Page 4

FOUR

When the meal was over, I discreetly asked Nora if I could have food sent to Rob and Scott’s room. Since I planned on taking the first watch overnight, I wanted them to get some rest.

Lizzie went back to the study with me and insisted on staying. Neither of us wanted to actually sit in the room with the dead body. It had nothing to do with the creepiness, and everything to do with the smell of death.

But we didn’t have a choice. We sat on the floor next to the closed door.

“Why can’t we sit on the chairs?” Lizzie asked.

“If the murderer sat down in one of them, they may have left some DNA. I don’t want to disturb the crime scene more than we already have.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” We leaned back against the wall of bookcases. It had been a long day, and my sister nodded off about an hour into our vigil. Mr. Poe snored softly by her side.

The storm was still raging outside, but I kept trying to connect with Kieran, our local detective. It took almost three hours, but I finally heard a ringtone.

“Mercy? What’s wrong?” Kieran asked sleepily. I mean, it was three in the morning, I couldn’t blame him.

“We’re at Inishmore Castle,” I said.

“I know. Is Gran okay?” he asked worriedly. Lolly was his grandmother and she’d helped raise him when he was younger.

“Yes. Everyone from the court is okay. But one of the guests was murdered. A priest.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “The phone cut out. Did I hear murder?”

“Yes.” There was nothing but static. “The owner, Gordon, and Scott tried to come and get you, but the bridge is flooded. Only a few of us know what happened. And we’ve been guarding the door so the killer can’t get back in to mess with the evidence.”

“And you’ve put a target on your back. Why didn’t you just lock it?”

“Because I don’t know who we can trust, and someone might have a set of keys.”

“Talk me through how you know it’s a murder.”

“He had a very fancy letter opener through his heart. I don’t think he accidentally fell onto it.”

“Right. How did you find him?”

“This place is enormous, and we were a bit lost. Mr. Poe scratched at the door. And, well, we found the body.”

“I may need to hire your dog for the force.”

I smiled. Mr. Poe adored Kieran. Whenever the detective inspector was around, Mr. Poe demanded attention from him. Kieran tried to act like our dog was a menace, but his smiling and giving him lots of pets spoke otherwise.

“Please tell me you haven’t been asking questions of the other guests.”

I sighed. “I don’t want to lie to you.”

He groaned. “Once again, putting a target on your back. How many times do we need to have this conversation?”

“You can yell at me later. Tell me what we should do.”

“Nothing. I’ll be there soon.”

“How? It’s still raining, and everything is flooded.”

“I will be there as soon as I can. Be careful.” His phone cut out, and there was nothing but static.

“What did he say?” Lizzie asked sleepily.

“Well, he wasn’t happy we’ve found a dead body yet again. But basically, he said to hold tight and not to ask any more questions.”

“That seems sensible.”

I laughed. “You always agree with him.”

“Well, if it keeps someone from trying to kill you, then yes I do.”

“I haven’t asked you, but do you remember seeing the priest talking with anyone other than Sister Sarah?”

She yawned and then picked up Mr. Poe, who snuggled into her.

“I was with you, so we saw the same things,” she said. “I’ll be honest, something about him was off-putting. And it wasn’t just his attitude or that he yelled at us. You know how you get a sense of someone? I’m embarrassed to say, without knowing him at all, that I didn’t like him. I was thinking that men like him gave priests a bad name.”

“Don’t feel guilty. I felt the same way.”

“Do you think he was really a priest?”

“No. And I don’t think Sister Sarah is a nun.”

Her eyes went wide. “Why not?”

“She wasn’t happy when I asked what order she was from and pointed out she wasn’t Irish.”

“She’s a religious person,” Lizzie said. “Maybe she just didn’t like talking about herself.”

“You may be right. But remember, she and the priest were arguing. She made a point of asking about him at dinner, and it felt like she was trying to draw attention away from herself. She didn’t seem surprised either when it was mentioned he was indisposed. Her eyes narrowed, like she knew we weren’t telling the truth. That and when she prayed at dinner, it didn’t sound like she knew what she was saying. It was a bunch of random words.

“You were chatting with some of the other guests at dinner, did you notice anything suspicious?”

“No. The American couple, the Airendales, are celebrating their seventh anniversary. They both enjoy a bit of whiskey, at least, that is what the wife told me. She seemed kind of posh. And did you notice those diamonds she wears? They seem more appropriate for a gala than a weekend dinner on vacation. But I’m not judging. She mostly talked about shopping and the art here in the castle.”

My sister didn’t realize how her naturally affable way drew people to her. Other folks told her things without her prying much. She’d always been like that.

