Legacy of Secrets (73 page)

L
IAM AND
J
ENNIE WERE MARRIED
twelve years before their son, Robert, was born, adding to their happiness. Liam had taken his real father’s name, O’Keeffe, and changed the Irish “Liam” to William, so the couple were now known as Mr. and Mrs. William O’Keeffe, and that was the name he signed on his paintings. And it was probably the reason that all the detectives Lily employed over the years were never able to trace him.

They lived in northern California in a small remote cottage near Mendocino and they kept to themselves, though they were always pleasant when they met their neighbors on the village street or in the store. The locals said that, though they were “artistic types,” Jennie O’Keeffe kept her house clean as a new pin, with starched gingham curtains at the windows and good food on their table. Their boy was too young to attend school and no one knew much about them except that they had settled there after years of wandering the country, stopping whenever Liam found someplace he wanted to paint. Every three months Liam would make the trip to San Francisco to sell his paintings so he could pay the rent, and after his death the gallery owner said that though he had not yet come into his own, he had had true talent and the world had lost a fine artist.

They were making a rare trip East—who knows, maybe to try to reconcile with Lily, and Finn, and show them their grandchild. Then, in the early hours of a foggy morning, the express collided with a freight train. Among the names of the dead listed in the newspapers were William O’Keeffe and his wife, Jennie, survived by their five-year-old son, Robert. Relatives were requested to contact the Catholic children’s orphanage where the boy had been taken into care.

Young Bob had been found wrapped in his father’s arms, protected from the impact by his body. At the orphanage he waited impatiently for his father to come and get him, and when he asked why he did not, the nuns hushed him softly and told him his father had gone to Paradise, where all good men aspire to go.

“I wish he’d come here for me instead,” he cried resentfully.

They told him that soon his relatives would be found and they would come and claim him, like a lost parcel. But no one came and Bob wondered why. As he grew older his wondering turned to anger and resentment that no one in the whole of America wanted him. He determined that when he became a man, he would show them all. He would become rich and famous and successful and everybody would want to know him, and then he would track down those relatives who had rejected him and show them he didn’t need them anyway.

It was many years before he went to the cottage on Nantucket, where he found Ciel’s letters and Lily’s portrait. He went to the address he found on the envelope, his grandmother’s house on Mount Vernon Street, but it was closed and the neighbors told him that Mrs. Adams had returned to Ireland many years ago.

And then, years later, already a rich man, he came here to find Ardnavarna, and his roots. He told me that all his life he had suffered, thinking that nobody cared enough to rescue him from the orphanage, and that he had never really known who he was. I told him, “You are Lily’s grandson all right, and Finn O’Keeffe’s all right, and if either of them had known it was you in the railroad crash they would have been there in a flash to claim you.” And when I told him he was also the legitimate heir to Lily’s fortune, he just shrugged and said, “It’s too late now. Let the dead stay dead and I’ll just get on with my own life.”

Anyhow, I gave him the necklace—“For your daughter,” I told him, just the way Lily had said to Mammie. “When she has all life still in front of her, and everything is possible.” There were tears in Shannon’s pretty gray eyes and I saw the depths of her grief. I said gently, “Your father chose to let the past alone, but maybe there are others who have not. And that, I am sure, is the reason he was killed.”

She looked at me with puzzlement and I said, “No man of the caliber of Bob O’Keeffe is going to kill himself over
mere money. A woman, maybe. The Molyneuxes have always been an emotional lot, sentimental over dogs, horses, and women. But money? Never. Besides, if his business had failed and he was broke, he knew he had Lily’s inheritance, several millions of dollars, just for the taking. And it’s still there today, sitting in the Bank of Boston awaiting an heir.”

“But he knew no one from the past,” Shannon said. “No O’Keeffes. No Molyneuxes. Who do we know who would do such a terrible thing? And
why?”

Eddie put his arms comfortingly around her. “We’ll find who did it, Shannon,” he said quietly. “I’ll help you. We’ll go back to Nantucket, where it all began. Maybe if we look harder, we’ll find the final clue that will give us an answer.”

I told them there was an old Irish saying: “To find his enemy an Irishman looks first at himself, and then at another Irishman.” I said I thought there might be a lot of truth in that. And that Brigid, who knows about these things, would tell you there are three basic motives for murder: money, passion, and revenge. “One thing I’m sure of,” I said. “Where families are concerned, particularly one with such a turbulent history, you must look carefully at those close to the victim. That’s where you will find your killer.”

S
HANNON AND
E
DDIE DECIDED
they would return to Nantucket, and to cheer them and myself up I decided to throw a farewell party. I phoned everyone I knew and told them to show up Saturday night dressed in their finery to meet and say good-bye to my newfound “granddaughter.”

The long-disused ballroom at the rear of the house was swept and polished and the little gilt chairs burnished. Help was summoned from the village to shift furniture around, and a band was ordered from Dublin. Brigid was in her element in the kitchen, planning and organizing a buffet supper for a hundred and fifty, and a dozen women
rushed around to her orders, chopping and simmering and baking.

But before the great event happened, we had another surprise visitor to Ardnavarna.

I
WAS ON MY KNEES
pulling up weeds from the flower beds under the drawing room windows when I heard the car crunching up the gravel driveway. It was a sunny morning and I pushed my hat to the back of my head and put my hand over my eyes, squinting at the white Mercedes stretch limousine bouncing over the ruts toward the house. Such a splendid automobile had not been seen at Ardnavarna since my own pa’s beloved Rolls and I wondered if maybe it was a rock star who had lost his way to Ashford Catstle.

