Secrets and Shamrocks

by Phyllis Gobbell

  I said to Alex, who hadn’t met Mallory, “Garda Mallory was one of the officers who interviewed Bridget. Colin liked him. He was with the Inspector at Shepherds last night.”

  “I won’t excuse what he did, and he’ll pay for it,” Perone said, “but I think he just let himself be taken in by Lucas Riordan.”

  “What did he do, exactly?” Alex said. “I don’t understand.”

  “Just kept Lucas informed of the investigation,” Perone said. “Told him facts we hadn’t made public, things we didn’t want released.”

  “He wasn’t suspicious of Lucas?” I asked.

  “Y’know, the Riordans are a prominent family in Thurles.” Perone echoed what Helen Prescott had said over and over. “When they ask for something, it’s hard for some to say no.”

  “So Garda Mallory was just trying to impress Lucas?” I said.

  “Something like that. I’m thinking Lucas rang up Mallory and asked for a favor. Mallory went to school with Norah Riordan—Norah Malone. Not that they would have been friends or anything like that.” Perone’s chuckle was sarcastic. “So Lucas says, ‘My sister is distraught. Can’t you tell us anything?’ Might’ve started that way. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  Alex was nodding but with an expression that said he was still trying to figure it out. “So Garda Mallory didn’t know Lucas was the murderer?”

  “I don’t think he knew,” Perone said.

  “But he leaked something about Mr. Sweeney’s notepad that made Lucas think the Guard was on to him,” I speculated.

  “I might have implied to Garda Mallory that the notepad revealed more than it did,” Perone said. “No one at the station has read it but me.”

  “You suspected Mallory all along?” I asked.

  “His Sergeant heard him on the phone a couple of times. Mallory has been known to talk too much, other times. Lack of boundaries, you know.”

  Colin had liked the man for that very reason, when the information Mallory gave was favorable to Bridget.

  Inspector Perone got immediate medical attention for us at the A&E. Alex was “fine as old wine,” in his words. Seems his blood pressure was a little high, but the pretty nurse who was taking care of him exclaimed, “Sure, why wouldn’t it be!” Everyone by now seemed to know what had happened to us.

  Inspector Perone, who must have been making calls, came by our exam cubicles before he departed. The privacy curtains were pulled between us, as a matter of protocol, but we were both fully dressed, and the Inspector was able to stand back from our exam tables and talk to both of us. He said Colin was on his way to take us to Shepherds. He had no news about our car but promised he would update us as soon as he knew anything.

  “We’re supposed to go to Dublin tomorrow and fly home Tuesday,” I told Perone. For the first time, going home was not a sorrowful thought.

  “One thing at a time,” he said. “Finish up here, and get some rest. You’ll make your flight.”

  Alex thanked him for rescuing us.

  “Glad we could do it,” he said. He gave me a meaningful look. “Be sure to thank the fellow in Paris.”

  I had already taken care of that. On our way to the emergency room, I had texted: All OK. You saved my life again.

  CHAPTER 29

  Scrubbing all reminders of the priest hole from my body was my first priority. Grace, who never missed a beat, insisted on running a load of laundry with the filthy clothes Alex and I had been wearing. I wondered if I’d ever wear those clothes again without feeling I was smothering.

  Colin said Grace would have soup and bread on the table when we were clean and refreshed.

  “Going above and beyond for us—again,” I said.

  “Ah, but you’ll tell us everything that happened, play by play. That’s part of the bargain,” he said. His eyes were twinkling with the knowledge that the Guard was onto Lucas Riordan, that Lucas would be getting what he was due.

  Later that night, over a supper of tasty potato soup and warm, crusty bread, we gave our account of the afternoon’s events to Grace, Colin, and Patrick. A call came for Colin from Inspector Perone while we were having chocolate ice cream all around. When Colin returned to the table, he said, “The Inspector wants to interview Bridget tomorrow afternoon.”

  “He’s going to Dublin, to the rehab center?” Grace said.

