Death of an Irish Mummy

by Catie Murphy

  “Right. Gross.”

  “But funny.” Megan came down the low-roofed stone hall to offer her hand. “I expect we might see a little more of each other over the next few days, so I might as well introduce myself. Megan Malone. I’m driving the Williamses while they’re in Ireland.”

  “Yeah, well, two of the three will be trying to make sure you don’t see me.”

  “I noticed there was some tension.” Megan grimaced apologetically.

  “People in—I don’t know, where’s somewhere far away? Tipperary?”

  Megan, solemnly, said, “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” and Peter said, “Jaysus,” as both the Americans started laughing. Megan said, “I didn’t know if that would get any traction, the song is so old,” and Peter walked away, throwing his hands into the air and sending Reed and Megan into more gales of laughter.

  “Tension breaker,” Reed finally wheezed. “Had to be done. Anyway, yeah, the Sisters Williams don’t like me much. I was a jerk,” he admitted. “Screwed around on Jess a lot. She’s forgiven me, but they haven’t.”

  “Should they?”

  Reed rolled back on his heels. “Damn, woman, we just met.”

  Hackles rose on Megan’s nape. “There’s nothing about that sentence that makes me think the answer is yes.”

  Frustration flittered across the young man’s face. “Look, I’m here, aren’t I? I’m trying to be here for her. What else am I supposed to do?”

  “For one, I would strongly recommend not referring to women as ‘woman’ unless you’ve got some kind of prior in-joke arrangement about it.”

  Reed bared his teeth and glanced away. “Yeah, all right. Sorry about that. I know better. I was trying to be funny and wasn’t.”

  Megan hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

  Surprise creased the kid’s face. “Really?”

  “I’ve heard much worse apologies from people who should know better, so yeah, I’ll take it. I hope things work out for you and Jessie.”

  Reed sighed and nodded. “Yeah, me too. I don’t know, though. What do you think about all of this? Are they just crazy?” He gestured at the crypt, encompassing the whole idea of lost ancestors and mummies.

  Megan shrugged. “I don’t know. Their grandma’s diaries and stuff, if they’re for real, seem to provide a pretty good link.” She blinked at the crypt’s ceiling for a moment. “I mean, the diaries are real. Cherise had one with her yesterday. I just don’t know if they’re real in the sense of relating a true story, you know? It’d be kind of cool if it’s all true, although I don’t think it would mean you’re bagging yourself an heiress.”

  “Hey, a guy can dream, right? But no, Jessie and me go back a long time before all this started, though. I met her at a concert and she w—”

  “Driver!” Sondra’s voice thundered down the crypt. “Come out of there at once. We’re going to Leitrim.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Megan exchanged a startled glance with both the young men in the crypt. Reed whispered, “I think I’ll just stay here,” and Peter returned to make an effort at continuing the tour, which Reed waved off. Megan left them behind and climbed into the darkening afternoon light. The sun wouldn’t set for hours, but in the short while she’d been in the crypt, the clouds had thickened considerably. Megan gave them a wary look before turning her full attention to Sondra Williams.

  For a moment, despite the woman’s caustic nature, Megan’s heart went out to her. On the surface, she was the most put-together of the sisters. She dressed both professionally and flatteringly, wore her hair and makeup well, and had a figure she obviously worked hard to keep, even if the fit of her skirt right now said she didn’t always succeed in that. She was still considerably fitter than Raquel, even if she didn’t have Jessie’s advantage of absolute youth.

  But at the same time, it was just as obvious that the entire ensemble was a kind of armor, and that the shell could crack at any moment. She already looked windswept and cold in the Irish winter, and her rigid jawline made veins pulse in her temples. Megan hated to think of the woman’s dental bill if she kept her teeth clenched like that all the time. Whatever Sondra’s contentious relationship with her mother had been, Megan wouldn’t have wished an end like this to it on almost anybody. She hesitated, then let curiosity win out. “Ms. Williams?” At Sondra’s tight glance of permission, she said, “I get the impression you weren’t happy about any of this old Irish-connection story even before Mrs. Williams came here to investigate it. May I ask why?”

