Harbor Island

Danny shrugged but made no move to sit. “Let’s just hope the cops find her killer soon. Even if it was an accident, someone is responsible for her death.” He settled his steady gaze on Emma. “That’s not why you and Agent Donovan are here, though, is it, Agent Sharpe?”

Emma didn’t answer, instead keeping her focus on Maisie. “What do you know about Rachel’s relationship with Aoife O’Byrne?”

Maisie frowned. “Why don’t you ask Aoife? Why ask me?”

Despite her unpretentious appearance, Maisie Bristol was clearly used to being in charge. Her father leaned forward, fingering one of the decorating magazines on the table. “We’ll be happy to answer any questions you have, Agent Sharpe. I’ve never met Miss O’Byrne. I only learned of her last night when Rachel told us she had invited her to Boston, and she had just arrived. I understand that she’s a remarkable artist.”

Emma glanced at Colin, his expression unreadable, then shifted back to the Bristols. “Rachel told Aoife she was working on an independent film inspired by an Irish art theft. Were you involved, Maisie?”

“It’s complicated,” she said, her voice almost inaudible.

“It’s Maisie’s project,” Travis said. “Rachel knew that. I’m sure she’d say the same thing if she were with us right now.”

Maisie seemed hardly to hear him. “Rachel had her ideas about the direction we should take. We were going to talk about everything this morning at the marina. I have so many ideas. It’s easy for me to get ahead of myself. I wanted to get more details on what Rachel had in mind and get Dad’s take. We were also going to talk about plans for the island.” She blinked back tears. “It was supposed to be a good get-together. Fun. Stimulating.”

“We all love the island,” her father said. “Rachel as well as Maisie and me.”

Maisie nodded. “Mom, too. Some of my fondest memories are of the three of us digging clams on the beach. She’d like us to let the island become part of the national park system along with most of the other islands. That’s an option, but I’ve been exploring the idea of launching a film school and production company on the island. It would be nonprofit. Who knows, maybe it could be part of the Boston Harbor Island Recreational Area, too.” She waved a hand. “None of that matters right now.”

“What time did you arrive on the island?” Colin asked from the foyer door.

Maisie looked startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there, but recovered quickly. “Just before the police did. I knew something terrible had happened. I threw up.”

“I arrived a few minutes later,” Travis said.

“It’s been a long day. I know you understand.” Maisie pointed vaguely toward the back of the house. “Why don’t I show you my workroom? It’s just downstairs. I don’t like sharing the details of a project too soon, but...” She tried to smile. “But you’re the FBI, and you want to know. And I have nothing to hide.”

“I’ll go with you,” Danny said.

Maisie bristled visibly. “You don’t have to stay, Danny. You can go anytime. Dad and I will be fine.”

He shifted his impassive gaze to Emma. “Maisie is independent. That’s cool, but it doesn’t occur to her that someone might not wish her well.”

“That’s not what today is about, Danny,” she interjected, clearly annoyed with him. “I’m not the one who was in danger, obviously, and we don’t know that Rachel’s death has anything to do with me. In fact, I can’t imagine how it could.”

“Rachel had her own life apart from Maisie and me,” Travis said.

Maisie nodded. “She could have had her own enemies, too. More likely, what happened this morning was just a stupid accident. With the cottages falling into disrepair, vagrants and people out for a good time have been using that side of the island. Developing it would end all that. But we don’t know what happened today, except that Rachel is gone.”

Travis eased in next to his daughter. “Danny, you’re welcome to move in here. If we’d known you were coming, we’d have had a room ready for you.”

“I’m good with my rental,” Danny said. “No rats or roaches.”

Maisie gave him a cool look before turning to Emma. “Shall we go downstairs?”

Danny made a move to join them, but Colin shook his head. “You sit tight, Danny. We’ll be back.”

“Feds,” he said, good-naturedly. “Love you guys. Go do your thing.”

* * *

Maisie Bristol’s workroom was down a half flight of stairs at street or “garden” level. French doors opened onto a brick courtyard with a stone fountain, statues and pots now mostly empty with the cooler weather. In the fading afternoon light, Emma noticed chips and cracks in the fountain. Moss and crabgrass covered patches of the brick. A six-foot stepladder leaned up against the back wall, reminding her that the Bristols were having work done on the place.

