Malarkey (12 page)

"Oh, come on, Jay."

"It's fake, right?"

"True."

"It's pretentious, right?"

"I catch your drift."

"Fun," he said. "But not as much fun as the Arab guy who
had all those nude statues around his LA estate painted in realistic
colors."

I said austerely, "Alex and Barbara are restoring Stanyon as
an investment. Alex, at least, regards it with a certain ironic
detachment." I told him about the company logo picked out in
stained glass.

"Jesus." He shook his head, but he was smiling.

We slipped through the huge oak door as a group of women
were leaving. The data processors, obviously. They nodded and said
good evening. One of the women whipped out a cigarette before she
stepped off the verandah and lit it with a flourish. I grinned at her,
and she grinned back. She was old enough to be Slade Wheeler's
mother.

I gave Jay a moment to admire the towering staircase then I
led him to the salon.

Our entrance created a stir. There were six people in the
room—the Steins, Liam, Mike, Tracy, and Kayla Wheeler. Kayla sat by
herself next to the open window. The rest clustered around the
drinks trolley.

Kayla stared and went back to her brooding cigarette, but
the others broke off their conversation. Barbara took a step toward
us. She looked startled rather than pleased.

I said, "My husband flew over to babysit, so I thought I'd
better bring him to meet you."

Barbara's eyes widened, and she extended her hand. "I'm
Barbara Stein."

"Jay Dodge. Interesting house." He shook hands.

Alex came forward. "It's pretty horrible, really. The loo in
the cloakroom backed up this morning, and our builder's
disappeared. I'm Alex. Welcome to Ireland. Do you want wine or
something stronger?"

"I thought this was beer country," Jay said amiably, shaking
Alex's hand.

"Guinness?"

"Might as well try it."

"Lark?"

"A glass of red wine," I murmured.

I let the Steins introduce Jay to the other Stonehouse people.
With a grimace, Barbara led him over to Kayla. He shook hands with
Wheeler's sister and murmured condolences. Kayla leaned forward
in her chair, wobbling a little. Though I didn't hear what she said, I
could see her eyes gleaming all the way across the room. Barbara
drifted back. She looked at me, and I shrugged. It was clear that Kayla
was taken with Jay.

That is not uncommon. He is no more than ordinarily good-
looking, he was wearing a mungy Shoalwater College sweatshirt over
jeans, and, at forty-four, he was the oldest person in the room, but
Jay has never lacked charm. Apparently he turned it on for
Kayla.

I asked Tracy how her disk was coming along, and she
described a programming glitch in gloomy detail. In fact, the general
atmosphere was glum. Mike and Barbara were arguing about
something without heat, while Alex and Liam worried aloud about
the cost of a new electronic scanner. Jay rejoined the group after a
decent interval, leaving Kayla to her chilly perch by the open
window. She lit a Players and watched his buns through the
smoke.

"How do you like the Guinness?" Alex moved aside to make
room for my husband in the cluster by the trolley.

"Heavy but tasty." Jay slid into a discussion of Irish vs.
American beer with a smooth comment on microbreweries. He was
drinking his stout slowly, but he tends to do that.

Kayla stubbed out her cigarette, rose, and wobbled across
the room. "Night everbuddy."

No one reminded her that she had not yet eaten dinner.
Polite murmurs from the group. She brushed Jay as she wobbled past
and he put out a hand to steady her.

"Night, big boy."

"Ms. Wheeler."

She made it to the door, clung to the frame a moment, then
lurched through.

Alex watched her progress with anxious eyes. "Why doesn't
she go back to London?"

Tracy's lip curled. "Free gin?"

We picked up the frayed threads of our conversations and
sipped at our drinks. I checked my watch but it wasn't yet seven. I'd
told Dad we'd have dinner at eight, so there was lots of time.

Tracy wound down her technical complaints and set her
empty wine glass on the trolley. "Well, I'm off, folks. Heavy date with
my landlord."

Mike hooted. "That old fraud?"

Tracy grinned. "He may be old, and he may be a fraud, but he
takes me to dinner at Grayble's at thirty punts a whack. And he
dances like Fred Astaire."

"Sure, he's Fred Astaire's illegitimate brother," Liam
murmured.

