Malarkey (10 page)

I said, "No wonder you found the museum interesting."

"It's not academically interesting. There's not much left in
Ballitore for a scholar. The records of the Dublin Meeting are more
useful for my purposes, but I found the museum touching. The
building was restored by the Kildare County Council, even though
there are fewer than fifty Friends left in the area."

"That's impressive."

"Yes. The local people want to remember the Quaker
community." He sat silent for a while. "And, of course, they
remember the role of the Friends during the Great Famine. That's
what I'm studying. Quaker efforts in America to organize famine
relief were the genesis of the American Friends Service
Committee."

We were approaching Woodenbridge. I slowed and crossed
the bridge, bound for Avoca. "I thought you were just studying the
Dailey family."

"The Daileys left Ireland after the Wexford Rebellion. The
brutality was too much for them. In fact, the whole Quaker
population of Ireland began to dwindle from that time on, mostly
through immigration to America. There were less than five thousand
Irish Friends by the 1840s."

Maybe Quaker women had hereditary fertility problems, I
mused, irreverent. "But small as it was, the Dublin Meeting still had
enough energy to organize an international famine relief
effort?"

"They had help from the London Meeting, from the
Committee on Sufferings," Dad said seriously, "but yes. It doesn't
take many determined people to make a difference."

We crossed the river into the village of Avoca. The streets
had been laid out before the invention of the automobile, so I
concentrated on driving. When the Toyota broke through into open
country, I said, "Doesn't stumbling on mineshafts of historical fact
bother you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

I abandoned my extravagant metaphor. For a man who has
been married more than forty years to a poet, my father has a
curious resistance to figurative language. "I was thinking of the
dolmens, too, not just the museum. There we were, tootling through
the countryside, minding our own business, and all of a sudden,
wham, we were back in the Stone Age. It was like a time warp."

Dad chuckled. "I'm a historian. I like time travel."

A milk truck loomed, horn blaring. I crunched onto the
shoulder. A space warp. Our brushes with automotive disaster were
now so commonplace I was almost able to ignore them.

We made it to the cottage without mishap, though I nearly
turned off for Ballymann House in a fit of absent-mindedness.

At Bedrock Cottage, the Gardai had gone, and the long-
suffering constable had even tidied the kitchen before they left. I sent
Dad downstairs for a nap while I fixed dinner. As I was, what else,
peeling potatoes, the telephone rang.

It was Barbara Stein wondering whether the police had let
us return to the cottage. I assured her of that and thanked her for
dinner.

She laughed, a short unhappy sound. "I should have known
better than to put Kayla and Maeve at the same table."

"Ah, well, at least no blood was shed."

"So far. Who knows what the future may hold? Kayla
stormed around for an hour after you left. The drawing room smells
like a pub. Fortunately, she drank half a liter of gin and slept until
noon. She's been tying up one of the phone lines talking to her
lawyer ever since. Is George okay?"

I thought he was in fine shape and said so. I told her about
our trip to Ballitore, thanked her again, and announced that I had to
go back to my potatoes.

"Right. I just thought I'd mention that we tend to unwind in
the drawing room every afternoon around six-thirty. If the thought
isn't too repulsive, drop in and let us know what's happening."

That was kind. As I scraped away at the spuds, I reflected
that my initial hostility to Barbara was thawing. Alex was easy to
like. Barbara just required more effort. I was sorry for Kayla and
jealous of Grace. I wasn't sure what I felt about Maeve. I admired her
confidence.

I put the potatoes on the Rayburn, which I had switched
over to its cooking function. It had no broiler, so I would have to pan-
fry the lamb chops. I was rummaging among the pots for a skillet
when the telephone rang again.

This time it was Sgt. Kennedy. He sounded rather distant. He
was, he said, just checking to make sure the lads from Dublin had left
the cottage livable. Though there were smears of fingerprint powder
on the downstairs woodwork, I said everything was all right. The
smears weren't the sergeant's fault. I said flattering but true things
about his sister's B & B, too. That warmed him up a little.

