“No one else using the site has a similar name. And I read enough of her posts to suss her out as a local. She mentions visiting some of the places connected to the crime. She also mentions a few local places like St. Dymphna’s and Arcana Arcanora. She talks about being an artist and about being ‘in love’ with an older man.”
“Now I wish you were solid so I could kiss you. That’s brilliant. Think the site’s owners or moderators or whatever they’re called will give us her real name?”
“Is anything ever that easy?”
“What’s plan B? Stake out the library as well as the art supply store?” She told Eamon about the watercolor paper.
“Why don’t you and Frankie leave a message on the website and lure her to some meeting place? Then have the guards meet her?”
“Luring a teenager into a trap sounds—gross.”
“TheFlorist isn’t a teenager. Probably. She’s younger than Frankie, sure, but twenty-one is younger than Frankie. And she’s old enough to have money for out-of-season flowers and high-end art supplies. Think an allowance would cover that? Or would you need a salary? And she’s a murderer. Probably.”
“When you phrase it that way, not so gross. The questions now are, what message would lure her? And where do we lure her to? My previous attempts at setting traps have not always worked out as I planned.” They’d often resulted in her nearly being killed.
“Did you miss the part where I said have the gardaí meet her?”
“Except the gardaí aren’t going to work with me.”
“O’Reilly’s a garda.”
“Niall to the rescue again.”
“He doesn’t complain. Well, he does but he doesn’t mean it.”
“Do you have any idea what message to send?”
“Do I have to think of everything?”
“You don’t have a clue, do you?”
“Nope, not one. I admit when I don’t know something even less often than I admit when I’m wrong but, this time, I’ll fess up. I can’t put myself in the mind of an obsessive, homicidal, young female. I’ve been the victim of one. If I’d seen her coming…” He partially dematerialized. The fading sun shone through his chest onto the bedspread. His aura dimmed to a sad yellow.
Gethsemane jumped in to distract her friend from painful memories. “What we need to do is read all of her posts. They’ll give us an idea of how she thinks which may give us an idea of how to outwit her. But—” She yawned. “Cyberstalking the stalker will have to wait until after the rehearsal.”
Seventeen
Gethsemane slept poorly. Bizarre dreams of being chased by rosebushes armed with hedge trimmers alternated with bouts of tossing and turning. Would they be able to lure TheFlorist into the open? Would Niall go along with the plan? Would Frankie? Could they pull it off without Sutton arresting them all?
She gave up on sleep before the sun rose, showered, dressed, and left the cottage without waking Frankie. She borrowed his car again. He wouldn’t mind and leaving him at Carraigfaire without easy transportation would bolster his alibi in case anything happened to prompt Inspector Sutton to direct more suspicion toward him. “Pathétique” still played in the back of her mind. Something was going to happen. Hopefully, nothing more disastrous than an off-key performance or a mass panic attack by the entire strings section.
She arrived in the village in time for a caramel macchiato at Roasted before going to the Athaneum. Two or three of the other musicians had arrived before her. They had fortified themselves with cups of Roasted’s brew as well. They all mingled in the parking lot and waited for the manager to unlock the theater’s doors. Gethsemane suspected he’d hidden and watched them because he appeared with his keys as soon as the last coffee cup went into the bin near the Athaneum’s entrance. Mr. Greevy despised food and drink in his theater. He protected the blue velvet upholstery as if state secrets were woven into the fabric.
Mr. Greevy turned on the lights, then Gethsemane and the other musicians followed him into the auditorium. Gethsemane held her breath as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, half-dreading the “ca-chunk” of the overhead lights, afraid of what she might see. She exhaled when the brightness illuminated nothing more than empty seats. No corpses propped in the back row, no bodies on stage. She peered down into the orchestra pit. No one dead there, either.
“Are you all right, Dr. Brown?” the theater manager asked.
“Yes, fine. Just, um, eager to start rehearsal.”
