Liar's Key
“Antiquities and whiskey. A good combination, I would think.”
Mary felt heat rush to her face, but she glanced at Oliver and realized he wasn’t making fun of her. “I tend to chat with visitors between tours, lectures and tastings.”
“You’re gregarious by nature.”
“I know much more about whiskey than I do antiquities. This woman was aware I have a brother in Maine who’s friends with the Sharpes. It seemed odd at first, but then she explained that she chose our distillery to visit because of the connection.”
“Do you recall her name?” Oliver asked.
“Claudia Deverell. I made a point of remembering. She visited the distillery on Friday, but I don’t know how long she was in Ireland. She said she lives in London most of the time. Do you know her, by chance?”
“We met at a party on Sunday, as a matter of fact. Small world. I can’t say I’ve run into her before then. Have you told anyone else about her visit?”
Mary paused, noting a few pedestrians out in the village enjoying the fine spring day. The hotel was a short distance up the street. She suddenly couldn’t wait to be there. She felt unsettled, as if she might have said too much to this charming, eccentric Englishman. She had been warned about him, after all.
“I haven’t said a word to anyone,” she said finally. “I don’t know why I mentioned her to you. Because she lives in London and knows the Sharpes, I suppose.”
“The Sharpes are an intriguing lot.”
Mary forced herself to take in her surroundings—a passing car, the scent of roses from a trellis on a small house painted a rich yellow. Best to change the subject, she decided. “Finian’s promised to take me sightseeing in Maine,” she said cheerfully.
Oliver eyed her a split second longer than was comfortable. “That sounds splendid.”
Mary smiled, relieved he didn’t press her further about Claudia Deverell. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use splendid in a sentence.”
“My grandfather used to say splendid. I suppose I was channeling him.”
“I’m not making fun of you. It’s sweet, using a word your grandfather used.”
“He was a good man.”
“Did he like the Irish?”
Oliver winked. “Who doesn’t like the Irish?”
* * *
“What did Oliver York want with you?”
Mary bristled at Sean Murphy’s tone. She sat next to him at the bar at the O’Byrne House Hotel, nursing a glass of sparkling water and lemon as he gave her a dark look. He was drinking coffee. She had assumed he was in Dublin, but he’d explained he’d come down to Declan’s Cross to visit Kitty and see about his farm. Mary appreciated Sean’s rekindled relationship with Kitty O’Byrne, who’d left them alone at the bar.
Mary wondered if Oliver York had anything to do with Sean’s arrival in Declan’s Cross. She liked Sean, although she didn’t know him as well as Finian did. The two had become friends in the terrible months after the deaths of Finian’s family. In a way, Sean had saved her brother’s life, or at least he’d helped.
Nonetheless, Mary didn’t like his tone. “Are you asking as a friend or a detective?”
“I’m both, Mary.”
His tone had softened slightly. The spring breeze floated into the quiet lounge through open doors and windows, and she could hear the wash of the tide across the back garden of the boutique hotel. It was located in the heart of the quaint, tiny village. “Oliver didn’t want anything with me. I ran into him out past your farm. We walked back here together, and he got in his car and is on his way to Cork for his flight to London.” Mary paused, but Sean made no comment. She hadn’t touched her sparkling water yet and took a small sip, setting her glass down before she continued. “What’s your quarrel with Oliver?”
“Trouble has a way of following him. Let’s leave it at that.”
Mary eyed Sean. He was a fine-looking man with his dark, thick hair and piercing blue eyes. He had an amiable manner, but she knew better than to allow that to lull her into thinking he was more sheep farmer and friend than alert detective.
“What did you and Oliver discuss?” Sean asked finally, lifting his coffee cup.
Mary shrugged. “Not much. The weather and a few other things.”
“What other things?”
She felt more like a recalcitrant toddler than a manager of tours and lectures at a successful whiskey distillery, but Sean had crawled under her skin—and he knew it. In fact, she saw now he’d been quite deliberate about it. She supposed she’d fallen into his trap, letting herself get twisted into knots. “I’m not used to being interrogated,” she said.
“I’m not interrogating you, Mary.”
“You are, but we won’t argue about it. Oliver and I chatted about Saint Declan, whiskey and Finian, since they’re friends.”
Sean grimaced. “I wouldn’t call them friends.”
