by Catie Murphy
Bourke took this flood of information stoically. “Any idea what his relationship to Martin Walsh is?”
Megan made an I-don’t-know face. “They obviously knew each other pretty well. They’re about the same age, I’d say? Midforties? Not much older than you and me anyway. Martin is still trying to win a last PGA Tour, so he can’t be that old.”
“Martin Walsh is forty-eight,” Bourke said in a tone that suggested he couldn’t believe Megan didn’t know that.
“Forgive me for not being up on Irish golf prodigies,” Megan replied, amused. “I knew who he was, isn’t that enough?”
“Next you’ll be telling me you’ve only the faintest notion who Katie Taylor or Conor McGregor are,” Bourke muttered beneath the sound of Megan’s laugh.
“No, I know them. Look, Detective, I know this probably isn’t your usual beat, so thanks for coming out when I called.”
“I can’t imagine explaining to the chief why I got a personal call about a murder and didn’t come to have a look, so no worries. I’d best get to it.” Despite his words, Bourke lingered a moment. “How are the puppies?”
A smile split Megan’s face. “They’re grand. Dip is bigger than Thong—”
Bourke looked pained, and Megan fought down a laugh. She had, in the midst of Elizabeth Darr’s murder investigation, acquired a Jack Russell terrier who had just given birth to two puppies. The boy’s brown face looked like it had been dipped in chocolate, so Megan called him Dip and, as she now had it on good authority because she had a weird sense of humor, she had dubbed his sister Thong, making them a diphthong. No one else thought it was funny, and Megan’s friend Fionnuala, who had promised to adopt Thong, also swore the little girl puppy would be renamed something more appropriate. Bourke clearly agreed with Fionn’s sentiments, although he his own self had dropped by to woo Mama Dog a few times, showing little interest in her offspring.
“—and they’re both pretty thoroughly weaned,” Megan finished, still smiling broadly. “Fionn’s supposed to bring Thong home this weekend, I think. I hope so. My boss gives me the stink eye every time she sees me. I’m not supposed to have dogs in the apartment.”
“Sure and that’ll teach you to rent a flat from your employer.” Bourke, with a nod, went to interview people.
Megan said, “As if that makes sense,” under her breath, and then, as if it needed a defense, added, “It was a good deal!” aloud before muttering, “It’s not like I knew I was going to end up with puppies when I rented the place,” to herself.
Detective Bourke was a long time talking with Martin Walsh. The ambulance drove away, and several terrified-looking young people driving golf carts arrived, keeping their distance from the witnesses to the aftermath of Lou MacDonald’s death. Megan, shivering with cold, sidled toward Bourke and Walsh under the guise of being responsible for taking the golfer home, but mostly she just wanted to listen in. Once she was close enough to hear, she stamped up and down a short path behind Bourke, trying to stay out of his sight and hoping to warm her muddy feet and half-frozen thighs. She did have a pair of survival blankets in the boot of her town car, but going to get them would mean abandoning Walsh and, more to the point, abandoning any hope of overhearing his conversation with Detective Bourke.
Martin, wrapped in a woman’s long wool coat to keep some of the cold off him, looked a wreck, and kept glancing toward the ambulance tracks. His pale hair collected mist until the beads pulled it down over his round face, making him look like a particularly dim-witted, shaggy-haired sheep. “Everybody liked Lou,” he said for the fourth time that Megan had heard. “He wasn’t the sort to make enemies. He didn’t have time for that rubbish. If you didn’t like him, that was on you. He’d never make a fuss about it. I’ve known him since I was twelve, and I only ever saw him get into a fight once.”
“What happened then?” This was apparently new even to Bourke, who began writing again. Megan stood in place and stomped her feet on the squishy grass, listening.
“Ah, we were out at a pub like, and some wee gobshite came after one of our mates, a Nigerian fella. The gobshite called him a word I wouldn’t want to repeat, and Lou stood up and asked him if he’d care to say that again. The wee gobshite threw a punch, and it was like in the movies so, where a wee little man hits a big one and the big one barely turns his head? That was Lou. I’d never seen him so surprised. He was six three like, and built like a barrel back then, though he’d taken some of the weight off these last few years. No one punches a man like that, especially not a wee gobshite. So Lou hit him back, just the once, but that’s all it took. The wee gobshite fell down, and we went back to drinking while his lads dragged him out of there. But that was most of thirty years ago, and you couldn’t even call it a fight like.”
