How to Murder a Millionaire (Movie Club Mysteries, Book 3): An Irish Cozy Mystery

by Zara Keane

  The sound of the approaching police car grew louder. I had to act fast. I fingered the bag containing the external hard drive and itched to take it out. Man, it was hard to do the right thing sometimes, especially seeing as my being in Wright’s house was far from correct procedure. I’d have to ‘fess up to Reynolds, but I’d cross that wobbly bridge when I had to.

  I clicked and scrolled my way through Jimmy’s Documents folder. At first glance, there was nothing nefarious among them. Perhaps I’d have better luck with his internet searches. When I pulled up his recent history, two site names leaped out at me. So Jimmy Wright had used online dating portals? I made a mental note of the URLs before closing the laptop and returning it to the space under the floor.

  The siren rose to a crescendo. Adrenaline shot through my body. With a pounding heart, I flipped through the papers I’d found with the laptop. I snapped a photo of the top two with my phone, barely registering their contents. Inside my rubber gloves, my palms were damp with sweat. I returned the papers to the hiding place under the floor, and replaced the floorboard and rug. Then I jumped to my feet and ran.

  2

  I’D BARELY MANAGED to close the back door behind me and stuff my protective gear into my bag when the squad car pulled into the yard. I forced air into my lungs and schooled my features into a calm expression. Beside me, Mavis perched on the top step, regal as a queen. She’d darted out of the house an instant before the door had slammed behind us, leaving me with no time to coax her back inside.

  Sergeant Liam Reynolds leaped out of the driver’s side and sprinted toward us. For a moment, my anxiety at being caught searching Wright’s house evaporated. During the five months I’d lived on Whisper Island, my relationship with the police officer had evolved from vaguely flirtatious to on-the-verge-of-dating—if, that was, we ever managed to go on a date without being interrupted by an emergency.

  When his gaze met mine, Reynolds’s frown relaxed. The by-now familiar spark of awareness crackled through my veins and reignited the jumble of emotions I felt every time I was in his company.

  “Maggie.” His dark blue eyes never left my face. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay. Doing better than Jimmy Wright.” I nodded toward the barn. “Want to go take a look?”

  “Yeah. We’d better get it over with.” He gestured for me to follow him, and Mavis interpreted the invitation as extending to her. Reynolds regarded the cat with amusement. “I see you’ve found a friend.”

  “I think she sees me as a source of food and cuddles. Smart cat. With Jimmy gone, I don’t know who’ll look after her.”

  “I don’t suppose Noreen wants to add to her cat collection?” he asked with a grin.

  My aunt had eight cats, not counting the kittens who’d been born a few months ago. “I don’t know. I can ask her.” My steps slowed as we neared the barn. “It’s not a pretty sight in there.”

  This was an understatement. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I swallowed a laugh. Reynolds would bust a gut when he saw Jimmy’s fashion statement.

  The arrival of Dr. Reilly spared us the sight of the corpse for a few extra seconds. The owner of the Whisper Island Medical Centre parked his red Jaguar behind the police car and hurried to catch up with us. He cast an impatient glance at his watch as he speed-walked the short distance to the barn. Reilly was an okay guy, but I’d never warmed to him. He was too puffed up in his self-consequence for my taste. Still, he was the only doctor available. Given the cause of death, I was confident that Wright’s body would be sent to the mainland for an autopsy by a pathologist.

  Judging by Dr. Reilly’s dour expression when he recognized me at the barn door, my dislike of him was reciprocated. “Good evening, Ms. Doyle.”

  “Let’s get these on before we go inside.” Reynolds removed packages of rubber gloves and disposable overshoes from his backpack and handed them to us. The three of us dutifully kitted up before we trooped into the barn. Mavis scooted in behind us and yowled in protest when Reynolds scooped her up and put her on the wrong side of the barn door. “Sorry, sweetheart. Can’t have you in here contaminating the corpse.” The cat summarily disposed of, he turned his attention to the crime scene. Reynolds reeled back at the sight of Jimmy’s body. “Whoa. What is he wearing?”

  “I believe it’s called a mankini,” I supplied, my tone deadpan, “but I suspect that particular model is only found at sex shops.”

