Rock Point (Sharpe & Donovan)

by Carla Neggers

  It hadn’t been an easy road. It still wasn’t.

  Finian slowed his pace as he and Sean came to the top of the hill. With the lights of the village no help to them now, Finian produced the key-size flashlight he had with him, a lesson learned from previous walks up to the Murphy farm with his friend. Sean would never have a flashlight. He didn’t need one on this land.

  “I have a favor to ask, Fin,” Sean said, still clearly preoccupied.

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t be too quick. There’s only so much I can tell you, even as a priest.”

  “It’s about an investigation, then.”

  Sean gave a curt nod.

  “I’ll do anything I can,” Finian said. “You know I will.”

  Sean walked a few steps ahead, then stopped, a dark silhouette against the shadows of the night as he turned to Finian. “This you won’t want to do.”

  Finian heard a sheep close by, near a fence. “Let me be the one to decide. What do you need?”

  “A name,” Sean said. “I need a name.”

  Chapter 2

  An ewe cried out in distress just before dawn. Finian went out to the barn with Sean and helped deliver a healthy lamb. With mother and baby safe and warm, Finian followed his friend back to the farmhouse, grinning as he hung his coat on a hook. “I hope I didn’t misunderstand and this is the work God called me to do.”

  Sean laughed. “Farm work, Fin? Delivering lambs at dawn? I don’t think so.”

  The kitchen was cool, a dampness in the air, but Sean got a turf fire going in the old fireplace and it was soon warm enough. Finian sat at the pine table. He’d jumped into jeans and a wool shirt. No clerical suit for working in the barn.

  Sean put the kettle on to boil. “A full Irish breakfast this morning, Fin?”

  “Perfect.”

  Sean set to work, and Finian’s mind drifted, as it sometimes still did. He could see his fair-haired, beautiful wife, and he could hear her laughter when, years ago, facing the uncertainties of business, he’d wondered aloud if he should be a farmer.

  “You a farmer? Oh, Fin. That’s just so funny.”

  “We were farmers as boys. Declan and I.”

  “And now you’re whiskey men.”

  He and Sally had been enjoying a pint and traditional Irish music at a Kenmare pub. She was such fun—and so smart. A young marketing consultant who’d just finished a project for Bracken Distillers.

  He’d fallen for her on the spot and asked her to marry him three months later. They’d been hiking in Killarney National Park. She’d said yes without hesitation and burst into tears and laughter as she’d hugged him so hard they both fell to the ground.

  He’d been twenty-four. She’d been twenty-three.

  Kathleen had been born the next year. Mary three years later.

  My sweet girls.

  Finian returned himself to the present. He smelled the turf fire, and he noticed the chipped paint on the old-fashioned dresser, the plates lined up on its open shelves, the crooked lower doors worn with age and use. He watched Sean drop tea bags into a brown pot and then fill the pot with the hot water. His garda friend looked at ease, totally natural, in his torn flannel shirt and muddy work pants. Maybe at heart he was a farmer after all, meant for a life out here on Shepherd Head instead of the occasional few days off to help his uncle.

  Sean Murphy had been a young, ambitious garda when he’d located Finian in his office at the old distillery he and Declan had returned to life, just outside Killarney. An important business matter had come up and Sally and the girls had started their sailing holiday without him. He would join them at their first stop that evening. He hadn’t been enthusiastic about sailing, but Sally had thought it would be a grand adventure for them and the girls.

  It was Garda Murphy who’d told Finian his wife and daughters were dead.

  And who’d suspected him of having killed them.

  * * *

  It wasn’t as full an Irish breakfast as Sean had promised because, it turned out, the tomatoes had spoiled. Finian didn’t mind, but Sean shook his head and sighed. “I miss my grilled tomatoes.”

  He was only half joking. Finian poured more tea. “Next time.”

  “I think the rotten ones are from the last time I was down. Paddy doesn’t stay up here as much. He’s thinking about converting this place into a bed-and-breakfast or a holiday home. Can you imagine?”

