Treasure Built of Sand (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series, #6)

by Hubbard, S. W.

  I thought Dr. Stein was helping us build our families. What’s this for? I open the brochure. Inside is another beaming family, this one Asian.

  “Mrs. Coughlin.”

  Mrs. Coughlin? I glance around for Sean’s mother before I realize the receptionist means me. Flustered at almost missing my turn, I leap up and the brochure falls to the ground. The lady next to me picks it up and thrusts it at me. I jam it in my tote bag and scurry after the nurse to meet my fate.

  Ten minutes after being weighed and quizzed by the nurse, I sit shivering in a paper gown waiting for Dr. Stein to appear.

  He bounds in, trailed by a nurse. Short, with Harry Potter-ish glasses and a ridiculous comb-over, Dr. Stein is hard to picture behind the wheel of a Ferrari. He shakes my hand without making eye contact as he scans my chart. Then he gestures me to lie down and begins my physical exam, his brow furrowed in concentration.

  After all that waiting, the exam is over in minutes. He snaps off his latex gloves and stares at a point over my left shoulder. “Do you have a partner?”

  “Yes, of course—my husband, Sean.”

  “We’ll need to see him at the next appointment.” He washes his hands at the sink while rattling on. “In thirty-five percent of cases, the failure to conceive is the male’s problem, and in an additional twenty percent, both partners have a problem. So we’ll need to check him out.”

  “Can he bring his... er...sample from home?”

  “Nope. Has to be fresh!” The doctor smiles brightly and bounces out.

  Chapter 21

  After the doctor’s appointment, I walk back to my office to get my car. I don’t know what I was expecting from the fertility doctor, but it wasn’t this. So many anxious women...so many automated steps. I feel like I’ve stepped onto a factory conveyor belt. Will I emerge at the other end with a baby? Or will I be plucked off the line by a quality control technician and tossed into the rejects pile?

  I quicken my walking pace. Round One with Dr. Stein took so long that I have just enough time to drive to Kearney to report for nurse duty at Granda’s house. When I arrive at the office, Sophia’s car is gone from its parking spot on the street. I hope that means the police released her. The “two-hour parking strictly enforced” sign looms over me. Maybe her car was towed because she hasn’t fed the meter since noon. I don’t have time for this, but I text her anyway.

  How did it go with the police? Are you ok?

  No answer. Does that mean she’s been arrested, and her phone confiscated? Or is she just being a typical teenager—when Sophia wants me, I have to drop everything and listen. But when I want her, she ignores me. Hopefully, Sean will have some information for me later.

  I hop in my car and drive east toward the more congested part of New Jersey where Sean’s grandparents raised his mother and her three siblings. In those days, four kids was considered a small family. Sean’s mother often talks about her best childhood friend, who was one of twelve.

  And I can’t produce even one.

  I hope Granda won’t quiz me on the topic of when I’m going to start producing more great-grandchildren for him. I’m nervous enough about this stint as a caregiver.

  I’m no Florence Nightingale. But he’s been home a few days now. I think he’s through the worst part of his recovery. All I have to do is keep him company, make him tea, and prevent him from getting up without help. Even I can do that.

  I hope. What if Granda tries to get up while I’m in the kitchen or the bathroom? What if he gets re-injured during my watch? Or what if his heart chooses my eight hours of guardian angel duty to stop beating? The man is eighty-nine—the end could come at any moment. But if it comes while I’m on watch, I’ll be forever blamed.

  As I drive toward Kearney, the houses get smaller and closer together. I leave behind the coffee bars that serve latte and mochaccino and enter the land of diners with bottomless cups of joe and eggs over easy with greasy hash browns. Kearney has gradually gone from being one hundred percent Irish and Italian Catholic to being fifty percent with the balance made up of more recent Chinese, Indian and Spanish immigrants.

  There’s still a bar and a church on every block of the tightly packed business district. Granda’s house is within walking distance of both St. Malachi’s and Jimmy’s Roscommon Bar and Grill. Location, location, location. No wonder Granda refuses to move.

