A Turn for the Bad (19 page)

Billy nodded. “And a troubled one.”

“Do you think his brother is still alive?”

Billy didn't answer immediately, then said slowly, “He may be, but I won't give you odds. But we shouldn't give up on him just yet.”

“You knew what Conor was doing?”

“I did, and there's plenty more like him, so don't be too quick to judge. But the family doesn't deserve to suffer fer his sins. He only meant to help.”

“Billy, do you think there's something we can do?”

“Find the boat.”

Exactly what she had been thinking. “Aren't the gardaí and everyone else in the country trying to do just that?”

“Mebbe. But yer pretty face won't scare people off.” Billy smiled.

“You're saying that people might talk to me, when they won't talk to the gardaí?”

“They don't want to ask fer trouble. But Conor talked to yeh, did he not?”

Maura digested that. She was a woman, an outsider, and had no official standing. Maybe that could work in her favor. “Billy, I know you probably can't answer this, but how do I know who I can trust?”

“Mick, fer one. I'd steer clear of Jimmy, fer he never knows when to keep his gob shut. Sean's a good man, but you'd be putting him in a hard place, and he's probably said as much as he can. Brendan can help.”

“Not a long list, is it,” Maura said.

“Yeh don't need an army, or should I be sayin' a navy, if it's only the one boat yer lookin' for.”

“And if we do find it?”

“We'll cross that bridge when we get there.”

She checked the time: she still had an hour to fill before Brendan came back to collect her for their distillery tour. Maybe this would be a good time to try to call Sean, or at least to leave him a message—one that was as vague as possible while still giving him information he might need. But to do that she'd have to craft some lies, and she hated to do that with Sean.

She was surprised that he answered his phone, less surprised that he sounded out of breath. “What is it, Maura?”

“I hate to bother you, but you said to let you know if I heard anything. There were a couple of guys in the pub earlier, and since there are only about six people total in here today, I couldn't help overhearing what they said.”

“What was it?” he asked, all business.

“I didn't get all the details, but it sounded like they said
something like, there's a big shipment coming as soon as the weather clears. Does that mean anything to you?”

Sean was silent for a moment, and Maura wondered if they'd been cut off. Finally he said, “It might do. Did yeh know the men?”

“No, I'd never seen them in here before.”

After a long pause, Sean said, “Tell me if those men happen to stop in again, will yeh?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, and if I don't answer on me mobile, leave me a message. I might not be able to pick up right away, but I'll check to see if you've called.” He hesitated before adding, “And like I said, be careful. Don't go tryin' to talk to strangers like that, past the ‘how are yeh' sort of thing.”

“Got it. You be careful too, Sean.”

After ending the call, she slipped her phone into her pocket and surveyed the room. No strangers, suspicious or otherwise. Mick was polishing the bar and Gillian was talking to Billy. The rain was still falling hard.

Had she said enough to Sean? Too little? All she'd really told him was that the shipment was on track to happen as soon as the weather allowed. She wished she could have sat down with Sean and spilled the whole story—he was an honest man, she thought, and a good if inexperienced garda. But because he was the new kid, he'd have to pass any information about John Tully and his brother up the chain of command, and they might have very different ideas about how to handle the problem. Or they might decide it wasn't worth worrying about, in light of the bigger stakes. Which was exactly what she feared. If John Tully was still alive, he was at risk of getting caught in the middle of a very messy
event. How ironic would it be if he had survived the kidnapping only to be killed when the forces of the law arrived?

“You're looking like you've lost your puppy.” Gillian's voice broke into Maura's thinking. “Maybe some lunch would help?”

“It might. Brendan's coming back at one to take me to the distillery, so I'd better go ahead and eat. Mick?” she called out.

He broke off his conversation with a man at the bar. “What do yeh need?”

“Can you handle things here if Gillian and I go grab a sandwich? You want us to bring you back anything?”

“Jimmy and Rose'll be in soon enough, but a sandwich would be grand. Whatever's easy.”

“Right, Mick,” Maura said. “You ready, Gillian?”

