Chapter and Curse

by Nancy Warren

  I stepped across the threshold, feeling awful. Her eyebrows went up. “Would you like a glass of wine? Cup of tea?”

  I didn’t think I could accept her hospitality, not when I knew the purpose for the visit. “Would you have a glass of water?”

  If my answer surprised her, she didn’t show it, merely led me into the living room. It wasn’t large. In fact, the whole flat wasn’t very big. Still, she’d made it homey. I suspected she’d furnished the flat from her shop. It was full-on shabby chic, but charming and whimsical. “This is so pretty,” I said, glancing around.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never had any budget. My entire life, I’ve done everything on a shoestring.”

  “It’s great. You have a flair.”

  She looked pleased and told me to sit down while she went to fetch the drinks. I didn’t, though. I wandered around looking at things. In a display cabinet was a pretty tea set that I immediately recognized.

  When she came back with the water, I was still standing staring at it. She said, “Ah. You’ve a good eye.”

  I turned to her then. “Even in all that junk at Billy O’Donnell’s house, I noticed this tea set. It’s so unusual.” It was precious too. “It’s Meissen, isn’t it?”

  She colored faintly and dropped her gaze.

  She sat down and clasped her hands together. “This is an odd time for a social visit.”

  “It is.” I didn’t want to sit down. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Part of me wanted to walk out again and not continue this conversation. Because I liked Karen Tate. But I had discovered that I liked truth and justice more. As pompous as that sounded, it was true.

  I was trying to think how to begin when she spoke. “I don’t want you to think it was stealing because it wasn’t.”

  “Did Brenda give you that tea set?”

  Now she rose too. And the two of us faced off across the compact living room. “It’s complicated.”

  I shook my head. “No. Really, I don’t think it is complicated at all.” I looked at her. “Billy O’Donnell was your father.”

  Chapter 17

  Her eyes widened, and suddenly I understood what had confused Biddy O’Donnell. Brenda O’Donnell and Karen Tate both shared their father’s coloring. And they had the same build. They looked alike. Like sisters.

  She let out a breath. “It’s a relief to have someone finally know the truth.”

  “So what happened? Did you move to Ballydehag to be near your father? In the pub, you told me your father wanted nothing to do with you.”

  She moved over and stood at the window looking out, so all I saw was her profile. And those busy hands. Now she was playing with a silver ring, turning it around and around on her finger. “It’s true. He didn’t. But over time, he became more used to the idea. He wouldn’t acknowledge me publicly. And that hurt a bit. No, it hurt a lot. But he used to come in my shop. Nobody thought anything of it because they knew him to be a man who loved to collect things. And we’d chat. I visited him at his house a few times. We were getting to know each other.”

  I nodded. “I remember when you told me about his interests. You were the only person who ever mentioned his interest in Byzantine architecture. I only knew about it because of the books.”

  She turned and gave a slight smile. “You’re a born detective, you know.”

  I felt the pull of compassion, but I had to be strong. This woman wouldn’t be the first to kill a sibling.

  “When did Brenda find out you were her half sister?”

  Any glimmer of a smile was gone now. “I was trying to tell her that day.”

  Not a helpful answer. “What day?”

  For the first time, I saw a hint of alarm in her eyes. “The day she died. I was picking up boxes, and she looked so tired and sad, and I was tired and sad. We had a shared grief. She just didn’t know it. I started to tell her, but then I stopped.”

  “You were worried she wouldn’t take the news well?”

  To my surprise, a tear rolled down her cheek. “She got a strange expression on her face, almost like she was telling me to shut up.”

  I didn’t want to lead the witness, but I felt that she was on the brink of confessing to Brenda’s murder. I stood quietly and waited.

  “She was loyal to her mother, which I understood, and she’d only just lost her father. Her emotions were a mess if they were anything like mine. My timing was terrible. But she was leaving the next day. I wanted her to know.” She wiped her wet cheeks. “And now she never will.”

  “What happened?”

  She looked up in surprise. “I’ve just told you. That’s what happened. I tried to tell her that Billy O’Donnell was my father and that we were half-sisters. I made a mess of it and gave up. And that’s the last time I ever saw my sister.”

  “You didn’t pick up a candlestick and bash her over the head?”

  The blood rushed up into her face. “What?”

  She looked so sincere, I almost believed her.

  “You think I’d kill my own sister?”

  “I think, in moments of terrible stress and pain, we sometimes do things that we later deeply regret.”

  “That may be true. I could imagine saying things I might regret. Maybe even throwing something. But do you really think I’d kill my flesh and blood?” She stared at me, stiff with outrage. “You have a nasty habit of accusing me of murder.”

  I felt puzzled. Could I be wrong? “But if you didn’t kill Brenda O’Donnell, who did?”

  “Are you serious? You come here from half a world away and think you understand this town and its secrets? I’d be looking at Jack Buckley, the drug dealer, myself. He’s killed once. Why wouldn’t he kill again?”

  Since the police had Jack in custody, that seemed like the logical conclusion. But oddly, while I’d been willing to entertain Karen as a suspect, I didn’t believe Jack had killed Brenda. Had I, like Brenda fallen for his cheap charm?

