Aaron used his fourth and final pushup to pull the rest of himself through the panel and drag himself closer to the sneakers of his aunt, who, in turn, moved away toward the spindly table and the crucifix. He considered putting himself at the feet of Lolly
McKeever, but, suspecting that his aunt had been repelled by the tunnel odor that must have seeped from his clothes and into his flesh, he twisted his body around and sat up. Kieran was standing at the opened panel, one hand resting on the wall above the wainscoting. His head was bowed, his face relaxed and passive as if his thoughts were leading him so far from himself that he had become indifferent to whatever expression might take possession of his lips and chin, his eyes and his forehead.
Lolly was leaning against the doorjamb, her arms folded across her chest, her head turning slowly from Kitty to Kieran, from Kieran to Kitty, then back to Kieran again. His aunt, standing stiff and straight near the table, was looking only at Kieran. Her head she held high, her gaze immobile and hard, as if she had come to a long-sought satisfaction and was allowing it time to spread throughout her mind and signal to her blood that a particular fulfillment was at last accomplished. Aaron decided to stay where he was. So he wouldn’t seem to be mocking Lolly in the Ping-Pong movements of her head from Kitty to Kieran, he looked only at his aunt. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Staring at Sweeney, Kitty, in dry hard tones said, “I watched you and did nothing. When you took the nail from the crucified hand, when I saw that you knew where it was and knew what it could do, I let you condemn yourself. This is why we’ve hated the Sweeneys for all these years, for all these generations, and known them to be less than dust. We’d forgotten what they’d done, with nothing to remind us except our loathing and our scorn. It was the Sweeneys, then, that discovered the tunnel and knew the ways to open the wall. It was the Sweeneys that betrayed the priests for the king’s gold and sent them to be hanged. It’s a hangman’s hand you have, Kieran Sweeney, and I’ll thank you to take it from the holy wall.”
Both Aaron and Lolly had been looking not at Kitty as she spoke but at Kieran who had stood unmoving, the cursed hand still resting above the dark opening in the wainscoting. Without the slightest shift in his stance, Kieran himself now chose to speak. “It was a Sweeney who was the priest and a McCloud his betrayer. Lured here by the promise of safe passage, led down these depths to the waiting English, he was delivered into the hangman’s hand. And it was a McCloud did it—for gold or for silver was never said. Small wonder you’ve forgotten, and who will blame you? The wrath is mine and it’s on your head it should be heaped.”
Kitty hadn’t even bothered to blink as she listened to the words, but a slight tightening of the muscles in her face made her seem more implacable. “A Sweeney truth is a proved lie. And if a Sweeney priest was handed over, how did you, the latest of this bloodied breed, know the escape was there and how it was opened? Can you answer me that?”
“A foolish question, and the answer is obvious. Did no brother or sister, no father or no mother come to say good-bye and watch him pass through to his death?”
Kitty’s lips twitched to stop a smile. Her eyes narrowed only slightly and, without any motion whatsoever, she seemed to have raised her head even higher, “Yes, they came to say good-bye and see all the secrets of the house. But the priest was safely gone and not betrayed, and the brothers and the sisters, the father and the mother, used their knowing to sell others to their deaths.”
“And I’m here to tell you otherwise.”
Aaron wanted to get up or at least to shift his weight. He was still sitting on the floor, his left leg twisted under his right, his left arm braced on the floor, taking the full burden of his upper body. The flashlight was half under his left buttock, the light still on, the beam heading straight for Lolly’s shoes. His arm ached, his buttock was becoming numb, and a crick had settled into his neck, the pain advancing toward his forehead. But he was, he knew, forbidden to move. The tableau could not be broken until all the speeches had been spoken. Only a change in topic could release him. And since the dialogue was given over entirely to an exchange of accusation and counteraccusation, he knew it would probably continue for quite some time. The silence of centuries had been broken, and, more likely than not, yet another century must be dedicated to making up for lost time. The two contenders, now engaged in open combat, had no choice but to prolong the fight until exhaustion was the only available mercy to end the exchange. And that either his aunt or Kieran Sweeney might be susceptible to exhaustion, given the stamina sustained by a centuries-old quarrel, was one possibility that Aaron knew better than to entertain. He was witness to one of the more perverse wooings ever enacted in human history
Aaron was able to assure himself that the truth would never be known, not just because it was unthinkable, but because it was very much beside the point. How Sweeney knew what he knew, how Kitty surmised what she surmised, who had been betrayed by whom, was less than secondary to the emotional life being engendered by the quarrel itself. Seldom had Aaron seen such restrained passion, the heat pretending to be cold, longing disguised as scorn, yearning as contempt, and the protestation of loathing a plea to see it for the lust it truly was.
