7 Sweets, Begorra

by Connie Shelton

  Inside, Ambrose was ringing up the sale of a large stack of the formerly dusty bargain books for a middle-aged woman who looked thrilled to get them. Two younger women were browsing the shelves on their own. Sam glanced around for the other two employees, until she realized that angry voices were coming from the back room. She hurried to the doorway.

  “—is absolutely not true!” Bridget said to Keeva.

  The young woman’s face sparked with emotion, her face a heightened pink. Keeva stood with her arms tightly folded across her chest.

  “I’m only sayin’, it was on the television news. It’s what people are saying.”

  “Ladies!” Sam uttered through clenched teeth. She tilted her head toward the sales room. “Voices! We have customers.”

  “Sam, is it true?” Bridget’s voice came out in a strained whisper. “Is my uncle being accused of helping those American men who stole all those diamonds?”

  “The police haven’t told Beau or me anything like that.” Sam kept her voice low and calm. Of course, the police hadn’t exactly told Beau anything since yesterday’s news hit the wires. “Keeva, it would be best not to talk about this.”

  “I simply said it was what I heard on the TV today.”

  Sam hadn’t watched enough television news here in Ireland to know how it was done. If news anchors handled it the same as in the States—reporting ‘breaking’ stories with very little in the way of facts before they went on the air—she could well imagine how upsetting this would be to Bridget’s family.

  “Okay, okay,” she said to both of them. “I’ll ask Beau to find out what he can. Meanwhile, Keeva, we have customers. Maybe you can see if they need assistance? Bridget, please collect yourself. You can go home if you need to, but while you’re in the store I really need for you to not listen to the gossip and just concentrate on your work. Please?”

  Bridget watched Keeva leave the room, then she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Sam. We’ve never had words before, Keeva and me. I don’t like doing it.”

  “I know. I know.” Sam pulled her into a hug, then handed her a tissue.

  “It’s just hard, you know. There were reporters at our house this mornin’ hangin’ about and shoutin’ out questions. Dad’s taken time from work and Mum’s about to go crazy, with him in the house all the time.”

  Sam smiled.

  “If only there was something I could tell them,” Bridget said with a sniff. “Let them know the prosecutor won’t be smearing our name in court.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen. They only told us that they plan to prosecute the two men they have in custody—Greenlee and Furns. No one ever said anything to Beau about your uncle being involved in their crime.” No one but the Travellers. Maybe they had started the rumors, using the media to shift blame from a Farrell to someone else.

  Bridget blew her nose and tossed the tissue into the trash. “I hope they won’t speak ill of the dead is all. There’d be no point to it, and our family just wants to put paid to this whole thing.”

  Sam agreed, but she was about out of comforting things to say when she realized Ambrose was standing in the doorway.

  “Someone to see you,” he said. “That lawyer fellow.”

  Daniel Ryan stood near the biography section at the back of the store, seeming to browse but not actually touching any of the books.

  “Might we talk?” he said as soon as Sam greeted him.

  “Certainly.” She hadn’t yet shed her jacket so she led the way outside.

  A light mist had begun to drift downward but she ignored it. Ryan led the way to the sheltering awning of a neighboring shop where souvenir hunters were digging through a bin of key rings and magnets. Sam edged away from the crowd around the open door and turned to him.

  “You see,” he began, “Mick and I have discussed your concerns about the estate. The financial records and all that . . . well, I came by to ask if you would like to visit your uncle’s home again.”

  Sam felt her eyebrows rise. Why this, all of a sudden? He obviously didn’t know that Anna Blake had already showed them around.

  He sensed her hesitation. “I, um, Mick left the box of business records that you’d gathered when you went there with him. Of course, if you aren’t interested . . . it’s fine. Not to push you.”

  Again, her skepticism reared up but she was not going to miss another opportunity to get a look at that wooden box.

  “Oh, no. It’s a very kind offer. I would love to go.” After the battle of wills for more than a week now, she felt a tug of emotion at his thoughtfulness. “Let me tell the employees that I’m leaving.”

