Murder in G Major (A Gethsemane Brown Mystery Book 1)

by Alexia Gordon

  “Dr. Brown’s virtuosa performance,” O’Reilly said. “Looks like St. Brennan’s might be a contender in the All-County this year.”

  “If the All-County was held in a pub,” Hurley scowled, “and the judges were all on the piss.”

  Francis raised his glass to Gethsemane. “Sorry I missed the show. Any chance of an encore?”

  Gethsemane waved away the suggestion.

  “Come now.” Grennan climbed from his barstool and addressed the other patrons. “Who’s up for another?”

  Cheers and shouts of “Encore!” answered him.

  Gethsemane demurred. “Maybe Inspector—”

  “Oh, no you don’t. I’ve sense enough not to follow a better act. Besides, it’s you they’re wantin’.”

  “Make you a deal. I will if you will,” Gethsemane said.

  “You first.”

  Hurley slammed his fist on the bar. “Gwon play,” he said, the alcohol’s effects rendering his speech almost unintelligible. “Don’ pretend yer modest. Play anotherdamsong. Thas’ all yer here ferain’tit? To make the music that’ll clean the black mark from Dunmullach’s sullied reputashun?”

  O’Reilly spoke in a low voice. “Watch it, Hurley.”

  Gethsemane caught Hurley’s eye. He glared at her, his gaze pure meanness. Gethsemane returned the glare, picked up the violin and, without taking her eyes from Hurley’s, let fly “The Hanged Man’s Lament.” The mournful air recounted the tale of an honest man framed for murder by a corrupt officer and hanged.

  Francis, now standing behind Gethsemane, chortled. Redness crept up Hurley’s face like the tide rolling in. One hand tightened on his glass, the other clenched into a fist. Gethsemane played with more passion, putting particular emphasis on the passages musically depicting the man’s torment as his village turns against him, whipped into a frenzy by the corrupt officer’s lies. Hurley downed his drink in a gulp and slammed his empty glass on the bar.

  “Careful with that, Hurley,” Murphy chided. “Glassware’s not free.”

  Gethsemane kept playing. When she reached the last measures, Hurley jumped from his barstool and stepped toward her. He looked at Murphy and O’Reilly, hesitated, then stormed from the pub.

  Gethsemane finished the tune as the door swung shut behind him. She lowered the violin and took a deep breath.

  Francis whispered in Gethsemane’s ear. “Well played, Dr. Brown, very well played indeed.”

  Gethsemane bit back a smile.

  As the applause died down someone reminded O’Reilly he’d promised an encore as well.

  O’Reilly tipped his hat to Gethsemane. “Ladies’ choice.”

  “Hmm.” Gethsemane tapped her chin. “How about ‘Dicey Reilly’?”

  “Cute. Hinting at your true feelings about me? You think I’m dicey?”

  Gethsemane’s grin broke loose. “No hidden meaning, Inspector. I just like the song.”

  “Dicey Reilly, it is.” O’Reilly called to the crowd. “Feel free to join in.”

  Several men came forward. One sat at the piano, one picked up a bodhran propped against a wall. One pulled a harmonica from his pocket, another pulled out a tin whistle. A fifth produced a guitar. The tweed-capped man reclaimed his violin. O’Reilly led off with, “Oh poor old Dicey Reilly has taken to the sup. And poor old Dicey Reilly will never give it up.” The ad hoc band joined in and soon the entire pub sang the saga of “poor old Dicey Reilly.”

  At that moment, Gethsemane stopped thinking “poor old Gethsemane Brown.”

  “The Hanged Man’s Lament” replayed in Gethsemane’s head. Hurley’s reaction convinced her he’d deliberately botched the investigation instead of merely screwing up through incompetence. But why? A grudge against Eamon? Orla? Maybe as a favor or debt to Jimmy Lynch. Maybe Lynch wanted revenge on Eamon enough to blackmail a cop into framing him. How to prove any of this?

