Nothing But Trouble

Chapter Seven

Sara parked the rental car next to Kerney’s unmarked police cruiser, carried a sleepy Patrick inside the house, and quickly put him to bed. As she tucked him in and kissed his warm cheek, he asked for his father.

“You’ll see him in the morning,” Sara said.

Patrick smiled. “Can I go riding with Daddy in the morning?” “Daddy has to work tomorrow and you may have to go with him.”

“Why?”

“To keep him company,” Sara said as she gave him his favorite stuffed animal, a palomino pony with a bushy tail. “Now go to sleep.”

Clutching the pony, Patrick turned on his side and closed his eyes.

Outside, the horses in the paddock gently whinnied as Sara opened the trunk of the car and removed the luggage. In the stillness of the night she could hear the sound of their hooves as they trotted expectantly along the fence. She crossed the pasture to the barn and gave each of the four geldings a horse biscuit and a nose rub before taking the luggage inside. In the living room she dropped the bags on the oversized sofa and walked into the adjoining study. She sat at the original mission desk that she’d inherited from her grandmother and looked out through a picture window onto the canyon below, where the ranch road crossed an arroyo and rose toward the house. From here she would be able to see the headlights of Kerney’s pickup truck long before he reached the house.

She opened her briefcase and took our her laptop before speed-dialing Kerney’s cell-phone number. The call didn’t go through. Since leaving Arlington for the flight to Albuquerque, she’d repeatedly tried to contact him without success. Kerney was way overdue from his weekend trip to the Bootheel and it was unlike him to be unreachable. As Santa Fe police chief he was on call virtually all of the time, no matter where he was or what he was doing. Until now Sara had always been able to contact him without difficulty.

She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d encountered some trouble on the road or had been caught up in an emergency at work. To ease her mind she dialed his direct office number and got no answer. With growing concern she called the regional emergency dispatch center and asked to be put through to him. The dispatcher advised her that he was not on duty and had last been heard from by telephone earlier that morning.

Trying hard not to sound like a worried wife, Sara asked the dispatcher to let Kerney know, if he made contact, that she was at the ranch.

“Is everything all right, Colonel Brannon?” the dispatcher asked.

“Perfectly,” Sara replied. She thanked the woman, disconnected, and powered up her laptop.

Kerney had no idea she was about to leave Patrick in his care for the next two weeks. It would be a first for father and son, and she wasn’t happy about springing the situation on him unannounced. Fortunately, Patrick was thrilled about seeing his father, although she doubted he had really taken in the fact that Sara would be gone for two weeks, the first time they’d been separated for more than a few hours. Even on the busiest days she had always managed to look in on him at the Pentagon day-care center.

She stared at the laptop screen for a long moment searching out the folder containing the case file that had led to her special orders. She would be out of the country for the next week, but her mind kept wandering back to Kerney. Where was he? What was he doing? What if he arrived home without checking in with dispatch, saw lights on inside the house, and assumed a crime was in progress?

She went from room to room and turned on all the exterior lights, hoping it would signal her presence at home. Had his truck broken down? Had there been an accident? Was he hurt and unable to call? The thought that he might be cheating on her surfaced in her mind, and she tried to dismiss it as absurd. Yet why else would he not be home or at work so late on a Sunday night?

It was an unkind, silly notion that she fought off as she returned to the study and forced her attention to the task at hand. In twelve hours she would be flying to Ireland on the hunt for George Spalding, an army deserter from the Vietnam War.

Two years ago Spalding had gone missing after Kerney had uncovered facts that revealed he’d faked his death in Vietnam and had been living in Canada under his ex-wife’s maiden name for over three decades. At Kerney’s request Sara had searched old military and CID records and uncovered evidence that Spalding had operated a gemstone-smuggling operation while in-country. When the pieces had been put together, it was clear that he’d funneled his ill-gotten gains to his father, who’d used the money to build a multimillion-dollar company that operated a string of luxury resort hotels. If Spalding’s father hadn’t been murdered by his second wife, none of it would have come to light.

