Whiskey Island (51 page)

Megan had to ask. Old rivalries died hard. “Does Aunt Deirdre know about the baby?”

“Yes, she does. I told her, because, of the three of you, she’s the only one who doesn’t wring her hands and wish she could have done a better job raising me. She can look at me and see what a fine job everyone did. She doesn’t see the things she couldn’t do, the things she couldn’t be. There was no chance she’d see my pregnancy as her own personal failure.”

Megan was stabbed with such guilt that she didn’t know what to say.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Peggy said. “This whole time, you’ve been sitting there asking yourself what you did wrong. You’ve been blaming yourself for this pregnancy. If you’d just told me this, if you’d just told me that.” She smiled impishly. “If you hadn’t let me see an R-rated movie once in a while or read all those Danielle Steel novels. But there’s no blame here for anybody. And the only consequence is another little Donaghue, someone we’ll all adore and cherish.”

“
I
don’t feel guilty,” Casey said. She withered under Peggy’s stare. “All right. I feel guilty because I left after high school and didn’t stay to help Megan finish raising you.”

“You left because I was controlling your every move,” Megan said. “I realize that now.”

“Oh, bullshit, Megan. Bullshit. I left because I was a bratty kid, with a bratty kid’s problems. I never got over Rooney leaving. Maybe I still haven’t. I blamed it on this place, on you, on family. I had to leave, and I had to grow up before I could stand to come back. That wasn’t your fault, either. Come on, will you be able to hold yourself together without guilt as glue?”

“You left, but so what? You were always there for me,” Peggy told Casey. “Cards, postcards, telephone calls, visits. I spent weeks every summer with you. You did your part. I watched you put yourself through graduate school. Extra jobs, late-night hours, reading textbooks on the toilet, for Pete’s sake. I saw you do it, and I knew I could do it. When the time came to go to college, I knew I could work hard and accomplish the same things you did. And I have. And I’ll do it in med school, too, even with a baby.”

The room fell silent. Megan could hear her assistants working in the kitchen, and soon the lunch crowd would start to arrive. But for this moment, it was just the three sisters. And all the guilt, the secret fears, that two of them had never quite left behind.

“Did I turn out well?” Peggy asked at last.

Megan swallowed. “You’re fabulous.”

“Case closed.”

“You know I’ll be here to help with the baby,” Megan promised.

Casey nodded. “I will, too.”

Megan cocked her head. “Here? In Cleveland?”

“I’m not planning to move back to Chicago, if that’s what you’re asking. Why? Don’t you want me here?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

“I guess I can change a diaper as well as you can.”

“Tell you what, as far as I’m concerned, you can be in charge of that end.”

Peggy grasped her sisters’ hands. “I’m going to need help to get through this. Thank you both. But that’s what you’re here for, right? That’s what you taught me.”

It sounded so simple, so right, but for Megan, it was a foreign concept. Peggy’s pregnancy was surprise enough. How had she missed the fact that her own hard work and that of all their extended family had borne such fantastic fruit? Her sisters had survived, matured and blossomed, and she had hardly noticed.

“Megan?” Peggy said.

“Rooney used to tell a story about a gardener who planted a beautiful flower garden, but he never knew he had, because he never looked up to see it. He was always staring at the ground, daring the weeds to grow so he could pull them out at the root.”

Casey grimaced. “Your mind works in mysterious ways, Meg.”

She thought of the man who had told the story, and for the first time in a long time, she wished he could see his daughters now.

32

M
ore than a hundred years had passed since the death of James Simeon, but enough medical evidence existed to make a preliminary identification of the skeleton found buried on Whiskey Island. The millionaire’s mysterious death had created such interest in the man that when his widow sold their personal effects, many of them had ended up in the hands of collectors or museums. Reports and records were available that would normally have been destroyed.

After some scurrying, Simeon’s medical records were unearthed from the archives of the local historical museum. A healed fracture of the skeleton’s right tibia matched one on record for Simeon, as did notations about a missing molar and an amputated toe. A horse had tramped on Simeon’s left foot during his youth in New York and did not survive the encounter, although Simeon himself recovered.

