The Celtic Riddle (9 page)

"I'm not asking you for a date, Padraig," I retorted to his
retreating back. "Just for a drink. Sullen men with chips on their
shoulders are not my cup of tea. I mean do you fight with everybody on
principle, or are you just having a bad day? And by the way, I don't
care what girls of your acquaintance do." And don't call me a girl, I
added to myself. He ignored me and kept going.

I looked back to see the old guys on the bench laughing so hard the
tears were running down their cheeks. Two of them, that is. The third,
who'd not yet spoken to me, appeared to be having a long discussion
with either himself or a post on the pier.

"If yer not interested in sullen young men," Malachy said finally,
wiping the tears from his eyes, "how do you feel about happy old ones?
Dere's tree of us," he added, dropping the "h" in "th" the way many of
the people in these parts appeared to. "I don't see so good, and Kev
don't hear so good, and Denny, well, as you can see, Denny's a bit
special, if you know what I mean. But put us together, we're someting."

I had to laugh, too. "Come on," Malachy said. "Take a pew." He
gestured toward a broken-down old chair a few feet away. "Drink?" he
said, pulling a bottle of whisky and a couple of tin cups out of a
little bag beside the bench.

"A little too early in the day for me," I replied. "But thank you.
I'm Lara," I said, shaking their hands in turn, before risking the
chair. Even Denny broke off talking to himself long enough to shyly
shake my hand. Malachy, Kev, and Denny, all dressed in gray wool pants,
white shirts, and black fishermen's hats: "Brothers?" I asked. Malachy
and Kev nodded in unison."Kev and me's brothers. Denny's our mate.
We're all named for saints, you know: me for St. Malachy, Kev for St.
Kevin, and Denny for St. Denis. Paddy too, of course, for the greatest
Irish saint of them all, St. Padraig. He's not so bad, our Paddy,"
Malachy added when he'd stopped laughing long enough to catch his
breath. "Bit of a chip on his shoulder, maybe. You might be right about
that." The other two agreed.

"He'd do no such ting as run you down in the water," Kev said.

"And leavin' you dere to drown," Malachy added. He set the cups on
the ground in front of the bench and carefully filled them, handing one
each to his brother and friend, keeping the bottle for himself. "May
you find yourself in heaven before the divil knows yer dead," he said,
raising the bottle in a toast, and then taking a long swig. The others
did the same.

"Paddy doesn't get along too well with the people at Second Chance,
does he?" I asked. If Padraig wouldn't tell me himself, maybe these
three would.

"Not so well at all," Malachy agreed, "but those boyos up dere at
the big house don't much get on with anybody these days. Now Eamon, he
liked the young lad. Gave him the boat, didn't he?" I waited, but he
added nothing more. I was wondering how far I could push this line of
inquiry before they got mad at me and clammed up. I had a feeling that,
as a foreigner, I would be tolerated only as long as I behaved myself.

"It's nice here, and a lovely day," I said looking about me. And it
was: the sea, the boats, the rocky coast stretching out in both
directions, part of it shrouded in mist.

" 'Tis, tank God," Malachy agreed.

"Do you tink she'd like to hear a story?" Kev asked Malachy. "Denny
tells a good story," he said to me. "No, she wouldn't," Denny said,
suddenly, as if he'd come out of a trance.

"Sure, I would," I replied.

"Come on, Denny," Kev said. "Tell this nice young girl a story." I
considered how irritating I found it when Gilhooly called me a girl,
but how sweet I thought it was when Kev did. The path of feminism is
not always simple.

"The young ones don't listen to Denny's stories anymore," Malachy
whispered. "That's why he tells them to the post and the pier. So he
won't forget them."

"What did you say?" Kev said, elbowing his brother. "Speak up!"

Malachy glared at him.

"Why doesn't he just write them down?" I asked.

Malachy looked horrified. "Dey can't be written down," he said. "
'Twould spoil them. They're too special for that."

"Tell her the one about the golden ring," Kev said, reaching over to
poke his mate.

"No, that's no good," Malachy said. "Everybody knows that one. Tell
her the one about the mirror. That's the best!"

Denny didn't say a word. "Okay, Denny," Malachy said in an
exasperated tone. "Tell her whichever one you want."

