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TWELVE

The mist that had hung over the property earlier in the day had dissipated as we gathered at the front of the castle for the garden tour. At least, the rain had held off for a few hours. Though more was expected later in the day. I was here for my sister, who was excited to learn about the flora and fauna. She’d even brought her notebook and phone with her to take pictures.

The Airendales, Maximillian, Fiona and the others had joined us.

While I would never admit it to Lizzie, I was there to find a killer.

“I know some of you have met him, but again, this is Jim Gilley, our wonderful gardener,” Nora said as she introduced him. “He’s been with us for five years now and has done wonders with cultivating the gardens. He knows so much of the history about the place and how the gardens have developed since the first owners created them. I’ll leave you in his care.”

The giant of a man gave us a genuine smile that welcomed us.

“I didn’t think so many of you would be interested in our gardens. Does an old man’s heart good to see so many of you here.” He put a fist against his chest.

He seemed to truly love his work, and I appreciated that. People who loved what they did had a passion for it that was often contagious.

“Right then, today, we’ll start in the natural gardens. We’ve done a fair amount of transplanting over the years since I came, to make each garden more distinctive. In the natural garden, we have everything from primroses and cowslip to wild clary and wood anemones, all of which are native to this area.”

We walked for a bit down a stone path. He waved a hand to the left. “This garden is one we created since I arrived. Mrs. O’Sullivan calls it the fairy garden. When the Normans came over to Ireland, they brought many of their own species with them. But Mrs. O’Sullivan wanted an area dedicated to native flora and to the fairies.”

My sister was grinning from ear to ear at the mention of fairies. She’d loved finding the fairy doors our grandfather had put into our house and the bookstore. We even had a small fairy garden she kept up under a tree in our backyard. She and Mr. Poe spent most of their time out in the garden. Sometimes working, other times playing.

Jim was well-spoken and took great pride in his work. Sometimes when he glanced our way, I had a feeling he was curious about us. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Not that a gardener couldn’t be brilliant, but it was the self-assured way he presented himself. As if he were quite used to charming people. I don’t know why I found that so odd, but there was something different about him.

By the time we reached the rose garden, even I was into the tour. It was still winter but there were some hardy tea roses blooming through the cold season. At home, the only thing my sister let me touch was the watering hose, and even then, she would supervise. I wasn’t the best with any sort of plants.

I’d been so engrossed that I realized I’d forgotten to ask questions of those around us.

Maximillian the accountant was up on the hill talking to someone on his cell phone. It seemed to be quite an animated conversation, and I wondered what it was about.

“Some of the roses are more than four hundred years old, and we take great pride in keeping the various species growing.”

Along with my sister, Sally was taking pictures of everything. Her husband appeared bored.

“If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them,” Jim said.

“Where did you work before you came here?” I asked.

His head snapped back as if I’d slapped him. Then his eyes narrowed. “That’s a strange question,” he said. “Do you want my CV?”

Everyone around us chuckled.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sound rude. I’m just curious because you’re so knowledgeable about everything here. You remind me more of a professor at a university.”

Oh my . That sounded even ruder.

He chuckled, as though he found that the funniest joke ever.

“I’ve been cultivating gardens since I was a wee one,” he said. “My da said to understand the world and our place in it, we must study our environments and the land. We need to respect the natural world if we are to learn from it.”

Again, he was very articulate, but I noticed he didn’t answer my question.

“I’m just truly impressed by everything you’ve done here. The grounds are gorgeous.”

He nodded. “Thank you. Does anyone else have questions?”

A few people did, and he answered them.

“Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you back to the house for your next class.”

“I wish I had someone like him at home,” Sally said. “We have some yard guys, but they haven’t trained like him.”

“Did he say he was trained? I missed that.”

“Well, no. I don’t think so. But he certainly knows a lot about the place and its history. I can’t wait to get back to the castle and go online. I want to research plants that are native to our area in Tennessee.”

“Since when are you into gardening? Other than having flowers for the house,” her husband asked. “I thought shopping was your main hobby.”

She playfully slapped at his shoulder. “A woman can have more than one creative outlet. Besides, I keep telling you clothes and purses are art forms. Every piece I buy is a piece of art.”

He sighed. “Says you.”

“Stop. You can’t talk. You have your toy trains and military war stuff.”

“They aren’t toys,” he said under his breath. “They are collectibles.”

“Same thing,” she argued.

