EXECUTION IN E Read online

  Praise for the Gethsemane Brown Mystery Series

  “The captivating southwestern Irish countryside adds a delightful element to this paranormal series launch. Gethsemane is an appealing protagonist who is doing the best she can against overwhelming odds.”

  – Library Journal (starred review)

  “Gordon strikes a harmonious chord in this enchanting spellbinder of a mystery.”

  – Susan M. Boyer,

  USA Today Bestselling Author of Lowcountry Book Club

  “Charming debut.”

  – Kirkus Reviews

  “A fantastic story with a great ghost, with bad timing. There are parts that are extremely comical, and Gethsemane is a fantastic character that you root for as the pressure continually builds for her to succeed…in more ways than one.”

  – Suspense Magazine

  “Just when you think you’ve seen everything, here comes Gethsemane Brown, baton in one hand, bourbon in the other…There’s charm to spare in this highly original debut.”

  – Catriona McPherson,

  Agatha Award-Winning Author of The Reek of Red Herrings

  “Gethsemane Brown is a fast-thinking, fast-talking dynamic sleuth (with a great wardrobe) who is more than a match for the unraveling murders and cover-ups, aided by her various–handsome–allies and her irascible ghost.”

  – Chloe Green,

  Author of the Dallas O’Connor Mysteries

  “In Gordon’s Exceptional third mystery...her ghosts operate under a set of limitations, allowing her earthly protagonists to shine as they cleverly solve crimes. Fans of paranormal cozies will be enthralled.”

  – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “For any fan who has become completely enraptured by the character of Gethsemane Brown, you will not only love the ‘spirit’ in this one, but you will also be thrilled to join up with Gethsemane on her third adventure...an all-out, fun-filled story.”

  – Suspense Magazine

  “Gethsemane Brown is everything an amateur sleuth should be: smart, sassy, talented, and witty even when her back is against the wall.”

  – Cate Holahan,

  Silver Falchion Award-Nominated Author of The Widower’s Wife

  “Erstwhile ghost conjurer and gifted concert violinist Gethsemane Brown returns in this thoroughly enjoyable follow-up to last year’s Murder in G Major…With the help of a spectral sea captain she accidentally summoned, Gethsemane tries to unravel the mystery as the murderer places her squarely in the crosshairs.”

  – Daniel J. Hale,

  Agatha Award-Winning Author

  “In the latest adventures with Gethsemane, murder is once again thrust upon her and with determination and a goal, she does what needs to be done…The author does a great job in keeping this multi-plot tale intriguing…I like that the narrative put me in the middle of all the action capturing the essence that is Ireland. The character of Eamon adds a touch that makes this engagingly appealing series more endearing.”

  – Dru’s Book Musings

  The Gethsemane Brown Mystery Series

  by Alexia Gordon

  MURDER IN G MAJOR (#1)

  DEATH IN D MINOR (#2)

  KILLING IN C SHARP (#3)

  FATALITY IN F (#4)

  EXECUTION IN E (#5)

  Copyright

  EXECUTION IN E

  A Gethsemane Brown Mystery

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition | March 2020

  Henery Press, LLC

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2020 by Alexia Gordon

  Author photograph by Peter Larsen

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-515-4

  Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-516-1

  Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-517-8

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-518-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my parents, as always,

  and to everyone who helped bring this, my 5th book, to fruition,

  especially my agent, Paula Munier,

  for convincing me to keep going.

  One

  The afternoon sun shone bright over the village of Dunmullach in the southwest of Ireland. The fragrance of wildflowers—clover, honeysuckle, valerian—wafted on a gentle breeze over the cliffs of Carrick Point. Gethsemane Brown rested her elbows on a windowsill and gazed out the open window at the pastoral scene that surrounded Carraigfaire Cottage. The day reminded her of Edward MacDowell’s “Summer Idyll.”

  Eamon McCarthy’s mood, on the other hand, reminded her of Holst’s “Mars: The Bringer of War.”

  “What the hell are they doing in my lighthouse?” Angry blue sparks punctuated the furious ghost’s shouts. A deep blue aura surrounded him. “What’s with the holy show?”

  “Billy rented it to them for their wedding,” Gethsemane said.

  “Why the bloody hell didn’t you stop him?” An anger-fueled blast of Eamon’s leather-and-soap scent filled the cottage’s interior.

  Gethsemane leaned out the window and inhaled the fresh, green, salty smells of the cliffside. She counted to five and reminded herself that her spectral roommate’s anger was really meant for his nephew, Billy McCarthy, who’d owned the cottage and lighthouse since Eamon’s murder many years ago. “How the hell, bloody or otherwise, am I supposed to stop my landlord from renting out his own property?”

  Another burst of sparks accompanied a string of swear words as blue as Eamon’s aura.

  “For the record,” Gethsemane jerked a thumb in the direction of the century-old lighthouse that sat atop Carrick Point’s promontory and dominated the landscape, “I don’t want them here anymore than you do. Especially the groom.”

