Chapter Fifteen #2
“Not Tommy,” Mart says. “He’s the big fella.
That’s his stock in trade, sure. He hasta be seen to do something, or otherwise the peasants’ll lose faith in him.
We upped the ante there the other night; if Tommy wasn’t going to fold his hand, he shoulda upped it right back at us.
I’ve been waiting for some inspector to turn up at my door and tell me my sheep have some fancy new disease and I’ve to cull the whole herd, or this shed doesn’t comply with EU regulations and I’ve to take it down and start over. ”
“I’ve been waiting for the tax man to give me a call,” Cal says. He doesn’t like where this is taking them. “Or Child Services to show up at my door.”
“That kinda thing,” Mart agrees. “Only I’da bet it’d be me, not you, on the wrong end of it all.
No offense, sunshine, but as far as Tommy’s concerned, you’re small potatoes.
He may be outa touch with the lower orders, but he knows enough to know that people around here listen to my opinion—God help them, says you.
” He smiles at Cal. “If Tommy puts me back in my box, that’ll give plenty of people enough of a fright that they’ll back off.
Then he can mop up the stragglers in his own time. ”
He straightens up and shoves the roll of tape into his pocket. “Only he’s not putting me back in my box,” he says. “And maybe this sounds mental, Sunny Jim, but I don’t like that one bit.”
Cal knows he’s right. Tommy has to be afraid; what came at him the other night ran deeper than any man’s courage or arrogance. Faced with that, no man would hold his fire, or fool around with pissant little popguns, when he has buffalo rifles at his disposal. Tommy is at work.
“ ’Tisn’t all action that’s going on, now,” Mart adds, with a sideways glance at Cal. “There’s been plenty of talk as well. The rumors flying around about wee Eugene, God almighty, you’d want to wash out your ears with holy water after hearing them.”
Mart has stopped waiting for the emissary, too. The direct approach didn’t work out; he’s moving on. “I bet,” Cal says.
Mart fishes a red paint stick out of another pocket and pulls off the cap with his teeth.
“Not all the rumors are running our way, now,” he says.
He marks the ewe with two neat swipes: the forehead to show she’s been treated, the lame leg to show which one it was.
“There was one I meant to mention to you, the next time I saw you.”
“Yeah,” Cal says. He knows what’s coming. “I heard stuff, along the way.”
Mart releases the ewe, who wriggles to her feet in a clumsy flurry of legs and flounces off to a corner of the pen to figure out what just happened.
“The way this one goes is,” he says, “your Lena thought you were riding Rachel Holohan, whether you were or not. So she started giving Rachel hassle—following her, like, blocking her way, calling her a slut. Rachel said it to some of her pals, but they told her not to worry, Lena Dunne was harmless—”
“Right,” Cal says. The story is expanding nicely, from a shard of scandal to a full-sized edifice with fancy curlicues all over. He was expecting that, but the surge of anger rocks him all the same. “That one’s been going around for a while.”
“That part has. The rest is new. D’you wanta hear this or not?”
“Why not,” Cal says. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t. “Go for it.”
“So,” Mart says. He caps the paint stick and tucks it neatly back into his pocket.
“So when your missus asked Rachel to call round to her place ’cause she wanted to hear Rachel’s side and get it all sorted, Rachel went, not a bother on her.
Your Lena gave her a cuppa tea fulla antifreeze, and the poor girl headed off to the bridge to meet Eugene.
Only she was staggering about from the antifreeze, and in she went. ”
Cal realizes that his muscles are about to take him out of the shed, down the road, and straight to the Moynihan place. He stands still and counts the empty sheep pens.
“And then Lena panicked,” Mart says, “so she’s been going all round the place trying to find out who knows what. And she’s made up this story about Tommy Moynihan in order to take the attention offa herself.”
Being a cop has left Cal with at least one useful skill: he’s good at sounding calm when he wants to rip someone’s head off with his bare hands. He says, “Do people believe that shit?”
Mart is watching him, gauging his reaction.
“If someone said that about Noreen,” he says gently, “or about Angela Maguire, they’d be laughed out of it.
But your Lena’s a bit different, if you don’t mind me saying.
There’s not many people that’d owe her, or that’d need her, or that’d know her well enough to be sure what she would and wouldn’t do.
If it takes a lotta effort to believe rumors about Tommy, it doesn’t take much to believe them about your missus. ”
“Right,” Cal says. This isn’t just an expertly calculated counterattack, undermining the land-grab story and deflecting focus off the Moynihans; it’s also revenge.
