by Dicey Deere
57
Kate Burnside’s voice. Chin tipped up, she turned to Inspector O’Hare. Her eyes were bright, there was mockery in her voice, color in her cheeks. She’d come alive again in these last minutes, a wilting plant that had been watered and now sprouted glossy green leaves and dewy blossoms. She said, “Oh, yes, Inspector! There was lovemaking in the fields! Lovemaking with the blackmailer. Only the woman wasn’t Ms. Plant. It was Kate Burnside.”
O’Hare waited. It was one thing he had learned to do early in his career, one of the most important. Kate Burnside was smiling, looking back at him as though challenging him. “Does that shock you, Inspector? Disgust you? Nettles on my back! Even that Saturday! Later, I brought wine. Wine, and October sun and his jacket under me. Each day, to meet him. Sunday! And Monday! Each day! I couldn’t wait!” She gave a sudden, wild, shaky laugh. “Even one night at O’Sullivan’s barn, where I paint! Even there!”
Inspector O’Hare felt buffeted. Struck. He had an astonishing sudden vision of young horses running free across the hills and valleys of Ireland. Nothing to do with the ruined, still-young face of Ms. Kate Burnside. Yet …
“You’re lying!” Brenda Plant’s voice was furious. Her face was pale. “He wouldn’t! Rafe wouldn’t! Never!”
Kate Burnside laughed. “Oh, please! You’re a woman, after all. You were his lover. How could you not guess that something—A man like that!”
“Guess? Why would I?” Brenda Plant’s voice was furious. “Do you suppose I’m clairvoyant? Do you think I’m Madame Something-or-other with a pack of cards? Or that I looked in a crystal ball and saw you and Rafe making love among the nettles or in a barn? Ridiculous! Of course I knew nothing of what you’re talking about!”
A silence. Then from the back, near the soda machine, a new voice: “But Brenda! Ms. Plant! You did know.”
58
Heads turned. Sergeant Jimmy Bryson, looking appalled at his own words, was staring at Ms. Brenda Plant. Inspector O’Hare, startled, shot a quick glance at Torrey Tunet, standing there with her thumbs hooked in the pockets of her jeans. She met his glance and raised an eyebrow.
O’Hare said, “Sergeant Bryson?”
But it was to Brenda Plant that Bryson spoke. “The tiddly old fellow, Danny. In Finney’s, that Monday night, singing ‘Reilly’s Daughter’ at the bar, then talking about the visiting chap with the suede fishing hat, how he’d fished for a bit of cuddly and caught himself a lulu. How Billy had spied them going into the O’Sullivan’s barn one time. That’s when you knew, isn’t it.” It was not a question. It was Sergeant Bryson bleakly confirming something to himself.
Brenda Plant said softly, mechanically, as though she were having a conversation with someone invisible, “Oh, that was bitter! After I’d almost killed Tom Brannigan to protect him! Then I hated him. Hated him!” She drew in a breath that caught on a sob. She put a hand to her throat.
Inspector O’Hare thought, Now, and he gave a little shudder as he felt something like a bead of quicksilver slide down his back between his shoulder blades; and it was almost as though he were hearing someone else say the comforting words, but of course it was his voice and he was smiling sympathetically at Ms. Brenda Plant as he said, “Don’t worry, Ms. Plant. Easy enough to prove you had no hand in the killing. We can quickly clear you of any involvement, any suggestion that you acted violently when you discovered—That’s easily done. We can simply take your fingerprints to compare to the unidentified—”
“No!” An involuntary cry of panic. Brenda Plant’s hands flew up as though warding off a blow. “No! No, no!” Her eyes met Inspector O’Hare’s keen gaze. A long look passed between them; it was fully a half minute before Brenda Plant sank back and dropped her upraised hands to her lap.
Dead silence. Then “My God!” Winifred Moore’s strong voice carried. “The Warrior Woman killed him! With that puny little penknife!”
59
Incredulity. An inhalation from a dozen throats, then a slow breathing out, a giant sigh.
Hand in a pocket of her jeans, Torrey convulsively clutched a chocolate bar so tightly that she could feel the knobby lumps that were almonds. She looked over at Inspector O’Hare. He was leaning back against his desk, feet crossed; he was caressing his chin and soberly regarding Ms. Brenda Plant. A trill of whispers rippled among the listeners, then died; they waited.
