Malarkey

by Sheila Simonson

  Like me. I decided to bumble, too. "Maeve Butler said the Irregulars used Stanyon Woods as an ammo dump during the Civil War. I'm not sure who the Irregulars—"

  "A Free State term for de Valera's boys," Liam interrupted. "That's nonsense, though. Stanyon was an Orange stronghold."

  "I took a walk in the woods," I ventured.

  Liam stiffened. So did Jay.

  "I found blotches of red paint here and there, but I didn't see anything that looked like a storage facility." I decided not to mention the incised stone.

  "You went into the woods?" Mike gave an elaborate shiver. "You are one ballsy woman. I'd sooner jump into the Avoca at high tide with bricks in my britches. Slade's playmates bragged about setting traps for each other in the woods."

  "Lark is a little impulsive," said my loyal spouse. The mildness of his voice warned me he was going to rake me over the coals at the first opportunity. I hadn't got around to mentioning my adventure in the woods to him.

  I shut up, though I was still curious. Jay asked Mike a question about the baroque disk, and general conversation flowed.

  I turned Liam's remark over in my mind. So the Irregulars were die-hard republicans, ancestors of the present IRA. But I had thought the Orange faction was out of the picture by the time of the Civil War, at least in the south. What better place for a cache of arms than an abandoned enemy stronghold? Liam's grandfather was a staunch republican, though, so he ought to know.

  "How can the two of you be so damn passive?" Barbara's voice rang sharp. She stomped to the drinks trolley and refilled her wine glass. My father and Alex, glum-faced, trailed after her.

  Tracy wound down a technical comment on the disk. Mike and Liam moved aside to make room for Alex. I gave him a tentative smile which he apparently didn't see. His eyes were dark with worry.

  Dad held out his glass, and Barbara poured. "About half, thanks. You did ask my advice, Barbara, and you know I'm the last man on earth to advise anyone to fight."

  Barbara was not about to be jollied. "I seem to remember a lecture on the perils of passivity. It had to do with the Holocaust."

  Dad said gently, "It had to do with the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto—with the dignity of resistance."

  Tears glinted in Barbara's eyes. "And when those Nazis come for Alex, I suppose you want him to go with them like a meek sheep."

  "The Gardai are not Nazis," Alex said. "You're hysterical."

  She turned on him. "Thanks a lot. I'm not hysterical, Alex, but you damn betcha I'm emotional. We can't afford to have you hauled off on a false charge. The company needs you. I need you." Her mouth quivered. "Mahon has stopped looking. He's found his scapegoat. You have to do something. Hire a detective."

  As with one mind everyone, including Dad, looked at Jay. His ears turned red. After a moment, he said, "What makes you think Mahon has it in for your husband, Barbara?"

  "We have a trade show in Brussels Saturday. He told Alex not to leave the country. And he made Alex strip naked, and they photographed his bruises. Is that good enough?"

  Jay said mildly, "It's a little extreme, though I imagine Mahon had a warrant."

  "So?"

  "Does it occur to you that the photos may eliminate Alex as a suspect? He fell downstairs. It may be that Mahon's looking for a different pattern of bruising."

  "A bruise is a bruise," Barbara muttered but she calmed down a little.

  Jay said, "What did Mahon say about the burglary?"

  "What burglary?"

  Jay looked at Dad. "You didn't mention it?"

  Dad shook his head. "I didn't talk to Barbara very long this afternoon."

  "And couldn't get a word in edgewise when you did," Alex interposed, acid. "Was there a break-in at the cottage?"

  I said, "During the inquest. Or just as it was ending."

  The Stonehall people stared. Mike said, "No shit."

  I went on, "We hung around at the church hall for a while after the inquest, trying to evade the press and talking to Teresa Tierney. By the time Maeve drove us to the cottage, the alarm was ringing and a constable had driven over from Killaveen."

  Jay gazed deep into his glass of dark ale. "It would be interesting to know exactly when the call came in. If it was before the inquest adjourned, then anyone who attended would be eliminated from the list of possible burglars."

  Mike groaned, and Tracy punched his arm, grinning.

  "You said it was a professional," I protested.

  "Maybe it was. Probably it was, but it can't hurt to check the timing."

