Whiskey Island (63 page)

“Give him to me now,” she ordered.

Simeon shrugged and handed Terry back to her. Surprised, she cuddled the baby against her shoulder, and the wailing diminished. “He’s hungry,” she said. “He needs to be fed.”

“You can feed him in the carriage.”

“It will be too cold.”

“Enough!”

“At least let me get my warmest cloak. I can wrap him inside it with me.”

“Then do so. We’ll be walking a distance to the carriage.”

“Don’t you know any carriage of yours will be noticed? When it’s discovered I’m gone, your carriage will be remarked on.”

“It’s not one of mine, little fool. Did you think I’d bring my own to this godforsaken place?”

She noticed then what she hadn’t before. He was not dressed in his usual finery. He was dressed like a workingman, and when his cap was pulled low and his modest overcoat turned up around his ears, he would look like any of a hundred men who lived on these streets.

She was losing hope. “My cloak’s by the fire.”

“Then I’d suggest you get it quickly.”

She edged past him to the living room, Terry clutched against her. Simeon followed as she went to the peg where her cloak hung, standing back as, with one arm, she reached for it and flung it around her shoulders.

The voluminous folds swirled about her, and in that instant she saw her only chance for her own survival and her son’s future.

She spoke without turning. “I can’t fasten it with one hand. Will you help me? It’s all that will keep your son warm.”

He moved closer, roughly laying a hand on her shoulder.

She whirled and lifted the fireplace poker she had grasped as the folds of the cloak had hidden the action from view. With her free hand she swung the poker with all her strength, slamming it against Simeon’s arm with a ferocious crack.

She leaped back as he crashed toward her, howling in pain. One-armed, she was only partially effective. She managed to hit him once more in nearly the same place before he grabbed the poker. Even in his rage she knew he wouldn’t use it against her for fear of harming the baby.

She backed away, and he came after her, roaring curses. She dashed toward the kitchen, but he was on her before she could pass the stove and open the back door. As he jerked at her cloak, her hand closed over the handle of a cast-iron kettle, one of the many she had needed when making food for the terriers. She swung it hard and slammed it against the side of his head.

He went down like a tree felled in the forest.

He remained every bit as still and as lifeless.

She had killed James Simeon.

January 19, 1884

T
he devil wears many disguises, but those wretched souls destined to serve him will find him anyway. No blessings bestowed, no God-given opportunities for good, can deter them. They awaken each morning determined to destroy innocence, and too often they go to bed satisfied by their day’s work.

A man trained to find evil encounters it in the unlikeliest places. The same can be said for good. An honest man encounters both inside himself and, sometimes, cannot tell the difference.

I arrived last night at the Tierney home to help Lena escape the city. Rowan and I entered and called to Lena, but it was the cry of a baby that answered us.

We found her in the kitchen, her newborn son clutched tightly to her breast, the body of James Simeon lying at her feet. He had tried to take the child. She had defended herself against him, as was only right and proper, with a kettle from her own pantry.

Whose mission would be served by reporting such a crime?

From the journal of Father Patrick McSweeney—St. Brigid’s Church, Cleveland, Ohio.

40

March 2000

N
iccolo let himself into the house through the kitchen door. His search for Father McSweeney’s journal had been fruitless.

“This is the kind of secret a priest takes to his grave,” Iggy had said as they finished the final crate. “Especially if he learned the facts in the confessional. If he wrote about Simeon’s murderer, he wouldn’t leave his journal for others to find. I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth was buried with him.”

Buried with him, buried deep inside Rooney Donaghue’s psyche. Whatever the answer, Niccolo had finally acknowledged he would probably never know. The connection between the Donaghues and James Simeon was tenuous, at best. With nothing better to go on, he had been grasping at straws.

It was almost four in the morning. He expected to find the kitchen empty. Instead, he found Megan, head resting on folded arms at his table.

“Megan?”

She sat up, her curls tumbling sleepily over her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes were red rimmed. “Nick? You’re back? Did you get my message?”

“No. Did you leave one on Iggy’s machine? We were in the parish hall library.”

