04 A Turn for the Bad, page 24
“Is there really a lot of that kind of thing going on around here?” Maura asked.
“More than we’d like to see. Some say we nab no more than a tenth of what passes through West Cork. We’re doing the best we can. And if you do see any suspicious strangers, you’ll let us know, right?”
A much-delayed thought hit Maura. “Wait—what about that other guy that was found on a beach? Who the heck was he and how did he die?”
“Ah. He was in fact one of the crew members from that yacht—one of the men who grabbed John Tully. His colleague has identified him.”
“But Conor told us he’d watched the two men take John away from the beach,” Maura said, bewildered. “Were there more of them?”
“No, only the owner of the yacht, his captain, and two crew who had followed the cocaine from South America.”
“So why was he dead?” Maura demanded. “Did his druggie friends kill him to get a bigger piece of the pie?”
“No. There was something from the postmortem that came out after the first examination: he had indeed been killed by a blow to the head, but he did not die immediately. It could have been as much as a day later—he was bleeding slowly within his skull.”
“So when John fought with the men, that was when it happened?”
“It would appear so,” the detective said.
Maura thought about that for a moment. “Does John know? Or Conor?”
Detective Hurley shook his head. “What would that serve? John’s been through enough, and he doesn’t need to think he’s killed a man, even if it was in his own defense. Conor most likely believes that the man died at the hands of his colleagues and doesn’t care why. There’s nobody to be charged and no purpose to telling.”
“I see your point. So if anybody asks who he was, I just say he was a drug smuggler and he died in a fight?” Both of which, again, happened to be true. Slippery thing, truth, Maura reflected.
“That should be enough to quiet them, I’d guess. Do you have further questions?”
“I can’t think straight right now—it was a long night. If I do, can I ask you?”
“Of course. You’ve been a great help, not just with this problem.”
“I probably shouldn’t say that I didn’t plan it that way, but I’m glad things worked out. Can I go now? Because I’ve got a pub to run.”
“I’ll see you out. And thank you.”
Chapter 29
Maura made her way back to her car and dropped into the driver’s seat, suddenly wiped out. Next to no sleep last night, and it looked like it’d be another long night. Good for business, but she wasn’t sure she would stay awake until closing.
If her tired brain had heard right, Detective Hurley had cleared all of them of any responsibility for whatever crimes might have been committed, major or minor. She hoped he had persuaded his colleagues of the same thing, but they no doubt had bigger fish to fry. Ha! A fish joke. Focus, Maura. She wasn’t sure she was comfortable with having her name on a list somewhere up the line in customs or the Irish navy, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it now.
Brendan was sitting in the passenger seat, and Harry and Gillian in the backseat. Maura belatedly realized that they seemed to be waiting for her to speak, so she swiveled to face them and said, “Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to come after us for anything, according to Detective Hurley, and I’m pretty sure he means it.”
“Really? So it’s over? They’re done with us?” Gillian said incredulously.
“Looks like it. So, where to, everybody? If I had my way, I’d go straight home and fall into bed, but I have a business to run. Gillian?”
In the rearview mirror Maura could see Gillian glance at Harry, who was holding her hand. “I could do with a nap. Could you drop us at the manor? Harry and I can figure things out from there.”
From the way they’d been acting that morning, Maura wasn’t surprised. “No problem. But don’t forget to come by later and help us celebrate.” She started the car and pulled out carefully, focusing what attention she could muster on the growing number of pedestrians and badly parked cars—the church crowd in Skibbereen was beginning to gather. Maura took a roundabout route to the outskirts of the town and pointed the car back toward Leap. On the way she made a quick detour to drop Harry and Gillian at the manor’s back door. She had the feeling that the events of the last day had changed a few things between them.
“How about you, Brendan? Where do you want to go?” she asked when Harry and Gillian were safely inside.
“To Sullivan’s, if you’ll have me. Like I’m sure you’re thinking, your daring rescue should mean good business. I hope Gerard calls his partners and asks them to come by as well, if they can leave their pots—we’d have had a far different story to tell if Gerard hadn’t stepped up, and he should make the most of that, for the sake of their own business.”
“He should. You can’t buy publicity like that,” Maura agreed. “Wow. I can’t believe it’s been less than a week since all this started. And I really can’t believe we jumped into the middle of a major drug operation. We must have been crazy.”
“You were only trying to help a friend, Maura.”
“I didn’t even know John Tully or his brother!” Maura protested. “So I was only helping a friend of a friend, sort of.”
Brendan answered quickly. “You knew the Tullys came from near here. And you knew they needed help, and you could give them that. What more was there?”