  Inspector O’Reilly. He’d seemed warm to her at the pub. He hadn’t threatened to arrest her, anyway, like he had in the parking lot. Maybe, if she could force herself to check her inner snark demon, she could sweet talk him into letting her examine the evidence from the case. If the garda kept evidence for such a long time. She crossed her fingers.

  She rode her bike to the garda station after school, trying not to get too excited. She was probably going on a goose chase. She pedaled faster. She wanted to get to O’Reilly before he got off duty. Even if the evidence had already been destroyed, seeing the inspector wouldn’t be a total waste. She could ask him about the Morris video.

  She leaned her bike against a wall of the Gothic building and climbed the steps. She opened the door just in time to crash into Inspector O’Reilly coming outside.

  The slight scratch of the wool tickled her nose as her faced pressed hard against his jacket. She heard the soft thud of his hat hitting the ground. Two seconds passed. Neither moved. She breathed in the sandalwood and clove of his cologne. She liked sandalwood.

  The inspector stepped back. “Sorry.” He stooped to pick up his hat. “We seem to keep bumping into each other. Literally.”

  “Fate. You’re the person I was coming to see.”

  “I’m on my way out.”

  Gethsemane opened her mouth then caught herself. No snark. She tried again. “When will you be back?”

  O’Reilly adjusted his hat and looked at his watch. He looked at Gethsemane then his watch again and sighed. “Will this take long?”

  “Only a minute. Or ten.” She clasped her hands as if praying. She smiled.

  O’Reilly hesitated, seeming to weigh his options. “If I say no, you’ll keep at me until I change my mind, won’t you?”

  She nodded it.

  His broad shoulders slumped. “All right. Ten minutes. What do you want?”

  “To get into the evidence room or locker or wherever you keep files on old cases.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Absolutely not. We can’t have civilians mucking about in evidence. It’s a secure area. Official visitors only and we have to sign in and out.”

  “You can’t make an exception even to let me look at evidence from a twenty-five-year-old case everyone except me considers solved?”

  “The McCarthy business. I should have known.”

  “Please?” She smiled again, her best smile. Her butter-up-potential-donors smile. “Pretty please? I’ll buy you a drink. Bushmills. I’ll play all of your favorite pub songs on the violin.”

  O’Reilly stifled the grin playing on his lips. “You’re persistent.”

  “Am I persuasive?”

  “That too. I can’t let you into the evidence room, but I can go in myself and get the McCarthy box for you. I’ll let you examine it in my office for ten minutes.”

  “Thank you, Inspector.” She’d have to keep reminding herself sarcasm wasn’t always the best weapon.

  She followed him into the station to a bank of elevators. He hummed and twirled his hat as they waited for an elevator car. He seemed to be in a good mood. Why not push luck? The elevator doors opened. “By the way.” They stepped inside. “Have you watched the video?”

  “What video?”

  Gethsemane stared up at O’Reilly, open-mouthed. He pressed the button for the subbasement, his expression deadpan. She sputtered.

  O’Reilly watched the numbers over the door illuminate as the elevator descended. “I’m coddin’. I saw it. And I took it into evidence.” His expression didn’t change.

  “Do you play poker? You’d make a killing with your stone face.” Forget nice. He owed her for that trick. The doors swished open.

  The inspector chuckled. His smile revealed his dimple. “You don’t think I pay for these shoes on an Inspector’s salary, do you?”

  She glanced at his feet. Blac
k leather wingtips. They did look expensive.

  She followed him to an office at the rear of the building. A nondescript metal door concealed its interior. He punched a code into the keypad mounted nearby. “Wait here,” he said and went inside.

  Gethsemane leaned against the wall, wondering what she might find in the evidence box. If the evidence still existed. Her confidence in her plan wavered the longer she waited. Would she find much of anything, considering the shoddy investigation? She recalled a case from a town up the road from where she grew up. A man spent eleven and a half years in prison wrongly convicted of murder. The Justice Project decided to help him when the lead detective confessed on his deathbed to coercing a confession instead of actually investigating. The total evidence collected consisted of three photos, a one-page report, and a shoe. There’d been no autopsies on Eamon or Orla thanks to a quack doctor willing to sign death certificates without asking questions. Had anyone taken crime scene photos? Saved the poisoned bottle of Waddell and Dobb? She hoped Hurley had at least taken notes, if only to pretend to do his job.