  “Yes. I told him it would be fine, but I wanted a family member there, and he was agreeable. So I was wondering, Patrick, do you think Enya might be willing to help us out?”

  Patrick’s eyes widened, and I was sure I detected a spark of pleasure. “Enya? You’d want her to do that?”

  “Why not? She’s family, and she has no obligations there in Dublin to take up her day, not that I know about.”

  “I think Bridget would like having Enya with her,” Grace said.

  Patrick pursed his lips and nodded, giving it some thought. “I’ll ring her up and see what she says.” He took one last bite of ice cream and left the table.

  Colin winked, and Grace gave him an approving smile.

  “The Inspector wants you to come to the station in the morning,” Colin told Alex and me. “I said I’d have you there at nine o’clock. That’s good, isn’t it?”

  We said yes. “I don’t know what else we can tell him,” I said.

  “It’s protocol,” Alex said. “We’ll need to give an official statement.”

  “I suppose they haven’t found Lucas Riordan,” I said.

  “Nothing yet, but they’ll get him.”

  “What are we going to do about our car?”

  “That was another thing. Inspector Perone says he’ll call the rental company and take care of things there, and he’ll drive you to Dublin himself.”

  “Very thorough, isn’t he?” Alex said.

  “Not a bad sort.” Colin took a big bite of ice cream.

  After we had one last memorable Irish breakfast, Colin dropped us at the Garda station in Thurles, a modern facility, not too different from what one might expect in the States. We met in Inspector Perone’s office, which I imagined was a courtesy. I was sure there were less comfortable interview rooms, but we were not being grilled. We simply went over the things we’d already told the Inspector on the way to the A&E. Protocol, as Alex had put it.

  “Your car has been located,” the Inspector said at the end of the interview, “but we can’t get it back to you yet, of course, so I hope you don’t mind making the trip to Dublin with me.”

  “You found Lucas?” I said.

  “In Rosslare. He’d made arrangements to take the ferry to Cherbourg. Not surprising that he’d head for France. It’s easy to disappear on the continent if you’re trying to get lost.” The Inspector was very matter of fact about it. All in a day’s work. He stood up. “Thank you for coming in. Now I’ll have someone drop you back at Shepherds. And if it’s suitable with you, I’d like to leave for Dublin shortly after lunch. I think Colin has made arrangements for me to see his daughter at four o’clock.”

  Back to Shepherds to finish packing and say goodbye.

  Grace was adamant that we needed to have a substantial lunch before we left. In the end, we agreed to a small salad, cheese, and bread—and tea. Grace made the best tea.

  Several other guests were arriving that afternoon. The couple who had come in last night were Asian honeymooners from London—“not especially young,” Grace said. “Around forty, I’d guess.” They’d gathered brochures about sites in the area, and they seemed to have done a lot of research in advance. “As soon as I put out breakfast, they wrapped up some toast and jam, filled thermos bottles with hot tea, and went on their way,” she said. “They were heading to the Cliffs of Moher.”

  A long moment passed before Alex spoke. “I hope you’ll have some peace, with this new bunch of guests. Heaven knows you didn’t get it with our group.”

  And then Colin came to tell us that Inspector Perone was waiting. He said, “I hate to see you leave us, but I think you must go before y
ou do something awful to harm yourselves. Does your travel book require that you endanger your lives over and over, Alex?” He was right, that the longer we stayed, the more trouble we seemed to attract. Nevertheless, it was hard to go.

  The Inspector was patient as we said our long, affectionate goodbyes and made promises to never ever lose touch again.

  Inspector Perone drove fast on the M8. I missed the emerald countryside, the sheep and meadows and rock walls that we’d passed on side roads to Shepherds nearly two weeks ago, but this trip to Dublin was not for sightseeing.

  Unlike our short drive to the A&E, when Alex and I both rode in the back seat, this time the Inspector indicated that I should take the passenger’s seat. He wanted to know if my wrist was painful. He asked us how long our flight would be and said he’d never been to the States but he and his wife had considered a trip to New York to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Inspector Perone was quite a different fellow in this setting.

