FATALITY IN F

by Alexia Gordon

  “Think Ellen and Karl could be in it together?” Frankie asked. “They both benefitted from the deaths. Maybe Ellen put Karl up to it.”

  “We’ll ask him when we find him,” Niall said.

  The opening notes of Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” rang from Gethsemane’s bag. “My push notification tone,” she explained as she fished in her bag.

  She pulled the phone out and read the notice: g_gardener has a Murderphile clue.

  “Who’s it from?” Frankie asked.

  “Someone on Murderphile dot com.” She logged into the site.

  “You should delete your profile,” Niall said. “Do you really want a bunch of murder fanatics posting messages to your wall?”

  “Murderphile has mailboxes.”

  “Whatever. Mailbox or wall, you’re courting trouble by inviting crime-obsessed misfits into your life.”

  “Maybe it’s a message from Reston, telling us how her surgery went.”

  “She’s typing messages with one arm in a cast?”

  “Or, maybe not.” She opened her mailbox.

  Garish red font, all caps, danced across her screen: I HAVE ELLEN.

  She stared at her phone, trying to process what she saw. She re-read the words. I. Have. Ellen. Was this a joke? Her finger shook as she tapped the screen, trying to reveal the sender’s name.

  Niall looked over at her and pulled off to the side of the road. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  She showed him and Frankie the message.

  “Someone’s codding you,” Frankie said. He looked less convinced than he sounded.

  “By using Ellen’s name? How would anyone on this site, except Reston, know that I know Ellen?”

  “Can you tell who sent it?” Niall asked.

  “I’m trying to…” She held up the sender’s screen name: “Rosen aus dem Suden.”

  Niall read the name aloud. “Is that German?”

  She nodded. “It translates to ‘Roses of the South,’ the Strauss piece I was conducting for the rose show’s opening ceremony. You know who this is? Who it must be?”

  The men shook their heads.

  “It’s Karl. Karl Dietrich. He’s German. He knows ‘Roses of the South’ was the scheduled performance. He knows my screen name on this site is ‘g_gardener.’ He helped me come up with it. Karl has Ellen Jacobi.”

  Niall gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. “Answer him.”

  Gethsemane stared at her phone for a moment, her finger hovered over the screen. She typed: What do U want?

  A moment, then the response: Safe passage.

  She typed: How can I help?

  Response: Your garda beau.

  She ignored the error. This was no time to point out the inaccuracy of Karl’s assumption about her relationship status. Where’s Ellen? she typed.

  No message appeared.

  Where’s Ellen?

  Safe passage, was the only reply.

  Gethsemane asked Niall, “What do I do?”

  “Tell him ‘yes.’ Find out where he is.”

  She typed: Where can we meet?

  Carnock. Old asylum. Rose garden. You and O’Reilly.

  Frankie leaned over Gethsemane’s shoulder. “He must have found my roses.”

  “You’ve been up there recently, Frankie,” Niall said. “You know the layout well?”

  Frankie said he did.

  “So do I,” Gethsemane said. “I’m pretty sure I left the door unlocked last time I was there.” She’d pried the door open. And neither she nor her rescuer bothered to tidy up as they escaped the flames.

  “Not much of any doors left after the fire,” Frankie said.

  “Are you up to this, Sissy?” Niall asked. “You don’t have to go.”

  “I’m going. Karl is expecting both of us. Ellen’s life depends on him thinking we’re cooperating. I may not like Ellen but I don’t want her dead.”

  “He didn’t actually say he’d kill her,” Frankie said. “It’s possible she’s in it with him. That’s the kind of stunt Yseult would pull.”

  “You want to take that chance? If she’s a real hostage, her life’s in danger. That’s how hostage-taking works. No one would give in to your demands if you only threatened to give your hostages a stern talking to.”

  “All right, then.” Niall keyed the ignition and turned the car back the way they’d come. “Off to Gologtha.”

  Twenty-Two

  Gethsemane checked her phone again. No new messages. Karl was a killer of few words.

