by Lisa Alber
“You ever hate yourself?” Dermot lifted his head like it already hurt from a hangover. “Never mind. I’ll take a double.”
Alan pushed the glass up against the Scotch optic to dispense one shot, paused, and then pushed up again to release the second shot. He set the glass in front of Dermot and wiped the already clean counter with a bar rag. “Gemma okay?”
Dermot swallowed a large gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We have a place to sleep now, anyhow. A woman named Ellen Ahern lent us a room. Kind of her.”
“Careful there, mate,” Alan said. “Her husband’s Gardaí. Still married even if they’re not living together.”
“Police? Fan-fecking-tastic.” A spasm contorted Dermot’s face. “We should have been here and gone already—back to Dublin.”
Dermot looked so pained that Alan rolled up the left sleeve of his hurling jersey. He pointed to a tattoo that encircled his forearm. It swirled in a vibrant smoke of imagery around his arm, one illustration feeding into the other in waves of blue. “The design’s called ‘A Man’s Ruin,’” he said.
Alan rotated his arm to show off the overall theme. Booze bottles, dice, fags, pills, a small Catholic cross, and in the center of it all a blonde woman with a snake covering her pornographic bits.
Dermot caught Alan’s wrist and rotated it underside up. “What’s that supposed to mean, the shamrock?”
“It means that depending on luck can ruin a man as well as anything else.”
Dermot almost threw Alan’s arm back into his face. “But you forgot a few things, didn’t you? You forgot family. Family can hang you up like nothing else.”
Without word, Alan pointed to the snake entwined around both the Celtic cross and the blond woman.
“And there’s secrets also. Where’s secrets on your arm? They’ll eat you alive.”
“Yes,” Alan said. “But I didn’t think of that at the time.”
Nathan Tate squeezed in beside Dermot and ordered a Black and Tan. Alan once again caught himself up in the swirl of customer satisfaction. He kept an eye on Dermot, who drank steadily without talking to anyone. Alan was aware of Seamus returning to his usual spot amongst the crows with Brendan at his side, and the subsequent debate about who had first coined the term “crows” to describe themselves.
The vocal blur washed over Alan. He kept half an ear attuned to the crowd while his thoughts gravitated back to Gemma. She had to figure heavily in Dermot’s preoccupations with family and secrets. He slapped his bar rag against the counter.
Stop. Gemma was none of his business. He maneuvered his way around one of his waitresses and almost bumped into Bijou. She pawed at the ground, her signal for a bathroom break. Every night at 11:00, more timely than the wall clock. Alan assessed the teeming room and the wave of newcomers pressing in from the front door. He pulled Bijou’s lead out from behind the cash register.
“Brendan,” he said. “It’s time.”
With a ready smile, Brendan held out his hand for the dangling lead.
“Your pint will be waiting.” Alan tucked a plastic bag into Brendan’s hand. “And don’t be forgetting this. Fitz will talk me a new piehole if he finds one of her piles. That man can smell dog shit in his sleep.”
Brendan laughed. Over the summer he’d filled out and his acne had faded. Alan had watched Brendan grow up in the bar, sipping sodas alongside his da until this year when he’d graduated to sneaking sips of Guinness from Seamus that Alan pretended not to notice. Brendan enjoyed his status as the youngest crow and often looked on his father with pride. It embarrassed Alan to see his doting expression. His adulation wouldn’t last; it never did. Seamus would betray him at some point.
“Off with you then,” Alan said.
The crowd parted for boy and dog. Alan pulled down his sleeve to cover a man’s ruin.
Saturday
Children are very nice observers,
and they will often perceive your slightest
defects. In general, those who govern
children forgive nothing in them,
but everything in themselves.
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
SEVENTEEN
DANNY PULLED UP IN front of Alan’s pub, hoping that Alan’s call was a false alarm. The Plough’s lights cast an ominous glow through the fog. Given the hour, the plaza was otherwise enshrouded in the peaceful hibernation of night. He rubbed his eyes, exhausted at the start of this new day. Ellen had returned to the house thirty minutes ago, at around 2:30 a.m., and she hadn’t been thrilled to see him waiting up for her. By then, Dermot had arrived drunk and, with barely a how-do-you-do, had weaved his way to his sleeping bag, apologizing the whole way.