“It was a normal conversation, Sean, which, I might add, this is not.” She hesitated, debating how far to go, but she’d never been one to keep her thoughts to herself. “I’ve had a feeling Oliver had something to do with the art stolen from here ten years ago. Is he a source—a consultant with the Garda, or Interpol, perhaps? He can’t be the thief, can he?”
Sean drank some of his coffee and set the cup carefully in the saucer.
Mary waited, studying him. She felt her pulse quicken. “Can he? Sean!”
“Forget Oliver York.” Sean pushed his cup and saucer away from him on the polished wood bar. “Are you driving to Dublin alone?”
“I am. Oliver offered to switch his flight and drive me if I was too tired or wanted to have a drink before I left Declan’s Cross.”
Sean’s expression darkened. “Mary Bracken, you can’t—Fin would have my head if I let you—”
“You don’t have a say in what I do, Detective Garda Murphy.”
“Provided it’s legal,” he said.
“Well, of course. In any case, I said no to Oliver’s offer, and, as I’ve already told you, he’s gone, on his way to Cork, which, I needn’t remind you, is a good distance from Dublin. I’m leaving in a few minutes and driving myself. I debated taking the train, but Aoife offered to let me leave my car at her studio in Dublin. She’s here in Declan’s Cross painting for a few weeks.”
Sean sighed. “You enjoyed riling me up, didn’t you?”
Mary grinned at him but didn’t let down her guard. “Very much.”
“Have you told me everything you and Oliver discussed?”
She relented and told him about the American woman and Oliver’s reaction. Sean’s jaw tightened visibly as she spoke. “Do you know her?” Mary asked when she finished. “This Claudia Deverell?”
Sean’s jaw seemed to tighten more. “No.” He studied her a moment. “I wish you’d reconsider this trip to Maine, Mary.”
“I promise I’ll stick close to Fin the entire time.”
Sean turned and stared out the window next to him. It looked out on a strip of lush, green grass with a bench and stone urns dripping with bright spring flowers. Once again, Mary couldn’t name the variety of flowers. Begonias, she thought. She had an apartment with a garden in Killarney but she’d killed everything she’d tried to plant. It wasn’t a question of aptitude, Declan and her sisters would tell her. It was a question of regular maintenance.
Finally, Sean shifted back to her. “Trouble has a way of finding our Father Finian Bracken these days, too.”
Mary breathed in the scent of grass and salt water floating into the lounge from the doors and windows. “It’s a good thing it’s a fine spring day or I might have to figure out how to poison you, Sean Murphy. I’d get away with it, too, because you’d be gone and you’re the best detective the garda has.”
“And no one would suspect pretty, blue-eyed Mary Bracken. Well, I suppose the flattery cancels the threat, and I don’t have to arrest you.” He rolled off the stool onto his feet. “You’d be wise to steer clear of Oliver York, Mary. Let’s hope he stays in London.”
“You really are going to phone Finian, aren’t you?”
“The minute I get home.”
“Home to Dublin or to your farm here?”
Sean glanced past her to the doorway where Kitty had disappeared. “Home is wherever Kitty is.”
“Such a romantic,” Mary said, feeling a pang of loneliness. She had loads of friends and acquaintances, but she’d never fallen in love the way Kitty O’Byrne and Sean Murphy had with each other—never mind they’d needed years and years to figure out they were soul mates. Mary hoped her true love, should he ever materialize, didn’t take that long to get sorted and there were fewer twists and turns.
But if it was twists and turns she wanted to avoid in her life, why was she on her way to visit her brother in Maine?
“Find yourself an Irish lad,” Sean said, as if reading her mind. “One who likes a strong, stubborn woman, because that’s what you are, Mary Bracken.” He handed her a card. “Ring me anytime, day or night, if you run into trouble in America.”
“I will, Sean. Thank you, but I won’t run into any trouble.”
He looked unconvinced as he left in search of Kitty.
Mary filled her water bottle, grabbed an apple from a bowl and headed out through the front door for her car. She’d be in Dublin in less than three hours. She considered stopping at the cottage Aoife had rented for her painting retreat. Maybe Aoife could explain Oliver York, the Sharpes, the FBI agents and one Father Finian Bracken, but Mary had detected tension between Aoife and Finian at the winter gathering here in Declan’s Cross.
Perhaps best to get on to Dublin and rest ahead of her flight to Boston in the morning.
