by Zara Keane
Poor choice of words. Bran, it seemed, had lamb chops on his mind.
The sheep, terrified, bucked in their stalls. In the distance, I heard barking.
“Bran,” I yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Who are you?” a furious voice demanded.
I turned to face an extremely disgruntled man wielding a shotgun. My heart leaped in my chest. “Whoa, easy there. I mean no harm.”
“Maybe you don’t,” he snarled, “but what’s your dog doing to my sheep?”
“Right about now, he’s thinking of eating them. Help me get him out of here.”
Paddy Driscoll glared at me. “You’re that lunatic American who’s been causing all sorts of trouble.”
“I wouldn’t call a few burned scones ‘trouble’, exactly, but yeah. That’s me. Now put down the gun and help me catch Bran.”
“Catch him? I’ll shoot him if he touches my sheep.” He did, however, deign to lower the gun.
“No shooting,” I said sternly. “Noreen has enough on her plate.”
“I suppose she sent you around here to get me to look after that awful alpaca she has roaming her land,” Paddy grumbled. “That creature is a menace.”
“Noreen wants you to look after her animals, yes.”
Paddy squinted at me. “She still locked up?”
I sighed. The man was clearly a fool. “If she wasn’t, I wouldn’t have wasted my time hunting you down. Now are you going to stand there yapping, or are you going to help me save your sheep?”
“You’re very rude,” he snarled.
“So are you.” I stomped into a stall past a bunch of stampeding ovines. “Come here, you silly mongrel.”
“Are you referring to the dog or me?” Driscoll demanded.
I shrugged. “If the name fits…”
He gave a snort of what might have been laughter, but he covered it up with a cough.
It took me a couple of attempts to grab hold of Bran’s collar and drag him out of the sheep pen. He hadn’t injured any sheep, thank goodness, although he’d traumatized a few.
Driscoll glared at Bran. “Get that canine off my land. If I see him again, I’ll shoot, even if he is Noreen’s dog. And I’ll shoot you, too, if you’re stupid enough to bring him here.”
“Message received.” I took a deep breath. “I guess you’re not in the mood to talk about Sandra Walker’s murder?”
“No,” he snapped. “I’ve heard all about your meddling. Now get your behind off my land before I set Rex and Oscar on the pair of you.”
At the mere mention of Paddy Driscoll’s dogs’ names, Bran began to whine and tug on his leash. “I take it your dogs and Bran have history?”
Driscoll’s mouth quivered. “Oh, yes. You’d better get moving.”
I took the hint. “Let’s go, Bran.”
The dog shot off down the drive, yanking me behind him. The ominous sound of Paddy Driscoll’s laughter followed us all the way to the gate.
17
Over the next few days, my opportunities to question the people who’d attended the Movie Club meeting were limited to those who visited the café. Thanks to Jacqueline Sweeney, the criminal defense lawyer who’d taken on my aunt’s case, Noreen was released on bail the day after her arrest. After all the stress, she came down with a bad case of the flu that was going around the island and had to stay home in bed. I suspected that part of her bedridden state was due to her not wanting to face people, and part was because of Poly’s disappearance. I couldn’t blame my aunt for getting sick, but Noreen’s absence from the café meant that I was left in charge. Lenny arranged his working hours at the electronics store so he could help me out over lunchtime, and Kelly offered to work a couple of extra shifts. Other than that, me and my bad cooking skills were on our own.
Once the lunch crowd dwindled on the Wednesday after Noreen’s arrest, I took off my apron and stretched my sore neck. “Lenny, is it okay if I go out for a sec? I’ve been trying to track down Sean Clough. I’m starting to think he’s avoiding me.”
“Kind of weird if he is,” Lenny remarked. “You’d think he’d want to talk to you about Sandra and Noreen.”
“He sent one of his freelancers around to cover the story. From everything I’ve heard about Sean, I’m surprised he doesn’t want to cover this story himself.”
