Dial P For Poison (Movie Club Mysteries, Book 1): An Irish Cozy Mystery

by Zara Keane

  The other aspect to our conversation that troubled me was the blackmail revelation. If Sandra had blackmailed Noreen, it stood to reason she had other victims. Had she pushed one of them too far until he or she had snapped?

  I’d left the town by now and cruised along the winding coast road. Preoccupied with my thoughts, I saw the motorcyclist zooming toward me a second too late. I slammed on my brakes and swerved the car into the ditch. Oh, heck. The ditch was deep. I’d never get the car out on my own. I climbed out of the car to confront the cause of my current predicament. “Are you insane?” I yelled. “You were driving straight at me.”

  The motorcyclist removed his helmet, and the beam of the car lights revealed close-cropped dark blond hair and a face that would have been movie star handsome but for a nose that had been broken more than once. Despite the crazy situation, a jolt of desire fixed me to the spot.

  “I was driving straight at you, all right,” he said with a grin I wanted to slap off his disturbingly handsome face. “On the left side of the road.”

  “Exactly. What sort of lunatic— Oh…” I trailed off and heat burned my cheeks.

  “You were driving on the right-hand side,” he said lightly. “You’re not in America now.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “My accent’s that obvious?”

  His grin spread wider, bringing a twinkle to his deep blue eyes. “Oh, yeah.”

  I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. And for nearly killing you,” I added as an afterthought.

  My companion’s lips twitched. “Apology accepted.” He examined the position of my car. “You’re going to need help getting out of that ditch. Between the two of us, we should manage it.”

  “You have more faith than I do,” I said glumly. “She’s in pretty deep.”

  “Do you have cables in the boot?”

  “In the what?” I met his laughing gaze and felt my cheeks grow warm again. “Oh, right. You mean the trunk. I hope so. It’s not my car. I don’t know where my aunt keeps stuff.”

  He climbed off his bike, making me instantly aware of his broad shoulders and height. I wasn’t used to men who towered over me. My handsome stranger helped me open the back and soon located the cables among the debris.

  I regarded his bike. It was solid, but I wasn’t convinced it was up to the job. “You sure you want to try to pull a car out of a ditch with a motorbike?”

  “This car is pretty light. It should work, at least to get it high enough to drive out.”

  “What you mean is, ‘this car is a piece of excrement and is likely to fall apart at any second.’”

  That wicked twinkle again. “Your words, not mine. Far be it from me to criticize a vehicle that passed the NCT. It did pass, right? Despite the rust?”

  “Whatever the NCT is, the car must have passed. When I arrived, my aunt was able to put me on her car insurance.”

  “It’s the National Car Test. We do our best to keep rust buckets off the road in Ireland.” His mouth curved into a grin. “And we try to persuade drivers to obey the rules of the road.”

  “When you’re finished insulting my driving skills and my car, let’s get it out of the ditch.” I regarded the motorbike dubiously. “It’s a Harley, right?”

  He beamed. “Correct.”

  “If you want to risk breaking it, it’s on you.”

  His laughter followed me into the car.

  A few minutes and several attempts later, Noreen’s car was high enough that I could maneuver it out of the ditch without assistance from the motorbike. I rolled down my window. “Thanks,” I said sheepishly. “And sorry again for nearly causing an accident.”

  “No worries. Just make sure you stay on the left side from now on.”

  “Okay.” I eyed him more closely. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

  “That’s because I don’t live here,” he said cheerfully. “I just drove off the ferry.”

  “Ah, that explains it.” I looked at the bike and his small travel bag slung over the back. “You over for a holiday?”

  “Not exactly,” he replied, clearly amused by my curiosity. “Just a day trip—for now.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you around.” I cursed the hopeful note I heard in my voice. What was wrong with me? Hadn’t I sworn off men for the next while, especially ones I was attracted to? I needed to break my habit of picking bad men.

  My handsome stranger grinned and straddled his bike, giving me all sorts of dirty thoughts. “Have a good evening and drive carefully, or you’ll have the local cops on your tail.”

