BY EVENING, I HAD MADE UP MY MIND about the swingers’ club, but I hadn’t yet told Toby. He was tired from a day of fishing and welcomed the idea of an evening at home while Maggie and I took a girls’ night out. When he asked where we were going, I couldn’t hold it back.
“To that swingers’ club you’re always talking about,” I said.
“Very funny.”
“No, it’s true, but it’s not what you think.”
“Wait just a minute.” Toby sprang up from the couch. “You mean to tell me that my happily married wife of seven years—”
“Eight.”
“Eight. But I got the happily married part right, didn’t I?”
“Absolutely. Deliriously happy.”
“Good. Let me start over. So my deliriously happy wife of eight years is planning to sneak off to the swingers’ club without me?” Toby had his palms extended out, like a picture of St. Francis talking to the birds.
“I’m not sneaking off. I’m pre-confessing, right now. Let me explain.” I sat him down and related everything that Maggie had told me about the club, stressing the possibility of picking up a clue about the murders, through loose talk. “Think of it as undercover work,” I said.
“Sounds more like ‘no cover’ work to me,” Toby snapped.
I tried to address his concerns. According to Maggie, we could spend the evening as spectators rather than participants, so long as we looked ready for action. She didn’t specify what that meant. Wrapped in a towel? Stripped to the skin? Clad in black leather and carrying a whip?
“Why can’t I come too?” Toby asked.
I explained the entrance policy that excluded men who weren’t members. “Don’t worry. Maggie’s going with me. She’ll have my back.”
“I’m worried about who’ll have your front,” said Toby. Now that he was wisecracking, I knew I was making progress. It’s Toby’s way of overcoming discomfort. We talked the idea through, and he finally relented. “But I want a full report,” he warned. “No touching. And no looking, just listening.”
“I don’t know about the looking clause,” I said, “but I’ll do my best.”
“And keep your phone with you at all times,” Toby insisted. “That way you can call me if you get into a tight spot. I’ll be right outside, waiting in the car.”
Having a getaway car at the ready seemed smart, but how was I supposed to carry a phone? If you’re naked, do you hold it behind your back? Maybe I could grab a towel and twist the phone into it.
When Maggie arrived, she wasn’t pleased to learn that Toby was coming, but he promised her he would stay out of sight and avoid spoiling her evening. “Just don’t crash the party,” Maggie cautioned, “or we’ll be booted out.”
“Understood,” Toby replied. “But I’ll be there if you need me.” Having agreed on the ground rules, we set out in Maggie’s car, with me in the passenger seat (left side) and Toby head-down on the back seat, in fetal position.
The Achill Arms—or as Maggie calls it, the Arms & Legs—stands on the Dugort road on the outskirts of the village, where the beach gives way to a high spit of meadow. The wide, two-story building sits at the center of this meadow, with its back to the sea and its face shielded from view by a high wall of fuchsia. In summer, the shrubs are thick with red and purple flowers, sparing passersby from any glimpse of shenanigans inside. The hotel’s heyday was the 1920s, but when train service to Achill ended, tourism dropped off and the island’s grandest hotel went into decline. It was abandoned by midcentury and stood empty for decades, until a publican from Keel bought it at auction rates and renovated it for use as a private club. One wing of the hotel was turned into a spa with a communal hot tub, a hickory-paneled sauna, and a steam bath lined with Italian tile. The other wing, which once housed a restaurant, was transformed into a disco with a stage, dance floor, and discreet nooks. Upstairs, of course, were the bedrooms.
It was just getting dark when we arrived. We parked at the end of a line of cars and prepared to leave Toby in the back of Maggie’s Toyota with the windows rolled down. He had his backlit Kindle to keep him occupied, but it was not going to be pleasant lying scrunched up on the cloth seat covered with dog hairs. Just before I closed the car door, Toby raised his head to whisper, “Remember!” He pantomimed a phone call, with his pinky extended and thumb to his ear.
“Will Declan be here tonight?” I asked as we walked up the path to the hotel.
“I doubt it,” Maggie said. “He spent the day at the garda station and came back exhausted. It seems the Paul Henry painting was missing when the guards searched Frank Hickey’s house. Declan claims he doesn’t know anything about it, but the detectives questioned him for hours. It’s just as well he won’t be here,” she added.
At the entrance, we rang the bell and waited. “How do I look?” I did a slow turn. I had spent some time wondering what to wear.