“I was afraid of that. You didn’t find anything, did you?”

He shook his head.

She reached into her lap and pulled out a book. For a moment he thought it was the journal he was so carefully transcribing, the one that had ended just as Simeon appeared. Then he realized that this volume was smaller, and the leather even more tattered than the one he’d read. He reached for it, and she laid it in his hand.

“Where did you get this?”

“From Rooney.”

He squatted beside her without opening the pages. “He was here again?”

“Twice in one day. I think it’s a good sign, Nick. I think he’ll keep coming back, until one day he just stays on. Maybe then we can get him the help he needs. He’s so sad, and so…sick.”

The last word emerged on a sob. Niccolo drew her into his arms and held her awkwardly. “I know, Megan.”

She was crying. “He never meant to leave us. I know that now. He didn’t have any choice. He can’t control what’s happened to him.”

“He hears voices we don’t. They’re every bit as real to him as mine is to you.”

“Can he be helped? When he finally comes back to stay? When he’s sure we can be trusted?”

“I think it’s possible. The treatment of mental illness has come a long way in the past decades.”

“He left me the journal. He wanted me to understand. I think it’s a good sign. He trusted me that much.”

“What does it say?”

“In a few words? Rosaleen killed James Simeon. Father McSweeney found her standing over him.”

Niccolo sat back on his heels and lifted her chin. “Do you know why?”

“Because Simeon was the devil himself. He forced himself on her while she was working for him, then, when she got pregnant, he tried to take her baby. She defended herself the only way she could. She killed him with a cooking kettle in her own tiny house.” Megan tried to smile through her tears but wasn’t quite successful. “Better stay out of my kitchen when I’m angry.”

It was gallows humor; he knew she didn’t expect him to laugh. “And her husband?”

“Rosaleen
was
married twice. Her first husband was a man named Terence Tierney. Father McSweeney believed Simeon was responsible for his death.”

“Remember I read about Terence and Lena in the first journal? Father McSweeney thought highly of them both.”

“Rowan Donaghue, my great-great-grandfather, was Terence Tierney’s best friend and their boarder. He discovered Simeon’s intentions after Terence died. Rowan tried to take Rosaleen to Chicago to escape Simeon. After she killed Simeon, Rowan was probably the one who dragged his body to the far reaches of Whiskey Island and buried it. And maybe Father McSweeney helped him. I don’t know. I only got to the murder a few moments ago. There’s just a little more, then the rest of the pages are empty. McSweeney was a subtle man. Most of the time I had to read between the lines.”

“He was protecting his flock.” Niccolo’s mind was spinning as he tried to put the story together. “Lena was working for Father McSweeney as a housekeeper. When Simeon forced himself on her, she must have confided in him. In the end, that has to be the reason he knew the story and got involved. That’s why he told it in his journal.”

“But how did his journal get into Rooney’s hands, Nick? Why did Rooney have it?”

“He was the keeper of the secrets. He told you as much when you were growing up, remember?”

Her lips trembled. “All those years, he wasn’t talking about corned beef and cabbage, huh?”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“Tonight he told me I was supposed to be the next one to keep the secrets. He’s distraught that he hasn’t done his job. He cried. I think he believes the stars are his ancestors. He believes they’ve been watching him, and he failed them because the body was discovered.”

Niccolo tried to think. “After Terence’s death, Rosaleen must have married Rowan….”

“After Simeon’s death, too.”

“They went on to have children together and open the saloon. They built an important place for themselves in the community. But if anyone had ever discovered the truth about the way Simeon died, then Rosaleen would have been tried for murder.”

“Do you suppose they stole the journal from the rectory? After McSweeney’s death?”

“It’s possible. But why didn’t they simply destroy it?”

Megan stood, and when Niccolo stood with her, she went into his arms for a tighter embrace. “Because it’s the story of a strong woman. A woman who committed the ultimate act of desperation to save her child. Maybe they wanted at least some of her descendants to know what kind of woman she really was.”