  For an instant, Sondra’s facade cracked, a lifetime of frustration glimmering through as her voice dropped into a hiss. “My mother liked nothing more than a good story all her life. She was the type who believed in every princess movie, every miracle diet, every pyramid scheme. My sisters don’t know how many times I bailed her out. They think my marriage ended because I can’t let anything go. Well, they’re wrong. Trevor left me because I said I couldn’t let the bank repossess Mama’s house and he said I could, that she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions and live with the consequences. But I knew the consequences were that she would come live with me, because I’m the oldest and most responsible and Jessie’s a fucking flake and Ray just wants everybody to get along and she’d let Mama run roughshod over her and destroy her life too. So I helped Mama and my husband left me and my sisters think I’m a bitch and I have to be back at work by Tuesday and act like nothing’s wrong because there’s a shareholders meeting next week and if I don’t get the numbers in shape I’m going to be out of a job.” Sondra wiped away furious tears and wrapped her arms around her ribs tightly, warding off the cold wind. “So even if every bit of this stupid story is true, it’s still just a fairy tale that killed our mother, and will pull my sisters down into it if it gets a chance.”

  “I am so sorry.” That, Megan bet, was the confession Father Nicholas had been hoping to get out of Sondra through prayer. She also bet the Texan businesswoman had been too guarded, too afraid of letting anything slip that would conflict with the idea Raquel and Jessie had of their mother, to have fallen for the priest’s ploy. Out in the parking lot, under the threatening sky, it had been safe enough to admit to, especially to the help. Books and television were always showing how freely the wealthy talked when their personal servants were around, and Megan’s experience as a limo driver backed that stereotype up. Even when employers realized they’d admitted everything to an employee, as the slow horror building on Sondra’s face indicated she had, they still counted on—

  “That must have been burdening you terribly, Ms. Williams. I promise anything you’ve said to me will remain in confidence.” There were clients for whom Megan might have smiled at that point, and murmured something like I don’t remember you saying anything at all, ma’am, but Sondra Williams didn’t seem to have the trace of self-deprecating humor that would make that line work.

  The beans having been spilled anyway, Sondra let her shoulders sag for just an instant, weariness aging her a decade beyond her years. “I can’t tell the girls. They won’t even believe me, not without the financial paperwork to prove it, and maybe not even then. Besides, I don’t want to disillusion them about who Mama was.”

  “You’re a really good big sister,” Megan said gently.

  Sondra gave her a look filled with bitterness. “Tell them that.”

  “I hope they’re able to see it themselves soon.” Megan took a deep breath. “If you’d like, Ms. Williams, we could drive back to the Leprechaun Limousines offices and I could upgrade the Lincoln to a four-seater, for your comfort on the drive to Leitrim.”

  “And how much more would that cost us? How much would it delay us?”

  “I’ll speak with my manager. It shouldn’t be much more.” It shouldn’t be anything more, given how much Orla had overcharged Cherise Williams to begin with, but Megan didn’t want to say that aloud. “If we leave soon it shouldn’t delay us more than the time it takes to go over and switch cars. Th
e traffic isn’t too bad, so we should be able to head out of town in less than an hour, either way. We’d get to Leitrim before one.”

  Indecision wavered in Sondra’s face for a moment before she nodded sharply in agreement. “All right. I’ll get the girls and we’ll go. What?” she asked as Megan visibly hesitated again.

  “I know you haven’t had time to go to the Mater,” Megan said carefully. “Is that something you want to do?”

  “You mean to see Mother’s body? No, thank you, Ms. Malone. All that’s holding me together is the fact that the last image I’ve got of her in my mind isn’t as a dead woman. Jessica might want to visit later, but I will not be joining her.”

  Megan, surprised Sondra knew her last name, nodded and went to the car as Sondra went back into the church. After a moment’s wait in the increasing drizzle, it occurred to Megan to call the garage, and caught Tymon on the first ring. “Hey, Ty. Could you get the Bentley ready for me? I’m switching cars for a long drive.”

