The Celtic Riddle

Chapter Four. A STAG OF SEVEN SLAUGHTERS

APPARENTLY you were right," Rob said, nodding in my general direction as he passed his daughter the marmalade. Breakfast was served each morning in a little glassed-in porch overlooking the little garden at the Inn, and we started our days together there.

"I'm always right," I said, as Jennifer giggled. Alex raised his eyebrows skeptically.

Rob chuckled. "That may be, but I don't often admit it, now do I?"

"That's an understatement," Jennifer teased. Rob made a motion as if to box her ears, and she ducked, laughing.

"What particular instance of my being right are you referring to this time?" I asked. I was happy to see Rob and Jennifer getting along so well, and that she was beginning to speak English in its normal order once again.

"John Herlihy," he said. "Blood/alcohol readings over the top. Guy had been drinking for several days solid. It's a wonder he could stand up at all, but people who drink pretty consistently can be like that."

Now I'm always glad when Rob agrees with me about something. I like to think that on the important things in life we pretty much agree right down the line. On the smaller details, however, we hardly ever see eye to eye. It's the source of bouts of bickering from time to time. Sometimes, I think we carry on like an old married couple, even though we've never been anything more than friends. Having him admit I'd been right in this instance was, indeed, a victory. Trouble was, in the meantime, I'd changed my mind.

"What about the other things you talked about: marks on the body, that sort of thing?"

"According to the garda I spoke to, pleasant chap by the name of Minogue, Herlihy's injuries are pretty consistent with having fallen forty feet onto a pile of rocks," Rob said. "All rather neat and tidy, actually. After all, they can pinpoint the time of death with great accuracy. You walked by the spot minutes after the proceedings at Second Chance ended, that is about three-thirty, and about forty-five minutes or so later, by all accounts, you walked back, and there he was. His clothes were wet, from the rain presumably, under the body too, although that doesn't mean much on the seashore. He might have been lying down there when you first went by, I suppose-you wouldn't necessarily have seen him-but it's more likely he fell during the rain. Either way, it doesn't change the time much, and during that time, everyone is more or less accounted for, not every second perhaps, but no one was alone for very long."

It wouldn't take very long, I thought to myself, just a short jog to the edge of the property and around the corner where no one could see. And from our end,Michael had been gone rather longer than I had thought necessary to get a little fuel for the fire. "What about the other stuff? Footprints? Signs of a struggle?"

"Downpour pretty well took care of that. Also, all of you tramping around and looking over the side of the cliff when you found him." He looked mildly annoyed as if we should have known better. "Not much sign of anything, I'm told." He paused for a moment. "Do you take the opposite side of every discussion with me for sport, or have you changed your mind?"

I shrugged. How could I tell him that for a moment or two the world had stood still, soundless, and that I'd had a premonition of something awful about to happen? How could I say that just as it was beginning to rain I'd heard an unnatural animal sound that at the time I'd thought was a bird, or an animal fleeing the wet, but now thought, despite every effort to persuade myself otherwise, might have been the scream of a dying man going over a cliff? "Just wondering," I said.

"Well, wonder no more," he said reaching for the Irish Times. "Do you think my arteries will survive two weeks in this country?" he asked, eyeing the empty plate in front of him that just a few minutes ago had contained the innocuously named heart attack on a plate, the Irish cooked breakfast: two eggs, a few rashers of bacon, two breakfast sausages, two kinds of blood sausage, and toast with Irish butter. I gathered he was changing the subject.

I couldn't let it go like that. The sound I'd heard, the edginess I'd felt, wouldn't go away. If indeed that awful sound had been Herlihy, then he hadn't slipped on the mud. It had barely begun to rain when I'd heard it. And why, exactly, had it gone so quiet? The wind had dropped, yes, just before the rain, the lull before the storm. But what about the birds that only seconds before had been wheeling and shrieking above us. Why did they suddenly stop too? Was it the approaching storm, or had something else, a struggle on the cliff, perhaps, made them go silent?

