Siobhán took her time glaring at him, in case he thought about lying again. “And you’ve stopped writing because of it?”
Lorcan’s gaze flicked to the window as if he couldn’t believe Nessa was tattling. He slumped in his chair and nodded. “It’s bad enough me future agent will get ten percent.”
“Does Darren Kilroy know that if he signs you he’ll have to wait until after your divorce is final to receive a book?”
“No. But it wouldn’t matter if he did.” Lorcan Murphy relaxed in his seat.
There was something to his tone. Siobhán leaned in. “Why is that?”
* * *
“It’s true,” Nessa said after glaring at the shade between the rooms. “Darren Kilroy was going to sign me all along.”
“You sound confident.”
Her eyes flicked to Aretta, then back to Siobhán. “What did he tell you?”
Siobhán gave Aretta a knowing look. “What do you think he told us?” Her tone suggested he had spilled a juicy secret.
Nessa looked to Aretta again. “Is this normal procedure? One question for me, one for Lorcan, with the pair of ye running back and forth?”
“There’s no crying in the baseball. According to American movies anyway,” Siobhán said, tossing the comment to Aretta, standing by the door.
“What?” Nessa said.
“I do not know much about the baseball,” Aretta said. “Why would they cry?”
“I know nothing about the baseball either,” Siobhán said. “They run around a diamond or some such. Personally, I think they should run for diamonds. Now that I would watch.”
“That would be interesting,” Aretta said. “I would watch that. Unless they are blood diamonds. I would not watch if they were blood diamonds.”
“Nor I,” Siobhán said.
Nessa’s head bounced between them as they jabbered. Siobhán cleared her throat, getting Nessa’s attention. “Despite not understanding the baseball, what diamonds have to do with it, or why they would cry in the first place, let’s take Tom Hanks’s word for it, shall we? There’s no crying in the baseball.”
“No crying in the baseball,” Aretta echoed.
“I don’t think it’s the baseball,” Nessa said. “I think it’s just baseball.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“But I do know murder inquiries,” Siobhán continued. “And there’s no normal in murder inquiries.” Siobhán looked to Aretta once again. “Would you agree?”
“I would very much agree,” Aretta said. “Nothing has been normal since I arrived at the Kilbane Garda Station.”
“Now,” Siobhán said. She turned her gaze on Nessa and did not let up.
Nessa finally exhaled and placed her hands on the table. “Darren Kilroy was never going to sign Lorcan Murphy because he has already signed me.”
A tingle started at the base of Siobhán’s spine. She felt Aretta stand up straighter. “When did he sign you?” Siobhán asked.
“The morning we arrived,” Nessa said. “We all met for breakfast. Afterward, he and I had a private meeting, and he officially offered to represent me.”
The morning they arrived. He wasn’t supposed to decide until the week was up. But if what Nessa was saying was true . . . Siobhán stood up and began to pace as she thought through it. Darren Kilroy signed Nessa Lamb that first morning. Did Deirdre Walsh learn of this? Did she then start a rumor that Nessa was plagiarizing or that Nessa had a ghostwriter? And if so . . . what did it mean? Did Nessa Lamb kill Deirdre Walsh to protect her career? Was Margaret O’Shea a witness to the whole sordid mess?
“Where were the two of you when Darren said he wanted to sign you?”
“At the inn,” Nessa said.
“Where at the inn?” Siobhán persisted. Close to Margaret O’Shea’s room?
“There’s a picnic table in the courtyard,” Nessa said. “We met there, he offered me a contract, and we had a verbal agreement.”
A verbal agreement. Someone may have thought there was an opportunity to change Darren’s mind. “Have you received the written contract?”
“He e-mailed it later that day. I’m waiting to have an entertainment lawyer look it over before I sign it.” She paused. “And to be honest . . .”
“Yes?”
“Since this whole murder business I’ve been thinking it over. I don’t know if I want to sign with Darren Kilroy now. What if it doesn’t look good? What if everyone thinks I’m a murderer? What if he’s a murderer?” She shook her head. “It’s all ruined. Deirdre’s death ruined everything.”
