Chapter 55
Savannah
Therese roamed aimlessly around Mary Helen’s house, tracing lines in the dusty tabletops, opening cabinets, cupboards, and closets, unsure of what she was looking for.
Maybe, she thought, she was searching for some sign that her mother’s essence hadn’t been entirely erased during Maeve’s frenzy of cleaning and decluttering.
She stood in the doorway of Mary Helen’s bedroom and breathed in the not-unpleasant bouquet of Lysol and Youth-Dew. A dusty bottle of the cologne still stood on her glass-topped dresser, alongside Maeve’s and Therese’s framed high school graduation photos.
Crossing to the closet, Therese was surprised to see a few of her mother’s favorite dresses had survived Maeve’s purge.
There was the thrifted wool coat with a fur collar that Therese had surprised her with for Christmas the first year she was working in New York.
The coat was totally impractical for Savannah, where winter temperatures rarely dipped below forty degrees, but Mary Helen loved wearing the coat and bragging to her friends about her actress daughter.
There was the long rose satin dress she’d worn for one of the cousins’ weddings, and oddly, a simple cotton-print snap-front housedress that Mary Helen wore nearly every morning after her retirement, sipping coffee and watching television.
On the top shelf of the closet was the floppy straw hat her mother wore on days she went to the beach at Tybee.
Therese reached for the hat and was surprised to find another hat beneath it.
A jaunty hunter-green tweed fedora with a feather cockade that she hadn’t seen in decades: her father’s favorite hat, the one he wore every St. Patrick’s Day when he marched with the rest of his high school friends in the big parade.
She’d been ten the year her father died, and over the years his presence in this house had slowly diminished, bit by bit.
This hat was the first thing of his that she’d seen in decades.
She pressed it to her chest, then dropped it into her suitcase, which was open on a chair at the foot of her mother’s bed.
“Maeve won’t mind,” she told herself. Her sister was not the sentimental type.
When they’d divided up Mary Helen’s “good” jewelry, she’d insisted Therese should have their mother’s simple white-gold wedding ring, and for herself, she’d taken a delicate gold shell necklace that held a single tiny pearl that had been a tenth-anniversary gift from their dad.
Kneeling on the floor at the foot of her mother’s bed, she reached and grabbed hold of the plastic-wrapped rectangle she’d placed under the bed before departing for Ireland. She placed it on the bed and removed the layers of trash bags she’d wrapped the portrait in.
“Here we go again,” Therese whispered. She took a clean washcloth from the linen closet and carefully swiped it around the frame, and then the canvas itself, removing a fine layer of dust that had settled there.
Then she took the portrait into the living room and replaced it on the nail it had hung from for as long as she could remember.
She glanced at the ancient but still functioning clock radio on Mary Helen’s nightstand, checking the time because she had an appointment to meet Scotty Childress for lunch at noon.
Good old Scotty, she thought. She’d texted him on Thursday, after landing at JFK, asking if he could give her a ride home from the Savannah airport.
Maeve’s had a passport snafu, missed flight, and her car is parked at the airport. Can you help a girl out? I land at noon.
He’d answered immediately. See you then. And true to his word, he’d been waiting for her at baggage claim, with an awkward hug and an unexpectedly touching “Welcome home.”
“Have you eaten?” he’d asked as they pulled away from the airport in his zippy red Audi.
“Not really. I had a cocktail and took a sleep gummy not long after the flight took off from Dublin, which meant I slept through whatever slop they were serving in coach.”
“Want to grab some breakfast?” Scotty asked.
“To tell you the truth, what I want most right now is a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep,” she said. “But I could go for lunch tomorrow if you’re available.”
“Perfect. Because I told Arletha Carter you were getting into town today, and she said she’d be willing to talk tomorrow afternoon. But she’s not crazy about coming downtown. I think she’s worried she might run into one of her former bank colleagues.”
“Why don’t you call her and ask her to meet us at my mom’s house?”
“I’ll do that. About lunch? Does Crystal Beer Parlor sound okay?”
“Sounds great. I was craving a chili cheese dog the whole time I was in Ireland,” Therese said. “See you there.”
Scotty was waiting at a table in the front room. She ordered the chili dog; he ordered a burger.
“Tell me about Ireland,” he said, after their food arrived.
“It’s gorgeous. Everything is so green, and in Wicklow, where our great-grandmother was from, you get these fantastic hills and mountains that run right down to the ocean. And the people are super sweet, well, most of them.”
