Cruel Winter: A County Cork Mystery

by Sheila Connolly

  “That’s as may be,” Danny protested, “but the woman died, and it was a bloody death. No one saw or heard anything, for it was a dark and stormy night, eh?”

  “So let’s go back to the basics, okay?” Maura said firmly. “Someone wanted her dead. Why here, in West Cork? Who knew she was at the cottage?”

  “Her husband. Some shopkeepers in Schull. Maybe some friends back in England? Some of the neighbors—the gardaí talked to them all, so there’d be a list of ’em somewhere. Diane—and most likely her husband as well,” Joe said. Maybe he’d been quiet, but he’d been paying attention.

  “Do we know of any other lovers who might have come calling that night?” Maura asked. Nobody had anything to say. “Can we rule that out?”

  Diane spoke up for the first time. “For what it’s worth, I think she stuck to one man at a time. If you think there might have been another man, that kind of rules out some of the earlier theories, like Sharon being infatuated with my husband. And in case you’re wondering, he didn’t have enough ready money to be worth blackmailing.”

  “True enough,” Maura admitted. “You know, we never decided whether she had a job when she was at home. Diane, did she ever mention anything like that?”

  “She said she came to Cork to forget about the rest of her life. If I recall, it came out during the investigation that she was some kind of counselor or psychiatrist, and she worked with troubled people. It had never come up the few times we’d talked.”

  “That’s what she told the gardaí,” Bart agreed.

  “Now that’s interesting,” Maura said, pleased to have any new piece of information at this late hour. “Could any of them been stalking her? Followed her here?”

  “I’m pretty sure the gardaí looked and didn’t find anything or anyone,” Diane told her. “But as we’ve already said, the gardaí were a bit slow to get started, so someone could have returned to England before they thought to ask. And no one would have known of their connection unless they went through all her patient records back there.”

  “The gardaí would have interviewed local people, but what would they have done about strangers just passing through?” Maura said, almost to herself. Another example of bias? The gardaí had believed from the start that it was a local crime. She eyed the rest of the people scattered around the room. “Didn’t anybody follow this up?”

  “You mean, if the woman was a shrink, whether a patient might have pursued her here?” Mick rephrased Maura’s question. “It’s possible, but it would be all but impossible to check now, twenty years after. And how would he know all the details of the place?”

  “Maybe he was obsessive. Maybe he did a lot of research—or stalked her,” Maura said stubbornly. “Maybe he contacted her somehow and said it was an emergency and he really, really needed to see her right away. Sure, an ordinary person couldn’t have worked it all out, but the information is out there if you look for it.”

  “A fair point. We’ll leave that on the Possible list.”

  “Damn, I wish we had a whiteboard or something,” Maura muttered. “I can’t keep all this straight in my head.”

  “But we do have the drawing paper, Maura,” Gillian pointed out.

  “So we do. Here, turn a table on its side and attach the paper to it, and then we can make a list of the suspects, with categories like, ‘Crazy,’ ‘Possible,’ and ‘Likely’? Everybody okay with that?”

  “The little green men go in the crazy column?” Seamus asked, grinning.

  “Yes, they do. And so does the CIA and the KGB.” Damn, she was getting punchy. She watched as a couple of men set up a makeshift whiteboard in front of the bar. Maura filled in the headings. “Okay, does the psycho patient from England go in the Possible column?”

  “Until we know otherwise,” Mick said.

  Maura added “Patient” to the list, then scrawled “Little Green Men” under the Crazy heading. “What now?”

  “Put me at the top of the Likely column,” Diane said. “I did have motive and opportunity and could certainly have had a knife.”

  Maura did so, then added Paul Morgan and Mark Caldwell. “But they have alibis!” Danny protested.

  “Yes, but they did have motive. And either one of them could have done it under the right circumstances.” Then she added “Hired Hit Man” under the Possible heading. “His only motive would be money from whoever wanted Sharon dead. Or maybe someone was holding something over him and made him do it.”

