Malarkey

by Sheila Simonson

  "An accident?"

  "Maybe."

  Or manslaughter. That was interesting, though not surprising. I said, "How was he killed?"

  "The Garda inspector used a lot of technical jargon. What it boils down to is that they think somebody used a choke-hold on him."

  I blinked. "Do people use choke-holds in Ireland?"

  "Somebody did. Slade liked to think of himself as an expert on the martial arts. He may have showed the kids how to use the choke-hold to subdue an attacker."

  "Those are fast results for an autopsy," I observed.

  Dad stared at me as if he found my knowledge of autopsies distasteful. Perhaps he did.

  Alex said, "They're not sure that's what happened. Preliminary findings. They're going to hold a coroner's inquest."

  That was consistent with British law. American courts rarely require an inquest. "And you're worried about liability?"

  He sighed. "The Irish are not as litigious as Americans in these situations. I suppose I'm worried about moral liability."

  Dad nodded, approving.

  Alex went on, "I didn't like Slade's little games. They smacked of hate groups and white supremacist militias. He swore his had no political overtones, but everything has political overtones, especially in Ireland."

  My father said gravely, "If there's anything I can do to help you, Alex, don't hesitate to ask. I spoke with Chief Inspector Mahon this morning."

  He gave Dad a dazzling smile. "Thanks, George. We need all the support we can get. Do you want to see the house first or have a drink?"

  "The house." Dad didn't hesitate.

  I was less enthusiastic, but I tagged along.

  The interior of Stanyon Hall in its heyday must have caused a sensation among the landed gentry. Most Irish manor houses were reputedly Georgian. Stanyon looked as if it had been generated by a cabal of Black Forest gnomes.

  When I was an undergraduate I went on a six-week European tour between basketball clinics. Among the chateaux and galleries and cathedrals we visited, I recalled the stately home of a German industrial family, folks who helped bring us World War One. The house had been built in the 1880's, when the fake-Gothic craze was already in decline, and it looked much like Stanyon. The interior of the monumental German house was done in stained wood and wood paneling with clots of tormented wood carving to liven things up. It felt like an overdose of Wagner.

  Stanyon wasn't quite that bad. For one thing, the carvers had been Irish, so harps and shamrocks and Celtic curves lightened the angst. At some point most of the wood had been covered with institutional gray enamel. As a rule I dislike gray enamel but it took the curse off all that dour paneling. The Steins were in the process of stripping the wood. I had done a bit of that myself, so I sympathized with the process if not with the goal. The substance you use to remove stubborn paint has to be classified as toxic waste.

  Up an intricately carved stairway we went and through a maze of Toss Tierney's hurdles and tarps to the library. The muniment room, Alex said. He sounded half-ironic, half- impressed.

  "Lots of wood," I said feebly.

  "Yeah, in a country that was deforested by the seventeenth century."

  I live in a region where the big lumber companies are busy exporting the last temperate-zone rain forest to Japan in the form of logs. I didn't feel competent to criticize. "I like the stained glass."

  That was a subject Alex could enter into with untainted enthusiasm. He told us all about the local artists he had hired to replace missing panes, and the small crest he had commissioned for the tallest window—with the company logo picked out in gold and rose.

  My father admired the glass-encased bookshelves, empty now, with their little pointy windows. The Stanyon book collection had been sold off long before.

  "Volumes of Debrett's and leather-bound copies of horse periodicals," Alex said wryly, "and the occasional seventeenth century divine. I looked at the catalogue."

  All the same I would have liked to see the books.

  Alex checked his watch. "Barbara should be home from the airport by now. She went to pick up Slade's sister. Shall we rescue her?"

  Obedient, we followed him downstairs, though my feelings toward Barbara Stein were not warm enough to warrant a rescue mission.

  Downstairs, Alex ushered us into a room the restoration had not yet touched. It was vast and gray, with an industrial carpet and an angry-looking parlor stove in which a fire was burning. None too soon. The huge house was cold. Barbara and her guest had not yet appeared.

  Alex must have seen my raised eyebrows. "We're still camping here," he said defensively. "The staff uses this room as a lunchroom."

  "The staff?" I was confused. Did he mean housemaids?

