“What? No I didn’t.” And when he lifted a skeptical eyebrow: “Who said I did?”
“The lads’ve been hearing it around,” Martin said, with a vague wave of his hand. “It’s been coming up in the interviews, here and there. One of those things where everyone heard it from someone else, no one’s sure where it started.”
“I never had problems with Dominic. We weren’t best buddies or anything, but we got on fine.”
“Fair enough,” Martin said equably. “Fact is, though, if the Murder lads heard that—true or not—someone else might have heard it too. And believed it.”
“And . . .” I wasn’t keeping up here, car-crash pileup of new information jamming my brain— “And what? Someone thought it was my fault Dominic killed himself? So they came after me?”
“Could’ve done. Or else they didn’t think he killed himself.”
“They thought I killed him?”
Martin shrugged, eyes on me.
“That’s crazy.” And, after a long moment when he said nothing and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say: “No. Their accents, the guys who hit me. They were skangers. Dominic didn’t know anyone like that. Definitely no one who would have been close enough to him to want revenge. No way.”
“He knew people who could’ve hired someone.”
“But that’s crazy,” I said again. “Ten years later? Why would they, all of a sudden, how would they even know how to—”
Martin sighed. “Maybe I’ve just been in this game too long,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen to other fellas: too many years always looking for the link, they start seeing links everywhere. This one guy, yeah? Totally convinced that his murder case in Sallynoggin was connected to a bar fight in Carlow. Would’ve bet his house on it, like. Hundreds of hours interviewing the shite out of the poor Carlow fuckers, checking alibis, prints, getting warrants for DNA, the lot. All because both cases had a Budweiser baseball cap found nearby. His nickname’s still ‘Bud.’”
I couldn’t grin back. “Am I a,” I said. The word felt both too ludicrous and too explosive even to say, a big red cartoon button that at one touch might detonate the whole house. “Do they think I did this? The other detectives?”
Glancing up from the fire, perplexed: “You mean are you a suspect?”
“I guess. Yeah. Am I?”
“Course you are. If someone killed Ganly, it was someone who had access to this garden. Only a handful of people had access within the time frame. They’re all going to be suspects.”
“But,” I said. My heart was pounding horribly, shaking me right through; I was sure he would hear it in my voice. I’d known all that, somewhere in the back of my mind, obviously I’d known, but to hear it said straight out like that— “But I didn’t do anything.”
He nodded.
“Do they think I did?”
“Haven’t a clue. To be honest with you, I don’t think they’re that far along. They’re just throwing theories around and seeing what sticks; they haven’t settled on one yet.”
“Do you think I did?”
“Haven’t thought about it,” Martin said cheerfully. “It’s not my case; I don’t get paid enough to have theories on other people’s. I only care if it’s got something to do with my burglary-assault.” And when I couldn’t stop staring at him: “Come on, man. If I thought you were a murderer, would I be sitting here drinking your whiskey and having the chats?”
“I don’t know.”
He stared back at me. Aggrieved, on a rising note of belligerence: “Hang on. I’m out in the rain, on my night off, doing you a favor”—he was pointing at the candlestick bag, which I had completely forgotten—“and you’re accusing me of bullshitting you?”
“No,” I said. “Honestly. Sorry.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was apologizing for, but after another moment of the stare, Martin relented. More gently: “Two favors, actually. That there”—the candlestick—“I could’ve posted that out to you. But I think you’re a decent young fella, and you’ve had a bad enough time the last while. So I figured you deserved a heads-up—off the record, like. If you didn’t have any beef with Ganly, then you need to have a good think about why someone would be going around saying you do.”
“I don’t know why. I don’t even know who would—”
But he was shooting his cuff to look at his watch, levering himself out of the chair: “Jesus, it’s later than I thought. I’d better be heading, before the missus decides I’ve run off with some young one—ah, no, only messing, she knows me better than that.