  I began calculating. "It's ten minutes, tops, from Killaveen to the cottage, and Byrne was driving a patrol car."

  Jay looked at the Steins. "How long did the reporters keep you after the inquest?"

  Alex stared.

  Barbara's eyes gleamed with sudden hope. "Hours. Most of the crowd was gone by the time we escaped. Alex, go call that bastard—"

  Jay said, "I imagine Mahon will ask all of you where you were. Novak, you were here. Did you notice when the two uniformed men left?"

  Mike shook his head. "I was working right up to the time Alex and Barbara came back. In my office." He sounded irritable.

  "The crime-scene technicians from Stanyon also got the call. They came along maybe half an hour later and brought their gear. There must have been a lot of commotion when they left the house."

  "I didn't notice." Mike's jaw set. The wispy beard quivered.

  Jay sighed.

  Tracy wriggled. "I wish I'd come here directly. I didn't, though. I could see those reporters had Alex and Barbara trapped. It was obvious our staff meeting would be delayed, so I drove to my flat for a sandwich. It was almost lunchtime."

  Liam said, "I cut out whilst Mahon was on the stand. Went for a walk."

  "Guilty!" Tracy grinned at him.

  He cocked his hand like a pistol and cracked his thumb joint.

  "Ew," Tracy said. "That's gross."

  Everyone laughed, and the tension eased. Barbara was eyeing Jay with unabashed admiration. She was going to try to hire him.

  I sought to distract her. "Barbara, I have a small domestic question. I hate to raise it under the present melancholy circumstances, but what do I do with the garbage from my kitchen? It's rapidly approaching critical mass."

  Barbara blinked. "Uh, there's a dumpster behind the house, Stanyon, I mean. You can use that. They collect on Wednesdays."

  "Wonderful." It was nice to have one clear answer in a sea of questions.

  "If the cops haven't cordoned it off. They're still searching for the garrote, whatever it was." Gloom darkened her intense features once more. "They've put crime-scene tape across the corridor Kayla's room is in and stationed a uniformed guard outside her door. My housekeeper's having kittens."

  "Has the chef quit?"

  Her mouth relaxed in a genuine smile. "No, he thrives on the drama, says it inspires him."

  "He must be a character."

  Alex said, "Murtagh's at least as flamboyant as Paul Prudhomme. We're doing a cooking disk with him."

  What else? I was willing to lay odds the disk had been Alex's idea. He was a regular fountain of creative thought. Why had they needed Slade Wheeler? I opened my mouth to ask, but Barbara beat me to the punch.

  "I wish to hell we'd never met Slade."

  "Better for him if you hadn't," Jay observed.

  Barbara reddened. Dad made a clucking sound.

  "Why did you hire him?" I watched Barbara over the rim of my glass.

  "We didn't hire him, exactly," Alex said. "He was looking for an investment. Slade designed a game, Battlecock, that earned him a nice chunk of cash. He was interested in developing CDs."

  "And in hunting around for a floundering company he could take over," Mike said sourly. When the Steins protested, he went on, with some heat, "All right, so he didn't have a controlling interest. Still, he invested a bunch, and you agreed to let him handle the fiscal management. To bully the staff."

  "That's not fair!" Al
ex protested. "We were losing money. We needed cost controls."

  "I thought Wheeler was supposed to be an idea man," I said.

  Barbara made a face, and Tracy groaned.

  Mike said, "The only idea that crossed that sucker's mind was the Bottom Line."

  "That's not fair," Alex repeated. It seemed to be his tune. "He did a couple of games for us."

  "Bo-oring," Tracy drawled.

  Alex said, with great earnestness, "Slade wasn't creative. He did have an MBA, though, he kept up on the latest software, and he did know computer people. When Barbara and Mike and I started the company, we followed our own tastes and lost money. Slade understood what people would buy."

  A commercial counterweight. That made a certain kind of sense.

  "Why are we blathering about Slade?" Barbara asked impatiently.

  "Because I'm curious," I shot back. "Because he was murdered. Because I tweedled out the back door of your cute cottage and found his body. Slade Wheeler is a big fat puzzle."

  "Big and fat," Mike snickered. "You got it. Fat in the head, too."

