Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery by Lisa Alber Page A

body as temple even though he undoubtedly drank as much as everyone else at the party.” She rubbed a finger through bread crumbs on the table. “How was door duty, by the way?”
    Danny returned to the dirty dishes. Squeals and water gurgles issued from their master bathroom. “What you’d expect.”
    “Anything unusual this year?”
    “By which you mean with Kevin. What’s got you asking?”
    “Just that I bumped into Emma outside the church. She looked awful, simply done in. All she wanted was to clear the air with Kevin. After a year, that’s not so much to ask, is it?” She licked her finger. “For anyone but Kevin, that is.”
    Ellen liked to forget that Kevin might as well be Danny’s brother. Danny opened his mouth to object and just as quickly Ellen shut him down. “Don’t say a word, don’t you do it. You always defend your men friends.”
    Ah, here we go then. Like clockwork a checkmate occurred, twice, three times a week. Danny’s presence was all the accelerant Ellen needed to vent her despair, her anger, and her gripes against him, everything from the towel rack he hadn’t repaired to his pittance salary.
    Hoping to waylay yet another fight, Danny said, “You go splash, and I’ll finish up the dishes. Then we ought to pick some of those berries. Petey’s been pleading for tarts.”
    “You’ll be here to make the dough—won’t you? I don’t think I can manage the dough today.”
    He nodded, relieved that her flare-up had dissipated as quickly as it had emerged.
    “Mummy, Mummy, you’re here,” Mandy shouted a few moments later, and Petey in mimic, “You’re here!” If anything, their delighted surprise depressed Danny, as did the abandoned garden, as did last night’s drunkenness. He dry-swallowed aspirin, pulled flour out of the cupboard and mixed it together with the rest of the dough ingredients. Over the past few years, he’d become a decent cook much to his not-so-delighted surprise.
    His mobile rang, displaying the number for his superior in the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He put the phone on speaker and continued mixing the dough. NBCI’s Clare division superintendent, Eric Clarkson, worked out of county headquarters in Ennis. He didn’t bother greeting Danny. “Problem out your way. The state pathologist and scenes of crime team have already left Dublin. You need to get on securing the scene for them, and do it well because I’m talking about Lonnie O’Brien here. Apparent homicide at his Internet café.”
    Danny froze with his hands in the dough bowl. “You’re having me on.”
    “Indeed I’m not. Son of a friend, I might add.”
    A spurt of adrenaline drove Danny to hurry with the dough.
    “I question whether you can handle this—” Clarkson said.
    “Good call on your part, keeping this with me.” Danny knew well enough that Clarkson was on the brink of calling in a more experienced detective. Any detective inspector out of Dublin would do. “The locals won’t cozy up to anyone but their local lads. Plus, the matchmaking festival starts tomorrow.”
    “Ah, shit, that’s right, isn’t it? Just what we need, hundreds of bottom-feeders circling the action. Bloody nightmare. And mind you take care with the O’Briens. After last year’s buggery, they’ll want a quiet arrest. O’Brien Senior has an idea for a suspect. That Kevin fella we had trouble with last year.”
    But of course. Danny could have predicted that one.
    From the bathroom, Ellen’s voice called out for the children to hurry now. Danny patted the dough into a ball while Clarkson wasted precious minutes letting Danny know that O’Brien and Clarkson went back a ways and that Clarkson would be the one to keep O’Brien abreast of developments. Danny got the hint. Clarkson would receive the back slaps after he, Danny, solved the case.
    “So O’Brien Senior found Lonnie?” Danny interrupted.
    “What? No,” Clarkson said. “Some employee of his did and called