by G M Eppers
“Did I say it was Dunleavy?”
“No, but you were thinking it. We’re all thinking it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw flashlight beams moving through the house and fields. “But killing the O’Sheas and burning their farm wouldn’t get him the money. It’s not like he’s next of kin. We’ll have to check insurance policies. See if he’s a beneficiary.”
“Beneficiary of a big pile of ash? Although he may have helped himself to the livestock. The animals would probably be more valuable than the farmland. Zickman can help us look into that, though.”
“The animals,” I said, getting another idea. I silently gave Sylvia the Sounding Board Award.
Sylvia’s beam hit me in the face. “What?”
I hit her back, but just for a second. “Those horses are worth more than the wagon and all its contents. But Dunleavy was willing to lose all of it. There has to be something pretty big at the end of the rainbow here.” I couldn’t help taking another look at the ruins of the cheese press. The Durrus D.C. had received was clean, but did the O’Sheas use this huge press to make Uber as well? Using the flashlight to guide me, I found my way back to the haywagon where Chembassador Zickman was standing between the horses, consoling them. They knew something was wrong. They were antsy.
“They need water,” he said immediately. “The apples aren’t enough.”
“Chembassador, there were no animals in the barn. I’m thankful for that, but could they have escaped or were they set free? Is there a way to track the livestock?” I asked.
He continued to stroke the horses’ necks, moving from one to the other as he spoke. “Track? No. Identify yes. They would have been tagged by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. As for escaping, perhaps some, but not all. If they are all gone, they were likely set free or taken.”
“Meaning someone does know about the fire, and didn’t report it.”
“That would be correct.” The horses still seemed agitated. “They can smell the fire. It’s making them nervous.”
“We won’t be much longer.”
Just then, Billings, the twins and their beams approached. “There’s a well back there. It might have some water in it,” suggested Billings. Leaving Sylvia, the twins, and me at the wagon, Billings and Zickman went off to look for water.
Sylvia climbed into the wagon and rummaged through the grocery bags. She brought out an armful of apples and carrots. “Take an apple,” she said. “All of us should eat one. We haven’t eaten most of the day, except for those few strawberries.” We each took one and started eating while Sylvia fed the carrots to the horses. Unlike the gorse field, there wasn’t much wild vegetation left for them to snack on here. “Variety is important, too. But I hope they find some water.” The apples were crisp and juicy and tasted smoothly sweet, not tart at all. I was much hungrier than I realized.
I was halfway through my second apple when Billings and Zickman returned triumphantly, carrying two buckets each. Billings set his down in front of the horses and they sank their muzzles deep inside. It was good, clean, cool water, but somewhat heavy with ground minerals. We drank out of cupped hands over the bucket to save anything that dripped.
It wasn’t long before two more beams came bouncing out of the dimness. Nitro and Roxy came back from their search of the house. They were solemn. “Found Mrs. O’Shea in the kitchen,” he said.
“She die in the fire?” I asked.
He helped himself to an apple and tossed one to Roxy. “Nope,” he said before taking a bite. “Shot in the back of the head.”
Agnes said, “Mr. O’Shea was shot in the back of the head, too. Mob hit?”
“I told you guys,” said Badger. “The Irish Mafia is in Maryland. Mostly, anyway. Here they are based in Dublin and Limerick. Not Cork. It would be really unusual for them to take on an isolated farmer. Surprisingly, they really aren’t into Uber.”
“I agree,” said Zickman, looking very concerned. He tossed an apple core down the hill and grabbed another. “Good apples.”
“You’d be surprised what tastes good if you’re hungry enough,” said Sylvia. “So what’s next? We talk to Dunleavy?”
“His place is about a mile further on.,” Zickman replied. “Even if he’s not there, his family will be.”
Agnes and Avis were slurping a drink out of the buckets of water, with Nitro and Roxy waiting in line. “Could be dangerous. We have their rig,” said Agnes.
“But we outnumber them, right?” Sylvia countered.
