10
The Cotswolds, England
Henrietta sat on a stool at the bar in the village pub. She was in the original sixteenth-century part of the building with its low, beamed ceilings and large, open stone fireplace, unlit on this damp late afternoon. One could imagine rough men giving dark looks in this very spot over the centuries. The pub was bustling but not as crowded as it would be later into the evening. It drew a mix of locals and tourists. The barman and a man at the end of the bar were discussing the death at the York farm. No one seemed particularly concerned about a killer on the loose. Whatever the cause and circumstances of the man’s death earlier today, it wasn’t unreasonable to think it was confined to eccentric Oliver York and his world and had little, if anything, to do with the village.
Her pint arrived, a local brew that tasted a bit hoppy to her, but it would do. The police had called on her again to ask about a chisel missing from the stonework studio at the dovecote. They gave no indication they were aware of Oliver’s past as an art thief or his work with MI5. She certainly hadn’t offered up the information. Not her affair. Not any longer. When DI Lowe asked what she knew about the studio, she’d told him, truthfully, Oliver had mentioned he’d taken up stone-cutting as a hobby a while back, but had grown bored with it and decided to move on to other things.
The police didn’t find the chisel in their initial search of the house and immediate premises. They were back at it now, presumably. A cut artery was an urgent medical crisis that involved minutes—even mere seconds—before unconsciousness and death. If accidental or self-inflicted, the injured man wouldn’t have had time to conceal the implement used to make the cut, whether it had been the missing chisel or something else.
But if a killer had hidden it or taken it?
If a panicked witness had?
Henrietta sipped more of her beer. It really wasn’t a stellar choice on her part, but a mediocre brew was the least of her concerns. Annoying she hadn’t noticed the missing chisel, but she hadn’t been in the studio in days and stone-carving instruments weren’t her area of expertise. These days she was preoccupied with flowerpots and color schemes and full sun and partial shade and all the rest of what went into a proper garden. She hadn’t noticed anything near the body that could have cut an artery, and certainly not a small, slender chisel.
She dipped into a conversation between a pair of walkers at a table behind her. They were discussing the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow—rain, then clearing—and she decided to concentrate on her own affairs. She yawned, an involuntary reaction she recognized as an aftereffect of the adrenaline jolt she’d received that morning. A pint might not help that particular consequence of her day, but it would help with everything else.
Was the dead man Davy Driscoll, or had the horror of coming upon a complete stranger bleeding out on his doorstep triggered some kind of post-traumatic stress response in Oliver because of what he’d experienced as a child?
MI5 needed Oliver. That was the whole point of having pressed him into service as an agent in the first place. He’d groomed himself, in a way, to be of help. As the dashing, tragic, wealthy Oliver York and the frumpy, scholarly Oliver Fairbairn—as a secret thief, a Hollywood consultant and a world traveler—he’d operated in a variety of circles, and he’d learned a great deal about the people he’d met. A particular area of expertise useful to MI5 was so-called blood antiquities, the illicit trade and sale of ancient works to fund terrorist activities.
Henrietta sighed and gave up on the hoppy pint. She switched it for a Heineken on tap. As she took her first sip, the FBI agents arrived. They came straight to the bar and greeted her. They looked no worse for the wear but she offered to buy them a pint, anyway. One could enjoy a beer without having discovered a dead body.
“Thank you,” Emma said, “but we’re checking in to a room here.”
“Choose one in the building across the courtyard. They’re bigger and you won’t have any noise from the pub, as the ones upstairs do. Also the courtyard rooms have tubs. You’re on your honeymoon. A bath would be lovely tonight, don’t you think?”
Emma smiled, but Colin didn’t look amused. “Honeymoon’s over,” he said.
“Ah, but shouldn’t newlyweds say the honeymoon will last forever?”
Still no detectable amusement.
Henrietta sat up straighter on her bar stool and decided to carry on. “You’re postponing London, I gather. It’s because of the texts from Father Bracken to our dead killer? The police asked me if Oliver has ever mentioned him to me. He hasn’t, but I met Father Bracken here. He and Oliver were having whiskey. Oliver introduced us.” She pointed to a table by the fireplace. “They sat there. I remember. It was cold enough for a roaring fire.”
“You were still with your previous employer then,” Colin said.
