Sinister Intentions & Confiscated Conception

by Heather Graham

  “Yes, they were very nice,” Kit said, a little impatiently. She had thought they were staying far enough from Shallywae, but she had been wrong. Suddenly she wished they could leave right away. If not for Mike, she would have done so.

  “Hey, Dickens,” she said, a little weakly, “finish unpacking if you want me to show you the cemetery. It gets dark early here.”

  He ran off obediently. Kit mechanically unpacked the remainder of her things and dragged a brush hurriedly through her hair. Before she was done, Mike was sitting on her bed, waiting for her.

  A few minutes later, they were back on the road to Shallywae.

  “My father wanted to be buried here, right?” Mike asked her.

  “I don’t know,” Kit answered, keeping her eyes glued to the road and feeling more uncomfortable every minute. It had been a mistake—a very big mistake—to come. “Michael loved Ireland, though. And so... I had him buried here.”

  “Because it seemed right,” Mike supplied cheerfully.

  “Yes.”

  A few minutes later, they were there. Kit had to park the car at the base of a hill, and it took her several minutes to remember just where in the overgrown, ancient cemetery Michael McHennessy had been laid to rest.

  “This way, Mike,” she murmured at last, starting up the hill.

  He followed her, scampering around a number of the monuments.

  “Mom! I can read the date on this one. One-six-nine... Well, I can almost read the date! Boy, are these things old!”

  “Yes, they are,” Kit murmured. She paused, puffing a bit. She walked a lot in New York, but not uphill. She looked around and at length saw a large, weathered stone angel rising from the ground. Michael was near the angel, she knew.

  She started checking the names. She had thought Michael’s tombstone would be easy to find, but in eight years it had weathered to match the rest. She found a fairly new monument, but it wasn’t Michael’s. Then she found an old one with the name “McHennessy” barely legible, and she knew she was very near—she remembered trying to bury him near people who might have been long-lost family.

  Mike was roaming nearby, fascinated by the ancient monuments. She was about to call him back, then decided that no harm could come to him on the grassy hill.

  She closed her eyes for a minute, remembering the day of the funeral. All the townspeople had been dressed in black. Michael had been laid to rest in a simple wooden coffin. She remembered watching it being lowered into the earth, with Old Doug and Young Doug shoveling dirt on top of it when she looked back.

  Justin O’Niall had escorted her, supporting her in her torrent of sobbing.

  Michael had been so young.

  At last she found it. Kit dropped to her knees. Grass and weeds had grown over the spot, half covering the stone. She ripped them away frantically, not caring that she broke a nail down to the quick in the process.

  MICHAEL PADRAIC MCHENNESSY

  WELCOMED IN CHRIST’S OWN ARMS

  “Mike!”

  He didn’t answer, and she tore her eyes away from the marker to look for him.

  He was on the far side of the hill, talking to a man. Kit frowned. He knew he should be wary of strangers. Just because this wasn’t New York...

  She stood up, dusting off her knees. She started to hurry toward the pair, then stumbled on a stone that was almost hidden by weeds, cursed softly to herself and continued.

  The man’s back was to her. His head was bare, and slightly lowered. He was tall, and his shoulders were broad beneath a dark trench coat. She quickened her pace, and she could hear Mike talking.

  “Oh, I am American, but I’m part Irish, too. My mother told me so. And my father is buried here. That’s why we’re here.”

  Kit heard the man chuckle pleasantly, and her heart seemed to catch in her throat. She knew, even before he turned around, who he was.

  “There’s Mom!” Mike said excitedly.

  The man turned around. It seemed to Kit that he was moving slowly, but he wasn’t. It was just that her mind was moving so fast.

  Then he was facing her. She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t find her voice.

  He stared at her for a long time, assessing her dispassionately. It was as if he had known that she would be here.

  He had changed very little. There were those slight touches of silver at his temples, but his dark hair was as abundant as ever, though unruly now, lashed about his forehead by the wind. He still had his striking tan. His eyes were narrowed, one brow slightly lifted. His mouth was tightly compressed, severe, and his eyes looked black, though she knew they were blue. They were glinting, now, with anger.

