Malarkey

by Sheila Simonson

  He whistled softly through his teeth. Whhst.

  "And I don't think the lock was forced."

  "Then it may be we should go out the front door and walk down the slope."

  "The lawn did look undisturbed. Surely footprints would show on that fresh a surface, and I didn't see any. Of course, I didn't go all the way around the shed." An idiotic comment. My thought processes were fuzzy. There was only one door into the shed. Whoever had hauled the corpse in and placed it on the flagstones had used that door.

  "When was the grass sown, missus?" Kennedy turned to Barbara.

  "The gardeners finished yesterday." She was standing, hands on her hips, in the middle of the living room rug, a nice gray and white striped affair with white tassels.

  "Who?"

  She named names—Irish-sounding names—and added, "Toss Tierney promised to finish the shed yesterday. I didn't see him, though."

  I said, "It's not finished. There's no door latch and the window's unglazed." Briefly I considered the window. It was too high for easy access and too small to fit the body through. The dead man was bulky.

  "I'll have a word with Toss." The sergeant rubbed his nose. It was his least interesting feature, short and uptilted. He hesitated, as if he were uncertain what to do next.

  Barbara cut him no slack. "Afraid you'll screw up?" What was wrong with the woman? She was taunting him.

  His eyes narrowed, but he ignored the gibe. "If you'll come out with me now, Mrs. Dodge. You..." He nodded to Barbara. "...can wait in the kitchen."

  Her lips compressed. "Maybe I'll be able to identify him. Lark can't. She doesn't know anybody."

  "Sure, and it may be I'll know him myself," Kennedy rejoined. "If he's local."

  "Fat chance. You wouldn't know—" She bit her lip.

  Your ass from your elbow? I thought that if I were a foreigner living in Ireland I'd try for a little more tact with the authorities.

  Kennedy turned to me. "Will you come out now and show me the body?"

  I nodded. Jet lag had me by the throat, and I was fading fast. Woozy, I led him out the front door and around the living room end of the cottage. We descended the slope on flagstone steps that ended at the edge of the house. The raked ground looked untouched. I stepped onto the soft surface carefully and Kennedy followed in my footprints, but my suede ankle boots sank in. The area would have to be raked and replanted after us—and after the ambulance crew.

  When I stopped at the patio, reluctant to enter the shed, Kennedy paused beside me. We had tracked the Irish equivalent of barkdust onto the flagstones. "There's no latch," I repeated. "The door was ajar."

  "So I see. Tell me what you did."

  I described my movements.

  "And he's in there on the floor?"

  "He looks as if somebody laid him out." All that was missing was a lily in his hands, or a rosary if they didn't do lilies in Ireland. I have no idea why I didn't warn Kennedy about the red paint mark.

  "Laid out, do you say?" He pursed his mouth. "A shock, was it?"

  I stared at him.

  He gave a slight smile of apology. "Let's have a look at the feller, then, shall we?" He nudged the door open, as I had, with his foot and entered. "Jaysus, if it's not General O'Duffy, God rest him."

  I thought of the paint splotch and the man's combat fatigues, and my memory played one of the tricks it plays when I'm tired. When the sergeant emerged from the shed, and he didn't stay inside it long, I asked, "The Blueshirt? You said O'Duffy."

  Kennedy stared at me. His black-fringed eyes were suddenly very shrewd indeed. "Well, now, what do you know of Eoin O'Duffy and the Blueshirts?"

  "Senior seminar on William Butler Yeats," I muttered. A good fifteen years ago; I didn't mention that. "In the thirties, Yeats had a flirtation with a group of fascists. O'Duffy was the local Duce." I gestured toward the shed. "Are you saying this guy was a neo-Nazi?"

  "'Twas just my pet name for him. He liked to dress up like Rambo and play little wars games with his mates. They shoot at each other with polythene guns full of paint."

  "Squirt guns?"

  "Yes." After a moment he added, "Neo-Nazi? His politics was no business of mine."

  "But his games were?"

  "He recruited some of the lads from the High School. I had complaints."

  "Wonderful." My mind drifted back to my own situation. "Then you can identify him?"

  "And so could herself." He jerked a thumb upward toward the cottage. "Slade William Wheeler, thirty-one, U.S. passport. Queer names you Yanks have."

