Malarkey (17 page)

"Ma'am," I shot back. "A true cop would say ma'am. And
don't tell me ma'am is reserved for addressing royalty. This is a
republic."

"God help us, so it is. Ma'am."

Jay took in this badinage without expression, but I could feel
him watching me.

I filled the kettle while the sergeant shoved a fresh cassette
into the player and adjusted the volume. Neither Jay nor Maeve
wanted more tea. I didn't either but I made myself a cup by way of
civility.

The kettle shrieked. When the tea had turned peat black,
and he had sugared his, Kennedy took a scalding sip. He set his mug
down. "Now, then, Miss Butler, if you'll state your full name and
direction."

Maeve complied. Her middle name was Margaret and the
Dublin address sounded like a flat. She was thirty-four. She indicated
that she was a lecturer at Trinity College.

"How long have you known Mr. and Mrs. Stein?"

"A year. I met them last Easter holiday shortly after the
company removed to Stanyon Hall."

"And you are friends?" He swallowed tea.

"Yes, we see each other when I'm stopping at my father's
house—most holidays and whenever I have a dig nearby."

He took her local address, which sounded like an estate
rather than a cottage. "How long have you known Kayla
Wheeler?"

"Not long. I first met her evening before last."

"At what time did you enter Stanyon Hall this past evening?"
His voice droned. He was going through the motions.

It occurred to me that the Steins had called Joe when they
found the body, leaving him to call Mahon. Mahon might have
perceived that as interference and directed him to interrogate Maeve
as a way of removing him from the crime scene. Mahon didn't seem
small-minded, but territoriality is a strange phenomenon. Jay also
reacted to Joe territorially.

"Half eight," Maeve was saying. "A bit past that."

"Who answered your ring?"

"I didn't use the doorbell. The Steins leave the front door
unlocked whilst they're up and about. I walked into the foyer. I
expected Alex and Barbara to be waiting for me, but they weren't, so
I nipped along to the drawing room. I found Alex there. He said Miss
Wheeler hadn't come down yet."

"He used those words?"

"Approximately. He was impatient. He said Barbara had
gone to knock her up."

"His words?"

Not bloody likely,
I thought.

"That was the gist," Maeve snapped. "Alex said Miss Wheeler
had been drinking and intimated he thought she might have, er,
passed out."

"I see. How long did you wait before Mrs. Stein
appeared?"

"Not long. She came in almost at once. She told me she and
Alex would have to wait for Miss Wheeler and drive to the pub in
their own car. She knew I had guests sitting outside in my van."

"The three of you were alone in the drawing room?"

"No. Mr. Novak was reading in a corner. He had greeted me
and made a few remarks. He, er, commented on Miss Wheeler's
propensity to drink deep. It was well known."

"Novak was there?" Kennedy's voice rang sharp.

Maeve blinked. "Employees are often there in the
evening."

"Working?"

"It's not a conventional workplace."

"It was Saturday night."

Maeve said nothing and looked rather alarmed. After a
moment, she added, "Mike Novak and Alex had been talking when I
entered. Casually, I thought. Alex seemed to take Mike's presence for
granted."

"Did you see other members of the Stonehall staff, or of the
household staff, when you were in Stanyon Hall?"

"No. I left at once."

"Thank you." He shut off the machine and swore. "Novak.
The Steins didn't mention him. We accounted for the chef and the
housekeeper. I wonder who locked the front door and when."

"Mike had probably gone home by the time you were
called." Maeve sounded worried, as if she had betrayed Novak or the
Steins, or both. "I daresay they forgot him."

Kennedy scowled. "Would the Steins have locked the door
before they left for the pub?"

"I don't know, Joe. Ask them."

"I shall." He rubbed the back of his neck. "The housekeeper
had secured the other doors by half seven, and there's an electronic
alarm in place. Why install an elaborate security system if you mean
to leave the front door wide to the world?"

I winced. Until that moment I had forgotten the security
system at the cottage. We had not rearmed it that evening.

"It's inconvenient to be jumping up and answering the
doorbell every five minutes," Maeve said. "Wicklow's rural. My father
has never locked his doors in daytime."

"You father has a bloody butler."

