“Meg, hush, keep it down. It’s more involved than that. You don’t know all the facts.”
Sure enough, the younger, blond partner appeared in the doorway of the bar-lounge, went over to the bar and ordered a drink. He had the briefcase with him and set it down on the floor. One end of it faced their table.
“What do you mean, I don’t know all the facts?”
“Meg, please quiet down,” he urged her. Her eyes flicked over to the bar. Her mouth opened slightly but she hushed up.
So predictable, Jake thought disparagingly. Now that Major Temple had agreed to wait and see, his team was telegraphing their boss’s distrust of Jake’s strategy by recording and dissecting his every move. Of course. They suspect you’ve crossed the line. And you have. They know you slept with Meg. You’ve compromised the investigation by carrying things too far.
“Let me paint a picture, Meg. “ He leaned in closer and dropped his voice a register. “It’s wartime. Your grandmother’s job was to transcribe and translate radio messages sent from France, from the French Resistance. A message comes through, a Resistance fighter asking for help. He’s harboring a family of Jewish refugees from…maybe Alsace-Lorraine. He needs them to be picked up and transported over the border to Switzerland or maybe picked up by the Royal Navy or Allied forces and given refuge. Instead, the spy in the War Office transcribes it differently or doesn’t report it at all, but she marks down the coordinates. Then reports it to the SS on her hidden transmitter. Black-uniformed SS officers sweep down and machine-gun the Resistance fighter, the Jewish family and everyone else in the village—man, woman, child. Not before they torture the Resistance fighter into revealing the identities of the other patriots in the area.” Jake frowned and took a deep breath. “Do you see the terrible damage such a spy would cause?”
Meg’s eyes filled up again. “You think my grandmother could do such a thing?”
All of a sudden, Robert Morse’s high-pitched voice could be heard from the lobby, gathering his flock. Then other excited voices.
“Come, mates! Time for an Irish jaunty-car ride!”
“Just observe, Meg,” whispered Jake, moving his chair closer to her, his back to the bar. “Observe what your grandmother does while we’re on this little jaunt. See if she reacts to what should be familiar places to her. Remember, Mary McCoy spent the first seventeen years of her life here in Killarney and then three in Dublin. She should know this place like the back of her hand.”
“Grandma’s spoken very little about Killarney, or even Ireland. That was one reason why I wanted to come. I was curious.”
“Meg, put that rational, analytical mind of yours to work. Listen, her parents drowned in Ross Bay—” Jake opened up a local map for her and pointed it out. Then he circled the area of Ross Bay on the map in ink. At least she was willing to listen to what he had to say, though her posture was stiff and unyielding.
“We’re going right by there today on this cart ride. One of the drivers I just spoke to outside said we’ll be heading through the park area back to the downtown center, then over to St. Mary’s Cathedral. The cathedral is where Mary McCoy attended mass every day of her life. She was a very devout Catholic. Father Dillon was assistant pastor there for many years. This is the priest Mary corresponded with during the war. He kept her parents’ important legal papers in his files in the rectory office.”
He was speaking fast, cramming as much in as he could. It appeared that Meg was following all of this, so he went on, making sure his back was to the bar, blocking the directional mike that was aimed their way.
“Downtown, on High Street, is where the McCoy pub is. It’s called the Muckross Stag. Mike McCoy, the man on the ferry who assaulted you, is half owner of this pub. He’s Mary McCoy’s first cousin, and that’s a substantiated fact, Meg. Mary McCoy inherited half ownership in that pub after her parents drowned. About here.” Jake circled the place on the map. Meg nodded her understanding even though her brows were knitted together. She was taking it all in.
“Another important landmark. The driver’ll be taking us down Countess Road. We’ll be passing her childhood home.” Jake circled the cathedral, the Muckross Stag pub and the approximate site of the home on Countess Road. “It’s a three-story Victorian, now a B and B called Lough Leane House. Lough is Irish Gaelic, for lake—like loch is in Scottish Gaelic. Anyway, that’s the big lake in the park we’ll be passing through today. Got all this?”
“Yes. I think so,” she said, staring at the circles on the map. “Let me keep this.”
