Night of the Blackbird Read online

  Moira hesitated, staring at her mother. “Mum, I don’t know what I feel. Do I spend my life waiting for an exciting, combustible, perhaps even dangerous wild card, or trust in someone who’s right here, with all the right virtues? There’s a lot to be said for compatibility. If I had any sense, I’d certainly go for dependable, just as…”

  “Just as I did?” Katy suggested, then she shook her head, smiling. “You’ve got it all wrong. Your father was the wild card, the one with the real beliefs, the dreams, the one taking me away from everything I had known and loved. He said that we were going to get to America or be damned. Choices are never easy. And never clear-cut. To this day, I admire other men, but I love your father. He was my gamble, and I played against the odds. I played by instinct, and I played by heart.” She turned and started walking along the dock. “Let’s get on home now, eh? Your business associates have probably been calling all morning.”

  Katy started off again at her usual brisk pace. Moira followed.

  Strange morning indeed. She’d gotten what she’d set out for.

  And a great deal more.

  12

  Moira was surprised to see how late it had gotten when they returned to the house. Colleen was finishing cleaning in the kitchen, but a squeal from the family room assured them that the house was not empty.

  Katy Kelly arched a brow to Colleen.

  “Gina is in there with Granny Jon, Siobhan and all the kids,” Colleen explained. “Molly and Shannon are fascinated. They think Siobhan should have twins so they can play with babies all the time.”

  “Oh, dear, all Siobhan needs is twins!” Katy said, heading into the family room.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Moira asked.

  “Dad’s already downstairs setting up. He says that Mondays are usually slow, but since it’s almost Saint Patrick’s Day…” She shrugged.

  “Patrick?”

  “Who knows? He’s off.”

  “Danny? Josh? I’m assuming Josh was here, if he’s left Gina for the day.”

  “Yes, Josh is downstairs with Dad, helping out. And Michael and Danny are out—together.”

  “What?” Moira said incredulously. She felt a chill on the inside as a sheen of sweat broke out on the outside. “Danny and Michael left here together?”

  Colleen glanced at her sharply. “You took off this morning without leaving any hint of your filming schedule. Josh reminded Michael that you’d been going to do a musical overlay or something, showing the doors of some of Boston’s finest pubs. Those not quite as fine as Kelly’s, of course, but worthy of note. Danny mentioned that he knew every pub in the city, from the most elite to the down and dirty. Anyway, they went out together—in Dad’s car, as a matter of fact—to scout out pub doors. What’s the matter? You look as white as a ghost.”

  Moira shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, a bit too quickly. “Nothing at all. I just can’t see the two of them getting along.”

  Colleen narrowed her eyes, setting down the dish towel she’d been using and walking over to Moira. “You never told Michael that once upon a time you had a fling with the old family friend, huh?”

  “Colleen…”

  “You didn’t, did you?”

  “It didn’t matter. We both know there have been other people in our lives,” Moira said. “We never felt it necessary to give names, dates and license numbers.”

  Colleen laughed softly. “Well, no, not if he dated some girl in L.A. or Ohio. But you brought him home when Danny was staying here.”

  “I didn’t think that it mattered. I really didn’t.”

  “But now they’re out together and you never told him and…Oh!” Colleen exclaimed, staring at her very closely.

  “Oh, what?”

  “That’s where you were last night.”

  “What?”

  “You were with Danny.”

  “Colleen, will you shut up!”

  “As long as you don’t lie to me.”

  “How do you know I wasn’t in my room?”

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I went to find out if you wanted to make tea or talk or something. Oh, my God.”

  “Colleen, stop, please.”