General laughter. Jay and I smiled, though I missed the full
flavor of the joke. Tracy left. She was scarcely out the door when
Maeve, looking cross, appeared with Sgt. Kennedy
en train
.
Kennedy wore tweeds again and a dark bruise showed on his left
cheekbone. He was at his blandest, and he was holding something in
his left hand.

I introduced Jay to Maeve first. Irritation vanished. Her eyes
gleamed. She shook hands and said something graceful, then slipped
past us to the bar where Barbara was already pouring her a glass of
wine.

The two men shook hands warily, and Kennedy held out a
dust-jacketed book. "I've brought the latest edition, Mr. Dodge. Hot
off the plane from London. Will you sign it for me? Sure, my copy of
the original is all dog-eared and covered with tea stains."

Jay blushed.

As I watched him take Kennedy's pen and sign the book, I
must admit I was amused and surprised. Clearly the Gardai had a
direct line to Passport Control, if they knew Jay had come.

It was possible that Kennedy did own a copy of the first
British edition of Jay's book. The previous year, Jay had published a
slim textbook on modern techniques of gathering and safeguarding
evidence in criminal cases. It was published simultaneously in the
U.S. and Britain in slightly different versions.

The text must have fulfilled a real need. It went through two
printings in six weeks. Of course, the initial run was small. Jay had
seen an updated version to the printer in September. Not a best-
seller, exactly, but a winner with police departments and training
programs.

In my opinion the book was successful because of Jay's style,
which is terse and clear without over-simplifying what is becoming a
highly technical subject. Nevertheless, he doesn't think of
Modern
Evidence Procedures
, a.k.a.
Evidence
, as a real book, like
our friend Tom Lindquist's novels or my mother's collections of
poetry. It embarrasses him when anyone treats him like an
Author.

I thought he ought to get over that. I also wondered what
Kennedy was after. I distrusted his innocent country boy air.

I watched Jay hand the book back and cap the pen, and
decided I ought to come to the rescue. "What happened to your face,
sergeant? That's a nasty contusion."

Kennedy heaved a sigh. "Wasn't it just Aidan Flynn
defending the family honor when we brought Gracie home for a wee
chat with her da?"

Jay looked from Kennedy to me and back.

"Good heavens," I said, "how did you subdue him? With a
choke hold?" I'll admit that was malicious.

"Sure, we're not so quick with our hands as the boys in the
States. The missus laid him out with a frying pan." Sgt. Kennedy
stuffed Jay's book into the patch pocket of his tweed jacket. He
smiled at Jay and at Alex Stein who came up with a glass of stout.
"Ah, that's the ticket. Thank you, lad."

Alex said, "We owe you a dinner, Joe."

Kennedy touched his cheek bone. "It may be
Gracie
owes me a dinner, or at least a beefsteak." The bruise was not quite a
black eye.

Everyone laughed and the tension eased. At least my tension
eased. The others may not have felt any. Jay's ears were no longer
scarlet.

Maeve took the book from Kennedy and showed it to Liam
and Mike. The sergeant seemed to be in an expansive mood. He
evaded Barbara's questions about the investigation with aplomb and
gave Jay and me a reassuring account of what I could expect at the
inquest.

"...and the coroner won't keep you on the stand very long,
Mrs. Dodge," he concluded. "Ten minutes at most. How's the old
gentleman?"

"My father? He's well. We left him working on his Quaker
research."

"Sure, you're a literary family."

"Scribble, scribble, scribble," I said cheerfully. "I barely write
invoices myself."

Kennedy laughed and drew Jay aside.

Barbara said, "Your mother's Mary Wandworth Dailey, isn't
she?"

I sighed. "Yes, and she's fussing over Dad like a broody hen.
She bullied Jay into flying over." That was probably not the whole
truth, but it would do for public consumption.

"I was thinking of giving a dinner for her when she
comes."

"I'm sure she'd like that, Barbara, but don't go to a great deal
of trouble."

"It's no trouble," Barbara said slowly. "The thing is, I
wouldn't want her to feel used. The Irish like poets, you know, and
her reputation here is substantial. I need to mend a few social fences.
We've been too busy gearing up to return the hospitality we received
when we first came."