  "Our mass production and packaging facility is in Arklow, but the design staff, the brains of the outfit, work here in what was the drawing room. I'll show you the computer stations later, if you like."

  Dad said, "Did you have to rewire?"

  Alex gave a hollow laugh. "We're still rewiring."

  "Thanks to Toss Tierney?" I ventured.

  He stared. "You must have talked to Barbara."

  I explained.

  His face clouded. "The man has never, not once, brought a job in on time."

  "Why don't you fire him?"

  "Because old Toss is everybody's friend—or everybody's cousin. The sucker must have invented networking. The quality of his work is good," he added, grudging. "When he gets around to doing it."

  "Has he talked with Sergeant Kennedy yet?"

  Alex was pouring wine, white for me, red for my father. "Nobody's seen Toss since Monday."

  "Though how that dolt Joe Kennedy could overlook a daffodil yellow van is a little hard to imagine," Barbara said. She had crept in through a side door. "Hi, George. Lark. Red for me, Alex."

  He handed her a glass of burgundy. He was pouring from a rather nice teak drinks trolley that looked about a hundred and fifty years too recent for the house. All the furnishings were modern, Scandinavian, and somewhat the worse for wear. When the company moved to Ireland, Alex explained, they had shipped their own furniture. He had an agent scouring the antiques shops for Victorian tat.

  Barbara took her drink to a couch that resembled the one in the living room of the cottage. She collapsed onto the cushions. "My God, what a ride. They have got to extend DART to the airport." DART was the Dublin transit system train. "I will not drive through Dublin at rush hour again, Alex. I swear it. And never with Kayla Wheeler."

  "How is she?"

  "Obnoxious." Barbara tossed back half a glass of wine. "At the best of times, Kayla whinges. It is not the best of times. Considering that she and Slade couldn't stay in the same room without bickering, I'm a bit surprised at the display of grief."

  Alex frowned. "Barb—"

  She made a face. "Yeah, I know. Have a little respect. I notice you didn't volunteer to make the airport run."

  "Damnit, I had to deal with the Netweaver contract."

  "Sez you."

  They glowered at each other.

  I drifted to a window and sipped wine to cover my irritation. I hate it when married couples rend each other in public. The window overlooked an expanse of lawn and the river, the Avoca, I supposed. It was still light out and would be until almost nine. I reminded myself we were as far north as Juneau, Alaska.

  Dad said, "This is a nice burgundy, Alex. A European Community perk? Are the French going to start using varietal labels one of these days?"

  Alex allowed himself to be led into oenological speculation, and the tension eased. I ought to have engaged Barbara in similar chitchat. I was trying to come up with a neutral topic when the doorbell rang. Barbara jumped up, muttering something about dinner guests, and left the room.

  Alex said, "We asked our friend, Maeve Butler, to dinner to meet you. She's an archaeologist. And Mike Novak's coming, I think. Mike and Liam McDiarmuid from the design staff. And Tracy Aspin— you remember Tracy, George. She was a year behind
Barbara and me."

  Dad's face brightened. "Of course. Tracy did a paper on Elizabeth Cady Stanton."

  Barbara ushered in a thirtyish woman who had the spare elegance of a greyhound. She was tailed by Sgt. Kennedy. He was not in uniform.

  Alex took a startled step forward.

  The aristocratic lady smiled at him. "Hullo, Alex. I brought Joe to even your numbers. I knew you wouldn't mind."

  Alex swallowed visibly but shook hands with the sergeant, who listened to his escort's graceful apology with the bland expression I had learned to distrust.

  Barbara looked grim. "You know George and Lark already, Joe, so I'll introduce Maeve. Maeve Butler, our favorite history professor, George Dailey, and his daughter, Lark."

  Maeve held out a long, aristocratic hand, first to me, then to Dad. "A pleasure. I read your article on cotton smuggling through Liverpool and the western ports, Professor Dailey. Very solid."

  "The one in Economic History Review?"

  "To be sure. I'll look forward to your work on the Quakers."

  "I'm not certain where it's leading," Dad murmured. A becoming flush tinged his cheekbones. My father is the most modest of men, but scholarly ego is a wonderful thing. I left him to feed it and turned to Sgt. Kennedy.