  "Be that as it may," my father pronounced, "Lark's right. When you solve the puzzle of Slade Wheeler you'll be able to put a name to his killer, and Alex will be off the hook. Innocence is Alex's best defense."

  It was a sweetly naive remark. Barbara snorted, and I didn't blame her. "Not with Mahon in charge."

  Jay said, "Mahon is a competent professional, and his methods are up-to-date."

  Barbara growled.

  He took a sip of Guinness. "You don't have to like him, but you do have an obligation to cooperate with him. He has good local information through Joe Kennedy—"

  "Kennedy," Barbara snarled.

  "I wonder why you're so negative about Joe," I mused. "You were down on him from the moment he walked through the cottage door. Yet you like Maeve."

  "Maeve has rotten taste in men," Barbara said darkly. "I know that kind of cop."

  "What kind?"

  "A big, dumb, good-looking Irish flatfoot."

  I drew a breath. "Can it be that you're indulging in a stereotype?"

  She flushed. "He's no Sherlock Holmes."

  Jay toyed with his glass. "Kennedy's not a detective."

  "I think I said that." Barbara's moment of embarrassment faded. She raised her chin.

  "He has some investigative experience," Jay went on, as if she hadn't spoken. "But he's not focused that way. It isn't his job. The media have done a lot to glamorize detection, but it's tedious work and getting more and more technical."

  Dad said, "I'm sure there are other interesting police tasks."

  "Such as?" Barbara tapped her finger on her wine glass.

  "Keeping the peace?"

  Jay smiled at him. "That's a more challenging problem than picking up the pieces after the fact of a crime. If I understand Gardai structure, Kennedy chose to specialize in community relations rather than detection. My guess is that he does a good job."

  Barbara looked skeptical.

  Jay went on, dogged, "He knows his turf. He was on top of the wargamers from the word go. What possessed you to let Wheeler set up a quasi-military training camp in Ireland, of all places?"

  "Slade was just playing games."

  "So you say, but try looking at those games from Kennedy's angle. You came in here on a burst of favorable publicity, all set to offer new opportunities to local workers."

  "We have. We've hired a lot of people from the community."

  "Middle-aged women," Liam murmured. He was watching Jay with apparent fascination.

  Jay nodded. "And that's good. They need jobs. From the point of view of law enforcement, though, the population at risk is young and male. Their parents thought Stonehall would offer those kids jobs. Instead, you offered them Wheeler's games. The Provisional IRA draws recruits from the same population and uses the same skills."

  "And they're not pretending," I blurted.

  Jay said softly, "Wheeler was playing games. Was Tommy Tierney?"

  Alex looked sick. "We should have stopped Slade."

  Liam said, "The concept of wargames is mad. I never could find out what war Slade thought he was simulating. I asked him was it Vietnam, but he just laughed and said I didn't understand."

  "He was probably too ignorant to simulate anything specific. Americans aren't very good at history." Jay sounded tired. Vietnam was his war. He glanced at Dad who was contemplating his empty wine glass.

  Barbara said, "It wasn't a war, Lee, it was war in general. Slade created games. He thought that way."

  "Ah, I see." Liam set the Perrier bottle on the trolley. He ran a hand over his hair, smoothing it. "Supposing someone, myself maybe, was to organize a group of game players for the simulation of rape. Would the company give me the loan of the woods for that purpose?"

  He had gone beyond joking. Alex made a strangled noise. Barbara opened her mouth to protest and closed it. Dad pursed his lips.

  "According to Sergeant Kennedy, there was an offshoot of the Hellfire Club frolicking in the woods in the nineteenth century." I dropped the observation into the rather fraught silence. An amiable practice of the Hellfire Club was mass seduction of housemaids.

  "Sure, there's nothing new under the sun," Liam mourned.

  Alex was studying him as if he were a stranger. "I didn't know you felt so strongly about the games, Lee."

  Mike leapt to his defense. "Lee told you they were trouble. I told you. Joe Kennedy came over in his bloody patrol car to tell you. You didn't hear us. You were too busy appeasing Wheeler."

  "He was hard to deal with," Alex muttered.

  "Hard to say no to," Mike paraphrased, bitter.

