Read The Irish Cairn Murder Online

Authors: Dicey Deere

The Irish Cairn Murder (4 page)

BOOK: The Irish Cairn Murder
5.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
O
n Saturday, by noon the sun had warmed the meadows, so that a pungent smell of earth rose from the ground. From the east meadow, past the tumbled stone fence and the stand of oaks that separated Castle Moore property from the west field of Sylvester Hall, came the mooing of cows. Crickets chirped, birds sang.
Waiting, he smoked a cigarette. Then he leaned back against a leafy oak beside the cairn. He had no loss of confidence. She'd come. She'd wasted his time, holding off paying. Still, he'd be the richer for it.
There, now! A flutter of white over there beyond the ridge of trees. He glimpsed her approaching figure; she wore a long white skirt with black boots and a close-fitting tan sweater.
Triumphant, he folded his arms and waited. She came across the meadow to where he stood. She came within a few feet of him and stopped. She stared at him. Her eyes grew wide.
“The money.” he said curtly.
Brown eyes, heavy-lidded, just staring. Then she laughed. “But you're not—You're not …”
“The money!” he repeated impatiently, looking back at her. His gaze slid down from her face. The tan sweater had a V-neck, he saw the cleft of her breasts that glistened a little
with dampness; she must have hurried. Her hair was long and dark and drawn back carelessly into a ponytail, so that wisps floated free. And looking at her, he remembered a dim photograph and then he knew that this woman was not Natalie Cameron.
The woman was looking back at him, a puzzled and half-smiling look; but now she raised a hand and touched her lower lip, and in her gaze was something else he recognized, and he began to feel a growing throb in his groin, an exciting ache. Whoever this woman was and why she had come he had to know. But he also had a familiar, greedy feeling that demanded satiety.
L
uce Cameron was ten. For a week now, she'd had head lice, which was why she wore her brimmed cap all day, even in school. There was the gel-like ointment her mother had twice so far to comb in and wash out, and the cap had to be washed every day too. The gel was that new stuff that didn't smell bad, more like herbs, but everybody knew that new-stuff smell. “It's so em
barr
assing,” she said to Dakin almost every day, “as though we live in squalid circumstances. At least it's Saturday, so I don't have to go.”
Instead, she'd play in the woods.
She left Sylvester Hall close to noon. Breda had made her a cold beef sandwich. She'd brought her magnifying glass in case she decided to study ants. She'd seen a movie in Dunlavin, it had horses and a beautiful countryside and a naked man pulling his pants on in a hurry when the husband came back from fox hunting and opened the bedroom door. But the interesting part was about ants. The red ants raiding the black ants and kidnapping their children to take home as slaves. Or maybe it was the black ants raiding the red ones?
But all that was, as Dakin would have said,
academic
, because by noontime she hadn't seen a single anthill. Or ant. Autumn must be the wrong season.
Autumn was beautiful, though. In the distance she saw
Castle Moore. It looked so romantic, though it really had only the one turret left and needed all kinds of repairs that Winifred Moore said she wouldn't spend a single pound on.
In the sunny west meadow, Luce found a rock big enough to sit on. She took the sandwich from her backpack and unwrapped it. Nothing could be more perfect than sitting here in the sun eating a beef-and-mustard and with the little bottle of orange pop. And hearing the birds singing, and the rustle of small game, and—someone laughing. Tinkly laughter, coming from somewhere. And again.
Luce settled her cap and tipped her head down a little to keep the sun from her eyes. The laughter, again. A woman's laugh. From off there by the oaks.
And then, as she told herself later, she wasn't spying. It was just that she happened to be there near the cairn.
T
he Sunday lunchtime special at O'Malley's Pub was steak, peas, and mashed potatoes. At one o'clock, Torrey was forking up the last delicious mouthful when the stranger came in.
Torrey did not at first notice him. The barroom was crowded and she was sitting beyond the bar at one of the smaller round tables back near the fireplace. There was low chatter and the smell of beers and grilled meats and the warmth of the fire.
Eating the Sunday lunch, she was pleased with herself. She'd read both of the short Simenon novels with surprising ease, even though an amazing number of Hungarian words were startlingly different from the same words in the other basic twenty-six languages. Nouns in the other languages were all similar, even the Russian.
Night
, for instance.
Office
.
Passport
. Even
pharmacy
. But Hungarian was another kettle of nouns, entirely. Worth exploring the
why
of it. Also, she'd had an E-mail from Myra Schwartz at Interpreters International in Boston. In November, a weeklong job in Lisbon lined up. International trade. “They asked specificially for you, like last year,” Myra wrote. “The Portuguese were impressed, they said you even got their in jokes.”
