Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (23 page)

• 45 •

The peaceful view along the track that ended at Kevin’s cottage did nothing to ease the tension from Danny’s shoulders. Before he left home, Ellen hadn’t defended herself against her lapse in judgment except to say that she couldn’t cope.
All those agonizing minutes while he shoved clothes and toiletries into the cardboard box, she had fluttered about in a panic. Finally, he’d rounded on Ellen with, “You must start coping. I can’t do this anymore.”

“What about the children?”

“I’m not abandoning them, only gifting you the martyrdom you desire.”

As he’d pushed the box onto the porch, she’d called out with hoarse words that she must have rehearsed for two years. “Beth was my fault. I forgot to warn Marcus she’d taken to climbing the playhouse and reaching for the clouds.” For a moment, just a moment, he’d hesitated until she blurted, “Now I suppose you’ll divorce me.”

Martyrdom complete.

But at least he knew why Kevin disappeared for a while during the party. Fragile Emma.

Danny heaved himself and the box out of the ticking car. He dragged his belongings up the steps to Liam’s front door, and from long habit knocked three times before entering. Here he was about to beg a room from a man he would soon be arresting, all because Ellen’s observations about the night of the party had finally lit a bulb for Danny. His hands still shook from the force of his shock, which he’d barely managed to hide from Ellen.

“What’s that then, bricks?” Liam said.

Danny turned from his struggle with the box to see none other than Merrit Chase, flushed and cradling her inhaler. Of course she’d found her way to Liam’s house. This was what she did: appear. Anywhere. Everywhere. And, worse still, by the looks of her, she’d solved the mystery of Lonnie the Lovely. Knowledge peeked out from behind her worried blinks while Liam relaxed with a smile aimed in Danny’s direction. A near-empty whiskey bottle sat at his feet. Damn the man. And damn Clarkson for being correct about Danny’s lack of objectivity.

Danny pulled the scribbled party timeline out of his pocket and placed it on Liam’s armrest. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Liam ticked down the page with a finger. “Bloody hell if he hasn’t connected a different set of dots and come to the same verdict as you, Merrit. Fascinating.”

“Glad I amuse you.” Danny grabbed back the timeline. “Does Kevin know she’s here?”

“No.”

“I’ll visit him then. You two are turning my stomach about now.”

A minute later Danny arrived at Kevin’s studio with beers in hand, wondering how to break the news about Liam to Kevin.

Danny cleared his throat. “Two things. I’ll be taking over Liam’s guest room for a while.” He hurried on before Kevin sidetracked him with sympathy. “But I actually came to—”

Kevin defrocked his bottle with a quick jerk. “What’s that then?

Danny realized he didn’t have the heart to talk about Liam right now, not with Kevin looking at him with good-natured expectancy. “I came to warn you that Merrit has arrived.”

“Nice way to ruin my mood.” Kevin set his beer aside. He brushed wood dust off his jeans with more force than necessary, then let his hands go limp on his thighs. “Right then. Your broken marriage and my broken I-don’t-know-what. Cheers to us.”

***

Merrit picked up the tea tray and let the last glimmers of day guide her footsteps out of the living room and toward the kitchen sink above which the window offered a view of purple shadows settling across pastures, along stone walls, and within thorny briars. Kevin’s lit studio stood out as the exception to the peaceful glow over the countryside. Inside the studio, Danny and Kevin appeared clear as actors on stage. With similar part-mocking grimaces, they clinked their beer bottles together.

Kevin and Danny were indeed like brothers. She, the interloper, wanted to yell at them, to tell them they were all three on the same side and trying their best to figure out how to orbit around Liam. Instead, her lungs tightened. So far, despite everything, her conversation with Liam had gone well. Too well. And now Danny had arrived with his conclusions and his convictions and his sense of duty. She could steer clear of Kevin for a while longer, but not Danny. Danny, who knew the truth about Liam.

She waited, watching, as Kevin began wiping down his woodworking wheel. He raised a hand in goodbye, shaking his head at the same time. A moment later Danny appeared outside the studio. Merrit stepped outside and lowered herself onto a step where the last magenta sun strokes must outline her, but Danny concentrated on navigating the tussocks. He flicked a few strands of hair off his forehead with an oddly graceful gesture. He squared his shoulders, which were broad enough, but let them slump again as he shook his head. A realization startled Merrit. Danny’s presence held some sway, and as he approached, she acknowledged that the possibility of staying awhile longer attracted her all the more with Danny in the vicinity. Even if he didn’t much like her. Even if he was married.

“I suppose you want to have it out with me now, Detective Sergeant,” Merrit said just loud enough to wrest Danny’s gaze from the ground. “Sure sounded like it when you arrived.”

He dropped down beside her with an exhausted-sounding grunt. “You’re a sorry piece of work. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

His leg started to dance in place, causing the step to vibrate beneath their feet.

