Malarkey

by Sheila Simonson

  As soon as the door closed on him, I crawled into the pink sweats I sleep in in a cold climate, slid under the duvet, hugged the water-bottle to me, and passed out. Naturally, I woke up at two in the morning.

  I would have called Jay but there was no telephone in the room. For about half an hour I tried to coax myself to sleep, but my eyes remained obstinately open. I pulled the thick paperback of Phineas Finn I'd been reading on the airplane from my purse and resigned myself to nineteenth century politics.

  Chapter 3

  His friends assembled at the wake,

  And Mrs Finnegan called for lunch...

  Irish song

  Somebody was scratching at the door. I surfaced from a nightmare that involved four cars abreast on a two lane road. The cars, camouflaged in jungle green like tanks, kept flashing their lights.

  Scratch. "Lark?" It was my father.

  I pulled my limp arm loose from the water bottle and looked at my watch. Nine o'clock. At night or in the morning? Had to be morning. I had fallen asleep again at five. "Just a minute, Dad." I slid from the bed and staggered to the door.

  "Are you all right?" His tone was anxious, but his color was good. He must have slept. "Mrs. O'Brien is serving breakfast."

  "Why don't you go down? I'll join you when I've had a shower. Where's the bathroom—down the hall?"

  Dad laughed. "You were tired, weren't you? Look around. Bathrooms in all the rooms and unlimited hot water. Quite a change from the guesthouses of my salad days. I'll see you downstairs."

  He was right. Two steps up, in a corner of the pleasant room and concealed behind what looked like a closet door, was a sparkling, state-of-the-art loo. No claw-footed bathtub. No chain-pull toilet.

  British fascination with baroque plumbing had extended across the Irish Sea, though, and manifested itself in the shower controls. I decoded the mechanism after a minor scalding, showered, and woke up. It had been, horrors, thirty-six hours since my last shower. Fortunately, my hair is short and curls when it's wet. I threw on my emergency jeans, the grungy pullover, and the suede boots, gave my hair a perfunctory brush, and went out into the hallway. Fifteen minutes.

  My memory of having to scale the stairs was hazy but accurate. As in many old houses, even the hall presented several levels, and the requisite hairy plant on a small table sprawled out onto the landing of the steep stairway. The floors were carpeted in thick British Floral, the wallpaper was fresh but traditional, the woodwork shiny white.

  When I reached the ground floor I hesitated. A long hall strewn with furniture—a coat rack, a table covered with brochures, a stand full of no-nonsense umbrellas—led toward the back of the house. Five doors, one on the left and four on the right, presented more choices than I was ready to cope with in my pre-coffee state.

  I peeked in the first door on the right and startled a German couple dressed for hiking. They were sitting in front of the unlit hearth with a map spread between them. The room was done in plush and mahogany. I decided it had to be the lounge. A television, fortunately off, stared back at me. The woman hiker said something in German that sounded friendly. I smiled and withdrew.

  My second guess—the last door at the end of the hall—hit the mark. As I entered the large room, a party of four hikers, Dutch or German, broke off their conversation and stared at me. I smiled again.

  Tables covered with pink cloths seated two family groups and another set of hikers. I spotted my father in the far corner behind a pillar. The hikers resumed their discussion. Tableware clattered. I squeezed past a teenaged boy helping himself at the cereal bar and slid into the chair opposite Dad.

  He had reached the bacon and egg stage. Toast was cooling to crispness in a metal rack by his plate. A basket held soda bread wrapped in a pink cloth. Dad smiled and waved a piece of toast. "Want to share my tea?"

  "I'll wait, thanks. Do they do coffee?"

  "I believe so." He attacked his black sausage with gusto. I thought of clogged arteries.

  "Good morning, Mrs. Dodge. Sure, I didn't hear you come down." The sergeant's sister materialized at my elbow.

  I said, "You have a lovely house, Mrs. O'Brien. Especially the shower."

  She laughed. "A grant from the farmhouse association. Didn't we have four new baths installed this winter, and Toss Tierney in and out with his great muddy boots? He started at New Years and said 'twould be done in six weeks, but he finished the last one on Holy Thursday itself." Her eyes flashed at the thought of Mr. Tierney. She heaved a dramatic sigh. I wondered if role-playing ran in the family. "But all the rooms is en suite now."

