by Dicey Deere
Sheila was nervously fiddling with the television remote. The sound suddenly blasted, an interviewer’s voice booming, “In your opinion, Doctor?” and a man in rimless glasses screamed back, “Guilt! Her enormous guilt made her do anything, anything to get money to pay for the young woman, Donna Lefevbre’s surgery. Even … murder.”
“Turn that thing down, dammit!” Winifred yelled. Sheila fumbled wildly. The volume rose to deafening; the psychiatrist’s voice thundered, “She wanted the Moore diamond necklace at any cost, even murder. Why? To expiate her former crimes—thievery, Dr. Willinger’s suicide, and paralysis of the younger girl, Donna Lefebvre.”
“Sheila! For God’s—” The television screen went blank. Sheila, pressing buttons frantically, had turned it off.
They sat. Sheila said, finally, appalled, “Paralysis? What paralysis? The paper didn’t—And we must have missed it on the TV.… Oh, Winifred!”
“For God’s sake, Sheila,” Winifred said, “don’t start that. You sound like a soap opera.” She looked at Luke in the red leather armchair. “What’s that idiot psychiatrist talking about? What paralysis?”
Luke rubbed a hand over his face, pulled his nose, coughed, then shrugged. “When it happened—the thievery, my stepfather’s suicide, all the publicity—Donna’s parents were devastated. They were in shock. George Lefebvre, Donna’s father, was a postal worker at the North Hawk post office. When the story broke, he found himself a public spectacle. Half the people in North Hawk suddenly needed rolls of stamps and a dozen other post office services. Poor George! The Lefebvres, with three younger kids, all boys, were a decent French-Canadian family, plenty like them in Massachusetts.
“Anyway—two days after my stepfather’s suicide, Donna’s mother found her packing some clothes in an old overnight bag. It was just before supper. She was terrified that Donna was so ashamed that she’d try to run away. So after supper, she and George Lefebvre sent Donna upstairs to bed and locked her in. They planned to consult their priest in the morning.”
Luke Willinger stopped. He gazed at the pattern on the library rug. He looked from Winifred to Sheila. He took a breath.
“Late that night, an ambulance brought Donna to the North Hawk Mercy Hospital. She was unconscious. They said later that she was claustrophobic. Locked in the bedroom, she was like a terrified bird, wild to escape. She jumped out of the second-story bedroom window. It did something to her spine. She couldn’t move her legs. She was paralyzed. For life.”
* * *
Neither Winifred nor Sheila moved. Then Sheila, hand at her throat, whispered, “For life … Oh, that poor … that poor—Winifred, I need a drink. I know it’s morning, Winifred, but I need it.”
“Not when you’re upset,” Winifred said impatiently. “It’ll make you sick,” and to Luke, “An appalling tale. What’s it got to do with Torrey Tunet stealing the Moore necklace?”
“Surgery. There’s a new disc operation, possible for Donna’s kind of spinal injury. Very delicate surgery. The tab, what with the hospital, therapy, medication, the works, has got to run forty, fifty thousand dollars. Maybe more.”
“So that’s what that jackass psychiatrist meant? Why Torrey Tunet stole the necklace? That, about guilt? Torrey wanted the money to pay for the operation?”
“Right.”
“God! It must have broken Torrey’s heart. Donna’s being paralyzed. She would’ve blamed herself.”
“Not to mention,” Sheila said, “that everybody in North Hawk would have blamed her, too. And for the suicide. They’d’ve treated her like a pariah.”
Winifred eyed Luke. “You, included, of course.”
He met her speculative gaze. “Naturally.”
“Balls!” Winifred’s voice crackled with outrage. She rose like a thundercloud from the tapestry chair. Her square-jawed face with its high color was furious. “Balls! For God’s sake! A daring, mischievous fourteen-year-old finds an illegal cache of money—and a twelve-year-old kid wants some drums! Where do you keep your head, Mr. Willinger? In a box buried underground?”
A voice from the doorway, tired but amused, said, “What a lot of noise in here! Sounds like the overture to Wilhelm Tell.”
They turned. Torrey Tunet, in her rumpled navy business suit, stood in the doorway, briefcase in hand. Her face was pale, she looked exhausted; but she wore lipstick that looked freshly, carefully applied.
