Murder in Galway

by Carlene O'Connor

  “If there were no legal ramifications—why pay a blackmailer?”

  “His reputation. He thought this production would revive his reputation. He had been bragging about the bold idea of having an all-female cast.”

  “And if reviewers and theatre bigwigs found out it was all tied to his past scandals . . .”

  “The show would have been panned.”

  “How did you find out he was being blackmailed?”

  “He flew into a rage at rehearsal the day he was killed. Hinted that one of us was a traitor. Sharing vicious gossip. Costing him, costing the theatre. I didn’t realize he meant literally.”

  * * *

  A woman was hurrying out of the guard station when Tara and Hamlet approached. She looked so familiar. When her head turned their way, Tara saw that it was Lady Bea. What was she doing here? She made eye contact with Tara, then bowed her head and hurried away. Breanna was at the reception desk.

  “Is Lady Bea okay?” Tara asked.

  Breanna leaned forward. “She’s a bit shocked.”

  “About what?”

  Breanna glanced at Hamlet. “I can’t say.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Tara should know better than to pry in anyone else’s business.

  “I’m sure you’ll hear soon enough,” Breanna said. Tara explained that Hamlet had information on Carrig’s case.

  “That’s two,” Breanna said. “I wonder what the third will be.”

  “Two?”

  Breanna looked stunned. “Just an expression. You know. Things come in threes.”

  “Right.” Lady Bea had come to the station with information on Carrig’s case.

  * * *

  Tara left Hamlet at the station. One more piece of the puzzle was in place. Carrig was being blackmailed, so he inflated the theatre budget to pay the person off.

  If he was paying—why was he killed?

  * * *

  Tara had just left the station when Rose appeared in front of her, concern stamped on her face. “Is she going to be okay?”

  “She’ll feel better when she tells them everything.” Tara stared at Rose. “So will you.” Rose stared back, then nodded. “Walk with me,” Tara said. “I have to head to the shop.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Did you attack me in the fun house?”

  “Attack is the wrong word,” Rose said. “I was just trying to scare you away from prying any further. Johnny was worried about you. You’re the one who bit me.”

  “Did you leave the stem of a rose on the porch of the cottage?”

  “Yes. You’re terrible at heeding warnings.”

  “Did Johnny show you his tattoo?”

  Rose stopped. “Tattoo?” She shook her head. “Johnny doesn’t have a tattoo.”

  “I think you’d better double check,” Tara said. So he never went through with the proposal. Why not?

  “I don’t know where he is,” Rose said.

  “Did you try and run me off the road?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Were you blackmailing anyone?”

  “Blackmail? Don’t be absurd.”

  “Did you steal Grace’s harp?”

  “No. She gave it to me.”

  “You saw her?”

  Rose looked away.

  “Please. It could be important.”

  Rose seemed to shrink. “She left it at the door to my caravan with that nasty note.” Tears came to her eyes and she clamped her lips shut.

  “Thank you,” Tara said. She hurried away, eager to get to the new shop, stand in front of her boards, and fill in some blanks.

  * * *

  Tara stared at her timeline. Her eyes landed on the banker from Manchester. Then the artist from Donegal. Had the police called either of them yet? Most likely they’d been too busy with murder probes to get to the forgery case. Besides, with the client deceased, who was there to press charges?

  She checked the dates of Paul’s investigation. Paul wasn’t just hired to dig up dirt on Ben. Apparently, he was also tasked with finding the missing pig. That was before the forgery was arranged. Why didn’t she see it before? There was only one reason to hire someone to find a missing item. Johnny had had the original pig. So where was it now? And who took it?

  Whoever that person was—he or she would have heard about the second pig. He or she would have known it was a forgery. A secret that could have taken Irish Revivals down. Johnny was right. This was all about taking him down.

  Tara hurried back to the salvage mill and stared at the vision boards. She’d brought them from the shop to the mill, hoping that having them close would break something open. Carrig’s light . . . George said the light was malfunctioning.

