The Haunting Ballad

by Michael Nethercott

  Upon reaching us, they halted and the eldest Doonan called out, “Well now! It’s our deductive duo again.”

  “May we have a word with you, Patch?”

  “What’s your pleasure, Squire O’Nelligan?”

  “Perhaps you’d prefer to converse privately with us?”

  Patch offered an uneasy grin. “Uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “What is it, sir?” Neil stepped next to his brother. “Anything you say to one of us, you can say to all.”

  “Wise sentiments those,” Patch readily agreed.

  Tim came a step closer as well. The brothers were closing ranks. Kimla, standing just to the side, didn’t look like she was going anywhere either.

  “Very well,” said Mr. O’Nelligan. “If that’s how it is.”

  “It is,” Tim said, by way of punctuation.

  My partner began, “Patch Doonan, a tale has been circulating concerning you…”

  Without mentioning his source, he repeated the account of the attack on the police barracks and the subsequent suspicions. The Doonans listened raptly.

  When Mr. O’Nelligan had finished, it was an agitated Tim who spoke first. “That’s rubbish! You can’t fling loose allegations around like that.”

  “Aye, rubbish,” Neil echoed, though more evenly. “There’s no truth at all in it.”

  Tim kept on. “It’s true we’re for a united Ireland and that we’ve some relations in the north who’ve been involved in a thing or two. That doesn’t mean Patch or any of us had anything to do with Brookeborough.”

  “You have an uncle who might have,” I put in.

  Tim turned to me. “Uncle Mike? Forget it. He’s a breezy enough fellow, but more than half daft. Not even the most desperate republicans would tap him for an operation. Sure, and wouldn’t it be just like Mike to try to make himself the big man by lying that he’d been in on that business?”

  “Indeed it would,” Neil added. “Especially with people making martyrs of Sean South and young O’Hanlon. I wouldn’t put it past Michael to throw Patch’s name into the bargain. He’s always favored Patch, since they both play the idiot.”

  “There you go,” Tim said. “In his twisted way, Mike would see it as a kindness to include his favorite nephew in the lie.”

  Mr. O’Nelligan had been listening intently, assessing the merits of what was being proposed. He now weighed in. “That would be a dangerous piece of bragging, would it not? After all, the men who actually conducted the raid and lost comrades wouldn’t look kindly on false claims of participation. On the other side, we have the authorities, who would certainly want to come down hard on anyone involved in the attack.”

  Tim had an answer for that. “Likely as not, Uncle Mike’s just passed the lie around to a few drinking mates, not thinking it would travel far. Besides, you’d have to know the man…”

  “That’s right,” Neil said. “Mike’s an utter gobshite.”

  Oddly enough, the one present Doonan who’d remained silent throughout the discussion was the one most central to it—and the one who generally kept his tongue running nonstop.

  Mr. O’Nelligan now addressed the curiously hushed Patch. “What’s your perspective on all this?”

  Patch didn’t answer at first, choosing instead to stare off down the currently deserted street. When he did at last speak, his voice was tight and strained, as if he were trying to hold back a wave of anger:

  “You want to know what my bloody perspective is? Glad to convey it. I’m thinking people who don’t know what they’re bloody talking about should keep their gobs shut. Whatever I’ve done or haven’t done, no bloody idle gossips have a right to speak my name.”

  “Yet they have,” I said. “We’re just trying to help figure out what—”

  “Bollocks!” The wave broke. “Don’t be pretending to assist anyone but your own snaky selves! You’re paid snoops, the pair of you. You say you’re down here about Lorraine Cobble, but maybe it’s the British bloody crown you’re working for.”

  Tim tried to intervene. “Be still, Patch! You’ve no cause to say that.”

  Patch now turned to face Mr. O’Nelligan. “Wouldn’t it be just like the Brits to use one of our own against us.”

  “Ease up. Now,” Neil said. “He’s a countryman of ours.”

  Patch kept his eye on my partner. “So what? Our history is rife with traitors!”

  My partner stood his ground, betraying no reaction. I wondered how Doonan’s words were affecting him. After all, in his youth Mr. O’Nelligan had been an armed rebel, fighting the English for Irish sovereignty.

