Death of an Irish Mummy
Page 4
“On her couch?”
Megan breathed a laugh, glad for at least a moment of humor. “We’re nowhere near ‘move in together’ status, so I wouldn’t want to presume. No, I’m going over to my friend Brian’s so he can talk me off the panic cliff I’m standing at the edge of. He says it’s going to be fine. Or, I don’t know, how late are you on tonight? Maybe we should all get together to keep me from losing my mind.”
“I’m going to be busy until late, but we should all go out for pizza next weekend when Nee is back in town. She’s only here a few days before she flies to New York to—” Bourke waved his hand. “Be famous.”
Megan’s humor improved a little bit more. “She does that. Okay, next weekend at Gotham Café, maybe.”
Bourke rose, offering Megan a hand up. “That sounds like a game of Cluedo.”
“Next weekend at Gotham Café with a pizza cutter? Yeah, except there’s no suspect.” Megan made a face as she headed for the Gresham’s double doors. “Of course, with me around, that could change in an instant.”
CHAPTER 4
Megan usually loved the drive through Dublin’s city center, even during the worst of its traffic. Crawling through the streets let her gaze linger on the landmarks—the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, which held a place in Irish history as being the headquarters for the 1916 Easter Rising, still bore wounds from that rebellion. A critical client, examining the pits and holes in the massive Georgian pillars, had once said, “Why don’t they fix those?” then exclaimed, “Oh, they’re historical holes!” at her explanation. She smiled every time she went by, remembering that. And just beyond the GPO lay O’Connell Bridge over the River Liffey, where a glance to the east showed off the white cast-iron arch of Ha’penny Bridge, two hundred years old and counting, now. In the other direction lay the gorgeous Georgian-era Custom House on the riverfront, and beyond it, the modern build of a glass-fronted convention center and the sweeping, harp-like curve of the Samuel Beckett Bridge. She’d seen so many gold and flame sunrises over those bridges in the almost three years since she’d moved to Ireland, and every one of them had settled a little more contentedness into her soul.
None of it gave her any peace just then. Not the shadows of Temple Bar’s cobbled streets and neon lights, not the Pride flag flying over The George, almost across the street from the 130-year-old arcade that was Dublin’s oldest—and in Megan’s opinion, coolest—shopping centre, and not the green copper dome of a Rathmines church that served as an orientation point for a kilometre in any direction. She saw it all with a blind gaze, her conscious thoughts on driving while everything below it was a kind of tumultuous blur of static. Orla couldn’t have fired her, couldn’t have told her to move out of her apartment, couldn’t have taken her off the client who was now relying not just on Leprechaun Limos, but on Megan herself, in the wake of a personal disaster.
Traffic moved smoothly enough that Megan approached the garage before she felt prepared to face Orla. She pulled into a convenience-store car park a few blocks before the garage and sat with her hands on the steering wheel, watching kids run into the shop and come out again a minute later with energy drinks and cheap candy. They knocked into each other, laughing uproariously with the unashamed enthusiasm of youth and friendship. Megan, smiling a little, reached for her phone, slumped deep into the seat, and checked the local signal for enough strength to put in a video phone call. Vone call, if her friend Niamh was to have her way. The signal came through and she dialed California, doing the time-change calculation in her head. Six pm in Ireland meant ten am in San Francisco. Raf would probably be awake, if he wasn’t working nights, or sleeping from a long shift, or—
A black woman with close-cropped curls and the greatest cheekbones Megan had ever seen opened the video phone app on the other end, a smile already in place. “Megan, hi! Rafael is on shift. You’re stuck with the interloping wife.”
An unexpected laugh burst from deep in Megan’s chest. She’d missed Rafael—her best friend—and Sarah’s wedding, thanks to being stationed overseas and unable to get leave to go home. When she’d finally made it home after retiring, Sarah had been on tour with her ballet company, and then Megan moved to Ireland, so even now, years later, they hadn’t met in person. Megan still felt nearly as close to the glamorous dancer as she did to Rafael, and her laugh turned into a watery smile. “You’re so not an interloper. If anybody is, it’s me, because, um, hi, look, I know I’m over forty and definitely a grown-up who doesn’t fall apart when things go wrong, but if my boss has really fired me forever and I can’t get a new job, can I come live on your couch for a week to get myself together?”
