Scandal in Skibbereen (A County Cork Mystery)

by Connolly, Sheila

  “That is correct,” Detective Hurley answered.

  “So why should I tell you anything?”

  “Because we’re hoping that you can help us clear up what happened to Seamus Daly, and possibly to the man Miss Melville thinks may have died in the river late last night,” Detective Hurley said. “You were with her late last night when the assault occurred?” He glanced at Sean. “Garda Murphy, would you keep the record of this discussion?”

  Sean pulled a small pad from a pocket and prepared to take notes.

  Once again Althea interrupted. “Nate, just tell them, will you? They already know a lot of it.”

  Nate rubbed his hands over his face, which sported a day’s worth of stubble. “Okay, okay—I just want this to be over.”

  “Mr. Reynolds,” Detective Hurley said. “From the beginning, if you don’t mind.”

  Nate shifted uncomfortably in his chair once again. “It all began with that damn painting.”

  Nate had their full attention, whether he noticed it or not. Maura thought he was too focused on his own misery, mental and physical, to care. “You want the long version or the short one?” he asked the detective.

  “We’re in no hurry,” Detective Hurley replied. Not much like Boston, Maura thought yet again.

  “Okay, let me start at the beginning. Back home I work for an auction house in New Jersey, and I go out scouting for auction items, usually estate sales—you know, like when somebody dies and the relatives want to unload the contents of the house. Once in a while we put out a call for people to bring in things they think might be valuable, and we set up in a big space and take a look. You might not believe it, but a lot of people show up, especially these days when money’s tight. Of course, a lot of what they bring in isn’t worth much at all, but there are those rare occasions when we see something special.”

  He paused for a swallow of tea. “So at one of those, in the middle of the afternoon, this ordinary-looking woman named Dorothy Ryan comes in and unwraps this painting and I nearly pass out, it was that good. That’s the kind of thing we all hope for, but not many people find things like that. But I wanted to be sure before I made a big thing of it, so I called Althea to double-check. I’ve known her for years—she’s got a good eye, and sometimes she points people toward our auction house. I knew she was working on a portrait exhibit, so I asked if she’d come by and take a look at the painting. She and I met with Dorothy the next day, and Althea’s reaction was about the same as mine—basically, ‘Wow.’ But we agreed that the painting was only a sketch. When we asked Dorothy about where she thought her painting came from, she didn’t have a clue. All she could tell us was that the person she’d inherited it from, her great-aunt Jane Deasy, had come from Ireland as a young woman, but nobody in the family talked about Ireland at all. So that was all we had. I told Dorothy that our auction house would be delighted to help her sell the painting she had. She didn’t say anything at the time, but I figured out that Althea was betting that there was a finished portrait to go with the sketch. I mean, it made sense. And I knew that if she could find it, it would be really big news in the art history world. But that was later. When we were all together, I think Dorothy would have gone along with selling it right away—she’s not an oil painting kind of woman, and I think she needs the money. But then Althea told her that it would be worth more if it had a solid provenance.”

  “Is that correct, Miss Melville?” Detective Hurley asked.

  “Please, call me Althea. I hate this ‘Miss Melville’ thing. Okay, yeah, Nate is correct as far as it goes. But I never told him that I was going to Ireland—that idea didn’t even occur to me until later that night, after I’d done a little poking around on the Internet. And he didn’t tell me he was going to do the same thing.” Althea sat back, crossed her arms, and glared at Nate.

  “Well, I didn’t plan to either!” Nate shot back. “After you left, I figured I’d talk to Dorothy Ryan and convince her that selling through us quickly was in her best interests.”

  “Jerk,” Althea muttered. “And you’re wrong. Putting the two paintings together would increase the value substantially. You should know that.”

  “But I didn’t know there was another painting!” Nate protested. “Not then.”

  “So we know that Althea moved quickly and came to Ireland,” Detective Hurley said, putting the discussion back on track. “When did you decide to follow?”