* * *
“Breakfast the first morning?” Lorcan said. “Yes. The twins have a back garden with a picnic table. It was a grand, fresh morning.” He stopped. “Why do you ask?”
* * *
Out in the hall, Aretta put her arm on Siobhán. “Are we going to need a third interview room for Darren Kilroy?”
Siobhán considered it, then shook her head. “It would start to feel like a circus.”
“It doesn’t already?”
“It appears to be working.”
“Oddly, it does.” Aretta held up a finger. “By the way, a baseball field is in the shape of a diamond.”
“Pity,” Siobhán said. “I’d much rather they played with real diamonds.” She winked and Aretta laughed. It was the kind of laughter that filled the room.
“I like the Yankees,” Aretta said.
“My brother Eoin used to wear a Yankees cap all day long,” Siobhán replied. She left it at that. If a romance was going to develop, it would occur without any shoves from her. She also hadn’t decided how she felt about it. Romance and work were such messy partners. Then again, she was hardly in any position to judge. “And don’t worry,” she said. “Because we are definitely going to have another chat with Mr. Darren Kilroy.” But for now, they weren’t quite finished with the pair they already had at the station. “Ready?” she asked Aretta.
“Or not—here I come,” Aretta answered.
Chapter 24
“Darren Kilroy wasn’t supposed to choose an author until the end of the week,” Siobhán said. Nessa Lamb’s hair was sticking to the side of her face. She started combing it back with trembling fingers. “Why would he sign you the very first morning?”
Nessa stopped messing with her hair and looked at her fingernails. “I may have told him that I was going to sign with another agent.”
“Were you?”
She nodded. “I’ve had multiple offers since the Forty under Forty article. It wasn’t a lie.”
“But it was a manipulation.”
“No. I was being open and honest.”
“Did you mention this to him in front of Lorcan and Deirdre?”
“Of course not.”
“Not that open and honest,” Aretta piped in.
“Deirdre Walsh didn’t have a chance. She has no book sales to speak of. No track record as a writer. And Lorcan Murphy’s sales had slowed as well. There are only so many elves you can kill before everyone is sick to death of it.” She barked out a laugh at her own pun, then stopped when she saw no one was laughing with her. She threw a guilty look to the shade. Threw shade at the shade, Siobhán thought. She pushed the pun away and focused on Nessa Lamb.
“Did Deirdre or Lorcan find out he had signed you?”
“No.” Nessa looked as if she was about to say something else, but then stopped. Siobhán rose. Aretta opened the door. “Stop,” Nessa said. “Please.”
“Something wrong?” Siobhán asked, hovering over her.
“Back and forth, back and forth. You’re making me dizzy!”
“I’m just having a hard time sitting still today,” Siobhán said. “You’re welcome to file a complaint with the Detective Sergeant.”
“I only told Lorcan after Deirdre was murdered. Believe me. If Deirdre knew, I’d be the one who was dead.”
Siobhán didn’t leave but she remained at the door. “Why did Darren go through all of this then? Why pretend that ever
yone had an equal shot?”
“Oran and Padraig McCarthy. They go way back with Darren Kilroy. He did it to support their new bookshop.” Nessa exhaled. “I assure you. I’ve told you the truth and nothing but. If anyone found out that Darren had signed me before the murder, they didn’t find out from me.”
“If one was standing in the courtyard of the inn while you and Darren were discussing your representation, you don’t think it’s possible that someone overheard you?” Siobhán kept her voice light, but from the startled look on Nessa’s face she’d driven the point home.
“It’s possible,” she said. “But then . . . why would that make someone kill Deirdre?”
“I don’t know,” Siobhán said. “Maybe Deirdre fought back. Maybe she started rumors.” Or maybe she told the truth.
Nessa licked her lips. “What kind of rumors?”
“The kind that could ruin another author’s career,” Siobhán said. “The kind that kill.”
* * *
“Yes,” Lorcan said immediately, when the item was placed on the table in front of him. “That’s my umbrella.” He frowned. “Why is it in an evidence bag?”
“What did you do with it after you entered the bookshop that evening?”
He frowned, then looked up. “I carried it to my chair.”
“And then?”