“Oh, no, Megan!” Sarah folded herself into their computer chair, long legs crossed and knees poking at elegant angles as she leaned toward the screen. “What’s happened?”
“Let me essplain.” Megan hid half her face with one hand, managing another watery smile as Sarah laughed, putting on her own Inigo Montoya accent as she quoted The Princess Bride back at Megan.
“ ‘No, there is too much, let me sum up’? What happened?”
“Another client died, and my boss fired me and wants to kick me out of my apartment.”
Sarah’s brown eyes widened. “Wow. That’s a lot of summing up. Yes, of course you can come here if you need to. Are you okay?”
“No.” Megan dragged in a deep breath and tilted her chin up, staring at the Lincoln’s caffe-latte upholstery. “I will be,” she said to the ceiling. “I think I really just needed to hear a friend say they had my back.”
“We’ve got your back,” Sarah promised.
Megan reversed the tilt of her head to smile at the other woman. “Thank you. I’ve got friends here who do, too. People who have told me they do, and who are helping. I don’t know. Maybe I just needed . . .”
“Raf,” Sarah said easily. “The person who’s had your back since you were eleven years old and your bra strap snapped in class and he lent you his jacket so nobody would notice.”
Tears stung Megan’s nose. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, I’ll have him call you when he gets off shift, but you don’t worry, okay? You can crash here for a lot longer than a week, if it comes to it.”
Megan gave a little giggle. “I think you should probably meet me in person before you make rash promises like that. I might be a terrible houseguest.”
“I know for a fact you do dishes, because Rafael’s mom told me at least eighty times when Raf and I were dating. She was trying to chase me off because she believed her son was meant to marry you.”
“Oh my god. That ship sailed in like eleventh grade. I don’t think she ever even knew we dated, that’s how little time it lasted.”
“But you went to prom together!” Sarah’s voice trilled into an absolutely flawless imitation of Rafael’s mother. Megan burst out laughing as Sarah waggled a telling finger at her and launched into a scold that caught Mrs. Silva’s inflections perfectly.
“Stop, stop. Raf’s mom is the best.” Megan wiped tears of amusement away as Sarah, smiling, reined it in.
“Yeah, she is. And I bet you still do dishes.”
“I have to, or they just pile up. Perils of living alone. Boy. Thank you. I really needed somebody to make me laugh. I owe you one.”
“Well, you can play tour guide when Raf and I come visit next summer, okay? How’s that sound for payment?”
Megan straightened in her seat, a smile blossoming. “Really? You’re coming to visit for real?”
“I’m booking the tickets as soon as Raf gets the days off confirmed.”
“Yay!” Megan hugged her phone, sending Sarah into gales of laughter.
“Thank god you weren’t wearing a cleavage shirt when you did that. Boobs, then blackness. It would’ve been the last thing I ever saw.”
“There are worse ways to go out. Oh, great, I’m so looking forward to you visiting. And hey.” Megan made a sour face. “If I get kicked out of my apartment, maybe I can fi
nd a two-bedroom place so you don’t have to pay outrageous Dublin hotel prices.”
“Oh, you think we’re not sleeping on your couch as it is?”
“I think I’d be sleeping on my couch, since it’s a single that doesn’t fold out.”
“That works for me too,” Sarah assured her serenely. Megan laughed again and the dancer smiled. “You okay now?”
“Yeah, I think so. Thanks.”
“No worries. I’ll have Raf ping you when he gets home.” Sarah glanced away, presumably toward a clock. “Or not, since it’ll be about two in the morning your time. Tomorrow, though.”
“You’re a star.”
“It’s true, I am!” Sarah waved and disconnected the call, leaving Megan with an afterimage of her smile. She took a couple of deep breaths, then rang Jelena, whose voice mail picked up.
