St. Patrick's Day Murder

by Leslie Meier

  The laughter stopped, however, when they heard a siren blast, and the birds at the end of the pier rose in a cloud, then settled back down.

  “Something washed up,” said Lucy, by way of explanation. “Probably a pilot whale.”

  The others nodded, listening as the siren grew louder and a police car sped into the parking lot, screeching to a halt at the end of the pier. The birds rose again, and this time they flapped off, settling on the roof of the fish-packing shed.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Dave. “Real bad.”

  He took off, running across the parking lot, followed by Brian and Frank. Lucy stood for a minute, watching them and considering the facts. First, Old Dan was missing, and second, a carcass had turned up in the harbor. She hurried after them but was stopped with the others at the dock by Harry, who wasn’t allowing anyone to pass. At the end of the pier, she could see her friend Officer Barney Culpepper peering down into the icy water.

  “I know Barney,” she told Harry as she pulled her camera out of her bag. “He won’t mind.”

  “He said I shouldn’t let anybody by,” insisted Harry, tilting his head in Barney’s direction.

  Lucy raised the camera and looked through the viewfinder, snapping a photo of Barney staring down into the water. From the official way he was standing, she knew this was no marine creature that had washed up. “I guess it’s not a pilot whale?” she asked, checking the image in the little screen.

  Harry shook his head.

  “It’s a person, right?” said Dave. “It’s Old Dan, isn’t it?”

  Lucy’s fingers tightened on the camera. There was a big difference between jumping to a conclusion and learning it was true, a big difference between an unidentified body and one with a name you knew.

  “I’m not supposed to say,” said Harry.

  “You don’t have to,” said Brian. “It’s pretty obvious. The Bilge has been closed for days, and there’s been no sign of him. He must’ve fallen in or something.”

  “Took a long walk off a short pier,” said Dave, with a wry grin. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “He was known to enjoy a tipple,” said Frank. He eyed the Bilge. “He’ll be missed.”

  “What a horrible way to go,” said Lucy, shivering and fingering her camera. “In the cold and dark and all alone.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t alone,” said Dave, raising an eyebrow.

  “What do you mean?” asked Lucy. “Do you think somebody pushed him in?”

  “Might have,” said Frank. “He made a few enemies in his time.”

  Dave nodded. “You had to watch him. He wasn’t above taking advantage, especially if you’d had a few and weren’t thinking too hard.”

  Something in his tone made Lucy wonder if he was speaking from personal experience.

  “And he wasn’t exactly quick to pay his bills,” said Brian, sounding resentful.

  Another siren could be heard in the distance.

  “So I guess he won’t be missed,” said Lucy.

  “No, I won’t miss the old bastard,” said Frank. “But I’m sure gonna miss the Bilge.”

  The others nodded in agreement as a state police cruiser peeled into the parking lot, followed by the white medical examiner’s van.

  “The place didn’t look like much,” said Brian.

  “But the beer was the cheapest around,” said Dave.

  “Where else could you get a beer for a buck twenty-five?” asked Frank.

  The three shook their heads mournfully, united in grief.

  Chapter Two

  They stood in a little group, watching as a state trooper exited his cruiser and settled his cap on his head. “Step back, step back, and clear the way,” he ordered, striding down the dock. Two white-suited technicians from the medical examiner’s office followed in his wake, wheeling a stainless steel gurney fitted with a black body bag.

  “C’mon, Harry,” coaxed Frank. “Tell us what happened.”

  Harry swallowed hard and stared into the distance.

  “It was bad, huh?” asked Brian.

  Harry swallowed again, then made a dash for a trash barrel, where he leaned in and vomited.

  “I guess it’s bad,” said Dave.