Musicians drifted in, alone or in small groups, until the entire orchestra had assembled in their places on stage. Mr. Greevy brought Gethsemane her score and baton. The orchestra tuned to the oboe and Gethsemane ascended the podium.
She addressed the orchestra. “This is our final rehearsal before tonight’s performance at the opening ceremony. You’ve worked hard and remained professional despite, er, certain events. Hundreds of people will fill this auditorium tonight, surrounded by the sight and smell of exquisite roses. Your task will be to give voice to those roses, to create an auditory experience every bit as exquisite as the visual and olfactory. So, we’ll take the piece from the beginning and run through to the end with enthusiastic vigor, same as we’ll perform it tonight.”
She raised her baton. The orchestra poised in ready silence, the hush broken only by a distant car horn. She signaled the count. A flick of her baton and the notes of Strauss’s waltz floated up from the strings. Barely audible at first, they rose in pitch and tempo until they crescendoed into—
An ear-splitting scream. A shouted, “Be wide!” The sound of two objects colliding. The squeal of tires.
The noises came from the street. Chairs clattered and music stands overturned as musicians, some still clutching instruments, ran outside.
A crowd had gathered in front of the theater. Spectators stared down at something in the street.
“Get an ambulance,” someone yelled.
“Call 999,” yelled another.
Gethsemane, her baton still grasped, forgotten, in her hand, pushed through to the edge of the sidewalk. She looked down.
Tufts of Murdoch Collins’s mouse-brown hair stuck out at odd angles. His lifeless eyes stared up at nothing. A rivulet of blood trickled from his mouth. His geometrically patterned shirt bunched up around his chest, exposing an expanse of pale, white belly. His arms, legs, and neck jutted at odd angles. A shattered flower pot lay next to him, its floral contents spread over the street like confetti from a macabre parade.
Gethsemane looked away, only to regret it. She saw something worse than Murdoch Collins’s mangled body. She saw Frankie’s car, front end dented and scraped, driver’s door opened, abandoned by a tree.
“Frankie Grennan didn’t do this, Inspector Sutton.” Gethsemane sat, arms folded, on a hard plastic chair in a garda interview room. Sutton had arrived at the crash scene at the same time as the ambulance and hauled her back to the station faster than the ambulance crew had loaded up Murdoch’s body.
“It’s his car,” Sutton said.
“Which I drove this morning.”
“You’re admitting you ran Collins down?”
“No!” She closed her eyes. If she recited Negro League batting averages from 1932 through 1936, it wouldn’t be enough to calm her down. She clenched and unclenched her jaw a few times, then spoke. “I was on stage with more than a dozen musicians. We all heard the crash and ran out together. How could I have run Collins down?”
“Grennan could have retrieved his car from wherever you parked it while you were in the Athaneum.”
“How did he get to the village from Carraigfaire? Walk? Flap his arms and fly? Hitch a ride with the pixies?”
“He could have borrowed that fancy bike of yours. Or someone could have driven him down.”
She ignored the bike comment. “Driven him? So, now it’s a conspiracy? Do you even hear yoursel
f, Inspector?”
A vein throbbed in Sutton’s temple. His craggy features hardened, reminding Gethsemane of the ominous cliffs above her cottage. He brought his face close to hers. “O’Reilly may put up with your nonsense, but cross the line, and I won’t think twice about chucking you in a cell.”
“For what? I checked the rule book. There’s no law against telling a garda to—”
A uniformed garda knocked and poked her head in. “Excuse me, sir.”
Sutton spun on her. “What is it?”
“Her story checks out, sir. Francis Grennan’s been up at Carrick Point all morning. He’s still there.”
“Who’d you confirm that with?”
“Father Tim Keating. Father’s with him. They took some children on a hike up the cliffs.”
Sutton swore. He glared at Gethsemane, vein still pulsating. She looked down to hide a smile.
“If Grennan’s tiptoeing through tulips with the wee ones,” Sutton said to the garda, “and this one—” He jerked his thumb at Gethsemane. “—was on stage, who started the damned car? And how?” He put his face close to Gethsemane’s again. “Did you leave the keys in it?”
