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  Sweets, Begorra

  The Seventh Samantha Sweet Mystery

  Copyright 2013 Connie Shelton

  “Shelton continues to combine suspenseful storytelling with sensitive portrayals of complex family relationships.” —Booklist

  “...a wonderful, easy flow that draws in the reader.”

  —Amazon 5-Star review

  “As for me, I enjoy mysteries infused with a little touch of magic and a dream that anything is possible.” —Amazon 5-Star review

  “Connie Shelton gets better with every book she writes.”

  --Midwest Book Review

  Begorra: Irish—used as a mild, usually jocular oath.

  Euphemism for ‘by God.’ First known use: 1715

  --the Miriam Webster Dictionary

  Chapter 1

  Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your seats to their full upright position, came a too-loud voice over the 747’s intercom system. Samantha Sweet gathered the soft blanket which had covered her during the overnight flight, gazing over the short divider between their seats to find that Beau was already sitting upright, looking as fresh as if he’d showered and shaved.

  “Morning, Mrs. Cardwell,” he said with a grin. He’d taken to using her new last name ever since their wedding two days ago. She liked the sound of it.

  Sam smiled back at him then pressed a button on the console beside her. The automatic seat began doing about four different things, lowering her legs, raising her back, switching from the flat bed where she’d actually slept awhile, to an upright airline seat. She ran her fingers through her hair and wished she’d wakened a tad earlier. Freshening up would now have to wait until they were inside the terminal.

  Beau handed her a small napkin-wrapped bundle. “You missed breakfast but I saved this for you.”

  The savory slice of meat enclosed in soft bread tasted heavenly, although she would have loved a cup of coffee to go with it. No time. The first-class cabin attendant passed through, collecting the napkin and reminding passengers to stow their loose items.

  Welcome to Shannon, Ireland, where the local time is six a.m.

  They had pre-cleared customs back at JFK so the trip through the airport went quickly. Slightly past the baggage claim area Sam spotted her name on a placard. The young woman holding it brightened as soon as they headed her direction. She had blond hair that grazed her shoulders in a ragged cut, brilliant blue eyes, and a ready smile with perfect teeth.

  “Good morning, Ms. Sweet. I’m Kathleen, your driver to Galway.” She reached for the handle of Sam’s wheeled bag and led the way, with Sam and Beau close behind. Across a parking lot she stopped in front of a large black car. “We’re right here.”

  As Kathleen deftly stashed the bags in the roomy trunk, Sam looked around. Beyond a row of small warehouses she caught a glimpse of brilliant green. Small puddles dotted the lot and the pavement was dark with moisture. She touched her hair; it had already begun to curl with the humidity.

  “Rained all night,” Kathleen said. “And it’ll rain again today. And every day for the foreseeable future.”

  “But it makes all this beautiful green.”

  “Yeah, you got that right. Mr. Ryan says you come from New Mexico?” She sighed. “I’d love to see that myself sometime. All that blue sky. Sunshine every single day.”

  She had walked around the car and opened the back doors.

  “That part is nice,” Sam said as she slid into the back seat. “I guess we always want to go places that are new to us.”

  Beau had joined Sam on the roomy bench seat, while Kathleen started the engine and pulled away, driving on what felt like the wrong side of the road. Beau asked how long it would take to get to Galway and, after telling him it would be about ninety minutes, Kathleen went into a story about how her brother had taken a wrong turn once and spent two hours getting back on track. Apparently the car service was family-owned and he’d cost their father a fair amount of cash for the mistake.

  Sam found her thoughts drifting as the young woman chattered on. Less than a month ago she’d been completely occupied with her bakery, Sweet’s Sweets, plus her little sideline of breaking into houses, along with planning her wedding. She had known nothing of a family connection to Ireland, much less the fact that she and Beau would be taking their honeymoon trip here. The unknown still awaited—an inheritance of some sort. When the letter and first class air tickets came from a law firm in New York, she’d first discounted it as a hoax. But Beau had used his pull as Taos County Sheriff to do a background investigation, discovering that the attorney, and the news of the inheritance, was real. Now they would meet with the lawyers in Galway, where her great-uncle Terrance O’Shaughnessy had lived. She had verified the family connection as well; the main thing she didn’t know yet was what, exactly, she’d inherited.

  “You’ll love the Harbour Hotel,” Kathleen was saying. “It’s right beside the dock for the small boat harbor. Big excitement there last year when the racing yachts came in. Galway was the finish line for the race that went round the whole world. We partied for a week, begorra!”

  She went on to describe fireworks and cannons, food vendors and more than a few people who overindulged as they listened to shows by rock bands. Sam found herself wondering just how noisy an area it might be.

  “This time of year should be quieter, even though the hotel will be full,” Kathleen told them. “The horse races start soon but that’s off on the other side of the city.”

  Sam loved the young woman’s accent with its rounded vowels and crisp consonants.

