Death of an Irish Mummy

by Catie Murphy

  CHAPTER 15

  A text from Jelena woke Megan at a quarter to six: are you gymming today?

  Megan, sleepy and slightly guilty, responded with I am now and got a series of happy emojis in return. She got to the gym before the doors opened, mostly because it was literally across the street from her apartment, and Jelena, her curly hair beaded with rain, jogged in a few minutes later to join the warm-ups. A good-natured spotting session turned into a laughing, sweating attempt to out-lift each other—Jelena won—and both women were staggering with the effort by the time they’d finished their workout. Giggling at their wobbliness, they made their way to the door, and Megan tilted her head toward her apartment across the street. “Coffee?”

  Jelena shook her head. “I can’t today. Work starts in forty minutes and I need a shower. Are you all right, though, Megan?” During their workout, they hadn’t talked much about the chaos the Williams family had brought to Megan’s life, partly to keep focused on the exercise, but mostly mindful of others who might be listening in. “You know you can stay with me a while, if it comes to it.”

  Megan shook her head. “Orla’s been forced to her senses for the moment. I’m never staying in that apartment with her as my landlord, so I’m not, but I don’t have to find a new place immediately.” She stepped forward to curl a hug around Jelena’s waist, even if they were both sweaty from their workout. “Thanks, though,” she mumbled. “It’s nice to know I could, if I needed to.”

  “Thank goodness.” Jelena returned the hug, sighing against Megan’s hair. “You have too many adventures, Megan.”

  “I don’t mean to!” Megan stepped back to smile up at the other woman, whose bright eyes sparkled with amusement.

  “I know you don’t, but they follow you. I want you to be careful, hm? And we can have coffee on . . .” She looked around like the rain-wet streets would tell her what day it was. “Maybe Sunday?”

  “Sunday. Should I get cinnamon rolls or would that defeat the point of going to the gym?”

  “It would. I’ll bring some.” Jelena stole a kiss and headed down the street. Megan watched her go before running back across the road to shower and get ready for work herself. By the time she got out of the shower, Orla had texted her schedule for the day, which was essentially “get the Williamses and do what they want.”

  Megan texted Raquel in return, went and got a car, and got to the Gresham just after Raquel’s answering text came in. She sent a note up saying she’d arrived, and several minutes later the sisters emerged from the hotel, huddling under a huge umbrella even though it wasn’t actually raining just then. Megan sprang out of the Bentley and held both the door and the umbrella for them as they got into the vehicle.

  “Sorry it took so long,” Raquel said. “We didn’t expect you to be here already.”

  “It’s no bother,” Megan promised. “Did you get any rest?”

  “Yeah.” Jessie’s voice was raw, heavy with grief and exhaustion, but she twisted to give Megan a tired smile. “Raquel shared some of those Ambiens and I think we were all asleep before seven.” Tired as she sounded, she looked better than she had the day before. All the sisters did, even Sondra, whose concession to the inclement weather was two-inch-heeled boots instead of the four-inch stilettos she’d worn the day before. She was no less put-together, but seemed more comfortable, which could have been the sleep as much as the footwear.

  “We’re supposed to go to the embassy to deal with the legalities of an American citizen dying overseas,” she said grimly. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Of course.” Megan smiled gently at her in the rearview mirror. “Would you like quiet, or the ten-cent city tour on our way over?”

  Two of them said, “The tour,” and one said, “Quiet,” then closed her eyes and waved wearily, giving them all permission to have the tour despite her wishes.

  Megan smiled again and pulled out of the parking bay onto O’Connell Street, saying, “About three hundred years ago this was Drogheda Street, a proper narrow cesspit of a road, until a banker bought this half we’re on now, the upper half, and razed it to make it into houses for rich people. It took another fifty years to complete the whole street to this width and to build O’Connell Bridge. A lot of the Easter Rising was fought along this street. There are still bullet holes in the GPO’s pillars.” She nodded at the General Post Office as they drove by, and all three women moved toward that side of the car to see the gorgeous old Georgian facade more clearly. A minute later they were over the bridge and crawling down Dame Street, then turning up onto George’s.

