Chapter 40
“Look at that,” Therese said, pointing at their rental car. It was Monday morning, and they’d gotten a late start.
“What?”
“The tires. They’re flat.”
Maeve walked around the car, shaking her head. “What the hell? All four tires flat? No way that’s an accident.”
“Maybe you ran over something? After we took Esme home on Saturday?”
“No. The car was fine. Maybe we wouldn’t have noticed if one tire was going flat—but all four? No way.”
“What do we do?” Therese asked. “Do they have Triple A in Ireland?”
“They might, but I don’t have Triple A.” Maeve opened the passenger-side door and fished the car rental agreement out of the glove box, studying the fine print. “Looks like I call the agency and report it.”
She took out her phone and dialed the number on the rental agreement. She paced in circles around the parking lot while waiting to report their dilemma. Ten minutes and three transferred calls later, she disconnected.
“What’s the story?”
“They’ll send a van to replace the tires ‘as soon as possible.’ In the meantime, I’m to photograph the tires and send a photo, and they also want me to file a report with the Gardai.”
Thirty minutes later a portly, uniformed Gardai officer was squatting down examining the tires of the rental car. He groaned as he straightened up. “Deliberately slashed, I’d say. All four of ’em. You ladies have any thoughts about who’d be wanting to do this?”
“No,” Therese said. “We haven’t been here long enough to make enemies. As far as we know.”
“Teens, probably,” the officer said. “Little wankers get bored and get into mischief. I’ll write up a report, shall I, and you can give that to your rental agency?”
“Yes, please,” Maeve said. “Have you had any other reports of vandalism to cars in the village?”
He shook his head. “But it’s early yet. Give me your contact information, and I’ll email the report. Look for it this afternoon.” He tipped his cap as a gesture of departure.
“Guess we’re walking to the library,” Therese said.
“Just like old times in Savannah,” Maeve agreed.
The librarian on duty was young, thirtyish, dressed in jeans and a kelly-green sweater. She had a name badge and photo ID on a lanyard around her neck. “Hello,” she said, looking at the sisters with open curiosity. “Looking for a summer read, are we?”
Therese leaned in to read the name badge. “Actually, Anita, we were hoping to do some research in the historical society room. We’re from the States, trying to track down our Irish roots.”
“Oh … I don’t think, I mean, the volunteer who oversees that doesn’t come in ’til noon. Afraid it’ll have to wait. But you’re welcome to browse our stacks, if you like.”
“Please?” Therese was laying it on thick. “We’re only here for another day or so. Our great-grandmother grew up here, and it would mean so much to our aunts and cousins if we could just scoot into that room.”
“We understand there’s a self-published book—about Tarrymore—that we’re especially interested in,” Maeve added.
“Our mother just passed away a couple weeks ago, and it was her dying wish that we come over to Ireland, to see the places her grandmother talked about when she was a young child,” Therese said. “The auld sod was a very special place to her.”
Anita glanced around the library. The only other person present was a teenaged boy, who was bent over a computer on a long table near the stacks.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt for you just to look at that book,” Anita said. “One moment.”
She scurried behind the checkout desk and returned with two plastic bags. She handed one to each of the sisters. “We ask that you wear protective gloves, so there’s no oil transfer to those pages. We’ve just the one copy, you see, and it’s quite precious. A gift from the Rossingtons.”
“Auld sod?” Maeve whispered, once they were in the research room. “Don’t you think that was laying it on a little thick? I kept expecting you to break into ‘O Danny Boy’ or ‘Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral.’”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Therese had donned the white cotton gloves and was leafing through the Tarrymore history book.
“Some of these photos are great,” she said, pausing to look at a photo of a young girl in riding clothes, atop a spotted pony. The pony’s bridle sported a rosette ribbon, and the child was clutching a large silver trophy.
“It’s Esme,” Maeve said excitedly, pointing to the tiny print on the photo caption. “And her prize pony Dandy.” She ran a finger under the print. “This must have been taken in the early ’50s. Keep going.”
Therese flipped forward, past photos of the family picnicking in the apple orchard, and snapshots taken of polo matches, pheasant shoots, and formal dinner parties.
“Here we go,” she said, a few pages later.
There were three photos in the double-page layout.
One was of a slender, unsmiling girl standing stiffly in a fluffy white dress, her blond locks teased into a torturous updo of heavily hair-sprayed curls, holding a bouquet of roses in one arm, with the other linked in the arm of an equally stiff-looking escort who was dressed in tails, white tie, and top hat.
