CHAPTER 5
Megan yelled and thrust a hand up, hoping to catch the bike before it smashed into her face. After dropping a hand span or so, branches and brambles caught it instead, but Megan cowered where she was, heart hammering hard enough to make her nauseous. When that began to pass, she shuddered from the bones out, then began to properly shiver. Damp ground, the spike of alarm, and the dropping temperature were not a great combination. She said, “Okay,” hoarsely to both the bike and the dogs, got her phone, took some pictures of the bike, and muttered, “Let’s get out of here.”
Much to the dogs’ delight, she scooted out of the hedge on her back like an inchworm, eyeing the bicycle warily. It slipped another half foot or more, the wheel and fender looming very large even if she was mostly out from under it by then, and she scrambled to her feet outside the hedge, her whole body trembling with adrenaline.
“Well,” Niamh said brightly, startling her, “do we think that’s yer man’s bike?”
“I think it was really well shoved into the hedge.” Megan sounded shaky to her own ears. “Could be somebody’s bike that some brat threw in there ages ago, but . . . I’ll bring it to Detective Sergeant Doyle’s attention. Just in case. Look, lads, it’s dark here, and I want to pay attention to the road while I’m walking back. I’ll call you later so you can see Sarah and Rafael, okay? Which is what I should have said ten minutes ago when I was climbing into the hedge.”
“But then we wouldn’t have been able to help you untangle your hair,” Niamh said. “Or find a clue.”
“Assuming it is a clue. All right, I love you both, I’ll talk to you later. Have fun in Morocco, and use some after-sun on that burn, Paul.”
“I already have,” he said grimly. “You should’ve seen me before.” They hung up, and Megan left her torch on to follow the road back to the visitors’ centre. The hard white light bounced off glass up high at the side of the road, making her squint and drop her gaze. At least there wasn’t much traffic, although one of the fire trucks left as she approached the driveway.
Rafael and Sarah were sitting on the hood of her car when she got to the parking lot, although they both hopped down in alarm as she came into sight. “Jesus, Megs, what happened to you?”
“I lost a fight with a hedge.” Megan tried to pat her hair back into place. “And I should have left the car unlocked so you didn’t have to sit out here in the cold. Everything okay?”
“Doyle chased us off, that’s all. The step isn’t slippery,” Sarah reported. “He was a tall man, so he could have tripped on its edge and hit his head on the far side, if he was hurrying toward it, maybe. That seems to be the detective’s theory, anyway.”
Megan made a face. “I’m maybe about to go blow a hole in that theory. I found a bicycle in the hedge. It was too dark to see what color it was, but I took a picture. Is Margaret still here? Maybe she could identify it.”
“Doyle sent her home,” Raf admitted. “Poor thing was shaking like a leaf.”
“Most people do, when confronted with sudden death,” Sarah informed him. “You and Megan are weird.”
“I have an excuse. I’m a doctor. Megan, though, is weird.”
“Megan,” Megan reminded him, “was in the army for twenty years, and did basic medic training. Anyway, I’m going to go talk to Doyle about the bike. You two want to stay here, to keep us separate in his mind?”
“He’s a detective,” Sarah said. “Don’t you think he’s noticed there’s only one car left, and three Americans?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Megan handed Raf the dogs’ leashes, said, “Don’t let them pull you into a hedge,” and walked down the dark holy well pathway to meet Doyle on the near side of the police tape.
He gave her a long, uninviting look, and when that didn’t scare her off, sighed. “What?”
“I took my dogs for a walk and found a bicycle in the hedge just up the road from here. I thought you might want to know.”
The uninviting look turned to a level stare. “And why would I want to know that, missy?”
Outright fury flared through Megan, heating her chest and face. It was several seconds before she trusted herself to say, in a steady tone, “Detective Sergeant Doyle, I appreciate that you resent my presence here under these circumstances, but I found something that I thought might be of interest to your investigation and am reporting it to you, which is as cooperative as I know how to be. There is no call to be condescending and rude.”
If the man had an ounce of shame in him, she hadn’t found the way to make him show it. “I’ll decide my own self what’s of interest to my investigation and what isn’t, and a bloody bicycle in a bloody hedge is as common as Sundays in this country.”
