7 Sweets, Begorra

by Connie Shelton

“Is she now? Interestin’. How’re you finding Ireland?”

  “It’s beautiful,” Sam said. “We’ve taken a lot of pictures. Would it be all right if we took yours? And maybe some of the homes too?”

  One of the old-style wagons was parked immediately next to Saoirse’s place, and Cian told them it was where he lived with his father. Beau caught a few shots of the bright red and yellow wagon and Sam confirmed the spelling of Cian’s name—she’d mistakenly thought it was Kane. The Gaelic spellings would confound her forever, she decided.

  “They’re lookin’ for Farrells,” Saoirse told Cian. “I told ’em I’m new here but you or your father would know.”

  “Yeah, Farrell—they’ve been around for awhile. Why d’you ask?”

  “There was an American by that name who recently came to Ireland,” Beau said. “We lost touch and thought he might have made contact with family members here.”

  Cian shrugged. “Could be. Could be.”

  Saoirse’s phone chimed again and she excused herself to go into her coach and take the call.

  “Come,” Cian said, “meet my father. He knows a lot about the people. Real savvy man.”

  They followed as he approached the wagon and gave two solid knocks at the door. “Da there’s company,” he called out.

  A small window set in the door opened and a white head poked out. “What’s the noise?”

  “Da we got guests. From America.”

  Sam could tell at a glance that the small wagon would be jam-packed with four people inside, especially if Cian’s father proved to be as stocky as his son. She wasn’t surprised when their host steered them toward a collection of mismatched chairs on the patch of ground that passed for their yard. A large wooden spool, the kind used for rolls of industrial wire, served as a table.

  The elderly man stepped outside and worked his way carefully down the wooden steps. He stood about five feet tall, wiry and thin as a whip. The sharp blue eyes were his only feature in common with his son. They took in everything about Sam and Beau at a glance.

  They shook hands and Cian gave the story about how Sam was writing an article about Irish Travellers. He introduced his father as James Barlow.

  “We were told that an American named Farrell might have family among the Travellers and we wondered if you may have seen him?” Beau asked.

  Sam realized that the description of Quinton Farrell might easily fit half the men of the community—the ones they’d spotted so far were all similar.

  “What’s he done?” James asked, a sharp edge to his voice.

  Neither responded right away.

  “This Farrell you’re lookin’ for. What’s he done?”

  “Well, we’re not sure,” Beau offered.

  “You may be a writer,” James said to Sam, “but you, sir, are no photographer. You’re a lawman.” He raised a palm against any protest. “I can smell ’em a mile away. You’re a lawman.”

  Had they walked into some kind of setup? Sam felt her nerves tighten.

  But then James laughed—a good, hearty laugh.

  “You’ve heard the stories, I’m bettin’. Travellers are all crooks and thieves, eh?”

  Cian piped up. “It’s bull! We’re no more thieves than anybody out there.”

  Protesting too much? Sam glanced toward Beau but his face was unreadable.

  James laid a hand on his son’s forearm. “Calm yourself down, boy. We’re not, but there’s some’s are. Don’t get yourself all bothered.”

  Cian clamped his mouth shut.

  “Now, then,” said James. “The Farrells. Like with any family in any place, there’s good ones and bad ones. Happens that a few of the boys in this particular area, they’ve got their hands in some, shall we say, money-makin’ operations.”

  Cian sent his dad a look, as if to warn him away from saying too much about making money.

  “They sell things what ain’t rightly theirs, boy. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

  Cian sat back in his chair and folded his arms.

  “So, mister lawman,” James continued, “again I ask—this Farrell you’re lookin’ for—what’s he done?”

  Beau gave a sigh, propped his arms against his thighs, and gave the story. Only the basics, Sam noticed—the man was wanted for theft in the US, he and two cohorts had chartered a boat in Galway and were now wanted in the death of the captain.

  James nodded as Beau talked. “Aye, we heard about it.”