Before the boating incident of the day before, I might have been prepared, indeed have welcomed the chance, to accept the official explanation. But I couldn't believe that what had happened to us had been an accident, not after seeing Conail O'Connor's face. That in itself made me look at other so-called accidents with suspicion. But I couldn't tell Rob that, either. Jennifer had related the story with great dramatic flair when we got back, and Rob had looked perturbed, but she was at the age where she exaggerated everything, and Alex and I had downplayed it. I would have liked to talk to him about it, about my panic when I lost hold of her, those horrible seconds before she surfaced, but I knew I'd be doing it to make myself feel better, not him. Parenthood is frightening enough, I decided, without having to be terrified by what might have been.

When breakfast was finished, Rob and Jennifer announced that they were off sightseeing to Killarney, if anyone wanted to come. Alex said he'd met someone who'd offered to take him fishing. I said I was just going exploring around town.

"Promise me you're not going anywhere near Second Chance," Rob said severely.

"I promise," I said. It was an easy promise to make because I had something else in mind. Not something he'd be any happier about, mind you. There was a specific bit of exploring I proposed to do, and when the others had left, I headed down, once again, to the pier. It took me about an hour, wending my way up and down the docks, but eventually I found what I wanted. It was down by a sandwich sign advertising somethingcalled St. Brandon Charters offering fishing expeditions, scenic tours of Dingle Bay, trips to the Blasketts, the islands off the Dingle coast, and both fly-fishing and sailing lessons. The proprietor of St. Brandon Charters, whoever he or she might be, was obviously a versatile sort. Multi-skilling, I think they call it in the corporate world, another of those vile made-up terms like downsizing and rightsizing that are euphemisms for unpleasant results, in this case, presumably, fewer employed people doing a lot more work.

"Nice boat," I said.

The man barely looked up from his work. "Yen. Thanks," he replied.

"Who owns it, do you know?"

The man ignored me, continuing to painstakingly clean the gunwales, inch by inch.

"Anybody know who owns this boat?" I said, turning to three old men sitting on a bench on the pier.

"Paddy Gilhooly," said one of them. This was not the name I was expecting, but an interesting one nonetheless.

"Do you know where I might find him?"

"He's not far," the old man said. The second man cupped his hand around his ear to hear better and laughed.

"Yer lookin' at him," the second man shouted, pointing to the man working on the boat.

I suppose I should have known from all the guy-and-his-boat behaviour, which is remarkably similar to the guy-and-his-car ritual, that this man was the owner, even if he didn't look as if he could afford it. In vain, I searched his face for a glimpse of Eamon Byrne, having decided that the reason the family despised him was because he was an illegitimate son of Byrne. If the resemblance was there, I couldn't see it. "Is that true?" I asked him. "Are you Padraig Gil-hooly?" The man ignored me still. I took that to be a yes. "I've been looking for you."

Still the man said nothing.

"Too bad about that pea green paint scratch on the bow," I went on. "Unusual color. You should be more careful."

"Have we met?" the man said suddenly, and not just a little belligerently, tossing his rag into his pail and standing up. He was tall and wiry, a little too thin perhaps, dark hair and very dark and intense eyes, and dressed in overalls and a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and heavy work boots. For a moment I almost lost my nerve.

"Yes," I said, taking a deep breath. "As a matter of fact we have. To be more accurate, it was our boats that met, this one and the one I and a couple of friends of mine were sailing, the Maire Malloy."

"So you've come to apologize for hitting my boat, have you?" he glowered. "And to offer to pay for repairs, no doubt?" There was a sarcastic edge to his voice.

This conversation wasn't going exactly the way I had intended. "This is your way of pretending that you didn't notice you hit and swamped us, I suppose," I said. I was getting so annoyed, I was no longer afraid of him. "Not only swamped us, but left us to drown, I might add."

Gilhooly stared at me. "What are you goin' on about?" he said at last. "I never hit nobody. And if I did, I most certainly wouldn't leave them to drown."

"Then where'd you get that pea green scratch on your boat?"

"Did those fecking bastards up at Second Chance put you up to this?" he asked. "Because if they did…"He raised his fist and I backed away quickly.

