CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
She ended up back at the Library Bar, only a five-minute walk away, whirling unconnected bits of information around in her mind like a tornado looking for somewhere to touch down. The bemused bartender there gave her the fizzy drink she ordered, and a pen and several napkins to write on, asking, “Don’t you have a phone to take notes on?” as she did so.
“Ah, yeah, but I’m old and writing things down is faster than thumb-typing them out.” Megan gave the woman an absent smile and took her drink and her napkins to a table, where she ignored the drink in favor of scribbling down what she knew.
Simon’s gambling problems had led—she suspected—to selling drugs to cover his debts. He’d given it up for a while, but had begun again when he’d come to Ireland, for reasons she still didn’t know. Detective Bourke probably did by now, but Megan could just imagine his face—or tone of voice—if she called up and asked. And Noel had implied that Simon had sold drugs in the St. Andrew’s nightclub, but that no one would ever prove it.
On top of that, he’d needed somewhere to launder his drug money . . . and Martin Rafferty, it appeared, had been eyeball-deep in money laundering through Fionnuala’s restaurant. They might have crossed paths, but when or where Megan had no idea. And how Liz, instead of Simon, had ended up dead because of it—Megan shook her head, took a sip of her soda, and blinked away tears as intense carbonation went up her nose. She had to be missing something. Something to do with Molly Malone, as unlikely as that seemed.
After another nose-burning sip of soda, Megan put her headphones back on and listened to Liz’s RTÉ interview again, all the while moving around napkins that said Liz and Simon and Martin or had drug and money laundering notes on them. Liz’s tuneful “Molly Malone” ended and the woman host pressed her about what, particularly, appealed to her about that song.
“There are so many layers to it,” Liz Darr explained. “To begin with, it’s simply about a working woman, someone who’s up at dawn every day to do her job, and I think we can all relate to that. But there’s more to it than that, to me. Poor Molly dies of a fever—”
“ ‘And no one could save her,’ ” sang the host, as well as Liz herself had done, and Liz’s laughter bubbled in Megan’s ears for a moment.
“Right. And, you know, to me, there’s a terrible reflection of the world we’re still living in, when I hear that. Healthcare, especially healthcare for women, is so precarious, so underserved, in so much of the world, and to hear a centuries-old song speaking to that same problem—I mean, I know how far we’ve come in that time, don’t get me wrong, but it still resonates for me. And then you add into it the question of Molly’s . . . other job, shall we say? The oldest profession, one that women today are still driven to in order to make ends meet, or to escape abusive relationships . . . I don’t know. To me, Molly’s story is a story of the female condition, and what we do to get by in the world. And wow, that really kind of brought the whole thing down, didn’t it? Invite me on to talk about the Irish tour and a new book and you get a quick dissertation on domestic abuse. . . .”
“Well, in fact, it makes the transition to our next segment very nice, as next up I have Janet Ní Shuilleabháin from Women’s Aid, and we’ll be talking about how women—and men—do escape those scenarios. But first, Liz Darr, internationally renowned food critic and author, thank you for your time!”
Liz’s “My pleasure” was drowned beneath audience applause, but Megan almost didn’t hear it anyway. She’d written down an astonished DV? Domestic violence beside Simon’s name and turned off her headset to stare in silence at the pieces of paper she had before her.
Paul Bourke would never tell her if she called up to ask whether Elizabeth Darr’s autopsy report had shown any signs of domestic violence. Liz’s parents might, but Megan couldn’t imagine calling to ask such a question. She couldn’t really imagine asking it at all, but the link felt real somehow. Maybe that was the notorious gut instinct police officers in film and TV were always counting on, although Megan noticed someone usually told them they needed facts to back up their guts with.
She folded her napkins into a pocket, finished her soda—its carbonation had faded some and didn’t render her teary-eyed with bubbles—and left the bar to walk over to the Shelbourne Hotel.
The Dempseys were still in their room. Megan was grateful that they invited her up when she called from the front desk. Even so, she hung back, not coming farther than the end of the hall beside the bathroom, when she entered. Mrs. Dempsey, jaw set tightly, said, “What is it?”
“I have an awful question to ask,” Megan said quietly. “I’m trying to understand—to find out—what happened to Liz—”
“We know what you’re trying to do.” The words, although sharp, didn’t feel cruel; they only felt like a grieving parent struggling to push through the worst days of her life as functionally as possible. “Just ask.”
“Did Liz’s autopsy report show any signs of domestic abuse? New or old?”
