Buried In a Bog

by Sheila Connolly

  “Nonsense. Everyone’s in such a hurry now—no one seems to care about the past, the families. I’m so glad you came by today. Will you be stopping by again?” The small, wrinkled face peered up with eager hope.

  “I’d like that very much. I’ll be around for a week, and I’d love to see you again, if it’s no trouble. It’s been a real pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Nolan.”

  “Can you make your way out? Mick should be back shortly to collect you.”

  “Of course. And thank you for the lovely tea.”

  Maura carefully gathered up the teacups, put them on the tray, and carried the tray back to the main room. It seemed the least that she could do. She gave one last look at Mrs. Nolan, who was already nodding off in her chair—not for the first time, from the look of the chair, and the way the small body nestled into its curves—then went into the courtyard, closing the heavy door quietly behind her. No sign of Mick, but the air was pleasantly warm, at least in the sun. She wandered over to the lane that ran alongside the Nolan cottage and stood still, looking at the view, trying to imagine it filled with the sound of childish voices, women calling. Right now all she could hear was the lowing of a flock of sheep a couple of fields over, the swish of a single car down on a road below. It was likely quieter now than it would’ve been a century before. Pure country, as far as she could see. She crossed the paved road and then followed an unpaved lane until it petered out in the midst of three old houses. The houses all looked abandoned, although in different eras. One was no more than a roofless stone shell, while the others showed more recent use. Maura leaned against a wire fence to greet the sheep in the field. The ones closest to her looked blankly at her for a few moments, then returned to cropping the grass beneath their feet.

  She heard the sound of a car coming up the hill, and made her way back just as Mick parked and got out. “She’s gone to sleep, has she?” he called out as Maura approached.

  “How’d you guess? I forgot to thank her for fixing things with Ellen, and for sending you to get me.”

  “She’s glad for the company. I come by as much as I can, but it can be lonely here. The old families are gone. I’ve got her a telly, and she’s on the phone”—he waved at a satellite dish on the far side of the building that Maura hadn’t noticed—“but she’s never got in the habit of using them. She prefers the old ways.”

  “She did ask if I could come back and see her again, but I don’t want to impose on you—is there any other way to get here?”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. “So she didn’t mention…No mind. She’s seen to that. Follow me.” Mick led her around the back of the cottage, and Maura saw there was a small shed there, far newer than the cottage itself. He pulled open the double doors to reveal a small but highly polished car. “She wanted you to have the use of this, while you’re here.”

  She turned to gape at him. “What? She wants to lend me a car? I can’t take that.”

  “And why not? It’s not new. In fact, it was my grandfather’s, not that he used it much, and he’s been gone some twenty years. Can you manage a stick manual transmission?”

  “Uh, I guess.” In fact Maura hadn’t driven much at all in her life. In Boston it was simply too expensive to own and insure a car, and besides, there had always been buses or the T. She had a license, but mainly as an ID—she’d cadged the bare minimum of lessons from the older brother of a friend, and once she’d passed the test she hadn’t had much opportunity or need to drive anywhere. And here she’d have to drive on the left, with a stick shift, for God’s sake. This was not a good idea. Was it?

  “You’ll do fine. The keys are in it, and I made sure it still runs and filled the tank. And that way you can visit when you like. But like I said, she tires easily.”

  Like I can’t tell when she’s tired? she thought. “Uh, could you at least back it out of the shed for me?”

  He gave her a critical look, then wordlessly climbed into the car, started the engine, and swung the car out of the shed, pulling to a stop only inches from his own car. “There you go. Can you find your way back?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Down the hill, turn right at the T, then follow the road. It’s easy.” He handed her the keys, then turned and got into his own car.

  “Thanks!” Maura called out to his retreated back. He raised a backward hand and pulled out onto the lane, leaving Maura standing in the small courtyard with the keys in her hand.