  Reynolds shook himself and blinked several times. “Whatever that is, it’s not a good look.”

  “Nope,” I agreed. “It gives the phrase ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in that’ a whole new meaning.”

  Dr. Reilly took a cautious step toward the body and examined the rake. “The cause of death seems clear.”

  Talk about stating the obvious.

  Even though I’d seen it already, the pool of blood under Jimmy’s body turned my stomach. The muggy June weather had attracted flies, and they swarmed around the corpse with glee. I concentrated on the strap of Jimmy’s lime-green mankini. Throwing up wasn’t an option.

  Reynolds pulled out a camera from his bag. “I’ll take a few photos before you examine him, Tom.”

  The doctor and I gave Reynolds space while he took shots of the body from every angle. When he was satisfied with the results, he nodded to the doctor. “Your turn.”

  Dr. Reilly kneeled before the corpse and began his examination, careful to avoid disturbing the rake.

  Letting the doctor do his thing, I followed Reynolds around the barn while he took more photos. “Only one entrance,” I observed, “and no security cameras that I can see. There don’t appear to be any around the yard, either.”

  “Why are you here, Maggie?” His frown slid back into place. “Is it something to do with your work? Do you know anyone with a grudge against Wright?”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to prevaricate and deny any knowledge of Jimmy Wright’s potential enemies, but Reynolds and I had danced that jig on a previous case, and it hadn’t ended well for me. After a moment’s hesitation, I said, “Paddy Driscoll hired me to look into a matter of a missing sheep. Paddy thinks Jimmy Wright had something to do with her disappearance.”

  “Ah, no. Not this crazy cold-case sheep business again.”

  My lips twitched. “Paddy said he’d mentioned it to you, and that you didn’t treat the matter with the seriousness he felt it deserved.”

  “The sheep’s been missing for twenty-something years,” he said in exasperation. “How does he expect me to find her? Assuming the sheep didn’t just fall off a cliff, anyone involved in her disappearance has probably left the island by now.”

  He had a point. Whisper Island’s population had dwindled since my father’s generation had come of age. It had always been a place that was ripe for emigration: few jobs beyond family farms, and a brain drain of young people who left for higher education on the mainland and rarely returned.

  “Paddy seems genuinely distressed. He says he’s asked every Whisper Island police chief to look into the case since it happened, and none of you have.”

  Reynolds’s eyes creased in amusement. “So he decided to hire you.”

  “Bingo.”

  He grinned. “A cold case involving a missing sheep is a great first job for your private investigation business.”

  “Laugh away. I’ve had my private investigator’s license for a day, and I already have a paying client.” Okay, a job involving a missing farm animal hadn’t been what I’d been expecting, but my business had to start somewhere, right?

  His amusement evaporated when he snapped a few extra shots of the barn. “On a more serious note, do you think Paddy hated Jimmy enough to kill him?”

  “I’ve thought about that, but the pieces don’t fit. Why would Paddy hire me the day before he intended to kill Jimmy? Why would he send me to the farm to question Jimmy if he knew I’d find the man dead? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I agree, but I’ll need to talk to Paddy.” He nodded in the d
irection of the doctor. “Looks like Tom’s finished his examination. Want to hear what he has to say?”

  “Sure.” I’d expected him to kick me out of the barn before the doc voiced his conclusions, and I was grateful he was letting me stay. Being honest about Paddy had been the right move. As long as Reynolds didn’t find out I’d searched the house before I was ready to reveal this information, I was good to go.

  Dr. Reilly lumbered to his feet, puffing a bit from the effort. The doctor wasn’t fat, but he had the pudgy appearance of a man who didn’t always practice what he preached regarding healthy eating and exercise.

  Reynolds propelled me toward the body. “What’s the verdict?”

  The doctor brushed straw off the blazer of his suit before he answered. “Wright’s been dead at least four hours. Probably closer to five.”

  “That puts the time of death between four and five o’clock.” Reynolds turned to me. “What time did you get here, Maggie?”