They weren’t very far from the well Nolan had drowned in. Megan bet if she gave Doyle a really good shove, he’d go in. For the space of a deep breath, she allowed herself to consider it, even if the consequences wouldn’t be worth the brief joy of the action. Still, thinking about it made her feel a little better. “Well, then, I’ll get out of your hair. Good evening, Detective.”
Shoulders stiff and blood still boiling, she marched back to her friends, announced, “I’m a ‘missy’ who has been dismissed,” and watched Rafael’s eyes widen.
“Does he still have all his teeth?”
Megan smiled with all of hers. “Not in my imagination. Everybody in the car. I’m going to go climb back into that hedge and take as many pictures as I can, and if you don’t mind staying in Kildare tonight instead of going back to Dublin, we can ring Niamh and Paul—”
“Yes, let’s do that,” Sarah said eagerly, then looked sheepish. “I mean, um . . .”
Rafael smiled at her fondly. “You mean exactly that. I think she’s right, though, Megs. And not just because I want to lay my own actual eyes on the marvelous Niamh O’Sullivan.”
“It’s not actually seeing her any more closely than you would on a movie screen,” Megan pointed out. “And she’ll be much smaller.”
“It’s definitely seeing her closer than on a movie screen,” he disagreed. “That’s a performance. I assume she won’t be putting on a performance when you call her.”
“I dunno, she might want to impress my friends.” They were on the road by then, banter keeping the two American visitors awake on the short, but dark drive back to the hotel. Sarah, with the air of a woman who knew she was reaching the end of her energy for the day, suggested room service so they could call Morocco and eat at the same time, and once they’d parked at the hotel, Megan texted to see if Niamh and Paul were available.
Niamh voned before they were even inside the building, voice and eyes sparking with interest. “Have you solved it yet?”
“No, but I said I’d call back with Sarah and Rafael. You two have a minute? Where’s Paul?”
“He’s walking Abhaile. He’ll be back in two minutes.”
“Is that a real two minutes or an Irish two minutes? Hang on, we’re going in the lift, we might get cut off.” Megan held the elevator door for Raf and Sarah as they tried not to peer at her phone with too-obvious interest. “Hang on,” she said to them, too. “I didn’t think Niamh would ring right away.”
Niamh’s voice, indignant, said, “Sure and av carse I did!” in her broadest Irish accent again, then froze as the lift doors closed. It gave Sarah and Raf enough time to actually squeal, stomp their feet with excitement, and more or less compose themselves again before they were out of the lift and into the hall, unlocking their room door.
Megan held the phone up so the camera was on them as they went into the room. “Niamh, please meet mi amigo mejor, Rafael Williams, and his incredible wife, Sarah. Guys, this is my friend Niamh O’Sullivan.”
“I’ve seen you dance,” Niamh said to Sarah. “Not in person, but I’ve watched all of your company’s performances that are available online. You’re astonishing.”
Sarah’s jaw fell open before the most baffled, brilliant smile Megan had ever seen crossed her face. “Thank you. Oh my God. I can’t believe you’ve watched any of it.”
“Megan loves you two,” Niamh said. “Of course I’ve watched.”
Rafael, with a huge grin of his own, said, “Okay, you can keep her, she’s amazing,” to Megan, who beamed at him while they tried to arrange themselves into a huddle where they could all see, and be seen on, the screen. Paul came back into their hotel room with Abhaile, and the introductions happened all over again, then devolved into five people often trying to talk at once, sharing stories and laughter. After a few minutes, Megan handed the phone to Raf and got the room service menu, then put an order in without consulting the others. A burst of giggles and guilty looks from Sarah and Rafael suggested Niamh had told a story on her, which made Megan laugh.
“I’m not ordering you dinner, just for that.”
“You’re not ordering Niamh dinner anyway!” Paul yelled, loudly and clearly enough to be heard from her side of the room.
Megan snapped her fingers in mock dismay, and came back to the phone to smile at the two in Morocco. “Next time I’m doing this on a computer so we’re not so crowded.”
“But then I wouldn’t have gotten the cutest screenshot in the world,” Niamh protested. “Look, lads, I hate to break off the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but I’ve got an early morning call, and if I don’t get my beauty sleep—”
“Then you’ll still be the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” Paul said.
