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The Luck of the Irish: A Cozy Mystery Anthology: 10 Tales by Cozy authors

By Kate Darroch, Kathleen Marple Kalb, C.A. Phipps, Amy Grundy, Jessica Brimer, Jessica Thomson, J. L. Lancaster, Jaclyn Weist, K. Rose, W. Jenkins

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ISBN-13: 978-1-944690-31-1

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
First Printed in the United States of America 2024
First Printed in Great Britian 2024
 
The editors and contributors respectfully Dedicate this anthology to Faisal Al-Juburi of RAICES Texas with profound gratitude for the selfless work he has done, and continues to do daily, to free children from internment camps.
 
CONTENTS

Introduction A Few Words from Kate
A Fatal Saint Patrick’s Day by Kathleen Marple Kalb
Luck of Shadows by C. A. Phipps
St Pat’s Day in New York by Kate Darroch
A Tale of Fickle Fortune by Amy Grundy
Clover in Murder by Jessica Brimer
A Caterer’s Guide to Leprechauns and Lies by Jessica Thompson
Leprechaun Gold by Jaclyn Weist
A Foliage Farewell by J. R. Lancaster
Heirlooms and Hushed High Jinks by K. Rose
Saint Patrick’s Choice by W. Jenkins
The Authors’ Favorite Saint Patrick’s Day Recipes
Afterword

A Few Words from Kate

Why an anthology of Cozy Mysteries to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day? Well, why not? It’s a time to let our hair down and have fun, and as an innocuous way of doing that, Cozies have been rapidly growing in popularity, year on year, for a long time.
Why do we all enjoy a good Cozy so much?
One reason is that you know exactly what kind of story you’re getting. Readers and writers tend to agree on what goes into a good Cozy – and what doesn’t!
The sleuth – with a few notable exceptions – rarely chooses to solve crimes. She – it’s usually she, although there are male protagonists in Cozies – is quietly minding her own business and then life throws her a curve ball. As a result, she is forced into crime solving.
And since life has thrown us all some killer curve balls in the last few years, it’s nice to escape into a world where the characters can cope with all that and come out on top.
The big thing about Cozies is that they are comforting, like being curled up in front of a roaring fire with a yummy mug of hot chocolate.
Each Cozy world is comfortably familiar, yet they are all different from each other.
The stories in this book are no exception. Each one takes you into a completely different world from the other nine, but what they all have in common is that they are nice Clean reads. There’s a thread of optimism and hope running through our Cozies.
Another big part of the appeal of Cozies is that they are about friendship, community, and the certainty that justice will prevail.
And that’s really why my co-editor Jessica Thompson and I put this anthology together. We want justice to prevail.
We want to be friends to children living in very difficult conditions, whose only hope of a good life is for justice to prevail.
We want those kids to become part of a caring community, and so to help that happen, all ten contributors have pooled our story-telling abilities, and we are gifting all book sale proceeds, with no deductions, to RAICEStexas.org
Because they will help those kids.

There is a long literary tradition of writers highlighting social conditions that ought to change - who can forget Dickens’ Little Nell? Without pretension to literary merit, we offer you these novellas and short stories in the hope that we can help a little.

We want you to have a good St Pat’s day. To enjoy good food and good company, to have a ton of fun, and to know that just by curling up to enjoy these ten lovely Cozies, you are also doing good in the world, and helping those who cannot help themselves.

AUTHOR: Kathleen Marple Kalb

Kathleen says: Being a part of this anthology is more than a pleasure and an honor for me. It’s a way to welcome and help new migrants, as my own Scottish and Irish family was once helped.

In “A Fatal Saint Patrick’s Day,” set in 1899 New York, the main characters’ experience as the children of Irish and Jewish immigrants is a key part of the story, and so is their willingness to help the most vulnerable members of their community. Not that it’s a “message piece.” It’s a fun ride, but if you want to take away a few larger points, I’m not going to argue!

