by Catie Murphy
Her heartbeat had slowed and her thoughts were calm before Reed, carrying his hiking pack, approached again. Sometimes the moments before a fight could be like that: clear and calm, instead of raging with adrenaline, although the heightened sharpness of her mind meant she was still pumped high on natural chemicals, just not feeling the effect of them as strongly. She saw him realize Jessie was no longer lumped on the ground, and despite her night vision being disrupted by his torch, she clearly saw panic descending on his features. He ran closer to the altar, to where he’d left Jessie and then, foolishly, spun away from the altar, and the tree, to scan the nearby woods.
Megan launched herself out of the tree and crashed into his shoulders so hard she kept rolling when they hit the ground. She slammed her elbow into his temple before he could recover, and he made a faint sound of groggy confusion that indicated she’d stunned him. It wouldn’t last. Megan came to her feet, yanked the empty backpack off him, and hog-tied him with the dogs’ leashes before even checking for a pulse. She disarmed him, taking the knife first, then patting him down thoroughly to see if he had any other weaponry before walking several steps away and sitting down on the fallen stones with a whoof. Her shoulders and jaw were already starting to ache from the impact of tackling him, although she knew it wouldn’t really begin to hurt until the excitement wore off. After about ten deep breaths, she shouted, “Okay, it’s safe now. I’ve got him tied up, you can come out!”
A flurry of small white bodies rushed at her immediately, licking and whining and wiggling as they made sure Megan was all right. The Williams sisters appeared more slowly, but once they saw each other they ran forward, crashing into one another and falling to the ground in a sobbing, relieved heap. Megan rubbed the puppies thoroughly and got up—stiffly, as it turned out—to find her phone. Its glass was cracked, but it had otherwise survived unscathed, and she was just about to call Detective Bourke when a flare of police lights cut through the woods. She stood there, the phone at her ear, watching the lights come closer, then stop.
A moment later, Paul Bourke, flanked by a handful of other officers, all of whom were carrying torches, came through the woods at a run. Bourke slowed as he recognized her, tucking away a gun she’d never seen him unholster before, and raised a hand to slow the other officers as he took in the scene—the trussed-up Reed, the weeping sisters, the hopping puppies—around her, and finally met her eyes. “We really have to stop meeting like this.”
Megan sat hard on the fallen stones and laughed until the tears came. “Yeah,” she said eventually, wiping her eyes. “Yeah, we probably should, but it doesn’t look promising, does it? It keeps happening. We got the bad guy. I think I managed to record most of his confession. And there’s a massive Viking treasure down the hole behind me. Did I miss anything?” she asked the Williamses, who looked between her and Paul with a kind of conniving interest.
“No,” Sondra said. “No, I don’t think you did. I think we’d better try to get this all over with, Detective. We still have a lot to do before the funeral.”
CHAPTER 24
The funeral was, as Father Anthony predicted, attended by nearly the entire population of Mohill, as well as Father Nicholas from St. Michan’s and, to Megan’s amused surprise, Peter the tour guide. Anne Edgeworth and Maire Cahill, the latter’s head still bandaged from the wound Reed had dealt her, effectively presided, which none of the Williams sisters seemed to object to. The older two sisters didn’t even object to Flynn’s presence at Jessie’s side. And on Megan’s side of things, Jelena, frowning with worry over the entire mess Megan had gotten herself into—she’d heard about it all over coffee and cinnamon rolls that morning—drove up on her own to be there for Megan, which Megan thought was an exceptionally nice gesture.
Even Orla, so relieved to be cleared of any association with Cherise Williams’s death that she came up from Dublin for the funeral, had the decency to look upset over the whole mess. She went so far as to mutter, “Thanks,” at Megan, without any clarification on what the thanks were for.
Megan, pleased, accepted them for what they were worth, and, as the funeral wrapped up, walked a little distance away from the crowd to put a call through to a landline in Texas. A few rings later, an older woman’s voice picked up with, “Hello?”
“Hey, Mom, it’s Megan.”
“Megan!” Astonishment filled her mother’s voice. “Is everything all right, honey? It’s awfully early to be calling.”
“Yeah, I know. Everything’s fine.” Megan closed her eyes, grateful for the concern in her mother’s voice. “Work’s been a little crazy and I just wanted to say hi.”
“I heard from Gabriela Silva,” Cate Malone said rather sternly. “Another death, Megan? You know I didn’t like you joining the military, but I did think driving a limousine would be safer.”
Megan laughed quietly. “Dang, the Texas gossip wheel does its work fast.”
“I have to get my information from outside sources because my daughter only calls on major holidays and my birthday.”
“Well, I’m calling now and it’s neither. And it is safer, Mom. Nobody’s shooting at me or anything.”