“Nope. Hand me my bag and I’ll prove I didn’t.”
“Someone wired the ignition, sir,” the garda said. “It’s an older model, late eighties, I’d say. A cinch to hotwire. My kid sis could do it.”
“Did your kid sis run a man down in the street?”
“‘Course not, sir.”
“Then you’re dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.” The garda closed the door behind her.
Sutton massaged his temples.
“Inspector O’Reilly does that, too,” Gethsemane said. “Do they teach you how to do that in garda school?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a de-escalation technique to keep us from strangling smart-mouthed busybodies.”
Gethsemane stood. “Am I under arrest? May I go?”
“Sit down.”
She protested.
“Sit! Down!”
She plopped back onto the chair.
Sutton sat across from her. “I don’t know what version of the rule book you read but my version says there are laws against interfering in a garda investigation. So, unless you cooperate, I can and I will arrest you.” He took out a notebook and pen. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the murders of Roderick Jacobi and Murdoch Collins. Leave nothing out.”
Sometimes acquiescence was the better part of valor. She told him about Jacobi’s affair with Yseult, she told him how much Ellen Jacobi hated her late husband and how she’d talked about killing him, and she told him about TheFlorist, who was either a love-sick young woman or a hired assassin. She started to tell him about plant-based and genetic medicine but stopped when she saw he wasn’t listening. “Not boring you, am I?”
“No,” Sutton said without a hint of sarcasm, “you’re not. Tell me more about this florist.”
“Not this florist. TheFlorist. All one word. It’s a screen name the woman uses on a fan website.”
“Fans of murder.”
“They’re out there.”
Sutton tapped his pen against his notebook. “And you’re sure the woman who almost knocked you over is the same woman who’s been leaving flowers and cards for Grennan and is the same woman who uses this screen name?”
“I’m convinced it’s the same woman. And I think she killed Jacobi and Collins.”
“Why? Draw the line between obsession with Grennan and murder.”
“Well,” Gethsemane reached for his notebook and pen. “Frankie hates Jacobi for several reasons.” She listed them. “Jacobi stole his wife, Jacobi stole his roses, Jacobi keeps beating him in competition. So TheFlorist kills Jacobi to eliminate Frankie’s rival or to get revenge on Frankie’s behalf for the loss of his roses or his wife or both. The killing was a tribute to Frankie or a token of her affection.”
“The flowers weren’t tribute enough? Whatever happened to asking a fella to the pub for a drink?”
“I didn’t say she was rational, Inspector. She hangs out in a forum called ‘Murderphile.’”
Sutton leaned back in his chair. “Maybe the secret admirer routine’s bogus. Maybe Grennan knows who this woman is and put her up to getting rid of Jacobi for him.”
She pushed his notebook back to him. “I don’t think I want to help you anymore.”
“I’ll help you by pointing out a hole in your theory. Why would Grennan want Murdoch Collins dead? What’s his connection to Collins? What’d he have against him?”
“Frankie wouldn’t want him dead, they had no connection, and he had nothing against him. I don’t think Frankie even knows who Murdoch is. Was. Frankie’s beef with Jacobi was personal, over roses and women, not pharmaceuticals. Murdoch liked roses,” she recalled his tears at the sight of the vandalized ‘Lucia di Lammermoor,’ “but he didn’t compete on his own. He mostly served as an errand boy for his boss. He was no threat or concern to Frankie.” She took the notebook again and wrote “Frankie” and “Collins.” She drew an “X” through both names. “There’s no connection.”
“So why would TheFlorist kill him?”
“Because Ellen Jacobi hired her to kill everyone who stood between her and a seat on Avar Pharmaceuticals’ board of directors. Murdoch was Chief Operating Officer. Karl Dietrich hinted the idea of Ellen with a controlling interest in the company didn’t sit well with everyone. Maybe Murdoch wasn’t on Team Ellen so Ellen wanted him gone. Maybe TheFlorist is a hitwoman and the stalker routine’s a cover.”