“You tricked me,” Brenda Plant said softly to Inspector O’Hare. “You knew. You and Ms. Tunet. Because you found out that Natalie Cameron wasn’t the only one who’d maybe killed Rafe. You found out that it could’ve been that Kate Burnside bitch over there who’d killed him. Or me. You found out because of Ms. Tunet, her snooping, lying, stealing. Wasn’t that it?”
Inspector O’Hare nodded; appalling as it seemed, his lips twitched, but he resisted looking over at Ms. Torrey Tunet, snoop, liar, thief.
“But you didn’t know which of us, Inspector, did you? You and Ms. Tunet.”
“Quite right, Ms. Plant.”
“Of course. I see. You already have my fingerprints on the penknife, haven’t you, Inspector?”
“Yes, Ms. Plant.” It was in the sheaf of papers on his desk. “Forensics checked them against your fingerprints that were taken from a photograph of the cottage that Ms. Tunet rents from Castle Moore.” Inspector O’Hare hesitated; he had an absurd feeling that he should apologize to Ms. Brenda Plant, murderess. But tricking her had been the only way. He’d pushed stubbornly on until with that one involuntary No! Ms. Brenda Plant had given herself away. Crafty, this informal. Not exactly Hamlet, with his play within a play to work upon Claudius, murderer of his father. Still, it had served.
Over on his left, Kate Burnside gave a kind of sobbing laugh of relief and hugged her shoulders.
As for Natalie Cameron, a still figure on the folding chair between Dakin and Sean O’Boyle, her hazel eyes were regarding Brenda Plant with fascination.
“It was an accident,” Brenda Plant said, and once again it was as though she and Inspector O’Hare were quite alone in comfortable chairs, drawn up before a fireplace with a crackling fire. “I followed Rafe from Nolan’s. My ankle hurt, it was agony. I didn’t even know if he was going to meet his ‘cuddly’ or if he was going to the cairn for the blackmail money. I didn’t know!” She shook her head and one of the curved combs holding her hair back slid down so that a fluff of hair fell across her brow.
“He reached the cairn. And waited. So did I, back among the trees. Then I saw Natalie Cameron arrive to meet him. Watching, I could see she’d brought no money. She was frantic but helpless, a frightened little animal. She ran off, stumbling and crying.”
Brenda Plant stopped for a moment, staring back at that Tuesday noon.
“When she was gone, I limped up. I accused Rafe of betraying me with some loose village woman. He laughed and put the penknife he was holding down on the cairn and lit a cigarette. But when I went on about what I’d heard, that he was seen going into a barn with his ‘cuddly,’ he got furious and struck me here.” She lifted her chin and pulled down the front her high-necked lavender sweater; the bruise on her neck still showed red and purple and yellow. “On my throat! It could have killed me!” She settled the neck of her sweater back up and smoothed a hand down the lapel of her navy jacket. “He’d forgot that I’m the Warrior Maiden! Most of the violence in the movies was fake. But the parts I did with stones and knives were real. The way I looked at Rafe then, I could see him remembering and he dropped the cigarette and grabbed up the penknife. But I got hold of his wrist and … and then—It was an accident!” Brenda Plant raised a trembling hand and reset the curved comb in her hair. “An accident!”
In the silence that followed, Kate Burnside took a flat silver flask from her purse, unscrewed the cap, and raised the flask and drank. Sergeant Bryson, stiff-faced, studied his fingernails. Winifred Moore, chewing on an empty cigarette holder with her strong teeth, muttered something around it to Sheila Flaxton, meanwhile grinning over at Torrey Tunet.<
br />
Inspector O’Hare took a deeply satisfying breath. He was thinking with anticipatory pleasure of his forthcoming report to Chief Superintendent Emmet O’Reilley at Dublin Castle. Then he’d call Gilly, in forensics.
He looked over at Natalie Cameron. Vindicated. The gavel in a Dublin court would not, after all, descend and crush her.
But … Inspector O’Hare moved his shoulders uncomfortably inside his blue jacket. That other. Her secret now exposed. Dakin’s patrimony.
“Oh, Ms. Tunet! I’m so excited! I had a part in it, didn’t I! The blue jay!” Marcy McGann of the orangy red hair, the pretty face, and the gargantuan appetite was at Torrey’s side. Torrey saw that Marcy was the only one who’d gotten up, the others all still sat, waiting for … for what? Did they expect to see Inspector O’Hare put chains on Ms. Brenda Plant, who still walked with a cane?
