by Lisa Alber
He should have heeded her toxicity, those chemicals, but he hadn’t until that last morning when she threw a smile over her shoulder and with a come-get-me thrust of hand through hair, turned toward an unseen someone.
His father.
The shame of it, his inability to walk away from the peep show of his own making. Their frantic jabs at their clothes, their hasty but altogether passionate coming together. A tangle of twisting limbs and then Camille’s blink in Alan’s direction.
No surprise in her gaze. Almost as if she’d planned the peep show to rid herself of her little lap doggy once and for all. His still-married father had only shrugged in response to something she said and pulled her to the ground and out of view.
The worst of it: That he’d crouched there until they rose again, smiled into each other’s eyes, and pulled their clothes back on, as languid as they’d formerly been frenzied. They must have known he still watched. After that morning, autumn seemed like nothing more than the decay of deadened fields and the sham of artificially grown flowers. Alan had moved across the Channel to live with his mother and joined a national hurling team, first with Kilkenny before moving to Clare, letting his bitterness burn out his throwing shoulder over the next six years, yet helping his teams take the Liam McCarthy Cup four times.
Alan stopped walking when he reached Danny’s house. Fists clenched, he stood behind a tall hedgerow just as he’d stood behind bushes to watch Camille. He told himself this was different; he was curious about Gemma, was all.
Alan had planned to stay in France forever, take over the fields and hothouses that his sisters now tended. Strange, that they’d switched countries. He’d vowed never to return, and, so, when their father died, the two daughters returned to oversee the family flower business instead of Alan. He’d sold them his third so he could buy the pub. With that, his ties cut, he’d hoped for liberation that had yet to come.
Mandy’s voice startled him out of his reverie. Then Petey’s. Gemma appeared a moment later. She sat on the porch’s top step and watched the children’s show-offy play-acting. In contrast to her utter stillness, they were a couple of human-sized muscle spasms, jerking all over the place.
Alan rubbed at his tattoo while watching Mandy pull Gemma to her feet with the order that Gemma play tag with them. “You’re Grey Man, and you have to catch us.”
Petey appeared uncertain, glancing this way and that along the hedge. “He’s already here,” he said in a spooky voice. “I can feel him watching us.”
“No!” Mandy mock-screeched. “Come get me, Gemma. You’re Grey Man’s sister! Hide and seek!”
They disappeared around the house in a hail of high-pitched screaming laughter. Gemma stood. She faced him, head cocked. As ever, his gaze wandered to the most expressive part of her: her hands. As she approached the hedge, they moved as if they had brains of their own, signing in doggy sign language. His DSL, as taught to her while driving to the vet clinic.
Imbécile. If he could see her then she could see him.
Her hands were delicate yet robust as bird’s wings. She repeated two gestures. The first: a pacifying signal, as if Gemma patted an invisible dog’s head. The second: a stop palm. It’s okay, Gemma signaled, stay. It’s okay, stay. It’s okay, stay.
Over and over. Still frozen, Alan watched Gemma’s small hands fill his tunnel vision until she was standing three feet from him on the other side of the hedge. He turned away, unable for the living hell of himself to meet her eye through the branches. So this is what it’s like to be her, he thought. This petrified feeling. Shame engulfed him, that green-scented shame and disgrace all around him.
Gemma’s palm lifted in a quick away gesture, which was his off-leash signal for Bijou: go on then, but stay close. She retreated in a leafy mosaic of maroon tights and black dress, leaving Alan breathless.
TWENTY-THREE
GEMMA PRESSED HER HANDS against her stomach as she walked around the Aherns’ house. She hadn’t spoken aloud, but she felt as if she’d tried. Sweat trickled down her ribs, and she shook so hard she felt it clear into her heart. But she’d done it. She’d approached Alan. Of her own volition, she’d spoken to him in his language.