  Kit swallowed. Finding him there seemed so much like the first time, when she had been running out into the night, calling for Michael. She’d been so young, so frightened, barely clad. She could still remember how he had turned to her that night, so tall and dark and powerful. He had taken her hand and promised to help her. No one had told her then that he was “the” O’Niall. She had known only that he was strong and capable of protecting her. After Michael had died in her arms, he had dragged her away. Through it all, he had been there for her. She had been inexplicably angry at his power, though she had needed his strength. And, against her will, against her every concept of morality, she had been fascinated.

  Kit started to tremble. Eight years was a long time. A long enough time in which to forget. But she had never forgotten him. Kit felt his eyes on her, and warmth rushed through her, as if her blood had been set on fire. And he hadn’t said a word.

  “Michael McHennessy, lad?”

  Just his voice sent a new rush of tremors racing through her.

  “Katherine,” he said then, and he stared at her with such fury that she couldn’t begin to fathom its source.

  “Justin.” She tried to sound casual, but her voice faltered, leaving her furious with herself. She wasn’t eighteen anymore. He could be the great lord of anyone here, but not her.

  “Kit,” Mike offered innocently. “Friends call Mom ‘Kit.’”

  “Do they now?” Justin replied. His gaze was on her again, his eyes raking her with a crude and negligent interest from head to toe. She flushed despite herself. To her horror, she could remember him so clearly—in the flesh. She remembered not the gentle and tender times, when he had eased away her pain.

  No... She remembered the last time she had seen him. In the flesh... The thought made her hysterical, but it came nevertheless, and she could see her hands against his naked chest, her fingers winding into the dark hair there, her skin so pale against his. She could remember the feel of his hands on her, could see the muscles in his arms when he braced himself above her, and the hard plane of his belly, and...

  Kit wished she could disappear, that she could sink into the ground, that she could do anything to hide from Justin O’Niall.

  Because he was remembering, too. She knew it; she could see it in his eyes. She could feel his mocking expression.

  “You—you knew I was here,” she rasped out.

  “Of course,” he said smoothly. “I am the O’Niall.”

  Without uttering another word, he turned his back on her and walked away down the hill.

  Chapter 3

  “Who was that?” Mike asked Kit curiously.

  “Justin O’Niall,” she replied, watching the man’s retreating back instead of meeting her son’s eyes.

  “You knew him, too?”

  “Yes,” Kit said slowly, trying to stop shivering.

  “He’s neat,” Mike decided.

  “Yeah. Real neat,” Kit murmured bitterly. “Come on, Mike. I’ll take you to the grave. Then we’ll go and get something to eat.”

  * * *

  Bailtree wasn’t much larger than Shallywae, but like its coastal sister, it had a town center with a few shops, a post office, a town h
all, a garage, a grocery and three restaurants. One was the local men’s pub, and Kit steered away from it, not certain if a woman and child would be welcomed or not. “Mary MacGregor’s” turned out to be a nice home-style restaurant that catered to the tourist trade, since they weren’t far from Blarney Castle.

  The seating was family style around trestle tables, an open hearth warmed the room, and the service was quick and friendly. There was a bar, too, and a number of old-timers stood around it and in front of the hearth, a few of them whittling small dolls out of wood as they drank their pints.

  Kit suggested to Mike that they split an order of lamb chops and boiled new potatoes. He agreed quickly. It was beginning to look as if he might lay his head on the table and fall asleep at any moment.

  They were served a beautiful fresh garden salad, which their waitress had affably split onto two plates. Kit, tired herself, showed her appreciation with a warm smile.

  “Och, ’tis nothing. I’ve a household of five meself, and I know it can be difficult eating out with the loves.”

  Mike ate his salad. He was very quiet, but appeared content enough. When their entrée came, Kit noticed that he was watching one old man in particular, who was whittling away at a piece of wood about five inches long.

