EXECUTION IN E Read online

  “Your mother introduced him. She attended his show at that artists’ co-op. What was it called?” Ty snapped his fingers. “You know the one.”

  “Whatever,” Sunny said. “Mal’s a smart man. He knows that photographing the wedding event of the era is far more lucrative than taking artsy photos of rocks or buildings or whatever it was he was doing.”

  “He says he plans to use the money to further his art,” Ty said.

  Sunny snorted. “Once my photos hit social media and the sponsors line up like starving seals at a fish market, Mal will forget about ‘art.’ He’ll be far too busy juggling offers from influencers. They’ll go after him like—”

  “Starving seals?” Gethsemane asked.

  Sunny looked daggers at Gethsemane. “Not that any other influencers can match me, of course.” She kissed Ty again. “Come on, sweetness. We’ve got a couple of hours before we need to be anywhere. Remind me how much you want me.”

  Ty scooped Sunny up and spun her around. His flask slipped from his pocket and clattered to the ground.

  “Honestly, Ty,” Sunny said, “if you can’t keep up with it, why carry it around?”

  “It’s my trademark.” Ty put his fiancée down and retrieved his flask. “Part of my brand.”

  “It’s time to discuss re-branding.” Sunny grabbed him by the arm. “Come on.”

  Gethsemane shivered despite the still summer air as she watched the couple go into the inn. Ty and Sunny’s match had been made far from heaven. She didn’t put much stock in happily ever after, being more a pragmatist than a romantic, but she wouldn’t give even odds on those two achieving contented enough for the time being. “Pathétique” swelled in her head, accompanied by images of Ty and Sunny as the subject of a Women’s Network show about murderous spouses. No surprise if one of them ended up as a skeleton in a footlocker before their third anniversary. But which one of them was Tchaikovsky warning her about?

  A breeze sprang up, carrying with it the faint aroma of leather and soap. The breeze grew into a gentle wind that swirled the scents, echoes of Eamon’s cologne and soap that often heralded his arrival, around her.

  “Come out from wherever you’re hiding, Irish.”

  Eamon materialized next to her. “I wasn’t hiding.”

  “From wherever you were lurking, then.”

  “Someone’s in a foul mood this evening. No need to eat my head off.”

  “I’m not—” She took a deep breath and started again. “I didn’t mean to sound cross.”

  “You’re worried.”

  “I can’t shake the feeling that one-half of the unhappy couple isn’t going to make it to the honeymoon.”

  “Shouldn’t you tell O’Reilly? Or Sutton?”

  “Seriously? Tell the Dunmullach Garda’s chief cold case or chief homicide inspector that I have a hunch—not evidence, only a hunch—heralded by music that only I can hear, that some unknown unpleasant thing will happen to some unknown person at some unknown time? You want them to arrest me for wasting police time?”

  “Don’t look at me like that.” Eamon’s aura glowed a scolding platinum. “No offense, darlin’, but your track record of hunches leading to dead bodies is enough to send the guards scrambling for an arrest warrant.”

  No denying Dumullach’s murder rate had jumped since she’d arrived, a statistic that made her a frequent, if unpopular, visitor to the Garda station. She’d spent more time in interrogation rooms in her months in the village than she had in the rest of her thirty-eight years combined. “I can’t tell Sutton. If I mention murder within earshot of him, he’s liable to arrest me on principle. I’ll talk to Niall.” She counted the head of the Garda’s cold case unit as a friend. “In the morning. I’m going to have to sell him on the idea and I need to sleep on it before I craft my pitch. Not that I have any idea what he could do about the possibility of a crime occurring in the future.”

  “Tell him it’s a courtesy heads-up.”

  “Speaking of heads-up,” Gethsemane lowered her voice as a movement beyond Eamon caught her eye, “here comes Rosalie Baraquin. You better vanish.”

  “She can’t see me. Nor hear me.”

  “But I can see you and hear you. And I’m liable to answer you. Which I’d have a hard time explaining.”

  “I’ll be quiet. You’ll manage.” Instead of vanishing, Eamon appeared more solid.

