The Best American Mystery Stories 2012 (42 page)

From Fanny's account, there was no doubt that “Paddy” was Jack, up to his old tricks. As always, they'd caught up to him, only this time with his wife and son as stricken witnesses and a gallery of ramblers to spread the gossip as fast as their legs could carry it.

Myles knew trouble when he saw it and this had all the makings. He looked at the intruder with unvarnished hostility. Fanny Wilcox had not been granted her fair share of nature's bounty. In fact, she was one of the ugliest people Myles had ever laid eyes on; more detached observers would readily agree. Under five feet and somewhat obese, she walked with a bowlegged limp and had one glass eye that looked dead, almost amphibian. To cap it off, she spoke in a high-pitched Yorkshire dialect, “Gur blimey, a rum lot, eh wot?”—as enervating to the Celtic ear as fingernails on a blackboard.

To Myles's amazement, Kitty finished her tea and, with elaborate politeness, then invited Mrs. Wilcox to stay: “Just for the night.” But Myles was having none of it. “Mammie, I don't believe a word of what she's saying. How do we know she's telling the truth? And why can't we wait till Da comes home? Besides, where is she going to sleep? We don't have any room for visitors, unless she wants to sleep in the hay shed.” He said all this while glaring at Mrs. Wilcox and before Kitty had time to issue a reprimand. Embarrassed by his outburst, she now took control. “Myles Hogan, you will not talk to a guest like that. Apologize at once!” But Myles was in no mood to back down in front of this creature he sensed was up to no good. “I will not apologize. I haven't done anything to apologize for. But I'm going to see what Da has to say before I listen to one more word from either a yez.” With that he bounded out of the parlor and made an elaborate display of stomping up the creaky wooden stairs.

Jack came home after all the ramblers had departed. It was quiet in the kitchen when he walked in to the unlovely presence of Fanny, sitting by the fire, teacup in hand. Caught red-handed, “Paddy” came clean and acknowledged that yes, he and Fanny had “grown fond of each other.” Myles, listening from the upstairs loft, couldn't believe his ears. He'd been wrong and now his worst fears were being realized. This creature was going to stay here, which meant he would have to give up his room and sleep in the dark, dingy parlor on the lumpy old horsehair sofa.

There was one thing Myles didn't understand: his father's lack of taste. Surely, Myles thought, if his father was going to find another woman to “date,” he could have picked someone who was at least presentable. Myles just couldn't imagine his handsome father being seen with Fanny Wilcox in public, or whatever else “being fond of” meant. When he mentioned this to his mother, she simply said, “Men will do strange things for drink, son. I hope you never know what that's like.”

The comment made no sense to Myles, but, watching his mother's mouth tighten, he let it go. But he vowed then and there that this ugly and evil creature had to go. He had no idea of how, but he knew he hated her and would stop at nothing to protect his family from this cackling menace.

Whatever was worked out by the adults, Mrs. Wilcox seemed in no hurry to leave. Whenever she went for one of her solitary walks around the farm, Myles could hear his parents fighting. First his mother's voice raised in consternation; then his father's usually soft tenor voice taking on a hoarse, frightening harshness. Sometimes, too depressed to work, Myles would idle in the hay shed, leafing through a comic book, pretending to be busy. Terrified of losing his da again, he began to conjure up schemes to rid Kildargan of Mrs. Wilcox.

This took little effort, for Fanny Wilcox—having always been childless—made no bones about her dislike for children, especially boys and Myles in particular. She kept on referring to him as “our knuck”—a phase he, fortunately, never understood—in her grating, screechy dialect. No one told her to knock off the obvious taunting. Later she tried charming him, but soon gave up in the face of his silent disdain. Myles went out of his way to be rude, refusing to even be in the same room when she was present.

After a month of brooding hatred, he decided to kill Mrs. Wilcox. It soon became an obsession. At first he felt guilty, pacing his room at night and imagining his confession to Father Cavanagh. After all, this would be murder, clearly a mortal sin. Fires of hell for eternity—no priest could even offer him absolution.

On the other hand, Mrs. Wilcox wasn't even a Catholic. She was barely human—some kind of Protestant. She was going to burn in hell anyway. Surely it was no sin to rid his family of this parasite; it'd be like killing a rat or shooting a cuckoo to keep it from preying on an innocent robin's nest. God would understand this and so would Father Cavanagh.

