Killing in C Sharp Page 12

  Saoirse stopped screaming. She broke free of her brother and smoothed her skirt. “I’m fine, Colm. Don’t be such an old woman.” She kissed his cheek. “Cook’s making pandy tonight. Don’t be late like last time.” She hugged Ruairi and skipped downstairs.

  “What the hell’s wrong with the girl?” Aed had climbed out of the orchestra pit and stood on the orchestra level with the others, staring up at the source of excitement. All eyes watched her leave the theater. Colm ran after her.

  “She saw a ghost, Mr. Devlin,” Poe shouted down at him from the grand tier. “The ghost you conjured with your opera.” She held up her camera. “The ghost I caught on film.”

  Gethsemane looked at the castle again. The blue haze had morphed slightly into a shape recognizable as a figure—a head, shoulders, maybe an arm—but far from anything recognizable as any specific person. Had Poe and the crew actually captured anything? “There wasn’t supposed to be a real ghost,” she hissed. “Manky smells, yes. Actual manifestations, no.”

  “Don’t look at me, darlin’,” Eamon said. “I didn’t call her. This was your idea.”

  “I didn’t call her. I’m nowhere near an instrument, and I haven’t recited any incantations since—Damn it. Poe.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She found Tim’s occult books and took a grimoire. Not by accident, I’d bet money. She must have used a conjuring spell.”

  “A spell alone isn’t enough.”

  She and Eamon fell silent for a moment.

  “The overture,” Gethsemane said.

  “The aria,” Eamon said.

  “Weirdness has been happening since Aed whistled the overture at school.”

  “Smells, like you said, and the accidents. They weren’t publicity stunts, they were the opening act. Aed triggered the curse with his whistle. Sylvie’s high notes brought on the full-scale production.”

  “Sylvie did sing a nasty curse. The words of the aria might have acted as their own spell, even without Poe’s interference.”

  “What about the aria?” Aed approached from the direction of the stage. He gave no indication of seeing Eamon.

  “It was so powerful,” she said. “Overwhelming. I wondered if it stirred more than the audience’s emotions.”

  “You’re not giving credence to this curse rubbish, are you? This ghost nonsense. That poor girl’s obviously touched in the head.”

  “Don’t be too hasty to dismiss her sighting.” Gethsemane glanced over her shoulder. The blue haze still hovered on the stage. It had grown denser, more shadow than haze now, and had a distinctly female shape. “We should see if the paranormal crew caught something on camera.”

  “I agreed to have those fellas here because I wanted some free publicity, not so I’d become a laughing stock. You know how important this is to me.”

  Sylvie rushed up the aisle from the stage, sheer layers in full flutter behind her. She slipped between Gethsemane and Aed and fanned herself with a hand. “Aed, I must lie down. The shock. The shock is so bad for the voice.” Her impossibly French accent reminded Gethsemane of Pepé Le Pew from the old cartoons.

  “A diva in every sense of the word,” Eamon said. “Wans like her are the reason I stayed away from operas.”

  Aed assisted her into one of the blue velvet seats. “Has anyone seen Venus?” he asked.

  Sylvie harrumphed and stood. “I shall find someplace to lie down on my own. Y’all driving me fou.”

  Y’all? Gethsemane raised an eyebrow. The expression was more South Carolina than southern France.

  Venus called to Aed from the far side of the auditorium. He excused himself and went to her.

  The paranormal investigators came down from the grand tier to the orchestra level. Sylvie moved off to try her luck with one of the camera men.

  Kent came over and grabbed Gethsemane in a bear hug. “That was a-maz-ing. Amazing. Gorgeous. It couldn’t have been more prefect if you staged it. The little girl? Is she psychic?”

  Ciara walked up to Kent and laid her hand on his back. “We should get back to ops base and analyze our footage.”

  “We can’t leave yet.” Poe joined the group. “Something else is going to happen. Something huge. Can’t you feel it?”

  Hardy walked up behind her. “Something bigger than a poor kid being terrified out of her mind?”