  "Like Lark?" I am hypersensitive about my name.

  He didn't comment. "Wheeler was the bursar—as you might say, the business manager—of Stonehall Enterprises."

  "The business manager! He's...he was too young."

  "They're all unhatched chicks," he said sourly. He was about my age. He met my eyes, and we exchanged wry smiles. His faded. "You called Stanyon Hall. Who else did you telephone?"

  A damp gust ruffled my hair. I smoothed it. "Since I found the body? No one. The Steins own the cottage. I thought they should know, but I didn't describe the dead man to Barbara, and I didn't bring her down here either. I thought that might compromise the physical evidence. My husband was a policeman," I added when his eyebrows rose.

  "Was? Are you widowed, then?"

  A chill ran up my spine. "No! I mean he was a policeman for many years. Right now he runs a college-level police training program."

  He frowned.

  "I called Jay, my husband, that is, before I found the body. I left a brief message. My father also called home." Horrors, I was going to have to tell Jay I'd stumbled into another crisis. I shuddered.

  "Are you cold?"

  "No, it's just reaction." The wind was damp and had an edge, but I was wearing wool pants and a heavy pullover.

  "We can go in now. You need a cup of tea. I'll take it as a favor, Mrs. Dodge, if you say nothing of the red paint for the time being."

  I nodded.

  "It's the sort of detail newspapers love to exploit."

  I thought of the English tabloids. Was there an Irish equivalent? I shuddered again.

  Kennedy cocked his head the way Barbara had when she'd heard his car drive up. "That'll be the ambulance coming." He led me back up the slope to the front entrance. By the time we reached the door, the square white ambulance was jouncing down the lane toward the cottage. I wondered if I ought to have my hearing tested.

  "Poor devils," Kennedy murmured as the driver set the brake and the doors opened.

  "Why so?"

  "They'll have to wait, won't they, while I send for the boys from Dublin."

  I made tea for the paramedics, and Kennedy called his equivalent of the CID. I wondered how Criminal Investigation Department translated into Irish.

  The crisp air outside temporarily revived me. Barbara Stein was still waiting in the kitchen. She kept asking me questions, and I kept temporizing. Perhaps the medics read her suppressed hostility- -the air was charged with it—for they took their mugs outside with mumbled thanks.

  I sat down at the table.

  Barbara declined another cup of tea. "Why won't you tell me what's going on? Did that block of a policeman know who it was?"

  "It's your man Wheeler," Kennedy said from the doorway. "Dead as a mackerel and laid out on the floor of the potting shed." He didn't mention the paint. "When did you last see him alive, Mrs. Stein?" He was watching her intently.

  She turned the color of Devon cream, the freckles standing out in bold relief. Her mouth opened and closed. I thought she was going to faint and half-stood to catch her if she fell over.

  Kennedy took a notebook and pen from his breast pocket. He pulled the chair opposite Barbara's and sat with his back to the front door. He repeated his question.

  "I...uh, Saturday, I guess. Sunday was Easter. That's right. The staff were on holiday. Alex and I drove down to Wexford Sunday, to the Boltons', and stayed overnight." She gulped. "S-slade said he'd check th
e answering machine for us. We were expecting a big order. But he was taking Monday off. He'd scheduled one of those stupid role-playing games for the Bank Holiday—"

  Kennedy raised his pen and his eyebrows. He had been taking rapid shorthand notes.

  "Was that..." An odd expression crossed Barbara's face. Relief?

  The pen hovered.

  She went on in a cooler voice, "When Slade didn't show up yesterday I was annoyed, but I had to drive Alex to the airport. What with one thing and another, that took most of the afternoon. I called Slade's girlfriend, Grace Flynn, this morning. She hadn't seen him since Sunday evening."

  "Had she expected to see him?"

  Barbara wrinkled her nose. "Slade's games were for boys only." She deepened her voice. "Men's business."

  "And you didn't like that?"

  She shrugged. "He was about twelve emotionally. I found his obsessions tiresome, but he was an efficient manager and a genius with software. If he wanted to run around Stanyon Woods with a bunch of teenagers..." She hesitated. "I suppose he quarreled with one of them."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Isn't it obvious? One of them must have killed him."

  "Killed him," Kennedy mused. "I wonder why you say that."

