Chapter 54
Maeve glanced up as she was pulling away from Liam’s cottage, and immediately regretted it. He stood silhouetted in the large picture window, looking out, with Lucy by his side.
She bit back tears as she drove away. If she was doing the right thing, why was this so painful?
Maeve parked the Kia close to the front door of the gardener’s cottage.
She involuntarily shuddered as she stood on Esme’s doorstep, replaying the previous evening’s rat incident.
Would the old woman be angry at her for making such a scene and bolting?
Didn’t matter. Maeve would apologize for her freak-out and then simply ask to look around for her passport in the parlor, where she and Therese had sat with Esme, and then politely make her exit, hopefully with the passport in hand.
The first thing she noticed was that the front door was partially ajar. She pushed it open an inch, expecting to hear Sinead bark and come scampering down the hallway. But the house was eerily quiet. She’d noticed the pickup truck parked by the porte cochere. Maybe Esme was still sleeping.
She took a deep breath and opened the door wider. Still nothing. Maeve stepped inside and looked around. The hall was dark, but she could see a lamp was lit in the parlor.
Decision time, Maeve thought. Commit to the plan or back out now.
Another step, and then another. She stood in the arched opening to the parlor and looked around.
Something was amiss. Books had been knocked from shelves, porcelain knickknacks were smashed, and on the settee where she and Therese sat just two days earlier was a teetering stack of objects.
Silver trays, teapots, and candlesticks, half a dozen paintings, a bronze sculpture, and a satin drawstring bag from which spilled a long string of pearls.
A chill spread down her spine and the hair on her arms stood up. She heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the hallway.
“Esme?” she called. “It’s me. Maeve.”
When a man stepped into the room she froze.
It was Reggie, Esme’s handyman. He carried a heavy canvas bag over his shoulder, and he looked as startled to see her as Maeve felt. He was unshaven, eyes bloodshot, and there was a dark stain on his baggy soccer jersey.
“Waddya want?” he asked. “Esme’s feeling poorly. Asked me to bring her some meds, she did.”
Maeve’s throat went dry and she instinctively took a step backward, away from him. “I, uh, my passport’s gone missing. I came to see if I dropped it when I was here the other day.”
He regarded her carefully and shook his head. “Nah. I don’t think so. I think you came over here to mess about in affairs that don’t concern you.” He took a step closer and Maeve slowly backed away until her legs were pressed up against the settee.
Without warning he reached into the bag on his shoulder and drew out a long, curved knife.
He lunged toward her, slicing the air with the knife.
Maeve gasped and sidestepped, and the knife blade slashed into the settee upholstery.
It stuck there, just for a moment, but long enough for her to grab the first thing at hand.
Reggie grunted in frustration, yanking at the knife handle to free it from the sofa. In that second, Maeve lifted the heavy silver candlestick and slammed it down on the back of the handyman’s head.
He slumped face-forward onto the floor. She fought the urge to flee and nudged him with the toe of her shoe. He didn’t move. Blood was seeping from a deep gash near his neck, and pooling onto the floor.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” she whimpered as she turned and sped toward the door. Her hand was on the doorknob when she realized there’d been no sign, or sound, from Esme, or Sinead. The same chill ran down her spine again.
She forced herself to turn around and walk back down the hallway.
“Esme,” she called loudly, her voice echoing from the high ceilings.
“Esme? Sinead?” She stepped into the dining room, where the drawers of a massive walnut sideboard were pulled open.
She opened the door of what turned out to be the small bedroom where Esme slept.
The covers were flung back, and a small wicker dog bed rested nearby on the floor.
The kitchen was deserted, but a nearly empty bottle of gin stood on the counter beside an overflowing ashtray, and the cupboard drawers were open, their contents scattered about on the counter and the floor.
Maeve had seen enough. She reached for her cell phone. He picked up on the second ring.
“Maeve?”
“I’m at Esme’s,” she said. “I think … something very bad has happened to her. Can you come, please? And call the police. I might have killed Reggie.”
When Liam arrived he found her sitting in the front seat of the Kia with the doors locked, numb with shock. She hit the unlock button, and he opened the passenger door and slid inside. “Are you all right?”