  “Sharon might have stiffed a local shopkeeper or hired someone to fix up the place and failed to pay him,” Bart said, his tone neutral.

  Again, Maura wondered if he had information that hadn’t come out. “Good point. But would that be enough to kill for?”

  “You wouldn’t think so, but if it was a good amount of money, and the man was desperate, and she was rude to him or blew him off, he might have done it,” Danny said.

  “Do we have any reason to believe she was having money troubles?” Still, Maura added “Shop Owner” under Possible. “Anyone else?”

  “Mebbe she was being blackmailed?” Joe suggested.

  “Someone threatened to tell her husband about her affairs? That assumes he didn’t already know. And why kill her, then?”

  “She stopped paying out, and the blackmailer was angry?” Joe persisted stubbornly.

  “Angry enough to follow her to Cork? Maybe.” Maura added “Blackmailer” to the Possible list, but with two question marks. “You know, everybody here has been saying the killer was a man. Apart from Diane, are there no other women to consider?”

  “An angry wife?” Liam said.

  “But Sharon had moved on to Mark by the time she was killed.”

  “A disturbed, angry wife with a grudge?” Liam insisted. “Doesn’t have to be logical, except in the mind of the killer.”

  Maura wasn’t convinced, but it might be worth considering. “Can we at least agree that a woman could have the strength to kill her with a knife?”

  “My wife would!” Seamus called out. Several men laughed.

  Maura smiled. “Seriously, Sharon might have been willing to follow a woman out of her house, thinking she wasn’t a threat. Even if she was wrong.” Something nagged at Maura’s memory, but she couldn’t pry it loose. “There was no sign of a struggle in the house, right?”

  “That’s what the papers said.”

  “And only the one cup and plate by the sink? So she wasn’t entertaining anyone. Or if she was, he or she didn’t eat or drink anything.”

  “Right. So?”

  “And she was found outside wearing what might be considered nightclothes—or at least clothes she’d wear around the house, not if anyone was going to see her. She cared about her appearance, didn’t she, Diane?”

  “I would have said so. She always looked nicely dressed when we crossed paths, even when we were only out walking. Not fancy but good quality.”

  “So she hadn’t invited anyone in and hadn’t planned to see anyone that night. She expected to be alone. Do we all agree on that?”

  “Why’s it important?” Danny asked.

  “Stick with me a bit longer. When she was found, she was wearing her ratty old sleep clothes, with a sweater or something pulled over it. And boots.” Ah, that was what had bothered her, Maura realized. “Boots! Okay, she was a woman alone late at night. I don’t care how safe West Cork is—this was a woman used to living in a city, and you get into habits if you live like that. You don’t trust strangers. You lock your doors, and you make sure you have a peephole or something so you can look out and see who’s there before you open it. You watch other people on the street, stick to lighted areas, don’t walk alone down dark streets.”

  “It’s not like that here!” Gillian said.

  “You’re right, it isn’t. But habits are hard to break. So picture the scene. Sharon has a nice supper on her own, maybe reads for a while, then goes up to her bedroom and gets ready to go to bed. She’s all tucked in when she hears someone k
nocking at the door. She’s not expecting anyone. What would she do?”

  “Go down and ask who was at the door,” Seamus said promptly.

  “Okay—although she’d probably check to be sure the door was locked, just in case. But say she asks that, and she knows who it is, so she opens the door. Or—and here’s the catch—she may not know the person, but she doesn’t think she has any reason to fear this particular person, and she still opens the door. Are you with me so far?”

  “But how does that help us?” Bart asked. “Most of the people on yer list there would fit that description. Her husband, clear enough. Diane or Diane’s husband. A garda, looking fer something or someone. A patient, like you suggested, come from England to see her. Some friend we don’t even know about, come fer a surprise visit. We’re no more forward than we were.”