“He golfed?” Bourke asked with a nod, as if it all tied together.
Martin, shivering in his borrowed wool coat, shrugged. “When we were lads, ah, with the shoulders on him, you’d have never seen the ball again, if only he could hit it. But his wife golfed, and he took it up to spend time with her. He was never so competitive as I, but he might have been a better golfer, once he got into the game with Kim. We were making a run at the Ryder Cup wild-card selection together this year.” Pain shattered across Martin’s face, and, compounded by the cold, nearly turned to tears. “I guess it’s only me now.”
Detective Bourke looked around at Megan, who apparently hadn’t gone unnoticed after all, at the gathered entourage who were still being spoken to by uniformed gardaí, and finally back to Martin Walsh. “You and Ms. Malone had best get to the clubhouse and warm up. I’ll need to talk to you more there, but there’s nothing that has to be discussed in the wind and mist and cold, especially with you wet all over.”
Megan blurted, “Oh, thank God,” and scurried, with Walsh, to one of the golf carts, which had been abandoned by its driver some time ago. The kid came running back, though, and dragged a heavy wool blanket over the front seat, offering it to them.
“Would you want a hot toddy or coffee waiting for you?” he asked in concern. “I can radio ahead for it.”
“Jesus, yes,” Walsh blurted. “As stiff a coffee as they’ve got.” He huddled under the blanket. Megan nodded at the driver, who looked glad to have something to do, and radioed in their request as they tucked themselves under the blanket. “There’s a washer and dryer at the clubhouse,” Walsh told Megan through chattering teeth. “They’ll get us sorted.”
Megan, shivering uncontrollably, still giggled. “I don’t think I’ll pass muster for the dress code in my underwear, Mr. Walsh.”
Walsh, dryly, said, “I think they’ll make an exception this once. Look, lad”—this was to the golf cart driver—“has anybody got robes or slippers up there? I know it’s not a hotel, but—”
“They’ll bring clothes in from the Pro Shop, sir,” the driver said, quickly enough that it had clearly already been discussed amongst the staff. “We weren’t sure how many people were wet, or needed clothes, but they’ll have shirts and shorts, at least.” He gave a worried glance over his shoulder at them. “I don’t know that there are any slacks, or anything tailored for you, ma’am . . .”
“If the club can see past an ill-fitted polo shirt and shorts just this once, I’ll get by,” Megan promised. The driver gave her a relieved smile, and for the remainder of the short drive to the clubhouse, everyone was content to ride in silence.
Under the dull afternoon light, the clubhouse’s red-slate roof looked nearly black, but its clean, bright white walls silhouetted distraught staff as they came running out to meet the golf cart. Some bore towels, others, the promised Irish coffee, and still others appeared to be there for the craic—the fun of it—so they could later tell everyone the story as they’d seen it firsthand. Megan accepted a towel—warm from a heated towel rack—gratefully, and heard one of the male members of staff murmuring, “. . . this way, and I’ll bring you to the showers so you can warm up,” to Walsh.
Megan took a del
icious, warm slurp of whiskey-laden coffee and stepped toward the boy talking about showers, only to receive a look of uncertainty. “You said showers. I’m freezing.”
“Ah, uh, well, I’m afraid—you see, we have no facilities for women’s showers here, ma’am.”
A bubble of heat that had nothing whatsoever to do with the coffee bloomed in Megan’s stomach. “I’m sorry?”
“No, no need to be sorry, ma’am, we just do—”
“I’m sorry,” Megan said again, this time much more sharply. “You misunderstood. That wasn’t an apology. That was a polite expression of disbelief. What do you mean, you have no facilities for women’s showers here?”
