Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (13 page)

“You knew nothing about the €3,000?” Danny said.

“Like I was saying, Lonnie was not telling me everything, and of course he would not mention extra money because he was supposed to pay me wages from money he made. He promised.”

“You’re the victim, all right.” Danny handed the folder back to O’Neil, along with the newspaper article, which O’Neil carefully slipped into the folder. “I think we’re done.”

“We are?”

“Until I decide to arrest you, of course. But that all depends on how good a boy you are from here on out. Meanwhile, I need your key, passport, and paperwork—for safekeeping, you understand.” He grinned. “Your secret girlfriend can help you with a new doss. Maybe even her daddy’s hotel if you’re lucky.”

Gull’s Hollow Community Gazette, Friday, July 11, 2008

Local Woman Arrested in Father’s Death

Officials took Merrit McCallum into custody on charges that she facilitated the death of her father, local entrepreneur Andrew McCallum.

Andrew McCallum died June 28, 2008, after a long battle with liver cancer. He was known locally as the founder of Mid-Pacific Consulting and Trading Company, which recently moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Santa Rosa. Merrit McCallum stands to inherit assets, including the privately held business, worth an estimated $30 million.

The investigation into Merrit McCallum began at the behest of the senior McCallum’s hospice nurse, Elaine Smith. Smith claims that she should have reclaimed a high quantity of the elder McCallum’s prescription painkillers after his death. “I found nothing,” Smith said. “Nothing at all.”

By law, hospice care workers who tend patients in the home must retrieve unused drugs after the death of their patients. In this case, Smith referred to liquid morphine and Vicodin. According to her, Merrit McCallum knew how much and how often to administer the drugs in a fashion termed “comfort care,” which aims to keep terminal patients as comfortable as possible in lieu of subjecting them to the often painful life-prolonging procedures used in hospitals.

“The end stages of liver cancer can be excruciating,” said Dr. Brent Opell, oncologist at Santa Rosa General Hospital. “In addition, the patient is likely to suffer from increased mental agitation if the cancer spreads to the nervous system.”

According to Opell, morphine is often necessary to keep the patient calm as well as pain-free.

“My client was a devoted daughter,” attorney Jacob Roth said. “She put her life on hold for six months to care for Andrew McCallum. Anyone who has tended a dying family member knows how traumatic and exhausting the experience can be. These charges are ludicrous at best.”

Whether the experience was traumatic and exhausting enough to cause McCallum to administer extra morphine is not the only question for investigators.

“It would appear she had something on her mind,” Deputy Chief of Police Larry Werner said. “At the time of her arrest, she had already consolidated the various trusts left to her by her mother and was considering two competing bids to buy her father’s business. We know she was preparing to leave the country.”

Sources close to the case quote Smith as saying that she was suspicious of Merrit McCallum because she did not get along with her father.

McCallum was released on bail, and the arraignment is scheduled for next week.

• 24 •

Merrit sniffed at the fermented smell that emanated from her purse. A knitting needle pricked her elbow as she rooted around for the source of the offending odor.

“Why don’t you dump it out like any sane one?” Marcus mumbled from the neighboring bed. He lay under the drab hotel comforter fully clothed.

“Are you kidding? Never. I prefer not to see my junk by the light of day.”

Marcus chuckled and Merrit found herself following along, only to feel troubled by the foreign feel of the sound in her throat. At the bottom of her purse she came upon a plastic bag and recalled the blackberries she’d picked the previous week.

“Disgusting.” With a toss, the baggie with its mushy cargo landed in the hotel room’s tiny garbage can. “Now to find my inhaler. There’s got to be one in here even if Danny didn’t find it. Maybe I should thank the blackberries for offending his sensibilities.”

For the millionth time, Merrit considered her love-hate relationship with her inhalers. On the one hand they provided comfort; on the other, talk about a painful reminder of her weakness. The panic attacks had plagued her since her mom’s death, sometimes less frequently, sometimes more, and all despite years of therapy.

“I brought four inhalers with me,” she said. “I always carry extras.”

“Like my spare flasks. Don’t feel safe without them.”