Mr. Dempsey said, “Jesus” in a grief-torn voice. His wife sat down hard on the bed, fists clenched in the covers, as if trying to keep herself from falling off the face of the world. It took several seconds before she could answer—Peter didn’t even try to—and when she did, it was just with the shake of her head. Megan nodded, but Mrs. Dempsey gathered herself to speak and finally managed, “No. No, they asked about two accidents, and now that you’re asking, I understand why. She fell off a horse a few years ago and broke her upper arm, but Simon was actually filming her at the time, so he clearly wasn’t at fault. And she tripped on the hem of a long dress, going upstairs, a while ago, and broke her . . .” She touched her upper lip, just below the nose.
“The maxilla,” her husband said roughly. “It’s called the maxilla. That was at a friend’s wedding. She ended up being a bridesmaid in a borrowed dress and an ice pack, but she refused to go to the hospital until they were married. There are pictures of her with her entire face swollen up.” He laughed, though it fell apart into tears. “Those are the only two bones she’s broken as an adult. She fell out of a tree when she was seven and broke her arm then, too, but . . .” He shook his head. “Why?”
“Because—I don’t exactly know yet. There’s something I think I’m missing. I’ll tell you when I’ve figured it out, all right? I’m so sorry for asking.” Megan retreated, feeling like an utter heel, and worse, not knowing what to do with what she’d learned. It had to fit together somehow, the puzzle pieces all laid out before her but their edges blurring and shifting instead of creating reliable shapes.
She walked the hundred metres up to the Luas and tagged on, taking a seat and pulling her crumpled notes from her pocket to spread on her lap. Simon and Liz and Martin, money laundering and drugs and—“Shoot.”
She’d forgotten to write down the blog posts, and tore one of the napkins in half so she could do that. Blog posts and Cíara, who probably wasn’t really missing but also hadn’t been seen in two days, which was missing enough for Megan’s tastes, just then. If Liz and Cíara hadn’t been having an affair, or at least a friendship, there had to be some other connection, unless Niamh’s gossip was all wrong. In Megan’s experience, Nee’s gossip was often exaggerated but rarely entirely mistaken.
She took out her phone and tried “O’Donnell Liz Darr” as a search combination and, for the first time, got a hit.
Four months ago, just weeks in to the Darrs’ Irish tour, Elizabeth Darr had written a scathing review of the Sea & Sky restaurant in Bray, owned and operated by Joseph O’Donnell. In May, just over a month ago, the restaurant had closed permanently, citing poor reviews and declining clientele as its reason for closure.
Megan, heart rate accelerating until she felt like she’d been running, gathered her notes and lurched to her feet as the tram reached her stop. The sunshine pounding on the sidewalk radiated heat that made her realize her trembling hands were so cold, she was having trouble holding her belongings. She shuffled under the tram stop’s glass-and-metal shelter to sit on a narrow, slanted bench long enough to get her notes back into her pockets, and to grip her phone in both hands while she read the article again.
There were no pictures of Joseph O’Donnell or his family, nor any mention of their names, just an estate agent’s photo of a beautiful little building on the Bray waterfront, white paint and blue shutters making it look rustic and welcoming.
Hair stood up on Megan’s arms, chilling her despite the heat. Shivering against it, she walked home with her attention on the phone as she read more about the restaurant. It had opened late in Ireland’s Celtic Tiger years, barely long enough to establish itself before the boom collapsed and Ireland’s economy fell to pieces. Since then, it seemed to have been touch-and-go until Liz’s review put the final nail in its coffin.
Reading the articles over the years, Megan wondered at the fortitude of anyone willing to try running a restaurant as a business. Fionnuala deserved an evening out and heaps of admiration, particularly if she pulled Canan’s through its current mess.
Everyone, Mama and puppies alike, was asleep when Megan arrived home; Mama didn’t even twitch an ear in response to the door opening and closing. Megan tiptoed to Liz’s computer and went into her blogging software, copying the IP address that the last vlog had posted from, and pasting it into a search window.
The IP came back as a Bray address, and all the breath rushed from Megan’s lungs.
* * *
Cíara O’Donnell might not come up on an internet search, but Joseph O’Donnell, proprietor of the Sea & Sky restaurant, did. Megan didn’t have the resources to nail down whether the IP address correlated to the O’Donnells’ home, but they were both in Bray, which was a lot more than she’d had half an hour earlier.
And Martin Rafferty was from Bray. Knowing that made her fingers twitch. There had to be a way to connect him to the O’Donnells, though for a few long moments of staring at her computer screen, Megan couldn’t figure out how. Then she opened a new search window and started typing, more as if her twitching fingers had plans of their own than through any really conscious thought. She’d typed in “canan’s restaurant investors” and opened yet another window for “sea & sky restaurant investors” before she fully understood what she was doing. Once she did, a thrill of nerves zinged through her and she had to take a couple of deep breaths before checking the search results.