  “You could book it to people wanting an authentic Irish experience,” Finian said with a smile.

  Paddy Murphy, Sean’s uncle, had been born in the simple farmhouse and had lived there until just a few months ago, when he’d moved into an apartment in the village. He was in his seventies, a longtime widower with no children. Sean’s father was gone now, too. Sean wasn’t a big talker, but Finian had pieced together the Murphy family story over a pint or a glass of whiskey. Finian’s heavy-drinking days were in the past, and Sean had never been one for over imbibing. He was a driven man but one of great control.

  Yet Finian could see that something was eating at his friend. It had to be this investigation. This favor. This name he wanted. He’d gone up to bed last night without telling Finian more. Finian had slept in a small bedroom off the kitchen, the barn just out back. Nonetheless, Sean had heard the distressed ewe first—a farmer’s instincts or, more likely, an intercom system between the barn and his bedroom.

  “You didn’t invite me here to help with the sheep,” Finian said finally.

  “That would be the day, wouldn’t it? You might have grown up on a farm, but that didn’t make you a farmer.”

  “Nor did it make you one, Sean.” Finian picked at the last of his grilled mushrooms. He’d had more of an appetite than he’d expected. Helping birth a lamb must have contributed. “You asked me here because of this name you want. Tell me more. If I can help, I will.”

  Sean settled back in his chair. “I’m looking for a man who’s been in touch with you. Not as a priest. As a Bracken.”

  “I’m always a priest, Sean.”

  “I know that. I mean this man worked for Bracken Distillers.”

  “Ah. I see. He doesn’t work for us any longer?”

  “I don’t think so. He contacted me a few days ago but wouldn’t give me his name. He’d said he’d call again, but he didn’t.”

  “Why don’t you ask Declan about him?”

  Sean scratched the side of his mouth. “It’s not that simple.” He leaned forward over the table. “This man called me because he knew you and I were friends. He sought you out because you’re a Bracken and for no other reason. What did he tell you?”

  “I haven’t said I know the man you’re talking about.”

  “But you do.”

  He did, indeed. Becan Kennedy was an itinerant carpenter who had done small jobs at the distillery over the winter and then moved on. Last week, Finian had stopped at the distillery, in his priest’s garb. Becan had stopped by to do a few small touchups on a project he’d finished in February. He’d pulled him aside and asked to talk to him, in confidence.

  They’d walked down to a field and old shed out behind the main distillery buildings. Becan had explained he was mixed up with “a bad lot” and deeply troubled by “some things” he knew. He didn’t want to go to prison. He didn’t want to anger his unsavory friends. He didn’t want to get in deeper with them. Finian had encouraged him to get in touch with the proper authorities without delay.

  Becan had said, “I hear you know a detective in Dublin. Sean Murphy. Do you trust him?”

  “With my life, Becan. And so can you.”

  Finian hadn’t seen Becan Kennedy since and didn’t know where to find him—and he couldn’t give Sean his name.

  “You want to find this man,” Finian said, “but you don’t know who he is. Would it help if I encouraged him to contact you again?”

  Sean got up from the table, shaking his head as if just realizing the implications of what his friend was saying. “No, Fin. Don’t go to h
im yourself.”

  “If he comes to me?”

  “Would he?”

  Finian shrugged without answering. It was possible if not probable.

  Sean rummaged on the dresser, produced an index card and a black marker and jotted down a string of numbers. He handed the card to Finian. “If he comes to you, give him this number. No one but me has it. Tell him to call me. Tell him nothing else.”

  “You know more than you’re saying, aren’t you?”

  He pointed to the card. “Only if he comes to you, Fin. I mean it.”

  Finian looked out a window, across a sloping lawn and fields turning green to the sea. The sun was up now, burning off the morning mist. His throat tightened. He was certain of his call to the priesthood and the vows he had professed at his ordination. But Ireland...being a priest here...

  He couldn’t deny the truth. Everywhere were reminders of his loss. Of the man he’d been and was no more. Husband, lover, father, businessman.