Maisie grabbed a book off a worktable pushed up against multipaned windows. “I’m sorry, I don’t have many chairs in here, and the few I have are stacked with books. I’ve been collecting them like a madwoman. I don’t know when I’ll get to read even half of them.”

“We don’t mind standing,” Emma said.

Colin walked over to the window. He’d said little since arriving at the Bristols’ house, but she had no doubt he was paying close attention. That she’d found a dead woman and Yank had found his wife trapped in Aoife O’Byrne’s Dublin studio hadn’t sat well with him—as an FBI agent or as Emma’s fiancé and Yank’s friend.

Maisie set her book back on the table. Emma saw it was on Jack B. Yeats. “I wasn’t familiar with his work until recently,” Maisie said, brushing her fingertips across the cover, one of his western Irish landscapes. “Rachel told me about him, as a matter of fact. I didn’t realize at first that her interest in Yeats cuts to our different approaches to the film we were working on together. She wanted flash and dazzle. I want...” Her eyes shone with fresh tears. “Well, I don’t know what I want.”

“When did Rachel introduce you to Yeats’s work?” Emma asked.

“About a week ago. She’d done some research and thought she’d found the perfect hook for our movie.”

“And you weren’t sure?”

“I wasn’t, no. I’m interested in the intersection of pagan Celtic Ireland and Christianity and the integration of those two worlds. I’ve been gobbling up everything I can.” Maisie gave a broad gesture to more books stacked on the worktable. “It’s fascinating.”

Maisie—or someone—had turned the end wall into a collage of color printouts of photographs of Irish Celtic scenes. Emma recognized ogham stones, Celtic crosses, beehive huts and church ruins, pages from the Book of Kells.

“I wasn’t upset by Rachel’s ideas,” Maisie added quickly. “Differences are to be expected in a creative endeavor. I like to throw everything out onto the table—without self-censorship—and see what develops. Let things simmer and percolate until what’s meant to be emerges. It’s not always a neat and tidy process, but it works, at least for me.”

“You’ve had a great deal of success,” Emma said.

“I support good people and get out of their way and let them do their work.”

“That takes a certain vision, doesn’t it?”

Maisie smiled, brushing at her tears with the heel of one hand. “And luck.”

“Did Rachel—”

“All my successes were flukes according to Rachel. She said it was a positive viewpoint. If they were flukes, I wouldn’t expect to duplicate them in the future. I wouldn’t be disappointed.”

“She was lowering your expectations?”

“Helping me to a soft landing,” Maisie said. “She and my dad started seeing each other when I was fifteen. I was even more awkward than the average awkward fifteen-year-old. Living in Las Vegas with my erratic but loving mother. Traveling back and forth to Los Angeles and Boston to see my father. It’s not like not knowing where your next meal is coming from or going to bed hungry, but I coped by watching movies, talking movies, eating and sleeping movies. Rachel was very kind to me in her own way, and she taught me a lot.”

“But part of her still thought of you as that awkward fifteen-year-old,” Emma said.

“She admitted as much.”

Colin turned from the window. “Was she hijacking your movie, Maisie?”

“She knew I wouldn’t let that happen. She told me last night that she realized I wasn’t the insecure girl breathless for whatever words of wisdom she had for me—that just because I’m open to ideas doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas of my own, or a strong vision of my own. That I...I...” Maisie gulped in air, her face crumpling as she sobbed, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “I can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t believe someone killed her.”

Emma pulled out the one chair that was pushed under the table and lifted a stack of books from the seat. Colin eased Maisie onto the chair. “Try not to hyperventilate,” he said. “It won’t help.”

She nodded, still gulping in air. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been in such a state of shock that I’ve hardly cried at all. I don’t know what all Rachel was up to—I think she was trying to manipulate me or bully me into doing the movie her way. I’m sure that’s why she invited Aoife O’Byrne here. How awful it must be for her to arrive in Boston and not twenty-four hours later, the woman who got her here is shot to death in cold blood. I can’t believe—” She clutched her shirt at her solar plexus. “I’m going to be sick.”

Colin placed a hand on her shoulder. “Easy, Maisie. Just breathe normally.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out of the corners. Her nose was running. She sniffled, letting go of her shirt and wiping her nose on the sleeve. She opened her eyes and sniffled again. “Sorry. I never seem to have a tissue. I’ll change in a few minutes. God, what an awful day.” She raised her gaze to Emma. “I know you’re the one who found Rachel this morning. The police asked us—Dad and me—if we knew that she’d called you. We didn’t. We’ve no idea what she wanted. Did she tell you? When Rachel called—” Maisie stopped abruptly and shook her head. “Never mind. I know you can’t tell me things.”

