Free The Death of Love by Bartholomew Gill Page B

pancreas.
    He had a gash on his forehead and bruises on other parts of his body, evidently the result of a fall. There was evidence of burn scarring from some prior accident on both hands. The digitalis in his system was “…far in excess of what might be expected from the administration of the maximum dose of two 1 mg. tablets, as prescribed as a remedy for an attack of tachycardia,” the report concluded.
    Digitalis poisoning—was it unusual? Why else would her husband have been called in?
    Noreen was now wide awake. The details of McGarr’s investigations were a kind of leitmotiv in her life: a constantly unfolding, complex subplot, the installments of which she wheedled from him over breakfast in the morning, over drinks before dinner, and sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep and had nothing good to read, late at night. A native Dubliner, she could not resist the least bit of information concerning anybody she even vaguely knew, much less an investigation surrounding the death of a person of Paddy Power’s caliber and…potential. Again tears rose to her eyes.
    But when the news got out, she now realized, Parknasilla would be besieged by journalists. When she had arrived last night, she had found only a team of Gardai at the gates. She wondered how long Power’s death couldbe kept a secret. Or his murder . My God, what a story, and there she was in the thick of it. She almost wished she were back in Dublin where she could make “insider’s capital” of what she knew.
    Noreen tossed back the covers to swing her legs out of bed when the phone rang.
    Said McGarr, “We’re having breakfast in the dining room in ten minutes. Maddie, me, and Ruth Bresnahan.”
    “But I’ve just ordered coffee.”
    “You don’t drink coffee.”
    “I do here.”
    “I’ll have it brought to the table instead.”
    “Ah, Peter. We’ve just got here, and I’m shattered from the drive and all. I thought we might have a simple breakfast, just you, me, and Maddie.”
    There was a pause, and McGarr said, “So—the postmortem arrived.”
    “It did, sure, but I’d just like to be brought up to speed on the matter.”
    “So you will. Over breakfast. Unless, of course, you prefer to sit this dance out.”
    Hanging up the phone, Noreen heard a noise and turned her head to see another envelope—small and white—being fitted under the door. The official Garda seal did not deter her. It was from Superintendent Butler of the Kenmare Barracks, saying that Nell Power was presently registered at the Waterville Lake Hotel, another resort that was only twenty-five or thirty miles away.
    Noreen showered and dressed quickly, and soon found herself on the carpeted stairs where she tripped past Detective Sergeant Hughie Ward without recognizing him.
     
    Little wonder, Ward thought, glancing at himself in a mirror. He looked like a character out of Dickens, he decided. A reverse Copperfield who had been snatched from the comfort of his familiar urban surroundings and thrust headlong into rural domestic service.
    A former international boxer in the seventy-kilo weight class, Ward was a small, dark, handsome man who took pains with his appearance. Thrice weekly he toned up his well-muscled body by jogging, bag work, and sparring atDublin’s newest sport facility, and every month without question his largest personal expense was on clothes. Ward was nothing if not dapper. Undercover here, literally, in a servant’s swallowtail tuxedo that was a size too large, he looked bereft and juvenile.
    Stopping his work of washing glasses for a fifth time to scan the hall, Ward at last caught sight of Bresnahan, who was standing at the reception desk, speaking with the manager of the hotel, who was yet another large person.
    Christ, he thought—making sure Sonnie, the tall beverage manager, was nowhere in attendance—his situation had changed from Dickens to Swift—that is, bad to worse. He was surrounded by a hotel of Brobdingnagians, and his only hope