Malarkey (32 page)

"George?"

"Dad's okay."

"I le' tha' sucker whop me on the head." He licked his cut lip.
"Howzzat for incompetence?"

"Outstanding," I said unsteadily. I stayed with him, stroking
his hand, until he fell sound asleep.

To my surprise, Dr. Hanlon was still waiting in the hall when
I stuck my head out. He took me to the hospital tea shop over my
protests—Jay wouldn't wake for several hours, he assured me—and
fed me tea and scones while he gave me a thorough report. Much of
what he said passed over my head. I was too dazed and tired to
think, but I did gather that Jay was going to be fine. They were
keeping him overnight for observation, and I could take him home in
the morning. Meanwhile, I was welcome to stay in the room with
him. The orderly would bring a cot. I liked that idea.

Consequently, I was napping and my husband was still
sleeping soundly when Maeve and my father, Alex, Barbara, Grace
Flynn looking bilious, Artie, a silent Mike Novak, Mrs. O'Brien from
Ballymann House, and Inspector Mahon all showed up in the
corridor. Most of them seemed to be carrying flowers, and Maeve
had brought my purse.

She handed it to me once I had staggered to my feet to greet
them.

"What price folly?" she crowed.

We grinned at each other like idiots.

My father said, "I drove the Toyota."

"Dad!" I felt obliged to protest, but I was proud of him.

The Toyota was in the car park, he announced with
satisfaction not untinged with guilt. "I followed Maeve." He beamed.
"Jay looks splendid, my dear." How he could tell that from one
glimpse through a crack in the privacy curtain I didn't know, but I
wasn't going to argue. I kissed his cheek.

"The creature!" Mrs. O'Brien said in tones of utmost
admiration. She thrust a magnificent bouquet of daffodils at me. She
must have cut them from her own garden. Commercial growers don't
stock that many varieties. "I promised me brother I'd see how Mr.
Dodge is faring in hospital. Joe sends his respects. He's writing up a
monster report this minute, or he'd come in person."

I thanked her. Strategic withdrawal? Evidently Joe and
Maeve were still at odds—or possibly Joe and Chief Inspector Mahon.
Mahon stood apart, quiet.

So did Grace and Artie.

I went over to Grace and hugged her. I also shook Artie's
hand. His palm was damp and his eyes shifted. He gave a little giggle.
Of such are heroes made.

"How did you know, Grace?"

"Sure, everybody knows there's a cave in the woods. Teresa
Tierney called Mother, and mam sent Ellen, that's me sister, to tell
me there was a search on."

"And Artie admitted he knew the way in?"

She gave Artie a look compounded of contempt and
affection. "Didn't Tommy tell me all about them dirty pictures? I
know Tommy. He'd have to show off to somebody. So I chased Artie
down at work and told him to nip along to the cottage."

Just like that. I thanked both of them again and so did Dad,
and they left looking pleased with themselves. Mrs. O'Brien slipped
out during Grace's tale. The crowd was thinning.

Barbara and Alex thrust hothouse mums into my arms. I
juggled the mums and the daffs to a table that looked like a small
altar. A not-too-gruesome crucifix hung above it.

Barbara said they were on their way to Wexford to see Liam,
who had been airlifted to the county hospital to undergo emergency
surgery. He was bleeding internally.

"Then he's still alive? I'm so glad." I was glad—and puzzled.
"Does anyone know how he came to be shut up in the folly with
Jay?"

"That's the million dollar question." Mike Novak's face was
grim.

Silence. Mahon cleared his throat.

"Do you know, inspector?"

"I do not. We're waiting until Hanlon lets us interview your
husband."

That explained the Garda on duty at Jay's bedside. The man
was standing out in the corridor as he had been since my arrival,
patient and silent. I wondered what he was thinking.

Barbara said, "We'll have to destroy the folly."

Maeve gave a muted shriek. "You will not. It's a National
Treasure, and I intend to excavate it."

Alex's mouth curved. "What about the Victorian porn?"

"Regency porn," Maeve corrected, prim. "When I've done
with the dolmen, set up a turnstile and charge admission." Everyone
but Mahon laughed.

I said, "I think I missed something. Did you enter the
folly?"

Maeve looked smug. "Chief Inspector Mahon kindly allowed
Professor Dailey and me a glimpse."

