twenty-two

O’Neil waited for Danny outside the hospital. He leaned against his car in the no-parking zone in front of the entrance and waved at drivers to go around him. Danny had sent Marcus home with the children hours ago, and after that, the waiting had resonated with the fizz of the overhead fluorescent lights, agitating him and sapping his energy at the same time. By the time the staff had bundled Ellen into an ambulance for transport to the hospital in Limerick, he’d felt bug-eyed and starved. Only, in his case, rather than nutrients he craved knowledge.

No joy there. Once the Limerick hospital got a hold of her, it could be a full day before he received news. It scared him that for a split second he’d stopped the doctor from inserting the oxygen tube. Relief had surged through him. Maybe he would no longer need to live a half life of waiting, of wondering. He could let her go and, best yet, do so without having made the tough choice.

A split second for this essential tawdry truth to reveal itself: He was a coward.

When Danny cornered the doctor again, he learned that, besides pneumonia, Ellen was at risk for congestive heart failure and something called acute respiratory distress syndrome.

“When can you pull the ventilator tube out of her?” he asked.

“As soon as the fluid in her lungs dissipates.”

“When will that be?”

“It’s hard to say. With luck, within a week.”

With luck. With sodding luck? He longed to pound the word out of the doctor’s skull. If they depended on luck then he could just as well wave sage sticks or ask Nathan’s daughter, the so-called healer, to perform the laying on of hands.

The sound of Ellen’s gagging reaction to the tube plagued him, the first sound he’d heard out of her since she’d fallen into the coma. A sound like a plea, begging the hospital and him to release her.

He forced his thoughts away from Ellen and back into the car as O’Neil sped them toward Lisfenora. After an initial questioning look, O’Neil drove as if he always picked Danny up from the hospital on Saturdays.

“We’re contacting the family members of each person who died under Elder Joe’s care,” O’Neil said. “There are surprisingly few of them.”

“He had a knack for picking lodgers with families like old Cecil’s back there,” Danny said. “Fancy that.”

O’Neil clicked his tongue in disgust. “Cecil have anything new to add?”

“Elder Joe did most of the yelling after Frances Madden died, not the second man.”

They had turned off the N87 from Ennis in the direction of the ocean rather than north toward Lisfenora. Ten minutes later, O’Neil pulled up in front of a low-slung brown and yellow building nestled on the edge of acres of meticulous rolling green lawns.

“Joe Junior could be anywhere,” Danny said, “doing whatever it is groundskeepers do.”

“Groundskeeper? That would be ‘golf course superintendent’ to you and me, matey.”

Inside the Lahinch Golf Course clubhouse, Danny gazed out the wall of windows toward the Dough Castle tower ruins that sat in
the middle of one of the two golf courses. It stuck up like a sentinel while white dots that were the Goats of Lahinch grazed nearby.

“What are you doing here?”

Mrs. O’Brien’s proprietary voice called Danny’s attention away from the goats. Along with her usual black dress she wore red lipstick that accentuated her thin lips. She eyed him like she’d caught out a poacher on the aristocrat’s land.

“Routine work,” he said. “Have you seen Joe Junior—Joe Madden—in the vicinity?”

She blanched. “Him? I know him, of course. He does a fine job here.” She rubbed down her dress. “If you’ll excuse me.”

O’Neil returned from talking to the club manager. “What was that about?”

“Bloody hell if I know. We’re about to sully the reputation of this fine club, I expect.”

“Ay, then let’s go about it. Joe’s at the Devil’s Pit. Hole 12.”

O’Neil drove them along the Liscannor Road to a maintenance area and parked beside a pile of fresh sod. They walked into the green along an access path. A gentle curve revealed a view of the long fairway that ran alongside the Inagh River as it entered the Atlantic. Several goats popped their heads up from grazing and surveyed the men with inquisitive brown eyes. One of them ambled along with them, ears perking in their direction every now and then.

“You can take the lead with the questioning.” Danny didn’t want to admit how weary he felt. “You don’t haunt Alan’s pub the way I do.”

“And I don’t know Joe Junior personal-like, I get it.”

They reached the lip of the trap called the Devil’s Pit, a grass-covered divot in the earth that was deeper than it looked from afar. A golfer could lose a ball forever down there. Danny didn’t play golf, so he couldn’t imagine how the players lobbed balls back onto the green.

“Jesus, man!” Joe Junior shouted. “Stop right there.”

Rather than his usual frowsy man-cardigan, Joe Junior wore heavy twill dungarees laden with pockets, a wind cheater over a fisherman’s jumper, and a woolen skull cap. He hadn’t noticed Danny and O’Neil yet. He half ran, half slid down the side of the pit to where several men stood around an overturned power lawn mower.

