“Never make light of a man’s loathing,” Alexandra said.
Gethsemane had forgotten the florist’s presence. “I’m sorry. We’ve taken up a lot of your time. Can you tell us anything else about the woman who picked up the bouquet?”
Alexandra shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Thanks, anyway.” Gethsemane headed toward the door.
Niall caught up with her. “That’s it? One dead end and you’re giving up?”
“Of course not. I’m going to find a member of the jazz-lover’s society and see if they can provide any leads. And I’ll ask Father Tim if any younger women have joined the garden guild recently.”
Music, Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette,” sounded from Niall’s pocket.
“The Alfred Hitchcock theme?” Gethsemane asked.
Niall shrugged and pulled out his phone. After a brief conversation to which his sole contribution was, “Yes, sir, I’m on my way,” he excused himself. “Let me know what you find out about the flower lady,” he called over his shoulder on his way to his car.
Gethsemane had just reclaimed her bike when a disembodied voice sounded in her ear. “The Flower Shop Killer.”
Four
She dropped the Pashley. “Damn it, Eamon, I wish you wouldn’t sneak up on me like that.” A quick glance around the square as she righted the bike reassured her no one had noticed.
Eamon McCarthy’s ghost materialized in front of her. Six feet, three inches of dark curls and green eyes appeared as solid as any human.
Gethsemane glanced around the square again. “You’re going to do that here?”
He laughed, his aura an amused green. “No one can see me, except you.”
“Then let’s go someplace where we can talk without me looking like I’m talking to myself.” She crossed the street to a garden alcove between Buds of May and a neighboring dress shop. “What do you mean, ‘Flower Shop Killer’? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the cottage?” Eamon seldom manifested outside the confines of Carraigfaire, the cottage they shared, or Carrick Point lighthouse, the ancient structure that stood sentry over Carrick Point, a few yards up the cliff from the cottage.
“Which of your rapid-fire questions would you like me to address first?”
“What are you doing here? Are you following me?”
“No, I’m not following you. Get over yourself. I wanted a change of scenery. I can go anywhere I went while I was alive, you know.”
“If you weren’t following me, how do you know about the flowers?”
“Okay, I was following you. But not in a creepy stalker kind of way. I like being near someone who can see and hear me and isn’t afraid of me. Ever since Orla—” He de-materialized to near-transparency and his aura faded to a morose dull yellow. His late wife’s ghost had returned to him, only to sacrifice herself to save the lives of the village’s men.
“I’m sorry.” Gethsemane reached for her friend’s arm. A shock zipped through her fingers as her hand passed through him. “I haven’t been good company lately, with all the rehearsals for the garden show performances.”
The yellow brightened a little. “Unlike me, you have a life to live. I don’t begrudge you that. I just hover on the periphery, soaking up a bit of vicarious vitality.”
“Eamon McCarthy, dead or alive, is never on the periphery of anything. Which brings me back to my other question. What do you mean, ‘Flower Shop Killer’? What killer? No one’s been murdered, have they? Did you recognize the woman who left the bouquet on Frankie’s car? Did you see her kill someone?”
“That’s five questions. In reverse order: no, I didn’t see her kill anyone; no, I didn’t recognize her; no, no one’s been murdered. At least not for the past several months.”
Gethsemane winced. Dunmullach’s murder rate had tripled after she arrived. Some villagers believed she’d brought bad luck with her.
“Sit down.” Eamon gestured to a bench and sat next to her. The bench’s wooden slats disappeared into his legs. “Back in the sixties, a married couple, the Coynes, were found murdered in their home. Someone, presumably the killer, had strewn flowers around their bodies. During the investigation, An Garda Síochána uncovered evidence Mr. Coyne had been receiving floral bouquets from an unknown admirer for three months before the murders. The killer was never found. The Dispatch nicknamed them the Flower Shop Killer.”
“A serial killer in Dunmullach?”
