Free The Irish Cottage Murder by Dicey Deere Page A

because Moore’s new stable lad, a seventeen-year-old, was throwing up onto a bale of hay beside Darlin’ Pie’s box. Brian Coffey, Moore’s skinny red-haired trainer, in jeans and a faded maroon jersey, was standing, mute, his white, freckled face contorted; he was shaking his head back and forth, his eyes denying the ugliness he stared at.
    Desmond Moore’s knife-slashed, bloody body lay just outside box four; but the horse, Black Pride, was gone, the stall door splintered. The scent of blood in the stable had stirred the other three horses in their boxes. There was a frightening cacophony of shrill whinnies, stamping, and neighing. Darlin’ Pie, in box three, reared and screamed.
    O’Hare swallowed saliva. Two murders in Ballynagh within a week. As though a serial killer was on the loose. He looked down at Desmond Moore, who lay face up.
    “My!” Sergeant Bryson squatted down beside Moore’s body. Bryson’s young face looked appalled. “Oh, my!”
    A knife must have been driven into Moore’s stomach and yanked upward between his ribs to his breastbone. His yellow cashmere sweater was red-black with the blood that must have spurted, maybe even jetted out like a fountain. One hand was clenched at his breast, as though in reflex to stem the flow.
    “He would’ve died at once, I hope,” Bryson said pleadingly, as though asking someone indeterminate for confirmation. He reached out a hand as if to close Desmond Moore’s staring eyes, but—
    “Don’t touch him,” O’Hare said. “You know better, Sergeant!”
    From the police car in the stable yard, O’Hare called the Murder Squad at headquarters in Dublin. The van with the technical crew would arrive shortly; Castle Moore was only twenty-five minutes from Dublin.
    Back again in the stable, O’Hare scanned the floor, the murder weapon—a bloody knife, surely, by the look of Desmond Moore’s slashed body—could be lying somewhere here. But it wasn’t. Had the murderer taken it with him?
    “See if there’s a knife in that bale of hay or along the stalls,” he said to Sergeant Bryson, “But don’t touch it; wait for the gardai from Dublin.”
    He looked around for Brian Coffey, who still stood mute and staring. Coffey and the new lad, Kevin Keating, had found Desmond Moore’s body only a few minutes ago, when they had returned from Flaherty’s Harness Shop in Ballynagh and entered the stables. Minutes later, an incoherent Brian Coffey had rung up Inspector O’Hare. The poor fellow still looked in shock, eyes wide, face white. The lad, Kevin, had ridden off in search of Black Pride. In the stable yard, Janet Slocum and Rose stood hugging their arms and looking around in fear and excitement.
    *   *   *
    “I was at that card table,” Brian Coffey said to Inspector O’Hare, jerking his head toward the rickety table in the stable office. “About two o’clock it was, just before I went to Ballynagh to meet Kevin at Flaherty’s. I was making out the list, the tack we needed to buy. And I heard voices. Mr. Desmond talking with somebody in the stable.”
    Inspector O’Hare stood over Brian Coffey, who was sitting forward on the edge of a faded, overstuffed tartan couch, elbows on knees, hands clasped. The room was small, not much bigger than a horse box. The walls had glossy photographs of horses and racing events tacked up. There was a calendar from a feed company. The card table served as the office desk. Sweaters and a duffle coat hung on a rack in one corner. Beneath the rack were a couple of pairs of worn boots. A wood floor had been crudely laid down.
    “And…?”
    “Yes, well—” Brian Coffey’s red hair was wet with sweat; nervous sweat it had to be; the room was not that warm—“so I was making out the list.”
    Brian Coffey moved his hands up his skinny white arms, shoving up the sleeves of the faded maroon jersey, rubbing his arms as though they were cold. He hunched his shoulders and licked dry lips. “Mr. Desmond had this