O’Neil waited until Joe Junior had helped right the mower before calling to him. “Mr. Madden, got a minute?”

Joe Junior squinted up at them. With a running start, he clambered up the steep slope using his hands.

“We won’t take much of your time,” O’Neil said.

“Hope not, laddie.” He jerked a thumb toward one of the groundskeepers. “That waste of space thought he’d mow the grass inside the Devil’s Pit. Now I’ll be needing a hauler to drag the bloody thing out.”

The goat that had followed Danny and O’Neil nudged Joe Junior’s hand. Joe Junior dug into his pocket and produced a slice of carrot for her. “Molly here knows how to work it.”

He led them to the end of the green where the grass petered out into a sandy slope down to a narrow beach. He hopped a shambling white picket fence. The wind gusted stray rain droplets against them. He looked from one to the other of them until Danny tilted his head toward O’Neil.

“That way, is it?” Joe Junior turned toward O’Neil. “Detective, what’s it about then?”

“We have questions about your aunt, Frances Madden. We’re interested in her time as EJ’s lodger.”

Joe Junior avoided looking at Danny. He dug into the sand with the toe of his boot and stooped to dig out a golf ball. “Right,” he said. “That. God rest her. She raised me, she did.”

“See,” O’Neil said, “we know that she died at EJ’s house and you weren’t happy.”

Careful there. Perhaps Danny should have taken on this conversation, after all. He knew Joe Junior well enough to converse with him fella to fella. He was starting to bridle at O’Neil’s tone, his lips pursed like a little old lady’s.

“No, I wasn’t happy.” Joe Junior continued wandering with eyes trained on the ground. “Would you be?”

Answer his question, fella to fella. Instead, O’Neil kept on track. “We’re curious why you never mentioned an aunt who died.”

One more mention of the word die and Joe Junior would fling the golf ball at O’Neil’s head, full stop. Danny held up a hand. Slow down. O’Neil nodded.

“My favorite aunt passed away last month,” O’Neil said. “It’s a shock, even when you know it’s coming.”

Joe Junior long-armed the golf ball he held into the river, where it bobbed for a moment before sinking into the current. “That’s the point, Detective. I didn’t know it was coming.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t ‘oh’ me, for feck’s sake. I know what you’re fishing for, and you’d be right for guessing I no longer considered EJ a friend. But we landed on bygones and enough said.”

“I hadn’t noticed a difference between you two at the pub,” Danny said.

“I’m after saying that. Made no bloody matter.”

“It would be helpful to have the entire story,” O’Neil said.

“Fine. EJ said he would help Aunt Franny recuperate from pneumonia. All she needed was another week or two of rest. We don’t have money for proper continuing care, and EJ said he did caretaking on the side. I trusted the wanker.”

Pneumonia. Danny watched a little egret skim the waves close to shore. “She was breathing okay when she arrived at EJ’s? No fever?”

“I’m telling you she was past the worst. She needed a body to wait on her, that’s all. I would have taken her myself but I work long hours.” Joe Junior spat. “She was brought back to life by the miracle of modern medicine only to be dragged down again by that useless baggage.”

Right, miracle. Danny stepped ahead of Joe Junior to pick up yet another stray golf ball.

“That doesn’t sound like bygones to me,” O’Neil said.

“What the bloody hell would you know?”

Danny tossed the golf ball from hand to hand. “Detective O’Neil has a point. You’re still angry, so how did you reach a truce?”

“I persuaded EJ to refund my money for her care.”

“What did your persuasion consist of ?” O’Neil said.

“Nothing but words with a reminder that he wouldn’t be welcome at the pubs if I happened to talk about my grief and the cause for my grief. Couldn’t live without a pub, our Elder Joe, and who knows, maybe word would circle back to the guards. Maybe to you, Danny.”

“You invoked my name?” Danny said.

“Indeed I did.”

“He paid?” O’Neil said.

“Indeed he did, but he wasn’t happy.” Joe Junior smiled with lingering spite. “Bellowing like a demented banshee.”

“Where were you Friday night?” O’Neil asked.

“I saw EJ at the pub, as usual, if that’s what you want to know. I went home. Alone. Don’t know what more I can say about that since I live alone.”

“What time was that and was EJ still at the pub when you left?”

“I was home by eleven on the dot. When I left, EJ was hunkered over his pint talking his usual shite. On a roll he was, about his bloody chickens. The gobshite loved his chickens.”

“How did EJ get home that night?”

“Like I said, I’d left by then. And I was alone after that. Alan probably rang a taxi man. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Danny led the way back to the car with Molly the Goat trotting beside O’Neil. Rain patters landed on their faces and hands.

“Get the feeling he wasn’t as alone as he said?”

“He doth protest too much,” O’Neil mused.

“Must be good if he’s willing to go un-alibied.”