Cruel Winter: A County Cork Mystery

by Sheila Connolly

  “How long did all this take?” Maura asked.

  “What, the whole investigation?” Diane asked.

  “No, just the time between when the gardaí knew they had a murder on their hands and when they decided on their suspect—you, Diane.”

  “But she was never named,” Seamus said. “She was never arrested or charged. It was only that she was brought in and interrogated more than once.”

  And somehow everyone had known that. Communications in Cork still mystified Maura. “And other people weren’t?” Maura demanded.

  “Not so often as her.”

  “Okay, what was the process?” Maura felt she was talking in circles. “The gardaí have a body, clearly murdered. They know more or less how and when she died. Then they start asking questions and interviewing people, right? How many people did they interview?”

  Some of the men exchanged glances. “A few hundred, mebbe?” Seamus volunteered.

  That stopped Maura. “Wait, how many?”

  “Told you—hundreds,” Seamus said, sounding irritated. “Can’t say they weren’t doin’ their job.” Bart nodded in agreement.

  “But, but . . . Look, I don’t pretend to know that part of the county, but it can’t be more crowded than around here, can it?”

  “About the same,” Billy said. “Lots of pastureland. Cows.”

  “So where the heck did the gardaí find that many people to interview?”

  “Well, they’d have started with the near neighbors and worked their way outward, wouldn’t they?”

  “Okay, sure. That’d be, what—fifty? Then what?”

  Joe joined in. “They woulda talked to the husband—Sharon’s—fer sure. They woulda talked to the people what gave him his alibi. They woulda talked to his friends back in England or in Dublin or Cork city. ‘Was he the kind of man who could kill?’ they might ask. In the heat of anger, or would he make a plan? Was there any money involved? Had he put insurance on Sharon? Was she planning to leave him? Or he leaving her? They’d talk to her friends as well, wouldn’t they now?”

  “And the local gardaí talked to all these people?” Maura asked, incredulous—and wondering if Joe had been in trouble with the law at some point, to know so much. And why was he suddenly so talkative?

  “They did indeed,” Seamus said. “Why d’yeh think it took so long? The lads wanted to get it done right. The whole country was watchin’.”

  Maura had to remind herself that she shouldn’t underestimate the gardaí—certainly not now, since she’d seen them at work, and not those in the past either. Many of them might be young, and they might not have the experience in investigation that came with working in a big city, but it would be wrong to assume they were stupid or lazy. And what did she think she was doing now? Proving that they’d failed back in 1996? Did she really think she could sit down with a bunch of random guys who had fuzzy memories of something that had happened two decades ago, and they’d figure out exactly who had killed Sharon? Like that was going to happen! Maura, this was just a way to pass the time while we wait for the snow to stop, she reminded herself. We’re only talking. Diane deserved a fair break. It seemed wrong that she should have to carry this load of suspicion around for the rest of her life if she hadn’t done anything.

  The problem was, if this group couldn’t figure out someone to point a finger at, then nothing would change. What were the options? One, Diane had in fact killed Sharon and gotten away with it, or two, she knew who had and wasn’t talking. Or three, Diane was as innocent as she claimed she was, and someone else had killed Sharon in a violent and bloody way—and gotten away with it. Which do you like best? Maura asked herself.

  What she would prefer was to be in her own bed at home right now. Well, that wasn’t about to happen. She was stuck here along with her customers, and Diane had dropped into their laps. Maura checked the clock: almost ten. It wasn’t even near closing time.

  She turned to the curiously silent Bart. “You agree with what Joe said, Bart?”

  “Close enough. The gardaí did their jobs. Like he said, a lot of people were watching.”

  “What was your part?”

  “I was new to the job. Mostly I typed up other officers’ notes. Sure, I read them all. I can’t say they missed anything.”

  No help there. Maura checked the room again—after all, that was her job. “Hey, guys? How about we take another break, stretch our legs?”

  “Another pint?” someone called out.

  “Yeah, fine. But if anyone wants to chip in to the snow pint fund, all contributions welcome.”

  Gillian pried herself up from her chair and made her way over to the back of the room—headed for the loo, no doubt, before the guys realized they needed to make room for that next pint. Maura drifted in that direction, then leaned against the wall to wait for Gillian to emerge. By the time she did, there was a line of guys waiting in the narrow hallway.

  “You doing okay?” Maura asked Gillian when she came out.

  “As well as I can hope. Don’t worry, I’m not about to pop this child out now—we’re months from that.”

  “Well, it would be a different way to entertain this lot for the evening.”

  Gillian laughed. “I can see them making a run for the door! If they have to choose between helping deliver a baby and braving a snowstorm, I don’t think there’s much question which they’d choose.”

  “I hear you. Any word from Harry?”

  Gillian glanced around, then moved toward the back room. Maura followed reluctantly: the boys hadn’t lit the fire in there, and it was icy. The lone oil lamp was burning low, so Maura located the flashlight she knew was kept behind the bar before gesturing to Gillian to shut the door. Then Maura asked quietly, “What’s wrong?”

