Death of an Irish Mummy

by Catie Murphy

  She opened even more cupboards, looking to see if there was anything less delicate to use, but even the solitary teacup in the sink was one of the blue and white china. Feeling vaguely like a child getting away with something, she took them down and opened the teak tea box, which fastened with a bit of ivory and a woven thread loop.

  The tea was loose-leaf, which, in retrospect, she felt she should have expected. She opened drawers until she found a tea strainer, whispered, “This is amazing,” like someone might overhear her, and peered around the kitchen while the water boiled.

  A single-pane window with cracks in the caulking let cold air blow in over the sink, despite heavy, attractive curtains hanging around it. Knickknacks lay on the window frame, including a handful of old Irish punt coins from before the country started using euros, that were tarnished black with age. One of them, thicker than the others, was bent almost in half, with the light barely able to catch the lumpy shape of what was presumably some long-forgotten Irish politician’s face. Next to it stood a slender, deep orange bottle vase that looked, both in colour and style, like it had been on the sill since 1973, held a few delicate stalks of yellowed straw with burrs and ears poking upward. Beside it, incongruous on an orangey-red pillow, sat a little china doll. Or a little Japanese doll, more accurately, because her faded flowers were the print of a kimono, and her hair was upswept in a geisha’s hairstyle. Nothing on the sill was dusty, and Megan supposed their presence there meant they were, in some way, objects of affection in the otherwise lonely house.

  The kettle clicked off and Megan filled the teapot, then checked the fridge for milk. A half-full pint sat in the door, so she poured the meanest measure she could into the tea set’s milk jug, not wanting to use up all of Anne’s milk on uninvited guests. Armed with the whole kit and kaboodle, she left the kitchen, pushing the door closed behind her, and invaded the living room with offerings of tea.

  “Oh! Megan!” Raquel sounded like she’d forgotten Megan even existed. “Ms. Williams was just telling us . . . well, everything. Her father inherited the estate after the last earl died—”

  “He never stopped hoping Patrick would turn up again,” Anne said rather sourly. Megan, having only heard the woman speak two or three sentences, was beginning to think she had no other way of saying things, and that less separated her from Sondra than Sondra might want to imagine. “My sister and I were almost grown by the time Father inherited, but we lived there a few years. But then Patty got married and I was left to take care of him and the whole old wreck of a place. When he died I walked out that front door and never looked back. I’ve had a hundred fortune hunters come after me in the past fifty years, but not one of them looked like Patty, not until that wan there.” She poked a finger in Jessie’s direction, and Megan, pouring tea for everyone, bet she’d already said all this already to the sisters, but relished the chance to growl at another captive audience.

  All three sisters took their teacups politely, but only Jessie actually took a sip, then looked at the cup in surprise. “This is amazing. What kind of tea is it?”

  Anne looked viciously pleased. “It’s a Ceylon tea. My one vice. You,” she said imperiously to Megan, who had almost gotten as far as sitting down. “Go across the hall and get the photograph on the mantle. You’ll know which one.”

  Raquel’s eyes widened in horror at the old woman’s peremptory tone, but Megan, genuinely amused, did as she was asked, privately delighted to get to see another room in the house. As she was clearly expected to come right back, this time she didn’t close the door behind her, and only took a few seconds to glance around the other front room, which was as vintage, but more lived-in, than the parlour they’d been invited in to. A hand-woven shawl lay dramatically over the back of a very comfortable-looking chair by the fire, which was banked low and made the living room considerably warmer than the parlour.

  The mantle was crowded with framed photographs, but the old lady was right: Megan knew which one as soon as she saw it. She gathered it up, glanced again at the others, and returned to the parlour to offer Anne the picture.

  The old lady batted it away irritably. “I’ve seen it, gell. Show it to them.”

  Jessie put her tea down as Megan handed her the photograph. “Oh my god.”

  “My sister Patricia,” Anne said in triumph. “I said you’re the spit of her, didn’t I so.”

