Fortune Turns the Wheel: The Second Sweeney & Rose Mystery

By Danny Carnahan

FORTUNE TURNS THE WHEEL


When San Francisco literature professor Rose Sweeney is sent to England to research the long-lost secret notes of Robert Graves, her unhappy fiddler husband Niall follows. Rose plans to work with her friend, Euan, in his home village near Exmoor. Niall Sweeneys only plan is to save their fraying marriage.

But both plans screech to a halt when they discover the doddering and despised lord of the local manor dead in his garden, and his equally unpleasant son missing. Sweeney and Rose are swept into Euans frantic search for the son and the truth about the old mans death. But theyve barely begun when they are first nearly barbecued at the hands of a midnight arsonist, then sent a bloody pagan warning.

Frightened, Rose tries to continue her research while helping Sweeney and Euan penetrate the baffling network of lies, greed, distrust, and ancient hatred binding the village together. As Sweeney searches for answers in his music, fiddling in the pub with strange locals and deranged Morris dancers, Rose explores the fairy-ringed hills with eccentric village folklorists. Together, the outsiders learn they are faced with four seemingly unrelated threads of menaceeach worth murdering for.

Even after locating a lost fortune in gold coins and being forced into a violent confrontation with twisted lust and adultery, Sweeney and Rose find they are still in mortal danger. Delving deeper into Graves notes for his mythic masterpiece, The White Goddess, Rose realizes that some of Britains forgotten pagan past wasnt forgotten after all. Rose is the only one who can connect Graves poetry with the current malevolent denizens of Exmoor to find the key to a pair of murders. But in finding the key she unearths a secret more real, more desperate, and more deadly than shes prepared for.

In the terrifying climax, Rose must battle both a human monster and the ancient gods of Britain to try to save her own sanity and the three lives that hang in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 16, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462828685

Danny Carnahan

Writer and musician Danny Carnahan lives in Albany, California with his wife Saundra. His published work includes Irish Songs For Guitar, true stories for Travelers Tales, and countless features for eclectic music magazines, as well as dozens of songs on 12 albums. Performing for 30 years, he is best known for his current work with the psychedelic Celtic band, Wake the Dead. This is his first novel. Like his protagonist, the author is an Irish fiddler. Unlike his protagonist, he has never been accused of murdering a critic.

Book preview

Chapter One

A biting West Country wind whipped like a distant cry along the irregular, serrated edges of Faucille Manor’s ancient slate roof tiles. Leaning into the wind, a large, leathery man nearly as ancient as the roof slates tottered down the worn stone steps leading from the blocky, windowless outbuilding to the kitchen entrance of the manor house. Tall, barrel-chested and spindly-legged, old Sir William Batt struggled under a small armload of firewood.

Elizabeth? he called out in a hoarse, barbed voice. With small steps he felt his way the last few feet to the door set in the crumbling and neglected stone, then cursed as his fingers slipped and the wood clattered to the ground. He reached over and pushed the heavy door inward. He pulled at his stained and moth-eaten gray cardigan, then shouted again down the long, unlit passageway.

Elizabeth? Aren’t you back yet, woman? He squatted in obvious pain and picked up a few sticks of split beech, tucking them under one arm and straightening back up with an effort.

Two hen pheasants skittered across the gravel in front of the manor, drawing Sir William’s bleary, saturnine gaze. Across the stream the cows had bunched up at the low corner of the field and seemed to be gnawing at the flimsy gate that was barely hanging on its rotten hinges. Sir William grunted in disgust.

Where is that bloody woman? he muttered, running a square, calloused hand through the few wisps of white hair still clinging to the scalp above his ears. Can’t even make the bloody tea on time. As if I haven’t better things to do . . . And without bothering to fumble for the light switch, Sir William creaked down the hall he’d known for eighty-eight years.

He never heard the muffled steps coming up behind him or the sound of the stone coming down.

•

Rose Sweeney did not travel well. Sleepless all the way from San Francisco to Heathrow, only to be handed the keys to a cramped little Vauxhall with a manual transmission. Her heart was still running a bit too fast after the uncomfortable and nerve-wracking solo drive up to Oxford. Now Rose sat on a carved Georgian chair outside the office of the Acquisitions Curator of the Bodleian Library, trying at least to appear polite.

