The door sprang wide open, revealing a grinning old woman no taller than my shoulder. “I’ll put the kettle on. Sister will show you to the parlor.” She cupped her hand over her mouth and bellowed into it like a megaphone. “Hilde!”
A carbon copy woman popped out, as if conjured by our host’s indelicate tone alone. “Do we have guests, Lavena?” The two were clearly twins, matching from the top of their dyed short black hair to their denim dresses and brown sensible shoes.
“Are you blind, Sister?” Lavena asked as we traipsed through her kitchen and meandered toward the parlor. “Are they not standing right here? Did I not say I would get the tea?”
“You’re so snippy today.” Hilde’s voice dropped in a stage whisper. “’Tis no different than any other day. Come sit a spell, ladies.”
The parlor was decorated in the style of Alice in Wonderland meets Jane Austen. Sun-bleached paisley wallpaper covered the walls, plastic covered the Victorian couch. Cats covered the plastic.
They were everywhere. Orange cats. Calico. Persian.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Hilde picked up a Siamese and plopped it in her lap as she sat. “Such good companions. Feel free to pet them. They won’t scratch.” The plastic beneath her thin arm was shredded to strips. “’Tis a pleasure to have such fine company today. What shall we talk about?” She tapped a red fingernail to her lip. “The terrible prices of beef that new butcher has brought us? The scandalous way Mrs. Clarke hangs her knickers on the line in the front yard? The fact that Mr. Clarke was seen—”
“Actually,” Erin interrupted, “we came to ask you a few questions about—”
“Where that new librarian has been spending her evenings?”
Erin blinked twice. “No.” She slid me a glance and covered up a giggle with a poor excuse for a cough. “Before we get to it, Finley, maybe you’d like to show them your picture?”
I reached into my bag and, after some digging, pulled out the journal. “Have you seen this cross?”
Hilde reached into her blouse and pulled up glasses tethered to a gold chain. “Let’s have a look.” She took it from my outstretched hand, and one of her cats jumped up to sniff and inspect. “Looks like Ailfred McCarthy’s. Yes, that’s the one.”
“Let me see that.” Lavena limped into the room, took the journal, and held it to her face. “You’re as blind as a bat. Anybody with eyes can see it’s Fergus Fitzpatrick’s.”
“Is that right? And how is that when his stone got knocked over in the storm of sixty-three?”
“Well, it’s sure not Ailfred’s,” Lavena said, as if her sister had suggested that two plus two was five. “He died in 1856, at the age of eighty-one, leaving behind one wife and three girlfriends.” She handed me back the journal. “Mrs. McCarthy bought him the plainest marker she could find. Then spit on it the rest of her days.”
“We don’t know whose it is,” Hilde said.
“No, we don’t.” Lavena marched back to the kitchen.
Another dead end. But at least it had been an entertaining one.
“My friend Finley here has been spending quite a bit of time with Cathleen Sweeney,” Erin said.
“Oh.” Hilde’s drawn-on eyebrows lifted toward her forehead.
“Cathleen Sweeney. She’s trouble, that one.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lavena returned, carrying a tray of cookies. Two cats curved around her ankles. “Cathleen Sweeney was a friend of mine, and you best be watching yourself before you say something mean.”
“Friend?” Hilde snorted. “Borrowing a pencil from her in school when you were six does not make you friends.”
“What can you tell us about her husband?” I asked. “What happened between them?”
“He died of a broken heart, he did,” Hilde said. “Everyone knows that. Cathleen stole him from his first true love with her trickery, then after the ring was on her finger, her true colors came out, sure they did. Then he realized what a terrible person he’d married. But it was too late. Cathleen had the baby, then left poor Mr. Sweeney. Wouldn’t even let the man see his own son. Now what kind of woman is that, I ask you?”
“A smart one,” her sister snapped. “That man was bad through and through. You could see it in his beady eyes. Didn’t he have eyes like a snake? Sure he did. The two would be about town together, and Charles wouldn’t let Cathleen out of his sight.”
