The Haunting Ballad

by Michael Nethercott

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning life’s a strange thing, isn’t it? It can call to you, beckon you, and you might end up … Oh, I don’t know…”

  Then she turned away to stare out her window. I had the unpleasant feeling that she was seeing Byron Spires’ face out there in the rushing night landscape. My hands tensed on the steering wheel. We said little for the remainder of the ride home.

  Of course, on that evening I couldn’t have known that my connection with the Café Mercutio had only just begun. It would soon lead me down a road peopled with singers, sinners, desperate lovers, and a killer. As Mr. O’Nelligan once said to me, “You just never know what the world will want of you.” Or, he could have added, what darkness you will need to pass through.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was Audrey who first informed me of Lorraine Cobble’s death. “It happened a little over two weeks ago. She leapt off the roof of her apartment building, and her body was found in the alley below. Dead on impact, the police think.”

  We were standing in the cluttered backroom of the Thelmont Five-and-Dime, where Audrey worked full-time. It was early spring, four or five weeks after our visit to the Village. We actually hadn’t seen much of each other since that night. I’d been tied up with a convoluted case that had taken me out of town for a spell, followed by news that my younger sister had been injured in a car accident in California. I’d flown out to be with Marjorie and ended up staying for nearly three weeks. Now she was recuperating nicely, and I’d just arrived back in Connecticut that morning.

  “That wild woman who came screaming into the coffeehouse?” It wasn’t an image I’d soon forget. “She committed suicide?”

  “That’s the assumption. They say she left a note.”

  “Who says?”

  “The crowd at the Mercutio.”

  “Your Village girlfriends moved away right after we saw them, didn’t they? So how would you know what people at the Mercutio are saying?”

  She blushed—and Audrey generally was no blusher. “I’ve been going down there from time to time.”

  This caught me up. “Alone?”

  Audrey didn’t seem to like the way I said the word. “Yes, alone. I have a valid driver’s license, you know, and I’m certainly of legal age to travel without an escort.”

  I didn’t much fancy the sarcasm, so I offered my own. “Nobody said you weren’t. I just never knew you were such a fan of sawdust and scruffy warblers.”

  She turned away and began rummaging through a shelf of household items. I had the strong sense that she wanted to avoid eye contact.

  Then it struck me—Byron Spires. Could he be the male siren drawing my fiancée to the land of languid bohemians? I didn’t say his name and neither did she, but I felt the echo of it bouncing around the room.

  After a long, uncomfortable moment, Audrey broke the silence. “Anyway, a suicide always shakes people up. Understandably.”

  “Sure, understandably,” I repeated, feeling shaken up myself—but not, to be honest, by the Cobble woman’s death. “So you’ve been going down there a lot?”

  “Not so very much…” Audrey snatched a handful of spatulas from the shelf. “I really need to get back to work, Lee.”

  That was that. Two minutes later, I was standing out in front of the store, wondering how the ground beneath my feet had shifted so dramatically.

  * * *

  DECIDING TO GO to my office, I climbed into my ’52 Nash Rambler, which I had christened Baby Blue on account of its color, and headed across town. Baby Blue was a swell-looking vehicle, but I always thought it looked even better when Audrey was beside me in the passenger seat. So, at the moment, it wasn’t as swell as it could be. I’d bought the car off Joe Valish, Audrey’s mechanic father, who’d hammered it back into form after the previous owner had slammed it into a parking meter. Since that guy had money to burn, he’d simply bought himself a new chariot, and Mr. Valish had sold me Baby Blue at a discount he only gave to men who planned to marry his daughters. Though, as I’ve mentioned, I really hadn’t held up my end of the bargain.

  From the first time we’d ever talked together—side by side at a soda fountain—Audrey and I just clicked. She was twenty back then; I was three years older. Her sister, Clare, and I had been in the same grade in high school, and I had a vague recollection of Clare having a gangly, uninteresting younger sibling. Apparently, in the ensuing years, that sibling had molted: The gangliness had been shed, and Audrey had suddenly become very interesting indeed. The day after our soda fountain encounter, we shared our first bona fide date. There was a movie, strolling, kissing—it was great. Over the next couple of years we had our starts and stops, accounted for by, among other things, my need to travel beyond the borders of Thelmont and the reappearance of an old beau of Audrey’s, a navy hero you couldn’t help but like. Though Lord knows I tried. In the end, I got some miles under my belt, the lovable sailor returned to the sea, and Audrey Valish and I became a permanent item.

