Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (15 page)

Liam Donellan’s journal

It had to happen that Julia met Adrienne Meehan, who loved nothing better than perambulating her infant girl with pride, assuming I would make a family out of us. I’d just finished my afternoon session on the plaza when Julia spotted Andrew with Adrienne on his arm and fidgeted to know who had captured his fancy. But I knew better. That was no romance. Those two had found each other by that accursed cosmic conspiracy called fate. Andrew was only too happy to forge an alliance with Adrienne after she claimed that I was Kate’s pappy. Adrienne, likewise, knew a kindred spirit when she met one.

The sorry truth of it was that I didn’t remember Adrienne when she first appeared on the plaza. The previous year, she had traveled down from Belfast for the festival. Adrienne and I shagged once, and she left after the festival. She was just another randy lassie. One of many. And I was one of many for her too—or so I thought.

Another sorry truth: I didn’t care. I was the matchmaker!

If I had revealed the truth beneath the charade—which is to say, if I had trusted Julia—perhaps I’d not be here writing this tattered tale, this old man’s journal of remorse. Perversion this mess has become, a perversion of love at my hands.

• 28 •

Ivan stared around the monastic room with a crucifix above the bed and flat pillows on top of it. Connie had cajoled Father Dooley into lending Ivan the guest quarters used by visiting clerics, and Ivan’s proximity to so much Catholic goodness chafed at him, especially now as he felt around under a mound of clothes for the laptop he’d managed to sneak out of Internet Café. His laptop. His only worldly asset, little did Danny know.

Danny wasn’t entirely heartless. He could have kicked Ivan to the ground when he’d asked for a chance to pack his suitcase before being escorted from Internet Café. Instead, Danny had granted Ivan ten minutes. While Danny hovered, Ivan threw in his clothes and toiletries. He didn’t care about the clothes, only the suitcase itself. He owned an ancient hard-shell affair with many compartments, one of which had hidden his beloved laptop.

Ivan carried the laptop to the bed. Of course he’d kept copies of everything he’d gathered for Lonnie. This was practical for backup purposes if nothing else.

His goal then and now remained the same: stay in Ireland. Now more than ever, he must. For Connie. To do so, his best bet was trading information for leniency. Danny would surely welcome insights into the cash that Lonnie had collected the night he died, cash that implied Lonnie had stumbled onto a super secret. And if Lonnie the Lovely could figure it out, so could Ivan.

He depressed the laptop’s power button and contemplated Lonnie’s blackmail scheme, the truth of which Ivan had kept from Danny because it was one thing to nose around in outsiders’ business—like Kate’s, like Merrit’s—quite another to mess with everyone’s favorite local, Liam the Matchmaker. If word got out, Kevin himself would weigh Ivan down with bricks and sink him into the black horror of the nearest bog.

He shivered and forced his thoughts away from suffocation by mud, starting with Liam’s arrival one morning in early August. “Never thought I’d see you grace my threshold,” Lonnie had said, to which Liam had replied that there was no help for it. “Kevin will have my head as a traitor if he finds out, so keep it to yourself—and no gloating. He’s too busy, and I need to learn something about this Internet.”

Lonnie took time from his oh-so-busy schedule to teach Liam the basics. Then the old man shooed him away and typed in searches that were easy enough to recover afterward:
Andrew McCallum death
,
Andrew McCallum funeral
,
Andrew McCallum obituary
.

Ever nosy in true O’Brien fashion, Lonnie had ordered Ivan to look into this Andrew McCallum. Ivan’s research hadn’t led to much, admittedly, until he found the Chase-McCallum marriage announcement that mentioned the matchmaking festival. A few days later, in the newspaper archives over at the
Clare
Challenger
office, Ivan uncovered a gossip snippet that hinted at amorous conduct between Liam and Julia Chase, soon to be Julia McCallum. “Hard to fathom, but our Liam lost at love,” Lonnie said with a smack of lips. “But I wager it’s more than that or he’d have asked Kevin for Internet help. Pure bollocks that bit about Kevin being too busy—it’s all the sod lives for, being a bloody saint.”