And a poet might help counter the association of Stanyon
with wargames. She didn't say that, but we both understood the
context.

Why not? At least Barbara's chef wouldn't feed Ma rubber
chicken. "Do remember Dad's condition and spare him a formal
banquet."

She smiled. "I can guarantee that. I'll keep it small." The
smile faded and a puzzled frown creased her forehead. "I thought
your husband was a policeman."

"He used to be. These days he runs a police training
program at Shoalwater College."

"Ah, I see. Another academic."

I said, "Jay is well-read and a pretty good seat-of-the-pants
scholar, but I think he'd balk at being labeled academic." That was
also true. Strange, but true.

Maeve had joined us, leaving Mike and Liam to thumb
through Jay's book. I couldn't imagine why they wanted to.

Maeve had caught my mother's name. "Would your mother
be interested in meeting with women poets who live in the Wicklow
area, do you think?"

I suppressed a twinge of annoyance. When I was younger I
resented my mother's mild fame. "If you have a pen, I'll give you her
phone number. I think she knows Eilis Lachlan." Lachlan was an
outstanding academic poet. "Call Ma and distract her from worrying
about my father. It would be a favor."

Maeve fumbled in her handbag and came up with a slim gold
pen and a rather grubby notebook the size of my palm.

I scribbled the number. "It's unlisted—ex-directory, that
is."

"I won't give it out. Thanks, Lark." She took the notebook
back with an air of reverence and gave me a ravishing smile. "How
fortunate your husband was able to come. I'm not clear about the
American academic calendar, though I know you finish well before
we do."

"That's true." I remembered she was an archaeologist and
wondered if she lectured at Trinity or the National University.
Perhaps she just worked for the OPW. I wondered if she was into
dolmens. I wondered if she knew about the incised stone I had found
in the woods.

"Does he have a long Easter holiday, or is the term over
already?" Maeve persisted.

Jay said, "It is in full swing. I'm a truant." He looked ruffled,
as if Kennedy had said something to trouble him. Kennedy regarded
me blandly, the blue, blue eyes wide and innocent.

I saw no reason to condone Jay's truancy. "Who's covering
for you?"

"The adjuncts and Cason in sociology."

Professor Cason had not been enthusiastic about training
police officers when Jay set up the program, but the two men got
along well enough. "I'll bet he likes that."

"Probably not," Jay said curtly. "But he owes me."

The impracticality of Jay leaving his students in mid-quarter
had been bothering me. Why had he done anything so headlong and
unnecessary?

I didn't intend to conduct our quarrel in public, but I
couldn't resist asking, "What about the report writing class?" The
report writing class was the grand finale for degree students. They
had to pass it or they didn't graduate. Fortunately there were only
eight or ten of them.

By this time the rest of the group was listening, though I
couldn't see why. The subject couldn't have been interesting to
outsiders.

Jay sighed. "I brought the laptop, Lark. It has a modem. They
can submit their assignments via e-mail." He glanced around. "And if
I'm going to set that up, we'd better go back to the cottage." He
swallowed the last of his Guinness and set the empty schooner
beside Tracy's wine glass.

He had said the magic word, however. The idea of
conducting a college class by e-mail was meat and drink to the
Stonehall crew. They began asking Jay excited and extremely shrewd
questions.

At first he responded with terse impatience, but their
interest was genuine. What was more, they had useful suggestions.
Barbara got out a pad of yellow legal paper and jotted down a crucial
Internet address. Mike Novak flipped
Evidence
open to the
table of contents and began analyzing the ease with which it could be
transformed into an interactive disk. I thought of my spaghetti
sauce.

Sgt. Kennedy caught my eye. "They're moon-mad, lass."

I looked at my ruffled husband, caught in a whirlpool of
techie enthusiasm, and raised my wine glass. "I'll drink to that."

Maeve laughed and clinked her glass on mine.

I'm a rake and a rambling boy.
There's
many a city I did enjoy...

American song

"Why do I feel older than Methuselah's granddaddy?"

I glanced over at Jay's damp, unrevealing profile. "I thought
the Stonehall crew had fine ideas."

"Yes, and it's a good thing Barbara wrote them down.
Otherwise I'd forget them."