A Pleasure to do Death With You

by Paul Charles

  Kennedy noticed that even though she’d prepared the full works for him yesterday, Grace had only taken scrambled egg on rye toast herself, so twenty minutes later he walked back into his bedroom with a tray bearing his special recipe for scrambled eggs, toast, OJ, and coffee. He remembered she liked her coffee strong and black.

  “Oh, Inspector, a girl could get used to this,” she said sleepily.

  She said she’d been woken by Kennedy and her dad talking outside the window next to the bed. She too had been worried that the chief would come in and discover her in Kennedy’s bed. Not so worried that she had scampered back to her own bedroom though, Kennedy noted.

  “I drifted back off to sleep again,” she explained, as if reading Kennedy’s mind. Then mid first bite, she continued, “Oh my goodness, not just a pretty accent. Where’d you ever learn to make scrambled eggs like these?”

  “My dad,” Kennedy admitted. “Just melt butter in a pot and crack the eggs into the butter and mix, but be careful when you take them away from the heat; if anything, you should be too early and let the heat of the pot do the final cooking.”

  “No milk?”

  “No milk.”

  “Listen to us would you? Domesticated or what?” she said as she laughed. She paused from eating her eggs to catch her fiery hair in a long tail and expertly restrained it by a colourful elastic band she had around her wrist.

  Kennedy looked at Grace Scott, sitting up in his bed, smiling but still with a hint of that ever-present sadness not too far away. The last thing he thought about was domestication. She was so attractive it was unbearable.

  “I’ll get my eggs before they go cold,” he said sheepishly as he departed the room.

  “Good,” she said after him, “I’ll just luxuriate here before I have my shower. We should head over to Chief Nolan about eleven-thirty. You don’t mind if I stay in your bed do you?”

  “Not at all,” Kennedy said, remembering that technically, as Ed Donohue’s daughter, it was more her bed than his anyway. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “What time is it?” she called out to him.

  “Just before eight.”

  “Oh good, you wouldn’t do me a big favour, would you, after you’ve had your breakfast? Would you nip over to the front porch of the main house? The San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times will have been delivered there. Mine will be the two left on the swing seat. I love nothing more than lying in bed reading the Sunday papers.”

  “No problem, give me a couple of minutes.”

  Five minutes later Kennedy had finished his breakfast and done his chore. Grace had obviously nipped into her bedroom and put on a red sweatshirt and black sweat pants and was now lying on top of the bed awaiting her papers.

  Kennedy couldn’t believe the size of the papers. He imagined a fair sized tree or two from Donohue’s forest would have to have been felled and pulped just to supply the pages under his arm. She patted for him to sit on the bed.

  “New York or San Francisco?” she asked.

  “San Francisco,” Kennedy said, thinking local knowledge would be better for him.

  “Okay, so will you do me a favour, Inspector? What I love to do…” Her voice went quiet and broke slightly. “What I miss so much doing every Sunday morning is reading the papers… with… Steve and then talking about each other’s papers when we went out for a drive. I miss our ritual so much. I miss him…”

  Her voice grew stronger towards the end of her sentence.

  “Anything to save me reading two papers this size,” Kennedy said.

  “Go and get your tea or OJ and join me.”

  By the time Kennedy had returned with his OJ and fresh toast, she’d turned on the bedside radio. It was tuned to a country station. Not the purveyors of Kennedy’s favourite kind of music, or so he thought. However he did find himself enjoying track after track. Occasionally she would put down her ever-spreading pages to stop to listen to a particular song.

  Before he knew it, a couple of hours had passed with nothing more than a wee giggle here or a “damn fool” here, or “well, smack my mamma” there or an “oh” nearly absolutely everywhere. Kennedy’s comments were all restricted to “hmph.”