  Visions of her first and, until now, last trip to the abandoned St. Dymphna’s Insane Asylum flashed into her mind. Reciting the batting average of every Negro League baseball player for the entire 1932 season failed to keep the memories away. The lonely bike ride up the desolate hill, oblivious to the person following her. The overgrown brush. The boarded-up doors. Her heart beat faster as Niall’s car drove through the darkness, bringing her closer to the place where real danger first invaded her orderly world. She traced a finger along her scar. She’d led an ambitious, high-achieving, controlled, upper-middle class life until the moment someone slammed her head against a metal shelf and left her to die in the fire they started in the hospital file room. Until her lungs filled with the acrid smoke that nearly killed her, setbacks and obstacles she’d encountered had only been problems to fix, puzzles to solve with the single-minded determination passed down through generations of strong women. Women who suffered untold indignities with class and grace and who sacrificed every day to spare their children and their children’s children the grief they bore and to give them an easier, safer existence. Until that day at Carnock—Golgotha—it hadn’t occurred to her she might land in a dark place from which there was no escape to the light on the other side.

  “Snap out of it.” Eamon’s voice spoke in her ear. Niall had stopped the car at the foot of the isolated hill south of the village proper. Eamon materialized outside the window. “You’ve faced worse than Karl Dietrich and you’ve faced it alone. This time, I’m here.”

  Her heart slowed a few beats. She relaxed fists she hadn’t realized she clenched. Eamon had once committed himself to St. Dymphna’s which meant he’d be able to go inside. She opened the car door.

  Niall reached across her and pulled it shut. “You don’t have to do this. Change your mind. I can go alone.”

  “With Karl God-knows-where up there in the dark and possibly armed? You’d never see him coming. You need me to watch your back. I don’t want you dead even more than I don’t want Ellen dead. And Karl specified both of us.”

  Frankie put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got faith in you, Fearless Brown. And I’ve got both your backs.”

  “Where’s your rose garden, Frankie?”

  He pointed into the night. “South side of the building in the clearing near the edge of the woods.” He leaned out a car window. “There’s enough moonlight to make it out.”

  Niall handed Frankie his phone. “I texted Sutton. He’s on his way. Wait here for him. I’ll yell when Sissy and Mrs. Jacobi are safe. Then come running to lead Sutton up to your garden. Ready?”

  Frankie pulled his head back in the car. “Ready.”

  “Ready.” Gethsemane opened the car door and stepped out.

  “Ready.” Eamon juggled a handful of blue orbs.

  She allowed herself a small grin. As competent a garda as Niall was and as intrepid a friend as Frankie was, you couldn’t beat supernatural back up.

  Gethsemane crept single file behind Niall toward the Carnock’s summit, keeping the asylum in sight the entire time. Even in the dark she could see the crumbling, burned remains of the gothic edifice that had once housed Dunmullach’s mentally ill. The grim had become grimmer. Edgar Allan Poe would have had a literary field day out here.

  Niall stopped
without warning. Gethsemane bumped into him. She yelped as Eamon bumped into her, sending an electric thrill through her shoulders.

  “Ssh.” Niall stepped off the path and crouched behind a tree. He scanned the inky horizon. “I don’t see anyone.”

  Gethsemane pulled out her phone and opened the browser to Murderphile. We’re here, she typed.

  The reply came a moment later: Rose garden. She showed the phone to Niall.

  “Frankie said south side of the building. That way.” He pointed to the left at an area of darkness that seemed less dense than those surrounding it. He crept forward.

  “Be right back,” Eamon said. He vanished.

  Gethsemane hurried to catch up with Niall.

  “Stay close,” he said. “Karl could be anywhere.”

  Eamon reappeared beside her. “Actually, he’s hiding on the steps leading down into the laundry room at the back edge of Frankie’s garden.”

  “Where’s Ellen?” she whispered to Eamon.

  Niall answered her. “She could be anywhere, too. If she’s his hostage, not his accomplice, he’s probably stashed her somewhere inside the ruins.”

  “You don’t think he’d…” She couldn’t make herself say it.

