The Whisper f-4

by Carla Neggers

  "Who else was there?" Scoop asked.

  "Besides Cliff? Several homicide and robbery detectives. I don't know their names." She shuddered as she handed Sophie a glass of water. "When I heard about Cliff's death, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was angry with Percy. I didn't want to have to face this alone."

  Sophie drank some of her water, then placed the glass in the sink. She noticed tears in the other woman's eyes. "You're newlyweds. It's natural to miss him, don't you think?"

  "Yes, but now that the initial shock's worn off a bit, I'm glad he's not here."

  "Still no idea where he is?" Scoop asked.

  She shook her head. "Not really, no. I'll keep trying to reach him."

  Sophie looked out the window over the sink at the Carlisles' enclosed courtyard, at least twice the size of the one she shared on Beacon Hill. She noticed potted trees, a border of autumn perennials, vines and benches, even a small wrought-iron table and chairs. She almost asked Helen Carlisle if she could sit out there for a few minutes, just to be alone and think, process what she'd just witnessed.

  "Is anyone working on your renovations today?" Scoop asked.

  "Not today, no," Helen said. "Next week. Are you sure you don't want anything to eat? I can make sandwiches. When Percy's here, we have a full-time cook and housekeeper, but I'm used to doing things for myself. He likes that about me. When we first met, I wasn't sure he would. He seems so old-fashioned, doesn't he?"

  "We should let you get your bearings," Sophie said, pulling her gaze from the courtyard.

  "I dealt with security in my work in New York," Helen said, almost to herself, "but I never worried about my personal safety--beyond the occasional can of pepper spray."

  Sophie stopped in the doorway, aware that Scoop hadn't yet moved to follow her. Maybe he'd stay behind to talk to Helen Carlisle alone. "I'm truly sorry about what happened."

  Helen picked up her sweater off the chair and clutched it in both hands. "The police said Cliff asked you to come by his apartment this morning. Can you tell me why?"

  "He didn't say."

  "He told me he'd help me go through this place. I was looking forward to digging through all these musty rooms with him. I don't have the baggage of being a blood Carlisle. Neither did Cliff." Tears were on her pale cheeks now. "I'm sorry. His death is a blow."

  "I know it must be," Sophie said quietly.

  "I'm glad we ran into each other." Obviously sinking emotionally, Helen slipped her sweater back on. "Maybe I'll go back to the museum after all. Thank you for distracting me at least a little while."

  Sophie said goodbye and started down the hall, Scoop next to her. Helen didn't see them out. They descended the steps into the formal front yard, and Sophie gulped in the afternoon air, taking in the crush of cars out on the street, the feel of the sun on her face.

  Scoop didn't say a word until they reached the Mini. Then he caught her by the shoulders and turned her to him. "You're all right?"

  "Yes, why, do I look--"

  "Because I'm going to yell at you. You're Professor Malone or Doctor Malone or Miss Malone. You're not Detective Malone. You got that? It's not just what you said in there. It's your body language. I had the same sense back in the ruin in Ireland."

  "What sense?"

  "That you've got a bit in your teeth and you're running."

  He had a point, but she argued with him anyway. "I wouldn't have made it through graduate school without asking questions."

  "Or without self-discipline. Adopt a little now."

  She angled a look at him. "You done?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, I'm done." He dropped his hands from her shoulders. "I'll watch you get in your car. Then you just head right back to Beacon Hill."

  She dug out Taryn's keys. "Nothing like a Scoop Wisdom reality check. Do you need a ride anywhere?"

  "No." He took a sharp breath, then added, "Thanks for the offer. Just go on about your day and forget all this."

  "Oh, that'll be easy. I'll just head back to my apartment and arrange mums in the courtyard--"

  "Sounds good."

  "I was being sarcastic." She opened up the driver's door. "But maybe that is what I'll do. I could use a little normalcy right now, and it'll help me think."

  "Where are you getting the mums?"

  She wondered if he knew he was being annoying and was certain he did. "Maybe I'll steal some out of yards on Beacon Hill."

  "Funny, Sophie."

  "It's been a long day already. When will you be able to determine if Cliff Rafferty was murdered?"