Author’s Bio

Kathleen Marple Kalb describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order.
An award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories and novels including the Ella Shane and Old Stuff series, both from Level Best Books.
Her stories, under her own name, and as Nikki Knight, have been in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and others, and short-listed for Derringer and Black Orchid Novella Awards. Active in writer’s groups, she’s served as Vice President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and Co-VP of the New York/Tri-State Sisters in Crime Chapter. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.

Website: https://kathleenmarplekalb.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kathleen-Marple-Kalb-1082949845220373/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KalbMarple
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathleenmarplekalb/
Threads: @kathleenmarplekalb
Bluesky: @mysterymarple.bsky.social


In A Fatal Saint Patrick’s Day, Gilded Age opera singer Ella Shane and her cousin Tommy are doing a favor for a friend from their old neighborhood.


A Fatal Saint Patrick’s Day by Kathleen Marple Kalb

Who killed the Leprechaun?
An odd question any time, I’ll grant you, but precisely the one my Cousin Tommy and I had to answer on St. Patrick’s Day 1899. Not to mention preventing a terrible injustice.
All before we brought Aunt Ellen her shamrocks.
The misadventure started two days before the holiday. I headlined a benefit for the Irish Relief Fund, one of many I do over the course of a year. As the name player of the Ella Shane Opera Company, I make a very nice living with the paying customers, and it’s only right to use my gifts for good.
That raw March night, I gave one of Romeo’s arias, a popular piece from our most recent tour, slipping easily into the music and the doublet once more. Romeo’s one of my favorite roles: not only does the vocal range suit me, but I love the dueling.
Probably worth mentioning here that I specialize in trouser roles, heroic male parts played by women, a quirk of classic opera that allows me (and my family) a very enjoyable living. Far more than anyone ever expected of little Ellen O’Shaughnessy, orphan child of an Irish father and Jewish mother. If not for my voice, and the good luck to stumble across a mentor to show me what to do with it, I’d probably have ended up in a laundry – or Potter’s Field, like so many others.
At any rate, that night I was in the dressing room after the performance, smiling prettily and exchanging inane pleasantries with the benefactors while most of the men looked at my legs and the women looked down on me. I’ve often considered changing into a long robe for these after-show visits, but if I did, it would suggest I should be ashamed of my work and the costumes I wear for it. Indeed not.
Besides, I had Tommy to glare at them. Before he became manager of my company, he was a boxing champion, and he’s been my friend and protector since his mother took me in after my own died. I was eight, scared, starved, and sad. He was twelve, a bit of a misfit because kinder and more bookish than most neighborhood boys, and he’d adopted me as if I were a stray kitten. Close enough.
The patrons whose eyes lingered on my tights were favored with just a touch of the gaze that once terrified his opponents. They behaved.
Rather wearing, though.
Which quite fairly explains my delight at the arrival of a tall, powerfully-built, dark-haired fellow. He was dressed in immaculately tailored black tie like everyone else and moved with the easy confidence of a man used to power and the exercise of it, and the grace of one comfortable on the dance floor. He could have been any fine gentleman.
Until, that is, you looked in his eyes. Bright shamrock green and absolutely cold, they were the last sight of the world for any number of men who’d crossed Connor Coughlan. If he wasn’t the kingpin of the Five Points gangsters, he wasn’t far from it either.
