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

by Alexia Gordon

  “One way to find out. I know a private toxicology lab in Cork. The chemistry teacher’s sister heads it and he owes me a favor.”

  “Good points. I knew you were the right man for this job.” Without warning, sirens blared in the distance. Gethsemane swore. “I think we woke up the neighbors.”

  She and Francis ran back to the kitchen and scrambled out the window, careful not to drop their prize. The sirens’ wail grew louder as they exited the fenced yard. Flashing lights blinked in the distance.

  “What do we do?” Gethsemane asked.

  “Run for it.”

  Francis turned off the flashlight and they dashed through the darkness toward his car. Gethsemane stumbled. Francis grabbed her arm to keep her from falling, nearly dropping the bottle.

  “Thanks,” Gethsemane said once she’d steadied herself. “But if you have to choose between me and the bourbon, save the bourbon.”

  They ran again and reached Francis’s car as lights and sirens turned onto Hurley’s street. They ducked down onto the floorboards.

  “Now what?” Gethsemane asked. “If we start the car they’ll notice us.”

  “We’ll just wait here until they leave.”

  No such luck. Sirens drew near. A car pulled to a stop and a car door slammed. Flashing lights reflected off the windshield above them. Gethsemane climbed up into the seat and pulled Francis up by the lapels.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  “Wha—”

  Gethsemane put her arms around Francis and pulled him into an embrace. His glasses clattered to the console. Someone tapped on the car window. Gethsemane held the kiss for a few more seconds then pushed Francis away. She put on her best “Who me, Officer?” face.

  Francis rolled down the car window. He seemed to have trouble finding words.

  “Is there a problem, officer?” Gethsemane asked.

  The garda shone his light around inside the car. Gethsemane slid the bourbon bottle beneath the seat with her foot.

  “We got a report of a possible break-in in progress in the area.”

  “We didn’t notice anything.”

  The guard gave the car’s interior a onceover with the flashlight again. Apparently satisfied they weren’t cat burglars, he told them to move along. He winked at Francis before walking back to his own car.

  Francis put his glasses back on and straightened his lapels.

  “Are you okay?” Gethsemane asked.

  “Fine,” he answered without looking at her. “You?”

  “Fine. We’d better beat it before that cop changes his mind.”

  Francis put the car in gear. Gethsemane fished the bottle of Waddell and Dobb from beneath the seat.

  “My friend visits his sister on Sundays,” Francis said. “I’ll run that by his place tonight after I drop you off.”

  “Thanks, Grennan.” They drove in silence for a while. Gethsemane kept her eyes on the road as she spoke. “That kiss.”

  Francis kept his eyes forward too. “Yeah?”

  “It was nothing personal. It was just, you know, to fake out the cop. Right?”

  “Right. Nothing personal.”

  Gethsemane burst into the cottage. “Irish! I found it! I found it!”

  Eamon materialized near the coat rack. “Found what? Where’ve you been? Have you any idea how late it is?”

  “Stop being such a nursemaid and listen. I found it.”

  “What the hell is it?”

  “The poisoned Waddell and Dobb. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s the poisoned bottle. Why else would Hurley have it?”

  “Darlin’, are you having a breakdown? Is the shock of Hurley’s murder getting to you?”

  “No, I am not having a breakdown. Would you listen?”

  “Would you make sense?”

  Gethsemane took a deep breath and counted to ten. She spoke slowly. “I found the bottle of bourbon I think was used to poison you.”

  “Found it where?”

  “In Hurley’s house.”

  “What the hell were you doing in Hurley’s house?”

  “Searching for evidence.”

  Eamon hung his head.

  Gethsemane started from the beginning. “I talked O’Reilly into letting me examine the evidence from your case. When he went to get it from the evidence room at the station he discovered it was missing. I had a hunch Hurley might’ve taken it, so I broke into his place—”

  “Darlin’, when I asked you to help me I didn’t intend for you to resort to felony.”

