Fatal Roots Read online

  “I suppose. What’s on our calendar? Rose has a class in Skib tomorrow morning, and Helen said she’d be back with some more information about what equipment she could give us, or maybe she’ll send Susan. And weren’t we talking about taking another look at my fairy fort, to see if anyone has been poking around in it lately?”

  “If the sun is right, it’s a good plan. No further word from Sean or the students?”

  “No, and I’m not going to hunt down Ciara and friends. I really don’t have much to add to solving Ciara’s problems. Let’s just hope somebody’s found Darragh and the Cork students can finish what they started.”

  Maura went home alone that night, which was a bit of a relief. She admitted she had strong feelings for Mick, although she was reluctant to label them. But at the same time, she spent most of her time at the pub, surrounded by people, and she craved just a little time alone. She had come to realize that she liked living in the country, without noise or artificial lights or passing cars. What she hadn’t known was how much the noise and lights and passing cars—and drunken pedestrians—in Boston had kept her on edge. Rural Ireland was a pleasant change, and she had found that she enjoyed it more and more as time passed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mick arrived early at her cottage the next morning so they could make the short trip to the fairy ring together. She didn’t think she’d find much there, but she wanted to check one more thing off her to-do list. Look for disturbed soil in a fairy ring was not typical, but it should be quick. She didn’t really expect results, because she knew Sean had already searched it, but under different conditions—late in the day, in waning light. If she and Mick didn’t find anything, she wouldn’t even mention it to Sean.

  Again it took only a few minutes to reach the field with the ring. They didn’t pass any farmers, although one lonely cow stared at them over a hedge as they passed. It was another lovely day, with wisps of mist in low-lying parts of the land that would burn off quickly when the sun hit them. Mick was driving, and he pulled into the same dirt lane where she had parked before.

  “What is it we’re looking for?” Maura asked him. “It’s so pretty, I almost hate to disturb it here.”

  “We agreed we wanted to see if there was any sign of someone digging, when the sun hits the soil at the right angle. If there’s nothing to be seen, we can head for the pub.”

  “Got it. Is it going to be bad luck if we climb over the edge of the ring? Is there a prayer I should say?”

  “Are yeh serious, Maura?” He regarded her quizzically.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but there’s a lot of this that I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s start, then,” Mick told her, as he opened his door and climbed out of the car, while Maura climbed out the other side.

  It was even lovelier outside of the car: the air was fresh, and drops of dew twinkled on the foliage, which Maura couldn’t begin to identify. An occasional bird flew past, ignoring them. She could hear a cow lowing in the distance. With some regret, she told Mick, “Might as well get it done.”

  He led the way across the field toward the ring. The structure was no taller than he was, but tall enough that he couldn’t see over it into the interior.

  “Did this place ever have an entrance?” Maura asked.

  “Probably, but I don’t think anyone bothered to maintain it. And I suppose fairies don’t need a door or gate.”

  “Can I climb to the top, or will they throw things at me?”

  “I wouldn’t worry. Just don’t fall off.”

  Maura looked for a section of the perimeter with easy footholds and carefully made her way up to the top. She pivoted so that she was looking at the interior of the ring. She saw grass and weeds, but they were spread evenly over the surface, which was level. The sun was rising behind her, and hitting the interior of the ring at a sharp angle … and then she realized there was an elongated, curved shadow in the center. She shut her eyes and opened them again, but it was still there—although at the rate the sun was rising, it might not be visible for long. “Mick?” she said.

  “What?” he answered.

  “Come look at this and tell me if I’m imagining things.”

  He clambered up quickly and settled beside her. “What am I lookin’ at?”

  Maura pointed. “There. In the center.”

  It took Mick a moment to figure out what she saw, and then he straightened abruptly. “There’s a depression in the grass, right? It’s been there a while, because the grass is grown, although I can’t say how long. Could be weeks, could be years.”

  “Do you think Ciara or Darragh saw it?”

  “I wouldn’t be sure, since the light has to be right. Are we goin’ to get closer?”

