Joyce decided to give it one more chance before asking for the check and calling it a wash.
“I invited you here in case you wanted to talk about your brother.” She said it quietly, with respect.
“That’s very kind of you. I just couldn’t seem to hold it together at the nail salon. I was feeling awful and thought I’d go and do something for myself that usually calmed me down, but clearly—” She gave Joyce a rueful grin. “Clearly that didn’t work.”
“Losing someone close to you is its own special kind of pain, I think. Until I lost my parents, I didn’t know what real sorrow was.” Joyce’s parents died just a few months apart. For all her toughness, her mother didn’t seem to want to live in a world where she couldn’t actively hate her ex-husband. Joyce missed them both terribly, in her own way.
A shadow passed over Susan’s face. “My brother and I weren’t close. I hadn’t spoken to him in years.”
“I can see how that would make this all the more difficult.”
“I feel like a fake.” Susan folded her hands delicately in her lap and straightened her back. “I don’t know how to handle any of this.”
“Death is always a challenge to cope with. We don’t give anyone the tools to deal with it properly, even though it touches everyone’s life.” Joyce had certainly heard enough stories from Simon to know that, even when a loved one was heading into a risky surgery, nobody was ever truly expecting their mother or cousin or child to die. Until it happened to you, death was something that affected other people. Of course, Joyce was at the point in her life where she knew death well.
Susan snapped her head up and looked Joyce straight in the eye. “What about murder? What kind of tools are there to deal with your baby brother being murdered?”
Joyce couldn’t hold Susan’s gaze and blinked several times before reaching for her latte. “I don’t know,” she finally answered.
“He was naked, in a hotel room, apparently. It’s all so sordid. I mean, I just remember him as my little brother, gawky and sweet. Dermot was a good person. He helped people, especially children who were having problems at home. That’s why he went into social work to begin with.”
“It sounds like you knew him fairly well,” Joyce observed.
“I knew the basic facts of his life. You can get those off Facebook or Instagram. I mean, we were connected through those. We weren’t cut off from each other or anything.” Susan twisted a strand of hair around her finger, and then seemed to think twice and folded her hands into her lap again. “But we didn’t talk, you know? I didn’t know him, as a person.”
“I understand.”
“And there’s also this piece that I can’t fit into everything else. I’m not sure if I should tell the police or keep it to myself.” Susan’s eyes roamed around the room, looking for somewhere to safely focus. She settled on the rose in the center of their table.
Joyce sat perfectly still, as though she might startle a fragile creature. She felt as though Susan was about to unfurl something that could never be put back inside once it was let out.
She listened.
“Dermot wrote a letter to me, just a few weeks before he died.”
“Yes, you mentioned that at the salon. He reached out to you.” Joyce said it as a statement, hoping that it would help Susan find some comfort in the belief that she and her brother weren’t so disconnected.
And that it would encourage Susan to keep talking.
“At first, as I was reading it, I thought it was a letter about his life. He told me about his work, and his friends. He talked about falling in love with a woman, and how happy he was with her. That was really wonderful to read, although he said that there were some obstacles to the two of them being together.”
She paused. Joyce waited.
“He asked about my children, his niece and nephew. And then,” Susan closed her eyes and a tear slipped out and down her cheek. “Well, he confessed to something.”
“Oh, I see,” was all that Joyce could think to say. “What had he done?”
Susan swallowed, and then looked around at their fellow café customers, who all seemed to be engrossed in their own conversations. “He confessed to killing someone.”
Something cracked inside Joyce, and she felt tears welling up inside her. Whatever Joyce may have been expecting, it was not this. She hadn’t cried since she lost the baby, almost twenty years ago.
“Well, we all make mistakes,” Joyce offered, and then reached out to hold Susan’s hand.
She didn’t ask Susan if she thought the two were connected—Dermot’s death and this other loss he apparently felt responsible for. She didn’t ask Susan about the love affair Dermot mentioned in his letter. There would be time for that later, she was certain of it.
For now, she just waited while Susan composed herself, and then she asked, “Did the police ask you about a woman named Catriona Dell yet?”
Susan sniffed and wiped her eyes and nose with the café’s cloth napkin she’d draped over her lap.
“No. I haven’t been interviewed by them yet. I’m supposed to go to the station later this afternoon. Why?”
Joyce took in a deep breath. Was she really going to do this?
“Because Trina Dell was the last person to see your brother alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE TRINA
Addy drove to Dermot’s apartment. Her green VW bug was pristine on the inside, to the point that Trina felt self-conscious climbing inside with the slush and salt sticking to her boots. They didn’t talk during the drive, and Addy left the radio off. Trina stared out the window, watching the neighborhoods pass by as Addy navigated to the high-rise apartment complex seated towards the edge of town.
When they arrived, Addy pulled a ring of keys out of her purse and Trina followed her up the staircase to Apartment C20. A wreath hung on the outside of the door, made of sprigs and berries in bright blues and purples. A quick stab of pain shot through Trina’s chest. It was such a homey touch for a young guy living on his own to have. She felt certain it was a gift from someone who cared about him.
Trina looked over at Addy. Her face was tense as she slipped the key into the lock and opened the door further into Dermot’s life.
“The police haven’t closed this off to people?” Trina asked, a little late on the realization.
Addy ignored the question and stepped inside the apartment, Trina following behind her. Apparently not, Trina thought. There were no barriers, or signs that anyone had been in the apartment, looking for clues as to what happened to Dermot in that hotel room.
The apartment was a one-bedroom, with a living area and galley kitchen and a bathroom leading off from the side of the hallway to the bedroom. Trina could see the light-blue sink through the cracked door. The bedroom door, or what she assumed was the bedroom door, was closed. Everything in the apartment was neat and organized. The kitchen counters were immaculate, with a toaster and red dish towel the only items taking up space. A beige couch with black-and-white cushions sat in front of a television hung from the wall. There were a few plants—Trina didn’t know what kind—scattered in bright clay pots around the apartment.
