three

Merrit huddled on Elder Joe’s front stoop, out of the path of the scenes of crimes men who bustled in and out of the house. She rewrapped her scarf around her neck and head and tried not to think about Danny’s reaction to her presence at the crime scene. It may have been her imagination, but the way his head had sagged on his neck stank of the most profound resignation and annoyance.

Doesn’t matter, she told herself, and shifted her gaze away from the doorway through which Danny would soon appear. Beyond the ambulance, Garda cars, and other vehicles crowded in front of Elder Joe’s house, there stood an abandoned gravel quarry. The earth’s interior excavated and reshaped into rock hills like sand dunes. The decimated grey wasteland had to be one of the loneliest views Merrit had ever seen.

Footsteps approached. Detective O’Neil smiled, friendly enough, as he assessed her with blue eyes shaded with what Merrit thought of as Irish police, or Garda, skepticism. At least when it came to her. Inside the house, Danny’s voice rumbled low among a medley of male voices. He’d arrive soon enough to question her.

She scooted over on the bench to provide space for O’Neil. He sat and leaned back against the house with an expansive sigh and flattened his accent until it resembled a stoned John Wayne. “And how does a pretty wee lass like you find yourself within spitting distance of a corpse?”

Merrit couldn’t help smiling. “That’s inappropriate, isn’t it?”

“Ay.” He waggled his eyebrows, unrepentant. “My mom used to say I had such a mouth on me, I’d land tits up in a peat bog someday.”

“Making you the comic relief to Danny’s straight man.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

“For a second.” She lapsed into silence, once again caught up in her own thoughts. What was today? It had to be close to the Ides of March, a day of prophetic misfortune. She leaned against the house alongside O’Neil, her heart heavy with more than Elder Joe’s death. “It’s Liam. He’s sick again.”

“Oh Jesus. The lung cancer returned?”

“After nine months of remission, I thought we were in the clear. You can tell Danny, but please don’t go broadcasting it all over the county. I haven’t had a chance to process the news myself.”

“What a thing you must be feeling,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

Merrit nodded her thanks, realizing that O’Neil was the first person in a long while to acknowledge her feelings about her father’s illness. “I’ve been told that I’m only here for what I can get out of him.”

“People say that to your face?”

“You know they do. It’s a common pastime around here.”

Liam, her father, was first and foremost a matchmaker who presided over an annual matchmaking festival. Such an arcane and unusual profession—in this modern era, who would have thought?—yet the Lisfenorans loved to point out to her that the local economy depended on the tourist income from the festival each September. And more importantly, they insisted that tradition must be followed, integrity maintained, history respected. In other words, the festival, the village, the entire county was doomed without Liam’s particular skill.

“You don’t sound keen to be the next matchmaker,” O’Neil said.

Merrit swiped at the shiny egg goo that had splattered her boots. “As life trajectories go, it wasn’t what I expected when I arrived. Now I’ve lived here for eighteen months. Eighteen months. I can’t believe it. What have I been doing?”

“Being a daughter, I expect.”

“Difficult at times, that. Liam’s been acting the maggot.” She paused. “Did I use that phrase correctly—‘acting the maggot’?”

“If you mean he’s acting a right jerk, then yeah, spot on.”

“That’s not quite what I meant, but he’s grouchy—”

“Narky.”

“What?”

“For ‘grouchy.’ As in, he’s a right narky old bastard.”

“Hah.” Merrit had never spoken to O’Neil at length before; he had a nice way about him, for a Garda officer. “Yes, Liam’s on the road to becoming a right narky old bastard.”

“There you go.” He stood. “And here we go.”

Danny appeared and sat down beside Merrit. For the first time, she noticed a smattering of grey near his temples. He was a tall, lanky man who had grown too thin. He’d lost his usual facial contours and now his nose appeared beaky, his eyes too big, his cheekbones sharp. He slouched with elbows on knees for a moment, scrubbing at his face, and then straightened.

Elder Joe and Danny had known each other for years—this Merrit knew. And she also knew Danny well enough not to express condolences. Instead, she preempted his first question. She knew the drill by now.

“I arrived around ten a.m. to pick up eggs. I heard the television so I knew he was at home.” She waved toward a battered van. “Van’s here, too. When he didn’t answer my knock, I tried the door—”

“To confirm, the television was on when you arrived?” Danny said.

“Yes. I turned it off before I called the guards.” Some of Danny’s coiled tension transferred itself to her. She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “The door was unlocked, so I went inside to fetch the carton of eggs. Organic. From Elder Joe’s hens. The carton was waiting for me on the stand near the front door.”

