The 39 Cupcakes (Movie Club Mysteries, Book 4): An Irish Cozy Mystery by Zara Keane

Author:Zara Keane [Keane, Zara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783906245539
Publisher: Beaverstone Press
Published: 2017-09-06T23:00:00+00:00

15

Reynolds turned to me, his face pale under his summer tan. “I went through the motions and checked for a pulse, but there’s no chance.”

“Not with a neck wound of that nature.” And not with the amount of blood seeping from beneath the body. In spite of the warm sun, I shivered. “May I check him out?”

“Be my guest…but wear gloves.”

I gave him the side-eye. “Where am I going to get disposable rubber gloves on a yacht in the middle of the Atlantic?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Catch.” And he tossed me a package containing one pair of disposable gloves.

I stared at the package and shook my head. “Seriously? You carry these around even when you’re on vacation?”

“Hey, I’m on a day trip with Maggie the Dead-Body Magnet. I came prepared.”

I put my hands on my hips. “So not funny.”

He grinned. “It’s force of habit. I always have a Swiss Army knife, disposable gloves, and a pocket flashlight. I feel naked without them.”

As I traveled with a similar ensemble, I made a mental note to add disposable gloves to my collection. Heck, I’d throw in foot covers and a plastic cap just to get one up on Reynolds.

After I’d gloved up, I went over to the body and hunkered down, careful to avoid the blood. I touched the dead man’s skin. Even through the rubber of my gloves, the skin felt cooler than it should under the direct sun. He’d been dead a while. “The beard, the build, the ponytail. I don’t need to see an ID to know this is Richard Carstairs.”

Reynolds nodded grimly. “Yeah. It’s him, all right.”

I shook my head. “It’s so weird. I saw a guy who looked so like him jogging through the hotel grounds less than an hour ago. Now that I know Richard was probably dead by then, it’s eerie.”

He regarded me sharply. “How alike were they?”

I scrunched up my forehead and cast my mind back to my drive to Caoimhe’s house. “I only saw him from a distance, but I was immediately struck by the likeness.”

“We’ll check if Richard had family on the island. A brother or cousin would explain the lookalike you saw.” Reynolds regarded the corpse with a frown. “I’m no doctor, but I’ve encountered enough corpses to know Richard’s been dead for more than an hour.”

“I agree with your estimate.” I stood and surveyed the deck. “I can’t see how he got a knife in his neck by accident. If he had a wound through the stomach, I’d be prepared to consider the possibility that he tripped and fell, but this? No way.”

“Yeah,” Reynolds muttered. “I guess this throws a new light on the skeleton investigation. Carstairs was the only link between the two excavations.”

“The only link that we know of,” I corrected. “I’m not done digging for info. Have you checked his pockets yet? Maybe there’s some clue as to why he’s on this big yacht alone.” I paused. “He was alone, right?”

Reynolds nodded.

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