  She was starting to see the light herself. Carrig, so desperate to get an item back despite not having a theatre or even permanent home to hang it . . .

  And no matter how many times she revolved through the suspects, one kept coming back . . . only one was really at the center of it all, deftly weaving out of the way, causing trouble behind the scenes.

  From the beginning, the writing had indeed been on the wall.

  But before she could go accusing someone of murder there were two more people Tara desperately needed to speak with. Stephen Kane at the tattoo shop, and Heather Milton. As soon as she had the last two pieces to the puzzle from them, she would be able to unmask a murderer. She grabbed her purse and headed for the tattoo shop.

  * * *

  Tara was headed for the Garda station, armed with her accusation, when her mobile rang.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m on the ferry. Where are you?” It was Danny and he sounded as if he was shouting through the wind.

  She stopped. The wind whipped through her. “The ferry?”

  “You said to meet you.”

  Oh, God. “It wasn’t me.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t leave you that message.” Static spiked through the phone.

  “I’ll catch the next ferry,” Tara said. “Stay with people. Go to the pub. Stay with large groups of people. Do anything you can to stall . . .”

  “No,” Danny said, sounding a continent away. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Listen to me—” There was a high-pitched screech and the phone went dead. Tara’s hands were shaking as she called the guards. Breanna answered and listened, but explained there was insufficient reason to alert the authorities on the islands. Someone lying about a message wouldn’t be seen as any cause for alarm. Tara texted Danny a warning just in case it went through. Then she jumped in a taxi and told him to drive like he stole it.

  * * *

  It was impossible to make a ferry move faster than a ferry wanted to move. She’d tried Danny a dozen times. No answer. She stared out at the endless waves, and went over it in her mind. Everyone was right about one thing: It did all start with the pig owned by a princess.

  Emmet paid a good amount for the pig, and Johnny finally purchased it for him from the man in Manchester. Upon Johnny’s return, it was stolen, thus forcing Johnny into hiring someone to forge a copy. In the meantime, Ben Kelly was working hard behind the scenes to take the mill, and Carrig Murray was skimming from his theatre to pay a blackmailer. Carrig then sells a light to George way out in the Aran Islands, only to want it back almost immediately . . .

  The killer was cozy with all of them, directing the takedown of Irish Revivals from behind the scenes. At the same time the killer needed money so that once the mill belonged to him or her, the killer had the funds to do what they wished. That’s when the blackmail started. Before the cast-iron pig was stolen. Perhaps it was never supposed to go this far. If Johnny hadn’t forged the pig, then maybe Emmet would have turned on Johnny, ruining his reputation and business. There was only one question Tara still had. Since Johnny was the intended target, why kill Emmet? Was he simply at the wrong place at the wrong time?

  No.

  The killer had upped the game.
Instead of merely bringing down a man’s business, why not bring down the man? Was Emmet killed to frame Johnny Meehan for murder? Or was Emmet about to point fingers at the killer for something else?

  For stealing . . .

  Hardly a reason to kill someone. No. Emmet was interfering in the killer’s larger plan. The plan to take over the mill. The plan to live happily ever after. The proposal . . .

  Why not kill Johnny himself?

  Because Danny loved Johnny. He was the only one in town who did.

  Tara thought through it all, once more, slowly.

  Emmet is killed. The forged pig breaks. The killer manages to pick up the cast-iron body, stashes it in the inn. In haste, the killer leaves the head of the pig behind.

  Hours later, the killer must return to the crime scene to retrieve the head.

  That is when the killer wrote TARA on the wall—not before. Because by now the killer had met Tara, knew who she was and why she was in town.

  But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a name written on the wall. There had been. The name of the true killer.

  Emmet tried, while dying, to name is his killer. That explained the carpet of blood from the wall to the front door. Emmet crawled to the wall to name his killer. But he didn’t get to complete the job before he died. The killer returned, and saw what had transpired. It would have been impossible to wash off the name painted in blood, so the killer wrote over the name, and changed it to TARA.