Spalding, a graves registration specialist assigned to a military mortuary in Tan Son Nhut, outside of Saigon, had been targeted by army CID for possible smuggling activities, but the case had been dropped after Spalding faked his death. According to the army CID investigator, a retired chief warrant officer, the scheme had surfaced when a shipment containing the personal effects of dead soldiers was found to include a quarter of a million dollars in precious stones bought on the black market in Southeast Asia. Although he couldn’t substantiate it, the investigator thought it likely that a number of similar shipments had slipped through undetected.

In her spare time Sara had dug into the case. She tracked down and interviewed surviving members of Spalding’s unit who had been implicated but never charged, and ran into a wall of silence. Forced to look elsewhere for evidence, she accessed quartermaster archives, looking for a paper trail that might point to the Stateside member of the ring responsible for intercepting the shipments, removing the smuggled gems, and selling them to unscrupulous dealers.

Fortunately, the Quartermaster Corps, which oversaw mortuary operations, carefully inventoried and documented the shipment of personal effects, and sign-off sheets showed the names of the personnel who’d conveyed the shipments from Tan Son Nhut and those who’d received them Stateside. Unfortunately, there were literally thousands of documents from a variety of sources to search through.

To simplify the process Sara concentrated only on those shipments Spalding himself had inventoried and sent from Vietnam. With that information in hand she compared it to the logs of the receiving authority, and one name surfaced that drew her attention: Thomas Loring Carrier, a junior officer who’d been stationed at the Ton Son Nhut mortuary with Spalding before rotating Stateside to take charge of a unit tasked with returning personal effects to family members.

Unwilling to jump to conclusions, Sara dug deeper into the paperwork. The forms used to ship and receive all personal effects required two signatures on both ends of the process: one to certify the contents, and one to attest to the form’s completeness. On at least eight of the shipments that Carrier had authorized for release to next of kin, the handwriting of the signatures looked decidedly similar.

Sara sent the forms to an army forensic center for handwriting analysis and did a background check on Carrier. A graduate of a southern military institute, he had stayed in the service after Vietnam, rising to the rank of full colonel before retiring. Divorced with two grown daughters, he owned a house free and clear in the Virginia suburbs, had a high-six-figure mutual fund account with a large brokerage firm, drove a midsize SUV, and apparently lived within his means.

For the past five years Carrier had worked as a senior military analyst for a conservative think tank with close ties to the White House. According to a Pentagon insider Sara trusted, he was a close friend of an assistant deputy secretary of defense and had access to a senior national security advisor to the president. The policy papers he’d written for the think tank clearly supported the current administration’s prosecution of the war on terrorism.

It took six months for forensics to get back to her with a report that Carrier had forged signatures on the documents she’d submitted for analysis. Even with that evidence in hand Sara had let the investigation slide. Without corroboration of Carrier’s involvement in the smuggling ring, it would be impossible to prove, and Spalding was nowhere to be found. But all that had changed in the last two weeks.

Before he could be detained, Spalding had left Canada with cash, valuables, and negotiable assets in the high seven figures. After a failed attempt to find him, army CID investigators and the Canadian authorities developed a watch list of a select number of Spalding’s known associates and close friends in the hope that one or another of them might eventually lead them to him. Those on the list had their bank, credit cards, brokerage accounts, and their foreign travel monitored, and their incoming telephone calls and e-mail traced.

Nothing had materialized until two weeks ago, when one of the targeted subjects, a French-Canadian woman named Josephine Paquette, had bought an expensive seaside house on the coast south of Dublin with cash she’d deposited in an Irish bank.

A senior editor of a fashion magazine in Toronto, Paquette had been Spalding’s lover for a time before marrying the scion of a Canadian brewery. When the marriage failed, an ironclad prenuptial agreement kept Paquette from tapping into her ex-husband’s wealth. Although her income as a fashion editor put her in a high tax bracket, she had nowhere near the resources to pay for an expensive Irish property.

Before traveling to Ireland, Paquette had spent three days in France. Asked to backtrack on Paquette, Interpol reported that she’d received one telephone call at her Paris hotel from a number listed under the name of a Georges Bruneau. A records search revealed Bruneau to be a French citizen with a birth date exactly one year, one month, and one day different from that of George Spalding. Further investigation showed Bruneau’s identity papers to be forged.

Spalding had made the classic blunder of adopting an alias but keeping his given name and using a slightly different, but easily remembered, birth date. He had lived safely for years in Canada under his true given name and his wife’s surname, but that was only because no one had been looking for him.