  Sam’s face must have registered surprise because he gave her a wry smile.

  “We may live simple out here but we’re not on the moon. We got television. We watch the news.”

  She responded with a properly-chastened smile.

  “It was that Darragh O’Henry, wasn’t it?” Cian asked, leaning forward again. “The one they’re sayin’ died after he took the Americans out on his boat.”

  “Right. That’s the one.”

  “And what makes you so sure he wasn’t the man workin’ with this Farrell from America? Around here the story goes that O’Henry was supposed to help Farrell and get a cut of the money.”

  James glared at his son. “It’s no matter anyway,” he grumbled. “Farrells packed up yesterday and left. They’re not in Tuam anymore.”

  Chapter 19

  “Seriously? Darragh would put his boat and his life at risk and get involved with Quint Farrell?” Sam found herself puffing a little to keep pace with Beau as they walked back to the spot where they’d parked their rental car.

  “I didn’t say it was true, darlin’. I said I would have to check it out. For sure I would check it out before I said anything to the family.”

  “Absolutely. At best, it’s hearsay. And who knows—maybe the Barlows and the Farrells have some old feud or something. There’s no way we could even scratch the surface of the history of that group.”

  They reached the car and he opened her door.

  “Plus, as James Barlow said—the Farrells left the camp and lord only knows where they’ve gone.”

  They’d stopped by Saoirse’s camper to say goodbye and thank her, and to casually ask if she’d heard of the Farrell family leaving. She confirmed it, as did the old tinsmith where Sam had bought her teapot earlier. Among the few others they tried to ask, most just closed up. Apparently the stories that the Travellers kept to themselves and didn’t open up to outsiders were mostly true. Just in case, Sam had given Saoirse her phone number. Being new to the Tuam community she might be the one who would talk if she learned anything.

  “I guess we were lucky to get as much information as we did,” Beau said as he maneuvered the car away from the city center. It appeared that they’d badly timed their trip back to Galway, as cars were moving at a crawl.

  “I can pass on what little we got about the Farrell family and see what happens,” Beau said.

  Sam found her thoughts drifting—from the interesting afternoon in Tuam, to the bookshop to her uncle, to the curious tour through his house in which she had the distinct feeling they hadn’t seen nearly everything, to the startling discovery of another carved box in Terry’s locked bookcase.

  By the time they got back to their room both of them were exhausted, it was far too late to call Lambert, and in his present mood Beau didn’t feel like dealing with the bureaucracy of finding the right person at the FBI.

  While Beau took a shower Sam opened the room safe, thinking she would simply put away the earrings she’d worn to Tuam, but she found herself closing her eyes as she handled her wooden jewelry box and remembering details about the one at her uncle’s house. What were the odds of two family members, who didn’t even know each other, coming to possess identical artifacts?

  A need surged through her, the need to know the truth. She had to get back into Terry’s house, get the other box out of the case and find out its story. A picture of the old Traveller tinsmith popped into her head—could an itinerant craftsman of some type have carved both of the boxes?

  Her hands began to warm and she quick
ly set the box back into the safe. The last thing she wanted at this time of evening was to contract its energy. Experience had taught her to use that energy wisely—and only when she was prepared to work at full speed for several hours.

  Beau emerged from the steamy bathroom looking relaxed.

  “Your turn. That hot water felt so good.”

  By the time she finished a leisurely shower and shampoo and had dried her hair so it wouldn’t kink up in the night, she found her husband fast asleep. She pulled the drapes and turned out the lamps.

  The dream began as one of those strange ones where she knew she was dreaming but felt powerless to wake up and start over. Like walking through the scenery on a massive movie set, Sam was merely there to watch the actors play out their roles. A blur of motion drew her attention to the left.

  “Out of the way, girl!” a man shouted as he spurred his horse through a crowded marketplace. He spoke in Gaelic but somehow Sam understood.

