The Celtic Riddle (8 page)

"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.