She must have lost an inhaler the previous week, the one that had somehow landed under Lonnie’s desk. Perhaps it fell out of her bag the day that Mrs. O’Brien and her daughters hijacked her off the street. Then, Danny kidnapped the second inhaler to use as evidence, which left her with two more that if not in her purse, could be in Mrs. Sheedy’s flat, under a plaza bench, anywhere.

She burrowed into a little-used side compartment and with a
voilà
, waved the third inhaler at Marcus. She tucked it into her jeans pocket, pondering where the fourth one could be. She glanced around the room, but, of course, her suitcase and most of her belongings were stranded in Mrs. Sheedy’s flat until further notice. Her stuff, scrutinized by the Garda. But she mustn’t think about that.
That
would panic her for sure.

“If this inhaler was always in my purse,” she said, “where did the one at the crime scene come from?”

“How do you know you didn’t have two inhalers inside that thing at some point? You’re messy, so I’ve noticed.”

“I know. It’s awful.” She flung the purse onto the floor. “Oh, never mind. What about you? Is the night of the party still a blur?”

“Enough, yet not.” Marcus’s gray and watering gaze wandered to the bottle perched on his stomach. “I’m troubled, troubled indeed. Who untied my shoes? I think of the shoes, I think of cake. Bloody nuisance.”

“Start with the last thing you remember clearly then.”

“Liam. He said he would send out food from the party.” He blinked at her in earnest concentration and sat up on his elbows. Merrit snatched up the gin before it sloshed onto the comforter. “He must have sent out food later in the evening, but I don’t remember for shite. He fancied the afghan you made me, I do remember that. You’ll be having to knit a longer one for him though.”

Merrit perked up a little. Liam had liked her afghan. “You think he’d want one?”

“Ay, why wouldn’t he?”

Merrit set the gin on the nightstand next to a draft of the letter she planned to send Liam if she could think of the perfect way to apologize, officially introduce herself, assure him of her benign intentions, and suggest they meet. She’d thought to keep it simple, something along the lines of,
Sorry about Lonnie and the gifts. I am indeed Julia’s daughter. Can we meet, just to talk?
But that seemed shabby somehow.

Marcus had a better idea. Maybe she could offer to knit Liam his own afghan. That might be a nice way to start a conversation, because she wasn’t about to interrupt Liam’s festival duties on the plaza, not with the festival participants surrounding Liam’s caravan tent all day long. Marcus hadn’t done justice to the festival when he’d told her she could stand in line with the rest of the tourists. A line implied order. Instead, the crowd churned on hormonally charged undercurrents, flowing toward Liam and then ebbing away when he chose a new person to interview. She’d bobbed along with everyone else, fascinated by the way Liam absorbed the crowd’s energy. He cut a dashingly antiquated figure in his velvet tails, with his matchmaking ledger on his lap. He was a love conjurer, invoking the spirits of a lost world, a world in which matchmakers were magicians, and magicians were mercurial creatures, as likely to spurn you as to bless you. She hadn’t seen him spurn anyone, but she had a feeling he could be ruthless if put to the test.

So, she’d held back, unwilling to be spurned. After all, not all fathers cared to meet their bastard children. This was a fact of life, and it was silly to think otherwise. Liam hadn’t sought her out since his birthday party. He was busy, of course, and no doubt exhausted at the end of the day, but this didn’t change the fact of his apparent ambivalence.

“Yes,” Marcus was mumbling. “I think Liam did bring me dinner. He went so far as to walk me to the other bench so I could eat in peace.”

“I’m sorry, Marcus. What was that?”

“There’s some get plastered and like to fuck me about. Better to sit out of view of the pub, Liam said.”

“He’s kind.”

“That’s so. Always was with me.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else. I was well and truly ossified by then.” He grabbed the bottle off the nightstand and swallowed. “Passed out and didn’t notice a thing. I’m sorry.”

Merrit rolled to the edge of the bed and stretched to grab a beer from the mini-fridge. She had hoped to have a fact to take to Danny with his tired eyes and loose suits. He’d obviously forgiven Marcus for his daughter Beth’s fall from the jungle gym, which said a lot about him. He could be reasonable. Maybe.

She longed to ask Marcus about his estranged daughter—Danny’s wife—but refrained. Danny was a cop, not her friend. His family problems were none of her business. “Tell me more about Kevin and Lonnie’s feud.”