“It’s so exciting!” Marcy said, “Maybe I’ll be interviewed on RTV And in the papers! Mightn’t I be, Ms. Tunet?”
“You might be, Marcy.”
“Ahh … that other, Ms. Tunet. About …” Marcy hesitated, blushed. “You know. About Dakin Cameron. His father being … someone else. That’s too bad.”
“Yes, Marcy.” Too bad. No unalloyed joy for Natalie Cameron, alas. Nor for Dakin. Photographers would be snapping pictures of the sixteen-year-old inheritor of Sylvester Hall, the boy whose father was the Sylvesters’ ex-chauffeur. It would be on the RTV eight o’clock Guess What? program to which everyone in Ireland seemed currently addicted. The smarmy gossip sheets would be gleeful and full of guesses: Surely Marshall West, a man of the highest integrity, would break off his engagement to Natalie Cameron! Or not? In pubs across Ireland, folks would place bets.
“Bye,” Marcy said, and went off.
A clank and rattle from the soda machine. Willie Hern. The village clock struck two. Torrey sighed; she had a sudden desperate need for Jasper. Damn it! Why wasn’t he here instead of off at the Kinsale Food Fair stuffing himself with delicacies and gourmet dinners? Or at least—
The door of the Garda station opened.
60
Jasper. Not in Kinsale. Here. Looking rumpled and wearing that sweater with the horizontal stripes that made him look twenty pounds heavier. Torrey felt that warm, cozy, amused, loving feeling she’d had from the day she’d first met him a year ago. What in hell was he doing here?
“Oh, God! The press!” Kate Burnside said to nobody in particular. “That’s Jasper Shaw. He must get the news by osmosis. I thought he scoped out bigger things like a New IRA bombing. Not a provincial little village murder.”
Sergeant Bryson tensed and looked questioningly at Inspector O’Hare; never mind that Shaw lived half the time in that cottage with Ms. Torrey Tunet.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Shaw,” O’Hare began, then stopped. Jasper Shaw had seen Ms. Torrey Tunet over there, leaning against the wall, he was already at her side and saying loud enough for O’Hare to overhear, “I have something—I wanted to get here earlier. The traffic—What do they know, so far?”
Inspector O’Hare, his blood pressure rising, said sharply, “Mr. Shaw! You are in this room on sufferance! Now, if you’ll please—”
“Oh, sorry!” Mr. Shaw was unflustered. “Been following this Ricard case closely, Inspector. Getting a bit ahead of myself. Not, believe me, Inspector, that I’d make any attempt to …” He grinned at O’Hare.
To scoop the Gardai, O‘Hare finished grimly to himself, to leave us with our faces red, and Chief Inspector Emmet O’Reilley thinking Inspector Egan O’Hare in Ballynagh is a waste of Garda Siochana money. Well, too late, Mr. Shaw. He folded his arms, feeling smug.
“Mr. Shaw. I will prepare a statement for the Irish Independent. In essence: regarding the murder of Mr. Ricard, we have a confession from Ms. Brenda Plant of Buffalo, New York.”
“Well, now!” Mr. Shaw’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Indeed!” His glance sought out Brenda Plant. She was mechanically settling and resettling the two curved combs in her hair; she seemed oblivious of anyone’s presence, or even of where she was.
“So, Mr. Shaw,” Inspector O’Hare continued, with satisfaction, “Ms. Natalie Cameron is absolved from suspicion. For any further information on that score, Mr. Shaw, you can refer to her attorney in Dublin.” And thank God that at least Jasper Shaw wasn’t accompanied by a news photographer.
Jasper Shaw sent a congratulatory smile toward Natalie Cameron. Her white-lidded hazel eyes looked back at him with faint curiosity. Dakin, beside her, seemed numb; wherever he was in his mind, it was not here in this Garda station.
Inspector O’Hare abruptly wished Jasper Shaw would disappear in a puff of smoke. He knew the reputation of this investigative reporter. A smudge of dust, a feather, an incautious word; Mr Shaw could find a clue or an answer in the shape of a snowflake.
But Mr. Shaw wasn’t disappearing. He was, instead, saying, “Congratulations, Inspector. I hope I can call and set up a personal interview with you for the Independent? On exactly how you solved this perplexing murder.”
Inspector O’Hare nodded, but for the moment he felt embarrassingly overinflated. He eyed the somewhat rumpled and overweight Mr. Shaw.