  Kennedy noticed Grace grimaced when a song came on that started with what sounded like someone hitting a biscuit tin. Before the vocals started, he recognised it from the song on the radio she was moved by on the previous day. The vocal started off with what sounded like one of those extremely tight-trousered, American, male, rock singers soulfully delivering a plaintive lyric:

  “I’ve spent my life looking for you And finding my way wasn’t easy to do But I knew there was you all the while And it’s been worth every mile So lay down beside me Love me and hide me And kiss all the hurting Of this world away Hold me so close That I feel your heart beat And don’t ever wander away”

  Then from out of nowhere, and beautifully low-key at first, came a female voice so pure it stabbed you right in the heart as she delivered:

  “Mornings and evenings all were the same There was no music till I heard your name I knew when I saw you smile And now I can rest for a while So lay down beside me Love me and hide me And kiss all the hurting Of this world away Hold me so close That I feel your heart beat And don’t ever wander away”

  Kennedy had never ever heard a line delivered with such devastating effect as when this girl sang:

  I knew when I saw you smile. He didn’t dare look at Grace from then on for fear she would see his eyes were welling up. He needn’t have worried; tears were literally streaming freefall down her cheeks.

  The DJ with the rich deep American voice announced that they had just been listening to, or, Kennedy would more accurately claim, been destroyed by, Alison Krauss duetting with John Waite on a song called “Lay Down Beside Me,” a song, the DJ claimed, perfectly written by Don Williams.

  Later when they were driving into San Francisco, Grace admitted that she’d never been so affected by the track before.

  “It was weird though, Inspector. Although I was bawling my eyes out, I wasn’t feeling bad; it was just such a joyful experience.”

  It turns out that Alison and John Waite were partners, which might have accounted for why the performance was so highly charged.

  “Do you have a song that does that to you, Inspector - you know, gets under your skin?”

  Kennedy thought about this for a while before saying, “Well, I have this old 8-track at home...”

  “Back up there, Inspector. What exactly is an 8-track?”

  “Oh I always thought they were more popular in America?”

  “Blind spot for me I’m afraid,” she admitted.

  “It’s kinda a large cassette. They were in use in the seventies, and the magic of them was that you don’t have to turn it over like a real cassette. We’re talking way before CDs, and then probably CD development came along, and the good old 8-track didn’t really take off,”

  “Now there’s a surprise,” she muttered.

  “Anyway, I have an 8-track by Planxty, an Irish traditional band, and it’s got this song on it called ‘Thousands Are Sailing.’ I mean, I haven’t been able to listen to it in years because they don’t make eight track players any more. But I remember it as being a really beautiful song...”

  “I think you may be viewing the song through rose-coloured glasses,” Grace said, cutting him off. “That’s very depressing, Inspector. You’re making me wish I’d never asked.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Kennedy admitted, “your song was probably better.”

  Much and all as Kennedy and Grace Scott had enjoyed the song, they played safe on the journey into San Francisco in that she retuned the radio from the country station KBWF (The Wolf) to Free FM, a local talk radio. They enjoyed quite a bit of banter between themselves as a result of the input from some of the callers into the station. Kennedy came to the conclusion that it might be San Francisco, but it was just like London or Camden Town in that people liked to bi
tch and moan about: the price of gas; various taxes; disappointment in a particular team’s performance; drug dealers; the insolence of youth; the loss of love; annoyance at their favourite novice artist being voted off a talent show; and the chutzpah of Lady Mucca, Heather Mills McCartney, continuing to covet the spotlight. Thankfully she seemed to be succeeding less and less.

  San Francisco just seemed to go on and on. That’s not to say he didn’t enjoy the journey. It was a glorious June day with the sun shining brightly, he was in great company and enjoying the chat, so much so that the hour flew by. Before he knew it, they were pulling into the driveway of a magnificent townhouse on Vallejo Street in Pacific Heights. Chief Don Nolan was out in the driveway warmly welcoming them both before Grace had even a chance to turn off the ignition.

  Madeira, his wife, greeted them both like they were family.

  “Please call me Maddee,” she said while still hugging Kennedy. “How’s your Uncle Harry?”

  “He’s grand,” Kennedy said, realising that although he was not exactly hamming up his Ulsterness, he was using an “Orish” phrase he’d never use at home. He’d noticed himself doing it a few times with Grace.

