by Zara Keane
“We can’t risk the tide washing the body out to sea. Is there any way to get down the cliff fast?” I asked. “Excluding the route Eddie Ward took.”
Lenny, used to my dry humor, didn’t flinch. “If we walk farther along the road, there’s a metal staircase the fishermen used to use. This spot was popular for mooring boats before Carraig Harbour was built in the Seventies.”
I didn’t hesitate. “Get the flashlight out of your van,” I yelled over my shoulder while I sprinted toward the spot Lenny had pointed out. “And the first aid kit, just in case.”
For a guy who didn’t look particularly sporty, Lenny was surprisingly fast. I’d just reached the first step of the rickety staircase when he jogged over to join me, carrying a flashlight in one hand and a red first aid kit in the other. “This is madness, Maggie. The staircase doesn’t look stable. I’m not sure it’s still in use.”
“Surely the council would have taken it down if it posed a risk?”
Lenny snorted. “This is Ireland. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly. For all we know, that staircase was condemned years ago, and no one’s gotten around to removing it yet.”
I peered down the metal staircase. I’d used a similar staircase down to Carraig Harbour, but this one was visibly older, and a storm was raging. I took a cautious step onto the first landing, and it creaked in a menacing fashion beneath my stockinged feet. If I wore them down the steps, I’d slip. Swallowing past my fear, I pulled off the stockings and used one to tie my hair into a messy bun to stop the wind from blowing it into my face and blinding me.
“This is a bad idea, Maggie.”
I shot Lenny a haughty look. “Then stay up here and wait for the emergency services. I’m going down.” I held out a hand for the flashlight and first aid kit.
He sighed. “If you’re going down, I’m coming with you. Just don’t blame me if we’re washed out to sea.”
In my haste to reach the stairs, I’d shoved from my mind the potential danger of walking over the rocks while the tide was coming in. As we descended, the precariousness of the situation on the beach became more apparent with each step. I clung to the railings, exhaled my trepidation, and forced one foot in front of the other. Something about the death scene bugged me, and I couldn’t pinpoint what. But when I had a hunch this strong, I was rarely wrong.
The climb down to the beach took us ten minutes, by which time the body was partially covered by water.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Lenny said the instant we stepped onto the slippery rocks. “The man’s dead. There’s nothing you or I can do for him until the ambulance gets here.”
“I know he’s dead,” I said through chattering teeth, “but the sea is almost covering the body. He’ll be washed away if we don’t move him.”
“Sergeant Reynolds will bust a gut if we go around moving dead bodies.”
“In this case, I think he’ll understand. If we don’t shift him now, Reynolds will have to dispatch a search team, or wait and hope the body washes up on a beach somewhere. Besides, we don’t know how Ward died.”
“I’d say that’s pretty obvious,” Lenny said, frowning. “Dude jumped.”
“Or slipped.” I hesitated before voicing my true concern. “Or he was pushed. We can’t rule anything out yet.”
Lenny lost his footing and stumbled into me, almost sending us both crashing into the sea. My heart leaped in my chest, but we managed to stay upright.
“Seriously, Maggie. We need to turn around. Jeez, if I’m the voice of reason, you know it’s got to be bad.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, a bubble of laughter escaped me. Lenny had a point. An occasional stoner and a dedicated UFO spotter, he wasn’t usually the kind of guy to shy away from the absurd.
“We’ll move fast and be out of here in no time.” I shone the flashlight over the beach and picked my way over wet rocks made slippier by seaweed. After a few minutes, and several stumbles, we reached the spot where the postman lay sprawled face down with his head at an unnatural angle.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Lenny said. Despite his obvious trepidation, he didn’t slow down, and he didn’t turn back. He might not be a typical alpha male, but the guy had guts.
I crouched down by the body and checked for vital signs on autopilot, even though I knew there’d be none. With the aid of the flashlight, I scanned the area around the body but could see no signs of a discarded weapon or any object that pointed to the postman’s death not being the result of a fall from the cliff. Freezing seawater sloshed over my feet. “I’ll use my phone to take photos, and then we’ll move the body.”
