“I’ll take Mandy to school,” Danny said, “and I told Petey he could stay home—”
Ellen sighed.
“—and that’s not a problem, right?”
Ellen rose and closed the bathroom door behind her with a decided click. Not quite a slam, but enough to let Danny know she’d read something in his tone that he should have kept to himself.
“I’ll come the usual time tonight,” he said through the closed door. Normally, he visited each evening to tuck the children into bed. His favorite time of day, in fact. Reading stories returned them to their sunnier days as a family. He was determined to maintain as many of their old routines as possible. Patience and perseverance could work wonders. He knew this well enough from his police work.
For now, there was nothing for it but to kiss his son goodbye and bundle Mandy into his ailing Peugeot. The car ground to life with a sputter and a gurgle. Ellen had been better the last three or four months, but her improvement didn’t come without relapses.
The fog had thickened in the 30 minutes he’d been inside the house, bringing with it the scent of the ocean. Drystone walls along the side of the road lurked like a monster race of serpents, petrified but ready to return to life. Danny’s mother used to tell him all manner of old tales about serpents, changlings, sprites, and especially Grey Man, the dark faery who festered off shore waiting for its chance to ooze inland, visible to anyone who could see beyond the fog of their limited vision.
Danny turned onto the lane toward Lisfenora and Mandy’s school.
“Da?” Mandy tapped his thigh. “I think maybe Petey did see Grey Man. On our lane.”
“Believe me, sweetie, Grey Man hasn’t come calling. Not to worry.”
Five minutes later, Danny’s mobile briiinged and Mandy held it up to his ear while he drove. He’d spoken too soon.
DELETED SCENE FROM WHISPERS IN THE MIST
Author Note: I don’t know about you, but I’m always curious about authors’ processes. So, I thought I’d share a deleted scene from Whispers in the Mist. This is what a first draft looks like—for me anyhow—which is to say it hasn’t seen the light of a professional edit or copyedit. This scene is interesting for a look-see because it shows the relationship between my two protagonists, Merrit and Danny, which I’d call awkward at best.
In the end, I deleted this scene because it was redundant. I show their relationship in plenty of other scenes that also move the plot forward better than this scene does. Sometimes I write scenes that I later think of as exploratory because they help me get to know what’s going on with the characters. There’s a saying among fiction writers: Kill your darlings. So, yes, in the end, I needed to hack this exploratory scene out of the manuscript.
P.S. Liam is Merrit’s newfound father, whom she met for the first time in Kilmoon.
*****
Merrit threw off the covers and sat up in bed. Most nights, Merrit slept well in Liam’s guest room. Its masculine simplicity comforted her: the solid navy bedspread and tallboy dresser, the unadorned window with a pair of shutters for privacy, the unstained floorboards and rust-colored area rug beside the bed. She hadn’t imprinted herself on the room yet. The pile of jewelry on top of the dresser didn’t count, nor did the shoes lined up along one wall. She had an idea for an afghan she might knit for the bed, but she was in no hurry. She didn’t want to jinx herself by becoming too comfortable.
She reached above her head and pulled down an old robe that she’d slung over one of the bed’s corner posts. Liam had lent her the robe, and it fell across her shoulders like a friendly arm. The area rug tickled the arches of her feet when she stood; the cool floorboards caused her toes to curl a moment later. Steeling herself, she opened the casement window. A blast of clammy air gripped her torso. She eased the window open just enough to reach out and push the shutters open onto a night made pewter by fog. She let the swirl of fresh air clear her senses as she gazed out into nothingness.
Liam was like the foggy night, she thought. Beyond the surface haze of him hid everything. There was a point to these thoughts that kept Merrit awake, and it was more than rehashing Liam’s quixotic personality. It was more than trying to come to grips with her need for a father figure. But she was too tired to figure herself out at the moment.
