False Mermaid

Down on her hands and knees, Nora poked her head into the attic, feeling a little light-headed in the airless heat. As she ventured inward, her left shoulder pressed against the hardened ooze of plaster and lath, she tested for loose beams, while trying to avoid exposed nails that threatened to catch her from the right. Definitely a child’s hiding place, an unfriendly environment for grown-ups. Nora had found this attic space herself, the day they moved into the house. The small breach behind the chimney would have been perfect for passing secret messages between their rooms, but it had never happened. By the time her sister was old enough for secret messages, Nora herself had outgrown them. The story of their lives, really—always slightly out of synch.

She felt blindly around the back side of the rough brickwork, trying not to imagine all the many-legged creatures and silken egg sacs she must be disturbing. Lifting out a battered wooden cigar box, she crawled back out into the dimly lit room, trailing spiderwebs. The contents of the box still gave off a faint, brackish whiff when she opened the lid. A sign in her own childish handwriting pronounced it NORA’S SECRET HIDING PLACE. Every object in it was something she had squirreled away so many years ago: three buffalo nickels, six Irish ha’pennies, and even a worn shilling; the tarnished bronze medal on a tattered ribbon she’d found in the dirt under the front porch; a rather toothsomely grisly squirrel skull; some interesting fossils excavated from the river bluffs. The box also held bits of green and bluish sea glass, a vial of bonelike coral from Connemara, two brilliant Kerry diamonds from Inch Strand outside of Dingle, and a softened shard of blue-and-cream delft she’d scavenged along the shore in Donegal. Everything was familiar; there was nothing new. She lifted the box to scan the underside. Nothing taped on, nothing extra written on it. Maybe Tríona hadn’t left anything here after all.

Setting the cigar box aside, she crawled back into the attic space, reaching again into the gap behind the chimney. This time her fingertips brushed against something. Whatever it was, it had fallen down between the chimney and the eaves. She managed to work the object closer until at last she was able to pull it out. It was a blue nylon duffel bag, hoary with cobwebs and plaster dust. She crawled backward out of the attic and set the bag on the floor of Tríona’s room. Inside, she found a small black datebook and a sheaf of papers—more newspaper articles about Natalie Russo. All printed out, just like the article she’d found at the library, on the last day of Tríona’s life. She flipped open the datebook, and saw various dates marked with large red Xs, sometimes one per week, sometimes more. There was an envelope tucked inside the back cover, addressed to Peter Hallett, with an unsigned, hand-printed note inside:

You’re gonna pay. For what you did.

Nora checked the postmark—the letter had been sent from Portland, Maine, two weeks before Tríona died. How was all this connected? Finally, at the bottom of the duffel, she found a crumpled brown paper bag with something soft inside. It turned out to be several items of clothing: a pair of shorts; a T-shirt that she’d given Tríona, with a University of Minnesota Medical School logo; and a pair of lacy underwear with matching bra.

All were stiff with what seemed to be dried blood.

Nora felt a hollow flutter under her breastbone. She remembered giving Tríona this shirt. Last night she had offered her mother all kinds of reassurances, but still had to push her own fear back into the dark place it dwelt deep inside her. Tríona had told her to take what she found here to the police. All of this had to start making sense sometime, but so many pieces of the puzzle were still missing. So why did she feel that a new threshold had been crossed?

2

Cormac paced up and down the hospital corridor, stopping briefly in front of the window to the room where his father remained motionless, still in a drug-induced coma. Roz Byrne sat in a chair beside the bed, holding the old man’s hand.

When Roz came out of the room, Cormac said: “I don’t know if I can stay here any longer. There’s nothing to do but walk the floor and wait. I’ve got to get out for a while.”

“Why don’t you head back to the house?”

“I’m guessing you could use a break, too. Why don’t we go somewhere?”

“Where do you suggest?”

“I don’t know—let’s just drive. The doctors have my mobile if there’s any news.”

As they headed west out of Killybegs, neither of them spoke. Roz had the wheel. The land grew progressively wilder and more rocky as they traveled westward, through Kilcar and Carrick. Finally, Cormac said: “I’ve been thinking about Mary Heaney. If her body was never found, how do you know she didn’t just walk away?”

“I hope she did. I hope she escaped, and lived to be a very old woman. I just don’t think that’s what happened.”