“How long had you and Rachel been working on the movie?” Emma asked.

“Since October. In the last week or so I could see it was turning into two different movies. Hers and mine. Rachel wanted to take my interest and knowledge of the Irish Celtic pagan and Irish Celtic Christian worlds and use them as the backdrop for a movie about an art thief and the private art detective chasing him.”

Emma kept her expression neutral. “What prompted Rachel to go in that direction?”

“She read a news story about the murder of an American in a little Irish village. Declan’s Cross. It mentioned an unsolved art theft of two Jack B. Yeats paintings, and she was off and running. Obsessed. She looked into this art detective and Aoife O’Byrne. The art detective is in his eighties now. She said ours would have to be younger.”

“Did she give you his name?” Colin asked.

Maisie shrugged her slender shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe. I wouldn’t remember. I’m terrible with names.”

Emma narrowed her gaze on her. “Wendell Sharpe,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Maisie straightened, gaping at Emma. “Wait. Sharpe? You two are related?”

“He’s my grandfather.”

“Oh. Oh. No wonder Rachel called you this morning, then. Now it makes perfect sense.”

Emma picked up the book on Yeats. “How so?”

“You’re an FBI agent and the granddaughter of a renowned art detective. Rachel could have been shifting and thinking of making you the art detective in her version of our movie. Maybe doing a composite of you and your grandfather. It’d all be fiction, of course—as Rachel said, inspired by but not based on real events. Anyway, with Aoife O’Byrne arriving yesterday, I can see that Rachel would want to talk to you. Pick your brain. With my scheduling a meeting at the marina this morning, it makes sense she asked to meet you on the island. Pure convenience.”

“Did she tell anyone she was going out there?” Emma asked.

“She didn’t tell me. She died before she could go into much detail about what she’d learned so far about the thief and her art detective—your grandfather—but I know she was excited. I was resistant to letting her take over this project, but I was willing to hear her out with as open a mind as I could.”

Colin walked over to a closed door. “What’s in here?”

“A guest studio apartment. It has its own entrance onto West Cedar. A friend of mine is staying there.”

He cocked a brow at her. “What friend?”

Color rose in Maisie’s tear-stained cheeks. “His name’s Oliver Fairbairn. He’s a mythologist. He worked as a consultant on one of my films. We got to talking on the set one day—he inspired my interest in Celtic Ireland.”

“He’s Irish?”

“English, actually. His expertise isn’t restricted to Ireland or even to Celtic myths and legends. They’re what I latched on to.”

“Where is he now?” Emma asked.

“He went out for a walk. He doesn’t live here—he stays here when he’s in town. Most of the time that’s when I’m in town, too. I’m mobile, but I’ve been in Boston a lot this fall, mostly to pull together plans for the island. Oliver’s latest movie-consulting job ended in October, and he took the opportunity to do some research in Boston. He comes and goes. As Dad mentioned, he’s been back and forth a lot, too. He lives in Malibu. He grew up here, though.”

“Got it,” Colin said. “Have the police talked to Mr. Fairbairn?”

“I don’t know. Not that I know of.”

“Was he at your brunch at the marina this morning?”

“He was invited,” Maisie said. “Of course, there was no brunch. We were about to get started when the police descended and we found out about Rachel.”

She looked out the window at the courtyard. Darkness was descending fast now. She seemed more tired and preoccupied now than in shock and disbelief.

Emma moved from the table and stood next to her. “Have you settled anything for your movie—time period, location, theme, characters?”

“I was still casting a wide net when Rachel told me about Declan’s Cross. I did some cursory research. I could see why the theft caught her interest, but I was captivated by Saint Declan. I’d love to visit Ardmore, where he established his monastery.” Maisie smiled sadly, her energy clearly fading. “The photos I’ve seen on the internet are intriguing. Is it as beautiful as it seems?”

“As far as I’m concerned, it is,” Emma said.

“It seems like such a leap to get from a theft in a small Irish village ten years ago to Rachel’s death this morning. It must be hard to take things step by step in a criminal investigation and not get ahead of yourself.” Maisie’s eyes narrowed, her gaze again turning cool. “Does your grandfather’s involvement complicate your role, Agent Sharpe?”