  Gillian leaned against the bar. “Harry’s been texting me. He says Eveline won’t last the night.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that—she’s sort of the last of her kind. But it’s not exactly unexpected, is it?”

  “No, of course not. She’s well past eighty. But I don’t know what Harry will do.”

  “About what? You?”

  “Where he’ll live. Where I’ll be living. With Eveline gone, Harry and I will be kind of orphans, do you know?”

  “Oh, you mean you’ve got no place to live?”

  “Exactly. Harry’s got a flat in Dublin, but it’s not big enough for two and certainly not for three, no matter how small that third one might be. Nor do I really want to raise my child in the city.”

  “So what are your options?”

  Gillian stood up straighter and stretched her back. “I don’t know. With a baby, I can’t work or even paint, and there’s no way I could pay for a childminder on whatever little I made.”

  “Won’t Harry help?”

  “As much as he can, but that may not be much. Whatever his family name and history, the money’s pretty much gone now, and he lives on his salary. I don’t know how far that will go. Though he won’t be paying the O’Briens to look after Eveline. I wonder how they’re fixed . . .”

  “The O’Briens are not your problem. Uh, you’re welcome to stay with me, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t ask, Maura. You’re kind to offer, but you haven’t lived with a baby. No, this is something Harry and I have to sort out between ourselves—and sooner rather than later.”

  “Have you talked about it?”

  “No, because Eveline’s been so ill. I haven’t wanted to add to his troubles.”

  “Tell me this: do you want to be together?”

  “Now? Forever?”

  “You’re ducking the question, Gillian. If you ask me, there is no such thing as forever when it comes to people. Put it this way: do you want to try to make a go of it, the two of you plus one?”

  Gillian knotted her fingers together. “I think so. I think the last few months have really shaken Harry, and now he knows he has to grow up. And I have to accept that there’s no way I can go it alone, without some financial support, ev
en if I want to. It simply doesn’t work.”

  “Well, at least you’ve figured out what the problems are.”

  “But Maura, I have no solutions. Not that I expect to arrive at any tonight.”

  And she had no ideas to offer, either. After a moment, Maura asked, “How do you think it’s going out there?”

  “You mean, your trial? Or rather, Diane’s? It’s been interesting, I have to say.”

  “How much did you know about any of this?”

  “Not much. I’m only a few years older than you, Maura, so I was still a child when it all happened. To make it worse, there were parts of it that the adults wouldn’t talk about in front of the children back then—probably the sex-related bits. They didn’t want to have to explain. So I’d say that the facts were in short supply, and some of us probably made up a lot of bosh to fill in the gaps, and then those parts became the facts. I admire what you’re trying to do, to sort it out now, but what do you hope to take away from it?”

  “I guess I started because it seemed like a good way to pass the time, since we can’t leave here tonight. I do think Diane got a lousy deal—she had no way to fight back against rumors and gossip. But now that we’ve been talking about it for a bit, I have to wonder what really did happen and if the whole mess was handled right.”

  “You think the gardaí messed things up?”

  “No, not really. They did their best.”

  “Do you think Diane did it?”

  Maura shook her head. “No. She says not, but then she would, wouldn’t she? But apart from that, I don’t think she’s angry enough. And I don’t think she could have done it physically.”

  “You might be surprised. But if not Diane, then who?” Gillian asked.

  “I have no idea. And nobody else’s name has popped up so far. Should we go back now and see if anyone’s had a brainstorm?”

  “Let’s do. Better than worrying about Eveline and Harry.”

  Fifteen

  Back in the main room, people had gathered in clumps—many armed with a fresh pint—and were talking with a lot of gestures. It looked almost like an ordinary night, except that it was darker. Nobody seemed to mind. Gillian went to the bar for something nonalcoholic to drink, so Maura made her way over to Billy and sat down. “What do you think?” she asked him.

  “Are yeh talkin’ about yer brilliant idea to stir up old troubles?”

  “I guess. You might have noticed that I’m one of the few people in this room who knew nothing about the murder, but even I’ve heard it mentioned on the telly now and then since I got here. How on earth does something like this hang on in the news for so long?”

  Billy smiled. “Ah, Maura, fer all that you were raised in the city, yer still a bit of a wide-eyed innocent when it comes to crime here. I know it’s hard fer you to put yerself back in that time, but even now things are simpler here than in America.”

  “Yeah, I kind of get that, Billy. Is it because it was murder? A messy violent murder of a woman? An outsider? Because there were hints of scandal? Were people angry at the gardaí? What I don’t understand is why everybody seems to know about it now, this much later, and have an opinion about it—and why Diane has always been the villain.”

  “All good questions, m’dear, and there’s a bit of truth in all of ’em. Why the lady ended up in the middle of it, I can’t tell you.”

  Did people blame her because her husband was fooling around? Or because she knew about it and did nothing? Which was kind of the same as approving? One more strike against the outsiders. Maura leaned closer to Billy, not that anyone else in the room was paying attention to them. “Were there really no other suspects?”