Maggie nodded her approval. “You look like someone going to an orgy.”
My suitcase hadn’t carried hussy clothes to Ireland, so I was reduced to adapting my one sexy nightgown, which I had brought to encourage vacation romance (with my own husband). It was a wedding-shower gift from my girlfriends, who had splurged at Victoria’s Secret on a black knee-length number, which fell in slinky folds from string straps. I added fake gold earrings and the real gold necklace that Toby’s mother gave me as an engagement present. To solve the phone problem, I slung the strap of a black purse across my chest, thereby accentuating my best bits while housing my escape alarm.
When I saw Maggie’s getup, I realized that I had gone too far. She was in tight jeans and a white V neck T-shirt. Wild red hair said all that needed to be said.
The door was answered by an unnervingly handsome man in a white silk shirt and black leather vest. Greeting us with a slight bow, he said, “Good evening, ladies. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you at the club before. How did you find us?”
Maggie brushed by him. “One of the members invited us.” She mentioned Declan’s name. “And we were interested,” she said, smiling salaciously.
“Ah. I don’t believe he’s here tonight. But you’re very welcome.” He returned Maggie’s smile. He had unnaturally white teeth. “May I take your wraps?”
While he was hanging up our coats, Maggie whispered that she wouldn’t mind wrapping herself around our genial host. Maggie could use a little more impulse control.
The host returned, his Cheshire cat smile intact. “My name is Sean,” he said, as if offering us (or rather, Maggie) his calling card. “I’ll be happy to show you around the club and go over our rules—we don’t have many, but they have to be observed.”
“Grand,” said Maggie.
“Right, then. Well, you may have noticed that I didn’t mention my surname when I introduced myself. Here it’s first names only: that’s rule one. And you are?
“Maggie.”
“Nora.”
“Right. You’ll get on fine. Rule two: all acts of intimacy are consensual. If someone approaches you and you’re not interested, just say so. Here ‘no’ means ‘no.’ This rule protects our guests from unwanted contact.”
“That’s brilliant,” said Maggie.
As long as everyone observes the rule, I thought.
“Rule three.” Sean ticked off on his fingers. “Dress code. Clothing is optional throughout the club, but our guests in the bar and disco are usually dressed. At the spa, nudity is the norm. There is also a shower area and locker room, where you may leave your belongings.”
“Do you provide towels?” I asked.
“Of course.”
Just checking.
“And upstairs?” Maggie inquired.
“Upstairs pretty much anything goes,” said Sean. “It’s up to you. One more thing,” he added. “To protect everyone’s privacy, no photographic or recording devices are allowed. You have to check your mobiles at the door.” He extended his palm.
Uh-oh. So much for my communication link with Toby. If I got groped by a masher, I was on my own. Maggie and I fished in our bags for the phones and turned them over.
“Thanks, ladies,” he said. Sean stowed them in a box containing other phones, each with a numbered label attached. “You can claim them on the way out. Your number is fifty-eight, remember that. Now if you come this way, I’ll give you a quick tour.”
We were standing in the entrance to the old hotel. Sean led us into what once had been the lobby, now converted to a stylish bar, with dim lighting, a curved wooden bar, and café tables. “It’s the icebreaker room,” he said. “Most of our guests like to start out here with a drink. I recommend the Cooley 2 Gingers.” Whatever that was. I looked over at several couples and a group of four men, fully clothed, sipping drinks and exchanging conversation. It could have been any hotel bar in Ireland.
We followed Sean into a room across the hallway. “Things start to warm up in the disco,” he said in a raised voice. The room was basically dark but lit in flashes by strobe lights and a pulsing chandelier. Recorded music pounded, singles and couples danced frenetically, and hips bumped suggestively.
Sean led us out. “At the end of the hall,” he continued, “we have the spa: hot tub, steam bath, sauna, and locker rooms.” I noticed the plural. At least there would be a women’s changing room.
The spa had slate floors, warmed by mellow lighting. Yup, everyone was nude, though a few women and a single bashful male had wrapped themselves in spa towels. The focus of activity was a huge hot tub, packed with chattering bathers, not a swimming suit among them. Other guests lounged on recliners, the kind you see at a pool. An area at the back of the room was marked off for badminton. Two well-nourished couples were batting a shuttlecock over a net, flopping and bouncing as they scurried after it. The scene reminded me of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. “This is more like it,” Maggie said.
