The Death of an Irish Sinner (15 page)

Also, she fished both saltwater and freshwater, and hunted. Up in a rather large room off the sitting room that was dominated by an enormous television, Ward found heads of an emu, a water buffalo, and a leopard on the wall, all bagged by Manahan, as photos on a nearby table corroborated. There was also a glass-fronted and climate-controlled gun case that contained two large-bore hunting rifles and a number of fowling pieces.

Apart from hunting and fishing, seemingly alone—the men in the sporting pictures all appeared to be guides, from their deep tans or weathered faces and well-worn outdoor garb—her life seemed unremarkable.

She was religious, certainly, with holy pictures, crosses, and replicas of icons everywhere he turned. But that was not unusual in a deeply religious country. Many of the photos showed Manahan visiting Notre Dame, Chartres, Assisi, and the Vatican, with the other woman—Geraldine Breen—also present. In three, Father Fred Duggan had his arms around both, and from
the shadow in the Vatican shot, it appeared as though Duggan had taken the snap of the two women.

Ward climbed the carpeted stairs to the bedrooms, hoping to find…what? Some telling detail, some memento, perhaps even a sheaf of letters too precious to be destroyed that would reveal who Delia Manahan was. What her involvements had been since—he knew from having questioned her—the death of her husband a decade before.

After all, it was in bedrooms that people spent the most intimate moments of their private lives, where they assembled themselves in the morning and regaled or composed themselves at night.

Among their undergarments, jewelry, family photographs, books, magazines, and sometimes correspondence, there was almost always something revelatory of character or tastes.

But there too, as in the photos on the first floor, only one event seemed to have changed how she lived her life—the death of her husband.

At the time, Manahan had been thirty-two or thirty-three, Ward judged, but the husband much older. Perhaps in his early fifties. While he was alive, all their cars were large, the house appeared to be under construction, and there had been other dwellings as well in some tropical clime where people—could they be servants?—had dark skin.

But after his death, the woman’s image changed dramatically. Formerly decidedly chic, with a pretty face and a good figure, she suddenly abandoned stylish clothes and makeup.

Gone was her long, dark, and wavy hair and any at
tempt at stylishness. Instead she kept her locks close-cropped and almost mannish in cut.

As well, she appeared to have taken to wearing muumuus—what Ward’s mother had called the shapeless shifts worn by some of her sister crones late in life. Sacks that concealed the woman’s pleasant curves.

Sports bras that tightened her breasts to her chest yet produced odd high crescents in her clothes became usual, slacks often, and mannish footwear.

Perhaps it was then that she had entered Opus Dei, Ward guessed. Geraldine Breen appeared often in those shots as well, sometimes with Manahan’s two children. Hiking, camping, and climbing were sports that Manahan took up during that period in her life.

From the look of their bedrooms, Manahan’s children had since grown up and left home. The closets were virtually empty, and the posters of rock stars on the walls were dated. In the portrait of the girl’s field hockey squad from St. Columba’s College, two were holding a banner that read “1996 Champs.”

The caption also listed the names of the squad members, but nowhere was a Manahan listed. Using what appeared to be the girl’s graduation portrait, Ward found her among her classmates, Marguerite Foley being her name in that photo.

The name also appeared on the letterhead of some stationery in the desk and was burned into the butts of the hockey sticks that were hung crossed on a wall.

Obviously, Delia Manahan’s husband, the father of her children, had been Foley by name.

But nowhere—not in any of the several photo albums that Ward had gone through and in none of the
correspondence that referred to the deaths of Manahan’s parents, their burials, and the arrangements of their separate wills—was a son mentioned. Or a Frank. Or perhaps a stepson by the surname of Mudd.

In fact, Delia Manahan Foley appeared to have been an only child.

Ward moved to the fourth and final bedroom, which appeared to have been occupied by Geraldine Breen. An overnight bag was open on the dresser, and the bedcovers had been turned down.

But Ward had only spread open the bag when he heard the sound of feet behind him and glanced up in time to see something descending at the end of Breen’s fist—a sap, he guessed, as it smacked into his skull and filled his eyes with a blinding luminescence. Stunned, he staggered into the wall.