Torrey had grinned at that, pleased. Interpreting was a risky business with fallow periods, you never knew. She lived
on the edge, with a fluctuating bank account. It was like skiing close to a precipice, yet at the last perilous instant twisting away. Exhilarating, though. She loved it. And she had just banked her check for the European Union meeting in Prague. She had a chance to relax now, before the assignment in Budapest. Maybe she'd buy a nubby corduroy material and cover the shabby old couch in the kitchen.
Yet. Yet this last day or two, she'd become restless, gazing out of the kitchen window to where she'd seen the glint of dying sunlight shining on … what? binoculars? and the phone had rung for Dakin.
Hungry, these last couple of days, she couldn't seem to settle down and cook anything. She wandered about the cottage eating chocolate bars with almonds. None of the groceries she'd bought in Ballynagh tempted her. This morning, she'd stood with folded arms looking at the cans of tuna fish in the kitchen cabinet. Rice. Dried milk. A shaker of grated cheese. Out of these, Jasper could've made a mouthwatering masterpiece. She could not.
But at least Dakin Cameron had appeared on Thursday afternoon at four o'clock, as he'd promised. He'd expertly framed the window and now it was snug, no drafts. Torrey hadn't mentioned Wednesday's threatening phone call. Something about the set of Dakin's shoulders warned her not to. Despite the chilly afternoon, he shed his jacket after working for a half hour. Underneath he was wearing one of his mustard-colored jerseys. This one had a bushy-tailed squirrel printed on the chest. The jersey he'd worn the day before had had a turtle imprint. Maybe he was an animal lover? Or liked that mustard color? She didn't ask.
But one thing she did ask was why he did odd jobs around Ballynagh. “Why
do
you?” she'd asked him, admittedly indelicately when, after he'd been working an hour, she'd brought him out a mug of hot cider. Dakin had flushed. “I like to.
And, well … My father would've laughed and been glad of it. We're alike, my father and I. ‘Inherited riches is just luck,' he once told me, ‘Let's see your real baggage.'”
In O‘Malley's, a sudden blast of music from the television set above the bar. Jack, the younger O'Malley boy, quickly turned it down, apologetically lifting his shoulders. Standing at the bar almost beneath the television screen, Torrey saw the man she'd noticed come into O'Malley's some minutes ago. What now registered with her was that he wore city clothes: a dark suit with a gray shirt and striped blue-and-gray tie. There were always a few strangers in Ballynagh at any season—tourists in country tweeds; weekenders come for the fishing in the streams that rushed down from the mountains; hikers, booted and jacketed, who stayed a weekend or overnight at Nolan's Bed and Breakfast. But the only place that city folks, those in suits and ties, were likely to be seen in Ballynagh was on television.
The stranger had an untouched pint before him on the bar. He was perhaps in his forties. He was dark haired and good looking, with a narrow, pale face. His brows were drawn together and he had an impatient, angry look. Just now, he was pulling at his striped tie, pulling it this way and that, as though it were choking him. Suddenly he slammed a fist down on the bar, threw down some coins, and was gone.
“Here you are, Ms. Tunet.” Emily put Torrey's change on the table.
“Thanks, Emily.” Sorting out a tip, and then fitting the pound notes into her wallet, Torrey was thinking: a stranger, neither hunter, fisherman, nor vacationing tourist. By the oak near the cottage, the cigarette butt.
She got up so abruptly that the chair legs scraped noisely on the floor.
“
I
t was a few minutes after one o‘clock,” as Torrey later that afternoon told Inspector O'Hare. By that time, there were bramble scratches on her forehead and bloodstains on the knees of her khaki pants.
 
Coming out of O'Malley's, she saw the stranger heading up toward the road north of the village. He had a long stride. She hesitated. Was she being ridiculous? Too imaginative? Oh, go ahead! Nothing to lose. She got on her bike.
At that instant she felt her arm gripped. “Ms. Tunet! Hello, Hello!” A deep, hearty voice. “Lucky, running into you!” It was Winifred Moore, on her head a suede Robin Hood sort of hat and wearing leggings, over her twill pants. “Having a poetry reading at St. Andrew's next Sunday. From my new book,
Slivers of Womanhood
. Four o'clock. I'm hoping you can—”
“Yes, absolutely, I'd love to. Four o'clock, right?” She looked after the stranger. He had reached the end of the street and was crossing the stone bridge over the stream. Behind him, several village women were trudging along, chatting, laughing, their laughter floating back. Two of the women, between them, were carrying a couch. They must be
heading home from the Sunday jumble sale behind Duffy's garage. There were cottages and farms off the main road beyond the bridge.