"One of the old ones," Kev added. "I don't suppose you'd have
someting to help Denny wet his whistle, now would you?" he said,
looking dolefully at the now empty bottle. "A little liquid libation to
get him going?"

"No, I'm afraid not," I replied, "not knowing that I was about to
make your acquaintance. But I'll be sure to bring something next time
I'm here," I added. "What does Denny like?""Whiskey, of course,"
Malachy said.

"Me too," Kev said. "It doesn't have to be really fine. Just about
any whiskey will do."

"No, don't bring us the good stuff," Malachy agreed. " Tis no use
acquiring the taste for that, our circumstances being what they are. A
shame they keep perfectly good whiskey around so long without drinking
it, anyway."

We all looked over at Denny.

"You'll just have to wait," Malachy whispered. "Denny talks when he
wants to."

As we waited to see whether the spirit would move Denny, we all sat
in companionable silence. I, of course, thought about the treasure
hunt, as it had come to be called in my mind. I thought again about
John Herlihy and the plunge to his death. It had to be linked to the
treasure in some way, although how was not immediately apparent.
Neither Deirdre nor Herlihy had been given an envelope to participate
in the treasure hunt. It was a team-building exercise, to use that
nau-seatingly overused business term, a ploy to get the family to work
together. But Alex, Michael, and Gilhooly were included, for reasons I
simply didn't know and couldn't guess.

On the surface at least, the ploy seemed to be working, with the
family sticking together. We were seriously outnumbered, Alex and
Michael against the rest: Breeta, Margaret, Eithne, Fionuala, Sean,
Conail, and Padraig Gilhooly. I'd had unpleasant run-ins with two of
the seven, if you counted Conail's nasty glance and the run-in with the
boat as one, and counted Paddy as the second. If events unfolded the
way they'd started, I had five more unpleasant encounters to go.

On the other hand, it was pretty hard to imagine that if Herlihy had
been helped over the side-and I had to admit the jury was still out on
that one-it could have to do with anything else but the treasure hunt.
Alex had read his clue aloud, and everyone had heard him, Herlihy
included. Perhaps Herlihy immediately linked it to the little boat, the
Ocean Crest, in the cove and had made his way there as fast as his
drunken legs would carry him, hoping to be cut in on the deal. If that
had been the case, maybe one of the family had raced him to it, with
deadly consequences. Once Herlihy's body had been found, the police
were all over the site, and it would be difficult for any of them to
get to the boat.

Maybe that's what Conail was up to. He'd been biding his time until
the police left and was about to make his way down to the cove, when we
breezed in from the sea. Or perhaps he'd been there already, but hadn't
been able to find it. Seeing me pulling the little plastic packet out
of the bow would certainly explain the ugly look on his face.

The other problem was the sodden scrap of paper I'd pulled out of
the boat. I'd assumed that with only seven clues handed out at the
reading of the Will, finding the treasure wouldn't be all that
complicated: Put seven clues together, and presto, the treasure would
be found. But if each clue led to another, did that mean there were
fourteen clues, or even more? Or did it mean that there were seven
separate trails that led to the treasure? I decided that the latter
wouldn't be the case, because for all of them to pursue their separate
ways would not accomplish the family salvation Byrne was hoping for.
Maybe, I thought, the clue in the Ocean Crest wasn't a clue at all. I'd
had a look at it, of course, as soon as we'd got to shore safely. It
didn't look like much at all, although the writer had had the foresight
to use ballpoint pen, so there was still ink to be seen. Morelike
doodling than a clue. But if it was just doodling, why wrap it in
plastic and hide it in the boat?

It occurred to me that there were more questions than answers in
this little mental exercise I had taken upon myself and that proof of
any of this speculation was in rather short supply.

I looked over at Denny. He'd put his hands flat on his thighs and
was starting to rock slowly back and forth on the bench. The rest of us
waited.

"I'll tell you a story about someting very strange that happened to
someone around here," he said finally. "Now I'm not saying who. No, I'm
not saying who 'tis I'm talking about. If you know, then you know. If
you don't, then you won't hear it from me. No, you won't be hearing it
from me.

"Once there was a Kerry man who'd a wife and beautiful daughters."

"Now this is a good one," Kev said. "Very mysterious, I'll tell you."

"Don't interrupt." Malachy scowled. "Let him tell it."