Seizing on this line of thought, Myles felt relieved, free to focus on concrete plans.

His first idea was to follow Fanny on one of the walks, push her into one of the sinkholes near the far field, where no one would ever find her. Myles had seen one of those quagmires swallow a two-thousand-pound cow; even eight strong farmers pulling on the end of a rope couldn't save her. He discarded the notion only when he remembered how slowly the cow sank; it took at least eight hours. He could imagine Fanny Wilcox, stuck and screaming in her shrill Yorkshire gibberish that the whole valley would be summoned to witness her accusations.

He finally settled on a concrete plan. It was as simple as it was vicious. He would invite Mrs. Wilcox to go hunting with him in the lower meadow, there would be an accident, and she wouldn't come back. He rehearsed his lines for the aftermath.

“I don't know, Mammie. It all happened so fast. Mrs. Wilcox wanted to learn to shoot and I let her give it a go. The borders were barking, which startled her, then the gun backfired and then she was laying there, the dogs surrounding her barking like they'd gone mad . . . I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have let her use the gun. It's all my fault.”

He imagined his mother and the neighbors trying to console him.

“Now, Myles, you shouldn't blame yourself. Mrs. Wilcox was a grown woman, capable of making a decision. I'm sure you were just trying to be nice to her. But I know this must be very hard for you.”

It was now only a matter of how to get his quarry in the lower meadow on a different kind of hunting expedition. Never an athletic person, Mrs. Wilcox was not likely to jump at the chance to go hunting; but Myles was determined to convince her.

“Mrs. Wilcox, would you be interested in seeing where the pheasants lay their eggs in the far field?”

“Wot is this? A wildlife outin' being offered by our knuck? Well, well, well . . . Wonders never cease. An' I thought ye didn't like me very much. We'll see. Maybe when I'm feeling a little bettah. Not today, luv. Run along now.”

“All right, Mrs. Wilcox. I could even teach you how to shoot rabbits and foxes. Might come in handy sometime if you're going to be around Kildargan.”

“Well, it might, at that. I nevah thought a' that. Me, shootin'. Blimey! You 'ave some imagination for a young lad. I may have misjudged ye. I do believe I'll take ye up on it, soon as I'm feelin' a bit more chipper.”

Myles smiled and shivered at the ease of his conquest. Now the question: did he have the nerve to pull this off? He'd killed and seen killing before: Billy Flood butchering a hog; Packie Ryan shooting his old sheepdog, Ben; Peter Doyle putting down the bay colt with the broken leg. No one liked it; they just did what had to be done in the situation. This was no different; just something that had to be done. Another hard truth.

He carefully rehearsed each step until he had it down by heart. First have her handle the gun to get her fingerprints on it—all the detective comics made this point. Then teach her to aim it. Next, take the gun away in mock anger at her awkwardness, start to walk away, turn around, aim, and fire at point-blank range. Easy. Like shooting a jackdaw on a fencepost.

For several weeks, as the days grew shorter, Myles began to panic, badgering Mrs. Wilcox about her promise to go hunting. She kept putting him off; it never seemed to be quite the right time. Maybe she was on to him, evil mind reading evil mind. He seldom slept for more than a couple of hours, and when he did, his dreams turned to nightmares of blood and gore from which he'd awake screaming. Even daylight brought no relief, his mind a chamber of horrors: Father Cavanagh's voice condemning him to hell; Mrs. Wilcox's mangled ghost at the window; Myles hanging from a scaffold at Mountjoy Jail, body twisting in the wind.

He was cleaning out the cowshed when Jimmy Dunphy's high-pitched whistle sent the borders into their frenzied greeting. They knew Jimmy but never ceased to greet him with full-throated barking, delighted at the chance to show off their guarding prowess. This time Jimmy was lucky: Kitty was there to greet him with her steady smile, which faded when she saw the little green telegram in his arthritic fingers.

He went into his ritual delivery, which infuriated Kitty and destroyed any chance Jimmy had of being invited in for a tea and scones. Myles came up from the shed at the sound of the borders, just in time to hear Jimmy plead, “Maybe I should wait in case you want to send word back.” This time Myles didn't say anything; he just gave Jimmy a hard stare as Kitty abruptly turned her back on Jimmy and trotted down the stairs, tripping over the borders as they swarmed with the excitement of the moment.