She closed the window and shuffled to the dresser to pull out a pair of wool socks. After slipping them on, she eased the bedroom door open. A warm glow threaded its way into her room from the nightlight stationed in the hall bathroom next door. The living room and dining area opened up to her under the gaze of a reading lamp that Liam left on through the night. He didn’t sleep much. He’d fixed himself a cup of tea while she was tossing and turning. She transferred the cup into the kitchen sink and returned to the living room to hover like a wraith. Indecisive, restless, worried.
Instead of demanding that Dermot explain his accusation, she’d pushed her way out of the pub in a blind panic that her lungs would seize up like they did. Damn them. Damn her weakness, her outsider status, her isolation. Liam was wonderful, but she needed friends of her own. Alan should have stuck up for Merrit instead of making that snide remark about the identity of her father.
“Get a grip,” she whispered to herself.
After all her tossing and turning, the grandfather clock only said 11:30 p.m. Merrit moved to the pile of shoes near the front door. She pulled on boots, then rifled around the antique coat rack for a suitable coat to throw over her robe. She chose a parka that hung almost to her knees. It was so huge it would barely keep out the cold, but no matter. She couldn’t sit with Dermot’s words bouncing around her head a moment longer. Like it or not, Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern was the only person she could confide in at this point.
Outside, she turned right onto a track that led her toward a porch light that shone weakly through the fog. A prickly feeling climbed up and down her spine, which could stem from paranoia about lurkers with paint or from nerves at initiating a conversation with Danny.
She stopped in mid-stride and raised her face to the invisible sky in hopes she would catch of sign. Knock on his door, or not?
A nearby slither caught Merrit off guard and she whirled around. Out of the fog trotted Liam’s cat, Burt, yammering for companionship. It shot toward Merrit with tail straight up, and in a game of chase veered around her toward the cottage that Danny lived in these days. Acquiescing, Merrit stalked after the cat, who flitted in and out of the fog banks, enticing her forward with a few rolls in the dirt and come-hither looks. By the time Merrit grabbed the purring creature up, the cottage had solidified through the fog. Danny’s crappy Peugeot rested at a cocky angle, half on the grass. Lamplight illuminated the curtains.
Her first knock barely whispered over the wood on the front door, yet it swung open a second later. Burt jumped out of Merrit’s arms and into the cottage. Danny peered after the cat with a blank expression, blinking like a turtle coming out of its shell. Still gazing over his shoulder, he said, “No meddling on this one, so you might as well go away now.”
What she’d been about to say fled Merrit’s head. “I—what?”
She stepped out of the glare of the porch light to get a better look at Danny. His hair hadn’t been cut in awhile and it stood up in tufts. Some of her nervousness abated as she took in his flannel pajamas in a green tartan plaid. He’d misbuttoned the pajama top.
“What could you possibly want?” he said.
“The cat, for one.” Merrit hoped her sentence hadn’t ended on a questioning note. She stepped under his arm braced against the doorframe. “Here, Burt,” she cooed.
Behind her, Danny grunted the door closed. “If you must,” he said.
She’d never been inside the cottage, so she took her time peering into the dark corners for the cat. Liam had modernized the old whitewashed building that much was obvious, but it still retained a slightly claustrophobic 19th century feel within its shoebox structure. Liam had told her that he’d raised Kevin in this cottage. It was hard t
o believe that two such large personalities had once fit here. Even Danny, with his—for the most part anyhow—less demonstrative demeanor cramped the space.
Ignoring Danny’s mess of clothes and papers, Merrit bypassed a threadbare sectional sofa with blankets thrown over it. Inset shelves lined with books rose up to the ceiling and a series of wood-turned bowls lined the mantel. The kitchen was a little more roomy with spare white counters and cheerful buttery yellow walls. It was a long skinny room that ran the length of the backside of the cottage. Merrit imagined that it soaked up all available sunlight. It was also warmer than the living room, which was why Burt had gravitated there.
At one end of the room, a pile of reports and photos covered a drop-leaf table. Before Danny could block her view, Merrit caught sight of a close-up shot of a boy’s face with half-lidded gaze aimed at nothing. Swallowing, she stepped toward the oven in front of which Burt sat cleaning herself.