  That’s why the letters were so bizarre.

  The killer then dragged the body back into the doorway. The guards had to have figured out that the body had been dragged around—but never made it public. Had they figured out why?

  The killer hadn’t wanted anyone to come into the cottage until they were long gone, and placing the body directly in the doorway would accomplish just that.

  Which meant the killer returned after meeting Tara that morning, but before Tara discovered the body.

  The killer also did the dishes. It sounded ludicrous, yet those were the facts. Was there a particular reason for it, or was it some kind of psychological tic? Either while waiting for Emmet to show up, or after the killer returned for the rest of the murder weapon. Had the killer touched one of the dishes and thought washing them would wipe away fingerprints?

  Had Johnny Meehan been on some errand that morning? The killer had to have known that Johnny wouldn’t be home until after Emmet was killed. Perhaps Johnny was in the mill after all. The killer typed the letter, diverting Emmet away from the mill and to Johnny’s cottage.

  It was all part of the larger scheme. The killer’s own Shakespearean drama. A new shop. A marriage proposal. The killer was in love.

  Carrig, in the meantime, most likely through Hamlet, had orchestrated a theft of his own. The cast-iron pig. Carrig, sick of being blackmailed and led to believe Johnny was the blackmailer, stole the cast-iron pig. Hamlet admitted she’d spied before. That she would do anything for Carrig. She must have been in the mill with Alanna when the cast-iron pig arrived. Either she stole it for Carrig, or he stole it himself, but either way, he had a very good reason for stealing it. Leverage. To end the blackmail. Playing Emmet and Johnny against each other in a very dramatic fashion. The killer had already struck twice. Tara could only pray she wasn’t too late to stop the third. In this case, three times would not be a charm. On her way to the ferry she had made her last phone call, to Paul at the old men’s bar.

  Chapter 31

  Tara was so relieved to see George O’Malley in his chair outside the pub that she almost wept. She asked if he’d seen Danny, her heart in her throat as she awaited his answer.

  “Aye. You just missed him. Stayed for a bite to eat and some music, then got some kind of message and headed up to the cliff.”

  Terror zipped through her. “The cliff?”

  “Aye. Dun Aengus. The fort, like.”

  “Yes. I know.” Hovering at the edge of a three-hundred-foot cliff. “What’s the fastest way there?”

  “The tour vans have all just pulled out. I guess it depends how fast your feet or your cycle will take you.”

  Tara glanced at the bicycles lined up, taunting her. “Great,” she said. “Oh—you haven’t broken your light, have you?”

  “My light?”

  “Your theatre light. Is it still intact?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I’ll let you know later. If you see any guards at all, will you send them up to the cliff?”

  George raised his eyebrow. “You wouldn’t be thinking of jumping off, now would you?”

  Tara was relieved she’d decided to message Sergeant Gable while on the ferry. Whether or not he responded was another matter. She wouldn’t be able to wait.

  “Can you call the local guard?” she asked George.

  “What’s going on?” George wheeled closer to her, worry stamped on his face.

  “I have to get up to the cliff. I’m pretty sure there’s someone up there who wouldn’t hesitate to push people over the edge.”

  * * *

  There were two options to cycle to the cliff. Either take the route with an incline, or the flat roads along the seal coast. Both routes were known to take around thirty minutes, but the seal route was known to be more leisurely, as people stopped to take in the cute little creatures. Tara took the incline route, grateful that a sense of urgency fueled by adrenaline took a lot of the sting out of the trip. She was breathing heavily and drenched in sweat, but her ordeal wasn’t over yet. From the bike park to the top of the cliff it was a fifteen-minute walk. Tara would take it as fast as she could without drawing unwanted attention. She didn’t want Danny to see her coming.

  The site of the semicircular prehistoric stone fort perched over the Atlantic Ocean took Tara’s breath away. For a second she forgot she was here to confront a killer. The jagged stone walls were originally built to keep out attackers. This time, Tara was certain one was waiting inside the structure. If the answer to the proposal was no—was there going to be another death? Not if Tara could help it. She tried to blend in with the other tourists, keeping her sunglasses on and hood up. Just like they’d used the costumes from Hamlet as a disguise during their reign of terror.