  I snorted. “That would involve some actual work and brainpower.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Not a fan of the local constabulary?”

  “Let’s just say the local police sergeant and I aren’t on the best of terms,” I said dryly. “Anyway—” I gave him a mock salute, “—enjoy your stay on the island.”

  My biker pal drove off in the direction of Smuggler’s Cove, and I continued my journey to Noreen’s cottage with a sigh. The handsome stranger was the first man who’d interested me in a long time. I’d started to think I’d gone off the opposite sex. Pity the timing and circumstances of our meeting were lousy. I shifted gears and turned my attention back to the murder investigation. I was due to meet Julie later for a run. Given that time was now of the essence, I intended to rope her and Lenny into helping me sift through the suspects and question them. Sergeant O’Shea wouldn’t like it, but if it were left up to him, Noreen would be tried and convicted, and no other potential suspect investigated. I wouldn’t let that happen.

  When I got back to the cottage, I tried calling Paddy Driscoll but got no reply. For once, the cats were delighted to see me, and rubbed against my legs meowing in an orgy of delight when I removed several cans of cat food from the pantry. I did a quick head count and frowned. “Poly?” I called. “Where are you?” The last thing I needed right now was a missing pregnant cat. A dreadful thought struck me, and my stomach lurched. Please don’t let her be having her kittens. What happened during a cat birth, anyway? Would I need to call a vet?

  After I’d made sure the livestock was fed and watered, I changed into my running gear and went outside to look for Poly. Bran joined me, panting. I bent down to pet him. “You ate your meal in record time. Want to help me find Poly?”

  He barked as if to say yes and performed an ecstatic dance around my legs.

  “Hmm,” I said, eyeing him warily. “This isn’t a cat-hunt, you know. We want to check that Poly’s okay. No funny business. Got it?”

  Bran gave me a generous lick and took off in the direction of the barn. Maybe he knew something that I didn’t. After all, he was the lone dog in a house full of cats. Perhaps some secret feline knowledge had rubbed off on him. Bran and I searched the barn and other outhouses, but there was no sign of Poly, and neither the goats nor the alpaca shed any light on her whereabouts. I pulled my running jacket tight around my chest in a futile effort to protect myself from the sharp sea wind. The cats all made sure to be inside before dark, and Poly was usually the first. Could she have been hit by a car? I hadn’t seen any cats on the ride home, but my night vision wasn’t the best.

  After a last look around the barn, I gave up the search and headed for the front of the house. Bran raced ahead of me, panting, and waited impatiently at the gate. “Are you ready to go for a run?” I asked when I caught up with him.

  Bran whined and pawed the gate.

  I clipped his leash to his collar and looked down the road to see if there was any sign of Julie. She pulled up a few minutes later.

  “I heard about Noreen,” she said the moment she got out of her car. “Mum is terribly worried. That’s why I’m late.”

  “No problem. I had to look for one of Noreen’s cats. I didn’t find her, unfortunately.”

  “Is it the pregnant one?” my cousin asked.

  “Yeah.” I blew out my cheeks. “I don’t want to cause Noreen any more stress by telling her Poly
is missing.”

  “She’ll turn up,” Julie said with more confidence than I felt. “She’s probably made herself a cozy nest to have her kittens. Now back to Noreen—what’s the story? Does she have a lawyer yet?”

  “Jennifer Pearce is representing her until a criminal lawyer can get here.”

  My cousin shook her head. “How can O’Shea think Noreen had anything to do with Sandra’s death? It’s crazy. Why would she want to kill Sandra? Someone must have stolen her medicine and put it in Sandra’s drink.”

  I shifted position, uncomfortably aware that I couldn’t confide in my cousin without breaking my aunt’s confidence. “At the moment, all O’Shea has to go on is circumstantial evidence. There’s no proof that Noreen tampered with Sandra’s cocktail.”

  “Then how can he go and arrest her? It’s outrageous.”

  “I think he jumped the gun on the arrest, but the more time he has to gather evidence, circumstantial or concrete, the worse it’ll be for Noreen. A clever prosecutor can use a mass of circumstantial evidence to convince a jury.”

