Chapter 27
Therese hastily cleared the letters off her bed, stripped off her jeans, dropping them onto the floor, and climbed into bed, snapping off the lamp on the nightstand, turning with her back to the door, and pulling the covers over her head.
By the time she heard a key in the lock and heard the door creak open she was taking long, slow breaths, feigning sleep. Fuck Maeve. She’d never give her the satisfaction of letting her know she’d been worried.
Her sister tiptoed around the room, like a thief in the night. Therese wanted to laugh, because it reminded her of all the nights she’d been the one sneaking in through her bedroom window, praying Mary Helen wouldn’t catch her, with her panties in her purse, smelling of weed or booze or both.
How times had changed.
“I know you’re not asleep,” Maeve said.
“Am too.”
“Liar. I saw you spying on us out the window.”
Therese grinned into her pillow. “Slut.”
They were in the rental car, on the way to Cobh, when Therese’s curiosity finally got the better of her.
“How was last night?” she said, trying to sound casual.
“Nice.” Maeve wanted to kick herself for not being more forthcoming with details of her date, but whatever she felt for Liam still felt too new, too fragile, to be examined in the light of day.
“Where’d you go?”
“A pub called the Three-Legged Goat. There was a group playing traditional Irish music—the Hooligans. They were really good, but Oh. My. God. Some of those songs were so sad. Heartbreaking. Liam’s friend Donal, from the distillery, was there.
Talk about a wild and crazy guy. He sort of started a brawl, then got physically thrown out of the pub, just as we were leaving. ”
“Kind of a late night for you,” Therese said. She silently congratulated herself on how chill she was being.
“I wasn’t aware I had a curfew,” Maeve retorted. “What did you do last night, before you started spying on me?”
Therese ignored the barbed comment. “I sorted through Kathleen’s letters and read a bunch of them, which was what I was doing when Scotty Childress called.”
“Uh-oh.”
“He’s been looking into Mom’s transactions at the bank. The records show she started doling out cash to the Reverend Brother Jerome about eighteen months ago.”
“Eighteen months ago,” Maeve repeated. “I knew she was starting to slip back then, but I thought it was little stuff, like letting the teakettle boil dry, or forgetting her doctor’s name or asking me the same question two or three times a day.
Completely harmless. It never would have occurred to me she was that far gone. ”
Therese lightly touched her sister’s sleeve.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. Nobody else noticed it either, not Bernie or Frannie or Uncle Keith.
And apparently, nobody at the bank noticed either, even though all of a sudden after decades of penny-pinching and saving, Mary Helen Dunagin is coming in every Friday to withdraw a hundred, and then five hundred dollars a week in cash, until her life savings were gone. ”
“Someone at that bank should have done something,” Maeve said, angry now. “They knew Mom. They know our whole family. Mary Helen Dunagin wasn’t just an account number on a deposit slip.”
“Legally, they had no obligation, according to Scotty. But morally, ethically, you’re right, they should have.
He’s been trying to get in touch with Mom’s pal Letha Carter, because all the transaction records show she always went to Letha’s teller window.
But when Scotty went to the bank to talk to her, they said she no longer worked there.
And nobody would say why she left or where she’s gone. We really need to talk to her.”
“I know I called Letha after Mom died, because of that funeral manifesto she gave us way back when. She had Letha down for coleslaw,” Maeve said.
“Do you still have her number?”
“No, but Mom must have put her number on that list. Which, of course, is somewhere back at the house. Which reminds me. We still need to write thank-you notes to everybody who brought food or sent flowers.” Maeve emphasized the word “we” and shot her sister a meaningful look.
“Maybe we should get Frannie or Bernie to go over to the house to look for it,” Maeve suggested. “I bet Letha’s number is probably in Mom’s old address book. Last place I saw it was in the kitchen junk drawer.”
“Unless you threw that out too—in your frenzy of purging.” Therese silently gloated at returning Maeve’s dig.
They drove in silence for a while.
“Did you learn anything interesting from Kathleen’s letters?” Maeve asked, wanting to lighten the mood.
“Remember how Isabel told us Delia was killed the night Kathleen left Tarrymore for the States? And that there was supposedly jewelry and money missing from the house? And the painting too, I’m guessing, although that was never mentioned.
Tommy must have written her to tell her the Rossingtons were blaming it all on her, because in one of her first letters Kathleen insists she’s innocent, and that Delia wanted her to have the jewelry and stuff, because she was family. ”
“Makes sense. Why would Kathleen murder her benefactress? You know, I’m starting to really dislike the Rossingtons.”
“Me too,” Therese said. “Lord Rossington knocks up poor little teenaged Bridget, then his sister rips the child away from her own mother. And when everything goes to shit, the Rossingtons accuse Kathleen of being a murderer and a thief. Because she’s conveniently not there to defend herself.
And anyway, who’d believe poor white trash like Kathleen? ”
Maeve nodded. “According to Liam, Esme Rossington is not a universally beloved figure around the village.”
“Except at that bar she hangs out at,” Therese said. “I went back there to see her last night, because I wanted to ask her about that IRA robbery.”
“Did she tell you anything?”
“I specifically asked her if the portrait of Lady Geraldine was ever recovered after the robbery, which seemed to trigger her. She told me I was an impertinent American and suggested I hit the bricks.”
Maeve turned that bit of information over in her mind. “According to Liam, word on the street is that the Rossingtons’ fortune ain’t what it used to be.”
“That tracks. Esme is still pissed that her father bankrolled her brother’s hare-brained ideas and refused to consider letting her take over running the estate after the robbery.
Because, of course, she was a woman. And not the heir apparent.
Instead, he signed away the estate and most of the family art collection to the Irish government, and he and the stepmother decamped to London. ”
Maeve tapped her fingertips on the steering wheel. “There’s definitely something fishy about that portrait. When we get back to the inn tonight, I want to see if the National Gallery website lists all the paintings the Rossingtons donated.”
The road had begun a steep uphill climb. Therese glanced down the hillside and pointed. “That’s Cobh down there, right?”
An expanse of ocean stretched out before them, with a picturesque village tucked up against a rock-walled harbor.
As the road descended, they saw large ships anchored in a port, and then, as they drew closer, a row of steep-roofed cottages painted in a rainbow of candy colors, stepping primly down the cobblestoned street.
“Look how cute,” Therese said, pointing at the houses.
Maeve had done her research about the port of Cobh. “Those are called the Deck of Cards,” she said. She pointed at the impressive Gothic Revival granite cathedral whose spire towered over the landscape and overlooked the harbor.
“And that’s St. Colman’s. It’s the tallest church in Ireland.”
They found a parking spot and began walking toward the Victorian-era brick building housing the heritage center.
“Think of it,” Therese said as they stood in line to pay for their admission tickets. “Kathleen came here, all alone, a teenager. She got on a ship full of strangers, crammed into a tiny berth in steerage, and didn’t get off that ship until she landed at Ellis Island.”
The depth of emotion in her sister’s voice took Maeve by surprise.
“The letters she sent home to her brother Tommy? Honestly, Maeve, there’s a book there. Wait ’til you read them.”
“Tonight,” Maeve promised. “When we get back to the inn, let’s have an early dinner and you can catch me up.”