Dead in Dublin

Fionnuala’s words kept playing in Megan’s mind as she drove up to St. James’s Hospital, barely a mile—a couple of kilometres—up from where Liz had fallen. If only she had saved a life. If only she’d somehow—but she couldn’t even finish that thought. Moving faster wouldn’t have saved Liz. Warning her not to—not to what, eat the shellfish? Megan shook her head, watching the street corner for a traffic light to change.

A few years of driving in Dublin had mostly accustomed her to the lights being on corners instead of above the streets, though she would never really adapt to street names being posted on the sides of buildings. It made navigating hard, for Americans. Maybe for everybody; Megan had had an Irish cousin visit once, and he’d exclaimed over how easy it was to read the American street signs. She hadn’t understood until she’d come to Ireland and discovered the signs there were all on the corners of buildings, and mostly grime-covered so they were hard to read even if she knew where they were.

It’s me life you’re saving.

The cadence of it sang in her head again, soft and generous as a tune. Megan didn’t believe for a minute that dodgy shellfish had been the culprit in Elizabeth’s death, and not just because that laid the consequences at Fionn’s feet. The light changed, traffic rolling forward quickly enough at this hour: just before ten now, with the sun dropping behind the horizon to bring twilight to the long summer evenings. Dublin Castle’s grey stones were cooled by blue shadows, touched by the last drips of sunset gold at the top.

Megan hadn’t saved Liz’s life, wasn’t really saving Fionnuala’s either. Helping, at best, although if the restaurant dinner wasn’t at fault . . . a strain of song slipped through her mind: She died of a fever, and no one could save her, singing cockles and mussels, sweet Molly Malone.

Elizabeth had seemed fine when Megan dropped the Darrs off for dinner, and no fever Megan knew about settled on somebody and killed them in three hours. Neither did food poisoning, though, at least, not typically. Allergies, maybe, but Elizabeth Darr had been a food critic. She wouldn’t have eaten something that would make her sick.

Not deliberately, anyway.

She beat her fingertips against the steering wheel, then reached out to touch the leprechaun figurine on the dashboard, as if he could lend her some luck. Not deliberately skirted too near a thought she was trying to stay away from: that maybe someone had murdered Elizabeth Darr. Every food critic had industry enemies, although Megan didn’t think they generally resorted to killing one another. Now that she’d let the thought loose, it seemed preposterous.

And if it wasn’t, Detective Paul Bourke would figure it out, because unlike Megan, he had been trained and got paid to determine whether there had been foul play. Megan only liked to talk to people and find out their stories, which meant driving a limo was about the perfect job for her. It also made her adore the Irish query “what’s the story?” which meant anything from “how are you” to “what’s going on?” She always wanted the answer to that question, and listened well enough that people often told her.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket again. Megan didn’t even take it out this time: getting caught driving while on the phone meant points off your license and whoever it was could wait.

The underground car park at St. James’s smelled faintly of hops, courtesy of the Guinness brewery just down the road. Some days the malty odor could be smelled all over the city centre, but she hadn’t noticed it earlier. The wind had probably been wrong. She wrinkled her nose, got out of the car, and hurried toward the hospital’s main entrance.

The stainless-steel border between the sliding doors offered just enough reflective surface to surprise Megan with her own appearance. Someone she knew, however casually, had just died in a public display. She felt like she ought to look frazzled, stressed out, coming apart at the seams. Instead, the brief reflection showed a woman with her dark hair in a tidy French twist, her black-and-white driver’s uniform crisp, her light makeup still in place. She didn’t even look tired.

The doors swooshed open and Megan entered, tucking her chauffeur’s cap under her arm. Maybe looking sharp and professional would encourage someone to tell her that Fionnuala’s restaurant was off the hook, although realistically, she couldn’t imagine why anybody would share that information with her. Perhaps her sparkling gaze and winning smile would do the trick, but even if they wouldn’t, she still had a responsibility—albeit only a self-assumed one—to Simon Darr. Getting him home, and seeing whether she could find anything out for Fionn, were the only two things Megan could do right now, so she wanted to. Being able to take some kind of useful action in a crisis was always better than being helpless. That was part of why she’d become an Army medic.

There were no receptionists at the desk this late. Megan tapped a tattoo on the desk for a few seconds, looked around, then found an older man in a custodial staff jacket and asked for directions to the A&E—Accidents & Emergencies, what would be the ER in the States—and he smiled, a light South Asian accent was sympathetic as he asked, “Is everything all right, miss?”

Megan shook her head, smiling awkwardly. “No, but it’s not my loss. Thank you.”

Her guide nodded and told her it would be easier to get to the A&E by leaving the building and going around the outside. Megan hurried outside and down the sidewalks until she reached the pedestrian entrance and took a breath upon seeing the crowd inside as she pushed the door open.

At a glance, it was clear that the fifty or so seats held people suffering mostly from contusions and various degrees of intoxication, but the dim fluorescent lights made everyone look sicker than they were. Crowded as it seemed on a Thursday night, she knew it would be worse on a weekend.

