Death of an Irish Mummy

by Catie Murphy

  Jessie hissed, “Take a picture, quick, take a picture,” and in a flurry everyone but Anne did, ending with a collective sigh of relief that the work was recorded and any mistakes they made that undid the carefully stacked papers would no longer be catastrophic. Only then did Jessie shiver and whisper, “It really is a map.”

  The dozen sheets, aligned to the coin and stacked in the right order, made a new picture of their own. The manor house lay in its centre, with the carefully sketched X’s describing an elegant arch to the house’s left, in the gardens, and the druid’s altar off to the manor’s right. Lines from other parts of the original drawings came together to suggest a pathway between the two points, but something about the shadows at the druid’s altar made Megan say, “A tunnel,” suddenly. “There’s no aboveground pathway there, is there? But there could be a tunnel.”

  Anne snorted. “We’d have long since found tunnels. Children and young people have been crawling around those stones for longer than I can remember.”

  “But they weren’t always collapsed,” Raquel said. “Patrick had a drawing from when he was a child, where they were all standing in a circle. Something could be hidden beneath them.”

  “Treasure hunters and archaeologists have poked at it for at least fifty years,” Anne replied dismissively. “They’d have found an entrance if there was one. Go on yourself and try crawling under those stones, girl. See what you see.”

  “But Patrick used to bury things for his brothers, didn’t you say?” Megan whispered. “What if he found his way into something and decided to hide it?”

  “Why would he hide a treasure?” Anne demanded.

  “Because of the evil earl,” Raquel said. “He was afraid his whole family would be the same way. They were already rich. If they found some kind of real trove, he might have been afraid they’d hoard it all and never do anything decent again. Or maybe he thought he’d come back for it someday. Or maybe he took it all to America.”

  “We’re not rich enough for that,” Sondra muttered, and despite their nervous excitement, her sisters laughed. “But Anne says there’ve been treasure hunters all over those grounds for decades. They’d have found something.”

  “Would they?” Megan wondered. “Does anybody know how deep metal detectors detect metal?”

  “No, but a woodchuck would chuck all the wood it could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”

  Raquel elbowed Jessie while Megan looked it up online and said, “Only a few feet deep at most, and wet ground apparently makes them work less well. Are there any—” She straightened hopefully, looking at Anne. “Are there any caves around here? Isn’t there a lot of limestone?”

  “It’s Ireland,” Anne said. “There’s limestone everywhere, gell.”

  “If there’s a cave—even just a natural hollow several feet down—digging a deep hole is hard,” Megan said with the voice of experience. “But if there’s a wee cave of some sort then filling an entrance to one might not be so hard. And then if you piled a bunch of rocks over it . . .”

  “So you think the druid’s altar is the entrance to a treasure cave?” Anne’s thin white eyebrows rose, and when Megan nodded cautiously, she threw her hands up. “Well, what are you standing here for so? Go on! Go see!”

  CHAPTER 22

  “This feels like a French farce,” Sondra said as they all climbed back into the car. “Everyone running in through one door and out through another until they all crash together in the middle. We’ve gone back and forth a dozen times already.”

  “Twice,” Jessie said pedantically. “This is only the second time today. Oh, crap, we forgot to actually invite her to the funeral.”

  “There’ll be time later.” Raquel disappeared from Megan’s view in the rearview mirror, bending to offer sleeping puppies her fingers to lick. They must not have awakened, because she sat up again and rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead. “Even if there is treasure, who would have known that to come after Mama?”

  “Flynn.” Jessie spoke thinly. “I’d talked to him lots about the family and all your ridiculous ideas about the treasure from Geepaw Patrick’s stories in the diary and that was his auntie out there with the metal detector, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh.” Raquel’s pitch fell with horror. “Oh, no. He wouldn’t have hit her, would he? No. No. I’m sure he wouldn’t. Besides, he didn’t even know we were coming.”

