Nine
Gethsemane sat in the Ballytuam garda station in the same windowless interview room in the same chair at the same graffiti-scarred table and waited for Yseult. She ran through the first three verses of “Bingo Was His Name-oh” before Yseult entered the room with two Styrofoam cups.
“Tea?” She placed a cup in front of Gethsemane.
“Thanks.” Gethsemane pushed the cup aside. “Where do we start?”
“Down to brass tacks? All right.” Yseult set her cup aside, too. “The bill of sale.”
Not the dead body on the patio. Interesting. “I didn’t find it.”
“Where’d you look?”
“In Olivia’s office—her desk, bookshelves, filing cabinets.”
“You looked in the filing cabinets? They weren’t locked?”
“I, um, managed to open a few.” She wished Captain Lochlan had come with her, if only for moral support, but the garda station only dated back to 1932.
“And you found nothing at all?”
“Florida real estate brochures and auction catalogs. No bill of sale.”
“Damn.” Yseult seemed to be speaking to herself. “Where the hell is it?”
Gethsemane repeated Sergeant Heaney’s question. “Does the attempted theft of the Freeman sampler, excuse me, the fake Freeman sampler, have anything to do with Olivia’s death?”
“Sorry, what?”
“The Patience Freeman sampler, Olivia’s death? Are they connected?”
“As I said—”
“I know, until the medical examiner rules on the cause of death you can’t say for certain. But if you had to hazard a professional guess?”
“Unofficially, yes. I believe someone pushed Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle over that balcony. She probably interrupted the thief. Maybe that’s why the thief stashed the sampler in the bush. They’d just murdered a woman, needed to escape quickly, and couldn’t risk taking the sampler with them.”
“At least you don’t think I killed her.”
“Nor do I think your brother-in-law did.”
Why would she, or anyone, suspect Jackson of murdering Olivia? Did they know he’d stopped by Essex House? Had one of the staff mentioned seeing him?
“However,” Yseult continued, “Ballytuam’s finest would just as soon pin the blame on the most convenient suspects and close their case.”
She’d said those same words to Jackson, but she had reason to mistrust the police. Yseult was supposed to be on their team. Did Yseult feign disdain for her colleagues to trick her into thinking she found an ally? Or did the forensic examiner who spent more time in the field than the lab really hold the guards in contempt?
“I’m afraid,” Yseult said, “things may become—complicated—for you and Dr. Applethwaite.”
Complicated how? What did Yseult know? And what did she want in exchange for simplifying things? A tip about a possibly fake Jasper Koors teddy bear painting?
Sergeant Heaney burst into the room. “Gethsemane Brown, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the attempted theft of the antique embroidery known as the Patience Freeman sampler. I caution you that you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence. Please stand.”
“Arrested?” Gethsemane looked back and forth between Yseult and the sergeant. “You must be joking. Or out of your fu—I’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve no cause to arrest me. No, I won’t stand. And I want a lawyer.” Welcome to complicated.
Yseult stood next to Sergeant Heaney, close enough for the police officer to notice Yseult’s height advantage. “Sergeant, don’t you think your charges are premature?”
Heaney, some of her bravado gone, stepped back. “Preliminary, ma’am, not premature. Once the medical examiner’s ruled on Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle’s cause of death we’ll be amending the charge to homicide.”
“The hell you will!” Gethsemane slammed her palm on the table. “I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t steal anything. I played piano at a fundraiser, that’s all.”
“That’s for a jury to decide.” The sergeant smirked.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Sergeant. You’ve already brought Dr. Brown to trial for a crime that may not have been committed. We don’t know there’s been a murder.”
“Well, no, not yet, but—”
“Witnesses who can account for Dr. Brown’s movements? At least one has already come forward. Have you completed your interviews yet?”
“Not all, no, but—”
“I appreciate your eagerness to close this case, but we mustn’t let enthusiasm lead to cutting corners.”