“I hate to break it to you, Maggie, but this isn’t an Instagram moment.”
“Don’t you watch CSI? The photos are for the police. I want them to see where he fell.”
“I’m more into the stuff they show on the Syfy channel,” Lenny said. “Give me space ships and alien goo over cops and crime scenes any day.”
“You’re getting the real deal tonight, I’m afraid.”
Lenny groaned. “Ugh. I can’t imagine having a job where I had to look at those sorts of photos every day.”
I took a few shots and then shoved my phone back into my pocket. “Grab a leg. We’ll drag him farther up the beach.”
Between us, Lenny and I managed to haul the sea-soaked body a few feet closer to the cliff wall. Over the roar of the waves and the wind, I identified the sound of approaching sirens.
“I think Mack is on duty tonight,” Lenny said.
“I hope so. I’d be glad to see a friendly face after this experience.” Mack McConnell, the town pharmacist and Lenny’s longtime friend, volunteered with the island’s paramedic service. “Can you give him a call and let him know we’re down on the beach?”
“I can try. The signal out here can be dodgy at the best of times, and tonight is not the best of times.”
But Lenny was in luck. By the time he finished filling in Mack as to our whereabouts, the tide was inching toward us.
“We can’t wait for them to get down here.” I nodded in the direction of the metal staircase. “Do you think we can manage to haul the body up to the first landing?”
Lenny exhaled in a sigh. “We can try, but the dude’s a deadweight. Literally.”
After much huffing and puffing, we dragged the postman up twenty steps to the first landing before collapsing in a heap.
“I’m going to need a shot of my grandfather’s poitín after this,” Lenny said, using the Gaelic pronunciation of poteen. “And a couple more before I call my sister.”
“Your sister?” I blinked in confusion and dredged up a memory of a skinny little girl with braids. I hadn’t seen her since I’d been back on Whisper Island, nor heard any mention of her whereabouts. To be honest, until Lenny had mentioned her tonight, I’d forgotten she existed. “Katie, isn’t it? She must be in her early twenties by now.”
“She’s nineteen,” Lenny muttered. “And a new mother.”
“I take it that isn’t good news?”
Lenny snorted. “Hardly. Katie was studying at the University of Bath in England, but she dropped out last summer.” He glared down at Eddie Ward’s corpse, which was currently wedged between us with his backside in the air in an undignified fashion. “That was after she found out she was pregnant by this sack of excrement.”
My stomach lurched. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” Lenny’s bitterness flavored every syllable. “And seeing as I’m the only family member she currently still speaks to, I’m going to have to break the bad news to her.”
I performed a rapid calculation. “When was the baby born?”
Lenny nodded, and his expression under the pale moonlight was grim. “Two weeks ago. A little boy named Ryan.”
I stole a glance at the corpse, and my stomach heaved at the sight of the now-smashed face that I’d seen whole just this morning. “Poor kid. Poor Katie.”
“She’ll cope,” Lenny said. “She’s stron
g. I just wish my parents hadn’t fallen out with her. It wasn’t so much the pregnancy that upset them but her decision to drop out of university.”
“She can always go back once the baby is a little older.”
He shot me a look. “We both know how hard that’ll be.”
“But not impossible.”
A shout from above drew our attention to the clifftop. Two men in reflective gear waved down to us.
“Can you help us get the body up?” I yelled, but the wind whipped my words out to sea. I made hand gestures and pointed to the body.
“Looks like they got the message,” Lenny said as the two men climbed down the rickety stairs.
The paramedics’ descent seemed to take forever. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I was shivering uncontrollably, and my damp coat wasn’t doing its job. Although the weather was warmer than it had been when I’d first arrived on the island, the nights were still cold, and tonight’s rain and wind had ensured that my bones now ached.
Mack was the first to reach us. I was so glad to see his familiar orange goatee that I could have hugged him. The pharmacist’s eyes widened when he registered the body that lay slumped between Lenny and me. “What happened? Did you find him here?”
