The Celtic Riddle Read online

  Jennifer looked wounded. “That’s disgusting!” she exclaimed. At least she and I agreed on something in this conversation.

  “The thing is,” she went on. “I think I’m in love with him.”

  Yes, Rob was going to kill me. But he’d torture me first.

  Chapter Ten

  A LAKE IN A PLAIN

  YOU were asking me about the gifts of the gods. Let me tell you about Lugh. There’s many a fine tale about that one, sometimes called Samildanach for his many talents, of which I’m planning to tell you more, or Lamfada, Long arm, for his prowess with spear and sling. ’Tis Lugh we are celebrating, whether we remember it or not, at the August harvest festival of Lughnasa.

  ’Twas Lugh who convinced Nuada Argat-lam, king of the Tuatha dé Danaan, to throw off the yoke of the oppressors, those Fomorians, demons that they were, who were exacting great hardship on the Tuatha dé, so much so that even the great Dagda was doing service for them. But first Lugh had to get into Nuada’s royal court, a mighty feat in itself.

  But to go back to his beginnings: Lugh was part Fomorian, believe it or not. His mother was Eithne, daughter of Balor of the Evil Eye, a vile giant who was king of the Fomorians. Balor got his name because one glance of his eye would kill you dead on the spot. Now Balor was living up in the north of Ireland on Tory Island and he kept Eithne locked up in a tower because of a prophecy that he would be killed by his grandson. Balor, you can understand, was determined there wouldn’t be one. But Kian of the Tuatha dé held a grudge against Balor and, dressed as a woman, got into Eithne’s tower. Just what you might expect happened: Eithne bore triplets. The dreadful Balor had them thrown over a cliff to be drowned.

  But one didn’t die and grew up to be a man, quite unlike any other, a god really, of formidable strength and talents: Lugh Lamfada. Lugh presented himself at the court of Nuada Argat-lam, Nuada Silver Arm, and asked to be in service to the king. The doorkeeper wouldn’t let him in. “I’m a carpenter, ” says Lugh. “We already have one of those, ” says the doorkeeper. “I’m a smith, ” says Lugh. “We’ve one of those already too. ” And so it went, weaver, poet, harper, man of science, and many more. And to each the doorkeeper said, “We have one of those. ”

  “But do you have one who is all of these?” Lugh countered at last, and Nuada let him in. And a good thing it was, too, for it was Lugh as much as anyone led the victory against the Formorians.

  As for the gifts of the gods: Lugh had one of them, the spear from the magic city of Gorias, a spear against which no battle was ever won.

  Second Chance went up for sale. There were no unseemly signs stuck into the beautifully manicured lawns, which were, quite frankly, beginning to show the lack of Michael’s attention. Instead, there was a discreet notice in the local paper suggesting interested parties direct their enquiries to McCafferty and McGlynn, Solicitors, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin.

  Eamon Byrne’s body was barely cold—it was not two months since he’d been buried—and already his family’s fortunes were on the downward spiral he had predicted just before his demise. One of his businesses, a distribution company, had posted a significant loss, and I got the impression from the news reports that investors were leaving the Byrne empire in droves.

  The buzz in town was that Margaret Byrne would not be replacing either John Herlihy or Michael, at least not full time. A part-time gardener was being sought to keep up the grounds until the house could be sold. They were also looking for a housekeeper/cook to come in for a few hours a day to keep the household in order. Needless to say, with the rumors swirling around about what had happened to John and Michael, no one was lining up for the job.

  Breeta had found employment, however, although the position was far beneath the capabilites of the young woman who had recited “Song of Amairgen” in a bar not that long ago. I suppose that, all alone, with a baby on the way and no inheritance, she took what she could get, in this case, a job as a waitress in a restaurant in Dingle Town. I had tried to track her down after our initial conversation after the funeral, without success. She’d given up her flat in Killarney and left no forwarding address. I’d seen her a couple of times on the streets of Dingle Town since then, but she’d crossed the street to avoid me.