“See you later, then!” She pushed off. The cobbled street made her bicycle wheels wobble. Twice the wheels twisted and she fell off. She gave up and walked the bike fast until she reached the bridge where the graveled road began.
Back on the bike, she pedaled on, looking ahead, but the road curved sharply to her left, and when she rounded it she almost ran into the two women carrying the couch. “Watch out, miss!” Indignant faces. “Sorry,” Torrey said, “Sorry.” “Well, just a minute, then, miss.” The women edged the couch around to a rutted road; beyond, smoke rose from a cottage chimney. “A beauty, isn't it?” one of the women said, friendly. “Got it for eight pounds! Worth a hundred. Used to belong to Nellie Egan's mother that passed away. Eight pounds!” “Yes, well, good luck.” Torrey edged around and was off on the Peugeot. What next? A herd of elephants in the middle of the road? With a feeling of urgency, she rounded a curve and saw in disappointment that she was too late, even the rest of the women had disappeared, going down paths and roads to their cottages. She slowed the bike. What was the difference, anyway? The man was just another tourist, she'd gotten the wind up about nothing, she was being ridiculous. Give up. Turn back. Go home. Get the Budapest daily newspapers on the Internet, there were always words, expressions, that were used in new, slangy ways.
Still … the road ahead was the kind of narrow Irish country road she loved. There were high hedges on either side. Behind them would be farms with broad fields. So, carpe diem. At least a half hour of breathing in the crisp, green-smelling air, and from a cottage somewhere, a whiff of wood smoke. Feet again on the pedals, she pushed off.
Barely a mile beyond, the hedges on her left gave way to meadows where cattle grazed. On her right was a birch wood. Sylvan. From the Latin, meaning “wood.” She thought of Thoreau and bicycled blissfully on. Branches of roadside elms shaded the road. A weedy stream flowed alongside the road and disappeared into the woods; small animals rustled in the autumn leaves; there was the flutter of birds' wings.
Then on her right, behind briars, and running along the side of the road, she saw a tall, wrought-iron fence, its rails topped with iron fleur-de-lis. She remembered then the magazine photographs of Sylvester Hall with its wrought-iron fence and stately gates. Were the gates on this road? Curiosity nagged. She'd push on, but only around the next curve. Then back to Ballynagh.
A jolt, as the Peugeot's front wheel struck a pothole, and her pocket radio in the bicycle basket exploded into “Mack the Knife.” Louis Armstrong.
Damn it! That loose connection again. She fumbled the radio out from under her extra sweater in the basket and pressed the off button. The music stopped.
So, then, around that next curve. Then back to Ballynagh. She pushed off. Thirty feet ahead, she rounded the curve.
“Help! Help!” A woman in an olive green coat was stumbling along the road toward her, crying out. Torrey skidded the bike to a stop. The woman was panting, her eyes were wide with fright. “I
saw
! A man! He was sneaking up behind the fellow—I
saw
it! I was taking a walk, and—oh,
God
! He must have killed him! Get the police! Get the
police
!”
The woman reached out and clutched the bicycle's handlebars. She was a plump, blond woman with an American accent. Her eyes were wide with shock. She turned her head from Torrey and looked back toward a clump of bushes beside tall wrought-iron gates. “
There
,” she managed.
Torrey slid off the bike. Going toward the bushes, she
could hear the woman whimpering behind her. The bushes were prickly and tore at her hair as she knelt beside the man's body. He lay on his side, blood oozing from his forehead and sliding down his temple into the grass. His eyes were half-open, unseeing slits in his narrow, pale face.
He was the stranger Torrey had seen in O'Malley's, the man in the dark suit and striped tie.
The American woman was at Torrey's shoulder. “He could be
dead
! The fellow who attacked him saw me! Then he must have heard someone coming! Jazz music! He ran through the gates and up the avenue!” Her voice was shrill with hysteria.
The man on the ground made a sound in his throat, a thin rasp.
“He's not dead, that's sure.” Torrey said. “I'll get help.” She stood up and looked around. A boy and girl, teenagers, had come from farther up the road. They were looking curiously at Torrey and at the American woman who had her fists pressed against her cheeks.
Torrey saw with relief that the iron gates of Sylvester Hall were open. “Stay with her!” she called to the boy and girl, and ran up the avenue.
BOOK: The Irish Cairn Murder
5.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Golden Orange by Joseph Wambaugh
Dr. Death by Kellerman, Jonathan
Ivory Guard by Natalie Herzer
Crónica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel García Márquez
Mine Are Spectacular! by Janice Kaplan
Time Warp by Steven Brockwell
Badfellas by Read, Emily, Benacquista, Tonino