Once Upon a Lie (9 page)

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied her purse and resisted the inclination to reach across and shove it down toward the end of the counter. The better course of action, she decided, was to pretend it wasn’t there. In it was Jack’s service revolver, the one that she had taken possession of years ago when it was obvious that no good could have come from him having it. She had planned on putting it in a safe-deposit box at the bank, its age now rendering it a law enforcement relic, but that meant she had to go to the bank and rent one. She didn’t have that kind of time. As sympathetically as Rodney Poole looked at her, Maeve didn’t think that he’d take kindly to her having a weapon in her bag.

“Sean Donovan was your first cousin?” he asked, pulling a small notebook out of his pocket. He dug deeper into the inside pocket of his jacket, rooting around for something clearly not there before going to his pants pockets and then the pockets on the outside of his sport coat.

Maeve let him go through the entire search. “Pen?” she asked, taking one out of the pocket of her apron. She motioned to a wooden stool on his side of the gleaming stainless-steel countertop. “Have a seat.”

He perched on the edge of the stool and opened his notebook. “Sean Donovan was your first cousin?”

“My mother and his father were siblings.”

“Were you close?”

At one time, yes, she thought. “No.” She leaned on the countertop. “Is it customary to question family members in a murder investigation?”

“Depends on the murder investigation,” he said.

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Maeve reached onto the rack behind her and selected a red velvet cupcake for him. He looked more tired, more spent, than anyone she had ever seen. Behind his brown eyes was something that she could almost put her finger on, almost place, but it eluded her. It wasn’t exactly sadness, but it was close. “Here. You look like you could use a sugar injection. And I’d be happy to pour you fifty cents’ worth of coffee, if you’re interested.”

“If you pour me a whole cup, I’ll give you the other fifty cents.”

She pretended to consider that for a moment. “You know what? You seem nice. I think I’ll stake you to a whole cup. It’s on me.” She paused at the door. “Milk? No sugar?”

“That’s it,” he said, seemingly surprised that she had guessed correctly.

She left the kitchen and went into the store, gathering her thoughts as she pulled the lever on the coffeepot. Granted, she didn’t know how most murder investigations went, but she had watched enough detective shows on television to know that they didn’t question people without cause. She also knew, and was always surprised, that the people they questioned seemed put out by the intrusion of one or two detectives. She decided that she would play against type and make him comfortable. Unless he was there to find out exactly what went into her oatmeal cookies, there had to be a reason he had driven all the way to Farringville, a good half hour to forty-five minutes from the city, no traffic.

She snapped a lid onto the coffee cup and took a deep breath before returning to the kitchen. She handed the cup to the detective. “I’m not sure, but I think this may be a dollar twenty-five’s worth.”

“You’re very generous,” he said, taking the lid off before taking a small sip. Maeve noted that the cupcake was gone, a crumb-filled wrapper all that was left. “Your father and his brother-in-law. Any bad blood?” he asked.

“We’re Irish, Detective. Define ‘bad blood.’” She crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it into the can behind her; she pushed another cupcake in his direction. “If you mean garden-variety grudge holding, then yes. If you mean something more serious, then, no.”

She wasn’t sure what he was writing in his notebook, but she didn’t think it was her definition of “bad blood.”

“And your cousin? Your relationship with him? Your father’s?”

That was trickier, and she gave herself a few seconds to think. Any longer than that and it would appear that she was trying too hard to put her feelings into words that wouldn’t incriminate her. “Pleasant.”

He flipped back through his notes. “He was”—flip, flip, flip—“six years older than you?”

She felt that a studied nonchalance was her best posture in this situation. “I guess that’s right. It’s hard to remember. I have a lot of cousins.” She traced a pattern on the countertop. “Boom, boom, boom. One right after another. I think there are twenty-six of us altogether.”

“Twenty-seven,” he said, looking down at his notebook. He realized why she had come up with the count. “Right. Twenty-six with the passing of Sean.” He went back to the notebook, not looking at her. “And you?”

“Only child.”

