“Unlock the door.”
Nothing happened.
“Unlock the door or I’ll go through the window.”
The lock turned again. Gethsemane hesitated. What if she left? Would he follow? Rematerialize at some inopportune moment? Push her off a cliff? No harm in listening. She didn’t have to agree to anything. “All right, out with it. What is it you need me to do?”
“I need you to prove I didn’t murder my wife.”
“Oh, is that all?” Thirty-six years old now, she’d been too young to analyze reports of the McCarthy murder-suicide with any depth at the time they happened. She remembered feeling disbelief her idol could commit such atrocities. She also remembered news coverage sounding certain, to her eleven-year-old mind, of Eamon’s guilt. “No problem. And while I’m at it maybe I can prove the Easter Bunny exists and find the lost city of El Dorado.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. If such evidence existed, wouldn’t the police have found it twenty-five years ago?”
Eamon snarled. “The guards?” Gethsemane gagged on the sudden cologne-soap blast. A ropy blue vein popped out on Eamon’s temple, coursed upward to disappear into his tangled curls, and exploded into a pulsating blue halo. Fists clenched, he paced. “Declan Hurley and the rest of the feckin’ gardaí wouldn’t have found evidence wrapped in a gold cloth and hand-delivered by Saint Nicholas himself. Bunch of feckin’ gowls, the lot of ’em.”
Every muscle in her body screamed, “Run!” but Gethsemane held her ground. “The legendary McCarthy temper in action.”
The glow and the scent faded. A calmer Eamon offered apologies. “I was no fan of the Dunmullach An Garda Síochána and they were no fans of mine.”
“Considering your high opinion of the local constabulary, if I managed to find some evidence clearing you of your wife’s murder to whom would I deliver it?”
“To the guards.”
Gethsemane pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. If McCarthy was this maddening when he was alive, it’s a wonder his wife hadn’t killed him. “You just said—”
“Declan Hurley’s long since retired, the drunken bastard. So have his cronies. The guards have a new man now, Inspector O’Reilly. About your age. He heads up the cold case unit. He’s got a bit of a stick up his arse and he owns a cat—I’m a dog man, me-self—but he seems like a sharp fella.”
“And you know this how?”
“I get out and about. Can’t stay in the cottage all the time, I’d go insane.”
“If you can leave the cottage, why don’t you just go to Inspector O’Reilly yourself?”
Eamon sighed, sorrow and frustration palpable, and sat opposite Gethsemane. “I tried. O’Reilly can’t see or hear me. Not everyone can, you know.”
“How’d I get so lucky?”
“Maybe you have a gift.”
“For music, not for seeing dead people.”
“I don’t know why we can communicate. Maybe us both being musical’s got something to do with it. Ghost rules are complicated. I haven’t sussed ’em all out yet.”
“No Handbook for the Recently Deceased?”
“No, and no signpost up ahead either. I’m glad you’re finding this amusing.”
She stared out the window into the darkness, stars and moon now obscured by clouds promising more rain. “I find nothing about this situation amusing, including you.” She turned back to face Eamon. “I find you presumptuous. How do you know I believe you? Maybe you really did kill your wife. You wouldn’t be the first murderer to swear he didn’t do it.”
Eamon vanished, replaced by a buzzing blue orb. The glowing ball rose and shot toward Gethsemane’s head. She ducked. Heat burned her cheek as the orb whizzed past an ear and slammed into a picture frame on the opposite side of the room, shattering the glass. In her other ear, a voice with Eamon’s accent but the low, cold tone of her father during one of his spells, said, “Don’t you ever say that again. Orla was the air to me.”
“Okay, okay, I believe you. You didn’t murder your wife.”
Eamon re-materialized, solid, surrounded by a faint blue glow. “Damn. I liked that picture.”
Safe from orbs, she stood. “You didn’t murder your wife and all you want me to do is find evidence proving you didn’t kill her and take the evidence to the police.”
“That and one other—” Eamon held his thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart “—wee thing.”
“What? Find Jimmy Hoffa’s body?”
