The Irish Cottage Murder (25 page)

“That Janet!”—Rose had overheard Sheila Flaxton say to Winifred Moore right after—“thought she was God, I suppose!”

“No,” Winifred Moore had said. “I’d say, more like King Solomon.” And after Fergus Callaghan had been cleared, Winifred Moore ordered a dozen roses and had them sent to him from Rosary Florists in Dublin, though Sheila Flaxton said it was a silly thing to do. Then they’d gone off to London.

“Miss Winifred will arrive from London about seven tonight,” Rose said to Hannah, who was grinding the herbs. “Back and forth from London like a shuttlecock! She and Ms. Sheila.” She handed Janet the cover to put on the iron pot of beef, potatoes, and onions. “She’s that fascinated with Mr. Willinger’s landscaping.”

Hannah, looking up from the herbs, asked, “The old groundsman’s cottage near the hedge—where Mrs. Devlin and her little girl lived—now they’ve gone to live in Dublin, Mrs. Devlin marrying—Mr. Callaghan. It’s for rent again, is it?”

“I suppose.” Rose smiled at her young sister. Hannah blushed. She had filled out a bit, her fair hair shone, she seemed happy; she was going out with Sergeant Bryson every Saturday afternoon. Serious? She was seventeen; Jimmy Bryson was twenty-one.

Hannah, still blushing, changed the subject. “Mr. Willinger’s going back to America tomorrow, isn’t he?”

“So I am,” Luke Willinger said from the doorway, coming in. “Smells like heaven in here.”

“Kitchens do,” Janet Slocum said. Mr. Willinger, in a sweater, country tweeds, and brogues, had a pencil stuck behind one ear. She was sorry he was returning to America. He didn’t treat her like a criminal because of Brian Coffey. And she’d miss him at the AA meetings in Dublin. Unthinkingly, she raised a hand and touched her pockmarked cheek. Odd about Mr. Willinger and Ms. Torrey Tunet. The pair of them had been making love in Ms. Tunet’s bedroom and even passionately in the woods and on the hills, once even in the vacated groundsman’s cottage. It was known at the castle and even in Ballynagh; you couldn’t keep anything from Ballynagh gossip. It had gone on for two weeks. But then—

“Is that Irish stew?” Mr. Willinger asked.

“Yes. The carrots go in next.” But then Ms. Tunet had gone back to America. Did they plan to meet there? Would they marry?

“That’s thyme, isn’t it?” Mr. Willinger asked, poking a finger at a few green sprigs on the table. The look he gave Janet was acute, as though he had read her mind and closed a door. She looked away. “Yes, thyme.”

*   *   *

At Mass General in Boston, the surgeon from Houston in the green surgical robe looked exhausted. He was sixty years old, with a lined, tired, intellectual face; it had been an eight-hour operation. Of the forty thousand dollars, he would come away with thirty thousand for that miraculous surgery. Mass General, including physical therapy, would get the rest.

“It went well, Ms. Tunet,” the surgeon said. “That is to say, perfectly. She’s a musician, isn’t she? A drummer? Ms. Lefebvre?”

“Yes, Donna’s Devils, that all-girl band.” No more being hauled around in a wheelchair, in a van with a ramp, and playing just the snare drums. She’d walk. She’d have traps, she’d play percussion, right foot on the pedal, making the bass drum boom, left foot making the tophat cymbals clash. The dream of her life. The band was promising, it was an infant, still struggling, but it would grow. It would make a reputation, an income.

“Well, then.” They smiled at each other, Torrey and the surgeon. There was no more to say. She watched his stocky figure retreat down the corridor.

*   *   *

Two days later, Torrey got off the bus at Logan Airport with a carry-on on wheels. Her ticket to Istanbul was in her jacket pocket.

In the international waiting room, she stepped into a phone booth and dialed Interpreters International. “Torrey Tunet. Myra Schwartz, please.”

“One moment, Ms. Tunet.”

Waiting, she thought wistfully of Luke Willinger, how, naked beside her in the groundsman’s cottage, he had said, “After my stepfather’s suicide, I had to redesign my life. I realized what I’d wanted all along was to redesign the landscape. I’d meant to be a psychoanalyst, out of gratitude to my stepfather.” He had drawn a breath. “My own father had been a drunk. He died of it.” And he said, blowing softly on her neck, “You changed my life. I didn’t realize—I hated you. It is only now…” and he raised her body over him.

In the phone booth, she could hear the loudspeaker announcing a flight; not hers. Then, in her ear, “Ms. Schwartz is still on another phone. Please hold.”