"No," I replied from a safe distance, "the fecking bastards, as you so delicately put it, did not. The truth of the matter is they wouldn't put me up to anything at. all, and frankly I expect they'd just as soon I went back home. Now, could we start again, do you think?"

He glowered at me for a second or two and then slowly lowered his arm. "How do you do," he said finally. "I'm Paddy Gilhooly, owner of this here boat, the one called Lost Causes. And you are?"

"Lara McClintoch. How do you do."

"A Yank, are you?"

"I'm here visiting from Toronto."

"Canadian. Not a friend of that fellow, Alex something or other who got Rose Cottage by any chance?"

I nodded. "His name is Alex Stewart. He's a friend of mine."

"Aye," he said. "I heard there was a woman with him. My solicitor told me," he added. "He was there, but you know that, seeing as you were too. Now what's all this about my boat. Beautiful, isn't she?"

"She is," I said, "unless you happen to see her first coming right at you, and then later disappearing into the distance as you swallow gallons of seawater from her wake."

"And this supposed event would have been when?" His tone turned aggressive again.

"Yesterday afternoon. Ask your pals here," I said gesturing toward the three men on the bench. "They'll tell you the Maire Malloy got towed in late yesterday afternoon, with the gash in her stern, and her crew rather damp."

"That so, Malachy?"

One of the old men on the bench nodded. " 'Tis so, Paddy." Gilhooly frowned. "So was Lost Causes docked then?"

Malachy thought slowly and carefully about that. "Difficult to say, Paddy," he said finally. "Difficult to say. Close on sunset. We'd been over at the pub for a spot of refreshment. Lots of the boats coming in, and this one," he said, pointing at me, "being towed. Plenty of excitement all round." The second old geezer cupped his hand to his ear and looked at Malachy. "Do you recall if Paddy's boat was in when they towed this one in?" Malachy yelled at him.

"Can't say as I recall," the second man said after a moment or two of contemplation.

"No use asking this one," Malachy said, pointing to the third man, who had turned away from us and was looking out to sea. "He's elsewhere most of the time."

"Well, Malachy, since you'll be on telling me about her story," Gilhooly said, "perhaps you'll also be verifying mine."

"Which is?" I asked.

"Cork," Malachy said. It sounded more like Cark to my ears, but I figured it was Cork. "In Cork, he was, our Paddy. Took the train first thing. Not a sight of him here all day. Not that I can see so good, mind you. But Kev can, can't you Kev?" he shouted. Kev nodded.

"So now that we've got that out of the way," Gilhooly said, "I'm sorry to hear about your boating accident, but it's got nothing to do with me."

"Any chance Conail O'Connor could have taken your boat?"

"Conail O'Connor!" Gilhooly exclaimed. "Conail O'Connor can kiss my royal Irish arse!"

" 'Tis James Joyce he's quoting," Malachy said solemnly. "Ulysses.""Was that a no?" I said acidly, James Joyce or not. "How about Sean McHugh?"

Gilhooly remained silent, but I could see his jaw working, and he looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel.

"I assume your lawyer told you about Eamon Byrne's little game," I said.

"He did. Bloody nonsense. I'd have credited him with more sense. Though I suppose you can't blame a dying man."

"I'll tell you our clue if you'll tell me yours," I said.

"You mean the one about the sea-swell? My solicitor was there, remember."

"I know another one, Michael Davis's," I replied. Actually I had two, if you counted the one that was currently being painstakingly dried out in my room at the inn in hopes that something remotely legible could be found, but it didn't seem to be a good idea to give everything away at once with this bunch. "A couple of us thought it might be entertaining to try and find this thing, whatever it is."

"Entertaining, you call it? There is nothing entertaining about those people up at Second Chance, I can tell you. Nothing whatsoever." Gilhooly tossed his rags into the bucket and started to walk away.

"Are you going to sue the family for a share? Byrne suggested you might, and your solicitor was there. What's his name?"

"Dermot Shanahan. And I would be paying his legal fees how?" he asked bitterly.