We’ve all seen naked people before, but a room full of them is something else. Here there were all shapes and sizes, some young, some middle-aged. With their clothes on, most of these folks would be unremarkable, but here they turned heads, displaying parts more interesting than those normally in view.
“The women’s locker room is through here.” Sean pointed, indicating a door. “The bedrooms are upstairs. I’ll leave it to you to find them, when you’re ready.” His job done, Sean bowed again and returned to his post.
“I wonder if we were supposed to tip him?” Maggie said. “You know, like a maître d’?”
“Could be.”
“No matter. We can take care of that on the way out. So, where to first?”
“Let’s get a preview of the second floor so we’ll know what’s what,” I said, “and then go to the bar. I’m not ready for the hot tub, and the disco’s too noisy.”
“Right,” she said. “Em, what’s the plan if we get separated?”
“Separated?” Maggie looked at me impatiently until I got it. “Oh. Well, what time does this place close?” I didn’t relish the idea of being left on my own, but why should I spoil her party?
Maggie said, “I’m not sure, but pubs close at twelve thirty on Saturday night.”
“Then let’s meet at the bar at half past eleven. I don’t want Toby to have to sit in the car all night. Will that give you enough time to, er?”
“It will if I get lucky. Lead on.”
The upstairs bedrooms still had the look of a hotel and hadn’t required much renovation, except that the interior walls of some of the rooms had been knocked down to provide larger spaces for cavorting. A few rooms had glass doors, catering to any voyeurs in the corridor and exhibitionists inside. “Over here,” Maggie summoned me. “This looks like the main event.” In a big room at the end of the hall the beds had been replaced by gray mats on the floor. The mats gave the impression of a gymnastics match or yoga class. Various combinations of men and women were going at it, but it seemed to me there was more effort involved than fun—they were all too busy concentrating on their performances. I pictured a row of judges holding up number cards.
“I think I get the idea,” I said. “I’m ready to go down to the bar.”
“Lead on,” said Maggie.
The bar had filled up while we were touring the club, but we were able to get a small table at the back. Maggie got up to fetch our drinks and returned with a whiskey for herself and white wine for me. In her wake came a pair of lads carrying drinks of their own.
“Hiya,” said Larry, introducing himself and pulling up a chair. “May I?” he asked after the fact.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” said Maggie pointedly.
“Beg pardon” said Larry, getting up.
“No need,” said Maggie. “I was just codding you. You’re welcome, and your friend too.”
“That’s Jonathan,” he said, breaking into a broad smile. Jonathan said hi and sat down opposite me. Larry was freckled and on the roly-poly side. His friend Jonathan was better looking but shy: the drag-along.
“So, girls,” Larry began, “what brings you to the Achill Arms?”
“Just visiting,” I said.
“Just visiting, eh? Well, what do you say we get the visit started.” He winked. “Which is it to be, the hot tub or upstairs?”
Maggie intervened protectively. “D’ye fancy a dance first, Larry? How about the disco?”
“Delighted.” Larry had focused his attention on me, but now that he had a bird in the hand, he adjusted his sights. Off they went, leaving me with tongue-tied Jonathan. The next ten minutes were painful reminders of my junior high school prom. Eventually I disentangled myself, announcing an unneeded trip to “the ladies.’” I hoped to find a source of information elsewhere in the building.
Thinking the spa might be worth a go, I disrobed in the women’s locker room and emerged in a fluffy spa towel that did a pretty good job of preserving my modesty. I spotted unoccupied lounge chairs on the far side of the hot tub and chose one, doing my best to appear at ease. It wasn’t long before two young men claimed the chairs next to me. The skinny one had a towel around his waist, while the well-built one strutted, swinging his towel provocatively. The friends spread their towels over the chairs, casually exposing themselves, and stretched out. I pretended to doze while I eavesdropped on their conversation.
It was pretty distasteful stag talk, but my eyes popped open when one of them mentioned Frank Hickey. I sat up, tucking my towel under my arms. “Excuse me, do you know Frank?” I asked.
“I do,” replied the muscle man. He gave me the once-over. “Did you hear he’s just died, God bless him?”
“Yes, I heard,” I said.
“Terrible thing,” he went on. “I was just talking to him the other day. The club won’t be the same without him.”
“What happened?” asked the skinny guy, sitting up and swinging his legs over the chair.
“They’re not saying,” replied the first, “but I’d lay ye five that it’s . . .” He stopped himself and said to me, “Was Frank a friend of yours, then?”
