The Pig Did It

by Joseph Caldwell

  Finally what looked like a sack came loose, the earth gave way, and Sweeney was tumbled into the grave, disappearing completely. Aaron went through the kitchen, past the table and the sink, to the screen door. Sweeney’s head appeared, then an arm. He was sitting like a man in a bathtub. He started to get up, but something was in the way. He reached down, pulled up a good-size sack, made of leather—or earth-stiffened cloth—then flung it out onto the mound of earth next to the grave. Aaron heard a rattling, then a clunk. The pig’s hind leg had been grazed, but the pig didn’t seem to mind. Sweeney looked around, surveying his situation. He placed his hands, palms down, next to the sack, stiffened his arms and tried to hoist himself up. He had lifted himself about six inches when the ground under his hands crumbled and his face was sent full force into the dirt. For a moment he didn’t move, letting his face rest where it had landed, his arms at his sides, himself kneeling inside the hole. The pig heaved itself away from the kneeling figure and trotted toward the tool shed.

  Sweeney lifted his head, shook it, wiped his forehead, brushed his sleeve across his eyes and mouth, spit, and stood up. He flicked the dirt from his sweater, from his pants, giving special attention to his knees. He then lifted one foot, knocking away what chunks of earth were there, then lifted the other foot, repeating the act. He hiked up his pants, spit once more and moved his sleeve across his mouth.

  Aaron could withhold his help no longer. He stepped into the side yard, letting the screen door slam so that Lolly and his aunt would know he’d gone outside. “Mr. Sweeney,” he called, managing not to sound too alarmed by the man’s difficulty. “Mr. McCloud” was Sweeney’s reply, surprised and cheerful, as if he hadn’t expected to see him and was pleased at his good fortune. Before Aaron could offer his assistance, Sweeney said, “And what happened to you? You’re wet to the bone.”

  Aaron’s clothes felt the wet all over again; the salt rubbed itself more meanly into his skin. The sea smell, the stink of fish, however, seemed to have diminished, but that could be because he was catching cold and his nose was being rendered inoperative.

  “The tide came in,” Aaron said.

  Sweeney, still cheerful, said, “You’ll catch your death.” Aaron, on cue, sneezed. “Bless you. Bless you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You were walking on the beach?” Sweeney seemed troubled by the vision he’d conjured up.

  “Yes.”

  “Far down the beach, to the north?”

  “Yes.”

  “Below the headland where it’s all rock?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then the tide came in?”

  “Yes.”

  Sweeney’s solemnity increased as the inquiry progressed. He had put one hand on each side of the grave and stood like an interrogator totally unaware that he was down in a hole. “And the water rose?”

  “Yes. The water rose.”

  “To the cliffs it came, to the foot of the cliff, and then it began to climb? The water? To climb?”

  “Yes.” Aaron sneezed but received no blessing.

  “And you’d nowhere to go but out to sea?”

  “There was a rock.”

  “The rock. Yes, the rock. You climbed the rock. And just in time. It’s what I’ve been warning for years. Years.” By now his solemnity was absolute.

  “Are the tides rising higher and higher?” Aaron asked.

  “Oh, no, not that. It’s anyone could know that, if he’s any sense at all. It’s that we don’t do the fishing as much as we used to. The fishings have gone underfoot. All gone.” Squarely the man stood like someone in a pulpit, sending forth his knowledge and wisdom not from a height but from a depth. And he seemed most pleased with the inversion. “No one drowns anymore,” he said. “There hasn’t been a drowning in three years. Before, we could count on ten to a season at the least. But not enough go fishing, not enough get claimed by the sea. And after all these years, the sea hasn’t got used to it. It’s developed an appetite. It’s looking, the sea is, the sea’s looking for someone—anyone will do—someone to drown. And it’s going to keep rising and rising and coming farther inland and farther until it gets its due. It’ll eat away the cliffs and even bring the rocks down onto itself, into its very bosom, looking, searching, not leaving until it’s found someone to drown. The sea isn’t famous for yielding its secrets. But it’s after us all. You on your rock, you have to watch out. It’s got sight of you and there, look at your clothes, it’s made its claim. You smell of it already, so it will know where to find you.” He nodded, sure of the truth he’d spoken, his arms stretched out from his sides, taking the measure of Declan Tovey’s grave. “Keep your distance from the sea. It’s asked for you by name, and I’m ready to bet at any time that it’ll get you yet.”