“Yes, but makeup will be annoyed with me.” Niamh blew a kiss and disappeared from the screen, leaving Paul to gaze after her besottedly, then shake himself and look back at the screen.
“Your guests are falling asleep on the call, Megan. I’d say she doesn’t do this to people all the time,” he said to Rafael and Sarah, “buuuut . . .”
“Oh, be quiet. Besides, I have nothing exciting planned for tomorrow.” Megan watched her own tiny face squint guiltily in the corner of the call as Paul raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh, all right, it’s true. We do have to get off the call, because we have to eat, and then tomorrow I’m going to dig around and see what’s what about Seamus Nolan in these parts.”
“There she is,” Paul said wryly. “Don’t let her get into too much trouble, all right? It was good to meet you.” He signed off, and Sarah and Raf made it two or three whole seconds before shrieking and throwing their arms around each other in fannish excitement. Megan laughed out loud, hugged them both, and went to get the door when room service knocked.
* * *
Irish Druid Dies in Tragic Accident! was what was what, according to the headlines the next morning. Megan, stiff and sore from crawling around in hedges, read half a dozen articles that all said more or less the same thing: Nolan, survived by his daughter, Aisling; uncle Adam; and an ex-wife whose name didn’t merit a mention, was a well-known and beloved visitor at St. Brigid’s holy well, where he had met a tragic end in the early hours of Monday morning when no one else was on-site. He’d been declared dead at the Naas General Hospital after attempts at revival had failed, and funeral arrangements were to be announced for the weekend.
“It’s possible,” Megan said through her teeth over the hotel breakfast, “but it doesn’t account for the missing bicycle, whether it’s the one I found in the hedge or not.”
“Maybe Margaret was wrong? She didn’t see a bike? Or are there, what do you call it—” Rafael and Sarah were both leaning heavily into their own hands between bites of breakfast, jet lag having clearly knocked them for a loop. Raf picked up his fork to spin it in a circle like it would help him remember the words. “Security cameras.”
“CCTV footage?” Megan offered.
Raf pointed the fork at her triumphantly. “Yeah, that. So there might be footage of somebody stealing the bike, but the detective’s got to know that and have checked up on it, right? And if someone did, isn’t that evidence of foul play? And he wouldn’t hide that, would he? So maybe it really was just an accident.”
“I don’t know if he’d hide it. I do know accidents take a lot less paperwork than murders,” Megan said grumpily. “And it’s a small country with a lot of old-boys-club, doing-right-by-each-other nonsense. Who knows who might have leaned on Doyle.”
Sarah, who had given up on eating and was looking blearily at her phone, said, “How do you say his daughter’s name? Eye-sling? That can’t be right. Ice-ling?”
“I don’t know how she says it specifically, but it’s usually Ashling, Ashlin, or Ashleen.”
“That’s a lot of pronunciations for one name.”
“Try Saoirse on for size,” Megan said with a brief smile. “Sur-sha, Seer-sha, Soar-cha, Sir-sha, and probably two others I don’t know about. Anyway, I don’t like it.”
“Saoirse? I think it’s pretty.”
Megan laughed, and Sarah blinked at her before making a face. “Oh. You mean writing Nolan’s death off as an accident. Sorry. It was a—”
“Long trip yesterday,” Rafael interrupted, which, from Sarah’s slowly lifted eyebrows, hadn’t been what she was going to say.
Megan’s own eyebrows rose, and she was about to ask, “Late night?” which would have made sense, given jet lag. Then she remembered the two of them had partaken in a sort of fertility ritual before Nolan’s body had been found, and a whole different reason for a late night became obvious. She decided she’d better focus on her breakfast until the urge to grin like an idiot had passed, which took slightly longer than she expected it to. She looked up once to find Rafael giving her a gimlet stare that did absolutely nothing to help her fight off the grin. With as much dignity as she could muster, she said, “I’m not twelve, you know.”
Rafael snorted, and Sarah looked between them with the expression of a woman who understood that she probably didn’t want to know. Megan, in an attempt to take mercy on her, said, “I’m gonna take the dogs for a walk, and then are you two up for going back to the heritage centre? I want to ask Margaret if she recognizes the bike in the hedge.”
