Bel of the Brawl--A Belfast McGrath Mystery

by Maggie McConnon

  Cargan finally turned around to see what the commotion was and, seeing me, standing in the middle of the melee, my one hand gripping my sore upper arm, put his drink down and hurried toward me. Angus Connolly was out cold on the bar floor, his nose broken, his shirt covered in viscous slime, the person who hit him seeming to have disappeared into thin air. It had all happened so fast that I had no idea who it was, my only memory being a fist whizzing by my face and landing square in the middle of the bar owner’s mug.

  Around us, different scuffles were breaking out, someone taking offense to Angus’s injury, someone else defending the guy who had the killer uppercut that had bloodied Angus and everyone around him. A chair was lifted overhead and I ducked for cover, wincing as it flew overhead and crashed into an empty table in the dining room. Somewhere in the distance, a woman screamed and curse words and invective flew so freely that I felt as if I were in the middle of a war zone. Glass shattered and droplets of beer soaked my shirt.

  Cargan reached me and touched my arm in the same place where Angus had held it, the pain now a throbbing reminder of my perp walk from the bathroom to the front of the restaurant. “Let’s go,” he said, propelling me forward through the gaping, drunken revelers, and toward the front door.

  Covered in Angus Connolly’s blood, I didn’t seem like an innocent bystander, something that was evident by the look on Kevin Hanson’s face, the cop car out front indicating that some quick-thinking patron had had the wherewithal to call the police before things got further out of hand. He had just entered through the front door, and, taking stock of the situation, looked at me and shook his head sadly.

  “What’s the Foster’s Landing PD doing here?” I asked.

  “Budget cuts,” Cargan said. “Towns are combining forces.” He stopped a few feet from Kevin and his cop friends. “And let’s face it: not enough going on in the Landing to keep these guys busy.” He looked at me. “Until you came back.”

  “Want to tell me what’s going on here, Bel?” Kevin asked, two uniformed cops running to the aid of Angus Connolly, who was slowly coming back to life.

  He sat up and pointed a finger at me, still groggy. “She’s not Canadian!” he said.

  I looked at Kevin. “Guilty as charged.”

  CHAPTER Twenty-eight

  Cargan’s arms were crossed over his chest, his face a mask of consternation. “If you say one word to Mom and Dad about this, I will kill you,” he said.

  “What did I do?” I hissed back. “It’s not my fault that a brawl broke out. I was just minding my own business, using the restroom—”

  “Men’s room,” Cargan said. “You were using the men’s room.”

  “And that’s an excuse to get manhandled by Angus Connolly?” I asked. “I was minding my own business,” I repeated.

  “But you weren’t, Bel,” Cargan said. “You were minding everyone’s business but your own.” He sunk lower in his plastic chair, avoiding eye contact with anyone else in the police station. “It’s time to let this go,” he said. “It’s time to let Kevin and the professionals handle this. It’s too much for us.”

  “But the girls, Cargan,” I said. “And Mom and Dad. They will get into a lot of trouble if the authorities find out that they’ve been harboring illegals.”

  “They’re not harboring them, they’re hiring them,” he said.

  “Oh, yes. That makes it much better,” I said. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I don’t see Mom being very happy about being a new cast member on Orange Is the New Black. And Dad won’t do very well in the pen. You know he can’t fall asleep unless Mom is in the bed next to him. I don’t think some big inmate will serve the same purpose.”

  Cargan looked at me, incredulous. “Have you always had this vivid an imagination?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t think I’m too far off.” I walked up to the front desk where Francie McGee was logging hours as the police department’s secretary and town gossip hound. “Francie, why are we still here?” I asked. As far as I could tell, Cargan and I had had little to do with the bedlam that had ensued after some thug had broken Angus Connolly’s nose—in a ham-fisted attempt at protecting me, I had come to find out later. Seeing me manhandled by Angus had given some anonymous guy the idea that I was in peril, and that, plus about five or six whiskeys, had propelled him into action. Someone heard this unknown protector exclaim, “That’s no way to treat a woman!”, as if we were all in some 1950s noir film, before all hell broke loose.