  “I’m too good a swimmer.”

  “A good swimmer is the best prize of all.”

  “I didn’t stay on the rock. I swam all the way back to where the path takes you up to the road.”

  “Good. Good. Give the sea a taste of what lies ahead. Tease it a bit. Swim a little. Walk along the shore. Tease it. Taunt it. And see what it does.” He made a noise at the back of his throat as if he were gargling with mud. “Meantime, don’t catch cold. That’s no way to go when you’ve already been promised elsewhere.”

  With what he hoped was a cold dignity, Aaron asked, “Do you need some help?”

  In response the man said, “Want to see what I’ve got here?” He put one hand on the earth-encrusted sack. He smiled a conspirator’s smile, his eyes catching a glint from the sun. “You want to know what’s inside?”

  Aaron shrugged.

  “I’ll tell you. Do you know a thatcher’s tools?

  “Thatcher’s?”

  “A roof thatcher. His tools. They’re here, in this sack. A dutchman and a leggett and some tarred twine and I can tell you besides, there’s a cup, like a chalice really, all made of purest pewter, for taking a drink. It’s in there, too.”

  “May I look?”

  Sweeney put his hand on the sack. “No need to. I just told you.”

  “Oh.” Aaron scratched his collarbone because it seemed the gesture of a stupid man and he wanted to appear stupid, incapable of knowing what the man might be talking about.

  “You want some help out of there?”

  “What kind of a man is it who can’t get himself up out of a hole?” Sweeney, with a little assist from his hands and arms, sprang sideways and was upright on the level ground in less time than it took Aaron to blink. Sweeney was picking up the sack with one hand and brushing off his pants with the other. “I’m home to my cows now, but I’ll come back when he’s been returned to the ground. To see that he’s safely away. Deeper, tell them, much deeper. And give this to your aunt and tell her I understand why she couldn’t come out to say a word or two, and Lolly McKeever too.” He paused, then said, “You know, of course, she murdered him.”

  “Who?”

  “Declan Tovey.”

  “You said murdered by someone. Who?”

  “Who but her?”

  “Who’s her?”

  “Must I say her name?”

  “Lolly McKeever, you mean.”

  “No, not that one. The other one.”

  “Are you talking about my aunt?”

  “You mustn’t blame her. She had cause.”

  “She says Lolly did it.”

  “Of course she’d say that. But it’s your own aunt who did it. And you’ve got to accept the truth.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “Of course you don’t. Because you didn’t know what the woman was going through with this rascal all night and all day and all the times between. Forcing himself on her, insinuating in his insinuating ways. Doing for her all manner of things a man can do and all the time waiting to make his move. And then he makes it. But she’ll have none of it. Not she. Not this woman. Into her own hands she takes the leggett, the iron implement from here in the bag, and she warns him. And he’s getting
closer. And she warns him again and moves off. But he’s following and she’s warning and gripping the leggett, and he’s closer and she’s against the wall. She has no choice. Aside the head she gives him the leggett. Not just to send him off, but to get him gone for good. To the floor he falls and she knows she’s done it. And no regrets, none at all. He was given nothing he didn’t earn. He’ll never come after her never again. Never, do you hear? Never!”

  Sweeney’s eyes were blazing. He had worked his way not to an old wrath but to a triumphant bliss lived all over again. Sweeney had done it. Tovey was after his aunt. Sweeney was jealous. And he had just, in his own way, stated the motive and the means, jealousy and the instrument in the thatcher’s bag. Aaron was relieved. He was giddy. Although he rather liked Sweeney. He had, after all, given him a ride, even with a pig. But now his aunt and Lolly were free. He could now convince them to turn the bones over to the gardaí. The case could be solved in minutes. Proof of Sweeney’s guilt was in the man’s hand. The sack. It held the murder weapon. He had come for it. It would have fingerprints. Aaron would testify. The murder was solved.

