by Zara Keane
I straightened, my detective instincts on full alert. “What sort of a fight?”
“Carl doesn’t know. He’s dating one of the maids. Do you remember Carol?”
I cast my mind back to my time working as an undercover maid at the hotel. “Short dark hair with an elfin face?”
My friend nodded. “That’s the one. Anyway, she said that two of the women left in tears and the guy—some sort of manservant—was livid.”
“So Huff fired his manservant and two female employees within hours of Jimmy Wright’s murder?” I contemplated this new fact for a moment. “We need to find out who they were, where they went, and why they were fired.”
“Coaxing people to bare their souls is more your strength than mine,” Lenny said with a grin. “Why don’t you head over to the hotel tomorrow? I’ll give Carl a heads-up, and maybe he can ask around, find out whose the best person to talk to. At the very least, he can arrange for you to meet Carol.”
“Thanks. That would be great. Give Carl my number, and he can text me with the details. My shift at the café ends at four. I can talk to Carol any time after that. Meanwhile, could you do some more digging on Jimmy’s dating profiles?”
“Sure.”
I pulled the piece of paper Reynolds had given me out of my jeans pocket and handed it to Lenny. “The police tracked down the two profile users you found on Jimmy’s kink dating sites.”
Lenny perked up. “And?”
I sighed. “According to Reynolds, both women have alibis for the day of the murder and couldn’t have been on Whisper Island. Do you think you could find more women he was in touch with?”
Lenny frowned. “Maybe, but these two were his most recent contacts. Is Reynolds certain about their alibis?”
“He seemed confident, but I didn’t press him on the issue.”
Lenny pocketed the piece of paper. “Okay. When I get home tonight, I’ll try again. So far, I only looked at the dating sites you spotted in Jimmy’s search history. I’ll cast the net wider this time and look at other dating sites.”
“Thanks, Lenny. I’ll pay you for your time, of course.”
“We’ll sort that out later.” He grinned. “I’m just glad to have something more interesting to do on a Sunday night than watch Magnum, P.I. reruns with Granddad.”
“Hey, I loved Magnum as a kid.”
“So did I, but I’ve seen all the episodes several times at this stage. I’d rather do some live P.I. work.” Lenny checked the time. “I’d better get back and help Carl and the others pack up our stuff.”
“Are you catching the ferry back to Whisper Island?”
“Yeah. Reynolds said we could take the six o’clock connection. How are you guys getting back?”
“I don’t know yet. The Huffingtons have hired a boat, but I’m going to suggest to Julie and Noreen that we catch the ferry. Frankly, I’m sick of being stuck with the Huffingtons and their family tensions.”
“Don’t you want to observe them in case they let something interesting slip?” Lenny’s smile was teasing.
“Ugh. After a weekend cooped up with them, I’m done observing them. And they’re not stupid. They won’t let anything about Huff’s murder slip in front of me.”
“Okay. Let me do some digging tonight. I’ll call you if I find anything urgent. Otherwise, I’ll swing by the café tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
We left the pagoda and hurried back to the house. The rain had lightened in intensity, but my shirt was damp by the time we got inside. Lenny and I parted in the kitchen, and I ran upstairs to get changed.
When I entered our room, Julie was lying on the bed with her digital reader. She sat up when she saw me. “Where have you been? Günter and I were worried.”
I was sorely tempted to tease her about her use of “Günter and I,” but her tense expression told me this wasn’t the moment for levity. “What’s happened?” I asked, reaching into my backpack for a dry top.
“Do you mean apart from being stuck in a house with a murderer?”
“Yeah, that part’s not so cool.” I pulled on the dry T-shirt and flopped onto the bed beside her. “Sorry for abandoning you, but I needed to talk to Lenny.”
“How’s he coping?”
“Oh, you know Lenny. Taking the whole situation in his stride.”
“I guess you two are used to finding dead people at this point.” Julie wrapped her arms around herself. “Seeing Huff floating in that pool…it was horrible.”
