Apple Seeds and Murderous Deeds

by Kathy Cranston

  “Will is a quiet lad,” Francis said. “Strong. I tried to get him into the hurling manys a time but he wasn’t having a bar of it.”

  “Not playing hurling isn’t a reflection on someone’s character, Dad.”

  “Ah I know you say that, but it is a little bit. I don’t trust people who won’t play in a team. He was quite capable of doing it, you know.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to.”

  “Sure why wouldn’t he want to? What else is there to do around here?”

  They all looked at each other, stumped. “Hang around the corner?” one volunteered. “Play a musical instrument?” Fiona offered.

  “I don’t trust him. I think he did it,” Francis said decisively.

  And that was the end of that discussion.

  Luckily, Gerry Reynolds chose that moment to appear on screen. “Now, here’s someone who I actually think could have done it,” Fiona said, chewing on the top of her pen.

  Marty sat forward and watched. “He’s a dodgy one alright. But it sounds like he has an alibi.”

  “Gerry? What was he doing?”

  “Keeping tabs on him now, Fi? I don’t know—Conway didn’t say, just that they couldn’t pin it on Gerry no matter how much they would have liked to.”

  “More Ballycashel justice,” Mrs McCabe said bitterly. “You’d think they might have learned from what happened to poor Declan.”

  “Well if this journalist fella is to be believed,” her husband said pensively. “It’s possible that Declan’s death had nothing to do with the time he spent in jail. I wonder what dodgy dealings he was into.”

  “Shhh,” Kate hissed. “Look. Gerry’s talking to Dec.”

  Fiona watched them closely. She had barely paid attention at the time nor when she had viewed the tape thinking Simon Moriarty was the killer, but now she found herself zeroing in on Gerry. It was strange. There was no hostility in his face; certainly not like there had been the day before the murder. Dec, too, looked relaxed. And from the way they were both gesturing, it looked like they were discussing something complicated.

  “I wonder if Gerry knows what happened to him,” Fiona said suddenly. “They seem to be on almost friendly terms.”

  “After the way Gerry was carrying on the day before?”

  “I know,” Fiona said, understanding the reason for her older brother’s scepticism. “But look at them.”

  “I see what you mean,” he said.

  Shortly after, in a sequence Fiona could recite from memory now like the old boys on the radio talking about chess setups, Gerry left and Simon Moriarty took his place.

  “No wonder you thought he was shifty Fiona,” Mrs McCabe said. “It’s remarkable how he kept his head down the whole time.”

  “I know, right? He made himself look suspicious even though he had a legitimate reason for being there. Well—so he says. I wonder if Dec knew he was coming.”

  “Rewind it there,” Francis said. “Let’s have a look.”

  “We’ll never get through it at this rate,” Kate grumbled. “I thought we were all supposed to be paying attention.”

  “It’s important,” Fiona said, trying to keep them all calm. “We’ll all notice different things. Come on—we’ll keep watching. Dad, I don’t remember seeing Dec react weirdly to seeing your man so it seems like he knew he was coming.”

  “Why didn’t he introduce you so?”

  She shrugged, half paying attention. Her eyes were glued to the screen.

  “There’s Will Connolly again!” Mrs McCabe shrieked after they’d been watching in silence for a while.

  “It is too.”

  “Ah, I remember that from the night. He really stared at Dec.” She thought of something and it made her clap her hands together with excitement. “The orchard! Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. With all the apples he grows, he’d have access to hundreds of thousands of seeds if he wanted and no one would ever notice. Anyone else and it would have appeared strange, like why would they suddenly go and buy two hundred apples or however many you need to make a lethal dose?”

  “Can’t be,” Marty said, deadpan. “Will played hurling.”

  Fiona was too distracted to laugh. She narrowed her eyes, willing herself to remember the exact details of Will’s comments. The video was good, but it was grainy and in black and white. She shook her head. “All I remember is him staring. He was asking who the guy with Dec was.”

  “It must be him!”

  They lapsed into a frenzied sort of silence: every one of them was fidgeting with a pen or messing with something or other.

  “Did ye see that?” Francis bellowed, causing Fiona to almost jump out of her skin.

  “See what?”

  “There! That!” He was off his feet and jabbing at the screen. “Rewind it!”

  “We’re watching it through,” his wife muttered. “There’s nobody there.”

  “But there is! Go back! The door opened.”

  Fiona rewound back a minute or so and they waited. She slowed it down to half speed and sure enough, you could just about make out the door opening to the extreme right of the frame.

  “No one left, though,” she said. “We’d have seen them. And no one new comes in until the hen party arrives. I remember that.”

  “What was it so?”

  No one had an answer.

  19

  IT TASTED like something had rotted in her mouth. Fiona sat up, blinking around the room. From the looks of it, she wasn’t the only one who had simply fallen asleep where she’d been sitting. Marty was sprawled out on the ground and Ben was stretched across the other couch. Neither was stirring. She stood and shuffled to the kitchen to get a drink.

  She was surprised to find her mother already up. Mrs McCabe rarely rose before eight and it was just gone six at that point.

  “What are you doing up?” Fiona asked, coming up behind where she stood at the cooker and leaning over her shoulder. “Pancakes! What’s the occasion?”