“Meantime, Inspector,” Mr. Shaw said, “Just one thing: about a connection between the murder of Mr. Ricard and the attack on Mr. Brannigan, I have learned that—”
“Not again!” Dakin Cameron was on his feet, “Not to hear it again! That he’s my father! Brannigan!”
“Darling!” Tears in Natalie Cameron’s eyes.
“Ah,” Jasper Shaw nodded. “I did hear something of the like, that’s my business, ear to the ground. Found it worth investigating.”
Inspector O’Hare swallowed. He pulled open his desk drawer and shook a fruit drop into his hand and popped it into his mouth. What he really wanted was a shot of whiskey. Barely three feet away, Dakin Cameron sank back down again beside his mother. He put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head in his hands.
Jasper Shaw said, “Turn over a bit of turf, that’s the thing. God knows what you’ll find. An old army boot. Buried treasure. A map of Atlantis. Excalibur. A hub cap.” He glanced at Torrey Tunet beside him. “Ms. Tunet gave me certain information. It led me to do a bit of investigating in Dublin this morning. My investigation involved a car accident that occurred one autumn evening in Dublin, some seventeen years ago.” He hiked up the side of his horizonally striped sweater and drew a slip of paper from his pants pocket:
“October twelfth. Two young women driving in a Rolls in rain and fog. The Rolls crashed into a streetlight on Heytesbury Street. Luckily the accident was not far from Meath Hospital, and the young women were taken there. One of them was uninjured. But the other young woman suffered a damaged arm and a concussion.”
Jasper Shaw paused. “Or rather, at first it was supposed that those two injuries were all. But the young woman had suffered a third injury due to the car accident. It became evident during her overnight stay at the hospital. At approximately midnight, the young woman had a miscarriage and was delivered of a female fetus.”
61
Two hours later, at Sylvester Hall, Jessie was excitedly on the telephone to Rose at Castle Moore. “I didn’t understand the half of it! Mr. Shaw explaining and then Ms. Burnside jumping in all of a sudden. Between them, I could hardly—It was all about a piece dropping right out of Mrs. Cameron’s memory! Months! And not even knowing she’d lost a baby girl! So then, Dakin conceived, like on the very heels of—Oh, my!” and here Jessie lost her breath. Anyway, Breda was motioning to her to get the tea things ready, it was almost four o’clock.
Inspector O’Hare watched as Sergeant Jimmy Bryson began lifting stones from the cairn. The pile of stones was at least two feet high and maybe three hundred years old, from the time of Cromwell. There was moss and dirt and bits of weed and grass and pebbles on top, and even a few shards of glass. Then—
“Got it!” Bryson reached down and picked it up carefully between two fingers and handed it t
o O’Hare.
“Sinbad.” O’Hare studied the butt. “Same as the pack among his things from Nolan’s.” As Brenda Plant had said, he dropped the cigarette and grabbed up the knife. Would this help in her defense? Maybe. An hour ago, two Gardai had arrived in a police car and taken her off to Dublin.
O’Hare took a breath. He looked over the fields. For a moment it was as though a frigid, wintery wind froze his marrow. What if, when the exasperating Ms. Tunet had invaded his office in her red slicker, he hadn’t broken free of his exasperation at her poking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted? What if? But once again, he had played her game, not quite daring not to.
“Wind from the north,” Jimmy Bryson said, seeing him shudder. “Getting cold.”
“Yes,” O’Hare said. Cold as the gaze of Chief Superintendent Emmet O’Reilley would have been on him, had it later been discovered he’d gone down the wrong path. And, given Ms. Tunet being who she was, it would have been discovered. Touch and go.
On Saturday morning at ten o’clock in the library at Sylvester Hall, Dakin looked from his mother to the visitor.
It was strange, his mother smiling at the thin, pale, good-looking man who’d written the prize-winning book called The Dakin Poems. For a whole, agonizing night and day, Dakin had believed this Canadian to be his father. And then, not. He could tell that Tom Brannigan still loved his mother, the way he looked at her. But now his mother loved Marshall West, who’d arrived last night from New York and had put his arms around Dakin’s mother and rocked her a bit saying stupid loving things like, “You should have called me!” and “I would’ve killed him!” Then Marshall had gone off to a low-cost housing meeting in Dublin. Now his mother, looking happy, was talking with the visitor, who looked, well, wistful, if that was a word you could use about a grown man.