Wedding Bel Blues: A Belfast McGrath Mystery (Bel McGrath Mysteries)

by Maggie McConnon

  Right on cue, Brendan nodded vigorously.

  “But you didn’t see my people in The Monkey’s Paw because it was missing the laughter and the life. The good food was always there.”

  He went to a line that Ben had used on me. They must have rehearsed together. “You’ll never work in New York again.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” I said.

  I looked around, at the kitchen, at the giant cans of carrots, at the walk-in, which I knew held more fresh ham than any one wedding party could consume. I looked at Brendan Joyce in his khaki shorts and camp polo shirt. I looked at my brother Cargan, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wondering what all of the commotion was, making sure I didn’t need a hand. I spied my gorgeous mother in the office, pretending that she didn’t hear every single word that had been said and that she wasn’t on pins and needles waiting for the conclusion to this drama. I saw my father in the foyer of the Manor, installing his latest installation, Twenty-One Guns, not knowing that it was named after a Green Day song and meant something completely different from what he meant. I looked at Francesco.

  “I’m not better than that,” I said. “I don’t need to be in New York. I’m right where I belong.”

  CHAPTER Forty-four

  The Finnegan wedding went off without a hitch.

  And after a rocky start, Brendan Joyce and I were getting back on track as well, with me promising that I would never kiss a not-married-but-committed man ever again. I still hadn’t invited him to Sunday dinner because … well, my family. Enough said, right? Kevin had given me wide berth and I had dodged Mary Ann’s suggestion to come over or double date, citing my not-as-bad-as-I-made-it-sound head wound as a convenient excuse to lay low. Every time the subject came up, and it came up a lot because I seemed to run into Mary Ann D’Amato everywhere, I would point to my head and say, “Stitches.”

  She must have thought I had gone to Dr. Frankenstein with the length of time it was taking for my wound to heal.

  It was after the Finnegan wedding, a Saturday night, that I lay in my temporary accommodations in the Manor, listening to Mom and Dad in the next room wonder about Uncle Eugene’s whereabouts, Dad’s voice coming through loud and clear, Mom’s more hushed. No one had seen Eugene since that day on the back porch, which made us wonder if maybe Cargan was on to something about our dear, unrelated “uncle.”

  As I lay there, I remembered our conversation. Into my head popped one line, something Eugene had said while we were talking, before I had lost my temper.

  “I was trying to calm down that big lummox your aunt Helen calls a boyfriend.”

  I hadn’t seen the lummox since the last Sunday dinner, a few weeks ago, and wondered if he would come to dinner tomorrow. I had never seen Frank the Tank lose his temper; in my opinion, he barely had a pulse, which made him the perfect boyfriend for the flighty, flaky, and kind-of-annoying Aunt Helen. Mom had promised no cabbage for our upcoming family meal, as it really didn’t go with the lasagna I had made, so I was hopeful for the meal in general.

  Caleigh was coming, as was Mark, or so she said.

  This would be an interesting one.

  The next day, I went over to the family kitchen a bit early and put the lasagna in the oven. Cargan limped in a few minutes later and peered in at the Italian casserole, making an appreciative noise at the look of it.

  “I’m so happy we’re not having cabbage,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said. “But lasagna on a hot summer day is a bit of culinary anomaly, too. A good gazpacho would have been nice.”

  Cargan laughed. “Let me guess: Mom said no.”

  I put my finger to my nose. “Bingo.”

  The family assembled at the appointed time and all were in awe of the appearance of Mark Chesterton, fresh from the links, still in his golf clothes, down to his cleats.

  “Sorry about that. I forgot a change of clothes and didn’t get home in time to freshen up,” he said, pointing to his tasseled shoes. He sat on a bench inside the front door and took them off, placing them neatly underneath. “It was a long eighteen today. Stuck behind a group of elderly women,” he said. “No disrespect, Mother,” he said to Aunt Helen, giving her a winning smile.

  “None taken,” she said, but obviously there was some taken. She was insulted by the fact that she was included in a group described as “elderly,” but being as both she and Caleigh were still in the honeymoon period when it came to their individual relationships with Mark, Helen let it go.

