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

by Zara Keane

  My ears pricked up. “So Jimmy wasn’t the only one to write to the paper?”

  “Heck, no. Sean Clough must have received a flood of letters, but he only published a few of them. Jimmy’s was one, and mine was another. You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think Noel was responsible for Jimmy’s death.”

  I looked the farmer straight in the eye. “Who do you think killed Jimmy?”

  “I think Reynolds had the right of it. I’d say Ambrose J. Huffington III was the killer.” Paddy pronounced Huff’s name with disdain.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Did you know Huff?”

  “Never met the guy and I didn’t want to,” the farmer muttered. “I’d heard enough about the man from Jimmy to know to give him a wide berth.”

  My pulse kicked up in pace. “From Jimmy? But I thought you and Jimmy hated each other.”

  “Hate’s a strong word. Before Nancy went missing, we were the best of pals. I was delighted when he moved back to Ireland after his stint in Boston, even if he was less than thrilled about the circumstances.”

  “I heard the Huffingtons fired him.”

  “It was more complicated than that,” Paddy said and fell silent.

  “Could you elaborate?”

  The man shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’d rather not. I know Jimmy’s dead and all, but we were friends once.”

  “If it’s about him being Amb’s father, I already heard.”

  Paddy’s eyes widened in surprise. “From who? Jimmy told no one but me.”

  “Helen Huffington mentioned it when she hired me to take another look at the case against Huff.”

  Paddy guffawed with laughter. “I’ll bet she didn’t tell you the second kid’s probably Jimmy’s, too.”

  It was my turn to be surprised. “Doug was also Jimmy’s son?”

  “Jimmy certainly thought so. He came back from Ireland when Amb was a baby, right enough. Helen Huffington intervened and put a stop to his affair with Huff’s wife. But what Helen didn’t know is that Jimmy and Diana met up in France the summer after he left Boston. Nine months later, the second boy was born. Draw your own conclusions.”

  I sat back in my chair and contemplated this fresh slant on Jimmy’s murder. Up to this point, I’d assumed that the only Huffington child with a reason to want Jimmy dead was Amb. If Jimmy was Amb’s biological father, Amb’s inheritance might be at risk. Until now, I’d reasoned that it would have been in Doug’s interests for Jimmy to stay alive. If it transpired that Amb wasn’t Huff’s biological son, Doug’s share of the inheritance would increase substantially. However, if Doug was also Jimmy’s son, he had a compelling motive to want the farmer silenced.

  In fact, if this scenario were true, the only Huffington who had a reason to keep Jimmy alive and well was Martha.

  To my relief, Timms showed up without Sergeant O’Shea. I didn’t think I could cope with the older policeman’s snide remarks after the fright I’d just had. Once Timms had taken my statement, Paddy drove me home.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to call Noreen? I don’t like leaving you alone in the cottage, especially with all those Huffingtons lurking.”

  I stifled a grin. “If one of them were responsible for what happened to my car, I’d say the safest place I can be is near them.”

  “Hide in plain sight, like?”

  “More like keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” I replied in a bone-dry tone.

  Unlike my crazy ride earlier, the drive home was blissfully uneventful. When we arrived at the entrance to Shamrock Cottages, Lenny’s vibrant purple van was parked outside the gates. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Lenny’s here, so you have no need to worry about me.”

  Paddy snorted. “I’m not so sure about that, but at least you won’t be alone.”

  The farmer drove me to my door. “Thanks for the lift, Paddy,” I said as I got out of the car. “And for treating my scrapes.”

  The man grunted. “No problem. Make sure you stay out of trouble from now on.”

  “I can’t make any promises, but this is the sort of trouble I’d happily avoid.”

  I waved goodbye to the farmer and went to join Lenny, who was waiting for me on my doorstep, bouncing from foot to foot in that excited manner that told me he had news.

  “Whoa, Maggie.” He looked me up and down. “What’s with the scrapes and bruises?”

  “It’s a long story. What’s new in your world?”

  “Good news. I have a lead on Jimmy’s internet hookup.”