  Things were happening much too fast. It had been kind of Mrs. Nolan to set her up with a place to stay at Ellen’s, but to hand her a car? Not even knowing whether she could drive it? Could she drive it? Well, she’d better find out, since Mick had disappeared and left her stranded out here in the middle of nowhere, and she wasn’t even sure how to find her way back to Leap, despite his directions. This Irish “welcome” business was a mixed blessing.

  Chapter 4

  Maura squared her shoulders. If she couldn’t handle the car, then she’d just have to find a phone. Or walk. Or wait a day for Mick to come back, to see if she was still hanging around annoying his grannie. Why was he so protective of Mrs. Nolan? She’d been the one to invite Maura. Maura hadn’t just showed up and imposed herself on a stranger. She had every right to be here.

  The car was no model she recognized. It was small, probably European, its color faded to a tired grey. Maura walked around it, jiggling the key ring in her hand. Its tires seemed to be in good shape, and it had a license plate, so she wouldn’t be breaking any local laws. She hoped. Was it insured? Or was she? She had no idea who to ask, although Mick seemed like a law-abiding type, based on her extremely brief interaction with him. She opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat, its upholstery cracked with age. She spent a moment locating all the relevant parts, then stuck the key into the ignition, planted one foot on the brake, pushed down on what she hoped was the clutch, and turned the key. To her surprise the engine started up on the first try, and it did have a full tank of gas, as Mick had said. She grinned to herself, almost against her will: she had wheels!

  Now what? Sitting still was fine, but she was supposed to move, starting with getting out of the woefully small enclosure and through that narrow gap between the posts. And then navigate what amounted to a one-lane road lined with either towering hedges or more stone walls close to either side.

  At least the gear pattern was stamped on the gearshift. How did it go? Shift into the gear you wanted, slowly release the clutch, and keep one foot on the brake at all times. Maura shifted into reverse and let out the clutch slowly—and stalled. She tried again, raising her foot at a snail’s pace, until the car actually began to move—which startled her, and she stalled again. She cursed and tried again, and this time she moved backward by a few feet, at which point she was afraid she was going to crash through the hedgerow and jammed both feet on the pedals.

  This was ridiculous!

  Fifteen minutes later Maura had managed to maneuver the car so that at least it was facing the direction she wanted to go. If she turned right, at least it was downhill, and then she should turn…right at the bottom? Inch by inch she moved forward and managed to slide through the stone posts without scraping anything. She made the turn, then slowly went down the hill, braking all the way. Thank goodness there were no other cars coming up the road, though at the bottom she discovered a police car blocking the way to her left. Not that she wanted to go that direction, but the mere presence of a cop made her stall out again. She sat at the bottom of the hill and pounded the steering wheel in frustration. The cop walked over, and she rolled down the window.

  “Having a bit of trouble?” he asked politely.

  She looked carefully at him: he appeared younger than she was, and he hadn’t quite grown into his uniform, which looked almost new. But he didn’t seem to be making fun of her. “Yes, I guess I am. I don’t drive much, and I’ve never driven on the left, and I’ve never driven this car before. Sorry, am I in the way?” That seemed unlikely, since there were no moving cars in si
ght.

  “Not at all. That’d be Bridget Nolan’s car, right?”

  “Yes. She’s letting me borrow it.” Maura tried not to sound defensive, and hoped the nice young policeman wouldn’t ask for proof, because she didn’t have anything like documentation. Would he think she had stolen it?

  Her worries were answered quickly but raised another question when he asked, “So you’d be Maura Donovan?”

  He knew who she was? “Yes, I am. How did you know that? And you are?”

  “Sean Murphy. Mrs. Nolan’s been talking of nothing else but your visit for days now. She wanted to be sure we’d all look out for you, in case you got lost. If it’s Leap you’re looking for, it’s that way.” He pointed down the road Maura had planned to take.

  Had Mrs. Nolan talked to the whole village? “Thank you. I can use all the help I can get.” She looked behind him and for the first time noticed other vehicles, and several official-looking men moving around the field. “What’s going on here?”