  Poe didn’t seem to catch the distaste in his voice. “Way bigger than that. Something tremendous.”

  “I’m going to check on the boys,” Gethsemane said. She headed back to the front of the orchestra.

  Colm returned without Saoirse and plopped into a seat near Feargus. “May we go now, Dr. Brown? I don’t like this place. I don’t feel well.”

  “Nor do I,” Feargus said. “I think I may gawk.”

  Gethsemane studied the boys. They looked pale and feverish. Much different than the hale and hearty youth they’d been when they climbed into the van to come to the theater. Several of the other boys looked just as ill as Colm and Feargus. What could have come over them so fast? “We’ll go. You wait here. I’m going to ask Mr. Grennan to help me round up the others, then we’ll leave.”

  Aengus ambled up and punched his brother in the shoulder. “Some hooley, huh? With the French lady shattering glass and Colm’s little sis screaming to raise the dead and that blue-haired bure with the camera going on about blood and guts. Pure fun, that’s what it is.”

  Feargus pushed Aengus away. “Not now. Can’t you see I’ve got a bad dose?” He sniffed. “Do you smell something?”

  “Not me,” Aengus said.

  “I do,” Colm said. “Smells like pepper and grease.”

  Seeing Feargus and Aengus together made Feargus seem even worse. The twins looked like before and after pictures in one of her mother’s medical texts: Feargus, the before treatment, Aengus, the after recovery. “Aengus, keep an eye on your brother and Colm.” Time to gather her flock and go. She waded into the crowd gathered near the stage.

  “Have you seen Bernard Stoltz?” Niall appeared at her elbow. He scanned the room over her head.

  “No, but I haven’t looked for him.”

  “I have. I’ve accounted for everyone except him. All the boys, you, Frankie, Devlin and Venus, Mam’selle diva, the ghost crew. Everyone’s here except Stoltz and Saoirse. And Father Tim just texted me to say Saoirse’s fine, enjoying tea over at the rectory. Where’s Stoltz?”

  “Maybe we should look for him.”

  “Maybe I should look for him. Certainly, you should stay here and help Frankie with these kids. And don’t argue.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You would have.” He tipped his hat and headed for the stage.

  “Psst.”

  Gethsemane turned. Eamon balanced on the orchestra pit rail. His feet disappeared into the brass. “Your guard friend is going the wrong way.” He pointed down into the pit.

  Gethsemane leaned over the rail. Venus joined her. “Does your ghost friend always pop up out of the blue like that?”

  “Yeah, it’s a habit. You get used to it.”

  “I can hear you both,” Eamon said.

  Both women leaned over the rail. Gethsemane saw it first. “Inspector O’Reilly?”

  Niall came out of the wings. “Nothing good ever follows when you address me by my rank and family name.”

  Gethsemane pointed.

  Niall swore. “Get those lads away from here, will ya? Now.”

  “I’ll do it,” Venus said. She clapped her hands until all attention was on her. “Guys, I’m getting ready to Skype Angie Morocco.” Audible gasps greeted the name of Hollywood’s hottest “it” girl. “Who wants to be on the call?”

  Every boy in the auditorium raised their hand. Even the sick ones rallied. Venus fished her phone from her purse and led the boys out to the lobby.
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br />   “You,” Niall pointed at Gethsemane, “stay here.”

  “Of course I won’t. I found him.”

  Eamon interjected. “You mean I found him.”

  Gethsemane mouthed, “Shut up” behind Niall’s back. He’d already started down the steps into the orchestra pit. She hurried to catch up.

  “I thought I—” He closed his eyes for several seconds. “Never mind. Since you’re determined to interfere, make yourself useful and call the garda station. Tell them to send a crime scene unit and someone from homicide.” He handed her his smartphone. “The station number’s programmed in favorites.”

  “Me call? How’s that going to work? They’ll think it’s some crank.”

  “Oh, no. They all know who you are. Just tell the dispatcher Gethsemane Brown found another body and they’ll send help right out.”

