No Strangers Here: a Riveting Dark Irish Mystery, page 1
Books by Carlene O’Connor
Irish Village Mysteries
MURDER IN AN IRISH VILLAGE
MURDER AT AN IRISH WEDDING
MURDER IN AN IRISH CHURCHYARD
MURDER IN AN IRISH PUB
MURDER IN AN IRISH COTTAGE
MURDER AT AN IRISH CHRISTMAS
MURDER IN AN IRISH BOOKSHOP
MURDER ON AN IRISH FARM
CHRISTMAS COCOA MURDER
(with Maddie Day and Alex Erickson)
CHRISTMAS SCARF MURDER
(with Maddie Day and Peggy Ehrhart)
A Home to Ireland Mystery
MURDER IN GALWAY
MURDER IN CONNEMARA
A County Kerry Mystery
NO STRANGERS HERE
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
A County Kerry Mystery
NO STRANGERS HERE
USA Today Bestselling Author
CARLENE O’CONNOR
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2022 by Mary Carter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
The K with book logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2022939861
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3752-6
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: November 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3754-0 (e-book)
First, this book is dedicated to my parents. My mother, Pat Carter, who could have been a mystery writer herself, and was instrumental in listening to plot point after plot point as I worked through the story, offering advice and encouragement. Next, to my late father, Carl Carter. Forever in our hearts. I love you, Dad. I hope you are soaring like an eagle.
I also need to give a nod to Fungie the Dolphin. I didn’t get to meet you, but you brought joy to so many and are missed. This book is also dedicated to veterinarians for all the work you do despite the many hardships the profession brings. And last, to the people of Dingle. Let me tell my readers, this is a work of fiction, and none of the murderous bits are based on the lovely people who live there.
There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.
—William Butler Yeats
CHAPTER 1
DOWNTOWN DINGLE WAS COMING BACK FROM THE DEAD TO CELEBRATE Saoirse Griffin’s thirteenth birthday. Bang on time. She planted herself alongside the Fungie the Dolphin statue, the primo spot to witness the sun’s demise. The fiery star plunged into the Atlantic, unleashing a triple crown of red, orange, and purple onto the skies. A mishmash of boats winked from the harbor, and a string of white lights dangled above Strand Street like a row of blazing candles. Make a wish. Lá breithlá shona duit. Happy birthday to her. Ser-sha, ser-sha, watcha searching for? Lads at school liked to sing that while grabbing their dirty trousers and crooning they got what she was searching for “right here.” They hoped it would make her cry, but she liked it. Not the grabby bits, but the searching part. She was a searcher. A spy. She was going to have the best birthday of all birthdays of anyone who had ever lived. Period. If only she had someone to party with. Not a bother; all spies were lonely. It took guts to conquer this world alone, and Saoirse wasn’t going to waste a single minute crying over it. Dry your eyes, her mammy always said. Now.
She placed the palm of her hand on the dolphin’s bronze head, wishing it was slick and gray, wishing Fungie was still with them, wondering if he was out there all alone, chirping into the depths of the ocean, fighting his way back to her. Fungie had been the town dolphin for more than thirty years. Saoirse couldn’t imagine ever being that old. Her mam said he had gone off to die, that it was nature’s way. Nature could stuff it. She wanted him back.
After a gloomy spring, when folks either wrestled with brellies twisting in the wind, or darted in and out of the colorful shops, pubs, and restaurants, cloaked in hooded raincoats, a warm start to June was breathing life back into her harbor town. Strand Street teemed with revelers and mourners. A dance for old people was being held at one end of the street, and a wake for a dead mammy at the other. Irish music spilled out from the pubs competing with the one-man-band-slash-puppeteer camped in front of the statue. He was a scraggly bearded man manipulating a harmonica, drum, banjo, cymbal, and three slack-jawed puppets. With their pale wooden faces, frozen eyes, and gaping red mouths, they looked like miniature corpses being forced to hop up and down just to entertain the living. She knew how they felt. Controlled. Unhappy. Forgotten. Like the dead people who got embalmed so living people could drape over their caskets and wax on about how beautiful they looked now that they were dead. Saoirse would never understand adults. She still couldn’t decide what she wanted to happen to her body when she died and sometimes it kept her up late into the night. She wondered if the dead mammy was going to be embalmed or sunburned.
