Cruel Winter: A County Cork Mystery Read online

  Also Available by Sheila Connolly

  The County Cork Mysteries

  A Turn for the Bad

  An Early Wake

  Scandal in Skibbereen

  Buried in a Bog

  The Museum Mysteries

  Dead End Street

  Privy to the Dead

  Razing the Dead

  Monument to the Dead

  Fire Engine Dead

  Let’s Play Dead

  Fundraising the Dead

  The Orchard Mysteries

  Seeds of Deception

  A Gala Event

  Picked to Die

  Golden Malicious

  Sour Apples

  Bitter Harvest

  A Killer Crop

  Red Delicious Death

  Rotten to the Core

  One Bad Apple

  Relatively Dead Mysteries

  Watch for the Dead

  Defending the Dead

  Seeing the Dead

  Relatively Dead

  The Glassblowing Mysteries (as Sarah Atwell)

  Snake in the Glass

  Pane of Death

  Through a Glass, Deadly

  Also Available

  Reunion with Death

  Once She Knew

  Cruel Winter

  A County Cork Mystery

  Sheila Connolly

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Sheila Connolly.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-100-3

  ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-101-0

  ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-68331-102-7

  ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-103-4

  Cover design by Louis Malcangi.

  Cover illustration by Rob Wood.

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First Edition: March 2017

  Is maith an scéalaí an aimsir.

  The storyteller likes the weather.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Maura Donovan all but slammed the front door of Sullivan’s Pub behind her. “Why is it so bleeping cold in here?”

  Mick Nolan looked up from scrubbing the top of the bar. “Yer here early. And it’s no colder than it’s been, Maura. Where’s yer coat?”

  “Don’t have one,” Maura muttered.

  Mick set down his cleaning rag. “You’ve no coat? It’s winter now, isn’t it? And you from Boston?”

  Maura wrapped her arms around herself and stalked over to the fire, which Mick had started, thank goodness. Stoked with peat, it gave off little warmth, but it was better than nothing. “When I got here it was spring, remember? I didn’t think I’d stay long, so I figured I’d never need a coat.” But he was right: she needed a winter coat now.

  She decided not to mention that the one she’d left behind in Boston hadn’t been worth bringing with her—she wasn’t looking for Mick’s pity. After her grandmother’s death, Maura had taken care of the funeral, settled the bills, left the rented apartment they’d shared for years, and realized there was little she cared to save. She’d cadged some attic space in a friend’s house to store the few boxes she had and taken off to Ireland, the last thing her gran had asked of her. She’d brought little more than the clothes she wore and a carry-on because she thought she’d carry her grandmother’s farewells to anyone who remembered her in this corner of West Cork and then return to Boston a week or two later.

  That had been in March. Nine months later, she was still in the tiny village of Leap, where she’d inherited a pub as well as a house up in the hills north of Leap, all from a distant relative of her gran’s—Old Mick Sullivan, that was, no relation to the younger Mick who had worked for Old Mick and had stayed on when Maura took over the place. Thank goodness he had, because she had been clueless about running anything, much less a pub in foreign country. To be fair, she knew a bit about Ireland, but all of it secondhand from the various Irish workers who had passed through her grandmother’s kitchen and who had usually enjoyed a generous meal from her.

  But as it turned out, Old Mick and her gran had kept in touch over the years after Gran had come to Boston with her son, Maura’s father. And since Old Mick had never married or had children, and Gran had worried about Maura’s future, they’d cooked up a plot to take care of her—without bothering to tell Maura. She still wasn’t sure why Gran had kept that a secret.

  Maura had told herself back then that she’d wait and see how things went, and now she was closing in on the end of a year in Ireland. Grudgingly she admitted she kind of liked what she was doing, which had surprised her. At least it was nice to be her own boss after a few years of working at dead-end jobs in Boston.

  “Is the heat working?” she demanded.

  “As well as it ever does,” Mick replied. “Leave yer jersey on if yer cold.”

  “I’m already wearing most of the clothes I have.” She actually had on three layers, topped with a heavy wool sweater she’d found in a thrift—no, charity shop in Skibbereen.

  “Is the heat working out at yer place?”

  “Yes. That was some advice I still thank you for. I think of you every time it goes on.” Mick had had to explain to her how the heat in her small and elderly cottage worked and had found someone to supply her with oil, back when it had first turned cold. “What’s the heat for this place?”

  “You’ve paid the bills, have you not?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. So it’s oil too?”

  “That and the fire there. You know as well as I do that once this place is filled with folk, it warms up fast.”

  “I’m cold now,” Maura grumbled, feeling like a sulky child. “Who’s coming in today?”

  “Jimmy’ll be in around midday, and Rose will come if we happen to get busy.”