  The miles rolled by and she caught herself dozing lightly, despite thinking she’d slept fairly well on the flight. Kathleen chatted on, prompted once in awhile when Beau would ask a question. Soon, they began to slow for traffic. Open fields in every shade of green gave way to neat yards surrounding two-story brick and stucco homes, many with B&B signs out front. Larger hotels appeared and, after a confusing series of turns, a railway station. A large park across the road from it seemed to be the site of an event of some sort. Kathleen negotiated the narrow streets, the many turns, and avoided throngs of pedestrians who walked with an intensity in their strides.

  About the time boat masts appeared beside a long concrete dock, Kathleen made a quick turn and stopped at the entry to the Harbour Hotel. A uniformed man took their bags and Beau headed for the long teak desk. Sam took in the polished marble floors, pale walls, heavy glass doors leading to the wings, groupings of chairs upholstered in primary purple and blue, with a sleek marble fireplace against one wall and a pub entrance beyond it. While Beau dealt with checking in, Kathleen turned to Sam.

  “Mr. Ryan would like to take you out to breakfast,” she said, after a glance at a text message. “Shall I tell him that’s all right?”

  “That would be very nice,” Sam said. Although it wasn’t yet nine o’clock, the small sandwich aboard the airplane might have been eaten days ago.

  Kathleen began tapping keys on her phone. “How much time would you like?”

  “Thirty minutes?”

  “Perfect.” She sent the message and received a response as Beau joined them. She looked up. “Mr. Ryan will meet you here in the lobby in a half hour.”

  Beau reached into his pocket for the unfamiliar cash he’d received in exchange for dollars at the airport.

  “No need,” Kathleen said. “Everything’s been covered.” She flashed a smile, turned back to the limousine, and had driven away in less than a minute.

  “She’s right about being covered,” Beau said. “They didn’t even want a credit card for incidentals when I checked in.”

  A bellman appeared, taking the handles of their bags and leading the way toward a group of elevators. On the third floor he ope
ned their door, rolled the bags inside and vanished before either of them could reach for money. Sam and Beau exchanged a wide-eyed look. Seriously? No hand reaching out for a tip?

  With its thick duvet and plump pillows the king-sized bed looked inviting, but Sam reminded Beau that the attorney would show up in a few minutes.

  “Look at this view,” he said, while she opened her suitcase and rummaged for the makeup kit that held her hairbrush.

  She stepped over to the large window, which he had opened to the fresh morning air, and saw that they were near enough to the corner to see both the street and the boat harbor. Below, at least a hundred small and mid-sized sailboats bobbed at their moorings. A few people milled about, some with mugs in hand, obviously just awakening and coming up onto their decks. Across the busy street stood a high, moss-covered rock wall. From below, there had been no clue what was behind it, but from this vantage point Sam could see neat rows of tombstones. Few of the graves had flowers and no one was in sight. Rail cars sat on a siding a few blocks beyond the cemetery, and in the distance she heard the long, low blast of a freighter’s horn.

  “So,” she said to Beau as she brushed her hair at the bathroom mirror, “what do you think of Ireland so far?”

  “Friendly, pretty, smells like the sea.” He came up behind her and snaked his arms around her waist. “I’m ready for the honeymoon to begin.”

  “If we weren’t to meet the attorney in ten minutes, I’d say yes to that.”

  He nuzzled her neck.

  “Seriously, I don’t have time for a shower but I’d better brush my teeth before I have a conversation with anyone. Do you think I should change clothes?” She’d worn stretchy slacks and a loose top on the plane.

  “You look fine. He’ll expect us to be slightly travel-worn.” He edged away so she could finish trying to tame her hair.

  When Sam came out of the bathroom she saw that Beau had been into the suitcases and had pulled out two umbrellas.

  “By the look of those clouds racing across the sky, I’d say Kathleen was probably right about the rain. We better have these with us.”

  They donned jackets and she decided to lighten the load of her bag, the small leather backpack she always carried at home. At the last minute when she was packing for the trip, she’d reached for the wooden box that normally held her jewelry. Undecided about what to take, she’d placed the box and its contents into her carryon bag. A silly move, she told herself now, but here it was. She stuck it into the room’s safe.

  “Okay,” Beau said. “Let’s go find out about your big inheritance.”

  She laughed. “No one has ever used the word ‘big’ about this thing.” It was something they’d speculated about since the day they’d verified the letter from the lawyer. Beau’s guesses leaned toward castles, titles, and fat bank accounts. Sam tended to think it was going to be something like a crotchety old cat that she would be obligated to feed for life. Actually, if the entire estate consisted of their plane tickets and a stay in this wonderful hotel, she wouldn’t mind a bit. But she had to admit that her pulse quickened just a little. There must be more—otherwise, why would the attorney be so eager to meet with her immediately after their arrival?

  She tucked the folded umbrella under her arm and preceded Beau to the elevator. A man rose from one of the upholstered chairs near the fireplace when they stepped into the lobby.

  “Ms. Sweet? I’m Daniel Ryan, with Ryan and O’Connor.”

  “I’m Sam.” She shook hands with him, then introduced Beau, admitting that she wasn’t yet accustomed to using her new married surname.

  “I trust first names are fine then?” Ryan said. “How was your flight?”

  “My first time to fly first class, I have to admit, and it was wonderful.”