To Tommy and me, though, he was just an old schoolmate. We’d grown up in the same Lower East Side neighborhood. I’d even thrown in with Tommy in a scuffle with Connor once. These days, we weren’t exactly friends, but he did occasionally send flowers or buy a seat in the dress circle when I was in town.
No surprise he’d made a generous donation and come to this show. Just as Tommy and I feel the need to share our good fortune, so does he. Though, of course, his good fortune is a bit less cleanly earned.
Tommy was arranging for our cab, and I was in the midst of a particularly pointless discussion of the evening’s sleet with a leering man and his sneering wife when Connor approached.
“Miss Shane,” he said as he cast brief glances at my tormentors. “Delighted to see you.”
As if by magic, the patron and his wife melted away. I don’t know how Connor does that, and I don’t want to know.
“Mr. Coughlan,” I replied, holding out my hands. “A delight to see you too.”
“Ah, Ellen,” he said, putting his arms out and looking me over with a grin. “Lovely as ever.”
“Yourself as well. The hair seems to have grown back nicely.”
“Indeed.” He let go my hands and patted the back of his head, chuckling. “Maybe you should yank a hank or two from some of these fellows.”
“Quite possibly.” In that long-ago fight, I’d jumped on his back and pulled his hair, settling matters for Toms. Neither would ever let me forget it.
“Thank you again for the Ave, Ellen.” His face softened in a way I suspected almost no one else saw.
“Of course. I thought it might bring you comfort.” I’d sent him a wax cylinder recording of my Ave Maria after I sang it at his mother’s funeral.
“It does.” A rueful smile.
“Connor!” Tommy held out a hand for a shake as he walked back into the room.
“Champ!”
After the friendly greetings, Connor sat down in one of the little guest chairs, which was both incongruous and unusual. “Wonder if you two might be able to help me help someone.”
I could not imagine what kind of help we might give Connor.
“Your friend Father Michael has a cousin on the coppers,” he said.
We nodded. Father Michael is Tommy’s best friend, and a frequent guest in our Washington Square townhouse. Cousin Andrew the Detective, as he’s inevitably known to all, is also an occasional visitor.
“Here’s the thing. The Leprechaun’s dead, and they’ve arrested his brother.”
“The Leprechaun? Really?” Tommy shook his head. Brendan Boyle, another old acquaintance from the neighborhood, was known as the Leprechaun for his magical ability to make people pay their debts.
It wasn’t really magic.
“Good heavens,” I said. “The brother? Isn’t he . . .”
“Yes. Like a little boy even though he’s twenty. He takes care of the mother, who’s a shut-in.” Connor shrugged. “There’s no way he killed his brother.”
“What happened?”
“Yesterday morning, Gerry went to make breakfast and found Brendan in the kitchen with his head bashed in. Cops arrested him because he was standing over the body, covered in blood and crying. They don’t know how to handle him.”
Tommy nodded. We didn’t know Gerry Boyle, but we knew Connor’s little brother, who was similar. “Did he say anything?”
“Just calling for his mama. She’s collapsed in grief.” Connor’s jaw was tight – as much emotion as he’d ever show.
“Where is Gerry now?”
“Jail.” Connor shook his head. “Managed to get word inside that he’s the Leprechaun’s brother and under my protection, but . . .”
“Awful,” I said. “We’ll talk to Cousin Andrew the Detective in the morning.”
“Connor,” Tommy began, a warning note in his eyes, “do you think this has to do with your line of work?”
“Tom, I would not be asking you and Ellen if there were any possibility of that. It’s something else. And it’s wrong.” He held our gaze, no longer a cool killer but simply a worried friend. “I can’t help the boy, but maybe you can.”
“We’ll do our best,” I promised.

