Damage Control Page 9

  He was near the woods when he heard the crunch of gravel and turned to see a white sedan speeding up the road to the cottage. “Uh oh, company’s here.” He waved, retracing his steps to the front walk.

  “Stall! I still need to stuff the guts back in the HD.”

  “Hurry, I think it’s the police.”

  A stout man struggled out of the car and Sebastian watched him make his way toward him. Make his way was accurate. The guy waddled a bit, suffering from short legs and a belly that threatened to topple him forward. In a suit that was years past its prime, the man’s jowly face and bright eyes reminded him of Burl Ives…and the Pillsbury Doughboy.

  “I’m Officer MacAwley.” He showed him his Garda Síochána badge and Sebastian introduced himself.

  “Noble Sheppard is a close friend,” he said.

  “I was just notified by Surrey police because he lived here. How did you learn about it?”

  They were probably wondering over the kill method more than anything. He showed him his license, though the U.S. government put a lock on them, it would take a while for MacAwley to learn that. “His daughter hired me to find him. I’d appreciate any help.”

  “Well now, you need to let us do that, lad. Interfering with an ongoing—” MacAwley stopped, frowned a bit. “Fontenòt? He mentioned you. You’re the one with the restaurant in New Orleans?”

  He hoped that’s all Noble said and didn’t mention details of Dragon One. “Yes sir. Do you know Noble well?” He helped MacAwley get his kits from the trunk.

  “As well as anyone around here, I expect. He kept to himself. I’m the landlord, too.” He flicked a chubby hand to the cottage, then grabbed a bag. “It once belonged to my grandmother.”

  “I’m afraid it’s been ransacked.”

  MacAwley stopped, looked to the open cottage door, then to him. “Well now what on the earth for? Noble was nipped in England.”

  “Not sure. The door wasn’t forced. It’s not bad. We just arrived and haven’t touched anything.” The lie came too easily, but being thrown in jail for tampering wouldn’t get Noble back. “You’re out a computer and some furniture.”

  MacAwley huffed. “The computer is his and the furniture is old.” The officer whipped out a cell phone and ordered their CSI to the cottage.

  “Do you know what he’s been working on?”

  “A book. He said he was writing a book. He rarely left except for groceries or to visit the pub in the village.”

  Rarer then, Noble didn’t drink. “Did he travel often while he was here?” He hated that he didn’t know already and felt the sting of guilt riding him.

  “Inside the country, mostly. Donegal, Sligo, Enniskillen. I knew he was in England this time, he called to tell me as a courtesy. My wife cleans the place for him, sometimes cooks meals. She said he spent a lot of time up there.” MacAwley pointed up the coastline to the castle ruins, then walked up the path. “Let’s have a look at the damage.”

  Did the ruins have anything to do with this, Sebastian wondered, or was it just Noble’s insatiable need to put his mitts on history? “We found footprints.” Max needed more time or he’d have shown himself by now.

  Thank God the policeman veered with him, kneeling and using a pencil to lay back the dry grass. “He’s a heavy man. We haven’t had rain in a few days and that’s a deep tread.” MacAwley straightened, trying to match the footprint stride, and failed. “He was running, too.”

  Okay, that’s a surprise and Sebastian rethought his first impression.

  MacAwley followed the prints to the forest, stopping near the rocks. “They go farther.” He waved at Sebastian to go look, out of breath.

  Smiling, he climbed over the mossy rocks. He didn’t have to go far. Beyond the edge of sunlight, it was much darker; elm and hawthorn trees entwined with gorse bushes and yellow flowers. He flicked on a penlight and recognized where the guy sat, the moss crushed and smeared. He shined the light around, walking farther away, yet kept the cottage in sight. When he could see the front and back of the house, he looked around. Clusters of moss and the vines covered everything. He bent closer, and behind a tree too slim to be cover, he found footprints. A lot of them.

  Kneeling to see if he could tell the boot type, he spotted bits of curled orange brown paper near the roots of the tree, another bit a couple feet away. He picked up a piece, sniffed, then flattened it. Dirt smeared, and his features pulled tight. Shit. He returned to MacAwley, showing him the shreds.

