Scandal in Skibbereen (28 page)

“Yes.”

“She arrived in Leap on the Thursday and first approached the house that same evening and failed to gain entry. Later that night a man was killed at the manor. Where were you that night?”

“Last Thursday?” Nate made a good show of trying to think. “I’ve been staying at that hotel in Rosscarbery where your officer found me. I think that’s the night I checked in. You can check with them.”

“Why that place in particular?”

“There’s not a lot to choose from around here, is there?”

“There’s a nice hotel in Skibbereen,” the detective said.

“Yeah, but that’s where Althea was staying, and I didn’t want to run into her.”

“But Althea didn’t know she was going to stay there until I sent her there, Thursday night,” Maura said suddenly. “How would you know she was there?”

“I followed her from the pub that night.”

Althea apparently couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she settled for glaring at Nate.

“And yet you somehow managed to avoid being observed,” the detective said, “which I’m sure you’ve noticed can be difficult in small towns such as this. You saw Althea go to Mycroft House, and you were close enough to observe the reception she received there. You saw her leave. But you didn’t leave, did you? You believed the painting was in that house, so you thought you’d find out for yourself. You waited until it was full dark, and then you tried to gain access to the house, to look for yourself. You waited until all the lights went out, but you hadn’t counted on meeting the gardener in the dark.”

“I don’t have to answer that, do I?” Nate said.

“We’re just discussing hypothetical situations here,” Detective Hurley said, unperturbed. “The doctor at the Rosscarbery clinic extracted several shotgun pellets from your backside. Tom O’Brien, the caretaker here, admits to having fired a shotgun at what he thought was a prowler on Monday night, and Garda Murphy found blood at the scene. I find it unlikely that the pellets retrieved from you came from anywhere other than Tom O’Brien’s shotgun.”

“But that was Monday! Okay, okay, that was me trying to get into the house on Monday, to find the painting, but I didn’t kill the guy on the Thursday before!”

“Then let’s return to that Thursday night, if we may?”

Nate’s chin came up defiantly. “If you have a question, ask it.”

“Seamus Daly was found dead on the lawn at Mycroft House on Friday morning, by Tom O’Brien.”

“On the lawn?” Nate looked first incredulous, then relieved. “Then he didn’t . . .”

“What, Mr. Reynolds? Who didn’t do what?”

At first it looked as though Nate was going to refuse to answer, but finally his shoulders slumped and he said, “I guess I’m going to have to tell the truth.”

D
etective Hurley gave a nearly imperceptible sigh. “Mr. Reynolds, I think you’ll need to explain. And try to be thorough this time, will you?”

“Fine. I’m
not
going to take the blame for the gardener’s murder.” Nate Reynolds sat up straighter. “All right, I
was
at the house Thursday night, late, but I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t go inside.”

“Who was with you? Was it Althea?”

“No. It was some goon named Ray who works for that loan shark and who insisted on tagging along from New Jersey so I wouldn’t skip out on what I owed. His parents were Irish, so I guess he thought it would be funny to be here with me, kind of like a working vacation. Althea didn’t know either of us was here.”

“So it was your . . . shall we say, watchdog, who went inside the manor house on Thursday?”

“Yeah. And it was his idea. He wanted to be sure the painting was real and I wasn’t just handing him a line about it. He figured I was too much of a klutz to break in and find it myself—which is true—so he decided to do it. We waited until about three o’clock and thought everybody would be asleep. The windows on this manor are a joke—no locks or anything. I told him what to look for. Ray went in through a window, but he came out about five minutes later and said we were leaving, no explanation. I heard about the murder the next day. But the reports said the guy was found on the lawn, and he sure wasn’t on the lawn when Ray and I left the place.”

Detective Hurley did not comment immediately, and Maura could understand why. If Ray had run into Seamus inside the house and killed him, then how had Seamus ended up on the lawn with the bloody shovel? Who had moved him outside and placed the shovel nearby? And why?

Detective Hurley turned away from Nate Reynolds and addressed Eveline. “Miss Townsend, how long have the O’Briens worked at Mycroft House?”

Eveline glanced at Harry. “Oh, it must be ten years now. I couldn’t manage this place by myself. And Harry wanted to know that there was someone here to look after me. Sweet of him.”

“Is that correct, Mr. Townsend?”

“More or less,” Harry said. “I worried about Aunt Evie, rattling around alone in this drafty old barn of a place, but she didn’t want to leave it, and she had every right to stay. So I found the O’Briens. I couldn’t afford to pay them much, but I offered them a place to stay in the manor. Overall it’s worked out well.”