  She said something rude.

  Niall knelt by the piano, a Steinway grand that looked much like Eamon’s. She watched over his shoulder as he reached under the cabinet, past splayed legs, past the gleaming steel trowel protruding from a motionless back, past broken tortoise shell glasses, to the neck of what used to be Bernard Stoltz. He pressed his fingers against flesh for a moment, then dropped his hand and sat back on his heels.

  Gethsemane’s call connected. “Dunmullach Garda,” the voice on the other end said. “How may I help you?”

  Nine

  The inspector from the homicide unit glared at Gethsemane. She leaned back in the box seat where she’d been kept waiting for twenty minutes and glared back.

  “What is it with her?” the inspector whispered to Niall, loudly enough for her to hear. “She cursed or something? Some kind of jinx?”

  “Lay off, Bill. Dr. Brown has an alibi for this one. Me. She never left the auditorium. She couldn’t have killed Stoltz. She’s about the only one who couldn’t have. Her and Grennan and the students. Can’t vouch for the rest of them. They were all in and out at various points.”

  “I’m not saying she drove that trowel into his back with her own hands. But people do have a habit of turning up dead when she’s around.” He cast a nasty glance in her direction. “I’d make some new friends if I was you.”

  Gethsemane spoke up. “Excuse me, since your colleague just assured you I’m one of the few people in this building who couldn’t have committed murder today, may I go? I need to get the boys back to school. Some of them aren’t feeling well and they’re all upset.” To put it mildly. A half dozen had taken ill since the blue haze—now clearly the transparent outline of a dark-haired woman—appeared. The wraith had moved from the stage and popped up in various places around the periphery of the auditorium. She didn’t speak, and her facial features remained indistinct, but she radiated anger from the corner where she now lurked. Eamon had vanished right after pointing out Bernard’s body. Gethsemane wished he’d come back. She didn’t know what Maja could do but sensed she’d be less likely to do it in the presence of another ghost. Maja unnerved her, even more than Bernard’s corpse. Corpses were predictable, rational, heartbreaking but harmless. And she was getting used to them. She repeated her request to the homicide inspector.

  “Answer a couple of questions first.” He pulled out a notebook. “You knew this Stoltz?”

  “I’d met him. And I knew of him. He was a miserable jerk who made his living by bribing musicians and ruining their careers if they didn’t pay. Until he went after the wrong person and his misdeeds caught up with him. I doubt he’ll be missed.”

  “Do you know what he was doing here? Who invited him?”

  Gethsemane shook her head. “I assumed he’d come as a freelancer to review Aed’s opera. He’s a talented—was a talented writer. A horrible human being, but still talented. If he’d sold a review—especially a bad one—he might have been offered a permanent position with a magazine or paper. That’s guessing on my part. Bernard never told us what he was up to.”

  “Fair to say many people wanted him dead?”

  She admitted it was. “But there’s a huge leap between ‘wanted him dead’ and ‘grabbed a sharp construction tool, lured him into the orchestra pit, and stabbed him in the back.’”

  “One more question. The girl who did the screaming,” he consulted his notebook, “Saoirse Nolan. Where’s she?”

  “She’s twelve. Surely, you don’t suspect her of stabbing a grown man in the back.”

  “I asked where she was.”

  “At Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows with Father Tim. Last I heard.”

  He snapped his notebook shut. “She’s all yours, Niall. Do me a favor and keep her out of my way.” He glared at her again. “Some of us don’t need any help from school marms.” He moved off to question one of the theater employees.

  She looked down at the orchestra level. The boys clustered around Frankie, some stretched out as best they could over the seats. Gardaí, uniformed and plainclothes, stood scattered among Venus, Aed, Sylvie, Kent, Hardy, Poe and the other paranormal investigators, preventing them from talking to each other. More officers and a crime scene unit made noise down in the orchestra pit. She couldn’t see what they were doing. “I think I should—” She broke off. “Niall, what’s wrong?”

  Niall, pale and clammy, had slumped in a seat. His prized hat lay on the floor near his foot.