“You’re not going to leave it alone, are you?” Raf looked hopeful.
“Nope. I’m not. If I can satisfy myself that Doyle’s right, then fine, but if he’s wrong, I’m not gonna let somebody get away with murder if I can help it.” The determination underlying the words bothered Megan, although she couldn’t say why. She’d felt the same way every time she’d come across a body, but this seemed more urgent than usual somehow.
Maybe it was just that in her usual experience, the detective on the case didn’t seem in such a hurry to write it off as a random accident. She got her phone and texted Paul with I don’t appreciate you enough, then stood to pay for breakfast over her friends’ objections, and to go walk the dogs.
“We’ll catch up,” Raf promised. “We’re just not eating very fast today.”
“No hurry. I know where to find you.” Megan went upstairs for the dogs, who had been out once already, but not for a proper walk. Once on their leads, she took them down by the river, trying not to obsess over what little she knew of Seamus Nolan’s life and unexpected death. It didn’t work, but at least the dogs were able to stretch their legs, and she caught the last bit of a late Irish sunrise over the dripping black fingers of winter-bare trees. Given the clouds just above the horizon, it was probably the only time she’d see the sun that day. Ireland was not, in her opinion, putting its best foot forward for her visitors.
Of course, they had opted to come in January. And in theory, their visit was more about seeing Megan than the idyllic beauties of the auld country, but she would have liked to have shown off those fine misty mornings and soft afternoons, rather than given them an up-close-and-personal view of the Murder Driver’s life. “All right, pups. Let’s go back to the hotel. I’m used to being in a car, not walking around on the moors, not that Ireland has moors that I know about. On the burren. Except that’s in the West, I guess. Never mind.”
The dogs clearly had no intention of minding. They were used to Megan talking to them so she could pretend she wasn’t talking out loud to herself, and they were hardly experts on Irish landscapes anyway. It would have been unlikely for them to offer an opinion. “Although I’d be rich,” she informed them on their way back to the hotel. “So if you’d like to have opinions on things. Or rather, having opinions expressed in human language, since you’re quite capable of expressing them in dog terms. But human language is where the money is.”
Thong sat down and stared at her until she was quite certain Megan was done, then rose and walked toward the hotel at such a sedate pace that it seemed like commentary on Megan’s monologue. “See,” Megan hissed, “I said you had opinions on things.”
Raf and Sarah, although still visibly sleepy, were ready to go when they got back. The five of them, humans and dogs alike, piled into the car for the short drive to the heritage centre, where dozens of cars and even more people were in attendance. Megan killed the engine, and the three people in the car hesitated a moment, taking in the crush of people and activity after yesterday’s mostly serene visit to the holy well.
“Well,” Rafael said after a pause, “if they all leave tips, it’ll be good for the heritage centre’s bottom line . . .”
“The awful thing is, I was thinking something similar,” Megan admitted as they got out of the car. “I just hope we can get a minute to talk to Margaret. Oh, God, there’s media here. I’m going to have to put a paper bag over my head.”
There were at least three radio station vans and a larger local news bus with a full crew setting up lights, presumably for some kind of major segment to be featured on Six One, the news report broadcast at 6:01 p.m. every evening. Most of the reporters probably wouldn’t recognize her—the only person who definitely would was a sportscaster, who, thank goodness, had no reason to be on-site for this kind of story—but Megan left the dogs in the car and slunk along between Sarah and Rafael anyway.
The heritage centre itself, which had been virtually abandoned the day before, was now filled with people, all of them talking quickly and loudly to one another. The sound bounced off the ceiling, making the small building oppressive. Megan exchanged glances with her friends, and the three of them edged their way toward the reception desk as quickly as they could.
A harried-looking young woman with pale eyes and pink lipstick she had half-chewed off gave them an unconvincing smile. “If you’re here to see the well, I’m afraid a great deal of it has been cordoned off. If you’re here for the goss . . . She waved a hand at the crowd. “None of them know a thing, and neither do I, but that hasn’t stopped them shouting about it.”
“We were wondering if Margaret was around, actually?” Megan kept her voice down and leaned in, not wanting the rest of the room to overhead.