  I park on the street in front of the tiny two-up, two-down house where my mother-in-law was raised. Only two bedrooms and one bath with four kids and two parents. I’ve never enquired about the logistics of her childhood, but the modest three-bedroom, two bath split level in Palmyrton in which she raised Sean and his four siblings must have seemed like a palace.

  I mount the tiny stoop and ring the bell at precisely 5:55. I’m taking over for Terry, and I know I’ll never hear the end of it if he has to work even five minutes past his allotted shift.

  I hear a series of locks turning, and the door opens. “There you are! Finally!”

  I step into a close atmosphere of cooked cabbage and Pine-Sol, scents that indicate a recent visit from Deirdre.

  “Who is it?” I hear a disembodied voice shout from above. “Is it that old bag from next door? Send her away. Tell her I don’t want nunna her Dago food.”

  Terry rolls his eyes. “The neighbor brought us the most delicious escarole soup. I highly recommend it. Just don’t let Granda catch you enjoying it.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Full of piss and vinegar, so I guess he’s on the mend.” Terry leads me down a narrow hall to the kitchen. An array of orange pill bottles lines the Formica counter next to the electric tea kettle. “He spent the afternoon telling me how worthless I am for not being able to repair his broken TV antenna if I know all about computers. Go figure. Then he said he didn’t trust me to cook him a proper meal, and he’d wait for one of his grand-daughters to do it right.” Terry opens the fridge, which Deirdre has stocked with enough food to feed a platoon of infantrymen. “You have to take it up on a tray. He stays upstairs to be near the bathroom. His chair has an alarm that goes off if he tries—"

  A faint beeping commences above. Terry pivots and takes the steep stairs to the second floor two at a time. “—to get up. Granda! Stay still! Here I come!”

  I follow, worried about what awaits me. What special hell will Sean’s grandfather devise for me?

  Granda sits in the sunny front bedroom. Although it’s the larger of the two, there’s barely room for the hospital bed, chair with a lift seat, and a second caretaker’s chair.

  “Who’s this, then? Not our Colleen.”

  Terry has arrived in time to grab his grandfather’s elbow and support him as he wavers next to his chair. The old man peers at me through watery blue eyes.

  I move forward to give him a peck on his grizzled cheek. “Hi, Granda. It’s Audrey, Sean’s wife.”

  He pulls away from my embrace. “Harlot! You’re not married.”

  Terry pats his arm. “Now, Granda—you were at the wedding, remember?”

  “Sean never got his first marriage annulled. That’s why they got married out in that field, with no priest in sight. Bah!”

  He points a gnarled finger at me. “Yer not a Catholic.”

  I smile. “That’s right. I’m not.” If this is the best he can do, bring it on.

  “All right, Granda. I’ll take you to the bathroom, then I’m leaving. Audrey will make your supper and keep you company.”

  “Ay, ye better help me. I’ll piss my pants before I let that harlot take me to the loo.”

  “I’ll go down and start making the meal.”

  “I want a bacon butty,” he shouts after me. “And a glass o’ Glenfiddich. Right alongside o’ my tea. And may the devil make a ladder of your spine if you try bringing me those foul veg.”

  Terry returns as I’m loading the tray with Granda’s request. “Deirdre says he’s not supposed to have so much bacon because of the salt. And no booze when he’s taking pills. An
d give him some steamed broccoli for the fiber.”

  I make no comment, just keep prepping. As far as I’m concerned, when you’re eighty-nine, you can eat whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want it. “Where are the tea bags?”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus—don’t try to give him bag tea. You’ve gotta brew the leaves in this pot.” Terry pulls out a chipped brown teapot and launches into instructions as complex as one of Sean’s Food Network recipes, concluding with, “and he gets two of those blue pills at six o’clock. Good luck, Audrey.”

  He heads for the door.

  “Bye, Granda,” Terry shouts up the stairs. “Be nice, ya hear?”

  “Don’t let the door hit ya in the arse, ya worthless gobshite. Ya never worked a day in yer life.”

  Terry shudders and makes his escape. I carry the tea tray up into the lion’s den.