  And who said chivalry was dead?

  Francie looked at me. “Detective Hanson still wants a word with you? Remember?” she asked, not asking “are you deaf?” but insinuating it with her tone. “So sit tight, sugarplum. I’m sure he’ll be with you when he gets a free moment.”

  “Sugarplum?” I asked. When she didn’t respond, I huffed away, sitting down in the seat next to Cargan.

  The people involved in the melee had ended up in the cells in the basement of the police station so I looked on the bright side that Cargan and I were allowed to mingle with the other people in the station. It was getting late, and although Mom and Dad didn’t keep strict tabs on where we were at all times, they had a sixth sense for stuff like this, when things had gone wrong. I prayed that they were fast asleep in bed, their reality shows having come to an end, and not wondering where their grown son and daughter might be and why.

  I looked at Cargan. “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “So are you.”

  “If we get out of here in time, we can go to the diner. You’re paying.”

  “Deal,” I said. “Though I don’t know why I have to pay. It’s not my fault.”

  “And you always need to get the last word in.”

  “Do not,” I uttered under my breath. We sat in silence, watching people come and go. It was shocking to me how many people were registering complaints being it was getting late on a Saturday night, but it was also a full moon. That had to account for the number of disgruntled Foster’s Landing villagers who were in the station that night. Mrs. O’Leary said someone had trampled her azalea bush and she wanted the full cooperation of the FLPD in finding the culprit. A kid came in saying he lost an iPhone model that when he described it and what it did, made mine look like a hunk of papyrus on which I tapped out crude, rudimentary cave paintings to express myself and contact family and friends. Still another person came in with photos, expressing his displeasure at the shape and size of the new bike racks that sat in front of the local sandwich shop, saying they looked vaguely phallic. I tilted my head, trying to get a good look at the enlarged photos he was showing Francie McGee.

  Guy had a point.

  The door to Lieutenant D’Amato’s office had been closed when we arrived and I assumed he had gone home for the evening, his tour of fighting the crime in our little burg done for the day. Behind that door, however, voices were raised and weeping could be heard, making it clear that whoever was in that room had just received what sounded like the worst news ever. Muffled sounds of comfort came drifting out through the over-the-door transom followed by more sobbing. I looked at Cargan. “Sounds bad,” I said.

  He stared straight ahead and didn’t answer but the color leaving his cheeks was an indication that he was hearing exactly what I was.

  The door opened a few minutes later and a distressed Lieutenant D’Amato emerged, looking back at the other people in the office, the look on his face suggesting that he wanted them gone as quickly as possible. I was shocked to see Pegeen Casey and her ever-present brother, James, exit the office, Pegeen weaving between the desks, her face tearstained, mascara running in rivulets and dropping onto her very expensive white silk blouse. James was cradling his right hand, which was wrapped in an Ace bandage.

  Pegeen spotted me just before she reached the half-wall that partitioned off the waiting area from the squad area. She went through the swinging door and stood in front of me.

  She started slowly, her voice soft.
“I had my doubts about Shamrock Manor, Bel. Really I did.” James came up behind her and put a protective hand on her arm, which prompted me to touch the area where Angus Connolly had gripped me earlier. “But my father was convinced that with you at the helm, it would be new, exciting.”

  “And cheap,” Cargan said in the softest whisper possible so that only I could hear him.

  “And it was. It was beautiful, the river in the background, the lawn manicured and tidy. Our photos,” she said, swallowing a sob, “well, those we have, are beautiful.”

  Her voice started to get louder, more shrill. Francie McGee’s eyes grew wide and the lieutenant strode across the squad area, flustered.

  “But how was I to know that a world-famous chef,” she said, pointing at me, “who won the Culinary School Award of Excellence—”

  “Oh, I didn’t win, but it was an honor to be nominated—”

  She put her hand up and closed her eyes. “Stop.”

