St. Patrick's Day Murder

by Leslie Meier

  She was greatly relieved when Frank Cahill approached her. “Thank you so much for coming,” he said. “Would you like to express your sympathy to the family?”

  “I’d like to, but I don’t want to intrude,” she replied. “Moira seems quite overcome with grief.”

  Frank shook his head. “No, no. She’s keening. It’s the expected thing, you see. She’d probably appreciate a break.” He stuck out his arm, rather like an usher at a wedding, and conducted Lucy to the bar, where he presented her to Dylan and Moira.

  Moira fell silent and dabbed at her eyes, which were dry, and gave Lucy a small, tight smile.

  “Lucy here wishes to tell you she’s sorry for your trouble,” prompted Frank.

  “That’s right. I’m very sorry. Terribly sorry,” Lucy babbled, staring at the photo of Old Dan. It must have been his high school graduation picture, she thought, now that she had a closer view. It showed a cocky young man, with a thick head of red hair and a charming, lopsided grin.

  “Did you know my brother well?” inquired Dylan. “It’s a grand likeness, is it not?”

  Lucy didn’t think the photo looked anything like the Old Dan she’d known. The red hair had long ago turned to gray, and she couldn’t recall ever seeing him smile. Mostly, he had kept his head down and muttered to himself on the rare occasions he’d left the Bilge to go to the bank or post office. While most people in town saw these necessary errands as an opportunity to chat and catch up on the news, Old Dan never greeted anyone, not even with a nod.

  “He was a very handsome young man,” said Lucy. “I really only had a nodding acquaintance with him.”

  “So you’re here because of the paper? You’re going to be writing up the wake?” asked Dylan.

  “I sure am,” said Lucy. “We’ve never had a traditional Irish wake here in town, and people will be interested.”

  “As well they might be,” said Dylan. “We Irish are well acquainted with death and know a thing or two about sending a poor soul off in style. There’s the keening, of course. Moira’s a wonderful keener,” said Dylan.

  Moira blushed at the compliment. “And you see, we’ve turned the mirror to the wall,” she said, pointing behind the bar.

  “And stopped the clock,” added Dylan, indicating a Guinness clock with its hands frozen at nine o’clock.

  “And there’s always plenty of food and drink at an Irish wake,” said Father Ed, pointing to a lavish spread laid out on the bar’s tables, which had been strung together and covered with a white linen cloth.

  It was probably the first time in the Bilge’s long and disreputable history that a tablecloth had been used, thought Lucy, noticing the platters of cold meats and steaming chafing dishes, with bottles of Irish whiskey liberally interspersed.

  “Will you have a wee drop in memory of Old Dan?” asked Frank.

  Lucy hesitated. She didn’t really like whiskey, but there didn’t seem to be anything else except Guinness stout, which she wasn’t fond of, either. There was no sign of her preferred drink, white wine.

  Frank gave her a nudge. “It’s customary,” he said, passing her a glass with a generous inch of amber liquid in the bottom.

  “Well, then, here’s to Old Dan,” said Lucy, raising the glass and taking a sip.

  “Now, now, that won’t do,” said Dylan, standing up and raising a glass. “May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rain fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again…” he recited, pausing dramatically and lifting the glass higher, “may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.” Then he drained his glass in one swallow and fixed his eyes on Lucy, challenging her to do the same.

  “May God hold Old Dan in the hollow of his hand,” she said and, taking a deep breath, downed the whiskey in her glass. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better eat something right away, or this will go straight to my head.”

  “Absolutely, help yourself. There’s plenty of everything and more where it came from,” said Dylan.

  Feeling slightly tipsy, Lucy made her way to the buffet. Once she had served herself, filling her plate with corned beef and cabbage and Irish soda bread, she took a seat and surveyed the room. People had been arriving steadily, and a good crowd had gathered, including a number of Old Dan’s best customers. A few had even shaved and put on a clean shirt for the occasion. Frank conducted each person in turn to offer their sympathy to Dylan and Moira. Lucy chewed contentedly, interested in watching the people and listening to the occasional click of beads as the woman seated beside her quietly recited her Hail Marys and Our Fathers.