“No, the Coynes were the only ones murdered. But no one could sort out why. They were lovely people. No one said a thing against them. The guards never identified a suspect. The only clue they had was the flowers. They came from Buds of May.” He jerked his head toward the florist. “Wasn’t called that, back then, but it was in the same building. No one at the flower shop could recall anyone buying the flowers, except for a young lad who said a lady paid him a few pence to pick up her order once or twice. The lad couldn’t tell the guards anything useful about the woman’s appearance.”
“Someone who murdered a couple back in the sixties wouldn’t be stalking Frankie now. Would they?” Her first murder case had involved a twenty-five-year-old grudge.
“Probably not. They’d be in their eighties or nineties if they were still alive.”
“But a copycat—”
“Don’t start.” Eamon held up a hand enrobed in a mauve aura. “I apologize for mentioning it. I didn’t mean to imply a crazed killer is stalking Frankie Grennan. It’s probably a young woman with a crush and a flare for drama. Frankie’s not a bad-looking fella, even if he does dress like a bogtrotter.”
“But what if it’s not an innocent crush? What if Frankie’s in real danger? Maybe it’s not a coincidence this secret admirer is using the same methods as the Flower Shop Killer.”
“Maybe your imagination’s working overtime. All this murder, it’s getting to you. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up gone in the head, seeing a fiend behind every tree. Why don’t you focus on something else? Something non-lethal? The garden show, how about? The opening ceremony is the day after tomorrow. Are you ready for your performances? Come back to the cottage and we’ll work on the Prokofiev.”
“My Prokofiev is fine and I’m not performing it until the awards ceremony on the last day, anyway.” She looked at her watch. “I do have a rehearsal with the orchestra this evening. And I need to talk to Frankie about Jacobi, find out why he hates him.”
“Will you please stop looking for trouble where there is none?”
“I’m not looking for trouble. I’m looking for explanations.”
“Same difference with you.”
“Don’t be such an old woman. True, on occasion I’ve landed in some dangerous situations—”
“Near-drowning, near-shooting, near-immolation, near-poisoning, near-bludgeoning—”
“—But I didn’t seek them out. They just sort of found me.”
“Rugadh tú faoi réalta an-ádh.”
“Please don’t tell me what that means.” She stood. “Time for rehearsal. I’ll catch up with Frankie afterward and find out what’s going on with him and Jacobi. Maybe you can scare up—”
Eamon glowed an unamused mauve.
“Sorry.” She smothered a grin. “Maybe you can find some information on the Flower Shop Killer in the meantime. An unsolved murder with ritualistic elements? Someone must have written about it—newspaper articles, magazine articles, a book—something our mystery woman might have come across. I’ll be home late but I’ll look at whatever you find before I go to bed.”
“How’m I supposed to find information, if it exists? I’m a ghost, remember? I’m not a secretary nor a detective.”
“Don’t even. You helped Saoirse find the spell book she needed to fight Maja. You can move objects as well as I can. Just do your,” she waggled her fingers, “levitation thing and float some books off s
helves.”
The mauve aura deepened and shades of blue flecked its edges. “My ‘levitation thing’ is not a parlor trick.”
“No, it’s an investigative tool. One you should use to help protect a friend.”
“Where am I supposed to yield this investigative tool?”
“Start with the library. They’ve archived newspapers in the basement.”
“Digitally archived. There’s nothing to,” he mimicked her finger wag, “float off shelves. You’ve been down there, you know that.”
She’d forgotten. “And the Dispatch office has digitized their archives, too. Damn, technology.” She snapped her fingers. “The cold case evidence room at the garda station. Niall said there are boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. If the evidence from the Coynes’s murders was preserved, maybe there’ll be a suspect’s or a witness’s name, a name we can link to someone in the village.”
“Why don’t you ask your guard to let you look at the files? He’s in charge of the cold case unit.”
“He’s not my guard. And the evidence room is off limits to civilians. I learned that when I investigated your murder. And if I ask Niall to get the evidence for me, he’ll ask questions. I already told him I wasn’t interested in any murders.”
