The Lost Traveller Page 4

  “Not a problem. And if Harry comes home with some hot gossip about the murder, you’ll let me know, right? I know the gardaí will be checking—heck, the man could have worked there at the hotel, or at least been looking for a job there—but Harry might hear something that the staff didn’t want to mention officially.”

  “Ooh, I get to play detective too? Anyway, thanks for putting up with the pair of us.”

  “Bye, Gillian,” Maura said. “You’re welcome anytime—the both of you.” She was pleased she had managed to cheer Gillian up, but the truth was, she really hadn’t made up her mind whether she liked Gillian’s new style. But Gillian needed the outlet, and Maura had faith that she’d find her way.

  As she had predicted, the men who came into the pub wanted information. She had very little information and didn’t know when or if she’d be getting any more. It was interesting what bits and pieces had leaked out. Everyone knew a body had been found in Leap. Fewer knew where. Even fewer knew that she had been the one to find the man. By the fifth or tenth telling, she had the dialogue memorized. The gardaí hadn’t said she couldn’t share what little she knew—there was nothing to hold back—so she reported what she had found. The men took a rather ghoulish interest in the details, like the state of the poor man’s face, but Maura wasn’t going to go there, and most didn’t press her.

  Sometime around six, Mick offered to spell her at the bar, which no doubt would disappoint the patrons, but she was hungry, since she’d kind of skipped lunch, and she volunteered to pick up some food for all the staff. Once outside Sullivan’s, she realized how stuffy the place had become during the long day and took a moment to sit on the low stone wall on the way to the Costcutter convenience store. But she couldn’t stop herself from looking back at the bridge. There was no way that anyone could have hoisted a body over the fence at this time of day without half the local population noticing, or even cars passing along the road. It had to have been after dark. But dark came late and the sun rose early, which meant there had been a very narrow—what was it called?—window of opportunity. Which should help the gardaí eliminate people with alibis for any time it was light. Maybe four hours, after midnight? The pubs would have been closing or already closed. There was rarely any traffic on the road at that time. Say a car drove up, pulled over, parked. The driver (and a helper?) got out, hauled the body out of the back seat or the trunk—boot—and hauled him—where? Over the chain-link fence directly over the ravine was an unlikely option. which meant they had to go around, and the easiest path led right past Sullivan’s.

  Damn—there was a six feet high gate, but she never thought to lock it. It was more for privacy than security. If she opened up the garden for customers or food, she might have to think about putting a lock on it so people wouldn’t sneak out without paying. But at the moment there was nothing to stop anyone, with or without a body in tow. But why here? There were plenty of abandoned cottages and dead-end lanes and wet bogs where someone could dump a body and no one would ever find it. Or the body could be tossed in the harbor, either at the near end or down by the other bridge, toward Union Hall. Somebody might have to know the tides, to know when the water was high and which way it was flowing, which would kind of point to a local person. But it was possible, wasn’t it? Why dump it in Leap?

  She didn’t have any information to work with. But then, she didn’t pretend to have any information about what would lead one person to kill another person, and how a person would react after the deed was done. The death hadn’t been an accident: the bloody stab wounds in the front of the body showed that. But the maiming of the face had been deliberate—she hoped it had happened after the man was dead—and so had the hiding of the body. Why?

  Who was the dead man?

  Chapter Five

  Still unsatisfied, Maura roused herself and went on up the street to get the food she’d promised, then headed back to Sullivan’s. When she walked in, something felt different. Nothing obvious, but there had been a momentary pause in the conversations, an involuntary turn toward the door. Were people that hungry for information?

  She realized that might be true: these burly farmers might actually be anxious at the idea that there was an unknown brutal killer somewhere around the village, or near enough. She should be anxious too. Why wasn’t she? Her best guess was that she’d blown out all her emotions when she’d first found the body, or stifled them completely, but if she allowed herself to stop and think, she thought that she should worry too. She was a single woman who lived alone in a fairly remote cottage. She was publicly identified as a friend of the gardaí. Somebody—a killer—might think she knew something or was smart enough to guess, and decide to remove her, just in case. She looked up to see Mick watching her. Was he reading her mind?

