by Alber, Lisa
Beside him, Merrit opened her purse. “I’d like to send Liam an apology letter.”
“Not necessary.”
In Merrit’s bag, he spied a travel-sized hand lotion, wallet, keys, lipstick, packet of Kleenex, knitting needles—and that was only on the surface as Merrit delved in up to her forearms in female paraphernalia. When was the last time he’d seen the inside of a woman’s purse? Not since scrambling in an erection haze to grab a rubber from Emma’s handbag. In other words, too long.
“I think a letter would be best, if you could give me his address?” Merrit pulled out a notepad and pen. “I see now that the plaza will be jam-packed all month long. Way too crowded and busy to speak to him in person.”
“Ah, so you’d like a private matchmaking consultation, is it?”
The skin around Merrit’s eyes tightened. “Don’t assume I’m desperate and hard up because you saw me with Lonnie at the party.”
Marcus’s eyelids twitched along with the muscles around his mouth. “Check her eyebrow—that’s when to know she’s on to you.”
Indeed, Merrit’s right eyebrow was raised like a dainty pinkie finger over a teacup. Kevin decided Liam was drunker than a honeybee on mead to consider Merrit in need of his friendship. He took the pad and pen that Merrit held toward him. “Here’s the address. Write your letter.”
“Write my letter,” she echoed, staring down at his scrawled words. With care, she closed the notepad and buried it at the bottom of her bag. “Thank you.”
“Uh-oh, now we’re in for it, innit?” Marcus settled his chin deeper into this chest. “Poor Danny, the load he carries.”
Mrs. O’Brien had appeared with Danny not far behind her. She pointed in their direction and a minute later swept up to them with her teased hair and bagged bosom. Kevin held up his hand, ready to fend her off, but she glared at Merrit instead.
“Rude of you, running out like that. And imagine sitting here, proud as can be with Lisfenora’s most notorious citizens.”
“Being a foreigner, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Sitting between two killers, that’s what you’re doing.”
With a final accusatory squint, she pivoted and marched out of the plaza.
***
Danny had no idea who to call on first: Merrit, who blinked at Mrs. O’Brien’s retreating back; Kevin, who bunched his fists and muttered oaths; or Marcus, most of all Marcus, who had shrunk into himself at being labeled a killer. How was it these three people with little in common but a bench now headed up his ever-increasing list of complicated matters? Lonnie’s murder had somehow brought them together, but as yet he didn’t know how. He watched Merrit lay a hand on Marcus’s arm, just that, and with the gesture Danny adjusted his opinion. She was the unknown quantity. Figure her out and the rest would likely come into focus.
“One word out of the lot of you,” he said, “and I’m taking you all in for official questioning. Give me nods and shakes, that’s all. Miss Chase, did you notice anything unusual about Kevin’s whereabouts during the party, or as you were leaving?” Shake. “Kev, you calm?” Nod. “You realize I’m looking into everything no matter what the O’Briens insist?” Nod. “Right then. You two are dismissed. On second thought, Miss Chase wait for me out of earshot. I have a few more questions for you.”
Kevin left, and after a moment’s hesitation Merrit followed him.
Marcus patted the seat beside him. “What’s it come to then, Danny-boy?”
“It’s come to the little things like why you didn’t come around for a bath and meal this morning. Ellen attended the early vigil, as usual.”
“Pointless. She’ll never come around.”
“One of these mornings Ellen will be in the kitchen to greet you. You’ll see.”
Unfortunately, Danny didn’t feel the hope he used to on this score. By now, Ellen knew that he helped Marcus on the sly, but she ignored the extra laundry and the leftovers Danny wrapped in foil. She no longer insisted that Danny shun Marcus as she had, and he no longer tried to persuade her that Marcus deserved a home again.
“If I had the money,” Danny said, “I’d rent you a room.”
Marcus nodded with his gaze aimed at Kevin and Merrit. They stood on the edge of the plaza beside Kevin’s truck. Merrit pressed her hands against her mouth and stared wide-eyed at the ground while Kevin spoke. “See Kevin there, telling Merrit everything about our wee Beth. Do you think she’ll want to sit with me anymore?”