“He’s known you more than five minutes; I doubt he believed you.”
“Have I told you, lately, that snark is unbecoming to a ghost?”
Eamon blew her a kiss, then vanished.
She called after him to no avail. “I hate it when he does that.”
“When who does what, dear?” An elderly woman poked her head around the corner and peered around the alcove.
“Er, um…” Gethsemane fumbled in her pocket for her phone. She fished it out and pretended to text. “My fella. I hate it when my fella doesn’t answer my messages.”
The woman plunged an arm deep into a voluminous tote and withdrew a smartphone—a newer model than Gethsemane’s. “That’s why I installed Buachaill Stalk. You enter your fella’s mobile number into the app and it uses GPS to track him. You should try it.” She dropped the phone back into the bag and continued down the sidewalk.
“I take back what I said about not being an old woman.” With a laugh and a headshake, Gethsemane headed in the opposite direction, toward the Athaneum Theater.
Five
Gethsemane arrived at the Athaneum to flurried activity. Musicians from the Village Orchestra came into the theater in twos and threes, instruments in arms. Others took their places on stage. Ebullient chatter filled the auditorium like the overture from “The Marriage of Figaro.” No hint remained of the murder of corrupt music critic, Bernard Stoltz, or of the suffering and destruction caused by the vengeful spirit of Maja Zoltánfi. The theater felt safe again, a place dedicated to the sharing of beautiful music between musician and listener. Gethsemane waved and called out greetings as she turned toward the manager’s office where she’d stored her score and baton.
An unfamiliar woman’s voice answered her knock. “Come in.”
“Excuse me,” Gethsemane said to the stranger, a tall, elegant woman, dark hair pulled into a chignon, head bent over the manager’s desk. “I’m looking for the manager.”
The woman didn’t look up from the papers she rifled. “He stepped away.” Her accent screamed “posh.”
“Do you know when he’ll be—” Gethsemane crossed to the desk and put a hand on a stack of papers. “Should you be doing that?”
Annoyance creased the woman’s brow as she raised her head and stepped back from the desk.
“Who are you?” Gethsemane asked.
“Is that any of your business?” the woman countered.
“It’s either mine or the gardaí’s.” Gethsemane pulled out her phone. “I’ll be happy to call them and tell them I found you trespassing.”
A practiced, corporate smile that ended at the corners of her mouth displaced the woman’s annoyed expression. She extended a hand. “Ellen Jacobi, of Jacobi and Fortnum Gardens.” Gethsemane’s blank look prompted, “The principle sponsor of the International Rose Hybridizers’ Association’s Thirteenth Annual Rose and Garden Show.”
“Oh, of course.” Gethsemane shook Ellen’s hand. “I’m Gethsemane Brown. I’m conducting ‘Roses from the South’ in the competition’s opening ceremony. Rehearsal’s getting ready to start.”
“You’re Gethsemane Brown?” Ellen raised sculpted eyebrows. “I pictured someone more…” She shrugged.
Was everyone named Jacobi a jerk? Gethsemane fought back her temper. “Jacobi’s not a common name. You must be related to Roderick.”
“Soon to be ex-wife number five. Which is why he’s allowed to compete in a merit trial sponsored by me. Since I hate him, I can’t be accused of influencing the judges in his favor.”
Hating Roderick must be a national past time. “If he loses, won’t he accuse you of influencing the judges against him?”
“He never loses. That’s his problem. I’ve seen this year’s entry, ‘Lucia di Lammermoor.’ Sadly, it’s flawless. Roddy will take home another damned gold medal and become even more insufferable.”
“I’m rooting for the ‘Sandra Sechrest.’ I’m no rose expert but I think it’s gorgeous.”
“Ah, yes, Francis Grennan’s entry. Mr. Grennan will no doubt win silver. As impressive a specimen as it is, the only way ‘Sandra Sechrest’ could take gold over ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ would be if Roderick withdrew from the competition. Short of his dropping dead under the unbearable weight of his own ego, that’s not likely to happen.” Ellen eyed Gethsemane. “Have you met Roderick? He’d love to tell you how magnificent his specimens are. You’re his type.”
