The Whisper (23 page)

“That’s why you have to leave the investigation to the police. They’ll follow the evidence wherever it takes them.”

She turned from the paintings. “Was it blood on the torc and the ivy?”

“Yes.”

“At least it wasn’t Detective Acosta’s blood.” She glanced at Scoop. “There’s much, much more to the Celts than human sacrifice.”

Scoop almost smiled. “Feeling a little defensive about them?”

“I just don’t want to paint too incomplete a picture.”

“Makes sense a killer’s not going to pick happy Celtic symbols and whatnot to latch on to, right? What a Celt who’s been dead for a couple thousand years would think about what’s going on here doesn’t matter. I want whoever tried to drown Acosta.” Scoop’s expression, although still grim, softened somewhat. “You did all right in there, Sophie.”

“Detective Acosta wouldn’t have been here at all if I hadn’t—”

“Don’t go there. It won’t get you anywhere.”

Probably it wouldn’t, Sophie thought. The police would talk to Jeremiah Rush, if they hadn’t already, and find out if he’d told anyone else where she was headed. She hugged her arms to herself, suddenly cold again. “You all are taking another look at the incident with Percy Sr. in Ireland and the break-in here, aren’t you?”

“We’re taking care of it, Detective Malone.”

She attempted a smile. “I think I like the sound of Agent Malone better, although my brother would find a way to keep me out of the FBI academy.”

“What about Professor Malone?”

“That has an even better ring to it.”

Helen Carlisle swept into the room, alone, wearing a long, lightweight coat as if she’d just walked in from the street. Her dark hair was pulled back neatly, her red lipstick standing out against her pale skin. “The director of the museum called me as soon as he could, and I came right away. Thank heavens no one was seriously hurt.”

“Where were you?” Scoop asked.

“The house. Alone. The housekeeper might have seen me if you’d like me to provide an alibi.” When he didn’t respond, she turned to Sophie. “Did someone offer you something to drink? Would you like to sit down?”

“Walking around in here helps.”

“Of course. It’s a fantastic museum. It needs updating, but the trustees are working on a long-term plan…” Helen faltered, tears rising in her big eyes. “I’m trying to put up a brave face, but I feel so vulnerable. I keep thinking the phone will ring, or the door will open, and Percy will be there.” She spun around and faced Scoop. “I don’t believe my husband is involved in whatever’s going on, Detective Wisdom. Not for one second.”

“We just want to find him, Mrs. Carlisle,” Scoop said.

She nodded, tightening her coat around her. “I’m thinking about going to New York for a few days. I just want to be on my own—away from all this. I had a moment of panic about security, but if I were a target, I’d be dead now. It seems to me
police officers are more vulnerable than I am. It’s frightening, but whatever’s going on doesn’t really involve me.” She added coolly, “Or my husband.”

Scoop buttoned up his own jacket. “Then you’re not worried about him?”

“I wouldn’t think twice about where he is if not for Cliff’s death and now this with Detective Acosta.”

“Did your husband ever mention the break-in here?”

“No, why should he have? You’re grasping now, aren’t you, Detective? I have to go. I’m meeting the director. I never…” She shuddered, a glamorous, beautiful woman caught in the middle of a violent drama. “This isn’t what I signed on for. I don’t know if I’m up to it.”

She didn’t wait for a response as she swept back out of the gallery.

Sophie felt her energy flagging. “I have to stop at the tutoring center…and I promised a friend at BU I’d come by at the same time. I’m teaching a class there next semester.” She reined in her thoughts and focused on Scoop. “What about you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Hauling Detective Acosta around didn’t tear open any of your injuries?”

He shook his head. “All set.”

She smiled. “Would you tell me if you were about to double over in pain right now?”

It was clearly not what he’d expected her to say, and he smiled back at her. “Probably not.”

“Are you kicking yourself because you didn’t connect the dots and figure out sooner Cliff Rafferty was the police link to those local thugs?”

“That’s still an open investigation. Whatever happens, you
have your victories and your defeats in this job.” He shrugged. “You hope the defeats don’t get anyone killed.”

“If they do, you’d rather it be yourself who’s hurt than someone else?”

