Fatal Roots
Page 8
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
The day passed slowly and peacefully. Mick had been right, she decided. She owned the pub free and clear, and she had to pay only for as much as she sold. Tourist season hadn’t peaked yet, and things would pick up. There was no point in worrying.
The sun was sliding toward the horizon when Maura heard her mobile phone ring, and she answered it quickly, expecting to hear Helen’s voice. Instead it was Ciara, who sounded breathless and slightly hysterical.
“Maura? Something’s wrong. Ronan and I made a quick trip to Skibbereen to get some lunch, but Darragh wanted to stay behind and run as many scans as he could before the rain started, which it hasn’t. But when we got back, he was gone. Disappeared. With the radar unit. You’re the only person I could think of to call. What should I do?”
“You sure he didn’t just drop by a local farmer’s house to ask some questions? Or maybe he thought he’d take a walk and got lost?”
“I tried his mobile and he doesn’t answer. I don’t know where to look for him or who to ask. I mean, I know he’s a grown man, but he could have sent me a text message or something. Should I call the gardaí?”
“Ciara, I don’t think they’re likely to do anything until he’s been gone a bit longer, and they don’t have many men on duty. But I’ve got a friend there, and I can ask him, off the record, kind of. Let me talk to him first. Maybe he’ll have some ideas. Are you still at the ring fort?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to leave in case Darragh came back. He took his car, and I’ve got mine. At least it’s not dark yet. But I can’t think where he might have gone, or why. He was really looking forward to this trip, and trying out the equipment.”
“Ciara, just stay where you are. I’ll call my friend, and then I’ll come join you, and maybe he’ll want to come. But call me if you hear from Darragh, or if he comes back.”
“All right. Thank you.” Ciara hung up abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” Mick asked as he came up behind her.
Maura turned to face him. “That was Ciara. Darragh seems to have disappeared and she’s worried. He took his car and he’s not answering his mobile, and Ciara doesn’t know what to think. As you must’ve heard, I told her I’d call Sean Murphy and see what he thinks we should do. Can you cover here?”
“Of course. Maura, there’s not much of anywhere out that way that he could go. Let’s hope that Darragh only took a walk and got lost.”
“Or the fairies took him,” Maura muttered, and went into the back room to call Sean.
Chapter Ten
Once in the back room, Maura tried to figure out what she wanted to say. Sean was a friend, but he was also a garda. Luckily she hadn’t seen or heard of any crimes recently, so she hadn’t bothered him much, but he did drop by the pub occasionally, probably more to chat with Rose than to see Maura. But now Maura didn’t know whether to believe Darragh’s disappearance was something to be worried about, or if he’d just thought a walk in the country would be nice and he’d show up any minute now. Ciara certainly seemed upset. Was she usually a hysterical type? How well did she know Darragh?
Stop waffling, Maura, she told herself firmly. Let Sean figure this out. She pulled out her mobile and hit the speed-dial button for Sean, hoping he was at the station.
He answered quickly. “Good afternoon, Maura. I hope all’s going well with yeh.”
“Hi, Sean. I’m fine, the pub is fine, and we might get a kitchen soon. But I seem to have a secondhand problem. I’ll give you the quick version.” She quickly outlined the arrival of Ciara from the university, followed a day later by her friends, and their finding a fairy ring on land she didn’t even know she owned. Then she reached the part about Darragh’s disappearance. “So they went out to that ring earlier today, and I went along for a while, then came back to Leap. Ciara and Ronan went to get lunch after that, but she called to say that when they got back to the ring fort, Darragh had disappeared and she doesn’t know where to look for him. She was going to call your crew, but I thought you might not take her seriously, so I said I’d call you. I told her to let me know if her friend reappeared—heck, for all she knows, he’s taking a nap under a tree somewhere—but I haven’t heard from her. So, what should she do? Or shouldn’t she do anything just yet? After all, they’re not children.”
