Fatal Roots Read online

  “So this blood has nothing to do with Darragh.”

  “I’d say no. Save that the fox didn’t get to finish its supper.”

  “I feel stupid,” Maura said. “And Darragh is still missing.”

  “And he left no tracks, but then he has a car. Yer friend Ciara said his car’s gone?”

  “Yes, she did. You think he got bored and went for a drive?”

  “I’d say yes, unless it was a batch of fairies lured him away.”

  “Ha ha,” Maura said, her tone acidic. “Any sign of the radar machine? Ciara said he had it with him when she and Ronan left for lunch.”

  “I’ve seen no machine, nor any tracks of one, but there are plenty of places around here where it could be hid. Maybe he didn’t want to haul it around with him or leave it in his car. We’d have to look more carefully.”

  “I’m sorry I wasted your time, Sean. What are you going to tell Ciara and Ronan?”

  “I’d call off the search fer now. If I asked my mates at the station fer help, they’d only laugh. The man seems to have left of his own free will and driven away.”

  “You’re probably right, Sean.” Maura thought for a moment. Something was troubling her. “Can I ask you something else?” When Sean nodded, Maura went on, “You think these people—all three of them—are what they say they are? Students working on a project? Or is there something else going on?”

  “They seem innocent enough, but I can’t say I know many who are takin’ high-level courses like they claim, with fancy equipment. I may check with the university to see if they’re registered, but don’t say anythin’ to them.”

  “I will say that they seem worried that Darragh’s missing. Are you going to talk to them now, or call them over, or what?”

  “I’ll give them my opinion. There’s really nothin’ else they can do right now.”

  “Should I go back to Sullivan’s? And if I do, should I say anything about this? Or maybe ask if they’ve seen Darragh somewhere around?”

  “If anybody asked about visitin’ archaeologists, yeh can talk about what you know. Do yeh know where they’ll be tonight?”

  “Probably at that hostel in Skib. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to want to sit around there and worry. If she wants to come to Sullivan’s, I can handle that. And maybe calm her down.”

  “Then I’ll go tell ’em it’s too late in the day to look any farther, and I’ll talk to them in the mornin’.”

  “Thanks, Sean. Let me know if you do find anything more.”

  “I’ll do that. Take care, Maura.”

  She turned and marched back to where she’d left her car, and Sean waded through the grass toward where Ciara and Ronan were waiting anxiously. She’d let Sean handle things for the moment. She felt like an idiot, having overreacted about a dead rabbit, and the feeling in her gut told her she’d be seeing Darragh again. But why would he disappear, even for a short time? Would a radar machine, probably labeled as university property, be important to anyone around here? Most local people were farmers who raised cows and a few sheep, and nobody would need radar for that. Maybe a drone, in case the animals wandered too far. But Ronan had the drone. Still, maybe someone had stolen it and Darragh was trying to track it down. After all, it didn’t belong to him.

  Yesterday she hadn’t even noticed this field. Today she knew she owned it, and there was something odd going on, but she had no idea what it might be. She really should get back to Sullivan’s and pretend everything was normal.

  The sun had fallen below the horizon when she arrived back in Leap, although it wasn’t dark yet. The lights inside Sullivan’s looked warm and welcoming, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of people inside. Just as well this evening. She didn’t know much, but she was afraid to think about what might have happened to Darragh. She felt stupid, but she was pretty sure there was something more. Damn those fairies.

  Mick, behind the bar, looked up when she walked in, and then looked again. She walked quickly over to the bar. “News?” he asked quietly.

  “Nothing official, but it doesn’t feel right. Darragh’s nowhere around, and nobody knows where he went. Ciara and Ronan may come by later, but don’t count on it. You haven’t by any chance seen Darragh or heard someone mention him?”

  “No. You want a pint?”

  “I’d better not—I don’t know if anything else is going to happen tonight. Does Billy need another?”

  “He might.”

  “Oh, did Susan go home?”