  “He didn’t know I was coming,” Jessie said miserably. “I’d mentioned Mama was coming over. I’d even said . . . I’d said when, in case he wanted to meet her. I thought it would be nice for her to have a friend over here. She’d said I was silly when I told her, but you know Mama. She would be friends with somebody’s pet rock. If Flynn . . . if he told her he was my friend . . .” Her voice had grown thicker with grief and guilt as she’d spoken, and finally choked into nothing while her sisters looked at her in distress.

  “Why didn’t you . . .” Sondra too, simply stopped mid-sentence, obviously all too aware that her own likely response would have been enough to keep Jessie from making that confession earlier. Raquel didn’t ask any questions, just pressed her hands against her lips and stared unhappily at Jessie.

  “I really didn’t even think of it.” Jessie’s voice, raw with grief, broke on the words. “I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t really think of it, not until Raq asked who knew. Flynn’s . . . nice. We’ve chatted for ages. He couldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .”

  “Flynn wouldn’t have any reason to stay in the Lough Rynn house,” Megan pointed out carefully. “He lives here.” She nodded at the village they were passing through on their way back to the grand old estate.

  Gratitude and relief sprang to Jessie’s face. “Oh my god, you’re right. That wouldn’t make any sense. Neither would attacking his aunt, but . . .” Her expression crumpled again. “But who, then? Who else even knew Mama was here?”

  Megan sighed quietly. “I’m sorry, Jessie, but your mother wasn’t very discreet. She came into our offices talking about being the countess of Leitrim and the estate she should inherit, and loads of people overheard and gossiped about it. Even if she didn’t talk about treasure specifically, the fact that she was talking about this place like it was worth something might have gotten someone digging around for gossip, and then if they found out Maire Cahill was up here with a metal detector, like there might be treasure . . .”

  She was certain Detective Bourke had imparted some of this to the sisters, but the slow shock settling into their faces suggested that if he had, none of it had really sunk in. Which made sense, really; they’d all been through a lot over the past few days, and what Megan had just told them was obviously difficult information to accept. Under the same circumstances, it might have bounced off Megan, too.

  “You mean it could be anybody,” Sondra finally said. “I mean, it really could be anybody. God! God, why couldn’t she just keep her damn mouth shut? Why couldn’t she just see a lick of sense for once in her damn life and realize that even fairy tales have dark sides!”

  Raquel began, “Mama believed in the best of people,” but Sondra overrode her with an unintelligible roar.

  “Mama believed in every shyster and con man who came along, Raquel! She gave tens of thousands of dollars to frauds every year of her life! She got a second mortgage on her house, Raquel! She bought into a pyramid scheme that collapsed, because of course it did, and she couldn’t pay the loans back! And even then you’re damned right: she believed in the best of the scammer who sold her on it and said she was sure he didn’t understand how risky it was for her! God bless that woman, I loved her, Raq, even if you don’t think I did, but she didn’t have the sense God gave a goose!”

  “No, she couldn’t—” Raquel stopped, dumbfounded. “She couldn’t have done that. She never said anything about losing the house. She didn’t lose the house.”

  “I paid her loans back, Raquel.” Sondra lost the last vestiges of both anger and rigidity, slumping to stare out the wind
ow as they turned up the drive to the Lough Rynn house. “I paid back her loans. Trevor didn’t want me to. That’s why he left me. And it’s why I have to be back for this meeting, because if I lose the company I’m so far in debt I’ll never get out. So if Mama got herself killed by running her mouth, then God, I am sorry, I am so, so sorry, but honestly, Raq, I don’t think I’m surprised. She never did a thing in her life without somebody having to bail her out, up to and including marrying Daddy. Oh, come on,” she said wearily to her sisters’ mystified faces. “Count the months, Raq. When did they get married?”

  “September fifteenth,” Raquel said promptly.

  “And when’s my birthday?”

  “March ninth. Wh—oh. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  Jessie, her voice high, said, “Was Daddy even your daddy?” and Sondra threw her hands up.