Marcus settled back into the pillow and closed his eyes. If Merrit understood nothing else about him, then it was how coherence and chaos could exist side by side, sometimes within split seconds of each other. So, she waited patiently for Marcus to steer himself away from chaos.

“Daft, really,” Marcus said a few minutes later, “but Lonnie couldn’t let it go. A year ago this past June he accepted bids on the remodel for his shop. Wanted it bright and shiny for the festival, that he did. He favored a solid wall of plate glass windows and a neon sign.”

Marcus issued a spitting sound of contempt and then continued. “Kevin raised hell about keeping the old storefronts authentic, eloquent he was, out there on the plaza with a sign. Lonnie backed down, of course. Even he wasn’t eejit enough to risk more ridicule.” He swallowed another mouthful of gin. “There, then, that’s what started the conflict between them and why Lonnie later went after Emma the way he did. He raped poor Emma, that he did, the bastard.”

“
Raped
her? Oh my God. I had no clue it was that bad between them.”

A knock on the door jerked the next question out of Merrit’s head. She stood and straightened her shoulders. No need to cower. She opened the door to find Ivan holding a suitcase and cowering for the both of them. “Before you ask, Mrs. Sheedy did not mind telling me where you are. She said to tell you that she does not appreciate having Garda officers trampling overhead all morning, and that she has had about enough of your overnight guests.”

“Always was an ogre, that one,” Marcus said.

Ivan yanked at his hair. “Speaking of the Garda, have you heard from Danny yet?”

“Yet?” Merrit pulled him inside the room. “I take it I’m about to become vexed with you.”

His pinched lips were little solace to Merrit, who fingered the inhaler in her pocket. Ignoring Marcus’s presence, Ivan relayed the news that Danny had caught him out with the computer tampering and promised him trouble if he didn’t shed light on Lonnie’s interesting financials. “I promise it was not to be helped. The Russian instinct for self-preservation overtook me. I told Danny about blackmail and gave him article I had stored away about your arrest in California.”

Merrit’s heart skipped ahead a few beats. She collapsed onto her bed, now clutching her inhaler. “At least you have the courtesy to warn me.”

“Yes, but I must go now. I need new place to live.”

Despite her racing heartbeat, Merrit spoke carefully, well aware that Ivan spooked easily. “I keep coming back to Lonnie’s missing folder. There were quite a few pages in there besides the ones that he pulled out to show me when he started in with the blackmail. Someone took it the night Lonnie died. You must have an idea.”

Ivan’s eyes darted back and forth. “Women,” he finally exhaled. “I tell you this, and then we are even for me giving away your arrest record.” He blinked at her with what Merrit interpreted as watchful curiosity. “There is another woman in town. Lonnie was blackmailing her too, because she also is—that is, she is also secretive person like you.”

“Don’t tell me, Kate Meehan.”

“How did you know?”

“Call it intuition.” She remembered the day she met Kate and the way she had retreated into chilliness when Merrit caught her out in a soft moment. She’d also seemed well acquainted with Lonnie and Ivan. “What about her?”

“I think that Lonnie met Kate in his office the night of the party to receive more money from her. Lonnie told me he went to the shop to get his business credit card.” He pulled on his earlobe. “Why did Lonnie want €1,000?”

“He just did. Isn’t that the way blackmail goes? Start small and turn the screw?”

“I am supposed to believe that, I do not think so.”

“Believe what you want. At least I know that Kate was in Lonnie’s office that night. Where is she staying?”

Ivan shifted the suitcase from one hand to the other. “I would not tell you even if I knew. Do me a favor, do not mention me when you find her. She will skewer me alive.”

The door shut behind him. Jittery, Merrit considered pumping her lungs but stopped herself. No, she was OK. She simply had to make a move. Now. Before Danny arrived to once again escort her to the Garda station.

“McCardle Cottage,” Marcus said.

“What was that?”

“Where that Kate bird is staying. Overheard Mrs. Sheedy one day—she’s that nosy she keeps up with the local rentals.”

Merrit grinned at the man who wavered between homelessness and institutionalization. At last, a way to proceed. “You’re a doll, Marcus, you know that?”