  “There’s more to collect. They’re skinny cigars and strong enough to make you light-headed.”

  MacAwley poked at it. “Can’t buy them here. We haven’t had any talk of anyone new around. The population is small. We notice visitors.” The officer retraced the path, placing markers on the prints, then grabbed his bags and went inside. He scowled at the destruction, then focused on the kitchen. Max had his face under the faucet, taking a drink. Sebastian cleared his throat, then introduced him.

  “So how long have you known Noble?” MacAwley asked, snapping on latex gloves. He grabbed a camera and worked with the precision of someone who’d done it a thousand times.

  He stood near the door, out of the way, yet impatient to move on. “Since I was eight.”

  The policemen glanced, eyeing him. “Oldest friend you have, I’d say, eh?”

  “Yes sir. He is. I was a little troublemaker and broke into his bookshop. He caught me, but didn’t call the cops.” MacAwley glanced. “He took me right to my mother.” Sebastian remembered her disappointment in him more than anything. The look on her face still cut him. “Noble had a vise grip on my arm and dragged me four blocks to Mom. I knew I was about to catch a serious ass whooping and didn’t go quietly.” His mom had been cooking fish and shrimp, selling it to the locals to keep a roof over their heads. His father had gone off gigging in the bayou the year before and never came back. Deep in his soul, he’d never forgiven him for abandoning them. His mother died still believing he’d return. “Mom was livid, but Noble asked her permission to punish me himself. She was mad enough to let him. I thought I was going to jail, I swear, but he made me come to his shop every day and work off the broken window. Then he forced me to sit and read aloud for hours.”

  “You poor, poor lad.”

  He heard the humor in MacAwley’s voice and smiled. “Actually, I couldn’t read all that well till Noble helped me. The Shakespeare and Chaucer weren’t bad, confusing as hell, but then he took pity on me and gave me a Hardy Boys mystery, a first edition. After that, I was hooked.” Reading books was the only time he could completely escape anything troubling his life.

  He watched MacAwley smooth the plastic, then lift the dusted print off the computer. Good thing it wasn’t Max’s. As MacAwley crossed to his print book, Sebastian discreetly offered Max the trash from the woods.

  Max peered, tipping his head to check the brand, then looked up sharply. “No friggin’ way.”

  His thoughts exactly. Captain Blacks. Made and sold in Russia. In Chechnya, there were smokes around the dead guards. But this brand was only outside Beckham’s cell and the tattered one in his palm had been military field stripped.

  FIVE

  Kilbarron Castle

  Ireland

  The sun pierced a line of gold across the water of Donegal Bay.

  Sebastian felt the twelfth century on the edge of his vision, yet all that remained of the castle beneath his feet was crumbling into the sea. Noble visited here often but didn’t come here for the beauty. He wanted to touch history. This area in particular.

  “What were you doing here, old man?”

  And why didn’t he tell him, tell anyone? Noble was his friend, his mentor when he needed it, and sometimes, his father when he wanted one the least. Sebastian understood Noble better than himself, and it wasn’t in his personality to be this secretive. He rubbed his face, pushed his fingers through his hair. Frustration rode his spine. He had too little to go on, but after the destruction of the cottage, he couldn’t get
near the crime scene. Garda were all over the place. D-1 was shut down so tight, they couldn’t learn beyond what Eddie gave them. Major Beckham was into something heavy duty in Chechnya for CIA to clamp a lid on the team, and setting them up to be a scapegoat to cover Beckham’s tracks was top on his list. He didn’t take kindly to that. Calling in the favor Beckham owed the team was a chit Sebastian planned to use prudently. But he would use it.

  “Over this way is the Friary.” He swung around. Sean MacAwley leaned against his car, nodding behind himself. “It’s just as inhospitable.”

  “I appreciate you giving me a tour of the grounds.” He walked to him, pebbles and stones blending into tight mossy ground the closer they came to the copse of trees. Years ago, the ruins had been excavated and while the archaeologists put it back the way they found it, the ground was weaker. Too many had gone too close to the edge and signs warned to approach at your own risk.

