Malarkey (23 page)

"Ew," Tracy said. "That's gross."

Everyone laughed, and the tension eased. Barbara was
eyeing Jay with unabashed admiration. She was going to try to hire
him.

I sought to distract her. "Barbara, I have a small domestic
question. I hate to raise it under the present melancholy
circumstances, but what do I do with the garbage from my kitchen?
It's rapidly approaching critical mass."

Barbara blinked. "Uh, there's a dumpster behind the house,
Stanyon, I mean. You can use that. They collect on
Wednesdays."

"Wonderful." It was nice to have one clear answer in a sea of
questions.

"If the cops haven't cordoned it off. They're still searching
for the garrote, whatever it was." Gloom darkened her intense
features once more. "They've put crime-scene tape across the
corridor Kayla's room is in and stationed a uniformed guard outside
her door. My housekeeper's having kittens."

"Has the chef quit?"

Her mouth relaxed in a genuine smile. "No, he thrives on the
drama, says it inspires him."

"He must be a character."

Alex said, "Murtagh's at least as flamboyant as Paul
Prudhomme. We're doing a cooking disk with him."

What else? I was willing to lay odds the disk had been Alex's
idea. He was a regular fountain of creative thought. Why had they
needed Slade Wheeler? I opened my mouth to ask, but Barbara beat
me to the punch.

"I wish to hell we'd never met Slade."

"Better for him if you hadn't," Jay observed.

Barbara reddened. Dad made a clucking sound.

"Why did you hire him?" I watched Barbara over the rim of
my glass.

"We didn't hire him, exactly," Alex said. "He was looking for
an investment. Slade designed a game, Battlecock, that earned him a
nice chunk of cash. He was interested in developing CDs."

"And in hunting around for a floundering company he could
take over," Mike said sourly. When the Steins protested, he went on,
with some heat, "All right, so he didn't have a controlling interest.
Still, he invested a bunch, and you agreed to let him handle the fiscal
management. To bully the staff."

"That's not fair!" Alex protested. "We were losing money.
We needed cost controls."

"I thought Wheeler was supposed to be an idea man," I
said.

Barbara made a face, and Tracy groaned.

Mike said, "The only idea that crossed that sucker's mind
was the Bottom Line."

"That's not fair," Alex repeated. It seemed to be his tune. "He
did a couple of games for us."

"Bo-oring," Tracy drawled.

Alex said, with great earnestness, "Slade wasn't creative. He
did have an MBA, though, he kept up on the latest software, and he
did know computer people. When Barbara and Mike and I started
the company, we followed our own tastes and lost money. Slade
understood what people would buy."

A commercial counterweight. That made a certain kind of
sense.

"Why are we blathering about Slade?" Barbara asked
impatiently.

"Because I'm curious," I shot back. "Because he was
murdered. Because I tweedled out the back door of your cute cottage
and found his body. Slade Wheeler is a big fat puzzle."

"Big and fat," Mike snickered. "You got it. Fat in the head,
too."

"Be that as it may," my father pronounced, "Lark's right.
When you solve the puzzle of Slade Wheeler you'll be able to put a
name to his killer, and Alex will be off the hook. Innocence is Alex's
best defense."

It was a sweetly naive remark. Barbara snorted, and I didn't
blame her. "Not with Mahon in charge."

Jay said, "Mahon is a competent professional, and his
methods are up-to-date."

Barbara growled.

He took a sip of Guinness. "You don't have to like him, but
you do have an obligation to cooperate with him. He has good local
information through Joe Kennedy—"

"Kennedy," Barbara snarled.

"I wonder why you're so negative about Joe," I mused. "You
were down on him from the moment he walked through the cottage
door. Yet you like Maeve."

"Maeve has rotten taste in men," Barbara said darkly. "I
know that kind of cop."

"What kind?"

"A big, dumb, good-looking Irish flatfoot."

I drew a breath. "Can it be that you're indulging in a
stereotype?"

She flushed. "He's no Sherlock Holmes."

Jay toyed with his glass. "Kennedy's not a detective."

"I think I said that." Barbara's moment of embarrassment
faded. She raised her chin.