• 25 •

Merrit and Marcus sat inside Merrit’s car, catching their breaths after their successful foray into breaking and entering. An hour earlier, Merrit had parked in an unnamed turnout that led to nowhere except a jagged terrain of limestone hills. Vast rock terraces stepped up the hillsides. They were oddly symmetrical and graceful, like remnants from a lost civilization. Drystone walls undulated from the terraces, snaking over the lush pastures toward the Atlantic. The moon cast an otherworldly glow over stark rock and obsidian-like ocean, but even so, she was unprepared for the deep dark that was west Ireland at night. Froth from Atlantic waves coated the air in a moist chill that sank into Merrit’s bones when she hooked arms with Marcus. Together, they stumbled across a pocked rural lane and toward the only sign of civilization for miles, McCardle Cottage, Kate’s home away from home.

They’d waited until dinnertime, figuring Kate would be out playing the
femme fatale
in a pub. Marcus demonstrated how to jiggle the ancient casement windows into submission with the help of a penknife, a trick he’d mastered as an errant teenager.

Inside the cottage, Marcus kept watch at the front window while Merrit tiptoed around with a nervous-giggly catch in her throat. Cupboards, cabinets, and closets revealed Kate to be a woman who prided herself on efficiency. Her powdered foundation was also a sunblock and concealer; black basics mixed and matched with various colored tops and accessories; grab-and-go health bars and individual yogurts sat in the fridge. Unlike Merrit, Kate kept her domain tidy to the point of anonymity. Outside the storage spaces, almost nothing showed of the woman except a toothbrush in a glass and a novel by Nuala O’Faolain. Merrit considered the book for a moment, then set it aside with a soft pat.

“Nothing in her garbage either,” Merrit called. “Just one cotton ball in the bathroom and a yogurt container in the kitchen.”

If she hadn’t lifted the garbage can out from under the kitchen sink for a thorough peek, she’d have missed the weight discrepancy—heaviest yogurt container she’d ever encountered—and thus Lonnie’s errant folder. Kate had hidden it at the bottom of the bin, beneath the plastic liner. Merrit flipped through the pages, fast at first, then slowing to a stop. She returned the folder to its hiding spot, wheezing with the effort to remain calm.

Now safe in her leased Nissan, Merrit held three deep breaths in succession. It would be OK. She didn’t know all the facts yet. No need to panic.

Beside her, Marcus fondled an unopened gin bottle and gurgled in triumph. “I didn’t need a sip either. That was a jolly time.”

“I’m glad.” Merrit forced a smile and gave his stubbly cheek a light pinch. “You were great. Shall we go?”

Merrit dug around in her pockets for her car keys. She almost missed Marcus’s widening stare. “Jaysus H. Christ, it’s the woman herself.”

She caught a ghostly flicker in her side-view mirror. Adrenaline shot through her with such force that her fingertips tingled. Instinctively, she made a move for her inhaler but stopped herself from pumping up with a preventive dose. The last thing she needed was Kate witnessing her weakness. Fighting the urge to squeal away on burning tire rubber, Merrit told Marcus to stay put and exited the car. She dug her shaking hands into her jacket pockets. Her heart felt like it was about to burst out of her chest, but she gathered a long, deep breath of chill Atlantic air into her chest and held her ground.

A few feet away, Kate bent to rub her ankle above a high-heeled ankle boot. She looked as sinuous as a cat burglar in slim black pants and snug top. However, the effect was marred by a slash of red scarf across her neck. “Hope I didn’t sprain it. Treacherous walking out here.”

She didn’t sound outraged. Merrit relaxed a little, but just a little. She didn’t trust her voice yet, so she remained silent.

“Came over the hill, and there’s your white car glowing in the dark. I recognized it from around the village and figured you were up to no good, so I parked and walked on down in hopes of catching you in the act.” A wry smile flickered over her features. “I don’t usually talk in clichés, so there you go. Congratulate yourself on surprising me. This is unusual, you know. Find anything?”

Kate also didn’t sound worried, which worried Merrit. Maybe Ivan had it right to be fearful of her—especially if she did kill Lonnie.

Play it cool, she told herself. “Just a novel about the exorcising of personal demons.”

Kate leaned against the car’s hood, favoring her right leg. “Ah, another cliché, one we all share. Did you have a happy childhood?”

She had asked the question as if she already knew the answer. Merrit hesitated. “Up to a point.”

“And how old were you when your childhood changed?”