  Tara was out of breath by the time she reached Dun Aengus. Ahead, the ancient fort rose out of the ground, three massive dry-stone walls from 1100 B.C. She took in the wooden spikes of the cheviot-de-fries, a medieval anti-cavalry device. Beyond the remains of the fort, the cliff rose three hundred feet above the thrashing ocean. Tara’s heart began to tap dance at the thought of being so high, and she prayed she wouldn’t have to get close to the edge.

  What exactly was her plan here? Just get Danny out in the open? Hope for a confession? The island had eighty percent cell service, but up here her phone had only a couple of bars.

  She hurried over and entered the fort. She scanned the tourists, moving quickly among them, drawing closer to the edge. And there he was. Out at the very end. Danny, staring off at the ocean. At first Tara didn’t see anyone else with him and her heart lifted with hope, but as she drew closer she saw blonde hair blowing in the wind. Standing slightly behind him, rolling up her sleeve, was Alanna Kelly.

  Stephen at the tattoo shop had confirmed her suspicion—Alanna was the one with the rose tattoo. Heather had confirmed it was Alanna who had rented the retail space. Which meant it was Alanna who had stolen the items to bring down Johnny. All but one. The cast-iron pig. The one that really mattered.

  But it didn’t quite start with the pig being stolen. Alanna had set the deadly chain of events in motion by blackmailing Carrig. Hamlet had confided in her about the rumors that Carrig had been in appropriate with his male actors. Alanna would need money to take over the mill once it was hers. The blackmail plot was hatched. Paul had enlightened Tara about the line-item missing from the report on Ben Kelly—the fact that his daughter was no longer in cookery school. Alanna was the one who had deleted all mention of it from the report. Her father was controll
ing. He would have been enraged that she was no longer in school, and would have demanded to know what happened to her tuition. Once her father started digging he may have uncovered this entire plot.

  Alanna was going to propose to Danny. The only real question left was—what was she going to do if he said no?

  When he said no. Tara couldn’t give them time to find out. She picked up her pace. “Hey,” she called, trying to sound chipper, wondering how to disguise her voice so it didn’t seem as if she were approaching a woman who had already murdered two men just for this moment. Neither Danny nor Alanna looked up; the wind was swallowing her words. Alanna took a step back. She got down on one knee. Danny looked in Tara’s direction, most likely trying to make sense out of what was happening. He didn’t see Tara. She began to run toward them.

  Alanna wanted the salvage mill. And she wanted Danny. In order to have them both she needed Johnny Meehan gone. But Danny loved Johnny. Was that why she decided to spare his life and instead frame him for murder?

  Perhaps all she had originally planned was running Johnny out of business, scooping up the mill, and working day-by-day with her imagined lover. Renting the retail shop that he’d mentioned he’d always wanted. Running it all with money from Carrig.

  She had just assumed Johnny got the rose tattoo with the ring. It was Alanna.

  Danny was staring at Alanna’s arm. He took a step back. In the direction of the cliff. “Hey,” Tara shouted again, louder this time. “Danny!”

  He finally heard her, looked up, saw her. Alanna’s hands were holding on to Danny’s arm. Danny was off-balance, not expecting either the proposal or to see Tara headed for him.

  “Let go of him,” Tara shouted.

  Alanna’s head jerked her way, her eyes filled with tears. Danny had already said no. Alanna let go of Danny and charged Tara. She lunged for her, grabbing both Tara’s hands and dragging her closer to the edge of the cliff. Danny jumped in front of them.

  “Move back,” Tara said. “She’ll push us over.”

  “What are you doing?” Danny yelled. Tara didn’t know which one of them he was talking to.

  “She killed Emmet,” Tara yelled. “And Carrig.” A crowd was forming around them. “She wanted to frame Johnny for murder so she could have you and the mill.”