FATALITY IN F

by Alexia Gordon

  Gethsemane gave a mock salute and watched him head back across the street. She waited until he disappeared inside the station building then crossed back to Frankie’s car. Murder took precedence over breakfast.

  Thirteen

  The Dunmullach Amateur Rose Growers’ Society had set up for the rose show on the grounds of Dunmullach’s former girls’ school. When the school located to more modern facilities on the other side of the village, it left behind several athletic fields and gothic buildings. The village rented them out for a variety of festivals and exhibitions.

  Gethsemane parked and walked to a field dotted with white canvas tents. Their peaked roofs reminded her of circus tents minus the red stripes. She guessed the largest and fanciest tent—the one that stretched the entire length of the field and had windows cut into the canvas walls—must be for the sponsors. A small map posted near the edge of the field proved her guess correct. She ignored a security guard who lounged near the entrance flap and breezed in as if she was expected. A sign in the hallway emblazoned “Jacobi and Fortnum” spared her having to ask directions. The interior of the tent had been divided into rooms. She entered the one closest to the sign and approached a receptionist stationed at a desk.

  “Gethsemane Brown here to see Ms. Jacobi.”

  “Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist asked in a tone of voice that clearly indicated she already knew the answer to her question.

  Gethsemane spotted Ellen over the receptionist’s shoulder, seated at a desk in an adjacent room. “Oh, I see her. No need to get up, I’ll show myself in.”

  Gethsemane brushed past the woman, ignoring her “Hey, wait, no, you can’t go in there.”

  Ellen looked up. Her expression signaled surprise mixed with annoyance bordering on anger.

  The receptionist arrived in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jacobi, she burst in. I’ll call security.”

  Gethsemane stuck her hand under Ellen’s nose. “Gethsemane Brown, we met at the theater. I’m sorry for your loss. I wondered if you’d like me to play something special, as a tribute to your late husband, during the awards ceremony. I’d planned to play Prokofiev, but I have time to substitute something else.”

  Ellen’s shoulders relaxed and she waved away the receptionist. “Please, have a seat, Dr. Brown.” One hand gestured toward a chair. The other slid a magazine over top of the papers she’d been reading. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Did Mr. Jacobi have a favorite piece of music? Or can you suggest a piece that would mirror the character of the man he was?”

  Ellen let loose a sardonic laugh. “Is there a piece of music titled, ‘Pig of a Man?’ Or ‘Back-stabbing Wanker?’” She laughed again. “Back-stabbing. Poor choice of words?”

  “Forgive my presumption,” Gethsemane said, “but I assume you won’t be donning widow’s weeds?”

  “You know how I feel—felt—about Roderick. I told you we were getting divorced and I hated him.”

  “I assumed that was hyperbole. The kind you drop after the object of it dies a violent death.”

  “I’m a lot of things, Dr. Brown, few of them nice. One thing I am not, is a hypocrite. I had no kind words for Roderick while he lived, I have none now that he’s dead. I’m rather happy about that last bit, truth be told. Saves me the expense of a divorce.”

  “And lets you inherit everything instead of settling for half?”

  “I certainly hope so. If the bastard didn’t have time to change his will.”

  “You must have loved Roderick at some point. Or at least liked him a lot. You married him.”

  “Dr. Brown, you’re not as naïve as you’re pretending to be. People marry for a variety of reasons. I doubt love even makes the top ten.”

  “How about a gardening empire and a controlling interest in a pharmaceutical company? Where do those rank?”

  Ellen touched her nose then pointed to Gethsemane. “Slightly ahead of a patent on a hybrid rose.”

  Gethsemane stood. “I’ll stick with the Prokofiev.”

  Ellen shrugged and pulled the papers out from under the magazine.

  “One more question. Did you hate Roderick enough to kill him?”

  Ellen’s smile spoke more malice than her words. “Of course, I did. What you meant to ask was, ‘Did I kill him?’ Would I tell you if I had?”

  “You might, but then you’d slip me tea laced with weed killer or something to keep me from telling anyone.”