  “Except for the boots!” Maura crowed. “She wouldn’t be wearing boots to go to bed or to open the door. Everything points to her being upstairs with a book. Then someone comes to the door, and she puts on her boots—and they were lace-up fancy boots, from what I’ve heard, not just something she could have pulled on fast, like farmer’s boots—and she goes outside with this person, and then she dies!” Maura finished triumphantly and waited for reactions.

  Maybe everyone was stunned or just sleepy: no one said anything. “Oh, come on,” Maura said, frustrated. “Not only did she answer the door, but she took the time to put on her boots and went out in the dark and rain with this person. Why would she do that? Who would she do it for?”

  “Somebody’s kinky idea of fun in the rain?” Jimmy suggested. “They’d tried it on everywhere else they could think of?”

  “Get yer mind out of the gutter, Jimmy,” Billy said sternly, surprising Maura. “You’ve made a point, Maura. Had she been found with her feet tore up from the path and no shoes, yeh could see someone surprisin’ her at the door and draggin’ her out. But the boots put a different face on things.”

  “Why did nobody ever put this together before?” Diane asked. “I mean, it’s just common sense. Why didn’t the gardaí see it?”

  “Maybe they all sleep in their boots?” Maura quipped. God, she was getting tired.

  “But what—and who—could have drawn her out at night like that?” Bart asked.

  “Someone in need of help? Sharon wasn’t a doctor, now, was she?”

  “No, not a medical doctor,” Diane said. “But maybe she knew more than the average person or was nearer than any doctors. If someone had been having a heart attack or had OD’d on drugs or there’d been an accident, a person might think Sharon could help if there was no one else to be found quickly. And it must have been an emergency if she didn’t take the time to put on her clothes but just grabbed up the boots, which she probably left close to the door.”

  “Wait—what about her car?” Maura asked eagerly. She was beginning to get excited by this idea. “Did she have one? Was it there?”

  “She had a hired car,” Diane said, “and it was found next to the house, locked, so she didn’t use that. No fast trip to a local hospital—which would have been noticed anyway.”

  “So if someone had come looking for help, he or she must have driven there—or must have lived very close and walked over.”

  “No one else took sick or died that night,” Seamus said. “The gardaí did check that.” Bart nodded in agreement.

  “That you know of! If things went really wrong, whoever it was might not have gone to a real doctor or a hospital. Say someone was harboring a fugitive that they didn’t want the world to know about. Or they were holding someone captive. Or they were hiding a child they’d been abusing for years. But something bad happened and they panicked, and Sharon was the first person they could think of.”

  “Maura, yer soundin’ like this is an old movie—and a bad one,” Mick said. “Mebbe it’s time to let it go fer now. We’re all tired, and we’re not thinking straight. Mebbe things will look clearer in the mornin’.”

  Maura wanted to protest—But we’re so close!—but Mick was right. They were all exhausted. But in an odd way, she realized, that let her brain roam more freely, even if it zigged and zagged along the way. Maybe the gardaí had thought of everything she’d brought up—or maybe they hadn’t. Why had Sharon carefully laced up her boots in the dead of night and gone outside with someone? What kind of story could that person had given her, knowing that he—or she—planned to kill her? What would Sharon have believed? And why had no one identified that person?

  Nineteen

  “What if it was a child?” Maura said suddenly. “Lost? That would have attracted Sharon’s attention, wouldn’t it? She wouldn’t know how many children went wandering around in the middle of the night, so she’d believe the story.”

  “All the children there were accounted for, and there were few enough of those nearby, not that Sharon would know that,” Seamus said. “Most of the blow-ins didn’t have any children or mix with those who did.”

  Well, that must have been a strike against them right there, Maura thought. No wonder they weren’t popular. “Okay, if it wasn’t a child, maybe a horse got loose or cows who got onto the road? Or . . . a lost dog?”

  “Maura, you’d be askin’ us to recall who had a dog the other side of Schull back then? Most farmers then and now had a dog or two, and a cat to keep the mice down,” Seamus said, incredulous. “If a dog went missin’, like as not it didn’t stay missin’. Farm dogs didn’t get lost—they roamed about. Nobody’s gonna go lookin’ fer ’em, much less askin’ the neighbors to help find ’em.”