“Still, you could come home,” her mom said hopefully. “Jerry Hodges moved back recently. You used to like him.”
“When I was twelve.” Megan laughed again. “No, I think I’m good, Mom.”
“Yes, but you could be good at home with me and Jerry and a couple of babies if you squeezed them out really fast.”
“See, this is why I only call on holidays, Mom.”
Her mother sighed heavily. “All right, fine. It’s not that I want grandchildren, you understand. It’s just a genetic imperative to carry on. I simply don’t want the line to die out.”
“Fortunately Aunt Carol has three kids who all have children of their own. I think your genetic contribution to the future is safe for the time being.”
“A quarter of it,” her mom said morosely. “It’s not the same.”
Megan pursed her lips. “I only have half your genes anyway, so any potential kids of mine would be a quarter of yours, which is what Carol’s kids have anyway. I think her grandkids must be like a twelfth of your genes or something?”
“You’re not helping, Megan.”
Megan smiled. “I love you, Mom. How’s Dad?”
“I love you too, honey. Your father has manicured the backyard within an inch of its life and was eyeing my zinnias. I had to send him to the golf course before he became completely demented. I’m not sure retirement agrees with him. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to say hi before I had to get back to work.”
“Okay. If you call me again and it’s not a major holiday I promise not to mention grandchildren.”
“I may never call on a holiday again!” Megan said her goodbyes and hung up, smiling and shaking her head. As she put her phone away, Paul Bourke walked a crisply uniformed woman in her late fifties over to Megan, and pleaded with his gaze for her to be on her best behaviour. “Megan, this is my captain, Ruth Long. Captain, this is Megan Malone.”
Megan offered her hand and an apologetic smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain. I’m sorry for being a trouble magnet.”
“I’m sure you are.” Captain Long examined Megan with a gimlet eye before letting go an exasperated breath. “You don’t look like trouble. Have you ever considered giving up driving, to let the gardaí have a moment’s peace?”
“In my defense, ma’am, most of Dublin’s crime doesn’t centre around me. I don’t know how I keep ending up involved in these things.”
“Well, I’d like you to stop.” Long gave Megan a sharp nod, Bourke a less sharp one, and walked off to offer her condolences to the Williamses. Megan watched her go, then squinted at Bourke.
“She does know it doesn’t work that way, right? Unless she’s got a leprechaun on hand to ask a wish of, in which case I assume she’d spend it on something better than keeping me out of trouble.”
>
Bourke glanced in the general direction of the car park. “You’re the one with the leprechaun on your dashboard. Maybe you should ask it for a wish. And Captain Long is used to the world falling into line the way she expects it to, so she might think it works that way. I, however,” he said with a long-suffering sigh, “have already asked you repeatedly to stop getting in trouble and it hasn’t worked yet, so I haven’t much faith for the future. How’s the treasure hunt coming?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They say it’ll be weeks, probably months, before there’s any kind of full assessment, and longer than that before they decide what the finder’s fee is. Apparently it really is one of the best of its kind, though. I’d thought there were loads of big Viking treasures in Ireland, but I guess this is almost unique. They said it’s worth millions, even though if you melted it down the silver, especially, wouldn’t really be all that special. Silver costs a lot less than I thought it did.”
“Gold costs more, though. Who’s going to get the finder’s fee?”
“The Williamses. Anne apparently really has called her lawyer in and amended her will, thanks to that DNA test you ran. That was nice of you,” Megan added. Bourke shrugged it off, albeit with a smile. “So they’re keeping the whole fee in the family. Sondra wants to put the money into the estate, try to turn it into a luxury hotel. I don’t think they’ll get that much money out of it, but they can probably get some help from the government, and having the treasure site as part of the gardens will be a draw. And I don’t know how much Anne Edgeworth is worth even without a Viking treasure.”
“More than most of us will ever be.” Bourke slid his hands into his overcoat’s pockets, exhaling a steamy breath into the cold air, and nodded toward the mourning Williams sisters. “I wouldn’t want to be giving you the idea I approved, but you’ve done well by them, Megan. They were lucky to have you.”
“You’d have figured it out, if Reed hadn’t straight-up confessed to me after assaulting all of them. Faster, if I hadn’t accidentally let the killer go clear out his hideaway and tell the local gardaí that it was all a wild-goose chase.”
“But you’d taken pictures to prove it had all been there, even if we hadn’t found it all in his boot. Stupid,” Bourke said absently. “He should have dumped it in the lake so. Even so, I left Dublin as soon as I got your text about the room being used in the house. I was almost here when you sent the 911—it’s 999 here, Megan—but I still didn’t get here in time to do anything but the formal arrest. We really do have to stop meeting like that.”
