Dial P For Poison (Movie Club Mysteries, Book 1): An Irish Cozy Mystery Read online

  Dial P For Poison

  Movie Club Mysteries, Book 1

  Zara Keane

  Beaverstone Press LLC

  Contents

  About This Book

  A Note On Gaelic Terms

  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

  Recipe for Peppermint Cream Cocktails

  The Postman Always Dies Twice (Movie Club Mysteries, Book 2)

  Also by Zara Keane

  About Zara Keane

  DIAL P FOR POISON

  (Movie Club Mysteries, Book 1)

  You can take the girl out of the force, but you can’t keep her away from the action…

  Maggie Doyle moves to Ireland to escape her cheating ex and crumbling career in the San Francisco PD. When the most hated woman on Whisper Island is poisoned at her aunt’s Movie Theater Café, Maggie and her rock-hard muffins are hurled into the murder investigation.

  With the help of her UFO-enthusiast friend, a nun, and a feral puppy, Maggie is determined to clear her aunt’s name. Can she catch the murderer before they strike again? Or will her terrible baking skills burn down the café first?

  Join my mailing list and get news, giveaways, and an exclusive FREE Movie Club Mystery serial!

  http://zarakeane.com/newsletter2

  A Note On Gaelic Terms

  Certain Gaelic terms appear in this book. I have tried to use them sparingly and in contexts that should make their meaning clear to international readers. However, a couple of words require clarification.

  The official name for the Irish police force is An Garda Síochána (“the Guardian of the Peace”). Police are Gardaí (plural) and Garda (singular). Irish police are commonly referred to as “the guards”.

  The official rank of a police officer such as Sergeant O’Shea is Garda Sergeant O’Shea. As the Irish frequently shorten this to Sergeant, I’ve chosen to use this version for all but the initial introduction to the character.

  The official name for the Whisper Island police station would be Whisper Island Garda Station, but Maggie, being American, rarely thinks of it as such.

  The Irish police do not, as a rule, carry firearms. Permission to carry a gun is reserved to detectives and specialist units, such as the Emergency Response Unit. The police on Whisper Island would not have been issued with firearms.

  Although this book follows American spelling conventions, I’ve chosen to use the common Irish spelling for proper names such as Carraig Harbour and the Whisper Island Medical Centre.

  1

  Whisper Island, Ireland

  My career in the San Francisco PD ended the day I had to arrest my husband. Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have punched him…twice. And kicked him in the groin. But seriously, what would you do if you’d discovered your husband was sleeping with his paralegal, and adding to your humiliation with a boozy post-screw drive down a busy freeway? He knew how I felt about fidelity, and he knew my thoughts on drunk driving. It was both our misfortune that I’d happened to be the cop who’d pulled him over.

  Thanks to my temper, four weeks after my marriage and my career had imploded, I found myself five thousand miles away from home, clinging to the side of a rocking boat and hurling the last of my dignity into the waves below.

  “I hate boats,” I muttered, pressing a napkin to my mouth. “And I hate storms.”

  A flash of lightning zigzagged across the sky as if to illuminate my point. Despite my nausea, I drew in a breath at the magnificence of the jagged coastline looming in the distance. The sheer cliffs towered over the rough sea, just as hauntingly beautiful as I remembered from childhood summers. I hadn’t been to Whisper Island in over ten years, but I recalled every tree, cave, and hill of the island where my father had been born.

  The ferry rocked into the harbor at midnight, an hour behind schedule. Shivering in the icy wind, I limped down the pedestrian gangplank, dragging my two rolling suitcases behind me. The suitcases contained the remains of my life. I’d sold all but two of my evening gowns to a friend’s used dress store and had listed most of my shoe collection on eBay. I’d have sold my jewelry, but it apparently belonged to Joe’s mother, courtesy of some fancy legal wheeling and dealing he’d done to ensure I couldn’t claim more than a pittance if we ever split up. My nostrils flared. Never trust a lawyer, especially one you marry.

  On the pier, I paused and scanned my surroundings. Several fishing boats bobbed in the water, straining at their moorings. No tourist yachts were in sight, but I’d never been to the island in winter. Apart from the bitter January wind, the pier was just as I remembered it: an old-fashioned wooden affair with a ferry terminal at one end and the red-and-white facade of the yacht club built into the side of the cliff. After the foot passengers had disembarked, the cars would exit the ferry and be transported up the cliff by means of a car elevator. I shuddered at the prospect of being enclosed in such a tight space and felt grateful I was on foot. I inhaled the sea air, relishing the salty taste on my tongue. It was good to be back.

  “Maggie? Is that you, love?” A woman’s voice boomed into my ear, making my heart leap in my chest. In the next instant, a small woman roughly the shape of a soccer ball tackled me in a bear hug.

  “Aunt Noreen? Have you been waiting all this time? We’re more than an hour late.”

