The Mountains Wild

by Sarah Stewart Taylor

  I don’t want to go, but something about her makes it impossible.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”

  Erin has money for a taxi and we meet up after school and she calls from the pay phone. When the taxi pulls up, it’s Aaron, this guy in his twenties who buys beer for high school kids if you throw in an extra ten dollars. “Hey, Erin,” he says. He’s a little flirty with her but she just gets in the back and looks out the window as we drive to the station.

  We’re on the train before she says, “I just want to know if she’s there, you know? If we can find her.”

  “How do you know it’s her?” I ask.

  “I don’t, but it’s the only one I could find. I asked my dad and he won’t tell me anything. He literally won’t even talk about her. Your mom hasn’t said anything to you, has she?”

  “She doesn’t know anything,” I say.

  “I know. So at least … Maybe this is her.”

  The address is on East Thirteenth Street and Avenue A. We take the subway to Union Square and then walk over. It gets grittier the further east we go. I’ve only been to the city with my parents or on school trips. I know Erin and Jessica come in sometimes to go to bars so I tell myself she knows what she’s doing, but after we cross Second Avenue, Erin says, “Put your wallet in your shirt in case we get mugged.”

  I do what she says.

  Brenda Flaherty’s address is a rundown-looking building squeezed between two bigger rundown-looking buildings. Erin stares at the door for a minute. I don’t say anything. There are a couple of bells next to the door, with numbers, not names. She rings the one next to apartment 7 and waits a minute. Nothing happens. She tries again. Nothing.

  “I just realized,” I tell her. “If she works, she might not get home until six or seven.” It’s five. I told my mom I had to stay at school late to build the homecoming float. I told her I’d get a ride when we were done.

  We sit down on the front stoop to wait. People come and go, but no Brenda Flaherty. A tall black guy wearing a pink sweatshirt puts his key in the lock and then turns to look at us. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re just … we’re looking for Brenda Flaherty. She lives in apartment seven. Do you know her?”

  He watches Erin for a moment. “I live in apartment seven, and I can guarantee you there’s no one named Brenda Flaherty in there with me.”

  “Oh.” Erin looks stricken.

  I jump in. “How long have you lived there?”

  “Like five years.”

  I look at Erin. “Okay. Thank you.”

  The guy goes inside and I try to put my arm around her. “It must have been an old listing or something,” I tell her.

  “God, I was so stupid.” She’s staring at the door as though someone is going to come out of it. “It’s like she tricked me again.”

  “You should ask your dad,” I tell her as we walk back to Union Square. “He should at least tell you everything he knows.”

  “It makes him too sad,” she says. “I can’t do it.”

  “Erin, maybe she … maybe she doesn’t want you to find her. Maybe she wanted to disappear.”

  She looks up at me. “But she didn’t even know me. I was a baby. Even if she wanted to leave Danny. Why would she just disappear?”

  I don’t have any answer for her.

  On the train, I look over and see her staring out the window, tears in her eyes. The sleeve of her flannel shirt pulls away from her arm and I can see scars and scabs, lines up and down her lower arm. I don’t say anything. It feels like there’s a question I’m supposed to ask but I don’t know what it is.

  30

  THURSDAY, JUNE 2,

  2016

  I have a text from Lilly when I wake up in the morning, a selfie of her on the beach, with her hand outstretched, a gull snatching a piece of bread from her palm, that she must have sent last night. Me and the seagullies miss you, it reads. “Seagullies” was her name for them when she was little. I resist the urge to write back, The seagullies and I and instead write, I miss you soooooooo much. Call you later. Love you more than all the seagullies in the universe.

  Roly and Wilcox and Regan are waiting for us at Pearse Street. No reporters today. Griz is late but when she comes rushing in, clutching her phone, I know she has something. “Robert Herricks,” she whispers to me. “I’ve got something on him. He was living in Baltinglass when June Talbot went missing.”

  “Are you shitting me?” She waves the paper at me but I don’t have time to read it. “Here, you can tell them now.”