  “How else was I going to find out if Hurley swiped the box? Which was a felony on his part. His felony negated mine.”

  “Not even under American law. You broke in on your own?”

  “I, uh, may have had some help.”

  “Not O’Reilly.”

  “Course not. He’s a cop.”

  “Frankie Grennan.”

  “No comment. Anyway, the bottle’s going to a lab. I don’t know if anything will come of it, but if it does let’s pray it points to your killer.”

  The combination of sun and blue sky Sunday morning convinced Gethsemane to accept Father Keating’s invitation to church. After services, she munched cake in the churchyard, courtesy of the Hospitality Guild. She stared past the graveyard to the Poison Garden. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. A murderer’s fresh market in the middle of town. Something nagged her…

  “Beautiful.” Francis Grennan stood behind her. Steam from the paper cup he held fogged his glasses. “An effective camouflage for lethality.”

  “I didn’t notice you in church.”

  “Sat in the rear balcony. You’re interested in the poison garden?”

  “Curious.”

  “Ever seen it up close?”

  “Up close, no. I glanced through the fence but it was too dark to see much.”

  “C’mon then.” Francis tossed his cup into a trash bin disguised as a statue of Saint Fiacre and started walking. They strode past trees and shrubs arrayed in autumn’s red-gold, wound through labyrinthine tombstones, and stopped at the poison garden’s wrought iron fence. Francis reached inside a small stone font tucked underneath a nearby holly. He pulled out a key and unlocked the gate.

  “How did you know that was there?” Gethsemane asked.

  “Everybody knows it’s here.”

  “What’s the point of locking the gate if everyone knows the key’s hidden under a bush?”

  Francis shrugged. He swung the gate open. “Coming?”

  Gethsemane followed him inside.

  Gravel crunched beneath their feet as they moved along narrow paths. Up close, in the daylight, the garden’s plants looked more ominous than they had in the twilight with iron bars keeping them at a safe distance.

  Francis pointed out plant names on brass markers. “Castor bean. Progenitor of ricin, a poison favored by Eastern European secret police. Hemlock. Popular with Greek philosophers. Wolfsbane, a personal favorite. Wards off werewolves. And James Joyce used it to kill off Rudolph Bloom.”

  “James Joyce killed someone?”

  “On paper.”

  “Why do you know this stuff?”

  “It’s a hobby. Plants, not poison. Come look at these.” Francis led Gethsemane to another section of the garden. “Crocus. That’s where colchicine comes from. Deadly nightshade. That’s atropine. What?”

  Gethsemane had stopped reading plant labels. “Thanks again for last night.”

  “Did something happen last night?”

  “Did someth—” She reached up and put the back of her hand against Francis’s forehead. “You’re not feverish.”

  “I don’t know about you, but last night I was tucked up at home with a book and a glass of whiskey. I was
not out committing the serious crimes of breaking and entering and theft. I hope you weren’t either.”

  “Let me rephrase. Not that either of us went out last night, but if one of us had gone out and the other had gone with her and helped her do something that almost got them thrown in jail, one of us would want to say thank you.”

  “The other of us would say you’re welcome. And he’d wonder again why the other of us asked him since he’s not exactly been nice to one of us.”

  Gethsemane searched for words. “You know that one guy you can always count on to go along with whatever scheme you cook up no matter how outrageous or how wrong the plan is? You’re that guy. Underneath that curmudgeonly exterior beats the heart of a trickster.”

  Francis gave a sweeping mock bow, sending his glasses tumbling. Gethsemane stooped to retrieve them. She read the label on the plant where the glasses fell. “Foxglove. That’s what Nuala fed me at her tea party.”

  “Nuala Sullivan? You actually ate food from Nuala Sullivan?”

  “I nibbled. I didn’t eat.”

  “Aren’t you the brave soul? Nuala sometimes adds special ingredients to her recipes. Did anyone tell you about the punch at the fete?”

