Scandal in Skibbereen (17 page)

At six thirty Maura grabbed her bag and went into the ladies’ room to change. It didn’t take long: she had only to swap one shirt for another, and her jeans for her black trousers. No makeup—she hated the fuss. She finger-combed her hair and, thinking of Rose’s comment, tried to remember the last time she’d had it cut—and then she remembered: her gran had trimmed it, a couple of weeks before she’d gone into the hospital that last time. Maura stared at herself in the cloudy bathroom mirror, tears suddenly in her eyes.
What am I doing, Gran?

Impatiently she scrubbed the tears from her face, splashing water on it. Gran had sent her here, but Gran hadn’t been to Leap or Knockskagh or Skibbereen for a very long time, and there was much she wouldn’t recognize. She would have trusted Maura to make her own decisions and find her own way. Wouldn’t she?

Maura straightened her new teal sweater and went back to the bar to wait for Sean Murphy.

M
aura almost didn’t recognize Sean when he walked in, and it was only Mick’s nudge that made her look again. She realized she had never seen Sean without his garda uniform. In ordinary clothes he looked . . . ordinary. But nice. And at the moment he looked nervous.

Sean took in the whole of the room—habit? Maura wondered—then his face lit up when he saw her behind the bar. After greeting Mick and Rose, he said to her, “Are yeh ready to go, Maura?”

“Sure. Just let me grab my bag.”

Outside he led her to a battered small car, but at least it was newer than her own, which was actually a hand-me-down from Bridget Nolan’s late husband. Sean courteously opened the passenger door and waited until she was settled in the seat before closing it. When he climbed in the other side he said, “Seat belt,” then he blushed. “Sorry—but it is the law here.”

“No problem,” Maura said. “I always wear mine anyway. After . . . you know.” She didn’t have to mention the accident on the hill to Sean, who’d been the one to come to her rescue, after all.

“But that didn’t put you off driving?” he asked, starting the car.

“Do I have a choice? If I don’t drive, I’d have to walk everywhere, and even that’s not safe, since the lanes are so narrow. If I meet anyone on the road, I’d have to climb into the hedgerow.”

“There is that. Are you still borrowing the same car?”

“Yes.” She looked at him, trying to guess at his interest. “Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all, as long as Bridget Nolan has kept up the paperwork.”

“I think Mick takes care of all that. So, where are we going?”

“There’s a nice restaurant on Bridge Street in Skib—I know a couple of the managers there. Small, not too fancy, but the food’s great.”

Maura’s experience with eating in nice restaurants was limited, and she wasn’t sure what she would consider “great” food, so she’d have to trust Sean’s judgment.

“How long is it you’ve been here now?” Sean asked, skillfully navigating the roundabout.

“Uh . . . three months? I arrived in March.”

“And are you settling in well?”

“I guess. I don’t have much to compare it to, since I lived all my life in the same place.”

“With your gran, was it?”

“Yes. In South Boston. Have you ever been to America?”

“I have not. I joined the gardaí as soon as I left school.”

“Do you just apply for that?”

“You have to have certain grades in your Leaving Certificate—that’s what you get when you’ve finished your secondary schooling and passed the tests—including in two languages, one of them being Irish, with an oral test for that.”

“I’m impressed,” Maura said. “Can you actually speak Irish?”

“Not well, but there’s little call for it. My other language was German, since there are a good number of blow-ins from there in Cork, but I’m no better at that than the Irish.” He followed the road that looped around the town center, pulling into the parking lot behind the market. “Do you mind walking from here?”

“Of course not,” Maura said. Out of the car, they followed a path along the small stream toward the main street. “So after you apply and you’re accepted, then what?”

“You’re sent to the Garda College for training, and then you spend half a year at different stations. Then you’re attached to a station, and then there’s a probation period, for another two years.”

“Do you get to choose your station?”

“Not always, but you can make a request.”

“Is this where you wanted to be?”

“It is. I come from here.” He stopped in front of a small restaurant the width of a single storefront, facing the main street. “We’ve arrived.”

Inside it smelled wonderful, even to Maura’s uneducated nose. Sean waved to a woman in a simple black dress, clutching a stack of menus, and she came over quickly. They exchanged a familiar if hurried hug. “Sean, good to see you! It’s been too long.”

“The work keeps me busy. We’re always shorthanded these days. Marie, this is Maura—she’s just moved to Leap, to take over Sullivan’s.”

“
Fáilte romhat a Mhaire!
Me da loves that place, although he says it’s not what it once was, this past couple of years. But then, he says that about a good number of things. How’s the business now?”

“Picking up a bit, now that it’s summer. Tell your father I’ve been cleaning up Old Mick’s messes since I got here.”

Marie laughed. “I’ll do that, and I’m sure he’ll have to go in to see for himself. American, are you?”

“Yes. From Boston.”

“Well, welcome. It’s good to meet a friend of Sean’s. Where’ll you sit, Sean? You’ve plenty of choices.” Only half the tables were occupied.

“Could we sit round the corner, near the window? Maura, you can watch the kitchen from there, without all the noise.”

“That sounds good,” Maura said cautiously. Did she
want
to watch the kitchen? Sean seemed to think it would be a treat.

Marie led them to a table on the far side of the restaurant, covered with a crisp tablecloth; there was a single flower in a slender vase in the center. “Here you go. Order whatever you like—I’ll give you time to decide.”

When Marie had left, Maura said, “How do you know her?”

“As a garda it’s my business to know people, but Marie and I went to school together. She went off for a few years to cookery school, then came back and opened this place a couple of years ago.”

“It
is
nice,” Maura said, looking around, and meant it. The decor was simple, and all the staff appeared to be about her own age and seemed to be working comfortably together in a relatively small space. “What’s good here?”