  “In every way that mattered, he was. Whether he’s my biological father I don’t know. I can’t believe you two never . . .” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  Raquel, fingers pressed against her mouth again, whispered, “Maybe Mama really did steal him from Peggy Ann Smithers,” and put her face in her hands. Megan, feeling very much the interloper, but also glad for Sondra’s sake that the truth had come out, parked the car and quietly got out to open the doors, first for Sondra. The oldest sister gave her a grim well-the-cat’s-out-of-the-bag look as she got out, and Megan made some effort not to meet the other women’s eyes as they too exited the car.

  Tears streaked Jessie’s face and she stumbled getting out, but Sondra caught her. A terrible understanding darkened the young woman’s eyes, as if she’d realized, for the first time in her life, that Sondra had always been there to catch them when they fell. All of them, including their mother. Megan wasn’t surprised when Jessie dissolved into tears and flung herself at Sondra for a hard hug. For once Raquel didn’t join in the embrace, only stood a few steps to the side, watching with a shell-shocked gaze. After a while she said, “Where are the police?” and even Megan, who hadn’t thought of that either, looked around for them.

  “Where’s Reed?” Jessie asked unhappily. “His car’s not here. I was going to go back to Dublin with him.” She got her phone and texted him, then smiled wanly when a response came back. “He went to get snacks for the drive back. That was nice of him.”

  “He’s turned out all right,” Sondra conceded. “It was nice of him to come all the way over here for you.”

  “Right?” Jessie’s eyes welled up and she pushed her hand across them impatiently. “And I guess if we get married he’ll bag himself an heiress after all. Should we go . . . I don’t know. On a treasure hunt?”

  “I have a crowbar in the boot, but not a shovel,” Megan said. “But if there’s much digging to do we’re not going to get it done tonight anyway. The sun will set in about twenty minutes.”

  “I could really use the chance to shove heavy things around,” Sondra muttered. Megan got the crowbar and Sondra stalked off while Megan let the dogs out. Jessie and Raquel hung back, walking ahead of Megan but well behind Sondra, whispering to each other about Sondra’s revelations. Megan genuinely believed neither of them had had any idea of their mother’s dangerous frivolity, but they were taking it surprisingly well. Maybe they had known on some level, and having it revealed actually did help explain how Cherise Williams had gotten herself killed on a miserable January afternoon in Dublin.

  By the time they caught up with Sondra, she had levered the first of the stacked stones aside and was cranking the second one up to an angle where it, too, would fall to the side. Sweat and mist stuck her hair to her temples and curled it at her nape, but she almost snarled a refusal when Jessie edged forward to help. Instead of being hurt, Jessie just took a few steps back, watching with the rest of them as Sondra pushed the second stone on top of the first and stopped to decide what to do next.

  She had two short piles of equal height now, making levying the third stone over onto the new pile more difficult. Jessie stepped up again, gesturing with her jaw. “Get it up on its side a little and we’ll pick it up and move it.”

  “It weighs a ton.”

  “I bet it doesn’t weigh more than a couple hundred pounds.” Jessie smiled tightly and went around to one end of the stones while Raquel took the other. Megan, juggling leashes, felt guilty about not helping, but not guilty enough to actually help. Sondra had great form, using her leg strength to levy the stone, and her sisters helped crash it into place. The one standing stone suddenly shifted, pushing the flat stone on the ground up a little, and Sondra shoved the crowbar under it, taking the opportunity she’d been offered. The others had to lift that one considerably higher to get it onto the new pile they were creating, and the standing stone crashed over backward as they did. All three of them stood there panting and staring into the space they’d cleared until Jessie said, “Well, crap.”

  Megan came forward, dew turning to beads on her shoes, to look into the hole. Or depression, really: it wasn’t deep enough to be considered a hole. And there was another stone inside it, with earth creeping over its edges, so that to remove it would take at least some actual digging. Sondra prodded at its sides with the crowbar, then pushed a hunk of grass out of the way, looking to see how deeply embedded the stone was. “Could be worse.”