  Maura hated to give up on her idea. She said stubbornly, “But guys, think about it. What would make a woman get out of her warm bed on a lousy night, open the door to someone, then pull on her boots and go out with that person?”

  “The little green men?” Danny asked.

  Maura struggled to swallow her frustration. Yes, it was late and they were all tired. And in truth, there was no reason anybody in the room, apart from Diane, should be taking this seriously. Even Diane seemed resigned to whatever happened, and she was on her way to leaving Ireland for good. While the official case might never be closed, it would eventually be forgotten. Why did she care?

  Diane seemed to sense her mood and stood up. “Maura, I thank you for what you’re trying to do here, but even with your interesting theory, there’s not much to be done now. And we’re all getting too tired to think straight.”

  So now Diane wanted to give up too? “Do you think that theory makes sense? That she opened the door to someone she knew, for what she believed was a good reason, never thinking that this person might want to hurt her?”

  Diane hesitated, then nodded. “Based on what little I knew of the woman, I agree with what you’ve said. I’ll go along with your idea of someone luring her out of her bed with a story intended to call up her sympathy—a lost animal, a sick child, whatever. But what difference will it make now? And how could it be proved if nobody came forward then?”

  Diane had a point, Maura knew. The part about what it would take to get the woman out of her house—that was just logic based on how she thought she herself would react. Had the gardaí thought it through? Hard to say. But it was after that that things got murky. Maura would be happy enough if it turned out to be an outsider who’d done it—but that person would have to have known an awful lot about the place and how to get around and what would work as a story for Sharon. After eliminating Sharon’s husband and Diane, that meant it almost had to be a local person who had all that information—and who had an issue with Sharon that they couldn’t see a way to resolve without killing her. And it wasn’t a real professional job, because the killer could have taken the body away or dumped it in a handy bog where it might not have been found for days or weeks or ever—not just left her outside in a pool of blood. Maybe whoever it was had killed her and then lost his nerve and run away. It would have been messy, with lots of blood.

  Billy spoke up suddenly, startling Maura—she’
d thought he’d gone to sleep again. “What happened to the land, Diane?”

  “Sharon’s place?” Diane stopped to think for a moment. “Well, her husband hung onto it while the investigation was going on, which took a while—I think he had to, until he was cleared of her death. But he didn’t come back after the gardaí had finished with him. I think he always saw it as Sharon’s place, and after she died, maybe he wanted no part of it. At some point, I think he sold it. I can’t really say, because I didn’t come back myself, and I never saw the man in England.”

  Billy nodded, digesting that information. “Those neighbors who found Sharon in the morning—what was their name?”

  “They were the Laytons—Denis and his wife Ellen, I believe,” Diane told him.

  “And how was it they came to find Sharon? Was their house near?”

  “The next property over, but the houses were half a mile or more apart, I’d guess,” Diane said. “You couldn’t see from one house to the other. I think they were in their forties then—not young—and his family lived there for generations. They raised dairy cattle, but they always seemed hard up. On the day, they were out early in the morning together. Walking their dog.”

  Diane stopped abruptly, realizing what she had said. “They had a dog, a spaniel—we mentioned that earlier. It was a female, and they hoped to breed her and sell the puppies. I think they needed the money. The dog had gotten loose once before and came home pregnant, and they were careful not to let that happen again, which is why they stayed with her.”

  “Why do yeh know so much about their dog, then?” Danny asked.

  “I’d see them walking often, usually together. We’d spoken now and then if we passed on the lane. The husband’s parents had known my grandparents, and they claimed to remember me when I was young and spent summers there. I can’t say that I recalled them, but there was no reason I should. Now and then we’d stop and chat, and they’d tell me about the past. I even thought about taking one of their puppies if they’d ever produced any. But nothing ever came of that.”