  I drank some water. My throat felt dry. “If I’ve misjudged you, I’m sorry.” However, I made sure not to turn my back on her.

  “You’ve got a nerve coming here and accusing me of murder. Also, it was an idiotic thing to do. If I’d bashed one woman over the back of the head, why wouldn’t I bash another?”

  She was right. Though I had powers she knew nothing about. I would be harder to kill than Brenda O’Donnell.

  I tried another tack. “What were you looking for when you were prowling around at the O’Donnell house?”

  “What?”

  “You were seen in the house after Brenda died.”

  “Who saw me?” She sounded belligerent, but she looked alarmed.

  “A neighbor.” If the word neighbor stretched to include an evil old witch who’d returned from the dead.

  “I was looking for the will, if you must know.” She swallowed. “My father’s will.”

  “Why?”

  “My dad, Billy O’Donnell, said he left me something in it. I wanted to take a photograph of it. So I had some evidence in case anyone tried to deny me. You may think that was small and mean of me, and perhaps it was. But whatever he’d left me was proof he cared.” She swallowed. “Proof he thought of me as his daughter.”

  “Did you find the will?”

  She shook her head. “For all I know, Brenda destroyed it.”

  “You haven’t put any of his belongings in your shop to sell.”

  Her mouth twisted. “Maybe Brenda didn’t want any of those things, but I did. He showed me that tea set once. It was what we used to talk about when I’d visit and, I suppose, his excuse in case anyone ever questioned him. He was showing me things that he might sell in the shop. We both shared a love of china, and so, when I saw that in the box, I thought it was something that I could always remember him by.”

  I said, “I’m not here to accuse you of theft. She brought me boxes of books to sell, too, and said she didn’t want any money for them. And a few of them turned out to be valuable.”

  She nod
ded. “Billy O’Donnell was a curious man. He so loved to collect things that his idea of value differed from many people’s. Some things in that house were rare and valuable, but he was also interested in curiosities. Things that amused him.”

  I had one more question. “While you were looking for Billy O’Donnell’s will, did you come across Brenda’s?”

  “Brenda O’Donnell’s will? Why would she keep it at her dad’s house? I should think it was in Dublin. Assuming she bothered to make one.”

  There was that. I didn’t have a will. I kept thinking I should do something about it. But I didn’t have any children, though I’d want Greg’s daughters to have my estate. It was one of those things I kept putting off. Brenda, also a single woman about my age, could easily have been just as bad. Lawyers were notoriously terrible about taking care of their own affairs. In the same way as doctors who smoked or cobblers whose children had no shoes.

  Karen seemed to give the matter some thought. “Well, if you’re convinced I didn’t kill my own half sister, and if Jack didn’t do it, what about that flashy lawyer who showed up?”

  “The flashy lawyer who showed up when?”

  “The day Brenda died.”

  “You saw him?”

  “I did. I was in my car, about to drive off, when he turned up. Brenda didn’t look very pleased to see him. Maybe he killed her.”

  “Somebody did.”

  As I left Karen Tate’s house, I didn’t know what to think. I had already unfairly accused her of murder once. Now I’d done it again. Well, not publicly this time, at least. The trouble was, she had a really powerful motive.

  She claimed she didn’t know that she was in for half of Billy O’Donnell’s estate, but I’d read his will. He’d split his assets between his daughters.

  I didn’t know a lot about Irish law, but I didn’t imagine it differed greatly from American law regarding estates. If Brenda O’Donnell died without a will, then her estate would automatically go to her next of kin. And that was Karen. Had Karen Tate embraced sibling rivalry with her newfound sister? Had she killed Brenda to claim all of Billy O’Donnell’s estate? I didn’t want to think that. I liked Karen. We were attempting to be friends. Accusing someone of murder wasn’t a brilliant way to start a friendship. She’d already been more than generous in overlooking the fact that I’d accused her once unfairly. Now I’d done it again. But, if she had killed Brenda O’Donnell, I couldn’t let it go.

  I found myself in a quandary.

  As I walked down the quiet, darkened streets, I had another shocking thought. If I was related to Biddy O’Donnell, and all these generations later an O’Donnell was still in that house, then Karen Tate was my many times removed cousin. I’d never had cousins or family before. It was only my mother and me until she died, and then it was only me. Even if Karen Tate’s cousinship was so far removed that it barely counted, it counted to me.

  If only there wasn’t so much suspicion in my mind directed at her.

  I stopped and looked up at the sky. At the moon and the stars and the great blackness that covered us. I had to clear my mind. That suspicion was taking up all my mental capacity. I needed to be clear and smart.

  Magic is so much about focus that to remove that focus can be difficult. I breathed in and breathed out and looked at the vastness of stars and sky and took my focus from that pinpoint of light focused on Karen Tate to a broader, wider view of the universe. If I could bring that to bear on this case, then maybe I could approach it with an open mind.

  When I got back to my cottage, Cerridwen was sitting in front of those beautiful roses. I’d left the outdoor light burning, and the picture could not have been prettier or more welcoming. To make it even better, she looked pleased to see me and came running forward. I scooped her up and, after pausing to literally stop and smell the roses, I let us both into the house.

