Cruel Winter: A County Cork Mystery

by Sheila Connolly

  “So they were out walking that dog early in the morning, and they just happened to find Sharon’s body?” Maura asked.

  “They’d gone that way before, I’m sure. As we’ve said, there aren’t that many lanes in the area, and they wouldn’t have gone across a bog.”

  “Could Denis Layton have been a lover of Sharon’s?”

  Diane laughed. “You’d know the answer if you’d met the man. He was a farmer raising cattle. I don’t mean to be unkind, but he wasn’t much to look at, and he didn’t smell very good. Unless Sharon had a mental lapse, I can’t picture the two of them together.”

  “Could Mrs. Layton have suspected such a thing, even if it wasn’t likely?” Maura pressed.

  “How’m I supposed to answer that?” Diane protested. “I exchanged no more than a few hundred words with either of them. In my judgment, the answer is no.”

  “But they did have the dog.”

  “Yes, they had the dog. It was a pretty little thing, but it yapped a lot. Sometimes you’d hear that across the fields.”

  “Ellen Layton . . .” Billy said out of nowhere. Every time Maura thought he was asleep, he’d come up with something that showed he was following the talk. “Was she a Dempsey before she married?”

  Maura swallowed a laugh. There was probably no one in the room who could answer that question except Billy. To her surprise, Jimmy spoke from his corner. “Ellen Dempsey, yah. The Dempseys lived up the Drinagh road, near Minanes. I think my folks went to Ellen’s weddin’. Me mam kept saying that Ellen was marrying beneath her. But then, she said that about most women who were marrying then, including Rosie’s mother. We married a year or so after Ellen.”

  Billy nodded. “That would be right. The Dempseys had a nice piece of land, did they not? But when the parents passed, none of the sons wanted to take it on, so they sold it and divided the money. Ellen was married to Denis Layton by then.”

  “Sounds about right,” Jimmy agreed.

  “But the Laytons’ land,” Billy went on, “their grazing was poor, and the fields were smaller. Seems like Denis Layton’s father had sold off a field or two to make ends meet before Denis took it on.”

  “Why do you know that, Billy?” Maura said in spite of herself.

  “I know Ellen’s ma and da. His folk as well,” Billy told her.

  Of course—Billy knew everyone who had ever lived nearby. But he’d known about the Layton place only through the local connection. Maura struggled to connect the dots. What were the odds that one of those plots was the one that Sharon and her husband had bought? That would have been in the late 1980s or early 1990s, about the time Ellen and Denis had married. And the Laytons were already struggling then. She looked at Billy, and he returned her look steadily. Challenging her to put the pieces together?

  “How did the Morgans come to buy that piece of land?” Maura asked of no one in particular.

  “Most likely because the Laytons were sellin’ when they were lookin’,” Billy told her.

  “Did Paul Morgan build his own house? I mean, was there none there before?”

  “It was a new house when I knew it,” Diane added. “I don’t recall if there was anything there in my grandparents’ time.”

  All right, Maura thought. It was a pretty shaky equation, but this wasn’t a court of law, and the proof could come later. What did she need to know or confirm?

  That the land the Layton family had sold had been bought by Sharon’s husband, who had built the holiday house on it early in his construction career. The place where Sharon had been murdered. Obviously Ellen and her husband would have known the land well.

  But why kill Sharon? Okay, say the Laytons had struggled financially for years, with poor land, as Billy had hinted. Their dairy business was not particularly successful. Maybe there had been some major expense that nobody knew about, like a health crisis. They were trying to breed some puppies to sell for a little extra cash. But how did that add up to murder?

  Still, it might be possible . . . Maybe they’d realized they couldn’t manage to graze their cattle on what land they had left, but they’d already sold off a piece to the Morgans. But what if Sharon died a horrible death on that plot of land, and her husband wanted nothing more to do with it and would sell it as fast as he could? Maybe at a reduced rate? And there would be Denis Layton, waiting with an offer in hand, hoping to get his land back cheap. And that timing could be proved—there would be property transfer records somewhere. And if they’d gotten it back, maybe the Laytons had rented out the house—if in fact they’d bought it, after Sharon’s death, to bring in a little more cash—that would be easy to check. Win-win for them. After all, Sharon hadn’t died in the house, and most tourists wouldn’t know the history.