  Different also was his willingness to talk about the murder case. Once he was over his initial reticence with us, he must have decided he didn’t have to be so closed-mouthed, since we’d be leaving Ireland in less than twenty-four hours and surely nothing he’d tell us would come back to haunt him.

  “Lucas abandoned your car at a lodge in Killnick, not far from Rosslare Harbour,” he said. “Once the car was located, it wasn’t any grand piece of detective work to figure out that Lucas was laying low in Rosslare until time for the ferry to depart. He’s in custody in Rosslare.” Perone gave a chuckle. “I would’ve taken Lucas to be more clever than that, but then I suppose he’s a novice when it comes to the arrangements hardened criminals make all the time.”

  “Not a cold-blooded murderer.” Alex repeated my words.

  “I expect not, but one thing’s for sure. Lucas Riordan was not the model citizen people believed he was. Anyone who would harm his own father with drugs! Dr. Malone, too, who was supposed to be such a fine man.” The Inspector’s voice grew more contemptuous with each word, his dark eyebrows pulling together in an angry scowl.

  My theory about how Lucas and the doctor were drugging Liam Riordan was not far from what Inspector Perone now knew to be the truth. Norah Malone had supplied the missing details.

  “I had a long chat with Mrs. Malone last night. She’d come to the point people often get to, where they have to tell everything,” Perone said. She’d wondered for some time why Dr. Malone’s regimen for treating her father’s vague illness was only making him worse, but she hadn’t suspected that her brother had anything to do with it. She finally had it out with Dr. Malone—on the phone, the night Bridget came to his door—and that was when he told her Lucas was behind the scheme. Bottom line: Lucas didn’t want Liam Riordan back in the bank.

  “I’ve yet to understand how Lucas could have forced the doctor to commit malpractice, but we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Perone said.

  So Norah Malone hadn’t exactly told everything she knew. She hadn’t revealed that Dr. Malone had a child, Little Jimmie, Bridget’s child, which must have been what Lucas held over the doctor’s head.

  She hadn’t confronted Lucas. The Inspector explained that her brother had always been the dominant one. “ ‘The Alpha dog,’ she called him,” Perone said. “The doctor was dead, their father’s health was improving—she didn’t want any of it to come out.”

  “Did she suspect Lucas had killed her husband?” I asked.

  “She said no.” The Inspector gave a twitch of his shoulders, as if to convey his belief that she might have had an inkling. “She said not until yesterday, when Lucas lost his bearings. Up until then, we had nothing on him.”

  “But you suspected him?” I said.

  “What we knew was that the murder occurred in the doctor’s office, and the weapon was a scalpel. No evidence of forced entry. No junkie breaking in or anything like that. The doctor had come downstairs and let someone into his office very early in the morning. Time of death was before five a.m. We had to ask who he might have admitted at that hour—and why. Likely it was someone he knew very well. His family, naturally, were persons of interest.”

  A light rain had started to fall. The Inspector slowed down, but he was still driving much faster than I would’ve considered safe.

  Alex, who had been quiet in the back seat, spoke up. “You said you didn’t really have anything on Lucas until he—what was it you said? Lost his bearings yesterday?”

  “After Garda Mallory informed him that someone had been at Red Stag Crossing the morning of Dr. Malone’s death and had seen the killer. The man who kept the notepad.”

  “Seamus Sweeney,” Alex said.

  “Mallory probably did us a favor, as it turns out, though at his own expense, I’m afraid.”

  The Inspector put it all together for us at last. Lucas received that call from Mallory late Saturday night. He must have spent a tormented night, fearing the Guards would be coming for him, trying to work out a plan. The next morning while Norah was at Mass, he went to the bank and withdrew sufficient funds for a long trip. By the time Norah returned from Mass, he was feeling some relief. The Guards hadn’t shown up at the Riordan house, but he believed it was just a matter of time, since he’d been told there was an eyewitness. He made a full confession to Norah, told how he’d used Dr. Malone to harm their father—and he told her what happened that early morning in Dr. Malone’s office. He begged her forgiveness and asked her to give him time to get away from Thurles. “It was the first time she’d ever seen Lucas contrite, like that, apparently,” the Inspector said. One thing Lucas decided to take care of became his undoing. He had hidden the scalpel in the woodpile at Magdala’s cottage, and he wanted to get rid of it.

