A Turn for the Bad (11 page)

“Yeah, sure.” And she'd labeled most of them as losers—sad, lonely men, who she figured had somehow failed back home. Now she was beginning to understand them a bit better.

“And she might have helped a few of them find jobs in Boston?”

Maura nodded. “Yes, more than once, that I know about.”

“And do you think that man paid taxes on what he was making? He might not have been legal or he might have overstayed. If he worked, would he be listed on the payroll or did he take cash under the table?”

Maura stared at Gillian. “The second one, I guess. I know some of the guys got caught and sent back, so I guess there wasn't much legal about those. You're telling me that Gran knew all along and went along with it?”

“What would you have her do? Call Immigration every time a hungry man showed up at her door? Wouldn't that have been the legal thing to do?”

“So you're saying that my gran was encouraging illegal acts?”

“In the eyes of the law, I'd say so. Was she a criminal?”

“Oh, crap,” Maura muttered. “I let myself get suckered into believing all that garbage about Ireland, that it was all rainbows and leprechauns. How stupid is that?”

“Maura,” Gillian said patiently, “people here don't get into this kind of thing just to make a lot of money. They do it because they need it, just as Mick does. Sure, there are some rotten people in the mix, but there are few dealers who are Irish by birth. I won't tell you there are none, but too many who are caught are English or from somewhere else. Although there are those who believe that some of the money that flows into Ireland goes to the new IRA or some other organization of their kind.”

“Oh, great—now we've got politics in the mix?”

“Could be. I hear things when I'm in Dublin.”

Maura didn't like the look of pity in her eyes. “Gillian, what am I supposed to do?”

“For now, do nothing. There's no rush, save where John Tully is concerned, and I'd guess the gardaí are looking into that angle—they're not fools. As for what Mick told you, let it simmer. He's not a bad man. Like so many, he's in a difficult situation. Is he doing you any harm?”

“You're saying you want me to play dumb, pretend I don't know, if anybody asks?”

Gillian nodded. “In a way.”

“And if Sean comes asking me if I've heard anything about smuggling?” Maura pressed.

“You've no need to tell him about Mick. Mick has nothing to do with John Tully's disappearance. God willing, John'll be found safe somewhere and the whole episode will be over. And past that, you haven't heard anything, am I right? Not personally?”

“I guess, but I wasn't looking either.” What Mick and Gillian had said was too much to take in all at once. She needed time to think, and right now she didn't have it—she had a pub to open. “Let's change the subject. What are you planning to do today?”
Or this month or this year or for the rest of your life, with a baby on the way now?

“Finish clearing the studio. Blast, I forgot to ask when Mick could help shift my paintings and supplies, if it's to be in this house. Find a place to live.”

“Will you be okay? For money, I mean? I don't know what rentals cost around here. And you've got doctor bills and baby stuff to think about too.” Maura realized she was more worried about Gillian than she had admitted to herself.

Gillian smiled at her. “Listen to you! I'm old enough to
know what needs to be done, and I'll get by. But thank you for worrying about me.”

“You're welcome, I guess. And you can stay here as long as you like.”

“Only if you get your heat sorted out. It's glacial in here!”

Maura arrived at the pub just before ten. There were already a few guys she recognized standing around the door talking with each other, and a couple were smoking, which wasn't allowed inside. She wasn't sure she could look at cigarettes in the same way anymore—were those legal?—but it wasn't her problem. Unless Mick made it her problem.

From the sag of the shoulders of the gathered men, Maura could tell they'd heard nothing new about John Tully. Was that good or bad? Nobody could actually say whether he was dead, but in an area with a lot of fishing boats, there must be some point when the officials decided to stop looking. “Good morning!” Maura called out as she approached. “Come in and I'll light the fire. Coffee all around?”

“Good mornin' to yeh, Maura. Sounds fine,” one of the men said, and the others nodded.

Maura unlocked the door and the men followed her in. “If you want to lay the fire, I'll start the coffee machine,” she volunteered.

“Fair enough,” said another of the men who started gathering together fuel from the basket next to the fireplace. Maura turned to fill the coffeemaker and when she turned back, Sean Murphy had come in the door.

“Good morning, Sean,” she said brightly, sounding completely unnatural even to herself. “I've just started the coffee, if you want some. Anything new?” She studied his face: he didn't look upset, so she guessed there was no bad news.

“Mornin', Maura. Coffee sounds good.” He took a seat at the bar while the other men settled themselves around the fireplace, glancing over at the garda now in their midst. Did they look wary? Or was she just being paranoid, with her new knowledge of things that went on below the surface?

“Anything going on that I should know about?” Maura asked quietly.