Lenny glanced at his watch. “I need to be back at the shop by two, so if you want to talk to Sean, better make it quick.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back soon.” I donned my winter outdoor gear and stepped outside.
The pavement was coated in a light covering of snow, and flakes were falling fast. According to the weather forecast, we were in for several inches by nightfall. I pulled my scarf around my neck and hurried down the street.
This time, I was in luck. Through the window of the Gazette’s offices, I saw a red-haired man sitting hunched before a computer, frowning at the screen. In his hooded sweatshirt and baggy pants, he didn’t look like a typical journalist. He was also a decade younger than I’d imagined the editor of Whisper Island’s only newspaper to be. He couldn’t be much older than me.
The man looked up when I knocked. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” I said with a friendly smile. “My name’s Maggie Doyle. I’d like to talk to you if you have a sec.”
Was it my imagination, or did Sean Clough wince when I said my name? “Ah, sure. Come on in.” He scratched his neck, and his gaze darted around the room. He leaped to his feet and cleared a stack of papers from a chair. “Take a seat.” When I was seated opposite him, Sean fumbled with two cracked coffee mugs. “Want a cup of coffee? I’m afraid I only have instant.”
“No, thanks. I can’t stay long.”
Relief flooded his face. “Oh, right. What did you want to see me about?”
“As you know, my aunt stands accused of poisoning Sandra Walker.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I heard.”
“I’m helping my aunt’s lawyer prepare her defense,” I lied smoothly. “With her not being able to spend a lot of time on the island, she needs someone to ask a few questions on her behalf.” Sean looked doubtful at my dubious claim, but I pressed on before he could express his concerns. “I understand Sandra Walker worked for you.”
Sean coughed into his fist. “Uh, yeah. She was a freelancer.”
“Covering social events, fundraisers, that sort of thing?”
He nodded, but his eyes darted to the side before meeting my gaze.
“As well as the gossip column?”
Sean swallowed. “I—”
“Come on,” I coaxed. “It was an open secret on Whisper Island. Everyone knew it was Sandra. And now that she’s dead, there’s no harm in admitting it, is there?”
The man squirmed in his seat. “I guess not.”
“So it was Sandra?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his acne-scarred jaw. “We kept it quiet, like. It added to the mystique.”
“Here’s the thing, Sean. My aunt didn’t kill Sandra. I need to know who had a reason to want her dead, and I suspect it was someone she targeted in her blind item column.”
“I never let her publish the bad stuff,” he muttered. “Just harmless gossip that could apply to any number of islanders.”
My heart leaped in my chest. “Sandra had other blind items that you didn’t run?”
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to get sued, you know?”
“What was in these blind items that you refused to print?” Material Sandra had subsequently used to blackmail people?
“There were only two I turned down, right at the start of her time writing the column. One was about a nun who stole money from the church collection box.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
“We have a convent here on the island, but most of the nuns are too old to help out at Mass. It could only refer to one of two nuns: Sister Pauline McLaughlin, or Sister Juliette O’Keefe. Without proof that the item was true, I wasn’t runn
ing it.”
“What about the second item you turned down?”
“Oh, that.” Sean Clough sneered. “It was an unsubtle reference to Paul Greer being up to no good. I figured if Sandra had an issue with her son-in-law, she should keep it between them.”
My mind went into overdrive. If there was tension between Paul and Sandra, was it serious enough for him to want her dead? What about Melanie? Had she decided to silence her mother? I focused on Sean. “What do you mean by ‘up to no good’? An affair? Why would Sandra want her son-in-law’s affair exposed? Surely she’d want to protect her daughter and grandkids?”
The editor screwed up his forehead. “I can’t remember the exact wording. It’s been a while. I know it had something to do with irregularities in the hotel’s accounts.”
“A hotel that Paul’s parents own,” I pointed out. “Wouldn’t they let their son off the hook if he’d been tampering with the accounts?”