  Patricia Edgeworth—or whatever her surname had become, because it was clearly a wedding picture—must have been very close to Jessie’s age when the picture was taken. Aside from the beehive height and dramatic upward flip at the bottom of her hair, it could easily have been a picture of Jessie herself, the resemblance even more striking than the portrait of Patrick Edgeworth had been. “Oh my god,” Jessie murmured again. “I could be her twin.”

  “Or her ghost,” Anne said. “She died not two years later, thanks to that bastard she married.”

  All three of the Williams sisters and Megan turned to her with a gasp. “Ah, he thought he was fancy, with that fast car and not a care in the world.” Anne’s anger, nursed for six decades, had clearly lost none of its edge. “The wheels couldn’t catch on the gravel roads, though, and it was too narrow to correct, the way he took corners. They smashed into a wall, all three of them.”

  Raquel whispered, “All three. Oh no,” and put her hands over her mouth, tears filling her eyes. “Oh, Anne, I’m so sorry.”

  “That was the end of the wretched Edgeworth line, except for me, until you lot showed up.” Anne glared from one sister to another. “I never wanted it to continue. We’re cursed, we are. But maybe Patrick cast that all away when he left, along with everything else. I suppose you want the house. The grounds. The whole damn estate.”

  A series of startled noises, part protest and part astonishment, burbled from the sisters before Sondra cut through them, speaking firmly. “It’s not what we came here for. Our mother had a dream of reconnecting with her Irish history, and we’re just trying to . . . to give her what she wanted. We came to ask permission to bury her on the land, in the old graveyard. We thought she would like that.”

  “Well, you can as far as I’m concerned. You can have the whole lot, as far as I care. There’s probably a cousin somewhere on my mother’s side who thinks it’s for them, or maybe I’d only be the mysterious rich aunt who died and left them a fortune, except there’s no fortune, only a mouldering old house that will take every bit of money and every last drop of love you ever had in you, and drain it all away. The state would only take it anyway. It might as well be yours. Get up, gell,” she said again to Megan. “Go on and get me my will from the other room; it’ll be in the desk. I’ll amend it right now.”

  Spluttering disbelief and genuine objections rose from the sisters while Megan, not about to argue with eighty-plus years of angry, got up to do what she was told. The desk in the other room was an absolutely magnificent rolltop that she guessed was twice as old as Anne herself, and lined with carefully dusted knickknacks in the same way the kitchen windowsill was: coins, an antique Parisian paperweight snow globe, fountain pens, and—less fussily—a stack of gorgeously heavyweight paper for writing on.

  The will, unsurprisingly, wasn’t in immediate sight, and busybody or not, Megan felt a little uncomfortable opening the desk’s drawers, though it appeared Anne Edgeworth was prepared to reveal all to her visitors. Once she’d opened the first one, though, Megan had to quell the impulse to check for false bottoms, just in case there were really excellent secrets hidden away in the antique desk. There were, however, only old letters, neatly bundled, more knickknacks and pens, and, eventually, an aging manila envelope with the Last Will & Testament of Anne Edgeworth inscribed in elegant penmanship across the front. Megan collected it, and a pen, and went back to the parlour, where Sondra and Anne were about ten seconds from a knock-down, drag-out over the topic of inheritance.

  “You don’t even know we’re related!” Sondra roared, but Anne gestured theatrically at Jessie.


  “That girl could be my own dead sister the very last day I saw her alive, and even if you’re not, what’s to stop an old woman doing what she likes with her estate? I’ve no use for it now, never mind when I’m in the ground, and if it’s the dream of another dead woman, who am I to stand in its way? Give me that,” she ordered Megan, and took the will out to amend it with a flourish.

  Sondra sputtered, but Raquel, the peacemaker, interrupted with a smooth, “You have a lawyer, don’t you, Ms. Edgeworth? Someone to look over the will and to protect your interests?” At Anne’s nod, she smiled. “Wonderful. We’ll understand if you ultimately decide against this, of course, but we’re honoured that you’d even consider it. Our mother would be beside herself.” Her smile went watery, but she held on to its edges, if only just. “And . . . if you’re really okay with us burying her in the Lough Rynn graveyard . . .”