“Find out who did murder Orla and me.”
“You mean find out who murdered Orla. You committed suicide. You murdered you.”
“I did no such thing. Do I seem like the sort of man who’d off himself?”
Gethsemane studied Eamon from the top of his tousled mop to the tips of his oxfords. Six feet, three inches, one hundred seventy pounds of talent, temper, and ego. “No, you definitely seem more like the type of guy someone else would murder. Shoot, stab, bludgeon, garrote—”
“You can stop now. And, for the record, I was poisoned.”
“How do you know?” Reports of Eamon’s suicide stated he’d taken poison which, of course, you’d know if you’d done yourself in. But if someone slipped it to you?
Eamon nodded toward the bar. “Are you a bourbon drinker or will any libation do so long’s the proof’s high enough?”
“I’m a Bushmill’s drinker, but I don’t turn my nose up at Ardbeg, Laphroaig, or Waddell and Dobb.”
“So you know your whiskey well enough to know when something’s been added to it.” Gethsemane nodded. Eamon continued. “I know the taste of my Waddell and Dobb as well as I know the sound of my music or the smell of my wife’s hair.”
Gethsemane paled. “You were poisoned with the Waddell and Dobb Double-oaked?”
“Not the bottle you so liberally familiarized yourself with. Don’t worry, you won’t wake up dead.”
“I wasn’t worried about that. I was thinking what a waste of a good bottle of bourbon.” She ignored the blue sparks around Eamon’s head. “You being a connoisseur, one sip should’ve told you the bourbon was off. Why’d you drink more? Assuming the poison wasn’t so powerful it killed you with one sip.”
“One gulp. My wife had just been murdered, smashed to bits at the foot of a cliff. Everyone believed I’d done it based on the say-so of a crooked inebriate of a cop and a sociopathic thug named Jimmy Lynch who lied about seeing my car. ‘Eamon’s a hothead.’ ‘Eamon lost his temper again.’ ‘Flew into a rage and sure he done it.’ Never mind I’d cut off both hands before raising one of them against Orla. I spent the week between her death and mine planning her funeral and trying to convince that gobshite Hurley to get off his arse and check out my alibi. I gulped bourbon, I didn’t sip it. By the time I noticed the fatal glass didn’t taste right it was too late.”
“What were you poisoned with?” She couldn’t remember hearing the specifics twenty-five years ago and didn’t recall the poison being named in anything she’d come across recently, not even that ridiculous book.
Eamon shrugged. “Dunno. Something bitter, slightly spicy.”
“That narrows it down. Not. Didn’t you ever check the toxicology report?” Could ghosts check toxicology reports?
“Dunmullach’s a village in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t on the bus line back then and the train stopped here even less often than it does now. If you think we had some fancy toxicology lab and an expert forensics unit, you’ve been watching too much TV. We had the embalming room at the funeral parlor and a GP who was one of Hurley’s drinking mates and senile to boot. The doc put less thought into examining Orla’s and my bodies than you put into choosing your outfit in the morning. He didn’t perform an autopsy on my wife. She’s lying on the rocks with a broken neck and a smashed skull an
d no bullet holes or stab wounds. Cause of death was obvious on external exam. Why bother cutting her open? He saw me dead with an empty glass nearby, dipped his tongue in the bourbon, declared death by self-administered poison, signed off on the death certificate and that was that. Everybody down to the pub for a round. No one asked questions, they were too afraid of Hurley.”
Gethsemane doubted Eamon’s complaint was much of an exaggeration. She knew her mother, a psychiatrist, had been pressured more than once by a busy funeral home director to sign off on a death certificate as the “physician of record” and her mother’s friends who volunteered as death examiners were family physicians and internists, not pathologists. Not that a toxicology report would have cleared Eamon of suspicion. A solid alibi, on the other hand…“Everyone said your alibi was bogus.”
“Who’s everyone? The press? Bunch of feckin’ vultures. They didn’t even wait ’til the bodies were cold before they started feeding. My alibi wasn’t bogus, just unverifiable. I gave a house concert for some friends relocating to central Africa to do missionary work, my farewell present to them. They were on the airplane by the time I found Orla. Ever try to track someone down in rural Africa?”