  “You’ll be leaving Declan’s Cross this morning?” Sean asked.

  Finian nodded, turning from the window. “You?”

  “Back to Dublin for me.”

  A dozen questions about why Sean Murphy was looking for Becan Kennedy rose up in Finian’s mind, but he didn’t ask even one of them as he saw his friend off to the barn and then headed out to his car.

  Father Callaghan would still be at the O’Byrne House Hotel, enjoying his last days in Ireland. Given his melancholy mood, Finian wouldn’t disturb the older priest, but he knew what he would do after he left Declan’s Cross.

  This tiny village, the O’Byrne House Hotel, Father Callaghan, Sean, the sheep....Becan Kennedy. All of it, somehow, was providential. Finian felt that truth deep inside him.

  As soon as he could, he would get in touch with his bishop and talk to him about spending a year in Rock Point, Maine.

  Chapter 3

  Spring blossomed across Ireland, and it was done—Finian would leave in June to serve Saint Patrick’s Church in Rock Point, Maine.

  Joseph Callaghan would get his year in Ireland.

  The next weeks flew by, and finally June was upon him. Finian spent his last few days in Ireland with his brother and his family at their home in the hills outside Killarney. He’d emailed Sean Murphy about Maine, receiving back only a terse “And you think Irish winters are bad.”

  Finian hadn’t seen Sean since their visit in Declan’s Cross in March, but he’d kept watch for stories on special criminal investigations. He hadn’t noticed any that suggested Sean Murphy’s or Becan Kennedy’s involvement. Finian had been tempted to contact Becan, but he’d heeded Sean’s advice—Garda advice—and focused instead on his preparations for his temporary move to Rock Point.

  Until the morning before his departure to America when he received a cryptic text message that could only be from Becan Kennedy.

  Becan wanted to meet.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, on his final day in Ireland before his year in Maine, Finian dragged Declan out to Old Kenmare Road, a trail that ran through mixed terrain between Torc Waterfall and the attractive market village of Kenmare. Declan’s wife, Fidelma, and their children—two boys and a girl under the age of ten—dropped them off at the abandoned church near Ladies View, where Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting had admired the stunning views of the lakes of Killarney in 1861.

  Finian paused and looked across the sunlit hills, tufts of white clouds floating high above Kenmare Bay in the distance. How could he last a year without seeing this place?

  Yet he had to leave. Nothing was the same since the deaths of Sally and the girls, and yet everything was the same, but he knew that was only part of it. He was meant to be in Rock Point. He could feel that truth more than he could explain it.

  “Ah, Fin, what a day,” Declan said next to him. “We’ll miss you, but you’ll be back.”

  “I will.”

  His brother—so like him, so different from him—drank from his water bottle. Declan, too, looked out at the hills and the sweep of the barren hills and glens. “I don’t feel abandoned,” he said as he returned his water bottle to his pack. “You might be a priest now, but you’ve always been and always will be my brother.”

  “And you mine, Declan.”

  “No matter what madness we face in this life.”

  The bond between them had always been strong—as fraternal twins, as two brothers with three younger sisters, then as business partners.

  Tilters at whiskey windmills, they’d called themselves in the early days.

  They continued down the hill. The trail was narrower, rockier, even quieter. Finian felt the sun warm on the back of his neck. He’d dressed in hiking clothes. No need for the clerical suit out here. It told others who he was, but it didn’t make the priest.

  He imagined Sally’s smile and amusement at the thought of him as a priest.

  “Father Bracken... Oh, Fin, that’s just delicious.”

  Seven years this summer since her death, and he thought of her and their daughters every day. How could he not?

  Embracing grief, recovering from it, didn’t mean forgetting.

  Less and less did he let himself slide down into the dark hole of wishing the past could be different than it was. He had his regrets. They were a part of him now. If only he’d been with Sally and the girls that day. He didn’t know enough about sailing to think he could have saved them, but at least he could have died with them.

  At least they wouldn’t have died without him.

