Killing in C Sharp Read online

  “No one can see you, can they?” She moved behind a nearby tree and peered around its trunk.

  “At this distance? I doubt anyone could see me, even if they could see me. But if someone turns this way, I’ll hide behind you.”

  “So not funny.” Eamon towered over her by a foot. “And don’t be too confident you’re invisible. I suspect Hardy can see you. Or at least sense you. He raised an eyebrow a couple of times when you manifested up at the cottage.”

  “I don’t think he can see me in all my glory. And the rest of that ghost hunting bunch wouldn’t know I was there if I dumped ice water on their heads.” Eamon glowed an impatient turquoise. “Clue me in on the plan.”

  “The plan is for you to make yourself scarce. As in, don’t be here.”

  Eamon looked hurt. His aura shifted to a wounded umber.

  “Don’t,” Gethsemane said. “You know I’m not wishing you away. But we can’t risk these guys capturing evidence of you.”

  “At least you said ‘we.’”

  “Pouting is not a good look on you.”

  “What do you do while I do nothing?” Eamon leaned against the tree, his shoulder disappearing into the bark.

  “Convince the crew that Carraigfaire is a waste of time, then convince them to shift operations to the Athaneum.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because they’ll think the ghost of Maja, doomed Hungarian noblewoman, will show up to stop Aed’s opera from being performed.” She briefed him on her conversation with Father Tim and Saoirse.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s not ridiculous. It’s misinformation. Misdirection. Mis—Mis—Anyway, it’s a good plan. Unless you’ve got something better?”

  “No, I don’t, actually.” He shone russet with grudging admiration. “What am I supposed to do while I’m doing nothing?”

  Gethsemane shrugged. “What do you usually do when you’re not haunting the cottage?”

  “I’m never ‘haunting’ the cottage. I feckin’ live there.”

  “Okay, what do you do when you’re away from home?”

  Eamon laughed. “Follow you around, mostly.”

  Her blush garnered more laughter. “Why don’t you find a ghost drinking buddy to hang out with? Captain Lochlan, maybe? I think you two’d hit it off.”

  “And how would I find the captain? The afterlife doesn’t come with GPS coordinates.” His glow dimmed to yellow. “If it did, I’d have found Orla by now.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “Just promise me you’ll be careful. And quiet. Please?”

  He winked and disappeared.

  Screams traveled from the direction of the church. Squealing children darted back and forth among statues and shrubs as they played tag. The scream from the previous night hadn’t sounded like children playing games. It had sounded desolate. She pulled out her phone and dialed Niall’s number.

  She disconnected the call before the first ring ended. Niall wouldn’t tell her if they’d found anything remarkable. He’d tell her to stay out of it. He didn’t need moonlight to be overprotective. Frankie, on the other hand, would be much easier, as long as he wasn’t in curmudgeon mode. She dialed the math teacher.

  “’Lo?”

  “Frankie? Good morning, it’s Gethsemane.”

  “Sissy. Good morning.” His voice sounded low-pitched and sluggish.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “No, it’s fine. I just woke up is all. What can I do for you? Help you break into something?”

  “Tell me about last night’s scream. What did you and the inspector find?”

  “Nothing. We couldn’t find anything. No radios, no televisions, no one in distress, no mythological creatures or other paranormal entities. Nothing.”

  What did she hear on the other end of the line? Hoarseness? “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, Frankie? You don’t sound like yourself. I missed you at church this morning.”

  “Overslept. Right through my alarm. Must have stayed out too late chasing after our phantom screamer.”

  “Who do you think screamed?”

  She imagined his shrug. “A banshee, like the man said?”

  “Banshees are only heard when someone’s going to die.”

  “I really can’t explain it. Maybe it was a prank. Maybe Devlin hired someone to scream to get people talking about ghosts and create some publicity for his—” A yawn drowned out the end of Frankie’s sentence.

  “Are you coming down with something? Tell me. I can run to the pharmacy for you. Or bring over the fixings for a toddy.”