She had. Her baby brother was a missionary. He’d worked in Chad, Sudan, Rwanda. Communication was sketchy at best, even in the era of internet and cell phones. Twenty-five years ago? No wonder no one had confirmed Eamon’s alibi. But what about his car? “You said someone saw you in the area.”
“I said someone lied. Jimmy Lynch is a cancer. A malicious bastard who’d cut his own mother’s throat for a Euro. The world would be a better place if he’d been drowned at birth.”
“Cancerous sociopath or not, why would he go out of his way to frame you for murder?”
“Jimmy’s had it in for me ever since we were teens. I caught him peddling dope to some boys from the lower school. Another lad had died of a drug overdose a few days prior. I mangled Jimmy, broke his nose. He never missed an opportunity after that to get revenge on me. Orla’s death was his chance to do me in once and for all. Orla died sometime around midnight, according to the wee bit of exam the GP performed. Jimmy told the guards he’d seen my car turning onto Carrick Point Road at eleven thirty p.m. on All Hallows’ Eve. I actually got home from Dublin at four o’clock in the morning on All Saints’ Day. I slept at the lighthouse to avoid waking Orla. I found her on the cliffs after sun-up as I was walking back to the cottage. As for Hurley going along with Jimmy’s lie, rumor had it Hurley took bribes from Jimmy in exchange for turning a blind eye to his dope dealing. He’d have backed up anything Jimmy said.”
The blue aura deepened. “Dunmullach’s a peaceful village, neat, orderly, at least on the surface. Murder’s messy. Attracts attention. Not the good kind. The kind that shines light into corners best left dark. It was easier to put it all on me. A dead scapegoat. Case closed. No guards poking into your private business, uncovering your secrets. No wondering if the person chatting across the hedge or sitting in the pew opposite was a double murderer. Write the whole sordid situation off as a bad memory. Get on with life the way it was.”
Gethsemane thought of her sorority sister, an attorney with the National Justice Project. Dozens of cases of people railroaded into prison by corrupt small town law enforcement stuffed her file cabinets.
“I’m asking you again, will you help me? Prove I didn’t murder my wife and find out who did.”
“I can’t.”
“The first part, then. Clear me of murdering my reason for living. I can rest easy if the world knows I never did such a thing.”
“No.”
“Do you want to take a moment to think about it?”
“I don’t need a moment. I don’t need a second. I’m a musician. I’m a maestra. I’m not some Miss Marple-wannabe. I don’t know anything about investigating murders.”
Eamon dropped to a knee. “I’m doing something I never did while I lived. I’m begging. You’re my best, my only, hope of being able to rest in peace. I can’t cross over to anywhere, be it heaven or hell, with this hanging over me.”
Memories of King Saul poked her again. “Don’t psychics find justice for restless spirits? Contact one of them.”
Eamon spat. “Charlatans, con artists. You’re all I have.”
“Then you have nothing. I can’t help you.” Forget about idolizing him growing up. “I have six weeks to turn three dozen slackers into a championship orchestra, I’ve got to come up with lesson plans for boys as interested in music as I am in video games, and I have to find a permanent job, preferably back in the States.” Forget about his heartbreakingly beautiful music. “I don’t have time to investigate crimes solved a quarter of a century ago.” She massaged her temples. “Even if I had time, I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. I’m sorry.”
“I need you.”
“I’m really sorry.”
Forget the bond his music created between her and her beloved grandfather, a connection not shared with anyone else in the family.
Eamon faded feet first, bit by bit. His eyes vanished last. Were they glistening before they winked out? Maybe it was the light. Gethsemane sniffed. No cologne. No soap. She smoothed her dress and squared her shoulders. She couldn’t help Eamon McCarthy. Really.
Upstairs again, she stood in the middle of the master bedroom. Orla and Eamon stared at her from their photos, imploring. No way could she sleep in here. She relocated to the back bedroom and undressed. She caught sight of herself in the mirror. Dark circles ringed her eyes, a frown creased her forehead, her hair stood out at odd angles. A right mess, Grandma would say.
