Chapter 37
LORD’S SISTER FOUND SLAIN
The honorable Delia, Lady Rossington, sister of the late Lord Rossington, was found deceased in the family’s country home in Tarrymore, County Wicklow, last week.
Constable Gareth Kehoe told the correspondent for the Gazetteer that it appeared Lady Delia had been stabbed to death.
Family members discovered the body, lying in a pool of blood, in the home’s portrait gallery when they returned from a weekend shooting party in Donegal. The Constable said a valuable painting, several pieces of jewelry and cash had also been taken.
He said authorities believe that a local girl, Kathleen Connor, 18, who was Lady Delia’s ward, and who had enjoyed every privilege under her protection and tutelage, was believed to be the perpetrator of the crime, and that she might have been abetted by a family retainer, Clive Donovan, who was a trusted employee on the Rossington estate, which comprises 15,000 acres in County Wicklow.
Donovan denied any knowledge of the crime, and is no longer employed by the family.
Constable speculated that Lady Delia might have surprised the village girl in the act of thievery, and thus was stabbed as a consequence.
The honorable Fiona, Lady Rossington, who is the Lord’s widow, said she and her family are deeply grieving the loss of her late husband’s elder sister. She has posted a reward of 100 pounds for information leading to the apprehension of Kathleen Connor.
Therese had to squint to read the fine print of the newspaper article on her sister’s cell phone.
“Wonder who Clive Donovan was?” Therese mused. “Maybe you could ask your new boyfriend. Didn’t he tell you his family has lived here forever?”
The rain had stopped and the weather had finally turned sunny, so the sisters were sitting on the inn’s mossy verandah, under the shade of a massive oak tree, enjoying a Pimm’s Cup from the lounge. Therese tilted her glass and sniffed. “Cucumbers in a cocktail. I think I could get used to this.”
“If only they weren’t so stingy with ice cubes,” Maeve said.
“I know, right? In the meantime, you should text Liam and ask him about Donovan.”
Maeve shook her head vigorously. “I don’t want him to think that I’m just pumping him for solutions to our problems.”
“He’s a big boy, isn’t he? If he doesn’t want to respond to your text, he can simply ignore it. You know what my old agent used to say? ‘You don’t a-s-k, you don’t g-e-t.’”
“I remember that guy. Wendell, something? What happened to him?”
Therese scowled. “He signed me to a contract, insisted I had to use his high-priced photographer for new headshots that cost me thousands, and then as soon as the check cleared, he ghosted me. Pretty sure it was all a scam. So he’s dead to me.”
She used the slender straw in her cocktail to skewer the cucumber slice at the bottom of the drink and nibbled at it.
“Hang on a second,” Therese said, her brow wrinkling. “You know, actually, now that I think about it, I remember reading the name Donovan in one of Kathleen’s letters.”
She pushed her chair so hastily it tumbled backward onto the cobblestones. “Be right back.”
New York City, 1926
My dear brother:
I am so grateful you were able to visit old Mr. Donovan before his untimely death. It makes me sad to think of him, exiled away from Tarrymore and his life and work there, although I’m sure his daughter took proper care of him.
I do thank you for the newspaper clippings you enclosed in your last letter.
It is shocking to think how brazenly Lady Fiona and her boys have lied to the authorities and placed blame for Lady Delia’s death on me, and in a roundabout way on Mr. Donovan, although they can’t have proof of our guilt, because we are blameless in that matter.
How often, since I arrived here, have I wondered what really went on at Tarrymore the night Miss Delia sent me away. Sometimes, at night, I still dream of hearing that poor lady’s fearsome scream.
My memories and emotions from that night are all jumbled up in my mind: the surprise and confusion I felt when Lady Delia announced that I was to leave immediately for America, the shock I felt when she sliced that painting of Lady Geraldine from its frame, and then pressed the painting, money, and some pieces of family jewelry upon me, telling me it was my rightly inheritance …
and then, shortly after that, when she went downstairs as we heard the family returning home, her ear-shattering scream.
I barely remember running to the barn, as instructed, to tell Mr. Donovan that it was time.
He knew, of course, of her plan. Tears still spring to my eyes when I recall our last, hasty farewell as I said goodbye to you, dear brother, my only living family member.
Later that night, more terror as Mr. Donovan delivered me to a shopkeeper named Finley, who was to drive me the rest of the way to Cobh.
Do you know, that was the first time, in my memory, that I slept away from home, in an inn?
Everything about that time was strange and new, terrifying, but in some way, exhilarating.
The night I fled Tarrymore was the last night of the Kathleen you knew.
My life here in New York City is hard. My work is taxing, my fingers bleed from sewing shirts, and my pay only barely covers my room and board here at the tenement house, with just a little left over for an occasional bit of fun—but do you know, my friend and I can take a streetcar to an amusement park called Coney Island—where they have a monstrous rollercoaster.
Here in New York, for the first time in my life, I am free to make my own decisions.
This new Kathleen is bold. She has learned to be brave.
You might not know her, but I hope you would respect her.
Most importantly, she no longer has to wonder who she is.
Although always, she is your loving sister, Kathleen.
Maeve folded the tissue-thin letter with care. “I wish I’d known her, don’t you?”
“She must have been a badass, back in her day,” Therese agreed.
“But in a way, we do know her. I only vaguely remember Nana, because I was a baby when she died, but I do know she was a force to be reckoned with. Just think about Mom. Widowed with two little kids, in her forties? And Aunt Bernie, she’s outsmarted cancer twice.
And poor Frannie? Can you imagine losing your teenaged son to a drunk driver?
I think there’s more than a little of Kathleen in all of the women in our family. ”
She leaned across the table and gave her sister a high-five. “May we both live to be a couple of badasses like them.”
“When you think about all the challenges Kathleen and Mom and Bernie and Fran dealt with, it makes our problems seem pretty minor,” Maeve said. “I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. And if nothing else, we’re doing what Mom wanted. Here we are in Ireland. Together. She’d be ecstatic.”
“And no major screaming matches or hair-pullings,” Therese said.
“So far,” Maeve countered.
“But we still haven’t answered the big mystery we came here to solve,” Therese said.
“Where the hell did that second portrait of Lady Geraldine go—and how did it turn up again, fifty years after that robbery?” She sighed.
“This whole thing is such a circle jerk. We get answers to one question, which only leads us to more questions. Five more days until we head home and try to figure out the mess over Mom’s mortgage.
” She tapped the smartwatch on Maeve’s wrist. “Tick tock.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means we’re running out of time. I think you should call Liam and ask him if he can hook you up with the cousin who might know more about the IRA robbery back in 1974.”
“It’s his cousin’s husband,” Maeve said. She picked up her phone. “Okay, you talked me into it. I’ll call Liam and see if there’s a way I could meet Starr McGahee’s son.”
Liam seemed happy to hear from her. “As a matter of fact, I was thinking of calling you. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and we’ve a regular throw-down at my brother Luke’s place. The whole bloody family will be there.”
“Including your cousin Maddie and her husband?”
“I can’t absolutely promise, but yeah, they’ll probably be in the picture. But listen, Maeve. Jamie doesn’t usually talk a lot about his mum. Not really a happy story.”
“Maybe you could call him ahead of time, explain what our situation is, and ask if he might be willing to talk to me?” Maeve gritted her teeth, hating to ask for such a favor.
“For you, I’ll try,” he said. “Pick you up at two, all right?”