He gave it to her. “Lough Leane House. I spoke to the owner. It used to be gray with white trim. Now it’s gray with black trim but he claims it hasn’t changed in the past fifty, sixty years. Except for the paint job, everything’s the same. Same trees in front, same walkway. Your grandmother should recognize it.” Jake pointed again to Countess Road on the map.
A small concession, perhaps, but Meg curtly folded the map in two and buried it in the pocket of her red blazer. He gave her an encouraging half-smile and leaned over to kiss her, but she turned her face away from his hovering mouth.
Okay, still mad. Might be mad at me the rest of her life. What more can I do?
They slipped off their chairs and joined the others.
Mary Snider appeared in the lobby, holding onto the arms of both Pierre and Madeleine Le Blanc. Oversized sunglasses hid her eyes, and she wore her usual garb of coat, pantsuit, gloves and loafers. Cooly, she snubbed even Meg as she walked alongside the Le Blancs to one of the open-air horsecarts. Jake followed closely behind, determined to be in the same jaunty car with Mary Snider and Meg.
Jake wondered if the old lady realized her big test was today. Would she pass or fail?
Chapter Twenty-Six
A huge, chestnut-colored, Irish draught horse stood snuffling in the cool air, looking more excited than the short, wiry old codger standing next to him. The man was gap-toothed but wore a wry grin and a rakish sporting cap, and Jake had paid him to take an extra detour down Countess Road.
At a signal from Jake, the little man ushered the group Jake was with into the back of his cart. He introduced himself as Danny Boy. After he and Jake helped everyone into the back of the jaunty cart—four passengers on each side, facing each other—Danny Boy climbed up to his perch on the front bench. He took reins in hand, turned around to bestow his gap-toothed smile on everyone.
“Hello, me good folks. Someone once asked me, Danny Boy, how is tipplin’ a pint of Guinness good for you? I says to him, I says, it makes you see double and feel single.” He cackled and some of his passengers obliged him with laughter. Jake and Meg, sitting next to each other, went along with the old boy and smiled. “So if any of you pretty ladies want to sit up here with ol’ Danny Boy, I’m feelin’ downright single today.”
One of the New Jersey sisters wedged between Hank and her sister agreed to do just that and climbed over the back of the bench, plopped herself down beside the old rascal.
“So, are you married, Danny Boy?” she asked, playing along, the straight man to the man’s comic routine.
“No, can’t say I am, pretty lady. And why not, you might ask. Well, the women that were available weren’t suitable. The ones that were suitable weren’t available.”
And on the banter went, evoking appreciative chuckles and a few groans from the cartload of tourists. They took off, going north on Muckross Road. Jake knew where they were heading first, Danny Boy having already shown him the route.
He faced the Le Blancs and beside them, Mary Snider—not that he could see much of her face in those outsized Jackie Kennedy sunglasses. Maybe that was her plan. She’d occasionally throw a small smile the driver’s way, or a smug sneer at the Le Blancs, who seemed to regard this cart ride as a requisite form of lowbrow entertainment that had to be endured for the sake of group camaraderie.
Meg was next to him, facing her grandmother, who sat closest to the driver’s bench. Jake noted that Meg had taken the map out as a reminder
of the vital landmarks that should jog her grandmother’s memory. She kept it folded so her grandmother and the Le Blancs couldn’t see the circled places. The cart jostled them a little as it wheeled down the road, and Jake couldn’t help but rub arms from time to time with Meg. The physical contact reminded him of their night of hot lovemaking and bolstered Jake’s hope. Maybe, just maybe, he could win back her affections. In the next minute, when she leaned away, his hopes were dashed.
It grew cooler in the leafy park, the shadows deepened, and the sounds and smells were definitely earthy and woodsy. On one side going south loomed Ross Bay and the ruins of a medieval castle on a large island. White swans glided in the water among tall, spindly reeds, harvested for the local thatched roofs, they were told. The thick woods made a lush green bower overhead as they veered off the asphalt road and took a smaller, dirt path.