  “I wouldn’t bother. If I had killed him, I’d have done it in a way that no one could prove I did it. Without evidence, accusations of murder are just gossip. And if I killed every gossip who swore I did in my not-so-dearly departed husband, I’d soon run out of weed killer.” She turned her back to Gethsemane and reached for her desk phone.

  Gethsemane paused by the receptionist’s desk on the way out. “I’ve been dismissed.”

  The receptionist made “Hmph” sound like “good riddance.”

  “A word of advice? Keep the weed killer away from your boss.”

  Ellen Jacobi’s words lingered in Gethsemane’s mind as she departed the sponsors’ tent. Could Ellen have hired someone to kill her husband? She seemed to hate him enough. And she seemed arrogant enough to admit it. She had a point—without proof, accusations were just gossip. What if the mysterious flower girl wasn’t an obsessed stalker? What if she was a hired assassin? Women could be hitmen, too. What if the bouquets were red herrings, ruses to hide the real reason for the murders? Did Ellen Jacobi know about the flower shop murders? Would she have heard about the unsolved crimes as the head of a garden empire?

  She climbed into Frankie’s car and drove as far as the old school grounds’ main gate. Without warning, a red sports coupe rounded a curve into her path. She swerved just in time to avoid a collision. She swore as two wheels left the roadway and a tree loomed into view. She jerked the wheel and lurched back onto the paved surface. The car veered toward the opposite edge. Gethsemane jerked the wheel again, slammed the breaks, and skidded to a stop just short of a ditch. The coupe didn’t stop. It didn’t even slow down. Determined to give the driver the piece of her mind he deserved, she raced back to the show grounds.

  The sportscar glided into a parking space near the sponsors’ tents as she arrived back at the field. She idled the car near the lot’s entrance and stared as the driver’s door opened and Glendon Byrnes unfolded himself from the car’s interior. How could a man who’d been so solicitous when he bumped into her in a hallway be so cavalier after he’d run her off the road? She’d ask him when she caught up to him. She eased into the lot as she watched where Glendon headed. He started toward Belles Fleurs’ shared tent then veered to one side and doubled back toward Jacobi and Fortnum. He disappeared behind the end of the tent where Ellen had her desk.

  Gethsemane steered the car into the neares parking space and crept after Byrnes. She crouched behind the corner of Jacobi and Fortnum’s tent in time to see Ellen step out through a tent flap in the rear and embrace Glendon in a passionate kiss. She watched as Ellen pulled Glendon into the tent, letting the tent flap fall closed behind them. She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from exclaiming out loud and stood and spun in a smooth motion—right into the burly chest of the security guard she’d ignored earlier.

  “Lost, are you?” His frown said she’d better be lost, or else.

  Hand still over her mouth, her brain fought to think what to do. No good running. The security guard would catch her without half trying. No good saying she was here to see Ellen; he’d already seen her go through the front door to meet Ellen a short while ago. She silently borrowed one of Eamon’s Irish swear words and wished she could borrow his vanishing skills.

  Desperate, she bit the inside of her cheek to make her eyes tear up and put on her best overwrought stammer. “I, I, I knew it. I knew it. I didn’t want to believe it. I’m such a fool.” She
grabbed the security guard by the lapels of his uniform jacket and buried her face against his chest.

  “Hey, now!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away. “What’s all this?”

  “Gl-Gl-Gl-Glennie.” She nixed a wail for fear of attracting attention. Instead, she covered her face with her hands and let out a few fake sobs. Another cheek bite produced fresh tears.

  “Mr. Byrnes?” the security guard asked. “What about him?”

  “He’s, he’s…” Her hands flew back to her face and muffled her “Oh, no, it’s too terrible.”

  “I didn’t hear you, Miss. What about Mr. Byrnes has you putting on a holy show?”

  She donned her best pathetic expression and looked up at the guard through tear-damp lashes. “Gl-Glendon Byrnes is, is, my—” Dramatic pause then lower the gaze and turn away in mock shame. “Baby daddy.”

