Page 136 of Road Trip
“I don’t know how to explain it. Before, Savannah always seemed so tight-assed and uptight and rinky-dink. Up until now I always thought I’d outgrown Savannah. But maybe it’s actually just a matter of me growing into it. Maybe I didn’t know what I was missing—the familiarity of a small town, of having family close by. For so long I didn’t want to be tied down by a house, and all the upkeep and stuff. Before, all that stuff seemed so stifling. But now I find it kind of sweet. I’ve been walking around Mama’s house today, thinking of the things I’d change if it were mine.”
“Let me guess—no more Pepto-Bismol-pink paint and wall-to-wall carpet?”
“Definitely.”
They both laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, Therese. I know Bernie and Fran and Uncle Keith and all the cousins would love to have you around,” Maeve said.
“What about you? I know I get on your nerves and annoy the shit out of you, and I realize you had every reason to resent me for not coming home when Mama got sick.”
“I’d be happy to have you hanging around annoying me. But how would you make a living?”
“I’d keep acting. There’s a ton of film work in Georgia now with all the tax incentives the state offers, and some big studios have been built in Atlanta. I’m on a bunch of online chat boards and see auditionnotices all the time in Savannah. In fact, there’s a new Netflix original series getting ready to shoot in town next month.”
“That’s great. Really great,” Maeve said.
“There’s something else,” Therese said, sounding suddenly shy. “Scotty Childress asked me out. Okay, well, I sorta asked him to ask me out, but anyway, on Sunday, we’re taking his convertible and driving over to Bluffton for lunch.”
“You and Scotty? For reals? But…”
“Which is it? You’re surprised that I’m his type, or that he’s my type?”
“He’s male and he’s got a pulse. It’s no surprise he’s attracted to you. I thought you always had a thing for bad boys. Scotty is a lot of things, sweet and kind and successful, but he’s sort of on the nerd spectrum. Plus, he’s a redhead and you always said gingers weren’t for you.”
“I can’t tell you how sick I am of bad boys and their toxic nonsense. I tell you, Maeve, I’m finally ready for a grown-ass man in my life. Receding hairline? Love it! Paid-up credit cards and a homeowner? Yes, please. Dad jeans? Can’t wait to get them off and get it on.”
CHAPTER 58
Officer Muldoon sat at a wooden desk in the one-room Tarrymore police substation. The laptop on his desk was open, and his thick, black-framed glasses were perched on the end of his nose as he silently read from the computer screen.
Maeve squirmed in her chair, impatient to be free of his scrutiny. She’d already told him, in excruciating detail, how she and her sister had contacted Esme to research their family connection, and about the last time they’d seen her alive on Wednesday morning, as well as the purpose for Maeve’s surprise visit to the gardener’s cottage today. She’d conveniently left out any discussion of the portrait of Lady Geraldine, or of Esme’s role in the IRA heist five decades earlier. Those details were on a need-to-know basis.
He typed notes as she spoke, two-fingered. “Now, you and your sister, would it be fair to say you’re now the last of the Rossington line?”
“I doubt that she considered us members of her family, and anyway, her brother Geoffrey is still alive. She told us he showed up this week, even though they’d been estranged for over thirty-five years.”
Muldoon stopped typing. “Lord Geoffrey? I’d forgotten all about him. Always assumed he was dead.”
“Esme said the same thing. No love lost there,” Maeve commented. “Speaking of dead—how’s Reggie?”
“That eejet? Got a skull as thick as Connemara marble. He’s awake and blathering about his innocence to any who’ll listen.”
“You don’t believe that, do you? Who else could have killed Esme? I literally walked in on him while he was burglarizing the cottage.”
“He claims you’re the killer. Has some shite story about how you and your sister have been plotting to get in Esme’s good graces so you could inherit once she’s gone.”
Muldoon’s phone rang. He picked it up, swiveled his chair around so that his back was to Maeve, and listened intently, with only an occasional grunt. He disconnected, then turned the chair back around to finish the interview.
“Where were we?” he asked.
“You were just telling me that Reggie is blaming me for Esme’s murder. Which is ludicrous,” Maeve said heatedly. “Inherit what? The only thing we wanted from Esme was information about our family. Which she finally, very reluctantly, parted with.”
“I didn’t say we believed Reggie. The man is no stranger around this substation. We’ve locked him up more times than I can count for petty thievery, public drunkenness, and indecent exposure.”
He fiddled with the badge pinned to his uniform shirt. “That was my partner Flynn just now, calling from the morgue. The doctor hasn’t started the autopsy yet, but she did say from the signs of bruising and such, the cause of Lady Esme’s death will most likely be strangulation. Now, that does come as a surprise. The violence, you see. And where’s the motive? Hard to see Reggie killing his meal ticket.”
“Esme kicked him out after his last drunken escapade at the Willow Tree. I was there and witnessed it. She evicted him.”
Muldoon waved that aside. “She’s put him out lots of times in the past. And every time, she let Reggie come crawling back, tail tucked.”
