“Until today.” She stared at him, unsure what to say.
“Don’t look at me that way.” He closed his eyes. “Next, you’ll be telling me Father Keating’s on the way to give me last rites.”
She remained silent.
Niall opened one eye. “He’s not, is he?”
She dug her nails into her palm until she was sure she could speak without her voice breaking. “Your neighbor’s looking after your cat.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Niall pushed himself up against his pillows. Sweat dotted his forehead with the effort. “What do you know, Gethsemane Brown, that you’re not telling me?”
That an evil spirit is sucking the life from half the males in the village out of revenge for her murder five hundred years ago. “Nothing, Niall, really.”
“I look that bad, then?” He managed a wan smile. “You don’t have to answer. I see it in your expression. What have the doctors said?”
“They haven’t said anything to me. I’m not your next of kin.”
“You and I both know you’ve no trouble ferreting out information that’s none of your business.”
She couldn’t suppress a grin. She had, in fact, convinced a doctor, the one who’d stitched her up when she’d been brought to A&E with a head wound, to talk to her. “They’re stumped. They know you’ve got the same thing that’s hit St. Brennan’s but nothing more than that. They called your eldest sister. She’s on the way down.”
“Bloody hell, what’s she doing that for?”
“Because she’s your sister and she loves you and she’s worried about you? If I had to guess.”
“I don’t want her around whatever this is.” He gestured toward himself. “She’s expecting her third. She needs to look after herself and the baby, not worry about me.”
“That’s the price you pay for being a good brother. Sisters who care.”
“Who fuss, you mean.”
“Fuss, care. Same thing in sister-speak. Anyway, ‘this,’” she waved a hand over him, “has only affected males. So your sister should be okay.” Especially since she’s working on baby number three and not number one.
“Only males, you’re sure?”
“I’m not sick, neither is Venus. Nor Poe, nor Sylvie. Not a single female who was at the theater has fallen ill. For that matter, no males who weren’t at the theater have fallen ill.”
“Does that make sense, medically speaking?”
Medically, no. Supernaturally, yes. She shrugged.
“Your ma’s a doctor, isn’t she? Can’t you call her, ask her what she thinks?”
“She’s a psychiatrist, Niall, not an infectious disease specialist.” And she knows nothing about curses. “Besides, she’s on a different continent. The doctors here will consult their own specialists, I’m sure.” They won’t be of any help, but they’ll consult them.
A nurse appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry to run you off,” she said to Gethsemane, “but the doctor’s on her way to examine Mr. O’Reilly.”
Gethsemane rose. “Inspector O’Reilly.”
Niall squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Sissy, for everything.”
She smiled down at him. “Aren’t you going to warn me to keep my nose out of Bernard’s murder investigation?”
“Would you listen?”
“No.”
“Good. If I was dying, you’d treat that as my last request and say yes.”
Gravel crunched as worry and exhaustion won out over proper bicycle maintenance, and Gethsemane let her Pashley fall onto the drive. The moon drifted behind a cloud as she dragged herself up the steps and into the cottage.
She froze with her arms half out of her jacket. Did she hear—crying? She followed the quiet sobs to the study. Venus lay face down on the couch. A throw pillow held tight against her face muffled her tears.
“Venus?” Gethsemane laid a hand on her shoulder.
Venus jumped up, wiped at her face, and tried to look as if she hadn’t been crying. “I’m sorry. I don’t cry. I hate tears. Tears mean you’re weak.”
Gethsemane handed her a box of tissue. “Or that you’re having a shite day.” Gethsemane rarely cried herself—tears didn’t solve problems—but she didn’t begrudge others the experience.
“No excuse in my business.” Venus blew her nose. “I interview drug dealers, gun runners, and wives with knives. Never let your guard down.”