A quick visit by Interpol agents to Bruneau’s residence, a furnished apartment in a working-class Paris neighborhood, showed that he’d moved out the day after Paquette left for Dublin.

A check of train and airline reservations confirmed Bruneau had traveled from Paris to London by rail and then flown from Gatwick Airport to Dublin, arriving the day before Josephine Paquette had closed on the seaside house. Acting on an Interpol priority fugitive alert for Spalding, the Irish national police service, Garda Siochana-the guardians of the peace-started looking for Bruneau, and at the request of Canadian officials, they placed Paquette under surveillance.

Sara had been brought up to speed by a telephone call from Hugh Fitzmaurice, the Garda detective supervising the case. From Fitzmaurice she learned Paquette was in Dublin on a working holiday and writing a cover story for her magazine about Canadians living in Ireland. Spalding had not yet surfaced, nor had he made any attempt to contact Paquette.

Sara shut down the computer and stared out the window. Until last week she’d kept her speculations about Carrier to herself. But with Spalding now within range she’d bypassed her boss, who was known to be Carrier’s friend, and taken the information directly to the vice chief of staff, General Henry Powhatan Clarke, a man she trusted and admired.

Clarke had raised an eyebrow when Sara brought up the possible involvement of Colonel Thomas Loring Carrier, USA, Retired, in Spalding’s gemstone-smuggling ring.

“You do know that Tom Carrier is highly regarded by many ranking officers and senior administration officials, don’t you?” Clarke asked.

“Yes, sir,” Sara answered. She knew Clarke to be a tough, no-nonsense officer who didn’t appreciate subordinates who wasted his time, tried to curry favor, or went outside the chain of command as she was now doing. Clarke glared at her for a long moment.

“Sir?” Sara asked, trying to evoke a response.

“All you have here is speculation about Carrier,” Clarke said, tapping the report Sara had presented to him. On his uniform jacket he wore a Good Conduct Ribbon, awarded only to enlisted personnel. He’d earned it, along with a number of medals for valor, as an infantry sergeant in Vietnam before winning an appointment to West Point.

“Except for the forged signatures, that’s true, sir,” Sara said, “which is why I thought it best to ask for your guidance and direction in the matter.”

“Who else knows about this allegation?” Clarke asked.

“No one, sir. But if the Irish authorities find, detain, and interrogate Specialist Spalding, that could quickly change, unless we have someone there to manage it properly.”

Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting we try to find Specialist Spalding and muzzle him about Carrier before the Irish pick him up?”

“No, sir. I’m not. If Carrier is guilty, he should be held accountable, one way or another.”

“In spite of the consequences that could befall you if you’re correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you’re wrong about the colonel?”

“Then we’ll still have brought to justice a wartime deserter and thief who smuggled black-market gems in the body bags of soldiers who died in service to their country.”

Clarke turned in his chair and stared out the window. “Do you have a plan?”

“I propose that you place me on special duty and send me to Ireland to aid in the capture of Specialist Spalding.”

Clarke turned in his chair quickly to face her. “Once you have him in custody, what will you do then?”

“Gather the pertinent facts, inform you, and await your orders, sir.”

“What if I ordered you right now to cease all inquires into Carrier?”

Sara stared into the black hole she’d dug for herself and decided to speak frankly. “I would respectfully disagree with your decision, sir, and do as you request.”

Clarke shook his head. “You’re one gutsy officer, Colonel, I’ll give you that. I have half a mind to send you packing with orders never to come to me again outside the chain of command.”

Sara snapped to attention. “Sir.”

“However, in this case, I believe you’ve exercised good judgment. You’ll receive orders in the morning attaching you to my office for a top-secret courier assignment. You will go to Ireland, find Specialist Spalding, and take him into custody. I’ll have my aide deliver the necessary diplomatic credentials, special orders, and travel authorization to you at your quarters.”

“Thank you, sir. How much time do I have?”

“One week. If this plan of yours goes sour, Colonel, be prepared to wear those silver oak leaves on your collar until the day you retire.”

“I understand, General.”

“Report only to me.”

“Yes, sir. Will you give General Thatcher a pretext for my absence?”

“He’ll be told only that you’ve been placed on detached duty to my office. That should suffice.”