“You’ll notice the plantings directly around the estate are more colorful,” Jim interrupted the bickering couple. “That is Mrs. O’Sullivan’s doing. She thought the bright colors would liven up the stone exterior. She designed them so there is color even through our winter months and we use indigenous plants.”

Was there anything Nora wasn’t good at? She could bake, make lace and was obviously skilled in gardening.

I could write. But that’s about where my talents stopped. Well, except, I make a mean cup of coffee. That was something I had to learn when I was a struggling writer because I couldn’t afford to go to coffee shops. Now, I owned a machine at home that made the best coffee I’d ever tasted.

And during emergencies, like when our power had gone out, Matt down at the local pub was quite the barista, and they had backup generators. The power grid was something we’d learned to live with in Ireland. A strong wind, and they were aplenty, could knock out parts of our town sometimes for an entire day. It was something that Lolly and Rob, who were on the town’s council, were looking in to. They were exploring solar energy, which I thought was brilliant.

As people went through the back door into the kitchen, I waited.

“I want to apologize,” I said to Jim. “I wasn’t trying to pry. I just meant to say your tour of the gardens felt like a university class with you as the professor. I meant it as a compliment.”

He nodded.

“And I was only curious where you’d worked before because I’d like to visit those gardens as well.”

He cocked his head and stared at me. “I can’t say. They are private estates and my former employers don’t want visitors. It isn’t like this place where tourists are entertained.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to it.” He walked off.

Well, there I go, making friends again . My sister often said I had a way of putting people off. She was the opposite. She made friends wherever she went. Though we were twins, we had different personalities and demeanors. There was a reason I spent most of my time alone with the characters in my head.

I blamed my curious writer’s brain, which was always full of questions. It needed a constant influx of information. And yes, I was often too blunt.

I took a few steps toward him. “Wait, I just want to ask you one more thing, please.”

He stopped and turned.

“Did you notice anything strange about the priest or nun?”

His eyes narrowed. “Who? Are they guests? Can’t say that I’ve seen them and why would you care? That said, I didn’t know them.” Then he took off at a near run toward one of the outbuildings.

The way he’d phrased that made me more curious than ever. I hadn’t asked if he knew them. But he was defensive.

Another suspect was added to my list. A priest, a nun, and a gardener. Yes, another beginning of a bad joke. Maybe I was reading too much into his behavior. Maybe he just didn’t like nosy folks like me.

I took off my wellies by the back door and slipped on the black Converse I’d left there before our jaunt. I was seated on the bench, tying my shoes, when the accountant pushed through the door.

“I told you stop calling me here,” he said. “I don’t have any answers for you.” He was obviously angry and so focused on the caller, he didn’t see me there in the mudroom. He stomped out the back door and I caught what he said before it slammed.

“I told you, if there is treasure, I’ll find it. I don’t need you calling every five minutes to ask about it. And no, you coming out here would be suspicious. I wish I’d never mentioned the bloody thing to you.”

Treasure? That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that word. Was some of the art real? Or did he mean like a pirate’s booty? And it was then I noticed he was on a walkie-talkie, not his cell. I’d wondered since the reception we’d had earlier had gone away with the new storm.

“I haven’t been able to get back in there. I told you someone died in the study. The police have it taped off. We don’t even know if what you read is true. I’m doing my best. Now stop calling.”

Why would he be after treasure? And if it involved his clients, why wouldn’t he just ask them? Or, at the very least, include them in his search.

Because he’s up to no good .

I needed to get into that study. I wasn’t interested in finding some treasure, but the priest had been up to something in there. Maybe, he too had been searching for the treasure.

I wound my way through the house and bumped into Scott and Rob on my way to the incident room.

“What are you two doing?” I asked.

They put a finger to their lips. Then Scott took my hand and pulled me toward the room where cocktails had been served the first night we’d been there. Then they slid the doors closed.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

“We just saw that woman from the States slipping a porcelain figurine into her coat pocket,” Rob said.

“What? Sally? Are you sure?”

“She couldn’t see us around the corner,” Scott added. “She looked at it for a minute, smiled, and then stuck it in her pocket. Like she owned it. I can’t believe she’s a thief. It isn’t much of a reach from that to killer, right? She and her husband might be the murderers. Maybe, the priest and nun caught her.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. I couldn’t imagine her as a thief, though. Maybe they’d misinterpreted what they saw. But I wasn’t about to say that. Nothing annoyed me more than people telling me I hadn’t seen something.

“Where is she now?”

“She was heading upstairs when you came down the hallway,” Rob said. “We didn’t know what to do. Should we have called her out?”