  “Invite your husband, if you’d like,” Ryan said. “I don’t mean to make you think this is some untoward move on my part or something.” He blushed red as he said it.

  “I’ll call him.”

  They walked back to the bookshop, where she stepped into the back room and called Beau at the hotel. He wasn’t interested in another trip to Woodgrove Lane but wished her well and suggested she could invite Daniel Ryan to join them for lunch if she wanted to. He would roam down to the docks and stop in to see Deirdre Athy and ask if she’d come up with any new clues about the whereabouts of Quinton Farrell. A thought flashed through Sam’s mind—what if it was Deirdre who was in league with the Americans?

  She started to mention the idea to Beau but he’d already said goodbye. And Daniel Ryan was waiting. She picked up her pack and walked out with him, her mind switching gears and thoughts of the matching wooden boxes coming to focus.

  The drive to Terrance O’Shaughnessy’s house went quickly and Ryan pulled into the long drive, positioning the car as close to the front door as possible since the rain was letting go in buckets now. “If you have the time, I can show you around,” he said, shutting off the engine.

  “I don’t really need the tour of the entire house,” Sam admitted as they shook their jackets inside the front door. She made it sound casual, the way she and Beau had driven by and spotted Anna that day. “What I do want to see is something in one of the bookcases in the study.”

  Ryan didn’t seem surprised at her admission. And once she thought about it, that made sense. Anna was keeping the house in order; she had probably told the lawyers about the surprise visit.

  The study looked as it had on the previous two visits—the heavy desk and deep leather chairs were dusted and unmoved. The box of file folders sat beside the desk. The fireplace would have been cozy with a fire in it on a damp autumn day like this, but it had the same cold, blackened hearth as before. She pointed toward the glassed bookcases.

  “It’s in this one,” she told the attorney.

  He walked over to a large painting on one wall, a hunting scene, very traditional with horses and hounds. The frame swung to one side revealing a wall safe behind it. He twirled the dial from memory, opening the door and pulling out a wire ring with two small keys on it.

  “One of these goes to the desk,” he said, “and the other is for the bookcases. Now if I can only remember which is which.”

  Sam waited, trying not to tap her foot or, worse yet, grab the keys away and do it herself.

  The small brass lock clicked, he opened the glass door and reached for the box.

  “There you go. I’ve no idea what this is or why Terrance had it. It’s not very attractive, is it?”

  The assessment was a polite one. The box—like Sam’s—was more than unattractive. It was really ugly. It only transformed itself when she handled it. She reached to take it but remembered what had happened with the first one.

  “Could you set it on the desk and leave me with it for a moment?”

  He gave a puzzled look but did so. “I’ll see if there’s any tea in the kitchen these days.”

  Sam watched him walk back into the foyer, leaving the study door open behind him. She almost closed it, but that might make him think she was up to something. She ignored the impulse and instead stood behind the desk and regarded the box. It had stones
mounted at each point of the X’s in the design, but it was hard to see them or determine their color. Hers glowed blue, red and green when she handled the box but at other times they were dull and quiet like these. The stain and varnish looked the same, too, a dull yellowish brown.

  She placed her hands on the box. It was cool to the touch. Nothing special. She opened the lid.

  As with the other one, this was plain inside. A few vintage postcards with postage stamps in single-digit denominations lay inside. She lifted them out; a quick glance suggested they might be from her uncle’s travels. She would go back to those later.

  When she had received the first box from the dying woman at a property she was charged with cleaning and caretaking, the old bruja had told Sam that she was meant to own the box. Pressing it into her hands, Bertha Martinez told Sam to use the box wisely.

  Now she wondered—was it possible for one owner to have two of these, to perhaps double the power with the possession of two? She pulled her hands away. The power of the first box had frightened her at times and had helped her at others. Did she dare take the chance of unleashing those forces once again?

