Bel of the Brawl--A Belfast McGrath Mystery

by Maggie McConnon

CHAPTER Thirty-four

  Pauline had no interest in seeing her ex-husband, the one who didn’t abuse her (as she had told Eileen and Colleen) and the one who didn’t have lung cancer. We got confirmation on the latter when we arrived at the hospital and a stone-faced Mary Ann D’Amato greeted us in the hallway of the medical center, Donnie’s room a few doors down.

  Before we left the house in which she was holed up, Pauline grabbed a very expensive bag, one that I recognized from my days on the NYC food scene—it had been on the arm of more than one well-heeled female client—and I resisted the urge to ask her (a) how much it cost, and (b) if she had felt any remorse buying it with the Manor tip money.

  At the hospital, Mary Ann started talking as soon as we came through the double doors. “He said that he was diagnosed three weeks ago and that it was a Stage Four diagnosis.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So, he has the lingo down. He had the names of treatments.” She shook her head, confounded by the deception. “Remember when I said that he was either sick or a really good liar? It’s the latter.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that anyone who had seen one episode of Grey’s Anatomy could have looked up the diagnosis, learned the lingo.

  Mary Ann looked at Pauline and held out her hand. “Mary Ann D’Amato.”

  “Pauline Darvey.” She gave Mary Ann the once-over, clearly unaccustomed to not being the most beautiful person in the room.

  “Your husband either was lied to or openly lied to me—”

  Pauline held up a hand. “Not my husband, sister. Ex-husband.”

  Mary Ann was unruffled. “Your ex-husband.”

  I stepped out of the way of a gurney being wheeled toward me. “So what does he have?”

  “Pneumonia,” Mary Ann said. “A pretty serious case. Exacerbated by overexertion.”

  My mind flashed on our trek through Foster’s Landing on foot, me bringing him to the ground, his coughing. “I see,” I said, buying time and hoping no one would ask me how I had contributed to that overexertion. “Can we see him?” I asked.

  “He was sleeping a few minutes ago but he’s not in danger,” Mary Ann said. “I would keep my distance from him because while he’s not contagious, any germs brought in from the outside could be harmful to him.”

  Cargan spoke for the first time since we left what turned out to be Pauline’s aunt’s house in Chesterton. He had let me ask all of the questions, many still unanswered, as he drove the old van down the windy streets of the old city. “Let’s go see him.”

  In the room, Donnie awoke with a start, his eyes falling on Pauline and staying there. Everyone stood around awkwardly until I spoke. “I feel like you two should start your own school. It would be called the ‘Lying Academy.’ Free tuition. Just tell us your best lie, the one that hurts the most people, and you’re in!” I said, clapping my hands together.

  If I didn’t know now that Donnie wasn’t as sick as he said, I would still think he was close to death. His eyes were sunken, the skin beneath them bruised and black, his lips chapped. “I’m sorry, Miss McGrath. I’m very, very sorry.” He coughed into his hand. “I’m in a bit of trouble.”

  “I’ll say,” I said, going to the window and hoisting myself onto the wide sill.

  “My wife here,” he started before being interrupted by Pauline.

  “Ex-wife.”

  He looked at her. “You know we’re still married. You know that the divorce was never finalized.”

  She looked away, not making eye contact with any of us.

  “And you were divorcing why?” I asked. “Because you abused her?”

  His eyes filled with tears. “Is that what you told them? That I was abusive to you?”

  Boy, this was not a woman I wanted to get to know any better and I was happy that she was no longer in our employ at the Manor. She was flint and steel, hard as a rock. “Well, you were. You were verbally abusive.”

  “I was not!” he protested, which brought on another bout of coughing.

  “You called me a ‘fat cow’ once!”

  “And should I tell them about you?” he asked, pushing the button on the side of the bed that would raise him up, giving him a better view of his wife and the ability to aim his protests directly at her. “Should I tell them about the affairs and the lies and the cleaning out of our joint bank account? Should I tell them that?” he asked.