"He has some investigative experience," Jay went on, as if
she hadn't spoken. "But he's not focused that way. It isn't his job. The
media have done a lot to glamorize detection, but it's tedious work
and getting more and more technical."

Dad said, "I'm sure there are other interesting police
tasks."

"Such as?" Barbara tapped her finger on her wine glass.

"Keeping the peace?"

Jay smiled at him. "That's a more challenging problem than
picking up the pieces after the fact of a crime. If I understand Gardai
structure, Kennedy chose to specialize in community relations rather
than detection. My guess is that he does a good job."

Barbara looked skeptical.

Jay went on, dogged, "He knows his turf. He was on top of
the wargamers from the word go. What possessed you to let Wheeler
set up a quasi-military training camp in Ireland, of all places?"

"Slade was just playing games."

"So you say, but try looking at those games from Kennedy's
angle. You came in here on a burst of favorable publicity, all set to
offer new opportunities to local workers."

"We have. We've hired a lot of people from the
community."

"Middle-aged women," Liam murmured. He was watching
Jay with apparent fascination.

Jay nodded. "And that's good. They need jobs. From the
point of view of law enforcement, though, the population at risk is
young and male. Their parents thought Stonehall would offer those
kids jobs. Instead, you offered them Wheeler's games. The
Provisional IRA draws recruits from the same population and uses
the same skills."

"And they're not pretending," I blurted.

Jay said softly, "Wheeler was playing games. Was Tommy
Tierney?"

Alex looked sick. "We should have stopped Slade."

Liam said, "The concept of wargames is mad. I never could
find out what war Slade thought he was simulating. I asked him was
it Vietnam, but he just laughed and said I didn't understand."

"He was probably too ignorant to simulate anything specific.
Americans aren't very good at history." Jay sounded tired. Vietnam
was his war. He glanced at Dad who was contemplating his empty
wine glass.

Barbara said, "It wasn't a war, Lee, it was war in general.
Slade created games. He thought that way."

"Ah, I see." Liam set the Perrier bottle on the trolley. He ran
a hand over his hair, smoothing it. "Supposing someone, myself
maybe, was to organize a group of game players for the simulation of
rape. Would the company give me the loan of the woods for that
purpose?"

He had gone beyond joking. Alex made a strangled noise.
Barbara opened her mouth to protest and closed it. Dad pursed his
lips.

"According to Sergeant Kennedy, there was an offshoot of
the Hellfire Club frolicking in the woods in the nineteenth century." I
dropped the observation into the rather fraught silence. An amiable
practice of the Hellfire Club was mass seduction of housemaids.

"Sure, there's nothing new under the sun," Liam
mourned.

Alex was studying him as if he were a stranger. "I didn't
know you felt so strongly about the games, Lee."

Mike leapt to his defense. "Lee told you they were trouble.
I
told you. Joe Kennedy came over in his bloody patrol car to
tell you. You didn't hear us. You were too busy appeasing
Wheeler."

"He was hard to deal with," Alex muttered.

"Hard to say no to," Mike paraphrased, bitter.

Barbara said, "This has got to stop, Mike. We'll be at each
other's throats next."

Given the mode of Kayla Wheeler's death, the metaphor was
an unfortunate choice. No one else appeared to notice. Mike looked
sullen, but he said nothing further.

Barbara touched the sleeve of Liam's jacket. "I'm sorry, Lee.
I didn't like the games, either. I thought they were childish. Thinking
they were harmless as well was my mistake as much as Alex's. And
Slade was...difficult."

"Somebody simplified him," Mike said.

I considered Mike Novak. I had thought he was a Stonehall
employee, but he was apparently a founding partner. If he had seen
Slade as a serious threat to the company, his motive for murder was
as strong as the Steins'. For Slade Wheeler's murder. But why Kayla?
My head ached.

In my brief lapse of attention, Barbara had turned to Jay. "I
want to hire you," she was saying, "to clear Alex and to find out who
killed Slade and Kayla—"

"No." Jay didn't hesitate. In fact he spoke before she had
finished her sentence.

"But why?" The question was a long wail.

"I'm here as a visitor," Jay said patiently. "I don't know Irish
law, and I don't have an investigator's license."

"But informally."