“Quit with Merrit already.” Danny jostled Marcus’s shoulder to grab his attention. “It worries me that during the party Mrs. O’Brien sees you larking about out here and then raises shite about scared tourists. She’s all for me committing you for the duration of the festival, if not longer, and I’ve got fuck-all choice but to hear her out.”
Marcus clutched Danny’s arm with a soft-skinned grip that was a holdover from his previous life as an accountant. “A load of shite, that. I was on a bench all night.”
“Why would she lie?”
“Doesn’t need a reason, does she?”
“I suppose not.”
“People always winding me up,” Marcus mumbled, his gaze still aimed at Kevin and Merrit. “Like the bastard who painted my shoes last month.”
Nearby, two men set up a small bandstand and sound system. By midafternoon the festival’s full force would be upon them. A welcome banner hung over the O’Brien statue. Below it, the county councillor ambled through the crowd introducing himself and overseeing the placement of various refreshment and craft stands around the plaza’s perimeter. He was another in Mrs. O’Brien’s inner circle—her uncle to be more precise—and Danny knew well enough that unofficial local politics could land him unemployed just as easily as his boss Clarkson’s official politics.
“I’ll ask Kevin if he’s got an empty house you can stay in for the duration. You can’t lie around Carol Dooley’s garage all day, kind as she is to let you sleep there at night.”
“She fancied me once. Maybe she could again if I weren’t bound for hellfire.”
Danny took his leave before Marcus’s self-loathing infected him. Beth had loved her quiet times with Grandpap Marcus up until the moment Marcus had turned away to pick up her discarded jumper and completed the circle to find Beth limp beneath the playhouse, her neck broken. Just for a moment, Marcus had repeated in an endless monotone until Ellen had given him the boot never to return.
How things change in the seconds we don’t look, Danny thought.
As soon as he came within auditory range of Kevin and Merrit, Kevin’s mouth stopped moving. Danny avoided Merrit’s no-doubt sympathetic gaze. Thank Christ she had sense enough not to mention his Beth’s death.
“It’s best if Marcus makes himself scarce until this blows over,” he said to Kevin. “You got a construction site that might do?”
With an imperious finger flick Merrit dismissed his question. “He can bunk with me. I don’t care what my crabapple landlady has to say about it.”
She returned to Marcus before Danny could oppose the idea. Kevin pulled off his glasses and rubbed them against his T-shirt. “Looks like Marcus is one worry off your list. You owe her a pint for that.”
“I owe her something all right, but I’m not sure what. You get the feeling she wants to spite Mrs. O’Brien?”
“Not that, no,” Kevin said. “But I’d give my right ball to know why she’s really taking in Marcus. She must know something about Lonnie’s death. I almost asked her about him. Maybe I will.”
“Don’t you go asking her for the time of day. Christ, first Mrs. O’Brien, then you—do me a favor and let the Garda do its job.”
“No offense, but you lot are precisely the people I want off my ass.”
Kevin grabbed a tool belt out of the back of the truck and strode away. Danny strolled back to Merrit, feeling like a yo-yo the way this day was going. “You forget I wanted to talk to you?”
“Trying to.” She threw a fetching smil
e in Marcus’s direction. “Guess I’ll buy us an early lunch, OK? Back in a few.”
Out of Marcus’s view, her expression turned sad. Danny didn’t know whether to thank her for her generosity or order her to mind her own bloody business. “What didn’t you find in your purse yesterday?” he said.
“In my purse?”
“Garda O’Neil took your statement at the crime scene, you remember, and he said you nearly broke the seams on your bag looking for a breath mint. So you said.”
“So I meant.”
“I thought you might be missing an asthma inhaler.”
Merrit dead-stopped in the middle of the intersection, heedless of a tourist bus’s screeching brakes. Her gaze, tawny and amber as stained glass, held his own. “I told you, I don’t have asthma.”
“So you keep saying. The inhaler I found in Lonnie’s office is an American model. Quite the coincidence.”
She marched the rest of the way across the street toward the corner market and spread her arms to encompass the plaza, the Grand Arms Hotel, and the view down the noncoastal toward the church and Internet Café. Tourists clogged the plaza and sidewalks. “Look at these people, it’s all baseball caps and tennis shoes, are you kidding me? You’ll find plenty of asthmatic American tourists.”
