Thirteen
Gethsemane arrived home to an empty house. Jackson’s note pinned to the door stated he’d gone to check in with O’Reilly and for a walk along Carrick Point. She hung her coat on the hall rack and stood in the entryway as she debated between a hot shower and a bourbon. Bourbon won. She took her drink to the music room and sat at the piano. Eamon’s piano. His beautiful Steinway that would soon be auctioned off at someplace like Ryan’s.
The phone rang in the kitchen. Gethsemane answered on the third ring. Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” sounded as soon as she lifted the receiver. She thought back to another unexpected phone call she’d answered. One that made her an ear-witness to murder. She spoke cautiously. “Hello?”
“Is that Dr. Brown?” The woman’s voice sounded familiar.
“Who am I speaking to?”
“Have you forgotten already? Can’t blame you, I guess. No one really pays attention to what the hired help sounds like.”
Maire, of course. She of the frizzy hair and bad attitude. “How can I help you, Maire?”
“It’s me what can help you. After you finished snooping and left with all your questions, I got to thinking. Maybe I know more about that will than I let on. I bet you’d like to know what happened to it. I bet you’d like to know where the copy is. I bet that will would clear up all the confusion around you and your brother-in-law. Stop people from thinking you had anything to do with murder or fraud or theft.”
“The gardaí would also love to know what happened to the will. Why don’t you go to them?”
“Thought about it, but the blue bottles don’t pay so well. Department rates.”
Blackmail. She’d seen this before. It didn’t end well. Just hang up the phone.
“Dr. Brown, you still there?”
“Still here.” Hang. Up. The. Phone. “Waiting to hear your offer.”
“There’s a fella would pay to make sure no one ever learns the truth. But I like you better than I like him, so I thought I’d give you first dibs.”
Maire didn’t like her that much. She must detest the other guy. Curtis? He was detestable. “How much?”
“Five hundred euros. But I need the money today.”
“I’m not sure I have that much on hand.”
“This fella—”
“But I can get it.” She told Tchaikovsky to shut up. “I might need a couple of hours.” She might be rushing out on a fool’s errand, but if Maire really had the will…True, the maid hadn’t come right out and said so, but from the way she talked, if she didn’t have it in hand, she knew where to find it. She couldn’t let this chance slip away.
“Half past five. The old distillery, the one out by you. That’ll leave you plenty of time to get the cash and get there. But if you’re late, Dr. Brown—”
“I won’t be.”
“And it goes without saying you should come alone. No guards.”
“It goes without saying.”
The line went dead.
Five thirty. Gethsemane checked the clock. She had to hurry. Jackson might come back at any time. She only had about three hundred euros on hand, plus another one hundred she borrowed from Jackson’s emergency reserve, the one her Nervous Nelly sister hid in the lining of his suitcase. She’d pay him back later. If getting hold of the will meant they were both cleared of suspicion, and he got the Freeman sampler as a bonus, he might not even care if she repaid him. One hundred euros short. Maire wasn’t likely to give her a discount. Where could she make up the rest of the money? And find a car? Pedaling the Pashley out to the distillery would take too long. Besides, she didn’t relish being out at some creepy ruin on a bicycle. She had enough of that at St. Dymphna’s. At least in a car she’d have some protection and means of escape if—she shook her head to clear it of the memory and the Tchaikovsky. She picked up the phone and dialed.
“Father Tim,” she greeted the cleric after he answered. “I need a favor. Two favors.”
“If you’re calling about ghosts—”
“I do need to talk to you about that incantation but some other time. What I’m calling about now is urgent.”
“Are you all right? Is Jackson all right? Is anyone injured?”
“No one’s hurt and Jackson and I are both fine. I need—I can’t tell you why I need them—but I need one hundred euros and your car. To borrow. I promise I’ll return the car tomorrow, and I’ll pay you back the money with my next paycheck.”
“Gethsemane—”
“Please, Tim. I’m begging you to trust me. I swear I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t extremely urgent. I can’t tell you what it’s about. I wish I could, but I promised I wouldn’t. All I can say is I’m trying to make sure Olivia’s final wishes are honored.”
Father Tim sighed on the other end. “When do you need the money and the car?”
“Now. Five minutes ago.”
“I don’t like this, but…all right, I’ll be over there. I don’t know how I let you talk me into these things.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you.”
“Anything else yourself will be needing?”
“I’d appreciate it if you could spare a prayer or two.”
The Dunmullach Distillery sat abandoned at the edge of the village, untouched for fifty years. The glorious reds and oranges of the sunset only made the derelict building appear more ominous in contrast with its crumbling ivy-choked walls and caved-in roof. Gethsemane couldn’t imagine Hank Wayne renovating this place. If he bought it, it could only be to finish nature’s demolition and use the property for something else. The distillery made St. Dymphna’s look like Disney. She patted the money on the seat next to her, glad she’d convinced Father Tim to loan her his vehicle. Being out here on her bicycle would have been even worse than she imagined. Even locked inside a three-thousand-pound car with the windows rolled up, it took all of her willpower to keep from turning around and going back to the cottage.