Simon Darr wasn’t amongst those sitting there. Megan patiently waited in line until she reached the admitting nurse, who snapped, “Details?”

“I’m looking for a friend or her husband. Elizabeth Darr. She would have come in around nine or nine fifteen. Her husband is Simon. Elizabeth may have been dead on arrival. I’m here to drive Simon home when he’s ready.”

Not even a hint of sympathy flickered in the nurse’s eyes. “The mortuary is by the James Street entrance.”

Megan nodded. “Thank you for your time.” She stepped aside, making way for a lumbering man holding a flap of his forehead in place. The nurse, as unsympathetic to the blood caking his face as she’d been to Megan’s tale, barked, “Details?” at him, and Megan slipped away to the mortuary.

* * *

Simon Darr sat alone in a corridor that could have been purposely built for a grim film scene: both ends were swinging double doors and a series of plastic chairs sat beside another single door in the hallway. Even the chairs seemed sad, like they’d held the weight of too many broken hearts, and Simon’s was only one more in a long and unhappy line. Only hours earlier, Megan would have described him as a runner, fit and athletic. Now his thinning hair was limp and his shoulders bowed beneath clothing as rumpled and unkempt as Megan had expected hers to be. She’d noticed when they’d first met that his nails were beautifully manicured, but they were rough and ragged now, his reddened knuckles swollen as his hands encased his face.

A nurse or mortuary assistant—a professional dressed in hospital blues at least—exited the double doors beyond Simon, opposite the ones Megan had just entered. She gave him a brief, compassionate glance that became guarded with inquiry as she met Megan’s eyes. Megan indicated Simon with a twitch of her fingers, and the nurse, relieved of that duty, strode past her with no further communication.

Megan sat on the edge of the chair beside Simon’s, putting her hand on the arm of his seat. He shifted, then lifted a dull gaze to her without a shred of recognition in it. “Megan Malone,” she said quietly. “Your driver. I thought I’d come take you back to the hotel when you were ready.”

The man’s eyes cleared and he shuddered. “Megan. Right, of course. I’m sorry, I should have recognized you.”

“No, it’s okay. Are you—” Megan stopped herself from asking the obviously stupid question, but a terrible, broken smile darted across Simon’s face.

“All right? No, but—” He drew a shuddering breath and passed his hands over his face. “I’m probably in shock. I don’t quite believe she’s dead. I’m expecting her to—” He made a sharp, clumsy motion toward the mortuary doors beside them. “To walk through and laugh at me for believing this was real, or to yell for me to come hold her hair while she pukes because she drank a little too much. Or to hear her singing that god-awful song again. She hasn’t stopped singing it since we got here.” His face spasmed. “Hadn’t.”

“ ‘Molly Malone?’ ” Meg asked softly. “I saw her singing it on the RTÉ Lifestyle Show. She had a lovely voice.”

“She studied opera at college, but she got nodes.” Simon gestured loosely at his throat. “They healed, but she lost some of her upper range. Then she got involved with a chef and decided she liked writing about food more than singing for her supper.” The same terrible slash of a smile creased his face, cutting deep lines around his mouth and nose. “That’s what she always said when her parents complained about not having a prima donna daughter. I think they forgave her when her first foodie book came out, though. It was something they could . . .” He gave a short, harsh laugh, a sound of grief barely disguised by humor. “Something they could dine out on. I have to call them. I don’t know what to say.”

“What did the paramedics say? Was it food poisoning?”

“It can’t be ruled out until the autopsy is done, but I tried some of her dinner and I’m fine.” His expression crumpled again, this time beyond salvation. Megan, uncertain but not wanting to leave him entirely alone in his grief, put a careful hand on his shoulder. If Leprechaun Limos didn’t have procedures for comforting a bereaved client, Megan’s boss would no doubt have them in place by morning, along with an itemized list of how Megan had handled it wrong.

After a minute, Simon put his hand on top of hers, acknowledging her effort. Her fingers were short and blunt compared to his.

“Do you want to stay?” she asked when the worst of his sobs had passed. “I don’t know what their rules are, but I’m sure they’d let you sit with her if you want to.”

“I won’t do her any good,” came his bleak reply. “They promised they’d hurry up the autopsy, but even if I could stand it, they won’t let me be there for it, and it won’t get done before morning anyway.”

“Do you have any friends here?” Megan asked. “Someone who could come to your hotel, or whose house you could go to?”

Simon laughed hoarsely. “I’m supposed to say ‘Elizabeth didn’t make friends’ now, right? Except she did. People—fans—wanted to meet her. They’d feel like they already knew her, from her blog and reviews, but then they’d learn how funny and kind she was and they’d become friends. Most of them. There were people who didn’t like her, people whose restaurants she’d reviewed badly, but . . . I don’t know who I would call. We’ve been traveling around too much. God, we loved it, though. She was always ready to get back home after a long trip, but this time she—we—thought we might want to stay. I even interviewed at several of the Dublin hospitals, looking for work. But we hadn’t made any close friends yet.” Another of the terrible, anguished smiles slashed his face. “I’m afraid you might be the closest thing we have to a friend here right now. We’ve seen you more regularly than almost anyone else.”