  “Not my finest hour, thank you for asking,” I said into her soft fur. “Tonight I accused my distant cousin of murder. Not sure we’ll be sharing a lot of girl time in the future.”

  Chapter 18

  The next day, I decided to get a start on my project to offer books in exchange for a donation to the church restoration fund. I had so many books to get through.

  I hauled two likely boxes from Billy O’Donnell’s house down from upstairs. One appeared to be all about Billy O’Donnell’s various collections. I thought that must be the mark of a true collector, not only to collect the thing but also to have books about the thing you collected. Here was one about toy soldiers. Another book detailed Meissen china. I put that one aside for Karen Tate, as her tea set was mentioned in the book and worth quite a sizable sum of money too.

  Here was one about toy trains and a book about Marklin tin cars and trucks.

  And finally a book on collecting stamps. In fact, there were several of those. Weirdly, though, for a man who collected so many things, I hadn’t noticed a stamp collection.

  The other box was old thrillers and romances that I thought some older people might like. I’d leave them out for a few days, and whatever didn’t sell, I would dispose of.

  That done, I made a nice little sign, put out a box for donations, and took the two boxes of books outside. It was so pleasant outside that I lingered. You don’t have to live in Ireland long to appreciate a sunny day when you get one. Even in summer.

  In order to still look industrious, I pretended to realign the books, while really I was simply enjoying the sun on my skin. I went back inside, and then I gasped aloud and went back out again. I pulled one of the collector’s books out and flipped through it. I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I didn’t notice someone had come up beside me.

  “Are you buying your own stock now?” an amused voice said. I glanced up to see Lochlan Balfour looking down at me. He might be a vampire, but he was one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever seen in my life.

  I tried to laugh, but the sound stuck in my throat. Immediately his amusement changed to concern. “What is it?”

  I glanced up and down the street as though the people of Ballydehag might suddenly all be eavesdropping at once and then gestured him inside the bookshop. Luckily, we were the only ones in there. I said, “Look at this.”

  I pushed the open book at him. He nodded. “I remember these. They were very popular with children before the great war. That’s the First World War, I mean.”

  I nodded. I knew this because I’d just been reading it in the book. “Marklin tin trucks and cars are very collectible.”

  “I’m always surprised at the things day walkers value. They were only bits of tin meant to amuse children. Now adults who should know better buy the old faded, broken-down things, not to play with, but to display. I’m sure mankind wasn’t as ridiculous when I was alive.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Do the Crusades ring a bell? Subjugation of women? Their inability to own property?” I leaned closer and dropped my voice. “Witch trials?”

  His lips quirked. “All right, you may have a point. Still, in all the centuries I’ve been around, mankind hasn’t got any brighter.”

  I suspected he was right.

  “So why are you so interested in this book? Please don’t tell me you’ve suddenly got a passion to collect broken-down, old, tin cars?”

  I shook my head. “Not me. Billy O’Donnell.”

  He raised his eyebrows at that. One thing about Lochlan, he had no trouble keeping up with my thought process. Which couldn’t be said for everybody, sometimes including me. “And look at this,” and I tapped the page I’d been staring at when he’d surprised me. “See where he’s written in the values? Look at the price for that old boat.”

  He squinted. “Am I reading that correctly? Is that two hundred and forty thousand American dollars?”

  “It is. That was the auction price. In 2011.”

  “So it might be worth even more now.”

  I wanted to slap myself upside the head. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. I remember seeing tha
t boat shoved in a china cabinet. I think there was a tank in there as well, and a couple of cars. It struck me as such a peculiar thing to do, to put children’s toys amongst china cups and teapots and a few glasses. I assumed he’d shoved any old thing in those cabinets, not having his wife around to keep the place organized.”

  “But now you don’t think so.”

  “No. Now I think he kept them in the cabinet to keep the dust off them or to keep them safe. If this book proves anything, it’s that he knew the value of what he owned.”

  “I’m not sure that’s relevant anymore. They’d have gone to Brenda, but poor Brenda won’t need valuable old toys now, will she?”

  “No. What I’m interested in is where are those toys now?”

  “They’re missing?”

  This was the hard part. “I don’t know. Brenda boxed up so much stuff. They could be in the boxes she gave Karen Tate. They could still be in the stuff from the moving truck that got put back in the house.”

  He tapped his long, pale fingers on the pages of the book. He paged forward, as I had. He let out a low whistle when he saw the price of that German tank. And then the cars, real cheapies at about a hundred thousand pounds each. “There’s close to a million dollars U.S. in value, according to this book and Billy O’Donnell’s reckonings.”

  “A million dollars is a lot of money. Some people might even say it was enough to kill for.”

  “So what’s your theory? That someone in town knew the value of what Billy O’Donnell had and stole them?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. And, in the middle of the theft, Brenda O’Donnell caught that person in the act.”

  “And so he killed her to stop her turning him in for a thief.”

  “Or she. What do you think? Is it much of a theory?”

  “It’s an excellent theory. So long as they stole the toys.”