Murphy's Law (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #1)

"This is the men's dormitory," he said, coming up to us in such a threatening way that I backed hastily. "What are you doing hanging around here?"

"I'm sorry, but the little girl was sleepwalking," I said. "There's no need to shout

at us. We're going back to the women's dormitory this minute."

"And make sure you stay there," he thundered, "Or you'll be sent back where you came from."

I could feel him watching us as I carried the sobbing child back to the safety of the women's dormitory. When I went to sleep again, it was with my arm tightly around Bridie. I wasn't taking any chances.

Women were stirring around me. It was hardly light and the room was distinctly chilly. Surely there was no need to get us up before dawn, was there? But there were lights on in the hallway outside and I could hear alarmed voices shouting and running feet. Something was wrong. A fire? Maybe this grand new building wasn't as fireproof as they thought. But I couldn't smell smoke, and it certainly wasn't what you could describe as warm.

At that moment the electric light was turned on in our room and a guard stood in the doorway. "Everybody up and downstairs to the dining room now," the guard commanded. "There's coffee down there. Wait until you're told what to do next."

He hurried us out and down the stairs to the dining hall. Men from our ship were already sitting at one of the long tables. Wives went to join husbands. I could hear the whisper running from table to table like wildfire. "Yes, in our very room. I saw it myself. Horrible, it was ... poor man ..."

I glimpsed Michael Larkin sitting among the men. He usually looked pale but today he looked positively ashen. I hurried up to him. "I'm so glad to see you're still here," I said. "Do you know what happened?"

A woman leaned across him. "A man was killed," she said in a hoarse whisper.

"An accident?" I asked.

A man farther down the table leaned toward us. "No accident. The fellow had his throat slit from ear to ear."

"A fight?" The man shook his head. "In his sleep, it must have been. Someone who knew what he was doing, that's for sure--and a powerful sharp knife. I was only three beds away and I heard nothing. None of us heard a thing."

"The poor man," the woman beside me said, crossing herself. "To come all this way and then that. Still, he did ask for trouble, didn't he?"

"Who was it?" I asked. "Someone we knew?"

Before Michael could answer, the woman spoke again. "Why, it was that man O'Malley," she said. "The one you slapped across the face."

I have to admit that my first reaction was one of relief. O'Malley was dead. He wouldn't be stirring up any trouble for me with the immigration inspectors. He wouldn't be waiting to make things hard for me in New York. He wouldn't be making trouble for anyone. He was gone. I knew that any good Catholic would be praying for his immortal soul at this moment, but I had never been a good Catholic. I was glad he was gone. Now I was one step closer to being home free.

I squeezed myself and the children onto the bench beside Michael.

"In your dormitory, was it?" I asked.

He still looked shocked and ashen.

"I was the first person to discover him," Michael said. "His throat ... he was wearing that red neck scarf ... bright red ... and all that blood ..." He closed his eyes and shuddered. "I wished him ill, but not like that. No human should be butchered like that. ..."

I put my hand on his arm. "Here, drink a cup of coffee. You'll feel better."

After about an hour of sitting, waiting, and speculating we were led through into the great hall they call the registry room. There were only enough of us to fill the front few benches and the hall echoed to the clatter of our feet. They obviously hadn't allowed any more ships to land. The big room was cold and drafty without the benefit of all those bodies. I found myself shivering and wrapped my shawl close around me.

Bridie, completely unaware of the horrors of the night, was full of beans and wanted to run around. She squirmed and fussed on my lap until I let Seamus take her off into a corner where the other children were playing. It was then I noticed that men were guarding the doorways--they weren't dressed in the braid and peaked caps of the island guards, but in blue uniforms and tall helmets. Instantly recognizable as policemen. They stood, motionless, watching us.

A group of men came into the room. Some of them were uniformed, too, but the administrator who addressed us yesterday was with them, deep in conversation with a young man wearing a derby and the sort of tweed jacket you might see in Ireland. I wondered if they had already detained a suspect, but then the

young man looked up, nodded, and laughed. Clearly not a suspect, then.