Though Ivan wasn’t privy to their conversation, he imagined Lonnie had tested the waters with the finesse of a blunt-force kick to the dangly bits. “What are you hiding from Kevin? How much will you pay me to keep my mouth shut?” That Liam bothered to pay money over something as mundane as an old love triangle hinted that sharks lurked beneath the surface. This much was too obvious, even to Lonnie.

Liam was well settled into Lonnie’s payment plan by the time Merrit visited the shop. So like an American, she’d introduced herself as if they would care. Unfortunately for her, the moment she said her name, Lonnie danced up on his toes as if he’d like to whirl her around in a pirouette. A few chatty questions about her hometown in the States, a glance at her passport for “identification purposes,” and Lonnie’s eyes had glazed over with something bordering on arousal. “How many Merrit Chases could there be from fecking Gull’s Hollow,” he’d chortled after she left. “And born six months after Andrew McCallum married Julia Chase. I’m telling you, pretty Merrit is the fruit of Liam’s randy loins. This is too beautiful.”

Yes, beautiful for Lonnie, but not so beautiful for Ivan. It was just his luck that Lonnie died before Ivan had a chance to barter Merrit’s arrest record for a cash bonus. Not that it would have mattered because by then Lonnie had had his eye on Kate.

Kate, with her sharp shoes and sharper gaze. Succubus. Satan’s slut. Siren of death. Hell’s spawn with tongue that could slit his throat—

A scratch of a heel on the outside stoop levitated the hairs on the back of Ivan’s neck. At the sound of Kate’s voice calling for him to open the door, please, he shot off the bed and shoved the laptop into the closet. He’d accidentally called Her Darkness from her lair.

“Ivan, come on now. I don’t bite—unless you want me to, of course.”

He opened the door to behold the woman nearly a foot taller than he was in her strappy sandals. Kate looked almost demure in a sheer white blouse with long sleeves and high neckline, except of course for the skimpy purple push-up bra and hint of nipple that displayed when she turned into the light. She stepped past him and took in the thin mattress and Holy Mary shrine. “Cozy.”

“How did you find me?”

“Your rotund girlfriend. Found her at the hotel, and she was eager enough to point me in your direction when I mentioned potential employment for you.” Kate leaned against the tall dresser, favoring a swollen ankle. “You told Merrit where I’m staying.”

“She asked me, but I did not tell her because I do not know.”

Her freakish blue gaze never wavered. “No matter. Merrit’s thievery doesn’t change anything. In fact, I would have done the same in her place.”

“Thievery?”

“As in information about certain people gathered in a certain folder.”

Ivan twitched away from her, closer to the window in the back of the room. He’d dive through the glass if need be. “So you did take Lonnie’s folder. I was not sure.”

“Of course. Who else?” She widened her eyes in mock surprise, then jumped at him with fingers outspread. “Boo!”

Her laughter filled the room, and a more joyfully mocking sound Ivan had never heard, not even from his dear old mother. He collapsed back on the squeaky bed. “Bygones. Just please do not maim me or pull out my eyeballs.”

Kate picked up the Holy Mary statue that sat atop the dresser. She appeared to be considering how best to smash it. Instead, she smiled and set the statue back in its precise spot. “I adore you, Ivan. You’re too precious.”

She blew him a kiss and departed. Through a hole in the curtains, Ivan watched her stroll away. He found himself thinking about Connie as if with nostalgia, as if their fragile relationship had already imploded under pressure from her family, his spinelessness, and now Kate’s oozing presence. To think, Connie hadn’t inspired a second glance—
blin
no, she was an O’Brien after all—until she had single-handedly foiled her mother’s petty dictatorship. Back in June, he’d sat at his usual lunch spot near the O’Brien statue, not far from Marcus. Little had he known that Lisfenora’s founding patriarch, Patrick O’Brien, had been due for his annual cleansing courtesy of Mrs. O’Brien’s ladies-in-waiting. Mrs. O’Brien arrived in rubber work boots and directed her minions to the dirty work of bird-shit cleaning. Poor Connie was forced to climb the ladder, but then Connie, she had stood atop that ladder in baggy overalls and girlish pigtails, peeked into the statue’s crown, and said, “Stop with the water. There’s a nest up here.” While Mrs. O’Brien fumed, Connie stood with pigtails shiny as black corn silk, an avenging angel for all bird-dom and other underdogs. Ivan had been hooked.