  “I think you just did,” Cargan said unnecessarily.

  “Why this whole thing?” I asked. “Why were you amassing all of this money?” I asked Pauline.

  She stared at Donnie in the bed. “Should I tell them or do you want to?”

  It didn’t take him long to decide, the words coming out in a rush. “Gambling debts. It’s a disease. I have a disease.”

  “Well, at least you have one disease that we can verify easily,” I said. “How much?”

  “I owe a ton to a shark. Twenty grand.”

  By my estimation, that was way less than Pauline had accrued over the last few weeks with her lying and thieving. She had already given him ten, according to Domnall.

  I looked at Pauline. “And why are you involved?”

  “Asshole here threatened to turn me in to the authorities for living here illegally.” She turned her attention to Donnie. “Any other bright ideas, Einstein?”

  “No. No other bright ideas,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you send him all of the money?” I asked. I held out my hand. “And I’d love it if we could get back our ten thousand dollars, please.”

  She looked at me, confused.

  “The tip?” I said. “We’d love to get our stolen money back.”

  Pauline was deciding how much she wanted to tell me, how much she wanted Cargan and Donnie to hear, whether or not she would give the money back, so she didn’t address the missing tip. “I was going to send him the money but then I had to get gone. And quick.”

  “Why?” Donnie asked.

  She looked at me pointedly. The poisoning of Gerard Mason. “None of your beeswax.”

  I had lost patience and interest in this tale of marital deceit, gambling, faked illness, and possible murder. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You,” I said, pointing at Donnie, “are going to stay here until you get better and then off with you back to the old country. And you,” I said, taking hold of Pauline’s arm, “are going with me to the police station to tell them everything you know about Gerard Mason, poisoning, and blackmail. With any luck, the worst that will happen to you is that you’ll be shipped off with Donnie here and then the two of you can finalize your divorce and live unhappily ever after. In Ireland. Sound good?”

  “I think that sounds like a great idea,” a voice behind me said.

  We all turned and found Kevin in the doorway, Mary Ann behind him. “Pauline Darvey. You are coming into the station with me for questioning in the death of Gerard Mason.”

  CHAPTER Thirty-five

  We know exactly two lawyers. One is Philip Grant who represented Cargan when some circumstances conspired against him and landed him at the police station, and the other is Arney McGrath, my brother and well-known Foster’s Landing divorce attorney. As soon as Kevin expressed his interest in bringing her to the station, she clammed up with the exception of one sentence: “I want Arney McGrath to meet me there.”

  I wanted to tell her that she had a better chance of getting good help from fictional lawyer Matlock on her side, but I did as she wished and called Arney who sounded as if he had been sleeping.

  “What, Bel? It’s nine-thirty.”

  Yep, he’d been sleeping.

  “We’ve got a situation and we need your help.”

  “You do realize that the only time you talk to me is when you need help?” he asked. I heard the muffled sounds of another person, his wife presumably, asking why someone was calling at such an ungodly hour. “Oh, your sister…” I heard clearly, the disdain dripping from my charming sister-in-law’s lips. The only time they called me was when they needed a babysi
tter so in my mind we were even.

  I explained what was happening, and even if Arney is the laziest lawyer in town, he’s also been known to enjoy a bit of gossip, to trade in the odd rumor or two. This was too good to pass up, his curiosity piqued by the details I provided. “So are you in or are you out?”

  “I’m in,” he said, though I could hear resignation in his voice. He wanted to be out but this one was interesting in both the worst and best ways possible. He seemed to be missing the main point in that Mom and Dad were implicated, and if poisoning had been on the menu that day at the wedding, I was in some kind of trouble as well.