Sutton stared at the notes. “You’re actually talking sense. Compensates for your being so irritating.”
“Um, thanks?” she asked. Sutton’s skill at the backhanded compliment rivaled her eldest sister’s.
“O’Reilly told me you were a great one for coming up with plans to trap murderers. How had you planned to catch TheFlorist?”
“What makes you think—” She stopped. Sutton’s expression said he wouldn’t fall for any gee-officer-I-don’t-know-what-you-mean stories. She could tell he knew she’d already thought of a way to bring TheFlorist out of hiding. Well, technically, Eamon had thought of a way but now wasn’t the time to split hairs. “I was going to post a message on Murderphile.com. Or get Frankie to post one.”
“An invitation to meet him under the old oak tree kind of post?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Sutton had a romantic streak. Who knew?
“Then what? Ambush her? Hit her over the head with a tree limb?”
“I kind of thought I’d let y’all take over at that point. I figured I could talk Inspector O’Reilly into going along.”
“You probably could, at that.” Sutton drummed his pen on the table and drew a few doodles in his notebook. “It pains me to say this, and damned if I ever say it again, but I like your plan, for the most part. Control of the situation will be key. If we’re dealing with a professional killer instead of a love-starved co-ed—”
Gethsemane interrupted. “A professional killer’s not likely to agree to a rendezvous, is she?”
Sutton allowed her a grudging smile. “Good point. Although, there are ways…If she thought you knew her true identity and you offered to sell her your silence, she might show up with her own plan to silence you permanently.”
“Good point.” Been there, done that. Memories of an unexpected dip in a mash tun sent a shiver down her neck.
“Are you all right?” Sutton asked.
“Fine. Just thinking about possible outcomes. Haven’t lost my nerve, if that’s worrying you.”
“O’Reilly also said you were fearless. We need a message that will lure TheFlorist regardless of whether she’s a pro or an amateur.” Sutton’s eyes narrowed and he fixed his gaze on a spot beyond Gethsemane. He drummed an absent-minded tattoo on the table
with his pen. “The Cork garda has people who specialize in this kind of thing, luring online predators and such, but there’s no time to bring them in.”
The inspector’s stony features gave away nothing but the tension in his posture and the set of his shoulders betrayed his excitement. Gethsemane could almost smell his eagerness for the chase.
She couldn’t resist. “And we wouldn’t want the Cork garda horning in on ‘our’ case. Big city law enforcement may underestimate the fellas in the villages but we know we can do this without them.”
Sutton’s face remained impassive, although his shoulders relaxed. “There’s that, too.”
“What about Inspector O’Reilly? He’s familiar with the original Flower Shop Murders case. Maybe he can come up with a message an obsessed fan wouldn’t be able to resist but a professional killer might read as a blackmail threat.”
“Another good idea,” Sutton said. “At this rate, I may owe you an apology before nightfall. Wait here. I’ll call O’Reilly.”
“May I wait in the lobby?” She looked around the pea-green room with its graffiti-covered table and dull one-way mirror. “Interview rooms aren’t my waiting area of choice.”
“Suit yourself.” Sutton led the way out into the lobby. Chairs only slightly less uncomfortable looking than those in the interview room crowded the postage stamp-sized waiting area. A scruffy man in stained work pants and three-day stubble huddled in a chair next to the back wall. A red-eyed, well-dressed woman Gethsemane recognized as a witness from the crash scene sat in the front row, clenching and unclenching a crumpled tissue. Otherwise, the seats sat empty.
“Why don’t you come up with a user name for that murder site while you’re waiting?” Sutton asked. “Something cryptic yet catchy.”
Gethsemane pulled her phone from her bag and took the seat at the end of the front row nearest the elevators. She glanced at the woman at the opposite end, but the woman didn’t look up. She made a point of ignoring the unkempt man behind her. She navigated to Murderphile and selected “Register for an account.”
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