DNA evidence had been harder to provide, until a newspaper article turned up a hair brooch fashioned from Simeon’s childhood locks.

“The Victorian tradition was to make a mourning brooch from hair snipped after a loved one’s death, and to wear it as a tribute to the deceased,” Jon explained to Niccolo on St. Patrick’s Day morning. “But in this case, of course, there was no body and no hair. Apparently Simeon’s mother was the one person who genuinely mourned him, so she fashioned the brooch from hair she’d saved from his first childhood haircut.”

Niccolo was intrigued. “How on earth did you discover that?”

“I wish I could say it was extraordinary detective work, but a jeweler in Albany saw a wire services article about the skeleton and the Simeon mystery, and telephoned us. He has the brooch in his collection. Simeon’s mother lived in upstate New York, and the brooch was sold as a curiosity after her death. He added it to his collection about ten years ago.”

“And he let you use it for identification purposes? I’m surprised.”

“We were able to remove a few strands without destroying the piece, enough to use for DNA comparison.”

“The wonders of forensic science.”

“We almost had to go one better. We were contemplating going after Simeon’s stamp collection until the jeweler phoned us. The stamp collection resides at the Smithsonian. Like everything else Simeon owned, it’s exquisite. We were hoping to get a DNA match from dried saliva, but there was no real guarantee Simeon licked his own hinges. It would have been iffy at best.”

“And the DNA results were positive.” It wasn’t a question. Niccolo already knew that they were. That was why Jon had called him that morning.

“Without a doubt. James Simeon was buried on Whiskey Island after a death most likely caused by severe trauma to the skull.”

“Fists? A board? Pipe?”

“Not fists. The coroner’s guessing he was hit with something heavy and flat. A rock. A piece of timber. Something applied with enough force to crack his skull.”

“The mystery’s only halfway solved, then. Now we know where he was buried and how he died. We just don’t know why, or who killed him.”

Jon glanced down at the street below. They were standing at a window in an office overlooking Euclid Avenue, where the St. Patrick’s Day parade was about to begin. The office was crowded with onlookers who didn’t want to huddle in the crowds to watch the festivities. Jon had invited Niccolo to be his guest. The office belonged to friends, who always opened it for the parade.

From the street below, the occasional brass instrument bleated as a band prepared to march. A bagpipe screeched somewhere in the distance, and down the block a pack of Irish wolfhounds preened under the unaccustomed attention of a crowd of teenagers.

“Casey’s never seen the parade. She says that would be like a department store closing over the Christmas holidays so their employees can shop. The whole staff at Whiskey Island’s on their feet for almost twenty-four hours over St. Patrick’s Day, counting prep and cleanup.”

“I haven’t seen Megan in days.” Niccolo wasn’t sure this was entirely due to the holiday. Even when he
had
seen her in the last weeks, she’d been remote.

Whistles blew, and the marchers at the head of the line scurried to assemble in a more orderly fashion. The parade began to move forward, slowly and disorganized at first, but gaining momentum and style as it moved along.

Behind Jon and Niccolo, party goers nibbled from a buffet and laughed, with just the occasional glance out the windows. “I’m curious, Nick,” Jon said after they’d watched awhile in silence, and one bagpipe band and several handsome floats with local politicians were only a memory. “After we found Simeon’s body, we did a routine search of the area.”

“What were you expecting to find? I doubt his murderer hung around an entire century waiting to be discovered.”

“We found a body. It made sense to see if there was anything else out of the ordinary.”

Niccolo faced his new friend. “And was there?”

“We found a note crumpled on the ground. From Megan Donaghue to Rooney Donaghue. We found an empty cardboard box beside it that originally had been shipped to one Niccolo Andreani.”

Niccolo wished he had taken the time to remove the shipping label. “I’m glad it was empty. Hopefully that means he got the stuff.”

“Care to tell me what’s going on?” Jon said.

“Not if it’s going to get anyone in trouble.”

“No chance of that.”

“You know Rooney’s living down there.”

Jon nodded.

“We took him supplies and left them. The night before you found the skeleton.”

“Did you see him again?”