Somehow or other, Tommy knows Lena was the one who let the cat out of the bag.
Cal feels Tommy like a cold swirl all around, rising up at his shoulder, streaming across the fields, curling around window frames.
Tommy has eyes and ears everywhere. Mart, all the time he was assuring Cal he’d keep Lena out of it, must have known that.
“I can see why you’d be bulling,” Mart says, “but if you look at it right, sure, ’tis a kinda compliment. You don’t see anyone accusing me of seducing gorgeous young ones in my spare time.”
“I don’t need that kinda compliment,” Cal says. “Specially not from that shitbird. And that’s not the part that’s bothering me.”
“I wouldn’t say anyone enjoys hearing his woman called a murderer,” Mart agrees, “but to be honest with you, sunshine, this doesn’t smell like Tommy to me, either.
Clodagh, maybe, or just some bitchy one that’s not fond of your missus.
In my experience, rumors about riding is usually women.
You wouldn’t think it, wouldja? Here’s yourself and myself raised to keep our filthy talk away from their delicate ears, and all the while, what they’re saying amongst themselves would blister a bishop. ”
“No,” Cal says. His voice comes out hard enough that Kojak lifts his head from his paws.
“This isn’t Clodagh bitching. This is Tommy.
And I’m gonna bet he’s not just aiming to make people doubt the land story.
He’s aiming to get Lena arrested. That’s why he hasn’t come for you: he’s got Lena in his sights. ”
He’s hoping Mart will laugh his ass off and tell him to quit being a drama queen, but Mart’s eyebrows lift. He thinks it over, absently wiping foot gel off his hands onto his work pants.
“That’d be Tommy’s scale, all right,” he says.
“And it’d do the job. For anyone that’s on the fence and dithering, or that doesn’t wanta get involved one way or t’other, that’d be the perfect excuse: sure, you can’t be giving them poor Moynihans hassle, after all they’ve been through.
And for everyone that’s against Tommy, that’d be a warning: you don’t wanta go messing with me.
That’d be the last word, all right. There’d be a lovely long silence after that. ”
“Yeah,” Cal says. He takes a breath and tries to engage whatever’s left of his cop mode.
“Only I don’t see how he’s gonna make it work.
Maybe Tommy’s got the Guards in his pocket, but he doesn’t have some big-shot Dublin prosecutor.
No matter how many strings he pulls, they can’t charge someone with no evidence. ”
Mart smiles a small grim smile. “If Tommy wants evidence bad enough, Sunny Jim, there’ll be evidence.
There’ll be nice respectable witnesses that saw Rachel leaving your place at disreputable hours, or that she told all the details of your mad passionate affair—excuse me being indelicate,” he adds, when he sees Cal’s jaw tighten.
“There’ll be people who saw Lena following her, or stopping her to call her names—half of them won’t even be lying, sure; once that rumor’s had a bitta time to simmer, they’ll have themselves convinced that was what they saw.
There’ll be people Rachel told that she was afraid of Lena, and that Lena wanted to have it out with her once and for all.
There’ll be someone to say Lena called round to their house to borrow antifreeze. There’ll be—”
“Right,” Cal says. He can’t listen to any more of this.
“Whatever. That’s all talk, not facts. Fact is, Lena headed straight over to my place after Rachel left hers, and the postmortem says Rachel didn’t drink that antifreeze till hours later.
Tommy’s not God, even if you people all act like he is.
He can’t make the medical examiner rewrite the goddamn postmortem. ”
“There’s ways round everything,” Mart says. He watches the ewe lifting her hoof, testing the strange sensation of the bandage. “Not to pry into your intimacies, but did Lena stay the night?”
After a moment Cal says, “She went home.”
“Well then,” Mart says. “Maybe a coupla them witnesses saw Rachel knocking on Lena’s door again, later that evening.”
“Them saying it won’t mean shit. If this turns into a murder investigation, the Guards are gonna pull location records off Rachel’s phone. They’ll be able to see that she never went back to Lena’s.”
“Or she didn’t bring her phone with her,” Mart points out. “Or maybe those witnesses saw Lena heading off to wherever Rachel’s phone says she was, instead. Or—”
“Yeah,” Cal says. “I get it.” His voice comes out harsher than he expected. He feels like a fool, looking for reassurance from Mart, of all people, when deep down he knew there was none to be had.