“Drunk and desperate,” she says, “he might. There’s nothing in him that’d hold him back from it. I never knew him to be that kinda violent, but I never knew him backed into that kinda corner. He always had a way out, before.”
“That’s what I figure,” Cal says. “This time, he couldn’t see any way out. I’d favor Johnny hands down, except for one thing: someone moved Rushborough after he died. They coulda left him anywhere, but they left him right in the middle of the road, where he’d be found inside a few hours. I can’t see any reason why Johnny would want that. He’d just dump the guy in a bog, tell everyone Rushborough went off to London and he was gonna go bring him back, and never be seen in these parts again.”
“He would,” Lena agrees. “Johnny was never one to deal with any hassle he could avoid.”
“I’d love it to be Johnny,” Cal says, “but I can’t get round that.” He passes another peeled carrot across the table to her.
Lena knows the signs of Cal not saying something. His shoulders are hunched too hard, and his eyes spend too little time on hers. Something, beyond the obvious, is at him.
“Did you tell Nealon about the gold?” she asks.
“Nope,” Cal says. “And I told Trey to keep her mouth shut, too.”
Lena hides her surprise in a sip of her drink. She knew he wanted to leave his job behind, but she doubts he had this distance in mind, not till Trey needed shielding. His face tells her nothing about what this means to him.
“Well,” she says, “she’s good at that, anyhow.”
“According to Mart,” Cal says, “everyone in the whole townland is gonna do the same.”
“He might be right,” Lena says. “And without that, your man Nealon won’t have a lot to go on. We’ll have to wait and see what way the cat jumps.”
“He’s not gonna tell me.”
“Not Nealon,” Lena says. “This place.”
The surprise on Cal’s face, as he looks up, tells her this hasn’t even occurred to him. Just because he’s seen more than enough of what this place is willing to do, he thought he knew its boundaries. She’s caught by fear for him, so overwhelming that for a moment she can’t move. After two years in Ardnakelty, he’s still innocent, as innocent as the tourists who show up looking for leprechauns and redheaded colleens in shawls; as innocent as Rushborough, swanning in to rip off the gullible savages, and look where that got him.
“What are they saying?” he asks.
“I came here straight from work,” Lena says, “in case you can’t smell that. I’ve heard nothing, except from you. I’ll go down to Noreen tomorrow and find out.” Her impulse is to get up and head straight for the shop, but there’s no point. The whole of Ardnakelty will have headed for the shop this afternoon, to feed information and speculation into the formidable machine that is Noreen, and see what it pours out in exchange. Tomorrow, when Noreen’s had a chance to sort through her harvest, Lena can find a way to catch her alone.
Cal says, “Trey’s giving Nealon the townland.”
Lena stops cutting, more at the note in his voice than at the words. “Like what?”
“She told him she heard guys talking and moving around, middle of last night, right where the body was. Guys with local accents.”
Lena goes still again while she takes this in. “Did she?”
“Nah.”
Lena finds her breath taken away by a rush of something that’s half pride and half awe. Back when she was a teenager hating the bones of Ardnakelty, all she could think of to do was run as fast and as far as she could. It never occurred to her to stand her ground and blow the place sky-high.
She says, “Does your man believe her?”
“So far. No reason he shouldn’t. She was pretty convincing.”
“What’ll he do about it?”
“Ask a whole lotta questions. See what he digs up. Take it from there.”
Lena has her breath back. Trey may be magnificent, but she’s in dangerous territory. She’s no innocent and no blow-in, but, like Lena, she’s kept herself deliberately separate from this place. Lena is only starting to realize how much of the protective barrier this offers is an illusion.
She says, “I feel like I shoulda seen that coming.”
“How?”
“I dunno. Somehow.” She’s thinking of Trey asking her who did that to Brendan. She’s glad she didn’t share any guesses.
“Yeah,” Cal says. He gives up on his peeling and runs a hand down his face. “Probably I should’ve too. It didn’t occur to me ’cause she gave me her word not to do anything about Brendan, but I guess she figures she just got lucky and found a loophole.”
His voice is raw with too many things, anger and fear and hurt. Lena has never heard it like this before. “How far would she take it?”
“Who knows. Nealon could line up half the guys around here and pull her in for a voice ID tomorrow, and I have no idea what she’d do. Identify someone, or what. Her head, these days, I don’t have a clue what’s going on in there. Every time I think I’ve figured it out, she pulls something new, and I find out I had the whole thing ass-backwards.”
Lena says, “Should we do something?”