Most of them were predictable: different banks, mostly Irish but one in Canada on Canan’s behalf, some family money, some personal savings—it astonished Megan, what detail could be found in news articles and financial reports—and a general variety of angel investors, none of whom meant anything to her as names. Both restaurants did have an investor in Bray, but the company names weren’t the same. Megan sank back in the couch, glowering at the computer screen, then, arms stretched so she could type, she put in both the Bray companies to see what there was to learn about them.
Nothing helpful: one had been established in the ‘90s; the other was much newer, part of the late teens economic recovery that mostly seemed to be rich people getting richer. The older company was run by a man whose picture indicated he’d been middle-aged then and was presumably old by now; the newer, by a young-ish woman. Megan put both their names into the search and wasn’t surprised to come up with hits, since she figured investors usually had internet presences. The man had been in business for decades and the woman had inherited some family money she’d decided to put to good use.
Megan, skimming both of their biographies, felt like hitting her head on a wall. Investigations—even real-life investigations—looked exciting on TV, but she supposed they’d been edited to remove all the tedious bits, or at least had been given voice-overs to add some drama to the moment. She clicked the woman’s bio shut, eyes flickering over something that twitched in her mind as she did, and had to open it back up again to figure out what had set off a warning.
Nothing really: a connection to a Lynch, was all. Megan had connections like that of her own, which was probably what had made her notice. Then, out loud, not caring that the dogs were asleep, she said, “Oh, dang, Meg, come on already,” and called Rabbie.
“Don’t tell me you need another lawyer,” Rabbie said sternly upon answering the phone. “I’ve sorted one out for you already, and he’s none too happy with being handed a confessed drug dealer as a client.”
“He’ll still get paid,” Megan replied. “No, I don’t need a lawyer. I just wondered if you know anything about, uh . . . Cora Kelly, in Bray? Or Micheál Hayes? He’s about your age.”
“Micheál Hayes is a man you want to stay away from,” Rabbie said without hesitation. “If he his own self wasn’t involved in the Troubles, you can bet his father was, and there’s not a penny that family’s got that wasn’t made off the blood and heartache of others. Even today, you’d tug your cap if you saw the man in the street and never breathe a word of where the money they made went.”
Megan, fascinated, said, “Where did it go?”
“You never heard it from me, but between you, me, and the wall, I’d say you can look to the cocaine and heroin on the streets and see a path leading straight back to Micheál Hayes.”
“Straight back? Really? Then why isn’t he in jail?”
“Well, it might be a twisty path, at that. Nobody’s proven anything, though they’ve been looking to for decades. After the Good Friday Agreement, all that gun-running money got cleaned up somehow, but you don’t stop knowing how to smuggle just because peace has broken out. Watch what you say, though, Megan.” Rabbie’s voice was as serious as it could be. “There’s slander laws here like you haven’t got in America. Now, that girl, what did you say her name was? Cora Byrne?”
“Kelly.”
“No, that’s wrong,” Rabbie said decisively. “Cora Byrne was Micheál’s niece who went off to America in the eighties when she was just a wee thing. Her mother was his wife’s sister and her husband died in the Troubles. Nelly Byrne wouldn’t have a thing to do with Ireland after that, said the whole lot could murder each other in the streets and she’d never say a prayer for any of them, and her sister, Micheál’s wife, Anne that she was, died in 1993 without ever having heard from Nelly again.”
Megan, both incredulous and delighted, said, “How do you know so much?” and Rabbie gave a deep chuckle.
“It’s not such a big country as all that, my love, and when you see the wee girl and her mother off at the port and watch them looking their last on the auld country, it’s not a thing you forget.”
“I think you’ve got a heart as big as the world, to remember everything like that. So Hayes’s niece, Cora Byrne, left as a little girl, and Cora Kelly is running an investment company out of Bray now. It’s probably coincidence.”
“Probably,” said Rabbie cheerfully, “unless it’s not. What are you after, Megan?”
Megan said, “Answers,” absently, typing a search query into her computer. “I’ll give you a ring back later. Thanks, Rabbie.”
“Be good,” Rabbie admonished, and Megan hung up to read a Wikipedia variation on Cora Kelly’s biography. Born in Ireland and educated in America. Well, that could mean almost anything. Megan snapped her computer shut and decided she’d go figure it out for herself.