  Julie shivered and hugged herself. “It’s horrible. I’ve known Noreen all my life. A less violent person, you can’t meet.”

  “We’re all capable of murder, Julie,” I said as we started down the path we used for our runs.

  “I’m not,” she said hotly, “and neither is Noreen.”

  “We’re not all capable of the same sort of murder,” I continued, “but every one of us has the capacity to kill, given the right-for-us circumstances. I can’t tell if Sandra’s murder was carefully planned or a spur-of-the-moment crime.”

  “To get the medicine into the cocktail without any of us noticing took planning,” Julie said.

  “But did it? Let’s hash this out for a sec. How many people knew Noreen was having her wisdom teeth taken out that Friday?”

  My cousin flashed me a wry smile. “Most of the island. News travels fast here, Maggie. Everyone was interested in your arrival to help out at the café.”

  “But who could have known for sure that Noreen would attend the Movie Club meeting that night? She might have decided to go home and get an early night.”

  “True. That was pure luck.”

  “As was her having her Solpodol medication in her bag,” I continued. “She only needed to take it every four hours. She might have left it at home before coming to the café. And who knew she’d be prescribed Solpodol after her operation? A doctor, dentist, or nurse could have guessed she’d be given a painkiller of that nature.”

  “Anyone who’d had their wisdom teeth out with a general anesthetic must have been prescribed something similar.” Julie’s words came out haltingly. We’d started our first running interval, and in my preoccupation, I’d started us off at a faster pace than my cousin was used to. I forced my legs to slow down.

  “My point is that the murderer either decided to kill Sandra on the spur of the moment and used what was available to them, or Sandra’s death was carefully planned, and the murderer used the chance availability of the Solpodol to throw suspicion onto Noreen.”

  “Okay, I’m confused,” Julie said when we slowed to a walk. “Clearly I need to read more crime fiction. How can the murder have been carefully planned if the murderer couldn’t have known Noreen would have Solpodol in her handbag?”

  “Let’s say the murderer planned to kill Sandra on the night of the Movie Club. Think of the scenario: a crowd of people, many of whom disliked Sandra, all drinking cocktails next to one another. Then that same group of people go into a movie theater together and sit in the dark for a couple of hours, giving Sandra plenty of time to die from whatever poison her drink had been spiked with.”

  “So you’re saying the murderer might have intended to use a different poison?”

  I nodded. “Exactly. He or she could have brought it with them, secure in the knowledge that Sandra could be relied on to drink one colorful cocktail.”

  “And when the murderer saw Noreen’s medicine, they decided to use that instead? But why?”

  “To cause confusion and throw blame away from themselves.” I pointed to the stone wall up ahead. “Want to rest for a while?”

  “Sounds good.”

  We leaned against the wall and drank from our water bottles. “From the moment the codeine entered the story, Sergeant O’Shea assumed that the murderer was among the people closest to the Solpodol. In other words, you, me, Lenny, Noreen, Sister Pauline, and your parents. But if the murderer opted to use Solpodol instead of whatever substance they’d intended to kill Sandra with, they might have done so deliberately to cast suspicion over us and away from them.”

  “Meaning if we accept the premeditation theory, the murderer is more likely to be anyone but us.”

  “Right.” I sighed. “Unfortunately, we can’t rule out the murder being an act of momentary madness when the opportunity presented itself, so it doesn’t bring us any closer to the truth.”

  “But it does mean Sergeant O’Shea is wrong to cling to just one group of people as potential suspects,” Julie said. “That’s something for Noreen’s lawyer to work with. I know you won’t like me saying this, but you need to leave this to the professionals, Maggie.”

  “If by ‘the professionals’ you mean Sergeant O’Shea, no way.”

  “I was referring to the lawyer who’s arriving from Cork. I don’t want you arrested for interfering with a police investigation.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, I was a cop until a few weeks ago,” I said dryly. “I might not have a legal right to investigate a case in Ireland, but I feel a moral obligation, especially when the guy in charge is more concerned with his next meal than in actual investigative work.”