He shrugged. “I hung it on the back of the chair.” He leaned in. “Did someone hit Deirdre over the head with me umbrella?” Siobhán, of course, did not answer. “Do you really think I would have remembered to take it with me after finding out Deirdre had been murdered, and you shouting at all of us to leave the bookshop?”
“I simply asked if it was yours,” Siobhán said, keeping her cool, but imagining him as an elf that was about to get his.
“Tis.” He eyed the evidence bag. “But if it has anything to do with that poor woman’s death, I never want to see it again.”
“Tell me about the morning you accidentally entered Margaret O’Shea’s room,” Siobhán said.
Lorcan frowned again. “I don’t know what there is to add. It was getting dark. I’d had a bit to drink, as did everyone else, in the back garden. And I opened the wrong door. Believe me. The lungs on that woman! I was the one it traumatized.”
“Traumatized?”
He nodded. “You should have heard her giving out to me. Like I was actually trying to get into her room. It was humiliating.” He rubbed his face. “Ask the woman who owns the flower shop.”
Siobhán sat up straight. “Leigh Coakley?”
He nodded. “That’s the one.”
“What does Leigh have to do with anything?”
“After Margaret slammed the door in me face I whirled around and there she was, laughing at me.” He squinted as if he was trying to see the memory. “What was it she said . . . ?” Siobhán wanted to know, so she left him room to work it out. “Something along the lines of . . . ‘At least she’s no longer focusing on me.’ ”
* * *
Siobhán and Aretta stood outside the garda station with mugs of tea, watching people wander in and out of the town square. There was a break room but Siobhán preferred being outdoors, taking in the fresh air. She was feeling thrown off by Lorcan’s last comment about Leigh Coakley. It reminded her that Leigh was the one who had told Deirdre to eat her words. Now she’d been in some kind of argument with Margaret O’Shea the night before she died? Leigh had never mentioned anything of the sort to Siobhán. They were going to have to get to the bottom of it and the prospect didn’t thrill her.
“I don’t feel assured about Nessa Lamb,” Aretta said. “Do you?”
“Pardon?”
“I do not feel assured that no one found out about her secret deal with Darren Kilroy.”
“Neither do I. But, if Lorcan Murphy had learned earlier that Darren signed Nessa, and it inspired a murderous rage, wouldn’t he have taken it out on Nessa? Or Darren Kilroy? Or Oran and Padraig for that matter? Anyone but Deirdre Walsh.”
“Maybe Lorcan told Deirdre.”
“And? Deirdre what? Staged her own death?”
“Maybe Deirdre began harassing either Nessa Lamb or Darren Kilroy, or Oran and Padraig for that matter,” Aretta said. “And one of them took matters into his or her own hands.”
“That’s the right line of inquiry,” Siobhán said.
“But?”
“But there’s something about the planning of this that tells me the timeline you’ve just described is still too impulsive for this killer.”
“Do you solve cases mostly on intuition?” Aretta had a blunt way of speaking, and her tone was friendly, but the question felt jarring. Did she?
Siobhán shook her head. “I back it up with evidence,” she said. “And I try not to get too attached to any one theory early on.”
“Including the theory that Nessa Lamb was the intended target?” Aretta asked.
“We don’t have anything to suggest that Deirdre was a victim of mistaken identity.”
“Nessa Lamb suggested it, did she not?”
“She did,” Siobhán said. “The question is why.”
“Either she’s afraid a killer is after her, or she is the killer,” Aretta said.
“Or she’s protecting the killer,” Siobhán added.
“Lorcan Murphy?”
“They are lovers.” Secret lovers. And secrets could kill.
“If Deirdre was the intended victim,” Aretta continued, “why wasn’t she killed by nuts? Why did the killer use a sedative and arsenic instead?”
“An allergic reaction to nuts wouldn’t have been quick or silent,” Siobhán said. “Deirdre undoubtedly had an EpiPen in her handbag. People would have heard her gasping for breath. Our killer is smart enough to know that.”
“But it’s equally possible, isn’t it, that she wasn’t the intended victim?” Aretta paused, letting Siobhán ponder it. “It was after all, dark and confusing in there.”
