I wondered if Patrick had already gone to the cops. I might find myself having some interesting conversations with the local gendarmerie before this day was through. On the plus side, there was no way Martin could know about sketchy assignments I’d taken on behalf of other clients besides Irene. And trust me, those clients would be the last ones to volunteer information to the cops. Yes, Officer, I paid Ms. Delaney to surreptitiously grind my brother’s ashes into the coffee-stained carpet of the Crystal Harbor police station.
The brother in question had had what you might call an unfulfilling relationship with the Crystal Harbor PD. How, you ask, did I accomplish this audacious feat without getting caught? Have you ever watched The Great Escape? The guy who thought up those dirt-dumping pants was a certifiable genius.
Well, chalk up another win for the pilfering padre. Speaking of unfulfilling relationships.
A thick file folder marked Poker caught my eye, reminding me that the annual Crystal Harbor Historical Society Poker Tournament was being held that day. Out of curiosity I briefly flipped through the contents of the file and found handwritten notes on all of Irene’s Poker Posse members, going back nearly three decades to the birth of the Posse. She’d cataloged her friends’ betting habits, skills and weaknesses, the distinctive tells that revealed when they were bluffing—in short, anything and everything that might give her an advantage at the poker table.
I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that a player as formidable as Irene McAuliffe would take this kind of obsessive approach to the game. I replaced the file without reading it. I didn’t anticipate testing my pitiful poker skills against any of those folks.
I started to slide the drawer shut when the word Will jumped out at me. Holy cow, here it was. Well, of course Irene had kept a copy of her own will. If I ever found reason to make a will myself, I’d probably store a copy in this very file cabinet.
Well, I guess I’d have to make a will now, right? Isn’t that what women of property do?
I slid the document out of the folder and scanned the first page, hoping to see my name pop out at me. Pop it did, after the first part authorizing the executor to pay all just debts and funeral expenses. Irene had indeed bequeathed to me the property situated at 3 Rugby Place, including the entire contents of the house, with the exception of the automobiles. And no joke, her beloved toy poodle really did hold a life estate in the property. She’d also set aside $1.5 million for upkeep and SB’s care. It was right there in eye-crossing legalese.
In the back of my mind was the knowledge that when and if I ever sold the house, I’d be a millionaire in the for-real sense, this place being valued conservatively at close to four million simoleons. But since that sale depended on Sexy Beast no longer being in the picture, I chose not to think about it.
I stood there with a goofy grin on my face, drinking in the black-and-white proof that I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. I read and reread the clauses, then read them again just to make sure the words hadn’t evaporated. Out of curiosity, I flipped to the next page. The name printed there didn’t so much pop as catapult itself.
Patrick Edmund O’Rourke.
What was Colette’s son doing in Irene McAuliffe’s will? When I read further and saw what he was doing there, I took a wobbly step backward until my knees connected with the cream-colored leather swivel chair, which I sank into like a sack of spuds.
Irene had left everything else to Patrick: all her moola except for what she’d set aside for property upkeep, and I happened to know that my one and a half mil represented a small fraction of her assets. I had just assumed the rest would go to relatives—maybe to charities, too, although in life she’d always been a stingy donor, given her wealth. The only regular recipient of her largesse had been the Crystal Harbor Historical Society. If I was now a millionaire, Patrick was a multimillionaire. Plus he got all three luxury cars and the contents of a safe-deposit box.
But why? He and Irene weren’t connected except through Colette, and to my knowledge, Irene hadn’t set eyes on her ex-friend’s son since before the big rift nine years earlier. I thought about my conversation with Patrick yesterday when he’d told me he didn’t need the hundred grand the brooch could bring him. I’d assumed it was his pride talking. Yeah, pride and about sixteen million pictures of George Washington.
Then I remembered what Dom had told me. Six months ago, Irene had gotten him to give Patrick a job. I couldn’t help wondering whether Colette had known about that favor, or this unfathomable bequest.
I continued reading and discovered a third beneficiary. If the last one made me gape in astonishment, this one made me cringe. Irene had left Maria a hundred bucks. As in one followed by two, count ’em two, zeroes. After twenty-eight years of loyal service. Jeez, if she’d wanted to insult the woman, why hadn’t she just left her the contents of her junk drawer? Irene had promised her housekeeper she was being taken care of in her will. Maria obviously thought she’d be able to retire on the bequest. I closed my eyes and gave a sad little shake of the head. Irene, would it have killed you to do the right thing? Okay, bad choice of words.
I’d risen and started replacing the will in its folder when a noise downstairs paralyzed me. I listened intently. There it was again. Someone was walking around in the house. The footfalls sounded too heavy for Maria. I went to the window, which overlooked the parking area near the garage. I saw only my car. Maria always parked there, never out front.
Naturally, my first thought was to call 911. It would have helped if I hadn’t left my purse with my phone in it on the dining room sideboard as I passed through from the garage. And unfortunately for me, Irene had been a modern woman with no land line in the house.