  “Kill her? Not if he didn’t have to. So far, the only people he’s killed were two men who tried to cheat him out of his life’s work. He injured Reston but she’s alive. And we know who he is now. He doesn’t need to keep his identity secret.”

  “So it doesn’t matter if Ellen can identify him. Which improves her chances of survival.”

  “This way.” Niall veered off the path.

  “No,” Gethsemane said, “this way.” She started in a direction to the right of the one Niall had taken. “There’s a hillock that will put us on higher ground. We’ll be able to look down on Karl instead of Karl being able to look down on us.”

  “You sound as if you know where he’s hiding.”

  “I, um, I remember a stairwell at the back edge of the clearing where it meets the building. Perfect place to hide and watch someone come up the path. That’s where I would be if I was Karl.” She took the lead.

  Niall followed. “So, you think like a murderer now?”

  “No,” she said over her shoulder.

  Eamon shushed her. “Do ya want Karl to hear ya?”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper and repeated her answer. “No.”

  “You needn’t whisper,” Niall said. “I don’t think Karl can hear us up here.”

  They climbed. Gethsemane looked back toward the asylum and squinted into the darkness, trying to glimpse any movement in the shadows surrounding the abandoned, overgrown building. Or glimpse the moonlight glinting off a gun barrel. Or did that only happen in movies?

  Without warning, the rocky ground shifted beneath her foot. She swore and stumbled as pebbles skittered.

  Niall grabbed her arm. “Careful,” he and Eamon said in unison. “Are you all right?”

  Gethsemane regained her balance. “I’m fine. Embarrassed, but fine.” Maybe moonlight gleaming off gun metal only happened in the movies but the heroine tripping as she crept through the woods trying to evade the bad guy apparently happened for real.

  “You’ve not twisted your ankle?” Niall squatted and reached for her foot.

  “No, I’m fine. Seriously.” She looked around. Nothing but hulking shapes distinguished from their surroundings only by gradient of blackness. Every bramble and vine seemed to be a monster looming in the night, ready to grab her and drag her away. “Where’s Karl?” she asked, intending the question for Eamon.

  Niall answered as he stood. “Probably not hiding on the laundry stairs anymore. He must have heard us by now and know we’re here. I think we should—” Niall stepped forward—And went down with a yelp as a large rock shifted loose under his foot. Niall and the rock tumbled down the hill and out of sight.

  “Niall!” Gethsemane yelled.

  “O’Reilly!” Eamon yelled. Then he swore. “Damn, he can’t hear me.”

  Gethsemane yelled louder, to hell with Karl. The inspector didn’t answer.

  Eamon vanished. Gethsemane scrambled down after Niall, thoughts of Karl’s whereabouts replaced by visions of her friend with a broken leg, a cracked skull, lying unconscious, or, or…She sucked in her breath and froze at the foot of the hillock. Niall lay prone. Not moving. She stepped toward him. “Niall?” she whispered.

  Eamon materialized beside her, making her jump. She lost her balance for the second time that night. She gasped as a blast of energy from a tiny blue orb hit her in the side and pushed her back the other way. She steadied herself and rubbed the spot where the orb had hit. It stung.

  Niall stirred and moaned. Gethsemane rushed to help him stand. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Niall worked a shoulder and massaged his neck. “Embarrassed.” The moon cast enough light to see his dimpled grin. “But fine.”

  Gethsemane flinched as a light a hundred times brighter than the moon flashed in her face.

  A man’s voice sounded from behind the light. “Thank you for your promptness.”

  Karl. Gethsemane shielded her eyes with her hand. The light dipped toward the ground. Karl held a flashlight. A large one. The kind bad guys in movies used to club people over the head. Time to stop watching movies.

  “Where’s Mrs. Jacobi?” Niall asked.

  “First things first, Inspector,” Karl said. “How are you going to get me safely to the Cork airport and onto a plane out of the country?”

  “First, you show me Mrs. Jacobi’s okay,” Niall countered.