He let that go. “Your father. He lives in an assisted-living facility close by?”

She nodded.

“Still drives?”

She laughed. The thought of Jack behind the wheel, not sure of where he was going or how he would get there, would be almost comical to think about if it weren’t so sad. The most tragic day of Jack’s life—a close second to the day his beloved Claire was buried—was the day that Maeve had sold his 1964 Mustang three years earlier when it finally became clear that his mental slide was due not to dehydration, but to dementia. The look on his face when she told him it was gone, having brought him the check from the new owner to endorse, was etched in her brain. It had taken him only a day to forget that he had ever had a Mustang, let alone that it had been a classic in mint condition, but she remembered. She would never forget. It was the day she had broken his heart.

Poole was sipping his coffee and looking at her. “So the answer is no?”

She realized that she had never answered him. “The answer is no.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “Why?”

He didn’t respond. “Does your father still know how to take public transportation? Have friends who drive?”

“No and maybe. I don’t really keep track of who has a license at Buena del Sol.” As she watched him write in his book, she felt the knot in her stomach, the one that had started when she had laid eyes on his badge, begin to grow. Was this actually going where she thought it was going? If so, her worst fear had been revealed, taking shape right in front of her eyes. She looked at Poole, now finished writing, staring back at her, watching her face for any betrayal of the truth. She shook her head slowly. “Not him, Detective. Not my dad.”

“We have to cover all bases, Ms. Conlon.”

“He’s an old man with a brain that doesn’t let him remember what he had for breakfast by the time he gets to lunch.”

“You said it yourself: you’re the daughter of a cop. And only a cop could know some of the things that this perp knew.”

“Please. You have to believe me. It’s not him.”

He looked at her sadly. “Then who?”

She realized that she had slumped a little bit over the counter, her hands reaching out to him, pleading with him to believe her. She sat up straighter. “I don’t know.”

Poole snapped his notebook shut and put it into his pocket. He handed her the pen that she had lent him. “We’ll need to talk to him.”

She nodded, her head feeling wobbly on her neck. She thought back to the night that Sean had died and how Charlene Harrison had later reported that Jack had gone wandering that night. Great. Now he was a senile octogenarian with no alibi.

“If you think it would be better to have a lawyer present, you can arrange that.” He held her gaze. “It’s just a formality,” he said. “Covering all of the bases.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she said quickly, thinking that by doing so, she’d be helping to implicate Jack. When she thought about it, though, she knew her first call was going to be to Cal. She was sure he would have a different take. She’d have to remind him that having the baby strapped to his suit jacket wouldn’t be appropriate or appreciated.

They moved back into the store and she unlocked the front door. Poole turned, his hand on the doorknob. “Really, why were you speed dating, Detective Poole?”

He was considering whether or not to answer. He kept it simple and vague, just as he had the night they had first met. “Part of the case.”

A little sliver of fear pierced her brain. Was she part of the case because of her relationship to Jack? Or was there someone involved who was at the event? Was it the guy who wanted to know her sign? The tawdry-looking blonde with the big boobs who had gotten the attention of every man there?

He continued to linger by the door, studying her as she puzzled through the different scenarios in her mind. “I know this is more than a little strange, under the circumstances, but can I buy something before I leave? My littlest one would love some cupcakes, I imagine.”

If this was his way of leaving on good terms after practically accusing her father of murder, he was almost successful. Maeve went back around the counter on shaky legs and took out a box. “How old?” she asked, grateful to be asking questions and not answering them, even if moving on to something as benign as a discussion of his children was completely out of left field.

“Nine. I’ve got a couple of others, but they’re in college.”

It was out of her mouth before she could even process that it was a highly inappropriate question. “Change-of-life baby?”

He smiled. “More like save-your-marriage baby.” He shared her chagrined look, seeming to wonder why he had let that slip. “Anyway. I’d like four of those red velvet cupcakes. And if you have another four chocolate, that would be great.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “Wife will never forgive me if I don’t get her favorite.”