  She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “The ferry is always late this time of year. I asked old Tom up in the ferry office to give me a call when he spotted the boat. My house is only a fifteen-minute drive away.” My aunt looked me up and down before squeezing me in another bear hug. “It’s lovely to see you, Maggie. It’s been too long.”

  Four years to be precise. My aunt had grown older and plumper since the last time I’d seen her, which had been at my wedding. She wrested my suitcases from my grasp, and I found myself hauled down the pier in her determined wake. She marched me past the ticket office and toward an ancient elevator, already packed with ferry passengers. Those who’d arrived in vehicles watched dubiously as they were loaded, one by one, into a special cage and hoisted up the cliff.

  “I prefer the harbor in Smuggler’s Cove,” my aunt said, following the direction of my gaze, “but Carraig is the one closest to the mainland, and it’s the only one the ferry stops at during the winter months.”

  “I guess there aren’t enough passengers to warrant making the trip all the way to the other side of the island.”

  “Exactly. As of May, it’s a whole different story.” My aunt gestured for me to step into the rickety elevator. “Let’s get you home. It’s freezing out here tonight.”

  I dug my frozen hands into my jacket’s pockets. “I, uh, think I’ll take the stairs.”

  My aunt frowned at me. “Are you sure? It’s a long way up.”

  “I could do with the exercise. Can you take my luggage?”

  “Sure. See you at the top.” Noreen dragged my suitcases into the elevator, oblivious to the wince of pain from the elderly man she rolled over. She gave me a cheery wave before the doors
slid shut and the elevator began its shuddering ascent.

  I took a deep breath and contemplated the steps that led from the pier to the top of the cliff. It had to be several floors high, but a rickety metal staircase was preferable to an enclosed space. Or so I told myself until I reached the hundredth step, panting for breath. Man, I was out of shape. After a month spent at the bottom of a bag of Doritos, what could I expect? Groaning, I hauled myself up the steps and breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the top. Tomorrow, I’d go running. I might even go wild and eat a salad.

  Noreen and my suitcases were waiting for me in the parking lot near the elevator exit, standing beside a dilapidated Ford Fiesta that bore traces of its original green paint among the rust.

  “Well now,” my aunt said, giving me a critical once-over. “Would you look at the state of you? Sure, you’re nothing but skin and bones.”

  The skin-and-bones part was far from the truth. I didn’t need to stand on the scales to know I was the most out of shape I’d been my whole adult life. During my post-crisis slump, I’d comfort eaten my way up a dress size.

  Noreen beamed up at me, and I braced myself for another rib-crushing hug. She didn’t disappoint. When my aunt released me from her viselike clutches, she opened the trunk of the car and hurled my suitcase in among an array of fishing rods, hockey sticks, and golf clubs. Despite my aunt’s girth, she was a formidable sportswoman and a terror on the hockey pitch. “Let’s get you home and fed, love.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I slid into the passenger seat, gingerly removing a golf ball from under my backside, “but I have no appetite. I spent most of the trip over from the mainland being sick over the side of the boat.”

  Noreen gave a derisive snort. “Nonsense. You’ve been through a traumatic time. You need feeding.”

  “Trust me, I’ve been doing plenty of feeding,” I said with a wry smile. “Tomorrow, I promise I’ll finish all twenty-three meals you put in front of me. Right now, all I want is sleep.”

  “All right,” she grunted, clearly unhappy at my reluctance to chow down on an enormous meal served at midnight. “Now, how do you feel about cats?”

  The question came out of left field. “I…have no particular opinion about them.” In truth, I was ambivalent about animals. My only childhood pet had been a goldfish, and my contact with pets since had been fending off rabid dogs while arresting their owners.

  “Excellent,” Noreen said as though I’d just informed her she’d won the lottery. “I have eight.”

  “Eight…cats?” My eyebrows shot up in alarm. I hadn’t visited my aunt’s house on Whisper Island since I was a teenager, but I recalled her cottage as being on the snug side of small. “Where do they all sleep?”

  “Oh, you know.” She waved a hand vaguely as her car shot out of the parking lot at breakneck speed and turned onto a winding cliffside road. “Wherever they feel like it. I’m putting you in Roly and Poly’s room. Don’t worry, love,” she added, seeing my expression of horror. “Just shoo them off the bed if they’re bothering you.”

  Visions of a cat-infested house danced before my eyes. I peered out the window and saw how close we were to the edge of the cliff. Swallowing hard, I hunched back in my seat and let my aunt prattle on about islanders I’d never met. Had I made a massive mistake in accepting her offer of a home and a job? After all, what did I know about cafés? What did I know about living in Ireland?

  “All you’ll need to do while I’m in the hospital,” Noreen had said on the phone two weeks after I’d lost my job and filed for divorce, “is serve a few cups of coffee. The change of scene will do you good. Fresh air and exercise are what you need. There’s no point in moping. You’re better off without that buffoon, and if those eejits in the San Francisco Police Department don’t realize they’re losing a gem, you’re better off without them, too.”