The memory of her meeting with General Clarke faded from Sara’s thoughts as she looked out the window at the star-filled night sky. Would finding Spalding and nailing Carrier amount to anything more than an exercise in futility? General Clarke had given her no guarantee that he would take any action against Carrier if she came through with the evidence. If he told her to hush it up for the good of the service, would her conscience allow her to do so?

She bit her lip and toyed with her West Point class ring, a nervous habit she’d yet to break completely. For the first time in history a woman graduate of the U.S. Military Academy had recently been promoted to the rank of brigadier general. Sara had long hoped to reach that rank herself, perhaps go even further. Now she wondered if she’d put herself on a path that would bury her in a career-ending, paper-pushing job with no chance for advancement.

She shut down the laptop and stared into the night. There was still no sign of Kerney. She wanted him to come home so she could tell him everything, knowing she could tell him nothing. Frustrated, she left the study, grabbed her travel case from the living room couch, and carried it to the bedroom, trying hard to clear her head.

In the walk-in closet she picked out a few of her more classy-looking skirts, slacks, and dresses to pack for her trip. If she was going to blend in with the crowd Paquette was writing about, she needed to look the part of a well-heeled American on holiday.

She folded and packed the clothes, her mind racing with visions of Kerney stranded on some lonely back road or, worse yet, mangled in some horrible traffic accident. She huffed with anger at the thought of him with another woman. It seemed no matter what passed through her mind tonight, it all felt gloomy or disastrous.

Kerney entered the canyon that led to his house, saw that the exterior lights under the portal were on, and didn’t know what to make of it. Either he was being burglarized or an unknown person had decided to take up residence in his absence. He killed the truck headlights, popped open the glove box, grabbed his off-duty handgun, stuck it in his waistband, and glanced at the useless cell phone. A few miles outside Virden the battery had stopped functioning and wouldn’t hold a charge.

He left the truck at the top of the hill just out of sight of his house and moved toward his police cruiser in a crouch, scanning the living room windows for any sign of activity. He cleared the inside of the sedan parked next to his unit before popping the trunk and removing his department-issued shotgun. With his eyes fixed on the house he quietly unlocked the door to his unit, dropped down for cover, put the key in the ignition, called dispatch, and reported a possible burglary in progress at his location.

“That’s your wife, Chief,” the dispatcher said, repressing a laugh. “She’s been trying to reach you to let you know she’s home.”

“You’re sure of that?” Kerney asked.

“Ten-four, Chief. I took the call from Colonel Brannon myself.” Kerney thanked the dispatcher, locked the shotgun and sidearm in his unit, and took a closer look inside the sedan. On the backseat was Patrick’s dog-eared copy of Pablito the Pony. Inside the house he found Sara in the master bath, dressed in her nightie, brushing her teeth.

“Where have you been?” she asked, her mouth full of toothpaste. She rinsed out and gave him a steely-eyed, exasperated look. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours.”

“My cell phone gave out,” Kerney replied, “and I had a late start coming home.”

Sara shook her head. “Well, if you weren’t so obsessively punctual all the time, I never would have worried about you.”

“You were worried about me?” Kerney asked, stroking her shoulder.

“More than I’d like to admit,” Sara said as she wrapped her arms around Kerney and gave him a kiss. “Did you have fun?”

Kerney nodded. “The world of filmmaking is zany but highly entertaining. What brings you home so unexpectedly?”

“I’m off in the morning on a special assignment. Patrick is yours for the duration.”

Kerney’s expression turned slightly befuddled. “I don’t have a sitter. I’m not prepared for this.”

Sara smiled sweetly. “There really isn’t an alternative, so you’ll have to work it out.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“A week,” Sara replied. “But since I’ll be starting leave so soon after I get back, Patrick might as well stay with you until then.”

“You could have given me some warning,” Kerney said, sounding a bit apprehensive.

Sara slipped past him into the bedroom. “I tried. I called here and called your office Thursday night and again on Friday morning, and I couldn’t get through to you on your cell phone over the weekend to leave a message because the calls kept getting dropped.”

“Cell phone reception in the Bootheel seems to be spotty at best. The film crew were all annoyed about it.”