But Rose waited, determined to make a good first impression. After all, for a lowly untenured associate professor of English from San Francisco State University, this amounted to the chance of a lifetime. The Robert Graves Bibliography papers were in from Majorca and were now somewhere in this very building. For decades historians swore that these documents did not exist. She’d always maintained they had to be somewhere. Now Dean Dechter had picked her to unravel their mysteries. No, she wouldn’t get two chances like this.

She sat stiffly but as usual she couldn’t keep her hands still. She took her auburn ponytail out of the polished leather barrette, then fussed it back in again. The secretary had been gone an awfully long time. And Rose kept thinking how the secretary was so obviously more formally dressed than she was.

Well, tough, she thought, they hired me for my mind, not my wardrobe. In the next instant, though, she had to suppress her fear that her casual manner might get her in trouble here in Oxford if she wasn’t careful. Somehow she couldn’t quite shake the notion that she’d arrived at the opera in shorts. It irked her that she even cared.

Rose straightened her red, pleated skirt and wondered what had possessed her to pick this blouse. With a flash of longing she thought of her comfy Pendleton shirt and soft, worn sweat pants stuffed in her bag down in the car, then banished the thought. She’d prove Byron Dechter wasn’t completely out of his mind when he picked her for this job. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

At least she wasn’t without allies here in England. She found that thought comforting. Her old friend Euan Thorne at Oxford University Press would be loads of help. Just knowing that Euan would pick her husband up at Heathrow had lifted her spirits. Yes, let Euan try to brighten Niall’s day. She was fed up with his moods. When he was ready to be civil again she’d meet him halfway. Okay, so there hadn’t been many bright days for him lately. But Niall was bound to perk up out in West Somerset. Euan would see to that. And she’d join them in a few days, after getting this Oxford job off and running.

Off and running, she found herself musing. What I wouldn’t give right now for an open road and a good run.

Her calves ached from the flight and the drive and the waiting and the excitement. Back home she could so easily slip out and indulge in the pleasure of an hour’s sweaty endorphine rush, a Californian Atalanta in a sweat suit, sweeping away the cares of the day and thoughts of anything profound. This trip would be different. She’d have to get used to the new rhythms and keep her mind from drifting back toward California.

I wonder where Niall is this minute, she thought. He must have taken off by now. Her grey-flecked brown eyes misted over momentarily as she pictured him as she’d left him, tense and silent, standing slender and vulnerable in the departure lounge, unable to meet her gaze.

Her reverie was interrupted as the inner office door opened and a tallish, smiling, heavy-set man with wire-rim glasses strode across the room toward her with his hand outstretched. Rose felt a touch of slightly amused relief wash over her. Good. He wasn’t wearing a tie.

Delighted you could come, Professor Sweeney, he said airily, giving her hand a short, awkward jerk. Duncan Shaw. Resident archivist. Dean Dechter has spoken quite highly of you.

Thank you, she smiled, noticing that she was trying to be both guarded and ingratiating at the same time. I hope this is a good time to start. I must say I can’t wait.

Well, there are those who would view the job of tackling this horrendous pile as a descent into hell. Happily, it’s not an ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’ sort of affair. At least Graves’ hell indulged in more of a revolving door policy. He grinned a nervous librarian’s grin.

But I must admit, he continued, I’ve been rather looking forward to it myself. His eyes fairly twinkled behind the lenses. Come with me.

•

Love will you marry me, marry me, marry me

Love will you marry me and take me out of danger

Out of danger, thought Sweeney with the part of his brain that wasn’t trying to sing. Oh, sure . . . and when this plane hits the ground they won’t find a piece of me big enough to put on an hors d’oeuvre . . . oh, why did I . . .

He started involuntarily as he felt the landing gear come up with a clunk.