  She was feeling quite mellow when the door flew open and Dave Reilly entered, his long hair streaming behind him. His jacket was open, revealing a T-shirt with the Claws logo, a lobster holding a guitar. Frank hurried over to greet him, but Dave shoved him aside and staggered drunkenly across the room, toward Dylan and Moira. Spotting him, Dylan immediately got to his feet and stood protectively in front of his wife.

  “Here, now,” said Dylan. “You’re very welcome indeed if you want to pay your respects to my brother, but we don’t want any trouble here.”

  “That’s right,” said Frank, taking hold of Dave’s arm. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Pay my respects!” bellowed Dave, shaking off Frank’s hand and gesturing wildly with his arm. “That’s a good one!” He stabbed his finger toward the photo of Old Dan. “He’s the one who should pay me, and more than his respects. That old bastard owes me five thousand dollars, and I’m here to collect.”

  The room was suddenly silent. Even the old women had stopped mumbling their prayers.

  “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place,” said Dylan, equably. “I never knew my brother to borrow money, him being rather tight with a dollar as I recall, but I don’t doubt—”

  “Borrow! He didn’t borrow from me. He cheated me!” shouted Dave.

  Dylan’s face hardened, and he pulled himself to his full height. “You’re saying my brother was a cheat?” he asked, puffing out his chest.

  “A damned rotten cheater, that’s what he was,” said Dave, tossing his hair back and clenching his fist. “I bought a winning lottery ticket off him. It was worth five thousand dollars, but when I gave it to him for payment, he told me it was no good, that I had it wrong. And I believed him!”

  “Anyone can make a mistake,” said Dylan, with a shrug.

  “It was no mistake,” said Dave. “I had the winning ticket, but he switched it on me, and a week later I hear he’s been to the lottery commission to collect the money.”

  “It seems to me that’s water under the bridge,” said Frank. “Whoever’s got the ticket wins the money.”

  “And what do you want me to do about it?” asked Dylan.

  “I want you to pay me, that’s what. I want my five thousand dollars!” Dave lowered his voice to a threatening growl. “And I’m not leaving until I get it.”

  Dylan shook his head. “I haven’t got it, so I can’t give it to you, can I?”

  “Oh, it’s here all right,” said Dave, marching around the bar and yanking open a drawer. “The old miser stashed everything away.” He was working his way along the bar, pulling open drawers and dumping their contents on the floor. Coins and bottle caps were rolling every which way; bits of paper and string and plastic bags all came tumbling out.

  “That’s enough, now,” said Dylan. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  “Oh, it isn’t?” said Dave, whirling around. He lifted his arm and socked Dylan right on the jaw, making a sickening smacking noise as his fist connected with Dylan’s face.

  From the sound, Lucy expected Dylan to crumple to the floor, but he remained on his feet. He gave his head a quick shake, worked his jaw from side to side, and then, taking Dave unawares, caught him with a left hook. Dave responded by trying to wrap his hands around Dylan’s neck, a move that Dylan blocked by wrapping his arms around Dave and pinning his ar
ms to his sides. The two men staggered around the room like exhausted boxers, smashing into chairs and tables and scattering the assembled mourners, most of whom were watching the fight avidly, including the ladies with rosaries. The Bilge regulars were more vocal, delivering cheers when a punch connected and jeering at the misses. It wasn’t until the combatants threatened to tumble into the refreshments that Father Ed decided it was time to intervene.

  “Break it up,” he said, grabbing each man by the shoulder and pulling them apart. “If you’ve got to have a fight, take it outside, but don’t be knocking over the Jameson whiskey. Don’t you know it’s sacrilege?”

  “Right, Father, right,” panted Dylan. “I shouldn’t be fighting at my own brother’s wake.”