  “I guess. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  Maura felt a weird sense of foreboding as she slid down the interior side of the ring. She chided herself: she was just being silly. It could be almost anything, or nothing at all. And she didn’t see any fairies.

  Mick followed behind her. “Do yeh want to do the honors?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is this thing a figment of our imaginations, or is there something real there?”

  Maura had reached a spot maybe a foot from the dip, but she wasn’t ready to poke it. She walked slowly around it, but it didn’t disappear. It didn’t look disturbed, but it was definitely there. “Do you think some animal took a nap there, or just rolled around?”

  “Unlikely, I’d say. Do you want me to see if there’s anything there?”

  “I guess. Do you have a penknife or something? Or are you just going to dig with your hands?”

  “Hands.” He knelt at the edge of the dip and poked gently. “Feels like the rest of the dirt here, so the hole is probably not very new.”

  “Can you get this over with? Either there’s something there, or there’s nothing and we can go find breakfast.”

  She watched Mick’s hands prodding the soil and grass. Finally he started working his fingers gently into a section of it—and then he stopped abruptly and looked up at Maura. “There’s something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Sean’ll have my hide if I disturb anything important.”

  “And he’ll do the same thing if we call him out here to look at mud. Go ahead, unless you want me to do it.”

  “Be my guest.” He stood up, then took a step back.

  Maura took his place. Her hands were smaller than his and slid easily into the dirt. It seemed to have been disturbed recently and the top layer felt fairly soft, though she found the edge of the dip and thought it was harder in texture. Finally she gathered her courage and worked her hand into a spot different than the one Mick had tried. A couple of inches down she encountered something. Not a rock, because it wasn’t that hard. Not a newly dead body, which would be squishy, so it couldn’t be Darragh. It felt more like leather, with some harder bits mixed in. Part of her wanted to squeal like a terrified child. A bigger part wanted to know what the heck it was, so she began to scrape away the surface soil barehanded.

  After a couple more inches she found something that felt both soft and hard. She took a deep breath and pushed aside the dirt that covered it, then took a hard look at it. And another one, to be sure she wasn’t wrong. Then, without turning, she said, “Mick, I think you need to see this.”

  He knelt beside her. “It’s human. It looks like a hand, and it’s been here for a while. The skin’s all but gone, but the bones seem to be intact.”

  Maura caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye, and when she turned to look, she saw an animal she didn’t recognize, about the size of a small dog. She elbowed Mick in the ribs. “What the heck is that?” she hissed.

  He turned to follow her gaze. “Looks to be a badger.”

  “There are badgers around here?” Maura asked, keeping as still as possible. “Are they dangerous?”

  “They’re not meat eaters, if that’s what
yeh’re askin’. Mostly they’re nocturnal, and they live in small hollows or caves. This one might still have young, although they’d be a couple of months old by now.”

  “Okay, so what do they eat?” Maura’s heart rate was dropping gradually.

  “By choice, earthworms. Mebbe beetles. Not humans.”

  Maura realized what that meant. “You’re saying that whatever messed up the soil in that patch in the middle was more likely a badger than a person?”

  “That’d be my guess. It wasn’t looking for bones, I’d wager. Probably hunting for worms.”

  “Great. Now I’ve got a badger in a fairy fort that has found a corpse. Should I call Sean?”

  “It’s a safe bet that the hand—and whatever’s left of the rest—does not belong to Darragh. You can tell Sean about it, and he’ll probably need to do something, but it’s not urgent. The body’s been there a long time.”

  “Centuries?” Maura asked.

  Mick shook his head. “More like less than a century but more than a day. It’s not Darragh, as I said.”

  Maura pulled her hands away from the pit, rubbing the damp dirt off on her jeans. “I think you’re right.” Mick reached into his pocket for his phone, but Maura stopped him. “I should do it. It’s my land.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Mick said.