  “I didn’t follow her, not exactly. I don’t know what I would have done, but Dorothy went home and blabbed to her dad, Joseph Ryan, all about the wonderful things she’d found out about that old painting and how much money it might be worth. So the next day, Dad comes looking for me. He asks me if what Dorothy said was right, and when I say yes, he says something like, ‘I’ll be damned—it was true.’ Turns out his mother, or rather, the woman he grew up believing was his mother, had died a while back, and after she was gone, his so-called father thought he deserved the truth, that Joseph was really Jane’s son, but Mary Margaret Deasy had refused to tell Joseph or let her husband do it. Joseph didn’t know what to make of the story, and he had no idea where to find Jane or even if he wanted to, so in the end he did nothing. Then Dorothy told him about the painting and he realized that the story was true. He didn’t have a lot of details, but did have the name of the place: Leap. Which has only one manor house, so it was easy to find. I figured it was worth a shot, and I hopped on a plane. That’s how I got here so fast.”

  Harry snorted. “I hope they’re not looking for money, because they’re going to be disappointed—we have none. Look, I’m happy to let Dorothy keep the painting and sell it if she wishes, so Nate and Althea can settle that between them.”

  “So let me be sure I have this right,” the detective said to Nate. “You wanted Dorothy to sell the painting she has—through your company—as quickly as possible, and then suddenly you decided that Althea was looking for its mate, and you came chasing after her? Why the urgency?”

  “Selling the painting as a ‘maybe’ Van Dyck would definitely bring in money,” Nate said, “but putting it up for sale with authentication would bring in a whole lot more, and finding the finished portrait would up the value again. I know Althea didn’t care about seeing it sold—she was thinking about her precious exhibition, and if she could find the second one she’d be on top of the world. Of course, the little sketch would sell well later, after the exhibition closed, but that would be months later . . .” Nate stopped, realizing that his own argument didn’t make sense.

  “You wanted the money now,” Maura said flatly. “Why so fast, if you could make a lot more if you waited?”

  Nate looked more and more uncomfortable. “Well, it’s true that I need the money. I’ll admit that some of the bigger items I’ve brought to the auction house didn’t bring as much as I’d hoped. And the auction business is struggling right now, as you might guess, although I believe it’s on the way to recovering.”

  He was still dodging around something, Maura thought. “Okay, you wanted money now instead of later,” she said. “You didn’t want to wait, what, six months, a year, to make a whole lot more? Why? You’ve got a kid who needs surgery? A mother who can’t afford her nursing home? A huge drug habit?”

  Nate just looked at her miserably. And then something clicked for Maura. “You’re from New Jersey. Atlantic City. You’re a gambler, and you owe somebody, big time.”

  “Is that what this is about, Nate? How stupid are you?” Althea burst out. She turned to the rest of the group. “Would you believe we actually met at a conference in Atlantic City? It never occurred to me that he might be a gambler. And then he turns around and double-crosses me and goes behind my back to try to sell this thing”—she faced Nate again—“just to pay off your bookie or whatever?”

  “Loan shark,” Nate muttered, looking at his feet.

  Sean Murphy watched the exchange, bewildered, and Maura took pity on him. “Nate got in over his head with his gambling problem, and now some
body wants their money, fast. This woman Dorothy dropped in like a gift from heaven, and of course he wants to sell the painting as fast as he can, to settle up with whoever it is he owes. How’m I doing, Nate?”

  Nate shut his eyes. “About ninety percent right. Yes, I kind of got in over my head, and, yes, that sale would put things right for me. When Joe Ryan told me where to look in Ireland, I figured I could get here before Althea and cut a deal with the owner. Assuming, of course, that the painting existed.”

  “I never told you I was coming to Ireland!” Althea all but shrieked. “And I would have shared with you.”

  Nate shrugged. “I figured you’d do what I’d do, and I was right, because here you are. And I couldn’t wait—I’m in for too much now.”

  “Yet Althea beat you to it,” the detective said. “You knew that she was close to finding the painting?”