She parked the car a few yards away from the building. She scanned the surroundings as she walked the final distance, searching for figures lurking in the untamed growth. The distillery’s front door had rotted away at some indeterminate time past. She stepped over its remains on her way inside. Bits of slate tiles still showed through the brush that had taken over the floor. A broken down still and a row of monstrous mash tuns lined up beneath an iron catwalk provided the only clues to the building’s former purpose. A manila envelope sat propped at one end of the catwalk, accessible by an iron ladder bolted to the wall.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gethsemane muttered. She called for the maid. “Maire, where are you? Come on out.” She pulled a roll of bills from her coat pocket and held it up. “I kept my end of the bargain, you keep yours. Where are you?”
No answer. She called again and waited five minutes. Still no answer. She sighed. Obviously, Maire expected her to climb to the catwalk, take the envelope, and leave the cash in its place. She probably watched from some secure remote area. Nothing to be done for it.
She slipped the money back into her pocket and grabbed the ladder with both hands. She shook it as hard as she could. It didn’t move. She climbed up to the catwalk.
She knew she was in trouble as soon as she put her weight on the platform. A terrifying metallic groan filled the air as the railing tilted down toward the mash tuns. She looked down and saw empty holes where bolts used to secure the deck plates and railing to the wall should have been.
The manila envelope slipped from the platform and tumbled down to a mash tun. It sank into the murky black liquid that had filled the vessel over half a century of rainstorms. Gethsemane flailed her arms as she slid in the same direction. She managed to hook a section of railing as her feet left the platform. That section of catwalk now swung free from the wall. It remained attached to a neighboring section of catwalk by a cross bea
m. It swung back and forth on this tenuous hinge, dangling its terrified passenger first over the mash tuns, then over the slate floor, then back over the mash tuns. A hysterical laugh escaped her lips when she realized the creaks and groans of the fatiguing iron had a musical quality. At least she’d have a funeral dirge.
The cross beam gave way with a final blood-freezing crack. Gethsemane lost her grip on the railing as she and the catwalk plunged. She closed her eyes…
And hit something wet. She sank slowly but steadily as though falling through glycerin instead of water. She thrashed her arms and legs, desperate to find something to halt her descent. She opened her eyes but saw only darkness above her. She heard a distant echo of something metallic hitting the side of the tun, then clattering away. She closed her eyes again, ready to give up for the first and last time in her life, when she felt a hand grab her by the arm. A sizzling charge coursed to her shoulder as the hand pulled her upward. She broke the surface of the water with a lung-restoring gasp. Momentum carried her halfway out of the mash tun. She draped herself over the container’s side, head toward the floor, and swallowed air in great gulps. She looked up to see Captain Lochlan floating above her.
“It’s done now,” he said. “I’ve redeemed myself.” He began to dematerialize.
“Patience drowned. She drowned, didn’t she, and you couldn’t save her? You tried but you couldn’t save her.”
“I’ve saved you. And she’s forgiven me.”
“I doubt she ever blamed you in the first place.”
“I blamed me.” Gethsemane saw the remaining ceiling beams through his chest. “I promised her ma I’d look after her. I’ve never gone back on my word to a woman.”
“Have you forgiven yourself?” Now she saw trees silhouetted against the twilight. She could no longer make out the details of his clothes.
“Aye, I have.” He smiled. “You’ll be all right now. When you’re rested, there’s a ladder on the side of the tun. Use it to climb down.”
“I won’t see you again, will I?”
“I’m afraid not. At least not on this side of the veil. So I hope I won’t be seeing you for a good long time.”
“Not even if I sing that awful song?” She hummed a few bars of “Captain Heuston’s Lament.”
His eyes and his smile were the last things to go.
Gethsemane pulled herself around to the side of the mash tun where the ladder was attached. She heard voices. She ducked down, careful not to submerge her face in the muck, and listened.
Male voices. “Are you sure we haven’t met somewhere before? I don’t forget faces and yours is familiar to me. I swear I’ve seen you someplace.”
“Perhaps you’ve confused me with someone else.”
Voices she recognized. One American, one Irish.
“Don’t collect art, by any chance? Maybe I’ve run into you at an auction. ContempoPop, maybe, at Christeby’s? In New York.”
“The only things even resembling art I’ve ever collected have been pinups I clipped from magazines, and I’ve never been to New York.”
“You say you’ve never been to New York? Everyone’s been to New York.”
“It’s on my bucket list.”
She hoisted herself up and grabbed the ladder. “Mr. Wayne, Mr. Delaney, can you give me a hand?”
The two men rushed into the distillery.
“Dr. Brown.” Hank stared up at her from the base of the mash tun. “What the hell? How’d you get up there?”
Ray climbed the ladder. “Don’t move.” He grabbed her by the hand and helped her down. “Sit here.” He eased her to the ground as her legs gave out.
She propped her back against the tun. “Thank you.”
“What’s going on?” Hank asked. “What’re you doing out here?”
Gethsemane countered. “What are you doing out here?” She said to Ray, “Not that I’m not glad to see you.”