  She touched the lid, flexed the hinge—open and closed—a few times until it moved smoothly. Across the room, the clock chimed the half-hour. Daniel Ryan would return any minute.

  She laid the lid open once more. A faint set of carved letters were barely visible along the rim, perhaps the craftsman’s name, nothing that made sense to her. As she’d done with the first box, she ran her fingers around the inside of the empty compartment. When she completed the circuit of the four sides . . . nothing. She touched all surfaces of both the lid and the box. She felt no reaction, no increase in heartbeat. The box displayed no reaction either, no golden glow of wood, no sparkle from the stones.

  Sam’s breath whooshed out. She hadn’t realized she was holding it.

  Bertha Martinez was right—each box was destined to belong to someone. Perhaps this one had been Terrance’s.

  Daniel Ryan was standing in the doorway when Sam looked up.

  “Sorry. I was about to say that the kettle’s on. Sam? Are you all right? You look a little shattered—I mean, you know, tired. Everything okay?”

  She took another deep breath. “Fine, yes.”

  He regarded her closely.

  “Really. I, uh, found these old postcards in the box. I wonder if I might take them, just to look them over. My uncle had an interesting life, didn’t he?”

  “I suppose so. About his life, that is. Very interesting. And, sure, I don’t see why anyone would miss a few old postcards.”

  Sam closed the empty box and stacked the cards.

  “Beau suggested that we have lunch when we were finished here. Join us?”

  He glanced at his watch, formulating an answer, but he never got the chance to give it. A loud crash sounded above their heads.

  “Someone is in the house!” she said. Without a second thought she rushed out of the study and up the stairs.

  “Is anyone there?” a woman’s voice called out. “I need help please!”

  Sam followed the sound of the voice, dimly aware of Daniel Ryan coming up the stairs behind her.

  “In here!” came the woman’s voice again. “The end of the hall.”

  Sam opened a door to discover Anna Blake on her knees beside a white-clad prone figure. It was a very elderly man, with twig-like legs sticking out from the knee-length gown.

  “He got up.” Anna practically grunted the words as she worked to get her arms under the man’s head and shoulders. “I tried to tell—”

  “Anna, I’m here too,” Daniel said. “Do we need to call the EMTs?”

  The downed man spoke in a reedy voice. “No—I can get up.”

  He struggled mightily, but it took the other three to get him up on those shaky legs and to guide him to the hospital bed near the windows. He leaned back into his pillows, breathing heavily, after Anna tucked his legs under the sheet.

  “Let me get him settled,” she said. She made eye contact with the lawyer. “Then I expect you’ll want to talk.”

  Ryan took Sam’s elbow and guided her out of the room.

  “What is going on here?” she demanded once the door closed. “Is that—”

  “Yes. He’s your uncle.”

  Chapter 21

  Sam came back into the bedroom when Anna opened the door. Terrance O’Shaughnessy’s color had returned and Sam suspected that the caregiver may have administered some kind of medication. The old man’s hair was snow white, obviously thinning, although it still covered his entire bony scalp. Milky blue eyes surrounded by deep creases watched as she walked toward his bed and took one of the deeply veined hands.

  “Hello, Samantha,” he said. His voice came out stronger than it had ten minutes ago. “I suppose I should introduce myself.”

  “Uncle Terry, why didn’t you tell me? I could have come by to see you every day.”

  “Have a seat, girl. It’s a complicated story.”

  Anna brought a chair and then left the room. Daniel Ryan had already disappeared to another part of the house.

  “We all believed you were dead,” Sam said. “Your will . . . the trust . . . What was that all about?”

  His knotted fingers twitched on top of his blanket. “I’m going to tell you, child.”

  She had to smile. It had been forty years since anyone had called her a child.

  “Who was the man who said that reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated? It doesn’t matter—I must say that the same applies to me.”

  “But you sent us airplane tickets and you’re paying for our hotel room?”