  She looked again at Billy. “You think . . . ?”

  “I may do,” he said. “But that said, the Laytons were and are decent, hardworking people.”

  “What are you talking about?” Diane asked, bewildered.

  Maura scanned the room: everyone looked to be nodding off. She’d already thrown enough off-the-wall ideas at them, and there was no point in tossing this in now. Morning would be time enough, and she needed time to think. She leaned toward Diane. “I’ve got an idea, but it’ll keep until morning. There are still a lot of holes in it. What we all need now is sleep.”

  Diane gave her a long look, then shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “For now,” she replied. Then she turned back to the group. “I think we’ve taken this about as far as we can go for now, and you all look wiped out. I know I am. We could all use some sleep, if you can get comfortable on the floor here. We can come back to this in the morning if you want to.”

  There were some grumblings, but nobody objected. People started sorting themselves out and choosing what they hoped would be the warmest corners.

  Bart came over and said softly to Maura, “A word with you?”

  Curious, Maura said, “Sure. In the kitchen?”

  Bart followed her there, unnoticed by the rest of the people, who were busy trying to get comfortable on a stone floor. “You’ve done well in there, Maura Donovan.”

  “Thanks. But you’ve been pretty quiet, especially since you know more facts about this than anyone else in the room. Do you have a reason for that?”

  Bart sighed. “I was new to the gardaí when it happened, as I’ve said, and heard only bits and pieces at the time. I never did make up my mind who’d done the deed, but I didn’t fix on Diane then or now. I think she deserved a fair hearing. But if I open my gob now, people will give what I say more weight than it might deserve. I’m still a garda, and that commands some respect still. So I’ve held my tongue.”

  “I see. I appreciate that you’ve let this go ahead. But if you do know something that goes against what anyone here says, you’ll speak up, won’t you?”

  “That I will. I’d best go find my own space on the floor now before all the good ones are taken.”

  Maura followed him out to the main room, where the floor was covered with what looked like bundles of old clothes. “Billy, you okay there in the chair?” Maura asked.

  “I’m grand. Liam, Donal—yeh’ve claimed the bed and chair in me place at the end?”

  “We have, and many thanks. Is the door locked, then?”

  Billy waved his hand. “I’ve nothin’ worth stealin’. But yeh might bring back any food yeh find in the mornin’ fer our breakfast.”

  A smart idea that hadn’t occurred to her. Maura opened the front door for the two and pointed to the end of the building. “Think you can make it?”

  “No fear we’ll get lost. Ta.” The two trudged the twenty or so feet to Billy’s home, laden with rolled sleeping bags, kicking up snow as they went, like a pair of kids. They disappeared quickly into the snow.

  Maura stood a moment outside and breathed in cold, clean air. Was it wishful thinking, or was the falling snow less dense now? Still no lights visible and no sign of any cars or trucks passing on the road.
But they had warmth and food, so she couldn’t complain.

  She was surprised when Mick came out and joined her. “Yer not freezin’?”

  “Not yet. It’s kind of a relief—I hadn’t realized how smoky it was inside.”

  “Yeh think yeh’ve figgered something out,” Mick said flatly.

  “Maybe. Something Billy said . . . No, I’m not ready to talk about it. It may fall apart by daylight.”

  Mick peered at her between the swirling flakes. “Why is it yeh care so much? Yeh don’t know Diane, nor anybody the far side of Skibbereen. What’s it matter to yeh?”

  Maura wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, staring at the snow blowing across the road. “I’m still working on that. When Diane showed up and I heard her story, I guess I thought two things—assuming, of course, that you believe her when she says she didn’t kill that woman, which I do. One, why couldn’t the gardaí find a single vicious killer in an area where everybody knows everybody else and watches out for them? And two, why are people still talking about it?”