  “This is an incredible house, Chief,” Kennedy said.

  “Yeah, Maddee’s family have lived here for a few generations now,” he replied, “I’d hate to try to buy a house in this neighbourhood now though.”

  Maddee Nolan wore a headscarf, presumably to protect her hair, face, and neck from the hot midday sun. The overall effect with her dark green, high-neck dress and her scarf meticulously wrapped around her neck and over her crown was so sophisticated it spotlighted her classic looks. There’s something very refined, very Audrey Hepburn about a woman wearing a headscarf that way. In fact here was a lot Audrey Hepburn in Mrs Madeira Nolan.

  Maddee Nolan was impish and teasing as well; from the moment out in the driveway she kept telling Kennedy and Grace Scott, whom she knew, that they were such a beautiful couple. Kennedy seemed more awkward about Maddee’s comments than Grace.

  Maddee acted very pleased when Kennedy selected an OJ as his pre-lunch drink. Not a word was said, but she nodded to herself approvingly as Kennedy refused offers of something stronger. Also attending the lunch were the chief and Maddee’s three sons, their two wives, and a girlfriend, plus two daughters - one of whom was a twin to the youngest son - and their two husbands. There were various children running around as well, but as the adults sat down to lunch all the children seemed to mysteriously disappear.

  As they took their places at the table, it was the chief’s turn to give a private nod of approval when Kennedy opted for red wine. Kennedy was happy being seated beside Grace, at Maddee’s end of the table. The chat generally centred around Ulster. The chief’s children seemed greatly amused by, and interested in, tales of this mystery man, Uncle Harry, whom they’d obviously heard mentioned throughout their lives. They seemed very happy to be able to quiz someone who actually knew the famous Harry Kennedy. According to the youngest daughter, Collette, her mum, when annoyed with her dad, would always say, “Oh I do wish I’d married into the Kennedy clan.” Then Chief Nolan would protest that Harry Kennedy had nothing whatsoever to do with, and certainly wasn’t related to, Boston’s old Joe Kennedy’s branch of the family.

  Kennedy couldn’t help eating too much; the food was delicious, and Maddee kept heaping more on his plate. Afterwards, Grace persuaded him to go for a walk to help his digestion. They headed off up Vallejo Street, took a very quick right into Gough Street, and headed down towards the stunning San Francisco Bay. To Kennedy it was like walking along familiar streets, thanks entirely to his lifelong fascination with American movies. By the time they returned to the Nolan house just before four o’clock, there were a lot more vehicles parked around the house and the nearby multi-storey apartment block.

  “They’re showing you off, Inspector,” Grace whispered, pulling him closer with their interlinked arms.

  “Maddee’s a wonderful woman, isn’t she?”

  “You were wondering what would have happened if she’d married your Uncle Harry, weren’t you.”

  “Yes,” Kennedy admitted, surprised.

  “I saw it in your eyes.”

  It turned out that Chief Don Nolan had invited most of his force and their partners and, consequently, their kids to the after-lunch drinks party.

  Maddee paraded Kennedy around introducing him to everyone. At one point, he and Grace got split up and the chief sidled up to Kennedy and invited him to go outside where the lads were shooting a few hoops.

  Kennedy was transfixed by the way the chief kept bouncing the ball in the shape of a V. He looked like he was having trouble getting the basketball to do his bidding.

  “Any progress on your Camden Town murder case?” the chief asked as he took a shot from what looked like an impossible distance to Kennedy. The ball barely touched the net on its way through. Kennedy could only stand, stare, and marvel.

  “Well, Grace found out where Miss Chada’s working, and we’re monitoring that. Hopefully by tomorrow morning I’ll have more information on the case from London.”

  “Chief Donohue tells me you’re also helping Grace look into her husband’s murder,” the chief continued, passing the ball to Kennedy.

  “Well, I figured I could look at it. Of course I’m not suggesting I’ll find something the locals might have missed,” Kennedy said, spending too much time trying to take aim with the ball.