  “I told you, I’m fine. I just overslept. Don’t fuss.”

  “I’m not fussing, I’m inquiring. I’m your friend. Friends inquire about each other’s health. Especially when one of them doesn’t sound like his usual self.”

  “You’re usually complaining about my usual self.”

  “Francis Grennan, I’m serious.”

  “And I appreciate it. I do. But I’m not sick. I’m just knackered. I’m going back to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “All right, the morning. But promise me you’ll call if you need anything before then.” Frankie lived in bachelor faculty housing and had no family in the area. Something they had in common.

  “You’re fussing. But I promise I’ll call.” The call disconnected.

  “I am not fussing.” Annoyed, but not fussing. Frankie had been no help. He’d seemed more curmudgeonly than usual. Was he coming down with something?

  “Stop it,” she said aloud to herself. The math teacher was a grown man and she was neither his wife nor his mother. She still wanted to know what that scream was about, which meant asking Niall. She put her phone away. She’d do this face to face.

  She rode her bike to the village. She spotted Niall as she passed the village square, tossing what looked like the remains of lunch into a trash can. She veered toward him.

  “Morning, Inspector.” She leaned her bike against a nearby bench. “Early lunch?”

  “‘Inspector,’ is it? You’re still mad about last night.”

  “I’m not some fragile hothouse flower who needs to be protected from the Big Bad Wolf.”

  “That’s the worst mixed metaphor I’ve ever heard.”

  “You know what I mean. I can take care of myself.”

  “Yes, you can. I apologize if I seemed patronizing or chauvinistic. Blame it on fatigue.”

  She frowned. “You, too?”

  “Me too what?”

  “I just hung up with Frankie. I woke him up. He complained of fatigue. He’d slept through church.”

  “Late nights at the Rabbit will do that to a fella. Our enthrallment with Ms. James resulted in attendance at her pub salon-sessions every night for two weeks running.”

  Gethsemane smoothed the lapel of his wool-silk blend suit jacket. “I suspected the wardrobe upgrades were her influence.”

  A shout from across the street cut off his response. “Inspector!” Bernard, hair askew, pants grass stained, glasses missing, marched up to them. “Inspector, I want to file a complaint. I want someone arrested.”

  “And you are?” Niall asked.

  “Bernard Stoltz. I was attacked and I want to file a complaint.” He inclined his head toward Gethsemane. “She was a witness.”

  “I’m a terrible witness, Mr. Stoltz. I can’t seem to remember my own name, let alone dishonest critics getting what they deserved.”

  Bernard sputtered. Niall hid a laugh.

  “How did you know he was with the garda?” Gethsemane asked Bernard.

  “That woman over there told me.” He gestured toward the proprietor of the art supply store who leaned in the doorway of her shop, watching. “I asked her where the police station was and she told me the tall man with the hat was a cop.
Or guard, or whatever you call them here.”

  Niall grumbled. “Remind me to thank her. Did she tell you I’m with the cold case unit? If your murder goes unsolved for more than three years, I’m your man. But for assault and battery, you need to go to the station.”

  “A cop’s a cop.”

  “Except when he’s a garda.”

  “You!” A shout from across the square drew their attention. Aed stood on a balcony overlooking the street in front of Sweeney’s. He pounded a fist on the balcony’s ornate concrete rail, then disappeared inside the hotel. He reappeared a moment later at the hotel’s front entrance, fists still clenched.

  Bernard yelled back. “I’m warning you, Devlin, don’t try anything. I’ve got witnesses. He’s a cop.”

  “Garda.”

  “Well, Mr. Garda,” Bernard said, “I demand an escort back to my hotel. That man attacked me in the church yard and she saw it. I demand protection.”

  “I’ll walk you across the street,” Gethsemane said. “If Aed takes a swing at you, I’ve got your back.”

  Niall hid his laugh less well this time.

  “You think this is funny? I’m almost beaten to death by that baboon and you treat it as a joke?”