  “Around eight-fifteen. When Jimmy didn’t answer the house door, I figured I’d find him somewhere around the farm.” I cast an involuntary glance at the body and swallowed hard. Now was not the moment to focus on the mankini. “I didn’t expect to find him like…this.”

  Reynolds moved to the other side of the body and examined the position of the rake. “What else can you tell us, Tom?”

  “On cursory inspection, the cause of death is exactly what it appears to be—multiple stab wounds from the prongs of this rake, two of which more than likely perforated the heart. He also has a gash on the back of the head, but I can’t examine that too closely without disturbing the rake.”

  “The head wound was probably caused by the fall,” Reynolds mused. “We’ll know more when the forensics team gets here and we can move the body. Was there any sign of defensive wounds?”

  “None that I can see,” Dr. Reilly replied. “Wright’s nails are clean. Whatever he was doing in the barn didn’t involve getting his hands dirty.”

  We all regarded the remains of Jimmy Wright and the outfit he probably hadn’t planned to die in.

  “Jimmy must have been meeting someone,” I said. “Unless he usually strolled around his farm wearing lime-green strings of Lycra.”

  An expression of repulsion flickered over Dr. Reilly’s face, but Reynolds grinned. “Not as far as I know,” the policeman said, “and I doubt Jimmy was heading to the pub in that outfit. A romantic rendezvous is my guess.”

  On Reynolds’s initiative, we turned away from the corpse and strolled out of the barn. Mavis was waiting for us on the other side of the door, with her ears pricked up in anticipation. Of what, I wasn’t sure, but Mavis didn’t strike me as the kind of cat who liked to be kept away from the action. A gal after my own heart.

  “Maybe Jimmy got his kicks out of wearing weird outfits for booty calls,” I said while we walked back across the yard. “That theory implies he was expecting a visitor.”

  “A visitor who could be our perp. Did you see anyone near the property when you arrived, Maggie?” Reynolds asked. “Or any sign that someone other than Wright had been here recently?”

  I shook my head. “I looked, but I saw no one. There are tire tracks all over the yard, but that’s hardly surprising. Wright was a farmer. He drove trucks and farm vehicles through here all the time.”

  Reynolds looked up at the cloudy sky. “I’ll need to photograph all the tracks before the rain comes. We’re due for a downpour overnight.”

  The doctor looked at his watch again, and his body vibrated with impatience. “Do you need me for anything else, Liam? If not, I’ll be off. It’s Maria’s birthday, and we have reservations at the hotel restaurant.”

  “Go on,” Reynolds said. “I can handle it from here. There’s not a lot I can do until the forensics team arrives, and that won’t be for a couple of hours.”

  “See you tomorrow, Liam. Goodbye, Ms. Doyle.” Dr. Reilly nodded brusquely at me and walked back in the direction of his car.

  After he’d left, I turned to Reynolds. “Do you need me to stay? I could help you sift through the evidence.”

  An amused twinkle sparkled in his eyes. “Nice try, Maggie. I’ll need to take your statement, but that can wait until tomorrow. Can you call by the station in the morning?”

  “Sure. I need to open the café for Noreen anyway. How does ten-thirty sound? My aunt will be in by then.”

  “Sounds perfect. Will you ask your aunt about the cat?”

  I laughed. “In other words, will I take her with me and save you one hassle for this evening?”

  “Pretty much.” Reynolds’s slow-burn smile turned my knees to jelly.

  I picked up Mavis and started to walk to my car.

  “Maggie?”

  I turned back, knowing what he was going to say before he’d had a chance to utter a word. “Yes?”

  “Leave this case to me. No interfering. Is that understood?”

  “Of course,” I said, my tone sweet. “However, I’ll need to continue my investigation into what happened to Paddy Driscoll’s sheep. If I come across any information pertaining to your murder inquiry, would you like me to share it?”

  A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Forget the sheep. Concentrate on finding stray cats or cheating spouses. That’s the sort of work a P.I. on a small island should expect to get.”

  “Stray cat, stray sheep.” I shrugged. “What’s the difference? Tell you what, Sarge. You concentrate on the dead guy in a sex suit, and I’ll concentrate on my case. Deal?”