“Have you been up here all afternoon?”
My cousin shook her head. “No, Günter and I went out for a walk, but then we got caught in the downpour and came back to change.”
“We must have just missed each other. Lenny and I went into the gardens as it was starting to rain.” I rolled onto my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows. “So, tell me…are you and Günter an item?”
Julie’s freckled cheeks turned a charming shade of pink. “Maybe? He kissed me last night before I came up to bed, and again out in the gardens.”
“Well, now. Your mother will be pleased.”
My cousin cast her eyes heavenward. “Don’t remind me. She’ll gloat. I’d like to keep this under wraps for a while if I can.”
“Philomena won’t hear about it from me, but there’s no way Noreen will keep quiet.”
“Tell me about it. I’m hoping to persuade her to give me a couple of weeks of privacy before she blabs to Mum.”
“Noreen is a terrible liar. Philomena will have the whole story out of her within thirty seconds. So…” I grinned slyly, “…did Günter’s new clean-shaven look make the difference?”
“He looks better without the beard, but I’m not that shallow. After the way he supported me last night, I’d have kissed him with or without the beard.”
“Ah.” I laughed. “I noticed it took you a while to return to our room after we discovered the body.”
“I know Huff was an awful man, but what a way to go.” Julie paled and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Which of them do you think did it? My money’s on Martha.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, my ears pricking up. “Did you overhear something?”
“No, but yesterday evening, just before we went down for cocktails, I was standing at the window—” she pointed to the window nearest our bed, “—and I saw Martha go out into the gardens and talk to one of the gardeners. The guy was holding a pair of plug-in hedge trimmers, and he was using them to trim the greenery around the pool.”
“Did you see where he put the power tool when he was finished using it?”
Julie shook her head. “No. I got distracted getting ready and worrying about my appearance. All I know is that I saw a gardener holding a tool like the one in the pool with Huff, and Martha also knew it existed.”
I cast my mind back to my arrival at Marley House yesterday. “Reynolds and I passed gardeners trimming the maze,” I said. “I’m trying to remember if they had plugged-in power tools or the cordless variety. I should ask Reynolds if he’s spoken to the gardeners yet.”
“Günter heard the gardeners are all local men. Reynolds will probably talk to them this afternoon in the village.”
“Speaking of Reynolds, I’m due to meet him to go for a walk.”
My cousin perked up. “A walk outside Marley House and its gardens?”
“Yes,” I began slowly, “but…”
Julie leaped off the bed. “Fantastic. I can’t wait to get out of here, and the next ferry doesn’t leave until six. If Reynolds is with us, he can hardly object to us leaving the property.”
I swallowed a sigh. I’d been looking forward to pumping Reynolds for information, but my cousin was anxious to escape what had turned into a house of horrors. I didn’t have the heart to snub her. “We’d better see if Noreen wants to tag along.”
“No point. She’s playing bridge with the Huffingtons.” My cousin shivered and wrapped her arms around her body. “They asked Günter and me to join them
, but they’re the last people I feel like hanging out with today.”
“Why don’t you ask Günter to join us?” With him along to distract her, I might still manage to get some alone time with Liam.
“Sure.” Julie pulled on a long-sleeved top and tied her hair into a loose ponytail. “Meet downstairs in five minutes?”
“Deal. And don’t forget your rain jacket. More rain is forecast.”
“Ugh.” My cousin screwed up her nose. “That fits right in with the whole ambiance of the weekend.”
“True, that.” I grabbed my own raincoat from the dressing table chair and made for the door. “See you in five.”
17
DESPITE THE DARK clouds that obscured the afternoon sun, our walk was glorious. After we’d met Reynolds outside O’Dwyer’s Pub as arranged, we walked through Gull Island’s only village and onward to a rocky trail on the northern side of the island.
Today’s walk meandered in the opposite direction of yesterday’s hike. Our goal was to reach the old lighthouse that perched on the top of a cliff and looked out over the Atlantic.