  “I told you, I’m a terrible witness,” Gethsemane said. “I don’t remember you being beaten by a large monkey. I recall you being slapped silly by Venus James, but monkey beat down? No, don’t remember that. By the way, did you get your glasses fixed?”

  Bernard sputtered again and advanced toward Gethsemane.

  Niall stepped between them. “Why don’t we all walk over to Sweeney’s together?”

  They crossed the street with Niall in the lead.

  Aed blocked their path at the hotel’s entrance. “You’re a guard, aren’t you?” he asked Niall. “I remember you from the pub. Arrest that gobshite.” He shook a fist under Bernard’s nose. “He tried to kill me in the church yard.”

  “Two attempted murders on the same day in one church yard,” Niall said. “What did Father preach on?”

  “I’m serious, Inspector,” Aed said.

  “And Mr. Stoltz is serious about having you arrested for trying to kill him. So why don’t we call it mutual combat and let it go?”

  “I need to get inside to get to my room,” Bernard said.

  “Both of you staying in the same inn,” Niall said, “doesn’t seem like the wisest idea.”

  “Father Tim offered to put Aed up at the parish house.”

  “Maybe you should accept Father’s offer,” Niall said.

  “I’m not leaving.” Aed sneered. “Damned if I’ll be run off by him.”

  Bernard crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving, either.”

  Niall wrinkled his nose. “Do you smell something?”

  “No,” Gethsemane said. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “An odd smell, can’t quite figure it out.” He looked around the area where they stood, then craned his neck to look up at the balcony. “Restaurant’s not up there, is it?”

  “Inspector,” Aed said, “if you’re not going to take this seriously—”

  “Move!” Niall shouted and shoved Bernard to one side. Gethsemane and Aed jumped back. A large, concrete finial from the balcony’s rail crashed to the ground where Niall and Bernard had been standing.

  “Second time today something’s nearly landed on your head, Mr. Stoltz,” Gethsemane said. And Poe nowhere in sight. So much for poltergeists. Aed, on the other hand…She stepped off the curb to look at the balcony. Aed had stood next to where the finial had been. Did he tamper with it?

  “Step out of the street, Sissy,” Niall said. “Getting hit by a car’s no better than being crushed by a design feature. Is everyone all right?”

  They all answered they were.

  “Then you, Mr. Devlin, go on in. Mr. Stoltz, give him to a count of twenty, then you go in. I’ll leave word at the station desk that if any calls come in about the two of you fighting to send a trio of the biggest, meanest uniformed guards out here to deal with the situation. Understood?”

  The men nodded and went inside in the order Niall had instructed.

  “Are you all right?” Gethsemane asked. “That landed pretty close to where your head was.”

  They moved out of the way of the hotel staff who’d come outside to assess the damage.

  “I’m fine. Takes a lot more than a chunk of balcony to stop me.” Niall sniffed. “The strange smell is gone.”

  Gethsemane’s phone rang. “Excuse me.”

  Kent’s voice greeted her. “When are you headed back to the cottage? We’d like to start filming. Best if you were here.”

  “On the way.” She made a face and ended the call.

  “Off on a snipe—I mean, ghost—hunt?” Niall asked.

  “Don’t laugh.”

  “I’m not laughing. Well, maybe a wee bit on the inside.”

  “Before I go, tell me, what did you and Frankie find last night when you went searching for the source of that scream?”

  “Nothing. Not a damn thing. I’m not one given to superstition, but I’m inclined to admit the fella who claimed it was a banshee’s cry might have been right.” He yawned. “Sorry. Must be more tired than I realized.”

  “Are you sure you and Frankie aren’t coming down with something?”

  “I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I’m healthy as an ox, as my grandda would say. I don’t get sick, at least not since I was ten. It’s nothing more than too many late nights for a man my age. I have to remind myself I’m not at university anymore.”

  “All right, I’ll stop fussing.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “Frankie did.”

  “Makes us even, then. Be careful riding your bike home.”