“Be sober, be vigilant, your adversary the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
“One Peter Five Eight. The favorite Bible verse of true crime writers and investigative reporters.” Venus smiled and sank into the couch cushions with a sniffle. “I hope you don’t mind that I came back here. I just…The inn…”
“I don’t mind. Glad of some female company.” She meant it. Her Dunmullach circle consisted of men: Eamon, Father Tim, Frankie, Niall, ninety-eight percent of the school faculty, her students, and a twelve-year-old girl. Her social circle when she toured with the symphony had consisted largely of men, as well. She didn’t mind—she could talk baseball and whiskey for hours. But she’d grown up the third of three sisters and, despite a sometimes-cantankerous relationship with her older siblings and mother, she appreciated hearing the female perspective from time to time.
“How’s your day been?” Venus blushed and giggled. “I know that’s a ridiculous question, given the circumstances, but I’m not good at small talk. Drug dealers, gun runners, and wives with knives aren’t big on chitchat.”
“No such thing as a ridiculous question. Let’s see. Aside from the dead body? Niall’s in the hospital, Frankie and half the school are in the infirmary, the school’s shut down, and an evil ghost is rampaging in the village opera hall. Oh, and I saw Aed.”
“You did?” Venus sat up straight and grabbed Gethsemane’s arm. “How is he?”
“He’s in jail, but otherwise he’s doing all right. He has a lawyer. He says he didn’t do it.”
“Of course he didn’t do it. That was never in question.” Venus released Gethsemane’s arm. “I’m glad you saw him.”
“He asked about you.”
Venus smiled, then the tears flowed again. “I can’t stand this helpless feeling. I know Aed’s innocent, but I can’t do anything for him.” She punched a couch cushion.
“Who says you can’t? Who says we can’t? Not the woman who uncovered a cult in the Harper Valley PTA. Not the woman who exposed a counterfeit sex toy ring operating out of adult video stores.”
“Damn, my work is sordid.” Venus dabbed her eyes. “Would you believe I used to write about government corruption, consumer protection, and fraud, waste, and abuse?”
“Whether you’re investigating white-collar crime, street crime, or weirdness in the suburbs, you ask questions. Which is what Aed wants me to do. Ask questions.”
Venus fixed herself a drink and offered Gethsemane one. “What questions can we ask? Who stabbed Bernard? One of the many people at the Athaneum. Who had access to the murder weapon? Everybody at the Athaneum. Who had motive to kill that little POS? Who didn’t?”
Gethsemane declined the drink. She paced in front of the bookshelves. “Why did Bernard change from restaurant reviews to music reviews?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“From Sylvie. Speaking of whom, why does she pretend she’s French?”
“Isn’t she French?”
“Has ‘y’all’ entered the French lexicon?”
Venus pursed her lips and tapped a finger on her whiskey glass. “Huh. Odd.”
“Who invited Bernard to Dunmullach to hear Aed’s opera? He could have picked any one of a zillion performances in the US or the rest of the world. Why come to Dunmullach for this one? Just to provoke Aed?”
“I like your questions.” Venus swigged bourbon, then set her glass dow
n. She propped her feet on the coffee table and tapped on her phone. Reporter mode. Was this how she’d looked when she researched the first edition of her book about Eamon? “Let’s start with Mam’zelle Sylvie. She might be putting on the French act for career reasons. A name like Mary Sue Buttersby or Ella Mae Schifflet wouldn’t look good on an opera marquee.”
“Did you find anything?” Gethsemane moved behind Venus and read the phone over her shoulder.
“Nothing yet. Basic web search turns up bubkes. Do you still have any music world contacts? Maybe they could tell us something.”
She kept in touch with a few people from her former career trajectory. Her old maestro, an executive director of fundraising, a couple of symphony league presidents. “Let me make some calls. You want to tackle the restaurant review issue?”
“No. Bernard’s travel arrangements. My sister-in-law is a travel agent with a background in intelligence gathering.”
“She books trips for spies?”
