Malarkey (19 page)

I thought about sending him off to bed, though it was only
eight. Noon at home. Three in Childers, New York. I took the tray
from him. "Why don't you call Mother?"

He gave a heavy sigh. "I suppose I ought to. She'll fuss,
though."

Ma might fuss but she would distract him from the image of
Kayla, purple-faced with her tongue protruding. It was just possible
my father had no idea what a strangling victim looked like. I hoped
not. I wished
I
didn't.

I said, "It's Sunday. Isn't she expecting you to call?"

He nodded and trailed into the other room. When I heard
him greeting Mother, I started scraping plates into the crammed
garbage pail. I had stacked the dishes and run a panful of hot soapy
water before Jay came in. Dad was still on the phone.

Jay stretched and yawned. "Great dinner, Lark."

I handed him a wet sponge. "What impression?"

He blinked at the sponge. "Eh?"

"Joe said Mahon wanted you to confirm his impression.
What impression?"

He tossed the sponge into the dishpan and rolled up his
sleeves. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"Did Mahon hire you?"

"No."

"Then you are a bystander, my friend. Like Dad. Like me.
When you're part of an official investigation, I keep my questions to
myself."

"You do?" He scrubbed a plate. "I hadn't noticed."

"Stop patronizing me. You have no standing in this case, and
you know I won't spill my guts to the
Daily
Blatt
. So
give." I picked up the dishtowel.

He dunked the clean plate in the steaming rinse water and
handed it to me. "Come on, Lark—"

"No, you come on. I will not be treated like the domestic
help."

"Look, I'm sorry about dinner. I was getting set to peel
potatoes when Mahon called me." He handed me another plate.

I dried it.

"I made the beds."

"Big deal." Making the beds involved straightening two
duvets and plumping three pillows.

He handed me the remaining plates.

I wiped them with the soft towel.

"All right, you win. Mahon wanted me to confirm Kennedy's
interpretation of certain physical evidence."

I carried the four dried plates to the cupboard. "I'm
waiting."

"Joe thought the assailant was probably smaller than the
victim. Kayla put up quite a struggle. Things were knocked around.
Of course I didn't see the body
in situ
, but Joe described what
he saw pretty vividly. There was bruising, too, and it wasn't
post
mortem
."

I closed my eyes, visualizing Kayla. I kept seeing her walking
down the Stanyon stairway dressed in black. "Where was she
killed?"

He hesitated again then shrugged. "Her room. It was off by
itself in the east wing. They use that room and the connecting bath
for guests." He tossed a handful of clean flatware into the rinse
water. "Mahon thinks the killer entered through the bath. It has two
doors, one to the hall and one to the bedroom."

I fished out a fork and two spoons. "And there were no other
guests?"

"No overnight guests. Novak lives in Arklow. He went
home."

I laid the dried silverware on a clean cloth. "When?"

"Soon after the Steins left for Killaveen. Or so he says." Jay
thrust another fistful of flatware into the water. "He claims he locked
the front door but didn't enable the alarm system."

"Alex and Barbara probably told him not to."

"So they say." He didn't sound as if he doubted them. The
skepticism was an ingrained reaction.

I dried knives and forks. "Kayla was a big woman."

"Five ten. About a hundred and ninety pounds. Of flab." He
dipped the carving knife in the rinse water and handed it to me.

"Flab or no flab, she would have resisted." I dried the knife
and restored it to the big wooden knife holder.

"If she was conscious. The Steins and Novak seemed to think
she was drunk when she went up after dinner."

"Is that going to confuse things?"

He began scrubbing the potato pan. "The autopsy will clear
up some of the questions."

"Mahon should look for bruises on his suspects."

"I believe the thought has occurred to him."

I stared at him. "No need to be snotty. I was thinking
aloud."

He swished the pan. "Alex claims he stumbled yesterday and
fell down half a flight of stairs." His tone was dispassionate.

I finished the residual flatware slowly, polishing each piece
and laying it on the soft cloth. "All the Stonehall people are smaller
than Kayla was, shorter and lighter. I don't think Barbara could have
tackled her at all. Barbara is barely five feet tall and a hundred
pounds maximum."

