Chapter Eleven #4
“That’s part of the spooks getting spooky. This castle is filthy with ghosts, and I think that was Ceit agreeing with me. This isn’t so cut and dry. It wasn’t solved. You guys didn’t get the mystery right.”
Yeah, they were seeing that.
Something was missed.
Ethan wasn’t questioning it, since he’d heard some shit about this place.
“What happened next?” he asked.
Finn shared.
“Apparently, wifey number two wanted out of here, too, at some point. The place was being haunted by her sister.”
Elizabeth pointed out another thing.
“If my sister burned me, and I was betrayed, I know I’d haunt the joint. If she hadn’t been a cuntwaffle, I wouldn’t be bothered.”
Again, the lights flickered.
Gabby was beginning to agree.
She burned her sister to get her ass out of Ireland, and then once here, she bided her time, but then she wanted to get married to a local farmer.
To have her own life.
“Oh, my God! She didn’t want to play cover for Duncan! You know…she wanted to have her own family!” she said, telling them about how Catherine begged to be set free.
Elizabeth went there.
“Again, that’s why him telling Ceit to go doesn’t make sense.
If he was willing to marry again, especially if Oison was blackmailing him, Duncan wasn’t willing to risk Ciarán and their secret.
It doesn’t make sense to toss one woman out to get the sister.
Something had to happen to draw Oison here, and I’d bet my booty it was some good old-fashioned envy. Did Duncan have money?” she asked.
They all nodded.
“There are only a few reasons people commit murder. Lust, greed, or they are cuckoo.”
Somewhere in the castle, they heard a door slam.
And Michael knew what it was.
“That would be the crypt,” he said. “I think we’re about to have issues again inside, and not just a falling painting. I think we fucked this up, thinking it was solved when we didn’t even come close. Ceit still isn’t at rest because we missed all of this.”
The lights flickered again.
Oh, boy.
It was a bad time to be right, but the castle’s reaction said it all.
Because she wasn’t a fan of the dead, the ones that haunted a place, Elizabeth moved closer to Ethan, and he wrapped his arm around her waist.
He knew she hated shit like this.
Not the solving.
The woo-woo.
“I got you, Baby,” he said, holding her protectively. “Finish up, Gabs,”
She did.
“Anyway, her second husband dies, leaving her in poverty. She comes home, home being here, and begs him to take her back. He does, and right after, someone tells the church he’s gay, and how to get to him.
Apparently, Catherine, since Duncan found out that she was the rat, wanted to ensure her child had a good life.
She’d sold Duncan out so that the priest would say the wedding was never annulled, giving her the estate and the Granndach legacy. ”
That was shitty.
“That’s terrible. He gave her a life here. Was he horrible to her?”
They all shook their heads.
“By all accounts,” Graham offered, “he protected her, gave her a good life, and didn’t bother her. All he wanted was to have Ciarán by his side, and to be happy.”
Yep.
Terrible.
Elizabeth didn’t buy for one second that Catherine hadn’t burned her sister, since they knew she burned Duncan.
A snake was a snake was a snake.
PERIOD.
“How did his lover die?” Ethan asked, enthralled with this whole story of intrigue and vengeance.
Gabby shared.
“Ciarán heard them approaching, as he was a light sleeper, and he woke up just as someone was about to stab the fuck out of his lover. Ciarán put his body over Duncan’s, saving him, but dying in the process.”
Oof.
Yeah, that’s what they all thought.
“Duncan killed all the invaders and swore he’d find who did it,” Gabby said. “And he did. He later found proof that it was Catherine, betraying him. So, he had her drawn and quartered, while alive, and dumped her in the lake.”
Michael went there.
“The same lake that’s back to being haunted and nearly killed both of us. Don’t go in the lake,” he warned.
Was he crazy to tell them that again?
It was snowing.
That was the last place anyone wanted to be.
Gabby finished.
“Oh, well, it gets worse, Ethan. To make sure Catherine’s child never saw a penny of his money, since he wasn’t a Granndach, he killed it.
Then, he dumped the remains in a box in a cave behind the waterfall.
We found the child, his lover, and Oison’s remains.
Apparently, Catherine killed him when she had a chance.
