The Whisper f-4

by Carla Neggers

  "All that cheerful stuff," Scoop said.

  "It all fell away on those trips. I was looking forward to finally getting my doctorate, but it was a transition. Going out to the island was just what I needed. A lark. No past, no future. Just the present." She turned back to the fireplace. "Tim had told me a story that'd been handed down by priests in a local village, about Celtic treasure hidden on an island. We figured out this could be the island described in the story. I never thought I'd find anything--neither did Tim. That wasn't the point."

  "When was your first trip out there?"

  "Late August. I went four or five times. Tim would drop me off and come back after a few hours. This last time was in late September. I'd talked him into leaving me there overnight."

  "Did it take a lot of talking?" Scoop asked.

  She gave him a small smile. "As a matter of fact, yes. Tim thought I was completely daft. I was curious, I was having fun. I wanted to check out the center of the island. It's not difficult to get to--I just couldn't do it and get back to where Tim would pick me up in a few hours."

  Scoop settled back in his chair. "Did you head there the minute you arrived on the island?"

  She nodded. "I wasn't the least bit concerned about staying out there on my own. I happened on a small cave almost right in the middle of the island. I wasn't even sure at first it was a cave."

  "It's not marked on a map?"

  "No." Sophie sat on the edge of the sectional, as if she knew she might jump back up and run out of there at any moment. "It was a beautiful day. Clear, calm. By the time I discovered the cave it was getting late, but I figured I could camp there."

  "No worries at that moment, then," Scoop said.

  "None. I've investigated caves before. I set my pack on a ledge by the entrance and had a look inside. My flashlight hit on something. I got all excited. I was having fun, remember." She paused and stared down at her hands, her fingers splayed in front of her, and Scoop knew she was back in that cave a year ago. "I came upon what appeared to be a spun-bronze cauldron filled with pagan Celtic metalwork. Of course, I can't be sure what it was without further examination."

  "You didn't get that chance."

  "That's right." She raised her gaze from her hands, then pushed to her feet, clearly restless. "I was still examining the find when I heard a noise--what sounded like whispers. I turned off my flashlight and ducked a bit deeper into the cave until I could figure out what was going on."

  "These whispers." Scoop kept his voice even, calm. "Describe them."

  "I couldn't make out any words. It sounded as if whoever was out there was deliberately trying to scare me."

  "You're sure someone was there."

  "Yes, I'm sure. Whatever I heard wasn't the wind or the ocean."

  Scoop glanced out the window, the late-day sun hitting the pretty courtyard. When Jay Augustine had come upon Keira Sullivan in the ruin on the Beara Peninsula, he had whispered her name before trapping her inside.

  "What happened next?" he asked quietly.

  Sophie came and sat down across from him. "I hid behind a boulder. I had a partial view of the entrance to the cave. There were..." She shut her eyes, inhaling through her nose. "I saw branches--branches of a hawthorn tree--placed in the shape of an X at the entrance to the cave."

  "You could see that clearly?"

  She opened her eyes again. "It was still daylight. I wasn't that far away."

  "Any significance that it was a hawthorn tree?"

  "Fairies are said to gather and dance under hawthorns. It's considered bad luck to cut one down."

  "Ah."

  "The branches had to have been brought in by boat. There are no trees--hawthorn or otherwise--on the island. It's mostly rock, with a few grassy spots." She shifted her gaze back to the courtyard, her blue eyes wide now. "The leaves of the branches had been soaked in what appeared to be blood."

  "Oh, good," Scoop said.

  She managed a smile. "You knew that was coming. Tim wouldn't have left that out of whatever he told your British friends." Her smile faded, her skin pale in the dim light. "Whoever placed those branches knew I was there. I half rolled, half crawled deeper into the cave. I remember searching in the dark, feeling with my hands, for a loose rock I could use to defend myself."

  Scoop grimaced. "Whispers. Bloody branches. Hiding for your life in a cave. I have to tell you, sweetheart, that'd do it for me."

  "It was rather terrifying, I have to say. I don't remember what happened next. I was hit on the head somehow."