  “I thought you were really in love with Michael. Then again, I didn’t think you’d ever really be out of love with Danny. You can be so stubborn…. Of course, Danny does come and go, and Michael really is one wicked hunk, but…You have to make up your own mind, of course. Though if it were me…well, to be honest, sex is so important in a relationship—”

  Moira could hear footsteps coming from the family room. She clapped her hand over her sister’s mouth. “Please…”

  Colleen tugged free of Moira’s hold. She looked toward the family room. “Whoever it was turned back. Do guys talk, do you think? Oh, Lord, Moira, do you think they’re out together talking about you? What do men say, do you think?” She broke off, wincing. “Lord, what am I saying? Sorry, you must be really miserable. I know you. You’d never just…I mean, there had to be a reason. I love you, and this must be so difficult. Don’t worry, they’re not going to come to blows. If I know Danny, he won’t say a word to Michael. Honestly. It’s going to be all right. I’ll make tea. According to Granny Jon, that solves everything. Maybe you need some whiskey in yours. That can be arranged.”

  “No,” Moira said. “I’m going down to the pub. Cover for me with Mum and Granny Jon and Gina, please?”

  “Sure, sure, I’ll say you needed to talk to Josh.” Her sister sensed her misery, caught her by the shoulders and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Honest to God, it will be all right.”

  “It’s not all right. Michael is really good and decent and trusts me—”

  “And maybe now, if you decide he’s the right man, it will be without hesitation. Moira, you didn’t turn into the town slut.” Colleen stared at Moira, shaking her head. “Hey, kid, no one’s going to do anything worse to you than you’re doing to yourself.” She sighed. “You met Michael right after the Christmas holidays, right?”

  Moira nodded.

  “And knowing you, you saw him a zillion times before anything happened.”

  “No, we went out about twelve times in January, then at the beginning of February—”

  “Okay, I’m not really that detail oriented, at least not right this minute,” Colleen said. “And when is the last time you really went out in the last…however many years it was since you last hooked up with Danny?”

  Moira shook her head.

  “No one?” Colleen gasped.

  “I went out.”

  “But you went that long without…without sleeping with anyone? Boy, and I just thought that you were really discreet. Moira, don’t go beating yourself up over this. Trust me, by the standards these days, you’re practically a nun. Please, don’t be so upset.”

  “I’m not upset, I’m confused. I really do love Michael. And I guess that I’ve always loved Danny. But I should have…refrained.”

  “He didn’t exactly drag you down into the cellar, huh? Were you drinking?”

  “No. But I really need a drink now.”

  “Yeah, maybe you do. Hey, big sis, I’m here, okay?” Colleen hugged her tightly once again. “Any time, any circumstances. I’m here.”

  “Thanks. I’m going downstairs for that whiskey.”

  Moira kissed her sister quickly on the cheek and escaped. As she closed the door to the spiral stairway, she could hear Gina asking for her and Colleen making an excuse.

  Her father and Josh were at one end of the bar. Her father was calling out names, while Josh went through open liquor boxes on the floor, trying to supply the right bottles for the empty spaces in the wells.

  “Hey, there,” Josh called.

  “Welcome, daughter.”

  “Hey, Dad. Josh. Hey, Josh, how long have—have the guys been gone? Are we going to tape the pubs today?”

  “They were going to call the crew from the road,” Josh said. “They really don’t need either of us for this. Of course,
it isn’t Dan’s job at all, but he seemed to want to help. And he does know the pubs of Boston.”

  “Oh, yes, that he does,” Moira muttered, striding behind the bar to the Irish whiskey. She poured herself a shot while both her father and Josh stared at her. She smiled sheepishly at her father. “Bad night. I didn’t get any sleep.”

  “I was afraid you were going to tell me that a couple of hours alone with your mother had made you crazy,” Eamon said.

  “Dad!”

  “You were the one running for the whiskey, girl, not me.”

  “Mum and I had—” She paused, remembering the way Jacob Brolin had instantly remembered her mother after thirty years. “Mum and I had a lovely time out together.”

  “Good. Your mother is a wonderful woman, and you should appreciate that.”

  “I do. I told you, no sleep,” she said.

  “Gina and the twins okay?” Josh asked.