  She sat up, eyes wide. "But you said—"

  "There's no evidence of foul play, Mrs. Stein, apart from the attempt to conceal the body. He may have died of natural causes."

  Barbara stuck out her jaw. "He was only thirty. People that young don't just pop off."

  "Barbara, my dear," said my father from the doorway. "How thoughtful of you to call. It's a grand place, just the thing for a decrepit scholar." He looked at Kennedy.

  I cleared my throat. "Sergeant Joseph Kennedy, Dad."

  Kennedy had risen.

  My father held out his hand. "I'm George Dailey. I do apologize, sergeant. It's all my fault, as Lark will tell you."

  Barbara and Kennedy gaped at him.

  I said, "It wasn't the security alarm, Dad. I disabled it in time. It's something else. Will you sit down?"

  His hand fell, and he frowned at me.

  "There's a stone shed attached to the cottage," I began. "You gave me the keys. I went outside for a moment and saw that the door of the shed was open a crack. When I looked in, I found the body of a man lying on the floor. He was dead."

  Dad sat slowly in the chair at the end of the table. "Dead, you say?"

  I nodded. "I called Sergeant Kennedy."

  "And you didn't wake me?"

  "Dad..."

  "Upon my word, Lark, that's the outside of enough. I may have had a little stroke—not a serious one, mind you—but I'm not a child or a fool. You should have called me at once. What were you thinking of?"

  "I'm sorry," I said miserably.

  He slammed both hands on the surface of the table. "I will not be wrapped in cotton wool."

  The display of temper was so out of character I forgot to defend myself.

  "I beg your pardon." Dad gave Kennedy a regal half-bow. "This is a bad business, sergeant. How may I assist you?"

  Kennedy looked from my father to me to his notebook. He fiddled with his pen. I think he was embarrassed. "I'll need a statement from you, sir, and from Mrs. Dodge. Sure, it's just a formality. I've sent for Chief Detective Inspector Mahon and his investigation team, though I may have jumped the gun. As I was after telling Mrs. Stein, there's no sign of violence. The dead man is an American, though, a foreign national, and the death is at least questionable."

  "I see. Do you know who the man was?"

  "Our business manager," Barbara said glumly. "Slade Wheeler."

  "Wheeler. I don't remember a Wheeler in your class—"

  "Alex and I met him later at Stanford," she interrupted. "You don't know him, George."

  Dad looked relieved. "I see. I'm sorry, my dear."

  She blinked hard. "So am I."

  The telephone rang.

  Kennedy started to rise.

  I said, "I'll get it." I reached the desk by the fourth ring and picked up the receiver. "Bedrock Cottage. Lark Dodge speaking."

  "Who?" A male voice, tenor.

  "We're leasing the cottage. Who is this?"

  "Mike Bloody Novak. Where is everybody? I want to speak to Barbara Stein or that prick, Slade Wheeler."

  "I'll call Barbara. Just a moment."

  The voice grumbled on.

  I set the receiver on the desk and walked to the doorway. "Barbara, someone named Novak."

  She jumped up. "Oh god, Mike! We're supposed to be holding a staff meeting!"

  "Convenient." Kennedy made squiggles in his notebook. "Please tell your people Inspector Mahon and his colleagues will want to interview them."

  Barbara said something rude under her breath.

  "I beg your pardon?" His face was bland.

  "I said when?"

  "When CDI Mahon and the boys make their way south through the purlieus of Dublin," he murmured, dulcet, "like the salmon itself lepping down the weirs of the Shannon."

  "Oh God, it's rush hour."

  "It is."

  She edged between Dad and me and dashed for the front door. "And I have to meet Alex's plane."

  I said, "The telephone."

  "Tell Mike I'm on my way," she called over her shoulder.

  Kennedy made no move to stop her. He was smiling to himself. When I went back to the telephone Novak had hung up. I reported that.

  The sergeant clucked his tongue. "An impatient lot, aren't they?"

  "Like the darling nags itself gnashing at the bit," I murmured, taking a tentative step in the direction of Kennedy's style. "Or the hogs shoving at the swill bucket."

  Both men gaped at me, and then Sgt. Kennedy laid down his notebook and whooped.

  When he had subsided into the occasional chuckle, I said mildly, "I thought salmon leapt upstream."