  "Where on the head?"

  "Right here." She put her hand behind her right ear. "I could have banged into a jutting rock, or someone could have hit me. I was knocked out--I don't know for how long." She pointed to her wrist. "I wasn't wearing a watch. When I regained consciousness, it was pitch dark. I didn't move. I swear I didn't breathe."

  "Were you afraid you'd been trapped in the cave?"

  "Yes," she said, her voice almost inaudible. "I finally couldn't stand it and crept forward. I was dizzy, in pain, but when I felt the fresh air and heard the ocean..." She sat up straight, collecting herself. "At least I knew there hadn't been a cave-in while I was unconscious. I wasn't trapped. The cauldron was gone. The branches were gone. I didn't hear more whispers..." She trailed off, as if she were back in that cave.

  Scoop could understand why the Irish police hadn't done more to investigate.

  "I was a mess," she said, almost matter-of-fact. "I figured my backpack was a lost cause. I'd heard it fall--or get shoved--off the ledge. I was left for dead, Scoop. I'm convinced of that."

  "I have no reason to argue with you."

  "I was hurt, dehydrated, shivering nonstop." Her voice was even, steady. "I had a concussion and mild hypothermia, but I was still coherent. I stayed in the cave, out of the wind. I knew Tim would come find me."

  "Weren't you afraid he was responsible--"

  "No, never. Not for one second."

  She got up again, pulling clips out of her hair and shaking it loose, which was almost more than Scoop could stand watching. All that red. The freckles. The eyes. He let his gaze drift to her shape under her jeans and T-shirt, then stopped himself because he just wasn't going that far. At least not right then, anyway.

  "Your fisherman friend found you?"

  She nodded, more animated now. "I heard him calling me. He was pretty frantic by then. I crawled out of the cave on my own, and Tim was standing on a ledge--he was scared to death, Scoop. He'd spotted my backpack. It looked as if it'd tipped over where I'd left it and fallen into a deep, wet crevice."

  Scoop rose next to her. "Hell, Sophie."

  "Tim gave me water and his jacket. He had a small first-aid kit with him and did what he could for my scrapes and bruises. I told him everything. It sounded crazy, there in the morning sun, with birds circling overhead, waves crashing on the rocks. Tim obviously thought I'd hit my head crawling in the cave and hallucinated or dreamed everything else, but he called the guards."

  "There wasn't much they could do by the time they got out there," Scoop said.

  "That's right. They didn't find a drop of blood, a footprint, a witness, evidence of another boat."

  "Nothing to corroborate your story."

  She shoved both hands through her hair again, coming up with more pins that she set on the table. "I'm sure that was the idea. If by some miracle I lived through the night, I'd have a crazy story to tell. If I didn't, I'd look as if I'd died of natural causes after a mishap."

  Scoop brushed a few strands of her wild hair out of her eyes. "It took some effort and planning to get those bloody branches out to that island."

  "They could have been part of a ritual, or just designed to scare me. I suppose there's a chance the guards missed a bit of forensic evidence, but the island's not a hospitable place for tracking the stray eyelash or blood spot. Whoever followed me out there was careful not to leave anything obvious behind." She gave him a challenging look. "A cop would know how to do that."
<
br />   He let her comment slide. "When you heard about Keira Sullivan's experience on the Beara Peninsula, you thought of what happened to you on the island. You two have similar back-grounds--you're both from Boston, you know Colm Dermott, you're interested in old Irish stories, you're around the same age."

  "I only learned the details about Keira's experience when I talked to Colm last week. I didn't want to sound any alarms without more information. If Jay Augustine was responsible for my ordeal on the island..." She paused, sinking back onto her chair at the table. "He's in jail. I figured I didn't have to worry about more violence."

  "Then came this morning," Scoop said, sitting across from her.

  The fading daylight struck her eyes and made them seem darker, richer. "Your British friends have been in touch with the Irish authorities."

  "We need to know what crimes Augustine committed. All of them."

  "Including the theft and sale of illegal or stolen art and antiquities?"