  Jessie, still mostly mashed up against the window, said, “This is all really pretty,” and Megan nodded.

  “Georgian, mostly. Back in the day, the north side, where you’re staying, was the fashionable side of the city, but right after they finished the bridge we just crossed, the Duke of Kildare built a huge fancy house on this side of the river. His architect and everyone thought he was out of his mind, but it became a kind of ‘if you build it, they will come’ thing. The south side became fashionable and there’s all sorts of gorgeous early Georgian architecture over here because of it. And his house is the seat of government now, actually.”

  “Did you know all of this before you moved here?”

  “Oh, god, no. I’ve picked it up living here, and sometimes by . . .” Megan dropped her voice into a furtive whisper. “Researching stuff.”

  “Oh no, not that,” Jessie said in mock dismay, then, more seriously, added, “I’m glad you know it all. It’s a distraction.” She cast a worried look at her sisters, as if she might have said too much, but Raquel only nodded. Jessie’s eyes still filled with tears, and Megan, trusting that distraction was as important as driving, said, “This stretch near Embassy Row is pretty posh, as you might guess from being near all the embassies,” and all three sisters nodded along attentively, clinging to the diversion. Megan dropped them in front of the American embassy, a building she thought of as clunky and bunker-like, and was always surprised to see was actually three stories of windows laced in a kind of concrete honeycomb. The only part she’d been inside was cramped, filled with waiting-room chairs, and rather grim, so she supposed her knowledge of the interior somehow informed her feelings about the exterior.

  “I don’t know how long this will take,” Sondra said as they got out of the car.

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s street-side parking here, so I’ll just wait around the corner with my book and unlimited Wi-Fi and it’ll be grand. Just text or call when you’re done and I’ll pick you up.”

  Raquel said, “Thank you,” and Megan left them to deal with the heartbreaking legalities of a death abroad. Once she’d parked, she left the car to take a walk. A little extra exercise after yesterday’s long drive wouldn’t do her any harm, and she reckoned she’d better do it sooner rather than later, just in case the meeting at the embassy took less time than she imagined it would.

  When she’d moved to Dublin they’d been doing some kind of work beneath the River Dodder, just a few dozen steps up the road from the embassy, and it had been a riverbed empty of water but full of heavy equipment. That work was long since finished, but she had a strange fascination with seeing water in the river now, as if some part of her expected it to disappear again without warning. She turned down a little side street and walked down to the river’s side, collecting small stones to throw in. Her phone buzzed and she took it from her pocket, creating a bad moment where she almost threw it instead of a rock. Grimacing, she dropped all the pebbles and took a step back from the river, like the extra distance would keep her from doing anything stupid.

  To her surprise, it was a text from Niamh, saying I’ll be home for three days from the Sunday for press junket stuff. 1. Can you drive me around town? 2. Wanna go out to eat? I’m dying for a coddle.

  Megan wrote holy beans, absolutely! back, then, after a moment, added I don’t suppose you’re bringing my Favourite Chris along? Also isn’t it like 1am there? Why a
re you even up?

  It took a minute before Niamh wrote back again, and Megan, glancing warily at the sky, decided to risk a walk down the river path. She’d just about given up on Niamh answering when another text buzzed through. No, Fave Chris press junket won’t be until next year, we only finished filming in Nov. This is for things going mental with the little Irish thing I did last year. And I’m in NY so it’s only 4am. Wait, that’s not better, is it . . .

  Ugh, no, it is 100% Not Better. Are you still up or just up?

  Neither answer to that is very good, is it? I’m just up, but they’re coming to take me away for press junket stuff. I’ll ring you Monday morning when I know where they want me driven around to? Paul’s picking me up at the airport & we’re stealing a night together before the madness hits.

