Carla Neggers - The Whisper

A thin man in a baseball cap walked out to the street and greeted her.

It wasn't Percy Carlisle.

Scoop recognized Cliff Rafferty, a newly retired police officer, and, suddenly feeling protective of Sophie, fell in next to her. Rafferty dropped a cigarette onto the sidewalk and rubbed it out with the toe of his shoe. His last assignment with the department had been working security at the Augustine showroom in the South End in the weeks after Jay Augustine's arrest.

"Hey, Scoop," Rafferty said, "I didn't know you were back in town."

"I got in this afternoon. You're working for the Carlisles?"

Rafferty shrugged. He was in his mid-fifties, with leathery skin from his four-pack-a-day smoking habit. "It's a cushy private security gig. Who's your friend here?" He held up a hand and grinned at Sophie. "Wait. Let me guess. You're Sophie Malone, Mr. Carlisle's archaeologist friend. He left a message last night to expect you. Cliff Rafferty. Nice to meet you."

Sophie gave Scoop a sideways glance but made no move to step away from him. She smiled at Rafferty. "Nice to meet you, too. How did you recognize me?"

He pointed at her head. "Red hair." He grinned again, the corners of his eyes crinkling under the streetlight. "Plus I looked you up on the Internet. You're listed as a postdoctoral fellow on your university Web site. Your picture's right there." He nodded toward Scoop. "You know Detective Wisdom?"

"We were on the same flight from Ireland today."

Rafferty didn't look satisfied with her answer, but he turned to Scoop. "I went by your place after the bomb. It's a mess. Where you staying?"

"Hotel for now," Scoop said.

"At least that nutball billionaire can't try again. How's Abigail?"

"She and Owen are still on their honeymoon."

"That'll help her put this thing behind her. She's tough. She'll get right back on the job." He shifted his attention back to Sophie. "What can I do for you, Dr. Malone?"

"I was just getting some air after my flight," she said.

Rafferty made a face. "I hate flying."

"Have you ever been to Ireland?"

"Yeah, sure. I had to see the ancestral homeland, you know?"

"Is Helen Carlisle home?"

"She's inside," he said.

As he spoke, a tall, slender woman came out of the house, shutting the solid, black-painted door behind her and descending the steps to a brick walk. She joined them on the street. She wore a knee-length red sweater but she looked chilled. Scoop put her at around forty. She had pale blue eyes and thick dark hair that hung loose to her shoulders. If she had on any makeup, he couldn't tell. She was very attractive, but he liked standing close to disheveled Sophie. Across from him at Morrigan's, he'd noticed that she had a dimple in her left cheek when she smiled--not that he'd given her much reason to smile, coming down hard on her the way he had.

Being out of Ireland wasn't helping him with the fairy spell. He was as attracted to her now, even after Josie Goodwin's report, as when he'd first spotted her in the Irish greenery.

Rafferty made the introductions. "Mrs. Carlisle, Detective Cyrus Wisdom--Scoop to most of us--and Sophie Malone, the friend Mr. Carlisle mentioned would stop by. Scoop, Sophie, this is Helen Carlisle."

"What a pleasure to meet you both," Helen said. "Sophie, it's so good to finally meet you. Detective Wisdom, I'm honored to meet you. You're a hero. All of us in Boston are fortunate to have brave police officers such as yourself looking after us." She didn't pause long enough for Scoop to respond. "Cliff, I didn't realize you knew any of the officers involved in that awful explosion."

"I know them all," Rafferty said.

Helen Carlisle turned her attention to Sophie. "How was Percy last night?"

Sophie ran her fingertips along a black iron fence, her sweater and skirt askew at her hip. "Fine. I only saw him for a few minutes."

"I hated to leave him," Helen said. "I had business in New York--I just got back a little while ago--and I'm overseeing the renovations here at the house."

"Your husband's still in Ireland?" Scoop asked.

"I'm not sure where he is. He's off on one of his personal retreats. He warned me about them when we first got together. We're newlyweds, but we both had full lives before we were married. We try to respect that." She smiled pleasantly and wrapped her sweater more tightly around her. "I have plenty to do here. I keep hoping to discover a 'find' tucked away in a far corner of the attic or cellar. It'd be such fun to happen onto some long-forgotten artwork of real value. You must know that feeling, Sophie, as an archaeologist."

"I do," she said, shivering in a sudden spit of rain. "I shouldn't keep you, and jet lag's really hitting me all of a sudden."

"Thank you for stopping by. Come again. I imagine Percy will be back before too long." Helen turned to Scoop, raindrops glistening on the bright red wool of her sweater. "You, too, Detective--come again anytime."

She retreated back up the walk to the house. Rafferty watched her a moment before turning back to Scoop. "Augustine's arrest has made a lot of rich folks nervous. What an animal he turned out to be. The Carlisles had nothing to do with his violence. His dealings with them were strictly professional."

Scoop almost welcomed the cold drizzle. "You met the Carlisles when you worked security at the Augustine showroom?"

"Yeah. Cushy job, guarding paintings and statues. This new job's pretty cushy, too." He withdrew a pack of cigarettes and tapped out one. "See you when they hand out your commendation for bravery. Enjoy the limelight while you can." He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and nodded to Sophie. "Dr. Malone."

He went back up the walk. Sophie shivered again. "It's colder out than I expected. I can feel fall in the air."

Scoop resisted an impulse to slip an arm around her. "You must be about dead on your feet."

"You, too," she said, almost smiling.

"We're still on Irish time. I'll walk you back to your place."

"As far as the Whitcomb is fine."

"You're not very trusting, are you?"

She laughed, tucking her hands into her sweater pockets. "I got on the same plane with you, didn't I?" She glanced back at the Carlisle house, the front door shut, lights shining in the tall windows. "A bit different from Keira's Irish ruin, isn't it?"

Scoop shrugged. "Right now I'll settle for a bed and a blanket."

"Me, too," she said, then caught herself. "I mean--"

"It's okay. You're jet-lagged."

"Very jet-lagged," she said, almost falling against him as she started down the street.

Scoop walked alongside her to Charles Street. The rain stopped, but the wind picked up. She looked cold and tired, but she had the presence of mind not to go back into the hotel with him and instead continued on to her sister's apartment on her own.

A good thing, Scoop thought when he headed downstairs for a drink and a sandwich and found Bob O'Reilly at the bar.

"When I was in Ireland and couldn't sleep," Scoop said as he eased onto a high stool next to Bob, "I'd sit up with a book and listen to the sheep and cows in the hills. In another twenty years, maybe I'll retire there."

"In another twenty years," Bob said, "you'll be running the department."

"Nah. I'm no good at the politics."

Bob O'Reilly was a big, burly fifty-year-old divorced father of three daughters. The son of a cop, he'd wanted to be a homicide detective even before a young woman two doors down from where he grew up in South Boston was kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered. That was thirty years ago. He still carried a picture of Deirdre McCarthy in his wallet.

Deirdre's mother had told Keira the story about the three Irish brothers, the fairies and the stone angel that had taken her to the Beara Peninsula. But Patsy McCarthy had also told the story to Jay Augustine, believing he was a respected dealer interested in her collection of angel figurines--and he'd killed her. Keira and Simon had found her body.