At least his wife’s maternal instincts hadn’t completely abandoned her. Gemma McNamara appeared to be a responsible and caring person. His evening with her and the children had passed quietly enough once the woman ventured out of the closet. After a tortured session of sign language, inept translations, and finally, the written language, Danny understood that his wife had offered the McNamaras free accommodations in return for help around the house.
All the better for Ellen to engage in nocturnal adventures outside of their home.
He hadn’t mentioned the opal earrings, but he had plenty to say about inviting strangers into their house without consulting him first. Thankfully, Alan’s call had interrupted his whispered argument with Ellen. He couldn’t get away from the house fast enough after that.
Inside the pub, wall sconces cast pools of light onto upturned chairs. Their legs pointed toward the ceiling, stiff as rats in rigor mortis. Alan pressed an ice pack against Bijou’s ribs. Seamus slouched on one of the wingback chairs beside the hearth. A half-empty bottle of Jameson sat on the floor beside him.
“Brendan’s missing,” Alan said.
“I’m after telling you,” Seamus mumbled, “that you’re wrong.”
Alan adjusted the ice pack on Bijou’s ribs. “Brendan and I have an agreement during the festival. Every night at eleven he takes Bijou for her constitutional, only tonight, Bijou returned dragging her lead.”
Seamus’s voice wobbled. “Brendan’s first festival as a man. Letting his rod point the way.” His face crumpled. “No, Grey Man along and grabbed Brendan into the mists.”
“He’s been talking to himself like that for the past hour,” Alan said.
First Lost Boy, now Brendan. Boys about the same age, just starting to come into their own. Danny wished Seamus hadn’t mentioned Grey Man, even in jest.
Whining, Bijou pulled away from Alan and planted herself next to the door.
“He’s got sunshine for shit where Brendan’s concerned,” Alan said, “but dogs don’t lie—to themselves or others. I’d trust her over anyone.”
“You two have been sitting vigil for Brendan’s return since closing?” Danny said.
Alan pointed to the Jameson bottle. “Seamus didn’t mind, but now it’s gone almost four hours, so I called you.”
Alan kneeled beside Bijou and beckoned Danny closer. “It’s okay, girl. Down. Play dead.”
Bijou obeyed her master but now panted with anxiety. Danny knelt by her head, let her sniff his hand, and cooed a few soothing words. Short-haired, lean, and now stretched out long, it was obvious where a foot had connected to Bijou’s side. The swelling hid the ribby waves beneath it.
“Bruised but not broken. I’ll take her to the vet tomorrow to be sure.” Alan’s voice tightened. “Some bastard did this to her.”
“But I don’t understand,” Seamus slurred. “Where’s Brendan?”
“That’s the point, you sodden fool.” Alan swiped up the Jameson and poured what remained of the whiskey into the fire. The fire flared. “Get your head out of your arse.”
By firelight, Alan’s skin looked glazed and semi-hardened, like he’d been removed from a kiln too early. He stared down at the bottle, at the warped orange glints caught in the glass, then tossed it up in the air. Catching it by t
he neck, he considered it again, hefting it, then with a grunt smashed it against the stone hearth, leaving a jagged weapon still fisted in his hand.
“No one harms me or mine,” he said. “That’s the given. I thought everyone in the village knew this about me.”
Danny eased the broken bottle out of Alan’s white-knuckled grip. “Give me that.”
Alan’s hardening yielded. “Right. Come with me then.”
They left Seamus almost passed out by the dying fire.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Alan said.
A few minutes later, torches lighting the way and Bijou unleashed but keeping close, the men turned right out of the plaza and made for the church. Danny kept his mouth shut while Alan ruminated aloud that, given the right circumstances, Bijou might consider herself the alpha. Perhaps she’d lunged at someone who’d made threatening moves toward Brendan.