  "Alex tells me the coroner is going to sit on Mr. Wheeler—is that the correct terminology?"

  He took a glass of wine from Alex. "Thanks. Strange you should mention that, Mrs. Dodge."

  "Oh, do call me Lark."

  He set his wineglass on an end table and withdrew a slim manila envelope from the breast pocket of his heathery gray tweed jacket. He looked good in tweed. He handed me the envelope.

  I fingered the paper. "What is it?"

  "A subpoena."

  "What!"

  "For the inquest. It's set for Monday morning." He glanced over where Dad was having a reunion with a young person, probably Tracy Aspin. Two men had come in, too. I wondered which of them was Mike Novak, the man I had spoken to on the telephone. Alex poured wine. An unmuffled engine sounded in the distance.

  "... and I thought the old gentleman might prefer not to testify." Kennedy was frowning at me, intent.

  I drew a long breath. "Thank you for that. Since I found the body, I'll have to testify. I should have thought of it."

  "Routine," he murmured.

  "Did you wangle the invitation tonight in order to slip me this little party favor on the sly?"

  He picked up his wine glass. "I'm, how d'ye say it, socially challenged?"

  I spluttered into my wine. "No, you are not. You're socially slinky."

  "Sure, I could have had me sister Connie serve it to you with your breakfast." He drooped over the wine, melancholy.

  "The whole family is playboys entirely."

  His teeth flashed in a grin.

  It was a long time since I had read The Playboy of the Western World, so I gave up mangling the idiom. "Have you found Mr. Tierney?"

  "Toss? He'll turn up like a bad penny." Kennedy sipped. "I spent the day at St. Malachy's, that's the high school, talking to lads with attitude. 'Twas wearing. Maeve took pity on me."

  Outside, the engine—motorcycle, I thought absently—neared and stopped. There were few noises other than birdsong in the Irish countryside. The mechanical sound was almost comforting.

  Possibly the archaeologist heard her name. She detached herself from a low-voiced conversation with the Steins, strolled over, wine glass in hand, and took Kennedy's arm in a way that was not quite possessive. "I'm peckish, Joe. I deduce we're waiting for Miss Wheeler. Roast lamb or chicken, Miss Dailey? What odds? The Stanyon cook is temperamental and quite splendid."

  I was about to explain that I had been Mrs. Dodge for a number of years when the doorbell rang. Alex and Barbara exchanged looks. Barbara shrugged and slipped from the room.

  Maeve Butler's long mouth quirked at the corners. "Poor darlings, they're besieged."

  "Isn't it the stroke of good fortune they've a castle to hole up in?" the sergeant said. "Now, Maeve, I explained that Professor Dailey's daughter is a married lady."

  "Oh God," I blurted. "I forgot to call my husband."

  Both of them looked at me with expressions of benign concern.

  "You can't go in there!" Barbara's voice rang sharp.

  The drone of conversation stilled, and we all turned to the door to the hall.

  A young woman, blonde and rather short, pushed into the room. A man in black leathers had slunk in behind her, followed, like a worried terrier, by Barbara Stein. The blonde swept us all with a scornful glance. "Where is she then? Where's Miss Wheeler?"

  "In her room, Grace. I'm won't have her disturbed." Barbara's tone was cold but indignation reddened her cheeks.

  The young woman's eyes flashed. "Sure, and why not? I've every right to disturb the grand Miss Fucking Wheeler." She said fooking. "I'm Slade's woman, aren't I, and I'm carrying his child."

  Chapter 4

  And I hope that the next generation

  Will resemble old Rosin the Beau.

  Irish song

  "Grace!" One of the men—Alex or Novak or McDiarmuid— said the name in a choked voice. My father and Tracy Aspin broke off their conversation. The Steins froze where they stood.

  Grace Flynn—I recalled the full name of Wheeler's girl- friend—looked defiant but embarrassed. Her face flushed, and she kept her chin up and her eyes wide open. If she hadn't been trying to project another image, I would have said she looked cute. Her escort, who was not cute, slunk after her.