“‘The Honorable Esme Diane Rossington, escorted by Mr. Sheffield Hotchkiss III, on the occasion of her debut, December 1967.’”
Therese bent closer to study the photo. “She was actually sort of pretty, in a way, except for that heinous hairdo, but oh my God, does she ever look miserable. And the escort looks like a total dweeb.”
The opposite page held two more photos. The larger was a grainy group shot of twenty debutantes, all dressed in white, standing in two rows under a bower of ivy and roses, their arms linked together.
“Here’s a thought,” Therese said. “Starr’s son told you his mom’s family was rich and fancy, right?”
“Positively posh,” Maeve said succinctly. “Yes. According to Jamie, the McGahees had a flat in Mayfair, and a country estate in the Cotswolds.”
“And we know the Rossingtons were posh too.” Therese stabbed the debutante photo with her gloved finger. “What if they were in the same deb club, or whatever you call it? What if Esme was Starr’s connection to Tarrymore?”
“Oh my God, you could be right. Jamie told me his grandmother kept a photo of Starr in her debutante dress in a silver frame at her home, and that Starr hated it.”
“I wonder if one of these girls is Starr,” Maeve said. “But there’s no caption to tell us who’s who.” She whipped out her phone and clicked off three frames. “We’ll have to try to see if we can find some old photos of Starr. Maybe there’s some old newspaper clippings showing her during her trial.”
The third photograph showed Esme posed with her parents. Therese read the caption. “‘The Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Edward Charles Rossington presented their daughter, Esme, at court. Also present was Lady Esme’s brother, the Honorable Geoffrey David Rossington.’”
Therese flipped more pages, until she came to a full-page photograph of a bride. Esme again, dressed in a white satin wedding gown, her face half-obscured by a billowing lace veil, eyes demurely downcast. The caption read:
Mrs. Sheffield Hotchkiss III, on the event of her marriage.
Maeve snapped more photos of both pages. She turned toward the shelves of bound newspaper issues. “Let’s see if we can find something in those. We need 1974.”
Therese found a volume covering 1972 through 1976 and set it on a long worktable.
Still standing, she leafed through the brittle, yellowing pages, past front pages with headlines about labor strikes, crop failures, livestock auctions, local beauty pageants, and finally, a headline in bold black type:
ARRESTS MADE IN DARING DAYLIGHT TARRYMORE ART HEIST
The photos accompanying the story were understandably blurry, uniformed Gardai officers hustling handcuffed suspects into a Dublin courthouse.
Two men and a woman were pictured, but the woman’s head was bowed, her long, dyed-black hair covering her face.
She was dressed in a shapeless cotton prison issue shift.
“Can’t really see her face,” Therese said, flipping more pages.
“Here,” she said, tapping her index finger on what looked like an official black-and-white police booking photo.
Peggy “Starr” McGahee, age 25, daughter of prominent London solicitor Richard McGahee, alleged IRA gang member and mastermind of theft of priceless art collection from Tarrymore estate.
In the arrest photo, Starr McGahee stared defiantly into the camera’s lens. Her features were delicate, with an elongated nose, high cheekbones, and large, light-colored eyes with dark circles beneath. Her now lighter, naturally blond hair was center-parted and scraped back into a low ponytail.
Maeve snapped a few frames of the arrest photo.
“Does she look like anyone in the deb photo with Esme?” Therese asked, looking over her sister’s shoulder at her camera roll.
Maeve enlarged the group photo of the debutantes with her fingers. They both examined the ranks of smiling young women, dressed in white formals and opera-length white gloves, the picture of proper British society.
“I can’t tell,” Maeve admitted. “They’ve all got those elaborate beehive hairdos and cat’s-eye eyeliner and pale lipstick. If I didn’t already know what Esme looked like, I couldn’t even pick her out of this shot.”
Therese stabbed her index finger on one of the girls in the group photo. “This could be Starr. Same shape face, light-colored eyes.”
“Maybe.” She leaned in to study the photo closer. “She does look a little bit like Jamie.”
“Only one way to be sure. Text me those photos. I think we should go pay Esme a visit.”
“We can’t do that,” Maeve protested. “Just show up at her door and start grilling her? She’s already told us to stay away from her.”
Therese smiled her Cheshire cat smile. “Ahh, foolish sister, don’t you understand? No sometimes means maybe. And sometimes maybe means yes.”
“And sometimes no means stay the hell away or I’ll call the cops,” Maeve retorted.
“Fine,” Therese said. “I’ll go by myself.”
“And I’ll stay here to see about the tires for the car. And wait by the phone to see if she has you arrested.”