"No. Not formally, not informally." He didn't elaborate. She
tried once more, and Alex and Mike seconded the notion, but Jay just
shook his head.

I caught Dad's eye. "We really should walk back to the
cottage, Barbara, if only to check out the alarm system. Thanks for
offering your dumpster—an act of true charity."

"Don't mention it." She sounded defeated and
indifferent.

Alex saw us to the door. The others showed no sign of
leaving, but Liam shook hands with Dad and Jay and gave me a small
bow. Tracy favored us with an unhappy smile. Mike poured himself
another beer.

On the porch, which was littered with the data processors'
cigarette butts, Alex said, "George, I'm sorry. You know Barbara.
Once she gets an idea into her head she digs in."

Dad cocked his head sideways. "It's her great strength. Don't
worry too much. Things will sort themselves out. Do you have a
lawyer?"

Alex sighed. "The company has a whole firm of civil lawyers
on retainer, solicitors they're called here. I'm sure none of them has
touched a criminal case. They're far too respectable."

Jay said, "They can recommend a criminal lawyer, Alex. Get
some professional advice. It can't hurt."

"Okay. I understand why you don't want to work for us, Jay,
though I wish you'd change your mind. I think you're right about
Mahon and Kennedy. They're competent police officers." Alex shoved
at a cigarette butt with the toe of his shoe. "But they're not
Americans."

Jay frowned. "Do you think Wheeler was killed by an
American?"

"Christ, I don't know. But both victims were Americans. That
has to mean something."

We said goodbye and headed up the shallow slope to the
arch of rhododendrons. They were fully budded out, ready to
blossom. The long twilight cast a pale enchantment over the whole
scene. We walked in a silence I finally broke.

"So why didn't you take an informal watching brief, Jay?
Protecting the Steins' interests, translating their viewpoint for
Mahon. You wouldn't have to interfere with the actual
investigation."

He didn't answer me immediately. Dad said, "It would be
awkward. Sergeant Kennedy is almost a friend."

Jay gave a short laugh. I felt my face go hot. Joe was
my
friend. That was what Jay was thinking, and he wasn't
entirely wrong. Taking even a watching brief in the case would be a
criticism of Irish police work that was bound to chill the
relationship.

After half a dozen paces, Jay said, "I was concerned about a
more mundane problem, as it happens. I came here to look after your
interests, George, and Lark's."

"To protect us." I bristled. I couldn't help it.

"I was trying to avoid that word," Jay said wryly.

"I appreciate the kindness." My father eased his long stride
and turned toward Jay. "But I don't see a conflict... Oh."

"Yes. What if protecting the Steins put the two of you in
danger?"

Dad's face reflected horror. "Do you think one of them is
guilty? Both of them?"

"Not necessarily, though they had reason to resent Wheeler,
and Alex, at least, could have done either of the murders. He spent
two years in the Israeli army."

That was news Jay had to have got from the police—or from
his own network. I thought of the computer. He believed the burglar
had been aiming for his computer. If Jay was using it to access police
files on the Internet that made sense—or if the "burglar" thought he
was using the computer for that purpose.

"...and I have to leave Sunday at the latest. I don't suppose
either of you wants to move to a hotel," Jay was saying. "Still, it's
obvious the cottage is vulnerable. So I called in a locksmith. He's
coming in the morning."

"You're going to change the locks without telling the
Steins?" Dad sounded distressed.

"It is their property," Jay agreed. "If you insist, I'll tell Alex
about the change privately. I'd rather not."

"They're bound to find out," I grumbled. We were
approaching the cottage, which looked cozy and undisturbed with
the light shining out from the kitchen.

"I'm concerned about the next couple of days," Jay
explained. "Things should sort themselves out by Sunday. Kennedy
will send a patrol car by several times tonight, but he can't keep that
up. We may have to hire a security firm."

"We could move to Ballymann House," Dad said
unhappily.

"Let's see how it goes, George. I may be overreacting. And
my public refusal to take on the Steins' case may do some good. I
hope so. I'm glad Barbara asked me in front of witnesses."

"You think the killer was there at Stanyon?" Dad stopped
dead on the gravel drive. "No, I refuse to believe it of those young
people. And never of Alex and Barbara. I know them too well."