Niccolo hesitated. “I did. Megan didn’t. He materialized from a stand of trees when I passed him.”

“Did he say anything?”

Niccolo decided to tell Jon what had transpired. “He said, ‘Tell them to stop digging.’”

“Tell who? The construction crew?”

“I’m assuming that’s what he meant.”

“It almost sounds like he knew they’d find something.”

“Not necessarily. Maybe he was only trying to protect his home.” Niccolo didn’t mention the cuff link or the newspaper article about James Simeon. He trusted Jon, but he was innately cautious. A leftover from the confessional.

“Have you seen him again?”

“I’ve been down there half a dozen times since that night, and I haven’t. The place he was living looks abandoned.”

“What do you make of that?”

“It would take greater abilities than mine to explain any behavior of Rooney Donaghue’s.”

“It eats Casey up. The fact that he walked out on them and left them on their own. The fact that he’s out there somewhere, wandering the streets.”

“He may well have saved her life during the carjacking.”

Jon looked stricken. “I’m lucky both of you were there.”

Niccolo noted Jon’s expression and knew the other man was well on his way toward loving Casey Donaghue. “Megan’s still struggling with Rooney’s abandonment, too.”

“Megan needs a good man in her life. Someone who’ll stick with her.”

“Megan isn’t so sure.”

Jon gave a lopsided smile. “We have more in common than I first thought, Nick. And even then, I thought we had a lot.”

Megan was already exhausted, and it wasn’t four o’clock. “The call for sandwiches is slacking off a little,” she told her assembled staff, who were gamely slapping together corned beef and bread and stacking it on paper plates.

“So’s the sliced corned beef,” Casey yelled over the din.

Megan cornered Peggy. “Get off your feet. Sit on a stool and do that. Please.”

“Yes, Mama.” Peggy winked broadly.

“I hate St. Patrick’s Day,” Megan muttered.

“No, you don’t.” Peggy had obviously read her lips.

“Yes, I do,” Megan mouthed.

“Take a break.”

Megan realized that if she didn’t, she might well end up collapsing on the floor under the flying feet of a step-dancing class that was doing an impromptu performance in the corner, just in front of the band.

She stripped off her apron and hung it on a peg, then went out to see if she could rekindle a bit of spirit. Just enough to take her through midnight, when they served their last pint of green beer. She suffered backslaps and fanny bumps from the raucous crowd as she wiggled her way toward the door, stopping for one moment to hug Uncle Den, who was surrounded by a group of his cronies. She waved to Uncle Frank and Aunt Deirdre in the corner. Her uncle was doing an impromptu jig to the music, and her aunt was trying not to look embarrassed by it.

“Megan.”

Someone took her arm, and she realized it was Niccolo. The surge of gratitude that filled her was too acute to pretend away. “Nick.” She hung on to his hand like a lifeline. “How long have you been here?”

“As long as it takes to listen to two heartrending pleas to sign a petition urging the Brits to leave Northern Ireland, and one equally heartrending appeal for a contribution to the IRA defense fund.”

“Two and a half minutes, huh?”

“Megan, are you related to everybody here?”

“No.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“There are no questionable Italians in the world at large, huh, Guido?”

“How are you holding up?”

Better than she had been a minute ago. She always felt better when she was with him. She had stopped denying it. When Niccolo was standing beside her, she felt as if the burdens of a lifetime were shared.

But then, he was a man who made it a point to share everyone’s burdens.

She released a deeply held breath. “I’m just taking a little break. Trying to catch my second wind.”

“I can help. Say the word and put me to work.”

“Why don’t you just get me out of here for a while?”

“Where?”

“Let’s go for a walk. But I have to be back in a few minutes or the place might fall apart.”

“Why not give it a test? See if your sisters can hold it together.”

“Let me grab my coat.”

They were outside, walking away from the noise and the smoke and the beery renditions of ‘The Rose of Tralee,’ before she spoke again. “This is nice. Thanks.”

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Not a bit. It’s traditional. It’s always been this way. Probably since Rosaleen opened the joint.”

“What do you know about Rosaleen, Megan? Anything much besides her recipes?”