“Thank you.” Waiting, she closed her eyes. Alas for her and Luke, the North Hawk past was inextricably tied to today, impossible to forget; the past would send out thorns. Making love, she had known it, had known it in the deserted groundsman’s cottage, in the satiny whisperings in the bedroom of the castle, on the purple hills of Wicklow.

“Ms. Tunet? Ms. Schwartz says will you please hang on, she’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Okay, thanks.” She felt for more change. Petty expenses didn’t matter. She was seriously broke. Ten thousand dollars in debt. The Moore diamond necklace had turned out to be worth barely twenty thousand dollars. But she’d gotten the ten-thousand-dollar reward offered by Lars Kasvi’s family. So that made thirty thousand, leaving her still owing ten thousand to Mass General.

“Torrey?” Myra Schwartz’s voice on the phone, excited, elated. “Lucky you called! Hold onto your hat. I just got a go-ahead from my cousin Harry at Roget Productions. They like
Foreign Slang for Kids.
They hate the title but like the concept. They want an option.”

“An…”

“An option, an
option.
Could be something they’d like to peddle to PBS. Who knows?”

Torrey swallowed. “How much? The option.”
Ten thousand,
she prayed. For God’s sake,
ten thousand.
She had only $233 in the North Hawk Savings Bank.

“Twelve. And could you work with them on it, they want to know. Part of the deal.”

Torrey, dizzied, gave a wild little laugh. “Myra! My, God!”

“I’ll call you in Istanbul when I get more from Harry.”

When Torrey hung up, she was perspiring. She stepped out of the phone booth. Then she stood still, eyes wide. Languages had been her refuge from that tragedy in North Hawk, her escape. It had led to interpreting and finally to her concept of kids learning languages, starting with foreign kids’ slang. It harked back to a six-year-old Spanish child she’d helped when she herself was only twelve. Kids and words. Weird.

“Excuse us. Sorry … sorry.” A couple brushed past her, hurrying, pulling baggage on wheels, carrying magazines, children trailing. Beside Torrey, several people were gazing up at the Arrivals and Departures schedule; others dozed in chairs or read paperbacks. The loudspeaker was announcing a flight departure for Brussels.

“De nada,”
Torrey said softly after the couple. She fingered the peacock bandanna she wore at her throat, the one from her footloose Romanian father. But now—introducing kids to foreign languages. Only an option, but a start. If it wasn’t Roget Productions, it would be another outfit. She could, for instance, work on language projects anywhere. Anywhere. Even—

Her eyes widened. She was seeing the deserted groundsman’s cottage in Ballynach. The Finn had been murdered there; yet she and Luke Willinger had made love there. The cottage. So … suppose a new roof, freshly painted walls, a sparkling bay window. She saw herself in the cottage, munching a buttered hunk of soda bread while working at a pine-smelling desk that held a computer and fax; she saw herself on-line in Ballynach talking to Roget Productions in New York. Talking to any company in the world. She laughed with pleasure. “Why not?” she said aloud. “Why not?”

“Flight 347 for Istanbul now boarding.” The loudspeaker.

Her flight. Her last job for Interpreters International. Smiling, tickled with herself, Torrey picked up her carry-on, walked out to the departure gate, and boarded the flight for Istanbul.

CONTINUE READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM DICEY DEERE’S LATEST BOOK

The Irish Manor House Murder

AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER FROM ST. MARTIN’S MINOTAUR

It was a horror. First, Torrey heard the horse’s hooves pounding; it was like a thudding in her heart.

She was coming from the old groundsman’s cottage in the woods to take the shortcut across the Ashenden meadow to the village. October, three o’clock, bright sunlight.

She drew in a breath of the fresh-cut grass as she reached the fence that enclosed the meadow. A hundred feet to her right, on a hill, rose Ashenden Manor with its four stone chimneys.

Then Torrey saw a figure. Someone was crossing the meadow, coming from the Manor and going toward the woods at her left. She recognized the spare, upright figure of Dr. Ashenden, who must have just arrived home to the Manor from his office in Dublin; he was still in city clothes.

Then suddenly the pound, pound, thud, thud, shaking her—

A great gray horse came galloping across the meadow toward Dr. Ashenden, the girl astride him crouching low on his neck, her red hair wild, lips drawn back. Reaching Dr. Ashenden, the horse reared, neighing, eyes rolling, frantic. But the girl on his back, gripping the reins, fiercely forced him to do her bidding, and his great hooves rose and came down like giant hammers on Dr. Ashenden … then again … and again. All the while, the girl in the saddle was screaming down at the man’s fallen body. Then abruptly she wheeled the horse and was gone.

“No!” Torrey moaned, stunned, sickened,
“No!”