  “He’s the fella you told me about? From the pub? The one Grennan’s mot dissolved into screaming hysterics over?”

  “‘Screaming hysterics’ overstates things. Verna got upset, sure, but I wouldn’t call her hysterical. And she didn’t scream.” Seeing Ty Lismore walk into the Mad Rabbit with two of his groomsmen two weeks ago had sent Verna Cunningham, the Latin teacher at St. Brennan’s Boys’ School and Frankie Grennan’s new girlfriend, running from the table in tears.

  “What’s between Miss Cunningham and the groom-to-be? A bad romance?”

  “Chauvinist. You would assume—”

  Eamon cut her off. “What else would send her running at the mere sight of him?”

  “Um…” Nothing she could think of quickly enough to qualify as a comeback. “Give me a minute.”

  “Not a damn thing and you know it. Except maybe she’s a fugitive murderer and he’s the garda hot on her trail.”

  “You’ve been spending too much time with me, if that’s the alternative you came up with.” She and Eamon had solved several murders together since she landed in Dunmullach almost a year ago, starting with his and his wife, Orla’s. “Yes, he probably broke her heart. But that’s a guess because, other than telling us his name, Verna won’t talk about him. At all. She’s more closed mouth about Lismore
than Frankie is about Yseult.” Frankie, math teacher at St. Brennan’s and Gethsemane’s close friend, loathed speaking about his ex-wife, Yseult, a fugitive thief and con artist. Even mention of her name sent him into a funk he wouldn’t emerge from for days.

  “This Lismore fella sounds like a true wanker.” A blue orb materialized and hovered in front of Eamon. It sizzled and popped with destructive energy. “I could do Miss Cunningham a favor and—”

  Gethsemane cut him off. “Put it away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you can’t blast every gobshite and wanker who darkens your day. For one thing, hitting people in the head with balls of energy is rude. For another, how would I explain it to Inspector Sutton?” She shuddered. She’d endured several run-ins with the head of the Dunmullach Garda homicide unit, encounters that usually involved her doing her best to convince the inspector that neither she nor her friends had killed anyone. He wasn’t a fan.

  “What if I just spook them? Move the furniture, levitate a few objects?”

  “I thought you didn’t do parlor tricks. They’re beneath you. Isn’t that what you told me when we first met and I asked you to prove you were a ghost?”

  Eamon grinned and shrugged. An amused green tinged the edges of his still-blue aura. “Desperate times. The thought of that gang of bollocks making a bags of my lighthouse by festooning it with gewgaws and furbelows is making me spin in my grave. Literally.”

  “Rest easy. They’re not festooning anything. Billy said the wedding’s not until October. They’re here now to do some planning and take some pre-wedding photos.”

  “Can we at least go see what they’re up to? I promise to behave.”

  “If you don’t want me to see your fingers crossed behind your back,” she pointed to his semi-transparent hand visible through his semi-transparent torso, “you should dial up your density.”

  “D’you know how much energy it takes to manifest one of these orbs? I can’t do it and fully materialize at the same time.”

  Gethsemane ducked as the blue projectile buzzed past her head. “All the more reason to put it away.”

  The orb vanished and Eamon filled in until he appeared solid. “Lighthouse?”

  She nodded. “I admit to morbid curiosity about the woman who captured the heart of the man who, I assume, trampled on Verna’s. Billy seemed impressed. Her name’s Sunny Markham; she’s American, a social media influencer, and an heiress.”

  “Social media influencer? That’s an actual job description?”

  Gethsemane snort-laughed. “She’s young, rich, and beautiful. People want to be her but can’t, so they settle for wearing what she wears, eating what she eats, traveling where she travels, you get the idea.”

  “How do they know all that?”

  “She posts a carefully curated selection of photos on social media of herself living a fabulous life.”

  “Are you sure I can’t use an orb?”

  “I’m sure. Let’s go. Maybe I can suss out some intel for Frankie so he’ll know what he’s up against.”

  “Race you.” Eamon dematerialized.

  Two

  “What took you so long?” Eamon materialized next to Gethsemane as she crested Carrick Point.

  “Allow me to point out that the abilities to dematerialize and translocate through the ether give you an unfair advantage.” She stopped a few yards short of the lighthouse. “Oh, my.”

  A small crowd clustered around its base. Ty Lismore, looking as cold-blooded as he had at the pub, leaned against the tower, one foot propped against the stones behind him. The artful messiness of his brown hair contrasted with the severity of his ice-blue eyes. The two groomsmen who had accompanied him to the pub the day he brought Verna’s past back to haunt her stood on either side of him, as they had when Gethsemane first saw them two weeks ago. The blond with the scar, Theophilus Derringer, flanked Ty’s right and the handsome Asian, Brian Nishi, his left. All three men wore identical outfits—dark gray linen, modern-fit suits with white shirts open at the collar. Gethsemane’s tailor grandfather would have approved. Theophilus looked uncomfortable, like a kid borrowing an older brother’s suit for a special occasion. Brian looked as if he’d been born wearing sartorial splendor. Ty looked…like he had a mean streak no bespoke suit could disguise.