“It’s—well, the clubhouse is—the club is—that is to say, the membership—” The young man faltered and looked desperately around at his coworkers, none of whom seemed inclined to rescue him. His gaze finally came back to Megan, but he didn’t finish what he had to say, only opened and closed his mouth like a gasping fish. Megan, feeling a ferocious smile tighten her face, just waited, and when the boy didn’t speak, she said, clearly and precisely, “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand what you mean. You’re going to have to explain it to me in small, exact words.”
“The Royal Dublin doesn’t allow ladies as members,” the boy finally whispered. “So there are no facilities for women on the grounds.”
Megan, fairly sparkling with rage, smiled until the young man took a step backward. “Excellent,” she said when he moved. “You may lead us to the men’s facilities, then.”
“What?” The youth, naturally pale to begin with, went ghostly white. “What? No, ma’am, I’m afraid—”
“Kid,” Megan said through the teeth of her smile, “the only reason I am not ripping you personally to shreds is because you are not yourself responsible for a no-doubt-centuries-old, reprehensible rule. That said, you are one hundred percent responsible for opting to work at a facility where women are apparently considered not even as important as second-class citizens, but instead are not worthy of thinking about at all.” Her gaze raked all of the staff, many of whom looked away uncomfortably. Megan growled, “That goes for all of you,” before bringing her attention back to the luckless lad who had chosen this hill to die on. “I assure you that I have no intention of simply drying off and taking however long it takes to warm up naturally when there are showers available. If any of the I-hesitate-to-use-the-word-‘gentlemen’ at this club have a problem with that, I invite them to take their antiquated, sexist, misogynistic views up with the management.”
Flushed with fury, she stalked past the kid, fully intending to find the showers herself. He made an alarmed sound and ran ahead of her, pretending he still had control of the situation, and Martin Walsh, chortling, followed on behind.
CHAPTER THREE
“Lou would have liked you,” Walsh told her, once they were both showered—privately, Walsh having given Megan the run of the place before taking his own—dressed, and dried. “He thought the bylaws forbidding women members were despicable.”
“Lou thought?” Megan had the opportunity to be glad that even in the modern era, many Irish men ran to the small side: the Pro Shop had found a pair of khaki slacks and a nice, dark green polo shirt that fit her pretty well, all things considered. Her hair, up in a French twist, had a lot of damp in it, but not quite enough to undo and let dry, so despite the circumstances, she felt well presented. Everything but her feet, at least, which were clad in socks whose stripes matched both her shirt and slacks, but unshod. “What do you think?”
They’d found shoes, along with everything else, to fit Martin, who was dressed almost identically to Megan. He was about five nine, already inches taller than Megan, but the way he stood suddenly suggested he was taking advantage of the extra half inch of height his shoes granted him. “I don’t know, I think there’s something grand about hewing to the old ways. There aren’t so many spaces where men can be men without women clucking over them anymore.”
“Right.” Megan barely managed to keep it under her breath, remembering at the last moment that for the moment, she was effectively Walsh’s employee. “Nowhere like most boardrooms, or government offices, or most widely respected sports, for that matter, or . . .”
Walsh obviously heard her anyway and gave her a sidelong wink that seemed at odds with his friend’s death only hours earlier. “Like I said, Lou would have fancied you.” He opened the locker room door, holding it for her, and Megan accepted the gesture as gracefully as she could. An agitated staff member—not the same young man as before—appeared with an ornate, doily-lined silver tray—and Megan bet the doily was real linen, not paper—upon which two magnificently cream-topped Irish coffees sat.
Megan reached for hers eagerly, wrapping her hands around the hot glass and hissing with pleasure as it reddened her palms. Walsh took his, too, and the twitchy waiter said, “This way, please.”
They were escorted through high-ceilinged halls, dark wainscoting changing to bright as they were led into a bar that looked, to Megan’s eye, as if the décor had come straight out of the 1970s. Judging from the condition of the orange-and-blue-plaid chairs, though, it was almost certainly modern retro. Grey light spilled heavily through enormous windows on one side of the bar, making glimmers of brightness on the dark brown tables and the wood of a large, partitioned bar. Megan and Walsh were brought to seats well away from the windows, not, Megan thought, for their warmth, but more to try to discreetly hide the fact that a fox was amongst the hounds, as it were.