Gethsemane emerged from her fog of anger long enough to pay attention to Yseult and Sergeant Heaney’s interaction. Yseult reprimanded a garda sergeant, practically ordered her to undo her arrest. Who gave her such authority? She admitted being loaned to the garda’s fraud bureau but never said who loaned her. It had to be Interpol or some government alphabet agency if she could pull rank on the locals. Was this art crime ring that big of a deal? Or were Yseult and the sergeant blowing smoke, trying to trick her into incriminating herself or her brother-in-law? Maybe this was the Irish version of good cop/bad cop. She decided not to mention her theory about the Koors painting. If Jackson came up with anything, she’d tell O’Reilly. Him, she trusted.
“Sergeant,” Yseult said, “I’m still questioning Dr. Brown. In the meantime, why don’t you pursue some of your other lines of inquiry? When I’ve finished with Dr. Brown, we’ll see about resolving this situation to everyone’s satisfaction.”
Sergeant Heaney reddened. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll ask her brother-in-law what he was doing at Essex House tonight. In the meantime.” She drew out the last word.
Yseult said nothing.
The sergeant brightened. “Did you know Jackson Applethwaite went to Essex House? He went looking for Dr. Brown. The kitchen staff saw them talking.”
So the house staff squealed. Gethsemane glared at Heaney. “And he got in a cab and left Essex House to go back to Dunmullach while Olivia was still alive. Why don’t you pursue that?”
“I’m sure Sergeant Heaney will interview the taxi driver as well as anyone else with relevant information. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Sergeant, we must be keeping you from your work.”
Sergeant Heaney turned on her heel and left.
Yseult resumed her seat. “You didn’t mention Dr. Applethwaite’s visit to Essex House.”
She didn’t mention a lot of things. “He didn’t go into the house, and Olivia was alive when he left. I didn’t want to further complicate things.”
“I appreciate your wanting to protect your brother-in-law, but I expect candor if I’m going to help you.”
Candor. A funny demand from a woman anything but candid. Gethsemane crossed her arms over her chest and felt the button dig into her flesh. Relevant? Maybe, maybe not. One more thing not to share with Yseult.
“I apologize.” She dropped her arms. “I’m not used to being a suspect. I’m not sure how to act.” She added the button to the list of things to eventually tell O’Reilly. After she checked it out. Assuming she ever got out of the garda station.
“Understood.” Yseult stood. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’m sure the guards are bringing Dr. Applethwaite back to the station, if he isn’t here already. I want to speak to him myself rather than rely on Sergeant Heaney’s interpretation of events. I also want to speak to her superiors about her aggressive handling of the case.” Yseult paused at the door. “You should drink your tea before it cools. It’s quite good. Bewley’s.”
A moment turned into an hour, then two. All law enforcement officers must use the same broken timepiece. Gethsemane put her head on the table and closed her eyes. Footsteps awoke her. Yseult stood in the doorway with Jackson and a surprise visitor.
“Niall?”
“Dr. Brown. How are you holding up?”
Titles and last names. An official visit. “I’m hanging in there, Inspector. You know me. Takes more than a multiple-hour garda interrogation to wear me down.”
“Sissy.” Jackson pushed past Yseult and O’Reilly and wrapped her in a bear hug. The soft wool of his coat tickled her face. “Ms. Grennan explained what happened. Don’t worry, she’s taken care of everything.”
The phrase “deal with the devil” popped into Gethsemane’s head. She forced it out.
“Please, Dr. Applethwaite, be seated.” Yseult waved at chairs. She sat opposite and waited until Gethsemane and her brother-in-law settled into chairs. O’Reilly remained standing.
“Does ‘taken care of’ mean not under arrest anymore?” Gethsemane asked.
“Sort of,” O’Reilly said.
“Sort of? Isn’t being under arrest an either-or kind of thing? You’re either under arrest or you’re not.”
“Sergeant Heaney’s pushing to send the file to the DPP.”
“The what?”
“DPP. Director of Public Prosecutions. The DA, you call her. Ms. Grennan’s pushing back, pointing out the holes in Heaney’s case. The DPP could take weeks to review the file, then decide not to prosecute for lack of evidence.”
