“Did your Dad notify the authorities?”
Aoife shook her head. “I told you, Dad was in no shape to do much of anything after Oisin died. He turned running the pharmacy over to others for a long time. I doubt he knew about the theft.”
“Wouldn’t whoever was running things for your dad have known?”
“Maybe the fox was guarding the hen house.”
“You know who did it, who stole drugs and poisoned Oisin.”
“I don’t know. Not for certain. And I don’t want to go around pointing fingers. Word gets around town…I meant it when I said some people would go to great lengths to keep secrets.”
“I’ll make you a deal. Bring me your evidence and I’ll take it to the police. To Inspector O’Reilly. No one except him will know it came from you.”
“I’ll think about it.” She checked the time on her mobile phone. “I’d better go. Thanks again for Eileen and thanks for listening.”
“Before you go, did you mail me something? A letter?”
“No. Someone mailed you a letter? Here?”
“Never mind. Drive safely.”
“About the lighthouse—”
Gethsemane winked. “What lighthouse?”
Gethsemane waited until Aoife disappeared around the curve, then peeled off her mud-caked shoes and opened the cottage door. The leather-soap smell hit her full in the face.
“Where the devil have you been?” Eamon’s voice boomed through the hallway.
“Out walking.” Gethsemane tossed her shoes in a corner. “Like I said.”
Eamon mimicked her. “Out walking.”
“Your American accent sucks.” Gethsemane headed for the study.
Eamon’s voice followed her down the hallway. “Out walking in a bloody gale force storm. You might’ve been killed. The winds on the cliffs can throw a grown man over the edge. Think what they’d do to a wee thing such as yourself.”
Gethsemane poured herself a bourbon.
“Thanks for giving me credit for enough sense to come in out of the rain. I rode out the storm in the lighthouse.” She flopped on the sofa.
Eamon materialized next to her.
“Oh. Of course, the lighthouse. Sorry. And my American accent’s better than your brogue.”
“Not.” Gethsemane sipped. The bourbon’s slow burn down her throat warmed her. “Guess who I found in the lighthouse?”
“Kieran?”
“Your brother-in-law.”
“Teague? What was he doing up there?”
“More like who was he doing. Aoife Fitzgerald.”
“Aoife? Teague and Aoife? You’re jokin’.”
“And just when it looked like I’d spoiled all the fun, guess who arrived to liven up the party?”
“Tell me.”
“Your brother-in-law’s wife.”
“Eileen? The she-devil of County Cork? Whoo hoo!” Eamon slapped a hand through the arm of the sofa. “I bet poor ol’ Teague would’ve preferred to take his chances with the wind. Being dashed to pieces on the rocks wouldn’t have been half as painful as listening to that harpy shriek at him.”
“Not that I condone adultery, but in Teague’s case I’ll make allowances. What’d he ever see in Eileen?”
“It’s a long, complicated story that’s no more fun hearing than telling. Eileen Rafferty Connolly’s been a dirty piece of work since the age of twelve.” Eamon leaned away from Gethsemane and looked her over. “You seem to have escaped unscathed. Didn’t even muss your hair. When Eileen attacks, she doesn’t give a damn about collateral damage. How’d you manage to stay out of the kill zone?”
“I told a fairy story about Aoife and I being on a nature walk and running into Teague accidentally.”
“She bought that?”
Gethsemane emptied her glass. “No, but she bought it when I complemented her on her refined tastes and her exquisite perfume. Stroking her ego defused her long enough for Teague to drag her out.”
Eamon laughed.
“Guess what else?”
“I’m no good at guessing.”
“Aoife believes you were murdered. She believes Oisin Ardmore was murdered too. Poisoned with drugs stolen from her pharmacy.”
“A mad poisoner on the loose in Dunmullach? Except Oisin died in Cork.”
“Cork’s not that far away.”
“Does she know who did it?”
