Irish Eyes (37 page)
Authors: Mary Kay Andrews
When I looked up from my crying binge, I realized I’d walked all the way up Moreland Avenue and had cut over to North Highland. I was standing across the street from Manuel’s. I hadn’t been near the place since the night Corky Hanlon tried to kill me. I looked like who-shot-Lizzie, but I didn’t care.
Bishop’s eyebrows rose when he saw me slide into the booth nearest the door in the front room. He brought me a Jack and water and sat down opposite me.
“Haven’t seen you in a while. Not since—” He stopped, taking notice of my red-rimmed eyes and the soggy gardenia.
“Hell of a thing,” he said, swabbing at the tabletop.
I took a long sip of bourbon. It was cold and sweet, and I clenched my teeth to keep from swallowing the crushed ice chips, letting the smoky liquid trickle down the back of my throat. Good medicine.
“Did you hear?” Bishop asked. “Some of the regulars, they took up a collection. They’re getting a plaque made, gonna put it on the back of this booth. Put his name on it, like that.”
That made me smile. “He’d get a kick out of that.” With my fingertip, I traced all the letters carved into the beaten-up oak tabletop. Phone numbers, graffiti, political slogans. In the far right corner of the table there was a deeply carved heart,
with initials that had been colored in with a blue marking pen. B. D. + L. D.
I tapped the heart. “Love is blind, huh?”
“Never saw him like that over another woman,” Bishop said.
“He was totally ga-ga over her. He was in here late one night, right before he got shot. She was working late that night. He told me then, “Bish, it’s L-O-V-E. She’s the one. My soulmate.”
His smile was sour. “Doesn’t sound like the Deavers we all knew, does it?”
“Maybe we didn’t know him like we thought we did,” I said.
Bishop got up, tucked his bar towel in the back pocket of his saggy black jeans. “Hell. Who knows anybody?”
The author gratefully thanks those who doled out advice, comfort, or sustenance during the hatching of this book, including Major M. G. Lloyd of the Atlanta Police Department, W. Albert Oetgen, Moira Eileen Drennan, Eamon Dolan, and Eileen Dreyer. In addition, thanks are due the Mahaffey family of Avondale Estates, Georgia, who provided me with the perfect writer’s retreat. Lastly, thanks are due the 170 American police officers who in 1998 lost their lives in the line of duty. Their bravery and sacrifices are not forgotten.
Irish Eyes
“An entertaining, suspenseful romp. The plot zips along, but not too fast to blur the exceptional characters. Trocheck’s obvious firsthand knowledge of Atlanta makes her descriptions of the city shine with realism. Evanovich fans will appreciate some similarities, but Trocheck’s humor is drier.”
Booklist
“Trocheck skillfully blends family, generational, ethnic, racial, medical and criminal conflicts into her Irish stew. Her Garrity is an appealing heroine, hard-working and principled, while Bucky is just one of many well-drawn members of the community of family and friends for whom she gives her all in this satisfying tale.”
Publishers Weekly
“A dark tragedy of betrayal and corruption…. I highly recommend it.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Original and suspenseful …
Irish Eyes
is the best of the bunch.”
The Snooper
MIDNIGHT CLEAR
“A five-star read…. Long before Tom Wolfe burned Atlanta in
A Man in Full,
Kathy Hogan Trocheck was building believable fictional landscapes of the city in her Callahan Garrity mysteries.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Trocheck never fails to please.”
Tulsa World
“Will make you laugh, make you cry, make you mad, and make you wonder right up until the very last page…. Trocheck’s characterization is the real strength of her books: She gives us full-dimensional human beings instead of cardboard caricatures.”
Boston Globe
“Trocheck’s writing is typically breezy and buoyant.”
Orlando Sun-Sentinel
STRANGE BREW
“As
Strange Brew
proves, there’s nothing strange about Kathy Hogan Trocheck’s growing reputation. Her writing here is just as flip, just as New South sassy as ever, but underneath is a deepening compassion that wisely gives even her modern-day devils their due.”
Margaret Maron
“Kathy Hogan Trocheck’s cleverly plotted puzzlers are a gift.”
Orlando Sun-Sentinel
“A tidy mystery with … polished writing and industrial-strength suspense.”
Sue Grafton
“A riveting adventure.”
Publishers Weekly
HEART TROUBLE
“Trocheck has an eye for the Southern icon, an ear for the musically Georgian phrase, and an aptitude for multidimensional characters.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A fast-paced, highly entertaining caper.”
Louisville Courier-Journal
“Excellent reading.”
Toronto Star
HAPPY NEVER AFTER
“Callahan and her cohort of continuing characters (her mom, Edna; the ancient cleaning ladies Baby and Sister) are great company. If
Happy Never After
were a song, we’d all be dancing in the streets.”
San Jose Mercury News
HOMEMADE SIN
“The prose is tart and lively, the storytelling swift-paced, and the large cast and multiple plot lines deftly handled.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TO LIVE & DIE IN DIXIE
“A felonious assault on the reader’s funny bone, a madcap mix of humor and homicide…. Callahan Garrity is the best character to come out of Atlanta since Scarlett O’Hara.”
Clarion-Ledger
(Jackson, MS)
EVERY CROOKED NANNY
“A clever, colorful page-turner, not to be missed…. High-caliber.”
Publishers Weekly
“A breezy debut.”
New York Times Book Review
F
EATURING
C
ALLAHAN
G
ARRITY
M
IDNIGHT
C
LEAR
S
TRANGE
B
REW
H
EART
T
ROUBLE
H
APPY
N
EVER
A
FTER
H
OMEMADE
S
IN
T
O
L
IVE AND
D
IE IN
D
IXIE
E
VERY
C
ROOKED
N
ANNY
Featuring Truman Kicklighter
C
RASH
C
OURSE
L
ICKETY
-S
PLIT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
An Imprint of
HarperCollinspublishers
10 East 53rd Street
New York, New York 10022-5299
I
RISH EYES
. Copyright © 2000 by Mary Kay Andrews. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ISBN 0-06-109869-8
EPub Edition March 2013 ISBN 9780062039705
Version 02282014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022