  "And very nice. I slept...er, well." I was going to say like the dead and caught myself. I didn't mention the hours I had spent reading Anthony Trollope in the middle of the night either. My bout of wakefulness was not her fault.

  "Grand." She indicated an aproned sprite at her side. "This is my daughter, Eithne. She'll take your breakfast order when you're ready."

  I wasn't, quite, except for the caffeine lust, but I made my selections from a bewildering list of choices. Eithne, who looked sixteen, rejoiced in hair the color of a bonfire. When she had jotted my order on her pad, she and her mother bustled out the service door and back to the kitchen. I must have been the last guest down.

  "I hope Mrs. O'Brien didn't have to turn people out to accommodate us." I eyed Dad's soda bread.

  "No, but we took the last two rooms." Dad mopped egg yolk. "Free range hens."

  "Is that an explanation?"

  "Now, Lark, you promised not to fuss. This is a grand place." Grand seemed to be the adjective of choice. "I spent more than an hour in the lounge last evening talking to young Cieran and a charming couple from Birmingham. They're hiking the Wicklow Way. Cieran says there's a Quaker museum at Ballitore. He's reading history at Trinity, you know."

  "Is he?" I felt a flicker of amusement, but I was pleased that my father had found himself a history student. He attracts them. The sprite reappeared with bread and a cafetière. I inhaled coffee scent. "Where's Ballitore?"

  Dad sawed bacon. "Not far at all on the backroads."

  Backroads. I suppressed a groan.

  "It's in Kildare. Cieran got out the AA atlas and showed me the best route."

  "Then let's go there after breakfast."

  "Do you feel up to it?"

  Not really. I shied from the thought of driving at all, but I was in Ireland as Dad's chauffeur. "Of course."

  "Splendid." Dad poured a last cup of tea. "I suppose we ought to check with the Gardai first."

  I shoved the plunger of the cafetière down and poured myself a cup of coffee. While I laced it with free range cream and sucked down half a cup, I considered the prospect of another police interview. Inspector Mahon was bound to take us over the ground Sgt. Kennedy had already covered.

  I almost said, "What a bore," but bit the remark back unspoken. My father would not have approved. A man was dead. It was our duty to cooperate with the police.

  I was a little surprised that Dad didn't seem depressed over the incident—I was trying to think of it as an incident. Evidence of violent animosity horrifies him. He broods over tiny news items. In a sense, his entire academic career had involved brooding over the Civil War. And here was a corpse on his doorstep.

  It was true that Dad hadn't seen the body, as I had, and also true, though I had doubts, that the victim might have died of natural causes. Still, Dad's jolliness in the face of sudden death seemed as far out of character as his display of temper the day before.

  I buttered a chunk of soda bread and heaped it with marmalade. I drank my orange juice. I meditated. Was my father's cheerful demeanor evidence of a personality change? I had heard that stroke victims sometimes underwent such a change. I hoped not. I liked the old Dad.

  When Eithne brought my egg and bacon, my father asked for more hot tea water. Then he rose. "I'm going to get that road atlas and show you the short cut to Carlow. From there it's a straight run up the N Nine."

  I gave him an ab
sent smile and dived into the pool of cholesterol. I would eat cereal tomorrow. Dad returned as Eithne was bringing him a fresh pot of tea. She also offered to get me more coffee, but I declined.

  The road atlas was rather large for the table. Dad disappeared behind it as I addressed my bacon and fried egg. Free range eggs did taste better than the supermarket kind. I dipped buttered toast in the warm orange yolk. Luscious.

  "We could drive through Avoca and Woodenbridge," he mumbled.

  I buttered another morsel of toast and dipped. "Did you call Mother last night?"

  "Hmm? Yes, briefly. She's leaving for her workshop tomorrow."

  "I ought to call Jay."

  "Isn't it the middle of the night there?"

  "True." The thought cheered me. I did not want to explain to my husband that I had entangled myself in yet another police investigation. I polished off my egg.