  Megan said, “I’ll book you in,” aloud, sent a thumbs-up emoji in response, and tucked her phone back into her inside breast pocket. “The little Irish thing” was a homegrown film that had garnered unexpected awards attention, great for Niamh’s career but harder, Megan thought, on her burgeoning relationship with Paul Bourke; Nee had been planning to be home for four months after her last film wrapped, and instead had found herself on the awards circuit, doing press and trotting the globe. Megan, one step removed from Niamh’s increasingly fabulous lifestyle, loved watching it, but couldn’t imagine living it herself. Driving her friend around Dublin and glimpsing the glamour from inside a limo was, by and large, close enough for her.

  Well, unless Niamh brought Favourite Chris with her to the next Irish premiere. Megan might presume on their friendship just a little, in that case. Grinning, she hunched her shoulders against the January wind and broke into a much brisker walk, trying to warm up without turning back and resorting to a cup of coffee. She’d gotten just far enough to start sweating when genuinely enormous raindrops began pelting from the sky. Megan spun on her heel and scurried back to the car, climbing inside barely ten minutes after she’d left it. She sat in the driver’s seat a minute, beating a tattoo on the steering wheel and staring thoughtfully at the ballerina skirts blooming in the gutters in front of her. Most of the morning traffic had cleared away, and it was only a few minutes’ drive to the Central Statistics Office. The Williamses would probably be in the embassy for at least another half hour. Megan couldn’t get very much snooping done at the CSO in ten or fifteen minutes, but faint heart never won fair lady, and they’d be closed for the weekend, so she decided she’d better get while the getting was good.

  A few minutes later she was driving along the Grand Canal, one of the two canals connecting Dublin with the River Shannon in Ireland’s west, not that freight had been moved along it for decades. One of her bucket list goals was to take a pleasure cruise across the island on the canal system, but she supposed she would have to take a vacation to make that happen, and her American sensibilities hadn’t quite caught up with the idea that European law insisted on a minimum of four weeks of mandatory holiday for all full-time employees. She was terrible about taking it.

  The receptionist at the CSO building remembered Cherise Williams, and, unsurprisingly, had already talked to Detective Bourke about the Texan woman. Megan, leaning on the counter, said, “Did he ask about Mrs. Williams’s diary?” and the receptionist—a bulky bald man in his late forties who looked like he could also be the security guard—shook his head curiously.

  “Little fabric blue book, about this big, with a pattern on the cover. She might have—”

  “Ah sure,” he said, “that was her proof so. I had a bit of a look through it. It’s a lovely old book full of brilliant stories, but it’s a bit of Bridey Murphy too, isn’t it?”

  Megan smiled reflexively. “Hardly anybody knows who she was, anymore, but you’re right, it kind of is. Only Mrs. Williams’s nan was just writing down her father-in-law’s stories, not remembering them herself like a past life. Do you know who Mrs. Williams talked to here?”

  “Sarah Brennan, up on the third floor,” he said promptly. “But she’s gone on holiday now, left right after seeing Mrs. Williams yesterday, in fact. Mrs. Williams came down in a right state, saying she couldn’t see why anybody wouldn’t help her when all she was after was—” His brows crinkled, sending wrinkles all the way back across his shining, shaved pate. “Was a DNA sample from the mummies at St. Michan’s? That can’t be right, can it?”

  “I’m afraid it is.” Megan looked toward the lifts, vaguely exasperated. Ms. Brennan rushing off on holiday after talking to Cherise certainly made a good exit strategy for a murderer, but unless she’d first followed Cherise to the hotel and stabbed her full of air, Megan didn’t see how the timing could work. “Did Ms. Brennan take a taxi to the airport?”

  “Acht, I wouldn’t know. Yer wan, Mrs. Williams? Did when she left, though. I called it for her.”

  “Do you remember what company?”

  The receptionist’s eyes narrowed. “Are yis with the garda, then?”

  “No,” Megan said, vaguely guiltily. “Just a hopelessly nosy American.”

  “You’re all of you bold so you are,” he told her without any real severity. “I only used the app, but I can tell you the driver. Yer man will have talked to him already, though, that ginger guard.”

  “Probably. Do you know if she had the diary when she left?”

  The bald man shrugged expressively. “I’d think so. Where else would it be, up in Sarah’s office?”