  “Hard not to, once I got here. Everybody around here talks. God, how they talk! Lots of people in pubs around here were going on about this American lady’s treasure hunt. I worked it out that she was using Sullivan’s as her home base, so I stayed away from there. I figured the most important thing was to find out if the painting really was here in the manor, and if it was, I had to talk to the owner before she did.”

  “Could you not have approached the house directly?”

  “I knew that Althea had tried and had the door shut in her face,” Nate replied.

  “Oh, dear,” Eveline said. “The O’Briens are quite protective. I fear they let few people in. I must have a word with them.” Harry rolled his eyes.

  Detective Hurley’s eyes had grown cold. “Mr. Reynolds, you’re telling us a nice tale, but it doesn’t ring true. You say you were hard on the heels of Althea?”

  “Yes.”

  “She arrived in Leap on the Thursday and first approached the house that same evening and failed to gain entry. Later that night a man was killed at the manor. Where were you that night?”

  “Last Thursday?” Nate made a good show of trying to think. “I’ve been staying at that hotel in Rosscarbery where your officer found me. I think that’s the night I checked in. You can check with them.”

  “Why that place in particular?”

  “There’s not a lot to choose from around here, is there?”

  “There’s a nice hotel in Skibbereen,” the detective said.

  “Yeah, but that’s where Althea was staying, and I didn’t want to run into her.”

  “But Althea didn’t know she was going to stay there until I sent her there, Thursday night,” Maura said suddenly. “How would you know she was there?”

  “I followed her from the pub that night.”

  Althea apparently couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she settled for glaring at Nate.

  “And yet you somehow managed to avoid being observed,” the detective said, “which I’m sure you’ve noticed can be difficult in small towns such as this. You saw Althea go to Mycroft House, and you were close enough to observe the reception she received there. You saw her leave. But you didn’t leave, did you? You believed the painting was in that house, so you thought you’d find out for yourself. You waited until it was full dark, and then you tried to gain access to the house, to look for yourself. You waited until all the lights went out, but you hadn’t counted on meeting the gardener in the dark.”

  “I don’t have to answer that, do I?” Nate said.

  “We’re just discussing hypothetical situations here,” Detective Hurley said, unperturbed. “The doctor at the Rosscarbery clinic extracted several shotgun pellets from your backside. Tom O’Brien, the caretaker here, admits to having fired a shotgun at what he thought was a prowler on Monday night, and Garda Murphy found blood at the scene. I find it unlikely that the pellets retrieved from you came from anywhere other than Tom O’Brien’s shotgun.”

  “But that was Monday! Okay, okay, that was me trying to get into the house on Monday, to find the painting, but I didn’t kill the guy on the Thursday before!”

  “Then let’s return to that Thursday night, if we may?”

  Nate’s chin came up defiantly. “If you have a question, ask it.”

  “Seamus Daly was found dead on the lawn at Mycroft House on Friday morning, by Tom O’Brien.”

  “On the lawn?” Nate looked first incredulous, then relieved. “Then he didn’t . . .”

  “What, Mr. Reynolds? Who didn’t do what?”

  At first it looked as though Nate was going to refuse to answer, but finally his shoulders slumped and he said, “I guess I’m going to have to tell the truth.”

  Chapter 28

  Detective Hurley gave a nearly imperceptible sigh. “Mr. Reynolds, I think you’ll need to explain. And try to be thorough this time, will you?”

  “Fine. I’m not going to take the blame for the gardener’s murder.” Nate Reynolds sat up straighter. “All right, I was at the house Thursday night, late, but I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t go inside.”

  “Who was with you? Was it Althea?”

  “No. It was some goon named Ray who works for that loan shark and who insisted on tagging along from New Jersey so I wouldn’t skip out on what I owed. His parents were Irish, so I guess he thought it would be funny to be here with me, kind of like a working vacation. Althea didn’t know either of us was here.”

  “So it was your . . . shall we say, watchdog, who went inside the manor house on Thursday?”