It didn’t last: Detective Bourke came striding in just as Megan finished her coffee. Walsh stood, concern cutting lines around his mouth and deepening shadows under his eyes. “Detective Bourke. Do you know what happened yet?”
“I’m afraid not.” Bourke sat, one long leg crossed over the other and his notebook resting on the chair’s orange arm. His wellies looked even more incongruous in a setting that encouraged his well-fitted suit. “Are you two warmed up? Nice shirt, Megan.”
Megan wrinkled her nose and the detective flashed a smile. A professional, polite smile, sadly, rather than the occasional disarming grin that took him from pleasant to breathtaking. “The color is good on you,” he said with all evident sincerity, then opened his notebook. “Mr. Walsh, can you give me a few minutes with Ms. Malone? I prefer to take statements alone, if I can.”
“Another coffee is calling me.” Walsh rose and went to the bar, where he looked as grateful for the second Irish coffee as Megan had been for the first.
Bourke followed her longing gaze. “Need another?”
“Desperately, but I’m on the clock. I shouldn’t have even had the one I did. At least they didn’t make it the way Ruth Negga does.” At Bourke’s quizzical look, Megan grinned. “It’s one of those spend-a-minute-with-a-star kinds of videos. Look it up, it’s brilliant.”
“It can’t be bad if it involves her own self and whiskey,” Bourke allowed. “So, what happened out there?”
Megan threw her head back against the chair’s cushions. “I’ve no idea. Lou said he might meet us on the back nine, which . . .” She raised her hands to the sky, indicating she was only repeating what she’d been told. “. . . which apparently isn’t actually a ‘back nine’ here because it’s an out-and-back course, which I guess means you turn around halfway so you don’t end up on the other end of the island and have to hoof it back three miles to the clubhouse when you’re done with your game.”
She lifted her head to see what Bourke made of all that. He’d lowered his chin to give her a look that would have been well suited to a librarian glaring over the top of her glasses. Megan muttered, “Look, I don’t know anything about golf, okay? This is all news to me. I’d been wondering why a man who didn’t want to be bothered coming out with us in the mist would meet us on the back half of the course. But the out-and-back thing means he was going to meet us at the fifteenth hole, or something. Not a long walk, in other words.”
The detective’s expression clear
ed and he made a note. Megan craned her neck to look at his page, but even if the glimpse she got had been enough to read anything, his upside-down—from her point of view—handwriting was indecipherable. “So I never saw him again until he was face down in a pond. That crack he took on his head? I didn’t even notice it until the blood stained the coat he was lying on. There wasn’t a lot of visible blood in the water, or anything. His face had gone pinkish, so I thought he’d drowned, but now I think the blood must have had a few minutes to pool in his face? His hands were a little pink, too, but I thought that was the cold water, not lividity.”
“It probably was. Lividity doesn’t generally set in for a few hours, even if the body is in extreme conditions, like five-degree pond water.”
“Fi—oh.” Megan shook her head. “I‘ve lived here for over two years and I still think Celsius is a lousy system for temperatures. I just think if you can viably say it’s twenty-two and a half degrees, you’ve got too much variable in there. Anyway, that’s pretty cold, that’s like forty, forty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Cold enough, anyway. And he wasn’t in the pond very long. He couldn’t have been. Mr. Walsh wasn’t playing with anyone, so we didn’t really take very long at any given hole, even with the grandstanding and glad-handing.”
Bourke’s pale eyebrows rose in invitation for Megan to continue. She snuggled down into the chair, wishing she had a blanket, and smirked. “He was putting on a good show for his fans, talking up his plan, shaking hands, then making a big deal of sending everybody back a few steps while,” and she deepened her voice, “the champion lined up his shot.” Bourke’s smile flashed again, and she went on in her normal tones. “There weren’t enough people to really be in any kind of danger, I don’t think. Not unless he let go of the club, or hit a ball backward. But he wanted room to work with, and it added to the mystique of it all. You know, the lone hero silhouetted on the green hills, making the game-changing swing, all that.”
