Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery
Read Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery Online
Authors: Lisa Alber
Tags: #detective, #Mystery, #FIC022080 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / International Mystery & Crime, #Murder, #sociopath, #revenge, #FIC050000 FICTION / Crime, #Matchmaker, #ireland, #village, #missing persons, #FIC030000 FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense, #redemption
Praise for
Kilmoon
In her moody debut, Alber skillfully uses many shades of gray to draw
complex characters who discover how cruel love can be.
—Kirkus Reviews
Lisa Alber’s assured debut paints Lisfenora,
County Clare, at the height of the local matchmaking festival, when the ordinarily
sleepy village is crammed with revelers, cadgers, and con men galore. Amid mysteries and
mayhem, Alber captures the heartfelt ache in all of us, the deep need for connection,
and a true sense of purpose.
—Erin Hart, Anthony and Agatha-nominated author of
The Book of Killowen
In the captivating
Kilmoon
, Lisa Alber serves up a haunting tale of
Merrit Chase, a woman who travels to Ireland to sift through her family’s dark past in
search of a future seemingly fated to elude her. With exquisite craft and a striking
sense of place, Alber serves up a rich cast of unforgettable characters and an
intricate, pull-no-punches plot. Raw with grief and painful honesty,
Kilmoon
is a
soulful and beautifully told tale that never lets up, and never lets go.
—Bill Cameron, author of the Spotted Owl Award-winning
County Line
This hauntingly lovely debut mystery
evokes the romance of Irish lore and melds it with the poignant longings of a California
woman. When Merrit Chase seeks answers to her deepest heartaches and oldest questions,
she slams into the eccentric souls who populate the village of Lisfenora, County Clare,
and at least one of them is a killer. Some residents hint at ancient wounds with
shocking ties to the present, while others entangle her in their own disturbing
intrigues. You will be charmed by this nuanced look into the eternal mysteries of the
human heart.
—Kay Kendall, author of
Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery
Moody . . . Engrossing . . . Lisa Alber weaves an intricate plot and vivid characters into a twisty
story about betrayal and family secrets, redemption and love. A splendid debut!
—Elizabeth Engstrom, bestselling author of
Baggage Claim
and
Lizzie Borden
Full of surprises . . . Great Irish setting, compelling characters, and a tale full of passion,
hate, and murder, told with style and craft.
—Ann Littlewood, author of the Iris Oakley “zoo-dunnit” mysteries
What a beguiling start to this new mystery series! Clever,
suspenseful, and complex—Lisa Alber is a consummate storyteller. I can’t wait to read
her next installment and neither will you.
—Michael Bigham, author of
Harkness, A High Desert Mystery
Lisa Alber's gripping debut signals the arrival of an outstanding new
voice in the realm of crime fiction. Her dark Irish tale of family, love, murder, and
matchmaking is a literary pot of gold.
—Jeannie Burt, author of
When Patty Went Away
In memory of Joseph Anthony Alber, who would have loved to have seen this
Contents
June 28, 2008
Northern California
Merrit McCallum rolled a plastic vial between her palms so that the liquid morphine sloshed against the sides. Red and viscous—like blood—the liquid coated the plastic on the inside of the vial while her slick palms left smudges on the outside. She was tempted to squirt the opiate down her own throat rather than contend with Andrew, who waited her out from his rolling bed. She no longer called him
father
.
If only he would shut up, but no, his whispered voice penetrated the leaden exhaustion that she had succumbed to weeks ago. “You know you want to,” he said.
She turned away from Andrew’s shrunken almost-corpse to gaze at a large framed photograph that hung above the fireplace mantel. A mist-enshrouded church stood among Celtic crosses. It was a nothing of a place, a moldering heap of rocks so old that without the crosses, it could be any artifact left to crumble in the North Atlantic rains. Andrew had insisted on hanging the image on this prime section of walled real estate. Merrit’s mom, meanwhile, had banished it to the coat closet during Andrew’s frequent business trips. All Merrit knew was that her parents had met in a village near the church. In Ireland.
She stared at the picture in an attempt to drown herself in the imagined sounds of whipping winds and pounding rains. It didn’t work. Andrew’s voice irritated like the fly that bounced against the window. The fly, like Andrew, didn’t mean anything by its incessant buzzing. The fly, like Andrew, was nothing but a miserable prisoner inside this morgue of a house. Both of them irritant buzzes, no more, no less.
Just a buzz, she told herself. Don’t let him get to you.
“I’m in excruciating pain,” he said. “You hear me?”
She dropped the oral syringe onto the swiveling bedside table, now parked near the Barcalounger and far away from Andrew’s bird-claw fingers. “It’s too soon for another dose.”
“Check my nightstand,” he said. “You can read your mom’s notebook for yourself. Then you’ll see.”
Notebook? What notebook? He’d never mentioned a notebook before. Or maybe he had. No, surely she wasn’t so out of it that she’d forgotten something as important as words written in her mother’s hand.
Merrit wished she could steady her voice, but it wobbled out of her, giving her away. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. I’ll see what?”
“Oh, you know.”
But she didn’t know anything except that Andrew exuded more energy now than he’d shown for weeks. Despite the morphine, he held her gaze with the steadiness of a combatant on the battlefield.
Merrit pressed trembling hands together and struggled to maintain her poker face. If only she could think straight. If only she hadn’t been stupid enough to assume she could care for Andrew on her own. She’d forgotten why she’d insisted. Something about duty, or devotion, or loyalty. Now, six months after returning home to help him, her efforts felt pointless.
She fumbled for the cell phone that she’d left on the mantel, knocking over her inhaler in the process. It rolled under the Barcalounger. A worm of tension squeezed Merrit’s lungs as she pressed in the hospice phone number. Unfortunately, sunlight barely lightened the eastern horizon. She’d have to leave a message with the answering service. She steadied her voice, requested a hospice visit, and hung up.
