Bel, Book, and Scandal: A Belfast McGrath Mystery (Bel McGrath Mysteries)

by Maggie McConnon

  I decided that texting them was the best way to go. Dad hates texting, thinking that it’s the “work of the devil”; Mom only texts if there is a change in the Pilates schedule; and my brothers—Cargan excepted—wouldn’t respond unless it had something to do with them specifically, like decorating the Manor during business hours when they all had much more pressing matters to attend to. It didn’t. I was just letting everyone know that I was hosting someone in the Manor that night, the kitchen specifically, for dinner, so not to be alarmed if they heard voices coming from my work domain after hours.

  It took Cargan all of ten seconds to come into the kitchen after getting my text; he had been in the office next door and I heard the DING! of his phone just moments before he came through the kitchen door.

  “So, who is it? Your new friend, Mrs. Crawford?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “Not that it is any of your business, but no, it’s not my new friend. And her name is Alison Bergeron. Crawford is her husband.”

  He waved a hand. Too much information. “Brendan Joyce?”

  The noise I made in reply was somewhere between a gag and a snort. It was certainly not becoming and probably a little more vehement than it should have been. It had been my decision to end the relationship, not his. It had been my decision not to believe him when he said that he didn’t know how Amy’s photo had ended up in his wallet. Sometimes, late at night, when I can’t sleep and I’m thinking about recipes, I wonder if I was wrong, if I had let the wall that had formed around my heart keep out a kind and tender soul.

  “So who, then? If not Mrs. Crawford and not he-who-shall-not-be-named, who is coming over?” Cargan asked.

  The question was pointed, although he didn’t mean it to be. I had few friends in Foster’s Landing.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Cargan said. “I know you’ll get out of this kitchen eventually and get a social life.”

  “Glad you’re confident of that, Car,” I said. “No, it’s not Mrs. Crawford or Brendan Joyce. It’s a man I met. In Wooded Lake.”

  “What the heck were you doing up at Wooded Lake?” he asked.

  “Looking at some vintage stuff for my apartment.”

  “I thought it was knives?” he asked, catching me in my previous lie. When I didn’t answer, he continued. “That would mean you’re staying?” he said, a little lilt in his voice to indicate that he thought that was a splendid idea.

  “Maybe so, Brother,” I said, turning my back so he couldn’t see the lie written all over my face. I didn’t know if I would stay, but I certainly hadn’t gone to Wooded Lake for antiques.

  “What did you get?” he asked.

  I went into the refrigerator and pulled out a ham and the remaining pieces of a rye bread that I had baked a few days earlier. I turned back around and put the items on the counter. “Where?” I asked, already having lost the thread of the conversation, my mind on Tweed and how I was going to get from him what I wanted. If he indeed had anything to give me.

  “Wooded Lake,” Cargan said, eyeing the ham as if he were going to the chair and this was his last meal.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “This trip was basically reconnaissance. To see what kinds of stores they have.”

  “And what kinds of stores do they have?” he asked.

  “Stores. Big stores. Little stores. Antique stores.”

  “Names of these stores? Maybe just one or two?” he asked.

  It took me a minute to realize I was being interrogated. I put some ham between the two slices of bread and handed the sandwich to my brother. “Stores. Different kinds of stores. Stores with merchandise. Stores that sell things. I didn’t get names.”

  He was taken aback, but he grabbed the sandwich from my hands anyway. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just don’t ask me a hundred questions.”

  “I think I asked you three.” He took a bite of the sandwich. “And now I know that you didn’t go to Wooded Lake to buy antiques. Or knives. At big stores or little stores.”

  I stood in front of my brother, my best friend really, and stared him down. He ate the sandwich quietly, going to the refrigerator for a tin of horseradish mustard and slathering some onto the bread with a knife I handed him. When he was done, he washed his hands at the sink and then took his place at the counter again, the whole set of tasks done in silence, until he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. He slapped it down on the counter and looked at me.