I was tempted to suggest he could sell his beloved boat, but decided to be nice. "Can I buy you a beer or something?" I asked him. Maybe, I thought, his tongue would loosen and I'd learn what the bad blood between him and the Byrne family was all about. "Where I come from, girls wait to be asked!" he called over his shoulders as he left.

"I'm not asking you for a date, Padraig," I retorted to his retreating back. "Just for a drink. Sullen men with chips on their shoulders are not my cup of tea. I mean do you fight with everybody on principle, or are you just having a bad day? And by the way, I don't care what girls of your acquaintance do." And don't call me a girl, I added to myself. He ignored me and kept going.

I looked back to see the old guys on the bench laughing so hard the tears were running down their cheeks. Two of them, that is. The third, who'd not yet spoken to me, appeared to be having a long discussion with either himself or a post on the pier.

"If yer not interested in sullen young men," Malachy said finally, wiping the tears from his eyes, "how do you feel about happy old ones? Dere's tree of us," he added, dropping the "h" in "th" the way many of the people in these parts appeared to. "I don't see so good, and Kev don't hear so good, and Denny, well, as you can see, Denny's a bit special, if you know what I mean. But put us together, we're someting."

I had to laugh, too. "Come on," Malachy said. "Take a pew." He gestured toward a broken-down old chair a few feet away. "Drink?" he said, pulling a bottle of whisky and a couple of tin cups out of a little bag beside the bench.

"A little too early in the day for me," I replied. "But thank you. I'm Lara," I said, shaking their hands in turn, before risking the chair. Even Denny broke off talking to himself long enough to shyly shake my hand. Malachy, Kev, and Denny, all dressed in gray wool pants, white shirts, and black fishermen's hats: "Brothers?" I asked. Malachy and Kev nodded in unison."Kev and me's brothers. Denny's our mate. We're all named for saints, you know: me for St. Malachy, Kev for St. Kevin, and Denny for St. Denis. Paddy too, of course, for the greatest Irish saint of them all, St. Padraig. He's not so bad, our Paddy," Malachy added when he'd stopped laughing long enough to catch his breath. "Bit of a chip on his shoulder, maybe. You might be right about that." The other two agreed.

"He'd do no such ting as run you down in the water," Kev said.

"And leavin' you dere to drown," Malachy added. He set the cups on the ground in front of the bench and carefully filled them, handing one each to his brother and friend, keeping the bottle for himself. "May you find yourself in heaven before the divil knows yer dead," he said, raising the bottle in a toast, and then taking a long swig. The others did the same.

"Paddy doesn't get along too well with the people at Second Chance, does he?" I asked. If Padraig wouldn't tell me himself, maybe these three would.

"Not so well at all," Malachy agreed, "but those boyos up dere at the big house don't much get on with anybody these days. Now Eamon, he liked the young lad. Gave him the boat, didn't he?" I waited, but he added nothing more. I was wondering how far I could push this line of inquiry before they got mad at me and clammed up. I had a feeling that, as a foreigner, I would be tolerated only as long as I behaved myself.

"It's nice here, and a lovely day," I said looking about me. And it was: the sea, the boats, the rocky coast stretching out in both directions, part of it shrouded in mist.

" 'Tis, tank God," Malachy agreed.

"Do you tink she'd like to hear a story?" Kev asked Malachy. "Denny tells a good story," he said to me. "No, she wouldn't," Denny said, suddenly, as if he'd come out of a trance.

"Sure, I would," I replied.

"Come on, Denny," Kev said. "Tell this nice young girl a story." I considered how irritating I found it when Gilhooly called me a girl, but how sweet I thought it was when Kev did. The path of feminism is not always simple.

"The young ones don't listen to Denny's stories anymore," Malachy whispered. "That's why he tells them to the post and the pier. So he won't forget them."

"What did you say?" Kev said, elbowing his brother. "Speak up!"

Malachy glared at him.

"Why doesn't he just write them down?" I asked.

Malachy looked horrified. "Dey can't be written down," he said. " 'Twould spoil them. They're too special for that."