But Kitty was staring only at Kieran’s back, and Kieran was staring only into the opening, and the next phase of courtship seemed far off in an unseeable future. Aaron despaired when he heard his aunt say, “But the seawall was never broken. The captors were never let know the tunnel’s end. The priest was delivered not at the foot of the cliff but down the beach, away from the secret place, and no questions asked.”
His despair increased when Kieran, his voice still without modulation, said, “It was the McClouds that made sure the captors never knew the tunnel was there, or the opening onto the sea. It was the McClouds that led the hapless priest, sold and delivered up—”
Lolly brought the scene to an end. She had crossed one ankle over the other, the tip of her shoe touching the floor in a somewhat pleasing fashion. This was the first movement to be made in the room since Aaron had sat up. “Can’t we get Declan out of that miserable place?” she said. “He was no priest, and he doesn’t belong there to begin with. Come on now. Who’s for Declan Tovey?” She advanced toward the wall and knocked Sweeney’s hand away so that he had to take a step back to keep from falling into the opening.
Aaron was halfway up when he realized that he had become ossified in the pose to which he’d been condemned. He paused for not more than a second, then continued his rise, rejoicing in the pain that was the price of freedom. “I’ll go first,” he said. “I have the flashlight.” Sweeney had stepped aside, and Aaron ducked down to make his second entry of the day into the dark dank.
“I’m with you,” said Lolly.
Declan Tovey was delivered from this latest tomb, bone by bone, handed through to Sweeney and to Kitty. The steps had not increased in width since Aaron’s previous experience. He and Lolly brushed and knocked against each other frequently. This inspired Aaron to say, “I wonder how far down it goes.”
“All the way,” was Lolly’s answer.
“Maybe we could explore.”
“Hand me that hand. And go find the other.”
As the last of the clutter was being passed through and then the sheet, Aaron said, “The skull went down the steps. You want to help me find it?”
“You’ve got the light. You find it.” She stooped and went back into the room.
The skull was found, chipped on the forehead. An attempt was made to set Declan Tovey to rights yet again on the priest’s bed. Aaron had broken one of the legs and three ribs in his thoughtless lunge when the panel had opened. The knuckle of a left forefinger seemed lost for good. Aaron was universally abused for his treatment of the dead man’s bones, with Lolly the loudest.
When the criticisms reached their highest pitch—it was then that Aaron resolved to discover the murderer, his one sure way of revenge, of punishing at least one of the three ingrates bending over t
he bed, grabbing Tovey’s bones from one another, correcting one another’s presumed errors three times over, making of the thatcher a misshapen grotesque.
No sooner had this foul resolve steeled itself within Aaron’s soul than a car screeched into the side yard and pulled up alongside Sweeney’s truck. Two gardaí got out, slammed the car doors shut with punitive swings of the arm, and started toward the kitchen door.
8
Even the most convenient coincidence can be thwarted by the uncooperative act of one of its participants. In this instance everyone but Aaron conspired to keep the police at bay until Declan, again, could be disposed of in whatever manner might suggest itself at the moment. So flurried was the activity as the police came closer to the kitchen door that before Aaron was completely aware, he and Lolly were left alone with Declan, sworn to protect him from capture.
