A Turn for the Bad (7 page)

“Point taken,” Maura said, then looked down at her menu. “So, what's good here?”

“Everything. You should fill up, in case you can't find the time for lunch.”

They ordered a hearty breakfast, and Maura could feel herself unwinding. Why hadn't she explored more of the area and talked to more people? In part because until recently she hadn't been sure she was going to stay for long and didn't see the need—or maybe she hadn't wanted to get too attached? And because, as Gillian had said, she'd been really nervous—probably more than she had admitted—about running the pub by herself and had poured all her energy into that. And,
if she was honest, she'd been grieving for Gran, and things like the local accent reminded her of Gran, and that still hurt. But it was getting better, and she was beginning to understand why Gran had wanted her to come here. It wasn't just that the pub could let her earn a living and be her own boss, but it was about the people, like a family she didn't know she had. She was still getting used to it all.

Gillian finished her meal before Maura. “Hurry up, now—we still need to get our fish, and you should get to your pub. Shall I get a treat here to take back with us?”

“Hang on. What's your plan?”

“Buy fish and pastry, drop you off at Sullivan's, take the food back to the house, and head over to the creamery and see what needs to be done there.”

“Will you need help there?”

“I might do, but not yet. There are some paintings I should crate up to move, but I need to get a count before I make plans. You'll be at the pub all day?” When Maura nodded, Gillian added, “I'll stop by at the end of the day and see what's what by then. Does that suit you?”

“Sounds good to me. You can buy the goodies, and I'll pay the tab.”

“Deal.”

It was still raining when they emerged from the coffee shop, and they dashed down to the fish store. When they stepped in, there were a couple of men inside, one behind the curving counter holding ice and a wealth of fish Maura didn't recognize. He smiled at Gillian. “Don't usually see yeh this time of year, Gillian.”

“You're right, Peter, but I've got to clear my studio here, since my friend is selling it. I'll be around for a bit. You
haven't met Maura here, right? She took over Mick Sullivan's pub, in Leap.”

“So yer the lady I've heard about,” the man said.

Maura was startled: people were talking about her? “I hope it's all good. I haven't been in here before, so you'll have to tell me what's what. And what I can't mess up too badly, because I don't know much about cooking fish.”

The man grinned. “Ah, it's all good. And as fresh as can be. I'll spare you the monkfish, but I could let you have a nice piece of that sole there.”

While Maura wavered, Gillian said, “Done. Give us half a kilo, will you?”

The man picked up what looked like half a fish, sliced lengthwise and minus the head and tail. He took it over to a scale, then put it in a plastic bag and heat-sealed the bag. “Will that be all, now?”

“We'll be back if we want more. I'm guessing the ships won't be going out today?”

“Too rough, it is. But it's said to be clearing tomorrow.”

As Peter handed Gillian the package of fish, a man burst in. “There's been a body found,” he announced to the small group in the shop.

“Tully's?” one of the other men asked.

The newcomer shook his head. “They can't say yet—it's been battered about. The gardaí have taken it over to the Cork hospital to see what's what.”

Maura looked at Gillian. “We'd better get back to Leap.”

As Maura had both hoped and feared, there was already a short line of people standing in front of the locked door at Sullivan's, even though it was still well before opening time. She glanced at Gillian. “You coming in?”

“Of course. I want to know if the man was John Tully.”

“I'm guessing that's why everybody's here. But we don't know anything.”

“We know what we don't know,” Gillian said.

It took Maura a moment to figure out what she meant. “We don't
know
it's Tully, just that there's a body. Got it.”

Gillian parked on the street. Maura was out of the car as soon as it stopped moving, and strode quickly toward Sullivan's. She felt everyone's eyes on her, but she didn't say anything until she'd opened the door and led the men into the
dark interior. She turned on as many lights as she could find, to ward off the gloom of the day. Then she slid behind the bar and turned to face the still-silent crowd. Their expressions ranged from fear to hope. Did they seriously think she knew anything more than they did? But they seemed to be expecting something from her. She cleared her throat.

“I've been told that the body of a man was found in the water. I don't know where or by who, and if he's been identified, the gardaí haven't given out his name. Whether they know it and they're trying to get it confirmed or whether they really don't know who it is, I can't tell you. I was told the body was in poor condition and had been in the water for a bit. In either case they took it—him—to Cork University Hospital for a postmortem, so we should know more later today. And that's all I know,” Maura finished, and waited for the reaction.

The people in the crowd shrank into themselves, just a little. Maura wondered if they were going to leave, since she had no hard news to offer them. “I can't serve you yet, but do you want coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee'd be grand, if it's no trouble,” said someone she couldn't see at the back of the crowd.

