Nothing But Trouble Page 17

  Fitzmaurice parked at the curb in front of the hotel, and through the open car window Sara watched a group of talkative young people hurry down the quay toward a pub where a laughing, cigarette-smoking crowd stood on the sidewalk in front of the entrance.

  “I bet you’re bored stiff with this assignment,” she said.

  Fitzmaurice shifted in his seat and looked at her. “It’s been less than exciting, although I have enjoyed knocking around a bit with high society.”

  “Can you arrange to get me into Paquette’s hotel room?”

  “With or without the blessings of the court?” Fitzmaurice asked.

  “Without, preferably.”

  “It’s been on my mind to ask you,” Fitzmaurice replied slowly, “why all the bloody secrecy about a Yank soldier who made a fortune smuggling and then went missing from Vietnam so many years ago?”

  “Spalding’s not the only target of the investigation,” Sara answered.

  “And would that target be some lofty member of your government?”

  “You have a suspicious nature, Mr. Fitzmaurice.”

  “ ’Tis because of you that I’ve taken to speculating. What would possibly bring a Yank colonel to our shores with a diplomatic passport to hunt down a lowly soldier? Am I now part of some clandestine military operation?”

  Sara smiled. “You’re making far too much of it. I would rather move cautiously until we have more of a fix on Spalding.”

  “Yes, you more or less said that before. But quite possibly, talking to Paquette could bring him into our sights.”

  Sara shook her head. “She could easily deny doing anything more than having bought a seaside villa with Spalding’s money. Once we pull her in for questioning, we will have played our hand.”

  “An offer of immunity might loosen her tongue.”

  “Let’s wait,” Sara said. “Can you get me into her hotel room?”

  “Most likely I can,” Fitzmaurice answered as he started the engine. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

  Sara opened the car door. “You’re a prince, Detective Fitzmaurice.” “Not quite,” Fitzmaurice said with a chuckle. “On my mother’s side of the family we were never more than landless, impoverished earls.”

  On her second day in Dublin, Sara rose to a cheerless early morning, which didn’t depress her in the least. Through her hotel-room window a low sky pressed down upon the city, and the still-dark buildings across the Liffey were soft shapes in the mist that had rolled in from the bay. Along the quay only a few people were out. Several university students toted book bags on their way to Trinity College, an early-rising couple were consulting their tourist guides, and a middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit hurried by with briefcase in hand.

  Sara showered, dressed, and went outside, where a clearing sky and Detective Fitzmaurice greeted her. He nodded, reached into a pocket, and handed her a slip of paper with a number written on it.

  “That’s Paquette’s room number,” he said. “The housekeeper will leave the door unlatched exactly at eight-forty. You’ll have ten minutes, and ten minutes only.”

  Sara smiled her thanks. “Are you sure Paquette will be gone?”

  “According to her driver she’ll be at a photography session with a Canadian model who’s all the rage in Paris this year. One of my lads will be following along.”

  “Perfect,” Sara said. “What about hotel security?”

  Fitzmaurice smiled. “They’ll be busy with more important matters.”

  “When does Paquette meet with the builder?”

  “Late in the afternoon. We have time for breakfast. There’s a small café on a side street next to the post office where the 1916 Easter Rising took place. They serve great bangers and eggs.”

  “Wasn’t it shelled by a gunboat on the river and virtually destroyed?”

  “Indeed it was. Have you been reading a guidebook about our fair city?”

  “I confess I have,” Sara said with a smile.

  Over breakfast Sara learned that Fitzmaurice was married to a schoolteacher named Edna and that the couple had two sons, Brian, who lived close by and worked as a programmer for a software company, and their younger boy, Sean, who lived at home and was studying literature at Trinity College on a scholarship.

  “He was at the award ceremony last night,” Fitzmaurice said, “but I asked him to give me a bit of a wide berth, as I was working.”

  “You could have at least pointed him out,” Sara said as she cut into one of the bangers. “Did he get his love of books from you?”