“Shame on your mum,” she said. “Didn’t she tell you it’s not on to be rummaging through other people’s belongings? Not acceptable at all.”

Ward tried to straighten up, but his balance was gone.

“Did you find what you were after? Or can I relieve you of the need?” She was still dressed in the housecoat, which was tied with a wide sash, rather like a kimono.

As he staggered toward her, her foot came up with great force and struck him in the groin, nearly lifting him off his feet. When he buckled up, she whipped the sap across the back of his head, and he fell hard on the carpet

“So much for the Marquis of Queensberry,” he heard her say, before the blinding light faded to nothingness.

Father Fred Duggan was waiting for McGarr beyond the stout gates of Barbastro, as he had been on McGarr’s other visits.

“I’ve had a chance to think about this, Peter”—Duggan wagged his head—“and really, it’s not right. Not by custom, not by law. The will should be sealed and submitted to a court, and—”

“It depends on whose law you’re citing, Father,” McGarr said, cutting him off. “If it’s the law of right and wrong, where murder is wrong and right is discovering who murdered Mary-Jo and Mudd so they can be removed from society, then taking a peek at this will of hers is right, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?

“Or is there some higher principle at stake here that I’m missing?” Driving at speed, McGarr nearly had them at the front door.

“I’m not sure it’s purely a matter of black-and-white. If we were—if we
are
—called into a court of law, and some opposing lawyer were to ask just how you or I knew how Mary-Jo chose to dispose of her estate
before
the will was actually read, well then, we’d both be in the broth, wouldn’t we?”

“You, surely. Me, I’d be condemned by some for being overzealous and applauded by others for my…doggedness, which has been said before. But”—McGarr stopped the car and turned to the priest making sure their eyes met, both being skilled in confessional techniques—“you know what’s in it?”

It was plain Duggan wanted to look away, but that would be tantamount to an admission.

“You already peeked?”

The dark eyes still did not shy.

“Maybe you can tell me, and we’ll avoid your moral dilemma.”

McGarr studied the large man as he considered the suggestion—his matinee-idol good looks, with the square head, full shock of wavy dark hair, dark eyebrows, chiseled features, and even a dimple in his definite chin. He blinked once. “I’ll agree to continue this conversation only because I believe, since you’ve just told me, that it will help you in your investigation.”

Priest as casuist, thought McGarr, who slid the gearshift into neutral and switched off the ignition. “Good. Who gets the lion’s share? Opus Dei?”

Duggan could not help it. As though McGarr had skewered a nerve, his eyes bolted away. “Mary-Jo—you have to understand—was extremely devout.”

“What percentage?”

“Well…the bulk of it.”

“What percentage?”

“Really, Peter—this conversation—”

McGarr let his eyes pass down the serpentine facade of the mansion. “What percentage?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t worked it out. Maybe eighty-five or ninety percent.”

“And who gets the ten percent? How much money are we speaking about here?”

Duggan shrugged and shook his head. As though following McGarr’s line of sight, he too was now staring up at the graceful structure. “We’ll need a
full
—and I mean
complete
—accounting of that, surely, so as not to rely on estimates or speculation. I’m certain she
had nowhere near what has been said, the press thriving on inflation and hyperbole as it does.”

“Your estimate?” Landing the big fish of Mary-Jo Stanton’s estate would certainly enhance Duggan’s stature within Opus Dei, McGarr imagined. And he would know the figure.

Duggan sighed. “Really, I couldn’t, I shouldn’t say. But”—his hand reached out and touched McGarr’s sleeve—“if I had to estimate, and it’s just a guess, mind, Mary-Jo was probably a…billionaire.” On the last word, the timbre of Duggan’s voice rose.

“In pounds or dollars?”

“Either. Both.”

“How did she come to accumulate such money? Writing books?”

Duggan shook his head. “Not entirely. She inherited this place and a substantial amount of money for the time. Without question, it was invested shrewdly.”

“By whom?”

“Financial planners.”

“A person? A firm? What are their names? I don’t have two shillings to rub together,” McGarr joked, “but I’ll beg, borrow, and steal whatever I can and put it in their hands.”

Duggan wagged his head. “Money gets money, we all know that.”

