Habit of Fear (34 page)

“Just talk,” he said. “We can use your room if you like and leave the door open for propriety’s sake.”

When they had settled in, he said, “They’re your buckos, all right. A man named Devlin came forward and identified them. There will be some notification of kin going on before their names are given out, but I’m afraid you’ll be in for it, Mrs. Hayes. The whole story may break out into the open. What I’m to ask you here is whether you saw them again in Donegal.”

“Yes.”

When she had finished telling of her encounter with Kincaid and Donahue, he said, “The silly fools.” Then: “But they were caught between the devil and the sea, weren’t they? Isn’t it remarkable, the similarity in
hit
techniques between terrorists and gangsters? But sure, what is one but the other?”

Julie said nothing.

“Our lot try for the poetic symbol as well: Aengus’s Cave.”

She felt the chill run down her back, and of course that was what had most grieved her, the desecration of her father’s place, which she had wanted to keep a shrine. No. Be honest, Julie: what you’re grieving for is the death of a dream. Then she thought about what the detective had said—the poetic symbol—and remembered instantly her session with him and Special Branch Inspector Costello, in which one of them had said that the ONI were a younger lot, to whom the name Aengus would mean little. “Sergeant Carr, do you know who killed Kincaid and Donahue?”

Carr rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not like the IRA, now, is it, them being so close to Quinlan? But I don’t think the IRA would have embraced them if, as they told you, they intended to stay in Ireland.”

“And the ONI?”

“There has to be a reason. We said it before of Donavan’s death: even our terrorists don’t kill without reason.”

“An exchange of favors, then, with Sweets Romano. We said that before too,” Julie said.

Carr merely nodded, an uncertain gesture toward affirmation. “When do you plan to return to the States, Mrs. Hayes?”

“The day after tomorrow,” Julie said.

Carr smiled, almost wistfully. “There’s an Aer Lingus flight in the morning. Both Inspector Duffy and Inspector Superintendent Fitzgerald feel that it would be in your best interests if we could get you aboard the earliest possible flight. They both sent you their warmest regards and directed me to particularly thank you for your cooperation.”

“Yeah,” Julie said and got up. “I’ll pack as soon as you leave, Sergeant Carr.”

“I daresay you’ll be glad to get home.” “I daresay.”

I
T WAS THE QUESTIONS
he had not asked that Julie mulled during the long flight home, chief among them whether or not she had found further trace of her father. She read her notes from the beginning. There was a terrible ending to one of the articles she had yet to write for the Sunday magazine, the story of rape and vengeance.

And of the search? Afterward she was sure she had known in her soul the—for her—heartbreaking story that appeared in the New York newspapers the next day with the dateline, Ballymahon, Ire.

An internationally known artist, Edna O’Shea, was arrested yesterday as the leader of the outlawed Irish extremist group known as the ONI. Miss O’Shea had been under suspicion as a member of the Provisional IRA for some years. It is now suspected that she led the split from the parent group. The ONI, which stands for One Nation Indivisible, takes the intransigent position on the union of north and south, and is known to have ties with international terrorism. What led to Miss O’Shea’s arrest was the confession of a suspected ONI member that he had taken part, on her orders, in the killing of two Americans hiding out in Ireland and under indictment in New York for felonious assault.

Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and a recipient of lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic. The author of seventeen crime novels, including the Mrs. Norris Series and the Julie Hayes Series; three historical novels; and numerous short stories; she has served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and is a founder of Sisters in Crime.

Born in Chicago in 1916, she grew up on farms in Wisconsin and Illinois and graduated from college into the Great Depression. She found employment as a magic-show promoter, which took her to small towns all over the country, and subsequently worked on the WPA Writers Project in advertising and industrial relations. During World War II, she directed the benefits program of a major meatpacking company for its more than eighty thousand employees in military service. She was married for forty-seven years to the late Harry Davis, an actor, with whom she traveled abroad extensively. She currently lives in Palisades, New York.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1987 by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Cover design by Tracey Dunham

978-1-4804-6046-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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