“That’s just it.” A sneer spread over Sean’s plain face. “The Greers are only part owners in the hotel. They had financial difficulties a few years ago and were forced to seek investors. Paul’s parents still own a hefty percentage of the hotel and the surrounding land, but a silent partner owns sixty percent.”
I whistled. “In other words, Paul is pretty much a regular employee at the hotel?”
“Now that his father is retired, Paul is the manager. If Sandra’s blind item is true, Paul embezzled money from the hotel.”
“Wow.” While I hadn’t made a stellar choice in marrying Joe, I’d had a lucky escape from Paul.
Sean Clough gave a grim smile. “Exactly.”
“I still don’t understand why Sandra would threaten to expose him. He’s married to her daughter and the father of her grandchildren.”
Sean spread his palms wide and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know the particulars, and I don’t care. I’m not interested in island gossip. I only ran the column because it sold papers.”
“I don’t suppose Sandra kept a backup of her files here?” I asked. “Or on a shared cloud storage service?”
He shook his head. “Sandra didn’t keep anything at the Gazette. I guess whatever she had is on her laptop.”
Yeah…a laptop that was suspiciously fried and now with computer forensics.
“Did she ever mention cloud storage?” I pushed. “Or an external hard drive?”
“Nope. We never discussed tech. We rarely spoke.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “Sandra was useful to me because her column sold papers. Other than that, I didn’t like the woman.”
But had that dislike extended to a motive to kill? Had Sandra threatened to reveal something about Sean to the island?
Sean pointed at the clock on the wall. “Sorry, but I have to get back to work.”
I got to my feet and held out my hand. “Thanks for your time. If you think of anything that might be useful for Noreen’s defense, please let me know. I’m at The Movie Theater Café most days.”
“Sure, sure.” The editor accompanied me to the door, and we said a perfunctory goodbye.
As I walked down the lane to the main street, I felt Sean Clough’s eyes bore into my back.
On my way home from the café that evening, I stopped by Paddy Driscoll’s place for a second time. I’d made a lousy impression on him during our last meeting, and I needed to persuade him to confide in me. Apart from my aunt and the anonymous blind items targets, Paddy Driscoll was a person with a known grudge against the dead woman.
I pulled up in front of his house and killed the engine. After I got out of the car, I picked my way gingerly across the yard to the farmhouse door. I didn’t fancy meeting Paddy and his shotgun again, or being confronted with his dogs.
When I reached the door, I pressed the bell and waited. After a long minute, the door opened a crack to reveal Driscoll’s bulbous nose. He frowned when he registered who I was. “I thought I told you to clear off.”
“We got off to a bad start the other day, Mr. Driscoll. I’m sorry.” I plastered a smile across my face and shoved a basket of scones at the man. “They’re made from the last of Noreen’s dough, so you’re less likely to die than if I’d made them from scratch.”
Paddy snorted with laughter. “You’d better come in.” He unlatched the chain and held open the door. After I’d shrugged off my coat, he said, “We’ll talk in the living room.”
Inside, Paddy Driscoll’s house was a modern build and bore the hallmarks of a bachelor pad: huge reclining armchair, widescreen TV, and a stack of empty ready-meal packages in the paper recycling bin by the door. A huge Irish flag took up most of one wall, flanked by two sepia photographs of men in old-fashioned military uniforms.
“My great-uncles. Heroes from the Irish Civil War.” Paddy smirked at my expression of bewilderment. “June 1922 to May 1923.”
I swallowed. “Right. About my last visit—”
“I was short with you the last time we met,” he muttered, scratching his grizzly beard. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
“It’s okay. I was stressed about Noreen and a missing cat. I was overly blunt, even by my low standards.” I gave him a wry smile. “And I’m sorry about Bran getting in with your sheep.”
“No harm done, thank goodness.” He gestured at an overstuffed armchair. “Have a seat.” And then added as an afterthought, “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“No, thanks,” I said, sinking into the armchair. “I can’t stay long. I need to get back to Noreen with groceries.”