  “Ooh. Does Orla know?”

  “I’m banking on it being easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

  The kid laughed. “Orla never forgave anything in her life. It’ll be ready when you get here.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Megan promised, and hung up as the Williamses emerged from the church, arguing over whether Jessie’s boyfriend should join them. Jessie was obviously in the minority, but she got in the front seat of the Lincoln and sent a text while Megan held the door for the two older sisters. The argument stopped once they were all in the car, either because etiquette demanded not fighting in front of the help or—more likely, Megan thought—because the vehicle’s heater, running on low, warmed Sondra and Jessie up enough to send them almost straight to sleep.

  Driving back to the garage took about twenty minutes and Tymon, as promised, had a Bentley Mulsanne already idling for them. Megan loved the big vehicle, which had the poshest interior of any of the Leprechaun cars, and which cost enough to rent that teenage debs and hen parties never dared hire it. Megan’s day shift usually meant she didn’t get to drive it, but just this once she planned to get away with it.

  “Get out of here before Orla catches you,” he said, waving off her apology for not helping detail the Lincoln. “You don’t need her nonsense on top of it all.”

  “Her nonsense is it all.” Megan checked the time as she got into the Bentley, the Williamses already settled comfortably in the back. “Would you ladies mind if I stopped by my apartment really quickly? It’s two minutes away and I have puppies who need walking if I’m going on a long drive. I can call a friend if you’d prefer I didn’t,” she concluded, “but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

  To her astonishment, Sondra turned toward her eagerly. “Puppies? What kind?”

  “Jack Russells. I accidentally adopted them about seven months ago.”

  Sondra Williams actually laughed aloud. “You accidentally adopted two dogs? One I could understand, but two? Bring them with us,” she said with an impulsiveness Megan would never have expected from her. “We could probably all use some puppy love.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.” Sondra didn’t seem to care what her sisters thought, but Jessie nodded enthusiastically and even Raquel smiled. “How did you accidentally adopt them?”

  “Their mama snuck into a friend’s restaurant and had her babies in the kitchen,” Megan said as she drove down the block to her apartment. “Obviously they couldn’t stay, so I took them home, and they sort of... stuck. If you don’t mind, I’ll walk them real quick and then tuck them into the carrier on the floor? But the carrier might get in the way of your feet, it might not be a good idea. . . .”

  All three sisters got out of the car to walk the dogs with Megan when she came down from the apartment with them, and Sondra solved the problem of feet by taking the forward-facing back seat to herself when she got back in the car, and putting the kennel on the seat beside her. Megan saw the younger sisters exchange glances, but neither of them complained as they got into the backward-facing seats and settled down for the drive. Raquel reached across to rub Dip’s nose through the wire door and said, “What did you say their names were?”

  “That’s Dip, because his face looks like it’s been dipped in chocolate. His sister is Thong because I thought Dip Thong was funny.”

  Raquel smiled like she didn’t understand, which Megan got a lot when she told people the dogs’ names, and Sondra stared at her in faintly disbelieving horror, which she also got a lot, and which made her laugh every time. Sondra, in rather accusing tones, asked, “Were you an English major?”

  Megan laughed. “No, but maybe I should have been. I did twenty years in the military straight out of high school and got combat medic training, but nothing more formal than that. It doesn’t seem to stop me from making stupid linguistic puns with dog names.”

  “It’s a terrible thing to do to defenseless animals,” Sondra told her, then ducked her head toward the dogs and murmured, “Poor puppies. What a bad lady your owner is,” as they stuck their noses out and licked her fingers.

  “So bad she adopted homeless puppies,” Jessie said, and for a minute Megan was afraid they would snipe at each other the entire drive up to Leitrim. Fortunately, though, within a few minutes Jessie put her head against the window and fell asleep, while Raquel’s head bobbed and snapped up in the rearview mirror as she fought sleep herself. Only Sondra stayed fully awake, watching the scenery and putting her fingers through the kennel’s wire door to play silently with the dogs.