Unfortunately, Kate now had her hooks into him. He must find a way to cut her sponsorship noose. No use evading deportation only to fall under the Evil One’s command. She would suck him dry, and not in the good way.

A moment later Ivan had the laptop on his thighs, more determined than ever to discover Lonnie’s super secret, the one that was worth €1,000 chunks of money. Then, possibly, hopefully, he’d know how to banish Kate. He closed his eyes, remembering Lonnie’s smirk when Kate exited the shop that first day. Ever the one to hump a money-making idea to death, Lonnie had insisted that Ivan explore Kate’s hard drive. Everyone has something, he’d said to Ivan, and I smell slag with a capital
S
. Lonnie knew his slags, this was true. And Kate’s hard drive didn’t disappoint. Not only did she design websites for strippers and porn stars—much to Lonnie’s delight—but she also spent a good deal of time obsessing over Lisfenora’s charismatic matchmaker. Lonnie had about leaked into his linen trousers he was that excited. In fact, Ivan had chosen that moment to leave the room because with Lonnie you could never be sure.

It was too funny. Merrit and Kate. They couldn’t be more different, yet they had both come to collect on Liam’s paternal obligations.

Ivan propped his head on the two flat bed pillows and moved the laptop onto his stomach, ready to acquaint himself with the data from Kate’s computer. Unfortunately, Kate’s archives consisted of endless newspaper articles about Liam. Mostly human-interest pieces that were too dull. Lonnie hadn’t paid him enough to troll through all of them. Ivan had simply transferred the lot to Lonnie’s machine, kept copies for himself, and tried not to think about the money Lonnie wasn’t paying him. Already bored, Ivan started with 1975, the year in question. One by one, he opened files and scanned their contents. They were bleary, no doubt scanned into Kate’s computer from photocopies, and they appeared with stock photos of Liam sitting on a rock wall with his matchmaking ledger. This concession to publicity showed in his tight expression. The caption read,
Liam the Matchmaker at rest from the masses at his favorite scenic spot, historic Kilmoon Church
.

Thirty minutes later, he cut short a yawn and jerked up into a sitting position. “Holy
chert
.”

Our Lady of the Solace Catholic Orphanage

By the Order of the Cloister of St. Mary’s in the Field

Limerick, County Limerick, Ireland

Preliminary Enrollment for Succour

Dated, this day, 28 September, 1975, I, Novitiate Evangeline Sarah, swear on my faith and my oath to the Holy Roman Catholic Church that the information below is true, and that with regards to my conduct, the named child did not arrive through any means morally, ethically, or legally dubious to the cause of this Order.

Child’s Name: Kate (from infant necklace)

Age: Can roll over so three to four months

Reason for Succour: Left on our step

Mother’s Name: Unknown

Father’s Name: Unknown

Comments: I was on duty early this morning, after Prime, when a man rang the bell. He took pains to keep to the shadows, but even so I couldn’t help gasping because one of his hands was mangled to a pulp. He was tall, thin, red-haired, and held the hand against his chest as he staggered away. He ignored my call and stepped into a waiting vehicle. I didn’t see the plate number, or whether the driver was male or female.

Special Care Instructions: The child is in good health and of lively disposition. My initial opinion is that she was not abused or neglected though she was hungry when she arrived. She’s not taking well to a bottle so I’ve requested a volunteer nursing mother from Father Gerald’s parish.