  “It is.” She retrieved her own phone and walked across the ring, turning her back on Mick. Once again she hit Sean’s number, and when he answered, she said, “It’s Maura. Mick and I have found something else at the ring fort. No, it’s not Darragh, but it is a body—an old one, and it’s been there a while. But not a thousand years. I imagine the gardaí will have to do something about it? Or we could all forget we’ve seen it. Oh, and it looks like I have a badger family, and they found it first.”

  Sean sighed. “I should have known things went too smoothly with yeh. I’ll come out there and look it over. But yeh can go ahead into Leap. I’ll talk to yeh there when I know more.” Sean ended the call.

  Maura walked back to where Mick was standing, staring at whoever it was who lay at his feet, or what little could be seen of him. Or her. “He’s coming?” Mick asked.

  “On his way. He said we could go on to Sullivan’s. Nice that he doesn’t believe we would have killed someone a few hundred years ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Maura.”

  “Don’t be, Mick. You thought we should take a last look at this place, and I agreed. Or maybe the fairies called to me. Damn, that sounds stupid. Look, I’m happy it’s not Darragh, and I can’t begin to guess who it is. Let Sean take care of all that. It’s not Old Mick, is it?”

  “No, it can’t be—I went to his funeral. So unless somebody dug him up and planted him here, it won’t be him. And what’s left looks too old anyways.”

  “Then who? Any guesses?”

  “No, but there’ve been many deaths in this area, going back a long way. Maybe Sean will have an idea, or at least an old list of people who’ve gone missing. Probably before his time, though. Do yeh think Ciara and her friends found this?”

  “Well, nobody was talking about it. But then, they didn’t mention seeing any badgers either, although I guess they’d be likely to hide. And Ciara seemed honestly excited about doing this research. You think that was just a cover story that would let her hunt for a body? And she’s my age. Could she have known this … what? Man? Woman? She claimed she’d never even been to this part of Cork—she’d only seen maps. But even if she knew what or who she was looking for, how would she have known?”

  “Maura, I’ve no idea. Shall we get ourselves to Leap?”

  “I suppose. Oh, and one good thing has come of this.”

  “And that would be?” Mick asked.

  “I’ve found I have my own badger. I’ve never seen one. Do I have to do anything with it? Feed it? Start an earthworm colony for it? Or just leave it be?”

  “I think it would rather be alone, Maura. Yeh can come out here now and then and see if yeh catch a glimpse of it. And the family. Or more—sometimes they live in colonies, and it’s a big ring fort. It’s probably been a home to badgers for a long time. You ready to go?”

  Maura thought for a moment. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to talk to Sean when he gets here. Let’s sit on the wall and wait for him.”

  Maura and Mick were waiting side by side on the top of the ring fort wall when Sean’s car pulled up. He climbed out and crossed the field to where they sat. “What’ve yeh got, Maura?”

  “We’ve found a burial inside the ring fort.”

  “Who is it?”

  “We don’t know, but there’s a body, and we figure it’s been there too long to be Darragh. Once we found it, we left it alone. Are you missing any people?”

  Sean straightened, and his expression grew hard. “Let me take a look. In the circle, you say?”

  “Yes, pretty much in the middle.”

  “Wait here, both of yiz.”

  Mick stood and offered Maura a hand to pull her up. They remained standing on the edge of the fort’s wall, watching as Sean carefully approached the small hole they’d dug to reveal part of the body. Sean found it easily enough, then spent a couple of minutes staring down at what the hole held. Then he knelt to look at it more carefully. Finally he stood up again, pulled out his phone, and made a call. Maura assumed he was calling the garda station and requesting more people to identify the body and what had happened to him. Or her.

  Finally he came back to where Maura was standing. “I’d hoped you were pullin’ my leg, but yeh were right. There’s a body in there, or at least some of one, and it’s human. I won’t investigate any further—there are others better suited to that. It’s safe to say it’s not the man we were lookin’ for. Is there anythin’ more yeh know?”