  Dad found Ballitore. He showed me a map criss-crossed by what looked like tiny lanes. He gulped tea and told me about the museum, his eyes sparkling. I warmed to his enthusiasm.

  We left the breakfast room replete. I watched Dad's progress up the stairs. He didn't leap upward like a goat, but he was moving faster than he had the day before. When we reached the top of the stairs, I said, "I suppose we ought to pack and check out."

  He looked guilty. "I booked us for another night."

  "But you're already paying for the cottage!"

  "I like it here."

  A new, willful father. I regarded him with a mixture of bafflement and affection. "Well, okay, but I'll have to get some clothes from the cottage." After another day of driving, my sweater was going to stick to my skin.

  We reached the cottage without incident, though it was a good thing Dad navigated. I had no recollection of the road I drove on. A patrol car and an anonymous sedan sat on the gravel by the front door. The ambulance had gone, I hoped with the remains of Slade Wheeler.

  As we emerged from the Toyota, a uniformed constable stepped through the door and held up his hand, palm out. "Crime scene."

  I introduced Dad and myself as the lawful tenants of the cottage and explained that I had found the body.

  "Wait here." He disappeared inside.

  A damp wind was blowing from the southeast. After a chilly five minutes, a man in a rumpled gray suit came out to greet us. He told us he was Chief Detective Inspector Mahon, and he commiserated with us on the unpleasant start of our holiday. We shook hands all round.

  Dad said crisply, "We're not on holiday. I'm here to do historical research. And I've been here—in Dublin, that is—for ten days. My daughter and I intend to visit a museum in Kildare this morning, if you've no objection. However, we're entirely at your service."

  Chief Inspector Mahon frowned. He was a balding, heavy man of about fifty. "Come in, come in. It's cold out here, and I need to clarify a few matters."

  We followed him into the kitchen where there was evidence of tea drinking and fast food. If the police had been there all night, they were entitled. Mahon sat us down in the living room, offered us tea, which we declined, and took us through our statements. Someone had typed them. The constable took notes. I wondered where Sgt. Kennedy was but didn't ask. I could hear voices below stairs.

  Mahon seemed awfully interested in the scuff marks I'd found inside the doorway. I was unable to elaborate on what I'd seen, a mere impression.

  "You walked all over the marks, I take it."

  I kept my voice mild. "I didn't anticipate finding what I found."

  "I daresay not." He looked depressed.

  I did want to cooperate. "I'm wearing the boots I wore yesterday. Why don't you take them down and eliminate my footprints?"

  That cheered him a little. He vanished down the stairs. More rumbling and scuffling. I contemplated the toes of my socks. Hadn't Barbara Stein said something about workmen's boots? No. What was it?

  Toss Tierney. I was telescoping Mrs. O'Brien's comment about the great muddy boots and Barbara's similar exasperation with Tierney. I wriggled my toes. Should I say something to Mahon? According to Barbara, Tierney was supposed to have finished the tool shed. Obviously, he hadn't. If he had tried to, wouldn't he have found the body? I squirmed, uneasy. On the other hand, Sgt. Kennedy had said he was going to question Tierney anyway. If the man had entered the shed in the past few days Kennedy would find out.

  The telephone rang. My father answered it, though the constable made a move to cut him off. I gathered from what Dad said that the caller was someone from Stanyon Hall. I glanced at my watch. Eleven fifteen. Three in the morning at home. Still too early to call Jay, thank God, though he could advise me about Tierney. I decided to speak to Jay before I said anything to the Gardai.

  Dad hung up and came over to the couch. "That was Alex. They want us for dinner tonight."

  The funeral baked meats? I felt little enthusiasm but could think of no reason to object.

  "His...er, the dead man's sister is flying in from London."

  "London?"

  "She lives there."

  "And the Steins want moral support?"

  He frowned. "Something of that nature. He said it would be an informal buffet—nothing fancy."

  "I imagine we'll be back by dinnertime."

  "Heavens, I hope so. Ballitore can't be more than sixty miles from here."

  Less, I thought, as the crow flies. More on those little wiggling lanes. But I didn't object. I wanted to be elsewhere, though I wished we could make the trip to Ballitore by train or helicopter.