  Sweeney had picked up the sack and held it out to Aaron. “Tell your aunt this comes from me. I was the one found it, but it’s on her land and she’s the one should have it. But be sure to tell her it’s from me, and if she could part with the cup I’d be grateful.”

  Aaron looked at the sack. Sweeney was undoing all his detection. He was surrendering into the hands of his aunt the probable murder weapon. The proof of his guilt. After two hesitant movements of his hand, Aaron took the sack. “I’ll tell her. It’s from you.” He held the sack at his side. There was no rattle. The clogged earth had muted whatever sounds it might want to make. It wasn’t as heavy as Aaron had expected. He gave it a shake to see if he could hear the murder weapon. All he heard was a dull thunk.

  Sweeney was kneeling again, his head lowered into the hole. He reached down and picked up a pebble, then stood up and showed it to Aaron. “Give this too to your aunt.” It was the metal button that had come off Tovey’s coat. Sweeney rubbed the dirt off with his thumb and held out the button. Aaron took it. Sweeney smiled again the conspirator’s smile. “But I’ll still want the pewter cup.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  Aaron drew the sack closer to himself, switched it from his right to his left hand and let it rest against his thigh. Getting dirt on his pants was the least of his worries. Sweeney had continued to smile, not moving away from the hole. Aaron realized it was his responsibility to leave first. “Thank you,” he said, giving the sack a shove with his knee. “I’ll tell my aunt.”

  Sweeney nodded. “And tell her her secret’s safe with me. Not that it wasn’t an evil thing to do. But she was provoked, and I honor her for fending off what she’d rather die than do. That much I know, and I credit her for it. She has a name I’ll never speak, not even to accuse. You’ll tell her that.”

  Aaron nodded, turned and started toward the house. He knew Sweeney was watching. He walked faster. A new thought came to him. The pewter cup held the traces of poison. Instead of taking the cup, he’d asked for it, sure it would be given. Aaron picked up his pace. Then he slowed. This latest reasoning was inconsistent with the other confessions. The man had said a blow to the head. He should have claimed poison. But he hadn’t. Aaron stopped walking altogether. Then it was all clear. Sweeney wanted his aunt to know he’d done it. Jealous of Tovey, maddened with love, he’d poisoned the poor unsuspecting man. And now he wanted full credit from the woman who’d driven him to so rash an act.

  Lolly had been right, right in every respect. It had been

  Sweeney, and the proof was in his hands. Lolly was free. His aunt was free.

  The sack became heavier. Aaron was walking again, his pace accelerating the closer he got to the house. He saw ahead of him his aunt staring out through the screen door. On her face was a stoic sadness. Aaron glanced back over his shoulder. Sweeney was standing, his hands at his sides, his mouth slightly open. He was leaning forward in the direction of the screen door. When Aaron turned again, his aunt abruptly moved back into the kitchen and disappeared. He took a few steps closer. When he looked over his shoulder again he saw Kieran Sweeney on his knees, placing one stone on another, reconstructing with patient fidelity the cairn his aunt had built to mark the grave of Declan Tovey.

  5

  Aaron was surprised. The pub—Dockery’s—appeared to be a quiet place, more murmurous than raucous, a flow of talk interrupted by an occasional laugh, then dropping again to a level suggesting easy but animated discourse. The four tables lined along the wall were of such sturdy but crude construction that they seemed to have come down, generation to generation, from the drinking hall of an ancient chief. The chairs, in contrast, were made of bentwood with dark red leather seats, inherited from a tearoom or a sandwich shop. Two booths in the back seemed improvised from old cabinets, but again the tables were made of wood cut from the forest primeval and built by craftsmen indifferent to design. The tops, brown made black by time, were at least four inches thick, readily able to sustain the carved and scored markings that pitted and pocked their surfaces. The legs were, by contrast, a little spindly, cut it seemed from the staff of some pilgrim who had crossed the mountains long years before, the tables held up more by faith than by physics. The floor was unvarnished wood, raw wide boards better suited to the deck of a trawler than a dining room, shredded and splintered beneath the soles and heels of at least several generations.