I asked about Grace. She was safe and talking to the Arklow
solicitor. Kennedy reminded me that the inquest was set for ten
Monday in the hall of the disused Protestant church just down the
lane. Convenient. I promised to be there.

"Ah, sure," he said, "I almost forgot. Mahon said your
husband called this morning. Now where did I put the message?"
Sounds of rummaging among papers.

If Jay had called around eleven that morning, it would have
been 3:00 a.m. in Shoalwater. He must have stayed up all night. I felt
a twinge of guilt.

"Here it is. He's arriving at Dublin Airport at eleven
tomorrow and wants you to meet the plane."

"What!" I swore.

"How's that again?"

"I'm sorry." I fumbled in the desk and found paper and
pencil. "Aer Lingus, you said. What's the flight number?"

He read me the flight information. Apparently Mahon had
given Jay the phone number of Ballymann House, and Jay had called
there, too. Kennedy said his sister had tried to reach me several
times during the afternoon.

"My father and I drove to Kildare." I was so angry with Jay I
could barely articulate. What business did he have rushing to Ireland
to take charge? He hadn't even talked the situation over with
me.

Kennedy was making polite closing remarks.

I asked him, through my teeth, how the case was
progressing. He assured me that Mahon had it well in hand, but that
Toss Tierney's son had gone missing.

"His son? I thought the father was the one who
disappeared."

"They've both done a bunk," Kennedy said glumly. "The lad's
been gone since Easter Monday, too, but the missus didn't admit it to
me until today. I knew she was hiding something. Tommy Tierney
and I had a run-in this winter. He's a wide boy is our Tommy, and he
was one of Wheeler's wargamers to boot."

I whistled. "A suspicious character."

"He is that, but his da thinks the sun rises and sets in him.
Good evening then, Mrs. Dodge." Kennedy rang off without further
chat. Perhaps he regretted his openness. I supposed Mahon was
giving him some heat for misplacing a suspect.

As for me, I didn't care a great deal about the Tierneys one
way or the other, not having met either of them, though the younger
Tierney's flight suggested plausible scenarios. My mind was on
Jay.

I fumed through the preparation for dinner. The potatoes
scorched, an instance of sympathetic magic. By the time Dad
appeared, looking refreshed, I had calmed down enough to report
Jay's imminent arrival without swearing and throwing things.

"Jay's coming?" My father's face lit like a candle. "Splendid.
We can go fishing."

The next morning, I gave myself two hours for what should
have been a one hour drive to Dublin airport.

In the intervening time I had done a lot of thinking about
Jay, and about our marriage, mostly in tight, angry loops. My father's
pleasure at the thought of Jay's arrival tempered my fury somewhat.
On the surface, the two men had little in common, though Jay's
undergraduate degree is in history. Dad had greeted the news of my
decision to marry a police detective without enthusiasm. At some
point, however, the two men had bonded over fly fishing.

It was a good thing somebody wanted to fish with my father.
My brother, Tod, a stock broker, loathes wading for hours in frigid
streams. He once took a cell phone on a fishing trip with Dad and
disgraced himself by beeping. Dad could fish for hours in dead
silence. So, apparently, could my husband. I had no idea what they
talked about when they did speak.

"Fishing." I passed a dawdling car with vicious effectiveness
in the face of an oncoming coach. I was muttering to myself, partly
because the only radio station I could find was broadcasting in Irish.
"I'll dump the pair of them at a trout stream and leave them while I
do my own thing." I wasn't sure what that stale cliché
represented. Maybe I'd hang out at pubs. Or explore the used
bookstores. Or search out the remaining 1398 dolmens in
Ireland.

The Toyota labored up the wooded gorge beyond Ashford
and sped onto the southernmost stretch of motorway. North of
Newtownmountkennedy the road narrowed again and twisted
through glens that had to be prime trout fishing country. I was
making good time despite the tag-end of the rush hour traffic.

What I wanted Jay to do, beyond leaving me some space, I
didn't know. I realized my anger was excessive. Any husband would
worry about any wife embroiled with the law in a foreign country.
Jay had a right to worry, but he should have trusted my
judgment.