  At the time, I’d been veering between drunken and tearful rants to my long-suffering best friend, Selena, and reliving the joy of shoving a handcuffed and bloody Joe into the ambulance after the crash. Had there been any true justice, Joe would have lost his attorney’s license along with his driver’s license, but money and connections rule, and Joe had an abundance of both. Instead, I’d found myself suspended, and I’d chosen to resign rather than allow my superiors to sentence me to a career as a pen pusher.

  The irony of snubbing an admin job in favor of a lowly position as a waitress on a remote Irish island wasn’t lost on me, but at least I was living life on my terms. As Noreen had said, the fresh air and distance from my life in San Francisco would do me good. It was only for a couple of months. Long enough for me to get my head together and give me a chance to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

  I regretted my complacency the moment we screeched to a halt outside my aunt’s ramshackle cottage. I got out of the car, clutching my neck as a whiplash victim would, and gaped in mounting horror at the sight before me. Inside a fenced enclosure, a large animal roamed. “Is that an alpaca?” I asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yes, that’s Horace.” Noreen beamed. “Didn’t I tell you about my side job? I run a petting zoo.”

  2

  When I dragged my groggy body out of bed at six o’clock the next morning, I was spared the indignity of feeding my aunt’s menagerie, but not her panic attack-inducing driving.

  “Sorry about the early start, love,” Noreen yelled over the roar of the engine as she accelerated past the alpaca and through the gate that separated her plot of land from the road. “I need to open the café in time to catch the breakfast trade.”

  “No problem.” I pulled my woolen hat over my red curls and clutched at my seat belt, braced for another hair-raising drive. Noreen kept the car just over the legal speed limit, but the combo of her jerky driving style and the lack of suspension in her ancient vehicle made for a bouncy ride. To add to my discomfort, I wasn’t used to driving on the left side of the road, and I kept trying to hit the brakes. After I’d assured myself that my aunt wasn’t about to drive us over the edge of a cliff, I began to relax and enjoy the view.

  In stark contrast to last night’s dark and stormy welcome, the sky was clear and the moon shone brightly. At this time of the year, the sun wouldn’t rise for another couple of hours, but the gentle glow of the moonlight illuminated the landscape. I soaked up the familiar sights of rolling hills and rugged coastline. My heart clenched when I spotted the woods where I’d played as a child during summer vacations spent with my aunt. Although I couldn’t see it, the memory of the lake on the far side of the woods loomed large.

  “What’s the island’s original name? I’ve forgotten the Gaelic term.”

  “Gaelic is called Irish around here, my girl. Your cousin, Julie, runs Irish language evening classes at the school. You should sign up for one.”

  “I won’t be here long enough to make it worthwhile.”

  My aunt grinned at me. “We’ll see about that. To answer your question, Whisper Island is Inis na Cogar.”

  “In-Ish-Na-Cougar?”

  Noreen laughed. “Not quite, but near enough.”

  “Where does the island get its name?”

  “The shape of the cliffs in certain parts of the island produces a sound like voices whispering when the wind blows.”

  “Very poetic.” To my ears, the sound I’d heard getting off the ferry last night had more in common with a plane engine, especially when the waves crashed against the rocks, but whatever.

  “Whisper Island hasn’t changed much since you were here last,” Noreen said as if reading my thoughts. “The young people come and go, of course, but old fogies like me stay on.”

  “Do you still get an influx of tourists in the summer?” I asked, staring out at the smattering of farms that dotted the landscape.

  “That we do. If it weren’t for the annual invasion, I’d be in dire financial straits.” She grimaced. “Okay, worse financial straits than I’m already in.”

  “That bad?” My
forehead creased. “I had no idea. Mom said you were doing well.”

  “I am…in the summer.” Noreen shook her improbable black curls. “Like most of the businesses on the island, I rely on the tourist trade. This time of year is hard. I’m experimenting with ways to bring in a little extra during the winter months to take the pressure off.”

  I grinned. “Hence the petting zoo?”

  “Exactly. I also offer the café and the room at the back of the building to local clubs and societies that are too small to qualify for space in the town hall. In return for using my place free of charge, the clubs’ members agree to buy drinks and snacks from the café.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea.”

  “The downside is needing to work late, but it’s saved my bacon this winter.” She scowled. “I can only hope it lasts. Sandra Walker keeps petitioning the town council to revoke my Special Restaurant License. Without it, I won’t be allowed to serve alcohol on the premises.”

  I snorted. “Sandra hasn’t changed. Lemme guess: she’s seen you come up with a creative way to make some extra cash during the low season, and she wants to divert that business to her daughter’s restaurant.”

  “Exactly—a restaurant that no one wants to go to. It’s not a case of Sandra wanting a piece of the pie. She wants the whole cake. For months, I’ve had to deal with surprise visits from pest control, health and safety, and rumors about my café not being sanitary.”