  “Maggie, I—”

  I opened the door of my car and slid behind the wheel, depositing Mavis on the back seat before I put on my belt. I gunned the engine and rolled down my window as I drove past him. “By the way, you’ll find Wright’s laptop and some papers under a floorboard upstairs. If you discover any mention of Paddy Driscoll and his sheep, do let me know. Have a great evening.”

  I gave the slack-jawed Reynolds a cheery wave and left him in the dust.

  3

  WORD TRAVELED FAST on Whisper Island. The news of my discovery of Jimmy Wright’s body was no exception. When I pulled up in front of my aunt’s café at seven o’clock the next morning, Lenny was waiting for me at the entrance. My friend’s lanky frame quivered with excitement, and he danced from foot to foot like a toddler who needed to pee. Aw, man. The last thing I wanted to deal with this morning was a barrage of questions.

  Sure enough, Lenny accosted me the instant I stepped out of the car. “The sarge says you found another corpse.”

  So much for living down my reputation as a dead-body magnet. “There’s no need for you to look so cheerful about it.” I slipped the key into the lock and let us into the café, bowing to the inevitable. “Want a coffee before I set up for opening?”

  “Sure. I’ll help you get ready when we’re done.”

  I laughed. “In return for me telling all?”

  A wide grin spread over my friend’s bony face. “Of course.”

  “All right. We have a deal. But you’ll need to keep what I tell you to yourself. I haven’t even made a formal statement to the police yet.”

  After I’d put my purse and jacket under the counter, I fixed him a frothy cappuccino with the Movie Theater Café’s huge Italian-made machine. I made a less flashy double espresso for me and brought our coffees over to the Doris Day table. Each table was named after an old movie star and had their black-and-white photo, plus movie paraphernalia, inlaid under the glass surface. My aunt had purchased Smuggler’s Cove’s abandoned movie theater a couple of years back, and she’d turned it into a café. Every month, the Movie Club she’d founded met to watch a classic movie in the old theater. Lenny and I were among the club’s most enthusiastic members.

  My friend wiped milk froth off his scraggly goatee. “I want all the deets. How’d Jimmy Wright wind up dead?”

  “A rake through the chest,” I said without preamble.

  Lenny leaned forward. “Accidental?”

  “I doubt it. If he’d t
ripped and fallen onto the rake, he should have been lying face down. Reynolds is treating the death as suspicious.”

  “Awesome.” My friend beamed like a kid who’d been promised a trip to a theme park. “Is a forensics team coming to the island?”

  “Yeah. They came last night.” I took a sip from my espresso cup. “What do you know about Jimmy Wright? Did he have any enemies?”

  “Nah. Jimmy was a boring old git. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill him. His murder is the most exciting thing about the guy.”

  A vision of the mankini sprang to mind. Not quite a boring old git.

  “Apart from one of his bulls being shot a few months ago when an animal activist trespassed on his property, I don’t know much about Jimmy Wright.” I toyed with the rim of my cup. “Except that Paddy Driscoll wasn’t his greatest fan.”

  “Paddy Driscoll…” Lenny drew his brows together. “I heard something about that, but wasn’t their quarrel old news?”

  “Paddy hired me yesterday to look into the disappearance of one of his sheep—” I paused for dramatic effect, “—twenty-two years ago.”

  Lenny snorted milk foam. “Don’t tell me Paddy’s still looking for Nancy,” he spluttered, coughing and laughing simultaneously. “Wow. Does he think Jimmy had something to do with it?”

  “Yeah, but he can’t prove it.” I sighed into my espresso. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would Jimmy take Paddy’s sheep? I thought Jimmy concentrated on dairy farming with a side business in breeding bulls.”

  “He does. Did,” Lenny corrected himself. “I can ask my parents what they know. I was a little kid at the time. I only have vague memories of a sheep going missing. I don’t think people took Paddy seriously. Sheep go missing all the time on the island. They wander off, fall into bogs, or tumble off cliffs.” He shrugged. “That’s life.”

  “Listen, would you be willing to do some work for me? I need your internet search expertise.”

  My friend perked up. “Sure. Hey, if you’re looking for an assistant, I’m your man.”