“Yes, I was.” She left it at that and took another gulp of her beer. She set the glass a bit too firmly on the polished, worn wood bar. “I really should get on. I stayed here when my aunt was in her last days and the house wasn’t suitable for company. You’ll like it.”
“I’m sure we will,” Emma said.
Henrietta nodded to the barman to put the drink on her tab and eased off the stool. “I’m having dinner with friends and neighbors,” she said, addressing both FBI agents. “Why don’t you join us? We all could use a good meal and good company after today. Stop by my house first and I’ll show you Aunt Posey’s flowerbeds. She was a brilliant gardener. I’m up a lane on the right before you get to the York farm. It’s on the same stream that runs past the York dovecote.”
Emma graciously accepted the invitation. Colin looked less enthusiastic.
“Dinner will be a positive end to a terrible day.” Henrietta reached down and grabbed her jacket where she’d dropped it onto the floor. She stood straight. “See you later on.”
She left them. No doubt they considered dinner part of their FBI duties, but she had to admit she liked the idea of knowing what they were up to. The sky was an ominous gray but the forecast said any real rain wouldn’t occur until nightfall. She tied her jacket around her waist and crossed a small park next to the pub. Children had gathered to watch ducks swimming in a stream that meandered through the heart of the quiet village.
Feeling better for her short time to relax, she took a paved walk that cut behind a row of houses. She noticed a purple clematis in a back garden that needed a good chop, and she jumped when a small dog yapped at her from a porch. She was so preoccupied she barely noticed anything else. Only when a car passed at her toes did she realize she’d come to the street.
What a difference from her MI5 days, when she’d never let her mind wander.
She continued past the tiny post office and the flower shop and chemist before turning onto the lane that would take her to the York farm and her house. Would she follow in Posey’s footsteps and die in her nineties, without ever having married, with no children? Posey had enjoyed her life and seemed to have left this earth with few regrets beyond wishing she could have helped her brother, Anthony, who’d died so young. She’d had a half-finished cozy mystery on her bedside table when she’d taken her last breath. She’d have wanted to go out that way, content and yet still with things to do. Who didn’t?
Henrietta felt her throat tighten. With all she’d done in her years with Her Majesty’s Security Service—the close calls, the daunting responsibilities, the low-life cretins and power-hungry, zealous mass murders she’d encountered—why such emotion now?
But she knew. It was being here, being a Balfour, the thoughts of her lonely childhood and her fears for Oliver. What must it have been like for him to have come face-to-face with Davy Driscoll after all this time? Because of course that was who it was this morning, even if the police wouldn’t confirm it to her.
As she reached the turn to her house, Henrietta decided she’d have time to work in the garden before dinner.
* * *
While Emma checked in to their room, Colin went out to the courtyard and took a call from Sam Padgett. “I’m in Rock Point having clam chowder with Finian Bracken,” Sam said. “He’s surveying new whiskeys at the bar at the moment. I’ve discovered I don’t like clams.”
“That’s not why you’re calling.”
“Nope. It’s not. Where are you?”
“I’m watching a chicken peck in an herb border at the pub where we’re staying.”
“Uh-huh. I was there in February. Brown feathers or black-and-white feathers?”
“Brown. A hen.”
“When you went through the academy, did you ever think you’d be talking chickens with another agent? Don’t answer.”
Colin smiled, saying nothing. Sam had joined HIT last fall. He’d complained about the cold New England winter into April, unimpressed with the nuances of a New England spring. He and Colin got along.
“Okay,” Sam said. “Here’s what I have. Father Bracken confirmed the man he saw on Tuesday was Reed Warren, aka Davy Driscoll. He won’t say much else. Can’t, given the privileged nature of their conversation. The receptionists at Sharpe Fine Art Recovery and at the inn next door both confirm they saw the same man on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. He left the inn Tuesday morning. I’ll get into more of that in a second. Good so far?”
“Yeah,” Colin said. “Good.”
Padgett continued. “Driscoll flew from London Heathrow to Boston on Saturday, arriving at four p.m. He rented a car. We don’t know where he was between his arrival at Logan and his arrival in Heron’s Cove on Monday afternoon. He took a return flight on Tuesday night, arriving in Dublin early Wednesday and then flying on to London Heathrow that afternoon.”
