* * *
Terry O’Malley dug for four hours before he reached the casket and another hour before he got the lid clear enough to open it. He only had time enough to see that the rings weren’t on Clancy’s fingers before he had to jump out of the hole and run because he heard someone coming. He got away just in the nick of time.
The police reported the theft of the rings to Widow Clancy as they had to. They were surprised that she didn’t seem as upset as they had expected. She thanked them for seeing that the casket was properly resealed and the grave covered again and she expressed a hope that they would do what they could to discover who had done this terrible thing. But she never showed any real emotion about it. It was as if she had expected it.
McMullen was surprised to see Terry O’Malley getting on the train to New York City too. He avoided the other man since he didn’t want to have any questions asked or any comments made to the people in town about his own quiet trip to the big city. He noted that O’Malley carried a beat-up suitcase and took a long look back before he boarded the train. A look that suggested that he didn’t expect to see this place again anytime soon. McMullen also carefully avoided him when they left the train in Grand Central station.
“Imagine my total surprise when the jeweler tossed those things back on the counter and told me they were chunks of glass,” McMullen said to Timothy Sullivan when he returned. “Maybe worth a couple of bucks as novelties but that was all. You could have knocked me over with a feather. At first I thought he was trying to gyp me so I took them to two other places and they all said the same thing. So we got nothing for our trouble.”
“Aye, that’s really hard to believe,” Tim said rather firmly. “So much so that I find myself asking if you might be the one who’s trying to gyp me out of my share. I’ve never completely trusted you, and your stealing those rings right off a dead man’s fingers proves my point in that.”
McMullen looked at him for a long moment. “You’re probably right. You can’t afford to trust anyone too much. But you’ll note that I will go on with my business as normal because I don’t have the money to do otherwise. If I were you I would search me right down if I should suddenly disappear because undoubtedly I would be off someplace else living it up. What I have been wondering all the way home on the train is whether old Clancy put everybody on all those years or if it is the Silent Lady who did the hoodwinking on the night of the wake.”
Sullivan smiled, “Either way I guess she’s sitting somewhere smiling about it all.”
She was.
Squirrel Bait and Other Stories Page 12