On reflex I looked around for anything that could serve as a weapon. My gaze landed on Irene’s antique brass letter opener. Okay, no. That kind of thing might work great in old movies, but there was no way I was confronting a burglar with a flimsy thing like that. Then I remembered reading somewhere that a shot of hairspray in the eyes could be an effective self-defense weapon. What the heck, it was better than nothing.
I slipped into the master bath next door and quickly located Irene’s hairspray. I shook it to make sure my weapon was loaded, then crept across the hall to one of the guest rooms overlooking the front of the house. Peering down from the window, I spied an old-looking blue sedan parked in the circular courtyard. From up there I didn’t recognize the make.
I asked myself what kind of burglar parked right in front of the place, in plain sight. As far as I knew, no one besides Maria had keys. Well, except for Jonah, for evening house calls when Irene might not feel like answering the door. And Jonah’s ride was a new-every-year Audi A8.
Whoever it was, he made no effort at silence. He probably assumed the place was vacant, since Irene was gone and my car was parked out of view. If he was a burglar, he would figure out he wasn’t alone as soon as he came across my purse. At that point, one of two things would happen. If he was a nice burglar, he would leave. If he was a not-nice burglar, he would find me in whatever hiding place I’d crawled into, in which case I doubted a can of hairspray would do me much good. My best bet was to sneak downstairs, get to my purse—my car keys were in there, too—and get the hell out of the house.
And yeah, I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it too. The padre. Last time he’d taken only paperwork. The time before that he’d not only gone away empty-handed but had actually left his gentleman’s calling card behind, the politest version in recorded history of a raised middle finger. Not that larceny was beyond him. This was the guy who’d boldly swiped a piece of jewelry worth a cool hundred grand, after all.
Could he have returned for more jewelry or perhaps Irene’s art collection? Somehow I couldn’t picture the Harley owner I’d traded verbal barbs with at Tierney’s Publick House behind the wheel of the beater currently parked out front—unless he needed the beater’s trunk space for whatever he intended to carry out of the house that day.
I figured there was an eighty to ninety percent chance it was the padre down there. For what it was worth, I hadn’t gotten a sense of physical danger from him. He might take pleasure in cutting me to ribbons verbally, but he didn’t seem the type to do so literally.
I held my breath and tiptoed onto the balcony overlooking the foyer, hairspray at the ready as if it could possibly be effective from up there. I heard the person moving around the kitchen. Quiet as a cat, I descended the curved staircase and inched through the foyer. To get to the dining room and garage, I’d have to pass the entrance to the kitchen. I gripped the hairspray, my finger on the nozzle, and gingerly peeked inside.
My view of the intruder was blocked by the open door of the refrigerator. I heard the contents being shifted around. Was he looking for a snack? Before I could slip into the dining room, the fridge door banged shut and he saw me.
Patrick O’Rourke and I hollered in unison. My finger tightened reflexively on the nozzle, shooting hairspray directly into my face. I squeezed my stinging eyes shut and barked out every cuss word I knew, then started over at the beginning of the list.
“You about gave me a heart attack,” Patrick said.
“I gave you a heart attack?” I heard water running and then he placed wet paper towels in my hand. I scrubbed my eyes and face, and said, “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“I used my keys.”
I shouldn’t be surprised he had keys to Irene’s house, considering the last will and testament I’d just read. “There’s a doorbell, Patrick,” I said. “You might not be aware, but this is my house now.”
“Sten told me,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
Yet he chose to let himself in anyway. Why?
Now that my vision was clearing, I saw that Patrick looked like anything but a man who’d just inherited a fortune. Dark bags hung under his eyes. His skin looked gray and he was unshaven. He didn’t look like the same man I’d spoken with yesterday at Janey’s Place.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I asked.
“I called in sick.”
“What about Cheyenne?”
His tired gaze sharpened. “What about her?”
“Well, you know, she was so upset yesterday,” I said. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Oh. Yeah, she’s fine.” After a moment he added, “Female trouble. She gets emotional.”
Something about the way Patrick cast about for that explanation made me think Cheyenne had not, in fact, been suffering from The Worst Period Ever, but I let it go. I offered congratulations on his inheritance, and he murmured something that sounded like thanks.
“Listen,” I said, “you can tell me if I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, but I didn’t think you and Irene had anything to do with each other. Especially after that big falling out with your mother. And yet, wow. She left you nearly everything.”
He looked even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. “I’d rather not talk about it.” He rubbed his bristly jaw. “Out of respect for Irene’s wishes. She wanted to keep certain things private.”
“Fair enough.” My mind raced. Patrick was around sixty, a lot younger than Irene, but an affair wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. But with Colette’s son, of all people?
What was it Martin had said at the bar Thursday night? Don’t worry about Patrick O’Rourke. He’s going to be fine, mermaid or no mermaid. Which meant the padre’s snooping hadn’t been confined to those work orders. He’d read Irene’s will and probably every other sensitive document in the place. He’d known about Patrick’s inheritance, and mine as well. Before I did.
“I have to say, Patrick, if I came into a windfall like that, the first thing I’d do is quit my job.”
He shrugged. “The best thing for me is to keep working. I need the routine, someplace to go every day. It’s not a bad job.”
“I guess it’s good for Cheyenne, too,” I said, “for the same reason.”