  Even in the bursts of heavy rain, the drive up to Leitrim struck Megan as lovely. Dark clouds with weak winter sun behind them lay close to the earth, Ireland’s endless hills coloured a deep, lush emerald in their shadow. Every once in a while, in the distance, the clouds broke with a burst of what Megan called “godslight,” sunshine falling toward the earth in thick, individual rays. Sometimes those patches of brilliance grew to expose the pale blue sky, and other times, simply disappeared like a wish. It made the world feel small, all nestled in close together, as if the horizons had never been all that far away anyway, and that they weren’t particularly worth exploring. From inside the car it had a kind of serenity, as if, despite the rain, the countryside was warm and cozy and safe. Of course, the sideways spatter of rain, and the lashing nods of leafless trees made a lie of that, but it still had a comforting feel to it. Megan liked this kind of day, at least from through a window and with a hot cup of coffee to keep her company. Walking around in it up at Lough Rynn wouldn’t be as much fun, but she’d worry about that when they got there.

  Like a welcoming committee spilling out, though, the skies cleared unexpectedly just as they reached the Leitrim border, and Jessie lifted her head to mumble, “We’re home.” Raquel reached across to squeeze her sister’s hand, and Sondra gave them both an impatient, uncomprehending look.

  “Texas is home. This is a fairy tale.”

  “Mama loved fairy tales,” Raquel said, and for a heartbeat Sondra met Megan’s eyes in the mirror. Megan moved her gaze back to the road, all too aware that she shouldn’t contribute to the conversation.

  “Fairy tales,” Sondra said, voice straining with emphasis, “aren’t real. Do you even know what’s on the land, Ray? Nothing. They have hundreds of acres going to seed, and an old house nobody lives in. Even when people did live there, it wasn’t a fairy tale. Our ancestors owned tens of thousands of acres. Land they had taken from native Irish and claimed as their own, then made the Irish farmers pay taxes and tithes on just to farm what had been theirs, and starved them in the Famine. Didn’t you do any research on this?”

  The younger sisters both said, “No,” with varying degrees of surprise and belligerence. “I’m sure Mama would have mentioned all that,” Raquel added.

  “Mama liked fairy tales,” Sondra repeated through her teeth. “What’s left isn’t the family’s, and it’s not a fairy tale. It’s blood money, and I think you should know that. The earl
whose DNA we’re trying to get? He was murdered for being Ireland’s most notoriously awful landlord after the Famine, and even though they know who did it, nobody ever got convicted for it because he was so terrible.”

  Raquel, bewildered, said, “What famine?” and it took everything Megan had not to stare at her in the rearview mirror.

  “A million people starved here in the 1840s,” Sondra said incredulously. “Another million left the country, because English landlords—the ones we’re descended from, if this nonsense is right—took their food and sent it away. Leitrim County—”

  Megan mouthed, County Leitrim, but didn’t say it aloud, not wanting to interrupt Sondra’s history lesson. “—had a hundred and fifteen thousand people before the Famine,” Sondra went on. “Know how many it’s got now, nearly two hundred years later? Just over thirty thousand. And the people you want so badly to be our ancestors were part of that. The reports said the third earl’s funeral was a riot, that his tenants wanted his body thrown into the streets so they could kick it. That’s the legacy Mama was so excited about, Raq. That’s what our so-called family did.”

  The prospect of ransacking St. Michan’s to steal a noble bone or two was starting to sound like a decent idea. Apparently the third Earl deserved to have his bones disturbed, although Megan doubted the Williams sisters could handle the logistics of tomb raiding. She bit the inside of her cheek, keeping herself from offering suggestions on the topic.

  “Is that why Mama was murdered?” It seemed Raquel had, melodramatically, decided to accept the worst possible scenario as fait accompli. “Because our ancestors were so awful?”

  “That wouldn’t be fair,” Jessie whispered. “The man who did all that already got murdered. Who would punish Mama for it?”