Paddy took the armchair opposite mine. “Let’s cut to the chase, Maggie. I know you’ve been doing some snooping on your aunt’s behalf. What do you want to know? I’m not sure I have anything worth telling.”
“I’m trying to find out more about these blind items Sandra is alleged to have written.”
“Oh, those.” He snorted. “I suppose you think I’m upset about the one implying I have an unnatural relationship with my sheep.”
“Didn’t it annoy you?”
“Not enough to kill Sandra.” He sneered. “Why would I be stupid enough to kill the woman everyone knew I hated? And I’m not talking about some daft rumor about me and my sheep.”
“You’re referring to the land sale?”
He grunted his assent. “The greedy cow sold that land out from under me. A handshake isn’t legally binding, but morally, it should count for something. And to sell to those developers…” His nostrils flared. “It disgusted me, I tell you. Prime farming land wasted on badly built holiday homes that stand empty half the year. It’s a crying shame.” Paddy sat back in his chair, as if in shock. I suspected that this speech was the most he’d spoken at once in a long time, if ever.
“I heard your detectorist club liked using the land to look for…stuff.” In truth, I hadn’t a clue what detectorists did, apart from wandering around with metal detectors.
He looked at me sharply. “You’re not the brightest spark, are you?”
“I defer to your greater wisdom on the subject,” I said, straight-faced.
Paddy narrowed his eyes, clearly unsure whether or not I was making fun of him. “We look for old metal. Coins, ring pulls, old jewelry. That sort of thing.”
“Weren’t you interested in more than coins on Sandra’s land?”
Paddy glared at me. “The monastery buried treasure on that land. Thanks to those fools building houses, we’ll never find it now.”
“If there was anything to find, wouldn’t you have discovered it while you were allowed on Sandra’s land?” From what I’d gleaned from Philomena, the detectorists had had plenty of time to look for buried treasure.
“Nah.” Paddy screwed up his forehead, adding to the series of deep furrows that plowed a path across his brow. “Sandra only let us explore certain fields. If the maps are accurate, the place most likely for the treasure was where some of them houses went up.”
“Wouldn’t the construction workers have found it while they were digging the foundations
?”
He snorted. “Do you know anything about buried treasure?”
“Sure.” I grinned. “I’ve watched Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Paddy stared at me. “You’re a smart alec, aren’t you?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“If you had a clue, you’d know that sending in bulldozers and diggers is as likely to drive a buried treasure deeper underground as it is to bring it to the surface. For all I know, it’s now under one of those awful new houses.”
“What was the treasure you were searching for?”
A pained expression flitted across his face. “A golden chalice inlaid with semiprecious stones.”
“Valuable?”
“Priceless.” He enunciated both syllables, giving it a wealth of meaning.
“In my experience, everything comes with a price tag. If you’d found the chalice, who would have owned it?”
“The people of Ireland. It would have ended up in a museum. We’d probably have received some sort of monetary reward, though, and been obliged to split it with Sandra.”
“Because she was the landowner?”
“Yeah. If the item discovered isn’t a national treasure, the detectorist splits the proceeds with the landowner.” He snorted. “This is all theoretical. We never had a chance to look for that chalice. Sandra and her greed saw to that.”
“Well,” I reasoned, “it was her land.”
“Land she’d agreed to sell to me.” Paddy leaned back in his chair, and the springs groaned in protest. “I don’t give my word lightly, and when I do, I don’t go back on it.”
“You admit you hated Sandra?” I asked carefully.
“Yes, but I didn’t kill her.” He laughed. “If you’re trying to squeeze a confession out of me, forget it.”
I felt my cheeks grow warm but I kept my cool. Either Paddy genuinely had nothing to do with Sandra’s death, or his direct admission that he’d hated her was a bluff designed to throw me off the scent. “Do you have any idea who did kill her?”
“No, but when you find out, I’ll shake his or her hand.”
I winced. “Harsh.”
“But honest.” Paddy Driscoll hauled himself to his feet, indicating that our interview was at an end. “You’ll want to be on your way.”