The words came pouring out—how she’d made a last-minute decision to stop at the gardener’s cottage to look for her missing passport, and apparently surprised Esme’s handyman in the act of looting the house.
“He had a knife,” she said, reliving the terror.
“He had me backed up against the sofa where he’d piled all this stuff, silver and art and some jewelry, and he slashed at me with it, but I jumped away and the knife got stuck in the sofa.
While he was trying to pull it free I just …
grabbed what was on top of the pile, this big heavy candlestick, and I hit him with it. As hard as I could.”
“Jesus. Where is he now?”
“I left him in the parlor. I looked all over the house for Esme, and Sinead, well, the first floor anyway. I was too chicken to go upstairs. I think something bad has happened to her, Liam.”
“Maeve, you’re hurt,” Liam said.
She looked down and saw a streak of blood on the sleeve of her sweater. She probed her left forearm with her fingertips and winced a little. “Just a flesh wound,” she assured him. “My adrenaline must have been pumping. I didn’t even notice it until now.”
They heard a siren then, and looked up to see a police cruiser speeding down the driveway toward the cottage.
The cruiser stopped and two uniformed officers jumped out.
One went toward the house, the other approached the Kia.
He leaned down and addressed Liam. “You’re the one who called about an incident? ”
“I did,” Liam said. He pointed at Maeve. “But she’s the one you need to talk to.”
“I’m Officer Muldoon,” he said, after Maeve got out of the car to speak to him.
You again, Maeve thought.
“I’m Maeve Dunagin. There’s a man in the house. He tried to kill me with a knife, so I bashed him in the head with a candlestick.”
“You again,” Muldoon murmured. “The man you hit. Do you know his name? Is he alive?”
“He’s Esme Rossington’s former handyman.
Reggie something. And I don’t know if he’s alive.
I just know there was a lot of blood. He’s in the parlor.
But you need to look for Esme. I’m really worried because neither she nor her dog are in the house.
And that’s her truck parked over there.” Maeve pointed in the direction of the porte cochere.
“Ahh, Lady Esme,” Muldoon said. “I wouldn’t be jumping to conclusions just yet. She’s known to drink a bit. It’s a fine morning. Maybe she got it in her head to walk to the Willow Tree. Her second home, as it were. She and the dog are probably having a pint.”
“Would you please listen to me!” Maeve yelled. “I’m telling you something bad happened here. The house has been ransacked and there was some kind of a struggle in that parlor. Stuff was smashed.”
Muldoon looked over at Liam and rolled his eyes. He mouthed a single word, “Americans,” before stalking away in the direction of the house.
“Asshole,” Maeve muttered. She turned to Liam. “What should we do?”
“I suppose we wait.”
Ten minutes later, Muldoon was back, his expression very different.
“Ma’am,” he said, removing his cap, “we did find Lady Esme. And I’m sorry to say that you were correct. It’s a terrible, terrible thing.”
“Is she…?”
“She is deceased,” he said, his tone somber. “Her and the dog was locked up in a shed round back. That dog wouldn’t let us near the old lady. Guarding her, like. Nearly bit my hand off, she did.”
Maeve sank to the ground and rested her head on her knees, covering her head with her arms. She felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach.
Esme Rossington was a textbook curmudgeon, entitled, rude, and ill-tempered.
This much was true. But it was also true that despite her family’s wealth, her life had been one seemingly unending disappointment, starting with her own father and extending to her husband and even her lover.
Every man in Esme’s life, including her onetime handyman, had betrayed her.
“What about Sinead?” Maeve asked, raising her head. “He didn’t hurt her, did he?”
“Not bloody likely,” Muldoon scoffed. “That mutt is a terror.”
Just then an ambulance came rolling slowly down the driveway. The other officer emerged from the house and signaled the driver to park near the door.
“Reggie is alive, not that you’ve asked,” Muldoon said. “Head’s banged up, he’s lost a lot of blood, and he reeks of gin, but he’s like one of your American cockroaches. Hard to kill. And I’ve rung the local pet shelter to come fetch up the dog.”
Maeve jumped to her feet and began speed-walking toward the back of the house.
“Where are you going?” Muldoon called.
“To get Sinead. You’re not sending her to a shelter.”