“And the killer only had seconds,” Siobhán said. “Yes, it is possible. But I would not say it is equally possible.” Her gut was not pointing toward mistaken identity. Maybe she did follow her gut. She could not teach this to Aretta, nor could she even completely defend it. And even though at first she felt prickly, having Aretta question her methods was good for her. She needed to keep open to all possibilities. And Aretta was intelligent and observant. They could learn from each other. But that didn’t mean she was going to ignore her gut. And her gut insisted that the killer got his intended victim. Deirdre Walsh. Margaret O’Shea, on the other hand, was an outlier. Siobhán hoped Jeanie Brady would find hers a natural death. Otherwise, Siobhán had no idea what they were dealing with. But, in addition to finding a killer, as Guardians of the Peace their job was to make sure no one else lost their life. “I’ll see if we can assign a garda to trail Nessa Lamb while she’s here. Just in case.”
* * *
“Looking forward to book club?” Macdara asked with a big smile. Siobhán stood in the door to Macdara’s office, wishing she could squeeze his face until he stopped grinning.
“Can’t wait,” Siobhán said with her fingers crossed behind her back. The group would be discussing Nessa Lamb’s Musings on a Hill. Siobhán had started it last night and fell asleep at page three. “I can’t wait to learn if she ever gets off the hill.”
Macdara laughed. “Any idea what Aretta wants you to see and what it has to do with the figure we saw on Chris Gordon’s screen?” He stopped laughing. “I will regret giving her latitude if it turns out to be serious evidence in this case.”
Siobhán nodded. She’d had the same thought. “I don’t have a clue. What did you learn from the landlord or lads who built the secret door?”
“No wallpaper was ever on the walls. We’ve got one smoker in the group but Marlboro is their brand.”
“Not Michael O’Mara’s brand.”
“Correct. And speaking of our possible lurker, one of them thinks he saw our lurker in the alley behind the bookshop.”
<
br /> “That’s big news. When?”
“The day they were putting in the secret door.”
“Before our authors even arrived.”
“Correct.” He pulled open a drawer and held up an evidence bag. “And one of the lads found this in the alley the other day. After the murder. They didn’t realize it could be evidence.” It appeared to be a small stick. Siobhán squinted and touched it. It was made of a hard metal.
“What is it?”
“An old-fashioned lock pick,” Macdara said. “We tried it on the alley door to the bookshop. It works.”
“That’s huge.”
He sighed. “It would have been had their paws not been all over it, not to mention the rain. But now we know how someone got into the back door. We just can’t prove who, or when, or why.”
“What did they say about this lurker?”
“Just that they saw him going through rubbish bins, and having a smoke.”
What was it about this man and rubbish bins? Michael O’Mara was wealthy. It just didn’t seem to fit the bill, unless it had something to do with drink. “Has Darren Kilroy heard back from Michael O’Mara?”
“As a matter of fact, Darren just called to tell me that Mr. O’Mara states he hasn’t been off Bere Island for the past month.”
“What about the gardaí responsible for Bere Island?”
“They said they don’t keep that close of a watch on their citizens.”
“Meaning they’re not talking out of school.”
“Correct.”
“Are we just going to take Darren Kilroy’s word for it?”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Siobhán knew that look in Macdara’s eyes. “Are we going to Bere Island?”
“Does a bear—”
Siobhán held up her hand. “Enough said. When?”
“Can you clear your schedule tomorrow?”
Siobhán sighed. “I was hoping you’d say today.”
“And have you miss book club?” His grin was back in full force. “Not a chance.”
Chapter 25
As Siobhán stepped into the twins’ sitting room, the wolfhounds greeted her first, then parted as if giving the floor to Emma and Eileen, seated behind them. Because the skies were spitting on them, the members of the book group were all huddled inside. The room consisted of a large yellow sofa, two turquoise armchairs, and four wooden chairs brought in from the kitchen table. Pastries covered the coffee table, and most of the members clutched steaming cups of tea. Siobhán hadn’t thought to bring anything; she could have ingratiated herself with an offering of brown bread, but it was too late now. She hoped they wouldn’t be thinking ill of her. She works at a bistro this one and she can’t even bring a dish to pass. Aretta hadn’t mentioned the food. Then again, Aretta probably wasn’t eating the food.
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