Whoever followed me out there was careful not to leave anything obvious behind.' She gave him a challenging look. 'A cop would know how to do that.'
He let her comment slide. 'When you heard about Keira Sullivan's experience on the Beara Peninsula, you thought of what happened to you on the island. You two have similar back-grounds--you're both from Boston, you know Colm Dermott, you're interested in old Irish stories, you're around the same age.'
'I only learned the details about Keira's experience when I talked to Colm last week. I didn't want to sound any alarms without more information. If Jay Augustine was responsible for my ordeal on the island...' She paused, sinking back onto her chair at the table. 'He's in jail. I figured I didn't have to worry about more violence.'
'Then came this morning,' Scoop said, sitting across from her.
The fading daylight struck her eyes and made them seem darker, richer. 'Your British friends have been in touch with the Irish authorities.'
'We need to know what crimes Augustine committed. All of them.'
'Including the theft and sale of illegal or stolen art and antiquities?'
Scoop was silent a moment. 'Sophie--'
She sprang up without a word and headed for the door, charging out to the courtyard. He watched her from the window as she got down onto her knees and started rearranging the mums. He rose, feeling a pull of pain in his hip for the first time since that morning in the ruin. He went outside. The temperature had dropped fast, but Sophie didn't seem cold.
'The low ceilings got to me,' she said without looking up. 'I'll be okay in a second.'
'What about the Carlisles? How much do they know about what happened last year?'
'Percy wasn't seeing Helen then, although I imagine they knew each other.' Sophie's tone was unreadable. She stood up, almost bumping into Scoop. 'He was in Killarney in early September. I'd already made a couple of day trips out to the island by then. He came to see me. I was surprised, but I didn't think that much about it. When he stopped in Kenmare the other night, he said he'd heard I was chasing a story with an Irish fisherman. He was convinced I was modeling myself after his father, but that wasn't the case at all.'
'Did you know his father?'
'Yes, but not well. I ran into him a few times at the Carlisle Museum when I was a student in Boston. He was an amateur archaeologist. He was quite the adventurer.'
Scoop ran the toe of his shoe over a worn brick missing a corner. 'What about this Irish fisherman?'
'I told you, I trust Tim. He had multiple opportunities to pitch me overboard or throw me off the ledge along with my backpack, but he didn't.'
'Bringing you back alive kept him from answering even tougher questions.'
'I realize I'm not a law enforcement officer who has to keep an open mind--which apparently means not trusting anyone--but I trust Tim. He's not working with Augustine or anyone else involved in black market antiquities.'
'You two aren't a team?'
She gave him a cool look, no indication his question had irritated or surprised her. 'Ah. I see. Tim helps with transportation and local lore, and I identify authentic artifacts and find collectors willing to buy them and not ask questions.'
Scoop shrugged. 'Or you work together and create a compelling story, plant fakes and sell them to people who can't complain if they find out, since they obtained them illegally.'
'None of the above,' Sophie said without hesitation. 'It's not logical for me to have called attention to myself with a made-up story about an Irish cave if I were a thief.'
'I could make a case for it.'
'A tortured argument at best. All these years working toward my Ph.D. and living hand-to-mouth and I'd chuck it for some crazy scheme? That doesn't even make sense.'
He tilted his head back and eyed her. 'Give me a D, would you, Professor Malone?'
She seemed to make an effort to smile but bent down suddenly, picked up a yellow mum by the edge of its basket and moved it behind a white one, then stood up again. 'There. I like that better.'
'I see no difference.'
'The yellow works better in the background--'
'Sophie.'
She sighed. 'All right. Here's my take. One, the artifacts I saw in the cave are authentic and were stolen by someone who followed me to the island hoping I'd find something. Two, they were stolen by someone who, for whatever reason,
'A ruse,' Scoop said, finishing for her. 'All the drama with the whispers and the blood helps.'
'Except I've kept quiet about the incident, at the request of the Irish authorities--not that I needed their suggestion. I wouldn't want to encourage treasure hunters, or certainly to come across as one myself.'
'That wouldn't look so good on your CV. You're sure you met Cliff Rafferty for the first time last night?'
The pain of that morning showed in her face. 'As far as I know, yes. If I encountered him on the street when he was a police officer, I don't remember.'
'When was the last time you were in Boston?'
'In the spring--well before the violence here started.'
'Unless it started with you a year ago. That's what you're worried about, isn't it?'
Sophie didn't answer. She walked past him to her apartment window and picked a dried leaf off the sill, desperately in need of scraping and a fresh coat of paint. 'Summer's gone now.'
'Do you miss Ireland already?'
'I love Boston, too.' She crumpled up the leaf and let the bits fall to the brick courtyard. 'It's a bad idea for you to be here, isn't it? Or are you on duty?'
'Technically I'm still on medical leave for getting blown into my compost bin.'
She brushed her hands off and smiled at him. 'You're a driven, hard-ass, career-oriented, cynical cop, aren't you, Scoop?'
He grinned. 'I'm not cynical.'
'You're good at detecting lies. Why?'
'It's my job. Nothing special. No lying women or lying family I'm getting back at or trying to understand.'
'How long have you been in internal affairs?'
He noticed she looked cold now. She'd run out of the apartment without a jacket or sweater. 'Two years,' he said.
'What's next?'
'Getting fired if I'm not careful with you. It's not going over well, Sophie, this not telling me everything.'
'I just told you--'
'It wasn't everything.'
'I haven't lied to you, Scoop.'
'Omitting pertinent information is equivalent to lying.' He had lined up his questions. 'What about your octogenarian art theft expert?'
He saw a flicker of surprise in her face. 'Ah. Wendell Sharpe.' With one foot, she straightened a ragged doormat. 'Your British friends are enterprising if they've learned about him. He's such a gentleman, as well as brilliant. I went to see him in Dublin--'
'After you talked to Colm Dermott about Keira's experience,' Scoop said.
'I asked him if Irish Celtic artifacts had turned up on the black market in the past year. I assumed the guards would know if they had and would have said something, but...' She gave the doormat one last shove with her foot. 'It was a good opportunity to talk to an expert. He gave me a tutorial on his world. It was fascinating.'
'I'll bet it was.' Scoop could see her energy was flagging. 'Your mums need water.'
This time she did manage a smile. 'I guess I can't pretend to be a gardener, can I?' But she wasn't ready to quit. 'I've heard a bad cop's like an infection that spreads in ways you can't control or predict.'
'I can't go there, Sophie.'
She stepped up to her apartment door, its dark green paint almost black in the shadows. 'I still don't believe Cliff Rafferty killed himself.' She paused, one hand on the brass knob as she turned back to him. 'I wouldn't be
