Shamrock Shenanigans (Zoe Donovan Mystery Book 19) (8 page)

I looked at the painting again. It really was a delicate work of art. “Why do you think this is Catherine?”

“There is a date on the back.”

I turned the painting over. It was dated 1692. I remembered Lord Dunphy saying that Catherine and Carrick had lived in the castle in the late sixteen hundreds. Still, the painting could have been of anyone, and I said as much.

“While that is true, I found a letter in which Catherine’s eyes were compared to the clear blue ocean on a bright summer’s day. I also found a reference to her dark hair. I can’t know for certain if the painting is of Catherine, but I’d say it is as good a guess as any.”

I continued to study the painting as Armand ate his sandwich. The woman who’d posed for the portrait had a serene look in her eyes. I wasn’t sure how anyone with as many children as she’d had could look serene, but perhaps the painting depicted an image of the woman before she’d had quite so many sons.

“This sandwich is quite good. Thank you for thinking of me. I do tend to forget to eat when I am working. When my dear Madeline was alive she would bring me food much the way you just have. As a matter of fact, you remind me of her.”

“I do?”

“She was enthusiastic and full of life, as you are. She was also intelligent and full of gumption. I imagine if she were still alive the two of you would get along just fine.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“Almost five years. Some days it seems like only yesterday that she was by my side, and other times it feels as if it has been a lifetime since I have held her in my arms. Cherish what you have with your young man. Time goes by faster than you can ever imagine.”

Armand seemed to enjoy his work and he appeared to be more content than most, but I could see the look of sorrow in his eyes as he stared into the distance. I couldn’t imagine my life without Zak. How sad it must be to lose the other half of your soul.

“Was your wife a historian like you?”

“She was an archeologist. We never had children, but did we ever have a wonderful time traveling the globe. When she passed I found I didn’t have the heart to travel the world alone so I took a teaching position.”

“But you’ve returned to traveling?”

“To an extent. Luke came to me as an applicant for a teaching assistantship. He shared with me his desire to travel to exotic places in search of the roots of history, and I found that his enthusiasm ignited a spark in my own dark soul. We took a couple of trips together and it seemed to work out, so I resigned my position as full-time professor and we’ve taught part-time and traveled part-time ever since.”

“I haven’t seen much of Luke since we’ve been here.”

“He tends to wander off on his own, especially if an opportunity to sample the female population presents itself. There are times I won’t see him for days, but he always finds his way back.”

I found it interesting that Luke and Armand traveled the world but didn’t necessarily spend all their time together. I felt like that might be a significant point, but I wasn’t sure if it really meant anything. Luke was obviously who he said he was. If he’d applied for a position as a teaching assistant, he must have an advanced degree in a related field. It would be easy enough to verify.

Armand had returned his attention to the document he was reading, effectively dismissing me. I picked up the empty plate and brought it back to the kitchen, then decided to check out the workroom. Several people had commented that Lord Dunphy might be holed up down there, and I remembered where the stairs were from my trip there the previous day. I thought I heard voices as I neared the entrance to the stairs, but by the time I got down it was empty. I supposed the voices could have been echoing from another location entirely, but I didn’t think so. Still, I didn’t see another way out of the belowground chamber and no one had passed me, so the echo from another location made sense.

When I returned to our room Zak reported that the Internet was out again, but he’d found an e-mail Alex had sent off two days ago that had somehow ended up in his spam folder. She was writing to let us know that Ellie was tied up with a project, so she and Scooter would be staying with my parents for a few days.

“What project?”

“I don’t know; she didn’t say.”

“I hope everything is okay,” I worried. “It’s not like Ellie not to want to spend time with the kids. It seemed like she was really looking forward to it.”

“I’m sure something came up to change her plans. The kids are fine with your parents and she knows it. Maybe there was a problem getting Brady settled in. The contractors were still there when we left, although they assured me they would be finished before Brady and his family were due to arrive. I suppose it’s possible that was the issue and Ellie is tied up trying to get it straightened out.”

“I suppose.” It sounded like a lame excuse to me, but the reality was until we had the chance to actually speak to someone at home all the guessing in the world wasn’t going to get us anywhere. In the meantime, Charlie was letting me know it was time for him to go out again. In retrospect, maybe I should have taken care of that before the storm returned.

I stood under an overhang and waited while Charlie sniffed every tree in sight before selecting one to pee on. He was happy to be outdoors even if it was raining, but personally, I wished he’d hurry up and do what he needed to do. It was cold and damp and I was tired. Having a real murder to solve had pretty much taken away the enthusiasm I’d brought to the party.

After speaking to everyone I could and gathering all the information available to us, I’d pretty much narrowed down my suspect list to Luke and Liam. Susan obviously wasn’t Sam’s assistant and she’d been spending a lot of time with Luke, but she’d been busy tossing her cookies while Brent, or whoever he was, was being murdered.