Pure pity washed across the young volunteer’s face. “No, the poor love, she’s that shaken, she is. At home in bed. There were Americans here yesterday that found the body, and she had to deal with them as well as the rest of it.”
Rafael coughed, and Megan tried hard to look surprised and sympathetic, although she wanted to gurgle with frustration. Asking about the bicycle she’d found in the hedge seemed extremely difficult, now that she’d been sort-of pegged as a problem.
To her surprise, Sarah nudged her aside and smiled with genuine sympathy at the girl. “You must be shaken, yourself. I was here yesterday, too, and saw a little of the fuss. Poor Margaret said the unfortunate man came here often?”
Her accent had changed completely, from American to her native Nigerian one. Rafael turned his head, hiding a grin, and nearly lost control of it anyway as he caught sight of Megan’s expression. She’d heard Sarah speak Yoruba, and although she knew that English was one of Nigeria’s official languages, she hadn’t ever put that together with the idea that Sarah’s original accent probably wasn’t American.
It certainly put the young desk attendant at ease, though. There were tens of thousands of African immigrants to Ireland; the idea that this random Black woman who sounded Nigerian might also be one of the Americans who’d visited yesterday wouldn’t ever occur to the girl. She smiled at Sarah and nodded. “Rode his bike over all the time, he did. But I suppose he must have walked yesterday? Oh, Jesus, I wonder if I should mention anything about it to the guards . . .”
Sarah’s eyebrows furled with worry. “I did think I saw a bicycle in the hedge as I drove in today. Red, with panniers?”
“Ah no, it was green, dark green, and the cheeky man had a wee little Irish flag off the seat of the bike, on a pole like, so it waved in the air above his head.”
“Ah.” Sarah pressed her hand against her chest in evident relief. “Not the one I saw, then. I’d meant to go and have a moment with Saint Brigid at the well, but it might be better if I came back next week, do you think? I know her holy day is coming up, but I like the privacy instead of the crowd. Isn’t that silly?”
“Not at all,” the girl said warmly. “I’d say it’ll be mental around here for days, and then it’ll pick up for the holy day. You might want to wait two weeks? I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”
“Bless you.” Sarah smiled and swept off, leaving the young woman to focus on Megan again.
“I’m sorry, what were we talking about?”
“Nothing important,” Megan promised. “I hope this all comes to a peaceful resolution for you. Thanks for your time.” She left, making sure not to catch up with Sarah until they were all out the door. “That was amazing, Sarah. Thank you. She wasn’t going to tell me anything.”
“If we must solve a mystery on vacation, I want to at least do my part.” Sarah’s Nigerian accent lingered the same way her smile did. “Could you tell what color the bicycle last night was?”
“Dark, but . . .” Megan pulled her phone from her pocket to look at the pictures as her friends crowded around. “I don’t know. It is dark, but it could be blue or black or green.”
“Well, let’s go look again.” Raf took her phone and expanded some of the pictures as they walked back through the parking lot. “You didn’t get any good pictures of its back end, but there might be a broken flagpole there, is that it?”
“Oh, I’m sorry for not taking award-winning photographs in the dark with a camera phone with two dogs climbing on me and a bicycle falling toward my head!”
“Yeah.” Rafael grinned at her. “What were you thinking?”
“I can’t believe you married him,” Megan said to Sarah.
“I can’t believe you didn’t.”
Raf and Megan both said, “Augh, no!” Sarah actually cackled as they left the parking lot for the narrow road, walking along its edge and making apologetic faces at the cars that drove by. The place Megan had climbed into the hedge was remarkably obvious, when they found it: it looked like she’d gone at it with a hatchet instead of her face and a couple of small dogs. “Do I have to go back in? Sarah’s smaller.”
Sarah’s eyes widened in mock distress. “I interrogated the girl at the visitors’ centre. You get to go into the hedge.”
Megan muttered, “Rats,” and crawled in as Raf said, “Why’d it have to be rats?” in the background. A brief argument ensued about whether the quote was rats or snakes, until Megan, having gotten halfway through the hedge, interrupted with, “Uh, guys?”
“Yeah?” Rafael’s voice sharpened, all attention, much like he’d sounded when being professional before. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Megan said slowly. “But the bicycle is gone.”