  “The second one’s easier to answer. This place isn’t filled with violence, like Boston, or even like the North. People do know each other. So when someone dies the way Sharon did, they’re troubled. Fearful. Angry. They need to know what happened so they can feel safe again. They need to trust the gardaí.”

  “Did the gardaí screw up?” Maura asked. “I don’t mean any disrespect,” she added quickly.

  “I think they did the best they could. They weren’t prepared for something like this, and then all the press came trampling over the place, which made it harder for them to do their jobs. There were a few problems with who would take charge, as you may have noticed. Not to mention the press keeps draggin’ it out again every few years to poke at it. The gardaí would be more than happy to see an end to that.”

  “Even if it turns out to be a local crime?”

  “Someone from the townlands, you mean? It might embarrass them, but they’d want to know. What about that first question of yers? What’re yeh thinkin’?”

  Maura shook her head. “If the gardaí did their jobs as best they could, how did this one person slip through? I’m not ready to say. We can talk about it in the morning. Right now I need sleep, even if it’s on that dirty floor.”

  Twenty

  Maura found a corner without drafts, the one that Diane and Rose had already staked out nearest the kitchen, which after Rose’s efforts was still faintly warm. Did that make it the ladies’ corner? Maura stoked the fire one last time, then retreated to join the other women. The floor was hard, but they had their coats, and the men between them and the door blocked some of the cold. Unfortunately, more than one of the same men snored, sometimes in chorus. It didn’t seem to disturb any of them.

  She woke suddenly the next morning, and it took a moment for her to remember where she was and why. She checked the clock: it was nearly eight and growing light outside. It was the light that had awakened her, after too few hours of broken sleep. Not just the ordinary light of dawn, but light reflected off a world that had turned white. Before climbing out from under the coat that covered her, she took stock: most of the men hadn’t stirred, nor had Gillian in her chair or Diane. Rose was missing, but Maura assumed that the clattering from the kitchen came from Rose making breakfast. Such as it was—they didn’t have a lot to work with.

  She tried her best to extricate herself from the pile of bodies without waking anyone, then tiptoed over to the fire to add some more logs. Billy hadn’t stirred, but he opened his eyes, then winked at her. “Well done, Maura Donovan,” he whispered. “Yeh’ve kept us warm and entertained, and now the sun’s come out.”

  Maura smiled at him. “I can’t take credit for the sun, but thanks for the rest. I’d better use the loo before everybody else wakes up.” She picked her way across the floor to the bathroom, where she was pleased to see that the toilet paper supply was holding up. But the tap water was icy, so she settled for splashing her face. She’d only just come out when Liam and Donal, who had taken advantage of Billy’s home, surged in through the front door, triumphantly waving bread and butter and some eggs, as if they’d foraged them themselves rather than raiding Billy’s pantry. That was enough to wake everyone else. Maura waved at them and pointed them toward the kitchen, then heard Rose greeting them cheerfully.

  Pulling her sweater more tightly around her, Maura stepped out the front door and looked around. There were a few tire tracks on the road, although she hadn’t heard any vehicles passing. She had no idea what, if any, road-clearing equipment existed in West Cork. Given how rare this kind of snowfall was, as everyone kept telling her, she figured there probably wasn’t much. People would simply wait until it melted. Maura could already hear water trickling in the gutters, so maybe it wouldn’t take long. Well, at least in town. It could take a lot longer up in the hills, and she wondered when she would be able to get home.

  She went looking for Rose in the kitchen. She appeared to be quite happy boiling water for coffee on the back of the stove, which was radiating heat again, and slicing bread. “Shall I scramble the eggs, do yeh think?” she asked, smiling.

  “If you want—your choice. What about the bread?”

  “There’s a bit left, and there’s some from Billy’s place. If the boys are mad fer toast, let them do it themselves. Let’s hope they figgered out how to do it last night, fer there’s no room on the cooktop here. At least the coffee will be hot, and if they ask fer tea, I’ll hand ’em a tea bag.”

  Maura laughed. “I think you’ve got it covered, Rose. You know, you really are amazing, the way you managed the food for everyone.”