“No doubt, but then none of them have inserted themselves into village life quite the way you have.”
Liam Donellan’s journal
Women were my drug of choice, and I continually surpassed myself in scoring a daily fix. I promoted happily-ever-afters, but I couldn’t be bothered with that myself. Those days were a haze of women, yet the first time I saw Julia—the journalist though I didn’t know this yet—is as vivid a memory as the first time I saw you in the orphanage.
That day, thirty-three years ago, Julia pushed her way to the front of the crowd to get a better look at me. She was tiny, and she sized me up with twisted eyebrows. She wore a boy’s vest with a gauzy skirt. Brilliant she was, so lean and straight-waisted she didn’t bother fabricating curves. One glimpse of her and I vowed I’d bed her before I matched her. Just another bird out for an adventure, I thought. And a saucy one at that.
This afternoon during the festival commencement the memory hit me like a felled tree. There stood Merrit, spying on me from the crowd just as her mother had. I’d seen Merrit at my party, but still, the sight of her caused me to stumble over my usual festival commencement speech with its usual rules of etiquette. (A little pomposity lends me credibility, I’ve found.)
Julia, I thought, and then Merrit blinked back into herself. Taller, quieter, and seeking me out just as Julia had—but for vastly different reasons. Julia’s need to know led her to me, and in the end, took her away again. I can’t help but wonder what will happen with Merrit.
• 18 •
Eggs hissed and coffee perked, and for a moment Merrit reminded herself of herself from six months previously, when Andrew had still had an appetite. In fact, without realizing it, she’d broken the egg yolks the way he preferred. She tossed them into the sink and started again.
Marcus stood dazed but shower-fresh in clothes she’d purchased for him the previous day in Ennis. After a quick lunch, she’d surprised him with the field trip, and they’d returned just in time to hear Liam’s commencement speech. A hush fell over the crowd when Liam stepped onto the bandstand. Even the kebabs at one of the food kiosks quieted their sizzle when he welcomed the crowd to the matchmaker’s festival.
“Every one of you deserves to find your mate,” he said, “and to the best of my abilities—which are profound as you surely know—I will do this for you. I invite you to confide in me, and then I invite you to enjoy the festivities. Every night you will find parties in the pubs, and dancing, and drink, and camaraderie. You talk to me, then you relax. I will find you, and I will introduce you to the match I’ve chosen for you.”
He stood there looking Victorian yet bohemian in an immaculate velvet morning coat with long tails and a jaunty scarf tied around his neck. An Old World walking cane with an engraved silver handle and matching end cap completed his ensemble.
“However,” he said, brandishing the cane, “there are rules, and I’m not afraid to banish anyone who disobeys me. So listen here all ye who wish to participate:
“Thou shalt not approach while I’m speaking with another participant.
“Thou shalt only approach me if I signal you to approach.
“Thou shalt not ply me with alcohol.
“Thou shalt not pester me for results after the initial interview.
“Most of all, thou shalt not request a match to the person of your choice.”
By the end of his speech, Liam could have mandated urine samples from every last person in the crowd, and every last person would have nodded OK. Even his arrogance had a charmed quality to it.
Her dad, the smiling dictator.
Merrit pondered the spectacle of Liam as she finished cooking up Marcus’s eggs. She had stood within the crowd as if cemented in place, mesmerized just as her mom had been. For brief moments at a time she’d seen what her mom had described in her notes: the swagger, the intensity, the charisma.
“I hear something,” Marcus whispered.
“What? Oh, it’s probably Mrs. Sheedy hoping to catch me in sin.”
His hands shook. “Thirsty.”
She knew the drill. He had to want to quit drinking. Even so, witnessing his dependency at close hand almost compelled her to nag, cajole, browbeat, or yell. Instead, she said, “Grab a beer to tide you over.”