“I’ve never had a bad meal, but the set meal is a good value.”

“Fine,” Maura said, without looking at the details.

When Marie came back, Sean quickly ordered two of the fixed price dinners. Maura was doing some quick math: if he’d left whatever they called high school around here and spent two years at the Garda College and then another half year rotating through different parts of the country, just how old was he? When Sean turned his attention back to her, she said, “So, have you finished probation?”

“A few months past. The case that you were a part of, when you’d only just arrived, was my first. And my first under the detective superintendent.”

So he was maybe . . . twenty-three? A bit younger than she was. “The detective’s quite a guy. What’s he like to work with?”

“Smart. Fair. He works as hard as anyone in the station, doesn’t just pawn off tasks to the rest of us. He’s a good boss. It’s hard when we’re so poorly staffed—we’re even closing down some of the small stations out in the townlands.”

“Budget cuts?” Maura asked sympathetically.

“Yeah—orders from the top. Although in fact there’s less need for those stations now. So many of the younger lads have left, looking for work, that small crimes are down. Don’t jump on me, now—we’ve a few women gardaí as well.” A server appeared and deposited their appetizer course. “Did you want a glass of wine?” she asked. “Comes with the dinner.”

“That’d be grand. The white, Maura?”

“Sure,” Maura said. She seldom drank wine and didn’t pretend to know what was what, above what people asked for at the various bars where she had worked. She’d had few requests for wine at Sullivan’s, although she’d noticed that the market in town here sold a large variety. Maybe because Ireland was closer to the source of some European wines?

The server brought their glasses quickly. Sean picked his up and raised it to her. “Thank you for joining me.”

“Thank you for asking me,” Maura replied. “Why did you?” She didn’t think she was exactly a prize.

Poor Sean looked startled by her question. “Why are you asking?” he countered.

Now she’d embarrassed him—and herself. “Never mind—rude question. I don’t date much. Clearly. This is a date, right?”

He smiled. “That’s what I’d meant it to be. And to answer you, from what I’ve seen, yer an interesting woman. Was I wrong to ask?”

“No, not exactly. I just didn’t expect it. And I don’t know what you expect.”

“I expect a pleasant evening with someone I’d like to get to know better, nothing more.”

Something in Maura relaxed. No pressure. He
was
a nice guy, right? “Okay, then.” As a diversion—so she didn’t have to look at him for a moment—she dug into her appetizer. “Wow, this is good!”

“I told you, they’re great cooks here. When you’re at home, do you not cook for yourself?”

“As little as I can. I’m not even sure how to turn on the oven at my house, or if it works. It scares me.”

And the talk turned to lighter topics. Maura found herself liking the wine as well as the food. Sean proved easy to talk to, and Maura stopped worrying about his intentions or unknown social signals in a country she didn’t know well at all. She realized that he must in fact be good at his job—he was drawing her out without making it obvious, paying attention to what she said, asking good questions. She was enjoying herself.

“So, tell me—I’ve been told there are few murder investigations in Ireland. Is that true?” she asked.

“There are few murders, right. At least compared to your country.”

“What’s few?” Maura asked, curious.

“Over the last ten years, no more than three in this district, and only one of those since I came on here. You’d remember that one.”

She did, only too well. “You know, it’s kind of hard to get used to. I mean, people don’t even lock their doors around here—not that I have anything worth stealing. But it’s hard to break old habits, after living in Boston.”

“So you couldn’t trust yer neighbors, where you lived?”

Maura shook her head. “Heck, half the time I didn’t even know my neighbors. It’s not like here, where everybody knows everybody else.” This was not what Maura wanted to talk about, so she decided to change the subject. “How does an investigation work around here? Seamus Daly’s death isn’t like the last one, so in Seamus’s case, what happens? That is, if you can talk about it. Who does what?”

Sean sat up straighter in his chair, as if preparing to recite. “The gardaí receive a call reporting that a body has been found, and a uniformed officer like me is sent out to investigate. If that officer determines that the death was not natural—the deceased is found lying on the lawn with obvious injuries, say—then he will call the station and tell the sergeant. The sergeant will inform the superintendent, who will gather his officers and assign tasks. A record book for the crime will be started. The coroner will be called in, and the body will be sent for an autopsy—at the hospital in Cork. Those working on the murder will assemble at least once a day and report on their assignments, until someone is arrested. And an arrest warrant must come down from Dublin headquarters, once we’ve presented the case to them.”

“All the warrants have to come from Dublin, for the whole country?”

“They do. It’s not a large country, Maura.”

“Yeah, I keep forgetting that. I mean, this whole country has, like, half the population of New York City.”

“True, and we’ve lost many a good Irishman to that place, and to Boston as well.”

“So, what’s the progress on Seamus Daly’s murder?”

“I shouldn’t talk about that.”

“Sorry.” And then Maura realized that Sean didn’t know a lot about what Althea had told them and the wild-goose chase that she and Gillian had taken on. She looked around the restaurant—it had filled in nicely, but nobody was paying any attention to them. “Sean, I think I need to tell you a few things.”

“About the murder?”

Maura would swear that he looked disappointed, and she realized that discussing murder was not exactly the best thing to do on a first date with a guy who liked you. “Possibly. Look, it can wait. I don’t want to spoil the evening.”

“You mean you didn’t say yes to this date just so you could worm information out of me?” He was smiling, but his eyes were cautious.

“No!” Maura protested quickly. “Really. It has to do with Althea Melville. I kinda wish she’d never walked into Sullivan’s and decided I was her new best friend—or at least, that I could be useful to her. And then I made the mistake of dragging Gillian into it, and then Althea messed things up with Harry . . .”