“Your oven’s on.” She cleared her throat. “Did you know your oven is on?”
“It’s a handy space heater.” Danny stepped up behind her. “Got the cat now?”
“It’s nice that Liam took in a lost cat. Gave it a home.”
“Liam was always good with strays,” Danny said on a dry note.
“The tourists who come for the festival are strays too, I guess. In their own way. But strays aren’t so easy.”
“No?” Danny turned to a dirty saucepan and started in on hand-scrubbing the remnants of what looked to be cocoa.
She crouched near Burt, her face burning more from embarrassment than the oven’s heat. She shouldn’t have come, and, worse still, now that she was here, she was rambling like an idiot.
“Take Burt, for example. Sometimes she’s in the house going neurotic as if she doesn’t believe she deserves her new, stable life. She’ll purr one second and lash out the next. Liam’s got a few scratches on his hands, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s learning the cat’s rhythms. I noticed that the cat is also learning Liam’s. It’s a slow process, I guess, two beings getting used to each other.”
Danny’s silence was too loud. In one of her flashes of instinct, she understood that her presence pained him, literally pained him.
“I know Liam appreciates the cat for its company,” she said.
“Strays are good that way, as Liam should well know anyhow. Some people collect them.” He turned around, catching Merrit off guard. “After all, look at us, his current strays.”
“Yes, it’s good of him to let you use the old cottage.”
Danny closed his eyes for a second, and when they opened Merrit saw his pupils contract. He had a steady gaze, with eyes melting brown as the cocoa. The warmth was in there, Merrit knew, but Danny cloaked it well.
She crouched to gather Burt toward her again, more than ready to leave Danny alone. She wasn’t sure why’d she come anymore. When she looked up, he was standing at the table shuffling through his paperwork.
“This news will be in the papers anyhow,” he said, “so how about you take a step closer to satisfy your curiosity and be done with it.”
Merrit recalled what he’d said the moment she entered the cottage. About the meddling. So, he’d assumed she’d caught wind of his latest case and was visiting him to pry, just like she’d pried her way into village life and into his life, he was no doubt thinking.
“That’s not why I dropped by,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Never mind. I’ll figure it out myself.”
With a last glance at the photos of the deceased boy who still had the pretty androgyny of youth, Merrit retreated through the kitchen and living room to the front door. Burt struggled in her arms, but Merrit held her tight and didn’t bothering closing the door after herself. She knew well enough by the silence in the kitchen that Danny would follow after her to ensure that she’d departed.
INTERVIEW
Michael Guillebeau: Let’s begin with Kilmoon. As you mention previously, you’ve got a rather harrowing start to the novel—a death’s bed scene. What inspired this scene in particular, and Kilmoon in general?
Lisa Alber: Oh boy, yes—that scene. It’s a toughie! But it so sets the stage for Merrit and the mysteries to come. At the time, I was grieving my own dad’s passing (from cancer). He was at home under hospice care, and when I visited him, I found odd, little things incredibly sad—like the way the swing table squealed when we moved it so he could reach his food and water. The liquid morphine was real and red, and it freaked me out, just the fact of it. It was only later in the writing process that I realized I was processing my relationship with my father through the father-daughter themes that run through the novel. Of course, in Kilmoon they’re far darker than anything from my life. Thank goodness!
For Kilmoon in general, two places in Lisdoonvarna, County Clare, Ireland, sparked my imagination: The Matchmaker Bar and an early Christian ruin called Kilmoon Church. The Matchmaker Bar represents my fictional village’s annual matchmaking festival and Kilmoon Church represents secrets long buried. Together they grounded me in place and set my thoughts churning about a matchmaker with a dark past.
MG: Yes, Liam, Merrit’s father, is a celebrated matchmaker. I had wondered how you came up with that idea.
LA: An actual matchmaking festival that’s held each year in September? Oh, it exists all right!