  “That there was the home of the Maguire, clan chieftain, eleven seventy-three or -four, I think.” Sean gestured back to the castle. “There are lots of ruins and for the locals, it’s commonplace. You Americans are more fascinated.”

  “The fascination of youth. America is a toddler by comparison.”

  “Well, Ireland has her stories. Perhaps he was writing a book about one of them.”

  “Enough to murder to get it?” He shook his head, and Sean muttered something about never really knowing what motivated someone to kill. All depends on the target and the cause, he thought.

  MacAwley brushed back branches bright with pink blossoms and ducked under. Sebastian caught it and followed him into the copse leading up an incline. Thin tall trees made the land feel dense and tight. Sunlight barely penetrated the forest canopy. Ahead was a hollow tree wrapped in vines with tiny white flowers. The breeze tore the blossoms free and Sebastian went still as the flutter of white sailed through the air like butterflies. An elfin tree, Noble called them. When he was much younger, he’d told him stories of legends and myths from every culture and country. Probably why mystery novels were his favorites, he thought, touching the tree as he passed it, smiling. He followed Sean down into a glen.

  “Watch your step there, lad, it’s muddy.”

  They crossed a shallow stream and up a short ridge. Sebastian saw the faint lines of a road, overgrown and rutted.

  “This is an old church road. The Friary wasn’t notable, there are hundreds. The Normans built them and brought their priests to change us heathens to Christianity.” Sean chuckled to himself.

  “The pagans gave some payback,” he said and Sean looked at him. “They used the Irish pagans for masons to build castles and cathedrals, and they left their own idols all over in gargoyles.”

  Sean grinned, corking a little laugh. “Aye, serves the greedy bastards right, eh? The Normans were hording Ireland like a prize, and there was fighting here, but after a fashion, the Maguire, he submitted. The Norman earl gave him back his own land and he ruled till his death.” MacAwley moved his bulk around the scrub bushes. “It’s a tale that’s been changed, romanticized over the years. The way I heard it is there was a bit of clan feuding.” Sean grinned, his cheeks bulging. “We do love a good argument. The English baron ordered the Maguire to marry. Fathers sent their daughters. Women were land and dowry, marriage stopped feuds, melded clans.” He wore a funny crooked smile. “The story says the brides were murdered by the Maguire. No reason why, but that’s the tale. Go south a few miles, it will be a wee different. Go north into Donegal and it’s something still further from the truth.”

  “What is the truth?”

  He shook his head. “No one really knows, I guess. Tourists had come up here about three years past, a small family, and the youngest wandered off. The search for the girl found this.”

  Sebastian approached the ruins of the monastery. Trees grew in the center courtyard, vines draping in a blanket of green, yet he could see stone squares on the ground, and part of a wall beneath vines and scrub bushes. He stopped at the old doorway, a pointed arch above him, and inside the crumbling walls was an open room. Toward the rear, the row of small, narrow rooms was unmistakable. “It looks like a prison.”

  “Aye, it does, ey? These are the priests’ cells. They were Dominicans, I think, a life of poverty and helping the less fortunate. They had minimal to survive and were beholden to the ruling clan for food and such.”

  “The overgrowth is not as dense here,” Sebastian said, marveling that he was walking where ancient priests had a thousand years ago.

  “Archaeologists dug everywhere, just months at a time, then buried it all back up like the castle.”

  “Why isn’t this on the local tours?” Max was scouring guides and museums, trying to link the research books in Noble’s cottage.

  “No money, I suppose, but it’s dangerous. There are old coal and copper mines near here. Some so old they’re covered up with this.” He waved at the vegetation trying to swallow the land. “We don’t know all the entrances. This”—he grabbed a piece of vine and moved it aside—“grows wild everywhere. It’s the bane of my wife’s garden.”

  Sebastian was beyond the outer wall, trying to imagine the monastery eight hundred years ago. Because right now, it felt like a cave. The sun barely reached back here, and he drew his penlight, following the roofline. “No windows on this side. A chapel maybe?” He worked his way inside, kicking at the ground, and after a few minutes, his boot hit something solid. Pulling at the vines, he uncovered a short broad hunk of rock, unmarred until he felt the flat chiseled side.

