“The deceased.”
“We can’t move the body until the state pathologist arrives and declares it a crime scene,” one of the paramedics answered. They breezed past her, placed the empty stretcher in the ambulance, and took off. Tara sighed. She didn’t know anything about the police procedures in Ireland. She would probably have to hold his funeral. If she had other relatives around here, it was news to her. She slipped past the crowd, listening to snippets of the gossip. “Murder,” she heard more than once. And “American.”
She wondered if there was any chance they weren’t talking about her.
A male voice boomed out, rising over the din of the crowd. “Margaret Meehan’s daughter here to meet him for the first time, like. Can you believe dat?”
Ask and it shall be answered.
Chapter 4
Tara was spent by the time she walked into the inn. Knackered, her mam used to say. Or wrecked. An image of her mother coming home, pulling her shoes off, and rubbing her delicate feet rose to mind. I’m wrecked. If she hadn’t already, that was Tara’s cue to put the kettle on. How mundane those moments were at the time, compared to how precious the memories were now. She’d give anything for one more cup of tea with her mam. All she wanted to do was fall into bed. She was halfway up the stairs when a voice called out.
“Come into the sitting room for tea and biscuits.” It was the older innkeeper and it was an order. Tara headed down, and when she reached the landing she could see the parlor doors past the check-in desk were open, revealing an adorable sitting room with a fireplace, windows shaded by curtains, and red velvet high-back chairs. Teacups were already set up along with a tin of cookies. Tara sat. The woman smiled and handed her a cup of tea. “I never introduced myself properly. I’m Grace Quinn.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Tara Meehan.” But Grace Quinn already seemed to know that.
“Now, luv,” Grace said, “why didn’t you tell me you were Margaret Meehan’s flesh and blood?”
Tara almost choked on her tea and barely managed to set the cup down with a clink. “You knew my mother?”
“We were the dearest of friends,” Grace said. Tara doubted that. It seemed her mother would have mentioned her dearest friend. Grace took out her rosary. “Is it true? Is Johnny Meehan gone?”
Tara nodded. “I found out where he lived and went to introduce myself. And tell him about my mother’s passing.”
“Oh, dear,” Grace said, her hand to her heart. “I was afraid to ask. Oh! I so wanted to see her again. How did she pass?”
“Cancer,” Tara said. There was no point in saying stomach cancer. It always made Tara worry that her mother’s secrets had eaten her alive. Grace made a tsk-tsk sound. “Why did she leave?” Tara asked. “Why didn’t she ever come back?”
A look came over Grace Quinn’s face like a shop sign flipping from OPEN to CLOSED. “It was so long ago. Leave the past where it belongs.”
But it wasn’t the past. Not to Tara. It was the all-consuming present. Tara leaned forward. “At least tell me why she and my uncle didn’t speak.”
“What about you, luv? Are you married? Children?” Grace’s tone was that of a detour sign, steering the conversation away from the past.
“Not anymore,” Tara said quietly, as an image of her toddler son’s smiling face rose before her. She pushed it away and was relieved when Grace Quinn didn’t probe any further.
Grace pulled knitting needles out of a wicker basket at the foot of her chair; next came a thick ball of blue yarn. Her hands began to work the needles with the ease of a woman who had been doing it for a lifetime. “Johnny took a box to the head, is dat right?”
The calm rhythm of the knitting gave an unearned innocence to the question, nearly lulling Tara into answering right away. Tara hadn’t said a thing in the coffee shop other than he had passed. How did Grace know he’d been hit over the head? Or was that just a turn of phrase? She was astounded at how fast gossip could spread. “He appeared to have been struck over the head. Yes.” Grace nodded to show she was listening, although her eyes were trained on the yarn. “I ran into a man named Ben Kelly in the pub. He seemed very angry with my uncle.”
Once again, Grace’s eyes did not leave her knitting. “Oh, I’m sure the guards will want to talk to him. He and Johnny have been at each other’s throats over the salvage mill.”
“Johnny didn’t own the mill?”
