The Angel

“Saint Patrick, Saint Brigid and Saint Ita are early Celtic saints. Saint Ita had the gift of prophecy. Angels visited her throughout her life. Do you believe in angels, Bob?”

“I’ve never thought about it.”

“I do,” she whispered. “I believe in angels.”

It wouldn’t strike Patsy as particularly contradictory to say in one breath she’d heard a banshee—a solitary fairy—and in another that she believed in angels. If her beliefs brought her comfort, Bob didn’t care. He didn’t know what to tell her about banshees or angels or anything else. Her husband had died of a heart attack four years ago. Now this. “The police will find who took Deirdre from us.”

“No. They won’t. They can’t.” Patsy shifted her gaze back to the crime scene tape floating in the water. “The police are only human after all.”

“They won’t rest until they catch whoever did this.”

“It was the devil who took Deirdre. It wasn’t a man.”

“Doesn’t matter. If the police have to go to hell to find and arrest the devil, that’s what they’ll do. If I have to do it myself, I will.”

“No—no, Bob. Deirdre wouldn’t have you sacrifice your soul. She’s with her sister angels now. She’s at peace.”

Bob suddenly realized Patsy meant the devil literally. He pictured Deirdre with her blond hair and blue eyes, her translucent skin and innocent smile. She was as good as good ever was. She wouldn’t have stood a chance with someone who meant her harm. Devil or no devil.

He’d miss her. He’d miss her for as long as he lived.

He pushed back his emotions. It was something he’d need to learn to do if he was going to be a detective and catch people the likes of whoever had killed Deirdre.

“We don’t want this cretin to hurt someone else.”

“No, we don’t.” Patsy turned from the water. “But there are other ways to fight the devil.”

Two hours later, Bob found his sister, Eileen, reciting the rosary on a bench in the shade of a sprawling oak on the Boston College campus, where she had a summer work-study job at the library.

“I didn’t know you still had rosary beads,” he said.

“I didn’t, either. I found them in my jewelry box this morning.” She spoke in a near whisper as she held a single ivory-colored bead between her thumb and forefinger. “I haven’t said the rosary in ages. I thought I might not remember, but it came right back to me.”

Bob sat next to her. His sister was the smart one in the family. She’d returned two days ago from a summer study program in Dublin. No one had called to tell her Deirdre had gone missing. What could Eileen do from Ireland? Why spoil her time there, when they all hoped Deirdre would turn up, safe and sound?

When news of the discovery of Deirdre’s body reached the O’Reilly household that morning, Eileen pretended nothing had happened and left for work.

“I’ve just come from the waterfront with Mrs. McCarthy,” Bob said.

Eileen tensed, as if his words were a blow, and he didn’t go on. Her hair was more dirty blond than red like his, and she had more freckles. She’d never thought she was all that attractive, but she’d always been hard on herself—his sister had no limit to her personal list of faults big and small.

“There’s nothing the police can do now.” Eileen lifted her eyes from her rosary beads and shifted her gaze to her older brother. “Is there?”

“They can find Deirdre’s killer. They can stop him from killing again.”

“They can’t undo what happened.”

His sister’s left hand trembled, but her right hand, which held her rosary beads, was steady. Bob noticed how pale she was, as if she’d been sick. His smart, driven sister had so many plans for her life, but coming back home from Ireland to Deirdre’s disappearance had thrown Eileen right back into the world she was trying to exit.

And now Deirdre was dead.

Eileen’s fingers automatically moved to the next bead, and he saw her lips move as she silently recited the Hail, Mary.

He waited for her to finish the entire rosary and return her beads to their navy velvet pouch. She clutched it in her hand and leaned back against the bench.

They both watched a squirrel run up a maple tree.

Without looking at her brother, Eileen said, “I’m pregnant.”

Of all the things Bob had anticipated she might say when she’d finished praying, he hadn’t imagined that one. Their parents would be shocked. He was shocked. She didn’t have a boyfriend that he knew about.

He fought an urge to run away. Get out of Boston, away from the aftermath of Deirdre’s death, from what was to come with his sister. It all flashed in his mind—Patsy grieving next door, the police hunting for Deirdre’s killer, Eileen getting bigger, trying to figure out what to do with the baby.

The baby’s father. Who the hell was he?

Bob curled his hands into tight fists. He was young. He didn’t have to stay in Boston and deal with all these problems. He could go anywhere. He could be a detective in New York or Miami or Seattle.

Hawaii, he thought. He could move to Honolulu.

“How far along are you?” he asked.

“Not far. I haven’t had the test yet, but I know.”

“Eileen…” Bob looked at his younger sister, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “What happened in Ireland?”

But she jumped to her feet and walked quickly toward the ivy-covered building where she worked, and he didn’t follow her.

A week later, a series of calls into the Boston Police Department alerted them to a man who had just leaped from a boat into Boston Harbor.

He was in flames when he hit the water.

By the time a passing pleasure boat reached him, he was dead.

Within hours, the dead man was identified as Stuart Fuller, a twenty-four-year-old road worker who rented an attic apartment three blocks from the house where Deirdre McCarthy lived with her mother. Police discovered overwhelming evidence that tied him to Deirdre’s murder.

They had their devil.

The autopsy on Fuller determined that he’d drowned, but his burns would have killed him if he hadn’t gone into the water.

That evening, Bob found Patsy on her back porch with about twenty small angel figurines lined up on the top of the wide wooden railing. Despite the summer heat, she wore a pink polyester sweater, as if she expected never to be warm again.

“Deirdre collected angels,” Patsy said.

“I know. It made it easy to buy her presents.” Bob pointed at a colorful glass angel he’d found for her on a high school trip to Cape Cod. “I got her that one for her sixteenth birthday.”

“It’s beautiful, Bob.”

His throat tightened. “Mrs. McCarthy—”