Soon, tourists encircled the puppet-man, euro clutched in their foolish hands. It would do no good to try and nick any of his tips. She’d done that once and he was faster than he looked. He had chased her all the way down to the harbor, forcing her to drop ten euro even though she had only taken five, just so she could get away. Angry bruises had sported on the back of her arm where he’d grabbed her, and they took forever to fade away. Eejit. She turned her head, feasting her eyes in the other direction. Finally, Saoirse was going to have a birthday party, and who cared if no one else knew it. She was happy out pretending all the fuss was just for her. She was officially a teenager.
She would prove her mammy wrong; thirteen was not an unlucky number and celebrating it wasn’t “asking for trouble.” They were better off, her mother said, celebrating it next weekend when she was thirteen and one week. But next weekend wasn’t her birthday. It was now. Tonight. A Saturday to boot. And even if it was asking for trouble, she’d pick that over another night watching Mrs. Brown’s Boys and eating beans straight out of the can. Gross. Saoirse had nicked a full bottle of Irish Cream, which she’d then left at their door with a bow, and she didn’t even have to sneak out of the house. An hour later, her mammy was flat-out on the sofa, snoring as the telly prattled on, the empty bottle tipped sideways on the floor.
She lingered at the end of the street, surveying her options, and there were three. Option One: Cross the street to the harbor and pick a boat. So many choices! Not just dirty old trawlers, where fishermen left crumpled bills and half-smoked fags lying about in heaps, but sailboats, and speedboats, and the odd fancy one, like the medium-sized white one she’d been keeping her eye on: Dreamscape.
Some of them kept their hatches locked stingy-tight, but there were always a few that yawned opened at her touch. Saoirse was a strong swimmer, and a mad climber. Should she start with the boats, or leave them for the end? Tonight was also the first Saturday in June which meant Option Two: The old people would be dancing. It was so easy to slip a hand into their suit pockets as they shuffled around to trad music, leaving their treasures behind on ring-marked tables. And today, the trifecta. There was Option Three: The dead mammy’s fundraiser.
Cancer had taken her “way too young” and they were collecting money for the three children and husband she’d left behind. No one had held a fundraiser when Saoirse’s father had been carted off to jail and charged with a “domestic”—and Saoirse wasn’t quite sure what that even meant. Why didn’t they just say it was for getting drunk and being mean? He really was mean when he was drunk. Would jail make him nicer? Doubtful. Because right now , things were worse than when he was around. Now they had no money and her mam was sad all the time. Like all the time. And nobody gave a fart about it. How was that fair? Their house had been egged three nights in a row. Maybe Saoirse all by herself wasn’t worth it; maybe she was supposed to scrub up and put on a dress, or maybe she needed cute brothers and sisters. Or maybe her mammy needed to get cancer, or maybe people only cared about you if you were dead.
After agonizing over her choices, she had finally come to a decision. It was her birthday; she would hit them all, starting with the dance and ending on the fancy white boat. Think of all the prezzies she’d collect! Maybe she’d even spend the night on the boat, letting the waves rock her to sleep. She’d keep nicking things until her purple backpack was stuffed. No one would notice her. No one ever did. The head-shrinker she’d been forced to see after Detective Byrne had nearly killed her father with his fists, leaving him in a bloody heap in their garden, taught her that adversity could be an adversary. You could take a negative and make it positive. She was an invisible girl who nicked things.
Coins from pockets and cubbyholes, lipstick from handbags and bathroom cabinets, fags from tabletops—she could make one sweep through a pub after happy hour, and by the time she’d reached the back door, her pockets would be overflowing. Drunk people were such eejits, although now that she was thirteen, she was determined she was going to have her first taste of drink. She was a troublemaker, like her da.
But after the bullies, after those taunts, she’d turned it around just like the head-doctor taught her. Ser-sha, ser-sha, watcha searching for? Tonight she was searching for birthday presents. She wondered if that detective was here, somewhere in the crowd. Was he shaking his hips or comforting motherless children at the wake? He’d probably forgotten all about her. She was supposed to call him Mr. Byrne now; he was no longer a detective because of nearly killing her father. Maybe if he knew it was her birthday, he would have thrown a party for her. She had a feeling he wouldn’t approve of her shenanigans, but who cared? He was no longer a detective. If he didn’t follow the law, why should she?
She was about to slip into the pub where the gray-hairs danced, when she stole another glance at Dreamscape. A person was exiting the fancy white boat, dressed all in black with a hat. Was it another street performer? Or someone famous? Was he so famous he didn’t want to be recognized? Imagine if she nicked something off a celebrity. That would be a dream come true. She decided the mysterious figure was a man, although it was hard to tell, the coat was so baggy. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and face down so all she could see was the top of his dark cap. He was striding away from the boat now, headed for Strand Street. This was her chance. He was wearing mourning clothing; no doubt his destination was the wake. He’d probably be away from the boat for hours. She hurried across the street to the harbor, keeping her eyes trained on the man in black as they switched sides, craning her head and watching him until he disappeared into the crowd. Dreamscape. What a perfect name. Sneaking onto this fancy boat was going to be a birthday dream come true.