  A moment later the evidence room door opened and O’Reilly stepped into the hall. Empty-handed.

  “Inspector?”

  “Bloody box is missing.”

  “Missing? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. We’ve evidence from cases a hundred years old. Never had the staff to dispose of it properly. When we started the cold case unit it became my job to organize the damned stuff. I know where I put the box. It’s missing. There’s an empty space on the shelf where it used to sit.”

  “Maybe it’s just misplaced. Someone moved it.”

  “I checked. It’s not anywhere.”

  Gethsemane swore. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing worse than what I said to the clerk. We spent a fortune upgrading our security system six months ago and this happens.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t taken before the upgrade?”

  “Do they use the term ‘dust catcher’ where you’re from?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s what those boxes are, dust catchers. So are the shelves they sit on. Covered in dust. We can’t keep ahead of it so we stopped trying.”

  “So?”

  “So, the shelf space underneath where the missing box sat is dust-free. Someone took it recently.”

  “Which suggests I’m not the only one who thinks the McCarthy murders aren’t solved.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. That video proves McCarthy didn’t push his wife off a cliff. It doesn’t prove anyone else did. Mrs. McCarthy could have thrown herself over the edge. Or fallen. Cliff winds can beat one hundred kilometers an hour.”

  “How fast is that in English?”

  “Faster than sixty miles an hour.”

  Like being hit by a car on the interstate. Still. “She was murdered, Inspector.”

  “I know you want to believe that, Dr. Brown, but without more specific evidence—”

  “Which has been stolen. Any idea what might have been in the box?”

  O’Reilly shrugged. “Not exactly. If I looked in every box I arranged I’d still be at it. Most likely photos, small items of physical evidence preserved from the crime scene, the investigating officer’s notes, things like that.”

  “The officer’s notes. Any chance Hurley’d have kept copies of his?”

  “I doubt it. No reason to.” He paused. “Well, maybe. Da used to file transcriptions of his notes at the station and keep his notebooks at home. In case the station caught fire, he said. Drove Ma crazy.” O’Reilly put his hands on his hips and stared down at Gethsemane. “You’re not considering going to Hurley and asking him for his notes, are you?”

  “Nope, not thinking of asking him.”

  “Well, don’t. Hurley’s suspected of some nasty dealings with Lynch and others. No one can prove anything. He covered his tracks too well and witnesses have a habit of developing amnesia and broken bones. Just trust me when I say Declan Hurley is not a nice fella. Best not to cross him.” O’Reilly put his hat on, seemed to remember he was indoors, and took it off again. “Can you find your way out?”

  “I can. Why, what’re you going to do?”

  “Paperwork. A theft from a secure area equals security breach. Which equals yours truly spending the rest of the evening writing reports.”

  For Sale.

  The sign posted in the yard of a house near the garda station reminded Gethsemane to check out Hank Wayne. She detoured to the Dunmullach Dispatch’s office. A search of their digital archives revealed two things: Wayne celebrated discovering his Irish heritage by buying properties in Tullamore, Waterford, and Mitchelstown and he’d once again run afoul of preservation societies, in France and England this time, for razing historic buildings, one of them three hundred years old.

  “Pathétique” flared in her head. She regretted sending Billy the documents he’d asked for. But what else could she have done? Lied and pretended she’d lost them? And been evicted faster than Billy could’ve hopped on a plane and come for the deed and tax documents himself. She hoped she hadn’t cost Eamon Carraigfaire.

  As she logged off the computer a headline caught her eye. “The Wayne Terror: Haunting or Hoax?” Fifty years ago, a Michigan family abandoned their home after enduring months of supernatural horror: objects thrown by unseen hands, visions of a stabbed woman and decapitated man, accidents and unexplained illnesses, the violent death of a pet raccoon. The family’s youngest son? Hank Wayne.