  It was all a little too close for comfort on many levels. I had lost my last job, the one at a fancy New York City eatery, because of an overlooked fish bone nearly choking a patron—an ex-president nonetheless—and now this, a possible poisoning, if Pegeen Casey was to be believed and her story had any credence whatsoever. Maybe it hadn’t been the beets but maybe it had been something else, a previously undiscovered allergy being exacerbated by something in one of my dishes. It was possible. It was legitimately likely. And it was the worst thing I could hear, if it turned out to be true.

  Off we went again to the station after saying our good-byes to Donnie. In the hallway of the hospital, Mary Ann looked at me sadly. “I’m sorry, Bel. I had to tell Kevin. He’s been worrying over this case for weeks. And once you told him about the missing girl…”

  “He told you about that?” I asked.

  She nodded. “He did. There are no secrets between us.”

  Um, yeah. There was at least one. Maybe two. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that, though.

  * * *

  Arney hadn’t exactly dressed himself for the matters at hand, showing up at the police station in a wrinkled polo shirt and khaki pants with a button fly that had been buttoned incorrectly. I pointed at his crotch. “You may want to take a moment there, brother.”

  He looked down and excused himself, handing me his briefcase before going off to the men’s room. Pauline had been led into a conference room, and through a crack in the door, I could see her long legs extended beneath a table, crossed delicately at the ankle. She had an unlit cigarette in one hand and a cup of tea in the other and looked decidedly unconcerned by what was transpiring, even though just hours earlier, she had been high-strung and agitated.

  I wondered what had happened to change her mood or if she was just that good of an actress.

  “We don’t need to stay here,” Cargan said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”

  “Yeah, we’ve certainly had our fair share of mental gymnastics today,” I said. “I’ve never heard so many lies and lies on top of those lies in my entire life. Bunch of lying liars.”

  Cargan held the door to the station open for me and we went into the parking lot. “Lying about cancer,” he said, shaking his head. “That takes the cake.”

  That was the lie that seemed to bother him the most.

  “My partner on the job. Mickey Genovese. Died at forty-one of colon cancer. Left behind two little kids and a wife.” He shook his head. “You can’t lie about having cancer. It’s just not right.”

  “Donnie doesn’t strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed,” I said.

  “That’s just wrong,” he said. “Wrong.”

  “He and Pauline seem made for each other.” In the Vanagon, I turned to my brother. “Do you think Gerry Mason was poisoned?”

  “I don’t know, Bel. We are doing our best and will come up with an answer.”

  I wasn’t sure it was possible but I decided to go with it, for the sake of my own peace of mind.

  Cargan parked the Vanagon in its usual spot and we headed toward our respective abodes, his in the Manor proper and mine in the apartment above Dad’s studio. “Will you let Mom and Dad know that things are not quite as dire as we thought?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “See you in the morning.”

  I went up to my apartment and poured myself a healthy glass of Cabernet, something I figured I deserved after a day that felt like three rolled into one. Brendan and I texted back and forth and I blamed a long day prepping in the kitchen to my absence from his life, something he seemed to accept, a lovely red heart coming back with the words “sleep well” accompanying it. I carried the wine to my bedroom, put it on my nightstand, and lay on top of the covers, never taking a sip before I fell asleep.

  I awoke to the sound of knocking at the back door to the apartment and roused myself—not an easy task—and found Pauline standing there, a cross look on her face, her posture tense. “I have nowhere else to go,” she said.

  “What about your apartment?” I asked. “How did you get here?”

  “That nice cop? Hanson?” she said. “He drove me to get my car.”

  “Why didn’t you stay there?” I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

  “That would be the first place they would look,” she said, as if I knew what that meant.

  “Who?” I asked. “Who is looking for you?”

  “The people who poisoned Gerry Mason,” she said.

  “Oh, God, Pauline,” I said. “I’m so sick of this storyline. Did you tell Kevin what you supposedly saw? Does he believe you?”

  “I told them everything I told you.”

  “And?” I asked. I really wanted to go to sleep and this was cutting into my slumber time.

  “And I think they believe me,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because they have another witness.”