“Hey, babe, it’s Megan. I’ve had kind of a day that involves getting fired and kicked out of my apartment unless I can convince Orla otherwise, so . . . give me a call? I’ll see you later.” She hung up, took another deep breath, and then, feeling a little more prepared, drove the remaining few blocks to the garage.
It was bustling for a Tuesday evening, with most of the drivers there and the whole support staff scurrying around, cleaning vehicles, slotting them into spaces in the parking lot behind the main garage, and yelling good-naturedly at each other as they tried to get things done. Megan parked and got out of the car, feeling stiff and unnatural. One of the newer hires, Dayo, shouted a Yoruba greeting at her. Megan was trying to get a leg up on the language so if Rafael and Sarah, whose mother had taught her Yoruba, had kids, she wouldn’t be left out in the cold while they spoke together. Dayo was as delighted to tutor her as she was to learn, and usually her bad accent made her wince and smile. This time her voice only cracked as she answered.
Orla wasn’t in the garage, and from the casual nods and waves Megan got as she crossed toward the office door, she hadn’t told anybody about firing Megan, either. Megan’s hands were still cold with nerves and her face hot with anticipation when she went into the office.
A glance told her the front door had been locked, the shades drawn over the big picture window, and most of the lights turned off, all to signal the outside world that Leprechaun Limos was closed for business. With all that preparation, Megan expected Orla Keegan—small, leathery, ruthless—to be waiting for her with a tongue-lashing, but instead an envelope with Megan’s name on it sat alone on the front desk. Incredulous, Megan opened it to find a severance check and a short, signed letter stating that Megan had been released from employment effective that day. A second sheet of paper turned out to be an eviction notice.
Megan laughed, a short, explosive sound of disbelief, and put the paperwork back where she’d found it. Neither passive-aggressive nor conflict-averse were phrases she would typically assign to Orla Keegan, but it sure looked like the short-tempered Irishwoman was making every effort to avoid actually talking to her.
To hell with that. If Orla couldn’t fortify herself to talk to Megan in person, then she could at least spend the eight quid to send a letter registered mail in order to ensure Megan got the message. Megan certainly wasn’t going to do the work for her. She turned around and stalked back out of the office into the garage, momentarily determined to tell everybody the kind of crap Orla was trying to pull.
A last-second sting of wisdom made her snap her teeth shut on her outrage as she caught the eye of one of the other drivers, Cillian Walsh. His eyebrows quirked at her expression and she twisted her anger into a tight smile. “Gas. Shouldn’t have eaten all that popcorn at the movies earlier this week.”
Cillian, who was seventeen years her junior and had the twentysomething metabolism to go with it, looked baffled but sympathetic. “You all right?”
“Probably, but if Orla calls you to do my morning drive you’ll know why.” Megan pulled her face into another uncomfortable smile, waved her goodbyes, and left the garage with her hands fisted.
She had every damn reason to burn Orla with the rest of the staff, but if Orla hadn’t admitted to firing Megan yet, then Megan would probably only make things worse by snarling about it. There was a chance, if everybody didn’t know, that Orla could find a way to back down gracefully, but if Megan blew up about it, the company owner would double down. Not giving her a reason to was the mature, rational choice.
Sometimes being an adult sucked. Megan, with all the strength she could muster, kicked an empty water bottle someone had thrown on the sidewalk and watched it spin and clatter into the gutter. Then, because being a grown-up sucked and because she wasn’t personally a horrible human being, she went and picked the stupid bottle up and threw it away in one of the bruscar bins and stomped all the way home.
Two puppies, still gloriously wiggly at seven months of age, greeted her at the door to her first-floor flat. Megan started to say, “Not until I’ve changed clothes,” then remembered she’d been fired and that it didn’t, presumably, matter whether she got dog hair on her uniform anymore. She sank down to the floor and let the two little dogs crawl over her, all short, stubby wagging tails and quick pink licking tongues. Thong, whose white coat with brown patches had in no way earned her the name, stood on her hind legs, put her front paws on Megan’s shoulder, and stuck her nose in Megan’s ear to snoofle and lick. Megan said, “Augh,” at having a wet ear, and carefully snuggled the little dog.