  “And his mother,” Fitzmaurice said with a nod. “She was quite interested to learn from Sean that I’d squired an attractive woman to the event under the guise of official business.”

  “You didn’t tell her who you’d be with?”

  Fitzmaurice laughed. “Of course I did, but Sean rightly made you out to be a stunning American beauty.”

  “Give him my thanks for the compliment.”

  “I will,” Fitzmaurice said. “From the ring on your finger I take it you’re married.”

  “To a policeman, of all things,” Sara replied.

  Fitzmaurice slapped his knee. “Married to a peeler, are you? That’s grand.”

  “And he’s a third-generation Irish-American.”

  “Even grander,” Fitzmaurice said, his smile widening.

  For a while they talked about their lives and families and by the time the meal had ended, Sara found herself feeling that she’d made a new friend. On the way to the car Fitzmaurice, who’d adamantly refused to let her pay for breakfast, announced that he was so taken by her descriptions of the Southwest that he’d already decided to start planning a holiday to New Mexico.

  He dropped her off a block from Paquette’s hotel, and Sara timed her entrance to give herself three minutes’ leeway to find her way to the room. She crossed the richly appointed lobby and took the elevator to the third floor, where she found the hallway empty expect for a housekeeping cart, and the door to Paquette’s room ajar.

  It was far more elaborate than Sara’s room, although not much bigger, with windows looking onto St. Stephen’s Green, a thick carpet with a subtle Oriental design, and embossed fleur-de-lis wallpaper. By the window was a chaise longue next to a rosewood table with a reading lamp. An arched camelback sofa faced a huge armoire that opened to reveal a television, DVD player, and compact stereo. Between the oversized bed and the chaise longue stood a small round dining table with fluted legs and two matching chairs. Against the wall opposite the windows, under a Chippendale-style mirror, was a writing desk with satinwood inlays and finely tapered legs.

  Paquette was a very tidy person. Her shoes were in an orderly row on the closet floor under garments arranged neatly on hangers, her toiletries and makeup had been put away in the bathroom cabinet, the duvet on the bed had been pulled up and smoothed out, and the papers on the writing desk were organized in stacks.

  Sara quickly searched through drawers, clothing, and luggage, putting everything back in its proper place, before turning her attention to the writing desk. She checked the wastebasket and then fanned through the paperwork, which was all work related, before powering up Paquette’s laptop. It was password protected, so Sara shut it down, closed the lid, and pushed it back to its original position. The edge of a piece of hotel stationery slipped into view. She pulled it out. On it was a string of numbers.

  Sara wrote the numbers down, checked her watch, and saw that she was out of time. Back at the car she gave the paper to Fitzmaurice.

  “It’s definitely a telephone number,” he said.

  “How quickly can you check it out?”

  “Promptly. The government agency that regulates communications is just a short distance away, and they have access to all landline and mobile telephone records.”

  “Good. While you’re doing that, I’ll go back to my hotel and call the French. They should have researched Spalding’s previous travel bookings by now.”

  Fitzmaurice waved
the notepaper at her before putting it his shirt pocket. “You may be onto something here.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Sara replied, flashing a smile.

  An hour later Fitzmaurice sat with Sara in her hotel’s restaurant and filled her in.

  “The telephone number belongs to a George McGuire,” he said with a knowing shake of his head. “It’s for a mobile phone bought here in Dublin under a prepay plan that was purchased three months ago. Records show that a number of text messages from that number were sent to Paquette’s computer, several as recent as two days ago, but no voice calls have been made.”

  “When did he open the account?” Sara asked as the waitress brought coffee for her and hot tea for Fitzmaurice.

  Fitzmaurice read off the date from his notes. “Of course, he used a fictitious mailing address on the mobile-phone contract and paid in cash.”

  Sara grinned. “That date coincides with the information I got from the French authorities. According to Spalding’s travel bookings he was in Ireland during that time, supposedly on holiday, and he stayed for six weeks. What will it take to get access to Paquette’s e-mail account?”

