Carla Neggers - Harbor Island

A man approached him on the sidewalk. Wavy black hair, blue eyes, a mix of Colin Farrell and Liam Neeson about him. He had to be Sean Murphy, a garda detective with a family farm in tiny Declan’s Cross. He’d been in the thick of the events there last week, and he’d agreed to meet Yank at Aoife O’Byrne’s studio.

“Matt Yankowski,” Yank said. “Thanks for coming, Detective.”

The two men shook hands. “I’m sorry about this woman’s death in Boston,” Murphy said. “It’s good to hear Emma wasn’t hurt. How is she?”

“Annoying the Boston police. That’s not hard to do right now. I’ve already had a chat with an irate lieutenant in homicide.”

“Ah, yes. So have I. The lieutenant was reluctant to share information but delighted to have me talk. I suppose I’d have done the same in his position.” Murphy nodded toward the unprepossessing stone building behind them. “Shall we?”

It was an informal meeting—a senior garda detective and a senior FBI agent having a look at the art studio and apartment of a prominent Irish painter, sculptor and jeweler who had found herself in the middle of a Boston homicide investigation. Yank hadn’t met Aoife O’Byrne, but Sean Murphy knew her from her and her sister’s visits to their uncle’s country house in Declan’s Cross. According to Emma and Colin, though, it was Aoife’s sister, Kitty, who’d caught the Irishman’s eye as a teenager. The two had had something of a star-crossed relationship ever since. Kitty had gone on to marry another man, but they divorced and she eventually moved to Declan’s Cross to transform her uncle’s house into a thriving boutique hotel. Sean had devoted himself to his career, rising up through the garda ranks. Then early this past summer, he’d landed at his family farm in Declan’s Cross for a long recuperation from injuries he’d sustained in an ambush. Kitty was there with her teenage son and her newly opened hotel.

“I gather you’re back on the job?” Yank asked.

The garda detective shrugged. “It was time. Declan’s Cross isn’t that far from Dublin, and it isn’t going anywhere.” He winked at Yank. “Neither is Kitty O’Byrne.”

A way of saying this time he and Kitty would make things work.

Hope for Lucy and me, too, maybe, Yank thought irritably as he followed Murphy into the building. There was no doorman or security guard. “I know Ireland has a low crime rate,” Yank said, “but Dublin is still a big city, and Aoife is well-known.”

“She doesn’t like to change her ways based on her fame.”

“Might come a time when she doesn’t have a choice.”

Murphy glanced back. “That time might already have come. I have a key,” he added. “Kitty gave me one before I left Declan’s Cross.”

They went up wide stairs to the second floor. No one else seemed to be around late on a dreary Saturday. Murphy explained that the building had a half-dozen studios owned or rented by artists. Each studio included an efficiency apartment—kitchen facilities, bathroom, place to sleep—but only Aoife actually lived in hers.

Her cop almost-brother-in-law clearly didn’t approve. “Aoife’s doing well financially,” he said as they came to the top of the stairs. “She can afford to live anywhere she likes. She doesn’t have to live in her studio. She says the other artists in the building come and go at all hours, but you see what it’s like now. Quiet as a church. I don’t like her being here on her own.”

“Does she appreciate your concern?”

“Not a bit. She tells me I know nothing of the art world. It’s true. I remember her as a girl tinkering with paints and brushes, hammers and chisels—she was always working on something. Kitty’s visual but not in the same way. You’ll see her talents when you come to Declan’s Cross one day.” Murphy gave a small, unreadable smile. “I’ll buy you a drink at her hotel.”

“Did Aoife tell you she’d received the cross that’s now missing from her hotel room and presumably is the one in Rachel Bristol’s hand in Boston this morning?”

The Irishman’s mood palpably darkened. “No.”

“Wendell Sharpe says she didn’t tell him, either,” Yank said, feeling a draft in the dimly lit hall. “What about her sister?”

“Aoife told Kitty she was going to Boston but didn’t mention the cross.”

“What did she give Kitty as her reasons for going?”

“Impulse,” Murphy said, as if that made sense where Aoife O’Byrne was concerned.

Yank said nothing. Sean Murphy had to be worried and annoyed at the situation in which Aoife had found herself—put herself—but he obviously wasn’t letting his emotions affect his actions and concentration. He looked like any other senior detective on the job as he approached a door at the front of the building. Yank could appreciate the difficulties when the professional and the personal collided in their line of work.

Murphy got out a set of keys, then went still. He held up a hand, and Yank came to a halt behind him. He saw immediately what had caught the Irishman’s attention. The heavy door to Aoife’s studio was shut now, but had clearly been pried open, the brass lock popped, with gouges and scratches on the door itself.

Murphy looked back at Yank. “Stay close. I don’t need a dead FBI agent on my hands.”

They entered a large room with high ceilings, exposed brick and stark, white-painted walls. Industrial-style windows were splattered with rain, reflecting the city lights and casting eerie shadows. A scarred-wood worktable occupied the center of the room. Utilitarian wood-and-metal bookcases that lined the interior wall had been cleared of their contents and one section upended, as if whoever had tossed the place had reacted in frustration.

Murphy dipped into an adjoining room—presumably the living quarters—and came back out again, nodding to Yank. “Clear.”

While the Irishman switched on lights, Yank walked over to the bookcases. Most of the contents appeared to be art supplies and photographic equipment. A few books and sketchpads. As he leaned forward, he saw a hand extending from under the upended bookcase and its spilled contents. At first he thought it might be a work of art. Some sculpture.

It wasn’t. It was a woman’s hand.

“Murphy.”

The Irish detective stood next to him and cursed under his breath. They moved in unison, dropping down to the bookcase and the woman pinned under its heavy metal-and-wood frame.

Yank saw dark hair. Fabric—dark red fleece. A jacket.

Murphy checked the exposed hand for a pulse. “She’s alive,” he said.

He and Yank lifted the heavy bookcase off the woman and shoved it aside. It had landed on top of her, trapping her but not crushing her. Murphy knelt next to her upper body, checking her breathing. Yank pulled sketchpads, a camera case and a tripod off her. He couldn’t see her face, but she was a small woman, dressed in jeans, walking shoes, the fleece jacket. She must have come in from the street. Had she surprised whoever had broken into the place? Or was this their perpetrator?

Murphy moved back slightly, exposing her other hand.

Yank’s gaze fixed on the simple gold wedding band.

He touched the Irishman’s shoulder. “Murphy. Move back a bit. I need to see her face.”

The detective gave him a sharp look. “Do you recognize her?”

Yank stared down at the pixie haircut and pixie face. The smooth, milky skin of her throat and her small body as she lay on her side, crumpled into a fetal position. His throat tightened. He couldn’t speak.

“Agent Yankowski,” Murphy said, cutting through Yank’s shock. “Who is this woman?”

Lucy.

Yank sank onto his knees next to her. “She’s my wife.”

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