"But he wasn't happy, for he wanted a son. Soon it was too late, if
you take my meaning, his wife getting on to middle age. He was nigh on
desperate for a son, and some say he made a pact with the divil so's to
have one. Whatever 'twas he did, to everyone's surprise, his wife
presented him with a fine lad. A beauty, the boy was. All pink and
gold, and eyes so blue. How he doted on that boy. Wouldn't hardly leave
him alone for a minute."

"Hardly a minute," Malachy agreed.

"But one day he had to go to Cork to see to his affairs, and while
he was away, and his little son, only a few weeks old, was rocking in
his cradle out in the garden, a very strange boy, old-looking, came to
the place. The maid, she seen him, and this strange creature hopped
into the little boy's bed. When the man came home, he found his son
gone, and this strange-looking creature in his boy's cradle. 'Twas a
terrible ting happened, really 'twas. And he says to his wife, 'what's
happened here?' And she says, 'what do you mean?' 'It's the fairies,'
the man exclaims, 'they've taken my boy away.' 'Yer crazy,' the woman
says. But I tell you 'twere true. The fairies had switched the boy for
one of their own. And the man raced to find the boy before he ate the
fairy food, because as everybody knows, once you eat their food, you're
with them forever, the fairies."

" 'Tis true," Kev asserted. "If they take you, don't eat what they
offer, not even a little bite, no matter it looks so good."

"Shh," said Malachy. "Let him finish."

"But the man had a pact with the divil, as I've just told you,"
Denny continued as if the others hadn't spoken. "So he went back to the
divil and says to him, 'you promised me a son,' he says to the divil,
bold as brass, for what'd he have to lose what with his son being taken
and all? 'I gave you one,' the divil said. 'I didn't say you'd have him
forever.'

"Now this Kerryman was no slouch in the head, if you know what I
mean, no slouch at all in that department. 'So what do you tink people
will be saying about you, if you don't keep your promises,' the
Kerryman says. 'I'll be telling everybody what you done to me. There'll
be no more pacts with the divil around here when I'm done.' 'Hush your
tongue,' the divil says. 'You're worse than a woman for all your
complaining. But I'll tell you what I'll do. You go back and get rid of
the ugly child in your boy's bed, and I'll save your boy. But you'll
have to find him yerself,because I've already promised him to another.'

"The Kerryman accepts the divil's offer. What else could he do? He
goes home, and takes a sword and goes to whack the ugly boy over the
head with it, and what do you know, the ugly child, seeing what he's up
to, jumps out of the cradle and runs away so fast no one can catch him
no matter how fast they run.

"And the man looks all over the countryside for his wee boy, the
real one, but he can't find him for many, many years. But then he does,
when the boy's almost growed. But then the man's wife, who's brooded
all these years over her lost boy, she won't recognize her son, says
he's not him. But the man, he knows it's his son, who's been lost, and
just before he dies, is reconciled with him. So 'tis a strange story,
but a true one, and a happy ending of sorts."

Denny stopped talking, and then rocking. The tale, such as it was,
was over. What a peculiar story, I thought, and would have made a point
of forgetting if it had not been for what was said next.

"Denny has lots of stories like that one," Malachy said. "But that
one, 'twas one of Eamon Byrne's favorites. Brought a tear to his eye
every time, didn't it, Kev?"

"Aye, a tear to his eye every time. Very close to his heart, 'twas."

I was about to probe this further when I heard my name yahooed from
the top of the hill leading down to the pier. Michael Davis came
running toward me. "They told me at the Inn they thought you'd come
down here," he puffed. "It's gone!"

"What's gone?"

"Breeta's clue!" he exclaimed. "Someone's got into the safe and
stolen Breeta's clue."

Chapter Five

A HAWK ABOVE THE CLIFF

AS wondrous as the Dagda's cauldron might be, 'twas only one of four
great gifts from the gods, one for each of the cities from which the
children of the goddess Danu sprang, and each with a tale to be told.

The cauldron, the one that was never empty, was from Murias. From
Falias came Lia Fail, the stone that roared and sang when the true king
of Ireland stood on it. Brought, some have said, from the East by the
goddess Tea to Tara, the stone, for that is what it is, the stone of
destiny, is to rest wherever the high king of Scotic reigns. Many the
man thought he would be king at Tara, but only a few heard the roar of
Lia Fail.