  Gethsemane bit back her opinion of his ability to remain silent as Rosalie neared. She greeted the bridesmaid. “Are you—all right?”

  “All right?” Blankness gave way to remembrance. “Oh, you mean since my visit to Father Keating. I’m sorry if I ran you off.”

  “You didn’t run me off. You seemed upset. Or worried.”

  Rosalie didn’t respond.

  “Anyway, you obviously needed him more than I did at that moment. I hope he helped.”

  “Yes, he did.” Rosalie’s shoulders relaxed as if the priest’s counsel had come back to her as a palliative. She raised her arm to massage her neck, exposing her tattoo again.

  “It’s beautiful,” Gethsemane said before Rosalie could hide it. “Such intricate detail. It reminds me of Mal’s. Do you two have the same tattoo artist?”

  “No.” Rosalie tugged her sleeve down. “I mean I don’t know. I have no idea where Mal had his ink done. I’m sure any similarity is just coincidence.”

  “What’s your tattoo symbolize? The twenty-seven and the heart?”

  “Nothing. I mean—” Rosalie paused. When she spoke again, her tone sounded more convincing. “The tattoo was a youthful mistake. I made a deal with someone a long time ago.”

  “A matching tattoo pact? Or a lost bet?”

  Rosalie shuddered and rubbed her arms, a faraway expression on her face.

  “I’m kidding.”

  “What?” Rosalie snapped back to attention.

  “Are you sure you’re all right? You seemed to be…” Gethsemane waved her hand in the air, suggesting Rosalie had been anywhere but here.

  “I just…” Rosalie shuddered again. “Cold chill. Someone must be walking over my grave.” Her mirthless laugh died abruptly and she stared at the space next to Gethsemane.

  Gethsemane forced herself not to look at Eamon.

  “No.” Eamon seemed to guess her thought. “She can’t see me.” He hesitated. “I’m almost positive.” He screwed up his face and made a rude gesture. Rosalie didn’t react. “Nope. She can’t see me.”

  Rosalie turned her stare on Gethsemane. “Why are you here?”

  “I, um, came to get my bike. I ran into Ty and—”

  “No, I mean why are you here in this village, so far from home? Your family’s not here, you’ve no roots here. Why are you in this place?”

  Why had she stayed? Directing a boys’ school music program hadn’t been part of her grand plan. Nor moving into a haunted cottage. She hadn’t even believed in ghosts. And yet, she loved her job, she’d made friends, she liked her ghost. And, if she was honest, she got a thrill from her new-found sleuthing abilities, a sense of purpose from keeping innocent people out of jail, and a sense of satisfaction from bringing killers to justice. She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess Dunmullach feels like home now.”

  “This place feels like…” Her words trailed off and Rosalie shook her head as if to clear it. “Sorry. Guess I’m not much for small towns. There’s something…creepy about them. Give me the big city, any day. Excuse me.” She went inside the inn.

  Gethsemane waited until she’d gone, then asked Eamon, “You’re certain she couldn’t see you? Or hear you?”

  “If you saw me make that gesture at you—”

  “I’d have reacted. She didn’t see you.”

  “Doesn’t mean she couldn’t sense me. I run across people from time to time who know something’s quare, even if they can’t say what.”
/>   Gethsemane took a deep breath. With Eamon this close, she detected notes of cedar and pepper intermingled with the leather and soap. “Maybe she smelled you.”

  “Maybe you should be wide around that one. She’s more than vapid smiles and overpriced clothes.”

  “This whole bloody wedding party is more than I can deal with right now. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and,” she shifted with growing discomfort, “I have to pee.”

  “Use the jacks in the inn.”

  “I’ll wait ’til I get back to the cottage. Don’t worry,” she said in response to his doubtful hickory-brown aura, “I’ve held it all the way through Mahler’s ‘Third.’”

  “Which isn’t the same as bumping along on a bike over rural Irish roads. You won’t make it past the post office.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Have you forgotten I was married to a woman? Have you any idea of how many toilets I’ve waited outside of? I’ve got some idea of how it works. Go on.” Eamon pointed to her bike and sent it rolling to rest against a wall. “I’ll wait here.”