Catching sight of him from inside the house before he stepped behind the hedgerow, she’d been struck by his bewildered expression. That had been the real Alan, the private Alan, the Alan who needed his safe place also. Now, as she chased Mandy and Petey over a rock wall and into the adjacent sheep field, it occurred to her that Alan might be selectively mute too. People can be mute to many things. To their needs and desires. To their potential for happiness. To their delusions. To their prejudices.
She’d thought about muteness a lot—too much perhaps. Perhaps she saw selective mutism in others as a way to feel better about herself. She thought this was, in fact, the truth, but she didn’t care. Sometimes she was right.
Gemma clapped her hands, one, two, three, and beckoned the children to follow her back to the house. The abandoned cottage that Ellen called their folly looked down on them. It longed for inhabitants. Everything and everyone longed for something. The kittens, for protection and food. These wee children, for a sense of security. Ellen, thrashed by her own internal winds, for love. Everyone stuffed something away.
No, she admonished herself, not everyone stuffed. This was about her own self, not to be confused with anyone else. This was about what she stuffed away. Not just the tragedy of her mom’s death, but that other thing she also avoided but saw in every abandoned pet at the animal shelter where she worked, deep within their eyes, like deep within Alan’s—a longing for a safe and secure connection.
The children tumbled into the house ahead of Gemma. That week’s Clare Challenger rested on a pile of unread circulars and catalogs. She grabbed it up and headed toward Ellen’s closet. When she opened the door, the kittens blinked up at her sleepily. Their disconsolate cries had lessened. Now they trusted their warm and well-fed existence, and had started to explore the bedroom.
Gemma eased them aside and checked the new litter box. The kittens were using it, so that was good, but now they were getting litter everywhere. She spread a sheet of newspaper on the floor, and as she did so, she caught the headline from a few days ago. Her skin prickled at the sight of the drawing, and too soon she’d shrunken into herself so small that nothing existed except the comforting sound of tiny kitten breaths.
Toby, oh Toby.
TWENTY-FOUR
ELLEN LAY ON HER bed with the kittens on her stomach. She buried her fingers into the kittens’ thickening fur over rounding bellies. They purred more with each passing day, and she tried to take comfort from their cozy warmth against her palms.
Mandy appeared at her door. “Can we eat now? I checked and there’s sausage and leftover fried potatoes. That will be easy, won’t it, Mam? Not hard to cook, right?” She turned away without looking at Ellen. “We don’t mind refried potatoes.”
Ellen rolled onto her side, shifting the kittens onto the bed. “All right then. Take over the kittens, will you? I just fed them.”
With adult-like relief that saddened Ellen, her daughter bustled over and retrieved the kittens. In a chirpy voice she explained that the tabbies now had names. “Petey’s kitten is the grey one called Ashe with an ‘e’ on the end. And mine’s the orange one, and he’s called Flame. That word already has an ‘e’ on the end.” She stooped to settle Ashe and Flame in the closet but didn’t close the door all the way. “Do you like their names?”
“Lovely, pet, lovely.” Ellen heaved herself into a sitting position. “I’ll be right there, sweet pea. Why don’t you and Petey gather the food onto the counter for me?”
Ellen closed her eyes against an image of ashes and flames that became a phoenix rising out of the embers of loss, betrayal—a living death. The gall of it, to hope that last night she could have risen renewed and whole again like some mythological creature. Instead, she’d arrived home from the village feeling worse than before the outing. And to f
ind Danny here too. She’d all but confessed her sins right there and then.
Ellen shifted to the end of the bed, where the opened jewelry box sat upon its plain of dusty dresser, its lid still upright in a mock salute. The sign of Danny’s passage through territory that she’d assumed no longer interested him. Feet leaden beneath her, she stood and set aside the top tray to once again peruse the lower one. He’d dropped his wedding band into the wrong compartment, and the gift box—the infernal box with the earrings she should have flushed down the bloody toilet—sat askew in its slot.
She slammed down the jewelry box’s lid and heard an echo of it from beyond her bedroom. The front door. Mandy called out—now truly relieved and not bothering to hide it—that Gemma had returned. Earlier in the afternoon, Ellen had arrived home to find Gemma in the closet, rocking like a disturbed person. Her alarm had turned to surprise when Gemma roused herself and bolted out of the house.
