The Angel. Carla Neggers
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noticed Detectives Browning and O’Reilly working their way to Keira from different parts of the room, their intense expressions indicating they’d already found out about the body through other means. They’d have pagers, cell phones.
The well-dressed crowd and the lively Irish music—the laughter and the tinkle of champagne glasses—were a contrast to stoic, drenched Keira Sullivan and her stark report of a dead man.
Abigail got there first. “Keira,” she said crisply but not without sympathy. “I just heard about what happened. Let’s go into the foyer where it’s quiet, okay?”
Keira didn’t budge. “I didn’t see anything or the patrol officers on the scene wouldn’t have let me go.” She wasn’t combative, just firm, stubborn. “I’m not a witness, Abigail.”
Abigail didn’t argue, but she didn’t have to because Keira suddenly whipped around, water flying out of her hair, and shot back into the foyer, out of sight of onlookers in the drawing room. Simon knew better than to butt in, but he figured she wanted to avoid her uncle, who was about two seconds from getting through the last knot of people.
Simon wished he still had his champagne. “I wonder who the dead guy is.”
Owen stiffened. “Simon—”
“I’m just saying.”
But Owen didn’t have a chance to respond before Detective O’Reilly arrived, his hard-set jaw suggesting he wasn’t pleased with the turn the evening had taken. “Where’s Keira?”
“Talking to Abigail,” Owen said quickly, as if he didn’t want to give Simon a chance to open his mouth.
O’Reilly gave the unoccupied doorway a searing look. “She’s okay?”
“Remarkably so,” Owen said. “She’s not the one who actually found the body.”
“She called it in.” Obviously, that was plenty for O’Reilly not to like. He sucked in a breath. “How the hell does a grown man drown in the Public Garden pond? It’s about two feet deep. It’s not even a real pond.”
Good question, but Simon didn’t go near it. He wasn’t on O’Reilly’s radar, and he preferred to keep it that way.
The senior detective glanced back toward his daughter, Fiona, the harpist. She and her ensemble were taking a break. “I need to go with Abigail, see what this is all about,” O’Reilly said, addressing Owen. “You’ll make sure Fiona stays here until I know what’s going on?”
“Sure.”
“And Keira. Keep her here, too.”
Owen looked surprised at the request. “Bob, she’s old enough—”
“Yeah, whatever. Just don’t let her go traipsing back down to the Public Garden and getting into the middle of things. She’s like that. Always has been.”
“There’s no reason to think the drowning was anything but an accident, is there?”
“Not at this point,” O’Reilly said without elaboration and stalked into the foyer.
Simon didn’t mind being a fly on the wall for a change. “Does the uncle get along with his daughter and niece?”
“They get along fine,” Owen said, “but Bob sometimes forgets that Keira is ten years older than Fiona. For that matter, he forgets Fiona’s nineteen. They’re a complicated family.”
“All families are complicated, even the good ones.” Simon moved closer to the foyer doorway just as Keira started up the stairs barefoot, wet socks and shoes in one hand. She was prettier than he’d expected. Drop-you-in-your-tracks pretty, really. He noticed her uncle scowling at her from the bottom of the stairs and grinned, turning back to Owen. “Maybe especially the good ones.”
Ten seconds later, the two BPD detectives left.
The Irish ensemble started up again, playing a quieter tune.
Owen headed for Fiona O’Reilly, who cast a worried look in his direction. She had freckles, but otherwise didn’t resemble her father as far as Simon could see. Her long hair had reddish tints but really was almost as blond as her cousin’s, and she was a lot better looking than her father.
People in the crowd seemed unaware of the drama over by the door. Caterers brought out trays of hot hors d’oeuvres. Mini spinach quiches, some little flaky buttery things oozing cheese, stuffed mushrooms, skewered strips of marinated chicken. Simon wasn’t hungry. He noticed Lloyd Adler pontificating to an older couple who looked as if they thought he was a pretentious ass, too.
Simon went in the opposite direction of Adler and made his way to the back wall where Keira’s two donated watercolors were on display.
He decided to bid on the one with the cottage, just to give himself something to do.
It was a white stone cottage set against a background of wildflowers, green pastures and ocean that wasn’t in any part of Ireland that he had ever visited. He supposed that was part of the point—to create a place of imagination and dreams. A beautiful, bucolic place. A place not entirely of this world.
At least not the world in which he lived and worked.
Simon settled on a number and put in his bid, one that virtually assured him of ending up with the painting. He could give it to Abigail and Owen as a wedding present. Even if he didn’t plan to go to the wedding, he could give them a present.
He acknowledged an itch to head down to the Public Garden with the BPD detectives, but he let it go. He’d seen enough dead bodies, enough to last him for a long time. A lifetime, even. Except he knew there would be more. There always were.
Instead, he decided to find another glass of champagne, maybe grab a couple of the chicken skewers and wait for a dry, calmer Keira Sullivan to make her appearance.
Chapter 4
Beacon Hill
Boston, Massachusetts
8:45 p.m., EDT
June 17
Keira peeled off her hiking shorts and added them to the wet heap on the bathroom floor of her attic apartment. Her hands shook as she splashed herself with cold water and tried not to think about the dead man and the expressions of the two students as they’d frantically checked him for a pulse, uncertain of their actions, desperate to do the right thing even as they were repulsed by the idea of touching a corpse.
“The poor man,” she said to her reflection. “I wonder who he is.” She saw herself wince, and whispered, “Was.”
She towel-dried her hair as best she could, expecting a twig or a dead mosquito to fall out, a souvenir from her earlier hike to her mother’s. None did, and she combed out the tangles and pinned it up. She’d been looking forward to tonight’s auction and reception, but her visit with her mother and then the awful scene in the Public Garden had sucked all the excitement out of her. She just wanted to get the evening over with and be on her way to Ireland.
But for Ireland, she wouldn’t have even been in the Public Garden tonight. She’d dropped her car off with a friend in Back Bay to look after for the next six weeks and ran into the students dragging the man out of the pond on her way to the Garrison house. As she’d raced up Beacon Street after the police had arrived, she couldn’t shake the notion that her mother’s talk about sin and evil had put her in the Public Garden at exactly the wrong moment.
But that was unfair, Keira thought, and as she returned to her bedroom, she found herself wishing she could call her mother and tell her what had happened.
Everything changes.
She dug through her small closet, pulling out a long, summery skirt and top. The apartment was no more permanent than anywhere else she’d lived, but she liked the space—the efficient, downsize appliances,