  "There are flower shops on Charles. Try there." Scoop headed down the sidewalk, away from the Carlisle house, but turned, facing her as he walked backward. "I like a mix of colors--reminds me of all the different shades of autumn leaves more than a solid color does."

  "A gardener, are you?"

  He pointed a thick finger at her. "Be where we can find you. At your apartment with the mums. Tutoring hockey players. Anywhere but near a police investigation."

  "I was thinking about Morrigan's after the mums," she said, suspecting she was being annoying, too. "But I wouldn't want to be provocative again and have you catch me there with a Guinness."

  "That wouldn't be provocative this time. That would be smart."

  She got into the Mini and watched him turn back around and walk another few yards. He wasn't at all what she'd expected from Colm's descriptions and news accounts of his heroism, his work, his injuries. He was more self-contained, funnier, not nearly as cocky as she'd have imagined.

  The man was a gardener, for heaven's sake.

  But he was still a police detective--an intense, committed one at that--and she would be smart, she thought, to keep that in mind.

  Nonetheless, she called to him, "What does Detective Acosta have against you?"

  "Pick out a nice yellow mum for me," he said without so much as a glance back at her.

  "Did he do something to come to the attention of internal affairs?"

  Scoop didn't respond. Sophie wasn't surprised. Whether Acosta had or hadn't had a run-in with internal affairs, Scoop wasn't about to tell her--even if it was a matter of public record. He was a man who kept his own counsel. Not a talker, not a confider. It wasn't just training or part of his job description. It was the way he was.

  He didn't change his mind and trot back to her and climb into the passenger seat. Sophie didn't know if she wanted him to or not.

  She wondered how long she had before he heard from Tim's Brits and showed up at her door for more details.

  Enough time to buy mums, even?

  As she started the car, she wondered, too, how close she'd been to ending up like Cliff Rafferty a year ago. If not hanged, just as dead.

  13

  Dublin, Ireland

  Josie let Myles drive the last bit to Dublin. He was behind the wheel when they stopped in front of the Rush Hotel off St. Stephen's Green. She doubted she'd shut her eyes the entire hour he'd been driving, but it wasn't because she was afraid he'd run them into a ditch. She'd kept imagining Sophie Malone venturing out to a tiny island alone.

  "I'm not very brave," she said as Myles turned off the engine.

  He glanced at her, his eyes flinty in the late-day light. "Is that why you didn't want to drive in Dublin? It takes a brave heart."

  "Are you never serious unless someone has a gun to your head? I'm initiating a heart-to-heart conversation."

  "No, you're not. You're looking for sympathy, and I've none to offer. Besides, if you wanted to talk, you'd have waited until we were sitting in the pub with a couple of pints, not watching a doorman come to us."

  "This is a five-star hotel. I'm not sure it has a pub. Our doorman is Lizzie's cousin Justin, by the way. He's the youngest of the lot. Can you see the family resemblance?"

  "Not really, no."

  "His hair's lighter, but the strong jaw, the determined walk--Lizzie has them, don't you think?"

  Myles sighed. "What she has is Will Davenport's heart and soul." />
  "That she does. No question." Suddenly awkward at Myles's unexpected romantic insight, Josie unfastened her seat belt and tried to stretch the kink out of her lower back. She'd left several messages for Scoop Wisdom, but so far he hadn't returned her call. "I suppose you're right about this not being the moment for a heart-to-heart conversation, but you already know you're right, don't you, Myles?"

  "Always, love. Always." He winked at her without smiling. "And you are very brave."

  "Hardly. When I think about what you've--"

  "Don't think about what I've been through. I don't."

  She wanted to throttle him where he sat. The hours on the road and the mad traffic seemed not to have fazed him in the least. No nightmares, no worries about being back close to her, no fretting about the past or the future. He looked no more or less drawn and tired than he had at the beginning of the trip.

  "I have a thirteen-year-old son who wants to follow your footsteps straight into the SAS," she said tartly. "I suppose that qualifies as brave."

