Page 10 of Death at Inishmore Castle

“And you think the nun is also pretending?”

I pursed my lips. “I have no idea. But one thing has bothered me since we first met her.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“How many nuns do you know who wear lipstick?” I’d noticed the pink lipstick earlier when I’d first seen her at lunch. I was fairly certain nuns had to give up all worldly goods, and makeup would be part of that. Though, since she’d said to the owners she was on vacation, maybe she’d treated herself. “That and the rosary in his hand make me suspicious of her.

“Still, I can’t see her having the strength to kill him like this. She would have to be unnaturally strong.”

“See, that’s why you are good at this sort of thing. I hadn’t even noticed her face. I think I saw the habit and figured she’d look down on Scott and me, and I didn’t want to give her the chance to say something nasty—or give us one of those condescending looks.”

“Well, that’s her loss. To know you is to love you. And if they were good people, they should be accepting of everyone, especially you and Scott.”

“Thanks, friend.”

“I’m going to take a quick look around. If you see anyone coming, whistle or something.”

He laughed. “Kieran will be mad if you mess anything up.”

“I won’t touch anything. But I can’t just stand here doing nothing.”

“Okay. I’ll be your lookout.” He crossed over towards the doorway.

I moved slowly around the study, searching for any more clues. The furniture was upright, and nothing much seemed out of place. Well, except for the dead guy. The spatter of blood near the curtains continued to spread on the rug.

It made me wonder if someone had been hiding behind the curtains and had surprised him. Perhaps he’d even been sitting, and they stabbed him. I stared at the letter opener in his chest. The angle was wrong. The letter opener must have been razor-sharp and strong enough to go through the breastbone. And theangle was slightly upward as if someone knew what they were doing.

Stabbing someone in the heart wasn’t as easy as it appeared.

He must have died instantly, or there would be much more blood. So, the perpetrator stabbed him, and maybe the priest stumbled into the chair. Forensics would have a better idea.

But since the angle was upward, the killer could have been shorter. Or, maybe, they just knew what they were doing. The same thoughts kept rolling around in my head.

Neither scenario helped my nerves. The thunder boomed even louder, and the lights flickered out again.

“Someone’s coming,” Rob whispered.

I quickly moved into the doorway as if I’d been there the whole time. A very wet Scott and Gordon came down the hallway.

“Where’s Kieran?”

Scott shook his head. “The bridge connecting to the main road back to town is underwater. We couldn’t get across.”

“So, he isn’t coming?” Rob asked.

“No one will be able to get through until the storm stops,” Gordon said. “It’s a nightmare out there. We are used to the flooding, but it is a fair nuisance when it’s this bad.”

“It’s raining so hard you can’t see three feet in front of the car,” Scott said. “If Gordon didn’t have quick reflexes, we would have landed in the river.”

Rob went pale, and he gently grabbed Scott’s arm.

“I’m okay,” Scott said, patting his partner’s hand.

“But what do we do now?” Gordon asked. His face was red, and his voice harsh, as if he were angry. What I couldn’t tell was whether it was because this might have ruined their opening weekend, or whether he hated the priest. “Do we just leave him until the police can get here? Shouldn’t we move the body to afreezer or something? Out of all the things I thought might go wrong this weekend, this was not one of them.”

“Well, I’ve worked with the police, and I’ve done a lot of research as a writer. For right now, we need to leave the body where it is. It is cool enough in the castle to keep it from decomposing too quickly,” I said. “We shouldn’t move anything in a crime scene. We want everything to appear exactly as we found it.

“We’ll need to stand guard until Kieran and his team can get here. We can’t risk the killer coming back and removing evidence. Do we have any idea when the storm will end?”

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