  “He’d planned to go straight to the train station from Red Stag Crossing. It wasn’t a bad plan. I had no reason to look for him at that point, so he could go to Dublin and then fly to anywhere in the world. But a couple of Americans upset his plan,” the Inspector said.

  “We saw him with the scalpel,” I said. “And he panicked.”

  “Norah Malone told you all of this last night?” Alex said.

  “Most of it. You completed the story with what happened out at the cottage.”

  “You believe her?” Alex asked.

  He nodded slowly. “I don’t think she had anything to do with the murder or that she participated in the scheme to dope her father,” he said.

  As unpleasant as she’d been to Grace that day in front of the office, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, for the husband who cheated on her and the rotten brother she had.

  “There is one thing, though,” the Inspector said, “that we’ll need to sort out. Lucas told Norah that he went to Dr. Malone’s office that early morning because the doctor had called him. Dr. Malone had said he was finished supplying the drugs for Liam, but when he called late in the night, Lucas thought he’d changed his mind. The doctor said he must come to the office while it was still dark. So Lucas did as he was asked, and when he went inside the office, which was unlocked, Dr. Malone tried to kill him. Lucas was the stronger man.”

  “What?” I cried.

  “You’re saying Lucas told his sister he killed her husband in self-defense,” Alex said.

  “That’s what she said.” The Inspector took a deep breath. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “I don’t know what to believe about the murder,” I said, when Alex and I were seated in the hotel dining room that night.

  “It’s not our problem to solve,” Alex said.

  “Do you think Dr. Malone really tried to kill Lucas Riordan, or was that story just a way Lucas had of gaining his sister’s sympathy?”

  “Really, Jordan, it doesn’t matter what I think. Are you drinking wine, or are you still on painkillers?”

  “Both,” I said.

  “And you were the one who lectured me about mixing my medications!” Alex said.

  “You feel better now, don’t you?”

 
; “Actually, I do,” he said.

  Alex and I both ordered one of the specials, monkfish with saffron sauce, which came with a small salad and creamed potatoes. Over our salads we talked about Liam Riordan and how hard it would surely be for him, learning that his own son had been responsible for his illness. According to the Inspector, who had results from the pill bottles Norah Malone had given him, Liam was taking massive doses of Zoloft, an antidepressant, along with the prescriptions he was already taking for his heart. For a man who had already had one heart attack, the results could have been fatal.

  One by one, the guests at Shepherds figured into our conversation.

  “I’ll definitely send Ian an e-mail about—yesterday,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words that described being confined in the priest hole for what was only a couple of hours but had seemed like so much longer.

  “You might mention the shamrocks to him,” Alex said.

  “The shamrocks?”

  “Didn’t you notice? Under the tree, the patch of shamrocks. I noticed it when I was drinking water, after the Guards had come. I remembered Ian’s story. The daughter ran from the house when Cromwell’s men killed her father, and they shot her as well. Where she bled and died, a shamrock patch grew.”

  I remembered. “I will tell Ian,” I said.

  We finished another delightful Irish meal, and Alex and I were both ready to turn in early. I said, “I promised Paul Broussard I’d call tonight, when I had some time to talk. He deserves a full account. We’ve only been texting.”

  “You’ve forgiven him, then?” Alex said. “For standing you up in Atlanta?”

  “I suppose I have to forgive him,” I said, “since he saved our lives.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The July heat in Savannah was oppressive. Even at six o’clock in the evening, the temperature was ninety-two, with a sweltering sixty-seven percent humidity. Sometimes, just out of curiosity, I checked the weather app on my phone to see what it was like in Thurles. Today the temperature there was seventy degrees. I thought about Ireland often, these weeks since I’d been home.