  Fitzmaurice added milk to his tea and stirred it. “A writ from an agreeable judge, which I think we can get by attesting that Paquette used illicitly gotten gains provided by a known fugitive to purchase property on his behalf. I have a detective on his way to the registrar of deeds and titles to pull the paperwork so we have the necessary documentation.”

  “When will you be able to secure the writ?”

  “By day’s end, I would hope.” Fitzmaurice leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and smiled broadly. “But there’s also another avenue we can pursue that may surely get your blood racing. If you’re right about Spalding wanting to settle here permanently, free to come and go as he pleases, he might well have either started or completed the process to claim Irish citizenship by virtue of descent. To accomplish it the documents would need to be in perfect order, but it would be well within the realm of possibility for him to do it.”

  Sara leaned forward. “I’m all ears. Explain to me how it would work.”

  “Anyone born outside Ireland can qualify for citizenship by submitting proof that at least one grandparent was born in Ireland. It requires making an application and including all the necessary birth, marriage, and death certificates to support the claim. Once everything has been confirmed, the applicant is entered into the Irish Register of Foreign Births and is eligible to apply for an Irish passport.”

  “How can we find out about this?” Sara asked.

  “Foreign-birth citizenship applications must be made through an Irish embassy or consulate in the country where the person resides,” Fitzmaurice said. “Inquiries have already been made to our French and English embassies, asking if a George McGuire has applied, and we’re querying all the others through the Department of Foreign Affairs. But remember, Spalding may not have started the process. He could be still at the point of trying to find someone willing to sell, for an agreeable sum of money, a dead grandparent’s name he could use, or paying an intermediary to do it for him.”

  Sara smiled at an elderly couple who nodded a greeting as they trailed the hostess to an empty table. “Now that we know about Spalding’s earlier visit, shouldn’t we do a search of birth-certificate requests made during the time he was here?”

  Fitzmaurice finished his tea. “Yes, of course, but it may be a while before we learn anything. Requests for birth certificates can be made either through the Registrar General’s Office here in the city, or directly to one of the county offices.”

  Sara motioned for the waitress to bring the check. “How many counties are there in Ireland?”

  “Twenty-six in the Republic and six in Northern Ireland. But the records of Irish ancestors born in the north before 1922 are kept by the Registrar General’s Office, which is nearby. We’ll make a quick stop on our way to Dún Laoghaire and ask them to get cracking on it.”

  Sara signed the charge slip and stood. “Although a hint of a brogue is in your voice, sometimes you sound more British than Irish.”

  “Do I, now?” Fitzmaurice said with a chuckle as he walked Sara through the lobby. “I suppose it’s because I come from one of those Anglo-Irish families that embraced Catholicism and drew Oliver Cromwell’s ire. In his zeal to transform Ireland into a Protestant colony of the British Empire, he either reduced us to poverty or drove us into exile. It’s taken us a few hundred years to work our way back into polite society.”

  Sara laughed. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re excellent company to keep, Hugh Fitzmaurice.”

  “As are you, Colonel Sara Brannon, although it pains me to know so little of your real reason for being here.”

  “I’ll try not to cause you any trouble,” Sara said as she slid into Fitzmaurice’s unmarked Garda car.

  Chapter Eight

  The short drive from Dublin to Dún Laoghaire reminded Sara of the sprawl of large American cities where suburban towns and once rural villages, now surrounded by commercial and residential development, had been absorbed and become virtually indistinguishable from one another.

  Granted, there were differences between Dublin and the States: The architectural styles of the spreading residential subdivisions paid homage to a Georgian, Palladian, Victorian, and Irish cottage heritage, and in many cases the houses were smaller and squeezed onto tiny lots. There were lovely old buildings scattered about in parkland meadows cut by cobblestone drives, and the new commercial buildings had a distinctly European minimalist flair. The Irish Sea, the coastal hills, and the remaining open space soothed the eye, but there was construction everywhere. Roads, subdivisions, shopping centers, and business parks were eating away at the edges of the intact village centers and gobbling up the land.