“Or maybe you had the phone turned off for some reason you’d rather not tell me about.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sara shrugged and set the alarm clock. “Nothing. Chalk it up to my overactive imagination. I’m just glad you’re home and safe. I was worried about you.”

“What kind of special assignment are you on?” Kerney asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not really. It’s more along the lines of challenging.” She fluffed her pillow, pulled back the duvet, and climbed into bed. “I’m up and out of here in five hours. Patrick will need his breakfast. He’s recently become fond of blueberry pancakes.”

“Blueberry pancakes,” Kerney repeated as he leaned down and gave Sara a kiss. “Every day?”

Sara shook her head and yawned. “Vary the menu, but no fast food.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kerney gave her another kiss, turned out the bedroom lights, closed the door, and tiptoed into Patrick’s room.

His son slept soundly with the blanket kicked down below his knees and his stuffed pony snug under an arm.

He pulled the blanket up to Patrick’s chest and whispered, “I guess we’ll have to learn how to bach it for a while, sport.”

Sara woke at five in the morning to find Kerney’s side of the bed empty. As she moisturized her face, put on a touch of eye shadow, and dressed, she could hear him rattling around in the kitchen. She made the bed, checked her travel bag, and joined him.

“There are no blueberries in the house,” Kerney said with an apologetic smile. He handed her a mug of coffee and went back to mixing batter in a bowl. “Patrick will have to settle for apple pancakes.”

Sara held the warm mug in her hands and took a sip. “That will do nicely.”

“Will you be able to stay in touch?”

“I’ll try.” She looked out the French doors that led to the pergola-covered patio. Impending daybreak brightened a cloudless sky and in the gathering light the sweep of mountains behind Santa Fe slowly unveiled. Coming to the ranch always filled Sara with contentment. If she blew it on the Spalding case and was forced to take early retirement, at least she’d be able to live in a magical place with her family on a full-time basis.

The thought of having another child had been on her mind lately, and with her biological clock ticking it would be best to do it within the next year or two. She’d planned to raise the subject with Kerney after his retirement, but maybe she wouldn’t have to wait that long if the Spalding affair blew up in her face. Still, she found no comfort in the notion that her career might end before she achieved her professional goals.

“You’re very quiet this morning,” Kerney said, as he searched her face with his extraordinarily blue eyes. “Are the wheels turning?”

Sara sighed and smiled. “I’m having a hard time getting motivated for the day ahead. Have you thought about who can watch over Patrick?”

Kerney shook his head. “I’ll take him to work with me and call around to day-care and preschool centers. Can you tell me where you’re going?”

Sara reached out and squeezed Kerney’s hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t be in a war zone or anywhere near one.”

She put her coffee cup in the sink, got her luggage from the bedroom, and went to check on Patrick. He was just waking as she knelt at the side of his bed and told him once again that he’d be staying with Daddy for a while.

Sounding a tiny bit anxious, Patrick asked how long she’d be away. Sara spread her fingers wide and asked him to count with her to fourteen.

“That’s a lot,” Patrick said when they’d finished, looking none too happy.

Sara rubbed his head and kissed his cheek. “The time will go fast and before you know it, I’ll be home. Daddy’s making pancakes for you. If you stop acting like such a sleepyhead, you can go see the horses after breakfast.”

Patrick’s worried look vanished as he hopped out of bed and made a beeline for the kitchen.

Minutes later Sara drove away in the golden early-morning sunlight. In the canyon a small antelope herd browsed on sage near a shallow arroyo. A motionless buck, clearly identifiable by his lyre-shaped horns, watched as she drew near and then bounded away in alarm, causing the herd to bolt up a narrow draw. The sight of the animals in full flight, white rumps flashing above their long slender legs, was lovely to behold.

She headed for the highway with childhood memories of growing up on a Montana sheep ranch dancing in her head, thinking how wonderful it would be to raise her son in the country, never again live thousands of miles away from Kerney, and have a somewhat normal life.

By the time she reached the highway she was quarreling with herself. Should she keep to the path she’d chosen so many years ago? Or was it time to explore new possibilities, no matter what happened in Ireland? The questions remained unanswered long after her flight had passed over the mountains east of Albuquerque.

During her layover in Chicago, Sara called Kerney at his office for an update on how the child-care arrangements for Patrick were going.