  Kit also noticed that the old man was aware of Mike’s intense scrutiny. He didn’t smile, but he nodded to Mike, as if in acknowledgment.

  The lamb chops were delicious, and when she had finished eating, Kit was pleased to discover that “Mary MacGregor’s” also served a nice strong cup of coffee. Mike, to her surprise, was awake enough to want a piece of cherry pie.

  It was then that the old man muttered something to his cronies, left his place by the hearth and approached her with his pint in one hand, his stick of whittled wood in the other.

  “Evenin’, ma’am.” He was very tall and thin. His eyes were a watery green, and although his hair was as white as foam, it was thick and abundant. He seemed all bones, but Kit liked the multitude of smile lines around his eyes and his lean, hollow-cheeked face.

  “Good evening,” she returned.

  “Hi!” Mike said.

  “Barney Canail,” the man offered, stretching out a weathered hand to Kit. At last he smiled, and she liked his smile.

  “Kit McHennessy, and my son Mike.” She hesitated only a moment. “Won’t you join us, Barney?”

  He had obviously been expecting the invitation, and he slid in next to Kit, watching Mike with warm eyes from beneath his bushy white brows. “Y’er American, then?”

  “Yes, but part Irish,” Mike supplied. Kit was beginning to feel that her son’s assertion sounded like a tape recording.

  Barney stretched his liver-spotted hand across the table, offering Mike the stick of wood.

  “This is Irish, too, son. A flute. Ye might enjoy havin’ it; the hills can be lonely.”

  “Oh! He can’t accept it—” Kit began, but Barney interrupted her quickly with a tisking sound.

  “’Tis nothing, nothing at all. Ye sit about and whittle many a night away at my age. I’d like the boy to have it, if ye don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind, it’s just—”

  “Oh, Mom, can’t I keep it?”

  Barney’s eyes were clear and kind. Kit shrugged and smiled. “Thank Mr. Canail, then, Mike.”

  Mike did, enthusiastically.

  “Do ye like dogs, son?” Barney asked him.

  “I love them, but Mom says we can’t have one in the city.”

  “That’s true, Mike, that’s true. The city’s no place for a dog. But if ye’d like to see a good one, my sheepdog Sam is waiting fer me outside the door. He’d be grateful, for sure, were a boy to rub his ears fer a spell.”

  “Can I, Mom? Can I?”

  “All right, Mike.”

  He left the table eagerly. Barney Canail shifted to sit across from Kit, then stared directly at her and spoke. “Would ye be the same young Mrs. McHennessy who lost her husband in these parts?”

  Kit shivered as she lifted her coffee cup to her lips, then nodded.

  “I thought so. I hear tell y’er here to write a book, lass.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Barney nodded slightly, his old eyes on the fire. “Y’know there’s been another murder, lass.”

  This time she managed to sip her coffee. “I know. I read about it in the paper at home.”

  “I’m the constable for Bailtree, lass.”

  “Are you? Then you must know Constable Liam O’Grady over in Shallywae.”

  “Aye, that I do.”

  “How is he?” Kit asked, remembering Liam O’Grady’s kindness to a very distraught young girl.

  “Well as a man can be, girl.” He looked back at her again. “The town’s all well, lass. ’Tis easy to say, for between the two o’ us—Shallywae and Bailtree—we haven’t a population of so much as two thousand.”

  Kit laughed. “I didn’t know the population was even that large.”

  He smiled vaguely, but still seemed bothered by something. He took a long draft from his pint, and when she reached into her bag for a cigarette, he quickly struck a match on the table and brought it to the tip of her cigarette.

  “We’ve had media folks by the scores drifting around here lately. Private detectives, authorities from Cork, even as far as Dublin.”

  “I assume,” Kit murmured, “it all has to do with comparisons to that poor girl who had her throat slit all those years ago. I mean, you know, now...another woman, this one strangled...” Her voice trailed away.

  “What has surprised me,” Barney said, “is that they’ve never mentioned your husband.”