Maura was both warmed and embarrassed by Brendan’s compliment. “I may never understand Ireland. I don’t know how much you know about Boston, but where I lived all my life until I came here, it wasn’t exactly a safe neighborhood. I mean, there were families and normal life went on, but we always knew there were other things under the surface, things we weren’t supposed to talk about. We had to look the other way a lot. Here, I’m minding my own business and suddenly I’m setting up a rescue mission in the middle of an international drug bust. Sounds like something out of a movie.”
“And who’d be playing the part of you in it?”
Maura smiled in spite of herself. “I’ll have to think about that. Somebody who looks like a normal human, not a movie star, that’s for sure. Since it turned out right, it might have to be a comedy. Can’t you see that bit about the guys in Harry’s boat pretending to be drunk at five o’clock in the morning? That’d be a great scene.” She realized she hadn’t started driving yet—God, she must be tired. “So back to Sullivan’s, where we’ll have to tell Billy the whole story and we’ll have to face Jimmy about leaving him out of it.” Jimmy was not going to be happy about it, but how was she supposed to tell him that nobody had trusted him to keep his mouth shut?
“What say I go and fetch some food, since you’ve had no time for lunch, and breakfast is but a distant memory?” Brendan volunteered.
“That would be great! Thank you, Brendan. Although maybe we should see how many people we’re feeding first.” She pulled out of the manor’s driveway and turned back toward the main road, and in under five minutes they were parked in front of Sullivan’s. When they emerged from the car, Maura said, “Well, here goes nothing.”
“I’ll be back directly,” Brendan told her. “After all the shouting dies down.”
“Right,” Maura muttered to herself. She checked her watch: fifteen minutes shy of the twelve thirty opening time. Enough to explain a week’s worth of bizarre events? She marched toward the door and pulled it open, and found herself in front of Billy, Mick, Gerard, Jimmy, and Rose, who wore a strange variety of expressions. “Hi, all,” she said, trying to sound casual as she pulled the door shut behind her.
“Yer not in custody?” Jimmy said in a tone that was not exactly friendly.
“No, everything’s good. Anything you need to know before we open?”
“Can we speak freely about what went on?” Mick asked.
“So it seems. The drug bust is going to be all over the news, so there’s nothing to hide.”
“And Conor?” Billy asked quietly.
“He’s not going to be arrested, if that’s what you’re asking. Isn’t the right description ‘assisting the gardaí in their inquiries’?”
“That’ll do,” Billy said, nodding.
“All right, then! Brendan has gone to find us some food, and we’d better eat before church lets out. What’ve you told them, Mick?”
“Only that we found the boat with John Tully on it and brought him home.”
“What, nothing about the daring rescue at dawn and taking down a major drug dealer? Why not enjoy your moment of glory?”
Mick shrugged but didn’t say anything. Gerard grinned. “I’ll be happy to tell the tale, since I’m the one what knocked him down. Mick here only tied him up.”
“Go right ahead,” Mick said.
“Call your partners, Gerard, while you’re at it—they can enjoy the reflection of your glory. And I’ll be sure to put your bottles out on the shelves where people can see them,” Maura said.
“Where’s Gillian? And Harry?” Rose asked.
“At the manor, together,” Maura told her. “They’ll be around later.”
“That’s a good thing, is it not?” Rose asked, smiling.
“Probably,” Maura answered. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Brendan returned bearing several bags of food, and they all hurried to eat before people started arriving. Which they did, in increasing numbers, and Maura and her staff were kept busy filling pints and repeating their stories. There was always someone new coming in who wanted to hear it from the start, and after the sixth or tenth telling Maura wished she had a handout to give them, just to save time. But the place was filled and everyone was buying pints, so she had no reason to complain.
It was close to six when she saw Sean Murphy come in. Over the heads of the crowd he nodded toward the back, and she nodded in return and followed him to the back room. It turned out that that room was equally crowded, so she made for the back door, followed by Sean. Outside they finally found some quiet. “Everything okay?” she asked Sean.
“There’s nothin’ new to report. The smugglers were taken to the bigger garda stations and formally arrested. The yacht was towed to Cork city for further forensic examination. The cargo was seized before it made it to England. Conor Tully went home after spillin’ his guts.”
“So there’s nothing more I have to do?” Maura asked.
“Seems not. Listen, Maura, thanks fer coverin’ fer me.”
“Sean, I didn’t do much of anything. We’d already guessed something big was happening, so you only confirmed that. You might want to work on your poker face, but seriously, you didn’t give anything away—most of the rest we found out on our own. You worried your boss believes you said too much?”
“Not so much the detective, but his friends are a frightenin’ lot.”