  I walk in haloed in the scent of bacon, and the old coot can’t help but show some interest. He lifts the bread and examines the bacon. “Aw, and why is it burnt to cinders? Do you not know how to cook streaky bacon proper? And surely you could grill the tomatoes. Did yer ma teach you nothing but how to drop yer knickers fer a man?”

  “You’re right. I’m a lousy cook. I never set foot in the kitchen at our house. Sean does it all. And yeah, I wasn’t a virgin when we got married. Anything else you need to get off your chest?”

  “This tea is bitter. Did you let the water come off the boil before you poured it in the pot?”

  I reach for the teapot. “I’ll just pop down and make a mug of Lipton’s in the microwave, shall I?”

  He stares at me, then breaks into a brown-toothed grin. “Saucy, you are. Remind me of my wife. Except she was a good Catholic.” He reaches for the bacon sandwich.

  Hmm. That seems to be a compliment. I sit down in the chair beside him. “Where did you meet?”

  That’s all it takes. Granda is off on a long trip down memory lane. I learn about his village in County Cork and his constant struggle to wrest a few scraps of food at the table he shared with his thirteen brothers and sisters. I learn about his decision to leave Ireland for America and the gut-churning, foul-smelling trip on the boat, and the moment, on the next-to-last day aboard, that his eyes fell on red-haired, green-eyed Moira, still lovely and laughing even after the horrors of their journey. As he talks, he eats every crumb of the bacon sandwich, ungrilled tomatoes and all.

  Granda takes a deep breath and leans toward me. “And after the boat landed in New York, you know what happened next?”

  “No, tell me.”

  He takes a jolt of the Glenfiddich and continues.

  “I got off to be processed at Ellis Island. Thousands and thousands and thousands of micks pourin’ offa them boats. More red hair and freckles and green eyes than ye ever seen in one place in yer whole life. And my oldest brother’s been in New York already for five years, and he’s supposed to meet me on the docks. And mind ye, I had not seen the boy since I was this high.” Granda holds out a trembling hand at waist height. “Paddy left home to find his own way when I was just a bairn. But I got outside on the docks, the crowds were pushin’ me this way and that. And no one had those foul contraptions in those days”—he points to my cell phone—"so how was I going to find me brother? How would I even know him? And I felt the tears in my eyes, I did, because I had only five dollars to my name and no clue where I would sleep or how I’d set about finding work.” Granda stabs one of the slippery canned peaches I subbed for the broccoli and sits back to let me ponder his long-ago dilemma.

  It’s quite a story. I find I’m on the edge of my seat dying to know how Granda survived his first day in New York. “Did you find him?”

  Granda downs the last swallow of whiskey and raises his right hand like some ancient oracle. “And out of that crowd came a voice. ‘Declan,’ he cried. And I turned around and there stood me brother. I’d ‘a known him anywhere.”

  “But how did he find you? How did you know it was your brother? There must’ve been hundreds of Declans on the dock.”

  “Blood! Blood speaks louder than words. Blood will tell.”

  After Granda makes this pronouncement, his eyelids flutter. In seconds, he’s sound asleep in his chair. I slide a pillow under his head and tip-toe out of the room.

  Maybe all a nurse needs is good ears.

  Chapter 22

  “How did it go?”

  Sean’s voice emerges from the darkness as I slip into bed at midnight. Deirdre’s husband had arrived at Granda’s house at eleven to take over, but I hadn’t heard from Sean at all during the time I kept a vigil over the snoozing old man.

  Nor had I heard from Sophia.

  “No problems whatsoever.” I don’t mention that I totally ignored Deirdre’s dietary restrictions. “You must’ve been busy at work.”

  “Swamped. Sorry I didn’t call.” Sean props himself on his elbow. “You honestly had no problems with Granda? He didn’t complain and insult you and curse you?”

  “Well, sure—but I expected that. What I didn’t expect was how much I’d enjoy listening to the old man’s stories. He told me about how he met your grandmother and what it was like to arrive—”

  “—on Ellis Island.” Sean turns on his best Old World brogue. “Ay, there were more red-headed lads than ye could shake a stick at. And how was I to find me brudder in all that crowd?”