  No point arguing. Gethsemane went inside in search of the ladies’ room. She turned down a hallway off the inn’s lobby. Rosalie and the other bridesmaid stood at the far end, heads close together in intense conversation. The other bridesmaid punctuated her words with jabs at Rosalie’s arm. Gethsemane hung back and tried to overhear what they said but they kept their voices too low. Rosalie looked up and saw Gethsemane. She nudged the other bridesmaid into silence.

  “Um, ladies’ room?” Gethsemane pointed to a door behind them. They moved to let her pass.

  A short while later, Gethsemane stepped back into the hall. Rosalie and the other bridesmaid were gone. Gethsemane continued through the lobby on her way out of the inn. She spied Rosalie in one of the armchairs near the fireplace. She clutched a piece of paper in one hand. The other, balled into a fist, pressed against her lips. Gethsemane moved close enough to peer over Rosalie’s shoulder. She glimpsed an intricate line drawing before Rosalie noticed being watched. Startled, she crumpled the paper and shoved it between the seat cushion and the arm of the chair.

  “Bad news?” Gethsemane asked.

  “No, uh…” Rosalie retrieved the wadded paper, smoothed it, and folded it neatly, careful to keep whatever was on it hidden from view. “Just, um, a message from…someone.”

  Gethsemane waited for Rosalie to say more but the other woman remained silent. After a few seconds, Gethsemane spoke. “I hope everything’s okay. If you need anything—”

  “Father Keating issued an open invitation. Thanks for asking.” She rose and headed for the stairs.

  Gethsemane watched her disappear onto the second floor then headed outside to find Eamon.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  The story tumbled out. “Someone sent Rosalie a note, some kind of drawing. It upset her, but she made a point of not telling me why it upset her nor who sent the note. She also made sure I didn’t get a second look at the drawing. She actually crumpled the note rather than let me see it. And, yes, I feel better.”

  Eamon’s aura glimmered an amused green.

  “What’s funny?” she asked.

  “You’ve got that I-know-something’s-going-on-and-I’m-going-to-find-out-what look on your face.”

  “Rosalie took time off from bridezilla watch to see Father Tim about something, something troubling. A little while ago, I saw her in the hall in a heated discussion with the other bridesmaid—”

  “You left that part out.”

  Gethsemane told Eamon what she saw outside the ladies’ room. “They may not have been arguing. But they looked serious about whatever they were talking about. And a few minutes after that, Rosalie got a note that disturbed her, a note whose message she hid. Doesn’t that add up to…something?”

  “The note could have been a letter from an ex or bad news from home.”

  “It was a drawing.”

  “Maybe it was a new tattoo design.”

  “Why would she be upset about that?”

  “I thought you were concerned with the future Mr. and Mrs. Lismore.”

  “I was. I am. I’m concerned about Rosalie, too.” She pressed the heels of her hands hard against her temples. “None of this is making sense.”

  “What do you want me to do, he asked like a proper sidekick,” Eamon said.

  “Pop into Rosalie’s room and get that note.”

  “I don’t pop. I—”

  “Translocate. Can you translocate into her room and get the note? Or at least get a good look at it?”

  “To be clear, you want me to enter a woman’s room uninvited—”

  “Don’t pretend you have any qualms about that. You translocate into my room whenever you feel like it.”

  “Correction. I translocate into my room. You just happen to be occupying it.”

  “Stop nitpicking.”

  “As I was saying, you want me to enter a woman’s room,” Eamon raised an eyebrow as if daring her to contradict him, “uninvited, and steal a private message?”

  Gethsemane met his gaze. “Yes.”

  “Fine. Just wanted to make sure I understood the plan.”

  She closed her eyes and counted to three. “You enjoy this, don’t you?”

  Eamon’s aura glowed bright green with his laughter. “More than you know. A ghost has to have some fun.”

  “You’re worse than my brothers. By the way, you can get inside, can’t you? Sweeney’s has been here since 1902.” Eamon could only enter places as a ghost that he’d visited during his lifetime—except the church. Buried in error in unhallowed ground as a supposed suicide, he couldn’t go past the church’s gate. “I assume you’ve been inside at least once.”