“He was at the bottom of the cliff. We had to move him,” I said wearily, “or he’d have been washed out to sea.”
“Smart thinking.” Mack crouched by the body and felt for a pulse. After a minute, he shook his head. “He’s been dead for a while, I’d say.”
“No kidding,” I said dryly. “Only a superhero could survive a fall from that height.”
The second paramedic loomed over Mack. To my astonishment, I recognized the man as Günter Hauptmann, the weird German guy who’d lived year-round on a houseboat until his home had been smashed during a storm a couple of weeks previously. He was currently sleeping in my aunt Philomena’s spare room, much to Julie’s annoyance.
“You’re a paramedic?” The words had left my mouth before I became aware of how rude they sounded.
“Yeah. I trained as a nurse in Germany.” Günter’s gaze moved to the dead man. “Seeing as you’ve already moved him from the spot where he landed, let’s get the body up to the top of the cliff. I got a text from Sergeant Reynolds to say he’d be here in five.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when the two paramedics carried the postman the rest of the way up the staircase. Lenny and I staggered up behind them, with my teeth chattering from the cold. By the time we reached the top, Sergeant Reynolds had arrived. He kneeled by the corpse and examined the dead man carefully.
The fall had smashed Eddie Ward’s tanned face beyond recognition. Acid burned in my stomach, and Lenny sidled closer to me, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Reynolds glanced up when Lenny and I approached, and our eyes locked. The policeman shook his head. “I should have known you would be involved, Maggie. You’re a magnet for trouble.”
In my drenched and frozen state, I was in no mood to be chastised for a situation that wasn’t my fault. “Believe it or not, I don’t plan to find dead bodies.”
“And yet this is the second corpse you’ve tripped over in the two months you’ve been on Whisper Island.”
All of Reynolds’s flirty friendliness from this morning had evaporated, leaving a razor-sharp edge to his tone. He was doing his job. I knew that. Had our roles been reversed, I’d have also questioned the coincidence of the same person on a small island finding two dead bodies in short succession. All the same, his tone rankled.
“Given that I spotted Ward at the bottom of a cliff, I hardly tripped over his body.” I put my hands on my hips and glared at the man. “Are you accusing me of something, sergeant? If not, I’d like to go home and get out of my wet clothes.”
Liam Reynolds’s hard expression softened, and he rubbed his stubbled jaw. Even under the moonlight, the shadows beneath his eyes were visible. “I’m sorry, Maggie. It’s been a long day, and the last thing I expected was a dead body to deal with.”
“Rough night?” I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were pretty sure you’d make the Movie Club meeting.”
His jaw clenched. “I was. Until Jimmy Wright found a young animal rights activist being chased by one of his prize bulls.”
I wrapped my arms around my freezing body. “What happened?”
“The only way Wright could prevent the bull from trampling the young eejit to death was by shooting it.”
I shuddered. “How horrible. The poor bull.”
“Yeah. All because a young, privileged fool didn’t have the sense to stay away from farm animals.” Reynolds stood and eyed my damp clothes. His gaze moved to Lenny, who looked equally wet and uncomfortable. “You two had better go home and get dry. Could you drop by the station first thing tomorrow morning to give your statements? If the storm gets worse and I have to work through the night, one of the reserves will be there.”
“Don’t you need to question us right away?” I demanded. “After all, this could be a murder inquiry. I took photos before we moved Ward’s body.”
A hint of irritation tinged Sergeant Reynolds’s weary expression. “It looks like a cut-and-dried case of suicide to me. Ward left a note in his van.”
I frowned. “I didn’t see a note in the van when I checked.”
In the background, the animal rights activist started yelling in the police car. Liam muttered something rude under his breath and marched over to the car. He yanked the back door open to reveal a dreadlocked young man with pale, freckled skin, and a petulant pout that his lip ring only served to accentuate. “You can’t keep me here all night,” the guy shouted. “This is police brutality. I want to speak to my solicitor.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to speak to your solicitor when we get to the station,” Liam said irritably. “Until then, I don’t want to hear another word out of you.”