"On the other hand, she has studied tae kwan do."

"Wonderful."

"With her bruised husband." He stuck the clean pan in the
tepid water and began sloshing out the big kettle.

"You'll need fresh hot water for the wine glasses."

"Right." He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "Don't
patronize
me
."

"Not," I said, "a perfect parallel."

"Few things are perfect." He rinsed the kettle.

I took it, dried it, and slammed it onto the cool end of the
Rayburn.

"Lighten up, Lark."

"Why should I when you're doing your best to make me feel
incompetent?"

"Lower your voice." He nodded toward the other room.

Both of us listened. Dad was still talking.

I drew a long breath. "Okay, I'm a loudmouthed interfering
broad."

"Not very broad."

"Cut it out."

He poured the water from the dishpan down the drain and
began running a fresh panful. He squirted liquid soap into it and
swore when it sudsed up. So he wasn't as cool as he sounded.
"Supposing you explain what you mean by incompetent. Believe me,
the thought has never crossed my mind."

"Not at the conscious level, perhaps."

"Not at any level. You have your quirks, but idiocy isn't one
of them and neither is helplessness." He stuck his right hand in the
rinse water, decided it was too cold, and tipped it out, too.

He turned on the hot water tap with a gush of steam. "It
makes me uncomfortable to talk about a case that's under
investigation. The response is automatic. I'm sorry if it annoys
you."

"I don't like being shut out." I squinted at him through the
steam.

He turned the tap off and added a judicious squirt of cold
water to the rinsing pan. "Neither do I."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He washed a wine glass and rolled it in rinse water. "This
wordplay between you and Joe Kennedy, what's the deal?"

"The sergeant and I enjoy verbal oddities." I dried the first
wine glass as he set two others in the rinse water.

"And that's it?"

"That's it."

He rinsed the last wine glass, dampened the sponge, and
began wiping down the exposed surfaces. "All right. He's a nice
enough guy, I guess."

"It's not his fault that he looks like a god," I said with great
earnestness.

Jay paused, sponge raised, gave me suspicious stare, then
started to laugh. "Okay, okay. No more scenes from
Othello
."

We tidied the kitchen in fair accord and went into the living
room as Dad was hanging up. Ma's workshop was going well. Dad
had revived. He challenged us to a round of Scrabble and the rest of
the evening passed peacefully.

I got up at six Monday morning, the day of the inquest. Jay
was sound asleep, face half-buried in the pillow. I got out an exercise
suit and my running shoes, dressed, and tiptoed upstairs. I started a
pot of coffee, unlatched the front door, and slipped outside. Sunlight
filtered through thinning mist.

I did my stretches and set out at a gentle jog. A hard run
would have been unwise on the graveled surface. I jogged to the Y
and headed toward Stanyon Hall. The drive curved down and looped
back with a turnoff to the front door of the house.

I could see a uniformed Garda peering at me from the stone
porch. I flipped my hand in a wave and followed the loop back to the
Y and on up to the paved road. I didn't have the courage to run on
Suicide Lane even at that hour, so I wheeled around and jogged back
to the cottage. Not much of a workout. However, when I had
showered and drunk a couple of mugs of coffee I did feel better. It
was possible that my ill-temper the day before had been the result of
a week of sitting. At home I ran on the beach almost every
morning.

Jay wandered up at eight and Dad half an hour later. They
went for a walk together and returned as I finished toasting the
remains of the cottage loaf. I also sliced soda bread.

"There's juice and dry cereal," I announced. "I don't feel like
cooking breakfast."

Neither of them complained. They didn't cook anything,
though. I don't think my father can. Ma's housekeeper had made
splendid breakfasts for us of all the forbidden foods. My brother,
Tod, blames his hypertension squarely on Mrs. Schultz's cooking. Me,
I think his problem is lack of exercise, a messy divorce, and making
too much money as a stockbroker. Not to mention the Republican
Party. I'm fond of Tod, but he's a fuss-budget.

