Murder in an Irish Churchyard

by Carlene O'Connor

  “We’d like to come in,” Macdara said. “Take this one step at a time.”

  She let out a little gasp and her hand rose to her mouth in horror, even before Siobhán could say, “I’m so sorry.” Her nails were painted a pale pink and a diamond tennis bracelet dangled from her wrist. “I told you!” she shouted to someone inside as Macdara and Siobhán used the entrance mat to stamp snow off their boots. “I told you!”

  Two men stepped up to the doorway as the elegant woman stumbled back. To the right was a tall, older man with a shiny bald head. To the left was a shorter but much younger one, with dark blond hair and the same penetrating green eyes as the woman, only his were extremely bloodshot. Definitely siblings. From his hungover state Siobhán deduced she was looking at the black sheep of the family. Macdara and Siobhán placed their caps respectfully over their hearts and introduced themselves.

  “I’m Tracy Mallon,” the blond woman said. “Peter’s daughter.” She turned to the younger man who shared her likeness. “This is my brother, Brandon, and my uncle Frank.” The men nodded. Macdara gestured to the sofa. Soon the trio was seated, staring at them expectantly. Tracy suddenly grabbed her brother’s hand and she must have squeezed, for he grimaced and yanked his hand away. He was nursing a sore head. She knew the look well. Truthfully, it wouldn’t hurt if he had a nip out of a bottle. The hair of the dog. But she wasn’t here to give hangover advice, nor did she agree with that particular cure. Suffering was nature’s way of teaching one a lesson. Siobhán wished the Irish hostess was home to offer tea; she had an urge to make it herself. It seemed impossible to deliver such news without a little mug of comfort.

  Macdara cleared his throat. “In the early hours of the morning, we discovered a man lying dead in our local cemetery. We have reason to believe it’s your loved one, Peter Mallon.”

  “Oh, my God,” Brandon said. “Oh, my God.” He hung his head, then grabbed handfuls of his hair with both fists.

  “In a cemetery?” Tracy said. “You found him dead in a cemetery?” She looked around, trying to see if anyone else saw the irony.

  “Yes,” Siobhán said. “He was lying on the ground near some of the oldest tombstones in the back of the yard.” She felt a kick to her boots and scooched away from Macdara.

  “This can’t be,” Frank said. “It can’t be.” There was something about shock that made one repeat him- or herself. Siobhán had seen and experienced it before. The human brain was a remarkable organ, one that always tried to protect itself. Repetition was a way of slowly taking it in, absorbing the horrific news little by little.

  Tracy Mallon rose from the sofa. “Wait. Did you say you had ‘reason to believe’? You mean you’re not sure if it’s our father?”

  Siobhán reached for her mobile to show them the photos of the victim, then stopped, remembering Macdara’s request.

  Macdara cleared his throat. “The state pathologist is with the body now. She’ll contact me as soon as she has any more information.”

  “We’re so sorry,” Siobhán added.

  “Did you find his wallet?” Tracy pressed as if Siobhán hadn’t spoken. “Was there any identification on him?”

  “We’re not allowed to touch the body until the state pathologist examines him,” Siobhán explained. “If she finds a wallet, we’ll know straightaway.”

  “What about a leather satchel?” Brandon asked, leaning in eagerly.

  A wallet? A leather satchel? Peter Mallon’s grown children just learned their father is dead and the first things they’re asking after are wallets and satchels? How peculiar. And sad.

  Siobhán knew there had been no satchel at the scene. She made a note of it. “Is this satchel something you think he would have carried with him?”

  “Of course,” Brandon said. “It was practically attached to his body.”

  “What was in it?”

  Brandon wrung his hands. They trembled. She wondered how much he’d had to drink the previous night. “Does this mean you didn’t find it?”

  “No,” Macdara said quickly. “These are just routine questions.”

  “Correct,” Siobhán replied. “Nothing we say means anything at all.”

  Macdara threw a look of warning at Siobhán as the American faces scrunched in confusion. She kept her face still.

  Tracy leapt from the sofa. “But if there was no ID, how can you be sure it’s our father?”