5
Killarney
County Kerry, Ireland
Colin Donovan was admiring a giant rhododendron with a profusion of white blossoms and thinking of his fiancée, who would appreciate the rhodie more than he did, when Sean Murphy called and ruined his afternoon. Maybe his evening. Maybe his entire Irish excursion. All it took was the mention of Oliver York.
“I’m getting an instant headache,” Colin said.
“I live to give the FBI headaches,” Sean said, his natural humor intact. “Where are you?”
“Killarney.”
“Meet me at the Bracken distillery in two hours.”
The Irish detective clicked off. Colin slid his phone back in his jacket. He’d alerted Sean to his presence in Ireland as a professional courtesy, but he wasn’t there on FBI business. He was there to plan his honeymoon. He’d put it off for weeks—months—while he focused on his latest deep-cover mission. He’d been to four countries, coordinating with other federal agencies and local authorities as he chased down an arsenal of shoulder-fired missiles and other goodies that had ended up in the wrong hands. He’d posed as a rogue buyer. The weapons were secured. The bad guys were on the run or under arrest in the USA, and he was in Ireland, looking at rhododendrons.
He walked across the soft grass of an expansive lawn to a walkway and got out his phone again. The early sunshine had given way to gray clouds but no rain yet. He’d didn’t mind. He’d been in hot places. The cool, damp Irish weather was perfect.
He hit the number for Matt Yankowski.
Yank answered on the first ring. “I thought you were taking a couple of days to decompress.”
“That was the plan. I’m walking past flowers right now. I think they’re lavender. I don’t know, though. They’re purple.”
Silence. “What?” Yank asked finally.
“I’m at Muckross House. It’s a part of Killarney National Park. Mansion, gardens, views of one of the famous lakes of Killarney. Didn’t you visit here when you were in Ireland last fall?”
“No.”
“Just proving I was decompressing.”
“Was,” Yank noted.
“Sean Murphy is on his way.”
Yank sighed. “Because Oliver York is in Ireland.”
“Emma?”
“They talked earlier.”
Colin stood by a bench among the flower beds along the attractive walkway. “What do I need to know before Sean gets here?”
Yank filled him in on Gordon Wheelock’s visit that morning with a certain Special Agent Emma Sharpe. “Do you know Wheelock?” Yank asked as he finished.
“By reputation. Legend.”
“A retired agent attending a London party a few days before the Sharpe open house isn’t cause for alarm in and of itself. I don’t like throwing in Oliver York, MI5 and rumors about stolen ancient artifacts, but no point in getting riled up until we know more. Gordy Wheelock and I never got along, but I respected him. I don’t want to see him hurt himself.”
“I hear you,” Colin said.
“Emma’s following up with him. In the meantime, if I were Detective Garda Murphy, and you and Oliver York showed up in my country at the same time, I’d want to talk to you, too. We have no reason to suspect York wasn’t on the level when he told Emma he was in Ireland to see her grandfather and stopped in Declan’s Cross on a whim.”
“All innocence,” Colin said, skeptical.
Yank grunted. “There’s nothing innocent about Oliver York. When he was eight, yes. Now? No.”
“If he’s gone back to London and I decide I need to talk to him after I meet with Sean?”
“Go. I hate to pull you away from the lavender, though.”
“Maybe it’s mint. Mint’s purple, isn’t it? The rhododendrons are impressive. They’re not the invasive kind. Emma explained the difference when we were here last fall.”
“Well, don’t explain it to me. Stay in touch.”
Yank disconnected, and Colin continued on the walk to the cafeteria in a newer building next to the sprawling Victorian mansion. He hadn’t done the mansion tour but he’d read the tour guide. All that stuck was that it had sixty-five rooms and the gardens had been expanded ahead of a visit from Queen Victoria in 1861.
He’d rather be thinking about Queen Victoria’s long-ago visit to Ireland than Oliver York and whatever he was up to now.
Especially if it involved the Sharpes.
Colin went into the modern cafeteria, got rhubarb crumble and a coffee and sat at a small table by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens. It wasn’t crowded. He wished he had Emma with him. She knew her flowers from her time as Sister Brigid. He hadn’t been in touch with her in weeks, out of necessity. He’d promised he would be home in time for their wedding. Beyond that...she knew little about where he’d been, what he’d done.
Yank had told him she was on her way to Maine for the Sharpe open house.