The dog led a slower than usual pace toward the church grounds. They entered the parking area and circled around three clergy flats and onto a little green located at the back of the property. A rock wall more ornamental than protective, and with a wrought iron grille atop it, hid them from view of the buildings on the next street over.
“This is where Brendan takes her,” Alan said.
Alan’s feet shushed over the grass accompanied by Bijou’s pants. Other than this, Danny heard nothing, not even a rustle from within the clipped junipers that lined one wall.
Alan waved to him, and Danny caught up. A damp dog pile sat in the middle of the grass.
“That’s hers, all right.” Alan pulled a plastic baggie from his pocket, and with a guilt-ridden glance at Fitz’s flat, bent to clean up Bijou’s mess. “We know they made it this far.”
“No, leave it for now,” Danny said. “We shouldn’t touch anything—even that.”
Alan grimaced. “If you say so, but Fitz’ll have me for dinner when he finds it.”
Bijou sniffed the pile and, uninterested, wandered away.
“Could she track Brendan?” Danny said. “Seamus can give us a personal item for her to smell.”
“She couldn’t track her way out of a doghouse.”
The light from their torches stretched Bijou’s shadow toward the corner of the enclosed green. They followed her to a recessed portion of the wall, where a wrought iron gate hung open. The passage deposited them onto a lane of mixed shops and homes. A faint glow from behind a few second-story curtains exacerbated rather than relieved the dank sensation lurking about in the dark.
“We could knock on doors,” Alan said.
“I’ll get my men on it. You go home.”
Alan stooped beside Bijou. He pulled a treat out of his pocket and she licked it up in her dainty way. “Home to an ice pack and aspirin for the dog.”
Danny caught a movement from within misty tendrils. Lost Boy, he thought, and half expected a sparrow to glide out from under the eaves. He waved the torch to dispel the figments and turned away from dark windows that winked back at him, seemingly in on the joke of his haunting.
“What’s got you?” Alan said.
“An overactive imagination.”
EIGHTEEN
LISFENORA WAS JUST STARTING to wake up when Danny received a call on his mobile from a fretful Malcolm. “This is urgent,” he said. “I need you at my shop. Please.”
As luck would have it, Danny was just down the street waiting for O’Neil in front of the church. They were set to question Father Dooley and Archdeacon Fitzgerald about late-night foot traffic in the church green. Brendan still hadn’t returned and, with sinking hope, Danny suspected that the randy lad wasn’t sleeping off a drunk in some randy lassie’s bed.
Now Danny stood in front of Malcolm’s shop staring at lines of paint marring one of his windows. More graffiti, which was an annoyance but not exactly urgent. The words announced limp dic with the missing k nothing but a downstroke that veered off to the right, undone.
“This is outrageous,” Malcolm said.
Nathan Tate slouched into view with hands in his pockets. “Someone doesn’t like you.”
“Which makes no sense at all, and not just because I work perfectly well in that department.” Malcolm smiled, looking as if he was trying to force a good mood on over his irritation. “I can’t think of who dislikes me. It must be a mistake, or a prank, wouldn’t you say, Danny?”
But Danny was thinking about the graffiti on Merrit’s car.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it,” Malcolm continued, “the way some people need attention?”
“Indeed, some people crave it and don’t even know it.” With a wave, Nathan sauntered toward the pub. “Cheers.”
Malcolm eyed Nathan’s retreating form. “His pottery isn’t even that good, did you know? Seamus is the one after me to take on his sloppy work, but he wouldn’t know quality if it poured itself into his pint.” Something lit within him. His skin flushed. “Seamus.”
“What about Seamus?” Danny asked.
“Nothing.”
Malcolm tapped his lower lip with a finger, lost in thought. He was thinking something, all right, but he must not have heard about the slag painted on Merrit’s car. Seamus wasn’t a likely suspect for that bit of vandalism. Danny waited.
