Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
He showed up two days after Christmas.
Gethsemane Brown awoke to the crunch of tires pulling into the gravel drive of Carraigfaire Cottage, home for the past few months. She'd moved into the whitewashed thatched-roof house perched near the base of Carrick Point lighthouse after a job loss and a theft stranded her in Dunmullach, a cliffside village in southwestern Ireland. She found a new job as music director at the local boys' school. Which was closed for the Christmas holidays. Which was why she was still in bed at — she reached for the clock on her bedside table — seven thirty in the morning. A night owl since childhood, she'd chosen a career — concert musician — that allowed her to stay up late and sleep in. However, in the three months she'd been in Ireland, solving murders and preparing a school orchestra for an important competition had robbed her of the chance to sleep late.
She threw back the covers and got up, shivering as her bare feet hit the cold floor. She reached the cottage's entrance hall by the time her unexpected visitor knocked. No one she knew from the village would trek up to Carrick Point to make a wake-up call. She grabbed the shillelagh her students had given her as a Christmas present.
"Who is it?" she asked through the heavy wooden door.
"Hank Wayne," came the reply in an American-accented voice like hers. Not just like hers. Her Virginia drawl rang far more melodious than the flat tones of the man's Midwestern English. Although her loathing for the speaker may have biased her. He'd been after Carraigfaire Cottage since before their first meeting several weeks ago.
"It's early," she said to the hotel developer. "What do you want?"
"I want to come in. Billy didn't think you'd mind."
She hadn't spoken to Billy McCarthy, the cottage's owner and her landlord, since he brought Hank around to look at the cottage. He'd gone off on another business trip right after. Billy hadn't come right out and admitted it during the visit, but the men's talk made it clear he planned to sell Carraigfaire to Hank. Who'd convert this quaint postcard-perfect two-hundred-year-old cottage into one of his tacky tourist monstrosities and destroy the cultural and historical character of the area. Gethsemane knew his track record. She'd even stayed in a few of his horrid pink motels while on tour with the Cleveland Symphony. That had been four orchestras before she landed in Dunmullach. A lifetime ago.
"Billy didn't say anything to me." She put down the heavy walking stick and tugged at her pajamas. "I'm not really dressed for company."
"Miss Brown." A note of irritation crept into the practiced, businesslike tone. "My assistant and I have a flight to catch this afternoon and this is the only convenient time for us to do a walkthrough. I can get McCarthy on the phone so you can discuss it with him, but it would streamline the process if you'd just let us in now. This will only take a few moments, then we'll be out of your way." He spoke like a man used to getting what he wanted.
Gethsemane eyed the shillelagh. Would it be worth spending life in an Irish prison to really get him out of her way?
More knocking. "Miss Brown?"
Why prolong it? She opened the door wide enough to see onto the porch. Hank stood closest to her, bundled in the familiar gray cashmere overcoat and scarf, silver pompadour with every hair in place unchanged from his last visit. A woman in a leather car coat huddled behind him. Her tight bun pulled veins into high relief on her temples. She wore a fake tan that failed to hide the underlying paleness of her skin. She muttered about the deficiencies of gravel driveways as she stood on one foot, the other leg flexed at the knee, and examined a stiletto-heeled boot.
Hank stepped forward. Gethsemane stepped back to avoid a collision and opened the door wide enough for Hank and his assistant to come in.
"Thank you, Miss Brown," Hank said.
"Doctor Brown," she corrected.
"Oh, that's right, you do have some sort of degree in, what is it, music?"
"A Ph.D. From Yale."
"You must forgive me, Doctor Brown. I believe I mentioned before I don't pay much attention to music. Too busy earning money."
Gethsemane clenched her jaw as the duo filed past. Sarcastic comebacks filled her head, but she suspected Hank would prolong his walk-through in retaliation for any comments. Best to keep silent for now and wait for a better opportunity to deal with Hank. An opportunity when she had the upper hand and could deal with him on her terms.
Hank led the way to the music room. His assistant trotted behind him. She paused by the coat rack and lifted the sleeve of a mackintosh between a gloved thumb and forefinger. She sneered, then let the sleeve fall as if she feared it might be infectious or vermin might crawl from it.
She wiped her fingertips on her coat. "How do you stand it?"
Gethsemane pegged her accent as New York, filtered through vocal coaching. "Stand what?"
"Living out here with the leprechauns? Mr. Wayne's is-it-miss-or-is-it-doctor routine is for show. He knows exactly who you are. He paid people to find out."
Gethsemane held her tongue as she vacillated between anger at being spied on and being creeped out. At least Hank did his homework.
The assistant continued. "We know all about you. Degrees from Vassar and Yale. Certification in orchestral conducting. Multi-instrumentalist. Prize-winner in several important competitions, often the youngest female and only African American to win some of them. World traveler who's performed with first-class orchestras on nearly every continent. And you turned down a job offer back in Boston — an offer from Peter Nolan, no less — for the privilege of being stuck out here in some dreary cottage straight from a Brontë novel without a Starbucks or a Neimans or a nail bar in a hundred-mile radius. I'd throw myself off the nearest cliff. How do you manage?"