"My father
is
a bloody Butler," she rejoined. The
more irritable the sergeant got the sweeter Maeve sounded. She
turned to me with a confiding air. "Like the Steins, Papa has a
resident housekeeper. Barbara told me they locked the place up and
activated the alarms twenty-four hours a day when they first came—
because of the computers. They had false alerts every half
hour."

I sighed. At least I locked the door whenever we left.

Kennedy sighed too. He reached into his tunic and pulled
out a small notebook. Apparently he used the recorder only for
official statements. "In a general way, an open door would be
understandable. This isn't Dublin. I remember the false alarms, God
knows, but you'd think Slade Wheeler's murder would have
registered at Stanyon. The
neighbors
are locking their
doors."

When no one replied he went on, "This death puts a
different complexion on the first one."

"The wargamers are out?" I had trouble with that. I
remembered the daub of paint on Wheeler's forehead too vividly to
discount it.

"Not out." Joe frowned. "But the motive seems less apparent.
Also—" He hesitated. "The
modus operandi
was different this
time." He looked at Jay, still frowning.

Jay didn't react. His impassivity had begun to annoy
me.

"How was she killed?" I asked the obvious question. Maeve
leaned forward, her eyes on Joe.

He looked at me. "Not with a choke hold. Sure, I can't give
you the details, Lark, though the press will be hot on the trail soon
enough. The coroner will adjourn the inquest on her brother. I can
tell you that much."

"But I'll still have to give evidence?"

"He won't keep you ten minutes."

"Pity there's no other Wheeler heir about." Maeve was
fidgeting, buttoning and unbuttoning her short coat, as if she meant
to leave.

Joe flipped the notebook open. "Why?"

"
Cui bono
? You need a fresh suspect."

"There
is
another Wheeler heir," I said. "Grace's
child."

Maeve drew a sharp breath. Had she forgotten Grace?
Perhaps she didn't take Grace's claim seriously. "Caitlin says the
child's rights will be disputed even if the DNA establishes paternity.
Our laws are no more generous to bastards than they are to women.
But Wheeler was an American national. Caitlin wants to make a test
case." She glared at Joe.

He was impassive. "We'll have to speak to Gracie. I...that is,
Mahon thought the killer was out to wreck the war games. It may be
he's out to wreck Stonehall."

"Or exterminate Wheelers," Jay said dryly.

"The press will play that up, too."

I groaned. My relations with the fourth estate in an
investigative mood have sometimes been less than cheerful. Surely
Irish journalists would not be as adhesive as the staff of the
Daily
Blatt
, my favorite English tabloid.

I caught Jay suppressing a grin. Remembering my earlier
media disasters had cracked his blank façade. He said in a
warmer voice, "We'll set the security alarm here—"

"If you please." Joe apparently missed the byplay. His tone
was heavy. "I've a constable on duty at the station. Better a false
alarm than none. This is an isolated house, and I don't like its
proximity to Stanyon Woods."

Jay's eyes widened then narrowed. "Do you think there was
action in the woods today?"

"Action? I don't know. The estate is an odd place altogether,
house and grounds." He hesitated. "It had unsavory associations in
the last century."

Maeve made a rude noise. "Sure, it's the Orangemen out to
get us."

Joe gave her an unloving glance and turned back to Jay and
me. "For a time there was a sort of Hellfire Club convened at a folly in
the woods. Scandalized the local gentry. The folly was torn down
long ago."

"In the woods?" I asked. I was thinking of the incised stone.
"Where?"

He shrugged. "I'm not certain. The place has been planted
with conifers since then. An Orange Lodge met on the grounds
during the land wars."

Jay frowned. "Orange?"

"Ultra-Unionist, anti-Catholic fanatics."

"Ian Paisley types?"

Joe flipped his notebook shut. "Exactly, except that that lot
were in power at the time. The army and the constabulary were
riddled with Orangemen, and old Stanyon, the man who built the
hall, was a ringleader. His son played a prominent role in the
Curragh Mutiny."

Jay said mildly, "You may take my ignorance for
granted."

Maeve clucked. "Americans."

"
The Strange Death of Liberal England
," I murmured,
citing a good popular history. "I read it because it dealt with woman
suffrage."