“This walk is popular with tourists,” Julie informed us, proudly holding up a slim guidebook. “It’s less steep than the trails up to the monastery but offers similarly spectacular views. I came up here last summer with a tour organized by the Whisper Island Ramblers.”
We passed several groups of tourists on our way up the rocky path. While this route was less steep than yesterday’s, it was also narrower and closer to the edge of the cliff. I watched my step and stayed as close to the safe edge of the path as possible.
When we reached the top, I inhaled deeply, relishing the rain-rinsed fresh air. “You didn’t exaggerate about the view.”
My cousin shielded her eyes from a sudden burst of sunlight through the cloud cover. “The view’s even better from the top of the lighthouse. Want to race me to the top, Günter?”
The German grinned. “Okay, but I will win.”
“Not if I can help it.” Julie took off at a sprint, and Günter soon caught up with her.
Reynolds and I hung back in a tacit acknowledgment that this was our opportunity to talk. He put his arm around my waist and led me toward a stone slab that served as a bench. Under the thin material of my jacket and T-shirt, my skin was hyperaware of his touch. “We don’t need to pretend anymore,” I reminded him.
His wolfish grin made my heart skip a beat. “Who said anything about pretending?”
“I—“ I swallowed hard, too stunned to form a coherent sentence. I clasped my shaky hands in my lap. I’d expected this. Of course I had. So why had his words sent my emotions into a tailspin?
He leaned in and brushed his lips against my cheek, sending my already rapid heartbeat into overdrive. “We can talk about us once we get our respective investigations wrapped up. Sound good?”
I jerked my neck in agreement. “Okay.”
At the rate my progress into the sheep’s disappearance was going, my divorce would be through by the time Reynolds and I had that conversation.
“On a more serious note,” he said, “I’d like to run my afternoon interviews by you.”
“Sure.” I sat beside him, eager to hear what he’d discovered.
As if he could read my thoughts, Reynolds laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you, Maggie. No one knew anything of significance. I spoke to the two gardeners who worked at the house yesterday, and they were adamant that they’d locked the power tools into the shed where all the Marley House gardening equipment is stored.”
“Who had access to a key to that shed?”
“No one in the house, but they didn’t need a key. The shed was secured with a padlock. Whoever killed Huff broke the lock and stole one of the hedge trimmers.”
“Julie says she saw Martha speaking to one of the gardeners yesterday,” I said. “Do you have any idea what was said?”
“Yeah.” Reynolds rubbed his jaw. “The guy she spoke to was Rob Hennessy. According to Hennessy, Martha Huffington asked him to finish work early because her father was disturbed by the noise of his hedge trimmer that close to the house. Hennessy was only too pleased to push off early, and he and his brother headed straight to O’Dwyer’s Pub for their usual Saturday evening pub dinner.”
“Martha knew the gardeners had hedge trimmers and where they were stored,” I said. “Did the rest of the family know where the shed was located? I don’t remember passing it in the gardens.”
“We did, actually. Do you remember the grass-covered little house next to the greenhouse?”
I nodded. “I remember admiring it yesterday.”
“That’s the shed.”
I whistled. “It’s fancier than any shed I’ve ever seen.”
“I believe it used to be the live-in gardener’s house back in the day. At any rate, the Huffington family arrived at Marley House yesterday morning. Martha’s brothers and sister-in-law had plenty of time to explore the grounds and see the Hennessy brothers at work. In theory, they all could have seen the shed.”
I cast my mind back to yesterday’s events. “What about Felicity, the girl Huff yelled at yesterday for not reading his mind? And didn’t Huff have a valet?”
“Huff’s personal assistant has taken to her bed with a nervous collapse.” Reynolds looked amused. “I couldn’t get much sense out of her, but her records check out, and she hadn’t been in Huff’s employ long.”
“Long enough for him to treat her badly,” I pointed out. “Could she have killed her employer in a fit of rage?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t crossed her off my list, but Huff’s relatives had stronger motives for wanting him dead.”