“Actually, no,” supplied Zickman. “He has seven brothers, three or four live-in hired hands, and his parents, though in their 70’s, were in very good health last I saw them.” He walked around the horses in the dim light, checking their straps and buckles, patting them and praising them.
Billings, who’d been leaning against the wagon, stood up straight. “We can’t risk it. This wagon is our only transportation. Odds are whatever Tevaughn is mixed up in, his family is in on it, too, or he wouldn’t have risked a team of horses and a wagon to get rid of us. Maybe we can use our presumably dead status to our advantage.”
We listened to crickets while I considered all our options. I explained about the missing animals. “Even if the Dunleavys did take them, I’d feel better that at least they were being taken care of. I say we go to Dunleavy’s. Not to arrest anyone. Just to locate the livestock for our own piece of mind.” Okay, for my piece of mind. Call me a softie, but I couldn’t just drop it. I couldn’t just assume the Dunleavys had the O’Shea livestock. I wanted to know.
“They aren’t going to let us keep the wagon and if we lose it we’re stranded.”
Zickman quickly dispelled that fear. “I can call the limousines back if we have to. I try to avoid using them on the country roads, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.”
Roxy said, “We need to determine if they know about the fire. It seems Tevaughn knows, since he didn’t want us to see it. But does his family know? Are we looking at one criminal or a conspiracy?”
Agnes pulled Avis forward. “How are we going to find out about the livestock and the fire? We ask too many questions they are bound to clam up.”
“Maybe we can do both,” suggested Roxy.
Twenty minutes later, Zickman steered the wagon to the turnoff leading into the Dunleavy farm. Zickman, Nitro, the twins, and I got out of the wagon and huddled near the side of the road, mostly hidden by darkness near the pile of CURDS jackets and HEP belts belonging to everyone else. We figured if Tevaughn was there, he might recognize Nitro, having sat next to him, and conjoined twins were easily recognizable. Zickman and I had a separate task to perform. Without the jackets, the rest might not seem like a threat, but just in case they had their Glocks hidden in pockets. “Can someone see the time?” I asked Nitro and the twins.
There were three glowing rectangles as they each pulled out their cell phones. “Yes. Only one bar, but the clocks still work.”
“Okay, give us thirty minutes. If you don’t hear from us by then, assume we’re in trouble.” In the light of their phone screens, I saw them all nod quietly.
Billings had taken the driver’s seat now and he tapped the horses with the reins leading the wagon onto the Dunleavy farm. It’s a good thing we weren’t going for stealth, because haywagons are pretty darn noisy. I hadn’t really noticed until we’d reached a private yard, but the wheels were squeaky and the wood was creaky and the horses hooves were clip clopping like there was no tomorrow. The Dunleavy farmhouse was two stories, painted white, with a veranda four or five steps up from the ground. Yellow light shone in most of the windows, muted by pastel curtains. As they rolled up, two people came rushing out of the house, one with a rifle. “Who goes there?”
As the rest of us watched from the nearby bushy overgrowth, Billings brought the wagon to a halt, squinting. “Excuse me. We found this rig while hiking the Irish hills. The horses were just wandering, looking lost. I thought I’d see if I could find where they belong.”
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br /> The man with the gun moved close to the wagon, looking it over. He was dressed in homespun trousers and a plaid, flannel shirt similar to the clothing Patrick O’Shea had been found in. “Aye, that be our wagon.”
Behind him, the woman was stocky, with skin like dried leather, and seemed to be wearing a Brillo pad on her head. She wore a simple housedress and an apron. She came up to the wagon. Tevaughn?”
“No, Ma,” said the man. He spoke to his mother in Irish.
Mrs. Dunleavy walked around, examining the wagon. “Ours!” She shouted angrily.
The man hefted the rifle. “Where’s me brother? He took the wagon out. What have you done with me brother?”
Billings and the others vacated the rig at top speed with their hands up. “Pardon the interruption at this hour, Ma’am,” said Billings.
“Ma doesn’t speak much English. Leave her be.” I felt for the woman. She looked worried and was wringing her hands in her apron.