* * *
“You’re here?” Winifred stared. “I thought you were being held by the Garda Siochana. The paper said—”
“They let me out. On bail.”
“Bail? Where did you find the money for bail?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who posted bail for you?”
Luke, in the red leather armchair, cleared his throat. “I did.”
31
In the rose marble shower with its fragrant soap, Torrey scrubbed off the linoleum-and-disinfectant smell of imprisonment, the echoing police corridors, the clang of metal doors. She slid her fingers at last through the clean silkiness of her dark hair and with her palms sleeked water from her breasts, down her waist and flanks.
“Ms. Tunet?” A knock on the bathroom door.
“Just a minute.” She stepped from the shower and snugged a towel around her breasts. In the bedroom she found Janet, the senior maid, waiting.
“Mr. Willinger wants to know if could you meet him at twelve o’clock, before lunch, at the five-bar gate. That’s just past the stables.”
“Tell him yes. Thanks, Janet.”
She was still stunned that Luke Willinger had showed up at her arraignment at the Pearse Street Garda Station and posted bail for her. Then, when she’d been in the toilet, he’d disappeared.
Bewildering. He despised her. And he believed she’d stolen the necklace. Cock-and-bull, he’d thought, when she’d tried to tell him the truth in the pub. Cock-and-bull. They all believed she’d stolen that damned necklace—the gardai, the Irish newspapers, the radio and television commentators, and the population of Ireland. And Luke Willinger. So what was he up to? Laying some kind of trap for her?
In the bedroom she sat down at the dressing table and began to put on her makeup. Behind her, Janet Slocum said, “D’you want this cleaned?” She was holding up Torrey’s dirty, crumpled navy suit. “There’s a place in Ballynagh that can do it in one day, if I ask.”
“Yes, please. And thanks.” In the mirror, she glanced at Janet, an angular woman in a pale blue uniform with a white bibbed apron. Janet had a long-jawed face and small, brown, monkeylike eyes. She was in her thirties and wore her brown hair in a bun. Something about her made Torry think she had lived hard.
* * *
Dressed in a gray flannel shirt, pink belt, dark pants, and comfortable walking boots, Torrey picked up her navy wool sweater. At the bedroom door, she turned back to Janet. “I thought Rose took care of this wing of the castle. Is she all right?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. But Rose is away. She’s off in London for a couple of days’ holiday. She’ll be back tonight.”
Something in Janet’s voice made Torrey look searchingly at her. Their eyes met. Torrey had a feeling that Janet knew what was what in a world larger than that of Ballynagh.
32
“That mare’s to be sold,” Janet said to Brian Coffey in the stable yard. Brian Coffey had just trotted Darlin’ Pie back into the yard after a half-hour’s exercise.
“What! Says who?” Brian slid down from the mare’s back, ran a caressing finger down her nose, then gave her a slap on her glossy neck and handed the reins to Kevin, the new lad. Brian’s tan cotton jersey was wet with sweat, his red hair damp, with strands sticking to his pale, freckled forehead.
“Who says so? Ms. Winifred Moore, the new owner of Castle Moore. That’s who says so.”
“Ah, no! Ms. Winifred won’t be having the stables then?” Brian’s voice was stricken. He looked unhappily after the mare that Kevin was leading into the stables. “I’ll be out of a job again! Kevin,
too. Not so bad for a young lad like him. But I’m thirty-two! And fellows lining up for my kind of job.” He looked miserably into Janet’s small, monkeylike eyes. “What about you? You and Rose?”
“Ms. Winifred’s keeping me on. Rose, too.”
Brian turned away. “I never have the luck.” His voice quavered.
Janet said, suddenly gentle, “Maybe Ms. Winifred’ll change her mind about the stables. She’s still bouncing around on the griddle. Rags to riches.”
But Brian only shook his head and turned away, shoulders sagging.
33
In the library, now that Torrey Tunet had gone upstairs to shower and Luke Willinger had gone off somewhere, Winifred and Sheila were alone. Sheila, sitting on a fringed hassock, looked at Winifred in the tapestry chair. “Heavens, Winifred! Mr. Willinger is ridiculously naïve. Bailing Torrey Tunet out of jail! Can he actually believe that Desmond gave her the necklace?”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Winifred! Of course Torrey stole it. She wanted money for Donna Lefebvre’s surgery. Commendable, I’m sure. Nevertheless, theft and murder.” Sheila shuddered. “And may I remind you, Winifred, that the necklace is rightfully yours, as part of your inheritance.”