  She saw a small figure go down in the mud and she rushed to grab the youngster out of the way of the next horse and rider who came charging through.

  “Come here,” she told the girl, pulling her aside. “Are you all right?”

  The dirty-faced child looked at her with large blue eyes and a solemn mouth. She shook her head and ran out of sight between two gray stone buildings. Had the little girl even seen her?

  Looking around, Sam saw that no one had paid particular attention to the exchange. Other children were dressed similarly—dark clothing of rough cloth, boys in knee-length pants and two layers of jackets, girls whose skirts dragged the earthen road, cloth caps tied over their heads. Not a clean face in the bunch. The adults wore full-sized versions of the same attire. Sam looked down at her own clothing; she was in her cotton nightgown and terry robe, which was unbelted and flapping in the chill breeze. Another glance at the people passing her—not one of them acknowledged her.

  Their voices carried on, conversations with each other, in a language Sam didn’t recognize. She pulled at the belt of her robe, closing it against the cold wind that channeled up the narrow street, noticing that her feet were bare and muddy.

  She was apparently in a small European town—the thought crossed her mind that it could even be Galway—and by the crowds and level of chatter it must be market day. She gathered her robe and gown away from the muddy ground and dropped in behind a woman with a cloth bag over her shoulder and four children trailing her, following until she spotted an open square where tables and blankets were spread with food and wares.

  A butcher displayed cages of chickens, squawking wildly, and sides of meat; someone else showed piles of dirt-crusted potatoes and carrots; one woman’s table was laden with lengths of cloth. The women who paused there looked longingly at the pieces dyed in reds and blues but purchased the plainer tans and grays which must have been less expensive. An old man under a wooden shelter hammered at a strip of tin, forming the handle for a teapot. In a moment of odd clarity, Sam remembered buying such a pot from a man who, judging by his age, could have been this one’s father. She wandered through the throng, watching the trades that were taking place, mildly wondering how she would get home again.

  At the far end of the disorganized row of vendors one man sat alone. His small booth consisted of a scrap of rag suspended over four roughly hewn poles, a covering that would hardly protect the wood carvings he was working on in the event the rain started again. He sat with his back to the wall of a stone building on a stool that was nothing more, really, than a wide tree stump. He honed his knife against a flat stone then picked up another piece of wood. An old woman approached and stooped to pick up one of the items he displayed on the tattered blanket at his feet. Her unkempt gray hair fell like a veil across her face.

  “Out of here, witch!” he yelled. “You’ll not be touchin’ my work.”

  She looked up and gave him a steady glare, laying the palms of both hands over some items he’d stacked there.

  “Out!” he yelled again.

  She stood slowly, looked straight into his eyes and said something in a low, nearly musical tone. Sam couldn’t understand it, and when the man replied she couldn’t understand his words either. The old woman slowly turned and walked away, vanishing around a corner.

  Sam felt her eyes drawn to the man’s blanket to see what they had been arguing over. The woman had touched a stack of three wooden boxes. They were by far the nicest of the work, although not finely done by any means.

  Three boxes with a carved quilted pattern, crudely finished, with a yellowish stain that settled into brown lines in the low places. Sam had seen two of those boxes.

  She woke with the sensation that she’d fallen from a great distance, landing on the plush top of the king-sized bed at the Harbour Hotel with a jolt.

  “Darlin’? You okay?” Beau mumbled, half asleep, rolling over and reaching his arm around her. He nuzzled against her neck and was soon breathing deeply again.

  Sam closed her eyes, searching again for the vision of that final scene but it was gone. She willed herself to go back to sleep but rest would not come. When Beau rolled to his other side, she slipped out of bed.

  Rummaging through her back pack in near darkness, she came up with a pen and the small journal she’d been using for notes. She carried them into the bathroom where she opted to work by the tiny nightlight rather than subject herself to the harsh glare of the fluorescents above the sink. She jotted the basics of the dream, as many details as she could remember, but it was fading quickly. She left the journal and went back to bed.