Emma had no intention of answering the question. Maisie Bristol might look as if she cut her own hair and had just flunked high school algebra, but Emma could see her tackling Hollywood and coming out on top.

She drew a business card from her jacket and placed it on the table. “Call me if you think of anything else, or if you want to talk more.”

Maisie had gone pale again. She didn’t pick up the card. She bit down on her lower lip as she touched the black lettering. “The FBI. My God.” She seemed to force herself to breathe. “I get sick to my stomach and maybe a little bitchy—maybe a lot bitchy—when I think that something I did could have led to Rachel’s death. Rachel said the murder in Declan’s Cross last week has been solved and the killer is dead. That investigation is all wrapped up, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You say that with such certainty.”

“Call anytime, Maisie,” Emma said. “Day or night.”

Her shoulders slumped but she gave a small nod. “Thank you.”

9

After they left the Bristol house, Colin walked with Emma back to the Taj Hotel. They needed to talk with Aoife O’Byrne now that Lucy Yankowski had been found in Aoife’s Dublin studio. At least, Emma needed to talk to the Irish artist. Colin decided he could wait when he glanced in the bar off the Taj lobby and spotted Finian Bracken at a small table by the fire.

Of all people, Colin thought.

Finian was from the southwest Irish coast but lately resided in Maine as the parish priest in Colin’s hometown of Rock Point. He was also good friends with Sean Murphy, the Irish detective who had walked into Aoife’s studio earlier with Matt Yankowski.

Had Murphy called Finian to look in on Aoife?

Or had Aoife called him?

A man Colin didn’t recognize was sitting across the table from Finian. Emma hit the up button for the elevator. Colin nodded to the bar. “I’ll go talk whiskey with Fin and find out who his new friend is.”

Emma nodded. “I’ll meet you back here after I talk with Aoife. She’s expecting me.”

The elevator doors opened, and Colin waited as Emma disappeared inside. Then he stepped into the quiet, dimly lit bar.

“Please,” Finian said, motioning to a cushioned chair, “join us.”

That was the plan, but Colin kept his remark to himself as he pulled out the chair and sat down. Although Finian was in his priest duds, he still managed to remind Colin of Bono. “Hello, Fin. Who’s your friend here?”

Finian, a whiskey expert as well as a priest, formerly an executive at Bracken Distillers, had only a glass of water with a slice of lemon in front of him. “Actually, I didn’t get his name.”

“Oliver Fairbairn,” the man said in a distinct English accent, raising his glass and swirling its amber contents. “A Scotch-drinking mythologist. And you are?”

Finian supplied the answer. “This is my friend Colin Donovan, Oliver.”

The Brit leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “You’re an FBI agent.” He sat back immediately. “I wish I could say I had a nose for American federal agents, but I don’t. Maisie just texted me. She said you and another agent—Emma Sharpe—asked about me. That was Agent Sharpe who came in with you? I gather she doesn’t want to join us.”

Oliver Fairbairn either wasn’t on his first Scotch or was pretending not to be. He had unruly dark blond hair and blue-green eyes and wore a rumpled shirt under a wool vest, with gray wool trousers and a trench coat on the back of his chair. He looked to be in his late thirties even if he was dressed as if he’d stepped out of the pages of a Sherlock Holmes novel.

He sipped his drink. “Scotch or a tall Irish, Agent Donovan?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“I prefer Scotch to Irish whiskey, but our good Father here tells me the peated Bracken 15 year old stands up to the best single-malt Scotch. A rare thing, a peated Irish whiskey.”

“The Bracken stands up as far as I’m concerned,” Colin said. “Not that my palate is particularly sophisticated.”

“I’ll have to try Bracken 15 one day, then,” Fairbairn said. “Right now, I’m quite content with my Glenfiddich 18 year old. Glenfiddich is Scottish Gaelic. It means valley of the deer. Doesn’t that conjure up beautiful images?”

“It certainly does,” Finian said with an awkward glance at Colin.

Colin didn’t soften his look. His Irish friend had no business being here, and he obviously knew it. He could have at least alerted Colin that he was on the way. Finian Bracken, however, would have his own reasons for his choices. He was in his late thirties, a late-vocation priest ordained only a year ago. They’d become friends since Finian’s arrival in Rock Point in June to fill in for Saint Patrick’s regular priest, who was on a yearlong sabbatical in Ireland.

