Irish Parade Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “I hope she got away,” said Lucy.

  They stopped for a McDonald’s supper on the way, and it was growing dark when they reached home on Red Top Road. Zoe’s car was gone, but Bill’s truck was in the driveway, but there was no sign of him when they went into the house. Only Libby greeted them, rising painfully from her doggy bed and wagging her tail.

  “We’re home,” called Lucy, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I’m up here, in the office.” Bill’s voice came down from the attic, where he had carved out a tiny, cramped space to work on his accounts and blueprints.

  “I’ll come up,” said Lucy, eager to tell him about the place they’d found for Sara.

  She was slightly winded after climbing two flights, especially since the last was steep and twisty. “What are you doing up here?” she asked, ducking her head to step through the low doorway.

  “I’m looking for Dad’s will. Mom thinks I’ve got a copy.”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Bill, who was on his knees, looking through a box of old files. “I don’t remember getting one. Do you?”

  “Nope.” Lucy leaned her fanny against his desk, mindful of the sloping ceiling. “If we had, I think we would have taken special care of it. Heck,” she added, “we would have read it, wouldn’t we? To find out if we were going to get something?”

  “Too right,” said Bill, “but I don’t have a clue.”

  Lucy suddenly had a frightening thought. “Doesn’t your Mom have a copy?”

  “Uh, no. That’s why I’m looking.”

  “The lawyer must have a copy,” suggested Lucy.

  “He died years ago.”

  “So if there’s no will, your dad died intestate, right?”

  “Right. And under Florida law, that means Mom won’t get the entire estate, like Dad wanted, but will have to split it with us, and maybe even Catherine Klein.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t take our share,” said Lucy. “Not if your Dad wanted your Mom to have it.”

  “Right, but there’s no telling what this Klein woman will do.”

  “I hope that will turns up,” said Lucy.

  “Me, too.” Bill sat back on his heels. “Otherwise, it’s going to be a real mess.”

  Chapter Ten

  The little bell on the Pennysaver office door jangled, announcing Rob’s arrival on Monday morning. “I’ve got a hot tip for you, Lucy,” he said, giving Phyllis a little salute as he made his way somewhat painfully to Ted’s antique desk. When he had passed and couldn’t see her face, she rolled her eyes.

  Lucy caught Phyllis’s expression, which echoed her own emotions. She knew she should be grateful that Rob was offering her a tip; she knew it shouldn’t bother her that he was using Ted’s desk. Ted was working from the office in Gilead, where he was pleased as punch with the new computers, wall-to-wall carpeting, and fake plant. Nevertheless, Rob seemed terribly presumptuous to Lucy, who gave him the evil eye while he fussed about, trying to get comfortable by adjusting the chair height and shoving the keyboard and mouse aside to make room for the laptop he’d started using. Come to think of it, since he was working on a laptop anyway, why did he need to use Ted’s desk at all? He would have a lot more room in the morgue, where he could spread out on the big conference table. And where she wouldn’t have him constantly in view.

  “So what’s this hot tip?” she asked, wondering if she ought to tell Rob about the desk’s exalted provenance, but decided against it. It would probably just give him delusions of grandeur.

  “Uh, that Brendan guy and Rosie are organizing an all-inclusive Irish Festival,” he said, getting up and limping over to the coffee station, where he filled a mug. The swelling on his face had gone down, but he was still pretty bruised.

  “An alternative to the parade?” asked Lucy.

  “In addition to, I think,” he said, stirring in some powdered creamer. “Why can’t we have real cream? This stuff sucks,” he added, as his enthusiastic stirring caused some of the coffee to spill onto his hand.

  “We used to, but we didn’t use it fast enough. and it spoiled. Maybe they’ve got cream over in Gilead and you could work from there,” suggested Lucy. “How do you know about this festival? I haven’t seen a press release.”

  “I saw Rosie last night, and she told me.” He made his way slowly back to Ted’s desk, carefully carrying his overfull mug. “You’d better get right on it. It’s breaking news, and we can put it online.”