No I won’t marry you, marry you, marry you

No I won’t marry you, for why you are a stranger

Stranger and stranger . . . I’ve become a goddamned stranger . . . oh, Rose, why can’t I just open my mouth and make the words come out when I’m looking into your eyes? . . . why can’t I . . .

Why didn’t you tell me so, why didn’t you tell me so?

Why didn’t you tell me so before you done the harrum?

Who did what harrum to whom? . . .

What harrum did I do, what harrum did I do?

What harrum did I do by roll’n you in me arrums?

And if I’d agreed to come to England before it was too late to get a seat on her plane, I could have made the trip with Rosie sleeping on my shoulder . . . maybe . . .

Sweeney felt a tap on his arm.

So what’s your game, pal? inquired the toothy, balding man wearing a power tie. He had somehow managed to cram most of his sagging bulk into the window seat next to Sweeney.

Sweeney hadn’t even known he was there. He consciously loosened his grip on his armrests. He glanced out the window in an effort to believe that the widebody jet wasn’t going to crash immediately after takeoff. He sure as hell didn’t want to talk.

The guy was opening his mouth again. Sweeney figured he’d have to say something. He raised one side of his sandy moustache in something less than a warm smile.

Fiddling, he said. I play Irish fiddle. That’s what I do. It’s not a game, though. He dropped his moustache back to neutral, staring a noncommital, cornflower blue stare, hoping that would be the end of it. When relaxed, his youthful, rosy-cheeked, unlined face could be infuriatingly hard to read.

The fat man looked him up and down with a pinched, bureaucratic expression. He was wearing too much of some vaguely sweet cologne.

Jeez, no, you know what I mean. What do you do really? I mean, for a living?

Aw, Christ, thought Sweeney. He felt an all-too familiar blackness welling up inside him. He drove it back with an effort but remained annoyed.

Why me? he thought. I can’t take this all the way to London.

Nothing, he replied evenly. I used to program computers for a bank till I got fired. I was accused of knifing a music critic to death outside an Irish bar. Never could get my ex-boss to believe I didn’t kill the guy. Got his guts spilled all over the sidewalk.

He paused but the other man’s bovine expression did not change.

The critic, that is, not my boss. Sweeney trailed his eyes down to the paunch wedged into the next seat and back up the power tie to the slack-jawed face.

I cashed in my severance check to get a change of scene and a little peace and quiet. There, that ought to do it, he sighed to himself, closing his eyes and fishing for some tune to hum.

His companion was silent for a moment, then guffawed unpleasantly. He leaned forward. Oh, I get it. Joke. Severance. That’s good. I’m in marketing myself. Take this flight two, three times a month. Maybe you’ve heard of . . . Sweeney made a low groan, spun to his right and stopped a passing flight attendant with a sharp tug on her pant leg.

Excuse me, miss, he hailed her a little louder than necessary. Could you bring me a larger bag? I’m afraid it’ll get all over everything like last time if I try to hit this one. Oh, and hurry, will you?

Sweeney turned back to his left as the alarmed young woman scurried up the aisle. The fat man had somehow redistributed his body to the far side of his seat and wasn’t even crowding the armrest. Suddenly, he looked more interested in cirro-stratus clouds than further conversation and was evidently holding his breath. That suited Sweeney just fine.

Over the pole from San Francisco to London would be ten hours and change. That was ten hours to catch some sleep and try to see some way out of the blue funk he’d been in for—how long now? It seemed like months. He could be flip about it to an asshole on an airplane, but the fact remained that his life had changed and he felt completely helpless about it.

Thirty years of living had not prepared him for it—being unjustly accused of master-minding a byzantine money-laundering scam, being fingered for a murder he didn’t commit, losing his job, losing most of the people he’d thought were his friends, losing his faith in himself, almost losing his music. And if he wasn’t careful, letting Rosie drift beyond the point where he could hope to reach her again.

As he hurtled east with a distant roar in his ears, Sweeney couldn’t shake the thought of how unreal the last few months seemed. Could he really have lashed out at Rosie so cruelly—have said what he had said? Could he ever have believed, even wrapped in his blackest nightmare, that she had turned her affections elsewhere, betrayed him, flayed his heart open for the birds to pick at? No, it was impossible. And yet . . .