  Patch plowed on. “So what’ve you to say, O’Nelligan? Where do you fall on Irish independence? Are you a nationalist or has John Bull swayed you with a few greasy shillings?”

  Tim grabbed his brother’s arm. “Enough, Patch! You’re raging like a proper madman. Just say now that the Brookeborough rumor was nothing but fiction, and be done with it.”

  Patch shook Tim loose. “Leave me be! I don’t need to speak out like a damned trained parrot. I’m finished here.”

  Then he turned away and began heading down a dimly lit side street.

  “Patch, wait up!” Tim called out. “Stay with us.”

  Patch shouted over his shoulder, “A pleasant bloody night to all!”

  Tim moved as if to follow, but Neil placed a hand on his chest. “Let him go,” the middle brother said. “There’s no reasoning with him now.”

  “Where do you think he’s headed?” I asked.

  Tim answered wearily. “To some hole-in-the-wall where the whiskey’s cheap and the company’s too drunk to talk.”

  Kimla came up and took the young man’s hand. “Let’s be going, Tim. You know he’ll show up in the morning like he always does—drained and repentant.”

  Tim gave a pained little chuckle. “You’re right, of course.” He kissed Kimla on the cheek and put his arm around her shoulder.

  Neil turned to Mr. O’Nelligan. “Sorry for our brother’s accusations. He can be a grand lunatic when the mood’s on him.”

  “His words slid off me like rain from a steep roof,” my partner said. It sounded like the kind of adage you’d see stitched on a pillow in a great-aunt’s home, and I wasn’t convinced it was true.

  I thought of squeezing in another question or two, but no one looked in the mood. With halfhearted waves, Neil, Tim, and Kimla moved off together down the street. We watched quietly as they dwindled into small shadowy forms, then vanished.

  Mr. O’Nelligan broke the silence. “Interesting. Tim and Neil Doonan were left to protest their brother’s innocence while he remained mute on the matter.”

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t exactly call Patch’s little outburst a profession of innocence. Do you think he’s mixed up with that attack?”

  “I don’t know,” my partner answered. “Our inquiries certainly roused him to an agitated state. There’s an old acquaintance of mine who lives hereabouts, O’Hallmhurain by name, who is often privy to certain goings-on back in Ireland. When I get the chance, I’ll give him a call to see what he might provide.”

  “As meaty as this little subplot may be, we’ve still no reason to believe it ties in at all with the Cobble case.”

  “Correct. Just as we don’t know if Cardinal’s letter or Loomis’ gambling or Manymile’s prison record has anything to do with it. These are all colors on our palette. It remains to be seen which of them figure in the final portrait.”

  The mention of portraits made me a little queasy, reminding me as it did of Ruby’s recent invitation to nudity. For a terrible moment, I imagined I’d succumbed, resulting in a piece of artwork with a title like Private Eye as Public Disgrace.

  “Lee?” Mr. O’Nelligan summoned me back from that horror. “Are you all right? You look a touch ashen.”

  “I always look pale when the old brain gears are turning.”

  “Truly?” my partner sounded unswayed. “I didn’t know that about you, Lee.”

>   “Yeah, well, I’m a complicated cat, daddy-o.”

  Mr. O’Nelligan grimaced wonderfully.

  * * *

  THE DRIVE HOME to Thelmont was uneventful. After a final review of the day’s events, we contented ourselves with the Saturday evening radio fare. For Mr. O’Nelligan’s pleasure, we found an uninterrupted half hour of Elvis Presley tunes. Then, for me, there was a rip-roaring episode of Gunsmoke. It was a whodunit of sorts, in which Marshal Dillon had to decide which of three cowboys was guilty of murdering a Pawnee brave. I hoped we’d be as successful in our endeavor as Dillon was. Preferably we wouldn’t have to dodge six-gun bullets to do it.

  Once home, I embraced my pillow like a long-lost pal. Sleep came swiftly. Tonight’s dream had some of the elements of the previous one but was lacking others. For example, there was no Statue of Liberty. No pterodactyls either (and, thankfully, no Quetzalcoatls in their place). Audrey wasn’t there, though Lorraine Cobble was. As in yesterday’s dream, I found myself standing at a considerable height. Not quite so high as Lady Liberty’s head, but high enough. This time I was atop the giant arch in Washington Square Park. Lorraine was up there beside me, her long golden hair whipping about in the strong wind. Her hand was almost touching mine, but not quite.