Seven years ago—long before Colin knew him—Finian had been the happily married father of two young daughters and cofounder with his twin brother, Declan, of a successful Irish distillery. Then, on a summer day he could never get back, a freak sailing accident had taken his wife and daughters from him. Finian had been on his way to meet them for a family holiday.

Garda Sean Murphy had investigated the drowning deaths of Sally Bracken and little Mary and Kathleen Bracken. He hadn’t been a detective with a special unit then. The two Irishmen had become friends. Colin had been aware that Finian had visited Declan’s Cross, where Sean had a family farm, and knew Kitty, Aoife’s sister. He hadn’t thought about Dublin-based Aoife.

Oliver Fairbairn savored his Scotch, cupping his glass in both hands. “I hope your visit with my good friend Maisie went well, despite the circumstances. Isn’t she brilliant? The perfect, mighty blend of intelligence, talent and humility. She couldn’t have accomplished what she has if she’d been just another narcissistic Hollywood blowhard.” He grinned, a thick lock of hair falling on his forehead. “I can say that out here. I’d never say it on the West Coast. I’d never work on another movie.”

“You like your movie work, do you?” Colin asked.

“Sure. Why not? It pays well, and I don’t care if directors mangle the legends and myths they hire me to teach them about. That’s what legends and myths are for, isn’t it? Mangling. Or telling anew as one director put it.” The Brit grimaced. “Rachel Bristol got a kick out of that one when I told her. A bloody awful day, isn’t it?”

Colin said nothing. He noticed Finian lift his water glass and take a sip but kept his attention on Maisie Bristol’s mythologist. “Did you just happen into the bar here and strike up a conversation with Father Bracken?”

“As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I did,” Fairbairn said. “I wanted to give Maisie and her father time to themselves and walked over here, somehow thinking it would be a good idea to pay my respects or whatever to Aoife O’Byrne. Fortunately, I changed my mind and decided on Scotch, instead, and met Father Bracken. How do you two know each other?”

“We’re friends,” Colin said without elaboration.

The Brit set his glass down. “A good day to have a priest for a friend.”

“Aoife called me,” Finian said, addressing Colin. “Kitty called, too. And Sean.”

Colin hadn’t planned on asking for an explanation in front of Oliver Fairbairn. “Makes sense,” he said.

Finian leveled his midnight-blue eyes on Colin. “Aoife has checked out of the hotel. She’s driving back to Maine with me. She’s on her way down with her things.”

Fairbairn’s eyebrows shot up. “Aoife O’Byrne is going back to Maine with you? A beautiful woman, a famous Irish artist? Good heavens, man, won’t your parishioners have fits if you sneak her into the rectory?”

Colin pretty much had the same question.

Finian looked unruffled. “I’ve booked a room for her at a local inn,” he said.

“Well, then. That solves it.” Fairbairn sat back and picked up his glass. “How on earth did you end up in Maine? A long story, I gather?”

“Are there any short Irish stories?” Finian asked with a shrug.

Fairbairn seemed to know Finian had said all he planned to about his relationship with Aoife O’Byrne. “Good point.” He downed more of his Scotch, not savoring it this time. “I’m afraid the shock of Rachel’s death has led me to drink too fast. If I make an ass of myself, will you please excuse me? Or am I too late, and I should put that in past tense and beg your forgiveness?”

Finian cracked the smallest of smiles, the first break in his obvious tension since Colin had arrived. “You’re doing fine, my friend. Glenfiddich 18 is a beautiful Scotch. At least you didn’t ruin it with ice.”

“I like how you think, Father Bracken. What about you, Agent Donovan? You won’t join me for a dram?”

“Not tonight, thanks,” Colin said.

“I suppose what happened today didn’t faze you. Nerves of steel and all that. I’ve only known Maisie a couple of months and hardly knew Rachel, and I’m flattened.”

Colin thought of the moment he’d realized Emma was on Bristol Island alone, with a woman dead at her feet and a shooter on the run—or getting ready to fire again. He noticed Finian’s scrutiny, but his priest friend made no comment.

Oblivious, Oliver Fairbairn polished off the last of his Scotch. “I suppose you’re wondering what I do. As I told the detectives, I’m a useless academic who doesn’t have a normal job. It’s true.”