All he really wanted was for life to be the way it used to be—to play his fiddle again, to be happily married again. Sure, he hadn’t the slightest idea how to make it happen. Still, that’s what he wanted.

And though he hadn’t felt like playing for ages, the battered leather case with the fiddle inside was tucked away in the overhead compartment, just in case. Who could tell? Tunes of joy might leap off those strings again.

And Rosie would be there waiting for him in England. That was for certain. They weren’t supposed to link up for a couple of days, though maybe—just maybe—she’d be there when he arrived even though she’d said she wouldn’t be. He had ten hours to think of just the right words to say to her. Or maybe if the words still wouldn’t come, he could find the right tune to play. She’d always been the better talker. Better at saying the important things, anyway. He’d tried—oh, how he’d tried. But some of the most important things just wouldn’t come out as words . . .

He pulled his scuffed suede jacket a little closer against the chilly hiss of air coming from somewhere above him. Sitting there with 400 fellow travelers, Sweeney felt miserably alone.

Chapter Two

Rose Sweeney thought she’d died and gone to heaven. The late morning light coming through the tall windows cast a yellow-gold glow about the wood-paneled reading room. And there against the wall were box after box and stack after stack of journals, bound manuscripts, sheafs of letters, clippings, books, and God only knew what else.

Rose picked one box at random and spread its contents out across the large table. Most of the papers were written in Robert Graves’ own hand. Unknown papers. Unread notes. And scrawled at the top of more than one sheet she could read The Roebuck in the Thicket. Graves’ first draft title for The White Goddess. This was it—the mythic Holy Grail for this lucky, young literature professor.

She had completely forgotten she wasn’t alone in the room when Duncan Shaw reached over and added another set of books to her already tantalizing array.

It is a shame that Professor Dechter had to stop his work on this lot so suddenly. I did so enjoy working with him for the short time he was here. He seemed rather distressed to have to return to California after only a week of study. Still, I suppose one doesn’t say ‘no’ to the President in a cavalier fashion.

I’m afraid not, Rose agreed, her eyes still riveted on the handwritten journal open before her on the table. But at the risk of sounding selfish, I couldn’t be happier that it worked out this way.

What did the President know about—much less care about—literature, wondered Rose. A Federal Task Force on Humanities Education. Grand title, all right. But the grander the governmental posturing, the lower the funding. It was always the same.

The dead giveaway this time was all the prep material they’d made Byron provide before the first meeting. Decades-old treatises and articles he’d written, like Roots of Biblical Mythic Iconography: Sumer to Solomon. As if anyone in government would ever read them. She could almost hear some doddering old senator on the Task Force demanding, Are you now or have you ever been a secular humanist?

Byron shared her political misgivings, yet he’d gone anyway.

Shaw sat down at the end of the table and riffled through a sheaf of loose notes. Have you any idea how you want to begin all this? he asked.

"Well, not exactly. I’ve been over Byron’s notes on the few things he had time to look at, but I’m really more interested in finding out how much of Graves’ history was real history and how much he made up—starting with The White Goddess. I’m tired of having to punt on my students’ term papers when they can’t cross-document one way or the other. But even if I never teach another course in Mythic Literature, I just want to know for myself."

Shaw fussed a little with an unruly stack of manuscripts. Perhaps, then, the best way to start would be to cull out all the poetry from the prose. Then the novel notes from everything else, assuming one can make a clear distinction. Whatever’s left will be certain to keep you busy. And at least Dean Dechter broke the ice.

Sounds as plausible as any idea I’ve come up with, said Rose. If I’m lucky I can get several hundred professors in both our countries mad as wet hens scrambling to rewrite their course outlines. Rose licked her lips and glanced at Shaw.

He grunted unenthusiastically.

Well, I’m pretty excited anyway, she concluded, detecting a possible difference of opinion on the appropriate course of her research.