  I perked up instantly. “You do? Come in and tell me everything.”

  When we were armed with iced tea and leftover cookies from the café, we sat out on my deck to chat.

  “Keep your voice down,” I warned. “Just in case one of the Huffingtons walks by.”

  “I took another look at kink dating sites operating in Ireland and tried a few variations of the user name Jimmy had chosen for the two sites I checked out last week,” Lenny whispered. “On Kinks-n-Winks, I struck gold.”

  My pulse kicked up its pace. “Go on.”

  “Jimmy used to meet a woman called Judy semi-regularly, and they made many arrangements via PM on the dating site. Apparently, Judy didn’t like giving out her phone number.”

  I toyed with my straw and absorbed this information. “Is there a mention of her arranging to meet Jimmy on Whisper Island?”

  Lenny shook his head. “No, but they could have made the date in person at the end of a hookup. Here’s the best bit: there’s a party being held in Galway this Friday for mankini and Lycra fans. Judy intends to be there.”

  “So what’s the plan? We gatecrash a kink party?”

  “Exactly.” Lenny beamed at me. “And the best part? I’ve already ordered our outfits.”

  24

  I HELD the hot pink material up to the light. “Please tell me this is a joke.”

  “Nope. I’ve got one, too.” Lenny whipped a neon-orange monstrosity out of the box and dangled it in front of me.

  “Is it…” I struggled to contain my laughter, “…the same model as Jimmy’s?”

  “Even for you, I’m not strutting around in a crotchless mankini. No, this is Borat-style.”

  I busted out laughing. “We can’t go out in these things. We’ll get arrested.”

  “Nah. It’ll be fine. We’ll have coats on until we get inside the house.”

  “I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours dreading wearing this outfit.” I wasn’t exaggerating. Ever since Lenny’s announcement about the kink party, I’d had nightmares about the barely there leotard he’d ordered for me.

  “Your scrapes and bruises will cause more talk at the party than your outfit,” Lenny said cheerfully. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I glanced down at the scrapes on my arms and grimaced. In the two days since my MINI had made its inglorious descent down the cliff, the Whisper Island police had failed to turn up any clues as to who had sabotaged my car. In fact, the only piece of information Sergeant O’Shea had deigned to share with me was to confirm that my brake lines had been cut, a circumstance that came as no surprise.

  I looked around the apartment belonging to Lenny’s brother Jake. “Are you sure Jake isn’t going to walk in at any moment?”

  “I told you, he’s away for the night. We have the place to ourselves. Besides—” Lenny picked up the box of my aunt’s baked goods that I’d brought Jake as a gift, “—he’ll love these.”

  “Well, I didn’t make them, so they’re more likely to be edible.” I fingered the leotard again and sighed. “I’d better get this on.”

  “Yeah. The party starts in twenty minutes. We want to get there early and maximize our chances of finding people who knew Jimmy.”

  “How will we recognize this Judy chick?” I asked. “Do people wear their dating site monikers on a label?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Lenny laughed. “At least we’re not likely to run into anyone from Whisper Island at the party. Can you imagine try
ing to live down these outfits?”

  “Ugh.” I tugged at a piece of my Lycra costume. “Not that I wish Reynolds a concussion, but I’m kind of glad he’s not around. If he knew what we were up to, he’d freak.”

  “When I imagined us going undercover for Movie Reel Investigations, I was wearing a James Bond-style suit and cool shades. A mankini never entered the picture.”

  “Tell me about it. I thought the stripper-style maid’s outfit I was obliged to wear during my previous stint undercover was an indignity, but this…” I looked down at the hot pink strips that barely covered my body. “At least Helen Huffington pays well.”

  “Yeah. The money is a definite bonus.” Lenny grinned at me. “Sure you don’t want to send old Tom at the ferry office a photo of you in that outfit?”

  I gave him the evil eye. “No way.”

  “It was only thanks to your charms that we got the time of your ferry ticket changed to this evening,” Lenny pointed out. “Tom’s normally a bear about making changes during the tourist season.”