Merrit listened with her back still facing Andrew. She didn’t need to see him to know the cracks of bitterness that etched his face. He’d been awake all night, restless and demanding, and with a strange light in his eye. She sniffed against the oppressive odor of illness in the stuffy room and eyed the knitting needles sticking out of a ball of yarn. For a while the new hobby had helped her cope. She’d even gifted Andrew with her first afghan, which now lay in a discarded heap beneath the bed.
“This pain,” he said. “It’s torture.”
Slowly, she turned around. The glow from the bedside lamp illuminated his shiny head, which stood out of the murk like a floating skull. She knew about his pain. The hospice folks had explained it all, and it was horrible to witness. Yet, he didn’t seem to be in that much pain right now. She stepped forward. And then again. Until she stood next to him. She reached out to adjust his pillow. Andrew’s hand latched onto her arm. Merrit steeled herself not to flinch at the dried-up boniness of his fingers pressed against her skin.
“You’re a coward,” he said. “But then why should I be surprised. Runs in
your
family.”
“What are you saying? Why now?”
“All those years your mother kept up the pretense that she loved me, not him,” he said.
Patting her chest, Merrit retreated to the Barcalounger once again. She dropped to her knees and felt around under the chair for her inhaler. She pushed at the chair, but it was already wedged into the corner of the room. Worse still, she didn’t have the strength to maneuver it over the edge of the rug and away from the wall.
Breathing hard, her brain fuzzy with exhaustion and distress, Merrit staggered to her feet. Andrew’s insidious, creeping, rasping voice kept at her. His lips smirked. They pulsed, they pursed, they stretched around more words.
“Your mother was a lying whore.”
No.
“She screwed a goddamned hippie freak—an
Irish
hippie freak—and said it didn’t matter. Nothing but a mistake.”
No. No.
Merrit grabbed the morphine syringe. She managed to gasp, “Just to sleep for a bit. Until the hospice nurse arrives.”
“You’re so weak. Look at you. Poor baby can’t breathe.”
Merrit leaned against the lounger, panting. White bubbles floated across her vision. She lifted the syringe and depressed the plunger the tiniest bit. One bitter drop of morphine landed on her tongue. Andrew’s hand spasmed toward her and fell back. His voice wheedled up a notch, its incessant buzz pitched high.
“Your fault she died,” he said.
NO.
Merrit acknowledged the truth of the matter: Andrew had never loved her, and he never would no matter how hard she tried to be the perfect daughter. Sobbing, beyond caring, just wanting to survive this moment, she dripped another smidgen of morphine onto her tongue. Calm down, lungs, please.
“If not for you, she’d still be alive.”
NO NO.
White hot despair and guilt coursed through her, so molten that anger seeped in around its edges. She pictured her mom striding away from her, hurrying away really, because she’d wanted to flee her spiteful child. Merrit opened her mouth, but nothing came out except a painful wheeze.
“You should never have been born. A mistake.”
NO NO NO.
Merrit clenched the morphine syringe, shaking. The fly still buzzed, louder than ever. Her vision narrowed into a dark tunnel through which all she saw was Andrew’s caved-in face. His hateful face.
“The man your precious mom fucked right before she fucked me back in 1975? He never wanted you either. Ask him yourself. After you read the notebook.”
Her head exploded. “Shut up!” she screamed.
***
The white hot rage subsided and Merrit’s vision cleared. She blinked, disoriented and shaky with leftover adrenaline. It took her a moment to realize that she still held the syringe. She gaped down at the plastic vial—now empty—and then at Andrew’s self-satisfied rictus of a smile, at his eyes focused on nothing. Depleted to her very core, she sank to the ground and let the syringe roll off her palm. The haunting image of the church gazed down at her as it always had, but now it also beckoned her. Come home to Ireland, it seemed to say. Find out the truth.
A trickle of longing surprised her. Yes, she’d discover the truth that had simmered beneath the facade of her parents’ marriage, which was the truth that defined Merrit’s very existence. Her mom died long ago, leaving Merrit alone with Andrew. Now Andrew was dead, leaving her—what?
Guilty. Lost. Possibly irredeemable.
She stared at the empty syringe lying beside her on the rug. The truth. From her real father.
• Part I •
Friday, August 29th – Sunday, August 31st
“Better well-intentioned duplicity than truth’s fallout.”
—Liam the Matchmaker
Liam Donellan’s journal
Ah Kevin, as you know, we Irish, closet superstition mongers all, find solace and hope in imagining faeries, in calling upon the spirits of the long departed in moments of stress, in deifying the woman who gave birth to Jesus. Whether the wood sprite at home in the local thicket or the Holy Virgin, we Irish, we tend to prefer our myths to daily realities. Hence, the fame of the Matchmaker of Lisfenora. Me.
In the ’70s free-lovers traveled here in hopes of a good shag during the matchmaking festival. And you’d best believe I was the shag king who scoffed when a stranger proclaimed that my swagger masked kindness, the proof of which was my talent for creating happily-ever-afters. Matchmaking is the best part of me, true, but only a part of a flawed whole.
Here’s what she said, this stranger: “You have something, whether it’s an amazing knowledge of human nature or an uncanny sixth sense, I don’t know. What do you call this ability of yours?”
She was an American journalist, you see, and she wanted a rational explanation for my success rate. So I said, “There are math and music prodigies, no one doubts that, so why not a—” and here I stopped for I didn’t know what to call myself. A gut-instinct virtuoso? An intuition whiz? Bloody hell, an empath—that soulless word used in science fiction?
“Call me charmed for it,” I said.