“Did you figure out the deal on the dueling portraits?” Scotty asked.
“Yeah, and it’s a pretty crazy story.” Therese told him about their trip to Cobh to research their great-grandmother’s family history, and their subsequent meeting with Isabel, who’d confirmed their suspicions about the identity of Kathleen’s real father.
“She had all the letters my great-grandmother wrote to her brother from America,” Therese said.
“Now we should be able to prove that our portrait is a hundred percent authentic, and we have the provenance.”
“What about the other portrait? The one that sold at auction—does that mean it was a fake?”
“Not a fake. We’re ninety-nine percent sure the same artist did both. The one that sold was a study, sort of like a practice run for our portrait, which was commissioned by Lady Geraldine’s husband.”
She told him about her chance meeting with Esme Rossington and the sleuthing she and Maeve had done to prove that Esme was the “inside man” behind the IRA robbery at Tarrymore.
“Damn! Y’all are pretty formidable,” Scotty said, visibly impressed by what the Dunagin sisters had accomplished during their whirlwind trip.
Therese picked an onion ring off her platter and nibbled at it.
“Funny you used that word. That’s how Esme described her grandmother Fiona.”
“Must be a family trait,” Scotty remarked. “Your mother was like that. I mean, before she got sick.”
“Mary Helen was that in spades,” Therese agreed. “And so was Kathleen. We’ve been reading her letters. Isabel gifted them all to us. I told Maeve she should write a book about Kathleen’s exploits.”
“Speaking of exploits, I talked to someone in the US attorney’s office here about the Reverend Jerome and his ‘temple.’ He wouldn’t talk specifics, but he did say they have received multiple complaints about the guy. I gather there’s some question about his taxes.”
“You don’t sound too optimistic about that,” she said.
“I just don’t want to get your hopes up,” Scotty said.
“These federal investigations can take years. And even if they do eventually indict him, that doesn’t guarantee you get back the money your mom donated.
I’ve been doing some research of my own.
This guy has an oceanfront house down in Vero Beach that’s worth four million dollars.
He’s got a private jet, a Gulfstream G650.
Drives a Bentley, just built a house in Fort Worth that’s twenty thousand square feet.
That temple of his holds two thousand worshipers.
The locals out there refer to it as Six Flags over Jesus.
That’s what he did with those donations from the Mary Helen Dunagins of the world. ”
“What do you think our chances are that the bank will do right by us?” Therese asked.
“That’s gonna depend on what Arletha Carter tells us. Let’s hope she can help us prove that the bank knew, or should have known, that Mary Helen was not competent when she took out that second mortgage.”
The doorbell rang promptly at two. Arletha Carter stood on the front stoop, nervously glancing around the yard, as though watching for enemy spies who might be lurking behind Mary Helen’s prized camellia bushes.
“There you are,” Arletha said, beaming when Therese answered the door. “Oh my. You really are a grown woman. Your mama would be so proud to see you home like this.”
“I think she’d be proud of both me and Maeve,” Therese said. “Come on inside.”
Arletha was dressed like the banker she’d been for four decades, in a pale pink linen blazer, white blouse, and darker pink slacks. Her close-cropped hair was silver now, and her long acrylic nails were painted the same shade as her jacket.
Scotty was already seated in a wing chair near the fireplace, with a yellow legal pad and pen at the ready.
“I think you’ve met our friend and family attorney, Scott Childress,” Therese said.
Letha gave him a polite nod.
“I don’t know if Scott told you why we needed to talk to you,” Therese started.
“He told me,” Letha said. “And my daughter Saundra said, ‘Mama, you don’t need to be messin’ in those folks’ business.’ But I prayed and prayed over it. I wrestled with Satan, you know? But my better angels were settin’ right there on my shoulder, and they reminded me about how I was raised.”
Scotty and Therese exchanged worried glances.
“‘Tell the truth and shame the devil,’ that’s what my Bible says,” Arletha added.
“Your mama, rest her soul, was my special friend. Mary Helen never forgot my birthday, always had me a card and a lil’ cupcake or some flowers picked from her garden. When my grandbabies were born, she sent them little gifts too. Your mama was special to me, and not just as a bank customer.”
“That’s so sweet of you to say, Arletha. And it was good of you to come to her funeral too. Maeve and I really appreciated that.”