  In ’54, just after my father took me into the business, I proposed to Audrey. Over the next three years—through my detective apprenticeship, through Dad’s death, through my stumbling solo career—she and I held pretty firm, but, as I’ve said, we just never made it up the church steps. People who knew us thought I was a certifiable idiot for not getting the job done, and they were right. Who’d ever heard of a three-year engagement? Maybe during wartime, but that wasn’t the story here. Certainly the fault was mine that we’d stalled on the matrimonial highway. That is, I always presumed so. Audrey had made it clear that she expected to be a married woman before she hit thirty, so it stood to reason that I was the one dragging his heels. However, as they say, it takes two to tango—or, in our case, to stand frozen in the middle of the dance floor. Money woes, timing problems, spats and sputters: Could these all be laid at my doorstep alone? In truth, hadn’t many a couple faced the same obstacles and still managed to echo their I-do’s at the obligatory moment? Maybe Audrey herself had a hand in the heel-dragging. Maybe she wasn’t as gung ho on getting hitched as she made out. Now, into this breach of doubts and delays, had marched a young crooning scallywag named Byron Spires.

  I was pondering all this as I shuffled into my office and plopped behind the desk. It was the same narrow space that had served my father before me, with the very same dinged-up desk, creaky swivel chair, battered file cabinet, and framed portrait of Teddy Roosevelt (a “guy among guys,” as Dad had often declared). Even the words PLUNKETT AND SON INVESTIGATORS remained on the office door. My rent was dirt cheap because of some shadowy favor that Dad had once done for the landlord.

  This was the first time I’d been here since leaving for California three weeks back, and an orderly stack of letters awaited me on the desktop. This, I knew, was the work of Mr. O’Nelligan, the one person beside the landlord and me with a key to the office. Preoccupied as I was, I wielded my letter opener without enthusiasm. The yield was uninspiring: a sizable number of bills, a few small checks, and a note from an octogenarian thanking me for locating her run-amuck Pekingese—not my most illustrious case.

  I was finishing up the letters when the phone rang.

  In response to my hello, a breathless young female voice launched into a monologue. “Oh! Mr. Plunkett? Mr. Lee Plunkett? Gosh, I’m surprised to hear a voice on the other end! I’ve been calling this number for days hoping to reach you. I was beginning to think maybe you’d retired or something. Not that you’re old! No, I didn’t mean that. Anyway, I’m just glad you answered. I’m hoping so much that you’re the person who can set everything right.”

  “To whom am I speaking?” I opted for professionalism instead of hurling out the Who the hell is this? that was on the tip of my tongue.

  With a large sigh, the voice slowed itself. “Sorry. My name is Sally Joan Cobble.”

  “Cobble?” I’d heard the name spoken not an hour before. “Like Lorraine Cobble?”

  “My cousin. She … She died, you know.” />
  “Someone just told me. My condolences.”

  “Thanks. I need you to find who killed her.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. “It’s my understanding that she, well…”

  “Killed herself?” A note of bitterness crept in. “That’s what everyone says, but it’s just not true. She wouldn’t have done that. I know the time you saw her at the Mercutio with Byron she was terribly agitated, but she would never—”

  “Wait. How do you know I was there that night?”

  “Because I was there myself. I came in with Lorraine.”

  Now I had a face to go with the voice on the line—albeit a dimly remembered one. This was the short young blonde who had trailed Lorraine over to our table and tried to restrain her.

  “I remember you,” I said. “How did you get my name?”

  “People down at the Mercutio seemed to know who you were. Word gets around if there’s an interesting character about.”

  “Does me being a private eye put me in that category?”