***

It’s said (usually in a disparaging tone) that the Irish know how to mourn. I’d argue it’s because we have so much experience with it.
So, Tommy, Father Michael, Cousin Andrew, and I knew exactly what to expect the next afternoon when we walked to the Boyle home to offer condolences. Gerry and his ailing mother lived on the bottom floor of a brownstone, a fairly short walk and a world away from Tommy’s and my comfortable home in Washington Square. The place bore silent witness to the Leprechaun’s ill-gotten gains: the Boyles shared three full rooms, with a door to a small backyard. Many families in that neighborhood would be grateful to have four grubby walls to themselves.
We crossed a group of visitors on the stoop, including a couple of women I vaguely remembered from elementary school. If you didn’t know, you’d think they were twenty years older than me, worn down from the backbreaking work of keeping their own – and other people’s -- homes clean, and a baby every year since their teens.
As usual, I was glad I’d worn a very simple black dress. Probably no one would miss that it was high-quality merino wool, beautifully made, but they would also know I wasn’t deliberately showing off my prosperity – which was the point. But I couldn’t hide the fact that I still had a slim waist, smooth hands, and all my teeth well into my thirties, and I was always sad for my schoolmates.
“God forgive me, Father, I’m not sorry he’s gone.” The comment came from a sizeable man in the passing knot of people.
“I’m sorry?” Father Michael stopped and turned. Tommy and I moved ahead, murmuring inane pleasantries, and Cousin Andrew tried to look as unobtrusive as possible. In most places, it’s not very easy, but at an Irish family gathering, a short redheaded man occasions no notice at all.
“That boy Brendan, the Leprechaun, was nothing but evil.” The man, who had the sturdy build of a construction worker, stuffed into a suit that had probably fit at his wedding, spat the last word. “Whoever killed him deserves a medal.”
“Oh?”
“Just sayin’, Father. Not asking for absolution.”
Father Michael exchanged glances with his cousin as two more voices chimed in.
“He’s right, you know.”
“Plain evil.”
Tommy and I kept our faces neutral as the Denny sisters, redheaded twins Joan and Jeanette, chirped agreement.
“The shame he brought on the family,” Joan said.
“Beating people for money.” Jeannette tutted.
“Whoever killed him did the Lord’s work.”
The last voice had a steely seriousness. A woman about my age with burning green-gray eyes.
“Ma’am?” Cousin Andrew asked, turning to her. “Is there something the police should know?”
“You should know better, Andrew Riley,” she snapped. “And you should know the Leprechaun killed my man. I’d be Mrs. Bridget O’Herlihy these five years if not for him. So don’t you coppers dare lock up poor simple Gerry Boyle.”
“Bridget–” the detective began.
“Bridget Carey. And if you need someone to confess to killing the Leprechaun, I’ll happily do it. My life’s ruined.”
“No one will be doing any confessing right now,” Father Michael cut in, trying to pour oil on the troubled waters.
By now, Cousin Andrew had the stunned look of a tenement kid at the candy counter. Too many possibilities – how to choose one?
“Why don’t we go pay our respects,” I suggested. “Perhaps we’ll get a better sense of what’s really going on.”
Ever the little optimist, I am.
Inside the building, Tommy knocked gently, and a scruffy young girl, skinny, blonde, and probably in her early teens, opened the door, looked us over without interest and called to the woman on the couch.
“More visitors, Aunt Kitty!”
Mrs. Boyle raised eyes swollen nearly shut from crying and held out her hands to the priest. “Father!”
He moved quickly to her, so quickly the edge of his cassock almost knocked one of the knickknacks off the side table. The piece, a praying angel, wobbled, but didn’t fall. It was green, and heavy – probably Connemara marble. Several other angel figures were scattered through the room, mostly porcelain, but some glass and wood, too. Someone had tried to surround the Boyles with heavenly protection – or perhaps thought of Mrs. Boyle as an angel.
Probably gifts from the Leprechaun.
Mrs. Boyle dissolved in sobs, and the niece glanced at the scene with unmitigated disgust and slipped away. She was young enough she should still be in school, but in this neighborhood, girls start work – and families – early. I resolved to send over some books.
“He was a good boy,” she told Father Michael through gasps.
Her definition of good was likely rather different than his. Or ours.
“I’m sure he took care of you.” The priest kept his tone neutral. “I’ll be praying for you both…and poor Gerry of course, too.”
At the mention of her other son, the mother looked up sharply, suddenly alert. “He never, never would hurt his brother.”
“No?” the priest asked, cutting his eyes to Cousin Andrew.
“No. He worshiped Brendan. Followed him around like a puppy. And Brendan was a good boy – he looked out for Gerry, never brushed him off or nothing.”
“Like I look out for this one,” Tommy said, nodding to me. “But she’s a handful.”
“Not Gerry. He’s a good, quiet boy,” the grieving mother assured us. “If anyone came after Brendan, it was one of those rotten friends of his.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I offered, because I had nothing useful to add.
She broke down again, this time with a heartbroken intensity that suggested there’d be no further insight.
We waited a few minutes, murmuring useless platitudes as politeness required, then finally pulled away when she fell into a fitful sleep. Father Michael tucked Mrs. Boyle’s afghan around her and I topped off her teacup from the admittedly lukewarm pot, not that it would help. But the niece appeared to be long gone, and we couldn’t very well just leave her in a heap.
As we stepped outside into the chilly gray afternoon, I heard a giggle.
The niece was on the walk, talking to a fellow. He was in the worn, but well-kept clothes of a workman, and was probably a pretty rough-looking character under any other circumstances. But smiling at the girl, he definitely had the easy charm for which Irish men are known.
I supposed I should have taken her aside and had a word about finishing her education before casting eyes on a man, but I was glad the girl was getting at least one happy moment on this awful day.
“So, Andrew?” the priest asked his cousin as we walked into the street. “Do you think they made a mistake by just scooping up Gerry?”
“Well,” Cousin Andrew said, “there’s certainly a question now.”
“Isn’t there, though?” Tommy shook his head.
“And far too many possible answers,” I said.