The lights flickered back on. I blinked against the brightness. They’d been going off and on all night. I felt better when they were on, even though the dead body was easier to see.

Two hours later, there was a loud noise on the other side of the door. We opened it to find several people coming down the hallway.

My eyes were bleary, but I could see that Kieran led the crowd. He was damp, they all were, but he was still ruggedly handsome. We’d spent a lot of time together the last few months discussing cases, and he’d become a fantastic resource for my books.

While he’d never admit it, I’d become a sounding board for him as well. We met at the pub in Shamrock Cove several nights a week to discuss cases. My sister called them dates. But she was much more romantically minded than I was.

He’d brought his sergeant, Sheila, and what looked like a forensic team.

Lizzie and I moved out of the study.

“You go on to bed. I’ll be up soon,” I said.

She glanced from me to Kieran. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “No reason for both of us to lose more sleep.”

“I think I’ll wait for you,” she said.

Rob and Scott were coming down the hallway from the other way. It was time for them to take over the watch.

“Can you two take Lizzie to our room?”

“No.” My sister wasn’t usually so stubborn. “I’m waiting for you.”

Our friends looked from me to my sister and then at Kieran. Lizzie might be the quieter of the pair of us, but she wasn’t a person to be messed with and she was making that clear for some reason.

“I can’t believe you made it, Kieran,” Rob said. “How did you know?”

The detective inspector nodded toward me. “Mercy called. It wasn’t easy to get here. Now, tell me everything,” he said to me.

I explained in detail what I hadn’t been able to tell him on the phone. “Since we found him, someone has been guarding the room so the killer couldn’t come back.”

“I don’t suppose you thought about what would happen if the killer did come back and found you here?”

I shivered. I tended to be single-minded and not really worried about myself when murder was involved. I had no idea what I would have done if the killer had returned, other than protecting my sister with my life.

It just hit me that I’d put us both in danger by staying with the body.

“No,” I said. “Not really. I thought we were doing a good thing so that no one messed with any evidence.”

He sighed. He knew me well enough that it wasn’t worth arguing about me doing things that might have put mine and my sister’s lives in danger. I didn’t do it on purpose. I was just trying to do the right thing.

“When was the last time either of you saw him alive?”

“We were down at the distillery doing a tasting,” I said.

“Don’t forget about him fighting with the nun,” Lizzie said. “They seemed to be having a rather emotional conversation. And Mercy thinks they aren’t really clergy.”

“Oh? And when was that? When you saw them fighting?” he asked.

“When we were coming back from the tasting,” she said. “Neither of them seemed to be particularly nice. We tried to speak to Sister Sarah at dinner, but she wasn’t happy about it. Mercy is right. There is something strange about her. Every time we asked a personal question, she changed the subject.”

I couldn’t stifle my smile.

Kieran shook his head. “That is interesting, but she may prefer not to talk about herself. It doesn’t make her guilty of murder.”

My sister shrugged. “Never said she did it. Only that Mercy thinks she’s up to something hinky.”

“Hinky?” Kieran asked as he looked at me.

“I know you like evidence, but my gut says something weird was going on between them.”

“Right. And when you first walked in to the study, what did you see?”

I took him through the events. “According to Gordon, he’d been interested in the history of the estate. That’s why he was in here. When we arrived, he was just sitting in the chair with the letter opener in his chest,” I said. “Since it was probably on the desk, I’d say it was a crime of opportunity.”

Kieran opened his mouth, but I held up a hand.

“I know. We need evidence. We didn’t touch anything, including the furniture in case you need to check for fibers or DNA, but I did search the bookshelves. Nothing seemed out of place.”

“Right, Detective Mercy,” he joked. “Go get some rest. This is going to take a while. And in future, please leave the interrogations to me.”

“We will,” Lizzie said as she hooked her arm in mine.

“How did you get across the river?” I asked.

“I walked on water,” he grumbled.

Lizzie giggled.

“Emergency boats,” Sheila said next to him.

That made more sense. Though it was unusual for Kieran to make any sort of joke, and I couldn’t help but smile.

The team paused to put on coverup suits and gloves. Then they went into the study.

“This is going to take a few hours. Like I said, go get some rest. We can talk later,” Kieran said.

“Come on, Mercy. I’m exhausted.” My sister pulled me down the hallway. “Now we have to figure out how to get back to our room,” she said.

Rob and Scott had already gone back up, so we were on our own. But I had been keeping track of our movements through the castle.

“Right. Left. Up the stairs and to the right again,” I said.

“Thank goodness you were paying attention.”

When we reached the second floor, Mr. Poe growled in Lizzie’s arms.