  “Now, move on along,” said Officer Barney Culpepper, who had left his post at the end of the dock to make room for the technicians to recover the body. “There’s nothing to be seen here.” He nodded toward Harry, who was still hanging on to the side of the trash barrel. “Nothing you want to see, believe me.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Don’t you folks have something better to do?” demanded Barney, jowls quivering. He looked a bit like a bulldog, with a pug nose and square face. Somehow the bulky blue cold-weather uniform, and his growing girth, only added to the impression.

  “C’mon, Barney,” said Lucy. “Can’t you give me something for the paper? A body in the water is big news.”

  “Now, Lucy, you know I’m not supposed to make statements to the press. That’s up to the captain.”

  “You don’t have to make a statement,” she said, pleading. “I won’t even mention your name. I’ll say a passerby discovered…what? What’s in the water?”

  Avoiding the others, Barney took her by the elbow and walked with her toward his cruiser. The three men followed at a distance, straining to hear, until he turned and snapped at them. “Can’t you mind your own business!” Then, lowering his voice so only she could hear, he said, “It’s Old Dan. At least I think it is. It’s hard to tell.”

  “The body’s decomposed?” she asked.

  “You could say that.”

  “His face is gone?” Lucy knew that was common when a body had been in the water. Crabs and fish usually started with the bare skin of the face and hands.

  “More than his face,” said Barney.

  Lucy noticed his usually ruddy face had gone white. Even Barney, a twenty-year veteran of the force, was shocked.

  “More than his face?” she repeated.

  “His whole head’s gone.”

  Lucy didn’t quite take it in. “The body’s headless?”

  Barney nodded.

  Lucy considered this for a minute, thinking of the various bodies that were occasionally recovered from the sea around Tinker’s Cove. Not one had been headless.

  “Isn’t that unusual?” she asked.

  “It happens,” he admitted. “The head’s kinda heavy, and the connection isn’t that strong, really, so if the body rolls around, it can sorta detach. Especially if it’s helped along by the critters.” He paused and scratched his chin. “But it usually takes longer. The rest of him seems pretty fresh, so I don’t think he was in there more than a few days. And the cold shoulda preserved him. You know what I mean?”

  Lucy nodded. “So all I can say is, an unidentified headless body was found and is presumed to be that of Old Dan, who has been missing for several days?”

  “That sounds about right,” he said, straightening his cap, “but you didn’t hear it from me.”

  Lucy watched as he opened the car door and awkwardly squeezed behind the steering wheel, reaching for his radio. Then she turned and passed on her report to the three men. It only seemed fair. The sooner they got confirmation that Old Dan would definitely not be opening the Bilge, the sooner they could make other plans for their morning. But she kept one fact, the fact that the corpse was headless, to herself. That was a scoop if she ever saw one.

  Eager to get back to the office and file her story, Lucy chugged up the hill and swung around the corner onto Main Street, where she collided with Father Ed O’Neil, the priest from Our Lady of Hope Church, nearly knocking him over. Father Ed was well into his sixties and had never been a large man. He was only an inch or two taller than Lucy and probably weighed less.

  “Oh, Father Ed, I am so sorry,” she apologized.

  “No matter, no matter,” said Father Ed, straightening his jacket and smoothing his red hair, which was liberally salted with white
. “I should have looked where I was going.”

  “The fault was mine,” said Lucy, wondering why the mere sight of his backwards collar seemed to inspire her to confess when she wasn’t even Catholic. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine, fine. Couldn’t be finer,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet and rubbing his hands together. “And why, may I ask, are you in such a hurry?”

  “My deadline’s at noon,” said Lucy, pointing to her watch and sidling past him. He was notoriously long-winded, and she didn’t want to get trapped in a lengthy conversation.

  He turned right along with her, maintaining eye contact and making it impossible for her to continue on her way without being rude. “And you have a big story?” He cocked his head.

  “Not really,” she said, with a shrug, guarding her scoop. She didn’t want the news to get all over town before the paper hit the newsstands later this afternoon.

  “Perhaps I can be of service,” he suggested, planting himself firmly in her path. “I have some big news.”