  Anne Edgeworth rolled her eyes. “I’ll ring Father Anthony and have him meet you up there to discuss the details. It’s no matter to me, save that it’ll give me a bit of fresh company when my own time comes.”

  Megan bit the inside of her cheek hard to keep from laughing with shock while Cherise’s daughters struggled, unsuccessfully, to contain their expressions of dismayed horror. “Let me clear the tea away,” Megan said a little too loudly, and stood. “Will I wash up, Ms. Edgeworth?”

  “Miss.” Anne gave Megan a disdainful glare down her nose, which required a certain admirable amount of talent, since she was sitting and Megan wasn’t. “Miss Edgeworth. And I might as well wash up my own self, it’s something to do.”

  “Then I’ll just clear it away, and then we’d best drive up to the chapel to speak with Father Anthony. We do have to get back to Dublin this afternoon,” she explained apologetically.

  “It’s no matter to me.” The old woman sniffed while the Americans began gathering themselves to leave, all of them still with slightly shell-shocked expressions. Megan brought the tea tray into the kitchen and poured the older sisters’ untouched cups into the sink and rinsed all of them before returning to follow the Williamses out the door to the sound of their polite goodbyes.

  As soon as they were out the door, a shrill giggle burst from Jessie’s throat and slid directly into tears. Raquel put an arm around her shoulders and guided her to the car, holding her younger sister as she sobbed once they were both inside. Sondra squeezed in awkwardly beside them, fitting herself around the dog kennel so she could put her arms around both of them. “That was the most awful thing,” she murmured, sounding almost impressed. “Fresh company.”

  Just as suddenly as Jessie’s tears had come on, all three sisters were howling with laughter and hiccuping with sobs, repeating the awful phrase to each other and heightening their collective mania. Megan, wryly sympathetic, drove quietly up to the estate while the puppies, concerned about the high emotion, whined and poked their faces through their kennel gate, making the sisters laugh more gently. “Yeah, this is crazy, isn’t it?” Jessie asked one of them, and Megan glimpsed Sondra sneaking them out of the kennel’s top again. By the time they got to the Lough Rynn house, though, the women had calmed with the help of puppy kisses, and everyone, including the dogs, piled out of the car in relative equanimity.

  “You didn’t see the cemetery yesterday,” Jessie said to Megan. “Come on up so we can show it to you. It needs work, but . . .”

  “Mama would like it,” Raquel said firmly. Megan, after clipping roll-out long leads onto the dogs’ leashes so they could explore at a distance without actually escaping, got them all moving the same direction and followed the sisters. Jessie took Dip’s leash, and Sondra took Thong’s, leaving Megan with no leads to trip over, for which she was grateful. The two dog-walking Williamses went ahead at a pace the puppies preferred, and Raquel hung back to keep Megan company. “Do you think she meant it?”

  “I think her lawyer will talk her out of it, unless there’s actual proof that you’re family.” Megan once again remembered that Bourke was looking into just that, and bit back the impulse to mention it, still not wanting to raise false hopes. “I mean, more than paintings and photographs that look exactly like Jessie.”

  “And we always thought I was the one who looked like Mama.” Raquel smiled weakly, then shook her head. “Well, I guess I am, but Jessie looks like the Edgeworth family, it seems. Funny how the look can hang on through generations, isn’t it? That’s the graveyard gate, up there.” She gestured, as if Megan couldn’t figure out that the aging, angled cast-iron gate that the other two women had just gone through—the one with gravestones beyond it—was the cemetery. A small chapel, its stone walls green and orange with lichen, lay not more than twenty feet past the gate, a solitary stained-glass window and a tired-looking cross above it the only real hints that it was a chapel and not just an ordinary outbuilding.

  “Is the whole thing fenced in?”

  “Yeah. The fence isn’t very good, but there’s a lot of grass grown up against it and tangled through it, so it’s kind of thick. We’re going to have to clear a section out to—” Raquel’s breath caught. “To bury Mama.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be able to find someone who can take care of that kind of thing,” Megan promised, then called “How about we let the puppies run around free for a few minutes?” to the other women. She pulled the gate closed behind herself as Sondra and Jessie let the puppies off their leads, and for a moment all four of them just stood there smiling at the rambunctious little dogs gamboling around the greenery. Then Raquel sighed and nodded toward the chapel.