  Griz and I lay out copies of the files we’ve prepared, everything narrowed down to just a couple of sheets. Roly nods at me to begin. Everyone’s tense, in a hurry.

  I start. “The first thing I want to say is that the Garda Síochána, at every turn, to my mind, has run an absolutely exemplary investigation into my cousin’s disappearance and into the deaths of Teresa McKenny and June Talbot.” I meet Roly’s eyes and he gives me a tiny nod. “Detective Garda Grzeskiewicz and I reviewed a huge amount of information and found only two small areas of interest for follow-up related to these cases. They may have a bearing on the search for Niamh, and they may not. I’ll talk about the profiling I did and then we’ll detail those for you.

  “As you know, psychological profiling is an inexact science. Take everything with a grain of salt. But when I look at these crimes, I see a couple of different things. Like your profiler, I’d put this guy’s age somewhere between forty and sixty. That’s based on him being involved in Katerina Greiner’s murder and then the disappearances in 1998 and 2006 and in Niamh Horrigan’s disappearance. But I’d put him somewhere around fifty now. Obviously that changes if he’s good for some of them and not others. It’s rare for seventeen-year-olds to commit these kinds of abductions and murders and get away with them.

  “So, forty to sixty. He’s from Wicklow or was once. He knows the roads, knows when they’re busy and when they aren’t. He has a place to take the women. It could be close by. It could be far away, but then he’s bringing them back to dump their bodies. He’s of the area in some fundamental way. He’s spent time there. It has associations for him.

  “Your profiler thinks he’s married. I’m not sure. If he is, then he has a job that gives him a lot of flexibility. He’s got time and space. No one’s bugging him about where he is. Could be a very submissive wife or partner. I’d bet on that anyway. But he also might be single.

  “He’s angry. He feels that women have treated him badly in some way. He dehumanizes them. He controls them. He may have a history of domestic abuse or he may only act out in this specific way. He is probably a respectable member of society. People would be very surprised to know that he has committed these crimes.”

  I pause for a minute. It’s warm in the room and I can feel the drag of not enough sleep the past couple of days.

  “Okay,” I say. “He’s able to get them into his car without too much of a struggle. If I was just coming in on this, I would say you need to consider the possibility that he’s a current or former police officer, or an ambulance driver, or someone else in a position of authority and trust. But I know you’ve done that. I’d keep working that angle.

  “Your profiler was good. I think you’re on the right track. I wish I had something more to add but … I really don’t.” Wilcox smiles, just a little, a self-satisfied little smirk. Regan and Roly nod.

  “The final thing I would say is something that sounds a little out there,” I tell them. “When I look at this map, I see a triangle with the mountains in the center. The mountains, I don’t know. It’s like they mean something to him. Like he’s keeping them in sight. I wonder about that. It’s a feeling, really. Nothing concrete. Maybe there’s a trauma, an early experience that established some psychosexual pattern. I don’t know. But…”

  Roly nods and Regan makes a note on a piece of paper.

  “Okay, now on to the two things we found. The first is a groundskeeper interviewed by gardaí after
Teresa McKenny’s disappearance in 1998. His name is Robert Herricks and he didn’t set off any alarm bells when he was interviewed. He had an alibi for the day of Teresa’s disappearance, but it was provided by his brother and, well … it would be worth checking it out again. I didn’t like the way he described Teresa. It was dehumanizing, sexualizing. All things I’d expect of our guy. I was going to tell you to take a second look at him. But there’s something better than that.” I nod to Griz. “Detective Garda Grzeskiewicz just got it. It’s good. Really good.”

  “Robert Herricks was raised in Baltinglass,” she says, standing up and passing copies of the report around the table. “He moved back there in 2005, when the golf course went under. He was living in his sister’s house when June Talbot disappeared. We know this because there was a string of burglaries earlier that year and he was interviewed about whether he’d seen anything.”

  “Shite,” Roly says. “How did we miss it?”

  “It’s about the only thing you missed,” I tell him. “Anyway, someone will want to go and talk with him.”