  “And you,” said Father Ed, pointing a finger at Dave. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Now get yourself out of here, and I expect to see you at confession tonight and at mass bright and early tomorrow morning.”

  Dave hung his head. “Yes, Father.”

  “Now be off with you,” said Father Ed, shooing Dave out the door. When it closed behind him, Father Ed turned to the group. “It wouldn’t be a real Irish wake without a bit of a dustup, now would it?” he asked, and a number of people chuckled in agreement and began setting the room to rights. Frank produced a fiddle and began tuning it, soon producing a lively jig.

  When he’d finished, Moira asked him to play “Danny Boy” for her, and she sang so beautifully that a couple of the old ladies had to dry their eyes. Other songs followed, and soon everybody was joining in, singing old tunes their mothers and aunts and fathers and uncles had sung to them. Lucy had never seen anything like it. This wasn’t like the formal recitals she was used to: it was simply a group of people joining together to sing the songs they loved. She recognized some of them, she even knew the words to a few, but for the most part, she just sat and listened until she realized it was getting late and she had to get home to make dinner. She dragged herself away, straining to hear the last bits of music as she crossed the parking lot to her car.

  Chapter Six

  “I hear that wake was something else,” declared Phyllis when Lucy arrived at work on Monday morning. “Elfrida says there was a real hootenanny with fiddle music and singing.”

  “Was she there? I didn’t see her,” said Lucy.

  “Was she there? Are you kidding?” snorted Phyllis. “That one wouldn’t pass up a free meal.”

  “There was plenty of food. And drink, too.”

  “Well, one thing I will say for Elfrida,” said Phyllis, smoothing her sweater—a black cardigan trimmed with a tasteful scattering of jet beads—over her still substantial but somewhat deflated bosom, “she’s a teetotaler. Won’t touch a drop of alcohol. Not since her first husband died in that crash. Drunk as a skunk.”

  “Elfrida certainly has had an interesting life,” said Lucy.

  “You can say that again,” agreed Phyllis. “She’s on her fourth husband, and to tell the truth, I don’t think he’s going to last much longer.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “Strong as an ox. And a good provider, too. But Elfrida says he’s boring.”

  “You can’t have everything.”

  “That’s what I keep telling her, but she says stability isn’t everything. She needs more, she says.”

  “It seems to me that having six kids would be exciting enough for anyone,” observed Lucy, sitting down at her desk.

  “Didn’t I tell you? She’s pregnant again.”

  “She’s a one-person population boom,” said Lucy.

  “If you ask me, she should figure out what causes it and stop doing it,” sniffed Phyllis. “The IGA’s too crowded by far these days. And the traffic…”

  Lucy smiled to herself as she booted up the computer. “You can’t blame it all on Elfrida. And it works the other way, too. We’ve printed quite a few obits lately.” She sighed. “I’ll be darned if I know what I’m going to write about Old Dan.”

  “Might as well save yourself the trouble,” said Phyllis. “Everybody’s heard all about it already.”

  “Somehow I don’t think that’s quite the attitude Ted’s looking for,” said Lucy as the door flew open and Ted breezed in.

  “What attitude would that be?” he demanded, unzipping his jacket and tossing it at the coat rack, where it caught on a hook.

  “All the news that’s fit to print and some that isn’t,” said Phyllis, smiling smugly. “That’s what I was telling Lucy.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” said Lucy, finding herself on the spot and not liking it very much. “We were just joking.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged and sat down at his desk. “I heard that wake was pretty rowdy. I’d like to put it on the front page. Did you get any pictures?”

  “I think so,” said Lucy. “I snapped a nice one of Frank Cahill playing the fiddle.”

  “Fiddles at funerals? What next?” said Ted.

  “It sure beats sitting around in the funeral parlor,” said Phyllis. “And Elfrida said the food was a lot better than the sherry and peanut butter and bacon hors d’oeuvres you usually get at the reception afterwards.”