I
fussed that morning over what to wear. There was
an ironing board, thank God. I dragged out my travel iron, hoping the
lever was turned to the right voltage. It must have been. By nine-
thirty I was dressed in a heather gray suit with a boring silk blouse
and a pair of conservative earrings. I even wore pumps. Jay said I
looked like a lawyer.

"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy," I muttered, too
dispirited for originality. In fact, Jay looked like an unemployed
college professor, which was what he was going to be if he didn't fly
home soon. Dad looked like a retired college professor.

"Come and show me the security alarm," Jay said.

"On the wall beside the front door. It's not very far from
here to the meeting hall," I added. "Shall we walk?"

Jay shook his head. "Press."

I groaned. "I hate this."

The worry lines deepened around Dad's mouth. "Sergeant
Kennedy assured us the coroner won't keep you on the stand very
long, my dear. I'm sure you'll do splendidly."·

I forced a smile. "That part will be fine. I was moaning about
the reporters."

"We shall give them the slip," Dad said magnificently.

"They'll photograph me with my mouth open and my eyes
crossed."

"Then we won't buy newspapers." Jay took my arm. "The
alarm system?"

I showed him where it was and wrote out the code for him
that would disable it when we returned. I don't know why I did that.
Perhaps, at some level, I was expecting to be arrested.

Jay packed his computer into its case and put it in the
hatchback of the car with his anorak draped over it for camouflage.
He was taking no chances. "Ready to go?"

"When you are." I took the car keys from Jay and stuck my
head back in the kitchen. "Dad?"

My father had gone downstairs for a precautionary pit stop.
By the time he finally came outside and Jay had set the alarm, it was
ten minutes of ten. I made a jack-rabbit start, and the engine
died.

"Take it easy," Jay murmured from the back seat.

I clutched the wheel and tried again, pulling out with careful
smoothness.

We ought to have started earlier. Cars filled the tiny parking
lot and spilled out along both sides of the narrow road. I finally
nosed as far onto the verge as I could go without trapping my father
on the passenger side and got out. Jay extricated himself from the
back seat, took the keys, and locked up for me.

We almost made it into the hall undetected because a clump
of reporters and photographers had backed Alex and Barbara Stein
against a tombstone—the "yard" of the hall bled directly into the
Protestant burial ground. Then Maeve spotted me from the
entrance.

"Hullo, Lark!" she called in a lecture hall voice, and the game
was up. Two reporters and a camcorder leapt for us.

"Mrs. Dodge," one of them shouted, shoving a microphone at
me, "what was your sensation when—"

My father drew himself up to his full height. "Good morning.
We shall have no comment until after the coroner has adjourned the
inquest." He, too, can produce a lecture hall boom.

Beside me, Jay chuckled. He took my arm and shoved me
toward Maeve. She had saved seats for us, she murmured, leading us
rapidly down a short hallway decorated with ancient bulletins and
Sunday school art so old it was curling at the edges.

The coroner sat at an ordinary folding table at the front of
the small auditorium. He was thumbing through a thick printout, and
the green, white, and orange flag of the republic drooped at his
elbow. A box had been improvised for the jury. I saw a blur of
tweedy suits.

Maeve led us to seats on the far aisle, two rows from the
front. The hall was packed and everyone watched us. Much
whispering. I felt my ears burn, and I kept my eyes on the floor. We
sat without major upheavals, I on the aisle because I would have to
get out to testify.

The coroner whisked through the opening ceremonies and
called Joe Kennedy. Joe was in uniform. Most of his testimony eluded
me. It sounded dull and official. I was trying to remember what I had
seen and done in what order.

The coroner called the police doctor. More officialese, this
time confounded with doctor talk. There were no surprises. Slade
Wheeler had suffered from fatty degeneration of the arteries. He
died as a result of manual compression of the carotid arteries in the
neck. The compression had cut off the supply of blood to the brain.
What the medical examiner actually said was vagal inhibition. He
meant a choke hold.

The time of death lay between 2200 hours Easter night and
six the next morning. The doctor was apologetic about his vagueness,
but it had been cold out. He believed that the body had been moved
at least twice after death, once to the downstairs hall of the cottage
and, some hours later, to the potting shed.