“Fine then,” Malcolm said. “It’s not nothing, but if this is what I think it is, then I can take care of it myself. Nothing but an intimidation tactic, and after the way Seamus has taken advantage of my generous nature too. Taking on Brendan, when what I really need is a shop employee with initiative, organizational skills, customer savvy—”
Danny held up a hand. “Stop. Brendan Nagel is missing. You saw him yesterday, correct?”
“Missing? Oh, dear.” Malcolm blinked. “I saw him yesterday, as usual, in the shop. He closed for the day on his own, and I suppose he went on his merry way to the pub after that.”
“If you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call again. I must go now.”
Malcolm nodded as he turned away to study his marred shop front. “Look at this. I try so hard to create a pretty façade for my customers. I insist that you question Seamus about my window, yes?”
Danny felt a sigh ascending from his diaphragm. The intimate nature of village life never failed to aggravate petty annoyances. That said, the next time Danny saw Seamus and Malcolm, they would be drinking together with the rest of the crows, right as a couple of pigs in muck.
Ten minutes later, Danny sipped Earl Grey from a porcelain teacup that felt fragile as old parchment in his hands. He sat in Father Dooley’s flat along with Deacon Fitzgerald, whose girth overwhelmed the antique chair upon which he perched. Everything about this room, from the tea set to the chair, bespoke an old lady with a Victoriana fetish rather than a celibate who kept a flask filled with the best cognac.
“Last night?” Father Dooley said. “Might as well be in a cloistered order for all I heard. And you, Fitz?”
The rear window of the flat provided a view of the green. A flutter of wings shot past the window, startling Danny. He set his cup aside and wiped errant tea drips off the back of his hand, trying not to show his sudden sense of urgency.
The deacon’s chair squealed when he shifted. He tilted his head so he looked at Danny from between teetering eyeglasses and furrowed forehead. “I didn’t hear a thing. Something about this incessant drippy greyness has me sleeping harder than usual. Too early in the season for it, I tell you.”
“You’re used to Brendan coming around with Bijou then,” Danny said.
“Can’t miss them, though he only does it under cover of night.”
“No harm in it,” Father Dooley said. “A little fertilizer doesn’t hurt anything, does it?” He grinned in response to Fitz’s scowl.
“How often did Brendan bring Bijou around?” Danny asked.
“Every night since the festival started,” Fitz said. “Patrick here is too lenient by half, letting that brute empty herself on our grounds. At least Alan taught Brendan to clean up the mess. This may or may not be he
lpful, but he always arrived a little after eleven.”
“Did he ever meet anyone or bring a friend along?”
The clergymen shook their heads in unison. “Here and gone in under five minutes, thank Christ,” Fitz said. “I don’t know how many times I’ve shooed kids from our grounds over the years. I don’t know what they hope to accomplish back there—I can only imagine—”
“You’d best be only imagining,” Father Dooley said. “And you might want to confess some of those thoughts, also.”
Fitz’s voice rose; he was not to be sidetracked. “Last week a couple of lurkers decided our green was just the place for an—interlude—and they woke me clear out of a sound sleep. I knocked on the window to warn them off.”
Father Dooley’s tone turned thoughtful. “Brendan Nagel. Did you know that he about wore a path on the grass using our back gate for a shortcut? He lives a few streets over, and he’d run through with a wave every morning on his way to classes. Since starting at the shop, I’ve seen less of him. I suppose he lets himself in at Malcolm’s back door rather than circle to the front through our gate. I always thought him a good lad. Not a genius by any means, but well-meaning.”
With a nod and thanks, Danny let himself out, leaving the clerics to continue their ruminations without him. He’d already had the same discussion with himself. According to Alan, this was the second year Brendan had helped out with Bijou during the festival.
“Detective Sergeant?”
Dermot McNamara stood in the parking lot in front of the clergy flats. The fog had thinned, begrudging them a smudge of yellow sun, just enough to spotlight Dermot’s bloodshot eyes and sallow skin.
“I don’t have time now,” Danny said. “I’ll find you later. You’d best not have been drinking in front of my children.”
Dermot staggered and caught himself with a hand on the wall. “If you’ll listen, I can explain about last night—”