“So far I’ve talked to five preschool directors,” Kerney replied, “and they don’t have any openings. I may have to settle for finding a sitter.”

“Don’t give up that easily,” Sara said. “What’s Patrick doing?”

“When he’s not using my office as a playpen, he’s busy charming my office staff. Right now one of the secretaries is reading Pablito the Pony to him.”

Sara laughed. “It sounds like you have everything under control.”

“Barely.”

“Don’t grumble, Kerney. You can do this. E-mail me tonight.”

Sara worked and catnapped on the flight to Dublin. Fitzmaurice, the Garda detective, had faxed her some preliminary information on the house Paquette had bought with Spalding’s funds. It was a protected structure, the Irish term for a building with historic significance, and as such could not be altered without permission by a local government planning commission. The house was located in a suburb of Dublin known as Dun Laoghaire. Fitzmaurice had thoughtfully circled the name of the town and scratched a note to her, saying that the name of the town was pronounced “Dun Leary.” Included in the material he’d faxed was some general information about estate agent fees, stamp taxes on purchased property, and registry requirements.

From her window seat she watched the coastline of Ireland appear in the early-morning glare of the rising sun. Soon the plane was flying over rocky cliffs, windswept mountains, and stretches of farmland that rolled down to rivers and lakes. On the approach to the Dublin Airport the plane turned and banked over the Irish Sea, revealing the busy harbor filled with ships. The city spread out along the coast, cut by the River Liffey and buffered by green inland hills.

Sara had been to Ireland once before, on her honeymoon with Kerney. But they’d flown into Shannon and spent all their time in Connemara on the rugged western shore of the Atlantic Ocean, so Dublin was new to her. Against the backdrop of the bay and the hills the city looked intriguing, with its magnificent old buildings, beautiful squares, and stunning coastline.

Her diplomatic passport in hand, Sara quickly cleared customs and was met by Hugh Fitzmaurice, the Garda detective who was heading up the hunt for George Spalding. A middle-aged man with a full head of raven-black hair, blue eyes, and a long, broad nose, Fitzmaurice greeted her with an easy smile and hearty handshake.

“Welcome to the Republic of Ireland, Colonel,” he said. “Is this your first visit?”

“It is to Dublin,” Sara replied. “But I’ve spent some time in Connemara.”

“ ’Tis beautiful there, no doubt. Shall we stop at your hotel first or go straight to my office?”

“Why don’t you brief me on the way to the hotel?”

Fitzmaurice nodded. “As you wish.”

As he drove toward the city in the slow-moving traffic, Fitzmaurice filled her in on the status of the investigation. Garda were shadowing Josephine Paquette everywhere she went, and the officers were keeping their eyes open for Spalding. Each person Paquette met, interviewed, or socialized with was being carefully checked for a link to Spalding. Her phone calls were being traced, her mail intercepted, and her credit card transactions monitored.

“We know from the French that Spalding didn’t alter his appearance,” Fitzmaurice added, “so we’ve shown his photograph around at banks, brokerage firms, area hotels, and guesthouses. He’s not been seen.”

“I’ve studied the Interpol file,” Sara said. “He’s cautious, but he has made some mistakes. Keeping his given name and using a slightly altered birth date for his new identity was a misstep. Making a phone call to Paquette from his Paris apartment was another slipup. I think he’s eager to come out of hiding and may have discarded the Bruneau alias and taken on a new identity.”

Stuck behind a lorry on a busy street, Fitzmaurice sounded the car horn. “Perhaps it’s time to bring Paquette in and have a go at her.”

“Not yet,” Sara said. “It could alert Spalding that we’re hunting him. Is there anything going on with Paquette that looks promising?”

“Tomorrow she’s to meet a builder at the house she bought with Spalding’s money. The estate agent who sold her the property told us she wants to refurbish it while it’s still vacant.”

“Would she do that without consulting Spalding?” Sara asked.

Fitzmaurice eased around the lorry. “If she did consult him, it happened before we started our surveillance.”

They were approaching the heart of the city along a wide boulevard jammed with traffic, headed toward a bridge that crossed a river. People hurried along the sidewalks past old storefront buildings, giving the street scene a vibrant air.

“Let’s pay a visit to the builder after Paquette meets him,” Sara said.

Fitzmaurice nodded. “And do you have any plans for today?”