He didn’t answer. “Come on. I have my car. I’ll drop you off.”

“I don’t mind walking.”

Scoop put his arm over her shoulders. “I can’t wait to see you on that Irish panel, arguing with your colleagues about some point of ancient history. Is Celtic archaeology controversial?”

“It can be.”

He laughed softly. “That’s my point. Academics.” He let his arm fall to her waist and held her close. “You just saved a man’s life. The day could have gotten off to a worse start.”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

He tilted his head back. “What’s on your mind, Sophie?”

She lifted his hand and touched her fingertips to a jagged scar on his wrist. “The bomb did this to you. It burned your house. Cliff Rafferty was hanged. Now Frank Acosta was nearly drowned. Our perpetrator seems to be obsessed with Celtic rituals, appropriating bits and pieces of Celtic lore from a variety of sources, jumbling them up to suit his or her needs. Some scholars believe that burning, hanging and drowning represent fire, earth and water—fundamental elements associated with specific Celtic deities. The god Esus with earth, Taranis with fire, Teutates with water.”

“So you don’t think the choice of the tub was a coincidence?”

“It might have been quick thinking, since whoever is responsible couldn’t have known Detective Acosta would be here this morning. I’m not suggesting there’s a coherent strategy or recreation of any particular set of sacrificial rites at work.”

“Jay Augustine wasn’t a scholar of the devil and evil,” Scoop said. “He just latched on to what suited his purposes.”

“To kill.” Sophie could feel the blood draining from her face. “In 1984, the corpse of a young Celt was discovered in a bog in England. It was extremely well preserved because of the anaerobic conditions. He’d met a terribly violent death. He’d been hit on the head several times—hard enough that he’d have died soon after. But that’s not what killed him.”

“Was he burned, hanged or drowned?”

“Garroted, basically. The cord used was still around his neck two thousand years later. A stick had been tucked into the back of it to add to the force of the strangulation. It actually broke his neck.”

“Charming.”

“That wasn’t the end of it. Then his throat was cut and his body deposited in the bog. He could have been a willing victim, sacrificing his life for the welfare of the tribe, victory in battle—we don’t know. Whatever the purpose of his death, he’d have felt no pain after the initial blow.”

Scoop grimaced. “And here I thought you just dug up pretty jewelry buried for hundreds of years. Come on. Let’s go see your hockey players.”

“I think I will take you up on the offer of a ride over to the tutoring center.”

He slipped an arm around her. “I thought you might.”

After he dropped off Sophie with her hockey players, Scoop parked at the Whitcomb, changed clothes and walked up Beacon Street to the bow-front, early-nineteenth-century Garrison house. He’d gone back to the conference room after she’d left and checked in with Bob O’Reilly. They’d agreed to meet here, in the first-floor drawing room. It was used for meetings, parties and, on occasion, a practice room for Fiona and her friends. The offices of the foundation named in honor of Owen Garrison’s sister were located on the second and third floors. Dorothy Garrison’s drowning death off the coast of Maine at fourteen was connected, indirectly, to the death of Christopher Browning, Abigail’s first husband, eight years ago—four days into their honeymoon.

Lizzie Rush had a point about ripple effects, Scoop thought.

The Rushes would have put Bob up at any of their hotels, too, but he was staying here, in his niece’s attic apartment.

Bright autumn sunshine streamed through the tall windows that looked across busy Beacon Street to the Common, crawling with tourists, shoppers, kids and dogs. The gold-domed Massachusetts State House was a few doors up the street.

Bob cut his gaze over to Scoop. “You have your head screwed on straight with this Sophie Malone?”

Scoop shrugged. “More or less.”

“She’s not one of these women who come and go in your life. Whatever’s going on with you two isn’t the same.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can do my job.”

“You’re not on the case,” Bob said. “I’m not, either. That prick Yarborough threatened to report me when I showed up at the museum this morning.”

“You’d have done the same.”

“Yeah, probably.”

That was the end of that. Scoop noticed Fiona O’Reilly waiting for traffic on the other side of Beacon, some kind of instrument case slung over one shoulder. “As far as we can tell, Percy Carlisle hasn’t boarded a flight to the U.S. since Sophie saw him in Ireland.”