“Weeks?” Gethsemane turned to Yseult. “You could keep me in a cell for weeks?” She felt lightheaded.
“Not to panic, Dr. Brown,” Yseult said. “I discussed the situation with the sergeant’s superiors. It boils down to this. Please don’t take this the wrong way. You and your brother-in-law are, relatively speaking, unimportant. We’re investigating a crime ring we suspect of moving multiple millions of euros in forged and stolen art. We’ve been after these bastards for over a decade now. Even if you and Dr. Applethwaite were involved in it, which I don’t think you are, but if you were, it wouldn’t have been for very long and you’d be small fish in the criminal pond. We want the sharks.”
“I can guess how this works,” Gethsemane said. “Either Jackson or I or both of us can do something for you. If we agree to help, you’ll let us little fish swim through the net.”
“Anything,” Jackson said. “Anything either of us can do to assist your investigation. You have our fullest cooperation.”
“Fullest” might overstate things. Gethsemane looked at O’Reilly. “What’s the catch?”
“I guaranteed you wouldn’t leave the county and you’d check in with me once a week. And you’d surrender your passports.”
“Reasonable requests, Inspector,” Jackson said.
“So, Ms. Grennan,” Gethsemane leaned toward Yseult, “what do you want?”
“The recovery of the Patience Freeman sampler, due to its value, has become our top priority. Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle’s death is, of course, tragic, but we don’t know yet if her demise resulted from criminal activity. If she was murdered, one can assume whoever stole the sampler bears responsibility for her death. If we apprehend the thief we may solve two crimes. Dr. Applethwaite has numerous contacts in the antiques trade: curators, dealers, textile conservationists. People who know the best market for the sampler. People our thief may contact about selling it.”
“And you want me to provide you with these contacts,” Jackson said. “Put them on the alert, perhaps even set up a sting operation. Naturally, I’ll do whatever I can. I detest those who abuse art for illicit gain. Art is meant to enlighten and uplift, not line criminals’ pockets and fund degenerate activities. Give me a phone and a computer with internet access and I’ll start right away.”
“After first light will be soon enough, Dr. Applethwaite,” O’Reilly said. “I’ll drive you both home. You look beat.”
Jackson had gone out by the time Gethsemane woke up. He left a note telling her to expect him around lunchtime propped against a full pot of coffee. She drank half the pot, then went to the music room with the grimoire. She recited the conjuring spell, then sat at the piano.
“Harmonic likeness. What is Eamon’s harmonic likeness?”
She played “Requiem for a Fallen Angel,” “Jewel of Carraigfaire,” “An Fhuaim Agus An Fury,” and half a dozen more of Eamon’s compositions. Nothing happened. She played Debussy, Hayden, Satie, Tchaikovsky, and a dozen other composers. Her fingers cramped, but no Eamon. She played drinking songs, patriotic songs, Broadway show tunes. Her fingers swelled. She even played “The Wheels on the Bus” and “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider.” Nada. Zilch. Zip. No ghost. She slammed the keyboard cover. What the hell sympathetically vibrated with a snarky dead Irish composer?
She held a pencil in fingers too sore to push the telephone buttons and called Father Tim.
“Gethsemane, how are you?” Concern filled the cleric’s voice. “I heard about your troubles in Ballytuam. What can I do to help? Tell me what you need.”
“The answer to a question. You knew Eamon well. If you had to name a piece of music that most reminded you of him, what would it be?”
“A single piece of music? I don’t know as I could narrow it down to one. Any of his own compositions.”
“I tried those. They don’t work.”
“Don’t work? What do you mean?”
She explained the spell, harmonic likenesses, and Captain Lochlan.
“Good Lord, deliver us. What if you’d inadvertently conjured up something not as benign as the helpful Captain Lochlan? What if you’d called up some foul fiend from the depths of Hell?”
“But I didn’t. And now I understand how the spell works. I’ll be careful.”