  At last I caught sight of her through the window of the cafe, and had gone in and sat down at a table. She was the only one there, and I figured she’d have to say something to me. I was wrong. She stood at my table, pushed a lank piece of hair out of her eyes, and just looked at me, pen poised over her order pad.

  “Hello, Breeta,” I said. “I’ve been looking for you, hoping to talk to you again.” She said nothing. The silence between us lengthened. “I was wondering if we could get together, after you get off work, perhaps, for a chat.” Still nothing.

  “Tea with lemon,” I said finally. “And perhaps a cheese sandwich.”

  She turned without a word and walked away, returning a few minutes later with my order, which she placed in front of me with what seemed to be a deafening clatter.

  “I’m very sorry that what I said last time upset you so much,” I said. I meant that, too, although I still wasn’t sure if she’d been the person to trash our room or not. She said she wasn’t looking for the treasure. Maybe. But if that really were the case, perhaps she was actively trying to stop the rest of us from looking. In any event, she turned away without a word.

  “If I can help you in any way...” I said helplessly to her retreating back. I looked down at the tea and sandwiches, and realized I couldn’t eat a bite under the circumstances. I left some money on the table and walked away.

  Despite all the gossip in town about the cause of the two deaths, and my personal apprehension, the second autopsy on John Herlihy’s body had not turned up any poison and had merely confirmed what we already knew: that John Herlihy was a drinker of serious proportions. Michael had been killed by an overdose of heroin, bad heroin, and there being no other indications he’d used drugs before, let alone been an addict, this was still being investigated as murder.

  I hadn’t yet told Rob about Jennifer and Gilhooly, although I still intended to do so, despite Jennifer’s pleading. I told her I’d give her a couple of days to break it to him herself, but it was difficult for her to find a quiet and private time with him to do so. Rob was spending a great deal of his time with the gardai, or at least one of them, trying to solve Michael’s murder, and he wasn’t around much in the evenings either. He’d taken to smoking, something he’d told me he’d given up when Jennifer was born. The men-sex-smoking thing being what it is, I assumed his relationship with Maeve had moved to a more intimate plane, but perhaps he took it up again in self-defense—so many people in Ireland had the habit and the restaurants and pubs were filled with smoke most of the time. We didn’t discuss it, although I gave him many a disapproving look on the few occasions he lit up in my presence.

  Occasionally, he’d stop by and have a bite to eat with Jennifer and me at the Inn, but the place was invariably crowded, and when I tried to leave them alone together, it just didn’t work out. I’d come back after hiding out in my room for several minutes to find Aidan telling Rob and Jennifer a joke, or Malachy and Kevin would have sat down at the table and ordered a beer. Rob was very distracted and would occasionally rouse himself from the private world he was inhabiting to ask me how I was doing and ask Jennifer how her sailing lessons were going, but that was about it. I’d never seen him like this, and was occasionally tempted to shock him back to reality by telling him Jennifer might well be learning more than how to sail with Paddy Gilhooly, but somehow it just didn’t seem fair.

  Alex had taken himself off to stay at Rose Cottage for a few days. He said he wanted to try the place out before he decided what he wanted to do about it, but I figured that as much as anything he just wanted to get a good night’s sleep without Rob creeping in and out at odd hours. The idea of Alex staying alone at Rose Cottage—I couldn’t go with him and leave Jennifer alone all night, that much was cert
ain—caused a frenzy of anxiety for me. I told myself that it was because I was worried about his health, and his proximity to Second Chance, and the possibility of a murderer there. He told me not to fuss. The compromise was he had to take my cell phone and meet me for a pub lunch, usually splendid fish and chips and a pint of Guinness for him, Kilkenny for me, almost every day.

  Jennifer, needless to say, was consumed by her sailing lessons, and all that these entailed.

  All of which meant that I was left on my own, feeling generally out of sorts. I felt abandoned somehow, bereft, with everyone else involved in something different—Rob with his Maeve, Jennifer with her Paddy, Alex with his Rose—none of which included me. In the end, I concluded I was just not myself, for reasons I could only explain as the aftermath of finding two bodies and being so far away from home.