CHAPTER 2
THE DEAD MAN WORE A DESIGNER SUIT TO THE BEACH. HE WAS found along Slea Head Drive, at the base of a small cliff, on Clogher Strand. There he was, early on a Sunday morning in June, reposed against a craggy boulder in his fancy navy suit, starched white shirt, and vibrant green tie. Next to his body, two words had been formed using sixty-nine gleaming black stones: LAST DANCE. The stones popped against the pale sand. It wasn’t a whisper; it was a shout. His legs were straight out in front of him, his hands rested palms-up on his thighs, and his sky-blue eyes were open, forever staring out to sea. The only visible sign of distress was the white foam pooling at the corners of his gaped mouth. The lines fanning out across his face, and wisps of silver hair clinging to a mostly bald head betrayed his advanced age. A card with a black background peeked out of the dead man’s suit pocket. Detective Inspector Cormac O’Brien maneuvered around the cordon they’d placed around the body to get a closer look.
A red-faced Devil sporting a lascivious grin stared back. “Would you look at this?” He turned to Detective Sergeant Neely, but her face was buried in her iPad, and her honey-colored hair, whipped around by the wind, obscured her eyes. He was the new sheriff in town, as they said in the black-and-white films he loved to watch, and, despite being by-the-book polite, the rest of the team seemed on a mission to wall him out. Swallowing his frustration and resisting the urge to yank the electronic yoke from her hands and chuck it into the sea, Cormac turned back to the strange card. He was dying to pluck it out of the dead man’s pocket, but Cormac could not touch the body or any of the tantalizing evidence. The state pathologist had been notified, and a local coroner, deputy state pathologist, and technical unit were on the way. Once it was officially declared a crime scene and processed for evidence, they would transport the body to Kerry General Hospital and, fingers and toes crossed, the postmortem would begin in the morning. They already had an identification on their victim, for this was Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland, and the man was a local.
Cormac once again turned to Sergeant Neely, the only member of the Dingle Gardaí he’d allowed to remain with him on the small curved beach. Although she was no doubt used to being the one in charge, she was giving Cormac room, letting him do his thing. Not that she had much choice, but Cormac was grateful she wasn’t sending out any territorial vibes, or Cormac would be forced to pull rank. The guards back in Killarney sometimes called Cormac “Napoleon” behind his back, and he didn’t need that business starting up here. The rest of the guards were gathered in the car park, along the road, and perched atop the cliff.
“I want to go over it again.”
This time D.S. Neely heard him, and her head popped up. She was somewhere in her sixties if he had to guess, but she was well-preserved with a lean, strong body. “Right, so.” If she was sick and tired of repeating herself, she had the decency not to show it. Repetition helped Cormac think. “Johnny O’Reilly, sixty-nine years of age, wealthy racehorse owner. The O’Reillys have a massive estate and horse barns just outside of town. Ever hear of Ruby?” D.S. Neely was looking at Cormac as if the answer should be a resounding yes.
“Ruby slippers?” he quipped.
Neely frowned. “What’s that now?”
“Click my heels three times?” He attempted a smile. “No place like home?”
Neely shook her head, a look of exasperation stamped on her face. “She was a beauty of a racehorse, so she was. Ruby was the O’Reillys’ pride and joy. Their first million-pound-purse winner.” Cormac tried to feign interest. It was obvious the sergeant expected him to be impressed. “Her sire was named Last Dance.”
Now she had his attention. “Is that so?” He glanced at the message written in stone and waited for her to offer more. She did not. “Let me guess. Another million-euro-purse-winner?”
She shook her head. “You really don’t know?” The tone of her voice was clear. He was an eejit.
He threw open his arms. “Indulge me.”
“The poor thing was struck dead in a road accident before he could even run his first race.” She paused. “It was all over the news, like.” Her eyes traveled over him as if assessing his worth. “But I suppose you were just a lad in short trousers.”
“What else?” He smiled and tried to sound chipper, which just elicited another frown. He’d been warned about the locals. Friendly, if you kept your distance. She returned to her electronic notes. “In town, Johnny was known for his other proclivities.” She cleared her throat. “Namely dancing and women.”