  Leather and soap teased Gethsemane’s nose, followed by Eamon’s, “I’ll find her. Keep him talking,” in her ear.

  “You’re not in charge, Inspector O’Reilly,” Karl said. “I’ll thank you to remember that and not try my patience.”

  Gethsemane stepped forward. “I’ll swap places with Mrs. Jacobi.”

  “The bloody hell you will.” She didn’t need daylight to see the storm clouds in Niall’s eyes. “Have you effing lost your mind?”

  “How gallant, Dr. Brown,” Karl said. “Why would I accept your offer?”

  Gethsemane swept an arm in a grand gesture to take in the garden, the woods, and the remains of the asylum. “Because Ellen Jacobi is trussed up like a Christmas goose somewhere inside or tied to a tree in the woods or down a hole someplace and it’ll take time to retrieve her. Time you don’t have because you know damn well at least three-quarters of the gardaí in Dunmullach are waiting for a cue signaling the civilians are safe so they can rush in and arrest you for enough crimes to fill a library shelf-worth of legal books. You know you need a hostage if you have any hope of getting out of here. You don’t want him,” she jerked her head toward Niall, “because he’s younger than you and taller than you and stronger than you and more trouble than he’s worth. I, on the other hand, am about your height and only a third of your size and I’m a girl.”

  “What you’re not is the full shilling,” Niall said. “Will you please shut it and let me handle this?”

  “What is it with men, Karl? A woman makes a perfectly logical suggestion but, because she’s a woman, the men in the room think she’s crazy or annoying or not very smart or all of the above. They tell her to sit down and be quiet. Why do you men do that?”

  Niall’s jaw tightened and a vein popped out on his temple. “Now is not the time for a feminist screed.” His voice rose a few decibels. “This has nothing to do with you being a woman. This is about you being a civilian, regardless of how clever and fearless and well-meaning, and me being an actual fecking garda who is trained to—”

  Eamon materialized. “Found her. Up there.” He pointed to the asylum roof. The moon shone on a figure, just visible from the hillock, perched in a gap in a crumbling parapet, dangerously close to a fatal plunge to the g
round. “Tied to a chair. Gagged. Mercifully.”

  “About time,” she said aloud.

  “Thank you, Eamon,” the ghost mimicked her Virginia accent, “for finding the hostage.” He winked out.

  Niall stopped mid-rant and frowned down at her. “About time for what?”

  “About time for both of you to be silent. I warned you about trying my patience,” Karl said. “I accept Dr. Brown’s generous offer to take Mrs. Jacobi’s place. You will please come with me, Dr. Brown.”

  Niall grabbed her arm. “No, she won’t.”

  “I’m afraid I must insist.” A small pistol appeared in Karl’s free hand. The moonlight did not glint off the dull metal.

  Gethsemane forced herself not to think about the previous time a murderer pointed a gun at her. “Is that what you used to shoot Reston?”

  Karl raised the flashlight and shone the beam in Niall’s face. He held the gun steady in his other hand. “This? Of course not. It doesn’t have the range to shoot someone on the ground from the top of the lighthouse.” He aimed the gun at Niall. “In case you’re wondering, Inspector, you are, however, quite within its range.”

  Niall raised his hands. “Don’t do anything you can’t take back, Dietrich.”

  Gethsemane scanned the area for something to use as a weapon while Niall tried to talk Karl into putting down his gun. She spied it near the stairs—a hoe, its blade up and facing Karl. Never again would she scold Frankie for not putting up his garden tools.

  She rushed forward and stomped the blade. The handle flew up and smacked Karl hard in the face. He staggered. Gethsemane grabbed the hoe and slammed the head down on Karl’s forearm. He cried out and dropped the gun. Niall rushed forward and tackled him.

  “Garda!” The shout rose from behind them. Sutton came into view from the woods, followed by a half-dozen uniformed gardaí and Frankie.

  “Sorry I didn’t wait for your cue, Niall.” The math teacher helped his friend up as the other gardaí took control of Karl. “As soon as Sutton and crew arrived I took them the long way ’round the back.”