Page 51 of Death at Inishmore Castle

“I can go through these. While you do something else.”

“What do you mean?”

I was trying to get him out of the room so I could examine all the boxes, including the ones he didn’t want me to see.

“Don’t you have a kleptomaniac to confront?”

He sighed. “I do. But if I do that, it means possibly throwing her in jail if the O’Sullivans want to press charges. And, for the moment, I need everyone to stay where they are. At least for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Why is that?”

“A few reasons. Once they disperse, it will make it more difficult to follow up with them. And we can’t risk letting the killer get away, if he or she hasn’t already. That and it gives the pathologist time to give us more information and process DNA.”

“Scary that the killer might still be here, but it makes sense. Have you been through Sister Sarah’s things?”

He nodded. “Her stuff is in those boxes at the end of the table.”

“Do you mind if I go through them?”

“We’ve been through it and there was nothing of note. Other than she had some jeans one wouldn’t normally think a nun might own. There was a Bible and some toiletries. We think the Bible may have just been a part of her costume. Oh, and there is a puzzle box. Maybe, you can figure how to get into it.”

“Oh, yes please!” I loved any sort of puzzle.

He waved a hand toward the boxes and then opened his laptop.

The boxes were much like he said. A few items of clothing, a Bible, and some toiletries, including makeup which no nun would be caught dead in, were on the top of the pile. There was also a strange wooden box that looked like something to put jewelry into. Except, it was empty. There was an intricate wooden inlay on the top that slid just a bit when I put my finger on it.

“Huh,” I said. I tried to slide some of the other pieces, but they didn’t budge.

“What are you looking at?”

“The old-fashioned puzzle box. The one you mentioned. I’d only seen them in movies until we moved into my grandfather’s place. He had left a few in the house, and even more in the bookstore. He loved all things to do with puzzles. And so do I.”

“Have you found anything in them?”

“Most of the time they contain letters from our grandmother to him. But we did find a few letters from our father when he was at university. They didn’t have their falling out until he was much older.

“That reminds me, I know you’ve been busy, but has your police search pulled up anything on my dad?”

He shook his head. “You know I would have told you right away. If he’s still alive he’s either using another name or is completely off the grid.”

“And you never found a death certificate?”

“No,” he said. “But my request to the military database is still pending.”

“So is ours. I know they must get thousands of requests, but the waiting is awful.” Lizzie and I had never known our father. Our grandfather had found out about us just before he passed away. He and our father had a falling out, and he never knew what happened to our dad—other than he’d been on a military mission and had never come home.

Lizzie held out hope that maybe he was alive somewhere and perhaps had amnesia. I was a bit more practical and assumed he died on a military mission that they were not going to talk about with civilians. The American government wasn’t the only one that kept secrets.

I wasn’t some conspiracy theorist. But if someone was on a covert mission, those facts would probably stay hidden. Even if that person went missing.

While Kieran worked on his computer, I sat down across from him and worked on the wooden puzzle box. Every time Ithought I’d made progress by shifting one piece, the next one would stump me.

I’d been sitting there for almost an hour, shoving the inlay pieces in different directions, when the bottom part of the box slid open, I jumped. It made a weird scraping sound and Kieran’s head popped up.

Inside was a diamond necklace, and a passport.

“Oh. My.”

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