“I believe he does, alright. I wouldn’t know the details, but Ben was insistent Johnny was in violation of city ordinances. He said if all the fines were called in, Johnny would be out of business. He suggested he’d be doing your uncle a favor, buying it from him before that happened.”
At the same time threatening to be the one to make it happen?
“You won’t find many places left in the city with so much space. Ben Kelly has that boxing school, don’t you know. He is appalled the mill is being used to store junk instead. That’s his word on it, mind you. I’ve no problem with Johnny as long as he keeps to himself. But every year Ben Kelly offers Johnny more money for it and every year Johnny says no.”
“It sounds like he was being rather aggressive about it.”
“Rumor has it he’s been making a fuss with the city planners—”
Digging up dirt . . .
“—Imagine, doing all this while your daughter lives above the mill.”
She had Tara’s attention now. “His daughter?”
Grace nodded. “Alanna. The young girl who works for me. Always late, that one. I’d have let her go if it wasn’t for her zealous attention to cleanliness.”
An image of the young girl polishing the counter like it was some kind of penance rose to mind. Tara surmised it was more of a compulsion but she kept her opinions to herself. “She lives above the mill?”
“Yes. She’s going to cookery school.”
“The one with the best breakfast in Galway?” This stopped Grace from knitting. She looked at Tara and frowned. “I wouldn’t know about dat.”
“Sorry. Just something I heard. So why is Alanna going to school to be a chef when she wants to box?”
“Because her da won’t have it. He’s the old-fashioned type. He thinks he knows what’s best for his only daughter.”
She didn’t seem like the type of girl who would stand for being told what to do, but Tara was here to listen, not to add to the gossip.
When it came to Ben Kelly and Alanna, Grace didn’t seem to mind chin-wagging a bit. “Johnny didn’t like her living there,” Grace was saying. “He accused her of mucking about the mill at night.”
“Mucking about the mill?” Tara said.
Grace’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Stealing.” Her eyes twinkled with relief as if holding on to the secret had been a physical burden she’d been forced to bear.
“Was she? Stealing?”
“Heavens. I don’t think so. Your uncle. He wasn’t himself lately. Everyone saw it. He was going downhill before our eyes. He wasn’t right in the head, I tell you.” Her eyes widened as she realized what she’d said. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Was Ben Kelly angry enough to kill him?”
Grace looked horrified. Her hand flew to her mouth. “How could a person ever be that angry? It’s impossible.”
“Somebody was that angry.”
“Maybe he fell.” Grace laid her knitting in her lap and stared into her cup of tea as if she were preparing to dive into it.
“He was lying faceup.”
Grace covered her eyes. “I don’t want to know.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just saying. This was no accident.” It felt good to say it out loud. It was the truth. Surely the guards knew by now they were dealing with a murder. “I take it you don’t have a lot of murders in Galway?”
“No. T’anks be to God. We have robberies, and fisty-cuffs, and domestic situations, and lads who take to driving after too many pints, and poor souls who take their own lives, and property disputes, alright. And ever since Carr
ig Murray started that experimental theatre on Nun’s Island we have oddballs landing from all over the world with their piercings and tattoos, and purple-striped hair. The lungs on ’em! You can hear them all the way down the block when they finish their rehearsals and pour into the pubs. It’s hideous, I tell you. But murder? No. We’re not like America.” Grace Quinn crossed herself and then began to rock back and forth slightly as if self-soothing. “If your poor uncle was murdered, it wasn’t a local. A traveler or a foreigner, mark my words.” Tara stared into the fireplace, imagining it crackling and popping in the cold winter months. Grace’s bias was showing and it made Tara uncomfortable. “I suppose you own the mill now,” Grace said with a trace of envy.
This jolted Tara out of her meanderings. “What?”
“You’re his only family. Your mother owned half of it.”
This was news. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Your grandfather bequeathed it to the pair of them.”