  “Yep. The other kids are entertaining them,” she said. She swallowed her whiskey in a single gulp. It burned like a son of a gun. Just what she needed. Almost like a slap in the face. Guilt was now, beyond a doubt, settling down hard on her.

  She heard a noise from the rear of the bar and looked back. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe Danny was in his room.

  But it wasn’t Danny. It was Jeff Dolan. He was setting up the instruments and doing sound checks.

  “Hey, Jeff,” she said. “Need any help?”

  She left the bar area quickly, aware that her father and Josh were studying her way too closely—and they both knew her too well.

  “Sure, Moira,” Jeff said, “though I’m almost done here. I was going to get something to eat, walk around awhile, before we had to get started tonight. It’s going to be a long one, for a Monday. Well, for me. We don’t usually play on Mondays, you know. Plug in that amp for me, please?”

  “Sure.” She did as bidden.

  Jeff gave her a long sideways glance, brown eyes curious. “You all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “I saw you talking to that guy the other night.”

  “That guy?”

  “Drinking the blackbird, sitting in the corner.” He grinned. “In fact, I heard you. I would have come up and applauded but…is he a cop?”

  “He gave that impression.”

  “Yeah? Well, you told him. I’m surprised the guy didn’t come right up to the stage and frisk me.”

  “I thought your record was as white as snow these days?”

  “I’m whiter than snow,” Jeff said, reaching down to straighten a few wires. “But there’s no way to clean up your record.”

  “Jeff,” she said very softly, “is something going on here?”

  “No,” he replied, too quickly.

  “You’re lying.”

  “No, I’m not. Really. Hey, why aren’t you working?”

  “The guys are off taping pub doors.”

  “Ah.”

  “Jeff—”

  “You want to get a sandwich with me?” he asked.

  “We can go upstairs and I can dig something up for you. Of course, the kitchen staff should be here by now, too.”

  “No, do you want to go out and get something with me?” he persisted.

  “I—sure. Of course,” she said. He was going to talk to her. But not here. “I’ll just go up for my purse.”

  “Your dad pays us decently. I can buy you a pop and a sandwich.”

  “Okay, great.”

  They walked toward the bar. “Dad, Josh, I’ll be right back. Jeff wants to get a grinder.”

  Eamon, looking up from his stock list, frowned. “Jeff, you’re always welcome to any food in the place.”

  “Thanks, Eamon. I had a hankering for one of those grinders at Zeno’s, down the street.”

  “And I’m really in a mood for a gourmet coffee,” Moira added. “I promise, we’ll be right back.”

  “Take your time,” Eamon said. “Josh here is proving to be an excellent pub keeper.”

  “Keeping at it, just in case the film thing ever fizzles,” Josh told her. But Josh knew her well, and he was watching her suspiciously.

  As they started out the door, she heard her father swear as he slammed his head against the bottom of the bar, trying to rise quickly. “Moira!”

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “You stay with Jeff.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Dad, it’s broad daylight.”

  “They just had it on the news. They’ve found another dead girl.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Josh said, handing her father a bottle of tequila.

  “Another prostitute?” she asked.

  “An Irish girl,” her father said.

  “Dad, I’m American, not Irish. And Jeff is going to pimp for me so I can become a prostitute, okay?”

  “Moira Kathleen!”

  “Dad, I’m sorry. It’s horrible, really horrible. But please, you don’t have to worry. I won’t go off with any strange men. I’ll stick to Jeff like glue.”

  “If I’d known, I’d not have been so fast to let your mother and you off alone this morning,” Eamon said.

  “Dad, I swear, I’ll be careful.”

  “Did you want a sandwich, Josh?” her father asked. “Maybe you should be going with them.”

  “Eamon, I ate too much breakfast a very short while ago,” Josh said. “And I’m helping you here, right? I worry about your wayward daughter, too, but I have to admit, she usually uses good sense. Well, sometimes.”

  “Eamon, I’ll guard her with my life, I swear it,” Jeff said patiently.

