Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery by Lisa Alber

true on this crap of a day, which had started with conciliatory dough making and ended with fingerprint powder clouding Danny’s vision, clogging his nose, and coating his throat.
    Danny stood blinking at the hearth fire, unsure how to proceed. He thought about Kevin as Clarkson’s—and the O’Briens’—favorite suspect. Below the surface of him, Kevin was softer than a stuffed lamb. Brawling was one thing, killing quite another, not that Danny could say this to Clarkson.
    “Ah hell, hit me with it twice then,” he said and dropped into Kevin’s chair.
    Kevin retreated to the kitchen to fetch the whiskey.
    “What’s on with you? Is Ellen OK?” Danny read the misgivings in Liam’s half-smile, then the decision to go ahead with the next query. “The children, they’re fine?”
    “I don’t know what fine is anymore. Seems like time should have healed something between Ellen and me.”
    “For shite, that. Time could give a damn.”
    “That’s a font of dire wisdom—thank you kindly.”
    “My pleasure,” Liam said. “Always try to help.”
    Kevin arrived with a bottle and three glasses. He pulled up a dining chair from across the room and sat between Liam and Danny. The cozy silence the three of them usually inhabited felt estranged. His fault, Danny knew, for arriving with weighted conscience. He swallowed half the whiskey Kevin handed him, feeling Liam’s gaze on him.
    “I suppose I could use your advice, as usual. Only not about my marriage.”
    Liam settled back in his chair, sipping his whiskey. “Go on then.”
    “A case came in today not of the usual drug-addled sort. I should say an important case, and I could do with a promotion. Maybe if I progress in my professional life, Ellen will take heart and progress with her sadness. The good thing is that I’m in charge of the case—”
    “Cheers to that.” Kevin drank and poured himself another shot.
    “The problem,” Danny continued, “is that I already don’t like the direction the case is going. You might say it involves family. You might say I’m torn between loyalty and duty. So what do I do?”
    Liam and Kevin stared at him. They didn’t utter a word, didn’t drink, didn’t move. Kevin’s face reddened. After a long pause, Liam set aside his tumbler. “It seems to me,” he said, “that we can only do what feels sane to do. It’s unfortunate that sanity is a slippery slope.”
    Kevin reared back in his chair, almost toppling over. “Out with it already. Who’s itching after my balls now?”
    “Do you have something on your mind?” Danny said.
    “I can tell you what’s on Kevin’s mind.” Liam pointed at himself. “Me. He’s as transparent as sunshine through spiderwebs, that he is. And, he’s also worried he’s made the neighbor’s sheep sick.”
    Danny drained his glass and poured himself another dram. Liam and Kevin’s relationship had always fascinated him. Their loyalty to each other was fierce, the kind that used up most of their emotional reserves. Whereas some ignorant pricks proclaimed Kevin bent, Danny had long ago ceased to rib him about his bachelor ways. The man didn’t have the energy for a full-fledged relationship, not with Liam there to soak up his affection—and vice versa.
    On the other hand, Kevin would marry someday given proper timing and nurturance, maybe even to Emma. He was a man who fared ill on his own, an orphanage boy through and through. Product of the nuns, even down to the way he glided when he walked.
    Liam’s caw of a laugh brought Danny back to the scene at hand. He’d missed their back-and-forth but now caught Liam’s, “Did you think I wouldn’t spy on you after you left the room in a sulk? Imagine, Danny boy, he fed my birthday cake to the sheep because I asked him to make nice with that Merrit lass. God forbid I help him with his rat-arsed social life.”
    Danny’s ears stretched in Liam’s direction. “You know Merrit Chase?”
    “Not at all.”
    “Marcus seems keen