Whispers in the Mist (27 page)

Tell Nathan Tate to call me as soon as possible
.

FORTY
-
SIX

D
ANNY HADN’T BEEN TO
O’Leary’s Pub in a few years. Smaller and darker than the Plough, the O’Leary clan favored a nautical motif. A giant Captain’s wheel hung over the bar and prints of galleons on stormy seas covered the walls. The effect wasn’t cheery, so all the better that Theresa O’Leary graced the bar with her presence most evenings. Codgers and young fellas already filled the stools, all vying for attention from the girl. Her regulars appeared to be a well-behaved lot compared to Alan’s.

Rumors that she had all the lads quivering appeared to be true. She laughed at something a business type said and fobbed him off with a, “You’ve got all the finesse of a kick to the balls, haven’t you then?”

She was just feisty enough, and she sported a red bra beneath her mannish button-up blouse so she was also just sexy enough. In other words, she knew what she was about even though she was all of twenty years old. Her alert gaze swept over her customers, and she mixed drinks with a sure hand. Surely such expertise came from growing up in the pub.

Danny waited at the end of the counter. A few patrons raised their pints in homage to Ellen. Theresa plunked a pint of the black stuff down in front of him. She had kind eyes, grey-rimmed with dark blue and perceptiveness.

“On the house. How are you getting on?”

“As you’d expect. If you have a few minutes, I’d like to ask you about a lad you may know.”

She beckoned him to an empty table with a “keep your peace” lobbed back at the codgers and fellas. “You’re here about the lad in the paper? Disgusting, what happened.”

Danny swallowed his surprise along with a mouthful of Guinness. “His name was Toby Grealy.”

“I know. Brendan Nagel introduced us.” She smirked and rolled her eyes, the first time she’d shown her young years, only to catch herself up with a grimace. “Sorry, that was tacky. I shouldn’t smile, but Bren was a right lovable goof, but a goof all the same. He fancied me something terrible.”

“If I were his age, I would too.”

She raised a shoulder in a gesture somewhere between dismissive and flattered. “His friend, though, Toby, now he was more my type.”

“Friend?”

“By the end of the night you’d have thought they’d known each other since the nappies.”

“Tell me about it.”

Theresa settled herself in the chair across from Danny. She had a languid way about her, with one crossed leg swinging and a hand drooping off the edge of the table. “Bren had been coming in more often, seeing as how he fancied me, poor sod. He tried to be charming, but you couldn’t get him to shut his trap about Malcolm Lynch. Crap boss, sounded like.”

Danny’s couldn’t help himself when he asked whether she’d ever seen Malcolm in her pub with dates.

“Oh no, not the likes of us. According to Bren, Malcolm considered this side of Blackie’s Pasture the wrong side of Lisfenora, which is another reason Bren liked to come here. Malcolm sounds like a right tosser. Lisfenora isn’t big enough to have a side.”

“True.” Much as Danny wanted to gather as much vicarious dirt on Malcolm as he could, he kept to the point. “So Brendan came in one night—”

“Week before last, yeah? The usual. Moping around the bar and trying to catch my eye. This other bloke, Toby, comes in and sits down next to Bren. Didn’t have a choice, seeing as it was the last open spot. He smelled ripe, but he’d tried to clean himself up in the bathroom. I could tell because he’d wet down his hair.” Theresa pointed toward the end of the bar. “They sat over there where I make drinks, so I overheard them. I hear a lot anyhow. Comes with the territory.”

“Alan over at the Plough says the same.”

“He’s a good one. I like him even if my father’s got it against the French.” She sipped on a Coke she’d birought over with her. “That night Toby looked to be pretty grim. He probably would have kept to himself if Bren hadn’t noticed his earrings. It’s not like you could miss them. I would have commented myself but Bren got to it ahead of me. ‘Hold on now,’ he said, ‘where’d you get those sorry things?’”

Danny was transfixed. This girl was bloody perfection. If only all witnesses were this observant and coherent.