"When the crime scene lot had finished their work," Mahon
said with the air of a man confessing mortal sin to a cardinal. I could
see he was embarrassed, either by the dirty pictures or by his
concession to Maeve's curiosity.

"That's what took us so long, Lark," my father explained.
"We didn't hurry. We knew you'd want time alone with Jay. The
megalith is perfectly splendid!"

If I looked at Maeve I'd fall into uncontrollable giggles.
"Never mind the dolmen. What about the pictures?"

Maeve gave an impatient shrug. "The usual. Gentlemen in
starched cravats and naked women. I daresay the artwork is well
enough in its way. The stone at the entrance reminds me of the
architectural oddments in those huge display rooms at the Victoria
and Albert."

I ransacked my memory. "The rooms they set up for art
students?"

"Precisely. The Victorians were clever at reproduction.
When I was an undergraduate I could never tell the real stuff from
the plaster casts without reading the labels. Not that our door is
plaster. Some native craftsman shaped a real stone and mounted it
on bearings. I fancy my colleagues in industrial archaeology will find
the workmanship interesting."

"Clever," Mahon muttered. He was still embarrassed.

"This is all very well," Mike Novak grated, "but Liam's in
post op by now. We'd better head for Wexford."

The Steins took a subdued leave of us and went off with
Mike in the lead.

While Dad and I said goodbye to Alex and Barbara in the
corridor, Maeve had taken a long look at Jay. "He'll be out for hours
yet," she observed when I joined her at the sickbed.

I touched Jay's hand. He frowned a little and made a vague
noise, then settled into his form like a hare. His breathing came slow
and easy. The frown smoothed.

"Come with us," Dad urged. "We're meeting Maeve's
students for pizza. You need sustenance."

I explained about the scones. "I want to be here when Jay
wakes up." Mahon looked disappointed.

Dad and Maeve left, promising to return for me, and Mahon
and I settled in to wait each other out. I had no intention of
permitting the police to interrogate Jay unless I was there to run
interference. He'd undergone a horrifying ordeal. I would have
trusted Joe Kennedy to question him, but not Mahon. I didn't know
Mahon well enough.

I sat on the cot and the chief inspector sat on a visitor's chair
by the impromptu flower stand. He said polite things about Jay, and I
said polite things about Garda responsiveness. Finally he gave me a
small, wry smile and stood up. "I'll return in an hour or so, Mrs.
Dodge. We do need answers, you know."

I rose, too, and said I understood. God knows I had a few
questions myself. As I drowsed on the cot the questions chased each
other through my mind. If Liam hadn't abducted Jay, had Tommy?
Why? How had Liam come to be in the folly? Had Tommy knifed
him? Who killed Slade Wheeler? And so on.

Since I didn't have any answers I let my thoughts drift. An
astonishing afternoon. I would have to call Mother and the Dean. I'd
forgotten the Dean. I hoped he hadn't watched the eleven o'clock
news. I wondered what Ma would think of Grace Flynn.

Grace and Artie. I thought about Artie, whom nobody except
his mother and my father would ever call Arthur. Artie was a born
henchman. He had been Tommy Tierney's henchman. Now he was
Grace's, a step in the right direction. As for Grace, she might not be
the Grainne of Maeve's legend, but she was a personality to be
reckoned with.

Grace was the kind of woman men burn cities for. I thought
of lines Yeats wrote about his own peculiar Grainne.

She thinks, part woman, three
parts a child,
That nobody looks; her
feet
Practice a tinker shuffle
Picked up on
a street.
       
 Like a long-legged fly upon the
stream,
       
 Her mind moves upon
silence.

Grace didn't yet know her full power. I wondered what
would happen when she found it out. The old stories about the
Grainnes and the Helens are always told from the male viewpoint,
but Grace was not going to adopt anyone's purposes but her own. I
had never had her kind of power and never would, but I respected
it.

Even the wisest man grows tense
with
some sort of violence...

Yeats, "Under Ben Bulben"

Jay woke with something like a yell. I jumped from the cot
and ran to his side, tangling myself in the curtain on the way. It was a
good thing they'd removed the IV. I would have knocked the pole
over.

"It's all right, Jay. You're going to be all right." I started the
mantra and held his hand—or he held mine. His grip hurt.