  “Ah, go on,” Rose said, clearly pleased.

  “You know, we’ve kind of talked about doing more food here, but I was waiting until I figured out how the pub worked before I decided anything, and I never really looked at the kitchen. But after what you did with so little during the storm, I’m beginning to wonder if it might work. I’m pretty sure there’s licensing and inspection stuff to think about, but I wanted to get an idea of what it would cost to set up a real kitchen, not just a collection of semi-antiques. What do you think?”

  “Are yeh serious?” Rose looked around the room before answering. “Yer stove there is an antique, but it was enough fer us. You’d have to get a real one, though, if yeh want to think about makin’ meals. Electric or gas or whatever. The cooler’s old, and it’d be simpler to replace that as well. Yeh’ve got the sink and water laid in. Would you be wantin’ a dishwasher right away?”

  “I . . . don’t know, Rose. I don’t really cook, and I have no idea how a kitchen runs. Could one person handle it all?”

  “The right person, mebbe. Who’s willin’ to work hard. And knows a bit about cookin’.”

  “You have anybody in mind?” Maura smiled.

  “Are yeh askin’ if I’m interested?” Rose responded with a smile of her own.

  “I might be. If you wanted to move out of your father’s house and get a real job.”

  “It’s somethin’ to think about. I won’t say no. Let’s see how long it takes Judith to tie me da down.”

  “No rush. I’m just trying to look at my options. Of course, I have no idea if it would make any money or even pay for itself.”

  “There’s books you can get that’d tell you how to plan fer yer costs and such,” Rose said quickly.

  “And you might happen to have one of those?”

  “I might,” Rose admitted.

  Maura nodded. “Well, then, maybe I could borrow it one of these days. Just to look at.”

  “I’d be happy to lend it to yeh,” Rose said.

  “We’d better be getting back,” Maura said. “At least we all made it through the night without freezing.”

  In the front room, people were starting to stir. Seamus, Danny, and Joe looked none the worse for a night on the floor. The four wedding boys resembled young chickens, kind of rumpled but cheery. Billy cracked one eye open at her and
smiled.

  “I’m hopin’ the folk up in the hills have fared as well.”

  “From what I’ve seen, a lot of the older houses are more ready to handle power failures than the newer ones as long as they have fuel handy, and most of them do.”

  “That’s a fair point. I’m sure Mick’ll be wantin’ to see how his grannie’s doin’.”

  “I don’t blame him. There aren’t a lot of people in walking distance up on that hill, so it’s hard to ask someone to check on her. But she’s probably been through this before, many times.”

  Mick joined them, so Maura asked, “How long before the lanes are clear?”

  “When God decides,” he said, and Maura wasn’t sure he was joking. “There’ll be no school today—the buses can’t get up the lanes.”

  “No snowplows, huh?”

  “In Skibbereen, maybe. Not off the main road here.”

  “What’ll I do with this bunch?” Maura waved vaguely toward the front room, half of whom were still cocooned in their coats and whatever else they had scrounged to sleep on or under.

  “Yeh’ve plenty of fuel—you should add some to the fire. If it’s food yer worried about, Rosie’s got it in hand, what with Billy’s supplies. Rosie, yer doin’ a grand job with little to work with.”

  Rose beamed at him. “Thank you, Mick!”

  “You’re right—she is,” Maura said firmly. “You make it look easy, Rose. I’d love to see what you could do with a real kitchen.”

  Rose blushed and turned her attention to slicing bread. “Ah, go on with yeh. I’m just doin’ what I do fer me da every day, except for ten times the number.”

  “Well, thank you for pitching in. Which is more than I can say for most of the guys out there. Mick, do we need to clear the walk in front or just wait? And do we have to worry about opening hours?”

  “Yer plannin’ to serve ’em pints fer breakfast?” Mick quirked an eyebrow at her.

  “No, of course not. Normally we’d be opening at ten thirty, but I don’t think today is exactly normal. Maybe I’m more worried that whatever license I have covers serving food. Not that I’ve read it or anything.”