  “I thought you could use every bit of strength you could muster. It’s been a stressful few days.” Mrs McCabe turned and smiled with a tenderness Fiona wasn’t used to seeing.

  “Thanks, Mam. I appreciate all the help.”

  “Of course, love,” she said, rubbing Fiona’s arms with her warm callused hands. “Anything we can do to support you, you just name it. It’s terrible them searching you like that. Psychological games, they call it. And you doing nothing wrong.”

  “Ah, I know.” She paused. “Is breakfast far off?”

  Mrs McCabe looked at her like she was mad. “It’s not even seven in the morning. Where are you thinking of going at this hour?”

  “The old Beetle. Remember, we were talking about it last night. Dec left a note about it—we should check it out.”

  Her mother looked sceptical. “Are you sure it’s not one of Ben’s funny notions?”

  “I think so,” Fiona said, biting her lip. “I mean, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility, but it makes sense. If Dec didn’t feel comfortable just talking to me, then maybe he didn’t feel right handing a bunch of documents to one of us. He had to do it secretively.”

  “Documents?” Mrs McCabe didn’t look up from flipping pancakes.

  “Well, yeah. I assume so. What else could it be?” Fiona sighed. She was just after realising she had no idea what they were dealing with. “I don’t know. It feels like the only thing we can do. We owe it to him to at least look.”

  “And if you don’t find anything?”

  “Well then it’s back to the drawing board.”

  “Do me one favour, pet,” Mrs McCabe said, expertly flipping one pancake onto a plate and grabbing the jug of batter. “Wait until it’s bright and don’t go out there alone. Make sure you take the lads with you. And your sister, though God knows she’s not much use to you.”

  Fiona leant against the counter and stared at her. “You think we’re onto something, don’t you? Something serious?”

  Her mo
ther wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  FINALLY, after what felt like hours, Fiona, Marty and Ben left the house. The sun had come up—not that you could really tell. The light was dark blue and faint, but at least it wasn’t raining. They had decided to walk instead of driving, just in case there was anyone around who might take exception to them going onto the Hanlons’ property.

  For all their mother had talked on the phone about her friendship with Mrs Hanlon, the truth was there was no one in that family to worry about tracking down Dec’s killer. Mrs Hanlon had been sent to live in a home the previous year and her husband had already been in there for several years. Both were frail and unable to take care of themselves anymore. A group from the village had decided against even telling them about their son—as far as they were concerned, he was still a mischievous eight-year-old boy.

  They had thought about contacting a cousin or aunt about going onto the land, but decided against it for fear of causing a fuss. Fiona was beginning to doubt that they’d find anything in the car—she suspected they’d all been carried away by hysteria and lack of sleep.

  The Hanlon house was a twenty minute walk out of town and it took them another few minutes to get onto the land and make their way through the fields to the car. Back when they were kids, there had been an old house not far from the car. It had belonged to Dec’s granny, as had the Beetle. The house was long gone now: even back then it had been overgrown and stuffed to bursting point with creeping plants. Now it was little more than a patch of disturbed grass.

  The car—much to their surprise—looked much as they remembered it. At least, it did from two hundred yards away at the gate.

  “Right,” Fi said, climbing over the gate and marching ahead. “Let’s check this out and get out of here as fast as possible.”

  Being there was giving her the creeps. She didn’t know why and she didn’t want to think about it for longer than she needed to.

  “Oi!”

  All three of them spun around. It wasn’t clear where the voice had come from.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Fiona turned. She had spun in the direction of the gate they had climbed over and now she realised that the person was standing at the gate opposite it on the other side of the field. The car lay roughly in the middle.

  “Who’s that?” she muttered.

  Marty stalked forward. “I don’t know. I can’t see his face but it looks like a shotgun he’s carrying.”

  “Oh my God,” Fiona hissed, startled. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Yeah, what is this? A horror movie?”

  “Calm down, Ben,” Marty whispered. “Stop imagining things. He could just be out hunting.” He cleared his throat and walked towards the man. “Hi, how’s it going? We’re just out for a walk.”

  The man was getting closer and closer. Fiona was relieved when she saw the gun was slung over his right arm and pointing towards the ground.

  “What are you doing here?” he called.

  She recognised him now—Marty obviously did too. “Pete! What are you doing here? You scared the bejesus out of us. Thought you were some mad old uncle of Dec’s.”

  Normally, they might have expected a fellow Ballycashel resident to stop and have a chat; to at least crack a smile. But Pete Prendergast didn’t slow his pace one bit.

  Fiona didn’t like this at all. “Come on,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth. “Let’s go.”

  They were still a bit away from the car, but something made her not want to draw his attention to it. Her brothers understood.

  “What are ye doing here?” he asked, when he was within twenty yards of them.

  “Just out for a walk, Pete,” Fiona said, smiling widely. “How about yourself? Mary not with you?”

  “What are you doing here; I asked you before?” he snapped. Up close his face was strained and lined. “This is private property.”

  Fiona frowned. “We’re just walking through to the stream. It’s never been a problem before.”

  “And what the hell are you lot planning on doing down there?”