“Thirteen. My mom died.”

“Me, ten. From the good life to disaster when I was too young to control anything. That’s not good for anyone’s development.”

Kate gathered herself and stood. Just like that, the coolness Merrit had noticed at the tea house returned like a hard coating. She watched Kate hobble her way back up the hill toward her car. Anxiety sweat soaked Merrit’s T-shirt, but she waited. Five minutes later, Kate’s high beams flashed as she passed them and parked. She entered her cottage with a jaunty backwards wave. Light illuminated the front window. Kate appeared. She watched them for a moment, shrugged, and snapped the curtains shut. Her shadow drifted away from the front window.

“By Jesus, that woman is scary,” Marcus said when Merrit slid into the car.

“She’s something all right.”

Merrit fingered the printouts she’d removed from the folder before returning it to the garbage can. On the top page, four grainy people gazed up at her from a blurred image. There was dashing Liam, complete with the cape described by her mom. To his right, a woman with a remarkable resemblance to Kate held an infant. Her grin looked forced as she held the infant’s arm in a wave toward the camera. On this woman’s other side stood Andrew, the man her mom married.

Merrit swallowed hard and picked up the printout to view him clearly. He didn’t look harsh so much as serious with his wide tie and slicked-back hair. He peered past Kate’s mom and Liam toward Julia, who leaned in from the left to tickle the infant. Andrew focused his gaze on Julia, yet there they stood on opposite ends of the lineup. The caption read:
In the plaza Liam the Matchmaker socializes with his fans, (left to right) journalist Julia Chase (USA), Liam, Belfast native Adrienne Meehan with daughter Kate, and entrepreneur Andrew McCallum (USA).

Merrit dropped the printouts and started up the car. “Do you think Danny is still awake?”

“Danny-boy? Ah no, can’t be going there.”

“You can stay in the car while I talk to him. I have to give him something else to think about besides me as his favorite suspect. Do you think he’ll forgive the little fact of our break-in?”

Marcus twisted hard to open the gin bottle. The paper seal crinkled and then his swallowing sounds filled the car. Merrit pulled the bottle away from his mouth. “I promised myself I wouldn’t lecture, but I’ve grown too fond of you. You are a dear man, and the alcohol only distances you further from your family.”

“Ellen will never be letting me near Mandy and Petey again anyhow.”

She held his hand, felt it shake. “One thing I know, you’ll never get the chance if you’re still drinking.”

With a gentle yank, Marcus took back his gin and settled it between his legs. “There goes your eyebrow, higher than ever. Now leave off, will you?”

She kissed his cheek. “Ellen is lucky to have you for a father.”

Marcus lowered his head to hide his smile.

***

After his long day dealing with Ivan and Lonnie’s mashed computer, not to mention Clarkson, Danny had longed to read the children traditional tales about Fionn and the salmon of knowledge, Deirdre of the sorrows, and King Lir’s swan. Reading aloud to Mandy and Petey never failed to ease the tension from his shoulders. But, he’d missed his chance and now sat in the dark looking out their bedroom window. With the end of his work day had come the end of his investigation into Lonnie’s death. Officially, at least. O’Neil had agreed to keep him in the loop on Clarkson’s progress, not that that would amount to a piss in the wind.

Mandy mumbled and bike-pedaled the covers off her bed. Danny tucked her back in, and then adjusted the stuffed pink flamingo that threatened to smother Petey. By rights they should have converted Beth’s nursery into a bedroom by now, but Ellen wanted none of that. They were two years past, and he rarely entered the baby’s room anymore. More like a mausoleum now, a heavy presence within their midst that Ellen entered most evenings for prayer.

Unsettled, Danny rose and eased the bedroom door closed behind him. He hesitated on his way to the sofa for yet another back-aching attempt at sleep. On Sunday after working on Lonnie’s case all day, he’d returned home to find a note taped to the unused blackberry tart dough. He’d be on the sofa until further notice.

Light from the big bedroom lit a line under the door. Hoping for a reprieve, he knocked and entered. Ellen sat on the rocking chair staring into space with a brush in hand. She’d pulled on her hair hard enough to straighten the waves.

“I have a new idea about Lonnie’s death,” he said. “He had issues with others besides Kevin.”