“I found the rig out on the fields, just past the gorse.” They moved further into the area of light that emanated from the house windows. “There was no one on it. My name is Billings. These are my friends,” he added, waving a hand to indicate Roxy, Badger, and Sir Haughty.
“Pleasure,” Mrs. Dunleavy replied, recognizing an introduction, in a tone that led me to believe it wasn’t a pleasure at all.
The young man with her still seemed unwilling to lower the rifle entirely. “Good to meet you.” His tone said that it wasn’t good to meet us, either. “I’m Orson.”
His mother slapped his shoulder. “Horses.”
“Aye, Ma.” He took the reins from Billings and led the wagon away.
“Hungry?” the woman asked Billings.
“Oh, yes, Ma’am.” I suddenly regretted the division of labor. They were probably going to get a home cooked meal out of this. I’d heard about Irish hospitality, and it seemed I hadn’t been misled.
Resignedly, she turned back toward the house. “Come.” Second language or not, she made Calvin Coolidge sound like a chatterbox.
In a short time, the grounds were empty and the lighted house had swallowed up four members of my team. Leaving Nitro and the twins at the hiding space to monitor the situation, Zickman and I moved quietly toward the barn and corrals. If the others were chased out at gunpoint or anything looked alarming, they would text me a warning on my cell. In the meantime, they took seats on the ground with the pile of jackets and belts.
Counting on Zickman’s night vision, I followed him to the barn. The connected corrals were empty for the night. We watched from around the corner as Orson finished unhitching the horses from the wagon. Holding the reins in one hand, he opened the barn door with the other and led them inside. I thought he might be in there for some time, brushing them or polishing the leather harnesses, but he must have been late for dinner. A few minutes after he went in, he came back out, settled a wooden bar across the door and walked back to the house.
Moving quietly, Zickman crept to the barn door and pushed up the bar, letting it settle back into place after the door was open. I followed him into the jet blackness of the barn and he pulled the door closed. It swung open, but stayed only slightly ajar. After we took a few steps into the darkness, I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight mode. The animals, sensing a stranger, stirred a bit. I panned the light around the barn.
It was insanely crowded.
The two horses had plenty of room in their pen, but a couple dozen cows were jammed into the far side of the barn. Between us and them were four fat hogs, about fifty chickens, and amazingly, two alpacas behind another rail partition. The large animals balked at the light, but I moved it quickly out of their eyes. “How can you tell if they belong to the O’Sheas?” I whispered to Zickman.
“Let’s look at the cows.” Stepping carefully through the roosting chickens, we approached the piece of rail fence blocking in the cows. “Here.” In the dimness, Zickman pointed and I directed my light. The cow in the front twitched her ears, flashing a yellow, triangular tag. It didn’t say “Property of the O’Sheas” or anything definitive like that. It simply had what looked to be a random alphanumeric code. Zickman had a small notebook where he wrote down the code. We moved down to another cow. “Stay here. I’m going in.” He found the door to the large pen and squeezed inside with the cows, slowly moving among them. I raised my phone flashlight and followed him with it as he went from cow to cow copying down the codes. If they panicked, he could easily be trampled to death. But he made no sudden moves and stroked them calmly as he passed.
Finally, he came out of the cow pen. We went over to the alpacas. They were very friendly and thrust their heads over the railing, welcoming my petting. They were adorable. Until one of them warbled and hocked a wad of spit at my face. I felt it land on my cheek and quickly rubbed it off. There was enough that I had to shake it off the ends of my fingers as well. Zickman scratched their necks. They didn’t spit on him. “These are almost definitely the O’Shea’s,” he whispered. They, too, had yellow tags on their left ears, and he wrote those down, too. “Patrick told me he intended to use some of the commission money to expand into alpacas. Alpaca cheese is rare and he would need many more, but this is a start. It’s not usual for farms in this area, so it’s unlikely the Dunleavy’s had the same idea.” We crept back toward the door. “I’ll take these numbers to my office and contact the bureau in the morning. They will be able to identify the owners.”
“Is it legal to keep this many animals in a barn this size?” I asked him.