After a while he opened his eyes. "That was a winner. How
long have I been here?"

I checked my watch. It was, unbelievably, only half past
eight. "About five hours. Listen, Chief Inspector Mahon is coming
back soon, and he's going to want to interrogate you. Are you ready
for questions?"

He licked his lips. "Jesus, I suppose so. Is Liam...?" His eyes
squinched shut.

"Liam is in Wexford, in the county hospital."

"Ah, he's alive." He lay very still, eyes closed. "He kept
talking. I couldn't say anything, nothing at all."

"Joe said your mouth was taped shut."

He shuddered and opened his eyes. "I don't know why that
was so awful. It was dark and cold. I didn't like that." His voice
thickened. "I wanted water. My wrists and my head hurt, and I was
afraid it would take you a long time to find us. But the worst part was
not being able to answer Liam. He thought he was dying."

I sorted through the dozens of questions that sprang to
mind, but before I could ask any of them Mahon pulled the curtain
aside.

He didn't yank it open. He was tentative, polite. "Sorry to
intrude. Ah, Dodge, I see you're awake."

Jay nodded, frowning. His grip on my hand had eased. Now
it tightened again.

"As you may imagine, I have questions for you. Are you up to
answering them? I spoke with your physician."

"It's okay."

Mahon cleared his throat. "Mrs. Dodge—"

"Lark stays."

"Hmm." His face flushed, and he looked at the floor. "Well,
then, before we begin, I owe you an apology, Dodge. Sergeant
Kennedy relayed your feelings about the press release. By and large,
you know, we let the public relations types handle the media. There
were questions in the Dail over my conduct of the case, though, and
your foreign service people were asking questions, too, because the
Wheelers were U.S. citizens. The chief superintendent suggested I
give the reporters your name as a consulting expert. 'Twas
stretching a point, and I'd reservations of my own, but it flat out
didn't occur to me that I might put you in jeopardy, lad. I hope you
believe that."

Jay sighed. "You exposed my wife and my father-in-law to
harassment by the press. That was my main objection, though the
fact that the cottage is isolated worried me, too. After the break-
in..."

Mahon said heavily, "What's done is done. I don't mind
admitting I've had a very bad twenty-four hours."

Jay's mouth twitched. "Not half as bad as mine, friend."

"True, but your conscience is clear." Mahon gave a short
laugh. "Shall I call in my man? I want a record of what you say."
Mahon went out for his constable, and I brought a chair for
myself.

The Gardai seemed to think that was a good idea. There
were other chairs in the room, and the three of us were soon seated
around Jay's sickbed, they on one side and I on the other, like
opposing diplomats at a bumpy truce table. Jay decided he wanted
water, and we waited while the nurse fetched a covered Thermos
carafe with a bent straw. Finally, the constable put a fresh cassette in
his machine and pressed the record button.

Mahon identified himself and got Jay's statistics into the
record. "Now, then, sir, can you tell us the name of your
abductor?"

"Tommy Tierney," Jay said without hesitation. "He hit me
over the head while I was walking down to Stanyon. He was waiting
just beyond the rhododendrons that mark a split in the graveled
drive leading to Stanyon Hall."

"Did you see him as he attacked you?"

"No, but I regained consciousness while he was dragging me
over a stile into Stanyon Woods. I struggled with him, kicked him,
but my hands were bound. He hit me again with a sap. I saw it
coming. The next thing I knew I was in the...that tomb."

"The Stanyon folly?"

"Is that what they call it? It was cold as a tomb." Jay's grip
tightened on my hand. "I thought it had to be somewhere in the
woods, but I wasn't sure."

"You were found in the Stanyon folly. Were you alone when
you regained consciousness?"

"No, sir. Tierney had propped me in a chair and was tying
my feet. I kicked and yelled at him. He bound me then he whipped
out the adhesive tape."

"And you saw him clearly?"

"Yes. He had one of those big electric flashlights. I think it
was already in the chamber. He couldn't have carried it and me, not
very far."

"A torch," I supplied when Mahon looked blank.

"Ah, I see. Go on."

Jay rubbed his forehead. "He set the light down so it shone
on me. The battery was starting to fade. Still, I saw him face to face,
and I'll be happy to identify him when you take him."