Wrapped in their hooded waterproof gear, they walked slowly up the shallow hill toward the Costcutter at the gas station. “Are you going to tell me what's going on?” Gillian asked when they were well away from Sullivan's.

Maura sighed. “I don't know how much I know or who I can or can't tell. But these days you're from away, mostly, so unless you're a criminal mastermind I think I can trust you. Let's stop here.” She pointed to the low stone retaining wall in front of the school. The overhanging hedgerow might offer a little protection from the rain. Or not.

“Here's the thing,” Maura began once they were perched on the wall. “Conor Tully is a small player in what may be a big drug operation, though nobody official has come out and said so. He went to meet up with the guys who were going to make a big delivery from whatever boat brought the stuff this far, but he found that his brother was there,
taking a walk, which messed things up. The guys on the boat panicked and grabbed John. Maybe they didn't see Conor, or maybe he didn't step up. I'd guess the guys on the boat were pretty low-level, so they couldn't decide what to do with John without talking to their bosses, so they hauled him off to wherever the boat is. I mean, if you think about it, they couldn't just kill him on the spot because that was where they planned to land and make their delivery. Anyway, Conor saw all that. He knew that they could kill John and dump his body somewhere else, just because he saw too much, so before Conor took Eoin home to his mother he contacted the guys he was working with on his mobile and threatened to blow the whistle on them and torpedo the whole drug deal if they harmed John. So as far as Conor knows, John is still alive on a boat somewhere, and before they could make their delivery the guys had to wait for the search to die down, and then they've had to wait for the weather to clear. Which it's supposed to do by tomorrow.”

“Good Lord, and here I thought this was a quiet place. Does Sean know?”

“Sean has let me know that there's something big happening that has to do with drugs and that it may be dangerous. He keeps telling me to be careful.”

“Why not just tell Sean what Conor told you?”

“I would, but Conor's afraid they'll go ahead and kill John at the first sign of trouble, like if all these official boats come rushing up to their boat. Or they'd use him as a hostage. And what if the gardaí and their pals don't want just to grab this shipment but to see where it ends up? You know, follow the whole trail to the end. In which case they wouldn't want to approach the boat, John or no John.”

“Ah,” Gillian said. “And John is a very small fish? If he's lost, it's simply ‘too bad'?”

“Maybe. Conor believes that. I don't know enough about how things work around here to guess.” So unlike Boston, she reflected, where inconvenient people were quickly silenced with a bullet or a knife.

“And the clock is ticking,” Gillian said. “You told Mick?”

“Yes. That was why we went to the back room. I needed a second opinion, from someone who knows more about this kind of stuff than I do.”

They sat in silence for a minute or two. They were getting more and more wet, but at least no one could hear what they were talking about, although they might be noticed and someone would wonder why two women were sitting out in the rain.

“So now what do you plan to do?” Gillian finally asked.

She turned to face Gillian. “I don't know. That's the problem. Maybe I was hoping that Mick would know what to do, but he doesn't seem to. My idea was to go with Brendan this afternoon and meet those fishermen who make whiskey and see if they can help us track down the big boat. I mean, Union Hall is where the local fishing fleet is, right?”

“It is. And there's the yacht club at Glandore, right across the harbor. And if you find it?”

“That's where the plan kind of gets murky. If we find it, and if we assume that John Tully is still alive, which we can't prove until we find the boat—then what do we do?”

“Don't forget the forces of the law, from the gardaí on up, will come after you if you screw up their grand plan.”

“Exactly. So the only thing I can think of is to try to find the big boat, but without letting them know. That's where
the fishing boats come in. Nobody would be suspicious about them because they're coming and going all the time, right?”

“Close enough.” Gillian turned to look at her. “And you're thinking you can find this boat where all the others have failed?”

“Maybe they haven't failed. Maybe they know exactly where it is and they're just waiting for the delivery of the shipment. But they don't know about John Tully. As long as the transfer of the goods hasn't happened, John may be safe. After that, Conor's threat will be useless.”

“And then they can feel free to kill John and dump his body wherever they choose, like out in the open sea.”