Merrit surveyed her chaotic domain as she tipped eggs over-easy onto a plate. The unfolded sofa bed bumped up against an equally messy cot, and Marcus’s few personal belongings sat in a pile next to the bathroom. Most of all, there was Marcus himself, dribbling beer out the sides of his mouth in his haste to replenish himself. He seemed out of it this morning, probably because he’d been on his good behavior, drinking only beer when his body needed mass quantities of gin just to maintain.
She eased him onto a chair and served him the eggs along with brown bread and milked coffee. “Maybe you’ll feel better with food. I’ll be right back.”
This being Tuesday, she grabbed up the trash bucket and stepped onto the landing that overlooked the plaza beyond the Plough’s roof. Festival volunteers had dismantled the bandstand used during yesterday’s commencement and replaced it with a caravan tent open on four sides. Beneath it sat a Victorian-style divan upon which Liam would peel open dreams and desires. According to the festival schedule, Liam appeared in the plaza from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and after a dinner break visited one pub each night in a rotating circuit. It could take him days, even weeks, to match a person, but according to the locals, he always found his couples from within the crowds.
Merrit leaned against the balustrade for a moment of rising sun, quietude, and wishful thinking. Please, no drama today. Please, just peace enough to work with Marcus and start a letter to Liam. Simple enough request, yet her neck pulled at muscles so tight they hurt.
In the passage beneath her, the chain on Mrs. Sheedy’s trash can rattled. Merrit peered around the corner of the building and caught her landlady examining the garbage with her shoulders hunched in outrage. This wasn’t unusual, but the sight of Danny with one of his men—O’Neil—most certainly was. Danny rubbed a hand over his mouth in a fierce movement that stretched his lips to one side of his face.
“And what was I after saying?” Mrs. Sheedy said. “This’ll be why she hasn’t brought down her bucket yet.”
“Back inside,” Danny ordered Mrs. Sheedy. “And keep this to yourself.”
Good luck with that. Mrs. Sheedy was probably rolling her tongue around like a gambler with dice in hand, ready to let fly. Merrit watched as she scurried into the kitchen to perform her civic duty over the phone lines. Danny raised eyebrows at the grinning O’Neil, grunted something, and strode toward the back steps.
Merrit held up her trash bucket in greeting. “Trash day.”
He squinted up at her, suspicion evident. “A little late, I’d say. Follow me.”
He turned around without waiting for her. This didn’t bode well. Mrs. Sheedy must have found something interesting indeed. Perhaps the guys at the Plough had snuck in a half-smoked joint, and Mrs. Sheedy would rather blame the outsider.
Merrit set down the bucket and pressed her granny nightie down against her stomach. It came to her knees and was conservative enough with long sleeves and a demure ruffle around the neck. So be it. She looked good enough for a trash can visit.
Danny was already waiting for her on the far side of the trash can when she arrived. His gaze flickered over her, lingering the barest second, before shooting back up to her face.
“Go on,” he said. “Take a look, but not too close, and don’t touch anything.”
Merrit leaned forward from the waist to peer into Mrs. Sheedy’s trash can. She grinned, relieved. “Marcus will be glad—he felt so bad.”
“You knitted this blanket, correct?” She nodded. “Go on then, take a closer look.”
Merrit bowed closer. She sucked in her breath when she spotted the telltale smudges and streaks. Against the blue yarn, they looked purple, and only something red—like blood—could make blue yarn look purple.
“Remnants from Lonnie, I suspect,” Danny said. “Unless you have another theory.”
She shook her head, remembering how addled Marcus had been the morning after the party. How he’d wilted as he took the blame for losing the afghan. She tried to imagine him plunging a knife into Lonnie with enough force to kill him, but she couldn’t. Not that it mattered. She was the suspect here, not Marcus.
Merrit clutched at her nightgown, her breath hitching. Danny’s unwavering brown gaze clocking her every reaction. O’Neil stood nearby, also watching her as he unspooled a length of crime-scene tape.
She bent over to catch her breath, inhaling a faint citrus smell that wafted up from the trash can. The guys at the Plough must have snuck in the lemon and lime rinds to rile up Mrs. Sheedy. The fruit rested in a festive pile near the dried blood. Someone—presumably the killer—had folded the blanket before slipping it into the container. The whole thing looked staged for a macabre still life.