“Then Bren couldn’t help himself. He went on to make the saints weep about some blighter named John and how something was fishier than a selkie’s twat—his words, not mine. As soon as he mentioned the name—”

“John McIlvoy?”

“Ay, that’s it. As soon as he mentioned the name, Toby jerks up like a puppet on a string. ‘You know John McIlvoy?’ he says. I lost the conversation there, but when I returned they were still at it, whispering like a couple of girls. I’m just that curious so I pulled my special smile.” She pulled it, a hint of teeth, lips just this side of pouty. “Daft really, but it works.”

She laughed, and Danny joined in. She was an antidepressant, this girl; he’d have to come back for a fix now and then. He thought Ellen would like Theresa, which comforted him past the jolt of guilt. He shouldn’t be enjoying her company even for these few minutes.

“I tell them there’s no secrets at my bar,” she continued, “and Bren’s off the rafters about how he’s going to help Toby find this John character.”

“How was he going to manage that?”

“Not sure. Just that he knew a man who knew McIlvoy.”

Malcolm.

“Did you see Toby after that?”

“That was the last I saw of them, that night.” She gazed unseeingly at the bar, where one of her patrons signaled her with an empty pint glass. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss the sorry blighter. Bren would have grown up to be a proper fine boyfriend for some lass.” She rose. “Cheers then. I hope it helps.”

Danny finished his pint and left before anyone had a chance to commiserate about Ellen. Across the lane from O’Leary’s, Blackie’s Pasture lay quiet and dark. A faint scent of wet grass tinged the air. Danny could just make out a footpath that skirted the silage bundles and disappeared into the dark. The fog would have hidden the struggle and murder. The bundles stood near the center of the pasture, beyond the light cast by the dimmed shop lights. After the pubs closed, there would have been no one to see and no way to see anyhow, with or without the fog.

The door opened behind him. “I’m glad I caught you,” Theresa said. “I forgot something.”

And conscientious too. Perhaps he did fancy her a bit.

“Bren was that polluted he insisted Toby come along to meet his dad, that his dad would love to hear his story about John McIlvoy. They left together.”

For the first time since Danny had known him, Alan joined him at the bar, arse planted on the stool, pint in hand. The crowd buffeted them from behind, an elbow here, a shoulder there. Danny couldn’t hear himself think over the laughter and low roar of conversation. Only one week left of September, which meant one more week until the pub became a locals’ haven once again.

“Bijou’s sleeping in my office,” Alan said.

“She’s okay?”

“Ay, she’ll be alright.” He gulped at his Guinness. “Word on Gemma?”

“Nothing yet, but you’d better believe I’m going to visit her in the morning.”

“Oh?”

“This investigation needs Gemma.”

“Alan!” came the exasperated voice of the junior barman.

Swearing under his breath, Alan rose. Danny rose along with him, Alan to go about his work and Danny to his.

Seamus sat at his usual spot at the other end of the bar along with a few crows. His head bobbed on sagging neck. His face was puffy yet slack, the skin under his jaw so loose that it gave the impression that his jaw might clatter to the floor. His mouth moved with a strange, gummy clacking sound. Danny shooed Elder Joe and Mickey away, and sat down next to Seamus.

Seamus blinked at him. His voice slurred past the consonants and rolled over the vowels. “What of it then?”

Footsteps stopped behind them. Danny turned around to wave off their visitor. Mackey held out a carry bag from the Spar.

“Pardon a second, Dan-o. Got something here for Seamus.” Mackey patted Seamus’s shoulder and went on as if he’d received a response. “Bought a few things today, and you take them home and you eat, you sorry old sack. And then tomorrow morning you eat something else before you return to drink yourself to death.”

Mackey shoved the bag between them onto the bar top and stomped away. Seamus peeked over the rim. He fumbled out a jar of peanut butter and proceeded to twist at the lid with fingers curled like gripless anemone tentacles. For the first time, Danny noticed his inflamed knuckles. They reminded him of his rheumatoid granny.

