Carol Clark: Laced

“Maybe you can. If Kieran has any more questions for you, he can ring you up at the castle. I know he’d love to go by there and have a look.”

“I’ve never been inside,” Kieran cried. “I want to see the ghost!”

“That’s enough,” his grandmother said sternly.

“I do. I want to interview the ghost!”

“Just give us a call,” Sheila replied quickly as she and Brian hurried out the door and raced to their car. She dropped into the passenger seat and tried to catch her breath. “I can’t believe one of those valuable paintings is just squashed into the corner like that. It’s practically hidden between the refrigerator and the door. And that kid!”

Brian threw the car into reverse and backed down the long driveway, dirt flying in all directions. “I always told you there’s no such thing as a free lunch-in this case, breakfast. At least the kid didn’t get our last name. We have to get those paintings and get out of here fast. Dermot’s not the only one who realizes the artist’s potential. I wonder who else has her paintings hanging on their walls around here.” He tore down the road. “Let’s drive by our girl’s house right now, just to make sure we know where it is. She won’t be home until four, but I’m getting anxious. You have the directions, right?”

Sheila dug them out of her purse.

Ten minutes later they found the cottage, which stood alone off the winding country road. A cluster of trees surrounded it. “There’s smoke coming out of the chimney,” Sheila said. “I thought that-”

“Let’s ring the bell and see if she came home early,” Brian interrupted. A minute later they were knocking at the door.

A wild-eyed Margaret Raftery answered, huffing and puffing. She still had on the gray dress and white apron that was her uniform at Hennessy Castle.

“Hello, Margaret. We saw the smoke in the chimney and thought you might be home,” Sheila explained. “We’re here to pick up our paintings.”

“Forget your paintings! I just finished ripping them to pieces! They’re burning in my fireplace at this very moment!”

“What?” Brian thundered. “We paid you!”

“You can have your seven hundred euros back. I have it all here for you!” She turned and ran from the door.

They quickly followed Margaret inside her tiny cottage. Brian raced over to the fireplace where giant flames were hungrily licking the shredded paintings. Before his eyes the canvases curled up and turned to ash. “Why did you do this?” he cried. “Why?”

“I don’t want to be cursed by May Reilly. I should never have copied her special lace pattern in my paintings! It was wrong, I tell ya. It was wrong! And to take money for the paintings was a sin! You should never have asked me to.” She pulled crumpled bills out of a piggy bank and threw them in the air. “Get out of here!” Margaret spotted the mug with the Raftery crest that Sheila and Brian had recently sent her. She ran over, grabbed the mug from the shelf, and flung it into the fire like a woman possessed.

“I resent that!” Sheila said. “We gave that to you out of the kindness of our hearts.”

“Hmph,” Margaret protested. “When I met you last November at Hennessy Castle, I thought you were such a lovely couple. I told you I’d designed the decal for the Fun Run that you had on your dresser. You made me feel so good when you said you loved it. So I gave you one of my paintings. Now you’ve ruined my life.”

Brian’s face was turning beet red. Sheila was afraid he might have a heart attack.

“We want your paintings,” he said to Margaret, his voice shaking. “We don’t want our money back. We made a deal with you. A deal’s a deal.”

“I don’t care about your deal!”

The sight of her fast-talking young American stockbroker husband from Arizona trying to discuss deals with a superstitious older woman from rural Ireland was making Sheila light-headed. This was a nightmare. They’d never be able to pay back Dermot anytime soon, and he’d find out they had lied to him. He would definitely ruin their lives. She did the only thing she could think of to get this woman’s sympathy.

She fell to the floor in a faint.

Down in their cottage by the sea, Hon and Sweetie both took long hot showers, washing their hair that had been matted down by the wigs and getting rid of all the traces of their old-age makeup. Wrapped in white terry cloth robes, they lay down on their four-poster bed, exhausted. Neither one of them had slept all night, and now, as the high of pulling off another job was starting to wear off, they were both ready to crash.

“Even though these jobs are fun, they’re stressful,” Bobby said quietly. “I’d love it if we could go to a health club this afternoon and work out, but it’s not a good idea to be seen too much in public places.”

Anna shrugged. “Yeah. But it’s nice that at least we can run on the beach and along the cliffs, and enjoy the Irish seaside while we’re here. Think of all those great health clubs at the hotels we’ve stayed in all over the world. We’ll be working out at another one of those clubs soon.”

“We have to figure out where to go next,” Bobby said as they both drifted off. When they woke a few hours later, they were still tired but knew they wouldn’t be able to sleep again until the evening. They were in that half-awake, half-asleep zone that makes people miserable.

“You want me to make blueberry pancakes?” Anna asked groggily.

“Why not?”

“Don’t get too enthused,” she said.

“I’d be delighted to have your delicious blueberry pancakes. The thought of them makes my mouth water.”

“That’s better.”

The cottage was small but charming, having been refurbished before they bought it. The kitchen, dining area, and lounge were all part of the main room, with a large hearth fireplace at one end. Bobby turned on the television while Anna went to the kitchen. She put on the kettle, poured pancake mix into a bowl, and was reaching in the refrigerator for the milk and eggs when Bobby called out to her.

“Come here!”

Anna hurried over. A picture of Hennessy Castle was on the screen. The anchor was reporting on the theft of the valuable historic tablecloth and the fire that had been deliberately set. “We’ll continue to follow the story,” the anchor assured the audience. He turned to his coanchor. “Hopefully those thieves will be caught and-”

Bobby pressed the mute button.

“Where’s the suitcase with the tablecloth?” Anna asked, her hand on her hip.

“It’s still in the car.”

“We should bring it inside.”

Bobby grimaced. He was stretched out on the couch. He knew she meant that he should be the one to get it. “I’ll go outside later. Who’s going to steal a suitcase from our car? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Somebody like us,” Anna said. “We’re willing to steal anytime, anywhere.”

Grunting, Bobby got up from the couch. He opened the front door and went out to the car in his bare feet. He rushed back in a moment later. “It’s gone!”

“What?” Anna cried.

“Just kidding.” He turned and went back outside.

“You’re such a riot,” Anna muttered, her heart beating fast. She and Bobby had recently watched one of those shows about life in a woman’s prison. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Sleeping on a bunk bed? Wearing an orange jumpsuit? What was really sobering was that one woman was in for eight months for stealing $15,000 worth of jewelry. With all the jewelry she and Bobby had stolen, they’d be locked up for a hundred lifetimes. If anyone connected them to the theft of the Hennessy Castle tablecloth, the jig would be up.

Maybe trying to embarrass Jack Reilly wasn’t such a great idea after all. They certainly didn’t get any valuable jewelry out of it.