“We were some kind of cousins, many times removed.”
“I wouldn’t speak ill of the dead, you know, but odds are someone did him in. Frank wasn’t content to keep it at the club. He tomcatted all over the island, so plenty of husbands were ill set toward him. No offense,” he added, looking at me. “But that’s how it was.”
I shrugged and said, “I hardly knew him.”
“Wasn’t he running around with Betty O’Shea?” asked the skinny one.
“Sure, that was common knowledge.”
“And Bryan O’Shea has a black temper. He nearly destroyed Keene’s Pub last year.”
“He’s a bad egg, that one, but he’s not the only one wanting to bust Frank’s dial. Our man was sneaking behind the back of that American partner of his who turned up dead.”
“Bert Barnes?” My voice came out squeaky.
“That’s the one. You’d never guess the wife would go for a fella like Frank, but isn’t that the way sometimes with the quiet ones? There’s a story there, and it will come out, I’ll tell ya.”
“Is that right?” I asked, struggling to sound only mildly interested.
“He told me so himself. You’d think he’d be satisfied with the goods here at the club, but some men can’t help courting trouble.”
“Speaking of which,” said his friend, ogling me, “Can I interest you, my dear, in a visit upstairs?”
“No, thank you. I’m not quite ready for that,” I replied.
“How about the hot tub, then?”
“I’ll come too,” said the bodybuilder, with the implication that his offer should close the deal.
“You guys go ahead. I’d like to relax here a little while longer, if you don’t mind. I might join you later.”
“It’s a date,” said one.
“See you there,” said the other.
They left, leaving me to recline with my eyes closed, thinking about Aunt Laura and Frank Hickey. My mind went back to the condolence call on the morning of Uncle Bert’s death. The front door was closed, but Frank came into the house without knocking or ringing the bell. That suggested he was used to coming and going. If Frank and Aunt Laura were having an affair, what implications did that have for Uncle Bert’s death? Did Bert try to have it out with Frank and get killed in the bargain? Or did Aunt Laura use Frank to rid herself of Bert? Maybe she hated Bert more than Mom did. Now that was an unsettling thought.
I sat up on the recliner and took another shock. A man who looked awfully familiar was entering the steam bath. Toby! I would know that backside anywhere. What was he doing inside the club, prancing around buck naked? He was supposed to be out in the car. I bounded up, almost losing my towel, and circled around the hot tub to the steam bath. I pulled open the door and looked in, but the room was opaque with billowing steam.
“Don’t stand there with the door open. You’re letting out the steam,” boomed a male voice, not Toby’s. “If you’re coming in, come in. And lose the towel.”
I stepped forward, pulling the towel up under my arms, and closed the door behind me. “Toby?” I asked.
“I’m Ryan,” said the voice. “Have a seat.”
“Join the party,” said a female voice. “I’m Sheila.”
“Glad to meet you,” I said in a faltering tone. “I’m Nora. I was looking for my husband.”
“Why?” asked Sheila. “You can have him at home. What’s the point of coming to the club?”
I peered through the steam and could make out, just barely, two naked figures sitting side by side, Ryan and Sheila I presumed. I made bold to call out, “Is anyone else in here?”
“No,” croaked a low voice from a corner of the impenetrable fog. That scared me out of my—well, I was already out of my clothes. I tightened the towel around me.
“Toby, is that you?” I asked. I felt like Winnie-the-Pooh calling into the rabbit hole, X-rated version.
“Ribbit,” the voice croaked.
“Sorry to bother you,” I replied. Backing out the door might make me look like a prude, but I had no intention of staying and meeting the croaker. That weirdo couldn’t be Toby; I must have been mistaken. It was too bad my phone had been confiscated, because now would be the time to use it.
I retreated to my safe haven on the recliner, but no sooner had I made myself comfortable than I faced another difficulty. Larry and Jonathan had entered the spa. I pulled the towel up over my face, hoping the guys hadn’t spotted me yet. I didn’t want to extend the acquaintance that Maggie began in the bar, but where to escape? The steam bath was out. The hot tub was unthinkable. The locker room was too far away. My best option was the sauna, a few feet behind me.
I pivoted and stepped inside, the towel still shielding my face. A blast of hot, dry air almost sent me back out again—that and the realization that I wasn’t alone. A man was sitting in the corner with a towel draped around his neck and everything else exposed. He was big, bald, and hairy. Uh-oh, I thought.