Sean shook his head. “I wish I could tell yeh there was, but nothin's changed since yesterday. I'm here to check if your lot has heard anythin' that might be of use.”

“Officially? You want the gossip from Sullivan's?”

“In a manner of speakin'.”

The gardaí really must be grasping at straws if they thought she could help them. Maura poured Sean a mug of coffee and set it in front of him. “I wish I could help, but I haven't heard anything useful.” Well, that wasn't exactly true, but she hadn't heard anything that applied directly to
the search for John Tully, had she? “John Tully's brother stopped in here yesterday. Do you know him?”

“Not meself, although I think the lads over to Bantry have talked to him—it's closer to his home. We all share what information we have. They found nothin' out of the ordinary about Conor Tully. He told us he hadn't seen his brother that day, and John's wife agreed with that. Then she called him to go find John and Eoin, which was a lucky thing fer the boy.” He sipped his coffee slowly, blowing on it first.

“Conor seemed nice enough. Worried about John, of course. He said he volunteers with the coast guard, since he knows boats.” Maura didn't want to interrupt Sean's few moments of peace. It must be hard to be an officer when you knew, or at least knew
of
, most of the people in the area. In Boston something like that was impossible, unless you were dealing with a crime that took place near the precinct. If it was an important crime it would probably get bumped upstairs to a larger or more specialized unit. Not that she had much direct experience with Boston police procedures, but it was hard
not
to know the players on both sides of the law. If the Bantry gardaí knew John at all, would they ask Conor hard questions—things like
Are you sleeping with your brother's wife?
That would probably be a standard in Boston—but here?

“Do they think that Conor had anything to do with John's disappearance? Or knows anything?”

“There's no reason to think that,” Sean said.

“But would they ask anyway?” Maura pressed.

“Maura, this isn't Boston. The gardaí have no reason to badger Conor Tully just because his brother goes missing.”

“Fair enough, Sean. All I know is how things work in
Boston, and I can see it's different here. Is this search typical for a missing person or one lost at sea?” she finally said.

“Pretty much so. It'd be in the headlines fer a while. Not in Boston?”

“I'm trying to remember. I don't know exactly what Boston's population is, but probably just under a million, so one person disappearing would be a headline for a day or two. Or maybe I'm wrong: seems like all our news shows are obsessed with crime, the more gruesome the better. You wouldn't believe some of the details they show on television. But here there are less than five million people in the whole country, right? So one man's disappearance makes national news. And John Tully's disappearance really seems to have got the locals worked up.”

Sean looked at her somberly. “Should we not care?”

“No! I don't mean that. It's just on a different scale than I'm used to. Of course I hope you guys find him and he's safe and sound. And I've never even met him. But all I can tell you is that nobody here has said a bad word about him.” She leaned closer. “Who decides when you give up looking?”

“Not me, thank God.”

“Nothing new on the other man?”

Sean smiled ruefully. “No clothes, no fingerprints—not much in the way of fingers, either—and not much face to go by.”

“Has the coroner decided how he died, or is that a secret?”

“It was a blow to the head, most likely by a rock, I'm told. The coroner wouldn't say whether the man fell or if there was a hand holding that rock, so we're no further along there. I can tell you that what little dental work he had looks foreign, but he could have seen a dentist from somewhere
else while he was in Ireland, or he could have come from somewhere else. We've pretty much eliminated Asian or African identity, but that doesn't help us much.”

Maura tried to remember if she'd seen anybody who was obviously either Asian or black since she'd been in West Cork, and came up with no one. If someone like that had come ashore, he'd have been noticed. But if he'd come by boat . . . She struggled to frame a question in terms as neutral as possible. “Sean, is there any chance that John Tully could have been involved in something, uh, not quite legal?”

Sean looked at her, his expression carefully neutral. “And why would you be askin' that?”

Tread carefully, Maura
. “Well, it seems like you've explored all the easy solutions—accident, suicide, or he just wanted to get away from his life. Kidnapping doesn't make any sense, because he doesn't seem to have a lot of money. What's left?”

“Yer talkin' about illegal activities along our coast, am I right?” Sean asked.

“I guess so,” Maura admitted.

“Do yeh have any personal knowledge of such activities?”

Official Sean was back, and Maura backpedaled. “No, not at all. But I'm still kind of the new kid around here, and even I hear the odd comment now and then. I haven't paid much attention before, but don't you have to look into it, if you still hope to find John Tully?”

“No one has come by offerin' you whiskey at a greatly reduced rate? Or a few cartons of cigarettes, half price?”

Maura shook her head. “Nothing like that. Maybe they don't know if they can trust me yet. There was a liquor distributor in here a couple of days ago, but he didn't say a
word about special deals or discounts. I'm pretty sure he'll be back, though. Should I ask him then, or let him make me some kind of pitch?”