  She was stuck, she realized. Father Ed wasn’t going to let her go until she’d heard him out.

  “Terrific,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound sarcastic. “Fire away, Father. We’re always interested in the doings at Our Lady of Hope.”

  “Well,” he said, “it’s a bit of a story. Maybe we should find a place to sit down. I could buy you a cup of coffee at Jake’s?”

  “Oh, no, Father. As I said, I’ve got to get back. Deadline’s at noon and…”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll be as brief as I can be. Did you know that this year is the one hundredth anniversary of Our Lady of Hope here in Tinker’s Cove?”

  “No, no, I didn’t,” said Lucy, looking with longing at the Pennysaver office, just across the street.

  “Well, to be precise, it’s just the anniversary of the building. The congregation is much older, started by émigrés from the famine, the Irish famine back in the 1840s. That was a terrible time, you know. So much suffering.”

  Lucy nodded. She knew about the terrible famine that had prompted so many Irish families to leave their homeland. “And you’re doing something special to celebrate the anniversary?” she asked, prompting him.

  “Yes, indeed. That we are.”

  “And what are you doing?” She prompted him again, conscious of the minutes ticking away.

  “We are staging a gala show,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “As you no doubt know, the church puts on a show every spring around St. Patrick’s Day. Last year it was Bye Bye Birdie, and it was a terrific success.”

  “Yes, it was,” agreed Lucy, who had gone with her husband, Bill, and her two youngest children, Sara and Zoe.

  “So you saw it?”

  “Yes, it was great. But what are you doing this year?”

  “This year we’re doing something special. Not that Bye Bye Birdie wasn’t great. Why even you said it was. But for the hundredth anniversary, we really want something…What’s the phrase? Something boffo.” He clearly enjoyed rolling the words off his tongue. “We really want to wow everybody!”

  “I’m sure you will,” said Lucy, desperate to be on her way. “But what is the show?”

  “Oh, I have it all right here,” he said, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket.

  It was only with the greatest difficulty that Lucy managed to restrain herself from grabbing the paper and running across the street to the office. Instead, she stood, tapping her foot, while he carefully unfolded it with his gloved hands.

  “As you can see here,” he said, pointing, “we’re going to stage Finian’s Rainbow. Now is this right? Is it clear enough? Mrs. Kelly always worries about getting her press releases done properly. In the correct format, if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine,” said Lucy.

  “Now, whatever you do, don’t miss this bit,” he said, pointing to the second paragraph. “Because this is where we announce that the show is going to be directed by a professional actor. We may be amateurs, but we want this show to be as close to professional as we can make it. So we’ve hired this chap from Ireland who has considerable stage experience.”

  “Well, that’s very wise,” said Lucy. “I’ll be sure to get every word in. Now if you’ll just give me the press release…”

  Father Ed was reading the paper, checking it one last time. “I think it’s quite clear. It seems so to me. But if you have any questions…”

  “I know where to reach you,” said Lucy, snatching the paper.

  “I’m at the church, you know,” he called as she ran across the street.

  “I know,” she yelled back from the other side. Two more steps and she was across the sidewalk and yanking open the door, setting the little bell jingling.

  “Where have you been?” bellowed Ted Stillings, the publisher, editor, and chief reporter. He was in his usual position, hunched over the computer that sat on the rolltop desk he’d inherited from his grandfather, an editor of some renown. Now pushing fifty, he still looked boyish, thanks to a full head of hair and an efficient metabolism. “Do you know the time? It’s a quarter to twelve! It’s a deadline, not a guideline, or have you forgotten?”

  “Hold the presses,” Lucy yelled back, thrilled to be able to utter the famous phrase. “I’ve got big news.”

  “This better be good,” warned Phyllis, who multitasked as receptionist, listings editor, and classified ad manager. She raised her thinly plucked eyebrows over her colorful harlequin reading glasses. “He’s in a state.”