  But all he said was, “Took yeh long enough.”

  “I got distracted—I was thinking. Here.” She slid the bag of food across the bar toward him. “Anything new?”

  Without speaking, Mick nodded toward a table in the far corner, and Maura recognized the new garda, Conor Ryan, recently transferred from Limerick to Skibbereen. “Does he have anything to report?”

  “Nah. I think he wants to talk to yeh.”

  “Fine.” Just what she wanted after her depressing conversation with herself about her own safety. She strode over to where Sergeant Ryan sat, an empty coffee mug in front of him. “Can I get you anything?”

  “A word wit’ yeh, if you’ve the time.”

  “Sure.” Maura pulled up a chair and sat, leaning forward. “Do you have any news?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve nothing to work with. The coroner confirmed what we already knew: the man was stabbed to death. The bit about bashing the face came after he was dead. He didn’t drown—no water in his lungs. No identifying features. In fact, the coroner said he’d never seen such an anonymous body in all his working days.”

  That didn’t make her happy. “You going to call in a super-high-tech forensic team to analyze what his grandparents ate for breakfast or what six kinds of sand he picked up on his trainers?”

  The sergeant smiled but without humor. “Wish we could, but the lads in Dublin don’t think this rates high enough to call for that.”

  “Why’d you want to see me?” she asked.

  “Two reasons, I’m thinkin’. One, we need all the help we can get, because we’ve nothin’ to start with. That could change at any time, but at this moment we’re nowhere in our investigatin’.”

  Looking at him, Maura guessed that asking for help, particularly from an outsider like her, was painful for him. “And the other reason?”

  “Seein’ as how the man was dumped at your back door, in a manner of speakin’, there may be a chance that someone was sending yeh a message.”

  That hadn’t occurred to her. “What, me? I didn’t recognize the man, though I don’t think anybody could. I don’t know all that many people in Ireland. So if this was supposed to be a message, it makes no sense to me.”

  “Could be it goes back to before yer time?”

  “To Old Mick? I never knew him, and I don’t know anything about his life, or who might have wanted to harm him. I got the impression from talking to people that he had really slowed down over his last few years. That dead person would have been a child in Old Mick’s heyday. If you want details, you’d have to ask Billy Sheahan.”

  “I know it’s a long shot, Maura, but I’m that desperate. I’ve been the with Skibbereen gardaí for only a short time, but I’d like to get this right. I come from one of the biggest stations in this part of the country. If I can’t work out why one man died, in a village with less than two hundred people, I’ll be a laughing stock across the whole of Ireland.”

  Maura swallowed a smile. So his male ego was involved—no wonder he hated asking her for help. “And what is it you think I can do for you?”

  “We’re askin’ all the pub owners around, here and in Skib, to keep their ears open, see who’s talkin’ about the murder,
or anythin’ else out of the ordinary. I wanted to ask you special since yeh’re the one who found the body. Mebbe whoever did it will come back to see what the people here have made of his little surprise.”

  This just kept getting better and better. “Sergeant, are you trying to tell me that I’m in danger? Or anyone else here?” Like Rose?

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but all of yiz here should be careful. Don’t stay late on yer own. Make sure yer doors are locked. Keep yer mobiles close at hand.”

  “Got it.” And check out each guy who walks in who you don’t know and wonder if he’s a killer? “Safety in numbers, right?”

  “Maura, I’m not joking. I’d rather you were scared until we get this sorted out than that you were hurt or worse.”

  She looked at him carefully and realized he meant what he said. “Sorry. I’m already nervous, and having you tell me I’ve got reason to be doesn’t help. But you’re right, and thank you for thinking about us here.”