“I’d like to review your case file and get an up-close look at Paquette.”

“The file is waiting for you at my office,” Fitzmaurice said as they crossed the bridge. He turned onto the quay and parked in front of Sara’s hotel, a four-story Victorian building that looked out on the river.

“Would it be an imposition to have it dropped off at my room?”

Wondering if Brannon had some reason to avoid going to his office, Fitzmaurice gave her a questioning look, which she answered only with a smile.

“Not at all,” he said. “You’ll have it within the hour. Tonight Paquette is scheduled to attend an award ceremony for a Canadian writer. I’ve secured tickets for both of us.”

“Excellent,” Sara asked.

“Do you need help with your bags?”

“I can manage, thank you.”

After Fitzmaurice drove away, Sara checked in at the reception desk, where she was greeted by a pleasant young man who told her all about the hotel’s restaurant, spa center, and pub before handing her the room key. The room had a view of the River Liffey and was quite spacious, with a high ceiling capped by ornate cornices. Furnished with an overstuffed easy chair, small dining table, desk, a double bed, and a large armoire that hid a television, it had framed landscape prints on the walls and beige window drapes.

Sara unpacked, took a shower, and had just finished dressing when a Garda officer arrived with the police files. She sat on the bed, propped against the pillows with her legs crossed, and read the paperwork, until her body demanded physical activity and her head required her to stop thinking. She grabbed a tourist guide from the writing desk that had a map of the city center with points of interest highlighted and left for a walk.

Out on the street she strolled briskly to the O’Connell Bridge and turned to find herself in front of Trinity College, a wonderful campus that seemed both restrained and grand. Unwilling to stop in fear she’d become distracted for the rest of the day, she hurried on to Grafton Street, a pedestrian walkway filled with high-end shops, pubs, and milling tourists serenaded by street musicians playing fiddles, whistles, pipes, and guitars.

By the time she reached St. Stephen’s Green, Sara was completely entranced. A beautiful park surrounded by stately buildings, the green was as manicured and inviting as any she’d known.

She circled the green and spotted the hotel where Josephine Paquette was staying. It was a truly elegant building, with a fancy ironwork entrance bracketed by two bronze statues of women holding what appeared to be torches above their heads.

Reluctantly, she retraced her way toward her hotel, feeling clear-headed and invigorated, thinking how wonderful it would be to come to Dublin on a holiday with Kerney and Patrick and spend time together seeing all that the city had to offer. In her room she checked for an e-mail message from Kerney and found an upbeat note from him, reporting that Patrick had been enrolled in a highly recommended preschool they’d visited over the noon hour. He would start in the morning.

With a smile on her face Sara went back to work and spent the rest of the morning combing through the various reports, trying to find anything that would get her closer to George Spalding.

In the afternoon Sara took a short nap, finished working on her notes, and walked to the Canadian embassy on St. Stephen’s Green, where she presented her diplomatic credentials to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police liaison officer, laid out the facts of the case, and asked for a full and immediate investigation to be mounted in Toronto regarding Josephine Paquette’s current personal and financial status.

That evening Hugh Fitzmaurice, wearing a fresh suit, picked Sara up at her hotel and drove her a short distance through busy traffic to University College, where the award ceremony and reception for the Irish-Canadian writer was to be held in O’Reilly Hall.

“Did you glean anything from the file?” he asked as he braked for a car that cut in front of him on the motorway.

“This afternoon I telephoned estate agents and pretended to be looking for an Irish retreat in Dun Laoghaire. It’s not often that seaside villas in the town come on the market, and they sell quickly at premium prices. I can’t believe Paquette simply waltzed into Dun Laoghaire and snapped up a desirable house in a prestigious location by chance.”

“The estate agent assured us that is exactly what happened.”

“I don’t believe it,” Sara said, “no more than I believe Paquette would renovate the house without Spalding’s approval and permission.”

“You’re suggesting Spalding made advance arrangements with the estate agent.”

Sara nodded. “Of one sort or another. I’ll know more in the morning. I’ve asked the French to search for any travel bookings Spalding may have made under his alias prior to Paquette’s arrival in Paris.”

Fitzmaurice gave her an appraising glance. “If he came to Ireland at some earlier time, your theory may well prove to be correct. What put you onto the idea?”