“She has a strong suspicion, but she wouldn’t name names. She’s nervous—afraid. She also won’t go to the police herself. I told her I’d go.”
“Hmmm.” Eamon looked worried.
“‘Hmmm’ means it occurred to you Aoife’s reluctance to speak up for fear of reprisal means the killer is still alive and well enough to kill again.”
“Oh, so you can read my thoughts now?”
“Am I wrong?”
Eamon rolled his eyes. “Well, no. Not wrong so much as partially right. Aoife might be afraid of a grey-haired murderer or she might be afraid of a murderer’s offspring. Secrets and grudges get passed down through the generations like the family silver in these parts. It wouldn’t be beyond the pale for a son—”
Gethsemane held up a finger. “Or a daughter.”
“A woman?” Eamon raised an eyebrow.
“Eileen’s a woman. She’d stab you in your sleep.”
“Aye, point taken. Or daughter to commit murder to save the family’s reputation.”
“First and second generation murderers notwithstanding,” Gethsemane stood, “once Aoife tells me what she knows, I’m going to O’Reilly and I’m camping out in front of his office until he agrees to open an investigation.”
“Don’t suppose it would do any good to tell you to be careful?”
“When am I not careful?”
Eamon glowed orange-yellow. “No, not one damn bit of good.”
Ten
Gethsemane spotted them on her way to the pub after school on Wednesday. In an alley between the pizza parlor and the Laundromat, partially obscured by a dumpster, Eileen Connolly and a man who was not Teague leaned against a wall. The man buried his hands to the wrists in the back pockets of Eileen’s skinny jeans. Gethsemane couldn’t see Eileen’s hands, but from the closed-eyed, opened-mouthed expression on the man’s face she guessed what Eileen’s hands were doing. She hurried past.
Inside the pub, Gethsemane found Inspector O’Reilly in a booth at the back. File folders covered the tabletop. A full pint glass sat neglected near his elbow. As Gethsemane wound her way toward him, dodging tray-laden waitresses, it dawned on her he sat in the same booth Siobhan had used to conduct her business. A chill halted her for a moment. She ignored the looks—from Nuala, Pegeen, and Deirdre at a table near the window, from Jimmy Lynch at the bar with the pub regulars—aimed in her direction. She nodded hello to Francis as she slid into the booth opposite Inspector O’Reilly. He kept reading.
“Afternoon, Inspector.”
O’Reilly didn’t look up. “Afternoon, Dr. Brown.”
They sat in silence. O’Reilly flipped pages. Gethsemane pulled his pint glass toward her.
“Are you going to drink this?”
“Help yourself,” he said.
Gethsemane sipped the dark bitter liquid and made a face. She couldn’t pretend she liked lager. She pushed the glass back. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I want?”
“You’ll tell me, whether or not I ask.”
“You’re right, I will. I may have evidence pointing to a murderer.”
O’Reilly raised his head.
“Got your attention?”
“For a moment,” he said. He motioned to a waitress.
“Thanks, but I’m good.”
“The drink’s for me. I suspect I�
�ll need something stronger than a pint.”
“Since you’re having one anyway, you can buy me a Bushmills Twenty-one. Neat,” Gethsemane said as the waitress approached.
“Make that two,” O’Reilly said to the waitress. He turned back to Gethsemane. “What evidence?”
“I don’t actually have it yet.”
O’Reilly leaned back against the bench, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Don’t start,” Gethsemane said. “I’ll have evidence soon. Well, as soon as Aoife Fitzgerald finds it.”
“Aoife Fitzgerald?” O’Reilly sat up. “What’s she got to do with it?”
Gethsemane unfolded the newspaper clipping she’d received in the mail and slid it toward O’Reilly. “Someone sent me this piece about Oisin Ardmore. He was a student at University College in Cork. He died suddenly and his death was blamed on a drug overdose.”
O’Reilly skimmed the article. “I know the case.”
“You know the—? How?”