  Scoop was silent a moment. "Sophie--"

  She sprang up without a word and headed for the door, charging out to the courtyard. He watched her from the window as she got down onto her knees and started rearranging the mums. He rose, feeling a pull of pain in his hip for the first time since that morning in the ruin. He went outside. The temperature had dropped fast, but Sophie didn't seem cold.

  "The low ceilings got to me," she said without looking up. "I'll be okay in a second."

  "What about the Carlisles? How much do they know about what happened last year?"

  "Percy wasn't seeing Helen then, although I imagine they knew each other." Sophie's tone was unreadable. She stood up, almost bumping into Scoop. "He was in Killarney in early September. I'd already made a couple of day trips out to the island by then. He came to see me. I was surprised, but I didn't think that much about it. When he stopped in Kenmare the other night, he said he'd heard I was chasing a story with an Irish fisherman. He was convinced I was modeling myself after his father, but that wasn't the case at all."

  "Did you know his father?"

  "Yes, but not well. I ran into him a few times at the Carlisle Museum when I was a student in Boston. He was an amateur archaeologist. He was quite the adventurer."

  Scoop ran the toe of his shoe over a worn brick missing a corner. "What about this Irish fisherman?"

  "I told you, I trust Tim. He had multiple opportunities to pitch me overboard or throw me off the ledge along with my backpack, but he didn't."

  "Bringing you back alive kept him from answering even tougher questions."

  "I realize I'm not a law enforcement officer who has to keep an open mind--which apparently means not trusting anyone--but I trust Tim. He's not working with Augustine or anyone else involved in black market antiquities."

  "You two aren't a team?"

  She gave him a cool look, no indication his question had irritated or surprised her. "Ah. I see. Tim helps with transportation and local lore, and I identify authentic artifacts and find collectors willing to buy them and not ask questions."

  Scoop shrugged. "Or you work together and create a compelling story, plant fakes and sell them to people who can't complain if they find out, since they obtained them illegally."

  "None of the above," Sophie said without hesitation. "It's not logical for me to have called attention to myself with a made-up story about an Irish cave if I were a thief."

  "I could make a case for it."

  "A tortured argument at best. All these years working toward my Ph.D. and living hand-to-mouth and I'd chuck it for some crazy scheme? That doesn't even make sense."

  He tilted his head back and eyed her. "Give me a D, would you, Professor Malone?"

  She seemed to make an effort to smile but bent down suddenly, picked up a yellow mum by the edge of its basket and moved it behind a white one, then stood up again. "There. I like that better."

  "I see no difference."

  "The yellow works better in the background--"

  "Sophie."

  She sighed. "All right. Here's my take. One, the artifacts I saw in the cave are authentic and were stolen by someone who followed me to the island hoping I'd find something. Two, they were stolen by someone who, for whatever reason, hoped or knew I'd find these particular artifacts. Three, they are fakes planted by someone who wanted me to find them--"

  "A ruse," Scoop said, finishing for her. "All the drama with the whispers and the blood helps."

  "Except I've kept quiet about the incident, at the request of the Irish authorities--not that I needed their suggestion. I wouldn't want to encourage treasure hunters, or certainly to come across as one myself."

  "That wouldn't look so good on your CV. You're sure you met Cliff Rafferty for the first time last night?"

  The pain of that morning showed in her face. "As far as I know, yes. If I encountered him on the street when he was a police officer, I don't remember."

  "When was the last time you were in Boston?"

  "In the spring--well before the violence here started."

  "Unless it started with you a year ago. That's what you're worried about, isn't it?"

  Sophie didn't answer. She walked past him to her apartment window and picked a dried leaf off the sill, desperately in need of scraping and a fresh coat of paint. "Summer's gone now."

  "Do you miss Ireland already?"

  "I love Boston, too." She crumpled up the leaf and let the bits fall to the brick courtyard. "It's a bad idea for you to be here, isn't it? Or are you on duty?"

  "Technically I'm still on medical leave for getting blown into my compost bin."