  It was from the same newspaper that Alison had left behind and the same page that I had kept.

  He looked at me, his eyes looking tired and sad at the same time. It took him a few minutes to speak, but when he did I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “I see her, too.”

  Where I had been had always been clear to him. Now he knew why.

  CHAPTER Twenty-one

  I don’t know why, but I texted Alison Bergeron just mere minutes before Tweed Blazer arrived that night. Maybe it was Cargan’s inadvertent insinuation that I had few friends—he was right, by the way—or maybe it was the kinship I felt to her, another amateur sleuth with a burning desire to see wrongs righted and questions answered.

  Instead of texting me back, she called me, out of breath. “Hey. So you’ve got the hottie Amish guy coming over for a little dinner, huh?”

  “He’s not Amish.”

  “Might as well be with the beard and the barn. And all that potentially reclaimed wood! If that’s not Amish, I don’t know what is.”

  I didn’t want to get into the finer points of being Amish—heck if I knew what those points were—so I just let her continue.

  “Amish wouldn’t be terrible. You’d have to give up the cell phone, though, and you probably have to cook on an open flame every night. Maybe? Not sure. But if anyone could do that, you could.”

  “Are you finished?” I asked, forgetting that I was talking to a potential customer and not a friend. A real friend with similar interests, in this case, finding Amy.

  “That’s all I’ve got,” she said. “I don’t know a lot about the Amish, I must admit.”

  Man, she had a tough time focusing. I didn’t know if she was qualified to be the Bess Marvin to my Nancy Drew. “To answer your first question, yes, I’m having Tweed to dinner.”

  “What are you making?

  “Hanger steak. Fingerling potatoes. Roasted Brussels sprouts.” I had decided that boeuf bourguignon was a little pretentious, a bit show-offy. He looked like a meat-and-potatoes guy—or a vegan, it was hard to tell—so I went with the old standby.

  “Would it be weird if I showed up for dinner, too?”

  “Yes. Yes, it would,” I said.

  In the background of our call, I could hear people talking, moving past her in whatever open-air setting she was in. Finally, she got into her car, the thunk of her car door sealing her off from the outside noise. “Sounds good. Do you think he knows we were up there the other day?”

  “I think for sure he knows,” I said.

  “How are you going to handle that?” she asked.

  “It all depends,” I said. “If he admits that he knows about our visit, he’ll also have to admit that his father is still in the picture.” I opened the oven door and peered in at my Brussels sprouts, which were roasting to perfection. “And I don’t know if he wants to admit he lied.”

  “Hmmm,” she said. “I can’t wait to hear how this goes. Will you call me tomorrow and tell me everything?”

  Sure,” I said. “But won’t you be at work?”

  “I suppose,” she said. “But if you call when I’m in class, I’ll just assign a writing project. That will keep the kids busy for a least a whole class period.”

  “Sounds good,” I said before hanging up. I looked around the kitchen. I had dragged in a small table for two that was normally in the coat check room and draped it with one of Mom’s pressed-linen tablecloths. I found a pair of old sterling silver candlesticks in
the basement and pillaged the supply room for some long tapers, which I lit a few minutes after my Brussels sprouts were done, a signal that my guest—if he was a punctual type—would be arriving soon.

  I heard Dad coming down the front stairs, his heavy footfalls announcing his presence. He still had a black eye and was hurting from the Christmas tree debacle, but he was in a better mood than he had been. I heard his feet hit the marble in the foyer at the same time as a loud rap on the front door announced my date’s arrival. I raced from the kitchen into the foyer, hoping to waylay Dad, unsuccessful in my attempt. As I skidded to a stop next to the bust in the foyer, Dad opened the door, letting in a gust of wind and my date for the night. Dad took in the sight of Tweed Blazer, a man bigger and more imposing than even my father, a giant in his own right … or at least his own mind.

  “Can I help you, sir?” Dad asked.

  “Dad, this is my friend, Tweed. I texted you about him coming over tonight.”