Hilde ran her hand down the back of a cat bigger than her lap. “Cathleen was a cold woman. A snob. Married that fancy man, then wouldn’t talk to any of us anymore, like we weren’t good enough.” She clicked her tongue as she regarded me and Erin. “She didn’t have a single friend.”
“Because she wasn’t allowed any!” Lavena sat down in the chair beside her sister and glared right through her. “She couldn’t go anywhere without him, couldn’t talk to anyone. He was a possessive man.” Turning toward us, Lavena paused for dramatic effect. “One time the baby came down sick. She never left that house without her husband, but he was at work. She walked into the chemist’s, with a little hat perched on her head. It had a tiny veil that covered part of her face, very fashionable.”
“Charles’s money bought it.”
“Quiet with you, Sister!” Lavena barked. A kettle whistled from the kitchen, but the two ignored it. “Where was I? Cathleen, Charles, chemist, me daft sister being wrong, oh yes. As I was saying, she walked to the chemist’s, and I was working that day behind the counter. I saw her slink in, that veil covering her face, that sick baby on her hip. She stands there and waits for her medicine, and you could tell she was in a terrible hurry.”
“Because she was afraid she’d have to speak to someone,” Hilde said. “Never wanted to make eye contact with the likes of us.”
A black cat stood near my feet and stared up at me, eyeing my legs for landing space. I reached down and scratched its ear and listened to its solid purr.
Lavena ran her red nails through her close-cropped curls. “So there Cathleen was, waiting her turn for that medicine, and her baby started crying something awful. She bounced him and cooed but nothing would do. He cried and cried. Then he reached out and grabbed her hat right off her head.”
“And snakes came out?”
Lavena ignored her sister, her eyes trained right on me. “And that’s when I saw the bruises. On her cheek. Round her eye. That man did it to her, he did. And that’s why Cathleen Sweeney wasn’t allowed to associate with the towns folk. Because she’d married a horrible, jealous man.”
“And so she left him?” I asked.
“Och, of course she did. Moved herself across the river,” Lavena said. “What a scandal that was. We never saw her then. Her husband knew herself would keep quiet, so he told everyone who would hear how heartbroken he was, how he walked the floor every night, waiting for his missus to return home. He made more loans at that bank than ever.”
“He deserved his success,” Hilde said.
Lavena shrugged a bony shoulder. “Then . . . he died.”
“And everyone blamed Mrs. Sweeney,” I said.
“Sure they did.” Lavena picked a wad of cat hair off her denim sleeve. “He had a heart attack. Dropped dead in his office whilst giving Jimmie McBride the money for his chickens.”
Hilde shook her head. “Jimmie named his first chicken Charles.”
“Everyone said he died of heartbreak,” Lavena said. “But I knew better. And then three months later, that boy of theirs passed away from the fever. So if anyone had the heartbreak . . . it was Cathleen Sweeney.”
Chapter Twenty-One
God has written me quite a story in Ireland. Every day here, there’s something new to discover . . .
—Travel Journal of Will Sinclair, Abbeyglen, Ireland
What do you think you’re doing?”
At ten o’clock Saturday morning, Beckett got out of his truck just as a rickety taxi pulled up to the O’Callaghans’ house.
A gray-haired old man stepped out of the cab and tipped his cap.
“Good morning.”
Beckett thundered toward me. “I asked you what you’re doing?”
I glanced at the aging cabbie, who’d apparently left his dentures at home. “Going on a hot date.”
Beckett crossed his arms, the dark prince staring down his next victim.
“Fine. I’m going to Galway. To see Mrs. Sweeney’s sister.” What was Beckett doing here? He should’ve been working.
“And how did you get the address?”
“By prowling through her drawer.”
“Why haven’t you been on the set in the last few days?”
“Because I told you I quit.”
“And I said I didn’t accept that.”
“My ride is waiting. I have to go. You can yell at me later.”
He ran a hand through his blond hair and huffed. “I’ll take you.”
“No.” I took a step toward the tiny car, but Beckett put himself in my path.