  “He had a pin of an American flag on a brown trench coat. . . .” Siobhán thought of the photo. His unblinking eyes, eyelashes and brows brushed with recent snow.

  Tracy cried out and sank back into the sofa. It squeaked beneath her. “He must have changed his mind. It’s him then. Oh, God. It’s really him.”

  Siobhán’s ears perked up. “ ‘Changed his mind’?”

  “The pin,” Tracy said. “He made a big fuss, saying he wasn’t going to wear it anymore.”

  “I don’t understand,” Siobhán said.

  “We all have them,” Frank said, pointing to a pin on his suit jacket. Indeed it was a pin of an American flag. “Jay gave them to us.”

  “ ‘Jay’?” Siobhán said. “Who is ‘Jay’?”

  “He’s our employee,” Brandon said. “Jay Shepard. We’re making a documentary. We were making a documentary.”

  One of the locals had heard Peter talk about a big television event. He must have been referring to this documentary. “Why didn’t he want to wear the pin anymore?”

  Tracy shook her head. “Our father hadn’t been making much sense lately. I fear he was losing it.”

  “Nonsense,” Frank said. “Your father was perfectly fine.”

  “I’m sorry if the truth is hard to hear,” Tracy said. “But he was not perfectly fine.”

  “Not now,” Brandon said.

  Siobhán wanted to keep asking questions, but it was better to just let them go at each other and see what spilled out. She was slightly fascinated by these rude Americans; it was a little like watching wild animals plotting their escape from a zoo.

  “How did he die?” Frank asked. “Heart attack?”

  Siobhán cleared her throat. “I’m afraid not. It brings me terrible pain to tell you that the gentleman we found in the cemetery most likely died of a gunshot wound.”

  “ ‘Most likely’?” Frank said. He angled his bald head as his gaze swung from Macdara to Siobhán. “What kind of a ragtag investigation is this?”

  “It will be a very thorough one,” Macdara said. “There are procedures.”

  Frank rubbed his bald head, then narrowed his eyes at the pair of them. “How long have you two been on the force?”

  “He shot himself?” Brandon interrupted, his voice rising to a panicked pitch. “Where did he get a gun?”

  Interesting, Siobhán thought. Brandon immediately assumes it’s suicide. Or, if he’s the murderer, he’s pretending.

  The same went for Frank Mallon asking if it was a heart attack. For a murderer lies slid off the tongue, although even the best of liars let the truth slip now and again.

  Had Peter Mallon been depressed? She leaned in. “Did your father own a firearm?”

  “He abhorred guns,” Brandon said. “He was against violence in all forms.”

  “He owned guns as a younger man,” Frank interjected. “He definitely knew his way around a gun.” Tracy and Brandon swiveled in his direction at the same time, clearly peeved. Frank shrugged. “He liked target shooting when he was a teenager. He was quite good.”

  “He certainly wasn’t target shooting here,” Tracy said.

  “Are you quite certain?” Brandon said. “Our father? Guns?”

  Frank sighed. “That’s the worst part about getting older. Everyone thinks they know everything about you. Your father had his secrets, just like everybody else.”

  “‘Secrets’?” Siobhán said.

  Frank look startled, as if he regretted his words. “I don’t mean anything sinister about it. Just that he once liked guns. Brandon is right. He hadn’t touched
them in ages.”

  “This is crazy,” Tracy said. “Guns or no guns. Our father wouldn’t shoot himself. He wouldn’t.”

  “We don’t believe he did,” Macdara said.

  “You just said he died of a gunshot,” Brandon said. The three family members glared at them, waiting for an explanation.

  “I’m sorry,” Siobhán said. “We believe your father was murdered.”

  As three stunned faces stared at them from the sofa, a male voice rang out from the front door. “No way!”

  Siobhán was momentarily stunned. Who shouted “No way” like an excited schoolboy over the announcement of a murder? She whirled around to find a tall young man in the doorway—maybe five years of age on her—holding a video camera up and scanning the room with it.

  “Turn that off!” Tracy shrieked.

  “That’s Jay Shepard,” Frank said. “He gave us the pins.”

  “ ‘Pins’?” Jay said, moving the camera away from his face to look at Frank. “What about pins?” He was a classically handsome man, but his gregarious personality was out of synch with the grief in the room.