“Coming up.” Maura turned to start up the coffee machine.

Gillian came up behind her. “Need some help? When's your crew coming in?”

Maura looked at her watch and was surprised to find that it was barely nine thirty. Keeping her eyes on setting up the coffee, she said in a low voice, “Not until ten, and not all of them. Unless, of course, they've heard what we heard. If you could set out some mugs, it would be a big help.”

“I'll take care of it,” Gillian said, and set to work efficiently.
Maura wondered how much waitressing she'd done in Dublin when the art wasn't paying well.

As the morning wore on, the tension became even thicker than it had been the day before. Mick arrived shortly before ten and seemed to know about the body already, although he had nothing to add. Jimmy and Rose appeared just past eleven, but they'd heard nothing, so Maura explained what they'd learned that morning. Gillian had retrieved the fresh fish from the car and stowed it in a refrigerator behind the bar, and stayed on. Most of the customers didn't appear to be going anywhere, although they weren't buying much. The dark and dreary weather didn't help, and Maura lit a fire again to brighten the space and fight off some of the damp. When Billy came in, closer to noon, he made a beeline for it.

Maura carried a pint over to him and sat down. “You've heard?”

“I have.” He nodded.

“I know nobody
has
to tell us anything, but I wish they would,” Maura said glumly.

“They'll want to be careful now, with the body,” Billy said gently.

“Well, I'm sure they don't want to give the wife any false hope,” Maura acknowledged. “Does this kind of thing happen often around here? I mean, finding bodies in the water? With fishing accidents and that kind of thing?”

“Often enough. It's not an easy living, the fishin'. The weather's uncertain and it can change in a minute. The boats get old and things break. As I told yeh before, not all the men can swim. In some ways it's better now than it was—more fancy equipment to find the fish. Or so I'm told—I haven't seen it
meself, though I know it's costly. But that's not the whole picture. This global warmin' stuff they keep tellin' us about on the news, it's shifted where the fish go, and the men must go farther and farther out on the water to fill their nets. And there are troublesome regulations about what gear they can and can't use. Few young men choose to carry on the trade.”

“I can see why,” Maura said. “But what jobs can they find, if they don't fish?”

“It's not easy fer them. Brendan, now—he told you about the distillers over to Union Hall. Well, Skibbereen is more like the truth, fer the idea might've been born in Union Hall, but the stuff is made in Skibbereen. Anyways, those young men decided to give up the fishin' and go another way, after seein' what was comin'.”

“He mentioned something like that, I think. I hadn't heard anything about it.”

“Three young lads—well, young to the likes of me—decided they'd had enough of the fishin' and decided to do somethin' different, and they started up makin' whiskey and other drink. Problem is, it takes time to distill anythin', fer yeh've got to age it, and that means money out of their pocket to get started. They're only just now puttin' out whiskey with their own name on it, and it's been five years and more since they started out. But they're workin' hard and they've got some good ideas. They may make a success of it yet.”

“Am I supposed to be selling their stuff here?” Maura asked.

“Only if you want to, and it would be a kind thing to do. But I'm not the man to look to fer all the rules and regulations. If Brendan comes back, which I don't doubt he will, you can put the question to him.”

Maura digested that information. Maybe she wasn't planning to drink whiskey, local or not, but it would be a good selling point to tell tourists that one of the whiskeys came from right around the corner, and wouldn't they like to try it? Would they be able to get it back home if they found they liked it? She'd have to check out the place, talk to the guys. It couldn't hurt to be a good neighbor—maybe they'd send some customers her way in return.

The crowd swelled at lunchtime. Maura kept checking her watch, because time seemed to be crawling at a snail's pace. She and Gillian had heard about the body around nine. How long before that had the body been found? After the sun had come up, surely, so only a few hours, maybe. Now it was past one, and still no news. Not that anyone owed it to Maura or the regulars at Sullivan's to report any and all information, but it would be better to know than to sit here with a crowd that was frustrated and stewing in uncertainty.

Finally a garda car pulled up outside and Sean Murphy got out. Maura stood straighter behind the bar, watching apprehensively as he approached, trying to read his expression. The rest of the people in the room seemed to freeze, also watching intently. Sean opened the door and stopped, scanning the silent watchers, his face giving nothing away, then came over to the bar. Maura noticed that he looked grim, as well as a bit green around the gills.

“Could yeh give me a tea, please?” he asked formally.

“Of course,” Maura told him. She looked at Rose, who wordlessly started filling a teapot.

Sean tried to smile and failed. Then he turned to the waiting crowd. “As you've no doubt learnt, a body was found by a fishing boat coming in early this morning. It was too
badly damaged to determine an identification. There were no clothes to speak of on the man, so no papers or the like. The body was taken to the Cork University Hospital for a preliminary postmortem, at which I was present.”