  The security guard gaped. He looked from Gethsemane to the tent then back to Gethsemane. “Didn’t know ol’ Byrnes had it in him. The younger one, maybe, but…”

  “Our dear, sweet, little girl sits at home pining for her daddy while he runs around with that, that—”

  “Ain’t she, though?” The security guard nodded in response to his own question.

  Gethsemane sniffled and tried to look noble. “At least now I know.”

  “Do you want me to drag him out here so you can eat his head off?”

  “No, no.” She held up a hand. “Whatever else he is, he’s still my daughter’s father. I’ll let the lawyers handle this.”

  “Maybe I can help.” The security guard pulled out his phone. “I worked security for a corporate party in New York a few months ago, some fancy Avar shindig to celebrate the FDA approval of a new gene therapy they developed.” He pulled up a photo and held the screen so she could see it.

  Murdoch Collins, a suit jacket hiding most of the hideous pattern on his shirt, posed center frame. Four people crowded around him, heads close together, arms around shoulders. All of them, Murdoch and the four she didn’t recognize, smiled. Karl stood slightly to the side of the group, his expression neutral, his eyes fixed on the camera.

  “Look in the background,” the security guard said, “near the drinks table.” He pinched the photo to enlarge it.

  Ellen and Glendon huddled near a table filled with wine glasses. Glendon held a drink in one hand and Ellen’s rear end in the other. Her smile suggested she didn’t mind.

  “I can text the photo to you,” the security guard said, “for the lawyers. Don’t care much for deadbeat dads. Had one myself.”

  Gethsemane thanked him and gave him her number. A moment later, her text alert sounded.

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to get him? Won’t take but a moment.”

  “Please, no. You’ve already done enough. You’ve been such a help. And, please, don’t say anything to anyone about seeing me.”

  The security guard raised an eyebrow.

  “If he knows I’ve tracked him down, he may run again. It’s taken me eight months to find him. I don’t want to lose him.”

  Rehearsal would wait for a while. She detoured to Frankie’s rose garden. The crime scene tape had vanished but the garden still bore an air of malevolence. A blood-stained depression marred the grass in front of the ‘Sandra Sechrest’ rose. Several of the bush’s lower branches lay bent and broken, stripped of their leaves. The soil around its base bore a partial foot print. Frankie would be heartbroken when he saw it. Bad enough a man died in his garden and the murder weapon pointed the finger of suspicion at him; the damage to his prize rose rubbed salt in the wound. Like Jacobi claimed the last laugh.

  Gethsemane checked beneath the birdbath and under Copernicus and in every other place where someone might have hidden a message spelled out either with actual flowers or a drawing. Nothing. Not surprising. If the flower girl hadn’t killed Jacobi but only stalked Frankie, she’d know he wasn’t at the hall. She wouldn’t leave a message he wouldn’t find and wouldn’t risk the gardaí catching her. If the flower girl murdered Jacobi, either on her own or for a paycheck, she’d be on the run. If Ellen hired her, she’d have run a lot farther—a one-way ticket to a country without extradition treaties probably accompanied the paycheck. If she killed independently, she might not have had the funds to get far. But it didn’t take much to get as far as Cork. The average school boy could manage a bus ticket with his allowance. A murderer could get lost in a city the size of Cork.

  Convinced the garden held no more clues, Gethsemane returned to the parking lot. A woman waved to her from the opposite end—the new Latin teacher, Gethsemane’s initial candidate for Frankie’s secret admirer.

  “Excuse me,” the pretty blonde called.

  Gethsemane waited by Frankie’s car. “Hello, Verna,” she said when the woman caught up to her.

  “That’s Frankie’s car, isn’t it? Have you seen him? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. He’s, uh, gone to ground for a while.”

  “Can’t say’s I blame him. That dreadful Inspector Sutton suspecting him of murder. I know Frankie’s mercurial but he’d never stab someone in the back, figuratively or literally.”

  “Sutton talked to you?”

  “Yeah. Wanted to know if I sent Frankie flowers. Practically accused us of having an affair.” Verna blushed. “We aren’t, regardless of the faculty lounge gossip. The odd lunch at the Rabbit hardly equals an affair.”