  It was the bar itself, however, that gave the room its distinction. Of heavy and highly polished walnut, it had the aspect of a high altar in the church of a somewhat prosperous parish, the niches and shelves rising to the height of the room itself, enshrining the bottles and glasses, the ambers and crystals, the opals and emeralds, statuary magnificent and well worthy of the worship they received. The top of the counter gleamed auburn, the reddish tint beneath the brown showing through like a promise that under the surface lay pleasures yet to be revealed. Blue traceries coursed through the white porcelain shafts that brought forth the ales and stouts and beers, the array of handles themselves suggesting a console to be played, an instrument requiring dexterity and stamina, not to be approached by the uninitiated or the ungifted.

  There were no bar stools. If you couldn’t stand, you should be off and away, a wise policy winnowing the wheat from the chaff, a means of sparing the upright the company of culls. The bartender, Francis—his name the word most often repeated on the premises with the possible exception of “fuck”—was a tall young man, lean and limber, with a wide jaw, a generous but seemly nose, nicely spaced brown eyes, and a proportionate forehead lightly screened by a fall of straight brown hair. To give him some distinction, he had a wide mouth and also a tongue the generous jaw and mouth could not oblige. Constrained by intrusive teeth, the tongue would block the air passing along its sides and give to the speech of handsome Francis a light slur, adding an h to an s, turning a “yes” into a “yesh.” For some this was a defect, for others a lure, and it was widely known that the good man’s tongue was, more often than not, given an appreciation that easily compensated for whatever difficulty he might have with diction and enunciation.

  Aaron would have preferred a booth along the far wall, but it seemed unfair and unwise to appropriate that much space for himself alone—especially since “alone” was the operative word for the evening. He wanted to be alone. And he was. It had been a difficult day, a day of distractions. His brain had been poked and jabbed and stuffed and turned here and twisted there, what with a skeleton and three possible killers, one of them his kin, one a woman of possible allure, and one a man who seemed to be the sworn enemy of the woman he loved, Aaron’s enigmatic aunt.

  The man was Aaron’s preferred suspect—not just out of a chivalric impulse that would spare the ladies but an informed determination based, no more, no less, on the sure knowledge that one of the other suspects was a member of his family and the other a woman with aubu
rn hair. From being their accuser, he was now promoted to self-appointed protector. So certain was he of his judgment that he’d been tempted, once left alone with the skeleton, to call the gardaí and let justice take what course it would.

  Kitty had gone off to London to sign a contract for her latest completed effort: a correction of Oliver Twist in which Nancy reforms Bill Sykes, they marry and adopt Oliver, after which all three lead vitalizing and challenging lives in lower-class London. Kitty then, in a daring act of cross-fertilization, conspired to have Oliver later marry Little Nell—who, conveniently, failed to die but would, soon enough, in Oliver’s arms.

  Lolly was making another attempt to get her pigs to market and, like Kitty, would not be available for consultation and decision until late tomorrow. Lolly’s last words before driving off were, “Don’t go burying the bones till I come back.” Kitty, on leaving for the airport, had issued a similar decree, adding, “Hell do all right until I’m home.”

  Aaron had given himself a few moments alone with Declan bedded down in the priest’s room. He would let the skeleton itself tell him what to do: call the gardaí, bury him again, or let him enjoy his rest after so frantic a day, what with the arranging and rearranging by the accused and accusing women. When Aaron had stared down at the skull, he’d seen nothing but delight. By the grin Aaron could tell the man was reveling in all the fuss. The last thing he wanted was a quick resolution. This prompted Aaron’s resolve to toss him back into his grave with his sack of tools and to cover him over with dirt and cabbages and stones and any other irreverent implement he might find in the vicinity.