“He had time to break into Wendell’s place.” The hen Colin had been watching joined another hen, also brown-feathered, in a border of herbs in front of a stockade fence. “Passport?”
“In the name Reed Warren. No red flags. He’s had that alias for a while is my guess. We also learned he rented a car at Heathrow. Has it turned up?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“I’m standing at the window that looks out onto Rock Point harbor. Not bad, Donovan, never mind I had to wait until June for a proper summerlike day.” He was silent. “Father Bracken was able to tell me that two parishioners saw Driscoll enter the church and might have information. One of them is Franny Maroney. I spoke with her. She’s scary but I survived.”
Franny. Of course. She was an elderly, spry, opinionated parishioner. Her granddaughter was involved with Colin’s younger brother, Andy, a Rock Point lobsterman. He pushed back a sudden urge to be home, having chowder with his brothers—with Sam, grousing about clams.
“The other one?”
“Your mother.”
“Hell, Sam. My mother?”
“She’s a good witness. Franny, too. Tough women up here.”
“No argument,” Colin said. “What did they have to offer?”
“They said they don’t believe Reed Warren, aka Davy Driscoll, was for real. They said he left the church after about twenty minutes. They approached him but he brushed them off. They knew he was up to no good. Said if he made a confession to Father Bracken, it was insincere and he needed to go back and try again, starting with asking forgiveness for being rude to old ladies.”
“My mother referred to herself as an old lady?”
“Actually that was Franny Maroney’s phrase. Your mother said he was a rude bastard.”
That sounded more like Rosemary Donovan.
“Your brothers know I spoke with her. They didn’t run me out of town, so I guess it’s cool. Your father didn’t care.”
“He’s an all’s-well-that-ends-well sort,” Colin said.
“Franny and your mother overheard Driscoll say he was in Maine because Bracken, Wendell Sharpe, you and Emma are all friends with Oliver York. That got their attention but Father Bracken shut the door to his office. Your mother wanted to listen at the keyhole but Franny reminded her they can’t reveal an overheard sacramental confession or they risk—I don’t know what. Bolt of lightning. Something. It doesn’t matter.”
Colin bit back a groan of frustration. “And they saw Driscoll after he and Fin Bracken were done?”
“Yes,” Padgett said without hesitation. “Closed-door conversation lasted no more than ten minutes. Driscoll popped out of the office looking irritated, according to your mother, and upset, according to Franny, and then left. He had a car parked in front of the church. They both were annoyed with themselves for not writing down the plate number. I told them it was okay, we had it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Your brothers will keep an eye on them. Reed Warren wasn’t interested in two parish women, Colin,” Padgett said. “He also wasn’t interested in confessing his sins.”
“Can you put Fin on?”
“Sure thing.”
Colin thought he felt a stray drop of rain but the sky didn’t open up. The chickens warbled and pecked in the herbs, oblivious to anything but their own simple needs.
“Colin, my friend,” Finian said in his amiable Irish accent. “I wish we were speaking under better circumstances.”
“I do, too. I spoke with Sam. Come on, Fin, do you really think God will cast you into hell if you betray a dead killer’s confession?”
“It’s not the point but I’m not going to give you a religious lesson.”
“You’re playing with fire.”
“I have my job. You have yours. Let us each respect the other’s role.”
Colin sat at a weathered wood table and pulled his gaze from the chickens. A stone fountain gurgled in the center of the courtyard. A stockade fence by the parking lot was covered in pink climbing roses. Finian Bracken was an ordained priest. He couldn’t discuss a confession. He had a duty and a right to keep silent. His silence was demanded by his vows but also recognized by US law. As much as he might want to, Colin couldn’t force Finian to reveal what Davy Driscoll, aka Reed Warren, had told him.
“What about Oliver? Have you spoken with him?”
Finian was silent.
Colin sat up straight. The chickens had hopped onto a low stone wall. On the other side was the driveway and more chickens, some of them black-and-white as well as brown.
“I saw Oliver last in May, before the wedding,” Finian said.
My wedding. Colin felt a sudden ache in the pit of his stomach. It had been a gorgeous day in Maine. He and Emma had lucked out. Their families and friends had gathered in one of her favorite gardens overlooking the sea at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart convent.
Oliver had tried to get himself invited.