  “It was not the usual Tinker’s Cove funeral,” agreed Lucy, typing in the phrase as the lead for her story. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as the story seemed to write itself. When she finished, she turned to Ted. “Any news on the investigation?”

  He shook his head. “The police have been interviewing Bilge regulars, but they’re not making much progress. That bunch isn’t real comfortable talking to the cops.”

  “Guilty consciences, no doubt,” said Phyllis.

  “You got it,” said Ted. “Though there’s a big difference between taking an undersized lobster now and then and slicing off somebody’s head. I don’t really see one of the regulars as the murderer.”

  “Little grudges can get out of hand,” said Lucy, “and a lot of people had bones to pick with Old Dan.”

  “Anybody in particular?” asked Ted.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Dave Reilly, you know that kid who plays with the Claws, he was complaining at the wake that Old Dan gypped him out of a winning lottery ticket. He came to blows with Dylan about it.”

  “Probably just had a little too much of that free booze,” said Ted.

  “Well, yeah,” said Lucy. “What do you think those guys do all day at the Bilge? They drink. Old Dan was always willing to pour another. He never cut anybody off that I ever heard of.”

  “Me, neither,” said Phyllis, clucking her tongue. “Too much drink can bring out the devil in any man.”

  “And Dave Reilly’s not the only one,” continued Lucy. “Brian Donahue’s been moaning around town about how Old Dan stiffed him on money he owed him for some repairs.”

  “Makes you wonder how big a tab Brian had run up,” said Ted. “Old Dan probably figured they were even.”

  “Not according to Brian,” said Lucy. “But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. Just think. I never set foot in the Bilge until the wake, but if I can think of two people who had grudges against Old Dan, there must be a heck of a lot more who have really big chips on their shoulders.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Phyllis.

  “I dunno,” said Ted. “I think Old Dan could have been into something outside of Tinker’s Cove. Like organized crime, the IRA, something like that.”

  “You’ve been watching The Sopranos again, haven’t you?” accused Phyllis.

  “Actually, yes,” replied Ted. “But the fact that he was beheaded doesn’t seem to fit with some drunk fisherman. It’s more like somebody is sending a message.”

  “Somebody very evil,” said Lucy, shivering.

  “You guys are giving me the creeps,” said Phyllis.

  An hour or two later, Lucy found herself on the town beach, wishing she’d worn warmer clothes. She’d been fooled by the blue sky and bright February sunshine into thinking it was warme
r than it actually was. A stiff northerly breeze was blowing across the water, whipping up whitecaps and tossing her hair, working its way up her coat sleeves and down her collar. On days like this, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a fisherman out on the open sea. Maybe the physical work kept them warm, maybe they got used to it, but she was already thinking about retreating to the warmth of her car when she spotted her quarry. Shoving her hands deeper into her pockets, she struggled across the loose gravel, toward the lone metal prospector out today.

  “Hi!” she hailed him. “Do you have a minute?”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world,” he replied, slowly swinging the wand of his metal detector back and forth across the pebbles.

  Unlike her, the prospector was dressed for the weather in an olive green army surplus parka with a fur-trimmed hood. Underneath the hood, she discovered he was well into his sixties, with bushy gray eyebrows, blue eyes, and red cheeks and nose. He was also wearing insulated pants and sturdy rubber boots.

  “I’m Lucy Stone, from the Pennysaver. I’m writing a story about prospectors like yourself, and I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. I could use the company. It gets a bit lonely out here,” he said, extending his mittened hand. “Paul Sullivan’s the name.”

  “Not too many people on the beach this time of year, are there?” said Lucy, taking his hand. “So tell me, what exactly are you looking for?”

  “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” said Paul, winking at her. “But until I find it, I’ll take whatever turns up. Rings and jewelry that people wore to the beach in the summer. Coins that fell out of their pockets. Doubloons washed up from sunken pirate ships…”

  “Really?”

  “Not yet,” said Paul, with a shrug, “but you never know.”