  By the time sunlight began to stream through the windows, the whole thing seemed almost silly. Sam chalked it up to her imagination running wild after their day spent among the Travellers and decided she was beginning to incorporate the ambiance of all these Irish towns into her psyche. If the dream really had any meaning, wasn’t it crazy that she’d been able to understand some of those conversations and not others? She brushed it off as she told Beau about it over breakfast.

  What she didn’t tell him was that now, more than ever, she wanted to get her hands on the second carved box. To see if it was the same as hers. Really, that was all. She flicked toast crumbs off her lap and they went back to the room so Beau could make some phone calls.

  His first attempt at reaching Detective Lambert ended with his leaving a short voice message. He remembered the name of the lead investigator in Dublin and spent a few minutes tracking down the right department before he got the man on the line. He gave the recap of their day in Tuam to a man who sounded thoroughly sick of his job.

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” he said, “it’s just, I got no patience with the Travellers anymore. You know? They want taxpayer money to live on, but ask their cooperation on a legal matter—hell, ask ’em any kind of question that might land one of ’em in jail—you get nothin’. I’m sick of it.”

  “Trust me,” said Beau, “I’m a small town sheriff and I’ve seen similar.”

  “Yeah, I know. They pull out the ‘ethnic discrimination’ card and want all the favors. And they can’t prove they’re any different in their DNA than any of the rest of us. Problem is, you can’t believe anything any of ’em says.”

  Beau could see the conversation going nowhere so he thanked the man and hung up.

  “Well, there’s a severe case of career burnout,” he told Sam when he relayed the conversation. “I can only hope he’ll pass the tip along to the FBI and maybe work with them. No one seems to be thinking of poor Jacob Goldman.” He drummed his fingers on the glossy surface of the desk. “I guess I could always figure out who’s in charge of this at the FBI and get in touch with them myself.”

  “What will you tell them? There are Farrells in Ireland related to this Quint guy—they know that already.”

  He gripped her shoulders and gave her a kiss. “You are absolutely right. They have contact with any agency they need here, through Interpol. We’re on vacation. Let’s drop it.”

 
“I just feel badly for the O’Henrys,” Sam said. “The case seems to be stalled, on a bad track from their perspective.”

  “You never know. Not all Travellers are dishonest—not all hard-working fishermen are honest. The facts of the investigation have to stand and Lambert never said anything to me about Darragh as a suspect.”

  “Okay. You’re right. Now, at least we’re down to only two things that need our attention while we’re here.”

  “Two?”

  “Well, the bookshop of course. I still don’t know what to do about that.”

  “And . . .?”

  “I can’t let go of the fact that Uncle Terry had a wooden box like mine. It’s just way too coincidental, Beau.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “I really wish I’d had the chance to meet him, hon. To talk at least once and get a feel for what he expected of me.”

  “So you should do whatever you need to. Go back to the shop, call that lawyer again . . . whatever it takes. I know you, darlin’ and you won’t let go of this until you figure it out.”

  She chuckled. “You are so right about that. And I think I’ll do just what you suggested—go to the shop and contact Daniel Ryan.”

  Although she invited him along, Beau opted to act as travel planner, plotting another road trip while she took care of business. She picked up her umbrella and pack, leaving him to pore over maps and descriptions of castles.

  The conversation ran through her head, along with flashes of last night’s odd dream, as she walked toward O’Shaughnessy’s Books.

  Could her uncle have known of the twin box in Sam’s possession?

  Chapter 20

  From the middle of Shop Street, the bookshop had taken on a new life. The newly cleaned front windows contained bright displays, and an enticing sign touted the discount prices. People were taking notice. Sam watched as two who were standing at the window turned to go inside, while a young woman edged in closer to have a look at the display. Whether Sam had to take possession of the store or not, at least it now had the look of success about it.