The chauffeur pulled up at the front door and I grinned as I saw him take off his cap and wipe his sweating face. He threw an apprehensive glance at his paintwork, thinking of the bracken fronds and the brambles, and I thought how angry he was going to be when I told him he had come to the wrong place. Throwing me a disdainful glance, he hurried to open the door for his passenger.

The legs emerged first: impossibly long and elegantly slender, and wearing, if I am not mistaken, Manolo Blahnik red suede shoes. The rest of the lady followed, as tall as you would expect from such legs, with, as they say, curves in all the right places, emphasized by her well-cut white suit. Her long blond hair fell about her shoulders like a lion’s mane and her face was pretty rather than beautiful. She flung a smile of incredible sweetness in my direction and said in a New York accent, “Pardon me, could you direct me to your mistress?”

I clambered to my feet, wiping my muddy hands on the seat of my jodhpurs, just as the dogs discovered something was going on and hurled themselves at her, leaving decorative paw prints all over her immaculate white skirt.

“Oh, the darlings,” she exclaimed. Naturally, I liked her.

“Forgive my dogs their exuberance,” I apologized. “They are not used to such splendid motorcars nor to such glamorous visitors.” I held out my still-grubby hand and said, “I am Maudie Molyneux, mistress of Ardnavarna.” She blushed at her mistake.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I thought you were the help … well, a sort of gardener.”

“No problem,” I reassured her. “I’m that too: gardener, stablehand, chauffeur, housekeeper. And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

“Joanna!”

We turned as one at the sound of Shannon’s voice. She was standing in the doorway staring at the stranger and I remembered that she had told me her father’s mistress was Joanna Belmont. I glanced interestedly at her, and I could see why Bob Keeffe had chosen her. She was a man’s woman; pretty and voluptuous, yet with a healthy outdoor all-American-girl quality about her. I knew she would have made Shannon a better stepmother than that cold socialite, Buffy, and I felt sorry for her, losing the man she loved.

“Shannon!” Joanna replied, a little nervously I thought, and I understood why. Here was the father’s mistress confronting his daughter, and for reasons we did not yet know.

“I had to come,” Joanna said. “And after that sweet letter you wrote me, I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind.” She looked hopefully at Shannon, still worried that she might ask her angrily how she dare intrude on her, because after all, she was just the mistress and not the wife. But Shannon did not.

She walked toward her and put her arms around her. “I don’t know why you are here,” she said, “nor how you found me. But I’m glad you came. I know in my heart that Dad loved you and that’s all that matters to me.”

Joanna Belmont burst into tears. She stood there, tall and glamorous with paw prints all over her white skirt and mascara tears running down her pretty face, while the chauffeur stared, and Shannon hugged her and cried too.

I knew it was good for them to share their grief, so I said sympathetically, “When you are ready, I shall be in the kitchen. I’ll ask Brigid to fix some coffee and we’ll talk.”

A little while later they came into the kitchen. I introduced Eddie and Brigid and we sat around the table, drinking coffee and assessing each other, while the dogs settled themselves at Joanna’s feet, gazing at her raptly. Is this breed a sucker for beauty or what? I asked myself, nudging them with my foot and hissing the word “traitor” at them. But they took no notice and continued to gaze at Joanna, pawing her occasionally for another caress.

“J.K. gave me the address,” Joanna said. “He told me you were here but he wasn’t sure why. To tell the truth I was a bit afraid to call him because your father and I … well, he had always kept his business life separate from his ‘personal’ one, and I wasn’t sure J.K. even knew who I was. Anyhow, I guess he did because he asked no questions, he just told me you were at Ardnavarna. And so here I am.”

“But
why
are you here?” Shannon asked. “Surely not just to see me?”

Joanna took the black leather attaché case she had been carrying and pushed it toward Shannon. “Your father gave me this for safekeeping,” she said, “just before he was killed.”

Shannon stared at her, surprised. “Then you think he was
killed?”

“I
know
he was.” Joanna leaned forward and grasped Shannon’s hand across the table. “The night before your party, Bob told me he was going to ask Buffy for a divorce. He asked me to marry him. He said it might take a while before he was free and that there was a lot to sort out first. I thought he meant the settlement, you know—alimony and all that—but he didn’t.

“Your father didn’t steal all that money,” she said. “He was being robbed.”

Brigid and I glanced at each other and then back at Joanna again, and then she told us what had happened.

J
OANNA HAD BARELY LEFT HER APARTMENT
since Bob’s death. She roamed the apartment overlooking Central Park, remembering how they had chosen it together, and how happy she had been, furnishing and decorating it for them. Now, without him, it was just another set of rooms.

She went into the dressing room and stared at his clothes, still hanging next to her own. She looked at the watch she had given him for his birthday two years ago, and at the enamel cuff links that were a first-anniversary present. Whenever he came to the apartment he would always change his watch and put on the one she had given him, and he always wore her cuff links when they went out together.

She would never in a million years have thought that she could accept being Bob Keeffe’s “undercover woman,” but she had not really minded it. Sometimes, sitting at home waiting for him, she had felt more like the “wife” than the “other woman,” because she knew his wife, Buffy, never sat at home and waited for him.

She lifted the sleeve of Bob’s favorite old tweed jacket, the one he always wore weekends, and pressed it to her cheek. She closed her eyes, seeing the two of them walking across the park on a Sunday morning to pick up the
New York Times,
maybe going for croissants and coffee at a cafe. Then they would come home and read the newspapers and maybe climb back into bed again. God, he was a sexy man, and oh, how she had loved him.

Tears blinded her as she stumbled from the dressing room, tripping over his black attaché case standing by the dresser. It fell open and papers spilled across the black and
white zebra-striped rug. She picked them up and quickly pushed them back in and closed the case again. She put it on a shelf in the closet and straightened up, then paused and looked doubtfully at it.