“You can’t leave me in the car while you swan off with your friends.” The young man’s whine reached a crescendo. “I have rights.”
“Yeah,” Reynolds said in a low growl, “and so does the man who was just brought up from the bottom of the cliff. Strange as it may sound to your entitled ears, you’re not my number one priority right now. Deal with it.” With these words, he slammed the car door and marched back to us, a deep frown line between his brows. “You say you didn’t see the suicide note, Maggie. How closely did you look?”
I cast my mind back. Before I’d run to the staircase, I’d checked the postal van to see if someone was in there, but I hadn’t opened the glove compartment or searched the side pockets. I’d been looking for a person, not a note. “Where did you find the note?”
“On the dashboard.”
“That’s weird.” I scrunched up my forehead and replayed the moments before I saw the body at the bottom of the cliff. “I checked the van before we went down to the beach. I’m sure I’d have noticed a note.”
“You can’t have looked in the van for more than a few seconds,” Lenny interjected. “You were moving pretty fast.”
“I guess.” But I wasn’t convinced. Yes, I’d scanned the van quickly, but my years in the San Francisco PD had taught me to pick up pertinent details fast. I hadn’t seen a note on the dashboard, and that was the sort of thing that should have stood out. “Isn’t it possible that someone put the note in the van after Lenny and I went down to the beach?”
Reynolds squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temples. “It’s possible, but unlikely.”
“You’ll need to pursue it,” I said, “and get the van dusted for fingerprints and checked for other evidence. Have you called Dr. Reilly?”
“Dr. Reilly is at a conference in Cork. Günter will have a look at the body when we get him to the Whisper Island Medical Centre.”
“What about calling in a forensics team?”
The policeman sighed and shook his head. “Go home, Maggie, and let me do my job. I’ll see you at the station tomorrow morning. You too, Logan.”
I ope
ned my mouth to protest, but Lenny cut me off before I could begin. “Let’s go, Maggie. You have no shoes, and we’re both freezing. We don’t want to get sick.”
“Okay, I’ll go. If you want me to give my statement tomorrow, it’ll have to be early. I need to open the café at eight o’clock.”
“In that case, come to the station at seven,” Reynolds said. “And bring your phone with the photos. Can Kelly get the café set up without you?” Kelly was the schoolgirl who worked at the Movie Theater Café on Friday afternoons and on Saturdays, as well as on occasions when we needed extra staff.
“Yeah. She’ll be okay.” I cast a last look at the smashed remains of Eddie Ward. A memory nagged at me but remained an elusive sliver. Why did I feel something wasn’t right about the body? Was it the position he’d been lying in at the bottom of the cliff? Something about the postal van when I’d looked in? How could I have missed seeing the note on the dashboard? It didn’t make sense.
We said our goodbyes to Reynolds and the paramedics, and Lenny dragged me back in the direction of his VW van. On the way, we neared the abandoned postal van. Its headlights blazed a trail of light that made me shield my eyes.
“Don’t even think about it, Maggie,” Reynolds yelled after my retreating form. “Don’t touch Ward’s van.”
I bit back a snappy retort and slid Lenny a look of exasperation. He was laughing silently. “Reynolds has your number, that’s for sure.”
I muttered something uncharitable about my new neighbor under my breath, but followed Lenny back to his van.
A couple of minutes later, we resumed our interrupted journey to Shamrock Cottages. I slumped in the passenger seat, brooding over the evening’s events. “Why was Ward still wearing his uniform? Surely he was off duty at this time of night?”
“I have no idea,” Lenny said. “Maybe the storm delayed him. He usually goes over to the mainland on the ferry and catches the last one back to the island, but I doubt the ferry was running in this storm.”
This was possible. Ward could have been delayed. I didn’t know the rules of the Irish postal service, but there could well be a clause that Ward had to wear his uniform whenever he drove the postal van.