He shrugged again. His gaze slid away. For someone who’d been completely open about his daughter and her problems not twenty-four hours earlier, he was surprisingly closemouthed now.
“Have you gone to the cops yet?” I asked.
His face paled further. “What do you mean?”
“About the brooch? To report the theft?” Maybe he really was sick. I prayed it wasn’t drugs. I’d assumed all that was behind him. “Patrick, are you okay? Do you want to sit down?”
“I changed my mind. I’m not involving the cops.” He pulled Martin’s calling card out of his jeans pocket and handed it to me. The thing was creased and one corner was torn. It was really getting a workout.
“Why?” I said. “I mean, I know the brooch is a drop in the bucket compared to what you inherited, but yesterday when we talked, you seemed determined to pursue this guy.” I wagged the card.
“I did some thinking.” He kept glancing toward the doorway, clearly eager to get away. “It’s like I said at Ahearn’s. I’m not gonna put my family through all that. I better be going.”
“Did you get what you came for?”
He flinched. “What?”
“You must have had some reason for dropping by.” I nodded toward the fridge. “What were you looking for in there?”
“Nothing. I… I was thirsty. A bottle of water.”
Wordlessly I pointed to the ice and water dispensers on the outside of the refrigerator door. “What were you really looking for, Patrick?”
“I wasn’t looking for anything.” He tried to smile. It was painful to watch. “Not sure what you’re getting at.”
The hard drive in my head automatically sought a connection between Patrick O’Rourke and the refrigerator belonging to Irene McAuliffe. Bingo! “You were bringing her smoothies from Janey’s Place,” I said.
He looked like I’d kicked him. He shook his head. “No. That wasn’t me. I mean… Irene didn’t go in for that health-food stuff.”
“I know she didn’t, but she was having indigestion or something and you brought them to her as a favor.” I smiled, trying to put him at ease. “Did they help?”
He shook his head again, edging away. “I gotta go. I don’t know anything about that.”
I stood in the front doorway and watched him take off in his blue Hyundai. The instant he was out of sight I mentally kicked myself. I hadn’t asked him to return the house keys. I’d been too distracted by his inept fibbing. No wonder he’d ended up behind bars during his hell-raising youth. His guilt flashed like a beacon before he even opened his mouth. His words during the wake came back to me. I couldn’t manage a poker face to save my life.
I made a mental list of the folks besides myself who had keys to my new home: Patrick, Maria, and Jonah. And they were only the ones I knew about. Then there was the guy who seemed to be able to stroll through locked doors whenever the mood struck him. The padre needed his lock-picking wings clipped. Okay, lousy metaphor, but you get my point.
I went into the dining room, retrieved my phone, and called information for the numbers of the local locksmith and the home-security company Irene used. A few minutes later I had appointments for later in the day. All the doors would be refitted with state-of-the-art, unpickable locks, and the security system would be similarly upgraded. For now, I’d slap it on a credit card. I hoped that by the time the bill came, I’d have access to the property-upkeep funds.
I made one more call, though I dreaded it. Maria picked up on the third ring. Her tone turned frosty when she heard my voice. I had no doubt she knew what Patrick and I had inherited. She’d probably demanded the information when Sten gave her the news about her own pathetic bequest.
“Maria,” I said, “I need to know something. Do you remember on Thursday morning when we were talking about that orange smoothie and you said he was always bringing them to Irene?”
A long pause. I could almost hear her wondering why I was bothering her with something so piddling. “What about it?” she finally ask
ed.
“I need to know who that was. Who was bringing the smoothies?”
She sighed. “Patrick O’Rourke.”
I nodded to myself. “When did he start bringing them?”
“About a week before Easter. A fresh one every day. Why?”
“I just want to… thank him.” So the smoothie deliveries started about ten days before Irene died. “Do you know why Colette’s son would have been visiting Irene? I mean, since she and Colette hadn’t really been—”
“Not my business,” she said.
“Okay. Well. Thanks—”
“Two weeks.” Maria’s voice was tight. “That’s all she let me take.”
“Excuse me?”
“I had three babies,” she said, “and each time Mrs. M gave me two weeks maternity leave, like she was doing me this big favor. And let me tell you, she resented it. When little Joey came along… oh, he was so tiny, you should have seen him, five weeks early… I asked Mrs. M could I take a little more time, or at least change my schedule, like flextime, you know, not nine to five. You know what she said? She said, Maria, you’ll have plenty of time off, ’cause if you do that, you’ll be looking for another job.”
Before I could formulate a response, she added, “She paid me for the two weeks, but that’s not the point. My sister raised my children along with her own. Once, I heard Joey call her ‘Mama.’ I locked myself in the bathroom and cried.”
I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to apologize on behalf of her dead employer, for this and all the indignities Maria had endured for nearly three decades.
“She told me I would be well taken care of after she was gone,” Maria continued. “That’s how she put it. ‘Well taken care of.’ I thought that meant I could retire, get to enjoy my grandchildren while they’re still little.” She spat the next words like a foul taste. “One hundred dollars. Everything went to you and Mrs. O’Rourke’s good-for-nothing son.”
Undertaking Irene Page 11