“Hello there,” he greeted me. “I’m Simon.”
I gave my name and sat on the bench opposite. I intended to watch his every move.
“You’re going to be hot in that heavy towel,” he observed.
“I’m fine as I am,” I replied.
Nothing more was said for some time. The heat burned through my skin and melted my muscles, or that’s how it felt. Just when I thought my bones were softening, Simon the Bald crossed over and sat next to me, very next to me. “Why don’t you take that off,” he coaxed. “You’ll enjoy it more.”
I clenched the towel to my chest and edged my rear down the bench. He put his hand on my knee. I took it off. “No, thank you,” I said. “I’m not interested.” He persisted. “No means no,” I said. “It’s a club rule.”
“Is that so?” he said, trying to slide his hand up my thigh.
I shoved him away, and my towel came off in his grip. “That’s better,” he said, tossing it aside and leering at me. He had me squeezed into a corner, and I was scared.
“Get off,” I cried.
“Or what?” he said, pawing me. “I know what you want.” He mushed his face into mine.
Just then, the door to the sauna flew open and Toby, wearing only a scowl, launched himself at my attacker, prying him off me and slamming him into the wall. As Simon bounced off, Toby seized him by his shoulders and forced him into a sitting position on the bench. “That’s my wife,” said Toby, standing over him. “Leave her alone.”
“How was I to know?” sputtered Simon. “Besides, what’s she doing here if she doesn’t want to play?”
Toby ignored him. “Come on,” he said to me, grabbing my towel. “Put this on and let’s get out of here.” Toby put his arm around my shoulder and guided me toward the locker room.
“Boy, am I ever glad to see you,” I said, stumbling a little. “How did you get into the club?”
“There’s a back door. Declan told me about it when we were playing darts. I took my clothes off and left them in the back hall, behind a chair. I don’t think anyone saw me.”
I explained why I hadn’t been able to use my phone.
“I realized something was wrong when I called and you didn’t answer. Where’s Maggie?”
I told him we had agreed to rendezvous in the bar at eleven thirty.
“Okay, we’ll wait for her,” said Toby. “You get your clothes on. I’ll get my stuff and change in the men’s locker room. Then we’ll meet in the bar. I’ll be the guy in crinkled clothes.”
Over drinks, still shaken from my ordeal in the sauna, I told Toby what I had heard about Frank Hickey.
“Well, that gives us a new lead. If your aunt was involved with Frank, we’ve got a whole new set of possibilities. Where there’s a triangle, there’s trouble, every time.” Toby took a long draught of his beer. “I have to hand it to you. Your gambit of sleuthing in the nude has paid off.”
“I don’t know if it was worth almost getting raped,” I admitted. “It’s a lucky thing you came along when you did.”
“It wasn’t just luck,” said Toby, putting down his pint. “I planned to sneak in all along. You don’t really think I’d let you loose in a swingers’ club by yourself, do you? I kept tabs on you from the start.”
“So that was you I saw going into the steam room. I thought I recognized your rear!”
“Sorry, but I went upstairs first, in case things had gone too far for my comfort. When you weren’t in the den of iniquity, I came down to the spa. You weren’t in the hot tub, so I opened the door of the sauna, and there you were, battling with that hairy beast.”
“You’re sure you weren’t in the steam room before that?”
“Nope. I don’t like wet heat.”
“That’s strange. Some weirdo—never mind. I was just glad to see you when I did. You saved my ass.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” said Toby.
At eleven thirty, Maggie sashayed into the bar, looking pleased with herself. While she sipped a nightcap, I gave her a rundown of my evening, omitting the incident in the sauna, then asked about hers. “Just grand,” she replied. She had spent most of the time upstairs.
“With Larry?” I asked.
“Get on with you. I ditched him at the disco.”
“Who then?”
“No last names, remember?” And that was all I could get out of her. We reclaimed our coats and phones. Maggie tipped the host. She winked at him too. We got in the car, and damned if she didn’t hum all the way home.
I went to bed exhausted, yet feeling amorous. Perhaps it was a delayed reaction to the sight of so many naked men prowling for partners. Or maybe it was the sight of my own preferred partner, standing by our bed, naked and at the ready. I drew him to me, and we made love passionately, then tenderly.
Later, drifting off to sleep, folded against his body spoon-style, feeling blissfully content, I whispered, “Good night, sweetheart.”
“Ribbit,” croaked Toby.