“Delaney’s showing me around. I’m thinking of buying the property. He’s executor of that woman’s estate, or will be if they ever find her will, so I asked him to give me a tour.”
Ray had told her he’d bring Hank to tour the distillery, even offered to meet her for a drink after. But a tour at night? She assumed he’d give Hank the tour during normal business hours. Why so late? “I forgot Ray mentioned you’d be coming. Please forgive me. Near-drowning has me a little fuzzy.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Dr. Brown,” Hank said, “about what you’re doing out here. If this is an attempt to sabotage my purchase of Carraigfaire—”
“Maire tried to kill me.”
Ray sputtered. “Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle’s Maire? Surely, you’re coddin’. Why would she—”
“She called me and told me she had the will. Or, strongly implied she did. She offered to sell it to me for five hundred euros. She lured me out here, but she never showed up.”
“But how’d you end up in the tub?” Hank asked.
“I saw an envelope on the catwalk. I assumed it contained the will and Maire meant for me to take the envelope and leave the cash for her to collect later. So I climbed up. What I didn’t know was she’d removed the bolts that secured the catwalk to the wall. I fell.”
“You’re lucky you landed in one of the tuns instead of the floor,” Ray said. “We’d have come upon a tragic scene if you had.”
Lucky she didn’t hit the floor and lucky a ghost saved her from drowning. “Tell me about it.”
“I’ll call an ambulance.” Ray pulled out his phone.
“No need for that,” Gethsemane said. “I’m not hurt, just wet. I have a car.”
“We didn’t see it,” Hank said.
“I left it a little way down the road. I’d appreciate an escort.” Maire was probably long gone but no point taking chances.
Ray walked her back to her car. “Will you be all right to drive?”
“I’ll be okay. I don’t have far to go. Thank you again.”
“Dr. Brown, are you sure the will was in the envelope Maire left here?”
“Well, no, I’m not sure. I never opened it. It could have been a blank piece of paper or the envelope might have been empty. Whatever it was, or wasn’t, it’s at the bottom of a mash tun now.”
“If it was a decoy, Maire might have kept the will.”
“If she did, she’ll probably try to sell it again. She mentioned a man who wanted it. Maybe Curtis. If the will disinherits him, he’d pay to make sure it disappeared forever.”
“You should report this to the gardaí, Dr. Brown.”
“I will. As soon as I get home.” She sniffed her coat sleeve. “Almost as soon as I get home. First, I’m going to wash the sludge off before it eats through my skin, then I’m going to burn these clothes. I’ll call the police after that.”
Fourteen
Gethsemane eased open the cottage door and tiptoed to the stairs. She hoped to slip up to her room unnoticed. However, she only made it to the second stair before the stench of the mash tun’s foulness gave her away.
“What’s that smell?” Jackson called from the study. He stepped into the hall and wrinkled his nose. One glance at her wet clothes and slime-flecked hair and he phoned the gardaí. She jumped to grab the receiver from his hand, a futile effort thanks to his foot’s height advantage. She succeeded in splashing some of the distillery’s filth onto his sweater.
“At least give me the phone,” she said when she heard the annoyed “hello, hello” on the other end of the line. “I’ll talk to them.”
“Who is this? I’m warning you, wasting gardaí time—”
“This is Gethsemane Brown. I need to speak with Inspector O’Reilly.”
“The Inspector’s not available,” the voice said in far less time than it would have taken to actually check.
“When will he be available?” She hunched over th
e receiver to keep it away from Jackson, who tried to grab it. “Did I mention this was urgent?”
“Urgent, eh? What’s this about then?”
The truth would either get her transferred to homicide to some low-ranking garda who would take her statement while silently cursing her for interrupting his break then leave the report on someone else’s desk where it might be found in a day or two, or it would send some other low-ranking garda to fetch her down to the station where she’d spend a long night answering questions. If her luck held, she’d spend what remained of the night in a cell for wasting police time since she didn’t have any hard evidence or witnesses to prove Maire tried to kill her. She’d run the drill with Dunmullach homicide before. O’Reilly would take her seriously, even if he didn’t ordinarily deal with crimes of recent vintage.
“I’m hanging up now.” The voice on the phone brought her back. “If you call back I’ll have you run in—”
“I’m not wasting your time. Tell Inspector O’Reilly it’s about his cat.”
“His cat.”
“Yes, his cat.” Using a man’s pet to lure him to the phone was low, but she was desperate. Jackson had his smartphone out, about to call 999. If emergency services showed up at the door she’d lose all control of the situation. “Please just tell the inspector Gethsemane Brown is calling about his cat.”
A few clicks on the other end of the line and O’Reilly’s anxious baritone replaced the angry voice. “What’s wrong with Nero?”
She’d forgotten he’d named his cat after the fictional detective. He’d adopted him after he solved his former owner’s murder. She hated herself a little bit. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“The desk sergeant said—”
“Nero’s fine. I guess. I haven’t seen your cat.”
The inspector hurled a string of expletives in plain English. “Gethsemane Brown, if you—”
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