  So, the Latin teacher knew what people said about her and Frankie. Rumor spread through the St. Brennan’s faculty lounge almost as fast as it spread through the pub.

  “Would you tell Frankie I asked about him?” Verna asked. “And tell him I know he didn’t do it.”

  “Of course.” Gethsemane moved to get in the car when she caught sight of the Dunmullach Dispatch folded under Verna’s arm.

  Verna noticed her gaze. “Have you seen it? I swear the Dispatch is getting to be more and more of a rag every day.” She unfolded the paper.

  Roderick Jacobi’s face stared up from the front page. The headline read, “Murder! Pharma CEO and Amateur Horticulturalist Stabbed. Gardaí Question Local Teacher.”

  “Can you believe it?” Verna asked. “They’ve practically convicted poor Frankie.”

  “I wouldn’t make too much of it. Newspapers print outrageous headlines to convince people to buy the paper. The print equivalent of click bait.”

  “Frankie’s photo shoot was supposed to be on today’s front page. Pushed aside by this rubbish. I’d much rather have read about him and his rose.”

  “May I borrow that?” Gethsemane asked. “If you’ve finished with it.”

  Verna handed her the paper.

  “Thanks,” Gethsemane said. “I’ll give Frankie your regards.”

  Rehearsal would have to wait a bit longer. She had a newspaper photographer to talk to.

  Fourteen

  Gethsemane sat parked across from the Dispatch office and tried to concoct a ruse to get inside to see the photographer. He saved her the trouble by bounding down the steps, camera slung over his shoulder. Gethsemane waylaid him at the end of the sidewalk.

  “You.” She shook the paper Verna had given her in the photographer’s face.

  He stepped back and looked around as though searching for an escape or an ally.

  Gethsemane persisted. “Explain this.”

  “Explain what?” He took the paper. “Self-explanatory. Man murdered, teacher suspected.” He squinted at her. “Do I know you?”

  “We met at Frankie Grennan’s photo shoot. You remember, the one that was supposed to be today’s front-page news?”

  “Oh, yeah, the musician. You’re codding, right? You don’t really think an uninteresting human-interest story about some flowers would send the story of a vicious murder to page six, do you? Do you read newspapers much?”

  “I
read enough to understand ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ But I hesitate to call the Dispatch a newspaper. I’ve read better written articles in church newsletters.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t write the articles, do I? I just shoot the photos.” He stabbed his finger at the byline. “See there, photos by Max Barnaby. That’s me.”

  “Photos aren’t the only things you shoot. You also shoot your mouth off to the gardaí. You told them Frankie and Jacobi had a fight.”

  “Is that what this is about? They did have it out, didn’t they? After you left. Couldn’t keep quiet about it, could I? That’d be withholding evidence.”

  “A photographer and a legal expert. Did you make a deal with the gardaí for exclusive photos of the arrest, if there was one? Or maybe you just couldn’t wait to rat on Frankie. I saw the way you fawned over Jacobi at the photo shoot, shaking his hand.” She mimicked him. “‘I watch your show all the time, Mr. Jacobi.’ ‘Met my wife at your lecture, Mr. Jacobi.’ I expected you to drool on him. His number one fanboy.”

  Max lowered the paper. “I’m Roderick Jacobi’s fan because he saved my sister’s life.”

  “Saved her life?” Jacobi didn’t come across as the noble type. “Saved her how?”

  “With the drugs Avar Pharmaceuticals developed. One drug in particular, Theravin. Derived from Vinca jacovensi, a plant he discovered in the Amazon. It’s the only known treatment for Marquette-Kruchko Syndrome. You’ll agree keeping a girl alive past her twelfth birthday is more important than growing pretty flowers to put in vases on the mantle.” He handed the paper back. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m on my way to Ó Muireadhaigh’s farm to shoot some photos of a sheep that’s just had triplets.” He snapped a picture of Gethsemane and went on.

  Point taken. Life-saving drugs trumped ornamental plants. She’d never heard of Marquette-Kruchko Syndrome. She texted her brother, Zeb, a physician.