“One of my mates, fella named Kildare, heads the cold case unit with the Cork Garda. He’s working this.”
“As a homicide?”
“Yes.” O’Reilly set the article on the table but didn’t slide it back to Gethsemane. “What’s it got to do with you? Aren’t the McCarthys enough to keep you busy?”
“I told you, someone mailed that article to me. I didn’t go looking for it.”
“Who sent it? Aoife?”
Gethsemane shrugged. “No idea. Aoife said not her. I asked her about Oisin—did you know they grew up together?—and she told me she thought he’d been deliberately poisoned. And she had an idea of who’d done it.”
“Did she say who?”
“No.” The waitress set the whiskey on the table. Gethsemane ignored her. “But she said her father’s inventory records could prove the drugs used to murder Oisin were stolen from her pharmacy.”
“Where are the records?”
“At the pharmacy. Aoife’s afraid to bring them to the police herself, so I volunteered to bring them for her.”
“Of course you did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve a habit of getting mixed up in things you’ve no business being involved in.” Gethsemane opened her mouth to reply, but O’Reilly’s raised hand stopped her. “I don’t want to argue, Dr. Brown. I need you to get those—No, never mind. I’ll see Dr. Fitzgerald and get the records myself. I do want you to come to the station and give a statement, though. Kildare’s coming to town. I’ll introduce you. He’ll get a kick out of you. He’s attracted to hard-headed women.”
“I am not hard-headed. I just don’t give up when I know I’m right about something. And I’m right about the McCarthy deaths.” She drained her glass and stood up. “Wait.” She sat back down. “How do the Cork police know Oisin’s death wasn’t accidental? There was nothing in the article.”
“The Garda don’t reveal everything to the press. Have to keep some details back in case we get a confession. To answer your question, the drug used to poison Ardmore wasn’t a party drug and it wasn’t prescribed for him. No reason for him to be taking it on his own.”
“What was it?”
“Cardiac drug. Digitalis.”
Eleven
“I’m sorry, Headmaster, Mr. Dunleavy.” Gethsemane glanced at the clock for the third time. “We’ll proceed without him. Ruairi, you’ll take the solo. Feargus, you’re first chair.”
“I warned you. Unreliable.” Dunleavy harrumphed and tugged his lapels.
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, sir.” Riordan pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead.
“Of course, Richard. Typical Nolan.”
Feargus signaled the oboe for an A. The boys tuned, brass, woodwinds. Another A and the strings tuned. Ordered, efficient. Gethsemane climbed the podium and raised her baton.
The door banged open on the downbeat. “Sorry I’m late.” Colm’s voice drowned out the opening notes of St. Brennan’s Ascendant.
Gethsemane kept her back to him. “Colm Nolan, report to Headmaster Riordan’s office.”
“Headmaster’s right here.”
“My office, Mr. Nolan.”
Feet scuffled, the door slammed. Gethsemane raised her baton again. She pretended she didn’t hear Dunleavy’s comment as Eamon’s melody filled the room.
“Such a disappointment.”
“I’ve got it.” Francis burst into the faculty lounge and locked the door behind him.
Gethsemane and the math teacher had the room to themselves. Gethsemane grabbed a steaming pot of coffee. “Got what?”
“The tox report.” He unfolded a sheet of paper from an envelope.
Gethsemane relaxed and poured herself a cup of the coffee. She poured tea for Francis and joined him at the table.
“Read this.” He slid the sheet toward her.
“Digitoxin, Digoxin, Digoxigenen, Dihydrodigoxin…What is this?”
“I asked the chem teacher. It’s a list of active metabolites of digitalis found in the bourbon. The bourbon was laced with digitalis. Toxic levels.”
“How toxic?”