Now, Gemma knocked and entered the bedroom. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and she held herself tight as if afraid she’d shatter any second. She held out a note.
I’m all right now. I needed to get out of the house and walk it off.
“You don’t look all right.” Ellen continued when Gemma didn’t respond. “Well then, why don’t you lie down awhile. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
Gemma pulled out her pad and pen. After writing, she held out a new note, her expression shuttered.
Dermot hasn’t been here? I haven’t seen him since this morning when he dropped me off at Alan’s pub.
“My husband called earlier. He wanted you to know that Dermot’s in the proper langers and is sleeping it off on our deacon’s sofa. You won’t see him until tomorrow.”
Gemma switched her gaze to the ground. Something flickered there, like she wasn’t surprised. She continued writing.
Poor Bijou. Someone kicked her in the ribs last night.
“Ohh,” Ellen groaned. “Bijou, yes.”
She’d heard a yelp, hadn’t she, as she’d stood there on the street, hidden by fog? The noise ricocheting out of the silence like that, hushed yet too loud, had startled her into scuttling back to her car.
Ellen opened the jewelry box again, unable to stop herself from picking at the wound she’d dealt to no one but herself. She pulled out the gift box. Smashing the earrings with a meat mallet might do the trick, but no, the earrings could give pleasure elsewhere. She wouldn’t begrudge anyone their beauty. She could at least show this much maturity. “You might like these.”
Gemma pointed in the direction of the children’s bedrooms, where Mandy’s voice could be heard ordering Petey to pass the orange crayon. Ellen convulsed at the thought of passing these earrings on to her daughter. “I have plenty of time to collect for Mandy,” she said. “Take them, please.”
Shy but pleased, Gemma signed thank you and popped open the box. Her smile froze into something more closely resembling a rictus. The box tilted down her slackening hand.
“Gemma?”
In a slow slide, the box tipped off Gemma’s fingers and somersaulted toward the carpet. Her pained gurgling, so scratchy and feeble, was nevertheless the most shocking noise Ellen had ever heard. The girl stared down at the carpet where the scattered stones blinked like animal eyes out of the dark. Ellen snatched up the accursed things. Gemma had felt their taint, no doubt about it. Ellen could have torn her hair out over the misstep, and just when the girl was feeling at home with her.
“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll flush them right now, away they go forever, never to be seen again. Forget you ever saw them.”
If anything, Gemma’s pinched and stricken expression intensified. With taut fortitude, she pulled Ellen’s hands toward her. Her clammy fingers stumbled over Ellen’s. She continued gurgling, her skin flushing with the effort.
Finally, with a stamp of foot, she scrawled another note and shoved it at Ellen. The jagged letters yelled their desperation, their frantic need.
Where did you get these?
Sunday
Becoming a father isn’t difficult,
But it’s very difficult to be a father.
Wilhelm Busch
TWENTY-FIVE
DANNY SAT IN THE incident room with his men, trying to lead by example with what he hoped was a cooperative expression. In front of the chalkboard with its lists of assignments and follow-up tasks stood Superintendent Clarkson. They’d already wasted an hour debriefing.
“In other words, you have nothing,” Clarkson said.
Danny explained that now that they’d almost confirmed the victim’s identity, maybe they could move forward.
“It’s a confused family story. I don’t understand the half of it yet, but I’ll be running the victim’s cousin Dermot McNamara through the wringer as soon as we’re finished here. He’s been puking his guts out since last night, but I expect he’s right enough now to answer questions and make his ID official. Other than this, we’ve found few people who spoke to the victim, and those who did notice him didn’t mark him as anything other than a lad in for a festival shag. We’ll continue asking around the pubs, though.” Danny paused. “One shop owner, Malcolm Lynch, seemed to think the victim might be a petty thief.”
“Right then,” Clarkson said. “What about the missing boy, Brendan Nagel?”