• 29 •

While Kevin waited next to the locked Internal Care Unit door, Danny lassoed his thoughts back around the case that wasn’t his anymore. From his jacket pocket, he pulled out the clippings that Merrit had nicked from Kate’s place. The gossip snippet ran with a photo that showed baby Kate in the midst of these shadowy parties from yesteryear. Charismatic Liam. Julia Chase, his lover. Adrienne Meehan, his ex-lover. Andrew McCallum, the unknown factor. The photo unnerved him, but even worse was the second clipping, a confidential orphanage memo that could only be construed as evidence that Liam had abandoned Kate. The notion made Danny’s head hurt. And what would it do to Kevin?

Kevin appeared. “Off your arse. The door has opened.”

Shoving the papers into his pocket, Danny approached the ward with Kevin. A doctor stood in the entrance. She wore a stethoscope around her neck and nodded at Kevin. This doctor, a Dr. Greene, appeared fresh, young, and attentive. Just what Danny liked in a medical professional.

“A severe asthma attack,” she said, “as we initially diagnosed.”

“I already told the—” Danny started.

“Please. Do you know anything about asthma?”

Danny shook his head while Kevin said, “Just the usual.”

“I’ll be as plain as possible then. Think in terms of two types, mild and severe, and we’re not concerned with severe in this case. Mild asthmatics need rescuing every now and then, and their inhalers normally contain a broncho-dilator called Salbutamol, or Ibuturol in the States.” She smiled. “Good thing Dr. Patel was here last night. He’s a dear man and was interested in Miss Chase’s case. Just now, he rang up with the findings that came from his friend at the lab. I take it Miss Chase began with a panic attack and used the inhaler?”

Danny had assumed that this much was the given. “She pumped herself up and still couldn’t breathe. In fact, the attack grew worse.”

“Exactly. Panicked, couldn’t breathe as expected, more panic still. Her adrenaline levels spiked, which can cause much cardiac stress on top of everything else.”

“She could have died then.”

“A slight possibility, yes. How many times did she inhale?”

“Five or six.”

“Precisely.”

Exactly what? Precisely what? Danny’s confusion had to be caused by sleep deprivation. He glanced toward Kevin, who appeared equally puzzled.

“That’s more than enough to cause a crisis,” Dr. Greene continued. “She’d have needed Salbutamol to reverse the effect of the attack. Here’s the kicker. Doctors can test for asthma by administering ever increasing amounts of a drug called Methcholine. This drug induces bronchial spasms—asthma attacks—and is only found in controlled medical settings.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Kevin said.

Dr. Greene squared her shoulders. “Miss Chase was poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” Kevin said loud enough to cause a man with a head bandage to stumble as he passed them in the corridor.

“Shocking, isn’t it?” Dr. Greene turned away. “Come along.”

Danny lagged behind Kevin and the doctor. For all he knew, Merrit’s poisoning had nothing to do with Lonnie’s death. Given her presence in Ireland, either she was found innocent of euthanizing Andrew McCallum or the case was dropped—all of which said nothing about her guilt. Unlikely though it might be, someone could have wanted a little revenge and slipped her a bad inhaler before she left the States.

“Hold up, Doctor,” he said. “You’re saying that Merrit sucked on an inhaler that contained this Methcholine drug, which
causes
asthma attacks and is hard to obtain.”

“Right. It’s not as if you can buy Methcholine on the black market and prepare a handy mixture. Your culprit has a contact within the medical community here in Ireland.”

“The inhaler I handed off last night wasn’t an American model?”

“No.”

So much for his unlikely theory.

Dr. Greene directed a sympathetic gaze to Kevin. “We’d best get on with it then because Merrit is awake but drugged. She might fall asleep on you. Ready to go?”

Kevin’s silence stretched on for a second too long, so Danny took over. “Excuse him, that would be a yes, he’s ready to see his sister.”

Kevin frowned in response to the word “sister” but nodded agreement. They stopped in front of a door. Dr. Greene entered first, telling them to wait a moment.

“Maybe,” Kevin said in a low voice, “Merrit overdosed on purpose to prove herself innocent of Lonnie’s murder. Maybe she was willing to go that far.”