“In high enough doses digitalis causes lethal cardiac arrhythmias. If McCarthy drank from this bottle…”
“This is the second time this week I’ve heard of someone dying from digitalis poisoning. First, a guy in Cork named Oisin Ardmore, forty-something years ago, now Eamon, twenty-five years ago. The papers wrote Oisin’s death off as an accidental drug overdose, but O’Reilly says it was murder.”
“When’d you see O’Reilly?”
“The other day at the Rabbit.”
Francis toyed with his teacup. “What were you doing in a pub with a Guard?”
“Telling him about the newspaper clipping about Oisin Ardmore someone mailed me.” She omitted the detail about Aoife’s evidence. The fewer people who knew, the better.
“Why the pub? Why not the station?”
“What difference does it make?”
“You meet folks at the pub to socialize.”
“Since when do you care who I socialize with?”
“I don’t care.” Francis blushed. His cup clinked loudly against his saucer. “What’s this about a newspaper clipping?”
“Someone, I don’t know who, mailed me the article about Oisin’s death. No note or anything identifying the sender came with it.”
“What’s it got to do with McCarthy?”
“Two digitalis poisonings? You don’t think they’re related?”
“Seeing as how there’s over a decade between them, no. Digitalis isn’t hard to come by. Easy enough to grab some from the medicine cabinet and dispatch some unfortunate soul. Unless you think McCarthy murdered Ardmore and offed himself the same way when the guilt finally caught up with him.”
“Ridiculous. Eamon McCarthy no more killed Oisin Ardmore than I did. Eamon didn’t kill Oisin, himself, or anyone else. He’s not a killer.”
“You sound as if you know him personally.”
“I, uh—” Did Grennan believe in ghosts? “I know of him. He didn’t seem the type to murder anyone.”
They both jumped at pounding on the door. “Who’s in there?” an angry voice cried. “Who locked this door?”
“Ah, bloody—” Francis let the visitor, a stubby balding man with a bad tie, into the lounge.
“What’s going on in here?” The man blustered. “Who locked that door? This lounge is for the use of the entire faculty.”
Francis whispered to Gethsemane, “Teaches Latin and Classical Greek. It’s gone to his head.”
“If the two of you—” He pointed his stubby finger back and forth between Gethsemane and Francis “—
want to fraternize during school hours—”
“Fraternize? Were we fraternizing, Grennan?”
“I’d call it cavorting.”
“Cavorting? Canoodling.”
“Consorting.”
“Keeping company.”
The Latin teacher harrumphed and stomped over to the teapot. Gethsemane refolded the toxicology report. “Thanks for this, Grennan. I’ll take it to O’Reilly. At the station.”
Eamon materialized on the bike rack in the faculty parking lot.
Gethsemane jumped. “I swear, Irish—” She glanced around. She didn’t want anyone to see her talking to what would appear to be herself.
“Digitalis, huh? That was the bitter and slightly spicy substance slipped into my bourbon?”
“How did you—”
“I was in the lounge. I read the report over your shoulder.”
Gethsemane rolled her eyes.
“Hurry and take it to your Guard. See what he makes of it.”
“O’Reilly is not my Guard.”
“Is Grennan your maths teacher?”
“No.”
“You were the one who said ‘canoodling.’”
Eamon winked.
She made it to the station in time to catch O’Reilly pulling out of the parking lot. He rolled down his window. “Have you spoken to Miss Fitzgerald since she told you about the drugs theft?”
“No. I thought you were going to go see her.”
“Haven’t been able to catch up with her. I left messages. If you do see her, ask her to call me, please.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. Sorry, but I have to go.” He rolled up his car window then rolled it down again. “You’d best stand back. We don’t want to bump into each other this time. The car will hurt.”
Gethsemane, toxicology report still in her pocket, watched him drive away. Had he spooked the pharmacist by trying to contact her? She’d promised Aoife she’d take the evidence to the police herself, not that she’d send the police to fetch it. She’d better go see Aoife and make things right.
Murder in G Major (A Gethsemane Brown Mystery Book 1) Page 21