  “Oh yes. I heard you were from Connecticut, and I tracked you down. It seemed almost like a sign that you were there that night. Not that I’ve spent a lot of time at the coffeehouse myself. You see, I live outside Pittsburgh and was just up visiting Lorraine for that week, but I am back in the Village right now dealing with her apartment. On behalf of our family, I want to hire you to find whoever killed Lorraine.”

  “Whoa now, Miss Cobble,” I said cautiously. “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to believe your cousin took her own life, but I’ve heard there was a suicide note.”

  “Suicide note?” Sally Joan sounded genuinely confused. “I think you’ve heard wrong, Mr. Plunkett.” She paused. “Oh wait! There is a note, but it’s got nothing to do with suicide. I can show it to you when we meet.”

  I caught a glimpse of a cart outracing a horse. “When we…?”

  “Please, Mr. Plunkett, I’d rather talk in person about all this. Can’t we at least sit together and talk?”

  I gave in. “Sure, I suppose we could do that.”

  I suggested we meet the next afternoon at her cousin’s apartment. Might as well see the scene of the doubtful crime. Sally Joan Cobble thanked me profusely and gave me the address.

  “I’ll be bringing a colleague with me,” I added.

  “Please do!” She almost sounded like we were arranging a garden party.

  After hanging up, I sat there for a while reflecting on the weirdness of my life: Within an hour of my hearing from Audrey that Lorraine Cobble was dead, the woman’s cousin had contacted me to solve her alleged murder. Here I was, potentially being drawn back into the orbit of the Café Mercutio, one of whose inhabitants might well be stealing my fiancée’s affections. What a world, what a world …

  I shook myself out of my little reverie and rang up Mr. O’Nelligan. Though he claimed to be glad to hear from me and asked about my sister’s recuperation, there was a definite tone of distraction in his voice.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m splendid,” he answered in his rolling brogue, then added hazily, “It’s just that this giant marlin has been putting up quite a battle.”

  “Marlin?” I was struck by a preposterous image of Mr. O’Nelligan wrestling a massive fish across his sitting room. “What the heck are you talking about?”

  My friend sighed with gentle exasperation. “The Old Man and the Sea, of course. By the estimable Mr. Hemingway. I’m in the final pages as we speak. Have you read it?”

  The reality was that since high school I hadn’t read much that didn’t come with a lurid cover and a title akin to Killer Cutthroats of Jupiter. By contrast, Mr. O’Nelligan consumed books the way a kid gobbles gumdrops, mostly the great classics and other such highfaluting fare.

  “Nope, never read it,” I said, “but assuming you’ve landed your marlin by tomorrow, I’ve got a possible case that might pique your interest.”

  I repeated the conversation I’d had with Sally Joan Cobble. For an extended moment, there was no response on the other end of the line. I guessed that my friend was sneaking himself another paragraph of deep-sea drama.

  Finally he answered, “By all means, Lee Plunkett, I shall attend thee.”

  “That means you’ll be coming along, right?”

  “Did I not just say so, boyo?”

  * * *

  HOW TO DESCRIBE Mr. O’Nelligan? There are the facts of his life, of course, which would trickle out of him at odd intervals. You just never knew what fragment of his varied history he’d next reveal. Once, for example, he and I happened to be crossing a cemetery when I paused to comment on the fanciness of a particular mausoleum.

  Mr. O’Nelligan nodded appreciatively. “Indeed, the ornamentation is striking. The structure itself appears quite sound as well. I myself built one once.”

  “You built a mausoleum?”

  “I did. It was many years ago, to be sure. Mine was of red brick, being a bricklayer as I was.”

  “You were a bricklayer back in Ireland? I thought you’d been a teacher?”

  “Also a train conductor and a salesman and a stage actor. A man may pursue many callings in his time, may he not?”

  You’ve also been a warrior, I could have said but didn’t. Early on, I’d learned not to probe my friend too deeply on that subject. In his youth, back in the ’20s, he’d played perhaps his most contrary role: that of the covert rebel and soldier. I knew that he had both faced and dealt death during those days. I knew that he wore his trim gray beard as camouflage for an old knife scar. All this seemed to conflict with the genteel individual that I’d come to know and admire.

