The Dead Room Read Online Free PDF Page A

fine jewels. She had called that morning and set up this meeting. They were at the venue of her choice—a small Irish tavern off Wall Street. He would have expected her to suggest a private corner at an exclusive club, but perhaps she didn’t want to be seen with a private investigator. For whatever reason, she had chosen O’Malley’s, which was warm, small and inviting, a pub she had probably visited many a time in her youth.
    She had originally come from humble stock, he knew. On her mother’s side, she was second-generation Irish; her father, an O’Brien, came from a line of hard-working laborers who had arrived in the United States during the 1840s. Blood, sweat and muscle had taken him far in the trades, and thus their modest family fortune had begun and then risen to riches. Then Eileen O’Brien had married well, and she was now Mrs. Thomas Brideswell, widow of the late senator and construction magnate.
    She thrust an eight-by-ten picture of a young woman across the table at him. He stared down at the likeness. Genevieve O’Brien looked back at him. Her eyes were huge and blue, and she was as slender as her aunt Eileen, with beautifully defined features. Her hair was dark, with an auburn sheen. The photographer had captured laughter, eagerness and the optimism of youth.
    â€œHow old is this picture?” Joe asked.
    â€œIt was taken about two and half years ago,” Eileen said, and hesitated. With a weary sadness and a hunch of her shoulders, she looked down. “Just before her falling out with my brother and me.”
    Joe shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to press the issue, but I need to understand. If she left home voluntarily, and there was already an estrangement between you, what makes you so sure that something’s happened to her?”
    Eileen sighed deeply. “Donald died soon after she walked out of his house. She came back for his funeral. She wanted to keep her distance from me and what she called my ridiculous family devotion to a ridiculously dysfunctional family. I think she was upset that my brother died without the two of them ever having made their peace, but…” She lifted one of her bejeweled hands. “I suppose it was nasty growing up in my brother’s household. There was a lot to be said for everything my father and grandfather accomplished, but it came at a price. Impossible expectations for their children. So much fault-finding when something was wrong.” She shook her head, and Joe felt moved by her obvious distress. There was such a deep and underlying sadness in the woman, despite her reserve and elegance. She looked him in the face then. “Ever since my brother died, she’s called me every two weeks. At least once, every two weeks. I haven’t heard from her in over a month.”
    He leaned back, watching her. He had learned a lot in his years with the police force, and a lot more in the years since he had gone out on his own. Watching someone’s face as they spoke was often as important as listening to the words that were said.
    â€œWas there something said between you the last time you spoke that might have caused a greater rift?” he asked.
    There was a very slight hesitation.
    â€œNo,” she said.
    She was lying.
    â€œI need to know everything,” he said firmly.
    Again an elegant hand fluttered. “Well, there had been this awful article in one of those tabloids about the family,” she said.
    â€œAnd?” he prompted.
    â€œShe was convinced that her father wasn’t her father.”
    â€œShe bears a remarkable resemblance to you. I’m assuming you and your brother must have looked quite a bit alike,” he said.
    â€œExactly,” Eileen said.
    He waited. “What was the paper? When was the article printed?”
    â€œYou don’t want to read that dreadful piece of garbage,” she assured him.
    â€œI need to read it. Mrs.