“Your boss, your men, do they know? About Liam?” she said.

His leg stopped. “No.”

Merrit smiled into the dark. Thank goodness.

“Let me rephrase that. Not yet.”

Just like that, Merrit’s relief disappeared. “You have to tell them?”

And just like that, Danny’s tone hardened. “What do you think? You act as if Liam’s guilt doesn’t bother you.”

“I’ve had a few days to get my head around it, that’s all.”

“Bloody fecking hell.” Danny massaged his temples, shaking his head. “This is Liam we’re talking about. He barely gets around without that cane of his. He’s family. And when Kevin finds out—”

“So you may not arrest Liam, after all?”

“He did kill someone.”

Danny reached into his jacket pocket. With a flick, the scrap of paper landed on Merrit’s lap. She tilted it toward the kitchen window for light. Gurgling water and clanking tea ware signaled Liam’s presence a few feet away.

“That’s my wife’s writing. She was there that night unbeknownst to me. While keeping an eye on me, she managed to be my star witness to events at the party. Liam conveniently forgot to mention that he brought Marcus dinner, and that later he did see the cake up close.”

“He brought Marcus a piece of cake, so, yes—”

“But I didn’t know that until now, did I? In fact, the beauty of it is that when I read my wife’s notes, I remembered an offhand remark Liam made right there in his kitchen. He said it himself. He didn’t try Mrs. O’Brien’s cake, didn’t venture near it for fear that she’d force everyone to sing ‘happy birthday,’ and he detests white cake in any case. He slipped up. He shouldn’t have known it was white cake under the chocolate frosting if he never saw the cake up close. So he had the knife in hand later than he was willing to admit”—he tapped the paper scrap that Merrit still held—“and everyone except my wife spying on me near the window was too oblivious to notice.”

Merrit pictured the cake on its table, in a corner, near a window. With back to the room, no one inside the pub would have seen what implement he used to cut the cake. He said he’d had to make do with what was in front of him, and so he had. No one gave him much thought precisely because he was a fixture his fellow Lisfenorans took for granted.

“Lonnie’s blackmail wasn’t why he died, not really,” Merrit said. “Liam’s motivation for Lonnie was rooted in the past, not the present.”

“Yes, the final, irrovocable fact of the matter that both you and Ivan chose to keep to yourselves. Adrienne Meehan. There she was on the page in your mom’s journal, alive and well shagging Liam—or so it read to me—but then here was Kate, the angry orphan. So, what happened to her mum?” He paused, staring into a somewhere-else place for a moment. “I have a vague memory of the body that turned up in 1980 and daring Kevin to spend the night out at Kilmoon. For as long as I can remember, Our Lady has enjoyed her haunted reputation. However, I didn’t connect that old story—Kilmoon unburying her dead—until after I read my wife’s observations about Liam. Suddenly, he was a suspect because of that bloody piece of cake. Why would he lie about it? From there, it was nothing to reinterpret the last entry in your mother’s notebook, eh?”

Merrit nodded.

Danny held out his hand for the paper scrap. “I wager a trace will reveal no sign of Adrienne since 1975. Northern Ireland was a nightmare back then. Too easy to be lost.”

Merrit folded the timeline and handed it back to Danny. He’d connected his set of dots quite well indeed. As for Lonnie’s blackmail, he knew enough about the business of the orphanage—Kate’s drop-off, Kevin’s adoption—to understand what Lonnie was truly holding over Liam’s head: Kevin’s peace of mind.

Inside the studio, unsuspecting Kevin placed a bowl on a shelf that already held a potpourri of wooden items. He disappeared from view, taking the light with him.

Danny pulled Merrit up by the elbow and waved her ahead of him into the kitchen. “You’d best go.”

Liam had decided to fix the evening meal himself as evidenced by the smell of cooking tomatoes. Chicken strips simmered in the sauce while Liam chopped mushrooms and tossed them into the pan. “Only potatoes to pour this mess onto, I’m afraid. Merrit, join us?”

“I’d better hold off on the family dinners for now. But I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

Liam stopped chopping. The knife blade glinted. “Oh yes.”

• 46 •

Well before dawn, Kevin eased himself into Liam’s house and tiptoed past his bedroom. A hitch in Liam’s snores caught Kevin with hand on the study’s doorknob. The grandfather clock gonged once for the half hour, and Liam’s breath resumed its sleep pattern. The knob slipped under Kevin’s moist grip. Still locked, this door, which wasn’t Liam’s usual way.

Kevin’s palms itched with the need to know why Liam had started locking this door. Something irksome stank the air, to be sure, and Kevin hadn’t liked the hushed conversation he spied between Danny and Merrit last night, loitering there on the back porch. Somehow, they’d found a common ground, and Kevin had a feeling they weren’t about to share it with him.

Kevin set his ear against the guest room door across the hall. Danny snuffled in his sleep.