It had been Aaron’s intention to invite the police in, confront them with the bundled remains, and have the matter ended once and for all. That he would betray, perhaps, his aunt or Lolly or even Sweeney, who’d saved his life, would not be allowed to quench his thirst for justice. They had exasperated him. They had treated him badly. They had taken advantage of his good nature. They had given him no credit for his reverent treatment of their friend. Each charge was, to him, a hanging offense, and the accumulation was more than enough to let fall the blindfold from the eyes of justice and bid her unsheathe her terrible swift sword. Then, too, he had, on their behalf, become suffused with stink and choked with vapors. He had been exposed to pestilence, and of more immediate concern, there were—he was convinced—at this moment unassailable fungi lodged between his toes, already producing yeasts and molds that would forever disqualify his feet from whatever attentions some future acquaintance, in her rapture, might feel stimulated to bestow. Mercy was obviously out of the question. Justice must take its course, channeled through the depths of his pique and prodded by the nobility of his resentments.
But he was robbed of his petty pleasures by the general confusion. The panel had been slammed shut, the door to the priest’s room had been closed with Aaron and Lolly inside, greetings were being exchanged between Kitty and the police in the kitchen, invitations to search the house for an escapee had been extended—the escapee a man who’d been arrested for biting his girlfriend’s gerbil to death, his abandoned bicycle found in the thicket just down the road—and, as before with Sweeney, the sound of boots now thumped overhead.
Aaron let Lolly go through the prescribed banging for reopening the wall. After two bangs she admitted that she didn’t remember the actual place. Aaron pretended to try, surprised that Lolly’s desperation had effected a change in attitude. She was helpless; she was trapped; she was dependent on him for rescue. If proof were needed that it was in her interest that the skeleton not be found, it was being acted out before him now, complete with repetitions of the word “shit,” wringing of hands, and widening of eyes—restored in her plight to their deepest blue—a plea that she not be handed over to the brutes slamming and banging walls over their heads. The boot steps were in the upstairs hall. They were nearing the stairs. A closed door—the door to the priest’s room—would get their first attention when they came down.
“Oh, Declan,” Lolly said, “you were always trouble. And look at you now.”
Aaron had no choice; he must come to her aid. She was in trouble. She needed him. In what was perhaps the most futile attempt possible, Aaron went to the window and tried to pry open the shutters. Maybe they could dump the remains outside, then retrieve them before the police searched the grounds.
But now the boots were clomping down the stairs. Kitty, seldom the gracious hostess, was laughing. His fingertips unable to penetrate the slit between the shutters, Aaron almost hit his fist against the wood in frustration, but was stopped by the sound of a click behind him. The adventure was at an end. Justice was no farther than the door. The police would now invade, Declan would be discovered, there would be amazements, questions, stammerings, further amazements, and then some action as yet unimagined. Whether anyone other than Declan would be hauled away was as yet unknown. What accusations would be made, what alibis given, what protestations made, he had not the slightest notion. Aaron’s only surmise was that there would be unending babble, with only Declan excused from making a contribution. And then—with a clarity available only to his inner eye—the confusion came to an end. Lolly McKeever, in plain tones, would confess to the crime. No one would move. No one would speak. Someone would weep. He suspected it would be himself.
Aaron turned away from the shuttered window, prepared to accept any and all eventualities. But the door had been opened only slightly, and Lolly had put her face in the crack. She had unbuttoned the top of her blouse and was clutching it closed with her hand. She had slipped out of her shoes and had disheveled her hair.
“Please,” she whispered. “You can give us just a bit more time. Give him a chance at least to make himself decent.”
A voice gruff with embarrassment answered. “The escaped man’s bike was found just down the road on the other side of the wall. And it’s known there’s a secret room someplace in this house—”
Kitty’s laugh came again. “An old tale—and do you believe it?”
“Believe it or not, the man could be hiding and you wouldn’t know it. But we’ll find him. You’ll see.”
Lolly clutched the top of her blouse closer to her throat. “Look to the other rooms like the good friends you are, Tom McTygue, and you, Jim Collins. Then come back, can’t you? I’m shamed enough, but I’d be that much more shamed if you saw him the way he is now, to say nothing of myself.”