Halfway to the kitchen, Kitty pulled up and said, “Oh, my God, the telegram is for Fanny. Do you know where she is?” Myles had seen her go for her regular walk about an hour earlier, and he instinctively grabbed the telegram and ran in the direction he'd seen Mrs. Wilcox go.

He met her at the hazel corral, walking slowly toward the farmhouse, taking in the warmth of the sun as it rose from behind the Sugarloaf. She looked small and vulnerable, and for a moment Myles felt sorry for her and guilty of his wicked design on her life. Seeing him sprinting toward her, she immediately erased his guilt with, “Well, well . . . if it isn't our knuck, snooping around, are we?” Myles just stared at her in his practiced nonchalance, held up the telegram, and said, “Mammie said this is for you. The postman just delivered it.”

Fanny snatched the telegram from Myles's outstretched hand and slit the little green envelope with one sharp flick of her talonlike fingernail. Myles watched her as she read the brief message. After several seconds, she looked past him with her glass eye and muttered, “Oh, dear. I must go back at once. There's been a dreadful death at Windgate. Poor Peter Boyle, one of my boarders, has hanged hisself in the upstairs bathroom.” With that she turned and trotted toward the farmhouse in her bandy-legged gait, puffing and panting, with Myles walking behind her at a fast clip to keep up.

Mrs. Wilcox quickly related her story to Kitty. Jack was out in the fields, fixing fences, and Myles ran down to tell him the news. He said nothing, just came back to the house, briefly spoke with Fanny, then grabbed Myles's bike and rode off to Enniskerry to fetch Ned Delaney for Fanny's departure in the morning.

Next morning, as the sun's first rays edged across the Sugarloaf range, Myles staggered downstairs to find Mrs. Wilcox packed, with Ned Delaney's green Vauxhall idling at the road gate. She begged Myles for a hug, and without hesitation he clung to her and sobbed as though his heart were breaking.

“Wot's a mattah? Don't take on so. I didn't even think ya liked me . . . Blimey! Our knuck has a 'art after all.”

“Bye, Mrs. Wilcox. Sorry we didn't have a chance to go hunting. Maybe some other time—if you ever come back.”

“Aye, son. Maybe then. Between you 'n' me, that may be a while. I doubt I'll be back. But you can come stay wi' me in Birmingham. I know a lot a young ladies that'd like the cut a yer jib, if ya know wot I mean. Take care, lad. Yer not such a bad knuck, after all . . .”

The Hogan family—all three of them—waved goodbye as De­laney's taxi disappeared around the bend down the Wexford Road. They walked back to the house in silence, like a funeral procession, each in a private turmoil they dared not speak.

Something had died during Fanny's stay; intuitively, they all knew that the innocent laughter and family joy they'd known just a few weeks ago was gone forever. The only question for Myles was how he would get through the next few days without letting his relief, grief, and anger spill out all over the kitchen floor. What was he going to say to his da? To Mammie? To his pals in school? To the snooping neighbors?

Predictably, Jack took the line of least resistance: as soon as the green taxi was out of sight, he promptly changed his clothes, pumped up the bike tires, and muttered something about going to Borris to talk to Jimmy Doran about a horse. From the look on Kitty's face, Myles knew she didn't believe a word of it. They had no reason to trust him or believe a word he said. Myles could see some combination of worry and alarm on his mother's face. It was a new look, one that he had never seen before.

No longer able to stand the furtive look on his father's face, Myles hastily dodged out to the hay shed to pursue his chores. From there he could overhear his parents' voices, raised in anger. Kitty spoke first: “How do I know you're going to Doran's? You always make up some cock-'n'-bull story when all you're doing is goin' to the Joyce's pub. Or are you just going back with Fanny to Windgate? Why don't you just be man enough to tell me this time, not sneaking off, as usual?” Jack, his soft tenor now hoarse with anger: “I'll do whatever I feckin' well please, and no woman is going to tell me where I can come or go. I was goin' to Jimmy Doran's, but now I think I'll go straight to Joyce's. Why the hell not? Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. It's all the same to the high-and-mighty Kitty Cusack. You can go straight to hell, woman, for all I care.” Myles heard his mother mutter something unintelligible before they broke off with his da slamming the kitchen door behind him and storming into the farmyard with his hat and coat on.