“Rightfully? Desmond just might have given it to Ms. Tunet. She’s not beautiful, but she’s got something different, special. Poetic, you might say. Anyone could see Desmond was tomcatting after her. He might’ve given her the necklace. For future sexual favors.”
“Sexual favors? Ridiculous!” Sheila yanked at the fringe of the hassock. “Desmond was rich and attractive. He could get all the sexual favors he wanted. He wouldn’t need to bribe a woman with expensive gifts. He’d only to say a flattering word and crook his little finger.”
Winifred gave a bark of a laugh. “Desmond despised women! Seducing a woman with a necklace, buying her, in effect, gave him license to do whatever he wanted with her. Or rather…” She shrugged.
“Or rather, what?”
“—Or rather, to her. To Desmond, women were contemptible flesh to be used. Knowing Desmond, I’d say used sadistically.”
“Oh, Winifred!” Sheila pulled nervously at the fringe of the hassock.
“As for Torrey,” Winifred said, “there’s something pristine and courageous about her. He’d have the added pleasure of turning her into a slut. He’d gloat.”
“That’s disgusting. You can’t really believe your cousin Desmond would—”
“You’re ruining that fringe, Sheila … my fringe, now.”
“—really believe Desmond was that … that perverted. You’ve no foundation. You just arbitrarily think such awful things.”
Winifred shrugged. Still, she was positive that there was more to it than the months of punishing sex-on-demand, sex of every variety Desmond might have demanded from Torrey Tunet, or even the vicious pleasure of turning Torrey into a slut. Slut wasn’t quite right. Victim was closer.
“You make things up out of thin air,” Sheila said.
“Maybe so.” But there it was: her suspicion that a certain kind of ugliness in her cousin Desmond had started years ago, such long, sad years ago.
34
Fergus Callaghan, with an aching sense of foreboding, knocked and almost stumbled into Maureen Devlin’s cottage, barely waiting for her to call out to him to come in.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Devlin.”
He stood just inside the cottage door, holding the can of green paint he’d brought and seeing Maureen spottily because of the bright sunlight he’d come in from and the dimness of the room. Maureen Devlin had done what she could with this old deserted gamekeeper’s cottage, but she couldn’t punch out windows and let in the sunlight.
“I had my kitchen painted,” he said, distractedly, “and I had this green left over, almost half a can. I thought maybe for your front door.” He tried to quell his feeling of apprehension. No, more than apprehension: fear. “I could paint it for you.” His voice shook. Green paint. Pitiful excuse for coming to the cottage.
“Paint?” Maureen’s voice was dull. Fergus felt an even sharper unease. Maureen was at the stove, moving pots around in an aimless, distracted way. She was in her long, black skirt and a gray blouse with the sleeves rolled up. Her curly, burnished-looking hair, tinged with gray, was held back from her forehead by small, curved combs on each side, above her ears.
Now that Fergus could see better, he saw fearfully that Maureen’s face was pale and strained. And when she glanced toward him, there was not the usual mischief in her eyes as though she was teasing him, laughing at his awkward shyness with her. She seemed, in fact, not even to see him. Finola, he thought. Does she know about Finola? He felt a choking in his throat. He managed, “I thought … maybe if you don’t want green, I have some white left over from the trim. I’d only have to throw it away if I didn’t give it to you.” What did she know about Finola? Where was Finola? The door to the bedroom where she and Finola slept was closed.
“I’ve no time for painting.” She didn’t even thank him; she just stood rubbing her arms and looking into space as if he weren’t there.
He felt dizzy with a kind of panic. He said, “I could paint it for you … the front door. I could use the brush the painter used for my kitchen.”
Maureen didn’t answer. She uncovered a big bowl on the table, punched down a batch of dough, and covered the bowl again with the towel.
A kitchen timer pinged. Maureen put on mitten pot holders and took a pan of bread from the oven. “Finola put these in for me. They’re just ready.” She put the loaves on a wooden rack on the table, six fragrant loaves. The delicious smell of fresh-baked bread filled the room.