  Frank the Tank was in the dining room in his usual seat, nursing a glass of beer. Aunt Helen took her seat next to him and fussed with her napkin for a while, which apparently wasn’t folded to her liking. I couldn’t figure out what the two of them saw in each other, beyond companionship. They went together like a doily and a carburetor, one all fussy and precious, the other stolid and silent. I took a seat I wouldn’t normally so I could sit across from Frank and get a sense of whether or not he was acting any differently than usual, but being as he was as close to a corpse as one person could get and still be alive, I figured I wouldn’t have much luck on that account.

  Mom brandished the lasagna like it was the Holy Grail. She was like that with most things I cooked, but particularly Italian food, which to her was incredibly exotic. “Lasagna!” she proclaimed as she set it on a trivet, protecting the table Dad had built from the hot cookware, even though there was enough polyurethane on that thing to keep a boat afloat in an angry sea. Mom had frozen the lasagna and then thawed it out on the counter. I prayed that in the summer heat the cheese hadn’t turned bad, leaving all of us with a bad case of food poisoning when the night was over.

  We all ate in silence for a long time, no one sure what to say; there were so many hot topics and so many things we shouldn’t talk about that it was better to keep quiet. Silence kills me. I’ve been working in kitchens for almost two decades, and if there is one thing about a professional kitchen it’s that it isn’t quiet. Ever. Unless it’s empty. So to be sitting among a group of people all capable of making a lot of noise and seeing that they had all fallen silent, I looked for an excuse to talk. I looked across at Caleigh, sitting demurely beside her husband, someone in the dark but a pretty good guy, I suspected.

  “So, a lot has happened,” I said, for want of something to say, anything to break the silence.

  Caleigh nodded. “It sure has.” She glanced over at Mark and smiled.

  Uh-oh. This smelled of a Caleigh revelation.

  She didn’t wait, blurting out, “We’re pregnant!”

  The reactions were all over the board.

  Dad: “That’s great?”

  Feeney: “So soon?”

  Mom: “Lovely, dear.”

  Aunt Helen: “It’s all about me!” (Well, that’s not what she said, but that’s what I heard.)

  And I, using every ounce of will that I had, bit my lip and didn’t ask, “Whose is it?” but smiled politely.

  “You see, they have these new tests that can tell you almost to the moment of conception,” Caleigh said, wide-eyed at the thought of this new technology and giving everyone the impression that she was as pure as the driven snow on her wedding night. Johnnie McIntyre, her first boyfriend and the boy who took her virginity, would have been surprised to hear that.

  Mom leaned toward Caleigh and patted her arm. “That is lovely, dear, but we really don’t talk about such things at the dinner table.”

  Mark picked up the slack. “We couldn’t be happier.”

  “When are you due?” I asked.

  “End of March, beginning of April,” Mark said.

  Ah, the old honeymoon baby. Or the two-nights-before-the-wedding baby.

  Caleigh looked at me. “Bel, aren’t you going to say anything?”

  Did I have to? I guess I did to keep up this charade. “That’s wonderful, Caleigh. Mark. A new baby. How grand.”

  Even Caleigh wasn’t dumb enough not to hear the sarcasm in my voice. I had tried to keep it at bay, but I co
uldn’t. Mark gave me a quizzical look.

  “No. Really. I’m delighted,” I said. “A baby!” I jumped up and brought the two of them together in an awkward hug, looking across at Cargan to see if my performance was convincing. By the look on his face, I would say it was not. He was the actor; he had proven that in spades.

  “How do you feel?” Mom asked.

  “A little morning sickness,” Caleigh said. “But other than that, all good.”

  “I only had morning sickness with one pregnancy,” Mom said, and I knew what was coming before she looked at me. “Maybe you’re having a girl, too.”

  “As long as the baby is healthy,” Mark said like a dutiful father-to-be.

  We went back to eating, the excitement over the lasagna superseding the excitement over the pregnancy. Hunger always wins out in my family and today was no exception. So I was surprised when Mark brought up the murder at the wedding.