  “Helen came by an hour or more ago to take her back to the hotel. Susan said she’d be back tomorrow, and Helen mentioned she had some secondhand appliances that might do fer the kitchen.”

  “That’s good. Will the wiring and drains hold up?”

  “It may do, but if not, we can fix it.” Mick looked over at Billy and exchanged signals, which apparently translated to Yes, I’d like another pint, thank you very much.

  “I’ll take his pint over,” Maura volunteered. Remember, if someone comes in and asks about Darragh, we don’t know anything. You can talk to Sean, but don’t tell Ciara or Ronan anything unless Sean says you can.”

  “That is a complicated set of instructions, but I think I can manage. You go talk with Billy.”

  Maura waited until Billy’s glass was ready, then took it over to him. As he did so often, he was dozing by the fireplace, where there were still a few coals burning even in June. He greeted her warmly as he took the glass. “Maura, yeh look tired. Where’ve yeh been all day?”

  “Out with those students you met—they wanted to get some work done on the fairy ring—you know, measurements and such, and whether it lines up with the sun or moon or something. You know, it feels kind of weird to own such a thing. And the land under it. You told me that for a lot of his later life, Old Mick didn’t do anything like farming. Why’d he keep the land if it was useless to him?”

  “Ah, Maura, my dear, land has always been important to the Irish. It’s been well over a hundred years since the English let them have any of it, and then it was rarely the good land—barely enough to feed a small family. But still it mattered to them.”

  “How much does it take to feed one cow?”

  “About an acre,” Billy said promptly, “if the grass is good.”

  “Really. You know, I couldn’t tell you how big any piece actually is, so I wouldn’t know if that looked like a lot. Did Mick keep a garden at all? I mean, should I be looking for a potato plot?”

  “That I can’t say. It’s been many years since I’ve been out to Knockskagh. It’s a wonder Mick found enough food up there, since he was always here, but I believe he had friends who helped him out.”

  “Are any of them still around?”

  “Could be one or two, but their memory may be failin’. I knew him, and so did Bridget, once. And yer gran.”

  “That still surprises me. We never got much mail, beyond bills, and I’d bet she never called back here just to chat.”

  “Have yeh searched yer place?”

  “No. It never really felt like mine—I almost expected someone to come by and tell me to pack up. And I don’t know of any places he could have kept old letters and stuff.”

  “Could be he kept some here,” Billy said.

  “In the pub, you mean? You really think so? So much of this building is old, and made of stone. I don’t know where he’d keep anything. But you’re saying he might have been the type?”

  Billy smiled gently. “Could be, not that he ever talked about any such thing. And before yeh ask, he never asked me to hold anythin’ fer him.”

  “People just remembered, right?”

  “That’s often true. But many people left as well and never returned.”

  “So these fairy forts or whatever they’re called—how did they ever survive for a thousand years? I mean, the people who lived near them had to have taken care of them, preserved them, but why?”

  “Ah, Maura, it’s important to stay on the right side of the fairies.
”

  Maura looked up to see Sean Murphy arriving—alone. “Billy, I need to talk to Sean, if you don’t mind.”

  Billy smiled. “I’m ready fer me nap, so you go on.”

  Sean had walked across the room to the bar, where Maura joined him. “You still on duty?”

  “Much as I’d love a pint, I’ve a report to write and plans to make,” Sean said. “What’ve yeh told Mick?”

  “As much as I know, which isn’t a lot. Did Ciara and Ronan go back to where they’re staying?”

  “They have, but there’s still no sign of their friend.”

  “How much did you tell them?”

  “Nothin’ to tell, since we found nothin’.”

  “Is there anything I should do?”

  “Yeh might want to look at the maps Ciara brought that show Old Mick’s land. Might be some good places to hide things, if nobody’s usin’ those plots.”

  “You didn’t ask Ciara?”

  “She seemed too upset. Tomorrow will do.”

  “Do you want me to come along?”

  “Up to you, I’d guess. Yeh don’t know where the plots are, but yeh’re the official owner.”