  A rogue wave it was, capsizing their small yacht.

  Sean Murphy had explained several days after the tragedy. “They went overboard, all three at once. They didn’t stand a chance. They drowned, probably soon after. There were no other boats in the vicinity. The water was very cold. Hypothermia would have set in quickly even if they hadn’t drowned.”

  Drowned. Finian remembered trying to understand what that meant. He couldn’t make sense of it. He’d been in his office at Bracken Distillers. He’d slept there, unable to go home. Divers had rescued the captain of the chartered yacht, but it was touch-and-go whether he would survive. Divers had also recovered the bodies of Finian’s wife and daughters.

  Gardai—led by Sean—were conducting a thorough investigation.

  Sean knew he was under suspicion. Did he sabotage the small yacht? Hire someone who did?

  “The captain is recovering from a head injury and hypothermia,” Sean had continued. “He regained consciousness and explained what happened. He tried to save your wife and daughters. They wore life vests, but they didn’t help in this situation, at least not enough.”

  “Then it was an accident? There’s no question of anything else?”

  Sean—Garda Murphy—had paused, leveled his gaze on Finian. “We have no reason to suspect it was anything else.”

  “Where are they now? Sally...Kathleen, Mary?”

  “Their remains will be released to you. I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Bracken”

  The investigation continued, and the sinking of the yacht was deemed an accident. A terrible, unforgiving accident that had resulted in three deaths. The captain left Ireland for Australia soon after, but he’d died of natural causes a year ago. He’d blamed himself for the tragedy, although no one else did. He and Finian had never met, never talked. After all, what was there to say?

  Finian realized he had sped up his pace to a near-manic level. He stopped, letting his brother catch up with him. A soft breeze floated down from the hills, and Finian told himself he would remember its smell when he was in Maine. Remember its coolness on his face and its murmur among the rocks, fields, streams and knots of trees and shrubs.

  “We’ve had our share of madness in our almost forty years on this planet,” Finian said, referring to Declan’s earlier comment. He and his brother were like this—able to pick up conversations minutes, days, months after they’d started. “You’ve never said as much but you think it’s madness that I’m a prie
st.”

  “Not madness, exactly.” They walked a little ways, not another soul in sight, before Declan continued. “I worry you’re running from your past.”

  “In becoming a priest or taking this church in Maine?”

  “Both. I don’t question that God called you to a different life. I question your interpretation of this call.”

  “I told Sean Murphy that maybe God meant for me to be a sheep farmer.”

  Declan managed a small smile. “That would be a sight. I see you in this Maine fishing village before I see you back on a farm. It never suited you.”

  “I helped Sean birth a lamb.”

  “Dear God.”

  They continued in comfortable silence. Declan, Finian knew, hadn’t expected a response to his worries. He would speak his mind and let Finian decide what to do. It had always been that way between them. They’d worked side by side in the competitive world of international whiskey, brainstorming, arguing, laughing at setbacks and successes alike. They’d been tireless. Pragmatic when they had to be. Dreamers always.

  Kenmare Bay was closer now, as blue as the sky.

  “What a day, Declan,” Finian said.

  His brother smiled. “Yes. What a day.”

  Houses appeared on the lane, and soon Fidelma and the children greeted them in the village. The little ones hugged their father. They wanted ice cream.

  “You’ll join us, won’t you, Fin?” pretty, red-haired Fidelma asked him.

  “Of course.”

  They walked to a small ice-cream shop and bought cones made with local cream. Chocolate chip for Finian. They all headed down to Reenagross Park together, laughing, chatting, as if Finian weren’t off to America tomorrow.

  A hired car would meet him outside the park. He didn’t want their goodbyes to be at the airport but here, in Kenmare, having ice cream together. “We’ll come see you in Maine,” Fidelma whispered, tears in her eyes, as she and Finian embraced. “Fin, my God...I’ve been thinking about Sally and the girls all day. I miss them so much. I always will.” She stood back, tears streaming down her cheeks now. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”