Gethsemane couldn't hold back. Her inner snark demon won out over discretion. "Being out here's not so bad. Fresh air, beautiful view. And it could be worse. I could be playing flunky to a megalomaniacal narcissist with the aesthetic sensibility of a toddler beauty pageant coordinator."
The woman gasped. Hank's voice bellowed down the hall. "Where the hell are you?" The woman sniffled and hurried after her boss. Gethsemane followed. The assistant whipped out a tablet and stylus and scribbled as Hank gestured at walls. "We'll knock that one out, push that one back a few feet," he said.
Gethsemane slammed the Steinway's keyboard, interrupting Hank's soliloquy with a cacophony of notes. She strode to Hank and stared up at him, hands on hips. "You have no right to barge in here and talk about knocking out walls and auctioning off furniture. This is Eamon McCarthy's cottage —"
Hank cut her off. "Was Eamon McCarthy's cottage. Eamon McCarthy's been dead a quarter century. Now it's Billy McCarthy's cottage, and once he sells it to me, it will be my cottage. In no case is it any concern of yours."
"Carraigfaire isn't some random building no one's going to miss. Eamon and Orla McCarthy made important contributions to music and literature. Their home was their creative space and has major cultural significance. As an artist, and a decent human being, what happens to this cottage concerns me and would even if I didn't live here. Your mutilating this place just so you can install a cocktail bar and park an extra car or two in the front is — is — sacrilege. Eamon's and Orla's fans won't sit quiet while you destroy their legacy." She counted herself among those fans. Eamon McCarthy, brilliant composer and pianist, inspired her musical career.
"Dr. Brown." Hank's tone dripped oil. Gethsemane wanted to run upstairs and shower. "I don't want to destroy Carraigfaire. I want to enhance it, make it accessible to the new legions of McCarthy fans — fans garnered thanks to you."
Leave it to Hank to throw her success in her face. Twenty-five years ago, Eamon McCarthy had been suspected of murdering his wife in a jealous rage then killing himself in a fit of remorse. A month ago, Gethsemane proved him innocent and uncovered the real killer. Her investigation made the news, and news generated publicity. She pictured oversized tourist buses lining the road and a parking lot crowded with cars where the garden used to be. And the thought it might be partly her fault ... Hank rubbed salt in her wound. She'd pull the scab off one of his.
"Aren't you afraid remodeling the cottage will upset the ghost?"
Hank had been terrorized by traumatic childhood paranormal experiences. Violent entities drove his entire family from their Michigan home in a well-publicized incident dubbed "The Wayne Terror" by the press. Gethsemane only hinted Carraigfaire was haunted the last time Hank visited and he'd gone into near apoplexy and scurried from the cottage. His reaction this time differed.
He laughed. "No need to worry about a ghost, once again, thanks to you. Billy assured me his uncle's ghost rested in peace after you cleared him of those dreadful false charges. Well done."
Damn. Damn. And damn. Bluff called. Carraigfaire had been haunted when she'd moved in, by Eamon's ghost. The ghost convinced her to investigate the murders and became her friend in the process. But she hadn't seen him since she'd solved the mystery.
"Too bad the cottage isn't haunted," Hank's assistant said. "Paranormal tours are still trending."
Hank's eyes narrowed and he clenched his fists. The woman froze like an animal caught in the crosshairs of a high-powered rifle.
"I, I mean, I, um," she sputtered.
Hank's voice dropped and he spoke through a clenched jaw. "Out."
"But, Mr. Wayne, I —"
He lowered his voice further, to almost a whisper. "Now." The cold intensity of his tone seemed to drop the room temperature several degrees. Veins pulsed in his temples.
The assistant clamped a hand over her mouth and ran from the room. The front door slammed.
Hank scowled at Gethsemane, all pretense of nothing-personal-it's-just-business gone. "Are you religious, Dr. Brown?"
Gethsemane nodded. "I'm an Episcopalian."
"Then you're familiar with Twelfth Night."
Epiphany. What did the magi's arrival at Jesus's manger have to do with anything?
Hank didn't wait for her answer. "Billy invited me to his Twelfth Night party. I'm expecting him to give me a gift. One that beats the hell out of twelve drummers drumming. I suggest you start looking for other living arrangements before then."
Hank headed for the hall. Gethsemane followed him out. His assistant held his car's rear passenger-side door open, but Hank ignored her and got behind the wheel. He peeled out with a spray of gravel. His assistant hung her head as the car disappeared around the corner and walked after it.
"I can call a taxi," Gethsemane said.
The woman halted, tugged her coat, squared her shoulders, and continued down the hill without looking back.