  Old Tom was not the man I wanted to exercise my charms on, but that particular individual’s only response to my voice mails and text messages had been a curt one-line message to say that he’d gone to his brother and sister-in-law’s house to recuperate for a few days. Although I was relieved to hear he was no longer in the hospital, his impersonal text message stung way more than I’d expected. On this gloomy thought, I stomped into Jake’s bedroom to put on my party gear.

  Twenty minutes later, Lenny parked his van outside a large redbrick house in an upmarket part of Galway city.

  “This place looks way too respectable to be the site of a fetish party. Are you sure we have the right address?”

  Lenny checked his phone. “It’s correct, all right.”

  “How on earth did you score us invitations?” I asked. “People in the kink scene are usually very careful about who they let into their parties.”

  “Let’s just say a guy owed me a favor, and he vouched for both of us.”

  “I have to say I feel kind of uncomfortable about deceiving our hosts.”

  “Yeah, but it’s our only chance to find Judy.” Lenny turned to me. “Are you having reservations because you don’t want to lie to people, or are you worried about your outfit?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  Lenny slapped me across the back. “You’ll be fine. If you’re worried about me looking at your boobs, I promise I won’t…as long as you don’t check me out in my mankini.”

  “Deal,” I said, and we shook hands.

  He reached for the door handle. “Ready to go in?”

  “Wait.” I was breathing hard, and my stomach was a bundle of nerves. “This isn’t… People won’t be having sex in front of us, will they?”

  Lenny spread his palms wide. “Dude, how should I know? I’m into board games, UFOs, and old movies. I don’t do the kink scene.”

  “It’ll be fine.” I exhaled slowly. “No one will care what I look like.”

  “Heck no. I look like an extra on a comedy skit show, and I’m still going in.” He held up his hand and gave me five. “We’ve got this, dude.”

  I took a deep breath and opened the passenger door of Lenny’s purple van. “Let’s do this thing.”

  Outside the car, I shivered in spite of the warm evening. I wasn’t used to parading around half-naked. Lenny opened a wrought-iron gate, and we walked up to the front door.

  The front door of the house was opened by a horsey-looking woman wearing leopard-print strips of tape across her nipples and other vital areas. Above her right breast, she’d stuck a label onto her skin.

  “Hi, Naomi48,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster under the circumstances. “I’m GraceKelly5, and this is UFOsRock.”

  “Welcome.” The woman displayed horsey teeth in an overlarge mouth. “Come on in.”

  I took off my coat and accepted the proffered name label. I tried very hard not to look at Lenny while I stuck the label onto the fabric that barely covered my right boob, but my eyes had other ideas. A split second’s glance at Lenny’s orange mankini was all it took to make me lose control. I snorted back a giggle and faked a coughing fit.

  Lenny pounded me on the back. “It’s her first time,” he said to our hostess sotto voce. “She’s a bit nervous.”

  “Oh, there’s no need to be nervous, love. Sure, all we do is sit around half naked and get drunk.” This was accompanied by braying laughter that triggered another laugh-coughing fit and more back-pounding from Lenny. “But I do have to ask you to leave your mobile phones at the door. We have a strict no photos policy.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “And whatever you did to get those cuts and bruises? I’m afraid we don’t cater to that sort of malarkey here.”

  I stifled a grin. “Car accident. These were definitely not acquired in the pursuit of pleasure.”

  Naomi’s eyes widened as she took in the full glory of my injuries. “Oh, you poor dear. Are you sure you’re up to partying?”

  “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

  “Well, if you’re sure…” Naomi handed each of us a bag to put our phones in, labeled with our fake names.

  Once our phones were safely stored in a locked closet, our host led us into a living room that was packed with neon Lycra and dangling man bits. Most, thankfully, appeared to have opted for mankinis that covered the worst of what they had to offer, but my gaze was inevitably drawn to the two who hadn’t.

  I took a rapid step back, but Lenny stopped me. “We’ve come this far, Maggie,” he whispered. “Let’s at least stay for a while and see if Judy puts in an appearance.”