My fictional matchmaking festival is a hyped-up version of the real thing in the sense of it being internationally known and full of foreigners. Although, in recent years it has grown. It’s got its own website and is the largest matchmaking festival in Europe. Here’s the website if you’re curious: http://www.matchmakerireland.com/.
There’s a bona fide matchmaker. His name is Willie Daly, and he’s a local celebrity. Everyone knows him, where he lives, and what he’s up to. I had a chance to ask him questions, but I didn’t base my fictional matchmaker on him because in this case reality needed a boost.
Let it be known that Liam the Matchmaker isn’t a cozy kind of character. I don’t write cozy mysteries. And I don’t write romantic suspense either despite the matchmaking aspect. I was attracted to the juxtaposition of a dark reality lurking beneath a happily-ever-after façade.
MG: Which brings up the next question: What kind of reader do you think would be interested in your novels?
LA: It’s safe to say that my stories are a tad dark, psychologically complex, and atmospheric. There’s a lot going on with all the characters—definitely an ensemble cast. So if you like your mysteries to be more than the mystery plots themselves, definitely give my County Clare series at try!
If you detest swearing in your novels, then I offer a humble warning. (I’d add a smile emoticon here, but I don’t think we can do that, can we?) I love the way the Irish swear; they’re wonderfully inventive. And swearing is the norm, so, yes, I include some colorful language.
Authors that come to mind that I like and that I’d aspire to are: Sophie Hannah, Deborah Crombie, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Tana French, Susan Hill, Erin Hart, Carol Goodman, just to name a few. Early Minette Walters and Elizabeth George (my mentor!) too.
MG: Your locale is very evocative—sometimes dreamy, sometimes harsh. How did you settle on County Clare for the location of your series? Did you spend much time there?
LA: You might say I accidentally ended up in County Clare. I traveled to Clare for the first time to visit an ecological area called the Burren, which is a vast area of limestone leftover from the Ice Age. I’d read about it in a memoir. I planted myself in a random B&B near the Burren—in Lisdoonvarna, as luck would have it. While there, I discovered that Lisdoon (as the locals sometimes call it) hosts an annual matchmaking festival. I visited the area three times for novel research.
I found the landscape both harsh and dreamy. The Burren has a harsh appearance, that’s for sure, and the winds that come in off the Atlantic can be dismal. On the other hand, on mild days, the rolling green hills with their drystone walls are peaceful and otherworldly—like the
landscape hasn’t changed in a thousand years.
MG: Kilmoon is your first novel. What was the most surprising thing, for you, about the publication process?
LA: After all the editing, copyediting, and proofing you can still find errors and typos. I was reading the galley proofs for the second—not first, but second—time when I found a locked door that should have been unlocked and a woman standing in front of a house rather than a church. Those errors had been there since the beginning!
Let’s not talk about typos. I can hope that none remain in the final version. I can hope!
MG: And now, tell us a little about your second novel, Whispers in the Mist. As you mentioned with the excerpt, you decided to center this novel on Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern. Why?
LA: When I first started writing Kilmoon, Danny didn’t exist. Then one day, he appeared in a scene. Then ten thousand written words later, I realized that he was the secondary protagonist after Merrit and had a boatload of problems of his own. By the time I finished writing Kilmoon, I loved the guy and wanted to know what’s next for him. So Whispers in the Mist continues that train of thought. (Of course, Merrit’s story continues too.)
MG: Merrit and Danny are certainly fully realized characters. How many books are planned in the County Clare Mystery series? Plus, what’s the most fun part about writing a series? What’s the most challenging?
LA: I originally thought this might be a trilogy because there’s a natural end that could occur. In fact, because I was (am, still) a newbie author and wasn’t thinking in terms of writing a series at the time, I painted myself into a corner by the end of Kilmoon. A fact about one of my characters implies a natural end point to the series. However, I’ve been thinking hard, and I’ve discovered a way to wriggle out of it. In fact, I’m writing that novel now! I’ve tentatively titled the third novel in the series, Touch of Death. (The publisher has last dibs on the title, so it will probably change.)
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