“Does he know the area?”
“I don’t think so. Darragh said he came from south of Dublin somewhere, maybe Carlow, and he’s taking graduate classes in Cork. He’s only been here a day, so I don’t think he’s explored much.”
“Is he an honest man?” Sean asked.
“How should I know? Oh, he brought along a ground-penetrating radar thing that he borrowed from the university. Ciara said that’s missing too.”
“Costly item, that. What is it you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. He took his car, so who knows how far he went. And he seems to know a lot about fairy forts. Maybe the fairies took him?” Maura realized how silly that sounded. “I’m sorry—bad joke. Ciara’s kind of in charge of this project, and she seems seriously worried. Can you come out and talk to her before it gets too dark?”
“Things are slow here. Where’s the circle?”
“Oh, that’s the other twist. Ciara came equipped with maps, and it turns out it’s on a piece of land that belongs to me, that used to be Mick Sullivan’s. It seems there are a lot of little bits and pieces of land that’re mine that I didn’t know about. But I have been to the circle from my cottage, so I know how to find it.”
“Has this Darragh been to the cottage as well?”
“Yes, briefly. Why?”
“Could be he fell ill and wanted a place to rest. He could find his way, couldn’t he?”
“Maybe. Ciara said she’d found them a hostel the other side of Skibbereen. You want to meet me at my cottage and check, and then I can take you to the fairy ring?”
“That’ll do. I can leave now.”
“Good. And thank you. See you soon!”
Maura shut down the phone, feeling kind of relieved. Yes, this seemed to be happening on her land, but she didn’t really know where all the parts were, and she wouldn’t have found the fairy ring if Ciara hadn’t shown her how to get there. She had no idea where to look for Darragh, though, or whether he was lost or just roaming around. Better that Sean did the looking.
She went back out to the bar to tell Mick she was going to meet Sean. “He’s not heard of any trouble?” he asked.
“He didn’t mention anything. He probably thinks Darragh is from the city or somewhere that isn’t West Cork and he just got lost. But I’d rather he checked. Me, I’d just get lost too, especially when the light’s fading. If we don’t find him, I’ll come back here, okay? Oh, and tell Susan why she hasn’t seen me.”
“I’ll take care of it. And watch yer step out there. If it happens to rain tonight, that would erase any trace of the man.”
“This seems silly—he could have remembered an errand or decided to go to the library or something and didn’t bother to leave a note. I’ll let you know what Sean and I find. With any luck, Darragh’s back at the ring fort.”
Maura waved at Old Billy seated in his usual spot by the fireplace, but decided to wait to tell him what was going on until she knew more. Or she could ask him where someone might get lost—he had to have more ideas that she did.
It took maybe ten minutes to get to her cottage, where Sean was already waiting. “Anything?” she asked as she climbed out of her car.
He shook his head. “The door’s locked, and no one seems to be about. Do you want to check inside? He knows how to find yer place here, right?”
“Yes, I told you he’s been here. I won’t be long.” Maura fished out the key that had been Old Mick’s and opened the door, but nothing had changed since she’d left in the morning. The dirty dishes were still on the table, and she knew she hadn’t much food in her small near-antique refrigerator. “Nobody home, Sean. Listen, i
s Ciara overreacting? She and her friends seem like serious, smart people, and I don’t think they’d do something stupid, like wander off and fall into a bog. They’re very focused, and they don’t have a whole lot of time for their project.”
“Then let’s go talk to this Ciara person and she what she can tell us. Will you drive?”
Maura had to smile. “You’re asking me? Sure. This is one of the few places I know how to find that’s off any main road. Won’t take long.”
True to her word, a few minutes later she pulled into the start of an unpaved lane, blocked by a makeshift wire gate, and stopped. She could see the fairy ring a couple hundred feet away in the field, and Ciara and Ronan were sitting on the side nearest the road, waiting for her. There was no sign of Darragh, but maybe he was inside the ring? Ciara scrambled to her feet and waved to her.