“Nice try, but she wasn’t faking the initial panic attack, and I should know because I let it slip that Kate is her sister. I assumed she knew.”

“Brilliant, Sherlock.”

Dr. Greene waved them into the room and departed with a warning that they had five minutes. Danny stepped ahead of Kevin to get a good look at Merrit. Her skin looked thin enough to crack, and her lips were cracked already. She contemplated the ceiling without glancing in their direction. “Just so you know, I’m not drugged up enough to confess to something I didn’t do.”

“Your confession can wait,” Danny said.

“Kind of you, I’m sure. If I were Blanche DuBois I’d say something about the kindness of strangers, but lately strangers haven’t been so kind.” She caught Danny’s eye. “Kate—she’s really my sister?”

“Apparently.”

“Everyone knew but me.” Merrit rolled so her back faced them. Her huff sounded like half a yawn. “I don’t understand anything, I guess.”

Danny waved down Kevin’s spasm of impatience. “There’s a question about your inhaler.”

“I must have received one with medicine inside it by mistake. It tasted funny but I didn’t think to question it.”

“What the devil is she talking about?” Kevin whispered.

Merrit heard him. “The inhalers I use are placebos for medical testing. They’re filled with saline, which tastes like nothing.” A shoulder blade appeared out of the covers as she shifted further away from them. “Psychiatrists can get them for their patients. By the time my childhood doctor figured out I was prone to panic attacks, not asthma attacks, I’d gotten used to the ritual of inhaling to calm myself down. Understand now?”

Kevin rolled his eyes and circled a finger near his temple. Danny shot him a warning glance, but unfortunately, Kevin could restrain himself no longer. “What do you want with Liam?”

“Just to meet him. Nothing earth-shattering.”

“That’s utter shit. You’re here for the same reason Kate is—”

“Oh? And why is Kate here?”

“Kev, don’t answer,” Danny said. “That’s not the point.”

“Maybe it is,” Merrit said. “Kate bears watching.”

“And you don’t?” Kevin said.

“Detective Sergeant, you listen then.” Merrit waited while he dragged a chair around the bed and sat down. “Last night, the folder I mentioned? Lonnie stored his—research materials, I guess you could say, in it. Kate managed to snatch it before you locked down Internet Café. This proves she was at the café twice that night. The first time she paid Lonnie his €1,000, but he would hardly let her walk away with his folder, so she must have—”

“This entire mess is about sibling rivalry, after all?” Kevin interrupted.

“Danny said the same thing.” Her eyelids drooped and she rubbed them open again. “Why do you both say rivalry?”

“Because you two are each a bead short of a rosary?” Kevin said.

“You’d like that.” Sleep softened the edges of her voice. “Kate though, she—”

“How’s that?” Danny said, but too late. The men watched her drift to sleep.

“I’m not buying her lost-little-lamb act,” Kevin said.

Danny stood. “She’s holding back is what she is. But then, so is Ivan.”

***

A light knock jerked Ivan out of a doze. His stomach tightened, and he held his breath. One dose of Her Evil Darkness per day was already too much for his nerves.

“Ivan?” Deacon Fitzgerald called. “You there?”

Grunting with relief, Ivan opened the door to behold his new neighbor carrying a black cat. “Take care of her for a few hours, will you? She’s on a new medication or I wouldn’t ask. I’ve got to run off to a parishioner’s house—family emergency.” He draped the cat over Ivan’s shoulder. Claws dug through his T-shirt. “Her name’s Bastet.”

Ivan closed the door on convivial festival sounds and lamb curry aromas wafting out of the plaza. The cat crawled over his shoulder and landed on the bed with a low growl. Scooting the cat over, Ivan reclined with the laptop on his stomach. Bastet licked a dainty paw then drew four bloody lines across the back of his hand. Within a second she was settled next to Ivan’s head and purring in his ear. Just like a typical woman, he thought. Drawing blood one second, fawning the next. He missed his shop cat, his even-tempered
male
shop cat, and hoped Connie was taking good care of him.