“No, you'd do best to stay out of it. The Bantry station is lookin' into that side of things, but they've turned up little so far. But there's plenty of water and coves hereabouts, so they're far from done. You'll tell me if yeh hear anythin' that might be connected?”

“Of course.”

Sean drained his mug. “And don't be askin' questions of strangers who walk in. It can be a dangerous business, and yer best not knowin' what goes on, much less putting yerself in the middle of it.”

“I hear you, Sean. I don't want to borrow trouble, believe me. I've got enough to handle as it is.”

Sean stood up. “Just be careful, will yeh? Please?” He pulled together a smile for her, then left, brushing past Mick as he came in the door.

Mick came around the back of the bar. “Anything new?”

“No. Well, maybe—I guess they think the body they found might be a foreigner, based on his fillings. Which kind of supports the idea that . . . what we talked about earlier might be likely. He says the Bantry station is looking into that side of things.”

“Makes sense—they're more ready to handle issues like that. Have you visited Bantry?”

Maura shook her head. “I'm always here, remember? As Gillian keeps reminding me—she seems to think I have no life. I suppose I could cut back my hours now that the tourist season is over and I have a better handle on what I'm doing.”

“We can cover, Jimmy and me. And yeh owe it to yerself to get to know West Cork—yer missing a lot.”

“So people keep telling me. Maybe I'm just a workaholic, but I do want to make this work.” She looked around at the pub. Her pub. Cleaner and brighter than it had been when she arrived, with more customers than there had been a few months before. All good, and she'd had a hand in it. Now she was afraid that if she backed off a bit, it would all disappear again. Stupid. “What is there to see in Bantry?”

“Fer a start, there's a grand big harbor. Fishin'. Mussel beds.”

“Okay, fine. I'll start keeping a list of places I've got to see.” She wasn't sure she wanted to make a special trip to look at a harbor and more boats—after all, she had one in front of her. But then she remembered when Mick had taken her to see the Drombeg stone circle, out past Glandore, not long after she had arrived. Maybe that was part of the problem: she'd been so moved by that, so unexpectedly, that she was afraid nothing else would measure up. It was a memory she treasured, but Mick hadn't offered to show her anything else. Why was that? she wondered.

The next arrival was Brendan Quinn, to no one's surprise. Maura wasn't sure what to do with him, because the mood of the place was somber while everyone waited, with less and less hope, for news of John Tully. She was impressed when Brendan greeted her with, “It's a sad thing about Tully, isn't it? No sign of the man?”

Maura shook her head. “Not yet.”
Maybe not ever
. “How'd you hear about that?”

“I talk to people as I make my calls.” He hesitated a moment before continuing. “Maura, I know it might be rude
of me to intrude at a time like this,” he went on, “but perhaps this might be a good time to introduce you to the joys of the whiskey.”

Maura stared at him. “Actually, it does seem rude. Yeah, I know it's your business, but my business is being here and trying to help these guys get through a difficult time.”
Wow, I've never said anything like that before.

“I understand and respect that, Maura. But that's the point: your business goes on. I'm only suggesting that I offer you a sampling of what's available and what you might want to stock.”

Pushy man, indeed, but she could understand where he was coming from. “I don't have the time. I'm here until past eleven every night and later on weekends. You want me to try whiskeys at breakfast?”

“Of course I don't. And it needn't take long, as I don't see you drinking much. Just tasting. Tonight, after closing?”

Maura was beginning to feel hemmed in and was surprised when Mick came up beside her. “I can take you home, if yer worried about the drivin'.”

Was she? If so, that was only part of it. “I won't be drunk, I can promise you that.” Did she really want to do this? Or need to, for the business or for her bottom line? She still wasn't sure, but what could it hurt to explore what he was offering? “All right, Brendan, I'll go along with this, but only if we don't have anything to feel bad about.”

“Ah, but God willing, you might have something to celebrate? I'll come by at eleven. And I thank you, Maura Donovan, for being willing to listen to me.”

She waited until he'd gone out the door before turning to Mick. “Is this a dumb idea?”

Mick shrugged. “He's only tryin' to do his job, and you don't have to buy a bottle of anything if you don't want to. But in a way he's right: you should know what's what, since it's yer trade now.”

“I guess. Should we ask Jimmy? Rose is too young, and nobody should be asking her about whiskey anyway.”

“I'll talk to Jimmy. And I meant what I said—I'll see to it you get home safe. I've no need to drink the stuff—I know it well enough.”

“Whatever,” Maura muttered. The way she felt about the whole alcohol thing, she'd probably hate anything she tasted and refuse to order anything. Well, Brendan had asked for it, so he'd just have to settle for whatever came out of it.