Excited, hell. She was finding it hard to sit still. For as long as Rose could remember she had been fascinated with all things mythic in literature. She found it difficult not to see her everyday life through the lens of legend and the cloudy, tantalizing truths and half-truths that danced off the pages of books from Beowulf to The Golden Bough. It wasn’t always easy to convince Niall that these tales were worth such a large share of her attention. And it was next to impossible to convince him that myths bore the slightest relation to real life. But she knew she needed to read and talk about them as much as Niall needed to play his fiddle.

If you don’t mind my asking, said Shaw, how is it that you, um . . .

You mean, why me and not a senior tenured faculty member?

Shaw coughed and looked away. Rose smiled.

The SF State connection makes plenty of sense, as you know, what with Byron receiving one of his undergraduate degrees from Balliol. And then there was the Graves estate insisting that Oxford University Press be given first crack at sifting through the rubble for publishable bits. Euan Thorne at the Press is an old friend of mine and he put my name in at this end.

Even so . . .

Rose felt her neck hair bristle. She’d heard that even so . . . tone before. It was always used by extremely polite men suggesting that a woman couldn’t hack a job as well as a man could so why didn’t she just go away and do something feminine. Chicken-hearted buggers couldn’t actually come out and say it, of course. She took a deep breath and decided not to rise to the bait. At least not directly.

Even so, I wouldn’t be here if Dr. Kingsley, my senior in the department by umpteen years, hadn’t been slapped with a harassment suit. Six female students, no less. Silently, she added: and may he get everything that’s coming to him.

Shaw froze, apparently at a loss for words.

No way was Byron going to let Kingsley loose on any project that might interest the press. I suppose I should be insulted that my raw scholarship alone didn’t get me the gig. But here I am.

Shaw coughed, then silently shuffled books from one pile to another for a minute. Rose noted Shaw’s evident discomfort with mild satisfaction for a minute or so until he coughed again and continued in his even, professional voice.

So. You think this dusty old inquiry might interest the press, do you?

Oh, who knows? Rose tugged at her ponytail absently. "We . . . that is, Euan and I . . . have a couple of weeks to cull out all the research notes for The White Goddess and determine whether our old friend the Triple Goddess has even one scholastic leg to stand on—at least as Graves made her out. Should be challenging. If that’s successful, maybe another six months of study. I don’t know what sort of publishable stuff they’ll want as we’re going, but maybe we can just feed little scholarly snippets from time to time on slow news days. Not as hot as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but you never know what might capture the public imagination."

Leafing through the musty journal, her eyes fell on a familiar passage:

Where else shall we walk in peace, to and fro, on fertile ground?

Who but I can take you to where the stream runs, or falls, clearest?

Oh yes, thought Rose, as her eyes refocused and the room became just another room and the documents piled up in front of her became just another very large reading assignment.

I can’t get too carried away with all this. As soon as Niall arrives, I need to go and walk with him where the stream runs clearest.

Then another voice popped up in her head, declaring: If he can only just stop acting like such an insufferable child!

She shook herself back to the here and now.

So, Mr. Shaw, she said in her cheeriest, most businesslike voice. Can I get some help taking some of these things to my car?

Shaw blanched and removed his glasses. Taking? Car? I-I-I’m afraid that’s quite imposs . . . Surely you were told of the restrictions placed on these materials.

Rose stood her ground. Quite the contrary. Euan specifically told me we could do much of our work at his cottage out in Somerset. I certainly can’t do it all here. And I need to meet my husband. Hand me that box, will you?

I can’t possibly allow any of the collection to leave the building.

Rose leaned her chair back on two legs and faced him, hazel eyes blazing, voice still buttery and businesslike.

I’ve got the Secretary of Education’s phone number in Washington, Mr. Shaw. He’ll pull Dean Dechter out of his White House meeting if necessary to okay it. Do you want to call him or shall I?

Oh my, oh my, was all Duncan Shaw seemed able to say as he clattered out of the room, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

•

Euan Thorne was hard to miss, even in the shuffling chaos of the Heathrow arrivals lobby. Sweeney caught sight of him immediately, leaning against a column at the end of the hip-high barricade, overcoat in the crook of his arm. The short, carrot-orange hair sticking up randomly atop his lanky, six-foot-two-inch frame clashed with some but not all of the woolen sweaters, vests, and scarves he wore to protect his pointy elbows and shoulders. Sweeney remembered him being similarly attired that day five years earlier when he’d appeared on their front stairs in San Francisco, dripping wet, armed only with a rucksack and a soggy bag of mushrooms.