  “Sweeney’s is the grandest place in the village. Every wedding reception, graduation, First Communion, and mother’s birthday has been celebrated there since they opened their doors. I’ve been inside countless times.”

  “Good. Then you’ll have no trouble getting into Rosalie’s room. What are you waiting for?” She motioned for him to hurry.

  “And here I thought Orla was the only woman I couldn’t say no to.” He vanished with a wink.

  A moment later, he reappeared. His green aura had transformed to a disappointed puce tinged with an apologetic magenta.

  “What happened?” Gethsemane asked. “You couldn’t find the note?”

  “I couldn’t get in.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know what I said.” Mauve annoyance flared between the puce and magenta. “I’d no trouble getting inside Sweeney’s. But Rosalie Baraquin has barred her door.”

  “You lost me. You can pop—translocate—through doors, windows, walls—”

  “Not against charms, I can’t. The Baraquin woman’s worked some sort of spell or used a talisman or something to prevent supernatural entities from crossing her threshold.”

  “Since she doesn’t know you exist, she can’t be trying to keep you, specifically, out. You’re sure she can’t see or hear you?”

  “For the last time, I’m sure. I’m as sure she can’t see nor hear me as I am of my own name. Besides,” his aura flared with all the colors of indignation, “if she could see or hear me, she wouldn’t want to keep me out.”

  “Eamon McCarthy, proof that ego persists after death,” Gethsemane said. “If not you, then who? Is some other ghost hanging around?”

  “Darlin’, have you forgotten where you are? This is Ireland. The place is lousy with ghosts. But none other than yours truly in the immediate vicinity. Unless you’ve conjured another sea captain or vengeful princess…”

  “I have not. I learned my lesson.” She had, in the past, called an eighteenth-century sea captain back from the other side by accident when she recited a summoning spell then played the tones—a sea chanty—tha
t vibrated as his harmonic likeness. “Don’t recite summoning spells unless you know exactly who you’re calling. Kind of like not hitting ‘reply all’ on your emails. But the vengeful princess—” who’d almost succeeded in destroying Dunmullach’s first-born male population “—was not my fault. Whose Rosalie trying to keep out?”

  “Not trying. Succeeding. She knows what’s she’s doing. Like I said, be wide with that one, be dog wide. And I’m afraid you’ll have to find a mundane way of getting a look at that note.”

  “How’m I going to do that?” She’d broken into more than one room—gained unauthorized access, she preferred to call it—in the course of an investigation but Frankie, her usual accomplice, had Verna to worry about. He wouldn’t be up for skulking about the inn or running interference for her. She certainly couldn’t ask Niall, a garda, to help her. And asking Tim, a priest, didn’t seem right, either.

  “You’ll think of something,” Eamon said.

  “Not standing out here, I won’t.” She climbed on her bike. “I’m heading back to the cottage. Maybe I’ll think of a plan on the way.”

  Seven

  The sun gravitated toward the horizon as Gethsemane pedaled toward Carraigfaire. Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows’ wrought iron fence came into view as she crested a hill. A detour was in order. The virulent animosity between Ty and the Cunningham sisters, concern for Frankie, anxiety over Sunny and Ty, and a sense of dread about Rosalie conspired to make her head throb. The persistent strains of Tchaikovsky didn’t help. Father Tim had a gift for wrestling calm from the center of a maelstrom armed with nothing more than wit, common sense, and a pot of Bewley’s tea. He’d help her make sense of things.

  She found him in the rectory’s kitchen, an array of batter-caked bowls, spatulas, and measuring cups spread before him on the counter. He stood with his elbows propped amidst eggshells and vegetable peels, chin in hands, studying a book whose worn covers and yellowed pages gave it an ancient appearance.

  “Brushing up on your Betty Crocker?” she asked. “I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in. The door was open.”

  “Course I don’t mind.” Tim brushed a hand across the book’s pages, raising a small, white cloud that could have been dust or flour. “I left the door open to keep from setting off the smoke detectors. The fire brigade convinced the bishop we needed them, but the kitchen’s so small, you can hardly boil a kettle without the steam setting the bloody things off.”