“Okay, that’s Ciara who’s waving.” Maura leaned toward Sean. “And the other person is Ronan—he’s the guy who runs the drone, though I haven’t seen it in action.” Sean didn’t answer but walked over to the gate and opened it easily, letting Maura pass through.
“No cattle to be seen, but we should shut the gate behind us. You own this field?”
“So I’m told. There’s no farmer here to ask about where a stranger might have ended up, if that’s what you’re wondering. Just me.”
“Thought I’d ask,” Sean said, then set off across the field. Maura followed quickly. When they were near enough, Maura called out to Ciara and Ronan. “This is Garda Sean Murphy—we’ve worked together on a couple of things. When I told him what you’d said, he thought he would check things out. You haven’t heard anything from Darragh, or anyone who’s seen him?”
Ciara shook her head vigorously. “Not a word. It’s not like Darragh. He should be back by now. It’s not like we’re a couple or anything, but we’ve known each other for a while, and he’s usually very responsible. He shouldn’t have just disappeared like this.” She looked near tears.
Sean took a step forward. “Why don’t we sit down and you can tell me what you told Maura? I know it must be hard when you’re in an unfamiliar place and all. Would that be all right?”
“Fine.” Ciara sniffed. “How about the other side of the ring?” she suggested.
“That would be grand,” Sean said, and extended his hand to help her off the top of the ring. Maura was impressed. He really was quite the gentleman.
When they had disappeared, Maura turned to Ronan, who’d spoken about a dozen words to her since he arrived in Cork. “Do you know anything, Ronan? I mean, have you worked with Darragh before? Has he ever done anything like this?”
Ronan shook his head. “He’s, like, very focused, and he was looking forward to using the radar device. He didn’t want to go with us into Skibbereen but told us to pick up some food for him. We weren’t gone long.”
For Ronan, that was a surprisingly long conversation, and Maura wanted to keep him talking. “Did you see anybody else, coming or going? Or watching from a distance?”
He shook his head silently.
“Did he mention anything else he wanted to check out today?”
Another silent shake of his head.
Maura was running out of questions. “Ciara said he took the radar thing with him instead of leaving it here. Was there something he wanted to do with it? Was he looking for something in particular?”
“I don’t know!” Ronan all but wailed. “It can see a couple feet down into the earth, but mostly it tells you if there is or isn’t something under the dirt, not what it is. And if it looks important, you can dig a bit. But we don’t like to do that, because we don’t want to risk damaging something important or messing with the original site, and it’s hard to decipher what it is from the machine.”
Sean and Ciara were certainly taking their time, given that nobody seemed to have a clue where Darragh had gone and where they should look. She decided she might as well keep talking. “What’s the most interesting thing you’ve found?”
“Hard to say. Usually it’s metal objects, which show up well. If it’s a bowl or a vase or something, you can identify it easily by its general shape, but you can’t see a lot of details. And it takes some practice.”
“Ciara told me Darragh was going to go over the ground first, and then you were going to use your drone camera thing, and then you all would compare them. Have I got that right?”
“Close enough. But we’d only just started.”
“How big are these things? I never saw either one.”
“The radar machine is about the size of a small lawn mower, more or less. But it’s far from perfect—it’s not very big.”
“Why did you think you were going to find something at all in a fairy ring? Some people have told me they weren’t used for burials. Although maybe there were portals to the fairy world in the rings.”
Ronan managed a weak smile. “We’re thinkin’ that’s a myth. I haven’t met any fairies. Yet.”
“Has Darragh?”
“Maybe. He doesn’t talk about it. Look, this is your pasture, right?” When Maura nodded, Ronan asked, “Have you see any?”
“Fairies? Not that I know of. Everything I’ve seen since I started living around here has been either a real human or an animal. But I haven’t been here long, and I haven’t been looking. And nobody told me about fairies.”