***

The next morning, the Feast of Saint Patrick began the way any other holy day did for Tommy and me when we were home: Mass at Holy Innocents. I see no contradiction in lighting my mother’s Sabbath candles on Friday nights and praying in my father’s church on Sundays. God knows who I am, and He’ll sort it out when the time comes.
Besides, Father Michael gives a bang-up homily.
This year, the spiritual comfort was especially welcome, considering that we’d made so little headway in helping poor Gerry Boyle. Tommy had gone to see him in the Tombs and come back even more discouraged than he’d been after leaving the Boyle home.
Too many possible suspects and no good way to put any of them in the frame. And the brother literally red-handed from trying to help.
Honestly, Gerry’s fate was down to prayers and luck unless we could come up with something better.
At least Father Michael did not disappoint, favoring us with a few sparkly words about the joy of being Irish and the privilege of being part of a community that loves and cares for its own, urging us to carry ourselves proudly in the world.
It is not the day to speak of famine and prejudice, though we never forget they’re there.
Toms and I waited at the back of the line after the service so we could have a good conversation with the priest. Perhaps he’d seen something we hadn’t at the condolence call.
After the Saint Patrick’s pleasantries were exchanged, Father Michael’s amiable face clouded with concern. “What’s going to happen to that poor Boyle fellow?”
“I’m not sure,” Tommy said. “I visited the Tombs last night, and he just kept rocking back and forth and calling out ‘Mama.’ Once, I managed to get him to say ‘Angel Mama.’”
“Terrible.” The priest sighed. “When people like him suffer a shock, they sometimes get stuck in it.”
“Stuck?” I asked.
“Their minds work a bit differently than ours, you know,” Father Michael explained carefully. “If something awful happens, it can be like one of those wax cylinders of yours…they get stuck playing it over and over.”
“Wanting his mama to save him,” Tommy suggested.
“Perhaps. Or he ran to her after – it’s hard to know.”
“Mrs. Boyle told the coppers she was asleep in the other room when it happened.” I met Tommy’s gaze, and then the priest’s, as a terrible suspicion grew. It was a relief that I wasn’t the only one who might be thinking it.
“But he was beaten to death,” Father Michael said finally. “Wasn’t he?”
“No,” Tommy said. “He died of a single blow to the head from a heavy object.”
“Like a carved Connemara marble angel?” I asked, remembering that piece on the side table.
“We need to get Andrew,” the priest said. “I’ll come along.”
We collected Cousin Andrew at the precinct house and again walked to the Boyle home. After Father Michael’s initial explanation to the detective, none of us said much, all quietly hoping our unthinkable suspicions were wrong.
At the brownstone, the scruffy young cousin answered the door again, reminding me of my resolve to make sure she was going to school.
“Thank you, Maura.” Mrs. Boyle said, her sad, swollen eyes taking in the four of us. “Have you heard something about Gerry?”
“Nothing yet,” Cousin Andrew said. “We’re still sorting it out. It’s possible Gerry saw what happened.”
“Has he said anything?”
Either Mrs. Boyle was a monster, or we were wrong. No mother, not even one who’d done the worst, could have asked that question with such honest confusion. Maybe poor Gerry was just calling for his mama.
“No, ma’am,” Cousin Andrew said. “We’re just sorting out things.”
“Oh, Maura!” Mrs. Boyle wailed, reaching for her niece as she burst into fresh sobs.
Maura. Mama.
Maybe Gerry wasn’t calling for his mother after all.
I looked at the scruffy girl. Remembered her talking to the young man on the stoop. And wondered.
What if Brendan saw Maura with him, had the same thought I had…and tried to shoo the fellow away? There’s nothing more dangerous than a teenage girl denied what she wants. Not even the Leprechaun.
Father Michael had said people like Gerry sometimes get stuck in a moment. What if Gerry kept seeing Maura and the angel?
I looked at the green marble angel figurine. There were some faint rusty marks on the base. Blood.
“Maura,” I said, resting my hand on the angel’s head, “do you know something about this?”
Tommy and Father Michael stared at me in shock.
Both, brothers to numerous sisters, should have known better.
Maura looked at me. Shrugged and chose defiance. “All right. I did it.”
“You?” the grieving mother breathed, pushing the girl away.
Furious, Maura leapt to her feet. “He was a common criminal, Aunt Kitty, not some bloody saint.”
“He was my boy!” Mrs. Boyle dissolved in sobs. Father Michael moved to comfort her.
“What happened?” Cousin Andrew asked. “Did he try to-”
“Not hardly.” Maura let out a derisive snort and her eyes flashed fire. So much for the mousy little cousin. “He told me I couldn’t marry Jack Morrissey. Said he knew Jack was bad news and I was better off without him. Like he was one to talk about bad news.”
“Maybe,” I started gently, “he wanted you to have a better life than his.”
“And maybe it was none of his business.” She tossed her head. “Go ahead and arrest me. I’ll happily hang for Jack.”
“How old are you, child?” Father Michael asked.
“Fifteen. I’m a woman-”
“Not in the eyes of the law, you’re not.” Cousin Andrew shook his head. “Can you three keep order for a few minutes while I call a police matron?”