The study door beckoned him again. Liam had apparently forgotten that as the contractor for the house, Kevin could intrude at will. This memory lapse worried Kevin. It could be the mental fog of old age, but more likely Liam was distracted for less benign reasons.

He steadied his hand and inserted the master key in the lock. Liam’s sanctum was almost laughable in its masculinity, right down to the print of hunting dogs leading a merry band of steeplechasers. Kevin entered often enough to borrow a book but until now had never breeched Liam’s trust. He parted the curtains, already noting this amiss. Liam never bothered closing them. Upon turning to sight along the moonlit stream, he caught a second anomaly. On a desk otherwise empty of gadgetry—no pencil sharpener, no calculator, nothing but a leather blotter and matching pen holder—sat a fancy laptop computer. A bead of disquiet settled in Kevin’s throat. He could have sworn that Liam was computer-phobic.

Saying a prayer of forgiveness for which Father Dooley would be proud, he pressed the power button. The computer whirred through its start-up routine and then spoke to Kevin through a personalized password request.
Hello, Milady, you know what to enter in the spaces below
.

After a long pause, Kevin wrenched open the first desk drawer, and—God forgive him for this transgression also—those were his hands exercising their unspeakable need to find a sales receipt. Could be Ivan had needed the money and sold Liam the machine straight out of his workroom. Could be. Kevin didn’t recognize the absurdity of his search for a receipt until his hands landed on the last thing he’d expected to find. A knife.

“Ah Christ,” he whispered into the dark, realizing there must be more to discover.

• 47 •

Merrit sat in her usual spot on the plaza, missing Marcus. Around her, Liam’s petitioners mingled and waited their turns while Liam spoke to a grandmotherly type who smiled at something Liam said.

The sun had shifted position since her first days in Lisfenora. Twilight already softened the edges of the shops. Merrit tucked her sunglasses into her purse, which was now so heavy that the straps left dents in her shoulder. Time to clean house, she thought, and pulled the freakish thing onto her lap.

She’d just pulled out a wadded baggage claim ticket when she caught sight of Ivan ducking and weaving toward her. Poor Ivan. He was doomed to turn into an anxious little-old-lady man in need of chamomile tea blends.

Ivan arrived and stood before her, stepping from foot to foot. He’d cut his hair so short that he look scalped. “Danny came to see me this morning.”

Merrit, who had started to pull crumpled receipts out of her purse, paused at his tone. She knew it well enough and always pictured a weasel in a coyote disguise, not so wily but pretending at it.

“There might be a problem, I am not sure.” Ivan cleared his throat. “Danny is still questioning. He could still ruin my life.”

Indeed, what about Danny? All day long, she’d been expecting the Garda to arrive and cart Liam off.

“After I saw Kate dead,” Ivan said, “I told Danny that before the party I heard her arguing with Lonnie about money, but that is not true. I do not know who he was talking to. He was on the phone. Could be to you.”

Merrit gathered a mound of purse garbage onto her lap and crushed it into a ball the size of a grapefruit. She lobbed it into the garbage can sitting next to the bench. Now that Ivan’s hair was short, Merrit noticed his stretched and reddened right earlobe. Ivan yanked on it. “Danny is persecuting me,” he said.

Merrit had a better theory. Maybe Danny was still conflicted about Liam and couldn’t help pursuing the possibility of another truth, any truth at all.

“He will want to know why I lied and that is more obstruction. But it is obvious I fibbed because I wanted this business finished. No more inquiries, no more risk. Kate was the best candidate for killer, that was my thinking, and it was too perfect an opportunity. That is why I said I heard her arguing with Lonnie.”

“He’d probably leave you alone if you stopped acting squirrely all the time.”

“But I cannot help it. I cannot leave Ireland. I have to save my love.”

Merrit halted in the midst of pulling out a tangled length of yarn. Ivan. In love. In secret love at that. No wonder he was twitchy. This had to be about one of the O’Brien daughters with their ridiculous names. “The youngest one, Constanza?”

“How did you know? Does everyone know? No one can know yet until we are ready to tell Mr. O’Brien. For now we act friendly with each other, nothing more.” Ivan squirmed. “But that is not the point. Why can Danny not believe that Kate killed Lonnie and leave me alone?”

Beyond Ivan and the layers of people behind him, Liam stood up after dismissing the grandmotherly woman with a smile and a shoulder squeeze.

“I’m driving him home today,” Merrit said.

She didn’t mention that an information booth volunteer had found her in the crowd and asked her for this surprising favor on Kevin’s behalf. Perhaps he was starting to come around. She could hope at least.

“So I should not worry, you think?” Ivan said. “That Danny still questions?”

“Go on, Ivan, be happy.”

“You are the one to say that to me, absurd.”

She waved him away with a nod to acknowledge that they could both use a little practice on that front.