“Careful? How many songs did you run through before you called me, not knowing who’d answer to any of them?”
She glanced at her bruised fingers and recited her playlist.
“Oh, Jaysus,” Father Tim said once she’d finished. “Thank God none of them worked. Who knows what awful creature might have vibrated to ‘The Wheels on the Bus.’”
“Okay, point taken. I’ll be careful from here on out. But I need to figure out what music to play.”
“No, Gethsemane.”
“But, Tim—”
“But nothing. We had a deal, remember? One spell only. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work.”
“It is only one spell, and it did work. It just didn’t work out the way I planned. We’re talking about saving Carraigfaire. I have to keep trying.”
“I know you love the cottage, but this isn’t the way to go about saving it. I’ll talk to Billy and I’ll talk to a solicitor. Our Lady’s got one on retainer. He’s experienced in historic property preservation. I’ll see what can be done through mundane means. But no more spell-casting. It’s not safe.”
She sat unmoving at the kitchen table for a long while after hanging up. She felt lost. Carraigfaire’s fate was out of her hands. She needed to do something. Sitting still and letting events run their course wasn’t in her nature. She showered and dressed, then retrieved the button she found in Olivia’s courtyard from her bedside stand and examined it. The hallmarks on the button back identified it as sterling silver. The front bore a coat of arms incised into the metal.
She debated turning the button over to the Ballytuam gardaí but thought of having to deal with that sergeant again. She shuddered. Besides, she couldn’t be sure the button had anything to do with Olivia’s death. She didn’t find it on or under her body. It could have lain in the grass for—Gethsemane recalled the last rainstorm. If the button had been lost before then, it would have been embedded in the ground, covered in mud, not lying clean on the surface of the grass. It might have been lost anytime in the past couple of days, anyway. She needed to find out who it belonged to. She’d passed a tailor’s shop tucked in amongst the galleries and solicitors in Ballytuam. She’d start there, but she’d need a cover. And she knew just the man to provide it.
Gethsemane parked her bike in front of Erasmus Hal
l, a red brick Georgian building on the east end of St. Brennan’s campus. Bachelor teachers who lived on campus boarded in one of its two wings. Their number included Francis Grennan.
Most of the faculty had gone away for the holidays, but a few, Frankie among them, chose to celebrate the season on campus and remained in the hall. Gethsemane’s footsteps echoed along the empty corridor as she approached Apartment 1B. She knocked and held her breath while saying a silent prayer. What if Frankie wasn’t in? Would he be at the pub this time of day? How much time would she spend tracking him down? He was the only one who could help her with her plan.
Luck worked with her for a change. Frankie answered the door. He wore an oversized t-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Miles Davis in place of his usual Oxford button-down, but his wrinkled khakis and wire-rimmed glasses hadn’t changed. He hadn’t shaved since she last saw him, and he sported facial hair somewhere between five o’clock shadow and a sparse beard. She ran a still-puffy finger along his jaw.
“Going hipster?”
“Good morning. Or afternoon.” He grabbed her hand. “What happened to your fingers?”
“Morning to you, too. Piano accident, nothing serious.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Can’t I just stop by for a visit, see how you’re doing? You were in bad shape the other day.”
“Come for the craic? Gethsemane Brown, this is me you’re talking to. The only reasons you’d stop by unannounced are something’s wrong or you’re up to something.”
“I told you nothing’s wrong.” Frankie’s cynicism was matched only by his perspicacity.
“Then what’re you up to?”
She pulled the button from her pocket and held it up. “May I come in? Or are you hiding a girl in there?”
“I like women, not girls.” He took the button. “Where’d this come from?”
He backed up to let her pass into his tidy living room. Wall shelves held a collection of books and vinyl records. They flanked a wall-mounted flat-screen television and a record player on a console. A leather couch stood opposite. A stack of jazz magazines, edges perfectly aligned, sat on the coffee table. Nothing seemed out of place. The only thing rumpled about Frankie Grennan was his wardrobe. She’d fix that.
Death in D Minor Page 12