  “It looks less overgrown over there. We were thinking maybe in that area. There doesn’t seem to be any real rhyme or reason to how it’s laid out.”

  “If there is, Father Anthony will probably know. I suppose you’ll have to make sure there’s room for Miss Edgeworth, too. For her fresh company.” Megan darted a nervous look at Raquel, not sure the timing was right for a joke.

  Dip began barking as if offended, but Raquel blurted a little laugh. “I can’t believe she said that. But yes.” She laughed again, another liquid sound that could obviously turn to tears. “We might as well. Mama would want somebody to talk to, too. What are they barking at?” The puppies were dancing frenetically, their high, sharp yips cutting through the damp January air.

  Megan made a face. “I don’t know, but that’ll teach me to let them off their leads. C’mon! C’mon, puppies! C’mere!” She was already on her way toward them before she’d finished calling, all too aware that she’d been a bit lax in their training and coming when called was a thing they did on whim, rather than command. She made her way around a couple of gravestones, glancing at the letters wearing off on them, and called, “This could be a really beautiful little site again, couldn’t it?” to the sisters.

  “It’ll have to be.” Somehow, Jessie managed to mutter that loudly enough for Megan to hear, despite the dogs barking. “Mama wouldn’t want to be left in a mess.”

  “She’s left us in enough of one,” Sondra replied, and Megan, like the other women, looked toward her in surprise. She had a hand over her mouth and distress in her eyes, and the quiet graveyard suddenly had the aura of a volcano about to blow as Raquel turned on her. Sondra shook her head rapidly, though, clearly horrified. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. This isn’t her fault. Of course it’s not. I just—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  Raquel, partially defused by the apology, struggled for something to say over Sondra’s apologies. Megan, feeling like she shouldn’t watch even if she wanted to, glanced away, and blurted, “Oh, Christ, no!”

  Dip was still barking and bouncing around a trench in the grass, but Thong had lain down inside it, beside the prone body of treasure hunter Maire Cahill, and was licking her ear as if it might wake the old lady up.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Oh, holy—Sondra! Jessie! Raquel!” Megan dropped to her knees and Thong hopped up and moved back, like she’d only been waiting to get Megan’s attention. Dip, worried, tried
to wrap around Megan’s ankles, but Thong herded him aside with absolute authority, and Megan was only distantly aware of their whining concern as she felt for Maire’s pulse.

  To her shock and relief, she found one, fluttering but strong. “Call 112,” she shouted at the other Americans. “Tell them we’ve found a woman in her seventies unconscious in a ditch.”

  “Oh Jesus, we have?” That was Raquel, coming closer, but Sondra was on the phone already, putting the call through in the crisp, calm tones of a woman accustomed to dealing with other peoples’ panic.

  “I know her,” Megan said grimly. “Maire Cahill. I met her yesterday.”

  “Cahill?” Now Jessie’s voice rose in alarm. “But that’s Flynn’s last name!”

  Megan muttered, “Great googly moogly,” with no particular idea of why she’d landed on that phrase. “There are a lot of Cahills in Ireland, Jessie.”

  “But how many of them live in Mohill? I should call—”

  Megan snapped, “You really shouldn’t,” although she shared the younger woman’s sentiment. Blood leaked through the white hair at the back of Maire Cahill’s head, but there were no tree branches lying nearby, nothing that Megan could see might have fallen and knocked her out. A glance at the grass around her suggested nobody had dragged her unconscious form there, either, but she didn’t have a clue what the old lady might have been doing in the Williams graveyard. Her metal detector wasn’t even nearby, so she probably hadn’t been looking for treasure amongst the graves.

  A thought struck Megan, and she gently moved Maire’s hair, looking at the shape of the wound in her scalp. It could have been caused by the round end of a metal detector, although Megan didn’t know if those were sturdy enough to stand up to slamming into someone’s head. She checked Maire’s breathing—shallow but steady—and the alignment of her neck. Nothing seemed out of place and Megan lifted her voice. “How long will it take for paramedics to get here?”