thirty-one

Danny pulled up in front of Nathan’s semidetached home, located at the end of a row of identical semidetached homes. The tidy and uniform house surprised him, but perhaps it provided camouflage—or comfort?—for a man who had been institutionalized. Nothing better than living in a housing estate to prove your normality.

A folder sat on the passenger seat. He opened it to peruse the minimal facts that O’Neil had collected about Nathan. It would take them a while to wrangle the details about his mental health out of the system, but this would do for a start.

A compact Nissan SUV that Danny recognized as Nathan’s swung into the driveway as he walked to the front door. Nathan shot out of the car, followed by Zoe.

“Detective Sergeant!” Zoe said. “Good timing. We’ve been house painting at Liam’s cottage.”

Nathan passed Danny with barely a nod of acknowledgment. Zoe kept up a patter as they caught up with Nathan at the front door, where he attempted and failed to fit his house key into the lock. “You need to talk to me, I suppose,” he said to Danny.

“Please, Dad.” Zoe held out her hand for the keys. “Don’t do this.”

“Can you leave?” Nathan turned on her, not in anger, but in desperation. “Please. You mentioned going into Ennis.”

Zoe smiled at Danny. “He’ll get used to me yet, you’ll see.” She patted her dad’s hand. Nathan flinched when she touched his bandage. “I did mean to go to Ennis, didn’t I? There’s a sale at this lovely little shop that Mrs. O’Brien told me about. I looked it up online last night. I’d like to buy an Easter outfit.” She laughed. “Just like a girl, wanting a new Easter dress.”

Nathan rested his forehead against the door.

“Remember Mum?” Zoe continued. “How she’d dress in her Easter finery before we woke up? She’d be waiting for us in the kitchen, dressed in a color she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing except on Easter. She hated pastels, but she always looked perfect, didn’t she? In pink or yellow with a ridiculous hat that made me laugh.”

Nathan frowned with his eyes closed.

“I suppose that’s why I want an Easter dress,” she said.

She clattered down the steps in her immaculate heeled boots while burrowing in her purse. Nathan straightened and watched his daughter with frown still in place. Danny stepped backwards to give him some space. Nathan didn’t move until the car turned the corner and disappeared. He exhaled long and slow.

“Shall we go inside?” Danny said.

Nathan unlocked the door and waved Danny into the house. “She changed the past.”

“What?” Danny said.

“Not important. A thought that should have remained in my head.”

Danny followed Nathan into the kitchen and took a seat at a rustic farm table. Two cups half-filled with cold coffee sat on the counter along with an empty knife block. Everything about Nathan felt more significant now that Danny knew he’d graduated from a psych ward.

“What did you mean by Zoe changing the past?” Danny said.

Nathan rummaged around the refrigerator and plonked two beers on the table as he sat down across from Danny. They left wet rings that he didn’t bother to wipe up. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I prefer to decide that for myself.”

For the first time since Danny had arrived, Nathan looked him in the eye. “I’m telling you, it has nothing to do with EJ’s death. That’s why you’re here, right? More questions?”

“You avoid talking about Zoe. Why is that?”

“Hard to know what to say.”

“She’s a delightful young woman.”

“And look at this place. It’s immaculate. I should consider myself lucky.”

“But you don’t?”

Nathan didn’t oblige him by filling in the silence about all the many ways he should feel lucky. Instead, he sipped his beer.

“You’re an expert at silence. A trick learned inside the psychiatric hospital?” Danny took out the single sheet of paper stored inside the folder he’d brought inside with him. He tapped it. “It says here that you were in the Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital in England for two years starting in 2004.”

“That would be correct.”

His voice had no affect, as if they discussed the common cold.

“You were committed about a year after your wife Susannah’s death.”

Nathan picked at the label on his beer.

“She came from money, your wife. She was educated, had a posh accent, I imagine, and an expensive home in Sussex.” Danny sat back, crossed his legs, and entered into the spirit of the story. “The Internet is wonderful, isn’t it? I zoomed in on the property to get a feel for your life back then. Quite the life it was. Landscaped gardens and a country house ready-made for a movie set. Susannah dealt in fine art, but here she was married to a scruffy Irish potter. You can see how the police were interested in you after she died.”

“She was a lovely person, my wife,” Nathan said. “We had a wonderful life together.”

“I’m sure you did. You, your wife, and your equally lovely daughter.”

Nathan nodded.

“The police didn’t find evidence of wrongdoing. Susannah’s death was a tragedy. A fall down the stairs. Broken neck. Your recovery from the grief didn’t go well, and a year later the white coats escorted you to Broadmoor. Zoe was fourteen at the time. She went off to live with your in-laws.”

Nathan set his beer on the table so the bottle aligned with the wet ring. He gazed out the window without expression.

“Two years later, you were released, but instead of a joyous reunion with your lovely daughter, you returned to Ireland and got lost. You did everything legally possible not to be found again. Moving often, not using the Internet, keeping your pottery business local. Meanwhile, poor Zoe was abandoned by the one living parent she had.”

“Crap father, yeah, but not for the story you think you understand.”

“I’m interested in your story,” Danny said.

Nathan swung his head toward Danny. The movement seemed to require an effort of will. Danny expected his vertebrae to creak under the strain. Nathan gripped the edge of the table and levered himself into a standing position. Danny forced himself to remain still and silent as Nathan undid the top button of his jeans. He let them sag low on his hips and pulled up his t-shirt. A monstrous red scar snaked its way out from under his jeans. The tissue appeared thick and inflamed, even though the scar was old.

Danny’s gaze drifted back to the empty knife block. “Knife attack?”

“You could say that.” Nathan sank back onto his chair without buttoning his jeans again. He returned to staring out the window.

Danny leaned forward. “Nathan, listen up. You look like warmed-
over shite.” He pointed at the stitches on Nathan’s head and the
bandage on his hand. “Are you on the way toward another stay at a hospital?”

Nathan snorted, a half smile rising and falling again. “Good question.”

“For Christ’s sake, man, talk.”

“I showed Annie my scar today, too. The day of my unveiling.” He grabbed Danny’s untouched beer, opened it, and drank half of it down in three long swallows. “Why are you here? It can’t be about my Father of the Year award.”

“Did EJ ever talk to you about your stay at Broadmoor?”

Nathan’s confusion appeared sincere. “Why would he?”

“Wondering if he knew about your past.”

“You think I’d kill him for knowing that fact? He may have poked through my things, but if he discovered anything, he never let on.” He stood. “Finished now?”

Back on the front stoop, Danny said, “Need a lift anywhere? Zoe might be hours buying an Easter dress. Fond memories of her mother and all.”

Nathan shook his head. “Zoe forgot to mention that every year Susannah had matching dresses handmade for her and Zoe. Zoe hated those dresses.”

“Memories have a way of softening over time, especially after a tragedy.” Danny thought of Ellen as he said this, a fleeting acknowledgment that these days he didn’t linger on their marital estrangement so much as their good times together.

“Yes,” Nathan said, but he didn’t sound certain. “Or memories slip away altogether.”

“Do you remember your time at Broadmoor?”

“Not well. A haze of drugs. Why?”

“We don’t have access to the gory details about your arrest and therapy yet, but the initial police record states that you were raving, delusional, and violent. What set you off ?”

In answer, Nathan clicked the door shut. Danny lifted his collar against a prickle of unease. Nathan could be dangerous to himself or he could be dangerous to Zoe. He could be dangerous, full stop.