  I swallowed hard. “Okay. But if things get weird, I’m out of here.”

  “Deal.”

  Lenny propelled me into forward motion and located free seats on a sofa. I sat and tried hard to concentrate on my fellow party guests from the neck up. One of the guys wearing a Jimmy Wright-style mankini droned on about stocks and shares and financial stuff that I should pay more attention to, but never did.

  The woman to my left regaled her other neighbor with details of her daughter’s upcoming nuptials, and Lenny found a fellow computer geek to talk bytes, RAM, and whatever else techies enjoyed. A glass of champagne appeared in my hand as if by magic. The entire scenario was tinged by the surreal.

  After a generous gulp of champagne and a lull in the wedding talk, I made my move. “Excuse me,” I said to my neighbor, “but do you know if Judy is coming tonight?”

  “Judy?” The woman shrugged. “I don’t know her well, but she’s usually at these parties.”

  “Judy’s the reason most of the single men show up,” her neighbor proclaimed with a laugh.

  The future mother of the bride snorted. “And the attached ones, too. Judy doesn’t discriminate.”

  Poor Judy. Her name was being dragged through the mud, and she wasn’t here to defend herself. “She said she’d meet me here,” I lied breezily, “but she’s late.”

  The future wearer of a feather boa hat eyed me with blatant skepticism. “If you’re a friend of hers, you’ll know Judy is never on time.”

  I rallied quickly. “I know. She’s dreadful, isn’t she? And I made her swear she wouldn’t leave me in the lurch tonight.”

  “You should know better than to believe anything Judy says,” the other woman said with an acid bite. “She promised me she wasn’t interested in my boyfriend. That certainly wasn’t true.”

  “Judy and I have an acquaintance in common.” I placed particular emphasis on the word “acquaintance.” “I thought he’d be here tonight as well.” It was possible that they recognized Jimmy’s photograph from the news reports on his murder, but I considered it unlikely. The police had managed to keep the information about Jimmy’s last outfit out of the press, and the photo that the media had gotten hold of bore little resemblance to the man I’d found dead in the crotchless mankini. People looked different with their clothes on. Of course, people also looked different aliv
e.

  “What’s he called?” my neighbor asked. “If he’s a regular on the local mankini scene, we’ll know him.”

  “He has a couple of monikers,” I said, trying to contain my excitement. “Does Bulldog2020 sound familiar?”

  “Bullie? Oh, yeah. He sometimes shows up. He’s more of an occasional visitor than a regular guest, though.”

  “He’s a farmer if I recall correctly,” the mother of the bride said. “He bored me senseless about cows at one party.”

  Her friend straightened and grabbed my arm. “Oh, look. Judy’s just walked in.”

  25

  MY ATTENTION WAS RIVETED by the new arrival. Judy was at least ten years my senior, but her figure put most of my contemporaries to shame. Instead of Lycra, she wore neon green tape, similar to what our hostess was wearing. The tape had been applied in a haphazard fashion, leaving part of one nipple exposed. From Judy’s confident strut, I surmised that the look was deliberate.

  I jumped to my feet. “I’ll go say hello to her.” I took off before my neighbors could respond. I couldn’t risk Judy failing to recognize me in front of them. I made a beeline for my quarry, but the large man wearing the hideous purple mankini got there first.

  Darn. Now what? I ran through my options and decided to drop the social niceties my mother spent many years drilling into me with a modicum of success. I marched up and interrupted them. “Judy, there you are. I thought you’d never show.” Ignoring her startled look and the man’s irritated squawk, I grabbed her arm and dragged her into a corner.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Who are you?”

  “No one you know, but please play along. I know Jimmy.” At her frozen expression, I elaborated. “Bulldog2020. He also went by Bullseye2020.”

  The instant she blanched, I knew my hunch had been correct. “I know his name. I saw it in the papers.”

  “Can you tell me—”

  She held up a hand. “Stop. I don’t want to talk about him.”