  And what a great introduction she was getting to this added property, Maura reflected sourly. “Let me know what you decide, if you want me there. But I doubt I can add any information.”

  “I’ll do that. I’d best be off to Skib,” Sean said.

  “I’ll see you out.” Maura followed him out the door, but in front of the pub she stopped him. “What do you think happened? I know you don’t have a lot of facts. Deaths are pretty rare around here, aren’t they? So how likely is it that somebody would have killed a stranger from Cork city?”

  “Maura, I can’t answer those questions. I don’t think it’s wise to jump to the conclusion that someone’s killed him, especially if he’s no more than a student at university. The man is still missin’, and I’m hopin’ we’ll know more by tomorrow. If I don’t see you early in the day, I’ll stop by here after and update you.”

  “Thanks, Sean. Good luck.”

  When he was out of sight, Maura drifted back into the pub. She had to admit she was depressed, which seemed kind of odd, because she hadn’t even known she owned that patch of land until the day before, and she’d barely met Darragh. But she wished she hadn’t known either—the land or the man.

  When she returned to the bar, Mick asked, “Would yeh rather go home?”

  “I don’t think so. All I’ll do there is worry about things I don’t know. Are there things that will warn off fairies? I don’t want to annoy them. Or maybe they’re trying to protect me from something. Maybe Sean will go searching on his computer and find out that Darragh is a world-renowned criminal and Ciara and Ronan are his accomplices. Although what they could possibly want isn’t clear to me. There’s not much to steal up north of here, and from what I’ve been hearing, it’s not likely there’s any treasure in the fairy rings.”

  “Well, think about seein’ yer mother and yer sister in the morning, and maybe a new old stove.” Mick’s comment made her smile. “What a thing to look forward to! And Sean’s a good man. Will yeh be wanting company tonight?”

  “I think I will. And thank you, Mick. Every time I think I have a handle of Ireland and the people around here, something weird happens. I hope there’s a simple explanation for whatever happened to Darragh.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It was another slow evening, and once again Maura and Mick made an early night of it. Maura waved to Old Billy as he hauled himself out of his favorite chair and tottered his way to the door. Her phone did not ring, with either good or bad news, which she took to mean that neither Sean nor the rest of the gardaí had found Darragh, dead or alive. Ciara and Ronan did not appear, looking either for sympathy or for a drink or three. The whole situation was odd: a peaceful fairy fort in a field that looked the way it must have looked for hundreds of years, a missing archaeologist, and an equally missing ground-penetrating radar machine. Sean had said he would get in touch with the university archaeology department to see if the little group was legitimate and doing recognized research. But it seemed unlikely that they weren’t. What other explanation was there—they just wanted to take a quick vacation and dig in the dirt? From what little she knew, Maura was pretty sure they weren’t going to find a trove of gold and jewels in a fairy fort.

  Oddly enough, when she and Mick reached her cottage after closing, she felt restless. They didn’t go inside right away but sat on a crumbling stone wall in the front of the cottage and spoke in quiet tones. “Do you know, this business with the land made me realize how much I haven’t even thought about or looked at around here,” Maura said.

  “What do yeh mean?” Mick asked quietly.

  “Well, my grandmother died, and when I got here I found out I’d inherited this place, and a pub came with it. I got very busy trying to find out what was what and who was who, and signing legal papers, and learning the business—and Irish pubs are definitely not the same as Boston pubs, no matter what the ads say. Anyway, bottom line is, I just kept trying to keep my head above water. I had a place to sleep and a job to go to, and a whole lot of people to meet. But there were things I kind of didn’t notice—like the rest of the land I’d inherited. Maybe I didn’t have the time, or maybe it never occurred to me there was anything more, and I wouldn’t have known what to do with it anyway. I never figured I’d own anything, so it didn’t much matter.”

  “And?” Mick prompted.