  “‘Murdered’?” A woman stepped out from behind the man with the camera. She was in her midthirties, plain with thick dark glasses, her figure swallowed under an assortment of baggy clothes topped off with a thick cardigan. “Not my Peter?”

  “This is Greta Mallon,” Frank said, bowing his head slightly toward Greta. “Peter’s wife.”

  “Third wife,” Tracy said with an eye roll.

  “Why must you always say that?” Greta said, waving Tracy off with a dainty hand. “And what is going on here?” The anxious woman standing before them was definitely in her thirties. Not exactly a trophy wife—more the librarian variety—the kind given a certificate of participation and a clap on the back instead. The fact that she wasn’t a raving beauty made Siobhán like Peter Mallon even more.

  The man with the video camera set it down and stepped forward with his arm extended. “I’m Jay Shepard. The director.” He grinned, flashing white-picket-fence teeth. He was tan, too, such a contrast to the pale Irish folk.

  “You’re filming a documentary?” Siobhán asked politely. She much preferred fictionalized television dramas. Real-life stories often depressed her for weeks at a time.

  He grinned and stood taller. “Yes, I am. Maybe you’ve seen some of my work? I did a piece on an Irish dancer. Dancing Irish?” He seemed to be waiting for Siobhán to respond.

  “No,” she said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  Jay kept talking. “You will. As soon as I can get it on Netflix. Do you have Netflix here?”

  “No,” Siobhán said. “We have a man on a pony who brings us the mail and tales from the big, big world beyond.” Macdara cleared his throat, almost a choking sound. Jay frowned. “Yes,” Siobhán said. “We have Netflix here.”

  “She was born in the United States, but her parents were from Galway,” Jay said. It was Siobhán’s turn to frown. “The dancer. Maybe I can scare up a copy.” He held up his hands. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask if you have a DVD player.”

  Siobhán just stared. Why is this documentary filmmaker so cheery? Did he not just hear a man has been murdered?

  Chapter 7

  As Siobhán turned away from the filmmaker, she saw a flash of pink and realized there was yet another woman hiding in the doorway. She was a petite girl in her twenties, with lush brunette hair. The flash of pink was from a scarf wrapped around her neck. Her eyes were wide, showed no signs of grief or even shock. She looked like one of those lasses on a reality television show where she has three days to pick the man she wanted to marry.

  The girl must have felt Siobhán’s gaze, for she stepped up and held out her hand like she was on a job interview. “Hannah Stripes.”

  “Hannah is our father’s nurse,” Tracy said. Her voice rang with sarcasm. Jealousy? More likely, she was annoyed that her father had employed such a pretty young nurse. Siobhán was reconsidering her assessment of Peter Mallon. He may not have picked the stereotype of the younger wife, but he’d hit it out of the park with this femme fatale nurse.

  “Nurse?” Siobhán said. “Was he ill?”

  Tracy sighed. “He has a tendency to get too excited.”

  “ ‘Too excited’?” Siobhán asked.

  “He has high blood pressure,” Hannah chimed in. “Had high blood pressure. Oh, my God. He’s gone. We have to say ‘had.’” Hannah covered her face with her hands.

  Greta began to blink rapidly. “Is it hot in here? I feel hot.”

  “You’re not hot,” Hannah said. Greta pulled a face. “I mean. It’s not hot in here.” Tracy stared at Hannah as if trying to figure her out. Hannah simply stared, openmouthed at Siobhán and Macdara.

  Siobhán rose and slowly approached Greta. She looked as if the slightest wind would knock her down. “Maybe you’d like to sit down? Have a nice cuppa tea?”

  Greta shook her head. “What’s ‘cuppa tea’?”

  “A mug of tea?” Siobhán said.

  “Oh,” Greta said. She shook her head as if Siobhán had suggested something distasteful. “No.”

  “We need something much stronger,” Tracy said, heading over to the makeshift bar by the wall. She held up a bottle of whiskey. “This is more our cup of tea.”

  “Are you rehearsing something?” Greta said. She threw a hopeful look to Jay. “Is this part of the film?” Everyone stared at her. “Is this part of the film?” she shrieked.