  Gethsemane thought she recognized the fourth man in the group, handsome and lean with curly dark hair that reminded her of Eamon’s. She’d seen him around the village once or twice over the past week. She’d taken him for a tourist. He hunkered behind a camera on a tripod and snapped photos of the trio. Three women watched over his shoulder. Supermodel tall and supermodel thin, with flawless hair and makeup, they stood as if posing while the one in the center—a willowy, redhead in a barely-there, moss green, silk slip dress—barked instructions at the photographer. Gethsemane smoothed the pleats of her robin’s egg-blue, linen sundress as she watched, feeling underdressed in comparison.

  “Get some shots of Ty with just Brian and some with just Theo,” the redhead said in a geographically-indistinct American accent. She sounded like a news anchor. “Get some shots of Ty by himself. And hurry. This light’ll fade soon. I want to catch the sun reflecting off the tower’s stone. And get both close-up and medium shots. I want to see all of the boys’ faces in frame but still get as much of the lighthouse as possible. This needs to be Insta-perfect. I’m an influencer. My followers and sponsors expect my posts to be perfect. I don’t have a lot of time to spend filtering before I post, so I need you to get it right first try. I’ve got endorsements riding on this.”

  The other two women, each in a dress similar to the redhead’s but in different colors, clustered around her, smartphones ready. The porcelain-skinned brunette in salmon pink flashed a grin at the mahogany-skinned beauty in ivory. The redhead, as if radar had warned her of dissension in the ranks, whipped around to glare at them. The brunette’s smile vanished. She and the other woman arranged their faces into expressions of rapt attention. The redhead turned back to the photographer and barked more orders.

  “The blushing bride?” Eamon jerked a thumb at the redhead.

  “The raging bridezilla,” Gethsemane whispered. “I almost feel sorry for Ty. Almost.”

  “I thought you said they weren’t festooning my lighthouse.” Eamon pointed to several silk organza swags that framed the lighthouse door and draped the porch railings.

  “I misspoke. Why don’t you go tell her to take it down?” A grin played on her lips.

  “You’re funny today, darlin’. Must be the summer air. Even if yon bure could see me—which I doubt because I doubt she sees or hears anything besides her own self-interest—I’d have as much luck convincing her to change her ways as I’d have convincing the devil to give up brimstone.”

  The redhead looked away from the photographer and noticed Gethsemane. Her entourage followed her gaze. She broke off mid-command and spun, arms swept wide. “Gethsemane Brown! Impeccable timing. Your ears must be burning.” Her newscaster accent morphed into a high-pitched, little-girl tone that reminded Gethsemane of the creepy children’s choruses that sang nursery rhymes in horror films. “Ty and I were discussing wedding music just this morning, weren’t we, Ty?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Of course, you’ll perform at mine. Ours. It’ll be perfect.”

  “Insta-perfect,” Eamon whispered in Gethsemane’s ear.

  Gethsemane ignored him. “I don’t think we’ve met. You must be the bride-elect.” She offered her hand.

  The redhead ignored it. “But, of course, I know who you are. Mummy took me to see you perform Mahler with the Chicago Symphony, oh, ages ago when I was just a little girl. Baroness Von Meck sat with us in our box—you know Baroness von Meck, I’m sure, she’s such a big supporter of the symphony—and fed us all the delicious gossip. So, anyway, of course you’ll perform at our wedding. If you don’t, my wedding won’t be
perfect and that’s just not acceptable.”

  “Well-played.” Eamon materialized with a smirk and an amused green aura. “In a few run-on sentences she managed to point out that she’s younger than you, richer than you, more well-connected than you, and to suggest that the success of her wedding depends entirely on you doing what she wants. Well-played, indeed.”

  No one except Gethsemane appeared to hear or see Eamon. Most people couldn’t. She, a reformed skeptic, had never seen nor heard a ghost before meeting him. The origin of her new-found ability eluded her. If any of her relatives or ancestors possessed it, her uber-rational scientist mother forbade anyone from saying so. Now, a small part of her wished the others could see him. Then she could tell him to shut up out loud.

  Instead, she favored the socialite with the smile she reserved for deep-pocketed donors whose personalities were as dreadful as their bank accounts were large. “Ms. Sunny Markham, isn’t it? I think that’s what Billy said your name was.”

  “Of the Newport Markhams,” one of Sunny’s attendants offered.

  Sunny tilted her head back and sniffed dismissively.

  “Miss Markham,” Gethsemane continued, “as delighted as I am to meet a fan, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer. I don’t do weddings.”

  “But you must, you simply must. How could I settle for some local amateur when the winner of the Strasburg Medal and the Fleischer Prize is standing in front of me? I can’t even conceive of anyone else performing. I. Can’t. Even. You have to do it.” The little-girl tone faded and a hint of coldness crept into Sunny’s voice. “I always get what I want.” She turned to her fiancé. “Don’t I, Ty?”

  Ty half-smiled. “Yes, love.” He kissed her cheek. “Always.”