  “That looks like an altar,” Sean said, moving near.

  Sebastian yanked at vines. “It’s a kneeler. Look at the dents.” There were dual curves in the stone block and Sebastian tried it. He only managed one knee. “Man, that’s punishment.”

  “Suffering as the lord did,” Sean snickered. “Want a palm to thrash yourself?”

  Sebastian smiled, straightened. “Do you remember any more of the story?” They headed back to the car.

  “I recall something about the Maguire’s woman. That she came from the sea with an elf and a giant.”

  Sebastian laughed to himself. “That can’t be right.”

  “I don’t know them all. Didn’t grow up around here.”

  “Know anyone who would?”

  MacAwley eyed him.

  “It’s a start,” he said. “His work has something to do with his kidnapping and if he was researching this…” He let that hang, and felt like he was swinging in the wind, helpless. Time was closing in on Noble and still without a ransom demand. He checked the time. Riley’s flight should have landed by now. Maybe his sister Bridget could fill in some blanks, although reaching her would be a problem. She was in the Sea of Japan right now and the time difference was hell on communications.

  As soon as they cleared the woods, Sean pulled out a cell phone and dialed. “My wife mentioned Mister Sheppard visiting the archives in the National Museum. The former curator is a childhood friend of my son’s. She’s in charge of the Kilbarron Manor now. Busy woman this time of year, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Sebastian thanked him and stepped away to give him privacy. Noble wasn’t working with anyone he could pinpoint, and he wondered how a vague folktale connected, if at all. This could have just been a place of solitude for Noble and he was chasing his own ass, but doubt drained away with the condition of the cottage, the lack of his financial records, or even a slip of paper inside a book, Noble’s preferred bookmark. No, this was nothing as it seemed. Even the scrap he’d found for thermal clothing was odd. Noble hated the cold, and remarked that he didn’t want to spend the winter in Ireland. Exothermal was overkill for Ireland’s weather, regardless. Max was hunting down the sales on the credit card statement he’d found, but there were few, for gas mostly. Noble’s ticket to England wasn’t on it. Sebastian learned the hard way not to ignore the obvious, even if it didn’t make sense. The field-stripped smokes connected with the method of the kills. A trained
hunter.

  And while he tried not to think it, that said Noble was already dead.

  His cell pinged with a text message and he brought it up. It was Eddie breaking the rules for him again.

  2nd blood trail. BIG. 3 blocks from Crown Hotel. No body.

  “Well, that was a bust.” Olivia collapsed in her hotel room, falling back on the bed. Her stitches burned and she rubbed it, closing her eyes and trying clarify that man’s face in her mind so she’d recognize him again. “Don’t want to meet his ugly ass in a dark alley,” she muttered to the pretty crystal chandelier hanging overhead. The rest of the room was just as opulent, and the deliciously soft mattress begged her to sleep off jet lag. The knock on the door denied it.

  She listened to the incessant hammering on the other side of the adjoining room door for another second, then pushed herself off the bed. She crossed to the door and opened it, then flinched when Cruz laid into her.

  “Can you be anymore of a doofus?”

  She resented that. “Ya know, I’m not a novice at this, you are.”

  He spun, tense for a second, then deflated. “I was worried.”

  “I’m touched, really, but I’m fine. See.” She turned in a circle.

  “But he saw you.”

  “Not my face, I’m sure of it.” She was already driving away when he’d spotted her. She hoped. She didn’t see a tail on the way here and had made a couple stops, just to be sure. She glanced at the crystal clock, then went to the bathroom to check her appearance. She came out to grab a fresh blouse and found Cruz peering out the window like a pedophile.

  He looked back at her. “You aren’t seriously considering going to the meeting.”

  “Liz is fitting me in between appointments, of course I am.” Elizabeth MacNamara had e-mailed her, asking for Noble’s address. She’d been the museum curator at the National Archives and helped Noble with his research. Yet now her grad school housemate was the curator of a sixteenth-century manor turned museum.

  “The killer, here, in Ireland, that doesn’t scare you?”