  She asked me a question. “Did you know that the Washington Arch was modeled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris?”

  I answered yes, because I did. I’d learned that little tidbit somewhere along the line. I stared down and took in the great concrete sprawl of the park below. It was alive with movement. Around the central fountain, which was spouting bright silver water, hundreds, maybe thousands, of people were roaming about in a spiral. Most of them carried guitars that they strummed with wide sweeps of their arms. Strangely, though, this legion of strings made no sound. All I could hear was the wind whirling around me.

  Eventually, Lorraine asked me another question. “Did you know that I really, really wanted to live?”

  Her voice sounded so brittle and sad then that I turned to look at her. Only she had changed. She was a young girl now, perhaps eleven, with her hair in long braids. She wasn’t looking back at me but at what lay below—which now was nothing. The people had all vanished, as had the fountain and the park itself. There was nothing there at all, not even last night’s churning, ghost-filled sea. Just an abyss, black and endless. Instinctively, I grabbed for the girl and held her tightly to my side.

  “Be very, very careful,” I told her.

  “You, too,” she said back, her voice soft and trembling. “You be careful, too, Mr. Plunkett.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I called Audrey first thing in the morning. “What would you think of breaking tradition this once and doing the Bugle Boy Sunday instead of Saturday?”

  The silence at the other end of the line made me think a rejection was being prepared. Then she spoke, sounding a little subdued but pleased. “Breakfast? This morning? Sure. I don’t think anyone will chastise us for switching things up.”

  She was wrong. Forty minutes later, Beatrice, our seventy-seven-year-old waitress, was raking us over the coals in her crusty, merry way.

  “So where were you two yesterday?” she demanded. “I almost sent out an all-points bulletin. You get to be a certain age, you expect a little consistency in your life. You don’t want your customers jumbling things up, for mercy’s sake.”

  We offered a contrite apology, leaving out the reason for yesterday’s absence. Fortunately, Beatrice didn’t probe further, content to take our order and trudge off to badger more of her beloved customers.

  Once we were alone, I was the one to start things off. “I saw Byron Spires last night.”

  Audrey gulped softly. “Yes?”

  “It was in the course of the investigation. I wasn’t there to track him down.”

  “Um-hm.”

  “I wasn’t looking for him, but—I won’t lie to you—when I ran into him I wanted to punch the living daylights out of the guy.”

  In less complicated times, Audrey probably would have interjected some playful barb here. Maybe something about the unlikelihood of me being able to beat a single sunbeam out of a guy, never mind a full complement of daylights.

  She didn’t do that now.

  “I stayed my hand.” That sounded remarkably noble, so I said it again. “I stayed my hand—after giving him a piece of my mind, that is.”

  For a moment, I heard my father’s voice, blunt and growly, lecturing me: Are you kidding, Lee? Bum tries to steal your girl, and all you do is give him a scolding? What are you, a schoolmarm?

  I shoved Dad back to the beyond. This was my problem, my life.

  “Spires told me you called him yesterday,” I said.

  Audrey held my gaze. “Did he tell you why?”

  “He did.”

  Then we didn’t say anything for a while, but Audrey did reach over and scoop up my hand in both of hers.

  She spoke again first. “You and me, Lee—I’m in it for the long haul.”

  For some reason, that struck me as an extraordinarily tender thing to say. When I opened my mouth to respond, I found that some damned frog must have snuck in there. How else to explain the fact that my throat was suddenly hoarse and I could barely get a word out? Seeing my affliction, Audrey squeezed my hand tighter.

  Beatrice appeared at the perfect moment, juggling coffee cups, plates of waffles, and bowls of cereal and complaining spryly about the demands this job made on her poor old bones. We barely waited for her to exit before delving into our breakfast. I was suddenly feeling famished, as if I’d just run a hundred-meter sprint. Maybe Audrey was feeling the same. We weren’t kidding ourselves that this race was by any means really done. No doubt, down the line, there was still a lot of hashing out for us to do, a lot of bruised feelings for us to shift through. For now, though, this was just fine. Here we were, as the gods of Thelmont intended, breaking bread together at the Bugle Boy Diner (albeit a day late) with our coffee steaming, Beatrice grousing, and the warm April sun spilling through the windows. Life was okay. Good, even.