  There among the gravestones, Mr. O’Nelligan waxed poetic. “Laying bricks has much in common with your chosen art of deduction, Lee.”

  “You don’t say.” I in no way viewed my job as an art—I was satisfied just to draw a paycheck on the rare occasion.

  “It’s true. Just as a bricklayer must work brick by brick, row by row, to raise a solid structure, so must the detective build his case, stacking one observation upon the next until the proper outcome is achieved.”

  “Never thought of it that way.”

  “Well, now you shall, yes?”

  “Oh, yes indeedy.”

  At the time of the Cobble case, I’d known Mr. O’Nelligan for about a year and a half. He’d moved to Thelmont from New York shortly after his wife’s death and had settled himself into a cozy pine-hemmed little house three doors down from Audrey’s family. Audrey and he had become fast friends, and in time I, too, had been won over by the man’s quirky charms. On Audrey’s urging, Mr. O’Nelligan had begun to aid me on my more complicated cases, and as a result my business (floundering since Dad’s death) had been much revitalized. Mr. O’Nelligan was content to label himself my assistant, though that designation fooled neither of us—it was clear who had the true deductive chops in our partnership. Still, despite his invaluable help, the man wouldn’t accept a penny from me. Whenever I’d argue the unfairness of that arrangement, he’d wave me off and declare, “Ah, it’s fine, it’s fine. Assisting you helps fill the hours and keeps my brain well oiled. What more compensation could an old reprobate desire?”

  I never did come up with a good answer to that.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I considered letting Audrey know about my appointment with Sally Joan Cobble but decided against it. After all, I hadn’t officially agreed to take on the case, and, considering whatever was going on with my fiancée, I figured it best to just see how things shook out. I did place a call to her house, though, and left a message with her mother that I’d be on a job out of town, so Audrey should make her own evening plans. That Friday afternoon—the day after Sally Joan’s call—I picked up Mr. O’Nelligan and headed down Route 7 toward the Merritt Parkway.

  “A fine spring day, isn’t it?” my companion noted. He was dressed nattily in his standard vest and necktie. “A splendid beginning to a quest.”

 
“Listen, this is no quest,” I grumbled. “We’re just going to meet a potential client. Accent on ‘potential.’ Why is everything always a quest with you?”

  “All life is a quest, lad. One merely needs to recognize it as such.”

  Somehow in Mr. O’Nelligan’s eyes I had maintained my status as lad, even though I’d passed the thirty mark.

  “The thing is,” I said, “I’m not at all sure that there’s even a case here. We may be talking simple suicide.”

  The Irishman clicked his tongue. “Ah, but suicide is never simple. Back home in County Kerry, there was a miller by the name of Blowick who drowned himself in the River Fertha. It was near the end of March, and he had to hurl into the freezing waters to meet his end. No one could figure the why of it till much later when someone put together that March 29, the day he perished, was the Feast of St. Eithne, and that in his youth poor Blowick had loved and lost a girl named Eithne O’Mara. So, you see, there is oft a hidden complexity to these things. If I might quote Yeats…”

  “Couldn’t stop you if I tried.”

  My friend always seemed to have handy a quote from his favorite poet and fellow countryman, William Butler Yeats. He now let one fly:

  “A pity beyond all telling

  is hid in the heart of love.”

  “No doubt,” I responded. “For all we know, maybe unrequited love was the cause of Lorraine Cobble’s leap into air. She certainly seemed to me to be chock-full of passion.”

  “So you were acquainted with her?”

  I described my night at the Café Mercutio, highlighting Lorraine’s colorful behavior but excluding any reference to Audrey’s fascination with Byron Spires. In regard to Audrey and me, I didn’t want to put Mr. O’Nelligan in the middle of … well, whatever there was to be in the middle of.

  My friend hmmed softly. “The late Miss Cobble sounds like she was quite a perfervid individual.”

  “Did you say ‘perverted’?” In the face of Mr. O’Nelligan’s ten-dollar word, I felt the need to mock. “Gee, I don’t know that I’d go that far.”