  I shut my mouth. She seemed pretty serious about whatever it was she had to say.

  “How was I to know that this award-nominated chef would poison my husband?” she asked.

  I stood. “Poison him?”

  “Yes, Bel,” she said, the pain of Gerard’s fate emanating from her in prickly waves. “You poisoned my husband. With your beets. You and your goddamned beets.”

  CHAPTER Twenty-nine

  Cargan had forgotten how mad he was at me after Pegeen had accused me of murder, and later, in my apartment, a beer in his hand and a glass of wine in mine, we sat side by side with my computer and googled “beet allergy.” I had texted Brendan and he had come right over, too, interested in this turn of events. I had kept a lot of what was going on from him, afraid that if he knew what really went on at Shamrock Manor—how crazy my family and the cast of characters who worked for them really were—he’d run screaming for the hills, figuring that although I had cooked some of the best meals he had ever had, I just wasn’t worth it.

  I pushed those thoughts down and filled him in. If his face was any indication, I was worth it and he was enjoying every second of this macabre tale.

  “Says it mostly affects domesticated animals,” Cargan said.

  “Well, a new groom could fall into that category, I guess,” I said.

  He gave me a disappointed look. “Is this really the time for your comedic stylings, Bel?”

  Brendan snorted loudly. “I thought it was funny.”

  “You would,” Cargan said. Brendan had fallen into the role of fifth brother if Cargan’s treatment of him was any indication.

  I went quiet. Down the hall, I heard footsteps on the stairs that led to the landing outside my back door and a soft rap on the metal surrounding the screen. I got up, knowing who it was before I even turned the corner. “Hey, Kevin,” I said, letting him in.

  “Hi, Bel,” he said. In the living room, he looked at Cargan and Brendan. “Who knew that you could be poisoned from eating beets?” he asked. “That would have come in handy when I was little and forced to eat borscht.”

  Kevin’s father was as Irish as Paddy’s pig, as Mom would say, but his mother had a bit of German in her and was prone to making food that my family considered exotic and fairly unpalatable. But I had been a huge fan of her rouladen, that is, before a hypnotist took away any delight I had in eating onions. You couldn’t get more onion-laden than rouladen.

  “This is all our mother needs to hear,” Caragan said. “She hasn’t been a fan of Bel’s beet-heavy menu.”

  Brendan looked at me. “What’s not to love about beets?”

  “Right?” I asked. “It’s not beet-heavy. Jeez, you two.” I looked at Kevin. “Tell me that it wasn’t my beets that poisoned him?”

  Kevin shrugged. Well, that was reassuring. “There was something just strange about this whole thing. Healthy guy, sudden catastrophic illness.”

  “Seemingly healthy people get sick all the time, Hanson,” Cargan said. “There’s stroke, heart attack, aneurysm. Undiagnosed cancer.”

  “That’s a thing?” I asked, thinking about the constant crick in my neck, the pain I always had in my knee.

  Brendan nodded. “Yep, my uncle Nolan got diagnosed on a Friday and was dead by Monday.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Joyce,” I said.

  Brendan cocked his head questioningly.

  “You sound like our mothers,” I said.

  Cargan ignored me. “There are a host of things you can die from, things that can poison you. But a beet allergy isn’t high on the list.”

  “That’s just one thing the ME threw out there,” Kevin said. “Could be anything.”

  “So why did Pegeen attach to that one in particular?” I asked.

  Kevin shrugged again. “No clue. I think it was the first thing the ME said and the one thing she heard. A food allergy. He said you could have an event like Gerry did from an undiagnosed food allergy and Pegeen hit on that. He listed some foods and beets happened to be one of them. He even said it was a long shot but Pegeen said that Gerry never liked beets.”

  “That is ridiculous,” I said, but the accusation was out there now and couldn’t be taken back. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” Kevin said. “We’ll keep investigating.” He anticipated my question before it came out of my mouth. “Cremated. No chance of exhuming the body and investigating that way. Nothing was saved. The ME doesn’t routinely test for poisoning so deemed this a catastrophic heart attack based on other evidence or perhaps this undiagnosed food allergy.”