“It’s not like I mean for us to!”
Bourke chuckled. “I know. All right so, I’ve got to head out. I was supposed to pick Niamh up at the airport, but I’ve left her to fend for herself so I could come to the funeral.”
“I’m sure she understands.”
“She does so. I hear you’re driving us to the premiere tomorrow night.”
“I am,” Megan said, pleased. “I’m looking forward to seeing you all dolled up.”
“You’ve seen me ‘all dolled up’ before.” Bourke made vague air quotes around the objectionable phrase, and Megan laughed.
“I have, which is why I’m looking forward to seeing it again. She was trying to talk me into dressing up too, but I keep telling her a chauffeur’s job is to be invisible.”
“I’m terrified.” Paul made a face at the confession, but Megan smiled.
“All you have to do is hang around and look handsome and slightly uncomfortable while they fawn on her. It’ll be grand so.”
“I can do the uncomfortable part well enough. See you tomorrow.”
Megan called, “Safe home,” after him, then stood aside and waited for the crowds to clear before finally approaching the sisters. “Ready to drive back to Dublin?”
“I just arranged to fly home tonight. Would you mind dropping me off at the airport first?” Sondra looked shattered, her usually precise posture sagging. Jessie, whose jaw sported a dramatic, fist-sized bruise, had an arm around Sondra’s waist, helping support her. Flynn stood a few feet back, looking like a hopeful third wheel while Raquel shook a few last hands, giving everyone their thanks. She too looked wrecked when she joined her sisters.
“Of course,” Megan told Sondra. “What about you two, when are you leaving?”
“Tuesday morning,” Raquel said. “There’s some more paperwork we need to deal with tomorrow, but it looks like we can leave after that.”
“I’ll help,” Flynn volunteered clumsily, and flushed when everyone looked his way. “With whatever I can. Must be some good to being local.” He shrank in on himself as he spoke, becoming increasingly mortified, but Jessie gave him a smile that seemed to help restore his confidence.
“That’d be really nice of you,” she murmured to Flynn, and he brightened considerably.
Raquel, shaking her head with a faint smile, said, “Thank you for all your help, Megan. I don’t know how we would have gotten through this without you.”
Megan exclaimed, “Oh good! I can introduce you to Niamh!” before she’d quite heard everything else Raquel said. “Oh. Oh, well. Thank you. I’m glad I was able to help. I’m glad you’re all okay.”
“Not just okay. Heiresses,” Raquel said with a rueful smile, but Jessie was bouncing up and down beside her, rattling Sondra’s teeth.
“Niamh? Niamh O’Sullivan? Really? You’d introduce us?”
“She’s coming into town tomorrow. We can go out for a quick coffee,” Megan promised, then glanced around. “Are you ready to go, or would you like a little time alone with your mother?”
All three of them looked toward the grave, then heaved a sigh as one. “I think we can go,” Sondra said quietly. “We think we’ll come back this summer to visit. Maybe we’ll see you again?”
Megan, smiling, gestured them toward the car. “I look forward to the future.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I mostly try not to take liberties with actual Irish geography and sites while writing the Dublin Driver books, but I have made very bold with one location in Death of an Irish Mummy: the Lough Rynn house exists in the real world not as an encroaching ruin, but as an actual luxury castle-hotel.
The story of the missing heir, however, is absolutely true, although the family name has been changed for the purposes of this book. In the early twentieth century, the last remaining heir to the earldom left Ireland (presumably fleeing to America under an assumed name), and despite great effort and cost on the part of the last earl, was never found. A writer really couldn’t ask for a better story premise than that!
DEATH ON THE GREEN A Dublin Driver Mystery By Catie Murphy
As an American in Dublin, limo driver Megan Malone will need the luck of the Irish to avoid a head-on collision—with a killer . . .
Life has been nonstop excitement for American Army veteran Megan Malone ever since she moved to Ireland and became a driver for Dublin’s Leprechaun Limousine Service. She’s solved a murder and adopted two lovable Jack Russell puppies. Currently, she’s driving world-class champion golfer Martin Walsh, and he’s invited her to join him while he plays in a tournament at a prestigious Irish locale. Unfortunately, there’s a surprise waiting for her on the course—a body floating in a water hazard.
Everyone loved golfer Lou MacDonald, yet he clearly teed off someone enough to be murdered. Martin seems to be the only one with a motive. However, he also has an alibi: Megan and hundreds of his fans were watching him play. Now, with a clubhouse at a historical lodge full of secrets and a dashing Irish detective by her side, Megan must hurry to uncover the links to the truth before the real killer takes a swing at someone else . . .
Look for DEATH ON THE GREEN, on sale now!
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