*   *   *

On her knees, Torrey brushed dirt and crushed grass from Dr. Ashenden’s face. He lay on his back, jacket torn, his white shirt ripped, his tie twisted. His face was dirty and bruised, his eyes closed, and his silvery hair was globbed with mud. Dead?

“Dr. Ashenden…?” But now he moaned. He opened his eyes, heavy-lidded eyes under thick, gray-white eyebrows. His dazed look, unfocused, met Torrey’s. He moved his lips, he said faintly, “My shoulder … broken, I think. Or, maybe … I rolled aside just in—” His gaze sharpened in recognition of Torrey in her faded navy turtleneck and jeans. “Ah, Ms. Tunet.” He took a breath, gasped in pain, then in his elegant clipped style, he said quickly, irritably, “That damned stallion! Rowena can’t control him! I’ve warned her again and again—But she doesn’t listen!”

Torrey gaped, stunned. “Yes, yes.” She saw that Dr. Ashenden was trembling. He must be in terrible pain, and of course, shock. He was in his late seventies. And this murderous attack! Was he out of his head, thinking the hellish attack was an accident?

Confused, she gazed at a dark red bruise covering his cheek. Then blinked. Odd, that it was already swollen. Something off.

“… or if not broken, possibly sprained,” Dr. Ashenden was probing his shoulder with trembling fingers.

Definitely off. But clearly he didn’t want anybody to know that his granddaughter Rowena had tried to kill him. Torrey shifted her knees in the grass and looked down at Dr. Ashenden. “Can you get up? I’ll help you.”

“No. No, thank you, Ms. Tunet … I can manage.” He raised himself on an elbow and shook his head as though to clear it. “I’m all right.”

But a hearty Wicklow-accented man’s voice at Torrey’s shoulder said, “Here, let me, Dr. Ashenden.”

Only then did Torrey realize that she and Dr. Ashenden were not alone in the meadow. Someone else had witnessed Rowena’s murderous attack on her grandfather.

She looked up at Sergeant Jimmy Bryson.

*   *   *

“So that’s when I arrested Rowena Keegan,” Sergeant Jimmy Bryson said to Inspector Egan O’Hare at six o’clock in the glass-fronted room that was the Ballynach police station. “When I got Dr. Ashenden back to the Manor, by luck Dr. Padraic Collins was there. He’d dropped in, as usual. Between us, we got Ashenden upstairs. Sprained shoulder, contusions, and some undetermined kind of blow to his face. Abrasions and so on. I’d’ve sworn he’d be dead.”

Sergeant Bryson pushed his cap up off his forehead and looked over at his neatly typed report on Inspector O’Hare’s desk. He was twenty-two, narrowly built, and loved a bit of excitement which ordinarily was in short supply in Ballynagh. Still, the ugliness of what he’d seen in the meadow a bare two hours ago had rattled him. “What a shocker! I was coming back from O’Shaughnessy’s when I saw it. Jesus!—Rowena Keegan galloping into the meadow and riding her grandfather down like a crazy woman. She meant to kill him.
I saw her face!
”

Inspector Egan O’Hare glanced at the report, then leaned down from his desk chair to give Nelson, the black lab, his six o’clock biscuit. Nelson took it delicately between his teeth and settled down by the Coke machine. O’Hare said to Bryson, “Well, now, Jimmy, you say that Ms. Tunet was crossing the meadow. Torrey Tunet. So presumably she’d be a witness. But she denies—”

“Absolutely, Inspector! Swears she didn’t see a thing! Looked me right in the eye and said she’d accidentally stumbled over Dr. Ashenden’s body.”

Inspector O’Hare sat back, pursed his lips, and for a moment regarded the wall behind Sergeant Bryson. “Ms. Tunet may not be the soul of truth, considering that she and Rowena Keenan have become such fast friends. Walking the woods and hills, tea at Miss Amelia’s Tea Shop, feeding acorns to squirrels. Keep an eye out, Jimmy.”

“That I will, Inspector.”

O’Hare tapped a finger on Sergeant Bryson’s typed report. “This, about O’Malley’s Pub. Sean O’Malley says Rowena Keegan’s hardly ever been there before.” He frowned down at the report. According to Sean O’Malley, Rowena Keegan had come into O’Malley’s and started drinking heavily about an hour before her attack on her grandfather. Straight whiskeys. Leaving the pub, paying Sean, she had muttered under her breath, “That bastard! That inhuman bastard! He belongs in Hell!” Sean had sworn those were her words. He said the girl was crying.

“That’s it, then, Jimmy?”

“Everything, Inspector. Except that Sean O’Malley said that for a pretty girl, Rowena Keegan looked a sight, her red hair wild and those green eyes all bloodshot. Made me think, ‘Jesus!—What’s happened?’ Them always so thick before, Rowena and her grandfather.”