“I’ve met him and he’s not my type, so…”
Ellen’s smile reached her eyes, this time. “You’re obviously a woman of discernment. Do stop by the judges’ tent during the week. I’ll introduce you to the judges and give you a behind-the-scenes peek at the thorny business of judging garden shows.”
The manager appeared in the doorway. “You’re still here, Mrs. Jacobi?”
“Yes, Mr. Greevy. Maestra Brown and I were discussing the musical program.” Ellen looked at her watch, her arm angled so everyone could see she sported a Tag Heuer. “I have a meeting with the caterer. I won’t keep you from your rehearsal any longer, Maestra.” She left the office.
Gethsemane watched her go then turned to the manager. “I found her going through the papers on your desk.”
Greevy examined the items on his desktop. “Nothing’s missing. Not sure what she’d have been looking for. None of this has anything to do with the flower show.”
“What was she doing here? She’s not involved with the music. Is she?”
“She wanted to talk about signage for the floral arrangements we’ll have in the lobby for the opening festivities.” The manager shrugged. “Bit late to worry about the signs now. Everything’s settled. Jacobi and Fortnum Gardens provided all of the flowers, so their name goes on the signs. We’ll have two large signs on easels near the lobby entrance and smaller cards next to each individual arrangement.”
“She came here in person to ask you that?”
“Yes. Well,” Greevy sat on the edge of his desk and tapped his chin with a finger, “now you mention it, no, I don’t think that’s why she came here. Not really. She seemed to be after something but didn’t want to ask. Not directly, anyway.”
“Seemed to be after what?”
“Information, I think. She dropped Belles Fleurs Gardens’ name several times. They’re another of the show’s sponsors but a much smaller one than Jacobi and Fortnum. Mrs. Jacobi kept trying to get me to describe Belles Fleurs’ arrangements. They’re providing the flowers for one of the lectures to be held here during the week.”
“Why ask you? I mean why ask anyone? The flower arrangements are just decorations. They’re not co
mpeting in the show. Are they?”
“Just decorations? Not into flowers then?”
Gethsemane shook her head.
“The flower arrangements are a big deal. Kept under wraps until the big reveal at whatever function they’re gracing. Sometimes the flowers get more attention than the events.” The manager blushed. “Not that a bunch of flowers could overshadow your performance.”
She waved the comment away. “Maybe that’s why she was searching your desk. Looking for details about her rival.”
“Don’t keep that kind of thing lying around in the open. I keep contracts locked up the same place I keep your music.” He pointed to a large wall safe at the rear of the office.
“Did you tell Mrs. Jacobi anything about Belles Fleurs’ flowers?”
“No.” Greevy sat up straighter and puffed out his chest. “I’m a man of integrity. As charming as the lady was, I told her nothing. I kept mum, you could say.” He chuckled at his joke. “Not that I could have told her what she wanted to know, anyway. I don’t know, myself.”
“You don’t know what arrangements the gardens will be bringing?”
“Not down to the specific flowers. I know general sizes and shapes and I know the number of displays and where they’ll be placed. But Mrs. Jacobi hinted about her husband’s roses. I think she wanted to know if Belles Fleurs would be using any of them. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Her husband’s blooms in her rival’s bouquets?”
The sound of violins drew Gethsemane’s attention back to rehearsal. “That’s my cue.”
The manager retrieved her score and baton from the safe. She thanked him and returned to the stage. The other musicians had already taken their places. They tuned their instruments to the oboe’s A-note then waited as Gethsemane ascended the conductor’s podium. She raised her baton and led the orchestra in a nearly flawless performance of Strauss’s energetic waltz.
“Nicely done,” she said to the instrumentalists. “If we’re half as good during the opening ceremony, no one will notice the flowers.”
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