Finally Sean and Ciara came back around the fairy ring, but neither looked happy. “Any ideas, Sean?” Maura hurried to ask.
“I thought we should look carefully around the ring to see if there are any marks,” Sean said.
“Like footprints, you mean?” Maura asked.
Sean nodded. “I don’t hold out much hope, since the grass is so thick here, but if it rains tonight, we’ll lose the chance.”
“And if we don’t find anything?” Ciara said anxiously.
“I’ll talk to my detective. It may be he has some ideas. It’s not often we misplace people hereabouts.”
And when you do, you don’t always find them alive, Maura thought to herself, but she managed not to say it out loud.
“Ciara, Ronan, where have you looked?” Maura asked.
“You mean, right around here?” Ciara said, looking bewildered. “I guess we walked around the ring a time or two, calling out, but we were looking mainly for the radar machine. It belongs to the university and we don’t want to lose it.”
“And you found nothing?” Sean asked carefully. Ciara shook her head. “Then let’s take another pass at it before we lose the light. Look for anything yer man might’ve dropped, or where the grass is crushed. Maura says there’s no cows grazing in this field, although one or two might have broken away from their herd and wandered over. Split up, so we can cover more ground. And we should stay close enough that we can hear each other if we call out.”
In pairs, they moved a distance away from the edge of the ring, keeping their eyes on the ground. Nice grass, Maura thought, and no person or machine or animal had used it anytime recently. How was it that she hadn’t even know about this field, or any others that might be hers? Probably because she didn’t know squat about cows, and didn’t plan to start a herd of her own. What would her gran have thought about that idea?
Funny how almost every visitor commented that Ireland was so green, Maura thought. Well, it was, but that was probably due to all the rain. She looked a few yards ahead of her, where some of the grass looked trampled just a bit. As she moved closer, she saw a splash of red mixed in with the green, and stopped walking. Then she took a few tentative steps closer, careful not to walk on any part that had already been messed up. The red was more obvious then, in stark contrast to the bright green of the grass.
Maura didn’t want to get any closer, and didn’t think she needed to. It looked like blood to her. Why would there be blood in an unused field in the country? Maybe Sean should take a look—he must know more than she did about blood. Maura swallowed, then called out, “Sean? I think I’ve found something.”
Maura waited until he appeared, then pointed silently to the patch of red on the grass.
Chapter Eleven
Sean saw the expression on Maura’s face and said only, “Where?”
“There.” Maura pointed again. “Is it …?”
“Blood? I think it’s likely. Are yeh all right?”
“I’m not going to throw up, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Maura said sharply. Then she added more softly, “I’m sorry. I barely know the man. He’s a student, or that’s what I was told. I can’t imagine how he could run into any trouble out here—I don’t think he knows anyone in this part of Cork. I certainly don’t expect him to wind up dead. Unless someone saw him with that radar thing and decided it was worth stealing, but I haven’t seen many people around here, and I don’t see any cows that someone would have to look after. This is a lot of blood, isn’t it?”
Sean looked at her with a half smile on his face. “Not really. It only looks that way. How’d yeh find it?”
“I saw a patch of red in the grass and walked toward it, and then I stopped so I wouldn’t mess anything up. I didn’t go around the patch either. I figured I should let you handle it. You think maybe Darragh had some kind of accident and went to find help? Or someone whacked him, stole the radar scanner, and then hid the body?”
Sean shook his head. “It’s clear yer not a country girl.” He knelt by the patch of blood and picked up something. “More like he startled a fox, made it drop its dinner.” Sean picked up what seemed to be the remains of a rabbit, holding it by its long ears.
“Oh,” Maura said, feeling foolish. “I guess I jumped to a conclusion after seeing the blood. So there are foxes around here?”
“There are.”
“And they eat rabbits?”
“They do, as well as other small animals, when they can catch them. They won’t go after cows or humans, and we’ve no rabies in Ireland.”