like that. I asked if something was the matter but she said no, and ran right past me up the stairs. Before I could turn around she was back down and I asked her about raspberries for lunch, but she went right past me saying eggs would do, and she was out the door and down the steps. The dogs, Crackers and Buster, were whining and running back and forth in the hall instead of Ms. Cameron taking them out with her as she’d ordinarily have done.”

  “And when Ms. Cameron returned? When was that?”

  Jessie shook her head. “I don’t know. Breda would’ve made omelettes if she’d come. I was doing the rooms and like that. Breda and I had a bit of lunch, waiting. Sean O’Boyle said—But I don’t know. I didn’t see her. Next we knew was when we heard about … about it.”

  O’Hare nodded. Three letters. He slanted a glance at Ms. Torrey Tunet back there, leaning against the soda machine. Three letters.
Just as she’d said. Pedaling around on her bicycle, that turquoise bandana with figures of peacocks around her head, and plucking clues off thistles and furze, far as he could tell. He felt a stir of envy and exasperation.

  “Thank you, Jessie.” He turned to Sean O’Boyle, who was sitting next to Jessie Dugan. The wall clock struck half eleven. Nelson barked for his usual biscuit; O’Hare waited patiently until Sergeant Bryson opened the box of biscuits and gave a biscuit to Nelson, who otherwise would have carried on.

  “Mr. O’Boyle, you were aware of all three unstamped letters that Jessie Dugan spoke of?”

  Sean O’Boyle nodded. “Yes. Never happened before. In the old days, Ms. Sybil’s time, I used to be the one to go down the avenue for the post. Never saw such a thing as unstamped mail. Course, t’was a pittance for a stamp in those days.”

  O’Hare nodded. “And on that Tuesday?”

  “I was busy in the greenhouse, so I didn’t see Ms. Cameron return from Dunlavin. And I didn’t see her leave Sylvester Hall either time.”

  O’Hare caught him up. “Either time, Mr. O’Boyle?”

  Sean O’Boyle looked confused. “I mean, I didn’t get to Sylvester Hall early enough to see Ms. Cameron go off to her meeting in Dunlavin. Later, being in the greenhouse, I didn’t see her go off before lunch. If that’s what you mean?”

  “Yes,” O’Hare said, “that’s what I meant.”

  But now, as though Sean O’Boyle had become a shadow, O’Hare took a breath and his gaze rested on Ms. Torrey Tunet; he was getting that feeling of anticipation, because now they’d be breaking open the shell and getting to the nut of it. Ms. Tunet, though, gave no sign. She looked her usual exasperating self, standing there watching him, meanwhile fondling one of Nelson’s floppy ears. Momentarily O’Hare saw her again in the red slicker, leaning forward on the edge of the chair next to his desk Wednesday afternoon; he was hearing her impassioned voice. And now, as then, he had a prickly feeling at the back of his neck as her incredible tale unfolded. Then, confirmation from Dublin Castle’s forensics. So that now—

  From down Butler Street, St. Andrew’s clock boomed the noontime hour, the smell of frying sausage drifted from somewhere, Nelson barked, Sheila Flaxton could be heard whispering to Winifred Moore that the folding chair was making her back ache. Sergeant Bryson was holding up his wrist and tapping his wristwatch significantly, as though the racket of St. Andrew’s clock had somehow escaped the notice of his superior.

  O’Hare said, “I think a recess is in order.”

  53

  They were all back within the hour, only minutes after Inspector O’Hare had swallowed Finney’s Friday Special, the fried fish sandwich that Sergeant Bryson brought him. For himself, Bryson had the vegetable salad, no dressing. “Nutritious,” Bryson had said, a bit on the gloomy side. He’d made their tea on the electric two-burner on the table beside his desk.

  Inspector O’Hare saw that Ms. Tunet was standing against the wall beside the first row of chairs, thumbs hooked in the pockets of her jeans. Despite her red jumper and jeans, she looked oddly exotic, it was that turquoise bandanna with the peacocks.

  O’Hare leaned back against his desk, crossing his ankles. A light scent of perfume reached him, it came from Natalie Cameron, settling into her place in the first row, barely a few feet from where he stood. Her face had a wide-awake look, alert, her hazel eyes more curious than fearful. A waiting face, thought O’Hare. Her son Dakin, though, conveyed something else. Chin out a bit. Braced. A boy Stoic, an interior fox gnawing.

  O’Hare cleared his throat. “Pursuing a possible connection between the murder of Mr. Ricard and the attack on Mr. Brannigan,” and he turned toward Ms. Tunet. “Ms. Tunet, in my investigation I learned that you visited Mr. Brannigan at Grasshill Hospital. Exactly why, Ms. Tunet?”

  Ms. Tunet looked astonished. Her gray eyes went wide. “After all! I practically saved Mr. Brannigan’s life! Running to the Hall for help! Getting you and Sergeant Bryson! He might’ve died! All that.”

  And because you’re so damned nosy, Inspector O’Hare refrained from saying.

  “His head was bandaged,” Ms. Tunet went on. “He was weak. He appreciated my visit. He wasn’t exactly coherent. But he struggled to talk. He mentioned the name Ricard.” Ms. Tunet gazed off in memory. “He told me of a frightening connection between himself and Raphael Ricard.”