“No, she has a master’s in library science. She thought she wanted to work for the CIA until she discovered booking cruises and amusement park dream vacations was fun and less dangerous.”
“One thing before we head off down the rabbit hole. I’ll state up front this is none of my business, but I’ll ask anyway. Why so weepy for Aed? I like him, too, and I don’t want to see him take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, but anguished sobs?”
“You like him. I love him.”
“You met him once at a premiere years ago and didn’t see him again until the pub a couple of days ago.”
“Haven’t you ever met someone and known instantly they were the person you’d waited your whole life for?”
“Love at first sight? Call me a cynic but that’s strictly for rom coms.”
“Cynic.”
Twelve
Gethsemane retreated to the kitchen. She scrolled through her contact list. Mother, sisters, brothers, friends from Vassar and Yale. She’d scrubbed her list when she bought a new phone. But she’d saved one or two numbers whose acquaintance she wouldn’t mind renewing. She’d start with Xavier Herren. As head of a major fundraising organization, he kept tabs on countless people.
He answered on the third ring.
“X? Gethsemane.”
No response.
“X, are you there?”
“Gethsemane Brown?”
She confirmed her identity.
“My God, I thought you’d been kidnapped by leprechauns and taken away over the rainbow. How are you, love?”
“Fantastic. Irish village life agrees with me.” Except for the murders. “How’s Stephen, the kids?”
“Great and great. Steve’s taken Gloria to a father-daughter art camp, so I’m batching it here with Zach.” He paused. “But you didn’t call me out of the blue after a year of radio silence to catch up on my social life, did you? Need some funds raised?”
“No, only some questions answered. Easy peasy. No banquet halls, silent auctions, or celebrity endorsements required. Do you know Sylvie Babin?”
“Not personally. She’s…shall we say, not on my Christmas card list? We tried to get her to perform at a fundraiser for an inner-city youth orchestra. She offered to sell us her time at an exorbitant price. For a fundraiser. Why?”
Gethsemane briefed him on recent events.
“Good lord, girl, you may as well come live with us in Chicagoland. Bodies don’t turn up beneath Steinways out here.”
“If I lived in Chicago I wouldn’t have found out that Sylvie’s not really French. She hails from somewhere in the southeastern US is my guess. Can you find out for me?”
“Uncover potentially salacious details about the probably unsavory past of a snob who tried to highjack funds from poor kids who want to play music? Absolutely. Let me make some calls.”
Gethsemane went back to the study to check on Venus’s progress. “Any luck?”
“Tons. You?”
“Working on it. What did you find?”
“Have a seat. Or a drink. You’ll need one or both.”
She sat. Second thoughts sent her to the bar cart. She poured Waddell and Dobb. She’d already done a lot of sitting that day.
“Bernard didn’t just turn up in the village on a spiteful whim. His plane ticket and his lodging were paid for by Verschreken Productions.”
“Which is?”
“The company that produces Ghost Hunting Adventures.”
Gethsemane spat bourbon. She blotted her dress with a cocktail napkin. “The paranormal investigators paid to fly Bernard out here and put him up at the inn? Why? Does he work for the show? Did he work for the show, I mean?”
“I don’t think so. The travel arrangements for the entire crew were made as a package deal. Bernard’s were separate and went on a different company credit card.”
“In other words, by someone in the production company who didn’t want the whole team to know Bernard was traveling on the company dime. Who’d have access to a separate credit card?”
“An owner, most likely. Kent is one of the owners of the production company. Guess who’s another.”
“Hardy?”
Venus shook her head. “Poe. Turns out Anti-social Annie is actually quite the entrepreneur. This is the third production company she’s bought into. Helped turn them all around with a hit new show or project.”
“Why would either of them want to sponsor Bernard?”
“We’ll have to track them down tomorrow and ask.”
The first measure of “The Carnival of the Animals” played on Gethsemane’s phone. A text from Xavier. “That was fast.” The message read, Call me back.