"Tell her the one about the golden ring," Kev said, reaching over to poke his mate.

"No, that's no good," Malachy said. "Everybody knows that one. Tell her the one about the mirror. That's the best!"

Denny didn't say a word. "Okay, Denny," Malachy said in an exasperated tone. "Tell her whichever one you want."

"One of the old ones," Kev added. "I don't suppose you'd have someting to help Denny wet his whistle, now would you?" he said, looking dolefully at the now empty bottle. "A little liquid libation to get him going?"

"No, I'm afraid not," I replied, "not knowing that I was about to make your acquaintance. But I'll be sure to bring something next time I'm here," I added. "What does Denny like?""Whiskey, of course," Malachy said.

"Me too," Kev said. "It doesn't have to be really fine. Just about any whiskey will do."

"No, don't bring us the good stuff," Malachy agreed. " Tis no use acquiring the taste for that, our circumstances being what they are. A shame they keep perfectly good whiskey around so long without drinking it, anyway."

We all looked over at Denny.

"You'll just have to wait," Malachy whispered. "Denny talks when he wants to."

As we waited to see whether the spirit would move Denny, we all sat in companionable silence. I, of course, thought about the treasure hunt, as it had come to be called in my mind. I thought again about John Herlihy and the plunge to his death. It had to be linked to the treasure in some way, although how was not immediately apparent. Neither Deirdre nor Herlihy had been given an envelope to participate in the treasure hunt. It was a team-building exercise, to use that nau-seatingly overused business term, a ploy to get the family to work together. But Alex, Michael, and Gilhooly were included, for reasons I simply didn't know and couldn't guess.

On the surface at least, the ploy seemed to be working, with the family sticking together. We were seriously outnumbered, Alex and Michael against the rest: Breeta, Margaret, Eithne, Fionuala, Sean, Conail, and Padraig Gilhooly. I'd had unpleasant run-ins with two of the seven, if you counted Conail's nasty glance and the run-in with the boat as one, and counted Paddy as the second. If events unfolded the way they'd started, I had five more unpleasant encounters to go.

On the other hand, it was pretty hard to imagine that if Herlihy had been helped over the side-and I had to admit the jury was still out on that one-it could have to do with anything else but the treasure hunt. Alex had read his clue aloud, and everyone had heard him, Herlihy included. Perhaps Herlihy immediately linked it to the little boat, the Ocean Crest, in the cove and had made his way there as fast as his drunken legs would carry him, hoping to be cut in on the deal. If that had been the case, maybe one of the family had raced him to it, with deadly consequences. Once Herlihy's body had been found, the police were all over the site, and it would be difficult for any of them to get to the boat.

Maybe that's what Conail was up to. He'd been biding his time until the police left and was about to make his way down to the cove, when we breezed in from the sea. Or perhaps he'd been there already, but hadn't been able to find it. Seeing me pulling the little plastic packet out of the bow would certainly explain the ugly look on his face.

The other problem was the sodden scrap of paper I'd pulled out of the boat. I'd assumed that with only seven clues handed out at the reading of the Will, finding the treasure wouldn't be all that complicated: Put seven clues together, and presto, the treasure would be found. But if each clue led to another, did that mean there were fourteen clues, or even more? Or did it mean that there were seven separate trails that led to the treasure? I decided that the latter wouldn't be the case, because for all of them to pursue their separate ways would not accomplish the family salvation Byrne was hoping for. Maybe, I thought, the clue in the Ocean Crest wasn't a clue at all. I'd had a look at it, of course, as soon as we'd got to shore safely. It didn't look like much at all, although the writer had had the foresight to use ballpoint pen, so there was still ink to be seen. Morelike doodling than a clue. But if it was just doodling, why wrap it in plastic and hide it in the boat?

It occurred to me that there were more questions than answers in this little mental exercise I had taken upon myself and that proof of any of this speculation was in rather short supply.

I looked over at Denny. He'd put his hands flat on his thighs and was starting to rock slowly back and forth on the bench. The rest of us waited.