  Ben stepped forward and Fiona prayed he wasn’t going to give the game away. “We’re going to have a little memorial service for Dec. He was a friend of ours.”

  Fiona could have hugged him: it was perfect. But Pete didn’t seem swayed by their sweet little cover story.

  “He’s gone,” he said nastily. “He won’t appreciate it. Go on—get off my land.”

  Marty moved as if he was going to go for him. Fiona hurried forward and grabbed his elbow. “Come on,” she whispered. “We’ll just go.”

  Marty ignored her. “Since when is this your land? This is Hanlon’s field.”

  “It’s mine,” Pete said, glowering. “I bought it.”

  Fiona’s eyes were glued to the shotgun. “Come on, Marty. We’ll head away. We can have our little farewell thing further along the stream.”

  “Aye, right,” Pete said, eying them all. “’Tis better you do that alright.”

  Marty continued to square off to him for another couple of seconds before backing down. “Ah, alright. Come on. We’ll go.” He turned towards the gate in the far corner and stopped as abruptly as he’d started. “Are you out shooting pheasants, Pete? I might have to join you someday.”

  “Aye. Not many about though. I’ll have to look elsewhere.”

  They all muttered goodbyes—more because of the gun than because of any sense of affection—and headed across the field.

  “WELL, WHAT NOW?” Ben muttered as they marched down the road. “We can’t get to the car if he’s wandering around shooting birds all day.”

  “Garda station,” Marty said.

  “We can’t very well go and ask them to escort us to the car, can we?” Fiona said, hurrying to keep up. “And if we tell them about the car then we won’t get to see what’s inside. Marty, if Dec wanted the guards to see it he would have told them.”

  “I know all that.”

  “Well then why go to the guards? Look, we can wait until later when he’s done shooting. What time do they stop at? Dusk?”

  Marty stopped walking and turned to them both. “I’m not going to the guards so we can give them whatever’s in the Beetle,” he said with a strange smile. “I’m going to them because there’s an armed maniac keeping guard over that field for some strange reason.”

  “You said he was probably hunting.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Fiona sighed. “He said that’s what he was doing. He’s looking for pheasants—not finding them either, it sounds like.”

  Marty shook his head. Fiona was not comforted by the look in his eyes—he seemed haunted. She was used to her big brother being the most chilled out, reasonable one in the whole family.

  “What’s going on, Marty? Something’s bothering you big time.”

  He wiped his face. “I don’t know why I even said it; I guess I had it in mind to try and catch him out. I never expected…”

  “What?!” Fiona cried. “What’s going on?”

  “No one goes hunting pheasants at this time of year,” he said quietly, looking all around him as if he feared being overheard. “And if you were going hunting, you damn well wouldn’t tell anyone. It’s out of season. Big fines for anyone caught.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “He’s lying, Fi. There’s no way he’d admit to shooting pheasants out of season. For all he knows, I could be straight on to the guards. I don’t know him well, but I know he’s not stupid.”

  “So what was he doing out there with a gun?” Ben gasped.

  “I don’t know, but I have a feeling it’s got something to do with Dec and that note.”

  20

  THE WALK into town had never felt so long. They were all jumpy, expecting someone to leap out at them from behind one of the overgrown hedges that lined the narrow road. No one did, though, and soon they emerged onto the wider road that led into the town.

  A car whizzed
past them going way over the speed limit. Luckily there was a proper footpath now, otherwise Fiona feared they would have been hit. When she saw the familiar orange Prendergast’s Greengrocers sticker on the rapidly shrinking vehicle, she let out a squeal.

  “I think that’s Pete’s car! I recognise the sticker on the back.”

  Marty looked at her and then at Ben.

  “No,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “He’s just driven past us,” Marty said. “We’re not far from home. I can be at the house and in the car before he even knows.”

  “He’ll shoot you,” Fi cried.

  “He won’t get near me.” Marty turned to Ben. “Have you got your phone on you?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Great. Fi, you go talk to the guards. Try and get Fitzpatrick and not that Robocop eejit. Tell him. Ben, you stay right here. I’m going to run home and get the car. If you see him drive past—it’s a navy Corolla, right Fi?”

  She nodded.

  “If you see a navy Corolla go past you ring me straight away. Okay? Just hang around at the bus stop up there; pretend you’re waiting for the bus to Dublin.”

  “It doesn’t come until the evening,” Ben said sceptically.

  “Well pretend. You don’t need to actually get on the bus. Just keep watch. Can you do that?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Right.” Marty looked at Fi. “We’ve got to have a look inside that car. It’ll be grand. Pete just drove past us and probably saw us walking back towards town. He’s not going to expect us to go back there.”

  “Okay,” she said with a sigh. “Are you sure we should tell the guards?”

  “No,” he said. “How about you hang back until you hear from me?”

  “But what if he shoots you in the meantime? Maybe I should get them to go out to the car?”

  Marty clicked his fingers. “I have it. I’ll stick in my headphones and I’ll keep talking to you as soon as I get out of the car to go look at the Beetle. You stick close to the Garda station and if I give you the signal or if I stop talking to you, get in there as fast as your legs can carry you.”