  I heard Maeve draw a startled breath and felt, rather than saw, Joe Kennedy move beside her. The rest of us shifted from foot to foot and gawked. Whatever Grace's object may have been, and it was, at least in part, dramatic, she certainly had our attention.

  As for me, I felt as if someone had hit me in the stomach, and I remembered, again, that I had not called Jay.

  For several years I had been trying to have a baby. Both Jay and I had undergone every possible fertility test with the result that we knew his sperm count—so-so—and my basal temperature— unreliable. I had read articles about women who failed to conceive because they postponed childbearing beyond the optimal years. There was some disagreement as to what those years were, but Grace Flynn was clearly more optimal than I.

  I had finally conceived a child the previous April. Six weeks later I miscarried. It was all very well for the doctors to assure me that spontaneous abortions were common in mothers of a certain age. I was not consoled. My grief and fury extended well into summer, until Dad's stroke jolted me out of my self-absorption.

  Jay had borne with me. I realized I ought to be grateful, but what I felt was a kind of shamefaced resentment. Hence my desire to escape. Hence my flight to Ireland. And here was the fecund Miss Flynn confronting me with my inadequacy.

  "The poor child," Maeve murmured.

  My cheeks burned as if she had heard my selfish reaction.

  "Do something, Joe."

  Kennedy cleared his throat. "Gracie darling, should you be riding on a motorcycle in your condition?"

  "Joe!" Maeve's tone was stern.

  "Come and sit down, lass." Kennedy walked across the long room to Grace and led her back to the couch. She looked less dramatic sitting down. The leather-clad man, who was younger than I had thought at first glance, circled and stood behind the couch. His eyes kept darting around the room like a cornered animal's.

  Alex hovered at Kennedy's elbow. "I'll get her a drink, shall I?"

  "Juice or water," Kennedy pronounced. "We can't have the baby suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome." He said babby.

  Grace blinked. She looked as if she wanted to protest.

  Alex brought her something fruity. She took it and sat with the glass balanced on one bejeaned knee.

  "That's the ticket," Kennedy said kindly. "Now, Grace, why don't you tell us what it was moved you to burst in here without an invitation?"

  "I want me rights." She took a swallow from the glass and
made a face.

  "And who is trying to deprive you of them?"

  Grace muttered dark aspersions against Kayla Wheeler.

  Kennedy straightened. "Ah, I see. You're concerned for your child's rights in the estate of Slade Wheeler."

  Grace nodded.

  "His Dublin solicitor doesn't know of a will. If he died intestate, the child stands to come into a share of his property. Time for the lawyers, lass. Isn't it grand that it's so easy to establish paternity these days? I'll alert the doctors..." His voice trailed.

  Possibly he decided taking tissue from a dead man for genetic analysis was an indelicate subject in the presence of the dead man's putative child. Or he may have wanted to work on our imaginations—and Grace's.

  Grace's eyes widened and she shifted on the couch. Her bodyguard stared. Somebody gave a choked laugh. Maeve frowned.

  I wondered if Grace was sure who the child's father was. She looked alarmed. Of course, she might have been puzzling over the word intestate. I hoped she had some instinct for self-preservation, because she had just handed the Gardai a motive for murder.

  Kennedy was saying soothing things. He expressed no doubt that the child was Wheeler's. "You'll want to talk the legal situation over with your da, Gracie."

  "He'll kill me."

  "Does he know you're with child?" Maeve interjected, sharp.

  Grace shook her head, and her eyes brimmed tears.

  Barbara took a step forward. I edged toward the couch, too. Both of us, I think, were moved by an impulse of protection, but it was Maeve who expressed it.

  "I'll come home with you, Grace. So will Joe, if you think that will help. And you should ring up Caitlin Morrisey in Arklow."

  "The solicitor?" Grace looked awed.

  Maeve said, "Shall I telephone her for you?"

  "Oh, please, Miss Butler, I'm that upset I don't know what I'd say to a lawyer at all." She burst into tears.

  Maeve sat beside her and held her quivering shoulders. Grace's henchman looked as if he would have burst into tears too, if he hadn't been covered with leather and tattoos. They were just kids, and Grace, at least, had suffered a loss, though I had to wonder at the depth of her grief for Wheeler if her mind was on property rights.