Luke seemed to be whom he said he was, and I supposed I had no solid reason to suspect him, but he had left the group shortly after dinner on the night Brent was killed, and he did seem to be spending a lot of time away from the rest of us and the castle. Of course Armand had as much as said Luke was known to take off for long stretches of time if a lady caught his eye, which could mean he and Susan were simply involved in a fling and therefore not interested in spending time with the rest of us.

Which left Liam: my first and it was beginning to look like my only suspect. I had no idea why he would want to kill Brent, but perhaps if Zak and I could figure out who Brent really was we’d find the motive.

“Are you almost done?” I called to Charlie.

Charlie turned and looked at me as if to ask what the rush was all about. He’d found something in a bush that seemed to interest him, so I decided to let him run around for a few more minutes. He had been pretty patient this weekend, and he had spent much more time alone in our room than he was used to.

The weekend was supposed to wrap up on Sunday and we were scheduled to fly home on Monday. I found myself wondering if that would actually happen. Not only was the bridge still closed but I imagined that once the local law enforcement found out about Brent they’d want everyone who had been present on the island at the time of his death to stick around until they could straighten things out. I wondered if Lord Dunphy had ever gotten hold of anyone about the murder. I knew he was working on a radio to do just that, but I never did hear whether he’d gotten it up and running.

I looked toward the horizon, but all I could see was rain. It certainly had been a dreary few days. I really did hope it cleared before we left. I found I was eager to take a look at the dungeons beneath the castle before we left. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be locked up in such a dark and dank place for days, even weeks, on end.

“Okay, Charlie, let’s wrap it up,” I called. “It’s getting worse and I don’t want to get any wetter than I already am.”

Charlie barked once and then scurried into the bush he’d been playing near.

“Come on. I mean it. It’s getting cold and I’d be willing to bet Zak has a nice, warm bath all ready for you and a nice, warm fire all ready for me.”

Charlie scurried out from under the bush with something in his mouth. I watched as he trotted toward me, obviously proud of his find.

“What have you go there?” I asked as I bent down and took a cell phone from his mouth.

The phone was dead, so I had no way of knowing if it had belonged to Brent, but no one else on the property had mentioned losing a phone, so I was going to go out on a limb and say there was a good chance it had.

After we returned to the castle I gave Charlie a quick bath and then headed back to Brent’s room to see if I could find his phone charger. Zak wasn’t in the room and I wasn’t certain where he’d gone off to, but he hadn’t left a note so I was certain he wouldn’t be gone long.

Once again I stood in the middle of the room and tried to decide where Brent might have left something like a phone charger. He’d been shot on his first night at the castle, so chances were he hadn’t yet needed to charge his device. Still, I checked all the wall sockets and came up empty. I hadn’t noticed it when I’d searched the drawers before, but I looked through the bedside tables anyway. Maybe one of the suitcases. I’d opened them when I was in the room the first time, seen they were empty, and then closed them. I hadn’t looked for zipper pockets or other small storage areas.

I took the suitcases out of the closet one at a time and looked through all the little pockets. I didn’t find anything, but I did hear a sort of bumping noise when I lifted the last case to return it to the closet. It sounded like something was rolling around in the bottom of the case, but I hadn’t seen anything. I set the case back on the bed and took a second look. I ran my hands over the lining looking for any irregularity. The lining looked as if it might have been torn and then resewn in one corner. I hated to rip up the man’s luggage, but he was, after all, dead. I found Brent’s razor in the bathroom and used the blade to slice open the lining. What I found was something much better than a phone charger.

“Who was this guy?” I asked Zak.

I’d not only found Brent’s passport but I’d found four others, all with the same photo of the man we’d met as Brent but with different names and differing home countries: Brent Silverwood from Los Angeles, United States, was also Hugh Beckingham from London, Great Britain; Pierre Dupont from Paris, France; Alexander Korolova from Moscow, Russia; and Fernando Silva from Barcelona, Spain.

“I have a feeling there may be a lot more going on than we ever suspected. I think it might be time to get hold of my CIA contact.” Zak’s contact had helped us out on a case we’d stumbled across when we were visiting Alaska a year ago.

“How are you going to do that?” I asked. “The phones are still down and we lost the Internet.”

“I checked the weather forecast before the Internet went down. We should have clearing after dark. As soon as I get a signal, I’ll contact my friend and maybe we can find out what’s going on. In the meantime, let’s see if we can’t get this phone charged. I should be able to rig something up to juice it even without the charger. I’ll need some supplies. I don’t suppose you know where Lord Dunphy went off to?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Okay, let’s head for the workroom. Several people have mentioned that Dunphy has a bunch of tools and stuff down there. I’m sure I can find something that will work.”