  Julie smothered a laugh. “All the same, you’re going to get into trouble if you keep butting into his case.”

  “Well, what do you suggest? Do you seriously want to leave Noreen to the mercy of that fool? He’s not even pretending to look at anyone else for the crime, and a lawyer from Cork won’t have a handle on the locals. Heck, I don’t have a handle on them, which is why I’m relying on you and Lenny to help me.”

  “I’m not sure what we can do other than tell you a bit about each person,” Julie said. “Frankly, I don’t like the idea of interrogating someone who might be a murderer. It gives me the creeps. And speaking of people who give me the creeps, didn’t you say you wanted to track down Paddy Driscoll?”

  “Yeah. He’s not answering his phone.”

  “He might now. He just pulled up in front of his house.” Julie inclined her head to the left, where Paddy’s land butted up against the holiday rental cottages he despised. “Do you want to see if he’ll talk to you?”

  “No, but I kind of have to. Why does he give you the creeps?”

  “He’s always grumpy and unfriendly. Plus there are those rumors about him and his sheep…”

  “Rumors that we suspect Sandra started. I’m inclined to give the guy a chance.”

  “Good luck with that,” Julie said. “Ten to one he threatens to shoot you for stepping onto his property.”

  “I thought firearms were rare in Ireland?”

  “Driscoll is a farmer. He definitely owns a shotgun. I’ve seen him prowling around with it.”

  “Great. You’re making me feel so much better about approaching him,” I said dryly. “Would you be offended if I abandoned you in favor of Farmer Grumpy?”

  “No. Go ahead. I won’t come with you, though. If you’re never seen again, at least I’ll be a witness to your last known movements.”

  “Wow, Julie. For a woman who says she doesn’t read much crime fiction, you’re doing a great job at scaring the pants off me.”

  She grinned. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Come on, Bran,” I said. “You’ll protect me from the big, bad farmer.”

  Bran sniffed at the ground and pawed at my leg.

  “See you later, Maggie. Give me a call when you get back to the cottage—if you survive.”<
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  “Sure, I will.” I waved to Julie, and Bran and I set off toward Paddy Driscoll’s house. A sense of foreboding crept under my skin. I shivered and pulled my jacket tight around me. Bran and I trudged down the trail that led from the edge of the woods past the group of holiday cottages that had been built on what was once Sandra Walker’s land. The cottages were nicely spaced, allowing each house its own plot of land with a garden. Shame they were all empty. I guessed demand for holiday cottages on Whisper Island was low during the winter, especially when the ferry often didn’t run due to bad weather.

  Fifteen minutes later, Bran and I reached Paddy Driscoll’s gate. It was unlocked, and I couldn’t find a buzzer. I tried his number one last time, but he didn’t pick up. After a quick scan of the terrain, I lifted the latch on the gate and urged Bran through. I didn’t know what the etiquette was in Ireland regarding walking through someone else’s land, but Driscoll wasn’t making it easy for me to contact him. He knew my aunt. Surely he wouldn’t freak when he saw me on his doorstep?

  Despite Julie’s warnings, we met no wild dogs on our walk up to the farmhouse, and I was starting to relax and think I’d been letting the stress and the rumors get to me. And then disaster struck.

  Bran let out an excited yelp and took off like a shot. The force jerked the leash out of my hand, and he raced ahead of me. I accelerated into a sprint, but I wasn’t fast enough to reach Bran before he disappeared behind the farm buildings.

  I swore and pounded after him. Between the run with Julie and this exercise, I was bound to burn off that second muffin I’d eaten earlier, right? I mean, there had to be some compensation for trespassing on a man’s land and losing my aunt’s dog.

  After I’d conducted a frantic search of my surroundings, Bran’s delighted bark alerted me to his location. “Aw, man,” I said and stepped into a barn full of bleating sheep. Sure enough, Bran was in there, causing mayhem. “Come on, boy. I’ll feed you steak when we get back if you behave yourself.”