I had once found myself caught in the investigation of an
English murder. Jay had flown to the rescue then, too, and his
presence had eased my relations with the Metropolitan Police. But
this time I wasn't a suspect. I was peripheral to the investigation, a
mere witness after the fact. I didn't need to be rescued, and neither
did Dad. I was coping.

As I approached the Stillorgan Road, it occurred to me that I
could exact a measure of revenge by making Jay drive the Toyota
back to the cottage. On the other hand, I had to ride in the car, too,
and I hoped to live a bit longer. I wondered what his cop-mind would
make of local driving customs.

Possibly because of my preoccupation, I got lost on the
Eastlink and wound up at Malahide Castle. Malahide Castle is north
of the airport. It was also, that spring, the focus of major road
construction. When I finally found the N1 and headed for the airport,
I had three minutes to meet the plane. I chucked the car in the short-
term parking structure and sprinted down concrete stairs and across
a wide asphalt apron to the terminal. I wondered how long Jay would
wait for me before he called Interpol.

That was a little unfair. He looked unruffled when I found
him. He was standing near the now-deserted arrival gate, frowning
at something on his ticket folder the way he does when he isn't
wearing his reading glasses. His face looked a little bare without the
mustache he had shaved off that spring, but, hey, I recognized
him.

When he looked up and spotted me, his face went blank. He
was trained to look impassive when revealing emotion might be
compromising. I wondered what emotion he was masking.

I said, "I got lost. Sorry I'm late."

He gave me a spousal peck on the cheek, stuck his plane
ticket in the breast pocket of his jacket, and hoisted his ancient
garment bag from the carpet. The carrying case for his notebook
computer hung from one tweedy shoulder by its long strap. I took it
by way of being useful. The computer weighed four pounds, but he'd
stuffed books and papers in the case, too.

"How are you?" Sagging slightly under the weight of the
case, I led him back along the concourse.

"Doped."

That was not surprising. Jay has a well-founded flying
phobia, and the sensible way to deal with it is prescription
tranquilizers. I should have been grateful he'd taken them. "Then I
won't ask you to drive."

"Good thing." He swung along beside me. After a moment, he
added, "I can't anyway. You didn't list me as one of the drivers when
you hired the car."

True. He was at my mercy. I cheered up. Slightly.

I waited until I had negotiated the maze of roundabouts
leading from the airport to the Nl before I asked the obvious
question.

"Why did you come?"

He flinched as a large tanker sped by on the right. "I talked
to your mother. We're concerned about George. Mary thought I
might be able to smooth the way."

"There is no way to smooth," I said coldly, thinking I would
have a few good words to say to my mother. Nor was I mollified. Jay
was capable of resisting my mother's suggestions. "The Gardai have
been very considerate. Dad wasn't called to testify at the
inquest."

"But you were?"

"A formality." The tires squealed when I made a sharp left
onto Griffith Avenue. I'd almost missed the turn-off. The alternative
was O'Connell Street on a business day, a choice too horrible to
contemplate, according to the travel experts.

Jay yawned. "Suppose you tell me what happened."

"Okay, fine, I'll do that." I bit back a rude comment about
police interrogations. "You'd better rummage in my coin purse for
the bridge toll, though. I need fifty-five pee."

As he dug in my handbag and sorted through the unfamiliar
coins, I gave him a terse account of my discovery of Slade Wheeler's
body. I also went on to describe the scarifying dinner party and the
dramatis personae in some detail. Mind you, all the while I talked I
was threading my way past the east Dublin docks, flinging the
correct change into the toll basket, crossing the Liffey, tangling
myself in a major roundabout, and merging onto the Stillorgan Road
without ramming anybody. I thought it was an impressive
performance.

When I pulled up at a stoplight I looked over at Jay.

He yawned.

"Sorry to bore you."

"I'm not bored, but I'm not tracking either."

"Okay, I understand. But I still want to know why you
dropped everything and roared over here at the first hint of
trouble."

He stifled another yawn. "I can tell that you're spoiling for a
fight, Lark, and I'm willing to oblige when my brain starts
functioning."