A fine drizzle started and the afternoon turned grayer as Colin drank his coffee and ate his crumble. He wondered what he’d be doing now if he’d decided on a Scottish honeymoon instead of an Irish one. His throat tightened, and he could feel his fatigue clawing at him, his frustration that his forty-eight-hour break in Ireland had gone to hell.
He got up abruptly and went back out into the gardens, and he kept going until he reached a narrow path into the woods. The drizzle let up, and he stood on a rock outcropping above the gray, quiet lake. He breathed in the mist and let the silence envelop him. He saw himself here in a few weeks with his bride at his side, and he knew he was in the right place. And that it would happen—their wedding, their life together.
* * *
Two hours later, Colin wasn’t settling into a cozy Irish pub for the evening, as he’d anticipated when he’d gotten up that morning, but was standing in the cluttered office at Bracken Distillers, where Mary Bracken, the youngest of the five Bracken siblings, organized her distillery tours. Sean Murphy was pacing in front of a glass partition that looked out on the main floor. He’d just arrived and wanted to stay on his feet after his mad dash, as he called it, from Declan’s Cross to the east.
Declan Bracken, a good-looking Irishman in his late thirties, co-founder with his twin brother, Finian, of the distillery, sat on a tall wooden stool next to a worktable. He was silent and grim-faced. Understandable, perhaps, with an American FBI agent and a Dublin-based garda detective on the premises.
Sean reported on his stop in Declan’s Cross and his conversation with Mary ahead of her drive to Dublin and her morning flight to Boston. Colin wasn’t surprised anymore by anything Oliver York did, but Sean’s mention of Claudia Deverell got his attention. According to Yank, she’d been at the London party on Sunday.
Declan confirmed what Mary had told Sean in Declan’s Cross. “Mary told me about Claudia Deverell’s visit last week. I didn’t meet her myself. She told Mary the connection between Fin and you lot helped her decide on Bracken Distillers for her whiskey tour.”
You lot. Not much Colin could say to that. He’d let the two Irishmen interpret the silence. So far, Colin thought he was doing a good job of looking both competent and uninformed given the encounter between Irish Mary Bracken and English Oliver York in a small Irish village—by itself, not a matter for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“If you’ll excuse us,” Sean said, addressing Declan.
Declan hesitated, glancing at Colin and then again at Sean before giving a curt nod. “I’ll be just outside,” he said as he retreated, shutting the solid wood door behind him.
Colin took a seat on the stool Declan had vacated and eyed Sean. “You know I’m here to plan my Irish honeymoon, right? For real. No games.”
“When exactly did you arrive?”
“Late Tuesday. I spent yesterday catching up on sleep at Fin’s cottage in the Kerry hills.”
Sean had an ambivalent look about him, as if he already regretted this meeting. “You’re not in Ireland because of Oliver York, then?”
Colin winced. “No, I’m not. Honeymoon, Sean. Oliver wasn’t on my mind at all. Trust me.”
“I’ve made your headache worse,” Sean said with a quick smile. “I got one, too, when Kitty texted me that Oliver was in Declan’s Cross. He’d already left by the time I could get there.”
Colin listened closely as Sean provided a few more details about Mary Bracken’s encounter with the mysterious English mythologist up by the church ruin and old crosses above the tiny, picturesque village. Sean knew as well as Colin did that Oliver was an accomplished, unrepentant art thief who’d begun his larcenous career on the south Irish coast, but Sean also knew, as did Colin, there was nothing he, the FBI or Scotland Yard could do about it.
Or would do, maybe, given Oliver’s unique skills and contacts.
“I was due a visit to Declan’s Cross,” Sean said. “I only wanted a casual word with Oliver. I have no actionable reason to limit his movements in Ireland or to detain him. Then Mary told me about meeting him, and about this Deverell woman.”
“You don’t think Claudia Deverell’s distillery tour and Oliver’s visit to Declan’s Cross are a coincidence?”
Sean didn’t hesitate. “No.”
Colin noted the bottles of Bracken Distillers whiskey lined up on a shelf, including the award-winning fifteen-year-old single malt that Finian Bracken had casked himself, before tragedy had changed his destiny. One rainy night after his arrival in southern Maine a year ago, he’d told Colin that drinking the rare peated expression and its nonpeated counterpart was like reaching into the past and touching the man he’d once been.
It wasn’t difficult for Colin to picture his friend here as a young man, working night and day, shoulder to shoulder with his twin brother, to convert the abandoned seventeenth-century distillery just outside Killarney into a modern enterprise. Tilters at windmills, Finian said he and Declan had called themselves.