  “Now all in the course of a couple of days I’ve discovered I have more land than I thought, and some of it may be historic—but I didn’t even know fairy forts existed—and other people are interested in it for the history, not because the grass tastes good to cows, and then this bunch of students about my age show up and ask if they can check it out, and of course I say yes. And then one of them just disappears without a trace. Is any part of this normal?”

  “Parts of it, mebbe. Nobody gives lectures on fairies in West Cork to newcomers like yerself, but they are a part of modern life around here. In a quiet way, at least. Yeh can choose to believe or not, but there are those that do. But whatever happened to Darragh—now that’s not normal. The fairies may bring bad luck with them, but they seldom kill someone. Or if they do, yeh’ll find a body. Havin’ a guy simply disappear is different.”

  “That’s a relief,” Maura told him. “And Sean took it seriously. I mean, he didn’t arrive at the field and tell us to let the fairies work things out. That makes me feel better. There’s nothing more I’m supposed to do about all this, is there?”

  “Fer now, I’d say no. You’ve got yer mother and yer sister to think about, and yeh want to finish buildin’ the kitchen, which is a grand idea, and there’s still the music. Runnin’ around looking fer missing people is not on your task list. Is it?”

  “I hope not, Mick. I’ve only just gotten used to all the rest of it. Are there any laws that apply to fairies? Like if they decide to take up a bit of vandalism, or steal cattle, or scare children?”

  “Not lately.”

  “Anything I should be on the lookout for?”

  “Just me. Do yeh mind if I protect yeh?”

  “No, not as long as you don’t get hurt or disappear. Where should I look if you do?”

  “Under a hawthorn tree?”

  Maura checked to see if Mick was joking. It looked like he was, which was obscurely reassuring. “Anything I need to do to keep them away?”

  “Ask Bridget—she’s more likely to know. But give the gardaí a while to see if they can find Darragh. Maybe there’s a simple explanation for his whereabouts.”

  “I hope so. Ready for bed?”

  “I am.”

  * * *

  Maura woke early again the next morning, worrying about what had happened to Darragh. Had Darragh been injured in an accident, hitting his head and bleeding a lot? Or had someone hit him? Had he been dragged away by someone, or had he woken up and realized
he needed help? Or woken up and forgotten who he was, and then wandered off? No, that last was the kind of thing Maura thought she’d seen on bad television, and not in Ireland.

  And what the heck had happened to the radar device? That had to be expensive, at least for a student. Had Darragh hidden it, figuring he’d come back and get it later, or that he could tell Ciara where to find it? Or was someone else trying to sell it at this very moment?

  “Yeh’re worryin’, aren’t yeh,” Mick stated, his voice muffled by his pillow.

  “Shouldn’t I? Okay, I didn’t know the guy, or the fairy fort, or the land, or much of anything else, but I feel weirdly responsible because it happened on what turns out to be my land, which I didn’t even know. We’d better drum up some business to distract me.”

  “Fair enough. Remember, yer mother and Susan were plannin’ to come by this mornin’.”

  “True. I assume they aren’t bringing three ovens and a fridge along to see how they fit.”

  “Not likely. But they might want to measure. Susan seems a nice enough girl. She and Rose have fun, and I think Rose could keep her in line. I’d hate to see Susan get bored after no more than a few days and start sulkin’.”

  “Sounds like she got thrown into all this without any warning. I don’t think it’s anything like she expected.”

  “No more than you did.”

  Maura turned onto her back and pulled the blankets up. “I meant to tell people who remembered my gran that she had passed on. I thought I’d spend a week here, tops. Didn’t quite work out that way,” she said quietly.

  “Do yeh regret it now?” Mick asked.

  “No. How could I? It was a gift, and unexpected. I had no reason to go back to Boston, and I don’t miss it. I’m still learning about this place, and now I’ve got friends here. And you.”

  Whatever Mick might have answered was interrupted by a knocking at the door. Ciara? Sean? Or the wandering Darragh? “I’d better go see who that is,” Maura told Mick. She pulled on some clothes, then hurried down the stairs.

  She opened the door to find Sean. “Good morning! You’re here early. Any news?”