  “Okay, but if you’re going to dig that one out, do it from this side,” Raquel said. “We need to flop it over to where you are instead of lifting it onto these other ones or my back will break.”

  Jessie said, “Wah-wah-wah,” but neither she nor Sondra actually argued. She did say, “Should we move these other ones farther back so we have more room to work?” and after a long minute Sondra shook her head.

  “No, we might want to put them back in place. We should, whether we find something or not. Let’s not make more work for ourselves.”

  “I think trying to work around them is making more work for ourselves.” Jessie shrugged, though, and when Sondra got tired of digging with a crowbar, took over. It didn’t really take all that long to flop the buried stone out of its bed, but she let out a groaning laugh as it fell away. “Oh no. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “The good news is there were only seven stones in Patrick’s drawings,” Raquel said hopefully. “Maybe this is the last one.”

  “I hope so, because it’s going to be a lot harder to get out.” Sondra was right: It was full-on dark before they’d unearthed the final stone, the sisters taking turns working and holding phone torches so they could see what they were doing. They finally flopped it aside, though, and a shiver went down Megan’s spine.

  A hole about the width of a man’s shoulders lay beneath the altar’s site.

  * * *

  “We’re not going in that in the dark.” Sondra sounded like she hoped to be convinced.

  “It’s not going to be any less dark in there during the day,” Jessie pointed out. “And don’t you want to see what’s down there?”

  “Not that much!”

  Jessie said, “I do!” and Megan, who felt the same way, didn’t put in a vote, since she didn’t belong to the family. Sondra still sent her a mute appeal for help, which would have been less effective in daylight. In the hard LED torchlight she looked quite pale and awful, like she was genuinely afraid. The dogs nosed their way forward and barked at the hole, which echoed dully enough to quell some of Jessie’s enthusiasm. She looked at Raquel in hopes of finding a tiebreaker, but Raquel was frowning toward the distance.

  “Weren’t the police supposed to come? And where’s Reed? We’ve been digging for an hour. It doesn’t take that long to get snacks.”

  “He’s probably back at the house sitting in the car wondering where we are. I’ll text him.” Jessie wiped her hand on her jeans, trying to clean her fingers before using her phone. Megan, the only one of them who wasn’t dirty, said, “Tell you what. I’ll call Detective Bourke and see what happened to the guards out here, and then Jessie and I can go down the hol
e while you and Raquel keep watch, okay, Sondra?”

  “I think that’s a terrible plan, but I don’t know why we dug it up tonight if we’re not going down, so I suppose so.”

  “Reed says he came back and we weren’t here so he went to get dinner.” Jessie sounded confused, but shrugged. “I mean, the car was here, but whatever, I guess. He says he’s on his way back now. I told him we’re at the druid’s altar. C’mon, let’s go, Megan. I want to see what’s down there.”

  “Hang on.” Megan offered Sondra the leashes and she crouched to pet the dogs while Megan rang Bourke. He didn’t pick up, and she left a message saying the gardaí hadn’t shown up to secure the site and for him to call her back. As if that part needed saying, she thought as she hung up, but she’d said it anyway. “All right, let’s try. It could be only three feet deep. It’s too dark to tell.”

  Jessie got a branch from beneath one of the big oak trees and poked it as deeply into the hole as she could. “More than three feet,” she said helpfully.

  “It could be deep enough to break your neck climbing in,” Sondra muttered. Jessie scowled, but then unwound one of her scarves. It turned out to be about ten feet long, much longer than Megan had expected. Jessie made a cradle for her phone in the fringe at one end, and, satisfied it was secure, lowered it carefully into the hole. It went down six or eight feet before reaching bottom, the torchlight casting shadows on a tunnel entrance a couple of feet high. A thrill of uncertainty shot through Megan’s gut and she accidentally let loose a nervous little laugh.