  “Many or none—who’s to say? The woman was dead, no question. She had few friends in the area—no one knew her well. That left the door open fer a lot of guesses. But there was little to work with—the husbands were elsewhere and could prove it. So without any true evidence, Diane was the easiest choice because of the husband. People jumped to the likeliest conclusion, and it stuck.”

  “I suppose you’d have to say the least unlikely, right? Who knew about her husband’s carrying on with Sharon? And do you believe that Diane felt strongly enough about it that she would kill for him?”

  “I can’t answer yer questions, Maura,” Billy said sadly. “I can only guess at what folk might’ve thought back in the day.”

  Maura sighed. “So now she’s sold the house, and she’s going back to England, and that will be the end of it. Except for the stories. You Irish sure love your stories.”

  “Are you not counting herself amongst us, then, Maura Donovan? Did yer gran not fill yer head with tales when you were no more than a child?”

  “I . . . can’t remember. She was always working, and I was in school, and there wasn’t a lot of time to sit around and tell stories. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.” Maura felt a wave of sadness that came out of nowhere. Gran had been the only parent she had known, and while she had moved on with her life, sometimes she missed Gran fiercely. That was one reason she had stayed on in Leap: people around the village had known her. Fewer and fewer of them now, but they were Maura’s last link to her grandmother. It hit her suddenly that Gran would have known about the murder. She’d already have gone to Boston, but Maura knew now that Gran had kept in touch with a number of her Irish friends. If anyone had written to her once she was settled in Boston, would they have mentioned it? Gran hadn’t been a saver, and she had kept few letters, so Maura would probably never know.

  It was a double-edged sword, this long Irish memory. Maura reaped the rewards, as the people who had known her family long before she was born had made her new life in Leap possible and were still helping her along the way. But the downside was that nobody ever let anything go—like this old murder. She had to admit that she felt very young and very American now that she was trying to figure it out. She didn’t want to suggest that the gardaí had messed up the original investigation. Most likely they had done the best they could at the time. But they had been inexperienced, which was both good and bad—good because there was little violent crime in Ireland and bad because when they were confronted with that kind of crime, they weren’t sure how to deal with it. Boston should be so lucky! Maura thought irreverently.

  But Maura was forced to admit that there didn’t seem to be much evidence to go on. One body, stabbed with a lot of anger. A weapon that was never found—but plenty of bog close by to dump it. No one had known the woman well: she was a foreigner and was pleasant but reserved and mostly kept to herself. Many of the near neighbors fell into the same category as foreigners, outsiders, blow-ins; they hadn’t spent a lot of time in West Cork and hadn’t necessarily crossed paths with each other—much less with the local people. No wonder nobody had arrived at an answer.

  If she was honest with herself, Maura wondered if she could possibly add anything now. There was still too much they didn’t know, and maybe nobody did. She was an outsider herself, although in this case, that was probably useful: she had no preconceived ideas. She probably had more knowledge of current forensics than most local people in this group, except Bart, although most of that came from what little television she had watched. But that wasn’t much use if there was no physical evidence to examine. Had anything been saved? Were Sharon’s bloody clothes preserved somewhere? Had DNA analyses had been done at the time of the murder? Would they have shown anything useful after the body had sat out for a full day?

  Sharon had not been raped and had not had sex recently. Had that ever been stated publicly, apart from the official report? Had the papers and the gossips kept quiet about it because it was a taboo subject—or at least distasteful? Could they talk more freely about Sharon’s sexual activities now than they could have twenty years earlier? But was there anything to talk about? Did it matter?

  Maura checked the clock again: the hands were creeping up on eleven. The people in the room might be good for another hour or two of talk, tops. Two hours to arr
ive at a conclusion about a crime that had remained open for nearly two decades. Was this the time to give up, tell everyone to settle in for the night, and forget about it? Maybe Diane should have a say in that decision.

  During the lull, Diane had been nursing a cup of coffee in the far corner, looking out the window even though there was nothing to see. Maura crossed over to where she stood. “Are you okay?”

  Diane turned away from the view of whiteness. “Nice of you to ask, Maura. I don’t think I have many friends in this room.” She took another swallow of her coffee, which must be cold by now. Maura waited. “Am I all right with my life? Maybe. I’m going home to England as soon as I can, and then all this will be behind me. My husband will be waiting, and we’ll get on with our lives. Or were you asking, am I okay with what’s happening here tonight? Maybe. It feels good to talk about it, to get it all out in the open, and most likely this will be the last time. Do I think all this talk with prove anything? Probably not, but I guess I need some official end to it all. Back in England, nobody knows, or maybe they just don’t care. I was never arrested. I have no criminal record. I have a different life there.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Can you? You come from a very different place.” Diane eyed her curiously but without hostility. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to finish this. It’s interesting to hear what people have been saying about me all these years. Actually, it hurts less than I expected. I know I didn’t do it. I guess I can see why people might think I did. But as we’ve all said, if I didn’t do it, someone else did. Someone lured Sharon out of her house and stabbed her and left her bleeding in the dark. I don’t know who or why, but I would like to know why this person made a mess of my life. Did they even know me? So let’s finish this.” With that, Diane rose and strode across to the fireplace, where Billy was busy adding more fuel to the fire.