***

After we finally managed to take Aunt Ellen her shamrocks, we walked back to the townhouse, rather quiet and reflective after all that had happened.
“Good day’s work, Heller.” Tommy smiled, using his childhood nickname for me. I’d been quite a handful as a girl. But probably not capable of murder. Probably.
“Better than expected,” I said. “Gerry’s cleared and home with his mother, and Cousin Andrew’s writing it up as an assault gone wrong, so Maura is headed for the reformatory.”
“Maybe she’ll really learn something,” Tommy said. “She’s young enough to change.”
“Father Michael will send his prayers – and probably some nuns to set her on a good reading course.”
“She might yet turn out all right.” He didn’t sound like he believed it.
“Isn’t redemption always possible?”
“Anything’s possible.” His tone was reflective, his handsome face a bit sad. “We turned out a lot better than anyone would expect from poor tenement kids, after all.”
“Thanks to good hard work and a little luck,” I agreed.
“Luck of the Irish, maybe.” He shot me a sparkly smile as he took off the good trilby he’d worn for church and picked up his battered old fedora.
“Off to tip a pint with the sports writers?”
“One should raise a glass for fair Ireland on this day, after all.”
“One should.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be home early. I leave the drunken brawls to the shanty Irish.”
“Good.”
As the door closed behind Tommy, our maid Rosa walked into the foyer, carrying a big, beautiful bowl of shamrocks.
“This came for you, Miss.”
“Really?” Puzzled, I took the bowl from her. I wasn’t anyone’s sweetheart and certainly not a mother, so who would trouble to send them? I read the bold printing on the plain white card:

Ellen,
You have the voice AND the heart of an angel.
Thank you. I’m in your debt.

No signature. None needed.
Connor wasn’t in the habit of handing out markers like that.
Hopefully, I would never need his kind of help… but if ever I did, it would be far more certain than the luck of the Irish.

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