“How can I help you?” she asked aloud. “I can’t even help myself.”
Gethsemane tossed and turned most of the night. War raged in her brain. You imagined the whole thing battled you saw it with your own eyes. Overactive imagination triggered by a strange place fell victim to you’ve spent your life traveling to strange places. Someone cleaned up the desk slew delirium-induced hallucination. Around three a.m. the tide of battle shifted. Voices, infrequent at first, soon became steady like the drip-drip-drip of a slow leak. Selfish. Uncaring. Not how you were brought up. The voices sounded like Grandfather and her baby brother. Her brother, the missionary physician who’d passed up a partnership in an exclusive Washington, D.C. practice to build a women’s clinic in Zambia. Elegant, dignified Grandfather, always working extra shifts at month’s end to make up the rent money he’d spent on food for the widow next door or medicine for the pensioner downstairs. They’d have helped.
“Leave me alone.” Gethsemane threw a pillow and knocked over a lamp. “I can’t help. I’m not a detective or a ghost whisperer. I don’t want to be anybody’s hero. I just want my sensible, orderly life back.” She pulled the covers over her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Sleep came, eventually, trailing with it the faint aroma of leather and soap.
Two
Gethsemane abandoned her fitful sleep early and arrived at St. Brennan’s before morning bell. The smart, red-orange suit she’d chosen from the clothes Teague brought her complemented both her brown skin and the season. She felt authoritative in a suit. She pulled her mac close against the crisp October air and inhaled deeply. The aroma of bacon, toast, and coffee revived her and lured her toward what she hoped was the dining hall.
As she stepped onto the emerald quad, someone called from a nearby colonnade, “So you’re her.”
She spun. A tall redhead in wire-rimmed glasses, wrinkled khakis, and a tweed jacket, which looked as if it had been handed down from a brawnier older brother, leaned against a column. Gethsemane introduced herself.
“I know who you are,” the man said. “Always thought St. Brennan’s savior would be taller.”
Putting up with this type first thing in the morning required more sleep. “I have a rule. You’re not allowed to insult me before I’ve had coffee unl
ess I know your name. So, Mr. Whoever-you-are, if you’ll please excuse me, I’m on my way to breakfast.”
“Grennan. Francis Grennan.” He didn’t offer his hand. “I teach maths.”
Did mathematics create oddballs or only attract them? Gethsemane imagined her father sitting in a pub having an esoteric conversation with this man about Fibonacci numbers.
“My friends call me Frankie.”
“And what should I call you?” Gethsemane asked.
“Grennan will do.”
Why did she notice his eyes were the same luscious shade of green as the quad’s soft grass and his short hair shone like a new copper penny? Hunger? Certainly his attitude did nothing to make him attractive. Gethsemane gave in to the rumbling in her stomach and the entreating aromas wafting from the far side of the quad. “Excuse me, Grennan. Somewhere sits a plate of bacon with my name on it.”
She made it halfway across the grass before he called after her. “It’s impossible, you know.”
“What’s impossible?”
“Winning the All-County.”
“Why?” She turned and went back to where he still leaned. “Why impossible?” Odd ducks often had brilliant insight. Her father had been downright spooky sometimes.
Francis didn’t hesitate. “No passion. No commitment to the community.”
He couldn’t mean her. He hadn’t known her five minutes. Or was a guilty conscience so obvious?
“We’ve had a string of conductors using St. Brennan’s as a stepping stone present uninspired music with mechanical instruction. Lackluster leadership yields lackluster performances. Then the maestro moves on and leaves Dunmullach to deal with the disappointment.”
“Is the All-County such a big deal?”
“Perhaps not to a musical prodigy stuck in an Irish backwater.”
“I’m serious, Grennan. Where does the All-County rank on the competition circuit? I don’t know the Irish honors orchestra scene.”
Murder in G Major (A Gethsemane Brown Mystery Book 1) Page 3