Ellen parted her hair into three sections. Danny trembled to take on the task of braiding that she’d allowed him in the good days. He thought about the way Ellen’s hair used to shine, the way she used to laugh with her head thrown back when Marcus played horse with the children.

“Should you be talking to me about the case?” she said.

He opened his mouth, about to confess that he wasn’t on the case anymore anyhow, but Ellen interrupted him. “Best to stop then. Can’t take chances on the promotion. All the hours you’ve been putting in have to lead somewhere. Indeed, anywhere but here.”

He retreated, knowing it was futile to point out that the
here
Ellen detested was the
here
she revisited when she insisted on sitting vigil for Beth in the church and when she prayed in the nursery. The
here
that was her discontent, her misery.

He pressed thumb pads against his eyelids and held his breath to the count of ten. On the last exhale, he opened Beth’s door, stepped inside, and closed it again. “Here you are, my sweet, but here we must part.”

There wasn’t much to the room. A toddler bed, dresser-changing table, toy chest, and low shelves packed with hand-me-down plush animals and child-safe toys. The furniture had to go. Mandy required a grown-up girl’s room. He must force his family forward if only to lessen his sense of inadequacy, just as he must continue his investigation if only to produce enough conflicting evidence to cast Kevin’s supposed guilt into doubt.

Headlights flashed across the animal alphabet poster. Danny trotted to the living room expecting Kevin looking to unload his shite. Clarkson had let him go earlier that day, but Danny hadn’t had a chance to talk to him. Danny didn’t recognize the white four-door that rolled to a stop. Sometimes tourists lost themselves on the back roads, but closer inspection had him muttering, “holy hell.” He hurried outside and knocked on Marcus’s window. Marcus obliged him by rolling it down.

“Have you gone stone mentaller?” Danny said.

“Listen to Merrit. We’re after doing your job for you, that we are.”

Merrit arrived at his side. She wore her hair in a loose ponytail. Tendrils danced around her face. Danny followed her gaze to Marcus—who was now waving like a maniac—and from there to the nursery window. Porch light outlined the recesses under Ellen’s eyes, cheekbones, and jaw, and reflected glints off her eyes as she stared at Marcus. She retreated back into the shadows.

Marcus attempted to open the car door, but Danny leaned against it and directed his words to Merrit. “This better be worth the lashing I’m in for.”

She held out two pieces of paper. “Read these. Ivan told me that Lonnie was blackmailing Kate also”—Danny grunted, annoyance increasing by the second—“so we went looking for Lonnie’s missing folder at Kate’s place. Seemed logical.”

“Breaking and entering? Brilliant move.” An unreasonable impulse to shake Merrit came and went. He grabbed the two sheets of paper she still held toward him. “What missing folder?”

“This proves that Kate has an agenda—”

“I realize that Kate is here for the same reason you are. The agenda being Liam. I’m not about to get roped into your sibling rivalry. You and Kate enter that ring on your own.”

Merrit’s determined expression withered. She rubbed her chest and dug into her jeans pocket. Danny waited her out as she pumped saline mist into her lungs once, twice, then three times. He understood that she needed a second or two to regain her calm with this fake medicine of hers. However, as he watched, she began to gasp.

Marcus jabbed Danny’s thigh with his gin bottle, and Danny stepped aside. His father-in-law tumbled out of the car in a waft of gin fumes. “I’ve got you, Beth.” At the same time, lamplight from within the house fanned toward them when Ellen opened the front door. “Who
is
this woman?” she said.

Merrit’s chest jerked as she fought for breath. Her complexion drained of its healthy glow, and she stumbled forward onto all fours. Danny shoved the clippings into his pocket and knelt beside Merrit. “Ellen, grab her keys and get the car going.” He tossed her his mobile. “And call a neighbor to come watch the children.”

Marcus prodded Merrit, whose head hung between her arms. Her spine showed through thin cotton as she fought for breath, back arching with the effort. Marcus’s plaintive cries for Beth tore at Danny as he pushed Marcus back onto the passenger seat. Within seconds, Merrit’s limp form hung in his arms. She was so slight, hardly bigger than a teenager. He lowered himself into the back seat with Merrit still in his arms.

“Go. Ellen, drive.”

Ellen sat stiff, staring back at him through the rearview mirror. “But I can’t, not with
him
here.”