  “So in addition to a guy being murdered here over the summer, I now have to live with the idea out there that Bel McGrath served a guy a plate of beets that may have killed him?” I asked. “Great. That’s just great.” I looked at three men standing in my apartment. “Get out. I need to be alone with my thoughts.”

  I walked Brendan down the hall. “Sorry about all of this. I just needed to hear that it wasn’t me.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “It’s not you. That’s the craziest story I’ve ever heard,” he said, shaking his head. “Beets? No one has ever died from eating beets.”

  “If you listen to my mother, they have.”

  “Well, she’s wrong,” he said. “I think your beets are delicious.” He opened the door and started down the stairs. “Let me know what happens, okay?”

  “I will,” I said, watching as he drove off down the driveway of the Manor.

  I turned and Cargan and Kevin were still in the living room. “Get going,” I said. “It’s late and I’m tired.”

  Cargan started for the door, but Kevin stayed rooted in place, standing in the middle of my tiny living room and looking around. When Cargan was gone finally, he looked at me. “Three weeks,” he said.

  I straightened some magazines on my coffee table, putting Newsweek on top of the US Weeklys, the People magazines that went back several months. The copy of O, The Oprah Magazine that Mom thought had a great article about depression and how to snap out of it by redesigning your wardrobe, a not-so-subtle hint that she wanted me to redesign my wardrobe, not being terribly concerned about the state of my mental health. “Three weeks until what?” I asked.

  “The wedding, Bel. My wedding.”

  “Oh, right!” I said. “Your wedding. We have work to do.” Especially if Dad was going to make me prepare duck ballotine for a hundred people.

  “Yeah, like I have to lose ten pounds before then,” he said, smiling.

  “No you don’t. You look great,” I said, punching him in the arm.

  “You know what I want, right?” he said.

  “Yeah. We went over the menu. It’s all on my prep sheet,” I said, sitting down on the couch and putting my feet up on the coffee table.

  “No. Not that,” he said, taking a seat in the chair across from the couch, and dropping his hands between his knees, his posture one of defeat, despair.

  I hesitated to ask him what he really wanted, a stolen kiss that we had shared a few months back
, one that I remembered, as hard as I tried to push it deep down within me and forget it. I was happy now with a very uncomplicated man, one who liked me, warts and all, and wanted nothing more than to spend time with me, eat with me, drink a little wine with me. Love me. I didn’t want Kevin Hanson anymore, as attractive as that possibility had once been, and hoped that he felt the same way.

  I had seen a change in Kevin lately, one that I liked. He seemed stronger and more confident, more capable. I didn’t know why that was, but wondered if Mary Ann had something to do with that. It was there, though, and I liked it.

  I waited for what seemed like an eternity for him to reveal what it was that he wanted and when he finally started talking, I realized we wanted the same thing because what that represented was a continued hope.

  “I just want it not to be her. Amy. I hope it’s someone else,” he said.

  But in our hearts, we knew that that couldn’t be true, that it had to be her, and once again, bonded in that shared fear, we stood and embraced, this time letting the kiss go on longer than it had before, skirting danger, but coming so close to the edge.

  CHAPTER Thirty

  I wondered if there would ever be a day that I would wake up guilt-free. For years, it was all about Amy and what I had said, and then, how I had thrown my career away for a guy, my former fiancé, who I now knew was beneath me, who didn’t deserve me. And now, it was Kevin.

  I rolled over and pulled the pillow onto my head. I couldn’t stay here all day but I didn’t have to get up yet and I had a lot of thinking to do. More than thinking about kissing Kevin the night before and feeling the years melt away, the butterflies I always felt when I saw him in the halls of the school or running toward me down at the river, his hair still wet from a recent swim, making me acknowledge in my heart that no one had ever made me feel that way. Not one, single other person. Not Ben, maybe Brendan, in time. So far, not any guy I had ever met and thought that love might be part of the equation.