“Or maybe, Megan, they just wanted you to know who your real great-great-grandfather was.”

She pulled away a little to see him better. “Real?”

“Aren’t you and Rooney descended from Lena’s first son?”

“That’s right. He was Rooney’s grandfather. His name was…Terry.” She cocked her head. “Short for Terence, I’m sure. His last name was Donaghue, but you’re right, he must have been the baby Simeon tried to take. Rowan probably adopted him when he married Rosaleen.”

“Are you Terence Tierney’s descendant…?” Niccolo paused. “Or James Simeon’s?”

“That’s a terrible question.”

“But one Rosaleen might well have asked herself all the remaining days of her life.”

“I’ll never know, will I? I can hope it wasn’t Simeon. I can pray I carry the blood of a poor immigrant and not a depraved millionaire.”

He touched her hair. “Here’s what I think. The truth has been passed down quietly from generation to generation so that someday, if Simeon’s body was ever discovered and identified, or if someone came forward to tell what they knew about the connection between Rosaleen and Simeon, the real story of what Rosaleen had done and why she had done it could be told. And the journal is proof, of sorts. That’s why it’s been preserved.”

She followed his train of thought. “There must have been people who could have made the connection between Rosaleen and Simeon. Servants at the Simeon mansion. People living in Irishtown Bend. Someone might have seen Simeon that night, or someone on Millionaires’ Row might have known how he’d treated Rosaleen. They might have suspected her part in his death if the body was found on Whiskey Island. Even after all the principals were old and dying, those stories might still have been floating around in old letters or journals, or in the speculation handed down from one generation to the next. Unlikely, probably, but to be guarded against.”

“So with McSweeney’s journal, the truth could be told, if it ever needed to be.”

Megan held him tighter. “Poor Rosaleen. She must have lived her whole life waiting to be caught.”

“And who’s to say what would have happened to her if she had been? Simeon was despised—”

“But so were the Irish,” she stated, completing his thought.

“You can finish the journal and put all the details to rest.”

“Tomorrow’s soon enough. Would you like to read it with me?”

“If you’d like me to.”

She rested her hands on his shoulders. “There’s a lot I’d like, Nick. And a lot I’d like to put to rest.”

“I think you’ve already put some of it to rest tonight.”

She managed a real smile this time, an enigmatic, purely female smile that spoke volumes, even to his untutored eye. “I’m going to stop holding up the world. And I’m going to stop pretending I’m somebody I’m not. There’s so much I haven’t admitted to myself, and even more I haven’t understood. I’m just beginning to figure out a few things. I guess I’m a slow learner.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m strong, but not strong enough to make it without the people I love. And I love so many people, Nick. My sisters, my family.” She paused. Her voice caught. “My father.”

“They’re all supremely lucky that you do, Megan. Every single one of them.”

“And then there’s this stranger who walked into my life. Who wouldn’t leave me alone until I started feeling all the things I’m feeling now. A man who’s strong himself, but one who needs the right woman beside him to share his days, his dreams, his future.”

He was almost afraid to ask. “What about him?”

“I love him, too.”

His heart was so full he didn’t know what to say.

She touched his hair, framing his face with her palms. “You asked me who I am. I guess, most of all, I’m the woman who needs
us,
if you’ll have me.”

He didn’t ask in what ways. There was plenty of time to sort out the details. He was hoping they had the rest of their lives to do so. He kissed her, instead, and hoped that made his point.

He stepped away at last, head whirling and body throbbing with desire. His voice was husky. “It’s been a long night. If you think we can get away with it, you can finish the night sleeping in my bed.”

“I’ll get up early and pretend I slept with Peggy and Alice Lee.”

He held out his hand, but she didn’t take it. She shook her head. “There’s something I have to do first, Nick. Will you wait just a minute?”

“Of course.”

“Come with me.”

He followed her to the living room in the front of the house. He and the kids had transformed it over the months, until now it was a cozy space with warm ivory walls and a working brick fireplace, the heart of a real home. He watched as Megan took the only lamp from a fireside table and moved it to a bookshelf underneath the front window.