  His expression turned somber. “They’ve found a body in the old bog.” At Maura’s horrified expression, he hastened to add, “No way yet to tell how long he’s been there. Could be a year, could be a century.”

  That made her feel slightly better; a hundred-year-old body felt less like crime and more like history. She’d been happy to leave violence behind her in Boston. “Well, I’d better be heading back. At the rate I’m going it may take a while.”

  He nodded. “Good luck to you. And drive safely!”

  After half an hour of driving—or more accurately, lurching and stalling, hands clenched on the steering wheel—Maura arrived back at Leap. She carefully pulled into the driveway at the bed and breakfast and parked behind the building. After turning off the engine, she sat and shook for a minute. Part of her wanted to say “never again” and abandon the car where it sat; another part reasoned that if she was going to go anywhere and see anyone, particularly Bridget Nolan, she needed to get over herself and drive the damn car. At least the roads were mostly empty, although she wasn’t sure what she would do if she encountered someone coming the opposite way on some of those tiny lanes. Were there rules for things like that?

  When her hands finally stopped shaking, Maura struggled out of the small car and looked around. It was midafternoon, and there was no sign of Ellen or the children. She could take a walk, explore the land around the harbor—she could see some buildings from where she stood. But she was keyed up and wanted to celebrate…what? Surviving a five-mile drive? Well, yes, in fact. Call it surviving a challenge, or finding a solution, or at least grabbing the one that had been handed to her. She wanted a drink. Since Sullivan’s was the only pub she knew, Sullivan’s it was, then.

  It was clear the moment she walked into the place that there was something going on. For one thing, there were people there—lots of people, unlike the day before—and they were all talking at once. Rose was the only person serving, and she looked overwhelmed, dealing with shouted orders from all corners as well as at the bar. Maura waded through the crowd toward her, and when she finally reached the bar, she waited to catch the young girl’s eye. Poor Rose looked like a cornered rabbit. “Need some help, Rose?” she shouted.

  “I need three hands! It’s never been so busy in the middle of the day.”

  “There’s nobody else working today?”

  “Da’s gone off to Bantry to get supplies, so it’s just me. He left before all of this.” Rose waved her hand at the crowd. “I’ve tried calling Mick on his cell, but it’s off, and he wasn’t due to come in for a couple of hours yet.”

  “I’ve tended bar in Boston—I can work the taps if you want.”

  Rose looked as though she’d been handed a Christmas present. “Oh, could you? I’d be so grateful. At the very least I’ve got to get some glasses washed or we’ll have nothing to drink from. Can you handle the Guinness tap?”

  “I know the routine, no problem.” Maura made her way around the bar and slid in behind it. She took a moment to familiarize herself with the layout, but she’d worked in plenty of bars, and they were all pretty much the same. Especially the Irish ones all over Boston. She looked out at the crowd, still growing as more people came in the door. Several of them stopped talking long enough to look back at her, as though she were some exotic creature dropped in their midst. Maura smiled. “What can I get you?”

  “American, are you?” the nearest man said. “A pint, please. You’d be Bridget Nolan’s visitor, then. Do you know, have they cleared away the body in the bog yet?”

  Chapter 5

  Maura laughed to herself at her earlier impression that Sullivan’s was short of business. At the moment the small pub was filled to capacity, which she estimated at maybe thirty if a few didn’t want a seat, with a few people even spilling out the door onto the sidewalk beyond. For all she knew, the entire population of the town was there, men and women alike—and they were all talking about the body pulled from the bog. Word had spread fast, probably by mobile phone, but apparently people wanted face-to-face conversation about something this big.

  Maura could tell that people were curious about her—it looked as though all the people in the room knew each other well, while she was the stranger—but she and Rose were madly busy filling pints, finally helped out by Rose’s father, Jimmy, when he returned empty-handed from his excursion of the day. Maura smiled when she saw his expression at finding a stranger behind the bar, but when he realized she knew what she was doing, he joined in the fray.

  “You’d be Maura Donovan, eh? Rosie said you’d arrived.”