  Myles jumped out of the car with a bounce to his step and greeted Justin Rush as if they were longtime friends. Josie had no illusions that being with her had put Myles in a lighthearted, sardonic mood. He grabbed his rucksack and trotted up the steps and through the brass-trimmed door into the hotel. However tired he was, he wouldn't let it get in the way of his mission, which, at the moment, was Sophie Malone.

  As Josie climbed out of the car, Justin Rush retrieved her bag from the back. "Lizzie would like you to meet her in her room when you've got yourselves settled," he said. "Keira will be joining you, too."

  "Lovely," Josie said.

  Explaining that the hotel was quiet, Justin carried Josie's bag into the lobby, where a fire glowed in a marble fireplace. He slipped behind the elegant front desk. "I've jotted down Lizzie's room number for you. She's on the second floor. You're on the third. She booked you and Mr. Fletcher each a room. They're adjoining." He handed Josie the keys, adding, matter-of-factly, "There's a connecting door between them. I've given you that key, as well."

  "Wonderful," Josie said briskly. "Thanks much, Justin. I'll take my bag from here. Do tell Lizzie we'll be down shortly, won't you?"

  "Happy to," Justin said.

  Mercifully, Myles had stayed out of the exchange. He silently followed Josie up the curving stairs off the lobby. Just thinking about hotel rooms and beds and baths and towels had her feeling all afire and on edge, but she quickly blamed her sleepless night and the interminable drive across Ireland.

  As they came to their rooms, she handed Myles his set of keys. "Good job, love," he said. "I'll see you in Lizzie's room in a few."

  "Taking a nap, Myles, or checking on Will and Simon?"

  But he was already through the door, which automatically shut quietly behind him. Josie resisted pounding her fist on it and instead went into her own room, a charming and tasteful mix of modern and traditional furnishings. From what she'd learned in having known Lizzie Rush for a month, each of the boutique hotel's twenty-seven rooms was individually appointed, with an eye to the comfort of the guests.

  Now that she was finally alone, Josie let down her guard and tried to diminish the tension in her back and shoulders with a few stretches while the tub filled. She added a dollop of the ginger-and-ginseng-scented bath oil that came with her room, stripped, left her clothes in a heap on the floor and sank into the steaming water, closing her eyes as the events of the day drifted away for a bit.

  When she imagined Myles letting himself in through the connecting door, she bolted straight up out of the tub, toweled off and slipped into a soft, cuddly hotel bathrobe ready on a hook on the door.

  By then, Scoop Wisdom was ringing her from Boston. She'd tried him several times on the drive from Dublin and expected to dive in and tell him about her conversation with Tim O'Donovan, but he had developments of his own. Josie sat on a chair in a window overlooking a darkening Dublin street and listened without interruption as the Boston detective related his unpleasant news--that he and Sophie Malone had found a man dead.

  "Cliff Rafferty," Scoop said.

  Josie frowned. "I'm not familiar with the name."

  "He was a police officer. He had a peripheral role with the Augustine case until he retired a few weeks ago. He took a private security job with Percy and Helen Carlisle."

  "Who're the Carlisles?"

  "Wealthy couple from Boston--at least he is. He stopped to see Sophie in Kenmare her last night in Ireland. His wife had already left. She's back in Boston now. Her husband didn't return with her, but we don't know where he is. We'd like to find him."

  "Do you suspect he's involved in this officer's death?"

  "I'm not on the case."

  That wasn't exactly an answer, but Josie assumed Scoop hadn't intended for it to be one. "Did he stay in Ireland? Is he here somewhere?"

  "We don't know what he did after he saw Sophie in Kenmare. He travels a lot. He has a home in London and friends and favorite hotels all over the place." Scoop paused. "Where's your friend Myles Fletcher? He's there with you?"

  "What makes you think he's here?"

  "The lilt in your voice."

  She clicked her tongue behind her teeth. "Cheeky bastard."

  He laughed, which wasn't, Josie decided, bad to hear, but he was serious again when he went on. "Tell Fletcher to call me."

  After Scoop disconnected, Josie gritted her teeth at her phone as if he were still there giving orders. He could be a decidedly annoying man. She used the house phone to ring Myles in his room. "Your new detective friend in Boston wants you to call him. He and our Sophie Malone just found a dead police officer."