Gethsemane paced the hall and tried to calm her nerves. "Floyd Gardner, two-eighty-four; Vic Harris, two-ninety-two; Smokey Joe Williams, three-thirty-three; Buck Ewing, three-seventy-five." Reciting Negro League batting averages usually worked to calm her nerves. Not this time. Hank had a point. The sale and destruction of Carraigfaire didn't concern her. She loved the cottage as much as Eamon had, but she had no rights to it. She didn't even pay rent. Billy let her stay in exchange for upkeep. Billy had every right to sell what he owned, and Hank undoubtedly made him an obscenely generous offer. So why did the thought of walking away feel like betraying a friend? She went to the piano. Eamon's piano. The piano where his ghost had composed "St. Brennan's Ascendant," the concerto she'd used to lead the school's honors orchestra to victory in the All-County School Orchestra Competition. She played. The concerto's movements flowed from allegro to andante to allegretto, mirroring the school orchestra's journey from defeat and humiliation to sacrifice and determination and, finally, to triumph and restoration of pride. During the competition, Gethsemane had ridden the notes, along with the musicians and audience, from despair to hope for a bright future. Today, however, the music only highlighted her sense of loss and desperation and brought her to the brink of tears.
She slammed the keyboard. "Eamon McCarthy, where are you? I need you. Carraigfaire needs you."
She listened. Silence. She searched the cottage. No dimpled smile, no curly hair, no green eyes, not even a blue orb. She sniffed. No trace of leather-and-tobacco cologne mixed with the freshness of soap, the telltale sign Eamon was about to appear. Nothing. She had nothing.
She caught sight of herself in a mirror. Rumpled pajamas, red-rimmed eyes, hair sticking out in all directions. She scolded herself. "Stop it. Get a grip. You don't quit. You didn't quit when you had six weeks to lead a boys' orchestra from zero to first place, you didn't quit when the body count rose and everyone told you to go home before you got killed. You don't quit." The only way to save Carraigfaire from Hank's "improvement" plan was to convince Hank he didn't want the property. And a full-scale haunting was the only way to do that. She needed a ghost to save this house from that smarmy SOB. She'd find a ghost.
* * *
A cold winter wind snaked beneath Gethsemane's collar as she stood in front of a Vodafone store window still bedecked with Christmas decorations. She'd paused on her way to Arcana Arcanora, Dunmullach's occult bookshop and New Age store. If she was going to bring Eamon back from beyond the veil, she'd need to do more than mope around and shout at empty rooms. She pulled her Helly Hansen trench coat tighter and stooped for a closer look at the smartphones. She needed to replace hers, stolen in her luggage along with almost everything she owned the day she arrived in Dunmullach. Stranded with her violin and the dress on her back, she'd made do with Orla's old clothes until her first paycheck afforded her a shopping trip to Cork. Not that she could complain. The late Mrs. McCarthy had excellent taste. A twenty-five-year-old Chanel suit was still a Chanel suit.
"Apple or Android?" asked a voice behind her.
Gethsemane recognized the baritone and greeted An Garda Síochána Inspector Iollan O'Reilly. His trademark stingy-brimmed fedora, pulled low against the wind, obscured his salt-and-pepper hair. His eyes shone smoke gray this morning, not the thunderstorm-dark gray they'd often appeared while she investigated the McCarthy murders. A red scarf insulated his neck above his black wool car coat. He wore black leather chukka boots, Cole Haan, she guessed. The inspector had a thing for quality footwear, a tip he'd picked up, like his hat, from his policeman father.
"How go the cold cases, Inspector O'Reilly?" she asked the head — and sole member — of the Dunmullach garda's cold case unit.
"Still on ice, a fair number. I'm following up leads on one or two. And call me Niall."
"Your name's Iollan."
"My name's Iollan to my ma and my ex-girlfriend. And to my baby sis when she wants to borrow money. Everyone else calls me by my middle name."
"Niall, then. I'm afraid you'll have to settle for calling me Gethsemane."
"No nickname?"
"What? Get? Simi?" She made a face. Her paternal grandmother had insisted all the grandchildren receive Biblical names. She'd been the only one of the five siblings christened with a name not easily shortened. Close family called her by a pet name, Sissy, bestowed on her as a child when her younger siblings struggled to pronounce Gethsemane. She'd rather hear fingers on a chalkboard than have anyone outside the family use it.
"What's your middle name?"
"Anna."
O'Reilly cocked his head and studied her. "Nah, Gethsemane it is."
"Halloo!" The call sounded across the village square. The postmistress waved an envelope from the porch of the century-old red brick post office. "You've a letter, Dr. Brown. Had it nearly a fortnight."
Mail delivery didn't extend up to Carraigfaire Cottage and Gethsemane hadn't thought to stop by the post office and check.
"It's from America," added the postmistress.
"No trouble, I hope," O'Reilly said.
Gethsemane listened. Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique," her internal early warning system, didn't sound off in her head. Probably an offer for a credit card or car insurance. Junk mail tracked her down no matter where she traveled. "One way to find out. Excuse me." She crossed the green.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Death In D Minor"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Alexia Gordon.
Excerpted by permission of Henery Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