“Got the word on Gemma,” Seamus said. “She is found, and good for Alan. The hero, though you’d never know it.” He loosened his grip, shook out his hand, and tried the lid again.

Danny said, “Let me,” and unscrewed the top. Alan plopped bread and a knife down in front of them on the bar counter.

The homey smell of peanut butter reminded Danny of his children, of Ellen slathering it on crusty brown bread along with homemade strawberry jam, back when she made jam. His stomach howled, and he took over the job of spreading the mashed peanuts on bread, first for Seamus, then for himself. Its comforting texture saddened him. He shoved himself past the feeling, thinking about how to break through Seamus’s grief long enough to get some information out of him. The direct approach seemed the best bet.

“You lied to me,” Danny said, “and I want to know why.”

“Wha—?” Seamus gagged on his wad of peanut butter and bread.

“Theresa O’Leary says your boy met Toby at her pub. Why hide a fact like that?”

“Why indeed? Except that at the time, my son, he were alive, and I knew he had nothing to do with that boy’s death. No way in hell. Call it a father’s protectiveness.” He broke into a shaky laugh that echoed around the room like an entrapped bird. “Knew you’d get serious with me sooner or later.” Seamus blinked furiously and tried to twist the lid back on the peanut butter jar.

Danny helped him and dropped it into the grocery sack. “Best mates by the end of the evening, so she said.”

“You’re slaying me with this, you surely are. Only I don’t feel like laughing.”

“He brought Toby around to meet you. Why?”

Seamus rocked himself into a standing position. He clutched the grocery bag to his chest, teetering. “Slaying me,” he repeated and shuffled out of the pub.

Wednesday

My father, now in heaven, is a keeper
of the birds. And his eye is on his sparrow.

Don Williams, Jr.

FORTY
-
SEVEN

M
ERRIT’S SWOLLEN LIP FELT
like a slug hanging on her face. She tested its tenderness with a fingertip, wincing, and then forced her hand away from her face. She knocked on the door of Fox Cottage and entered when she heard the muffled sound of Dermot’s voice.

Heat almost blasted her out of her shoes as she closed the door behind her. With fireplace tongs in hand, Dermot turned a bleary and flushed face toward her. His hair clung to his head in sweaty streaks. He must have kept the peat fire burning through the night because it had infused the room with its earthy, tar-like odor. He reminded Merrit of a horror movie she’d once seen, something about cabin fever, in which the young and nubile characters went mad with stir craziness. Bulging eyes, twitchy lips, jerky movements.

“I hope you don’t mind the intrusion,” Merrit said. “You know that Liam and I live down the track, right? Liam owns this cottage.”

“Danny mentioned as much. Thanks for letting us stay here.”

Merrit waved away the gratitude. She wasn’t much of a help to anyone these days, whether out on the plaza with Liam or at Alan’s pub yesterday, but here she was anyhow, hoping to be let in. She held out a box of corn flakes and a container of milk. “Thought you might need breakfast food. I’m not sure what Danny has stocked in the kitchen.”

“Just about nothing.” Dermot squinted at her, his leg jiggling. “What happened to you?”

“I stepped in where I didn’t belong.”

Merrit edged along the back of the couch. Gemma appeared placid under a mound of blankets, the way she stared up at the crossbeams and blinked slow as an owl. Flushed as Dermot, yet she shivered in spasms that belied her calm appearance. Dermot shoveled more peat pellets into the grate.

“Is she—?”

“Catatonic. You can say it.” Dermot grabbed the cereal from her, opened it, and started eating the corn flakes dry. He spoke through hasty handfuls. “Just like after our mom died. Trauma-induced. Though, I take that back. She’s not as bad this time.” His eyelid twitched. “No need for feeding tubes, at least.”

“What happened? Last night in the forest, I mean.”

“Bloody hell if I know. Alan was looking for her, and Malcolm was helping until he ended up brawling with Nathan. All I know is that something frightened Gemma back into her shell. It could have been anything.” He stuttered to a stop, then continued as if compelled to say what he was thinking out loud. “Even something as small as the sound of flesh hitting flesh.”