  Gethsemane filed the information away. If the Wayne terror wasn’t a hoax, it might prove useful. If Wayne did come gunning for Carraigfaire—Gethsemane shuddered—a round or two with an irate Eamon would revisit enough childhood trauma to send Wayne and his money far from Dunmullach.

  She ran into Teague on the way to the cottage. He pulled alongside her. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “I’ve got my bike.”

  “I’ve got rope. We can tie it in back.”

  Pashley secured, they started for Carraigfaire.

  “I’ve been meaning to check on you,” Teague said. “Things going all right?”

  “Fine.” Considering she was investigating the murders of a ghost and his wife and alienating half the village in the process.

  “Any more strange apparitions?”

  “No.” Eamon wasn’t strange. Maddening but not strange. “I’m sure you were right about what I saw that night. Just Kieran.”

  “Getting used to a new place can be nerve-wracking, especially a place as isolated as Carraigfaire Cottage. If you like, I can drive up nights and check the grounds, make sure everything’s secure.”

  “Please, don’t trouble yourself. I’m okay, honest. Just first night jitters, gone now. I’ve slept in so many strange places I’ve learned to adapt quickly. Wait, that didn’t sound right.”

  Teague chuckled. “I bet you have, touring the world for concerts and whatnot. Eamon and Orla seldom seemed to sleep in the same city twice. I loved the post cards Orla sent me from the exotic locales they traveled to. Still have them.”

  “You and your sister were close?”

  “As can be. Despite our age difference. She was my half-sister, you know. I’m her brother from another mother.”

  “Her death must’ve hit you hard.”

  “Cried like a baby for weeks. Resorted to some pretty stupid things to try to hold on to her.” Gethsemane guessed he meant the psychic Eamon mentioned. “Didn’t take it as hard as poor Eamon. Not surprised he committed suicide. People pointing fingers at him, whispering about him, telling outright lies. The gardaí refused to investigate properly. Easier to take the word of a senile inebriate GP and a vengeful dope peddler than do actual work. The blue bottles are interested in closing cases, not solving crimes. Not that Declan Hurley was much of a guard. The only d
ifference between him and the criminals was his badge.”

  “You believe Eamon is—was—innocent.”

  “Sure I do. He’d never hurt Orla. He would’ve killed anyone who did with his own hands. I don’t think anyone murdered my sister. She either slipped on the rocks or got blown over by high winds.” They pulled into the cottage driveway. “You be careful walking up there.”

  “I’ll stay far from the edge.” She thanked Teague for the ride as he unloaded her bike.

  “Anytime. And please call me if you need anything, no matter how small.”

  She found Eamon near the lighthouse, semi-transparent and bathed in yellow. She counted the steps to the lighthouse door through his torso. He stared, grim-faced, at the waves crashing against the shore. Not a good time to tell him the evidence in his case disappeared from the police evidence room or that Hank Wayne was as much of a parasite as she feared.

  “Bet I can cheer you up.”

  Eamon didn’t answer.

  “Teague believes you’re innocent.”

  “Has O’Reilly agreed to reopen my case?”

  “No, not yet. But he’s moving in that direction.”

  “Liar.”

  “I can’t stand seeing you this way, Eamon. Practically my whole life, whenever I felt like the world dumped a giant load of eff-you on my head I’d reach for your music and you’d pull me through the gloom. I’m going to return the favor whether you like it or not.”

  A smile played on Eamon’s lips and red flickered at the edge of his aura. “You’re persistent. He jerked his head toward the cottage. “Come on. I’ll challenge you to a Beethoven sonata-thon.”

  At the cottage a few nights later, Gethsemane opened the piano and ran a finger over the keyboard, enjoying the cool sensation of the ivory keys. The Steinway reverberated as she coaxed the opening chords of Eamon’s concerto. Teaching had turned out better than she’d feared. If Ruairi stopped being so timid and Colm stopped being “Head Boy,” they might provide the inspiration needed to light the emotional spark in the other students.