  Eamon nodded. “Well, on with you, then. But come back quickly.”

  “Sure thing, Eamon,” Jeff said.

  They walked outside. “It really is terrible,” Moira murmured.

  “The dead girls?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t see the news, though. Did you?”

  He nodded. “Your father had it on before you came down. Thank God I don’t know anyone in the business now.”

  “Now?”

  He shrugged. “In my wild days, I knew several working girls. Hey, you know I did some pretty bad shit when we were kids. Drugs. Hell, they got me for vandalism, and armed robbery, though I wasn’t the one with the gun. I shaped up with your dad’s help. I have a beer now and then. No drugs. No guns. Okay, a little nicotine…” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and lit one as they headed down the street. “That’s why your cop the other night made me nervous.”

  “You’re nervous about more than that, aren’t you?”

  Jeff waved his cigarette in the air. “Rumors, Moira. Nothing more than rumors.”

  “And what are the rumors?”

  He shrugged and inhaled deeply before answering her. “Jacob Brolin.”

  “What about him?” She tensed, praying suddenly that this had nothing to do with her mother.

  “Well, he’s a bigwig. And a moderate. And you have a huge population tired of bloodshed and violence in Northern Ireland. But you’ve had decades now, too, of a group—an ever-changing group, of course—who still believe that only violence has the power to change anything. And you have to remember, the Republic of Ireland was won through violence.”

  “Jeff, please, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Moira, don’t be a dunce. Assassination.”

  She stopped dead still on the sidewalk. “Assassination?”

  “Moira, there could be a dozen lunatics in the street ready to do something violent, either because they’re psychotic assholes or because they don’t believe in moderation and negotiation.”

  “So what does that have to do with us? If it’s that obvious, surely Brolin knows it. He walks around with—” She broke off and started over. “Surely he walks around with a bodyguard. And he probably has a police escort, too.”

  “Of course, of course. And I’m not in on anything, I swear it. There was just some talk about blackbird being some kind of a code word. And Kelly’s bei
ng a place where people might meet and find one another.”

  She gasped, staring at him in horror. “That’s terrible! And it can’t be true. We need to tell the police.”

  “Apparently, they already know. Hence your guy ordering the blackbird the other night.”

  She let out a long breath. “Rumor. Where did you hear this rumor, Jeff?”

  “Oh, Moira—”

  “I need to know.”

  “There’s the sandwich shop.”

  “Jeff, I need to know.”

  He sighed deeply. “Seamus. Seamus said he’d heard people whispering one night. It was dark…after hours. He didn’t know what was going on, and he was afraid. He talked about it in the pub, thinking he was safer surrounded by friends. I told him to keep his old mouth shut.”

  “Jeff, you should go to the police with what you know.”

  “What do I know? That Seamus—who’s half-deaf—heard whispers? Blackbird is the name of the band. And a drink. And the police are aware there could be crackpots in the city. What could I possibly tell them that they don’t already know? I’d get myself arrested on some trumped-up conspiracy charge, and that would be that.”

  “Jeff—”

  “Your father’s right, Moira,” he said, stopping at the door to the sandwich shop. “Don’t trust any strangers. And be damned careful, even in the pub. If you want to know more, you’re going to have to ask old Seamus. Now, there’s a fellow who could go to the police—but he won’t. Yeah, Seamus is one straight arrow. He came to the States, worked his ass off and became a model citizen. But I sincerely doubt that he’ll talk to you, and I can guarantee he won’t go to the police.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s dangerous to let anyone know that you know too much,” he told her.

  “But if—”

  “Trust me, the radicals, the moderates and even the just-don’t-really-cares have excellent intelligence systems. The police are here already. We’re usually filled with our regulars, the lunch crowd and the cocktail crowd. The dinner crowd, and those who come in for the music. And most of them look familiar to me after all this time. But I’ve been watching the people in the bar lately. Lots of strangers.”

  “There are always strangers in the pub.”