  “You and Mick, yeh’ll be all right, I’m guessin’. What about the girl?” He nodded toward Rose, currently behind the bar.

  “I’m not sure where she’s living right now—her father just married and moved to his wife’s place, but I don’t think Rose followed him there. She’d done with school and she’s on her own. Look, I’ll talk to her when we close, and I can take her home with me, if nothing else. I’ve got a spare bedroom.”

  “Good idea. Let’s all hope we find out what happened sooner rather than later.”

  “I agree. Good luck.” He stood up, and Maura stayed where she was, watching him leave.

  She made no effort to get back to work right away—she needed to mull over what the sergeant had just told her. She’d done a good job of ignoring the obvious: she and her staff—her friends—might be at risk. She’d thought—no, believed—that Ireland wasn’t a dangerous place, that there weren’t evil people lurking in corners, looking to do harm—for money, for sex, or just because they were twisted people. She’d hoped she’d left that behind in Boston, where she’d always been careful to lock doors behind her, always watched the dark places when she came home from one dead-end job or another late at night. She’d come to feel safe in Leap, and even at her cottage, isolated though it was. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  She could tell from the sneaky glances that the rest of the people in the pub wanted her to report on her conversation with the sergeant. They still didn’t know him well, since he’d arrived only a few months earlier, and she had come from a city rather than a village like Leap. The Skibbereen garda station was nothing like what Conor Ryan knew from Limerick. Skibbereen had ten gardaí—eleven since the arrival of Sergeant Ryan—and the main Limerick station had close to a hundred, he’d once said. Of course, Limerick itself was much bigger—and so was its crime rate. But at least Sergeant Conor was trying to fit in, if reluctantly. If he was boggled by this crime, they all had a real problem.

  Finally she got up and strode over to the bar, settling herself on a stool in front, and leaned forward to talk to Mick and Rose. “They have nothing new. The sergeant wants us to report anything unusual that we see or hear, like we wouldn’t anyway—and he’s asked all the other pubs around here. But he also said we should watch our backs—don’t stay too late, don’t wander around alone, make sure you lock up, things like that. Rose, are you still living where you did with your father?”

  “Fer now I am, though I may find a flat in Skib to share. Why?”

  “I’d be more comfortable if you had someone else staying with you, or if you could stay with me until the gardaí figure out what happened. I’d feel awful if something happened to you. Could you stay with your dad and Judith?”

  Rose made a face. “I’d rather not. And it’s a far way to come to get here.”

  “I’ve got a spare bedroom. You know you’re welcome, and I could bring you back and forth. Think about it, will you?”

  “It’s kind of yeh to ask, Maura. Let me think on it.” She turned away to serve a new customer.

  Mick lowered his voice. “Am I welcome?”

  For her safety or for other things? But Maura decided to answer him seriously. “Mick, I’ll confess this has got me spooked. I’ve been feeling safe here, and at the cottage, until this happened, and now I realize how alone I am. So I would be glad of your company.” She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye.

  She wasn’t sure if she expected a joking response from him, but he answered her in a tone as serious as hers. “Thank you. Like you told Rose, I’d be troubled if anything happened to you, that I could have prevented.”

  “Might get crowded, if Rose comes along too.”

  “We’ll manage,” he replied. “Won’t be fer long.”

  “I hope that’s true.” Maura scanned the room. “Business is slower than I expected. I didn’t think all the sturdy farmers around here would be spooked by a little thing like a murder. Heck, they can wrestle cows around.”

  Mick smiled. “Ah, yer feelin’ neglected. Here yeh go and find a body and yer not getting’ the attention yeh deserve. Could be the word hasn’t gotten round yet.”

  “So we should plan on a busy night tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Mebbe. Unless the gardaí find the killer.”

  But the quiet spell was broken shortly after that when Seamus and his usual posse of amateur sleuths came in. To Maura, it looked like they’d made a few stops before arriving at Sullivan’s. “I wondered when your lot would show up,” she called out to them.