  Megan widened her eyes hopefully and the receptionist burst out laughing. “You’re a fine wan, aren’t you? I can’t let you into Sarah’s office, lass.”

  “I’d never ask you to, laddie,” Megan said dryly, and snorted amusement at his surprise. “I’m maybe five years younger than you. Don’t go ‘lass’-ing me. Could you pop up to Sarah’s office and have a look around?”

  “And leave the desk unmanned? Hnf.” He did pick up the phone, though, and, visibly amused, put a call through to somewhere upstairs. “Áine? Yeah, it’s Declan down the desk. I’ve a lady here who thinks she forgot something in Sarah’s office yesterday. Could you look to see if there’s an wee little blue book—” A guffaw burst from him. “No, not one of the car resale types. A diary, like. It’s old, with a gold—?” He met Megan’s eyes, his eyebrows lifting. At her nod, he went on: “A gold heart on its cover. Ah, you’re grand so, I’ll hold a minute, sure.”

  Megan whispered, “You’re a scholar and a gentleman,” as he tipped the phone’s mouthpiece down.

  “I’m neither,” he said, clearly pleased. They waited in silence on Áine’s return, and a couple minutes later she came back with what was clearly a negative response. Declan put the phone down, obviously disappointed. “Sorry, love.”

  “Hey, you even calling up to ask was going above and beyond. I really appreciate it.” Megan meant it, too.

  “Here’s the taxi details.” Declan wrote a name and number on a piece of paper and handed it to Megan. “Maybe your book was left in the taxi. It’s gone missing, has it?”

  “Mrs. Williams’s daughters can’t find it,” Megan admitted. “I don’t know if anybody’s looked under the bed.”

  Declan guffawed again. “Good luck with it so.”

  “Thank you.” Megan lifted the note and repeated, “Thank you. You’re a star, Dec.”

  “Ah, we’re mates now, are we? I’d best have your name then.”

  “Megan,” she said with a smile. “Thanks again.”

  “Come back and tell me how it all turns out.” Declan waved her off and Megan went back to the Bentley, unfolding the paper with the taxi driver’s details on it. It was barely after ten, but she drove back to the embassy before calling the number so that she would be on hand if the Williams sisters needed her.

  An African accent answered when she rang, and Megan said, “Hi, Mr. Omondi? I’m calling from Leprechaun Limos in Rathmines. A client of mine might have left a book in your car yesterday. Did you find anything like that?”

  “The dead American woman, eh? No. She left nothing
. Are you a guard?” The other driver sounded wary, and Megan couldn’t really blame him. Immigrant taxi drivers caught more than their fair share of grief from not just the police, but other taxi drivers as well. It pissed Megan off, particularly because she largely saw herself as an immigrant, and was all too aware that being an English-speaking American immigrant put her into an entirely different class as far as most people were concerned.

  “No, I just work for a car service, like you. Well. I bet you own your own car.” She had no particular urge to drive for herself, but put a note of wry admiration into the words anyway, and the man on the other end audibly thawed.

  “It is not always easy, but yes. The police did not ask me about a book.”

  Megan shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “No, we only realized it was missing late yesterday. It’s a family heirloom, I guess.”

  Omondi was silent a moment, then said, “Let me look again.” She heard him rustling, even opening and closing the car boot and a side door before he came back. “No, there is nothing. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Thank you for looking, that was really nice of you. It’s looking like somebody took it, then.” Megan held her breath a moment. “I know you talked to the guards already, but . . . is there anything you’ve remembered since then?”

  A hesitation came over the line, before Omondi said, “You are not the police?” again, as if balancing between increased suspicion and the impulse to tell her something.

  “I’m really not. My name is Megan Malone and I drive for Leprechaun Limos in Rathmines. You can look me up if you want.”

  Several moments of silence passed before he blurted, “You are the murder driver!”

  “Oh my god.” Mortified, Megan slid down in the driver’s seat, one hand splayed over her face. “Yeah. Oh god. Yeah, that’s me. I didn’t know I . . . had a reputation?”

  “We talk about you often,” Omondi said eagerly. “How do you do it?”