“They’re filming Taylor’s scenes today, and I have nothing better to do, so. Unless you’re afraid to ride in the truck with me—like you’re afraid to be my assistant?”
I just looked at the boy. “After the last twenty-four hours I’ve had, I am fresh out of any Southern grace, so I suggest you step out of my way.”
His left cheek dimpled. “That bad, huh?”
“Your sympathy overwhelms me.”
“Are you thinking of having Mr. Donahue drive you back to America, then?”
“I have new information on Mrs. Sweeney, and I’m going to see her sister in Galway.”
“Right now.”
“Exactly.” The woman was getting worse at an alarming rate.
How much time did we have? “Please be so kind as to get out of my way. The meter’s running.”
“I’ll take you.”
“I’d rather walk.”
“Mr. Donahue.” Beckett smiled at the old man. “We don’t need you today, sir, but thanks for coming out.” He pressed some cash into the old man’s hand.
“No! I need you!” I made a dive for the back door handle, but Beckett grabbed it first.
“Have a good day now,” Beckett said.
Mr. Donahue scratched his head and looked between us.
“Don’t you drive away without me, Mr. Donahue.”
Beckett clapped the man by the shoulder. “Why don’t you go inside the inn and tell Mrs. O’Callaghan you want a piece of pie?”
Mr. Donahue’s bushy brows shot north. “Pie?”
“And all the coffee you can put in that flask you keep under your seat.”
The cabbie tipped his cap again. “Good day to you.” And before I could stop him, Mr. Donahue shut off his car and hobbled toward the house in search of a morning snack.
I closed my eyes and waited for my blood to cool. “I am calling his superior.”
“That would be his wife. She’s deaf in one ear, so make sure you speak loudly.”
Of course.
“Why did you do that?” My voice was flat with defeat.
“Because Mr. Donahue is too old to be behind the wheel and drives in the middle of the road. He’s had three wrecks in the last month. Two with a tree and one with a squirrel.”
I hated not having a car. I felt so stranded. And mad. And helpless.
In all these things, I am more than victorious . . .
Beckett walked to his truck and opened the passenger door. Bob shot from the porch and bounded into the back, his tail thumping against the bed like a drum. “Get in.” Beckett jerked his chin toward the cab before giving into a long-suffering sigh. “Please.”
I struck a pose that was an artistic combination of attitude and defiance.
He had the nerve to grin. “You are afraid to be alone with me.”
“Well, apparently my charm is so overpowering, you can’t seem to keep your hands to yourself whenever I’m near. But no, I’m not afraid of you.” And I had to talk to Mrs. Sweeney’s sister.
“Wasting daylight.”
Stomping toward the truck, I shot daggers at Beckett. “Don’t try any funny business.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He took my hand and helped me inside.
The radio played as we drove down the winding roads to Galway. Gray clouds mingled above us in the sky, and rain threatened to spill. I watched the green meadows on either side of the truck and wondered if my eyes would ever adapt to such vibrant color.
He turned on the heater. “You going to ignore me the whole way?”
“Probably.”
With a pirate’s smile, Beckett stretched his right arm across the back of the seat. His fingers grazed my shoulder, and I inched away just as my stomach gave a light growl. After waking up, I’d practiced for three hours, not bothering to stop to eat breakfast. The date for the audition was closing in, and I felt it with every passing second.
“The least you could do is offer a little conversation.” Beckett dodged a pothole, keeping his eyes on the road.
“You want me to talk?”
“It would be the polite thing to do.”
“Okay. Let’s talk.”
“Any topic will be fine.”
“I’m going to sit here and silently think of one. Might take a while.”
“We could talk about the weather.” This morning his accent was almost as strong as Nora’s coffee. “Or we could discuss politics. But that’s never a friendly subject. There’s the economy.” He took his focus off the road and leveled his gaze on me. “Or you could just tell me what happened that has you so fired up.”
“Beatrice happened. She basically framed me for cheating in English. And do you know why?”
“Just her way of showing love?”