  Jimmy and his daughter Rose made up the rest of her so-called staff. “Like that’ll happen—it’s off-season. Tourists don’t come over here to see the rain. They’re looking for rainbows.”

  “The two come hand in hand, do they not? Here, I’ll make yeh a cup of coffee—that’ll warm yeh up a bit. And then I’ll send you out to find a coat. Yeh’ll be needin’ one sooner than later.”

  “Wha
t’s the hurry?” Maura asked, perching on a barstool.

  “Do yeh not listen to the weather reports?”

  “Uh, Mick? I don’t have a television at the cottage, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a radio. Is there something I need to know?”

  “You might say that. The forecasters are after tellin’ us that there’ll be a giant storm, the likes of which we haven’t seen in this century.” Mick looked like he was looking forward to it.

  Now Mick’s early arrival made sense to Maura. “So that’s why you’re here so early. You think people will stop in for one last drink before they’re stuck at home?”

  “I can’t say, but it could happen. And I’d rather be stuck here than at my own place.”

  He made a good point. Maura realized that it had never occurred to her that she should worry about getting up the hill—steep and barely paved—that led to her cottage. Nobody ever seemed to think of Ireland and snow together. Would her elderly car, borrowed from Mick’s grandmother, make the climb? “So where am I supposed to look for a coat?” Maura demanded, sounding defensive to her own ears.

  “There’s places over to Skibbereen—I seem to recall Rose took yeh to visit some a while back. Try the charity shops—there’s plenty of those.”

  “Right.” Great, now she’d be rummaging through a pile of secondhand coats. Good thing she wasn’t counting on her good looks and fashion sense to keep Sullivan’s going. Rose, who was barely seventeen, would be more likely to bring in customers than she was.

  The door opened again to let in Billy Sheahan, most often known as Old Billy by the regulars at the pub. Old Billy was first among those regulars, practically owning the lumpy upholstered chair by the fire, where he held court for anyone who would listen to his tales. He lived in a couple of rooms at the other end of the building, under some arrangement he’d made with Old Mick years back, and Maura hadn’t had the heart to toss him out. Not that there was any need to, since she had no other use for the rooms. Nor that she wanted to: Billy was like a walking encyclopedia of West Cork, Skibbereen, Leap, and most of the people in this part of the country. While he was past eighty, his mind was sharp and so was his humor, although he was kind to everyone. Maura felt he was kind of like a grandfather she’d never had.

  “You’re in early, Billy,” Maura said, then realized that meant it must be officially opening time. Billy took care not to look for special privileges at the pub, like coming in early or leaving late. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “I have done, although I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea. But I figgered you’d have a fire going, and why waste me own turf?”

  “Is your place cold too?”

  Billy waved a dismissive hand. “No more than ever. Mebbe it’s me bones that’re feelin’ it now.”

  “Mick, does our heat cover Billy’s space?” Maura asked. She’d never given it any thought before.

  “It should do, although I’m guessing the ducts haven’t been cleared in a long time.”

  Maura could handle being cold herself, but she didn’t want Billy to be uncomfortable or—heaven forbid—to get sick. “We should look into that. After all, we’ve got a little more money coming in with the music now.” Recently, Maura had revived the pub’s long-standing tradition of offering live music, something that Old Mick had begun years back but had let lapse as he grew older. The success of the effort had surprised Maura. “Maybe we should check out the building, see what else needs doing.”

  “Up to you, Maura,” Mick said with little enthusiasm. He filled a mug with hot water from the coffee machine behind the bar and dropped a tea bag into it.

  “Yeh might be wanting to turn on the telly, Maura,” Old Billy said as he settled himself into his chair.

  “To check on the weather?” Maura asked. Why was Billy tuned in to things like that when she wasn’t? They had the necessary television above the bar, mainly for sports events. Maura still hadn’t figured out which team was which or who cared about which rivalry, but people—guys, at least—seemed to expect to be able to watch them.

  “There’s talk of snow comin’,” he told her. “I heard on the radio.”

  Maura hadn’t seen any snow since she’d arrived in Ireland, and here it was January. Back in Boston, snow had been a normal part of daily life, although the massive drifts, frozen rock-hard, lingered long after the pretty blanket of white stuff did. “Is it rare around here?”

  “Yes and no,” Mick answered her. “It doesn’t snow often, particularly in this part of the country, but it can happen, and it’s hard to predict. Most of the time it doesn’t last, but on the other hand, it’s been known to linger on the ground for as much as ten days if it’s cold enough. The thing of it is, if any snow builds up, most everything hereabouts stops in its tracks, save for the main roads, like that one there.” Mick nodded out the front window at the highway that ran in front of the pub. Highway was too grand a term for a two-lane road, but it was the biggest one around this part of Cork, running along the south coast.

