Tana French - The Searcher - A Novel

“Here like Ardnakelty, or here like outside your house?”

“Both.”

“I’m in Ardnakelty because the scenery’s so pretty, son,” Cal says. “And I’m outside your house because I live in this neighborhood, and I’m curious about a coupla things that’ve been going on around here.”

He smiles at Donie and lets him decide. With the beard and the hair and all, he looks a lot more like a biker or a survivalist loon than like a cop. Donie eyes Cal and considers which of the possibilities he likes least.

“If I was you,” Cal advises him, “I’d just sit down, answer a few easy questions without making a big fuss about it, and then go on about my day.”

“I know nothing about drugs,” Donie says.

This is exactly the kind of fucky conversation, with exactly the kind of pointless shitweasel, that Cal has been congratulating himself on never having to put up with again. “You already admitted you do, you fucking moron,” he says. “That’s OK, though, because I don’t give a shit about your pissant drug ops either. I’m just a good Southern boy who was raised to be neighborly, and there’s been some things happening to my neighbors that I’d like to understand better.”

Donie should go indoors right about now, but he doesn’t. This could just be because he’s dumb or bored, or because he’s still looking for some way he can benefit. Or it could be because he feels the need to find out what exactly Cal knows.

“I need a smoke,” he says. “Give us a tenner.”

“Left my wallet at home,” Cal says. Even if he was inclined to give Donie money, that would only land him with weeks’ worth of made-up bullshit, punctuated by demands for more cash. “Have a seat.”

Donie evaluates him for another minute, mouth open in a small feral grin. Then he sits himself down on the wall, out of Cal’s reach. He smells like some meal, cabbage and deep-fried stuff, cooked a few days back.

Cal says, “You’ve been killing my neighbors’ sheep.”

“Prove it.” Donie pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his tracksuit pocket and lights one, not bothering to blow the smoke away from Cal.

“You got some unusual tendencies, son,” Cal says, “but seeing as I’m not a shrink, I don’t give a shit about that, either. My only question is, when you go slicing the private parts out of sheep, is that for your own personal enjoyment, or you got a bigger agenda going on?”

“Don’t worry about it, man. There won’t be any more sheep killed.”

“Well, that’s nice to know,” Cal says. “But my question still stands.”

Donie shrugs and smokes. Noreen is watering her petunias again. He hunches his back to her, like she might not recognize him.

“I got sort of the same question,” Cal says, “when it comes to Brendan Reddy.”

Donie’s head comes around sharply and he stares at Cal. Cal looks pleasantly back. Even Donie’s stringy little bangs, which look like Donie saves time and motion by keeping them permanently matted in place with months’ worth of grease, are getting on his last nerve.

“What question?” Donie demands.

“Well,” Cal says, “I don’t much care what happened to him. But I’d sure like to know whether it was just some little personal affair, or whether it was part of what you might call a grander scheme of things.”

“‘Grander scheme,’” Donie says, and snorts.

“I think that’s the phrase I’m looking for,” Cal says, considering. “If you got a more fitting one, I’m all ears.”

“Why do you care what happened to Brendan?”

“Any intelligent man likes to know what he’s dealing with,” Cal says. “I’m sure you feel the same way. You get edgy when you don’t know what you’re dealing with, don’t you, Donie?”

Donie says, “You in business?”

“My business is beside the point, son,” Cal says. “The point is that I like staying out of other people’s business. I like it a lot. But in order to do that, I need to know where other people’s business lies.”

“Do a bitta fishing for yourself,” Donie says, and blows smoke at Cal. “Get a few chickens. That’ll keep you out of other people’s business.”

“Everyone in this townland appears to think I need a hobby,” Cal says.

“You do. So did Bren Reddy.”

“Well, I do love me some fishing,” Cal says. “But what I want you to take in here, son, is that I’d very much appreciate some clarity on the situation.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“Depends on what kind of clarity I get.”

Donie shakes his head, grinning.

“OK, Donie,” Cal says. “Lemme do some of the work for you. Brendan Reddy fucked up.” He has no intention of letting on that he knows about the meth lab. He doesn’t want that house burned down; he might have a use for it at some point. “Your buddies from Dublin got rid of him, one way or another. My neighbors found out. And you’ve been given the job of warning them to keep their mouths shut.”

Donie stares at Cal. He sniggers.

“How’m I doing?”

“You want a lot of shit for free, man.”

“I’m asking nicely,” Cal says. “So far. That oughta count for something, even these days.”

Donie stands up and picks his tracksuit pants out of his ass. “Get fucked,” he says. He throws his cigarette into the road, swagger-limps back to his house and slams the door behind him.

Cal waits a few seconds, waves good-bye to the lace curtains and heads for home. There’s no point in sticking around. The only things that will move Donie are gain and pain. Anything fancier will have no more effect on him than it would on a wolverine.

He didn’t expect to get much out of Donie, anyway. His main goals were to find out whether Donie is connected to whatever happened to Brendan, which he is, and to kick those bushes. Which, for better or for worse, he certainly has done.

All the same, the conversation has left him stirred up and restless. Putting away guys like Donie used to be one of Cal’s favorite parts of the job. These guys aren’t hankering for a rifle and a horse and a herd of cattle; you could give them all those things, and within a week they would get themselves shot for cheating at cards, or stealing horses, or raping someone’s wife. The only useful thing you can do with them is lock them up where they can’t harm anyone except each other. With that option off the table, Cal gets the same feeling he got in the pub when Donie was squaring up to Mart, that sense of not being quite able to get his feet on the ground. He ought to do something about Donie, but the context prevents him from understanding what that might be.

In the end Cal takes Donie’s advice and goes fishing. His restlessness makes the house feel cramped and nagging, full of shit he needs to do and can’t settle to. On a more practical level, he doesn’t want to be home if Trey gets impatient and comes looking for news.

Cal is no longer particularly interested in finding out where Brendan went. While the cop part of him jerks a knee at the thought of abandoning a case that still has plenty of candy in it, the overriding priority here is the fact that, at least for the foreseeable future, Trey needs to stop looking.

The river is sluggish today, moving in muscular, viscous-looking twists. Leaves fall onto its surface, drift for a second, and are pulled under without a swirl or a trace. Cal thinks about telling the kid that Brendan fetched up in there, some accidental way. He could come up with a convincing story, maybe involving Brendan scouting locations for a business running fishing trips for tourists on heritage pilgrimages, or nature retreats for suits in search of their inner wild men, either of which is the kind of thing that the dumbass kid should have fucking gone for to begin with.