Megan’s hand found its way to her mouth, pressing against her lips. She knew from experience how isolating moving to a new country could be, but she’d had the military structure as support for most of her life. Being a lone civilian, facing the death of a loved one in a foreign country would daunt even her. She grasped Simon’s shoulder in consolation. “Then I’ll stay with you.”

Surprised gratitude, then discomfort, washed across Simon’s face. “No, I can’t put you out. I’ll be all right. I have to call her parents. My sister. Her publisher. I’m going to have to post on her blog. . . .”

“Not tonight.” Megan squeezed his shoulder. “You don’t have to post tonight. Or call her publisher.”

“She died in public. It’s probably already all over social media. I have to do something.” A thread of angry strength came into Simon’s voice and Megan fell silent, not wanting to diminish whatever consolation he could draw from having something to do. “I’ll call her family first. If you can drive me back to the hotel . . . ?”

Megan rose, nodding, and opened the single door beside the chairs. A young woman looked up from a desk in the room beyond and Megan said, “I’m bringing Dr. Darr back to his hotel. You have his contact details?”

The girl moved papers around before finding the one she wanted at the top of the pile. “We’ll call as soon as we know anything.”

“Thank you.” Megan let the door close behind her and caught up with Simon, who strode through the double doors leading to the exit. He had his phone in hand, his jaw set as he lifted it to his ear. Megan moved a few steps ahead of him, unobtrusively leading the way with a purposeful set to her shoulders that spoke of professionalism and an uncanny inability to hear his phone call.

Her phone gave the specific pattern that meant a call had gone to voice mail while she’d been in the depths of the hospital. Eventually she would have to answer it, but it could wait.

Walking and the prospect of an audience—not Megan; she’d become a position, The Driver, rather than a person, but there were people in the hospital corridors even this late—helped Simon Darr hold himself in emotional check as he spoke with his in-laws, but the facade disintegrated as Megan closed the car door behind him in the garage. The town car didn’t have a privacy window or she’d have rolled it up to allow him to be alone in his grief. Without it, she could hear Elizabeth’s mother’s high, keening wails, and the deeper, rougher sobs from her father through the speaker on Simon’s phone. Her vision blurred with tears and she wiped them away with the heel of her hand, trying to breathe steadily enough to keep more from falling.

Midnight traffic meant a short drive through Dublin’s thousand-year-old heart, past the Guinness Storehouse, still smelling strongly of hops, and St Patrick’s Cathedral, its spire piercing the blue-black night sky as a darker shadow. Even hours after sunset, the greenery surrounding the cathedral gave off cooler air than the bricks and concrete of the city around it. Megan adored St Pat’s, partly for its beauty but mostly for the fact that it wasn’t meant to exist: Dublin had two cathedrals, the second, Christ Church, being barely a stone’s throw away from St Pat’s. She didn’t pretend to understand the depths of the eight-hundred-year-old religious and political mess that had resulted in the both of them being cathedrals, but she loved the resulting buildings.

The streets beyond that were just as memorable, medieval arches here and there creating pedestrian by-ways that led toward a tangle of streets meant for carts and horses, and newer—which meant two or three hundred years old, rather than a thousand—streets lined with the tall, Georgian manor houses that were part of the city’s pride.

Simon’s hotel, the Shelbourne, dated from that era, overlooking the north end of St Stephen’s Green, a park that had been there, more or less in its current form, for over a hundred and fifty years. The Alamo was older, but not much else built by Europeans in Texas was. Megan hoped she’d never get over being awed and delighted by that.

She parked illegally outside the hotel, reckoning the odds of a ticket were slim and she’d pay it without complaint if she got caught, and walked Simon up to his room. He paused his phone call and pulled himself together again in the public space but couldn’t muster the coordination to open the key card lock on his room door. Megan took the card silently, opened the door, ushered him in, and waited until he gave her a tremulous nod of dismissal to leave again. On the way out, she stopped at reception and told them what had happened, causing the already pale desk attendant to whiten until his freckles stood out like a disease.

Feeling vaguely guilty, Megan left the poor kid to figure out how to deal with a bereaved guest and slipped back outside into the comparative quiet of the Dublin night to find she had not, in fact, been ticketed. Nor would she be, once she was in the car, so she sat behind the wheel, opted to ignore the three missed calls and voice mail from her boss, and texted Fionnuala: Husband ate some of her dinner, he’s fine, so probably not food poisoning. Hope that helps you get ahead of the story. <3 <3 <3

A response came back almost instantly: OMG TYSM you’re a star, followed by how’s the poor man doing?

Pretty crappy, Megan texted back. You?

Better now. Thanks a million, Megan.

No worries.

She sat for a moment in the silence of the car, letting the phone’s screen go dark. It lit up again a moment later, playing the three-note tune that said another text message had come in. Her boss, Orla. Again.

Rather than answer it, or even look at it, Megan made a face and tossed the phone into the passenger’s seat. “All right, all right, I’m on my way to face the music. . . .”