  “No,” Jay said. “No. I swear.”

  “Sit, sit,” Macdara said, gently guiding Greta by the shoulder and easing her into an armchair. She sank into it and it seemed to swallow her whole.

  Macdara knelt next to her and repeated the story. “We found him in our local cemetery last night. We believe he died of a single gunshot. We’ll know more soon.”

  “This can’t be,” Greta said, clutching Macdara’s arm. “This simply cannot be.”

  “Maybe someone should put the kettle on,” Siobhán said.

  “ ‘Kettle’?” Tracy said.

  Uncomprehending eyes bore into Siobhán. How can they not want tea at a time like this?

  “I can make tea,” Hannah said, as if she had just discovered a hidden talent.

  “Good girl,” Siobhán said. Hannah flung off her winter coat, threw it on a nearby chair, revealing a very tight pink dress. She hurried into the kitchen. Siobhán was dying to ask why Peter’s nurse was dressed like she was going out clubbing, but that would have to wait.

  “When was the last time any of you saw or heard from Peter?” Macdara asked. Siobhán poised her Biro above her notepad as they waited for someone to speak first.

  “We were all at the Titanic Experience yesterday morning,” Tracy said.

  “In Cobh?” Siobhán added. One by one, heads began to nod. Cobh was on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour. It was a popular tourist destination, a busy port from which the ill-fated Titanic had set sail. The museum was geared all around the Titanic, but also featured many other ships that had carried Irishmen off to new destinations.

  Greta spoke up. “Peter was hoping to find a ship’s manifest listing his great-grandfather.”

  Frank bobbed his head in agreement. “Our great-grandfather emigrated to America with his wife, Ann, in 1853. He was a Limerick man, so it’s very likely he departed from here.”

  “We took a tour of the museum while Peter was making inquiries,” Greta added.

  “And I was hoping to gather every prop I could for the film,” Jay said. “I guess you could call me the writer, director, and executive producer all rolled into one.”

  “There you go again about the film,” Frank said. “Not everything is about the film.” He rubbed his bald head, then pointed to Siobhán and Macdara. “They are not here about your stupid film!” He shook his head in disgust.

  “I’m a passionate man,” Jay said, puffing out his chest. “It takes an artist to understand an artist.”

 
“Takes a few stiff drinks as well,” Frank said, joining Tracy at the bar.

  “Genealogy was Peter’s passion,” Greta said, her eyes lighting up. “It’s how we met.”

  “Can we get back to the last time you saw Peter?” Macdara said. His tone was polite but impatient.

  Brandon stepped in. “An hour into the guided tour Father left abruptly.”

  Siobhán felt a tingle up her spine. “What happened?”

  “He said he had an excited stomach,” Brandon said.

  “He didn’t tell me he had an ‘excited stomach,’ ” Greta said. “He was constantly checking his phone. I thought one of his inquiries was contacting him.”

  “You didn’t ask him?” Siobhán pressed.

  Greta sighed. “I couldn’t keep up. He’s been like a man possessed ever since we arrived. Chasing down every lead he could.”

  “What did I tell you?” Tracy said, lifting a shot glass. “Does obsessed sound like a healthy man to you?”

  “Where exactly was he making inquiries?” Macdara said.

  “Courthouses, libraries, genealogists, locals. You name it,” Greta said. “He was in research heaven.”

  “If you have the names of specific places he visited,” Macdara said, nudging Siobhán to write them down.

  Greta shook her head and threw a glance at the director. “Jay, didn’t you have his itinerary?”

  “For the filming, of course,” Jay said, holding up his hands. “But Peter made it very clear he did not want a shadow the rest of the time.” He stared at the floor. “I shouldn’t have listened. He might be alive now if I had insisted on accompanying him.”

  “Stop it,” Tracy said. Tears streamed down her face. “It might not be him.”

  “What do you mean ‘it might not be him’?” Greta screeched.

  Tracy whirled on Jay. “Did you give that stupid American flag pin to anyone else in Ireland? Did you?”

  Jay started to stammer. “W-why are you asking?”

  Tracy jabbed her finger at him. “Answer me. Did you give that pin to anyone else?”