Danny outlined the incident with Bijou late Friday night. Once again, nothing on forensics and no witnesses except for the dog.
“No way Brendan larked off to make his fortune in the big city or even to follow a lassie,” O’Neil added. “He’d ask old Seamus—that’s his father—for permission to shite before he’d make a decision like that on his own.”
Clarkson nodded, looking pleased with O’Neil. “We’ll proceed as if they’re separate cases until we get indications otherwise. On with you then. We’re done here for now.”
“We haven’t discussed Malcolm’s complaint,” Danny said. “Yesterday, he opened his shop to find limp dick painted across his windows.”
“Go on.”
“Malcolm blamed Seamus Nagel for the mischief. There’s tension between them about Seamus’s son, the missing Brendan, who works at Malcolm’s shop. In any case, whoever wrote the message was no artist.”
“And then there’s Merrit’s car,” O’Neil said. “Someone also painted the word slag on Merrit Chase’s car in a color I’d describe as magenta, the same color as limp dick on Malcolm’s shop window.”
“And Merrit Chase—wasn’t she the one from last year, the American?”
“Oh ay, that would be her, all right,” O’Neil said.
Danny ignored the sideways looks the rest of the men aimed at him.
“How does she connect to Malcolm and the rest of it?” Clarkson said.
Good question. She’d better not connect. “She shouldn’t connect,” Danny said.
“Except that she went to Malcolm to repair her necklace,” O’Neil said.
A few men wandered out of the room, Clarkson on their heels. “A phantom graffiti artist isn’t our priority—unless the messages are related to the murders, of course.”
“What a ponce,” one of the men muttered after Clarkson exited the room.
“A ponce who fancies O’Neil,” said another.
Danny stood to the sound of kissy noises aimed at O’Neil. “Off to the morgue to confirm the ID on our lost boy.”
As he left, Danny thought about the color magenta, and what kind of temperament you’d need to use that color for graffiti. Creative, perhaps? Nathan Tate popped into his head. The newcomer artist with the haunted look around his eyes, the artist who Seamus had boasted was good enough to get into Malcolm’s shop, where Brendan had worked and where Lost Boy had loitered.
TWENTY-SIX
DANNY STOOD NEXT TO Dermot in the morgue. The scent of decay held in momentary abeyance coated his tongue. Next to him, Dermot covered his mouth and gagged with a dry, hacking noise.
Witnesses arrived with preconceived notions about the vesse
l called the human body. Danny knew from past experience that most of them imagined that a soulful essence remained just under the skin. Danny was used to the flash of disillusionment that crossed most of their faces before despair engulfed them. He expected the same out of Dermot.
Lost Boy’s physical form lay under a pristine cotton sheet, as snowy white as baptismal linen. To Danny, the sheet always appeared innocent of its function and out of place, like it should be lifted with a flourish—voilà—to reveal nothing. But, alas, Benjy pulled back the sheet and Lost Boy’s head appeared.
Instead of the usual disillusionment, Dermot raised his bloodshot gaze toward the ceiling. He tracked along the darkest shadows to the darkest corners with lips pressed together. Danny had seen that too—the fight to keep the howls inside. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How did he die?”
“A blow to the head.”
Dermot covered his mouth again and rushed out of the room. The door swung shut against the sound of retching. Danny waited in silence while Benjy searched his pockets for a cigarette. When the retching stopped, Danny poked his head out the swing doors.
Dermot leaned against the walls with eyes shut. “John McIlvoy. That bastard. He snapped, I think, when he killed our mom. You’d have to be crazy for that to happen, wouldn’t you?”
“Momentary insanity doesn’t change his guilt. Do you want more time with Toby?”
Dermot pushed himself off the wall and followed Danny back into the viewing room. He spoke through ragged breaths. “For the longest time, Toby insisted he was psychic. He believed in ghosts. He said his totem—totem, I ask you—was the sparrow.”
Benjy fingered an unlit cigarette, his silence loud as he nodded at Danny. You see? He moved to cover Toby, but Dermot pushed his hand away.