  She brushed her hands off and smiled at him. "You're a driven, hard-ass, career-oriented, cynical cop, aren't you, Scoop?"

  He grinned. "I'm not cynical."

  "You're good at detecting lies. Why?"

  "It's my job. Nothing special. No lying women or lying family I'm getting back at or trying to understand."

  "How long have you been in internal affairs?"

  He noticed she looked cold now. She'd run out of the apartment without a jacket or sweater. "Two years," he said.

  "What's next?"

  "Getting fired if I'm not careful with you. It's not going over well, Sophie, this not telling me everything."

  "I just told you--"

  "It wasn't everything."

  "I haven't lied to you, Scoop."

  "Omitting pertinent information is equivalent to lying." He had lined up his questions. "What about your octogenarian art theft expert?"

  He saw a flicker of surprise in her face. "Ah. Wendell Sharpe." With one foot, she straightened a ragged doormat. "Your British friends are enterprising if they've learned about him. He's such a gentleman, as well as brilliant. I went to see him in Dublin--"

  "After you talked to Colm Dermott about Keira's experience," Scoop said.

  "I asked him if Irish Celtic artifacts had turned up on the black market in the past year. I assumed the guards would know if they had and would have said something, but..." She gave the doormat one last shove with her foot. "It was a good opportunity to talk to an expert. He gave me a tutorial on his world. It was fascinating."

  "I'll bet it was." Scoop could see her energy was flagging. "Your mums need water."

  This time she did manage a smile. "I guess I can't pretend to be a gardener, can I?" But she wasn't ready to quit. "I've heard a bad cop's like an infection that spreads in ways you can't control or predict."

  "I can't go there, Sophie."

  She stepped up to her apartment door, its dark green paint almost black in the shadows. "I still don't believe Cliff Rafferty killed himself." She paused, one hand on the brass knob as she turned back to him. "I wouldn't be surprised if the autopsy shows he was unconscious or already dead when he was hanged. I have theories, just as you do."

  Scoop was right behind her, a yellow mum brushing his leg, but he didn't move. "No freelancing, okay?"

  "What about you, Scoop? Are you sure you're not blinded by your friendship wit
h Bob O'Reilly and Abigail Browning--with other detectives in the department? You've been out of the country for a month. What if one of your fellow police officers is involved with Rafferty's death?"

  "You speak your mind, don't you?"

  "Most academics don't get far if they don't."

  She pulled open the door and stalked back into her apartment. Scoop scratched the side of his mouth. He guessed she'd told him. He walked over to the door and raised his hand to knock, but she opened it up. "Anyone who can stay with you?" he asked.

  "I'm not worried."

  "You can stay at the Whitcomb for a few days. Let things settle down."

  "I'll stay here."

  He touched her hair. Craziness. "This morning was bad. I'm sorry you saw that."

  "It wasn't your fault."

  "Didn't say it was."

  He raised his eyebrows.

  She let out a breath. "Sorry. You're trying to help. I know that."

  "You're smart, you're well educated and you tend to be stubborn in your views and theories. Am I right?" He winked at her. "You don't have to answer that. Tell me something about you that doesn't involve artifacts and blood-soaked branches."

  "I listen to traditional Irish music, I light candles when I work and I do yoga." Her defensiveness eased, and he saw her smile reach her eyes this time. "I'm not very good at kicking butt."

  He laughed. "And you don't do well in the sun."

  "Are you unafraid?" she asked him quietly.

  "I don't let fear get into the equation. I focus on what I have to do--which is what you did in that cave. You calculated the risks as best as you could and did what you had to do to survive." He lifted a hand to her. "I'm two minutes away. Call me anytime. Don't hesitate."

  She slipped outside, took his hand in hers and kissed him on the cheek, her lips soft, cool. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for not letting me go alone this morning, and thank you for listening to my story."

  "Sophie--"

  But she'd already fled back inside and shut the door.

  Scoop found Jeremiah Rush at his desk in the lobby, checking in a mother and teenage daughter on a Boston shopping trip. They regarded Scoop as if they expected him to fix their drain, too.