  “I’m aware of that,” snapped Lucy, “and just because you’re using Ted’s desk doesn’t mean you’re my boss!”

  Rob was quiet for a moment, apparently taken aback by Lucy’s reaction. “Oh, sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”

  “It’s okay,” muttered Lucy, somewhat ashamed of herself. She flipped through her Rolodex, looking for Brendan’s number. “How’s the budget story going?”

  “Boring, really boring.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve got an interview with the school superintendent this morning.”

  “What time?” asked Lucy, checking the clock.

  “Nine-thirty.”

  “Well, not to tell you how to do your job, but it’s twenty-five past right now.”

  Rob pushed back the wheeled desk chair and stood up fast, knocking over his coffee. “Oh, crap!”

  “I’ll take care of the spill; you’d better get going. Superintendent Goring really hates tardiness. He’s got a thing about it.”

  “Oh, great,” muttered Rob, raising himself by leaning heavily on the desk and hobbling over to the coatrack, where he grimaced as he put on his coat. Then he made an effort to straighten himself up before heading out the door.

  “Do you think he’s really in that much pain, or is he putting it on for our benefit?” asked Lucy.

  “Probably a bit of both.” Phyllis had already grabbed the paper-towel roll that sat next to the coffeepot and had begun wiping up the sticky mess. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how coffee tastes so good and smells so good, until you spill it? Then it gets real icky.”

  “Yeah,” said Lucy, carefully removing the sodden desk calendar and shoving it into the wastebasket. “I’ll grab some cleaning stuff.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Phyllis. “It might even ruin the finish if it’s not cleaned off.”

  “I’m on it.” Lucy trotted into the bathroom, which also served as a cleaning closet, and returned with a spray bottle of cleanser and a sponge.

  Phyllis tossed the wadded paper towels into the trash and returned to her desk as Corney Clark came in, announced by the jangling bell.

  “Cleaning day?” she asked, sniffing the pine-scented air.

  “Small catastrophe—a spill, that’s all,” said Phyllis. “But a spring cleaning is definitely a good idea.”

  “Only if you do it,” said Lucy, laughing. “Hi, Corney. What brings you here today?”

  “Hot news—a press release. I thought I’d bring it myself to make sure it gets top priority.” Corney was president of the Tinker’s Cove Chamber of Commerce and took dressing for success seriously. Today she was wearing a navy-blue pantsuit with a cashmere sweater underneath the jacket, and she’d given the outfit a nautical twist by adding a red, white, and blue scarf printed with sailboats. Her blond hair was cut in a stylish short bob, and her makeup was hardly noticeable, except for the fact that her eyelashes were coated with black mascara and her lips were glossed.

  “Tell me all about it,” said Lucy, plopping herself down at her desk and inviting Corney to take the visitor’s chair.

  “Here’s the copy,” she said, producing a printed sheet of paper. “It’s for the Cove’s first-ever all-inclusive Irish Festival.”

  “I heard about this,” said Lucy, studying the press release. “Rosie Capshaw and Brendan Coyle are the organizers, right?”

  “It was their idea,” admitted Corney, tactfully, “but the Chamber is really doing the heavy lifting, if you know what I mean.�
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  Lucy knew that she really meant the Chamber should get the credit.

  “You’re not worried about a conflict with Sheriff Murphy and his merry band of Hibernian Knights?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Corney, chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip. “For one thing, the festival is after the parade, in the afternoon, and it’s here in Tinker’s Cove, not in Gilead.”

  “And I see you’ve made all that very clear. ‘The fun continues after the parade in Tinker’s Cove’ . . .blah, blah, blah.”

  “They might not like the all-inclusive part,” suggested Phyllis, from her corner by the door.

  “Well, that’s too bad for them,” said Corney. “Times are changing, and we can’t afford to ignore the LGBTQ community. We want to welcome them, and their discretionary income, to Tinker’s Cove. Also, I don’t know if you’ve seen the figures the state just released, but the arts are a big income generator for towns like ours. We need more creative people like Rosie, if we’re going to get ourselves on the Arts Map the state tourism bureau is planning to put out. That would be a good story for you, Lucy.”