No Rosie, I guess, he thought, his spirits sinking a little. Ah well, she’s here to work, after all. I’m the one with nothing but time to kill. And I’m no closer to knowing what to say to her than I was ten hours ago.

As he drew closer, Sweeney could see crinkly lines now accenting Euan’s deep-set eyes. A few more new lines than he’d expected, and the hollow cheeks made him look even thinner than before.

Editing books for Oxford University Press shouldn’t age you before your time, he thought. One of the things I used to think he shared with Rosie—needs a poke now and then to close the books and get some fresh air. Yeah, I can go out with her for the air and sunshine. But what about all the rest she’d shared with Euan?

There it was again. That vague, nagging doubt. Rose and Euan had so much in common, after all, he’d found himself thinking in his darker moments. He had no idea what they were talking about half the time. But when he’d blurted out the suggestion that Rose might have ulterior motives for wanting to come to England—that had marked a new low point in their relationship.

Sweeney probed again gingerly for any trace of Euan still languishing away back in his mind among the ruins of his tortured emotions. With profound relief he found none and breathed a grateful sigh. But the nameless, vague jealousy was still lodged in his mind somewhere—without a face or an explanation. He suppressed the thought with an effort and put on a smile.

The tall redhead’s posture was cocky and the eyes danced with apparent pleasure as he loped up and Sweeney greeted him with a crushing and enthusiastically un-English embrace.

What do you say we get the hell out of here? sputtered Euan, rearranging his scarves and reaching for Sweeney’s single suitcase. The noise in this place is driving me spare. And without further ado, he steered Sweeney and his fiddle out to the weather-slickened parking lot.

Chilly rain drizzled steadily as they picked their way through the lot and squeezed themselves into Euan’s elderly, rust-spotted Hillman Avenger. Within moments they were jockeying for position among the looming, impatient trucks headed toward Southampton.

Euan looks like he could use a decent night’s sleep every bit as much as I could, mused Sweeney as they drove. I thought living out in the country was supposed to be relaxing. And he still has that vaguely mushroomy smell about him. Probably something forgotten in one of his pockets.

Sweeney no longer needed to smile with a conscious effort. It felt good to be with Euan here, so far away from everything. And as the feeling blossomed, Sweeney paused at the thought of just how long it had been since he’d enjoyed this simple pleasure. A scrap of an old Scots song wandered into his head, an echo from some smoky bar session long ago.

Come fill a cup, let’s drink tae health, this night we’ll merry be

For friendship and for harmony . . . da dum da dum da dum . . .

What do you know? smirked Sweeney inwardly. I may still have a real friend.

He’d been avoiding all his old friends in San Francisco the way he felt they’d been avoiding him. For months they’d seemed to judge him, as if they had any right to claim a share of his recent troubles. He may have been proven innocent of fraud and murder, but he’d cracked open their cozy, hermetically sealed Irish bar scene and for that they acted like they’d never forgive him. He could see accusation in every glance, feel recoil in every touch. He’d stopped going out to the pubs. The music he loved so much seemed strangely off-key, the beer tasted strange. It had gotten to the point where he’d almost forgotten how to trust.

But here, something in the back of his head told him he could still trust Euan. In the same instant he felt ashamed that he’d once gone so far as to include Euan in his suspicions. He took a deep breath and thought to himself, Lighten up. It’s just the sheer fatigue of a trans-Atlantic flight.

He was comforted to think that this trip did hold the promise of healing. It only remained to see how he could begin healing things with Rose.

So how’s Rosie doing, Euan? he finally asked. I sort of hoped she’d be here to pick me up.

"Yes, well, the museum acquisitions chap had a hole in his hellish schedule shortly after she arrived so she ran up to start the ball rolling right away. I expect she’ll have a rough plan of attack done by tomorrow. Then she