  “Ah, Maura, we’ve been sleuthin’, we have,” Seamus informed her.

  “And maybe doing some drinking?” she asked, smiling.

  “Might be. Helps keep the talk flowin’, does it not?”

  “I’ll have to agree with that. You have something you want to talk about?”

  “Do yeh really have to ask? And a pint to go with it, if yeh’re offerin’.”

  As Maura pulled the pints, she tried to decide whether—or rather, how much—to involve Seamus in this crime. The last time there’d been a fatal incident, back in the spring, Seamus and his buddies had set up a pool to guess who had done the deed, with a prize of a free round for the lot of them. It had seemed harmless, and in fact the talk about it had produced some good ideas. Although nobody had managed to guess the right solution. That meant that Maura had won the grand prize, which she had declared to be: an afternoon of everybody’s time to help Gillian and Harry set up their new home overlooking Ballinlough, the small lake a couple of miles inland from Leap.

  This time she was uneasy. It was harmless, all right, trying to figure out who this unidentified man was, plus who might have killed him, with little to go on—it was kind of a mental puzzle. But knowing who the man was could end up pointing to who had killed him, and that person was still on the loose and might want to find a way to shut up the bettors. All right, that was the worst case; it was equally likely that the man had fled to Cork or Dublin or even England after the killing. She didn’t want Seamus and friends to get hurt—she kind of liked them, and they did buy a lot of drinks. Clearly they’d already heard things at other places, and she didn’t have much more to offer. Was trying to protect them even her decision to make?

  The pints were ready, so she put them on a tray and walked over to the large table in the corner where the lads had settled. “Here you go.”

  “Ah, grand,” Seamus said. “Maura, sit and talk with us. Yeh’re the one who found the poor dead lad, are yeh not?”

  “I am. Hang on—why don’t you tell me what you think you know so far and I’ll tell you how wrong you are? You know how stories change with each person who tells it.”

  “Fair enough. On a fine, bright afternoon you, one Maura Donovan, proprietor of this grand establishment Sullivan’s, was enjoyin’ a well-deserved break when yeh happened to look down in that famous ditch out there and spy a dead person.”

  “So far, so good. But I thought it was a bag of trash at first.”

  “Noted. Be
in’ a law-bidin’ citizen, the first thing you did was call the gardaí, who arrived quickly.”

  “Right.”

  “Did you recognize the poor man?”

  “No. But when I first saw him, he was lying facedown, about twenty feet below. I’m not sure I’d recognize anybody under those conditions.”

  “And yeh never saw him after, I assume. You know the gardaí have circulated a description?”

  “Of course,” Maura said. She decided to wait until Seamus asked about the condition of the body, especially the face.

  “It appears the victim was a young man in his twenties, with no distinguishing marks. And little face remaining.”

  “Yes. I never saw anything other than his back, though.”

  “Little to go on there, I’m guessing. Dark hair?”

  “I think so, although it could have been wet, which would make it look darker. It wasn’t exactly long, but it wasn’t really short either. I don’t know if that helps.”

  “It might do. So when the gardaí, or more likely the coroner, examined the poor lad more closely, they found he’d been stabbed multiple times, from the front.”

  “That’s what I was told. I didn’t see that part of it. And nothing after that. I came back here, talked with Sean Murphy, and that’s all I know. Firsthand, anyway.”

  “And what conclusions have you drawn from your personal observations?”

  “None, really. The guy was dead. He hadn’t been dead for long. And it wouldn’t have been easy to dump him there, what with the fence over the bridge.”

  “So how do yeh think he got there?”

  Maura realized she hadn’t thought ahead when she answered. “I figured he had to have been dumped from my property, out behind the pub.”

  “Aha!” Seamus crowed. “There’s our first new piece of evidence, right, lads? The deed couldn’t be done from the road! I think that calls for another round.”