  "You've twigged me." He wiped his eyes on a large white handkerchief. "I can't help it, you know. She's so sure I'm an idiot, I have to pull her leg." He said idjit without affectation. I had been half- convinced by his verbal imposture because the lilting accent was genuine.

  "I'll admit Barbara's a tempting target, but your diction is strictly ersatz."

  "By U-2 out of Cathleen ni Houlihan?" His mouth quirked.

  "Or John Millington Synge out of Sinead O'Connor."

  My father said plaintively, "Will someone tell me what's happening?"

  Kennedy smiled at him. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Dailey. Your daughter caught me in a bit of unprofessional persiflage. I'll take your statement when you're ready, and Mrs. Dodge's too, if she's speaking to me. I'll need your passport numbers."

  When Dad volunteered to go downstairs for our passports, I restrained myself from jumping up and saying I'd get them. I told him where to find mine.

  The idea of anyone going downstairs raised the problem of the scuffmarks. They might or might not be evidence of an intruder, and, if so, the whole basement area would be part of the crime scene.

  Kennedy went down to inspect the marks, and Dad trailed after him. I fell asleep. I dozed with my head on the kitchen table and dreamed I was driving. When I woke with a snort the two men were at the table talking quietly.

  "...and I've known both of them for years," Dad said. "They're fine young people from good families. Manny Stein was general counsel for the AFL-CIO until Clinton appointed him to the federal bench, and Alex's mother teaches mathematics at Columbia. I believe Barbara's father is a neurosurgeon. Alex and Barbara met in my seminar on Southern Reconstruction, so I like to think I brought them together. They come to see me whenever they're in Childers." Childers was my hometown in upstate New York. "So few students trouble to do that."

  "I see." Kennedy's hand paused. "You've been very helpful, sir. Thank you. Back with us, Mrs. Dodge?"

  "Mmmn. Like a salmon lepping into the net."

  He smiled. "I'll just take you through your version of things the one time. I already have a fair idea of what happene
d." And so he did, crisply and efficiently. He read what I'd said back to me. Then he rose. "I've a phone call or two to make now, if you've no objection."

  "Help yourself," Dad said cheerfully. "Hungry, Lark?"

  "Ravenous." I'd eaten an airline breakfast hours before, and it was nearly six local time. So I fixed scrambled eggs on the Rayburn. The bacon was salty but lusciously lean, and the eggs tasted like eggs. Dad chowed down, too, which made me feel guilty. I was going to have to find a market and buy some healthy food. As we ate, he apologized for losing his temper. That also made me feel guilty.

  "I really wasn't trying to hide anything from you, Dad."

  He sighed. "I know."

  "I promise to be open and direct from now on, but you have to promise to rest when you're tired. And not to blame me for fussing if I remind you."

  He sighed again. "I think the role reversal is part of what's troubling me. I'm your father. I'm supposed to take care of you, and here you are driving for me and carrying my suitcase and summoning the police."

  "And wrapping you in cotton wool. I'm sorry." I blinked back tears. I was still very tired.

  He looked away. "Sergeant Kennedy thinks the investigators will be here all night."

  "Oh, no!"

  "I have the name of a hotel on the N Eleven."

  I groaned, remembering the one-lane road past the church tower. Was I up to driving along Suicide Lane in my feeble condition?

  Fortunately, I didn't have to. Kennedy returned to the kitchen and suggested that we spend the night at his sister's B & B. She was sending his nephew over on a bicycle, and the young man—he was a university student home for the Easter break—would drive us to her farmhouse in the Toyota.

  I barely had time to toss Dad's shaving kit and pajamas into my carry-on before a bright-eyed kid wheeled up on a rackety old black bike. His name was Cieran and he didn't talk much. I do not remember the drive.

  The sergeant's sister turned out to be a comfortable, gray- haired woman in her fifties. She took one look at me and said, "Ah, the poor thing." Clearly the sergeant had laid on the explanations. "Show the two of them up to their rooms, now, Cier. There's a hot water-bottle in the bed, lass, and breakfast at half eight. I'd tuck you in meself but I'm serving dinner."

  I could have wept on her neck, she sounded so kind, but I was too sleepy. The stairway looked like a cliff. I scaled it. We had separate rooms. Dad retrieved his gear from my carry-on. I think he said good night.