  Regan excuses himself to put it in the works. When he’s back, I get going again.

  “I’m also going to let Detective Garda Grzeskiewicz do this one. It was her find. It’s also a good one,” I tell them. “But it casts suspicion on my cousin’s actions before she disappeared.”

  Griz shows them a photocopy of the receipt and explains how it must have been overlooked in the original search of Erin’s room. “I’ve already put in a call to AIB,” she says. “They’re trying to track down the employees who might have been working that day to see if they’ll recognize a picture. As you know, after twenty-three years, it’s a long shot. But it raises some interesting possibilities. If Erin Flaherty came back to Dublin and changed traveler’s checks and then disappeared, it could have been because she was told to do it by someone who was controlling her. It could have been because she was getting ready to flee. There may be some other reason we’re not thinking of. But I think it bears looking into immediately, just in case there’s a connection with Niamh Horrigan’s abductor.”

  Griz says, “Someone made a phone call to the house the morning Erin Flaherty left for Glenmalure. The roommates said it could have been a friend of theirs, but that was never confirmed in any way. I’d love to know who made that call. Also, Detective D’arcy raised a possibility that I think is very interesting. What if she wasn’t coming back to Dublin to take a bus somewhere, but to meet someone who was coming in on a bus?”

  “So she came back to Dublin, met someone at the bus station, they went to change traveler’s checks, and then she fled?” Roly says.

  “Why would she have been fleeing?” Regan asks. “Is there a possibility she was involved in Katerina Greiner’s death?”

  “Of course,” I say. “The question is—and has always been, really—why did she go down to Glenmalure? Was it just to go walking or was she meeting someone? And if she returned to Dublin, why? If she was killed by the same person who killed Katerina Greiner, Teresa McKenny, and June Talbot, and who took Niamh Horrigan, then figuring out where she met him, how he convinced her to go down there, how he convinced her to come back, well, that’s how we’ll find Niamh.”

  Regan nods, then looks up at me. “Thank you, Detective D’arcy. We appreciate your efforts and I know the Horrigans do as well.”

  Outside, Roly pats me on back and says, “Well done, D’arcy.”

  “Well, there wasn’t much to do. You’ve done everything right, all along.”

  “Now, you know that’s not true, but thanks for the vote of confidence. We’ll be in touch.” I can already see him switching gears. They’ll start working on Robert Herricks, on the receipt angle. They’ll go down and badger the folks at the bank until they get something there. Regan’s already got things in motion. “Not a word,” he reminds me.

  “Of course,” I say. “Not a word.”

  “Thanks, D’arcy.” He’s gone, back into the bowels of the building, while I step out into the glorious sunshine outside on Pearse Street.

  I don’t know what to do now, so I start walking, down Pearse Street, past all the new buildings at Grand Canal Dock, past the church at the turn of Irishtown Road, all the way out to Sandymount.

  A warm breeze is coming from the east and I take off my jacket and tuck it into my bag. The sun comes through the clouds. It feels good on my face and arms. There’s a great little bookstore right on the Sandymount green and I stop and browse for thirty minutes, picking out a novel for Lilly and a mug for Brian with a picture of the Poolbeg Lighthouse and one for Uncle Danny with a picture of the smokestacks.

  The strand pulls at me and I hop over the concrete wall and onto the sand and start walking. The wind whips at my hair, plucking it from my ponytail, and the sand beneath me bubbles with water just under the surface, revealing tiny holes and shells. I remember them from before, their pale pink insides like the pads of kittens’ paws. I stoop to pick some up, tucking them into a pocket, and then I venture out to the edge of the water.

  The wind moves through my body. I can feel it all, feel time fall away. It’s in my lungs, my chest, my belly. I put a hand over the place where Lilly grew. I remember the feeling of Conor Kearney’s body against my belly, his voice in my ear, the way he held my face that night in Erin’s room. I’m aching for him, or for something. Overcome with a sense of timelessness, I feel suddenly that these twenty-three years are both in me and not in me, that I am twenty-two and forty-five, all at the same time, a mother and not a mother. I close my eyes and let the wind rush all around me.