  * * *

  AFTER BREAKFAST, I told Audrey that I needed to go to my office to attend to some paperwork. She suggested riding over there with me, just to stay together for a little while longer. Though she’d already missed morning church to join me at the diner, Audrey assured me she could catch a later service at no danger to her soul. Since the church was only a modest walk from my office, it seemed like an orderly plan. I was happy to have her beside me once again as I steered Baby Blue across town. As I’ve previously mentioned, my Nash always looked at its jazziest with Miss Audrey Valish in the front seat. It was one of those curiosities that probably belonged in our Catalog of Life’s Little Truths.

  Entering my office, Audrey moaned softly, as was her habit whenever finding herself in my cramped, drab workspace. For the hundredth time, she surveyed the beat-up furniture, murky green walls, and one curtainless window and cringed a little.

  “You know, Lee, a coat of paint and a set of drapes wouldn’t be a crime.”

  “To Yowler Yarr they would.”

  “Remember how we’ve said Fred Mertz is the worst landlord? Well, your Mr. Yarr deserves serious consideration.”

  “One reason he keeps my rent low is because I preserve the space like Dad had it. Yowler and Buster were old chums, and this space is sort of a monument to that chummery.”

  “Chummery’s not a word.”

  “Tell that to Yowler.”

  Audrey stared up the Theodore Roosevelt portrait, the room’s only decorative touch. “Couldn’t you even replace Teddy here? He always looks so perturbed.”

  “You would be, too, if you had to wrestle rhinos in darkest Africa.”

  “He did that?”

  “Dad thought he did.”

  It was good to be bantering in the old comfortable way. It gave me hope for our future.

  Audrey volunteered to rummage through the mail from the last couple of days, a task she
knew I wouldn’t fight her for. I turned my own attention to organizing the notes I’d been compiling from the current investigation. Though I couldn’t boast my father’s toughness or my Celtic colleague’s keen mind, I was hell on wheels with the note-taking. I began writing up a diagram of sorts featuring the individuals we’d encountered, plus the various threads that had presented themselves. For example:

  LC jumps/thrown from roof in evening.

  → Cornelius sees Hector Escobar near stairwell → Hector denies this.

  Letter #1 (by unknown writer) requests meeting at 10 a.m. day of death.

  → Ruby meets with LC at 10 a.m. that day, not planned (?)

  LC steals Cardinal Meriam’s song set → Letter #2 (Cardinal, threatening).

  → Compare with: LC stealing Minnie Bornstein’s Navaho trip (1945).

  → Compare with: Spires stealing LC’s Scottish song.

  Etcetera. I put it all down very neatly and concisely—without knowing what in God’s green acre anything really meant. As I was completing my diagram, Mr. O’Nelligan stepped into the office.

  “Ah! Behold the twain!”

  By that, I assumed he meant Audrey and me. I could see his pleasure in finding this particular twain keeping company again.

  Audrey gave our Irishman a warm hug and told him, “It’s a good thing you showed up. Poor Lee has been sitting here groaning and gnashing his teeth trying to crack the case.”

  “That’s a big stinking lie,” I begged to differ.

  Audrey smiled wickedly. “He’s flummoxed. Please solve it for him.”

  “Not I alone. Coniunctis Viribus!” my partner proclaimed.

  Audrey scrunched up her button nose. “That sounds like some kind of rash.”

  “It’s Latin for With Powers United,” my partner explained. “Not through any individual effort but by exploring side by side will Lee and I unravel this mystery.”

  “You make us sound like the Hardy Boys,” I said.

  “The Hardy Boys?” Mr. O’Nelligan seemed genuinely at a loss. “Are they rival investigators?”

  I grinned. “Aha! Finally, I’ve stumped the Great O’Nelligan with a literary reference. Yes, the Hardys are fellow PIs—though their beards aren’t as gray and distinguished as your own.” Then, to sweeten the pot, I added, “They leap into their cases as fast as blue darters.”