  "I've already told him all I know."

  "You never tell anyone all you know," Josie said. "Ring him now. I'd prefer not to have him involve the guards. I like my room. The ginger-and-ginseng bath salts are particularly delightful."

  "I'm getting images, love."

  "Enjoy them, because that's all you'll get. Make the call, Myles. I don't want to spend the night in an Irish jail cell because you're too stubborn to meet Detective Wisdom halfway. He'll call the guards. You know bloody well he will."

  Myles was silent a moment. "All right. I'll join you in Lizzie's room after I've had a chat with Wisdom. Unless, of course, you'd rather--"

  "Lizzie's room in a few minutes is perfect."

  She cradled the phone, feeling flushed and agitated. She glanced at the connecting door. What would she do if Myles came through it wearing nothing but a bathrobe and carrying a jar of bath salts?

  "Dear heavens," she muttered at her wild imagination and quickly got dressed.

  She took the stairs to the second floor. Lizzie opened the door to a small suite as elegant and quirky as the rest of the hotel. A table in front of the sofa was laid out with plates of fruit, cheese, brown bread and scones, with little dishes of jams and butter and a large pot of tea. Keira was there, too, both women casually dressed and clearly unaware of more violence in Boston. Josie filled them in with what she'd learned from Scoop Wisdom.

  Neither Lizzie nor Keira knew the dead man, Cliff Rafferty.

  "This has turned ugly fast, hasn't it?" Lizzie gathered up a deck of playing cards on the table, next to a graceful copper vase, and shuffled them idly, a long-standing habit. "Arabella Davenport wants to measure Keira and me for dresses in London. Given this latest news, I suppose that's what Will and Simon would have us do."

  Will's younger sister was primarily a wedding dress designer, but Josie decided not to point that out; obviously Lizzie would know, and the state of her and Will's relationship was none of Josie's affair--not that she lacked for an opinion. She believed their whirlwind romance was true love at work and Will Davenport, so hard to read about so much else, had found his soul mate in Lizzie Rush.

  Josie trusted herself to judge other people's love lives. With her own, she was clueless.

  She plucked a perfectly chilled grape from the tray.

  "Arabella sounds as happy
and content as ever," Lizzie continued. "I'm sure it helps that she has no idea where Simon and Will are. Do you know, Josie?"

  Josie nibbled on her grape, grateful that for once she could give a complete and honest answer to that particular question. "No."

  "Would you tell us if you did?" Keira asked, skeptical.

  Lizzie set the cards back on the table and plopped onto the soft cushions of the sofa. "Egad, Josie. You look terrible."

  Apparently her bath hadn't helped as much as she'd hoped. "It's been a strange day." As she helped herself to a perfectly browned scone, she remained on her feet and told her two friends about her conversations with Seamus Harrigan and then Tim O'Donovan in Kenmare. "During the entire drive across Ireland that afternoon, I couldn't stop thinking about Sophie being left for dead in a dark, dank cave on a remote island."

  Keira rose, her pale hair pulled back, gleaming in the room's pleasant light. "There are obvious similarities between what happened to Sophie and my night in the ruin on the Beara, but there are differences, too. I heard whispers, and I was left there, trapped, but I didn't come across the blood smeared on the tree branches until the next morning, after I was already safe."

  "Augustine left the blood for you--or whoever came looking for you--to find," Josie said. "It wasn't part of a grand plan. He happened onto a recently dead sheep in the pasture. He didn't kill the poor thing."

  Keira pulled back a drape and stared out the window. "You said the bloody branches Sophie saw in the cave disappeared before the fisherman and the guards got there. Simon was with me when I found the sheep's blood. I had a witness. I had evidence to corroborate my story."

  Not minding that she was the only one eating, Josie added little mounds of clotted cream and raspberry jam to the side of her small plate. "Augustine hasn't explained himself. To my knowledge, he's hardly spoken a word since his arrest."

  "We may never know how many people he's killed." Keira spoke with remarkable self-control, although her ordeal early that summer was clearly still a struggle for her. "I just want to live my life. Draw, paint, laugh, love. I don't want to think about killers anymore."