“Do you usually walk in unannounced?” Danny said.

Merrit clenched her hands together. He knew her well enough to know the answer to that question. “As need be. Drop off the money, take the eggs. It’s a weekly routine. He doesn’t always greet me at the door.”

“Right. Go on.”

“I grabbed the eggs, but once I got inside, I could … sense, I guess, that something was off. The air was thicker.” Her lungs tightened in reaction to the smell memory. She pulled an inhaler out of her purse and pumped two shots of spray into her lungs.

Danny didn’t comment. He didn’t need to. He knew the drill with her anxiety just as she knew the drill with his questioning technique. She glanced at him. Expression still neutral. She supposed that was a good sign. “The smell before there’s a recognizable smell. You know what I mean.”

“The smell of death, yes,” he said. “It’s the blood.”

She swallowed, thinking back to her arrival in Ireland and how she’d first met Danny. Another body. Another bloody death. Danny didn’t need to remind her that she would once again be the talk of the town, reinforcing her status as unwelcome guest and interloper.

“That’s pretty much it,” she said. “I stepped into the living room, checked that he was deceased—”

“Obvious, I’d say,” O’Neil said.

“Oh yes.” She exhaled sharply to rid herself of the remembered smell, of the image of desperately bright area rugs that had led her straight to Elder Joe. “That’s when I turned off the television.”

“Did you hear anything?” Danny said.

She thought back. “The opposite. Even the hens were quiet. It was eerie. I thought I saw someone, though. When I retreated to the kitchen to call you—the guards—I swear something moved out there, almost blending into the gravel from the quarry.”

“A fox?” O’Neil said.

She shook her head. “A person. The movement startled me and I dropped the eggs I was still carrying. When I looked out the window again, I didn’t see anyone.”

“How sure are you that you saw someone?” Danny said.

“Pretty sure.”

In front of them, the jagged gravel expanse sucked up what little light penetrated the cloud cover. Without turning her head, Merrit tried to observe Danny. He fiddled with a pair of used latex gloves, stretching and rolling them around in his hands. She didn’t consider him the agitated type.

“Did Elder Joe say or do anything in the last few weeks that struck you as unusual?” he said. “Did he mention visitors, arguments, problems?”

“God, no. We weren’t friends like that. He didn’t talk much.” The words right narky old bastard popped into her head. “I bought eggs, that’s all.”

Danny slapped the gloves against his thighs. “We’ll contact you if we have any follow-up questions.”

“Except,” she said.

“Except what?”

“Except last Saturday he asked me in for tea.”

“Not all that surprising, I’d think,” Danny said.

“That’s exactly what it was—surprising. Elder Joe could take me or leave me as far as I could tell. His invitation didn’t make sense. Maybe he was that desperate with loneliness.”

He squinted at her, seeing her rather too well, she thought.

From inside the house, a flurry of voices and footsteps approached. The paramedics carried a gurney out of the house. The sight of an elderly man who was not Elder Joe and very much alive jolted Merrit to her feet. “Who is that? He was inside the house?”

Danny patted the bench beside him. “Sit, please.”

She sat back down. “But who was that?”

“What happened with tea?” Danny said.

The paramedics loaded the man into the back of the ambulance and, within a minute, sped away. “Tea? Nothing. I made my excuses. Elder Joe reacted as if I’d offended him.”

“Maybe you did,” Danny said. “Knowing him, I wager he’d finally felt comfortable enough with you to extend a friendly gesture only to be rebuffed.”

“I didn’t ‘rebuff’ him.” Merrit stood. “Are we done now?”

“For now. We have your fingerprints on file. We’ll use them for elimination purposes.”

Here we go, she thought, getting his parting shot in. He wasn’t all that neutral when it came to her; he simply hid it better than most of the locals. After arranging a time with O’Neil to give her official statement, Merrit trotted to her car, eager to get out from under the looming gravel dunes.

She started the engine and turned up the heat. Elder Joe had caught her off-guard with his invitation, and the sorry truth was that she hadn’t wanted to drink tea with him anyhow. She couldn’t recall how she’d begged off, but she remembered his last words to her well enough: Ay, well, you’re that way, I suppose. But mark me, you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

Which made no sense at all. She could swear the locals enjoyed confusing her with their most obscure sayings. As Merrit drove past the quarry, she felt a pang of regret for sidestepping his gesture of friendship—or whatever it was. Perhaps he had something on his mind, something related to his death. There could be a lesson here.