  “Yeah. And it was his idea. He wanted to be sure the painting was real and I wasn’t just handing him a line about it. He figured I was too much of a klutz to break in and find it myself—which is true—so he decided to do it. We waited until about three o’clock and thought everybody would be asleep. The windows on this manor are a joke—no locks or anything. I told him what to look for. Ray went in through a window, but he came out about five minutes later and said we were leaving, no explanation. I heard about the murder the next day. But the reports said the guy was found on the lawn, and he sure wasn’t on the lawn when Ray and I left the place.”

  Detective Hurley did not comment immediately, and Maura could understand why. If Ray had run into Seamus inside the house and killed him, then how had Seamus ended up on the lawn with the bloody shovel? Who had moved him outside and placed the shovel nearby? And why?

  Detective Hurley turned away from Nate Reynolds and addressed Eveline. “Miss Townsend, how long have the O’Briens worked at Mycroft House?”

  Eveline glanced at Harry. “Oh, it must be ten years now. I couldn’t manage this place by myself. And Harry wanted to know that there was someone here to look after me. Sweet of him.”

  “Is that correct, Mr. Townsend?”

  “More or less,” Harry said. “I worried about Aunt Evie, rattling around alone in this drafty old barn of a place, but she didn’t want to leave it, and she had every right to stay. So I found the O’Briens. I couldn’t afford to pay them much, but I offered them a place to stay in the manor. Overall it’s worked out well.”

  “Are you happy here with the O’Briens, Miss Townsend?”

  “I have no complaints. I know this old building has its problems, but Tom has managed to keep it going, although there are rooms we no longer use. And Florence is an excellent cook and has very high standards for cleaning.”

  “And Seamus? How did he fit in?”

  “Seamus had nowhere else to go. As you know, he was a bit touched, but a hard worker and a good person. If Seamus came upon someone and confronted him, he’d have only been looking out for the household.”

  “I don’t doubt it. I suspect he surprised an intruder and unfortunately paid the price.”

  “But he was killed by a shovel, on the lawn!” Nate protested.

  “The blow from the shovel was not the fatal one. It was intended to conceal the real cause. Harry, I’d like to have a word with the O’Briens. Can you fetch them for me?”

  “The both of them?” Harry stood up reluctantly. “Why?”

  “They may know more than
they’ve said,” the detective replied, giving nothing away.

  A tense silence fell after Harry left to round up the O’Briens. Althea refused even to look at Nate, and Maura wondered if she was mentally orchestrating her campaign to trumpet her discovery of the lost painting, although it now appeared to be slipping away rapidly. Maybe she could take comfort in the fact that Nate wasn’t going to get either painting anytime soon.

  Gillian leaned toward Eveline. “Are you all right? Would you like more tea?”

  Eveline gave her a sweet smile. “I’m quite fine, my dear, and thank you for asking. To tell the truth, I haven’t had so much excitement in years. I regret that it came about through the death of poor Seamus, though. Do you know what happened to him, Detective?”

  “I think I do, Miss Townsend, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  Harry returned quickly, shepherding Florence and Tom O’Brien before him. Maura thought they looked nervous, but maybe they weren’t used to dealing with the head of the Skibbereen gardaí. Or did they have something to hide? The drawing room was becoming crowded now. “Shall I find some more chairs?” Harry said, looking at Detective Hurley.

  “If you don’t mind,” he replied.

  With a barely suppressed sigh, Harry went out into the hall and retrieved two side chairs. There was more shifting and bumping while everyone adjusted their positions to accommodate the two newcomers. When they were all more or less settled, Detective Hurley began, “How long have you been employed at Mycroft House, Mr. O’Brien?”

  “I worked here as a boy,” Tom O’Brien said. “There was more staff then. I married Florence some twenty years ago, and we’ve been here ten, give or take.”

  “Harry—we’ve watched him grow up,” Florence said. “His parents died in that awful accident, right after he left university. When he left to find work in Dublin, he wanted someone to look after Eveline, keep the house up, and the like. It suited us all.”