“Because she thinks I’m a threat to you and your girlfriend Taylor.” I watched his face for any reaction, and of course there was none. The boy was a trained actor, letting me see only what he wanted me to. “Beatrice is afraid if there’s no you and Taylor, there will be fewer parts for her.” It was so dumb, just saying it out loud made me mad all over again.
The wipers squeaked against the cracked windshield, and I turned around to check on Bob.
“He’s fine,” Beckett said. “He loves the rain.”
Bob ran from one side of the truck to the other, head thrown back, snapping at raindrops with his oversize teeth.
“Nothing about you makes sense,” I said. “Not even your dog.”
“Maybe Bob and I are just misunderstood.”
“Or deranged.”
“Want me to have Beatrice fired?”
Yes. “No.” What I wanted most was answers. But I guess his silence on the Taylor subject was my answer. They were together, messed up though it was, and my lips could never touch Beckett’s again.
The rest of the hour crept by in silence. Beckett watched the road, and I stared out the window, committing the sights to heart. What would it have been like to just keep driving? To have pushed Beckett out, taken the wheel, and just kept going?
After a few wrong turns, Beckett finally pulled onto a gravel road. Rock walls lined the field around us, which was filled with grass as high as my knees.
“This is it.” Beckett passed me the directions, and I tucked them in my purse. “It’s that white house there.”
The two-story home sat in the middle of a field. A fence contained the horses that ran in the backyard. Red shutters sent out a cheery greeting, giving me hope that the woman within was just as inviting.
The truck rambled down the driveway before lurching to a stop. Beckett hopped out and came around to open my door.
“Thank you.” I delivered my appreciation to his chin as I ignored his outstretched hand. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”
“You’re not going in there by yourself. Sean and Nora would kill me.”
“A tempting idea,” I mumbled. “Fine, then, come on. But don’t get in my way.”
His smile was infuriating. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Not bothering to wait for Beckett, I boun
ded up the steps and knocked on the door.
No answer.
I set my fist to the door again. “Hello?” I called.
I heard clomping and movement in the house, and a full thirty seconds later the door opened and a small woman appeared. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Doyle? I’m Finley Sinclair—”
“Are you here about the pig?”
“No.” I cast a glance over my shoulder. “Though I brought one with me.”
“Eh?” Her bobbed hair gently curled around her ears, and her clothes were as fashionable as Mrs. Sweeney’s pajamas were not.
“Who did you say you were?”
“I’m a friend of one of your family members.”
She smiled, revealing nice, even teeth. “And which one would that be?”
“Your sister.”
Her face fell like I’d sucker punched her. “I don’t have a sister.”
“Cathleen Sweeney?”
“She’s dead to me.” Mrs. Doyle started to shut the door, but I stopped it with my hand.
“Please, you have to listen to me. Cathleen is sick.”
“In the head!”
“No.” Well, maybe a little. “She’s dying. Bone cancer. She doesn’t have much time.” The words fell to the ground like angry little bombs. Mrs. Doyle’s face tightened, but she remained expressionless, her eyes only mildly annoyed.
“I suppose she sent you to me.”
“No.” I steadied my voice, though I was desperate for her to see the urgency. “She has no idea I’m here. Please, Mrs. Doyle. Don’t let her die with this between you.”
“Did she tell you what she did?”
I shook my head.
“She took my fiancé, she did. The man I was supposed to marry. She up and married him herself. Charles Sweeney had sworn to love me all the days of my life, and he just left me for her.” Red splotches climbed up her pale neck. “You have her tell you the rest of the story. She got what was coming to her.”
“A man who abused her?”
“I’ll not listen to that. Charles was a dapper, kind man. Wouldn’t have hurt a fly. And then she lured him into her web and bled him dry. Maybe he did turn to the bottle, but she forced him. There was a curse on that marriage, and it came to no good. Cathleen stopped being me family the day she said ‘I do’ to that man.” Mrs. Doyle pulled the screen door closed. “Good day to you.” And she slammed herself inside.
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