  Gethsemane scooped up the fedora and laid her fingers on his wrist in a single, swift movement. “Are you having chest pain? Can you breathe?” His pulse beat a steady, if fast, thump, thump, thump. “I’ll call 999.”

  He reclaimed his hat and waved away the suggestion of an ambulance. “I’ll be all right. Must’ve just got a dose of what the boys got.” He jerked his head toward the orchestra level. “Better stay back, it must be contagious.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?”

  “Positive. A, I don’t need one. B, I’d never live it down. You can do me a favor. Send one of the uniforms up to give me a ride home. I’ll come back for my car later.”

  “I can drop your car off. Or get your set designer friend to do it.”

  “She’s happily married with three wee ones, if you’re curious.” He made a face as he handed her his car key.

  “If you’d rather I left it in the parking lot—”

  “It’s not that.” He sniffed. “Do you smell pepper and grease?”

  The same thing the boys complained they smelled. Maja hung in a corner, brighter and more solid than before.

  “Go home, Niall,” Gethsemane said. “I think there’s something bad in the air here.”

  She whistled down to the orchestra level for Frankie. They’d get the kids together and—

  He looked up at her. Even from the distance between the box seats and the main floor she could see he was sallow and feverish.

  “Jeez, Frankie,” she said. “You’ve got it, too.”

  She waited in the box until a uniformed garda collected Niall and escorted him out. Then she went down to check on Frankie.

  “Why don’t you head back to school? I’ll manage the boys.”

  “Manage this lot?” Frankie spread his arms. Boys, all pale and clammy, sprawled on seats and on the floor. “You’re going to carry them all out to the vans yourself?”

  “Someone’s going to have to carry you out if you don’t sit down. You look awful.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “No, you usually look scruffy.” Even that was no longer the case, since Venus arrived in town. “Not sick. Bernard has better color than you. Please go home. I already sent Niall out.”

  “Now you’re that kind of doctor?”

  “It doesn’t take a physician to see you’re sicker than sh—”

  “Language.” Frankie gestured to the boys.

  “To see how sick you are. Go home. Stop being a martyr.”

  “And if I don’t do as I’m
told?”

  “Have you ever won an argument with me when you’re well?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “What makes you think you can win one now?”

  He held up a trembling hand. “I concede. I need some fresh air anyway. Can you not smell that?”

  “Pepper and grease?”

  Frankie nodded. “Worse than casserole night at the dining hall.” He excused himself.

  A commotion near the stage interrupted them. Sylvie, as short as Gethsemane, stood on tiptoe to stare a young uniformed garda in the eye. She puffed like an angry pea hen and blasted the officer with the full force of her magnificent voice. “I. Am. Ma-de-moi-selle Ba-bin.” She accentuated every syllable like a slap in the face. “I am not used to being treated this way. I am not une criminelle!”

  The garda cast about for someone to save him.

  Why pass up an opportunity? “Excuse me,” Gethsemane said. “May I help?”

  Sylvie gestured. “Can you make this petit garçon go away? Can you make them release me from this maison du mort?”

  “I do have experience with the local law enforcement.” More than she’d ever imagined she’d have. “The best way I’ve found to get them to let you go home is to answer their questions.”

  “But I have no answers. I don’t know anything. I have nothing to do with murder. I am Mademoiselle Babin!”

  Eamon was right. A diva in every sense of the word. Gethsemane imagined the look on Niall’s face if he ever had to interview Sylvie. Then she remembered the look on his face a few minutes ago. Nothing to laugh at. “All the more reason to cooperate, Mademoiselle. As an uninterested party—you are uninterested, aren’t you? You didn’t know Bernard, did you?”

  Sylvie deflated. “Know? Know? Who really knows anyone?”

  The garda slipped a notebook from his pocket and mouthed “Keep going.”

  Gethsemane invited Sylvie to sit on the edge of the stage. “People are a mystery, aren’t they?” she asked. “Did you ever meet someone and wonder what went on inside them?”