And some more than others, McGarr thought. “A name. Who?”

“Well, there were more than one.”

“The one being Chazz Sweeney.”

That Duggan did not react noticeably to the name was telling, McGarr judged. He knew about—and he
most probably had arranged for—Sweeney’s visit to Ilnacullin earlier in the night.

“I don’t know who in particular, but Charles Sweeney was a fast friend of Mary-Jo’s.”

“And Opus Dei’s.”

Duggan swung his head to McGarr. “That’s not a crime, I hope. In your book.”

McGarr shook his head. “I have no book, Father. Tell me the names of the others who will share ten percent of a billion pounds or dollars.” McGarr turned to Duggan and made sure their eyes met. “You perhaps?”

Duggan nodded. “Mary-Jo wished me to live comfortably after her death.”

“How comfortably? What’s the number? Twenty-five? Fifty?”

“Well, she left me this house and most of the rest of her estate. But”—Duggan’s hand came down on McGarr’s sleeve—“she knew, because I had told her, that I plan to leave all I have owned in my life, which up until now has been next to nothing, to a charitable foundation that I’ll set up within the Church.”

“Meaning within Opus Dei.”

Duggan nodded. “Which is to say, the Church.”

Not as Dery Parmalee had seen it. “How much of the rest of it?”

“About one hundred million, I estimate. But everything could be higher, given what’s happening to Ireland and…you know, the boom and all.”

“Which leaves fifty million going to whom?”

“Various philanthropies, mainly.”

“Geraldine Breen inherits how much?”

“Ten million pounds. She was Mary-Jo’s best female friend.”

“What about Dery Parmalee?”

Duggan’s features suddenly glowered. “Lord knows I argued against leaving that…Puck from the Dark Side a farthing. But M. J. said she respected his intelligence, if not his morals, and perhaps if he were to find himself financially secure, he might turn his talents back to spiritual matters. So I’ll see that her wishes are carried out.”

“And Father Sclavi?”

“
Nada, niente
. She had only just met him.”

“Delia Manahan?”

Duggan shook his head. “I don’t know why she left her out of the will, since they had been friendly for at least a decade. But again, it was Mary-Jo’s wealth to do with as she liked.”

“The gardener—Frank Mudd or Manahan?”

“Of course not.”

“What about her literary estate, the books and manuscripts, the royalties and so forth?”

Again Duggan glowered. “I don’t know the whys or wherefores of that decision either, because it seemed to me so…contrary to what Mary-Jo had striven for in her life, which was to illuminate Christianity with the new light of her intense scholarship and great wisdom. But all of that also goes to”—Duggan pulled in a breath and let it out slowly—“Parmalee.”

“Did Parmalee know about the terms of her will?”

Duggan shook his head. “At least, short of her or one of her solicitors telling him or his breaking into the safe here in Barbastro—no.”

“Anybody else apart from yourself and the solicitors?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Right, then.” McGarr pulled back the lever and opened the car door. “Now, I’ll see the document, please.”

“But…I thought you said you required only a summary.”

“I’ll see the document.” Closing the door, McGarr stepped past Duggan.

“Shall I infer from this that you don’t trust me?”

Infer anything you please, thought McGarr. “The document, please.”

When Hugh Ward finally regained consciousness just as dawn was breaking, he found himself sprawled facedown on the carpet in the bedroom of Delia Manahan Foley’s house.

The wrist of his left hand had been shackled to his right ankle with his handcuffs. And the key ring, with its key to the cuffs—he noticed, when scanning the room—was looped tantalizingly over a bedpost.

With the use of opposing arm and leg, it took Ward the better part of four hours to crab himself up onto the bed, reach the keys with his free hand, and then—what was the excruciatingly difficult part—insert the small key in the tiny lock and twist the cuffs open.

By that time, he had a splitting headache, double vision, and he hoped he did not have a concussion, after the several others he had suffered in the ring and while on duty. Ward did not wish to spend his declining years punchy, like other boxers he knew.

But more troubling still were the whereabouts of his handgun, billfold, and mobile phone. Gone, of course, was Breen, her bag, and her personal items, which had been scattered around the room.

The phones were dead.