Maeve handed him the box, her signature raffia bow on top, a sticker with her lopsided cupcake logo holding it down. “It’s on me, Detective.” She pushed the twenty-dollar bill that he had laid on the counter back toward him.

He pushed it back toward her. “I can’t. For real,” he said.

Bribery, even in the form of cupcakes, was frowned upon by the NYPD. She took the twenty. “It wasn’t a bribe, if that’s what you were thinking,” she said.

“If it was, it would have been the best one ever,” he said, giving her that sad smile.

“I’d usually say, ‘Come again,’ but in this case, I don’t think I will. I hope that’s okay.” She handed him his change.

He nodded slowly. “I think that’s just fine.”

If it meant getting him to stop looking at her father, she would give him a daily supply of cupcakes.

After he left, and she watched his police-issue sedan roll out through the parking lot, past the stop sign, and onto the main road in town, she perched carefully on the edge of the stool behind the counter, her hands beneath her to steady them.

She thought about Poole’s theory that a cop had been involved.

Jack had been a cop once and a good one at that, but she felt sure that even after all this time, he would say that he was in the business of saving lives, not taking them.

CHAPTER 11

Jack was sitting on her back porch, a healthy pour of whiskey in a heavy tumbler in front of him. Although Maeve talked a good game, when he came to their house for dinner, she always allowed him a drink or two. She was less inclined to let him have his favorite cheddar cheese and buttery crackers, but tonight she had bent the rules to accommodate him. She wanted him to have the things he loved.

Maeve raised an eyebrow when she took in the thick slices of cheddar sitting atop crackers lined up in front of him. “Go easy, Dad. Pace yourself.”

He dismissed her with a flick of his hand. “When you get to be almost seventy like I am, you can eat all of the cheese and crackers you want. Look it up. It’s a law.”

As always, she didn’t correct him and tell him his real age. She found it amusing that his age always varied; some days he was in his fifties, on others he was closing in on seventy. Whatever it was, he always skewed younger. She was pretty sure he knew that eating cheese and crackers wasn’t on the books either, but she wasn’t sure. “Just this once,” she said, knowing that she couldn’t deny him even if it wasn’t just once.

He picked up another cracker, put a thick slice of cheddar on top of it, and popped it in his mouth, washing it all down with the last of his whiskey. He gave her a devilish smile. “If I’m going to the chair, I’m going with half a bag on,” he said.

Maeve and Jack were all that was left of their family, Maeve’s mother’s death denying Jack more children, Maeve more siblings. Jack’s stock answer, whenever she asked him why she’d been an only child, was, “Why have more when the one we have is perfect?” She had craved the companionship of a sister, even a brother, but what she lacked in siblings, she was lucky enough to have in a cadre of cousins: all of Jack’s siblings had at least five in their individual broods, ten at the most. She was never alone.

Except for when she was. And that’s when the trouble came.

Maeve knew, because Jack told her, that the “sun rose and set on her.” She always sensed that he felt if he loved her enough, it would be all she needed. He didn’t know she needed to be protected, too.

“I had something to tell you, but I forgot what it was,” Jack said, his reading glasses, the only other sign that he was advancing in age, slipping down his nose.

Maeve took a seat across from him at the wrought-iron table. “Did it have to do with book club? Weight lifting with Lefkowitz?”

He shook his head. “That’s not the name of the book.”

“I know, Dad,” Maeve said, resisting the urge to laugh. It wasn’t the name of the book, but it was a good title if she ever decided to try her hand at writing. She served him another cheese-and-cracker sandwich, which he gratefully accepted.

“Oh, and did you hear what happened?” he asked, already forgetting about what he wanted to tell her and on to the next thing.

“No, Dad. What happened?” she asked, preparing herself for a long story about trouble at Buena del Sol. He might not remember where he was and what he was doing most of the time, but he was very attuned to the social machinations of the seniors at the home.

“Sean died,” he said, obviously shocked by his nephew’s untimely passing. “Do you remember him?” He was always forgetting, so he assumed everyone else was, too. “Or was it Declan?” He scratched his head, leaving a speck of cheddar in his thick mop of white hair.