Once again I headed down the stairs, across the building, and toward the workroom steps, this time with Zak. You’d think with so many people staying at the castle and the weather the way it was you’d run into more people in the common rooms. I supposed that, like Armand and Millie, everyone had found a favorite spot to wait out the storm.

The workroom was deserted, which I supposed was a good thing. Zak headed over to the worktable where I’d seen his lordship tinkering with the radio that first morning. The radio was gone, but many of the tools had been left behind. I decided to look around the room while Zak searched for the things he would need.

It was a windowless room made of stone. Overhead lights had been installed, but I imagined that when the lights were off the room would exist in total darkness. There were several worktables, as well as shelves and closets that had been pushed against the walls. The shelves held everything from power tools to canned goods.

In one corner was a wooden wall that connected to another wooden wall, which, based on the shape of the room, I assumed had been added many years later to enclose part of the overall area. The wall toward the front of the structure held a locked door. I imagined the area had been created to house the electrical system, which had been added to the castle sometime during the past century.

“It seems if there were a connection from the castle to the dungeons beneath it the passage would join with this room,” I said aloud.

“Makes sense,” Zak answered. “The dungeons are below the ground level of the castle, as is the workroom.”

I walked slowly around the room studying the walls. If there was an entrance I’d like to find it. The idea of searching the dungeons continued to hold a certain morbid appeal.

The rest of the walls were stone and appeared to be solid. There were no visible doorways, but there were quite a few cabinets pushed up against the walls. It made sense if Lord Dunphy didn’t want people wandering around the dungeons he’d conceal the entrance from the castle, if there were indeed an entrance to conceal. I stood in the center of the room, trying to determine the general direction of the sea. The dungeons were beneath the castle and opened up to the sea, so it made sense the wall where the door to the dungeons was located would be the one at the back of the room.

I slowly walked along the wall, running my hand over the stone in search of some irregularity. There were three cabinets on this wall, all too heavy for me to move on my own, but perhaps Zak could take a minute to help me before we headed back upstairs. Based on the feel of the room it seemed that a doorway to the dungeons, if there was one, would be located in the far left-hand corner of the workroom.

“Can you help me move this?” I asked Zak.

“Did you find something?”

“Maybe.”

Zak set aside the tools he had gathered and walked across the room. The cabinet was heavy, but between the two of us we managed to move it enough to determine that there was indeed a wooden door behind it. The door was padlocked, but closer examination revealed that the lock was simply hanging on a chain to which it was attached but not actually locked. We shifted the cabinet far enough away from the wall to open the doorway wide enough for me to squeeze through.

Behind the door was a dark passageway. It was much too dark to see anything at all, but there was a cool breeze coming from the depths of the inky blackness and I could hear the sound of waves crashing onto the shore in the distance. I couldn’t be certain, but I was pretty sure we’d found the way to the dungeons. I returned to the workroom.

“We should come back when we have a light. And jackets,” Zak added.

“Yeah,” I reluctantly agreed. “Let’s close this back up. If someone realizes I went through the open door they may lock it, and I really want to come back to look around.”

Zak and I had just managed to return the cabinet to its original position when we heard voices from the top of the stairs.

“Hide,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Luckily, we were already in a dark corner of the room, where boxes and old furniture were stored, so hiding wasn’t all that difficult.

“Did you leave the light on?” Lord Dunphy asked.

Darn; we’d forgotten about the light.

“Wasn’t me.”

I was pretty sure the person who answered was Liam, but I didn’t want to peek around the stack of boxes I was hiding behind to check.

“I suppose Byron might have been down here. I really must have a talk with the chap about the cost of electricity.”

“I left everything on the workbench,” the second person informed Lord Dunphy.

I could hear someone sorting through the items on the workbench.

“I don’t see it,” Lord Dunphy said.

“I left it right there in the middle of the table,” the other man answered.

“Well, it’s not here now.”

“Look, I get why you are doing what you are doing, but don’t you think it’s a bit pointless?” I was sure the voice was Liam this time.

“We are running out of time. This castle means too much to me to lose it at this point. Go find Byron and ask him if he was down here. I promised I’d show for dinner, so we’ll have to wait to meet up until later this evening. I’ll meet you at the cottage once I free myself up.”

“Sure thing. Whatever you say.”

I listened as a set of footsteps walked across the room and up the stairs. It sounded like Lord Dunphy was still in the room.

“I know the man is an idiot, but he is all I have,” Lord Dunphy said.

I listened but didn’t hear a reply.

“Yes, I’m sure, and no, I don’t think that will work.”

What will work?
Who was the man talking to?

“That does seem curious. I suppose I might need to look into it further.”

This one-sided conversation was both disturbing and confusing.