"I'll tell you a story about someting very strange that happened to someone around here," he said finally. "Now I'm not saying who. No, I'm not saying who 'tis I'm talking about. If you know, then you know. If you don't, then you won't hear it from me. No, you won't be hearing it from me.

"Once there was a Kerry man who'd a wife and beautiful daughters."

"Now this is a good one," Kev said. "Very mysterious, I'll tell you."

"Don't interrupt." Malachy scowled. "Let him tell it."

"But he wasn't happy, for he wanted a son. Soon it was too late, if you take my meaning, his wife getting on to middle age. He was nigh on desperate for a son, and some say he made a pact with the divil so's to have one. Whatever 'twas he did, to everyone's surprise, his wife presented him with a fine lad. A beauty, the boy was. All pink and gold, and eyes so blue. How he doted on that boy. Wouldn't hardly leave him alone for a minute."

"Hardly a minute," Malachy agreed.

"But one day he had to go to Cork to see to his affairs, and while he was away, and his little son, only a few weeks old, was rocking in his cradle out in the garden, a very strange boy, old-looking, came to the place. The maid, she seen him, and this strange creature hopped into the little boy's bed. When the man came home, he found his son gone, and this strange-looking creature in his boy's cradle. 'Twas a terrible ting happened, really 'twas. And he says to his wife, 'what's happened here?' And she says, 'what do you mean?' 'It's the fairies,' the man exclaims, 'they've taken my boy away.' 'Yer crazy,' the woman says. But I tell you 'twere true. The fairies had switched the boy for one of their own. And the man raced to find the boy before he ate the fairy food, because as everybody knows, once you eat their food, you're with them forever, the fairies."

" 'Tis true," Kev asserted. "If they take you, don't eat what they offer, not even a little bite, no matter it looks so good."

"Shh," said Malachy. "Let him finish."

"But the man had a pact with the divil, as I've just told you," Denny continued as if the others hadn't spoken. "So he went back to the divil and says to him, 'you promised me a son,' he says to the divil, bold as brass, for what'd he have to lose what with his son being taken and all? 'I gave you one,' the divil said. 'I didn't say you'd have him forever.'

"Now this Kerryman was no slouch in the head, if you know what I mean, no slouch at all in that department. 'So what do you tink people will be saying about you, if you don't keep your promises,' the Kerryman says. 'I'll be telling everybody what you done to me. There'll be no more pacts with the divil around here when I'm done.' 'Hush your tongue,' the divil says. 'You're worse than a woman for all your complaining. But I'll tell you what I'll do. You go back and get rid of the ugly child in your boy's bed, and I'll save your boy. But you'll have to find him yerself,because I've already promised him to another.'

"The Kerryman accepts the divil's offer. What else could he do? He goes home, and takes a sword and goes to whack the ugly boy over the head with it, and what do you know, the ugly child, seeing what he's up to, jumps out of the cradle and runs away so fast no one can catch him no matter how fast they run.

"And the man looks all over the countryside for his wee boy, the real one, but he can't find him for many, many years. But then he does, when the boy's almost growed. But then the man's wife, who's brooded all these years over her lost boy, she won't recognize her son, says he's not him. But the man, he knows it's his son, who's been lost, and just before he dies, is reconciled with him. So 'tis a strange story, but a true one, and a happy ending of sorts."

Denny stopped talking, and then rocking. The tale, such as it was, was over. What a peculiar story, I thought, and would have made a point of forgetting if it had not been for what was said next.

"Denny has lots of stories like that one," Malachy said. "But that one, 'twas one of Eamon Byrne's favorites. Brought a tear to his eye every time, didn't it, Kev?"

"Aye, a tear to his eye every time. Very close to his heart, 'twas."

I was about to probe this further when I heard my name yahooed from the top of the hill leading down to the pier. Michael Davis came running toward me. "They told me at the Inn they thought you'd come down here," he puffed. "It's gone!"

"What's gone?"

"Breeta's clue!" he exclaimed. "Someone's got into the safe and stolen Breeta's clue."