  He pointed to a door at the other end of the lobby. “We can eat here if you’d like, but if you’d be up for a short walk there’s a better spot, actually, just up the way. And it’s the direction we’re going anyway.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  Daniel held the thick glass door open, then led the way to the left. Beyond the hotel’s dove-gray walls, the sidewalk widened and they strolled past the boat harbor. Gulls swooped and called out, hoping that some boat owner would toss a few scraps their way. Rigging clanked against metal masts, ringing like chimes in the morning air.

  “It’s peaceful here this morning,” Daniel said, pressing the button for the crosswalk light when they approached an intersection. “Weekends get pretty crazy. Always some lot on the lash.”

  By his expression, Sam took it to mean drinking and partying were pretty common. The light changed and they crossed, walking down a narrow street with skinny sidewalks, in the shadows of the three-story buildings on either side. Each time a car came along they had to move single-file.

  “You’ll find the architecture a curious mix here,” Daniel said when they reached the next cross street and waited for the light to change. “Four- and five-hundred year old buildings sit next to modern ones. In old times a lot of them were built of wood, and fires were a constant danger. The stone ones survived. The wooden ones got rebuilt in newer styles. And then there’s the growth. Since tourism has become popular, hotels and B&Bs are all over the place, all pretty modern by Irish standards.”

  As they walked, he gave a quick history that involved the Normans and a lot of tribes and dates way more than five hundred years ago. Sam started out trying to remember details, but decided she would have to read more about it—when she wasn’t quite so jetlagged.

  “Here we are,” he said, ushering them into a narrow café filled with people chatting and lingering over coffee. Most of the clientele seemed to be college students and women with babies in strollers.

  “My wife started me coming here,” he explained. “They make terrific omelets. But there’s all sorts of other choices too.”

  They placed their orders at a long counter then edged toward the back to find a table.

  “I’m sure you’re quite anxious to know about your uncle’s will,” he finally said when they’d settled at a table, shed their jackets and taken sips from their coffee, which Sam found delicious. “There’s been a charitable trust in place for a number of years, so certain items were already earmarked for that. I know you’re here on your honeymoon, so you don’t want to spend the whole time talking business. We’ll take a quick look at the property this morning and there’s a little paperwork. Won’t take too long.”

  The cryptic explanation did nothing to answer Sam’s questions, and a waitress stepped up just then, arms laden with plates. It took a few minutes to sort out the orders and settle into eating.

  “You mentioned property . . . is it something here in the city?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, yes, very nearby.” Ryan spread jam on a piece of toast and took a huge bite.

  Sam suppressed her impatience. The question had remained unanswered for weeks now, it could stay that way through the meal. Plus, she found that the eggs and vegetables in the omelet were working wonders to restore her flagging energy. By the time they pushed their plates aside and started gathering their belongings she felt ready to face the day, whatever it might bring.

  Chapter 2

  The rain had started again, a gentle sprinkle, when they walked out of the café. Daniel Ryan turned to Sam. “Umbrellas?”

  She and Beau nodded, holding them up.

  “We’re off then,” Ryan said. “It’s only a couple of blocks.”

  The attorney led the way along the narrow sidewalk, as they held their umbrellas high and dodged oncoming pedestrians who came at them in single-mindedly straight paths. At the next intersection, they turned left into a wide pedestrian mall rimmed with shops and restaurants in stone buildings. A young couple stood under an awning; he strummed at a guitar and she wailed out a folk tune while passersby ignored the open guitar case that held more raindrops than coins. Across the way, a woman was carrying a wire rack of postcards back inside her tiny shop. Sam and Beau follo
wed Daniel to the center of the open area, where he stopped and faced the small stores.

  “Well, here we are in Shop Street and this is it,” he said.

  What’s it? Sam stared through the rain at the gray buildings.

  “Just there.” He pointed directly in front of them. “O’Shaughnessy’s Fine Books. It’s yours.”

  Sure enough, high on the gray stone building, a carved wooden sign with burgundy background and chipped white lettering spelled out the name of the shop. A display window showed an assortment of books with covers long since faded and curled. A red wooden door, its upper half done in small glass panes, led to the dim interior.

  A bookstore? Uncle Terry left me a business? She looked up at Beau, certain that her eyes must be as wide as his. What on earth would she do with this?

  She turned to Daniel and opened her mouth but couldn’t formulate a question. There were too many.

  “Come on, then,” he said. “Let’s go inside and meet your crew.”

  “So it’s open? I mean . . . well, it looks sort of—dark.” Abandoned.

  His forehead wrinkled. “Yes, I suppose, now that you mention it. Better lighting in the window, that would fix it right up.”

  She managed a weak smile. Maybe it was more inviting inside.

  “The building is, as you can see, in the historic district—eighth century. Many of the shops date very far back.” He pointed as he led the way. “The claddagh goldsmith on the corner, for instance, has been in that location since the 1700s, and Aran woolens have been carried by the shop next to yours for centuries.”

  Nearly as old as the mold on some of those paperbacks, she thought, cringing a little. Well, there was nothing to do but take a look. In her sideline job at home, breaking into abandoned houses and cleaning them up for sale, she’d certainly seen worse than this. She squared her shoulders and folded her umbrella as Daniel led the way inside.