“I
have
been watching her and I don’t know if they’re connected. All we can do right now is continue with our plan.”

Lord Dunphy let out a long sigh. “It’s not here. Hopefully Byron has it.”

I listened as Lord Dunphy walked across the room, climbed the stairs, turned off the light, and closed the door.

I was right. When the light was off the room really was totally black.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“The stairs are about a hundred feet in front of us and maybe twenty feet to the left. There are two workbenches between us and the stairs, as well as several pieces of furniture. We’ll need to move very slowly so as not to trip.” Zak grabbed my hand and I held on tight. I couldn’t see a thing. “Stay behind me. I’m going to inch forward.”

I followed Zak as he slowly scooted his feet across the room in the general direction he’d determined the stairs to be.

“This reminds me of that time we were trapped in the mine,” I commented.

“At least we don’t need to worry about cave-ins this time.”

Zak had a point. This time the room we were in was firmly built, but there was still something totally eerie about being immersed in complete darkness.

“What do you think Lord Dunphy and Liam are up to?” I asked.

“I have no idea. And who was his lordship talking to after Liam left? I didn’t hear a second voice or a second set of footsteps.”

“I think he was talking to his mother. He was speaking to her the other day as well. I’m afraid she’s a bit of a nag.”

“His mother? As in his dead mother?”

“Yup.”

Zak stopped walking as we ran into the first workbench. We carefully made our way around it. The presence of the bench did confirm we were heading in the right direction at least.

“You don’t think Lord Dunphy is somehow involved in Brent’s murder, do you?” I asked.

“I don’t know what to believe. The fact that Brent wasn’t who he said he was brings a new aspect to the situation, and Lord Dunphy is clearly up to something. We’ve suspected Liam from the beginning. I suppose they could be working together. Maybe if we figure out who Brent really was and what he was really doing here we can figure out who might have wanted to kill him.”

“Should we take the tools we came down for once we get the light on?” I wondered.

“Better not. Dunphy has already noticed that something seems to be missing. He might be more apt to notice additional items. I suppose the best way to handle this is to just ask him for the use of the tools upfront.”

“But what if he’s the killer?”

“I imagine he’ll make up an excuse as to why I can’t borrow the tools. I think at this point it’s important for us not to draw attention to ourselves. We won’t be able to snoop around freely if he starts watching us.”

It took what seemed like forever for us to find our way to the stairs, but eventually we arrived there unharmed. We climbed the steps and let ourselves into the main part of the castle. There was only natural light in the room we entered, which was dim from the overcast skies, but still my eyes stung as they adjusted to the change in light.

“So what now?” I asked.

“Let’s head up and get ready for dinner. We know Dunphy is going to be there. Maybe we can start up a conversation that will lead to some insight as to what everyone has been up to the past few days. It seems odd that no one ever seems to be around.”

“I had that same thought exactly. It’s like everyone simply disappears for the majority of the day and then random guests reappear at meal time.”

Zak stopped walking. “Do you smell that?”

“Smells like food. Really good food.”

“I’m starving. Hopefully whatever the cook is preparing tastes as good as it smells.”

Surprisingly, everyone showed up for dinner. It was the first time everyone had shown for a meal since the first night. I don’t know if there was some significance to this or if everyone had finally begun to go stir crazy on their own.

The meal was, as all the others had been, excellently prepared and presented. Tonight we were served traditional Irish dishes that had been paired with perfectly chosen wines. One thing was for certain: once I finished eating the heavy meal and sipping the excellent wine, all I was going to want to do was go to sleep. I had to wonder if that was Lord Dunphy’s intent.

“This stew is absolutely to die for,” Piper commented.

“It’s the cook’s family recipe,” Lord Dunphy responded. “It’s a hearty dish on its own, but be sure to leave room for the glazed corned beef. It’s really quite exceptional.”

The stew paired with the soda bread was a meal in and of itself. I didn’t know how I was going to manage a main course, but based on the aromas coming from the kitchen I intended to try. I could diet after we returned home.

“Has there been any news on the opening of the bridge?” Jessica asked Lord Dunphy.

“I was able to contact a friend of mine on the radio. He reported that the rain should stop by midnight and the water should recede enough to open the bridge by Monday.”

“That’s good news. I have a book tour beginning the end of next week and I did want a chance to go home for a few days first.”

“You got through to someone in town?” I clarified.

“Yes, my friend Devon.”

“Did you tell him about the murder?”

“I asked Devon to inform the local law enforcement that we seemed to have a missing person,” Lord Dunphy said carefully.

“Missing person? The man isn’t missing; he’s dead.”

Lord Dunphy set his fork aside and looked directly at me. “While it is true that Mr. Silverwood has not been seen since the first night we all gathered, it is also true that other than the fact that you and your husband reported as much, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest a murder has occurred.”