“Yes,” Maura said glumly, and lapsed into silence again. She deserved to be sitting on rocks in the pouring rain, because she had been given the chance to do something important and so far she was screwing it up and she didn't see how to move forward.

“The boat could be anywhere along the shore here. Plenty of coves where no one would see anything,” Gillian volunteered.

“So people keep telling me,” Maura replied. “But Conor said they needed deep water for the big boat. It's the little one that comes to shore.”

“I'd guess they chose here because there are both good moorings to be had and plenty of privacy—well, except for the bad luck of John taking a walk. The question is, will the smugglers look for another landing spot?”

Maura sat up and pushed her wet hair off her face. “I'm guessing that as far as the gardaí know, the smugglers' plans are still in place. Conor didn't say they'd changed anything.
John Tully is the smugglers' only problem, and they probably think they've taken care of that, now that the search is shut down. They might look for another cove or they might figure the one they picked first is safe now. So you're thinking they're still around here?”

“I'd guess,” Gillian replied. “They can't just sit on a big shipment for long. What's more, they'd probably be moored in close, what with this weather we've got. They'd be ready to move quickly in the morning, as soon as they can.”

“So we need to get to them before the delivery.”

“And how is it you plan to do that, Maura? Say you tell your friend Sean, and he tries to tell his bosses. No doubt their own plan has been in place for days if not weeks. You'd be asking them to throw that over—and that's not going to happen by tomorrow morning. I don't doubt they'd have to check with Dublin, and who knows who else.”

“So we do nothing?” Maura demanded.

Gillian stared off at the road and the harbor beyond it, half-obscured by rain. “There's little time—the sun'll be gone by four. Talk to the lads at the distillery, see what they can find out—they can call around, if they're willing, and most of their mates won't be out in this weather. I doubt the crew will try to deliver their goods in the dark, not knowing the shore hereabouts, so they'll wait for first light, maybe seven or eight tomorrow, if the sky clears. Conor could tell you, although who knows where he'll have taken himself now, poor man.”

“So, what? We've got from now until early tomorrow morning to come up with a plan, and that's only if we find the boat. Say we do—do we send someone out to the boat to rescue John Tully?” Maura couldn't take the time to think
about the fact that this was the most ridiculous idea she'd heard in a long time—coordinating a sea rescue with a bunch of fishermen, against armed smugglers? Under the nose of most of the law enforcement agencies in the country?

“We might do,” Gillian agreed. “Once we've seen the boat, we'll have an idea of how many crew there might be aboard. Then we send a small boat first—that won't alarm anyone on board. That boat will hang back until they see the shipment launch for shore, right? And then they'll move in whilst everyone on the boat is distracted by that and there are only a few men left on board.”

“Jeez, you make it sound easy. Will the guys on the boat be carrying guns? How many will there be? Can anybody sneak onto a boat with no one noticing? Could they be shot just for trying to board?” Maura tried to squash the hysteria she could hear in her own voice.

“Maura, I don't know! You might remember I'm an artist. I've been out in a boat no more than a few times in my life, and mostly on dinghies that you row, so I have no idea how hard they are to handle, or how fast they can go, or how much noise they make, or how many people they can hold. But I'm not even sure all of that matters. Why do you think so many drug shipments are never stopped? Because there aren't enough eyes on the shore and not enough men to intercept them. A couple of trips to shore in a small, fast boat and the deal is done. And here we two eejits sit in the rain, trying to come up with a plan to rescue a man who's been taken by these very drug runners? We must be mad.”

“Gillian, I know you're right. But if we sit by and do nothing, and John Tully dies, we'll have to live with that, knowing that maybe, just maybe, we could have saved him.”

Gillian's shoulders sagged. “I know. What about Sean—any help there?”

“No, not really. Like I said, if I give him the whole story and if he passes that on, which he would, because he's kind of into rules and such, nothing will happen fast enough. So I don't think we can tell him.” Maura straightened up and shook water off her slicker. “Okay, say we locate the boat and we decide to send a boat of our own out to intercept it. Who can do that, and can we trust them?”