  “I’ll file it for later,” said Lucy, wondering why everybody was so eager to give her tips for stories all of a sudden. “And I’ll get right on the festival, I was planning to call Brendan when you came in.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it,” said Corney, standing up and slinging her designer bag onto her shoulder.

  Lucy immediately reached for her phone and arranged for Brendan to stop by the Pennysaver office next morning, apologizing for asking him to come to her, but explaining that it was a big news week and she was running up against deadline. Hearing that, he offered to bring Rosie along, if she was available. She was just wrapping up the call when the police scanner began to cackle, announcing a motor-vehicle accident on Route 1.

  “Last thing I need,” muttered Lucy.

  “You’d better go,” advised Phyllis. “They’re already calling for mutual aid, it must be big.”

  Lucy had barely gotten underway when she had to pull over for the town’s ambulance, which was speeding down Main Street with lights flashing and sirens blaring. She pulled out as soon as it passed, following as close behind as was safe. Experience had taught her that tagging along behind a rescue vehicle was the best way to get to an accident scene as quickly as possible. The siren on the ambulance was loud, but it didn’t quite drown out the chorus of other sirens that indicated mutual aid was on the way.

  As it happened, the accident was just outside town, on Route 1, the coastal region’s main highway. Traffic was already backed up, but drivers maneuvered their cars and pickups to the side of the road to make way for the ambulance, and Lucy followed right along, hoping the PRESS placard she’d stuck against the windshield explained her audacity. Then the brake lights on the ambulance lit up, and Lucy braked, too, and pulled off to the side of the road, just before the bridge over Lumbert Hill Road.

  Traffic was at a standstill because police cars were blocking both sides of Route 1, clearing a large area for rescue vehicles as well as a landing space for a Med-Flight helicopter, if needed. People had exited their cars, curious to see what was going on, and Lucy’s friend, Officer Barney Culpepper, was stringing yellow caution tape to keep them out of harm’s way. Since she didn’t see any sign of the accident, she ran up to him.

  “What’s going on, Barney?”

  “Oh, hi, Lucy. You made good time. I just got here a minute or so ago myself.”

  “I was right behind the ambulance. So where’s the accident?”

  “Oh, down there,” he said, pointing to the side of the road, where there was a steep drop-off to Lumbert Hill Road. A sudden explosion—a loud pop, followed by a black cloud of smoke—indicated the crashed vehicle had caught fire. Lucy immediately ran to the side of the bridge and looked over, snapping photos of the burning vehicle. More engines were down there alongside a flaming pickup truck, which was surrounded by firefighters who had been sent flying by the explosion. As Lucy watched, they began picking themselves up and attempted to return to the cab of the truck with the Jaws of Life. The heat and smoke were intense; even standing on the bridge, Lucy could feel the heat and smell the acrid smoke, and she was horrified to think that the driver was still in the truck, trapped. One of the firefighters almost made it to the door, but he collapsed in a heap and was pulled back by two others. She realized the grim truth that whoever was in that truck was not going to get out alive, and she could only hope that that person, whoever it was, was already dead and past suffering.

  “This is awful,” she said, as Barney came to stand beside her. All color had drained from her face, and she looked terribly shaken.

  Barney voiced his concern. “I don’t think you should stay, Lucy. It’s not going to be nice.”

  Firefighters had begun pouring foam on the truck, which quickly extinguished the fire, and some onlookers cheered, unaware that there was a fatality.

  “Do you know who it is?” she asked. “Who does the truck belong to?”

  “This is unofficial, mind, and I could be wrong; we have to wait for a positive ID, but Gabe McGourt drives a truck like that. I noticed the Harley decal on the rear window.”

  “He liked motorcycles?”

  “To a fault,” said Barney, rubbing his nose. “I pulled him over a couple of times, let him go with a warning. He went way too fast—in the truck, too.” Barney sighed. “Some people just have a death wish, I guess. Or think they’re immortal. Drive like it, anyway.”

