Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
This time, when they step between Tommy Moynihan’s gateposts, the security lights don’t snap on.
The day is just starting to fade; behind the sprawl of the house, the sunset is a long band of gold and orange, flattened below the clouds.
They go up the wide drive five abreast, their matched steps crunching the gravel.
With the light at its shoulder, the house is dark-faced and looks lower, masked. Cal can feel Tommy inside, watching as they come into focus on his little screen, deciding whether and how to meet the attack.
He calls it just in time. Cal is raising his hand to the discreet electronic bell when the door opens on Tommy, every silver hair in place, poised and easy in the suede-paneled taupe cardigan that Cal always knew he owned.
“Lads,” he says. His face is arranged in an expression of suitable gravity. “I heard the news. ’Tis a terrible day for all Ardnakelty, but ye’ll feel the loss worse than most.”
He’s talking to Senan, presumably because Senan is both the biggest man and the biggest landholder there. Cal doesn’t count; Tommy’s eyes passed straight over him.
No one moves, but the anger rises. “Mart’s no loss to you,” Francie says.
“Francie,” Tommy says, reproachful but compassionate. “Myself and Mart Lavin had our differences of opinion—haven’t we all, sure?—but I’d be the first to say he was a fine man. And in a community like this, any tragedy touches us all.”
He sounds like he’s practicing for the eulogy. Cal says, “We’d like a talk with you.”
Tommy turns to look at him with mild surprise. “It’d be my pleasure,” he says. “Will we say Thursday afternoon, around four o’clock? Or Friday?”
Cal says, “We’re here now.”
Tommy gives the other guys a remonstrating glance, nudging them to teach their pet Yank some manners if they want to take him out in public. He gets nothing back.
“Mr. Hooper,” Tommy says, slowing down a notch so Cal can understand him.
“I know this has been a shock to you, and you’re not yourself.
But what you haveta remember is, myself and these lads, we knew Mart an awful lot longer than you did.
So you’ll forgive me if I’m not in form for a chat tonight.
” He nods to Cal, dismissing him, and turns back to the rest. “Have a talk amongst yourselves, decide whether Thursday or Friday suits ye better, and we’ll put it in the diary. ”
Senan says, “Now suits us.”
Tommy measures them and gets it right: one more no, and they’ll be on him.
“Right, so,” he says, almost concealing a sigh, noblesse oblige giving him patience with the unwashed masses.
“Come on in. We’ll keep the voices down, if you don’t mind; the missus and the young fella have enough on their plates as it is. ”
The hall is high-ceilinged, with big gold-framed mirrors and a staircase that clearly calls itself a feature. Faintly, on a TV somewhere, a high monotonous voice quacks on and on. At the top of the stairs, in shadow, someone moves.
“In here,” Tommy says, opening a door. Cal could have described the Moynihans’ living room without ever setting foot in it: enormous angular gray couches, enormous glass coffee table, ugly orange rug for a splash of color, enormous art on the walls.
Two gray armchairs are the only things built for comfort.
The back wall is one enormous picture window, looking out over the long slope of the fields to the setting sun.
Cal wonders how often Tommy has redrawn that view to fit his will: factory in one corner, the vast blank blocks of a megafarm stretching across the horizon, housing estates dotted around, and Tommy sitting here, lord of all he surveys.
“Have a seat,” Tommy says hospitably, closing the door behind them. He settles himself in one of the armchairs—the one in front of the window, so he gets a suitably impressive backdrop—and puts his fingertips together.
Cal takes the other chair, facing him across the coffee table, which raises Tommy’s eyebrows a fraction.
He doesn’t want to deal with Cal. He’s had all his life to take the measure of the other men, and they’ve had generations of training in doing the Moynihans’ bidding.
Cal is an unknown quantity, and has no such habit.
Senan and Francie take one couch, and Bobby and P.J.
take the other. Tommy waits for them to arrange themselves—the couches are constructed so that you can either perch on the edge or slump backwards at an awkward angle, putting you at a disadvantage either way.
The room smells of some kind of air freshener named after plants that sound made up.
Cal and the other men have come wearing the smells of the outdoors and Mart’s death.
He sees Tommy’s nostrils twitch, and his glance at their muddy boots on the rug.
“Now,” Tommy says encouragingly, once they’re all settled, with just the right note to remind them that he’s a busy man. He’s still talking to Senan. “What can I do for you?”