When Jake asked about the lake fish, he learned that various kinds of trout and salmon inhabited the lough. It made sense, then, that the McCoys would take a prospective foreign buyer out fishing on the lake.
Meanwhile, Danny Boy kept feeding a willing and not-so-gullible Jeannie a stream of pick-up lines. “See that red deer over there?” Everyone looked at the two does in a pasture they were passing. “That’s a pretty gal, but I prefer the two-legged deer, meself.”
“Are there any wolves in this park?” Jeannie asked coyly.
“Only one. Tis me, pretty colleen,” a leering Danny remarked. “Ah, going through Monks Woods now. Know why they’re named Monks Woods?”
“No, why?” the two sisters chimed in, enjoying the driver’s repertoire of one-liners.
“Well, me darlin’s, because the monks would but the nuns wouldn’t.” Groans. The ol’ rake took a nip from his whiskey flask. “Savin’ funeral costs. Embalming me body early.”
Chuckles, followed by a titter of laughs from the women. Even Meg was enjoying herself, her lighthearted laughter pleasant sounding to his ears. Ah, Meg, if only things were different.
Jake felt Meg elbow him. She was pointing to Ross Bay on the map. “Grandma, this is Ross Bay,” Meg ventured.
“I know, that’s what he”—Mary Snider yanked a thumb Danny’s way—“told us. So? What about it?”
Meg shrugged. “Nothing, just that Robert said something terrible happened here during the war.”
“Nothing I know about. Did Robert talk about it, Madeleine? Pierre?”
The Le Blancs shook their heads. Meg frowned. Her prompt wasn’t having any effect on her grandmother’s memory. Surely, Mary McCoy would’ve recalled where her parents had drowned.
“I might’ve misheard what he said, but I thought he said someone drowned there.” Another cue falling on deaf ears.
Danny Boy half turned in his seat. “I was just a tiny boy but I recall, I do, a funeral for a family that drowned while fishing. Right on the bay by the point there. Don’t remember their name but they used to own one of the pubs in town.”
“Does that ring a bell, Grandma?” Meg asked.
“Nope. I must’ve been in London by then.”
No expression, no emotion, Jake noted; too bad he couldn’t see the old lady’s eyes. Clever ol’ bat, trying to hide behind the sunglasses. Or were her eyes just sore and strained from insomnia?
His arm draped around the back of Meg’s seat, Jake leaned over her and whispered, “Not true. Mary McCoy was called home from Dublin for the funeral. After that, she sold the house on Countess Road and the gas station her parents owned. Then left for London.”
Meg turned her head away, choosing to face the front of the cart.
Okay, Jake scolded himself; take it easy. Let her arrive at the truth in her own time. It takes time for the heart to catch up to the brain. Meg’s no different from anybody else.
Danny Boy’s horse turned west through a thicket of beech trees; ferns grew wild here, as well as the prickly bushes that Danny Boy called gorse.
“I hear there’re no snakes in Ireland,” Jeannie said.
“No, none t’all. Just in the local pubs.”
Traveling past another point in the bay, the horse cart veered north around a pasture of lowing cows. Their long-haired coats were reddish-brown. A family of red deer scampered among the cows.
“See them cows? They’re cousins to the Scottish Highlander cattle. They like the open range but we Irish like ’em in our stews and pasties, we do.”
The two sisters made ee-yewing sounds of mock horror and Danny Boy cackled. Meg glanced up at Jake and smiled, as if to say, it takes more than beef-eating talk to disgust a Texan. Heartened, Jake placed his left hand on her shoulder. She shook it off.
Danny Boy led the horse to the right, heading back to town. The spires of St. Mary’s Cathedral were visible in front of them, north of New Street Road, where they’d just turned onto after leaving the lush beauty of the park. Meg straightened in her seat and tensed up.
“St. Mary’s Cathedral,” explained Danny Boy, “though I’ve never been inside. Against my religion, ye know.”
Meg’s neck craned as she stared at the neo-Gothic, stone cathedral, then whipped back to look at her grandmother. No reaction from Mary Snider.