  “Sean,” Maura began, then swallowed and tried again. “I’m not from here, remember? I didn’t know I owned this piece of land until this week. I don’t know the history of the townland or the county or even Ireland—it’s nothing they teach back in Boston. Mick and I, we came out here this morning to see if we’d missed anything. Clearly we did. And now we’re handing the whole mess over to you. Can we go to Leap now? You know where to find us.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll come by later when we know more. And try not to talk about it yet. Nobody saw you come out here this mornin’ or noticed you pokin’ around in the dirt?”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Maura told him. “Mick?”

  “Nor did I. It’s been a quiet mornin’.”

  “Then go to the pub, and I’ll be round later.”

  “Thanks, Sean,” Maura said, then turned to climb out of the ring. Mick followed, and they remained silent until they reached his car.

  “Will I drive you in, or do yeh want yer car?”

  “I hate to sound like a wimp, but I don’t really want to be alone. Do you mind taking me?”

  “And bringin’ yeh home. Not a problem.”

  “And when we get to Sullivan’s, remind me to wash my hands—it was kind of creepy, finding somebody else’s hand.”

  “I understand.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  As they drove toward Leap, Mick said, “Yeh’re quiet.”

  “What do you expect?” she snapped at him. “We just found a body. On my property. I’ve never dug up a body before, not even in Boston. Blood on the pavement maybe, but not someone dead. And we don’t know who he is. It’s unsettling. Though the badger helped.”

  “Don’t bite my head off. And remember that badgers aren’t very friendly, so don’t go thinkin’ of pettin’ one.”

  “Mick, Gran and I never even had a kitten, so I guess I’m not into animals, and I sure wouldn’t go petting wild ones. Anyway, would you be happier if I burst into tears?” Maura demanded.

  Mick pulled over abruptly by the side of the road. “I’m not judgin’ you, Maura. I don’t expect you to go all girlish, or start cryin’ on my shoulder. If yeh don’t want to look upset, that’s up to you. Mi
ght be better, in fact, if Sean doesn’t want us to go around blabbing about what we’ve found.”

  Maura turned in her seat to look at him. “Why should we not talk about it?”

  “I keep fergettin’ yeh’re not from around here. There’s a long history of violence between different groups in West Cork. I don’t expect yeh learned about it in yer schools in Boston, but many men died here once the Troubles began. On both sides. Which makes me think that’s where our man in the ring fort might come from, and that Old Mick might’ve known something about it. Leave it to Sean to look into it.”

  “You still haven’t told me why not to talk about it.”

  “Because odds are the man—I’m guessin’ it was a man—is related to someone, or known to someone around here.”

  “But that means he could have died as much as a century ago,” Maura protested. “Who’s going to remember? And if they do, why shouldn’t they tell the gardaí?”

  “I’m guessin’ it’s less time than that, but the conflict goes on. Yeh’ve already found that memories are long around here. And people in this county have lost a lot of family, one way or another—people were killed, they emigrated, they went to prison. Or they just disappeared, and nobody said anythin’ about it.”

  Maura thought for a moment. “Okay, so we don’t want to dig up any sad memories. But I still don’t see why we can’t talk about it with other people. How are we supposed to find out who it might have been?”

  “Let Sean and the gardaí figger it out. Or at least start lookin’.”

  Maura glanced at her watch. “Damn, I’m supposed to be meeting with Helen and Susan back at the pub, to see what they’ve turned up in the way of appliances. So, fine, I’m not saying anything to anyone. It’s not like I knew the dead guy, and I’m not looking to find out who he was. Maybe he has nothing to do with me, or us, or with anyone else around here.” She was silent while Mick started up the car again. “One more thing …”

  Mick kept his eyes on the road. “What?”

  “Do you think there was any chance Ciara and the guys knew anything about this? I mean, this was the first circle they picked to look at, and it wasn’t by chance: they had to find maps and then find me in order to get there. I can’t say whether it’s the biggest or the most important monument they could choose, but it’s a real coincidence. I guess we’ll have to wait to see if Sean’s found them, or found out anything about them. I’ve already told him all I know. Anyway, I hope I haven’t kept Helen waiting.”