Free The Irish Manor House Murder by Dicey Deere Page B

Ashenden estate with the exception of the Ashenden property in Kildare. To Rowena, the Kildare property of four hundred acres with its Georgian house and stables. To Padraic Collins, the prized, carved ivory Chinese chess set. Ten thousand pounds to a Dublin hospital foundation for research in thoracic surgery. Small keepsakes to four former medical associates, one now in Montreal, another in Galway, one in Copenhagen, one in Edinburgh. And lastly, “to my grandson, Scott Keegan, ten pence.”
    Torrey looked up. Rowena, head bent, was cleaning horsehairs from the hackle with a kitchen fork.
    “I’m rich now.” Rowena sounded exhausted.
    “Yes, I see.”
    Rowena said, “I’ve always had only an allowance. And my vet schooling at Dublin University paid for by my grandfather. Now, because of this inheritance, Inspector O’Hare’ll have more reason to think I did my grandfather in. Money, money, money! O’Hare’ll figure that I couldn’t wait. Grist for O’Hare’s mill. Planning to grind me exceeding small.”
    “Hmmm?” But Torrey was thinking of something else. “What did your grandfather have against Scott? It’s so cruel leaving him ten pence.”
    No answer. Torrey looked up. Rowena was standing with her forehead resting against Fast Forward’s flank, her hand with the hackle hanging down. She was crying.
    “What?” Torrey asked. “ What, Rowena?”
    A shake of Rowena’s head, then a broken, indrawn breath. “Oh, God! It goes back and back and back! ”
    “ What? Back to what? What goes back? Rowena? What are you talking about?”
    No answer.

26
    On the west lawn, in the chilly midmorning, Caroline walked around the big oval of rhododendrons, her nose buried in the collar of her motheaten chinchilla coat. The coat had been in the Ashenden Manor attic for more generations than anyone could remember. It smelled faintly of perfume and mice. It had always been Caroline’s comfort in times of stress. In childhood, in the late afternoon, when she worried about her mother who was off at the pub in Ballynagh, she would climb to the fourth floor and take the old chinchilla from the closet and wrap it around herself and huddle on the floor. Sometimes she would fall asleep in the soft fur and awaken with a stiff neck and then a growing feeling of panic that her mother might not have come back, might never come back.
    She stopped walking as Mark came toward her. He was on his way to get his car from the stable garage. He’d be late getting to his office in Dublin, but they’d been up talking half the night, lying there in the great oak bed in the bedroom that had once belonged to Caroline’s great-grandfather, oil portraits of earlier Ashendens on the walls and above the fireplace.
    “My father murdered!” Caroline had said. “The killer could’ve been the husband or wife of one of my father’s patients! A thoracic operation gone wrong and the patient dying. And a wife or lover or husband blaming my father! People do get crazy.” She told Mark that yesterday she’d gone to Inspector O’Hare, and O’Hare had agreed that it was definitely a possibility to be explored.
    “Yes,” Mark had said, “worth investigating. Definitely.”
    They’d talked then about her father’s will, Caroline’s inheritance of Ashenden Manor and now her unexpected estate responsibilities. It changed things. “Maybe we should give up our plans for the house in Ballsbridge,” Mark had said, “and live at Ashenden Manor.” As for Scott —
    In Mark’s arms she’d felt a surge of bitterness toward her dead father and love and loyalty to Scott. “Poor Scott!”
    “Oh, I expect Scott will be all right without a bequest,” Mark had said comfortingly. “He seems to be in funds.”
    At that, Caroline had gone quiet. Mark, too, seemed to have no more to say. He turned out the light and took Caroline in his arms.
    Now on the west lawn, in the old chinchilla coat, Caroline said, “Mark, you look like an angel in that