“Are you happy here with the O’Briens, Miss Townsend?”

“I have no complaints. I know this old building has its problems, but Tom has managed to keep it going, although there are rooms we no longer use. And Florence is an excellent cook and has very high standards for cleaning.”

“And Seamus? How did he fit in?”

“Seamus had nowhere else to go. As you know, he was a bit touched, but a hard worker and a good person. If Seamus came upon someone and confronted him, he’d have only been looking out for the household.”

“I don’t doubt it. I suspect he surprised an intruder and unfortunately paid the price.”

“But he was killed by a shovel, on the lawn!” Nate protested.

“The blow from the shovel was not the fatal one. It was intended to conceal the real cause. Harry, I’d like to have a word with the O’Briens. Can you fetch them for me?”

“The both of them?” Harry stood up reluctantly. “Why?”

“They may know more than they’ve said,” the detective replied, giving nothing away.

A tense silence fell after Harry left to round up the O’Briens. Althea refused even to look at Nate, and Maura wondered if she was mentally orchestrating her campaign to trumpet her discovery of the lost painting, although it now appeared to be slipping away rapidly. Maybe she could take comfort in the fact that Nate wasn’t going to get either painting anytime soon.

Gillian leaned toward Eveline. “Are you all right? Would you like more tea?”

Eveline gave her a sweet smile. “I’m quite fine, my dear, and thank you for asking. To tell the truth, I haven’t had so much excitement in years. I regret that it came about through the death of poor Seamus, though. Do you know what happened to him, Detective?”

“I think I do, Miss Townsend, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Harry returned quickly, shepherding Florence and Tom O’Brien before him. Maura thought they looked nervous, but maybe they weren’t used to dealing with the head of the Skibbereen gardaí. Or did they have something to hide? The drawing room was becoming crowded now. “Shall I find some more chairs?” Harry said, looking at Detective Hurley.

“If you don’t mind,” he replied.

With a barely suppressed sigh, Harry went out into the hall and retrieved two side chairs. There was more shifting and bumping while everyone adjusted their positions to accommodate the two newcomers. When they were all more or less settled, Detective Hurley began, “How long have you been employed at Mycroft House, Mr. O’Brien?”

“I worked here as a boy,” Tom O’Brien said. “There was more staff then. I married Florence some twenty years ago, and we’ve been here ten, give or take.”

“Harry—we’ve watched him grow up,” Florence said. “His parents died in that awful accident, right after he left university. When he left to find work in Dublin, he wanted someone to look after Eveline, keep the house up, and the like. It suited us all.”

“And Seamus?”

“Our families came from the same townland,” Tom said. “We knew Seamus was slow, but he was a good worker, so when his mother died, we took him on. Eveline didn’t mind, and we’ve loads of space here that no one’s using.”

“Was he happy here?”

“Oh, yes. He loved the place. He loved being useful too.”

“So if he saw an intruder, would he have tried to stop him?”

Florence and Tom exchanged a look. “I’d say so, yes,” Tom said, answering for the both of them.

Detective Hurley said, “How would you describe him?”

“Short of six foot, maybe. Strong, stoutly built. What’re you getting at?”

“I wondered how physically strong he was. I would assume he was in good shape, if he did the heavy work in the gardens.” Detective Hurley gave Nate a long look. “I’m guessing that Nate’s companion found his way into the house, but Seamus saw him sneaking in and followed him. Perhaps you can tell me what Seamus was doing, wandering around the grounds in the small hours of the night?”

Tom shrugged. “He was a restless sleeper. Might be that he heard your man Reynolds here or his mate bumbling about.”

“Thank you,” the detective said. “In any event, the man was startled—he probably thought no one was about, and then suddenly he was confronted by a strong young man in the dark. No doubt this Ray lashed out at him with whatever came to hand. Something that was already in the room. Where did you find Seamus, Tom?”

Tom’s mouth opened and closed, like a beached fish. Then he looked at his wife, who put a hand over her mouth. “In the dining room,” Tom said reluctantly.

“Good God, man!” Harry exclaimed.

The detective ignored Harry’s interruption. “You’ll have to show my men where, when we’re finished here. When did this occur?”

“I come down early, the Thursday—it’s hard to sleep in summer, with the sun up so early and there’s so much to be done around the place. The dining room door to the hall was open, which it never is, so I looked in and there Seamus was, laying on the floor, a great pool of blood around his head. I touched him, but he was gone. There was nothing to be done for him.”