  “Well, it’s the elephant in the room, so we might as well talk about it,” he said. I thought Mark and his people were more tight-lipped than mine when it came to things we didn’t want to talk about, so Mark’s opening of the topic that no one wanted to discuss took the entire table aback. Aunt Helen, in particular, looked like she was about to faint. “I spoke to Detective Hanson this morning, and while things have been rather quiet in the investigation, they are tracking down a lead.” He put his fork down and wiped his mouth on one of Mom’s linen napkins. “A good lead. A solid lead.”

  Aunt Helen blanched. “What kind of lead?” she asked, her hand at her neck.

  “A lead on the killer,” Mark said, his choice of words dramatic and inelegant.

  “They know who it is?” Helen asked, and I was starting to think that maybe she knew more than she let on. Frank the Tank sat in stony silence, one of his giant arms snaking around her shaking shoulders.

  “That was the impression I got,” Mark said. He looked over at Derry. “Pass the sauce, please?” He doused his lasagna with a ladleful of my marinara. Despite the conversation, I was happy to see him enjoying his meal. Once a chef, always a chef.

  “And who do they say it is?” Helen asked, her voice quavering just a tiny bit.

  I looked over at her, as did Cargan. Derry, Arney, and Feeney were oblivious, a side conversation starting about the free fall that the Yankees’ season was in, their limited chances of making the post-season unless things turned around before the All-Star break.

  “They didn’t tell me,” he said, his mouth around a giant lasagna noodle. “But thankfully, we’ll be able to put this behind us soon and concentrate on what was so wonderful about our wedding.” He turned and looked at Caleigh, her face as white as her mother’s, her eyes cast down on her plate. Her appetite appeared to be gone. “Like how beautiful this gorgeous woman looked. The food. Your wonderful hospitality. How we are now one family.”

  This guy was growing on me. Where I had once seen someone wooden and emotionless I now saw a real gentleman. I’d have to remind myself in the future to be less judgmental and more accepting when coming upon someone new. He loved my cousin and only wanted the best for them as a couple. He seemed genuinely concerned about the murder at the wedding. That made him a kindred spirit to me, the only other person, it seemed, who wanted to get to the bottom of this.

  “Who wants dessert?” Mom asked, dinner not over yet.

  “It was only because he hurt our girl,” Frank said, his voice still almost unrecognizable to everyone because we had hardly ever heard it.

  Across from me, I saw Cargan flinch slightly, seeming to know what was coming next. Everyone else was still in the dark, Derry concerned with a dollop of sauce that had landed on Mom’s beautiful white tablecloth, Arney speaking to his wife about how they were going to ditch the kids and go on a date night after dinner was over. I heard it all even though I was still turned toward Frank and Helen, wondering what he was going to say next.

  “What do you mean, Frank?” Cargan asked, no one but me focused on the conversation that was taking place between my sort-of-secret-cop brother and the guy at the end of the table.

  “He hurt Caleigh. Took advantage of our sweet girl.” Frank’s grip tightened around Helen’s shoulders. “He wasn’t nice to Helen here, either.”

  Caleigh heard her name and perked up. “What? Who? What happened?”

  Frank stood and placed his napkin over his uneaten lasagna, as if pronouncing it dead on arrival. “The lasagna was delicious, Bel,” he said. “But I have to go.”

  I should have figured this out way earlier. The hushed arguing I heard right before Declan came crashing through the banister. The strength it would take someone to haul someone into the foyer below. Frank’s connection to the family. His love for Caleigh, his devotion to Helen.

  I just didn’t have a motive for why Francis Xavier Connelly, otherwise known as Frank the Tank, had killed Declan “Morrison” McGrath. Until now.

  Frank started for the kitchen and from there would probably go through the foyer and out to the front of the Manor. Cargan looked at me helplessly. Although we both knew that he would be well within his rights and duties as a police officer to arrest Frank—both of us coming to the same conclusion at the same time—still no one besides me and my parents knew that my fiddle-playing, Manor-managing, soccer-loving brother was really a cop. My brothers thought he had interrupted Oogie’s confrontation with me, not aware that Cargan had tracked the old man’s movements for weeks. Cargan excused himself from the table and gave me a warning glance that said, Don’t move.