“Anything?” Venus asked.
“Let’s find out.” She dialed Xavier. He answered on the first ring this time. “Were you sitting on the phone?”
“I could not wait to tell you this.”
“How’d you find something so quickly?”
“Because the heavens are smiling upon me.”
“What’s he saying?” Venus asked.
“Who’s with you?” Xavier asked.
“Venus James.”
“The true crime author? Tell her I loved the piece she did on the PTA.”
Gethsemane relayed the message, then turned back to the phone. “Go on.”
“Put me on speaker, I’ll tell you both.” Gethsemane tapped the button. Xavier’s voice sounded distant through the phone’s speaker. “Since this is about murder, I decided to start with the security firm we use to do background checks on our potential event headliners and celebrity endorsers.”
“You do background checks on people you’re asking to volunteer their time and talent?” Venus sounded incredulous.
“Of course,” Xavier replied. “Famous is not a synonym for decent human. You should know that given your line of work. Can’t risk the owner of a dog-fighting ring raising funds for an animal shelter or a pedophile’s face on a poster for a children’s hospital benefit.”
“Sylvie’s not, is she? The owner of a dog-fighting ring or a—”
“Don’t even try to guess,” Xavier interjected. “You never will.”
“Then tell me. Tell us.”
“The security firm had already done the background check but never gave us the report after the deal with Sylvie fell through. Now that I know what’s in the report, I’m over the moon about not getting mixed up with her. Saved us all from serious embarrassment.”
“What?” Gethsemane and Venus asked simultaneously.
“Sylvie Babin was christened Sadie Burns. She was born and grew up in the teeny, tiny town of Attapulgus, Georgia. Where there’s a warrant for her arrest for—ready for this? For pandering.” Xavier’s claps replaced his voice on the speaker.
“Mam’zelle Nose-in-the-Air is a pimp?” Venus doubled over laug
hing. “Classic.”
“That would be Mam’zelle Le-nez-en-l’air,” Xavier corrected before joining Venus in her laughter.
“I’d like to point something out,” Gethsemane said, “but I don’t want to kill your buzz, so I’ll wait ’til you’re done.” The peals died down and she continued. “As amusing as the idea of Sylvie’s criminal past is, it doesn’t connect to Bernard. She’d become Sylvie before she met him.”
“Maybe he discovered her real name, blackmailed her,” Xavier said, “threatened to out her as a hick fugitive.”
“He seduced her to get what he wanted,” Venus explained. “His usual modus operandi with women.”
“Seduced or blackmailed,” Xavier said, “she had motive to kill him.”
“She admitted she had motive when I spoke to her,” Gethsemane said. “I think she was kind of proud of wanting Bernard dead.”
“You don’t think she did it,” Xavier said. “I hear the doubt in your voice.”
Gethsemane shook her head. “No, not really. I think we ought to pursue finding out who funded his trip. Someone went to considerable expense to get him here. They had a reason.”
“What are you talking about?” Xavier asked. Gethsemane explained about the company credit card. “That doesn’t sound like Sylvie or Sadie or whatever her name is,” he added when she finished. “She wants people to spend money on her, not the other way around. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
“You were a huge help, X. Thanks. Love to Stephen and the kids.”
“Back at you. And if you ever need me—No, on second thought, I take that back. Please don’t make a habit of chasing murderers. Try bungee jumping. Or smoking. They’re less hazardous to your health.”
Venus stared at her after she ended the call. Neither woman spoke for several seconds then Venus asked, “What about me? Do I make the top ten list of most likely to stab a double-crossing creep?”
“No,” Gethsemane said, “I don’t think you did it. Which is good, since I’m letting you stay under my roof.”
Sleep eluded Gethsemane. She turned on her right. She turned on her left. Covers on. Covers off. One pillow. Two pillows. No pillows. Pillow thrown across the room.
Killing in C Sharp Page 14