  “I am.”

  “You’ve pulled a few pints in your day, haven’t you?” He smiled, even as his hands were busy filling yet more pints.

  “Enough. Hope you don’t mind, but Rose was swamped.”

  “We’re glad of the help.” He turned away to a waiting patron. “What’ll it be, Con?”

  Maura kept working at a steady pace. When those few people who took the time to talk to her found she had been on the scene when the body was found, they were disappointed at how little she could tell them. No, the policeman hadn’t told her anything, nor had she seen the body, and she wasn’t about to guess about its age or condition. She didn’t even know enough of the local landmarks to explain just where the bog site was, but when she admitted that, people were happy to fill her in about its entire history, going back to who had owned it in the 1800s.

  Maura fell into the familiar rhythm of pulling pints from the taps at the bar and opening the occasional bottle of hard cider, while Rose collected the empty glasses and washed them so they could be used again. Thank goodness Maura knew how to handle Guinness properly, else she might have been faced by a riot. When there was a lull, she allowed herself a brief break, first heading for the restroom at the back (and shutting her eyes to the filth there), then making her way into the thick of the crowd, just listening to fragments of conversations, in accents both familiar and different at the same time. The main topic seemed to be the identity of the body, although as far as Maura knew it still hadn’t been established how long it had been in the bog. Twenty years, two hundred, two thousand? Apparently it wasn’t uncommon for ancient bodies to be pulled from bogs in Ireland, often sliced up by the mechanical turf-cutters or other industrial-strength equipment that had exposed them in the first place.

  If she’d thought the crowd would thin out as the evening wore on, she was wrong. “Where’s Mick?” she shouted at Jimmy at some point. “We need help!”

  “No idea. We’ll manage,” was Jimmy’s unhelpful reply.

  Maura was beginning to feel exhausted as the clock approached midnight, but the crowd hadn’t budged. She shoved her way back to the bar, where Jimmy was in place.

  “Don’t you have some kind of closing time here?” she shouted over the din.

  “Sometimes.” He winked at her, without pausing in pouring the next pint. “You aren’t sayin’ we should turn away a roomful of customers?”

  “Wo
n’t you get in trouble?” Maura asked.

  “I’d wager the gardaí have enough on their hands, what with this body turning up. They’re based in Skibbereen and they don’t pass by often, so don’t worry yourself about it.” He set the current glass aside to settle as he topped up the one he’d started before.

  She assumed “gardaí” meant the police. “If you say so,” Maura mumbled to herself. It wasn’t up to her to work out the legal issues. “Did Rose go home?”

  “She did. It’s just the two of us, darlin’.”

  Mick was still AWOL, although if it was past regular closing time it seemed unlikely he’d show up now. “So, still need me?”

  “Indeed I do, if you’re willin’. You’re an angel dropped from heaven.”

  “If I can stay awake.” She started yet another glass, while eager hands reached out for the finished ones.

  At midnight Jimmy turned out the lights in the front, but no one budged from their place in the bar. Maura didn’t think that would fool any passing policeman, but at least Jimmy was acknowledging the law, sort of. The room in the back, where other people had drifted, was still lit and noisy. These people must be starved for excitement, Maura thought. Half the town is still here, and they’re all talking about the body from the bog. How long would it take the police to figure out who it was? Would they ever?

  It was well past one when the last customer straggled out into the cool night air. Maura had been so busy doling out drinks and collecting the empties that she hadn’t noticed when Michael Nolan had come in. He finally shut the door and pulled down the shades in the front.

  “You’ve missed all the fun, Mick,” Jimmy said, bouncing nervously behind the bar, a dirty towel in his hand. “Grand evening, wasn’t it? Wish we could order up more of them.”

  Mick slouched against the bar. “I doubt there’ll be a body all that often.”

  Maura perched on a stool to rest her feet, noting that he hadn’t explained his absence. Again, none of her business—he and Jimmy could work that out. “Not that many suspicious deaths around here?”