  I had to move, though, because with all of the lying and the secrets I felt that if we could get this out in the open, this one truth, we could move on from here. I followed Frank through the kitchen and into the foyer.

  “Why, Frank? You’re not a killer,” I said.

  He turned and looked at me, the big lummox, as Uncle Eugene had referred to him, tears streaming down his face. “I love them both, Bel. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to them.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Helen and Caleigh?”

  He ran his hand over the bust of Bobby Sands, his hand lingering on the top of the sculpture’s head. “Yes. My girls.”

  I waited for more, hoping it would come, and it did, in a steady, albeit short, monologue.

  “I saw him coming out of the wedding suite and I saw Caleigh was in there, too, crying.” He rubbed the sculpture some more. “I’m not stupid. It was clear what had happened.”

  “What happened, Frank?” I asked.

  He didn’t respond directly. “Who crashes a wedding and takes advantage of the bride?”

  That part made sense, even if the rest of it didn’t. Another puzzle with missing pieces. I couldn’t imagine Caleigh confessing to Frank what she had confessed to me, but she had been one drunk bride.

  Loose lips sink ships and apparently lead to murder as well, if this half-baked story was any indication.

  “Who speaks to a lady like that?” he asked to no one.

  “Caleigh?” I asked.

  “Helen,” he said.

  I didn’t want to tell Frank that Caleigh had accepted Declan’s advances—or he hers—and that no one had taken advantage of anyone. Frank’s heart looked broken already; no need to go any further. I wasn’t in any danger—that was clear—so I asked him if we could sit on the stairs and just talk for a while. Kevin came in as Frank got to the end of the story, Cargan by his side.

  “Does Helen know?” I asked.

  He shrugged but the look on his face told a different story. She knew. And she hadn’t said a word to anyone.

  Mark entered the foyer and we all fell silent. “Ah, Frank,” Mark said, his voice tight. “Tell me this isn’t true.”

  “Which part?” Frank said, but before he could go any further, reveal the truth of what happened that day, Kevin took over, reading Frank his Miranda rights.

  Before they left, the big man in handcuffs, Frank turned to me. “I never meant to hurt anyone, Bel. I hope you know that. I did
n’t mean to—”

  I put my hand over his mouth as he started to form the word “kill.” “Shhh, Frank. Get a lawyer.”

  I believed him. None of us ever meant to hurt anyone, but judging from what was left in our wake—both physical and emotional—it was hard to argue the point.

  CHAPTER Forty-five

  After hearing every story, every tale of blackmail that accompanied Declan McGrath’s appearance at the wedding, it was hard to argue for his continued existence on this planet. Thinking that landed me in Father Pat’s confessional the next Saturday, the kitchen in the capable hands of Fernando and Eileen, the server with the adorable lisp, who seemed capable and confident of their abilities to keep things running until I was purged of all sin, having said my three Hail Marys and four Our Fathers and an Act of Contrition.

  There was the whole thing about Dad and blackmailing him to smuggle guns. And Declan had some stuff on his biological father, Uncle Eugene, that he had planned to take to the Feds if anyone revealed his plan to run guns. (His untimely death ensured that he took that information to the grave, and no one came to find out exactly what it was.) Uncle Eugene never knew about Declan, Dad told me, and finding out this son had died at the wedding broke the little man into what seemed like a million pieces. How he would know that, with Eugene in the wind, was beyond me. I really hoped—prayed actually—that Dad was as feckless as he seemed and that he wasn’t involved in any of this on any level.

  Worst of all, the biggest secret that Declan revealed had been kept all of these years and I never saw it coming.

  Caleigh was adopted.

  Why Aunt Helen went to such great lengths to protect that secret, one that was not worth keeping, was the last mystery to solve. Caleigh had come from a place similar to the one that Trudie never wanted to go when she found out she was pregnant with Declan and would have lived out her childhood days in an Irish orphanage if not for the circumstances that brought her to Helen and Jack, a couple unable to have their own biological children.