Free The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller by L.D. Beyer Page A

That night at the Cavanaghs’?” She looked at me, searching my eyes to see if I understood. “But you wouldn’t have left if you knew. And if you stayed”—she shook her head—”Billy or the British, one or the other, would have found you.” She sighed. “And when I received your letter from America, I wanted to write back and tell you then. But I couldn’t.”
    “Kathleen, I…” I started, choking on my own words. I took her hands in mine. “I’m sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
    “I know,” Kathleen said, nodding as she put her arms around me again. “I know.”
    ___
    I reached out and touched the metal, the large circle intersecting the cross. It was cold, but I kept my hand there anyway. Someone—Mary? Kathleen?—had attached a small piece of wood, carved with the inscription. I ran my hand across the words.
     
    Margaret Coffey
    July 12, 1921 - July 14, 1921
     
    Before I knew what I was doing, I was silently mouthing the words to a prayer, as a tear ran down my own cheek. I felt Kathleen’s hand on my shoulder.
    “We couldn’t hold a wake, and we couldn’t have a funeral in the church. Father Lonagan would never have permitted it.” I heard Kathleen’s sigh. “But Mary arranged with Father Leahy to say a mass right here. And Mary arranged for the cross.”
    “Father Leahy?” I asked, looking up.
    “He’s from Abbeyfeale, a friend of Mary’s. He’s the one who has agreed to wed us.”
    I nodded. Trapped in the unforgiving and rigid rules of the Catholic Church, Kathleen had had no choice but to bury Margaret here, below a large oak on the highest point of Mary’s farm.
    “When we can, we plan to move her, to a churchyard for a proper burial. I want to speak to Father Leahy again when we see him.”
    I stood and took Kathleen’s hand.
    “I should have been here,” I said softly.
    “There was nothing you could have done, Frank. The baby would have died anyway.”
    I shook my head. “I should have been here.” I looked back at the marker, at the grave where the daughter I had never met had been buried. “What was she like?” I asked quietly.
    Kathleen leaned into me.
    “Mary said she looked like me,” Kathleen said as she wiped a tear from her eye. “But she had dark hair, like you.”
    We stood quietly as dark clouds built overhead and the wind rustled through the grass around us.
    ___
    I listened to the shoosh of the rain on the thatched roof and the staccato splatter of drops off the stones outside. I stared out the window, at the hill, lost now in the rain, at the large oak I knew was there but couldn’t see and at the grave that was sheltered below it.
    “Frank,” Kathleen said. I turned. Standing in front of the stove, she held the kettle up. I nodded my response and turned back to the window. I heard the clang of the kettle on the stove. A moment later, I felt Kathleen’s hand on mine. She led me away from the window to the chairs in front of the stove.
    “Frank. There’s something else we need to talk about.” She waited until I nodded. “You’ve been gone a long time now, and they might have forgotten about you.” Her eyes narrowed. “But you can never be sure.”
    I nodded again as I thought about seeing Billy at the railroad station. It had just been a coincidence, but one that had left me shaken nonetheless. And the British soldiers, the ones I had seen on the platform? When Mary, Tim, and I had left the station, they had been standing out front, watching with bemusement the comings and goings of a people they had, until recently, terrorized.
    “They certainly haven’t forgotten about him,” Mary said as she joined us, the door banging shut behind her. She shook off her wet cloak and hung it on a peg by the door. While Kathleen and I had been visiting our daughter’s grave, Mary and Tim had been tending the chickens and the cow and the other livestock that had kept the three of them alive over the last year. She stood in front of us