“Where do I look next, cat?” he said.

Ivan had found the
Preliminary Enrollment for Succour
for infant Kate easily enough. It was one thing to hold an orphaned daughter over Liam’s head, quite another to threaten publicizing that Liam was the one to abandon her. Could be Lonnie used this information to increase Liam’s, maybe even Kate’s, payments to the €1,000 Danny had mentioned, but why would Merrit cough up extra money?

The answer was that she wouldn’t and this wasn’t the super secret. Lonnie must have discovered yet something else. However, novitiate Evangeline’s report brought up an interesting question: how did Kate confirm the tall, thin, red-haired man was Liam? The mangled hand was interesting, true, but still, the description was generic enough to fit thousands of Irish men. It wasn’t likely she’d come to Lisfenora on a hunch, not Kate.

Curious, Ivan looked up the creation date for the orphanage document. Kate had scanned in the document four years previously. Four years she’d searched for a tall, thin, red-haired man, possibly with a gimpy hand. That was diabolical dedication.

“I suppose that does not matter to me,” he said to Bastet. “Except for Connie, you females are treacherous. Devious. In fact, you must be Kate’s familiar sent here to curse me.” The cat nipped his earlobe.

Ivan returned to Kate’s archives. He’d already perused the 1975 folder, so he opened the 1976 folder. Ivan scanned the contents and found nothing but the typical boring publicity. He continued on, folder by folder, dozing and then shaking himself awake. What seemed like hours later, he opened the 1980 folder. More of the same. The substance of the articles changed little from year to year.
Lisfenora Boasts Largest Turnout. Mr. Marriage Matchmaker
. Ivan had only to read the first few sentences to know he’d find nothing interesting.

A file titled
Zero Hour
caused him hope, then ennui, when he opened it to read the full headline:
Zero Hour Pressure for Matchmaker
. Reporters manufactured drama to camouflage the same old facts.

He yawned, dozing off again. Bastet, who’d been chewing on his hair, chose that moment to pounce on the keyboard in a flurry of black limbs. She wrapped her forelegs around one of Ivan’s hands. Her back legs scrabbled against his arm.

“
Chert voz’mi
, get away from me!” Ivan flung out his arm. Bastet sunk her teeth into his thumb and let go. Bloody wheals covered his arm and hand. He’d probably die now like in that American song “Cat Scratch Fever.”

Ivan was about to toss the cat into the bathroom when the word
dead
snagged his attention. Feline antics atop the keyboard had caused the computer to scroll further into the document. It took him a moment to understand that he was now gazing at a second article that Kate had imbedded into the file so that it followed the
Zero Pressure
nonsense. Dead crafty, that Kate.

“Ah,” Ivan breathed and wondered if Lonnie had jumped for joy when he landed on this treasure. Ivan clicked once to close the file, his thoughts whirring through Lonnie’s likely thought process—painful as thinking must have been for his ex-boss—until he was satisfied that he knew what Lonnie had believed, which in turn must be what Kate still believed.

Ivan jumped to his feet. He, Ivan Ivanov, now had data that he could use to bargain for his sorry life. So could he, Ivan Ivanov, not act for once? But how? And who did he think he was? The pitiful fact remained that who you knew set the course for your life. In Soviet Russia, then independent Belarus, and now Ireland. The same all over again: buggered for lack of status.

Unless.

Ivan returned to the laptop. “If I were the Internet café owner, what would I do to turn profit?” he asked Bastet.

For a start, sell coffee. Ivan tapped lightly on the keys without depressing them. He set his brain to turning over the matter, all the while hoping that O’Brien the Elder maintained a pragmatic view of business. After all, better to keep Internet Café going than to close it down. Business was business, money was money, and Mr. O’Brien was an expert on both. Maybe Mr. O’Brien would like to know what Lonnie had discovered. Maybe he would like to keep Lonnie’s schemes from becoming public knowledge. Maybe he, Ivan Ivanov, could remain in Ireland without Kate’s hellish patronage and, best yet, remain with Connie too.