  “Aye, I must confess to a tremendous ruse, dear. I’ve conspired to trick you, along with others about whom I care greatly.”

  “Why?”

  “Call it an old man’s insecurity . . . or perhaps it’s an old man’s form of security. No matter. The fact is that I was testing all of you.”

  Seriously? Sam waited.

  “I regret that I didn’t stay in touch with my American family in a better way. It was easier when Maggie was alive. She wrote the letters, handled the gifts at the holidays, put my name on them even though I hadn’t a clue what she had purchased. I was too busy making money then—scoring a big real estate deal, flying off to the Continent. When my beloved wife died I discovered how pitifully I had wasted my chances. But then, did I change my ways and do a better job of it? No, sadly, I moped around this big old place for a few years and then I went right back out and did it all again. Sad, isn’t it, that a man can create a fortune and have no one to share it with.”

  Sam squeezed his hand. “Your charities will benefit. That’s a very good cause.”

  His eyes closed for a long moment and she wondered if he was too tired for this. About the time she thought of leaving quietly, the eyes opened again.

  “The charities. Well, yes, they will get their due. There’s money in the bank for them.” His mouth pursed and relaxed. “But it was the bookshop and this house that I cared about, the home I shared with Maggie and the shop she always wished we would have, together, when she was alive. Samantha, I’m afraid I’ve always done things too late. Wanted to do the right things, you understand, but I came around to it a bit after the fact.”

  Sam nodded. Everyone probably felt that way at some point.

  “I’ve been almost completely stuck in this damned bed for the past year. And partway through I began to wonder . . . what if I died without ever doing the right thing. It was a very real possibility, you see. So I began to think about that and wondered what it would be like to die but to stay around so I could know how everyone reacted to my death.”

  She began to see where this was going. “So, you took Anna and your lawyers into your confidence and staged it all?”

  His thin lips stretched even thinner and he gave a dry chuckle. “Pretty sharp girl, you are. That’s exactly what I did.”

  Ambrose had railed about the fact that Terry’s coffi
n was closed at the funeral home, and the cemetery director had no record of the second half of the double plot being used.

  “And you’re probably wondering why.” He waited for her nod. “I was curious, as I told you. Wanted to see what people would do.”

  Sam felt herself beginning to smile at the supreme joke.

  “And were you surprised?”

  “In some ways, yes. In other ways . . . not a bit.” He was enjoying this and Sam let him play it out.

  “What surprised you, Uncle Terry?”

  “Well, I suppose the biggest came even before my so-called death, when I informed the directors of my charitable trust that a condition of receiving my fortune would be that they keep the bookshop open. You should have seen their faces. Glances all around the table, smug little looks. Daniel Ryan was in the room with us, and he reported to me how the conversation went after I left. Keep the shop until the day after the funeral, they all agreed. What the old man doesn’t know won’t kill him. Laugh, laugh, har-har—joke’s on Terry. I revoked the trust and fired them all the very next day.”

  Sam chuckled at his glee, but remembered how close she’d come to having those same thoughts about dumping the dusty little shop herself.

  “That’s when I decided to change things up a bit and see what happened. Ambrose Piggott has been a trusted employee and the most loyal friend a man could want. I know he thinks of me as a father but the feelings went deeper. His very life is that shop.”

  “Terry, you should have left it to him. I didn’t expect anything at all. And you are so right, the shop means everything to Ambrose. Change it, please, so that he gets to keep it.”

  He wagged his index finger at her. “Not so fast.”

  “Were there other tests? Was I being tested? And the other employees?”

  “Well, of course you were. Everyone.”

  “And?”

  “Certain reactions made me happy. As I’ve told you, some did not.”

  He coughed and signaled for the cup on his bedside stand. Sam held it, turning the bent straw so that he could sip.

  “I was not pleased with the way Ambrose treated you when you arrived. I was not pleased with the condition of the shop, although I have to admit that I began letting it go, as part of the challenge to see how the directors of my charity would greet the news that they would soon own it.”