“Maybe he sprouted wings,” Bob said. “The way things are going, nothing would surprise me. Anyone wanting to fry, hang or drown us has had multiple opportunities.”

“That’s just a theory.”

“I know, I know.” He nodded out the window. “Here comes Fiona with her violin. She’s not getting any better on that thing. Either that or I just don’t like violin music.”

“We can go talk somewhere else.”

“Nah.” He continued to stare out the window as Fiona,
blonde hair flying, ran across the street. “We’ve all turned into shit magnets, Scoop. I thought it was Abigail. Widowed, kidnapped, John March’s only daughter. It’s not just her. It’s you and me, too.”

“It’s not always the enemies you know that get you,” Scoop said. “Sometimes it’s ones you don’t know.”

“Most of the time. Talk to me, Scoop. Talk to Abigail and me.”

“She’s here?”

He nodded. “She and Owen got back late last night.”

Owen Garrison entered the drawing room at the same time that Fiona came through the front door, smiling easily, as if she had nothing on her mind but a few hours of practicing in a quiet, pretty setting. She set her violin down and grabbed tall, angular Owen in a big hug. He looked over the top of her head at Bob and Scoop. “Abigail’s upstairs. I’ll stay down here with Fi.”

Scoop led the way. He could feel a pull of pain in his hip now. He hadn’t noticed any pain when he’d half carried Acosta down the hall. Worse had been hearing the running water, hearing Sophie yell for help—not knowing what was going on, if he’d get to her in time. He hadn’t told her that.

He hadn’t told her that he’d fallen in love with her. It was just that simple. Love at first sight. Him. Who’d have thought it?

He came to the attic landing and entered the small apartment. Abigail was on her feet. “Scoop,” she said, hugging him. “I’ve missed you.”

He laughed. “Yeah, right, let me go tell Owen—”

She grinned at him, a spark in her dark eyes—her father’s eyes. “You know what I mean. Well, you look better than when I saw you at the wedding.”

Bob grinned. “He reminds me of Herman Munster.” He nodded toward Abigail as he addressed Scoop. “Looks pretty
good, doesn’t she? Being rich and married agrees with her. You’d never know she was kidnapped and nearly killed a month ago.”

Abigail rolled her eyes. “At least you didn’t make a pregnancy joke. The first one who does, I shoot.”

“I’ll consider that fair warning,” Scoop said.

He pulled out a chair at the small table where Keira used to draw and paint. Bob hadn’t done much to the place. He sat at the table, too. Pads and pencils were stacked to one side. Scoop felt a tug of emotion. He, Abigail and Bob had bought the triple-decker together because they’d all needed a place to live and were looking at the same time, and it’d been a way to pool their resources in Boston’s expensive real estate market. As different as they were—in temperament, background, likes and dislikes—they’d become friends. When one would be chewing on a problem, they’d get out the pads and pens and a six-pack and brainstorm.

The past year had turned their lives upside down and changed them forever.

Abigail sat between the two men. Her baby was due in six months. Talk about big changes, Scoop thought.

“Did your father ever mention Sophie Malone to you?” he asked.

“No, but that wouldn’t be unusual. He’s always tried to keep a firewall between his job and his family. It hasn’t worked very well, though, has it?” Abigail was quiet a moment. “Strange how things work out sometimes.”

“I don’t think this was strange,” Scoop said.

“Destined?”

He shook his head. “Deliberate. What happened at the Carlisle Museum seven years ago and on that island a year ago and what happened here in Boston this past summer are all of a piece.”

Bob distributed the pads and pencils. “We can take our time,”
he said. “Fiona will be practicing that damn violin for at least a couple hours. You can save me from having to go down there.”

Abigail seemed comfortable to be back in her role as a detective. “All right,” she said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Kenmare, Southwest Ireland

Josie was yawning when Tim O’Donovan arrived in the pub in which she and Myles had situated themselves for most of the day, with breaks for walks back to the pier and disturbing calls from Boston. Another violent attack on a police officer. She and Myles both had felt stunningly useless. Seamus Harrigan had met with them briefly, essentially to tell them to stay out of the investigation. By dark, even Myles had seemed ready to give up and return to Dublin. He could look dead tired—he could
be
dead tired—but would never let his fatigue, or anything else, for that matter, interfere with his performance. It wasn’t just training. It was the way the man was hardwired.