  CHAPTER Thirty-six

  I wanted to get to the bottom of this once and for all. The lies, the secrets, everything else. Was he murdered or not? “Spill it, Pauline. This is getting ridiculous. Do you know how hard I’ve been looking for you?”

  “Why, Bel? Why are you looking for me?” she asked.

  “A few things,” I said. I held up my hand and ticked off my responses. “First, I wanted to find you to see if you were being held in a detention center, hoping that if you were, I could get you out. When that turned out to be not where you were, I wanted to find you so we could get our freaking money back. And then there was the ‘abusive’ husband. I was afraid for you, Pauline.”

  “Afraid and mad about the tip.” The purse that she had had with her earlier sat on the coffee table, a reminder of her larceny.

  Well, yes, there was that.

  “But really, I wanted to find you because people just don’t disappear,” I said.

  “Yeah, Bel, they do,” she said.

  She was right. Amy Mitchell had just disappeared.

  “What did you tell the police?” I asked.

  “Do you remember the mushrooms on the plate?” As she asked this, she looked around my apartment; apparently, it wasn’t up to her exacting standards.

  “Is that a haiku?” I asked. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  She rolled her eyes at me, impatient that I couldn’t follow along. “The mushrooms on the plate,” she said.

  “You can say it as slowly as you want, Pauline, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” I poured her a glass of wine; maybe if we were both half in the bag, everything would make more sense.

  “The day of the wedding, I came into the kitchen and you were scraping plates. You wondered where the mushrooms came from. We thought some rogue vegan had brought their own food to the event. Remember?” she asked, taking a long sip of the wine. “This is pretty good,” she said.

  “Life’s too short to drink bad wine,” I said. I thought back to the wedding and, indeed, I did remember the mushrooms on the plate. “So what do mushrooms have to do with murder?”

  “I was on my way to the ladies’ room and I saw Gerry go in there.”

  “Now why would Gerry Mason go into the ladies’ room?” I asked.

  “Men’s room was full up and he wasn’t feeling well. I helped him into the ladies’ room and then left.” There was a lot of that going around, full-up lavatories and
cross-gender usage.

  I wasn’t following. “So the groom uses ladies’ room because men’s room is full.” I didn’t tell her that my experience with that just recently had resulted, after a series of unfortunate events, in a barroom brawl breaking out. “The men’s room is never full.”

  “It was that day,” Pauline said.

  “I don’t see where this is going.”

  She pulled a sheaf of papers out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Here. It’s all there. Poisoning by mushrooms. Can cause instant death.”

  “I didn’t serve mushrooms that day,” I said. “How did they get on his plate?”

  “That creepy brother. James. The one who seems like he’s in love with his sister.” I hadn’t gotten that impression from him, thinking that he might have had a crush on me, but she seemed convinced. She finished her wine in one dramatic arch of her neck, the burgundy liquid drained in seconds. “I came out of the bathroom and he was standing there, staring at me as if he had something on his mind. I asked him what I could help him with and he just stared, like he was in a trance. Didn’t say a word.”

  “You told the police all of this?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I was buying what she was selling. Seemed like there was more to the story.

  “Yeah,” she said. “There’s one more thing. I heard Gerry say one thing.”

  I waited. I’m not a fan of the big reveal, preferring to get my information in real time.

  “He said: ‘They finally got me.’”

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. Something about her delivery, the excessive drama of it all, the storytelling technique, made me suspicious of the whole thing. Pauline had proven herself already not to be a reliable narrator and this tale was just adding credence to that fact.

  “And who is this other witness?” I asked.

  “They won’t say,” she said. “They just said that someone else has come forward with information about Gerry Mason’s death.”

  I left that for later. “And you ran why?”

  “Because they knew! They knew that I knew!” she said. “And I knew that they knew that I knew!”

  Oh, jeez. That was hard to follow. “About the mushrooms,” I said. “How did you know that part exactly?”