  I had stood here, right here, and opened my eyes to find Conor in front of me.

  I count to ten and open my eyes, but the strand is empty in front of me, the water coming in, washing across the little mountains and valleys in the sand.

  It’s early afternoon now, the day slipping away. I start walking away from the water, just wandering, turning right and left on winding little streets lined with neat stucco and brick houses, the sun catching windows and bits of quartz in the pavement.

  Across the street a dog barks and I have a sudden image of Lilly and me living in one of these houses, walking along these little streets, sitting on a bench looking out over the gray-blue water, the clouds rolling in above Dublin Bay.

  I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t care. I choose turns, one after another, until I’m by the Dodder and I follow the gray snake of it, swans floating here and there like litter, like I’m following a line on a map.

  It dumps me out in Ballsbridge, on a busy main road lined with shops and restaurants and I make my way across the intersection to a green patch of park. It’s suddenly quiet, the path I’m on lined with fruit trees still hanging on to a few final blossoms. The grass is strewn with browning petals.

  I come around a corner and I’m startled by a corgi that comes running out from behind a tree. A teenage boy calls out, “Beanie, Beanie.” The dog barely looks up at him and it’s running toward the gate so I bend down to pick up the trailing leash. When I stand up again, the boy is right in front of me looking panicked and I’m about to say that everything’s okay, that I’ve got him, when a man comes around the corner, calling out, “Don’t let him go through the gate,” and I look up and it’s Conor.

  Finally, Conor.

  31

  1993

  The morning after Conor walked out of the Gordon Street house, winter came for real. On Sandymount Strand, the cold air made little shells of ice on the rocks in the frigid mornings. The seaweed sparkled with hoarfrost. The Dublin Mountains were a bank of darkness in the distance. From the endless expanse of sand and water on Sandymount Strand, they sat there, waiting.

  At first, Daisy didn’t want to let me borrow the car. “He doesn’t like to lend it out,” she said lamely. “My brother, he’s very particular about his things.”

  “I’d happily pay him, like, rent,” I told her. “I just need it for a day or two, to go down to Wicklow. I want to
talk to the woman at the bed-and-breakfast.” Something in Emer’s face made Daisy relent, say she would ask him. Later I realized they were relieved I was going.

  * * *

  I drove slowly, hunched over the steering wheel, trying to stay on the left-hand side of the road. It took me an hour and a half to get to Glenmalure but I found the bed-and-breakfast easily; it was the first one you came to as you walked along the lane branching off from the main road, a long two-story cottage with window boxes and a deep flower garden, mostly gone to brown, around the house.

  I knocked and waited while footsteps inside approached the door. When it opened, the tall, white-haired woman on the other side looked shocked until I said, “Hi, I’m Maggie D’arcy. My cousin Erin is the girl who is missing and I was wondering if I could just ask you a few questions.”

  “Ah, you put a fright in me,” she said, before stepping aside to invite me in. “You’re so like her. Is there … is there any news? The guards told me they think she went back to Dublin after leaving here.” She was wearing a pale blue handknit sweater with little silver buttons in the shape of thistles. Her eyes were pale blue, lost in her pale face.

  “That’s one thing they’re looking at,” I said. “But I was just wondering if you’ve remembered anything that might point us in the right direction. Did she say anything to you about her plans?” I can hear how desperate my voice sounds.

  “Come in and sit down,” she said. “It’s terribly cold today.”

  She put me in a chair by a peat fire in a cozy room at the back of the house. Through the windows I could see the hills rising behind us, the sky darkening as the afternoon came on.

  “Is there anything you remember?” I asked again. “What did she say when she left that morning?”

  She smoothed her white hair and leaned forward. “As I told the guards, she told me she had to get going early. She seemed in a bit of a hurry. I assumed she had to get back to Dublin for one reason or another. She didn’t say.”