  When Sara mentioned this to Fitzmaurice, he railed against the development, pointing out that the old family-run bakeries, fish-and-chips takeaways, butcher shops, grocery stores, and ice cream parlors were nigh on gone, swept aside by fast-food franchises, gimmicky tourist enterprises, and big-box shopping malls with huge car parks that catered to the relentless consumption of a nation gone mad with consumerism.

  “The whole bloody Republic is being turned into an Irish theme park,” he added with a huff.

  Sara smiled sympathetically but said nothing. Fitzmaurice sounded just like Kerney complaining about the changes in Santa Fe and northern New Mexico. If the two men ever had a chance to meet, she thought they would hit it off immediately.

  They arrived in Dún Laoghaire, which, according to Fitzmaurice, had been a sleepy village in the early nineteenth century until the railroad arrived and a harbor had been dredged to accommodate mail ships that crossed the Irish Sea to Holyhead in Wales. Now it was not only a popular day-trip destination for tourists staying in Dublin, but also home to the largest ferry crossing to and from the UK, a retreat for the wealthy who maintained vacation homes in the area, and a bedroom community for people who worked either in the city or in the resort towns that ran along the southeast coast.

  The area promoted itself as Dublin’s Riviera, compared itself to Naples, Italy, and had no industry other than tourism, which was offered up, as Fitzmaurice put it, to all those gullible people who came looking for the charm of Old Eire while turning a blind eye to the neighborhoods where the poor resided and street gangs roamed.

  From the road the villa Paquette had bought looked like nothing more than a cottage painted a soft pastel blue. But from the end of the line of houses that followed the curve of the bay, Sara could see that it extended four stories down a cliff face to a rocky beach and a slipway where pleasure boats rocked gently against a pier. Terraced gardens of palm trees and brilliant flowers flowed down the cliff almost to the shore.

  The view across Killiney Bay was stunning, with low hills and a distant mountain sheared off at the top standing on a headland under a gun-metal cloud bank.

  “It’s glorious,” Sara said.

  “
Certainly a place where one could settle in and live comfortably,” Fitzmaurice replied.

  Sara laughed at Fitzmaurice’s sarcasm. “Let’s make sure Spalding doesn’t get that chance.”

  The storefront office of the auctioneer and estate agent who’d handled the sale of the villa was closed. A note attached to the door said that the agent, a man named Liam Quinn, was off showing property and would be back in the afternoon.

  Fitzmaurice tried Quinn’s mobile telephone number, got no response, and left a brief voice message asking him to ring back when he returned to the office.

  “While we’re waiting for Quinn to call, let’s ask around for Mr. Spalding at some of the hotels, guesthouses, and inns,” he said.

  Working from a tourist guide of area accommodations, they stopped at the few downtown hotels before widening their search to self-catering apartments, short-term rental units, and bed-and-breakfast establishments. Just as they were about to give up canvassing and head off for a quick lunch, the estate agent rang Fitzmaurice on his mobile and said he was on his way back to his office.

  “Let’s hope he has something to offer,” Fitzmaurice said as he clipped the phone to his belt. “Otherwise we’ll need at least two more days and many more officers to query every innkeeper and hotelier in the area.”

  “Have you met or spoken to Quinn before?” Sara asked.

  Fitzmaurice shook his head. “No, I sent one of my detectives around to see him.”

  “So he doesn’t know you’re a peeler.”

  Fitzmaurice’s eyes lit up. “Are you thinking we should present ourselves as prospective clients?”

  Sara nodded. “Let’s string him along and see where it leads.”

  “You’re a gifted schemer, Lieutenant Colonel Brannon.”

  Sara laughed. “With a willing accomplice, Detective Inspector Fitzmaurice.”