“I don’t like threading-the-needle answers, Fin,” Colin said. “Let me be specific. When was the last time you spoke with Oliver York? He called Emma. The police found Driscoll’s phone in Oliver’s car. He must have seen the texts between you two.”
“Oliver called a little while ago because of the texts. That much I can tell you. I believe the rest was confidential. It’s my judgment he was speaking to me not as a friend but as a priest with the reasonable expectation of privacy.” Finian paused, and Colin resisted an urge to dive into the silence. “I believe you can trust Oliver to turn himself into the police tomorrow morning.”
Colin didn’t argue with him. He’d tell Padgett and let him have a crack at Finian. Oliver would have had different escape plans in place should a quick exit become necessary given his larcenous history. He’d put one into operation that morning. He was clever, and he had a labyrinthine mind. He could also have had help from MI5.
“Colin?” There was worry in Finian’s voice.
“I’m here. Put Padgett back on.”
“It’s good to hear your voice, in spite of the circumstances. Be well, my friend. Give my love to Emma.”
“Thanks, and I will,” Colin said, taking some of the edge off his tone. He got back on with Sam and told him about Oliver’s call with Finian. “Oliver was probably looking for information from Fin because of the texts.”
“He didn’t get any if my experience with Father Bracken is any indication.”
No doubt true.
“Your brother Andy offered to take me out on his antique lobster boat. It’s kind of sweet he named it Julianne after his girlfriend. I mean, for a Donovan, that’s sweet. Better than naming a lobster after her.”
“It wasn’t that sweet,” Colin said. “They’ve been arguing about that boat forever. Go ahead. Have fun. You and Andy can bond or something.”
“I don’t bond. It won’t sink?”
“It won’t sink, Sam.”
But they both knew he wasn’t going on a boat ride. Sam wouldn’t rest until he was satisfied he’d turned over every rock in Maine that might have information about Davy Driscoll.
After they disconnected, Colin pushed back a crawling sense of futility. Then Emma came out of the pub’s back entrance and crossed the courtyard to him, and his mood instantly improved. “I waited until you were off the phone,” she said. “Do I want to know?”
“No.”
“But you’ll tell me.” She held up a door key. “We’re on the ground floor overlooking the stream. Our hosts say it’s perfect.”
* * *
A perfect room it was. Emma cracked a window and listened to birds chirping in the trees crowded on the banks of the shallow stream. She could smell the dampness in the air and felt a drop in temperature. It had been spitting rain but there’d be a downpour before long. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Colin, pull the covers over them and return to honeymoon mode, but she knew that was not to be, at least not yet.
He set their bags on the floor by the closet. “It feels more like March than June.”
Emma shut the window. “Maybe it’ll be chilly enough for a fire in the pub.”
“A pint by the fire on a damp English night sounds good to me.” Colin came to her, put his arms around her. “We enjoyed a few good June fires in Ireland.”
She leaned into him. “We did, indeed.”
He kissed her softly, his palms coursing over her hips. “Ready to go home, aren’t you?”
“With you.”
“That’s the plan, assuming MI5 doesn’t spirit me away.” He circled her waist, pulling her closer. “Not funny, I know.”
“You have ways of managing when you want to go home and can’t.”
“I focus on the job.”
She kissed him again, felt herself wanting more. “I love you, Colin.” But she stood back, eyeing him. “Now, what’s on your mind?”
“You know me well.”
“Getting there.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. The room was decorated in a cheerful, contemporary English country style, with a white duvet, raspberry-colored decorative pillows and a cute stuffed sheep. On a white-painted table were cups and saucers, a kettle, tea bags, packets of instant coffee and cream. And cookies, Emma noticed. Ginger cookies, made locally. She’d peeked into the bathroom. It had a window, also overlooking the stream. She envisioned herself sinking into a hot bath, a cup of hot herb tea at her side as she listened to the birds, smelled the rain and put her worries aside. Colin could join her, or scoop her out of the tub.
She gave herself a mental shake. No hot bath right now. No jumping into bed early with her husband. “I tried to reach Granddad while I was waiting for you to finish your call. He isn’t picking up or answering my texts.” She was silent a moment. “I worry when he doesn’t answer.”
“Not because he’s in his eighties, either. You worry he’s up to something.”