“Was there a weapon?”

“A small bronze statue, Indian or Chinese, I think it was. It’s always been on the mantel in that room, along with a lot of other bits and bobs. It was lying on the floor next to Seamus.”

“What did you do then?”

“I said a few words over Seamus, then I went and got Florence.”

“So it was you who moved the body?”

“Yes. I thought . . .” He looked up at Eveline. “I’m sorry, but I know you’ve been wandering about the place nights. I thought you’d come upon a figure in the dark, not knowing it was Seamus, and hit him.”

“Good gracious, Tom!” Eveline exclaimed. “I’m horrified you’d think me capable of such a thing.” She turned to Detective Hurley. “It’s true that I don’t sleep well at my age, and I’ve been known to roam about at night, but I’m always fully awake. Sometimes I’ll sit in one room or another and remember them as they were, when the house was so much livelier.”

“Including the dining room?”

“Not as much; it’s rather dreary, I find, and there are no comfortable chairs in there. If you’re asking, Detective, no, I did not fatally assault Seamus Daly with the bronze Buddha. I hope you believe me.” Suddenly tearing up, Eveline fished into the pocket of her dress and retrieved a spotless linen handkerchief and dried her eyes. “Poor Seamus. He didn’t deserve what happened to him—he was only trying to help, I’m sure.”

“I do believe you, Miss Townsend. I think the final analysis will show that you’re not tall enough to have struck him at the angle at which he was hit. So, O’Brien, you incorrectly believed your employer had just killed the gardener and then wandered back to her bed, without realizing what she’d done, improbable as it sounds. I assume you moved Seamus’s body in order to divert attention from this house?”

“I did that. I hoped that if the poor boy was found outside, your lot might think it was someone from outside who killed him.”

And,
Maura thought to herself,
maybe you didn’t want to lose the cushy niche you and your wife had found here.
Murder could mess things up, she knew.

“It was
my
plan, Detective,” Florence said. “Tom came to me, near to tears, and told me what he’d found. I knew there was no bringing Seamus back, and I didn’t want Eveline here to be accused of all sorts of awful things, nor Tom and me, I guess. I knew it wasn’t Tom who did it, because he was with me, and he didn’t come out of our rooms until first light. So I thought it best to . . . well, I guess you’d say, muddle things up a bit. As Tom said, we thought that if he moved Seamus outside, it might look as though he had been surprised by an outsider. So I told Tom to take him out and put him on the lawn—it was still early enough that there was no one about—and try to hide the blow that killed him.” As she said that, Tom paled and shut his eyes. “And while he was doing that, I set about cleaning up all the . . . blood.”

“And the murder weapon?”

“I pitched that into the harbor,” Tom said. “Will it be trouble for us?”

Detective Hurley sat back in his chair and sighed. “I can’t say just yet. Certainly you’ve interfered with our investigation, concealed evidence, and all the rest. I agree with Miss Townsend, though—it is hard to envision her as a killer, so your conclusion may have been a bit hasty.”

He turned back to Nate. “But you, and your colleague Ray, returned to the manor on Monday, in spite of Seamus’s death?”

“Yeah. Ray had heard that nobody in Ireland carried guns, even the police, so he thought we’d be safe enough. Figures I’d be the one to get shot—he wasn’t even scratched.”

“Why didn’t he go alone?”

“Because he didn’t trust me. He thought I’d cut and run for the airport, which I might in fact have tried to do, so he dragged me along.”

Detective Hurley studied Nate. “So, Mr. Reynolds, you claim that Seamus Daly’s death can be laid at the feet of this Ray person, who hit him over the head with a statuette after he broke in that Thursday night, or rather, very early Friday morning. You yourself were never in the house, and you had no knowledge of what Ray did while he was in there, nor did he tell you when he emerged. However, in addition, you say you accompanied him on a
second
trip here, after you’d learned of Seamus’s death, at which time you were wounded by Tom O’Brien. Tell me, if you will: where is Ray now?”

“Let me guess—he’s the guy in the river,” Althea volunteered.

Nate looked at her. “Yes. I’m sorry, Althea. I didn’t know he’d followed me.”

Althea took a deep breath and surveyed her audience. “Detective, first let me apologize for not telling you the whole truth from the beginning. I was upset, as you can guess. And I wasn’t sure that this Ray person was really dead, or at least I hoped he wasn’t. If he is, we didn’t mean to kill him.”

Detective Hurley gave a small, dignified sigh. “Perhaps you’d better fill in the details now.” He glanced at Sean, who was still scribbling fast.