His face was grim. “No. I’d take pictures as well, but the flash may disturb them. I may need you as a witness if my testimony isn’t enough to convince them.”
I nodded agreement. “So it looks like Tevaughn killed O’Shea and took his livestock out of jealousy for the commission. If there’s no Uber involved, we can leave in the morning. I’ll be happy to sign an affidavit before we leave.”
“That appears to be the case. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine would handle this. The Dunleavys will not go unpunished. The stolen animals will be confiscated and placed on farms prepared to care for them properly.”
He peered out the door to make sure the coast was clear. I turned out the light and we exited the barn, quietly closing and latching the door behind us. We crept through the darkness back across the yard to Nitro and the twins, who were all sitting cross-legged on the ground waiting patiently. “I think we found most if not all of O’Shea’s livestock,” I whispered to them. “Any activity in the house?”
Nitro shook his head, peering at me. “What’s that in your hair?” Having been in the dark all this time, his eyes had adjusted and he had no trouble seeing. I reached up where he had pointed and dislodged another glob of alpaca spit. Just my luck to run into a double spitter. I disposed of it on a nearby bush. “Alpaca spit. If you want it for a souvenir, help yourself.”
He declined. I checked my watch. My thirty minute deadline was about up. By now Billings should be making an excuse to leave. Perhaps the old, “I hate to eat and run,” line. Five minutes later, the front door opened, emitting a yellow shaft of light onto the porch. I could hear Billings thanking the Dunleavy’s for their hospitality, pleasantries were exchanged, and they all came down the steps. They walked slowly until the Dunleavy’s went back inside the house, then diverted to where we waited. Each immediately found their vest and belt and put them on. “How did it go? Did you get a nice home cooked meal?” I asked as my stomach made an audible rumble.
“No. Dinner was over. We got dessert, though. Something called apple amber. It’s like an apple pie with meringue on top.” I groaned. “Sorry, but you asked!”
“I did.”
“Was Tevaughn there?” I asked.
“No, and there seemed to be plenty of tension about it. The women were almost distraught, though they never said specifically it was about Tevaughn and I didn’t ask. The men just seemed . . . annoyed, maybe?”
Roxy
agreed. “Yes. Like they believed he was out doing something he shouldn’t be doing.”
We all considered that for a moment. We could see the headlights of the limousines ahead at the turnoff.
Zickman still had his mind on the investigation. “Did they mention the O’Sheas?”
“No,” said Billings, sounding troubled about it. “I asked about nearby farms where we might find a place to stay the night. One of the younger sons offered, but then the parents and older sons insisted quite rapidly that there was no room here. Mr. and Mrs. Dunleavy silenced everyone, apologized, and suggested Ballincollig.”
I saw Roxy and Zickman trade glances. Roxy said, “That’s very odd. Totally against traditional Irish hospitality.”
“Very,” agreed Chembassador Zickman. “Ballincollig is about five miles from here. The O’Shea farm one mile in the other direction. It’s downright rude, especially as you appear to them to be on foot.”
“Well, we’re going to need accommodations for the night, and a proper meal,” Billings said. “We’ve done about all we can do today. The pie was nice but if I don’t get some protein I’m going to fall over.” I had to remind myself that while the rest of us were hanging on during the wild ride he was climbing over galloping horses.
We reached the three limousines at the turn off, lined up at the side of the road. We naturally divided ourselves as we had before.
After a few rounds of The Wheels on the Limo Go Round and Round and enough 99 Bottles of Beer to get to about 63, where it petered out from lack of interest, the limo caravan finally came up on a group of buildings, just past a sign that said Ballincollig Pop. 17,382. Some anonymous clever joker had scratched in a decimal point and a five. It was like a small wild west town until you looked up ahead where the outskirts gave way to modern cement buildings. None taller than four or five stories, but modern nonetheless. The cobbled street we were on had a mixed bag of traffic, a couple horse drawn wagons similar to the Dunleavy’s, some rusty and dusty trucks, even a bus coming to a squealing halt at a stop two blocks up.