  Five

  Gethsemane arrived home from church to find a transformed Carraigfaire. Cameras on tripods dotted hallways upstairs and down. Black boxes studded with flashing lights crowded corners. Cables snaked along floorboards. Heat from spotlights warmed the cottage to temperatures reminiscent of Virginia summers. She inhaled. Nothing but peat and sea air. She relaxed a bit. Eamon must have taken “lay low” to heart.

  “Everything all right?” Hardy poked his head into the hall from the music room. He and Poe had left Our Lady at the same time as Gethsemane, but their SUV outdistanced her Pashley bicycle without effort, bringing them to the cottage before her.

  “Fine. Everything’s fine. I just, uh, take a deep breath every now and then, because it aerates the lungs which, um, improves musical performance.”

  “You play the violin, right? That’s a string instrument.”

  “I play the violin among other instruments.” None of them wind instruments, but why nitpick? “The harmonica, for instance. Most people don’t realize how much lung power it takes to play the harmonica. Do you have to be in there?” She pushed past Hardy into the music room in time to snatch her violin from a curious crew member. “It’s an antique, it’s not haunted.”

  Hardy corrected her. “Cursed. It’s an object, so we’d say ‘cursed’ instead of ‘haunted.’ Unless it was a trigger object. Something familiar to the ghost that might attract it.”

  She placed the violin, a Villaume copy of a Stradivarius, in its case and held it tight to her chest. “It’s my violin. It’s not cursed, it’s not haunted, it’s not a trigger object. It’s worth more than anyone in this room earns in a year and none of you need to touch it.”

  “How about this?” Hardy placed a hand on the Steinway piano that dominated the room. “This is Eamon’s, isn’t it? He actually played it. Composed some of his best work sitting in front of it.” He ran a finger along the keyboard. “Maybe you could play something during the stake out, something that might lure the ghost. Or maybe you could get the ghost to—”

  She cut h
im off. “You won’t catch any ghostly arpeggios played by unseen hands, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

  “Too parlor trick-y? Not McCarthy’s style?”

  Kent appeared in the doorway. “I’d like to interview you now, Gethsemane, if you don’t mind.”

  Of course she minded. She’d rather be interviewed by an IRS tax auditor. She followed Kent to the study.

  “Your experience living here is crucial,” he explained. “You’re on the front lines of the haunting, so to speak. Every day, you have the chance to encounter the paranormal. Viewers want to know what that’s like.”

  Boy, wouldn’t they? In less than a year, she’d gone from dismissing ghosts—like the folklore and family legend of her Virginia ancestors—as pure fantasy to providing her very own ghost with an alibi. Not that she intended to admit as much to Kent or his viewers. Outright denial wouldn’t work. Limited admission and deflection seemed the best option. “It’s probably not as exciting as they think.”

  “I heard you were fearless, Gethsemane.” Kent gestured to the couch, set up for interviews with lights and cameras trained on it. A digital audio recorder and an EMF pod lay on the coffee table. Did Kent think he’d pick up some evidence during their talk? She bit her lip and glanced around the room. If Eamon didn’t control himself and stay away, she’d kill him.

  Crew surrounded them. After a flurry of microphone, makeup, and lighting adjustments, Gethsemane and Kent arranged themselves on the couch. Kent reached out and laid a hand on her arm. “Don’t be nervous.”

  Gethsemane patted Kent’s hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not.” She’d performed live all over the world and she taught teenaged boys. Nothing unnerved her.

  Kent signaled ready. He leaned toward her and asked, “What’s it like living with a ghost?”

  “Well—” Gethsemane paused and shifted on the sofa. “‘Living with’ might be phrasing things a bit strongly.” She searched for words that sounded thoughtful, instead of like a stall. “It’s not as if I come down for breakfast every morning to find a ghost sitting at the table with eggs and bacon ready.” Which was true. Eamon had coffee ready for her every morning, but she ate breakfast at the school dining hall.