  “This is big,” said Lucy, savoring the moment. “Dan Malone’s headless body was found floating in the harbor this morning.”

  Her announcement didn’t have quite the effect she’d expected. Instead of stunned amazement, Phyllis expressed puzzlement. “Who’s Dan Malone?” she asked. For his part, Ted was skeptical. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Dan Malone is the proprietor of the Bilge, and he’s been missing for three days,” said Lucy.

  “Filthy place,” said Phyllis, dismissing the news with a shrug and returning to her listings.

  Lucy continued. “And while I don’t have an official identification, the fact remains that a dead body has been found in the icy water, and Old Dan has gone missing, and the bar’s been closed for three days.”

  “Did you say this body is headless?” inquired Ted.

  “Yes,” said Lucy, exhaling vehemently.

  “Probably happens all the time,” said Phyllis. “Tides and whatnot.”

  “Not in three days,” said Lucy, through clenched teeth. “At least that’s what my expert source says.”

  “Who is your source?” asked Ted.

  “Can’t tell,” said Lucy. “I promised.”

  “Barney Culpepper,” said Phyllis. “Bet you a dollar.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Lucy, sliding Father Ed’s press release across the counter to Phyllis. “Last-minute listing. I promised you’d get it in.”

  Phyllis glared at her. She’d recently lost quite a bit of weight, and the new, skinny Phyllis wasn’t nearly as agreeable as the jolly, plump one. Even her wardrobe had become more sedate, as she’d given up the brightly colored muumuus she favored when she was heavy for a more subdued professional look. “The listings deadline was noon yesterday,” she said, adjusting the red and black scarf she’d tied over her gray turtleneck sweater.

  “Oh, please. I promised Father Ed,” begged Lucy.

  “Why don’t you type it yourself, then,” said Phyllis, sliding it right back to her.

  “Oh, all right.” Lucy snatched it up. “And, Ted, do you want me to write up the body? I’ve got a photo.”

  “Of the body?” he asked eagerly.

  “No. Of Barney Culpepper at the end of the pier, looking at it.”

  “See!” crowed Phyllis. “Didn’t I say Barney was her secret source?”

  “Sure,” he said, with a sigh. “Keep it short and sweet. Just the
facts. I’ll download the photo.”

  “Okay,” said Lucy. She plunked herself down at her desk, coat and all, and began typing.

  “Just the facts,” he repeated, taking her camera. “You’ve got twelve minutes.”

  She didn’t need twelve minutes, however, considering the meager facts at her disposal. The most she could produce was a three-inch brief outlining the bare facts of the discovery of a headless body. She couldn’t even get the police chief to give her a statement; his only comment was, “No comment.”

  That done, she shrugged off her winter coat and started in on Father Ed’s press release, typing it practically verbatim, but stripping out the numerous laudatory adjectives. When she came to the “brilliant Dylan Malone,” who would be directing the show, however, it seemed to be an accurate description. She deleted “brilliant,” of course, but she couldn’t help being impressed by a long string of credits, which included everything from classic roles at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre to a part as a cop on a long-running BBC action adventure show. It all held up when she checked him out on Google, where there was even a photo of his handsome face, complete with a roguish smile.

  She was studying the face and trying to guess his age when Ted broke into her reverie. “Are you done yet? It’s past noon.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, pulling herself away and typing in the final sentence. She hit SEND, shipping the file to Ted for final editing and leaned back in the chair, dramatically wiping her brow.

  “Enough drama,” snapped Phyllis. “You’re just sitting and typing. It’s not as if you’re actually working.”

  “You know what I think? I think you need some chocolate,” said Lucy. “I know I could sure use some. It’s not every day that a headless body turns up and I have to cover it.”

  “Well, if it is Old Dan, it’s no more than he deserved, if you ask me,” said Phyllis, pursing her lips. “That Bilge place attracts a rough crowd. There’s always fights and goodness knows what all.”