Malarkey Read Online Free Page A

lives above the
station."
    I considered. "He was going to call for an ambulance, and he
probably talked to his superiors, too. That would take a while."
    "All the same..."
    The kettle shrieked. I poured hot water. Tea ensued. We
sipped, eyeing each other.
    "How was your flight?"
    "Fine."
    "If George is doing research on Quakers..." She cocked her
head, listening.
    A car crunched on the gravel and a door slammed.
    I set my mug on the table and went to open the front
door.
    The quintessence of Irish cops came toward me around the
back of a white car marked Garda. Black hair, rosy complexion, blue,
blue eyes, wide shoulders and a trim body beneath the dignified blue
uniform. He was as tall as I am. "Mrs. Dodge?"
    I nodded, momentarily bereft of speech. I am susceptible to
male beauty.
    "Ah, you're only a lass! I was picturing an older lady."
    The sheer meretriciousness of that brought me to my
senses. He was playing a role. Why?
    I shook hands. "Come in, sergeant. Barbara Stein is
here."
    The smile faded. The blue eyes searched my face. "And
how's herself?"
    "In the pink," Barbara said from the door, rather waspishly, I
thought. "Cut the blarney, Joe. This is serious."
    "Certainly, madam." He bared his teeth—very white, very
even. He did not like Barbara. "Are you here in your landlord
capacity then, himself being off in the big city?"
    "Alex is flying back from London tonight."
    They glared at each other.
    I said, "I'll show you to the tool shed, sergeant. My father's
still asleep, though, and the bedroom's downstairs, so please be
quiet."
    Kennedy nodded and followed me into the living room. He
knew the layout, he said, because he had inspected the cottage when
the security system was installed. Barbara snorted.
    At the head of the stairs, I paused and turned. "There were
scuff marks on the floor inside the downstairs door. I noticed when I
went out."
    He whistled softly through his teeth. Whhst.
    "And I don't think the lock was forced."
    "Then it may be we should go out the front door and walk
down the slope."
    "The lawn did look undisturbed. Surely footprints would
show on that fresh a surface, and I didn't see any. Of course, I didn't
go all the way around the shed." An idiotic comment. My thought
processes were fuzzy. There was only one door into the shed.
Whoever had hauled the corpse in and placed it on the flagstones
had used that door.
    "When was the grass sown, missus?" Kennedy turned to
Barbara.
    "The gardeners finished yesterday." She was standing,
hands on her hips, in the middle of the living room rug, a nice gray
and white striped affair with white tassels.
    "Who?"
    She named names—Irish-sounding names—and added, "Toss
Tierney promised to finish the shed yesterday. I didn't see him,
though."
    I said, "It's not finished. There's no door latch and the
window's unglazed." Briefly I considered the window. It was too high
for easy access and too small to fit the body through. The dead man
was bulky.
    "I'll have a word with Toss." The sergeant rubbed his nose. It
was his least interesting feature, short and uptilted. He hesitated, as
if he were uncertain what to do next.
    Barbara cut him no slack. "Afraid you'll screw up?" What
was wrong with the woman? She was taunting him.
    His eyes narrowed, but he ignored the gibe. "If you'll come
out with me now, Mrs. Dodge. You..." He nodded to Barbara. "...can
wait in the kitchen."
    Her lips compressed. "Maybe I'll be able to identify him.
Lark can't. She doesn't know anybody."
    "Sure, and it may be I'll know him myself," Kennedy
rejoined. "If he's local."
    "Fat chance. You wouldn't know—" She bit her lip.
    Your ass from your elbow? I thought that if I were a
foreigner living in Ireland I'd try for a little more tact with the
authorities.
    Kennedy turned to me. "Will you come out now and show
me the body?"
    I nodded. Jet lag had me by the throat, and I was fading fast.
Woozy, I led him out the front door and around the living room end
of the cottage. We descended the