  I laugh. “I take it you’ve heard that one before. It is pretty amazing, though—you and I can’t find each other at ShopRite without our cell phones. Granda claims he and his brother were drawn to each other by their shared blood.”

  “Ah, yes—the O’Shea blood is like a divining rod to find other members of the clan. Did Granda mention he also had a large sign pinned to his shirt that spelled out his complete name and address and his brother’s name? That may have aided Uncle Paddy in finding him.”

  I slap his arm. “You’re destroying the magic. I like his version better.”

  “Thank you for being such a good sport about Granda.” Sean pulls me into his embrace. “Once I work my shift this weekend, this branch of the Coughlin family is off-duty. Mom and Dad have arrived in Ireland, and nothing can go wrong now. How was the rest of your day?”

  “Trevor’s funeral...Sophia talking to the cops—remember?”

  “Shit. I totally forgot. By the time I got back to the station, no one was there but a few night shift guys. I’ll ask around tomorrow, first thing. I promise.”

  “Oh, and one other issue—there’s some thug named Ray-Ray following me in a black Camaro.”

  Sean bolts upright in bed.

  “He hasn’t approached me. Donna says he works for Uncle Nunzio, and he’s there to let her know the family is keeping an eye on her. Anthony knows better than to put the tail directly on her.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Sean mutters. He gets out of bed and calls in the information, adding the partial license plate number that I retained. “I’ll drive you to work tomorrow,” he says as he returns to my side. “I bet this Ray-Ray has a rap sheet a mile long. There’ll be something we can haul him in for even if it’s just to hassle him for a day or two.”

  I snuggle against Sean’s broad chest and feel his heart thumping under my ear. Do I want to drive up that slow and regular beat? Not really, but we’re not going to see much of each other in the next few days. I need to tell him about Dr. Stein. “I had a doctor’s appointment today.”

  I feel him tense up. “You never mentioned you haven’t been feeling well. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sick. I, I went to see a fertility specialist—the best guy in Palmyrton. Natalie got me in on a cancellation.”

  “Is that necessary?” He pulls far enough away that he can see my face. “We haven’t been trying that long.”

  “Natalie says it’s best to find out if I have problems sooner rather than later.” I fill Sean in on what the doctor said, and he listens patiently. And then I drop the bombshell about his part in the process.

  Sean sits
up and turns on the bedside lamp. “Wait, wait—you’re telling me I have to go into the doctor’s office and jerk off into a cup? And then walk out into a room full of women who all know what I’ve been doing behind that door?”

  “Uhm.... Yeah, that’s the way it works. The doctor said the sperm sample has to be...er... fresh, you know.” I reach out for his hands. “Please, Sean—I know it’s awful, but that’s the standard process the doctor follows. He says he has to rule out any problems on your end.”

  Sean slides back under the covers and pulls me close. “I’m willing to do my part, Audrey, but I think you’re jumping the gun. I’m sure neither one of us has a problem. Relax.”

  “If the tests show there’s nothing wrong with us, then I will be able to relax. I need to set my mind at ease. Please.”

  Sean smooths the hair back from my face. His big, hard hands are amazingly gentle. “That’s my girl—so sure science and math have the answers to all life’s problems. Have some faith.”

  I pull away. “Don’t say it. Don’t give me that, ‘it’ll all work out.... God has a plan’ stuff.” I don’t believe in fate. I believe in taking charge of my own life.”

  We glare at each other for a moment until Sean starts to laugh. “This is why I married you—because you’re nothing like my mother. Send me the contact info and I’ll make the appointment.” He rolls over. “Now, let’s get some sleep.”

  I feel the weight of worry dissolve knowing that Sean is willing to tackle this baby conception issue head-on.

  The concern about Sophia still nags me. Did the funeral really reveal something to her about Trevor’s murder, or is she just a teenage drama queen? But Sean is right. We need some sleep. That problem will have to wait until tomorrow.