She didn’t deny it. “Maybe Davy Driscoll was connecting the dots and figuring out Oliver was a thief. He went to a lot of trouble to get information. If he saw the stone crosses in Granddad’s study and then sneaked into the dovecote and saw the stone-cutting equipment, he could have concluded the crosses were Oliver’s work.”
Colin helped himself to a bag of the ginger cookies. “I can think of several reasons Driscoll or someone else could have stolen the chisel that have nothing to do with brachial arteries.”
“It hasn’t turned up yet. It wasn’t in Oliver’s car.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t throw it out the window.” Colin tore open the cookies. “Lucky my MI5 guy didn’t have us taken in. He called while we were dealing with texts and chisels. Lectured but he didn’t yell.”
“As if yelling would have fazed you.”
“He says the police want our help, especially with Driscoll having been in the US this week. More likely they want to keep us on a tight leash.”
“That’s what you would want in their place.”
Colin grinned and tapped out the cookies. “Damn straight.” He handed Emma a cookie. “You would, too.”
“Except for Reed Warren, aka Davy Driscoll, how’s Rock Point?”
“Across an ocean. A good thing or I’d probably strangle our friend Father Bracken.” Colin took a bite of his cookie and then repeated his conversation with their mutual Irish friend. “Whatever Davy Driscoll told Fin, he’s not saying. Any loopholes in repeating a confession?”
Emma shook her head. “The rite of penitence and reconciliation is spelled out in canon law. The seal of a sacramental confession is absolute. The priest can’t provide information about a penitent’s confession to a third party directly or indirectly. Finian only repeated the nonconfessional interaction between him and Driscoll that was witnessed by others—”
“My mother and Franny,” Colin said.
That hadn’t been something he’d wanted to hear, obviously. “They can tell you what they overheard provided it’s outside a sacramental confession. Otherwise they, too, are bound by confidentiality.”
“What happens if Finian talks?”
“Violation of the seal of confession means automatic excommunication. Latae sententiae. Even if a sacramental confession is reasonably refused or started and then refused for any reason, a priest is still unable to speak of it.”
“What if the guy confessing is insincere?”
“The confessional seal holds with impenitence, too. The penitent wouldn’t get absolution but he or she would still be entitled to confidentiality. The priest can also choose to give a blessing instead of absolution.”
Colin stretched out on the bed atop the duvet and leaned against the pillows. “Driscoll should have spent the last thirty years in prison. If he confessed to murder, would Fin have encouraged him to turn himself in?”
“Yes, almost certainly. Finian would have urged him to go to the authorities and atone for his past.”
“But he couldn’t call the police himself,” Colin said, not making it a question.
“A priest’s role as a confessor is to facilitate a penitent’s return to God and an end to the moral disorder caused by his or her sins. Confession isn’t a free-for-all. There are conditions that permit a priest to reasonably refuse a confession, but if Davy Driscoll said he was Catholic and dying...”
“Finian wouldn’t have refused him.” Colin finished his cookie and set the empty package on the bedside table. “I never bought the absolute-secrecy thing as a kid. I always figured Father Callaghan would rat me out to my parents if I told him the good stuff. Did you tell your priest all your sins?”
“That’s between me and the priest.”
“Aha. So you were a bad girl before the nunnery?”
Emma laughed. “You’re hopeless.”
“Is that a yes? You know I have a reputation as a tough interrogator.” But he rolled to his feet and reached for his jacket. “Let’s go have dinner with Henrietta and her friends. I’ll get your naughty past out of you another time.”
She tossed the remains of her cookie in the wastebasket. “I’ll try Granddad again on the way.”
“He’s not going to answer. You know that, right?”
“I can get Lucas and my father to try him.”
“He’ll ignore them, too. Whatever Wendell’s up to, we’re in England and can’t do much about it. We might as well trust him.”
“He’s gone to see Oliver. I just know it.” She pulled on her rain jacket. “I swear, though, if Granddad’s thrown off an Irish cliff by a crazed art thief, it’ll serve him right.”
“Never mind getting thrown off a cliff. You need to worry about him getting himself arrested.”
“That would serve him right, too.”
“It’d be nice if Driscoll confessed to your brother, too, but Lucas would have told you.”
“In a heartbeat,” Emma said without hesitation.
“If there are any loopholes in Finian’s understanding of his obligations with his meeting with Davy Driscoll, Sam will find them.”