Which was probably a good plan since he murdered her sister.
This was not a happy, loving family with decent in-laws. ”
Jesus.
“It’s wild here,” Ethan stated. “So, Catherine might have betrayed her sister, betrays Duncan and Ciarán, kills her father, and…what else did she do?”
Wasn’t that enough?
Elizabeth was curious.
“Do you know if her second husband, the farmer, died of illness or did she help him die so she could come back and get some money—again, that’s an MO for murder, and possible in my world. I can’t imagine a farmer afforded her luxury.”
They all stared at her.
Why?
None of them considered that.
“A black widow wife?” Graham asked.
Elizabeth shrugged.
“If it walks like a killer, and behaves like a killer, it’s not a little innocent lamb, Graham. Not in my world.”
As much as Finn hated to admit it, she was right. Worse, he’d never considered it.
This woman was teaching him a few tricks about assuming.
Now, Blackhawk was curious.
“And what happened to Duncan?” Ethan asked. “Because he had to be so hurt when his lover was killed, and he was betrayed.”
They told him.
“He raised Callum, his son with Ceit, and then we think took his life to go be with Ciarán. He never recovered from losing the love of his life. He exited stage right when Callum was old enough to take over.”
The cabinet behind them opened and slammed, making Elizabeth jump, along with the rest of them.
“Jesus Christ,” she said, crossing herself. “And this is why I’m wearing a rosary here,” she offered, pulling it out of her shirt, and dropping it over the material of the sweater.
Yeah, this place wasn’t for the weak.
After giving his wife a kiss and telling her he had to set her free for a second, Ethan took the pasta from the stove, and drained it.
“And he ended his life without seeing Callum grown?” he asked. “He bailed on his child?”
Gabby nodded.
Elizabeth knew what he was thinking.
“EJ, if I died, and you were left alone raising our kids, would you exit like that?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Absolutely not! I’d know they needed me. They’d lost their mother, and I couldn’t leave them to fend for themselves. I’d have to stay until time ran out for me—meaning old age or a meteor hit the house."
Yeah, her either.
“And everyone else?” she asked.
They all considered it.
“I mean, I wouldn’t,” Finn admitted. “If I was all my babies had left, I’d stay no matter what. It would be horrible, but I’d do it for Gabby and the kids.”
Elizabeth didn’t think any of them would check out.
That Duncan had…
“So, my gut says that’s off, too, and there’s a reason he checked out and didn’t give a shit about his son. Did we find out how old Callum was when he took his life?” he asked. “You said when he was old enough to take over, but what was it, exactly?”
Gabby nodded.
“He was nineteen.”
Maybe she was overthinking it.
But it was off.
“So, he leaves his nineteen-year-old son, who yes, could be considered an adult back then, alone to deal with the political and religious battles going on here during that time? Scotland was in a tug-o-war with the King at the time.”
They listened.
Elizabeth made her case.
“The same son he threw the mother out before coming back here? I’m not buying that either.
I’m not buying a single thing said in a letter, since NONE of that can be verified as real.
What I can say is something happened to make Duncan tell Ceit to go, and for him to be willing to bail on his child.
Something went down, and it spiraled into the mess that followed.
I don’t think we have the full picture.”
Honestly, Gabby wasn’t sure what that could be.
“We didn’t find anything in the destroyed journal that gives us an answer.”
She stopped her.
“Again, in a journal that someone was filling with letters that weren’t sent to the battlefield, or they might have been destroyed there. Even if it was in the journal, I’d be hesitant to take it with more than a grain of salt. I think everyone was hoodwinked, like intended.”
There was a mix of disappointment and disbelief.
“Son of a bitch,” Gabby stated. “I can’t believe the journal was bogus and we all fell for it.”
Elizabeth shrugged.
“Ceit said, don’t trust the words. So…”
That she did.
When you ran into a situation like this as an investigator, there was only one route to take.
“Tomorrow, I suggest we start rethinking all of this. Something is way off here, and while it got quiet here, everyone is clearly not at rest if Ceit is still playing in dreams, doors are slamming, and the lake is bubbling.”
The lights flickered.
“And that!” she said, pointing up at the lights. “Is this new wiring?” she asked.
Graham laughed.
“Yep.”