Her grandfather. Thomas Meehan. Another man she’d never met. She’d named her son after him. The thought of her little boy intruded again and made Tara’s throat constrict. Thomas had died three years ago at three years of age. A terrible, terrible playground accident. Tara pushed the horrible memory away. She’d sworn an oath to herself that from now on when she thought about her son she would only think of the happy times. It was the only way she could think to honor him. She thought of Gabriel, his father. They didn’t make it, not after such a loss. She took a deep breath and trained her mind to focus on the present. “What can you tell me about my grandfather?”
“Johnny wasn’t always difficult,” Grace said, completely ignoring her question. “In fact, just recently he told me he found an item he thought I’d love.” A smile spread across the older woman’s face and suddenly Tara could see the young girl underneath.
“What was it?”
“I never saw it, mind you, but he said it was a cast-iron harp.”
“Oh,” Tara said.
“My mother played the harp. I told Johnny I’d love to have one but I don’t have the room. I guess he found a wee one.” She held her arms open about a foot high. “If you run across it in the mill . . . oh, you must think I’m a horrible, horrible woman! Thinking of myself and that harp at a time like this. Please, accept my apologies.”
“Of course. It’s okay. But I don’t know how I would run across it. I don’t have keys to the mill.”
“Oh,” Grace said, “you can get those from Johnny’s employee. Danny O’Donnell.”
Danny. The same one she’d heard mention of in the pub? “I heard he quit recently,” Tara ventured.
Grace’s eyes widened and a smile stole across her face. “You are your mother’s daughter.” Tara wasn’t sure if she meant it as a compliment, so she held her tongue and waited. “She thought she knew everything, your mother.”
Tara dug her fingernails into her palms. “She was extremely intelligent and highly intuitive, if that’s what you mean,” Tara said. Elderly or not, if Grace Quinn didn’t watch it, she would see the other ways in which daughter was like mother. Margaret Meehan had never suffered fools.
Grace waited a moment and then nodded. “Of course, luv. She was one of my dearest friends.”
There it was again, that proclamation. Liar. Her mother would have loathed Grace Quinn. “Did Danny quit?” Tara prodded.
“He did. He and Johnny had a big row about a fortnight ago. The mill has been shuttered ever since. But he can give you the keys.”
“Any idea where I can find him?”
“I’ll fetch his digits for you. I’ll have it at the desk.”
His digits? Ah. His phone number. “Thank you.”
“Just mind yourself around Danny. He’s got too much of an eye for the ladies. He’s not anyone you want to bat your eyelashes at. A player is what you Yankees call it.” She jabbed the air with one of her knitting needles.
Tara almost choked on her tea. She suppressed a laugh, as Grace looked deadly serious. “I appreciate the heads-up.” She didn’t know what she found more absurd: the thought of falling for someone again, or Grace Quinn calling her a Yankee and a man a player. She thought of the note on the door of the mill. It wasn’t necessarily left by the murderer, but whoever typed the note was certainly upset. Maybe it was from Danny. “There was a threatening note to my uncle on the door of the mill. Any idea who might have left it?” Someone who was afraid his or her handwriting would be recognized? Otherwise why go to the bother to type it? Where would you find a typewriter these days? Most likely at the home of an old-timer. Tara couldn’t imagine anyone young recognizing a typewriter let alone using one. Grace interrupted her thoughts. “If it’s suspects you’re on about—the guards are going to have their work cut out for them.”
“Oh?”
“Johnny Meehan didn’t have many friends, so. None a’t’all, I’d venture. But he had a lot of enemies, don’t you know.” Grace sighed, dropped her knitting back into the basket, then gathered up the tea and plate of biscuits and started for the parlor doors.
“Including you?” Tara said.
The tray rattled. Grace turned. “Pardon?”
“Which were you and my uncle? Friends or enemies?” Grace stared at Tara for a long time. There was a sharp edge to Grace Quinn, a Jekyll-and-Hyde switch that seemed to flip at random. Tea and rage. And not the first angry resident she’d encountered.
“I mind my own business around here,” Grace Quinn said with a thrust of her chin.
“Do you know anything about the fortune-teller? The one who parks her caravan near the bay?”