Clip-clopping on the asphalted road, Danny Boy’s huge horse steered the jaunty car past the old church onto High Street, the main street of the town. Shops, pubs, restaurants and offices lined both sides of the street. As they neared The Muckross Stag, Jake nudged Meg. She glanced down at the map, then up at her grandmother.
“Grandma, we’ll have to come back tonight and eat at that pub. Doesn’t it look charming? And the name, so quaint. The Muckross Stag.” She emphasized the name loudly.
Mary Snider grimaced. “I’m not deaf, Meggie. Aren’t you tired of these pubs? I am. I’ll eat in the hotel tonight with Pierre and Madeleine. You go out—” The elderly woman made a small gesture of irritation directed Jake’s way, then huddled down into her coat collar.
No sign of recognition. Not even the pub’s name sparked a response. Meg’s dark-blonde brows furrowed more deeply. As they passed the pub, Meg stared at it forlornly as if it held the key to her grandmother’s past. A past that was slipping away before her very eyes.
A fantasy that never was, not for Mary Snider, Jake thought. A part of her deep cover that whoever she really was had long since forgotten.
They turned right to go south on High St. St. Mary’s Church loomed on their left. It was Church of England, rebuilt in the 1870’s, Jake had read. Danny Boy pointed out the stained glass windows and remarked wryly that he’d set foot in every pub in Killarney but was a stranger to the churches in town.
Meg again tried to evoke her grandmother’s memories. “Grandma, isn’t this the church you used to go to? You and your parents? It’s St. Mary’s.”
Mary Snider looked around and nodded. “Yes, St. Mary’s, that’s it.”
Jake posed innocently, “Weren’t you raised a Catholic, Mrs. Snider?”
“Yes,” the elderly woman said sharply, “why would that concern you?”
“Oh, no concern,” he replied. “It’s just that this church is Anglican, not Catholic.”
He could hear Meg suck in a harsh breath. “Are you sure?”
Danny Boy had obviously overheard their exchange. “Sure, ’tis true enough, miss. This church, St. Mary’s Church of Ireland, is Anglican. Has been ever since it was built, oh, back over a hundred years. The cathedral, also named St. Mary’s, is Catholic. Any more than that, ’tis certain I can’t say, never having set foot in either one.”
Jake could see the old lady frowning despite her huge sunglasses; he guessed she was scrambling mentally to recover from her slip-up. After sixty-five years, the old spy had forgotten some of her cover story.
“That’s what I meant, Meggie, the cathedral. The cathedral was where I went to church.”
“So you’re a Killarney native, missus?” Danny Boy inquired in his lilting accent.
“It’s been over sixty years,” Mary Snider remarked crisply, “I don�
��t remember much. Everything’s changed.”
“I see,” the driver said, “and what was your family name?”
“McCoy,” Meg supplied, then added pointedly. “Maybe you knew the McCoys. They used to own The Muckross Stag.”
Mary Snider appeared to visibly wince. Her bug-eyed glasses swiveling to Jake, she scowled. Only he could have told her granddaughter about the pub. Jake realized with a mental flinch, now the old lady would know for certain that he was investigating her.
What would she do about it, he wondered. Now that you’re trumped, let’s see your cards.
“Ah, knew of them,” Danny Boy said, “though me pap didn’t move in the same circles as Patrick McCoy and his wife. They was in the hoity-toity class. Proprietors, ye know.” The wiry old guy slapped his leg. “Don’t tell me, this pretty lady here is the daughter that went off to London, is she?”
Mary Snider seemed to sink further into her coat. Meg piped up, “Yes, she is. Grandma’s Mary McCoy, the daughter of Patrick McCoy. Aren’t you, Gran?”
Jake knew Meg was hoping and praying her grandmother would prove it. Somehow, some way.
All she got was Mary Snider’s grunted reply. “Yes, but it’s been a long time.” Then there was stony silence.
Danny Boy was relentless. “Well then, you lived on Countess Road. Where all the toffs lived from before the war. That’s where we’re heading next.”
“Is that where you and your parents lived, Grandma? On Countess Road?” Meg played along, feigning ignorance.
Her grandmother shrugged, practically a turtle in her overcoat. “I don’t remember.”
A Bodyguard of Lies Page 21