“Well, we need to tell Kieran. That’s something for him to handle.”

“Do you think she’s some kind of klepto?” Rob asked.

The conversation from earlier, came to me. The things her husband said made more sense now. As did the look he’d given her.

“Well, she does like all things shiny, according to her husband, but he made it sound more like she had a shopping addiction than anything else. I need to talk to Kieran anyway. Why don’t you come with me?”

They followed me to the incident room. Kieran was alone and I wondered where his team might be. He was on the phone and held up a finger for us to wait.

We sat down at the table across from him.

After he hung up, he wrote a few things in his notebook. Then he nodded toward us. “What’s going on?”

“First, Rob and Scott have something to tell you.”

They relayed what they’d told me.

His eyebrow went up. “When did this happen?”

“Five minutes or so ago,” Rob said. “A woman like her could afford almost anything she wanted. I mean, she’s wearing clothes today that cost more than I’d spend on my wardrobe in a year.”

“How do you know that?” Kieran asked.

“Well, I’m a gay man. And when I had my restaurants, we catered to the fashion crowd. I learned a few things back then. Those pearl earrings she wears are from Cartier. Her hair was up yesterday, and I could see the metal tag on the matching necklace. Why would someone with that kind of money steal? It doesn’t make sense. She could have whatever she wants.”

“If she is a kleptomaniac, it’s an illness,” I said. “A psychological one. More than likely she can’t help herself. The need is a compulsion she can’t control. I researched it for two books ago.”

“Yes, but she’s still a thief,” Kieran said. “And you actually saw her put it in her pocket?”

“We did,” Scott said. “It was half sticking out of her coat. It was like she didn’t care if someone saw it.”

“Okay,” Kieran said. “Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I’ll take care of it. Is that all?”

“I have something to tell you, as well.” I glanced at Rob and Scott.

“I think that’s our cue to go,” Scott said, though he sounded disappointed that I wasn’t including them. It was nothing to do with me not wanting to tell them, and everything about my promise to keep my thoughts between Kieran and myself.

“You two, let me know if you see anything else, okay?” Kieran asked.

“We will,” Rob said. They rose to leave and stared at me expectantly.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” I promised.

They nodded, but there was no denying the curiosity in their eyes. They would be peppering me with questions later.

“So, tell me what news you have.”

I started with the accountant’s phone call.

“A treasure that no one has found in the last hundred years or so, it sounds like something out of one of your books,” he said.

“I think I take offense at that,” I said. “I wouldn’t put anything like that in one of my books.” Wait. Maybe I had, in book seventeen. I’d forgotten about that one. No way I’d admit it to Kieran. “I’m just relaying what I overheard. Before you ask if I was following him, I wasn’t. I was sitting in the mudroom changing out my shoes. He didn’t even notice me there.

“Also, if he works for them, why is he being treated as a guest?”

Kieran sighed. I wasn’t sure what that was about. “From what he told me earlier, he came as a guest to understand the full experience.”

“Well, he seems sketchy. I mean, you heard him at breakfast. Why would he bring up the idea of murder in front of everyone? Shouldn’t he try to help the O’Sullivans save their business? It was almost like he was trying to scare people off.”

“Less people around, easier for him to do his treasure hunting,” Kieran said.

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that. Do they know their accountant has a history that put him in jail for property and financial fraud?”

Kieran cocked his head.

Oh. Darn. That was something I’d learned by being sneaky. I’d forgotten.

“And how do you know that?”

I cleared my throat. “I, uh…” I held up my phone. “The internet hasn’t been down the whole time.”

His eyes did that thing where they narrowed suspiciously.

“Anyway. If he’s treasure hunting, that makes sense. He told the person he was talking to that he needed to get into the study. That’s where the priest spent most of his time. They have to be searching for something. Maybe they were all working together, and he knocked them off.”

“We have no evidence to prove that thought.” He was always so sensible when it came to the need for evidence. “I’m going to share something with you, but only because I think you know part of the truth.”

I frowned. I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Father Brennen, a.k.a. Carl Doyle, was no priest. For the last fifteen years, he’s been in jail for armed robbery.”

“Why was he pretending to be a priest?”

“My guess is news of the treasure, or he and his gang were going to rob the place, and it seemed like a good idea to scope it out in disguise. The problem is, from the papers I’ve seen, most of the art and antiquities were deemed fakes.”

“I was thinking earlier if any of the art had been real, why wouldn’t the O’Sullivans just sell a couple of pieces to cover their costs? And if there is treasure hiding somewhere, wouldn’t they be the first to look for it? That is probably just some rumor.”