  “Father Keating.”

  “Or the cayenne pepper in the cinnamon cookies at the Garden Club bake sale?”

  “What’s with her? She gets her jollies making people ill?”

  “Nuala’s psychotic.”

  “Not all people suffering from psychoses are dangerous.”

  “Not all dangerous people suffer psychoses. Nuala Sullivan is that rare combination of both.”

  “Why is this woman roaming the village? She needs to be institutionalized before one of her ‘pranks’ kills someone.”

  “She has been. She…”

  Francis’s words faded as something in the distance behind him caught her attention. Something lying on the ground, peeking out from behind a tombstone. A human foot shod in an Aladdin slipper.

  “What is it?” Francis turned to see where she looked.

  Gethsemane exited the poison garden into the graveyard. She stopped short next to a statue of St. Bibiane. At the statue’s base, purple caftan spread out like a deflated hot air balloon, lay Siobhan Moloney, eyes and mouth open wide. The sun glinted off her silver tooth. An arrow protruded from her chest.

  Nine

  Gethsemane spent the most of what remained of Sunday in an exhausting repeat of Friday—answering a homicide detective’s questions at the garda station. How well did you know Miss Moloney? What was the nature of your relationship? Do you find it strange discovering two murder victims, being in the village only a fortnight? His tone and expression told her she was lucky she had alibis for both murders. Or was he angry her arrival in the village coincided with a doubling of his workload?

  Warned by the garda not to talk about the case, Monday flew by in a blur of dodging questions from faculty and students. By the end of the day, the only things she wanted to discuss were whether to have Bushmills or Waddell and Dobb and whether to prop her feet on the coffee table or the sofa as she drank it. She gathered her belongings.

  “Knock, knock.” A wan Francis leaned in the doorway. “How goes it?”

  “Haven’t dissolved into a quivering heap yet. Tempted, though. How’re you? You look rough.”

  “Didn’t get much sleep. Guards kept at me until two a.m. Did you know there are more than a dozen ways to ask someone if they did it?”

  Gethsemane tried not to look surprised. “Why would they ask that?” Was “Did you do it?” a routine police question?

  “Because I could have come and gone from the rear balcony without being seen, I had a variety of reasons for not mourning the passing of Siobhan Moloney, and I’m a mad decent archer.”

  Or not so routine. “I thought plants were your hobby.”

  “I’m a Renaissance Man.”

  “But archery?”

  “Half the village can handle bow and arrow. The archery competition’s the most popular event at the Field Day games.”

  “Seems so medieval.”

  “So does murder.”

  Gethsemane collapsed into a chair. “Two murders in one week. Yours and Orla’s make four total.”

  Eamon materialized on the sofa opposite. “Only four murders in a quarter century.”

  “My hometown boasts six murders in three hundred years. Murder may be common in the big city, but in small towns people are supposed to die in their beds when they’re ninety-two.”

  “It’s Nemesis, goddess of divine retribution, evening up the score. Hurley and Siobhan got what was coming to them. The local bookies gave even odds whether Hurley would die by another’s hand or at the bottom of a bottle. Dirty cops earn enemies. Can’t pretend I’m sorry.”

  “What about Siobhan? I didn’t like her but the death penalty for hosting a few bogus séances seems a bit harsh.”

  “More than a few. But you’re right, ’twas nothing worth killing her for. I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret village secret. Siobhan put on the Madame Blavatsky routine to cover up her true stock-in-trade.”

  “Her true stock-in-trade being?”

  “Blackmail. Siobhan’s spirit guides whispered sweet nothings from beyond the grave, almost always of an embarrassing or incriminating nature. For a ‘small consideration’ Siobhan promised to keep the secrets buried.”

  “Ghosts provided her with blackmail material?”

  “Cop on.”

  “Well, I don’t know, do I? In my limited experience ghosts in this village seem to be a prime source of gossip.”