“I know what you mean,” Maura said. “But I wouldn’t worry. You told me to be careful, and I thank you for that. And to keep my eyes open. That’s what I did, but it was Billy and the others who figured out what was going on. Are we good?”
Sean looked uncomfortable, and Maura had an idea why. She didn’t want to have to discuss it, but she felt she owed him an explanation. “Sean, I’m sorry if you think I should have told you what we were planning, but I wasn’t sure whether that would get you into trouble on your end. If you knew, you might have had to stop us, and I didn’t want to put you in the middle like that, so I kept my mouth shut. Conor had us believing that if anybody else knew, his brother’s life wouldn’t be worth much. I wasn’t sure how all the other people involved would have handled it.”
“I was tryin’ to keep you safe, Maura,” he said quietly. “So I guess it’s only right that you were holdin’ back on me as well. Lookin’ out fer me.”
“It all worked out in the end, right? And I hope neither one of us ends up in that position in the future. Although I guess I’ll be watching more closely for smugglers from now on. You going to stick around to celebrate?”
Sean shook his head. “After last night, I’m knackered. Let the others take the bows. I’ll be by later in the week, when the dust settles.”
After Sean left, Maura went back into the building through the back door. The noise seemed to have swelled in the few minutes she had been gone, and when she walked into the front room she knew why: John and Conor Tully had arrived and everybody wanted to shake their hands and hear the story from them, to add to the two or three versions they had already heard. Which required another round of drinks for everyone, and she and her staff were swamped with orders.
When she had a few moments to spare, Maura slipped out the front door for some fresh, cooler air. Billy joined her. “I’ll be headin’ home now.”
“It’s kind of overwhelming in there, isn’t it?” Maura said. “Billy, you’re the one who got Conor to tell us what really happened. We couldn’t have pulled this off without that. Is that what you hoped?”
“Conor’s not a bad man. There’s plenty around here who’ve found themselves doin’ somethin’ they’d rather not talk about, because the money’s always short. Conor thought he was helpin’ out.”
“That’s what I figured. And he did everything he could to get John back. The gardaí understand that. But I still don’t know what we’d do without you at Sullivan’s.” Impulsively, Maura gave him a quick hug, which startled him.
After a few seconds he pulled away, after giving Maura a few clumsy pats on her back. “I’ll be off, then. This lot’ll be goin’ on fer a while, and I need my sleep. Slán go fóill.”
“Good night, Billy.” Maura watched as he made his slow way up the sidewalk to his apartment at the other end of the building. When she turned around, Harry and Gillian were approaching.
“Hey, you coming in?” Maura greeted them. “It’s wild in there.”
“I don’t think so,” Gillian told her. “I wanted to let you know I won’t be back at your cottage tonight. Harry and I have a lot to talk about. I would have called, but I doubt you would have heard your mobile with that racket in there.”
Maura wasn’t surprised. “Thanks for letting me know—I won’t wait up. As if I could, after this day. Are you planning on staying on at the manor?”
Gillian laughed. “I’ve told Harry no, not past this night, at least for now. But nothing’s settled yet. I’ll see you tomorrow sometime.”
“I hope so. Good luck, you two.” Maura watched them fade into the night, back toward the manor. Should they be together? She hadn’t made up her mind: Harry had stepped up today, but that didn’t make him better marriage or father material. But Gillian knew her own mind, and the two of them had to work things out. She turned to go back inside and came face-to-face with Mick.
“What, you can’t stand all the congratulations you’re getting in there?” Maura said.
“I won’t complain. How’re they doin’?” He nodded toward the retreating figures of Harry and Gillian.
“They’re talking about things. I don’t know what’s going to happen with them. Harry’s job is in Dublin, and I don’t have a clue how Gillian can support herself here with a baby. It’s not like Harry can help her out much, although things may be easier when Eveline goes and he doesn’t have to pay for her care.”
“They’ll manage. People do.”
“It makes me realize how lucky I am—I’ve got a home and a business, free and clear. At least I have choices. Besides, this place is kind of fun, you know? I mean, these unexpected things keep happening. Like drug busts.”
“So they do. I came out to tell you that the Tully brothers wanted to thank you officially fer all yer help in savin’ them, one way or another.”
“They don’t have to do that! And what did I do, anyway? You and Harry and Gerard did all the dangerous stuff.”
“You put the pieces together, and you made the whole thing work. No one else here coulda done that. So enjoy their thanks, will yeh? Yer sellin’ more pints than in the last month taken together.”
“All right, then, I will.”
Mick guided her back toward the door to Sullivan’s, and when she walked in, the cheers hit her like a wave as the Tully brothers raised their glasses to her.
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Sheila Connolly, 04 A Turn for the Bad