“I agree with you.”

“What about Sister Sarah?”

“She doesn’t exist,” he said. “She’s a phantom. Her fingerprints don’t come up on any of our databases. We’re pretty sure she was not a real nun. Sheila is digging into that one to see what we can find. But her initial search of orders—a worldwide search, mind you—came up with nothing. It’s like she’s a ghost.”

“Do you think she and the priest were looking for the treasure together?”

He shrugged. “And someone killed them both?”

“True. It could have been the accountant since he, too, is looking for it.”

“Maybe. I will be questioning him but it’s a bit of a reach from white-collar crimes to murder. It would help if we had some idea what they’d all been looking for.”

“I need to get into that study,” I said.

His eyebrow went up. “Why is that?”

“I feel like the answers are there. Maybe in one of the historical diaries they keep. Have forensics finished in there?”

“They have.”

“Can I have the key to do some research?”

“I’ll come with you,” he said. “But first, you may want to look at box number twelve.”

“Why is that?”

“It contains the books that were on the desk when Carl was murdered.”

“I can go through these. While you do something else.”

“What do you mean?”

I was trying to get him out of the room so I could examine all the boxes, including the ones he didn’t want me to see.

“Don’t you have a kleptomaniac to confront?”

He sighed. “I do. But if I do that, it means possibly throwing her in jail if the O’Sullivans want to press charges. And, for the moment, I need everyone to stay where they are. At least for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Why is that?”

“A few reasons. Once they disperse, it will make it more difficult to follow up with them. And we can’t risk letting the killer get away, if he or she hasn’t already. That and it gives the pathologist time to give us more information and process DNA.”

“Scary that the killer might still be here, but it makes sense. Have you been through Sister Sarah’s things?”

He nodded. “Her stuff is in those boxes at the end of the table.”

“Do you mind if I go through them?”

“We’ve been through it and there was nothing of note. Other than she had some jeans one wouldn’t normally think a nun might own. There was a Bible and some toiletries. We think the Bible may have just been a part of her costume. Oh, and there is a puzzle box. Maybe, you can figure how to get into it.”

“Oh, yes please!” I loved any sort of puzzle.

He waved a hand toward the boxes and then opened his laptop.

The boxes were much like he said. A few items of clothing, a Bible, and some toiletries, including makeup which no nun would be caught dead in, were on the top of the pile. There was also a strange wooden box that looked like something to put jewelry into. Except, it was empty. There was an intricate wooden inlay on the top that slid just a bit when I put my finger on it.

“Huh,” I said. I tried to slide some of the other pieces, but they didn’t budge.

“What are you looking at?”

“The old-fashioned puzzle box. The one you mentioned. I’d only seen them in movies until we moved into my grandfather’s place. He had left a few in the house, and even more in the bookstore. He loved all things to do with puzzles. And so do I.”

“Have you found anything in them?”

“Most of the time they contain letters from our grandmother to him. But we did find a few letters from our father when he was at university. They didn’t have their falling out until he was much older.

“That reminds me, I know you’ve been busy, but has your police search pulled up anything on my dad?”

He shook his head. “You know I would have told you right away. If he’s still alive he’s either using another name or is completely off the grid.”

“And you never found a death certificate?”

“No,” he said. “But my request to the military database is still pending.”

“So is ours. I know they must get thousands of requests, but the waiting is awful.” Lizzie and I had never known our father. Our grandfather had found out about us just before he passed away. He and our father had a falling out, and he never knew what happened to our dad—other than he’d been on a military mission and had never come home.

Lizzie held out hope that maybe he was alive somewhere and perhaps had amnesia. I was a bit more practical and assumed he died on a military mission that they were not going to talk about with civilians. The American government wasn’t the only one that kept secrets.

I wasn’t some conspiracy theorist. But if someone was on a covert mission, those facts would probably stay hidden. Even if that person went missing.

While Kieran worked on his computer, I sat down across from him and worked on the wooden puzzle box. Every time I thought I’d made progress by shifting one piece, the next one would stump me.

I’d been sitting there for almost an hour, shoving the inlay pieces in different directions, when the bottom part of the box slid open, I jumped. It made a weird scraping sound and Kieran’s head popped up.

Inside was a diamond necklace, and a passport.

“Oh. My.”

“What is it?” he asked.

I held the passport out to him. “I think I know who Sister Sarah really is and why you couldn’t find her.”