  Barbara said, "This has got to stop, Mike. We'll be at each other's throats next."

  Given the mode of Kayla Wheeler's death, the metaphor was an unfortunate choice. No one else appeared to notice. Mike looked sullen, but he said nothing further.

  Barbara touched the sleeve of Liam's jacket. "I'm sorry, Lee. I didn't like the games, either. I thought they were childish. Thinking they were harmless as well was my mistake as much as Alex's. And Slade was...difficult."

  "Somebody simplified him," Mike said.

  I considered Mike Novak. I had thought he was a Stonehall employee, but he was apparently a founding partner. If he had seen Slade as a serious threat to the company, his motive for murder was as strong as the Steins'. For Slade Wheeler's murder. But why Kayla? My head ached.

  In my brief lapse of attention, Barbara had turned to Jay. "I want to hire you," she was saying, "to clear Alex and to find out who killed Slade and Kayla—"

  "No." Jay didn't hesitate. In fact he spoke before she had finished her sentence.

  "But why?" The question was a long wail.

  "I'm here as a visitor," Jay said patiently. "I don't know Irish law, and I don't have an investigator's license."

  "But informally."

  "No. Not formally, not informally." He didn't elaborate. She tried once more, and Alex and Mike seconded the notion, but Jay just shook his head.

  I caught Dad's eye. "We really should walk back to the cottage, Barbara, if only to check out the alarm system. Thanks for offering your dumpster—an act of true charity."

  "Don't mention it." She sounded defeated and indifferent.

  Alex saw us to the door. The others showed no sign of leaving, but Liam shook hands with Dad and Jay and gave me a small bow. Tracy favored us with an unhappy smile. Mike poured himself another beer.

  On the porch, which was littered with the data processors' cigarette butts, Alex said, "George, I'm sorry. You know Barbara. Once she gets an idea into her head she digs in."

  Dad cocked his head sideways. "It's her great strength. Don't worry too much. Things will sort themselves out. Do you have a lawyer?"

  Alex sighed. "The company has a whole firm of civil lawyers on retainer, solicitors they're called here. I'm sure none of them has touched a criminal case. They're far too respectable."

  Jay sa
id, "They can recommend a criminal lawyer, Alex. Get some professional advice. It can't hurt."

  "Okay. I understand why you don't want to work for us, Jay, though I wish you'd change your mind. I think you're right about Mahon and Kennedy. They're competent police officers." Alex shoved at a cigarette butt with the toe of his shoe. "But they're not Americans."

  Jay frowned. "Do you think Wheeler was killed by an American?"

  "Christ, I don't know. But both victims were Americans. That has to mean something."

  We said goodbye and headed up the shallow slope to the arch of rhododendrons. They were fully budded out, ready to blossom. The long twilight cast a pale enchantment over the whole scene. We walked in a silence I finally broke.

  "So why didn't you take an informal watching brief, Jay? Protecting the Steins' interests, translating their viewpoint for Mahon. You wouldn't have to interfere with the actual investigation."

  He didn't answer me immediately. Dad said, "It would be awkward. Sergeant Kennedy is almost a friend."

  Jay gave a short laugh. I felt my face go hot. Joe was my friend. That was what Jay was thinking, and he wasn't entirely wrong. Taking even a watching brief in the case would be a criticism of Irish police work that was bound to chill the relationship.

  After half a dozen paces, Jay said, "I was concerned about a more mundane problem, as it happens. I came here to look after your interests, George, and Lark's."

  "To protect us." I bristled. I couldn't help it.

  "I was trying to avoid that word," Jay said wryly.

  "I appreciate the kindness." My father eased his long stride and turned toward Jay. "But I don't see a conflict... Oh."

  "Yes. What if protecting the Steins put the two of you in danger?"

  Dad's face reflected horror. "Do you think one of them is guilty? Both of them?"

  "Not necessarily, though they had reason to resent Wheeler, and Alex, at least, could have done either of the murders. He spent two years in the Israeli army."

  That was news Jay had to have got from the police—or from his own network. I thought of the computer. He believed the burglar had been aiming for his computer. If Jay was using it to access police files on the Internet that made sense—or if the "burglar" thought he was using the computer for that purpose.