"And Home Rule for Ireland." Maeve bestowed an approving
nod on me as if I were an apt pupil. "In 1914, the Liberal Parliament
passed a bill that would have given Ireland self-government."

"Limited self-government," Joe growled.

Maeve ignored the interruption. "Army officers stationed at
the Curragh—that's in Kildare—swore an oath they would refuse to
obey orders if Parliament directed the British army to withdraw
from Ireland. The officers were Anglo-Irish, of course. Technically,
they were in a state of mutiny."

Jay raised an eyebrow. "As if an American officer had
refused a presidential order?"

Maeve frowned, considering parallels.

Joe said impatiently, "Close enough. They were traitors, but
well-connected Protestant traitors. The English hanged Catholics
who defied the law like pictures in a gallery."

"True enough." Maeve spread her hands. "The Great War
broke out a few weeks after the Home Rule Bill passed, so
Parliament suspended the bill for the duration. They couldn't deal
with the Germans if the officer corps were in a state of mutiny. Most
of the officers were killed in France."

"And by the end of the war it was too late for a peaceful
settlement," Joe said flatly.

I ransacked my memory. "The Easter Rebellion?"

"Sure, it happened in 1916."

"'A terrible beauty is born,'" Jay quoted.

Maeve looked surprised, as if she thought cops shouldn't
read poetry.

Joe rose. "Stanyon's two sons were killed at the Somme.
There were grandchildren, but his executors sold the estate after the
Civil War. A wonder the house wasn't burnt."

Maeve said, "You know very well it wasn't burnt because the
Irregulars were using the woods as a munitions depot."

Joe's lips clamped together.

Jay looked from one to the other. "I deplore ignorance of
history including my own, but has it occurred to anyone that Ireland
might be better off with a case of collective amnesia?"

The Irish contingent looked at him without expression. After
a moment, Maeve gave a short laugh. "Better off, perhaps, but not
half as Irish."

They left shortly after that, Joe first. Maeve waited until we
could hear the car engine whine and the gravel crunch as he pulled
out. I think she was avoiding any possibility of private conversation
with him.

She stood up and looked at me. "My mother is English," she
announced with an air of detachment. Without further ado, she
collected her handbag, buttoned the short coat, and headed for the
door.

Jay said, "Thank you for the concert, Maeve. I'm sorry
fetching us embroiled you in this."

She cast a brilliant smile over her shoulder. "Ah, I was bound
to entangle myself in it one way or another. I like the Steins. If you
think of a way I can help them, be sure to let me know. I'm off to
Dublin after the inquest. I've lectures Tuesday and Wednesday, but I
shall bring the first lot of students down to the site the next day. If
you'd like to drive over to see the dig on Friday, ring me up at my
father's."

When she had gone it occurred to me that I had no idea
what her father's first name was. There was bound to be a surfeit of
Butlers in the telephone directory.

Jay was fussing around the kitchen, tidying things.

"So how was Kayla killed?"

He shrugged. "Kennedy didn't say." He sounded
irritated.

I yawned and stretched. "Bed?" It was two-thirty, or, in Irish
usage, half two. I was pooped or knackered, take your pick, too tired,
at any rate, to pursue a quarrel.

"I'll be down later. I want to look at my e-mail."

Pouting? "Suit yourself." I yawned again.

He said, "I had a cup of coffee and a cup of tea, Lark. I'm
wired."

"Okay. G'night." Trudging downstairs, I told myself that may
have been the truth. While not exactly a caffeine virgin, Jay was
sparing of the stuff. Maybe he was wired—and maybe he was pouting.
I was too tired to sort it out.

I surprised myself by not falling asleep at once. I lay alone
on the futon and listened to the creak-creak of the floor joists as Jay
walked around upstairs. Perhaps I was wired, too.

Kayla was dead. Poor graceless unhappy Kayla. I would have
to think of a way of telling my father what had happened, but I didn't
know what had happened.

Eyes closed, I chased the possibilities around until, at last, I
drifted into an uneasy sleep. I had a nightmare in which Kayla,
dressed in mourning black, fell down the long Stanyon stairway. I
tried but was unable to stop her fall. She drifted like a dark leaf on an
autumn wind, spiraling down to the heart of the stone.