  Mahon returned. "Forensic will want to keep your boots for a day or two, Mrs. Dodge."

  "That might prove inconvenient."

  He gave an apologetic shrug.

  "You'll have to allow us to retrieve our bags from the bedrooms, then. I need shoes right now, and we'll both need a change of clothes for this evening."

  He didn't want to allow us downstairs and finally agreed to have the constable bring the luggage up to us. I wished him joy of Dad's book bag. It weighed a ton.

  As it turned out, Mahon also wanted to search our suitcases, though it wasn't clear why. A matter of routine, he said. Since we had nothing to hide, we didn't object, and the search was perfunctory. The constable's ears turned red as he riffled through my undies. He copied out the titles of Dad's books. The Republic had been known to censor books. I trusted my father had not brought anything salacious. It seemed unlikely. I replaced the suede boots with my ancient sneakers.

  It was one before Mahon finally allowed us to go. He had been relieved when Dad told him we intended to stay another night with Mrs. O'Brien. "That'll be Ballymann House," he murmured, looking faintly envious. The constable squiggled a note.

  "Will we be able to use the cottage tomorrow?" I asked.

  He said something polite and diplomatic. I gathered he wasn't sure.

  The long-suffering constable helped us load our luggage, including my father's book bag, into the Toyota. I strapped in and looked over at Dad. "Where to?"

  He checked his watch. "It's late."

  "It's lunchtime." I thought of the O'Brien breakfast. "On the other hand, I may never eat again."

  Dad smiled. "Why don't we postpone the trip to Ballitore until tomorrow? I'm not sure how long the museum stays open, and it will take us at least an hour to get there."

  "More like two."

  Dad nodded. "I have some reading to do. You could drive in to Arklow. There's a famous hand-weaving establishment at Avoca, too."

  I cheered up. "I need to cash a couple of traveler's checks and buy some real food for the cottage."

  "Black pudding."

  I looked at him again.

  He gave me a puckish smile.

  "Just yanking my chain?"

  "Something like that."

  I deposited him and our bags at Ballymann House. Then I drove without major mishap to Arklow. It was a pretty town with an almost idyllic setting, but I could see that I was fated to regard it as a shopping center. Oddly enough, I found an Americ
an-style supermarket, Quinnsworth, at the top of the town near the roundabout, so I accomplished my shopping in jig time. I even bought a bottle of decent French wine for the Steins. The bank took a bit longer. I drove to the cottage and, watched by the suspicious constable, bestowed the groceries suitably. By three, I was free to wander.

  I think I suffered a residual spasm of jet-lag. I got lost along the seacoast. The road wound between stone walls with glimpses of steep headlands and golden sand far below. Except for one cramped- looking park, the beach was in private hands, a disappointment. Ocean beaches in Washington State, where I live, have public access. I wanted to run on the sand. I needed a good run.

  I gave up on that idea somewhere between Arklow and Wicklow. It was time to go back to Mrs. O'Brien's for a shower and a change of clothes. After half a dozen false starts, I pointed the Toyota west and drove until I hit the N11 north of Suicide Lane. From there it was plain sailing, but I was a little frazzled when I drew up at Ballymann House. Which may explain why I forgot to call my husband.

  Mrs. O'Brien had an instinct for succoring distressed tourists. She greeted me at the door and asked if I fancied a pot of tea in the lounge with my father. I could have kissed her feet.

  Dad and I drove back to Stanyon at half past six. Alex Stein wanted to show us the house before dinner. Alex was a good-looking man with dark hair and eyes and an endearing cowlick. He was short, by Dailey standards, but half a head taller than Barbara, and, like Barbara, he was intense. He so clearly idolized my father I was inclined to like him.

  Alex took my bottle of wine, shook hands, and gave me a brief smile. Then he turned to Dad. "This is a bad business, George."

  "The dead man?" Dad shook hands, too. "If he was your business manager, I imagine his death does leave you in fix."

  Alex led us into a foyer that was in the throes of restoration. "I'm more concerned about the legal situation. The police are talking as if Slade was killed by one of the kids who were role-playing in the woods Monday."