Nobody in the room seemed to be breathing as they waited. Would it be the news they all feared? Had it been anyone but Sean Murphy, Maura would have said he was trying to make his announcement as dramatic as possible. But she knew Sean was a simpler, more direct person.

Finally he said, “I can tell you with a degree of certainty that the man who was found was
not
John Tully.”

After a moment of silence, the people in the room erupted with questions—too many to answer, or maybe Sean wasn't ready to say more. He held up a hand. “That is all the information that the gardaí are prepared to release at this time. We do not know if the man met with violence or if his death was a simple accident. We do not know where he came from. If yeh know the currents around here, yeh'll know that it could be quite some distance. But I would ask yeh this: if yeh know of anyone other than John Tully who's gone missing in the past few days, please contact the garda station in Skibbereen.”

“So he'd been in the water only a short time?” someone at the other end of the room called out.

Sean nodded. “No more than three days, it appears. Possibly less. The water's been rough, with the weather we've had, and he'd been knocked about. That's why it was hard to make an identification. That's all I can tell yeh fer now.”

Sean turned his back on the group, who accepted his statement and resumed talking in subdued tones among themselves—save for a few that came to the bar to order
pints. Rose put Sean's mug of tea on the bar in front of him and went to serve the others. Sean slumped over the mug, his eyes haunted.

“Was it bad?” Maura asked softly.

“It was,” he said, without looking at her. “Let me tell yeh, seein' a man who's been tossed about by the sea is not somethin' yeh should wish fer.”

“It looks like these guys are glad it's not John Tully. Who is still missing, right?”

“He is that. And now we've another dead man to worry about.”

“Do you think it . . . was a natural death?” Maura asked softly. She couldn't bring herself to ask if the man had been killed.

Sean shrugged. “That's not fer me to decide. The coroner will have to look more closely before he'll say. But we know it's not John—the man's too short, fer a start. John's a tall man.”

“No reports of anyone else missing?”

“I've only just come from the hospital, Maura,” Sean snapped. Then he looked at her, apologetic. “Sorry. This thing's upset me, but it's nothing to do with you.” He drained his mug and stood up. “I'd best be gettin' back to the station so I can begin checkin' the reports.”

“Thanks for letting us know here, Sean,” Maura said. She gestured toward the crowd, which was much more relaxed now. “These people were really worried.”

“I thought they might be. I'll let yeh know if I learn anythin' more.”

The men cleared a path as he made his way toward the door. Funny, Maura thought—Sean didn't look so young
anymore. She couldn't begin to imagine what the body must have looked like, and she didn't want to try.

Gillian came up beside her. “Poor lad, he probably hasn't seen too many corpses the likes of this one.”

“It must have been bad—Sean's usually pretty steady.” Maura wiped down the bar until another thought emerged. “Do you think it could be another murder here? I mean,
someone
is dead—we know that much.”

Mick came over and leaned on the other side of the bar. “Don't get ahead of yerself, Maura. The coroner wouldn't say anything on first look. And he could have come from far away, given the currents and the weather.”

“Jeez, Mick—you think I want this to be suspicious? Better that it's some poor fisherman who went overboard in a storm. But all we
know
is that the body was so, uh, damaged that it wasn't clear how he died.”

Mick cocked his head. “What're yeh sayin', Maura?”

She shook her head, mainly out of frustration. “Doesn't it seem odd to you that one man disappears and then the sea tosses back a different one at the same time?”

Mick half smiled. “Mebbe. Or it's just a sad coincidence. The sea can be dangerous.”

“I'll buy that,” Maura said. Without any more information, there was nothing more to say. She turned to Gillian, still standing nearby. “Gillian, the guy at the fish store—he told us about the body, but he didn't say whether anyone from Union Hall was missing or that any of the fishermen he must work with mentioned a name.”

“And why would he do that, to us?” Gillian responded. “I've known Peter there most of my life, but he's only just met you. Maybe the fisherman was keeping it quiet.”

“Maybe. But still, maybe the dead man's not local. Can the gardaí plot the currents and figure out where he may have drifted from?”

“The coast guard would be doin' that,” Mick told her. “They'd have done some of it already when they went lookin' fer Tully. But what are yeh gettin' at?”

Maura slumped. “I don't know, I guess. I just don't like coincidences.”
Or unexplained deaths
, she added to herself. Then she amended that:
deaths, period
. If it was unexplained that made it worse, but usually there was an explanation, especially in rural Cork. And she hoped the gardaí would find one, sooner rather than later. She also hoped they'd find John Tully, alive and well. Two deaths in short order would be hard to take.