O’Donovan wasn’t performing that night but had popped in
for a Guinness. He looked as if he had, indeed, spent the day at sea. “I thought you’d gone back to London,” he said, pulling up a low stool to their table.

“It’s been a decidedly frustrating day,” Josie said. “Do you mind if I come straight to the point? We’d like you to go over the time line of Sophie’s adventure with us in more detail. For instance, how did she find the cave on this visit to the island but not on the earlier visits?”

“It’s at the center of the island. She hadn’t got that far before.”

“So she stumbles on this cave, and here’s a Celtic treasure, right at her feet?” Josie raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Even if no one but one priest every generation knows this story of yours, don’t you think someone in the past thousand or so years would have stumbled on this cauldron by now?”

“Stranger things have happened. Celtic hoards have been found in lakes, streams and rivers right where they were offered to the gods hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Farmers have come across Celtic treasure plowing their fields. Why in 1894 and not 1794?”

Myles tipped back in his chair. “Others could have known what you and Sophie were up to.”

O’Donovan shrugged. “We didn’t go out of our way to tell anyone, but we weren’t secretive, either.”

“Were you always the one to take Sophie on her expeditions?” Josie asked.

“She tried to go on her own once and almost drowned. She’s not good with boats. Everything else.” His expression was warm as he added, “She and her sister both.”

“Carlisle could be a killer,” Josie said crisply, “or he could have hired a killer, or he could be a victim or a potential victim. We need to know what he knows. The guards are looking for him.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Josie bit back her frustration. “Tell us all you can about Sophie, won’t you? Did you ever get the feeling there was anything between her and Percy? Animosity, love, friendship? Anything at all? Was she jealous of the woman he ended up marrying? Was Sophie broke and looking to Percy for money—did she ask him for a loan, a job, a recommendation?”

“You fired off all those questions at once deliberately, didn’t you?” O’Donovan was obviously no one’s fool. “Here’s my answer to you. I trust Sophie. She’s the best. She loves her work, and she’s honest.”

“What about her relationships in Ireland?” Josie asked.

“Men, you mean? She saw a few academics from time to time, but nothing ever worked out.”

“You two?”

His eyes were unchanged. “Friends.”

“What about her family? They have a house here—”

“Friends, also.”

“Ah.” Josie saw the look in his eyes. “What about you and Taryn, the sister—”

“You’re going too far now.”

“Indeed,” she said.

Myles stood up. Obviously he’d heard enough. “We want to see the island for ourselves. Can you take us?”

“Tomorrow. Bring a warm jacket, and fair warning—it’ll be choppy.”

“Splendid,” Josie muttered without enthusiasm.

The Irishman headed to the bar and joined a group of men—other fishermen from the looks of them—who’d just come in. Josie debated interrogating them, too, but Myles slung an arm around her and grinned. “Looks as if we’ll be bouncing in waves tomorrow.”

“I hate boats.”

“We’ll be fine.”

She shuddered at the prospect. “You’re sure we won’t turn over?”

“Positive.”

“Liar. You spent time on Norman Estabrook’s luxurious yacht, not on what Tim O’Donovan calls a boat.”

“You don’t trust me, love?”

“I don’t know you well enough anymore to know whether or not to trust you. Despite last night, I remain wary.”

She felt hot suddenly, thinking about their lovemaking. She wasn’t embarrassed so much as mystified. They’d behaved as if they were completely and utterly in love, muttering sweet things, holding each other in the dark. It’d been a long time for both of them. Perhaps they’d simply needed to make love and be done with it in order to get on with their lives.

She was aware of Myles watching her and felt quite confident his thoughts weren’t remotely similar to hers. She dismissed last night and nodded to O’Donovan, who was serious, not laughing as he sat with a pint. “You know our new Irish friend is reporting everything back to Sophie, don’t you?”

“Of course he is.”