  “There was some sexual harassment business he was involved in, too, wasn’t there?”

  “I did hear something along those lines, but it never amounted to anything. Never went to trial, anyway.” He stared down at the charred hulk of the truck. “Lucy, they’re not going to get the body out until that truck cools down,” advised Barney. “And, even then, they probably won’t be able to make an ID ’cause of the condition of the corpse . . .”

  “You’ll let me know . . .”

  “Yeah.” He made eye contact and squeezed her shoulder. “You should go.”

  “Thanks.” Lucy started back to her car, but spotting fire chief Buzz Bresnahan, she changed course. “Chief!” she called, and he turned around, greeting her with a mere suggestion of a smile.

  “Hi, Lucy. Terrible thing, this.” He lifted his white helmet and wiped his head with a bandanna. “Car fires are the worst. I hate ’em.”

  “There’s no doubt that someone was in the truck?” asked Lucy.

  “Yeah.” He shook his head. “We have to wait for the medical examiner to get here. Lumbert Hill Road is closed, of course, but as soon as we get all this equipment out of the way, the road can reopen.” He snorted. “They’re already starting to honk. I guess the show’s over.”

  “Can you tell me who provided mutual aid?” she asked, notebook at the ready.

  “Gilead, of course, and Sandringham. We didn’t need either. Gilead got here before we could call them off, but Sandringham got the message and returned to their station.”

  “How many firefighters were involved?”

  “I’ll have to get that to you. I’ll put out a press release as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks. I’ve got photos, and we can get it posted on the online edition.”

  Someone was calling him, so the chief thanked her and went on his way to attend to business. His walk was slower than it used to be, she thought, realizing that he must be approaching retirement. He’d been the fire chief for as long as she could remember, so it would be quite a change to have somebody new.

  It wasn’t only the Pennysaver that was changing, she thought, climbing into her car and calling Ted, to let him know she’d covered the fire.

  “Good work. Send me the photos,” he said, adding, “Fires are always front-page stuff.”

  Some of the fire trucks were starting to leave, no longer needed at the accident scene, so Lucy did a U-turn and joined the procession that was returning to Tinker’s Cove. She
felt let down and discouraged; this story would not have a happy ending. She wondered who would replace Buzz as fire chief; she hoped it would be somebody she could work with as easily as she’d worked with Buzz. Not somebody like Rob, who she found terribly annoying. If she could have her wish, she wanted everything to go back to the way it was earlier: the cozy little office on Main Street, with just herself and Phyllis and Ted. She wished Ted had never bought the Gabber; she wished he’d never gotten that grant from the TRUTH Project; she wished Rob would go back to wherever he’d come from. He clearly did not understand local news, which, at bottom, meant you had to write about your friends and neighbors. He had few friends in town, and he wasn’t interested in getting to know his neighbors; he just wanted to make a big name for himself by muckraking, which was a dangerous approach in a small town like Tinker’s Cove.

  Spotting a parking space on Main Street, Lucy quickly grabbed it, then sat for a minute, collecting herself. She finally reached for the door handle, releasing a whiff of smoky scent from her jacket, and found herself tearing up. Fires were the worst, she decided, blinking hard and getting out of the car.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” announced Phyllis, when Lucy entered the office.

  “It was a pickup, burst into flames, and the driver was trapped inside.” Lucy’s voice was thick, and she was battling back tears.

  “Oh, how awful.” Phyllis passed her the box of tissues she kept on her desk. “Anybody we know?”

  Lucy took a couple and gave her nose a good blow. “Only by reputation. Barney said he thought the truck belonged to Gabe McGourt.”

  “The corrections officer?”

  “Yeah. Do you know him?”

  “Yeah. He’s been sniffing around lately, showing some interest in Elfrida’s oldest, Angie. He’s got a place just down the street from them and kept offering to take Angie for a ride on his motorcycle.” She smiled a satisfied little smile. “Wilf told him to take a hike.”