“What is it?”

I turned to look behind us. I had a strange feeling that someone was watching us.

My sister followed my glance over her shoulder. “Is someone there?”

I didn’t want to spook her. She’d been through enough the last few hours.

“Nothing. I was just curious about why Mr. Poe was growling.”

“You know him, it could be squirrels outside. He seems to hear everything. Besides, this is an old place with lots of creaks.”

“True,” I said.

The lights flickered out again. I felt sorry for Kieran and his team trying to work the crime scene in the dark.

There was a weird groaning sound down the hallway.

My sister shivered in the light from my phone.

“Has to be the wind,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “Or one of those ghosts Nora keeps talking about.” She was joking, but I could tell from her tone that she was nervous.

Who could blame her? It had been one strange night.

We hurried to our room and locked the door quickly behind us. Then we changed into our PJs.

We’d been lying in our beds for a few minutes, but I couldn’t seem to calm down. Too much had happened.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Lizzie said.

“You know it’s the way my brain works.”

“Yes. But I also know if you get some rest, you’ll be a lot more on it later today. You know how you are. Even if Kieran did ask you not to ask questions, you’ll want to be fully aware and ready to roll.”

“That sounds like a bad line from a cop show.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound.

“Maybe we’ll wake up to find Kieran has solved the case,” I said, more for her benefit than mine. “He might get lucky and the killer left fingerprints on the letter opener.”

“That’s more positive than I’ve ever heard you be.” She yawned.

I smiled.

“Do you believe in curses?” Lizzie asked. “When I spoke to Nora, she said the family has had a stream of bad luck over the last five hundred years or so. Even before the castle was built.”

“No. I don’t believe in curses. I think some people just do the pile-on theory,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like with us. After what happened to Mom, and then the accident not long after that.” Lizzie’s fiancé and his daughter had been killed in an auto accident six months after our mom died from cancer. Our moving to Ireland had been to get a fresh start.

And except for my new habit of finding dead bodies, we’d adjusted well here. We loved our home and neighbors, and Lizzie loved running our grandfather’s bookstore.

We had a good life.

“Sorry I brought that up,” I said.

“No. It’s okay. We’re supposed to talk about the past.” Lizzie sniffed. “But you’re saying we could say we were cursed because those things happened one after another. And then we discovered a grandfather we never knew who left us his home and store. But we didn’t get to meet him because he died too. And we have a father, who may or may not be dead.”

“Right. Someone might pile all those things together and think we’d had a bit of bad luck,” I said. “But, in truth, life has ups and downs. Most people aren’t aware of their family’s five-hundred-year-old history like Gordon and Nora. So, they can pile on with those big life events. But the truth is, life really does have peaks and valleys.

“Take their financial woes, which are more indicative of the times we live in than any curse. Lots of businesses are having trouble, and Nora and Gordon admitted that the upkeep on this place is tremendous, to say the least.”

“You make a good point. I suppose it’s also perspective, right?”

“Yes. If you have a more positive outlook on life, you weather the ups and downs. Thanks to some therapy and a great upbringing with our amazing mother, we get knocked down…”

As I knew she would, she sang the line from the Chumbawamba song about getting up again.

I smiled. “Not everyone is like us.”

“It’s harder some days than others, but you’re right. I do wish we knew what happened to our father, though. And I wish Mom knew about our grandfather before she died.”

Our father was another mystery we’d yet to solve. Years ago, he went missing while on a military mission. Our grandfather had no idea what had happened, and the government had not responded to his request for information.

We’d also tried to reach out, but our letters had been ignored. I’d handed over the official requests to our lawyer.

Our dad went missing when Mom was pregnant with us. Through a series of mishaps, we believe she thought he’d ghosted her. But in truth, he’d gone missing.

“Me too,” I said. “I wish we’d met our grandfather as well. From all the stories, he sounds like he was a great man. I mean, just look at the bookstore he left you. He must have been brilliant to create such a place.”

“He left it to us. I just run it,” she said. “But it is magical.”

“But I guess someone could take all those events in our life and maybe say the family was cursed. In truth, it’s life’s bumpy road.”

She sighed. “Doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”

“True.”

“But we have just as much that’s good. We have Mr. Poe, our lovely neighbors, and a beautiful home. We had a mom who loved us and would have done anything for us. She supported our dreams, and we have each other. We’re lucky.”

I smiled. She’d gone through one of the hardest times of her life, and I loved that she could once again see the world through her prism of positivity.

“We are.”

I meant what I said about not believing in curses.

But the priest had been murdered downstairs. His rocky road of life had come to an end. And there was a good chance the killer was still in the castle.