“What did the valet have to say about his boss?”
Reynolds laughed. “Nothing positive. He’s not pleased that he’s out of a job, but he’s not exactly in mourning. Ditto Helen’s nurse. Did you have any luck with your line of inquiry?”
“I don’t have a line, unfortunately. As long as I’m stuck on Gull Island, I can’t do much to investigate Jimmy Wright’s death. My progress so far has consisted of asking Lenny to take another look online.” The mention of Lenny jogged a memory. “Did you know Huff fired three of his employees on the night Jimmy Wright was murdered? Carl Logan’s girlfriend is a maid at the hotel, and she overheard a fight.”
Reynolds’s intelligent eyes grew contemplative. “I didn’t know that. Thanks for sharing. I’ll check it out.”
Hopefully, not before I’d had a chance to talk to Carol. Sharing was all well and good, but I had to earn a crust. I wasn’t going to spill my entire agenda to Reynolds.
“Are you thinking about who killed Huff?” He asked, misinterpreting my expression.
“Hmm?” I mulled over the question for a bit before answering. “At the moment, Martha is at the top of my list, with Candace a close second.”
“Candace?” He looked at me in surprise. “What makes you suspect her?”
“For a start, she’s fiercely protective of her husband and daughter, and she hates the fact that Huff treated them badly. She confided in me yesterday that she’d leave Amb if he didn’t start standing up to his father.”
“I wonder if she shared these thoughts with her husband,” Reynolds mused. “If she had, it might point to him having a strong motive to do away with the man.”
“Yesterday? I don’t know, but I got the impression it was an ongoing issue between them rather than a new revelation on her part.” I removed my water bottle from my backpack and took a sip, turning ideas over in my mind. “Do you know what will happen to Huff’s estate now that he died before he could change his will?”
“I spoke to Huff’s lawyer an hour ago. The current status quo is an equal division of his private assets between all his children. That’ll include Brandi’s baby. As for Huffington Enterprises, ownership will be divided between his sons.”
“Which will once again include Brandi’s child,” I said, “but exclude Martha.”
“Exactly.”
&nb
sp; I sighed. “There goes my pet theory. From what you’ve said, it sounds like Martha’s position wouldn’t have changed under the terms of the new will, so why would she have wanted to kill her father? I mean, yeah, he was horrible to her, but why pick last night?”
“To stand up for her brothers?” Reynolds shook his head. “As theories go, it’s weak, I know. My money is still on the brothers, either one or both of them.”
My head jerked to attention. “Do you have reason to believe two people were involved in the murder?”
“No, but equally, I have no reason to blindly assume only one other person was present when Huff died. We have no prints and no obvious DNA evidence. I’m waiting for forensics to give me their full report, but the preliminary report contains nothing of use in terms of ruling in or out suspects.”
A flash of Julie’s bright pink rain jacket attracted my attention. My cousin and Günter were on the top landing of the lighthouse. I nudged Reynolds. “I guess we’d better get moving if we want to see the view from the top.”
We walked back to the lighthouse, but Reynolds lingered in front of the door. “Thanks for listening, Maggie. I appreciate having someone with your mind for detection to share ideas with.”
“You know I’m always happy to discuss murder,” I said and opened the door that led to the staircase. “Do you have any idea how long you’ll have to put up with O’Shea?”
When Reynolds had been appointed to Whisper Island Garda Station, it was ostensibly to help Sergeant O’Shea “transition to retirement.” Five months later, O’Shea was showing no signs of leaving.
“Your presence has had a positive effect on his work ethic,” I remarked. “I’ll bet O’Shea’s worked more hours since you arrived than he had for the previous thirty-five years. Unfortunately, that’s not saying much.”
“The trouble is you and your collection of dead bodies.” At my outraged squawk, he laughed. “I’m teasing you, but only partly. We’ve been kept busy over these last few months. With only two part-time reservists, I can’t manage on my own.”
I turned to look back at him. “Why won’t the district superintendent hire someone new?”