When he came recruiting Cal, and at the funeral, Tommy showed up with the son and heir at his heel. Now he’s shushing them so Eugene won’t hear and join in the action. At Cal’s shoulder, behind the living-room door, there’s movement, faint as a stalking animal’s.
“We got ourselves a situation, Tommy,” Cal says.
He takes care how he pitches his voice; he needs it to carry enough to reach the listener, but not enough that Tommy will notice.
“And we figured, what with you being kind of a big shot around these parts, you might help us decide how to deal with it.”
Tommy’s eyebrows lift. “I’m always delighted to give any man a hand,” he says, “where I can. What’s the situation ye’ve got yourselves into?”
“Mart’s tractor didn’t turn over by accident,” Cal says. “Someone dug a hole in his field, right where the tractor tire would pass.”
Tommy registers the right amount of shock.
“If that’s true,” he says, “ ’tis a terrible thing.
But—and no harm to any of ye—do ye not think ye’re getting a wee bit carried away?
There’s nothing sinister about the ground sinking under a tractor tire, specially not after all this rain.
’Tis natural to look for some rhyme or reason in a tragedy, but sometimes there’s none to find. ”
“That hole was dug,” Senan says. “I seen a fuckin’ hole dug in the ground before.”
“I’m sure you have,” Tommy agrees politely. “But everyone’s feeling a bit high-strung right now, and ye’ve had a hard day. When you’re in that state, ’tis awful easy to work yourself up and start seeing boogeymen everywhere.”
A low mutter moves around the men. “If you want to see for yourself,” Cal says, “I got some photos.” He gets out his phone before Tommy can answer, pulls up a photo of the hole, and passes it across the coffee table.
Tommy takes reading glasses out of his cardigan pocket, unfolds them with a neat flick, and inspects the photo. “Scroll left,” Cal says helpfully. “There’s a few that show the pile of dirt the guy dug up.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Tommy says. He hands the phone back to Cal.
“You’re not gonna find anyone to argue that wasn’t done by a spade,” Cal says. He puts his phone away.
Tommy purses up his lips and tilts his head, unconvinced.
“It mighta been, I suppose,” he says. “It looks like a rabbit hole to me, but I’m no expert.
Either way”—he takes off his glasses to point at Cal, for emphasis—“I’d be careful how you say that, if I were you.
That’s an awful big accusation to be throwing around, and it could have big consequences.
” It’s fatherly admonition, out of concern for where their foolishness could land them.
“Ye’re looking for someplace to take out all today’s emotions, is what it is.
But there’s healthier ways of dealing with a loss, and ye’ll see that once the shock wears off.
Unless you’ve photos that show some man—or woman—digging that hole, my advice would be to forget all about your ‘spade marks.’ ”
Senan moves on the couch. Cal hopes he can get them through this conversation without Senan punching Tommy’s lights out. “No photos of that part,” he acknowledges. “But we got video.”
Tommy’s head comes up from folding his glasses. His face is wiped blank, every muscle frozen. Behind him, the sun gilds the sweep of fields with the ghost of harvest radiance.
After a second he says, “Of what?”
“You went out your back gate around two last night,” Cal says, “carrying a spade.” Tommy’s face doesn’t change. “You took the back lanes to Mart Lavin’s bottom field, where you dug a hole on the path left by his regular tractor route.”
Tommy recovers himself. He leans back in his chair with his eyebrows high, staring at Cal like he just started stripping off. “I’ll say this much for you,” he says. The fatherly note has gone. “You’ve balls the size of watermelons, walking into my sitting room and accusing me of murder.”
“You used a bag to collect the dirt,” Cal says. “When you finished digging, you replaced the sod on top of the hole to conceal it, and dumped the dirt against the southwest wall of the field. Then you went back home.”
Tommy examines Cal for another long minute. Then he turns to the other guys. “The fuck is this fella even doing here?” he asks, jerking a thumb at Cal. “No offense, pardner,” he adds, to Cal.
“He’s here,” Francie says. “That’s all you need to know.”
“And ye do what he says, is it?”
“And you oughta be grateful we do,” Senan says. “I’ll tell you now, boy, this isn’t how I wanted to go about this conversation.”
“God almighty,” Tommy says, with a touch of wry amusement, “I never thought I’d see Ardnakelty men taking orders from some Yank. Your daddies are turning in their fuckin’ graves.”
“We don’t take orders from any man,” P.J. says. “And we’re done taking them from the likes of you.”