  “Don’t aim,” Chief Nolan ordered. “Bounce the ball - bounce, bounce.”

  Kennedy did as ordered. The ball seemed a bit sluggish.

  “That’s better,” the chief continued in his coaching. “Now keep bouncing, don’t look at the ball, keep looking at the net, and when you feel it, when you feel comfortable with the ball, take a shot.”

  Kennedy did as coached, and there was no one more shocked than he when the ball, after a severe bit of rattling around the hoop, eventually dropped through.

  The chief retrieved the ball, caught it mid bounce and squeezed it between his two large hands.

  “Ah, I thought so; it’s got a slow leak. It’ll be okay for today though; we’ll get another hour of it at least. Now where was I? Oh yes. Don’t worry about putting anyone’s nose out of joint by interfering in the Scott case. Because it was a homicide, it was the city police who looked into it. They couldn’t find anything, so they were pulled off it to attend to all the other craziness of our wonderful city. So a different set of eyes, a different mind to consider the details would be greatly appreciated. Apart from which, Edward tells me your willingness to look at the case has taken Grace out of herself again. You know this is the first time she’s been out since Steve died?”

  “I didn’t,” Kennedy admitted. He spotted Grace at the other side of the garden, being hit on by a rubber man who was unsubtly pawing her.

  “Excuse me, Chief,” Kennedy said, as he walked off towards Grace.

  Grace clocked Kennedy and nodded to him not to interfere.

  “Come on, Chip,” she was hissing, under her breath, “what about Joan and the kids? You’re better than this.”

  “Joan pulled up the drawbridge ages ago, and you’re without a man. Come on, Gracie.”

  She backed Chip towards the hedge bordering the garden. Grace put her left hand on Chip’s cheek in a outwardly compassionate manner. Anyone who was looking on would focus on this. Meanwhile, grabbing a handful of Chip’s goolies with her other hand, she squeezed until Chip seemed to want to buckle at the knees and sink to the lawn in sheer agony. Refusing to let him drop, she squeezed until tears were streaming down his face.

  “Okay, Chip?” she said, still retaining her gentle compassionate tone, “have we had enough?”

  Chip nodded his head furiously in an attempt at “Yes!”

  Grace then moved her left hand from the side of Chips face, placed it smack bang centre on his nose and, as she let go of his goolies, shoved with all her might, sending him sprawling into the
thick of the hedge.

  To the rest of the party crowd, it just looked as if someone had had too much to drink and had fallen over. But Kennedy doubted good old Chip was ever going to be a proper man again.

  Nothing seemed to be dampening Grace’s spirits though. On the way back to Half Moon Bay, she was quite magnanimous about Chip.

  “You know, our officers, they go out in the morning and they never know if they’re going to catch a bullet before the end of their shift, so most of the ones who are honest about it try to pull like it might be their last time.”

  They reached the Donohue ranch shortly after ten.

  As they were going through the front door to the cabin, Chief Donohue came out of his house and called after them, “You two seem to have had a nice day. Fancy a nightcap?”

  Kennedy shied away, claiming he wanted to make an early start. Grace, after a moment, said, “I’ll take you up on your offer, Chief. Make mine an Irish coffee. Let me grab a jacket and I’ll be over in two minutes.”

  When they were in the cabin, she whispered, “Listen, Inspector, I won’t be long, but I’ve a favour to ask.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I sleep in your arms again tonight, please?”

  “That’s… perfectly… you know, I’m fine with that.”

  “It’ll be the last night I promise,” she said through a smile, grabbing a brown leather jacket from the back of the door and heading off towards her father’s house.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Monday morning saw Grace up first and a full breakfast already prepared for Kennedy.

  “Okay, what’s our plan of attack today?” Grace asked, when they were clearing the dishes into the dishwasher.

  “First off, I need to check my messages from London. I thought I could do it at Coastside Net.”

  “You can use my computer at the station house,” she said.

  “No, I need you on that one going through Officer Scott’s last few cases.”

  “I’m sure the chief could set you up with a system of your own.”