“Do you know this Deverell woman?” Sean asked, bringing Colin back to the late spring evening and the business at hand.
He shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Her relationship with the Sharpes?”
Colin debated for a fraction of a second. “Her family on her mother’s side has a house up the street in Heron’s Cove. I don’t know any details.”
Sean pounced. “But you do know more,” he said.
Colin saw no need to respond. He and Sean had met in Declan’s Cross last fall, over a murder that had involved both the Sharpes and the Donovans, at least on the periphery. While in the tiny Irish village, Colin had learned about a serial art thief who’d first struck the O’Byrne house ten years earlier and had been taunting the FBI and the Sharpes ever since.
Sean resumed pacing in the small, rustic office. He finally stopped at a large wall calendar of the month of May, almost every day filled with penciled notes in what Colin assumed was Mary Bracken’s handwriting. “York’s untouchable,” Sean said, turning from the ragged calendar. “It’s impossible now to arrest him for the thefts in Declan’s Cross.” The Irish detective sucked in a breath. “I don’t need to tell you what he’s doing these days.”
Working with MI5. No, Sean didn’t need to spell it out. “Did York come to Ireland alone?” Colin asked.
“Apparently, yes,” Sean said. “I’m checking. Are you certain you’re in Ireland only because of your honeymoon?”
“I’m being straight with you, Sean. That’s it. That’s why I’m here. Fin offered me use of his cottage and that’s where I’ve been until this afternoon.”
“I know the place,” Sean said.
Colin remembered that the detective’s friendship with Finian Bracken went back to the deaths almost eight years ago of Finian’s wife and two young daughters. Finian had been working here at the distillery, expecting to join his family on a sailing holiday. Before he could, a rogue wave capsized their boat. Sally Bracken and little Kathleen and Mary had all drowned.
“You didn’t sound surprised I was in Ireland. Did Fin warn you I was coming, or do you have my name flagged so you’re notified when I enter the country?”
Sean shrugged. “I spoke with Fin earlier.”
Colin didn’t blame his fellow law enforcement officer for the incomplete answer.
“Fin wasn’t concerned about Mary’s trip to Maine until I mentioned Oliver York,” Sean added. “But he knows her. She’s stubborn. She won’t change her plans.”
“Stubbornness is a Bracken trait,” Colin said with a sigh. “Fin knows I’m here arranging my honeymoon but I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else. I’m keeping it a secret, especially from Emma. It’s a surprise. I want for us to visit Ireland as if we’re a pair of regular tourists.”
“You don’t want your friends pestering you on your honeymoon,” Sean said, with the first hint of real amusement since he’d greeted Colin in the distillery parking lot.
Colin grinned. “That, too.”
“Well, your secret is safe with me. Where did you fly in from?”
“Rome.”
“Via Hell, I expect. I’m glad you’re safe, Colin.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t elaborate on his whereabouts prior to Rome, and he knew Sean wouldn’t ask, as a professional, whatever his suspicions. “I planned to stay in Ireland through Saturday and head back on Sunday.”
“The Sharpe open house is on Saturday.” Sean cocked an eyebrow. “Or is that why you’re here instead of in Maine?”
“It’s a Sharpe thing. I don’t need to be there.” Colin didn’t know that Emma needed to be there, either. “I imagine Fin’s invited.”
“He’s bringing Mary. She’s looking forward to it.”
Colin could hear his friend’s ambivalence. Happy for Mary to visit her brother and have a harmless adventure or two. Uncertain about her leaving Ireland and her safe world at Bracken Distillers. “I wasn’t sure Wendell Sharpe would ever return to Maine,” Colin said, deliberately lightening his tone. “But he’s there. He wanted to be at the open house.”
“That’s something, then.” Sean stared out at the quiet main floor. “You’re reconsidering your plans, aren’t you, Special Agent Donovan?”
Colin stood up from the stool. Yesterday’s sleep had helped with some of the raw edges of his fatigue, but not enough. “I’m thinking about jumping on a flight to London and going to see Oliver.”
The detective turned to him with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“I’ll bet you were,” Colin said. “You know, Oliver has a standing offer for me to stay in the guest suite at his London apartment.”
Sean groaned. “Dear heaven. You aren’t considering—”
“Not a chance. Just thought you’d appreciate a taste of how hard my job is.”