“Rose?” Grace Quinn sounded startled. “She’s a charlatan.” The rebuke came without hesitation.
Rose. Tara thought of the bright red bud in the woman’s hair. Well, that makes sense. “She told me death was all around me. Before I found my uncle’s body.”
Grace considered this. “Stay away from that woman.”
“Is she new in town?”
“Heavens, no. She grew up here. A traveler,” Grace added with a flush. “Why do you ask?”
Ah, a traveler. Tara knew there was a divide between the travelers and the rest of the population in Ireland. There were prejudices and grievances in both camps—another class division between humans, mistrust and dislike that ran deep and strong. Tara had read that the suicide rate was rising in the traveler community. Besides being poor they were cut off from the same education and opportunities as the main population. Turned away at local pubs even. And she supposed the main population would argue that the travelers had chosen to be outsiders, refusing to obey the laws and norms of society. She’d heard they were dirty, and uneducated, and dishonest, and abusive to their animals, and would set up camp wherever they pleased, making their messes in plain sight. Tara was sure some of that was probably true. But it was always dangerous to paint everyone with the same brush. Judge them before you’d even met them. She loathed racism and prejudice in all forms. New York City was a melting pot, and Tara had grown up among diversity. So many cultures and colors. You could walk out your door one day and discover it was Pakistan Day and there was going to be a parade. Tara loved it, loved learning about others. It didn’t mean everyone got along. Far from it. But Tara couldn’t imagine a homogenous world, how boring would that be? It made her nuts whenever somebody said “I don’t see color.” You don’t? I do! And I love it. I celebrate it. It’s beautiful and diverse. But Tara couldn’t change other people, and she wasn’t here to challenge Grace’s views.
She also knew that Rose must have had a very different life growing up in Galway than Grace Quinn did. Tara would have to navigate the conversation carefully. “It looks like the mural on her caravan was freshly painted.”
Grace frowned. “It’s the devil’s work. Mixing in the black arts.”
Ben Kelly wasn’t the only old-fashioned one around here. She could see how Alanna Kelly had her work cut out for her, trying to convince her father to let her do as she pleased, not to
mention getting Grace Quinn to catch up to the times. Her mind floated back to Gypsy Rose. “It’s strange though. That she was so specific about death being all around me. Don’t you think?”
Grace shook her head. “I’m glad your mother’s not alive to see what became of her brother. It would have killed her.” And with that, the conversation was over.
Chapter 5
By the time the sun was sinking into the Galway Bay, Tara still hadn’t heard from Detective Sergeant Gable. She distracted herself with a hearty seafood chowder that tasted like the shrimp, scallops, and crab had leapt directly from the bay into her bowl, a hearty slice of brown bread with butter, and a pint of heavenly Guinness. After, she resisted the urge to fall into a happy food-coma, and took a stroll toward the bay just as the last shards of sunlight were hitting the gypsy caravan, setting the painted colors aglow. Tara stopped to drink in the beauty. Ever since dedicating herself to a few minutes of meditation every morning with a trusty phone app, Tara was noticing the little things more. She loved the marriage of colors on the caravan, the vibrant green eyes and long black lashes of the gypsy, her long hair streaked with rainbow colors. The artist had done an amazing job. Life was magical, yet so few stopped to observe these tiny miracles. There had been a time in her life when she let these slip by, when she ran herself ragged, and went from one problem to the next with hardly a breath in between. She vowed never to do that again. It was easier to practice in Ireland because here nature ran raw and wild, insisting with each lash of water against the rocky shore that one stop and pay attention.
Rose was hurrying toward the front door of the caravan as if she was being pursued. Tara had to run to catch her before she disappeared inside.
“Wait,” she called out from a few feet away. Rose’s hand had just touched the handle. She whirled around. This time she was wearing a black dress and mascara-tears streamed down her face. Tara took a few steps back. “Are you alright?”
Rose lifted a hand and pointed at her. “You,” she said. “I warned you!”
Murder in Galway Page 4