  Kit felt her heart quicken. “He...he...they never found any reason to believe that Michael was murdered. The assumption was that he wandered too close to the cliffs. He was a stranger in a strange land, you know.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  Kit held her breath for a long moment. When she exhaled, she felt Barney’s astute gaze upon her. “No, I don’t,” she finally said.

  “Neither do I, lass.”

  It was foolish to be having this conversation with a stranger, Kit thought, even if the stranger was a constable. This was a land of strange legends, where secrets were best kept quiet. But she couldn’t help blurting out a question. “Do you believe that Justin O’Niall is a murderer?”

  Barney smiled, then chuckled. “Girl, there’s few who don’t know Justin was the man who befriended ye in y’er troubles, so I’m thinking that you don’t believe it’s so. But I agree with ye there, lass. Justin is a hot-tempered man, I’ll not deny, but one to slit the throat of a defenseless lass? No, ’twouldna be his way.”

  Kit lowered her voice. “I read that his fiancé was strangled.”

  “You read right.”

  “And then thrown into the sea.”

  “Aye.”

  “But no one knows who did it?”

  “No one who’s sayin’ so, lass.”

  Kit sighed. She had hoped that she might learn something. Now she stubbed out her cigarette and leaned across the table. “Barney, is there any possibility that...”

  “That what, lass?”

  “I don’t know,” Kit murmured weakly. She had been thinking that Mike had died on Halloween, and that the first murdered girl, Mary Browne, had also died that night. But it was only the first of October now, and Susan Accorn had been killed a month ago.

  “Nothing, really. Just a vague idea. I was...just wondering if you thought all this might have something to do with a—”

  “A devil cult?” Barney queried.

  “I—I guess,” Kit muttered, lowering her eyes and feeling a bit ashamed of herself for saying such a thing to a man like Barney.

  He, too, leaned across the table. He smiled. “There never were any ‘devil’ cults in the dist
rict, Mrs. McHennessy.”

  “But I’ve read—”

  “Not devil cults. Long ago, long before Christianity came to the land, the Tuatha de Danann invaded. They were worshippers of the goddess Diana—the moon goddess. The Celts came, and their god of the sea was Mannanan MacLir, and Crom was the thunder god. They were ancient times, lass. The people were primitive. They worried about the sea and the earth, from whose bounty they survived. They made their sacrifices for good fishing, fair sailing, strength in warfare—and for good harvests. The devil came to us as a Christian notion.”

  Kit listened, a little fascinated, a little impatient. “But there was a rite, I know, here on Halloween. All Hallows’ Eve—”

  “Aye, lass, that there was. But All Hallows’ Eve just combined with an ancient day of homage to the harvest.”

  “Still...”

  “Girl, I know this part of God’s earth as I know me own hand. I attend the celebrations each year on All Hallows’ Eve. There’s a bonfire, lass, a lot of drinking and a lot of eating of homemade specialties. Nothing more.” His grin deepened. “The only thing like the ancient times is this: with all the dancing, the excitement—and imbibing of home-brewed Irish whiskey—there will be a multitude of procreation taking place on such a night.”

  Kit smiled but she still felt uncomfortable.

  “Ease yer mind, lass, there’s nothing frightenin’ that occurs up on the cliffs. The days of the druids are long gone. And, as ye should know if y’er writin’ a book, girl, in pagan days, the kings were just.”

  “I know,” Kit murmured. “Actually,” she admitted, “I should know much more than I do.”

  “Then ye should meet with Mrs. McNamara at the Shamus Bookstore in Cork,” Barney told her with a smile.

  “Mrs. McNamara? I’ll do that,” Kit promised. She paused, smiling as the waitress refilled her coffee cup. “You sound a bit like a history book yourself, Barney.”

  His rheumy eyes took on a merry twinkle. “I studied Irish history afore I turned to the law, girl. Long afore ye were born, lass, I thought I’d like to teach in one o’ the big universities. But there’s something about our part of the land. It seems to draw us all back here. ’Tis where I was born, ’tis where I’ll die. How long are ye stayin’, lass?”