  “I am not a gossip. But even if an entire heavenly host of specters took over the Information Bureau, it would’ve been no use to Siobhan. She was as psychic as yesterday morning’s toast. She obtained her information the mundane way, from jealous exes, greedy neighbors, and fluthered pub rats. And she wasn’t above listening at keyholes and peeping in windows.”

  “If the whole village knew this, why didn’t anyone turn her in? All of the police can’t be as incompetent as Hurley.”

  “No, but some are just as dirty. According to rumor, Siobhan had stuff on several high ranking gardaí. Who’d dare investigate her, even if someone worked up enough nerve to turn her in?”

  “Easier to shoot her with an arrow? And cheaper?”

  “Not many will miss her.”

  Gethsemane moved to the window and leaned her cheek against the cool glass as she studied the clouds darkening in the distance.

  Oh, to be in Boston. Or Dallas. Or even back in Bayview. Anywhere but in an obscure Irish village with a rising body count.

  “Things could be worse,” Eamon said.

  Gethsemane wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “I guess St. Brennan’s could burst into flame shortly after all the boys succumbed to an outbreak of food poisoning brought on by tainted carrot batons. That would be worse.”

  “Aren’t you Suzy Cheerful this evening? Try to look on the bright side. At least the concerto’s finished.”

  Gethsemane held her hands over her ears. “Don’t talk to me about the concerto. The All-County is less than three weeks away and the boys are still struggling to perform as a whole greater than the sum of its individual musicians, my brilliant-but-irritating soloist has yet to be on time for rehearsal, and Hieronymus Dunleavy is pushing me to ditch him for reasons I suspect have nothing to do with tardiness. I need more than your concerto to pull this off, I need divine intervention.”

  “Maybe Father Keating could put in a word.”

  “You ceased being amusing three minutes ago.”

  “So forget all this and go home.” The leather-soap aroma filled the room.

  Home. Where? Dallas? Bayview? One of the countless other places she’d called “home” when she�
��d performed with this symphony or that ensemble? Places where the only people she’d gotten to know were other musicians who, like herself, had long since moved on? “I promised you I’d help.”

  “You have. You proved I didn’t murder Orla.”

  “I haven’t convinced O’Reilly to reopen your case.”

  “I release you from that part of the deal. You put a bug in his ear, that’s enough.”

  “But the concerto—”

  “Take it. My gift, with thanks. Contact my old manager. He’ll help you sell it. It should pay for your plane ticket.”

  “And then some. But what about Billy? He owns the rights to your music.”

  “Tell him you found it off-property, at the library or school.”

  “Can’t do it. Even if I thought I could pull it off without being sued by half of County Cork, I’d be going home a failure. A disappointment. My overachieving family holds failure in low regard.”

  “They’ll recover.”

  “You’ve never met my family. My eldest sister turned sibling rivalry into a blood sport.”

  “I’ll write some more for you, a symphony, a few sonatas to go along with the concerto. Tell people you found them in a box under the floorboards. Even if someone else lays claim to the rights you’d be famous for discovering them. You could go to the music director of any orchestra in the world and choose any job you want.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Yes.” Eamon’s aura shimmered a mix of yellow, purple, blue.

  “I’m either going to kick myself or get drunk for saying this, but no thanks. I’m staying. I’ll prove you and Orla were murdered and get O’Reilly to investigate.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Gethsemane returned to the sofa, “friends don’t run out on friends.”

  “Are we friends, then?”

  “We tease each other mercilessly, aggravate each other endlessly, and agree to impossible requests by the other. Seeing you miserable and lonely because you can’t get to your wife breaks my heart.” Gethsemane peered down her blouse. “I do have one buried somewhere beneath this cynical, steely exterior. Of course, I don’t expect you to be broken up about me being too ashamed to face my family. My hang up’s trivial in comparison to your loss.”