McNeely looked at them and then at me. “She have a fella?”
They shook their heads and said there didn’t seem to be anyone regular, and Byrne asked me, “Did your cousin tell you or her father about anyone she’s seeing?”
“No. She told my uncle that she was having fun, but he said he didn’t think she had a boyfriend or any really close friends here.”
“Any fellas ring her up?” That was for Emer and Daisy.
“A few,” Emer said. “An Irish fella named Donal rang her a couple times. He had sort of a Limerick accent. She said she met him at a pub and gave him her number and then wished she hadn’t.”
Byrne thought that was interesting. “Donal. Do you think he might have tried to contact her again?”
Emer shrugged. “It was back in January and he only rang twice. I wouldn’t think so.”
Daisy said, “There was another fella who rang a few times in the summer. He had sort of a funny accent. American or Canadian, but not really, a bit neither here nor there, if you know what I mean. I can’t remember his name, but the last time he said to tell Erin he was meeting some friends at O’Brien’s on Pearse Street if she wanted to join.” McNeely wrote that down.
“Anyone ever stay the night at your place?” he asked Emer and Daisy. They said no, never.
“So, she left on, what day was it now?” McNeely got out a little paper date book and turned it to September.
“The sixteenth,” Daisy said.
“What was the longest she’d been gone before when you didn’t know where she was?” Byrne asked Daisy.
She looked up. “She went up to Belfast in April, I think it was. She was gone ten days, eleven days, something like that.”
“And she hadn’t said anything to you?” Byrne asked me again. “She didn’t tell you or your uncle she was going on a holiday? She hadn’t been depressed, in trouble, anything like that?” When he said “in trouble,” Emer and Daisy both looked down at the ground.
“I haven’t talked to her in a while,” I said. Since she left. I haven’t talked to her since she left. The beach. Her face wet with rain. “My uncle said she called him a few weeks ago and said she was having fun, but nothing about a trip.”
I’d brought a photograph—Erin’s high school graduation portrait—and I handed it over. Then he asked me for my full name, date of birth, address. “So, you’re twenty-two years of age, then. Erin is twenty-three?” I nodded. “And there’s nothing you can think of that might tell us what was on her mind?”
I shook my head. “Nothing specific.”
They took some more information down and I told them I’d be staying in Erin’s room until we knew more.
I thought we were finished, but McNeely turned to me. “Why did Miss Flaherty come over here? She’s not a student. Does she know anyone in Dublin?” McNeely’s accent was different from Byrne’s and Emer’s and Daisy’s, Northern Irish, I was pretty sure. Her sentences headed toward Scotland, veering up at the ends, reminding me of a guy from Belfast I knew at Notre Dame.
“Erin is impulsive sometimes,” I said. “I … I don’t really know why she moved here. We’re Irish, Irish American—Erin and I practically grew up in my uncle’s bar. It’s called Flaherty’s. Maybe she wanted to … I don’t know, live here for a bit. Learn about Ireland.” My voice caught and I swallowed. “She … we’d had a hard year. My mother died a year ago last summer and Erin had a rough time. She just wanted to try something new, I guess.”
I took a deep breath and proceeded. They were going to find out. “And her mother was Irish. She left right after Erin was born and they never had a relationship. We don’t think she was looking for her or anything like that, but maybe she wanted to see where she … where she was from. I don’t know.”
“Do you know her mother’s name?” McNeely looked interested all of a sudden. There was something there. They could feel it.
“Brenda Flaherty. I think her maiden name was Donaghy. But we really don’t think she ever contacted Erin.”
Emer and Daisy were staring at me. It was obvious Erin had never told them her mother was Irish.
“Had she been to Ireland before?” McNeely asked. Her eyes were a dark, navy blue. Her freckles swam together in front of my eyes for a moment.
“No. Neither have I,” I said.
“We’ll look into it and we’ll be back to you, Miss D’arcy. We’ll get on to the bus stations and that. The lads down in Wicklow. We’ll check with her job.” McNeely studied me thoughtfully and asked, “Could your cousin have wanted to harm herself?”
I froze. “I don’t know. She was … She’d had problems before.” I tried to keep my face neutral.
“What kind of problems?”
How to say it? “She got depressed sometimes and she would go off by herself when that happened. She dropped out of college a couple years ago and since then she’s been pretty up and down.”
“All right, all right,” Byrne said finally. “They’ll search the walking paths tomorrow.” His light blue eyes swept across us. He was distracted, antsy, fiddling with the buttons on his suit. McNeely put a hand on his arm, as if he were a child and she was reminding him of his manners, and he stood and shook my hand and gave me a card with the station number on it.
“Don’t worry yourself too much, now,” he said. “I’ll bet she’ll turn up with a grand story.” But the grim tone of his voice told me he didn’t believe a word of it.
10
1993
Things started moving quickly after that. Byrne and McNeely got back to me the next day to tell me that they had found the bus driver who had taken Erin down on the sixteenth. He drove the private bus to Glendalough, but he said the bus had been empty and she’d asked if he could drop her in Glenmalure. He blushed when he said it and finally admitted she’d offered him five pounds but he hadn’t taken the money. Byrne told me that the guards in Wicklow were working with the Army Reserve to search the forest and mountains where I’d found the necklace, and would interview potential witnesses, including the bus driver.
I tried to settle in at Erin’s, but it was strange sleeping in her bed while I waited for news. The sheets smelled faintly of her perfume. The next day I woke up and went to the corner store to get milk. I grabbed an Irish Independent and was reading a story about Erin when Emer and Daisy came into the kitchen.
“Is there news?” Emer asked, flipping the switch on the electric kettle.
I pushed the paper across the table to her. Gardaí Searching for American in Wicklow. Above a small reproduction of Erin’s picture, the article read, “The Gardaí are looking for any information about the whereabouts of an American student, Erin Flaherty, 23, who has been living in Dublin for the past year. Flaherty was last seen in Glenmalure on the afternoon of September 16 and the Gardaí will search the area today. Anyone who may have seen her or who may have information about her movements on the sixteenth of September is asked to contact the Gardaí.”