  Maura was about to scoff when she remembered the small lanes that led to her cottage a couple of miles away. The ones closer to the village, or to Skibbereen, might be two lanes wide if you had a small car, but by the time she got to her hill, she prayed she wouldn’t meet anyone coming the other way, for there was no room to pass. “I’m guessing that nobody plows the lanes?”

  “You’d be right about that. School buses can’t make it either. And even if the snow melts, if it refreezes after, things get worse, what with the ice.”

  “So should we be worried?” Maura asked.

  “Wouldn’t hurt to check the weather news. Just in case.”

  Maura retrieved the remote control for the television and clicked on the news report. Apparently, the national weather service had just issued a warning of some sort. “Status Orange? What’s that?”

  Mick came around the bar to look at the screen. “There are three levels of warnin’: yellow, orange, and red. Yellow means there’s no immediate threat. Orange means yeh should prepare yourself. And red? That’s pretty rare, and it means maybe yeh should think about leaving the danger zone if yeh can.”

  “Seriously?” Maura said, incredulous. “This building must have seen its share of storms over the years—or maybe centuries. What are we supposed to worry about?”

  “The electric, for one thing. Having enough fuel on hand fer a coupla days. Food.”

  “Am I supposed to send everyone home? Assuming they show up at all?”

  “Yer customers, yer asking? If they’re smart, they’ll tend to their own places. But there’s always a few who want one last pint. At least we’ve just had the latest delivery, so we can all sit in the dark and the cold and drink while we share weather stories.”

  Maura took one last look to see if he was kidding, but he appeared to be serious. Mick had removed the tea bag from the mug on the bar, so Maura gathered that up, along with a small pitcher of milk and the sugar bowl, added a spoon, and took it over to Billy. She set them all on the table next to his chair, then dropped into the chair next to his.

  “Don’t fret yerself, Maura,” Billy said, adding two heaping spoonfuls of sugar to his tea, following that with a dash of milk. “Yer right—this place has survived this long because it’s solid. You’ve nothing to worry about here.”

  “Except a few days of lost customers,” she replied. She hadn’t even seen a full year’s results from running the place, and she had no idea what kind of profit margin she might have. She knew there was money in the bank, but not a lot, and she worried that there were taxes and license fees—the kind of stuff that she hadn’t planned on because she had no idea how much they were. She still had a lot to learn about running a pub. “We’ve fixed the leaks we knew about, and I’ve been told the roof is sound.” Slate, which was plentiful in the area, turned out to be pretty dependable, and Maura was guessing that Old Mick had had the roof replaced a couple of decades earlier.

  “Have yeh seen much of Gillian lately?�
� Billy asked, blowing on his tea.

  Gillian was a local artist and fast becoming Maura’s closest friend, despite a decade’s difference in their ages. “Not really. Mostly when she drops in here. You know she stayed with me for a bit, but then she and Harry sorted things out, and she’s been living at the manor since then.” Maura had wondered how that was working out. Harry Townsend was the last scion of one of the local aristocratic families—or so Maura had been told—and while he lived in Dublin most of the time, he was looking out for his elderly great-aunt Eveline, the only surviving member of the family living in the Big House overlooking the harbor. He and Gillian had been an on-again-off-again item for years, both in Leap and in Dublin, but Gillian had found herself pregnant with his child recently, which had thrown a monkey wrench into their casual arrangement. To his credit, Harry was standing by her, and now she was staying at the manor house with Eveline.

  “And how does that sit with Eveline?” Billy asked.

  “From what Gillian’s told me, Eveline’s glad of the company.” Though Maura had met her, Eveline seldom left the manor house these days. “And she’s accepted that Gillian is pregnant with Harry’s baby. I think she was worried that the family would die out altogether.”

  “I’m glad to know that. I always thought she was a fair-minded woman. Will Harry be settling here in Leap, then?” Billy asked.

  “It’s not clear yet, or at least Gillian hasn’t told me. You know when Eveline . . . passes, the property goes to the National Trust?” Eveline was roughly the same age as Billy, so Maura wanted to tread carefully to avoid hurting Billy’s feelings, but surely he knew that Eveline wouldn’t live forever.

  Billy nodded. “Which puts Harry out on the street, eh?”

  “Well, he’s got a place in Dublin that he rents, but it’s expensive to live there, or so Gillian tells me. He could probably do what he’s doing now in Cork city or Skibbereen, maybe, but they’d still need a place to live.”

  Billy didn’t look worried. “These things have a way of working themselves out, yeh know. Look at yerself.”

  Maura had to smile at his optimism. “What, you think there’s some fairy godfather waiting in the wings to fix everything for Gillian and Harry when the time comes?” Well, in fact, that was just what Old Mick had done for her. Surely that sort of thing wasn’t a regular event, even in Ireland.