“Lolly McKeever? You?” said a hoarse voice.
“Please, Tom. Please, Jim. Only a moment I ask, here as I am, in the depths of my embarrassment. And you have my promise: There are no gerbil killers here. Promise.”
“Well, then. Pull yourselves together. Pull yourselves together. And we’ll do our job and be gone.”
Lolly nodded her head, drew back from the door, and quickly closed it. She rushed back to the bed, yanked up the sheet by the two corners on the far side of the bed, then the two corners on her side. The clothes folded down inside, the bones—not for the first time—were clacked one against the other. “Lift the mattress,” she whispered. “Quick, you stupid lump.”
Aaron lifted the mattress. Lolly placed the sheet over the wide slats and spread it open. With a haste that disregarded the courtesy due to the dead, she distributed the bones as evenly as she could, taking time only to put the cap over the skull as if protecting the face from what was to happen next. “Put back the mattress. Put it back.” Aaron put the mattress back, on top of the bones. Lolly rumpled the blanket even more than it had been already. She then punched into the pillow an even deeper hollow than Declan’s skull had made. That accomplished, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Aaron thought he heard a bone snap. He closed his eyes, hoping to deafen himself.
“Sit here. Next to me. Look sheepish,” she hissed. She unbuttoned one more button on her blouse, gave her hair a good scrub with the tips of her fingers, put her hands on her lap, and bowed her head. Aaron sat next to her. He heard a crunching sound. “Your shirt looks just right with all the buttons popped away,” she rasped out from the side of her mouth. “And here, hold my hand like we don’t give a damn.” She joined their hands and thumped them down on his thigh, more a punch than a tender touch. “Lower your head. I’ll be the bold one.”
There was a light tap at the door. “Yes, Tom. Yes, Jim,” she said quietly, giving Aaron’s hand a quick squeeze. The door opened slowly. Lolly raised her chin a bit, then, against her original intent, lowered her head, and stared down into her lap. “Aaron,” she said, “this is Tom.” Tom came just inside the door. “Tom, this is Aaron, Kitty’s nephew and a friend from when we were children.” Tom nodded. “And Aaron, this is Jim.” Jim entered, placing himself in front of Tom. “Jim, this is Aaron. From America.”
Jim did
not nod. “You’re from America?”
“New York,” Aaron corrected.
Jim, too, nodded, as if Aaron had clarified everything. Lolly pressed their clasped hands deeper into Aaron’s thigh. “We’re to be married,” she said. “Aaron’s my fiancé. As you must have guessed from the two of us here like this. That’s why he’s here. From New York.”
For Aaron there seemed no reason to alter the stupid look he’d already taken on, but when Lolly kissed his cheek he felt he should make some acknowledgment of this sudden thrust toward possibility. He lifted his head and smiled, hoping the smile didn’t present itself as a leer.
“Married, then,” said Jim.
“Engaged,” said Tom, stepping in front of Jim. “Kitty’s nephew. From New York.”
Aaron nodded, then assumed again his stupid look, which consisted mostly of a stare too befuddled to be blank and too aghast to hint of contentment. He was, of course, honored by this sudden election, until he reminded himself that this was a betrothal of convenience. Lolly would break the engagement once Officer Tom and Officer Jim had completed their mission and vacated the priestly room. In the meantime he would hold the woman’s hand, keep his head down, and not even try to anticipate what might lie ahead. In the murder he was now an accessory after the fact.
By this time Kitty and Sweeney had sidled into the room and edged toward the wall near the secret opening. Both of them, pretending to relieve a crick in the neck, looked around the room, glancing under the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to detect the whereabouts of their departed friend. Awed by his absence, they inched even closer to the panel. Then Kitty spoke up, her voice coated with the honey produced only in the throats of those expressing the end of patience by pointedly pretending a civility completely foreign to their basic natures. “Are there any escaped prisoners present? Do you see anyone who has bitten a gerbil? If not, perhaps you gentlemen would like to continue your search elsewhere.”
The Pig Did It Page 14