  “Groom?” Dad asked.

  “Coffee shop owner,” Tweed said, mistaking Dad’s utterance as a guess at his profession rather than his marital status. “I’m allergic to horses.”

  “A friend of Belfast, you say?” Dad said, giving him the once-over.

  “Well, I didn’t say, but yes, I’m a friend of Belfast,” Tweed joked trying to infuse a little levity into the situation.

  I walked over to my guest and got between him and my father. “Dad, meet Tweed Blazer. He’s a friend of mine from Wooded Lake. I met him recently when I was driving around.”

  “Driving around?” Dad asked. “Why are you driving around?”

  To get away from you. To get away from Mom. To make sure I don’t go completely insane. “I was looking for some antiques for my apartment, so I went for a drive.” To find Amy.

  “And I’m glad she did, sir,” Tweed said. “I was happy to meet your daughter.”

  Dad stood in silence, assessing the man in the foyer. “So what are you doing? Going out?”

  “It was all in the text, Dad,” I said. “We’re going to have dinner in the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen?” Dad said. “The kitchen? No one eats in the kitchen!”

  Cargan appeared out of nowhere. “Dad, there’s a problem with the printer. I need your help.” He held out a hand to Tweed. “Hello, I’m Cargan, Bel’s brother. Nice to meet you,” he said even as he was grabbing Dad by the forearm and practically dragging him out of the foyer, soothing Dad with assurances that only he, the head of the house, could fix the printer, that it needed his special brand of technological skill, of which we all knew he had none. He had once accidentally rewired Mom’s landline in the Pilates studio so that every time she dialed out she got 911 instead, which I don’t think Lieutenant D’Amato minded; he seemed a bit sweet on my gorgeous mum.

  Once they left, Tweed handed me a bag. “You promised me some kind of coffee dessert.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” I said. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen.”

  He took a seat at the little table once we were inside the kitchen and looked around. “You do event cooking in here?” he asked, taking in the unimpressive space.

  I nodded. “While I would love a complete renovation on this space, it’s unlikely to happen. Unless we book a royal wedding or something like it.” I pulled the fragrant coffee out of the bag and pulled down a mixing bowl, throwing together a quick batch of coffee-infused brownies that we could share. The rest of our meal had stayed hot under the warmer, so I put together our plates and placed them on the table. “Wine?” I asked.

  “Sure. May I?” he asked, picking up the bottle and after a quick nod from me pouring me a glass. “Your dad seems…” He searched for the right word. “Protective?”

  “Or crazy?” I said. “I haven’t lived here in a long time, so it’s odd for him to see me actually living my life. I think in his head I was a teenager at sleepaway camp the whole time I lived in the city and other places.”

  “That sounds like a pretty normal reaction for a father,” Tweed said. “Not that I would know.”

  I took a sip of my wine. “Meaning?”

  “I don’t know why I said that. I wouldn’t know actually. I didn’t have a normal father. Or a normal childhood. Or a normal life,” he said, before shutting down, something that I saw happen as his eyes went blank and his face hardened a bit.

  I let it go.

  We ate without talking for a few minutes, the scent of the brownies filling the room. “Your food is delicious,” he said finally.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m lucky that I get to do what I’m passionate about…”

  “… and get paid to do it,” he said, finishing my sentence.

  “Well, that’s not exactly how it works around here, but someday, maybe, I’ll return to getting a real paycheck.”

  “Your parents don’t pay you?” he asked.

  “They do,” I said. “Just not a lot.” I got up and checked on the brownies, which still needed another ten minutes or so to be done.

  “Tell me, Belfast,” he said, pushing his plate aside and picking up his wineglass. “Are we still talking about your friend or is this more of a casual thing, friends getting together?”

  I didn’t want to answer too quickly, to show my hand. When I took the time to think about it, though, I thought I might be a little interested in him as a friend, but the lie about his father held me back. “It would be nice if we were friends,” I said. “I don’t have a ton of friends here in the Landing.”