Maureen stood very still for a moment, her back to him; then she turned. “The papers say that the American young woman, Torrey Tunet, killed Desmond Moore. What will they do to her? The police?”
Fergus said, “I don’t know.”
Only now did Maureen meet his gaze. The anguish in her eyes was like a blow. He felt such a rush of pity and love and horror and terror that he might have screamed or fallen to the floor. But he only stood there holding the can of green paint, the wire handle cutting into his fingers.
Maureen said, “Leave the paint. And thank you … Did you come to order bread? You can have one of these loaves if you like.”
He lowered the can of paint to the floor.
“I’ll make holes in the bag because the bread’s still hot; it mustn’t get soggy.” Maureen put a loaf into a brown paper bag. She pierced the bag several times with a fork. Fergus put down his pounds and pence and picked up the bag. He could feel the heat of the bread rising from it.
Outside, going toward his motorbike, Fergus felt dizzily at war with himself, as though he were two people. All his life he had been a man of honor.
So this was agony. Agony because of the patent leather doll’s shoe that he’d seen on Desmond’s desk in the library at Castle Moore on Thursday morning. He had been putting his briefcase of genealogy papers on the library table when it had caught his eye. A doll’s shoe, black patent leather, with a pink rosette, a tiny fake diamond centered in the rosette. Staring at the little shoe, he had felt sick. But could a maid have found the shoe and put it on the desk? He had to know. He had to know. He had then searched through Desmond’s desk, searched through his personal papers, found his Visa statements, and run a trembling finger down lists of purchases. And stopped at one. The doll had not been bought in Dublin, but in another city. And with reason: Careful, ugly planning. That kind of reason. And its fruition. A child’s fear and guilt. But then something had gone wrong for the molester, and Finola had put the doll in a plastic bag and buried it in the woods.
But even then he had not been able to believe it. Was it really so? He had left the library and in the woods where he had seen Finola bury her treasure by the bramble bush, he had brushed away the dirt and uncovered the little doll’s shoe still wrapped in his handkerchief. It was the mate to the doll’s shoe that was now in his pocket. O
r was it really the mate?
For a moment, he just knelt there. Then he dug deeper.
The doll was in a plastic bag. He could see pink and blue through the plastic.
He’d pulled off the plastic and gazed at the doll. Expensive. Golden-brown hair, a delicately painted ceramic face, the glass eyes with their curly lashes, the silk dress, and the crocheted socks; the socks had each a tiny rosebud. But the shoes were missing. Of course. One had been wrapped in his handkerchief, the other in his pocket.
It was the rosebuds on the socks that somehow filled Fergus with horror, as though they made him realize the actuality of the doll being there, having been buried and now in his hands.
He’d carefully put the doll back in the plastic bag and gone back to his motorbike beside the bridle path. He’d slid the bag into the carrier on the motorbike.
He had not returned to Castle Moore. All the way back to Dublin, he was sick with rage. In his kitchen on Boylston Street, he sat for a long time with his head in his hands.
* * *
Now, this terrible Friday morning, holding the bag of bread, Fergus stumbled away from the cottage. He was filled with fear and pity for Maureen. That fearful anguish in her eyes, anguish because she knew. Maureen at the stove moving pots around in an aimless, distracted way, her face pale and strained. The way she seemed not even to see him. Maureen of the lovely white feet, of the delicious bread, the droll humor, the love for her little girl. Maureen, Maureen, Maureen …
But if Inspector O’Hare learned of the molestation of Finola and its perpetrator, the owner of Castle Moore, he would train his sights on the dangerously wild-hearted Maureen Devlin. He loved Maureen Devlin. Above all, he loved Maureen. The arrest of Torrey Tunet as a suspect in the murder of Desmond Moore had stunned him. He had blindly assumed that Desmond’s murder would forever remain a mystery. What now was he to do?
* * *
When Fergus Callaghan was gone, Maureen folded her arms and shivered. She stood gazing unseeingly at the fresh-baked loaves on the rack. Hours crawling with horror, the night a waking nightmare. A chestnut horse with a red-and-black plaid blanket; she had known in shock who it was when Finola had said it.