She hadn’t meant to keep the puppies after she’d rescued them and their mother from the commercial kitchen they’d been born in. Her friend Fionnuala had taken the boy, Dip, for several weeks, until it was clear that her partner’s allergies were just too terrible for them to keep a dog. A little to her embarrassment, Megan had been overwhelmingly glad to get Dip back, as both she and Thong had both missed him terribly. Mama Dog, who had enjoyed the relative quiet of only one six-month-old puppy, had been less delighted, and after Dip’s return, had flirted outrageously with Detective Bourke until he made good on his promise and adopted her. Megan and Bourke got together about once a week to walk the whole family of dogs together, which seemed to satisfy everyone.
After a couple of minutes of happy squirming, the puppies began to whine and cast hopeful brown-eyed looks at the door. Megan, chuckling, put them all down and rubbed their heads as she got to her feet. “I do need to change clothes,” she told them. “Give me two minutes and then we’ll go for our walk.”
At the magic word walk, they sat by the door, ears alert and tails thumping, while Megan went into the flat’s single bedroom and changed from her uniform—which she hung up out of habit—into warm running gear. January weather in Dublin ranged from glorious to inclement, and while it had been dry for weeks, Megan had lived in Ireland long enough now to not trust it. She pulled on a pair of runners, a lightweight, waterproof jacket, and put harness leashes on all the dogs before they headed out. The puppies were so excited that, without the harnesses, they would tumble head over heels down the stairs leading to the street-side door.
Megan’s phone buzzed as they reached Belgrave Square, a pretty little park about a kilometre up the road from Megan’s flat. The puppies strained at their leads, but there were no fenced-in spaces safe enough to let them run free in. Megan wrapped the leashes around her wrist, muttering, “Hang on a second” to them, and checked her phone. A text from Jelena said, Call me now?! and Megan did, saying, “Hi,” with a degree of embarrassment when the other woman picked up.
“Megan, what on earth happened? Are you all right? Do you need somewhere to stay? You can stay with me, of course.”
“Thank you.” Megan’s voice softened with gratitude. “I’m on my way over to Brian’s to figure out what’s going to happen next, but I really appreciate that.” She started walking, trying to keep warm, as she summarized the day to Jelena’s increasing sounds of dismay.
“How does this keep happening to you?” Jelena asked as Megan’s explanation came to an end. “Do you need me to come over to Brian’s too?”
“You’d better.” Jelena sounded both affectionate and serious. “Otherwise I’ll see you at the gym tomorrow?”
“Well, I guess I’m not going to work early, so yeah, I should work out my aggressions. I’ll see you then.” Megan’s phone buzzed again as she hung up, with a text from Brian saying have you eaten?
She texted back noooo, and he said yeah, didn’t think so. I’ll order Indian. ETA?
IDK, 30 minutes if you don’t mind me bringing the dogs?
I don’t mind, he wrote back. Ms. Kettle, however . . . Ms. Kettle, a long-haired Angora who outweighed the puppies put together, had thoroughly cowed the little dogs within minutes of their first introduction. Brian, satisfied that his cat was the boss of them, never objected to Megan visiting with the dogs.
30 minutes, then, Megan said. Maybe 45. She put the phone back in her pocket and unwound the leads from her wrist. “All right, pups. Let’s go.”
The dogs charged off down the track that encircled the park, pulling Megan along with them. A couple of Indian guys who often jogged there waved a greeting as they passed her going the opposite direction, and they all grinned at each other when they met up again halfway around the park. A kid of seven or eight ran up toward her, calling, “Excuse me, are your doggies friendly?” with his mom a few metres behind shouting, “She’s exercising, honey, please leave her alone!”
Megan stopped, though, and the kid shrieked happily as the puppies came over to say hello. The beleaguered mother sent Megan an apologetic glance that Megan waved off with a smile. After a moment they moved on and Megan resumed her run, taking the track around the park twice before the puppies started to look properly exhausted. The walk to Brian’s house took the rest of their energy, and Ms. Kettle didn’t even have to glare at them in order to establish her dominance. They just went inside and fell asleep on the shoe rack as soon as Brian opened the door.