  “But you’re from here, right?” he asked. “Don’t some of your old friends live here?”

  “I didn’t have a lot of friends after…” I trailed off.

  “Your friend, Amy, left?”

  So he had done his due diligence, finding out about me the one thing I didn’t want anyone to know. That I had been the last to see her, that I had no idea what had happened or why. I don’t know how he knew, but he did.

  I looked into the oven again, willing the brownies to be done so that we could move on to another portion of the meal and go back to talking about culinary things. The oven timer was set and was due to go off shortly, but I stared at the brownies, waiting for the top to crisp sufficiently. While I wanted to know everything he knew, another part of me trembled with profound discomfort at knowing anything about his life—and Amy’s part in it—at all.

  Out in the foyer, someone knocked at the door, someone new, unexpected. I heard Dad tear himself away from the broken printer and lumber to the front door, where raised voices and Dad’s begging for calm were all I heard, one voice besides Dad’s coming through loud and clear.

  Brendan’s.

  Brendan Joyce burst into the kitchen, holding a side-view mirror that I recognized as the right size and color of his car. The glass was cracked and had wires dangling from it; it was covered also in a thick, viscous substance that was also smeared across the front of Brendan’s shirt.

  Chicken fat? Definitely some kind of grease.

  Schmaltz.

  Or, more specifically, duck fat. Liquid gold.

  Brendan brandished the broken mirror like a slick sword, waving it about. “Want to tell me what you know about this?” he asked. In his current state, he looked sexier and more attractive than I had ever seen him look; unbridled anger suited him.

  The oven timer went off and I put on two oven mitts to take the pan out. “I don’t know anything, Brendan,” I said.

  “You’re lying,” he said. “We weren’t together that long, but I know when you’re lying, Belfast. And you’re lying.” He was out of breath and red in the face. He looked at Tweed. “She’s a terrible liar.”

  “Good to know,” Tweed said.

  “This isn’t your style, but if I had to bet, I wouldn’t put it past one of your brothers.”

  Feeney’s handsome face popped into my head, but I cast the image aside. “I don’t know, Brendan. I’m sorry for what happened, but I have no idea how it did.”

  Behind him, the kitchen
doors swung open and, like an episode of Boyfriends of the Past, Kevin Hanson popped in, his tie askew and his pants bearing a smear of their own. He looked at me and then at Tweed. “Sorry to interrupt, Bel, but do you happen to know where Feeney is?” He moved toward Tweed. “Kevin Hanson.”

  “Tweed Blazer.”

  I could see the corners of Kevin’s mouth move in a way that let me know that a case of the “church giggles” was imminent. The last time I had seen Kevin’s face do that, we were in the seventh grade and we had both been thrown out of a penance service. And all because Karen DiLuzzio said “ton-gay of fire” instead of “tongues of fire” while reading a Bible passage aloud. “Well, nice to meet you, Mr. Blazer.” He took in Tweed’s appearance, the bracelet of wooden beads on his wrist, now missing the dolphin charm. “Nice bracelet.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Kevin turned to me. “Bel? Feeney?”

  “I haven’t seen him, Kevin. Is there a problem?”

  Brendan waved the mirror again. “I’d say there’s a big problem.”

  Tweed got up from the table. “Bel, I think I should go. It seems like you have some things to work out.”

  Brendan looked from Tweed to me and then back to Tweed. “Listen, man, let me give you some advice: Stay away from this family. They are a bunch of lunatics.” With his hair sticking out at all angles and his clothes covered with duck fat, his eyes wild, he was one to talk.

  “That really is unnecessary, Brendan,” I said. “Whatever happened between us doesn’t give you the right to denigrate my family.”

  He turned and looked at me. “They’re not crazy?”

  I thought about that but didn’t answer. Maybe they were. And more than a little bit.

  Tweed grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and put it on, starting for the door. “Bel, I’ll call you,” he said.