“For over thirty years Spalding lived his life as an established, well-regarded, wealthy man,” Sara replied. “Surely he would want to replicate that lifestyle under a new identity.”

“Why did he choose Dun Laoghaire?”

“The answer to that question was buried in the case material the Canadian authorities sent you. Among Spalding’s property the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency seized for tax evasion were two boats, an offshore sport-fishing boat and a sailboat.”

Fitzmaurice’s eyes widened. “Dun Laoghaire is a boat lover’s paradise.”

“Exactly. Spalding wants to live on the seashore in an English-speaking country where he can fit in, indulge in his hobbies, and travel around Europe as he wishes.”

“Are you quite sure you’re not an FBI profiler?” Fitzmaurice asked as he pulled into a campus parking lot.

“Quite sure,” Sara answered with a laugh.

They’d arrived early, Fitzmaurice explained as they crossed the campus to O’Reilly Hall, so they could spot Paquette and sit as close to her as possible. The university consisted of modern buildings surrounded by well-kept grounds with walking paths that led to classrooms, faculty office buildings, and common areas. At an ornamental lake near O’Reilly Hall a small group of well-dressed people had already started to gather, but Paquette was not among them.

The doors to the hall were opened for the audience, and Sara and Fitzmaurice took programs from ushers as they walked in. The writer being honored, Brendan Coughlan, was an Irish emigrant to Canada who’d written a number of contemporary novels set in Nova Scotia. According to the program notes Coughlan had been born and raised in County Clare, and his novels captured the essence of Irish characters living in a foreign land yet still haunted by the bloody history and partition of their native country.

Paquette showed up accompanied by an older man and a middle-aged couple. In contrast to their quite fashionable clothes Paquette wore a designer dress that broke at her knees and had a revealing bodice. She wore diamond stud earrings and her hair was done up in a French twist that accentuated her long neck. She had an oval, pretty face with high cheekbones, and a petite figure with a tiny waist.

“She enjoys being flamboyant, doesn’t she?” Sara said.

“It is attire perhaps more appropriate to a gala opening at the Abbey Theater,” Fitzmaurice replied.

With Fitzmaurice at her side Sara followed Paquette into the hall, listening in on her conversation, which consisted of small talk about the beautifully decorated Georgian terrace house she’d visited while interviewing a Canadian celebrity, and the wonderful, perfectly presented dinner she’d been served at a restaurant owned by a young chef who immigrated to Dublin from Vancouver.

They sat behind Paquette in the packed auditorium and eavesdropped as she described to her companions her recent meeting with the evening’s honoree, Brendan Coughlan. Paquette babbled on until the lights dimmed and the event began.

After some short introductory remarks by a faculty member, who praised Coughlan as a unique voice in Irish literature, the writer took center stage to rousing applause and spoke at length about his childhood and youth in County Clare, and how he’d found the magic and beauty of Ireland mirrored along the rocky coast of Nova Scotia, where the pure, deep sounds of Eire could still be heard among the many voices, memories, and dreams that had blossomed there.

He finished with a reading from his most recent work, and Sara decided she wouldn’t leave Dublin without at least one of his novels in her bag.

When the award was presented to Coughlan, the audience gave him a standing ovation, which included thunderous clapping by Fitzmaurice. As people filed out of the hall, Sara lost sight of Paquette.

“Don’t worry,” Fitzmaurice said, “I’ve a man on her. She’s off to a private reception for Coughlan, along with all the other glitterati who were here tonight.”

“He’s a brand-new writer to me,” Sara said.

“You’ve not read him?”

Sara shook her head.

“Well, you should,” Fitzmaurice said. “I mean no offense, but you Yanks spend far too much time beating your own literary drums, and not enough time listening to other voices.”

“None taken,” Sara replied. “He’s on my to-be-read list effective immediately. I think you would have come here on your own tonight if I hadn’t asked to have a look at Paquette.”

Fitzmaurice grinned. “You’ve caught me fair and square. I’m a big fan of Coughlan’s work.”

On the ride back to her hotel Sara’s enthusiasm for Dublin waned a bit. The late-night traffic was awful, and some of the neighborhoods they passed through looked no more inviting than the typical urban sprawl found in any major city.

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 cafe 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 Dun 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.