  Intakes of breath. There it was: incontrovertibly a link between the brutal attack and the murder. Both horrors, incredibly, right here in Ballynagh, this peaceful village lying in the valley among the mountains on whose sides sheep peacefully grazed, and if it weren’t for the fishing in the streams down from those mountains, not a dozen visitors a year would have supported the five-room Nolan’s Bed and Breakfast, full Irish breakfast notwithstanding. And only sixteen pounds a night, single or double.

  Torrey tried not to look at Natalie Cameron. But from under her eyelids she saw Natalie reach out and put a hand on Dakin’s arm; in response, he put his own hand over hers. A nervous cough from Sean O’Boyle on Dakin’s left. Beside where Torrey stood, Kate Burnside on the folding chair crossed her legs; she was wearing stockings. Torrey smelled cigarette smoke. Winifred Moore again, but Sergeant Bryson would take care of that.

  “A connection, Ms. Tunet?”

  Torrey hesitated, hating where this investigation would have to go, hated that the shell would have to be cracked open, all revealed. But there was no other way; she’d known it on Wednesday afternoon when she’d come to Inspector O’Hare and laid the things on his desk. No other way. A pity for Natalie Cameron over there on the folding chair; in Florence, in the Uffizi Gallery, the Michelangelo, the downturned head with its broad forehead, the curve of the eyelid: in this version, wearing a black sweater and dove gray pants.

  “Ms. Tunet?”

  She took a breath. “Mr. Brannigan told me that he had followed Mr. Ricard to Ireland to kill him.”

  From the listeners, gasps. Torrey, barely a dozen feet from Inspector O’Hare, could see tension tighten the muscles in his face.

  “A disturbing confidence for Mr. Brannigan to divulge to you, Ms. Tunet.” O’Hare’s voice was sympathetic. “It as good as involved you.”

  “Yes.” Damned right.

  “To kill Mr. Ricard. Exactly why, Ms. Tunet?”

  “He didn’t tell me.” Lying, Torrey met Inspector O’Hare’s keen eyes under the gray-white brows. What Brannigan had revealed to her wouldn’t help Natalie. No, she’d have to go down that other road. She felt again the little shiver when in the cottage, staring at the bloodstained stone on Jasper’s handkerchief on the kitchen table, the thought had come to her … supposing …

  “Ms. Tunet?” Inspector O’Hare’s voice was bland, patient. Ah, yes, of course. That other road. He knew her lying had been for the listeners. Or rather, for one single listener among those seated on the folding chairs.

  She said, “It occurred to me, Inspector, that the attack on Tom Brannigan had prevented him from killing Raphael Ricard.”

  The word “killing” was a hard little pebble dropping into the silence.

  O’Hare folded his arms. “Are you suggesting, Ms. Tunet, that that had been its purpose?”

  “Yes, Inspector. Mr. Brannigan was struck down to stop him from killing Mr. Ricard.”

  That hard little pebble again dropped into a silence that was immediately broken:

  “Oh, my! Winifred, I feel absolutely faint!”

  “Sheila,” Winifred Moore sounded merely annoyed, “you have the constitution of an ox. Just sit up straight and let a little air get into your lungs. Or leave. Wait outside in the Jeep.” But Sheila Flaxton merely put a hand to her breastbone and pulled her fuzzy shawl more closely around her shoulders. Marcy McGann giggled.

  “Then,” Torrey said, “last Friday I had occasion to visit Nolan’s Bed and Breakfast. I wanted to … to ask Sara Hobbs what she charges on weekends, I’m expecting a guest or two later on, and the cottage is too small.” She drew a breath.
“Anyway, Friday. Ms. Plant was sitting in the reception room waiting for Sergeant Bryson, they were going antiquing. Meanwhile, she was doodling with a pencil on an ad in Body Beautiful magazine. Sergeant Bryson arrived a couple of minutes later. After they’d left, I picked up the magazine; I was waiting for Sara Hobbs, who’d gone down for the post.”

  “What’s she getting at?” Sheila Flaxton’s whisper to Winifred Moore brought a sharp glance from Inspector O’Hare.

  Torrey said, “I saw then that Ms. Plant hadn’t been doodling on the ad. She’d been editing it.”

  The silence of curiosity; it was as though a strange bird had suddenly flown into the garda station.

  “The ad was for the Roslina exercise method. I remembered that in America, when I was growing up, there was a popular television series, Roslina, the Warrior Maiden. Shlock, but fun: the warrior maiden with gold armbands, breast plates and loincloth, wielding a long, snaky whip, leaping over rocks, splattering her enemies right and left. The series starred Brenda Roslina, a Polish exercise champion who had emigrated to America.”

  Torrey stopped. She looked at Brenda Plant. “I’m an interpreter, that’s my business. So I know languages. For instance, Polish. Roslina means ‘plant.’”

  Intakes of breath. In the second row, Brenda Plant was a beautifully coifed block of wood with eyes of blue glass.

  Torrey went on, “That made me curious enough to call the City of Cork. I learned there is no Irish antiques show scheduled.” She couldn’t refrain from casting a sympathetic glance at Sergeant Jimmy Bryson’s face. Astonishment? Disbelief? She continued.

  “It seemed ridiculous, but it occurred to me that Ms. Plant herself might have struck down Tom Brannigan. No great feat for the ex–Warrior Maiden to, say, throw a stone a bare few feet across the road and strike him down.”