  So I did what I always do when I am in the thrall of feelings that I consider beneath my dignity: I threw myself into my work, or at least I tried to. I called Sarah a couple of times to see how things were going, but she sounded remarkably calm about my extended stay in Ireland, a fact I had trouble believing. I could only assume that this tranquility on her part meant that Clive had taken over control of the store, a thought that I translated into visions of returning eventually to find the place cold and dark, with Clive’s shop across the road a mecca of bright lights for antiques enthusiasts everywhere. After a couple of nights of waking up in a cold sweat, I broke down and called Moira.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said, to my question about how things in general were. I was working my way around to subject of the shop gradually.

  “Sarah must be exhausted by now looking after the place by herself,” I said, testing the waters.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said matter-of-factly. “She seems to be getting along all right. Clive has found her a co-op student, someone studying merchandising at the community college, to help her out a couple of hours a day after class. Sarah says the kid’s terrific.”

  Kid, I thought. Knowing Clive this would be some nubile young thing who liked to sit on older men’s knees. Moira had better keep her eye on him.

  “And Ben thinks this is the best thing that’s happened to him since he started the course,” she continued. Ben, I thought, in amazement. So, no nubile young thing. What was the catch? Maybe Ben cost a fortune. Maybe Clive was bankrupting me.

  “He’s cheap too,” Moira went on. “The school picks up half his wages as part of the course.”

  Much to my surprise, even after several more pointed questions, I could find nothing to fault with Clive’s activities. I didn’t know whether I was relieved or disappointed. “That’s great,” was what I said.

  “Clive has an idea he’d like to discuss with you when you get back,” Moira said. “A little joint promotion idea he’s come up with. I won’t tell you about it, because he’ll want to. I think it’s a terrific idea, though.”

  “Oh, I don’t know ...” I said. There was a pause in the conversation.

  “Lara,” Moira said. “We have never discussed this business, Clive and I, I mean. I know it’s been difficult for you, and I’ve never felt that you wanted to talk about it, which I really feel badly about, because until Clive and I got together, you and I had always been able to discuss everything. And maybe a transatlantic call isn’t the right time, but Clive is really trying hard. He knows how much your friendship means to me. I’ve told him. I’ve told him that I’ve been through a lot of men in the time you and I have been friends, and that I intend for us to be friends forever. I’ve really been hoping that despite your nasty divorce, the two of you could get along.”

  I kind of doubted that Clive and I could ever really get along, but Moira’s friendship meant as much to me as it apparently did to her, and I figured I’d better try. “I’m sure we can,” I said.

  “Great!” she said happily. “Now tell me what’s happening over there.”

  So I told her, about the family, the Will, about Second Chance and its gardens, the treasure hunt, and finally, the murders.

  “Am I understanding this right?” Moira asked. “It’s the servants that are getting offed, not the family members? Isn’t this a bit odd?”

  “It is,” I agreed.

  “Did the servants have clues?”

  “Michael Davis did. John Herlihy didn’t. Neither did Deirdre Flood, though she’s still among the living.”

  “Why give it to only one of them? Was Michael the only non-family member that got a clue?”

  “Paddy Gilhooly, also a non-family member, got one. His connection with the family, at least the only one I’ve come across, is that he dated Breeta Byrne, the youngest daughter, and that the family objected and Breeta left home. She’s not dating him anymore. Deirdre was a relatively recent arrival in the household, less than five years, she said, so it would make sense she wouldn’t get one. It’s a bit surprising about Herlihy, though, because I got the impression he’d been with the family forever. Michael had been there for a while, but not much longer than Deirdre. I’d have expected that Herlihy would have got one, although he got a sizable amount of money from the Will. Deirdre got some too, although not as much. Michael got something somewhere in between, if I remember correctly, plus some extra money if he went back to school. Which he won’t be doing,” I added sadly.

  “Are you sure this is about the treasure, then?” Moira asked. “I mean, if Herlihy didn’t get a clue, maybe it’s about something entirely different.”

  “That’s a good question,” I replied. “But it’s the only thing I can think of. This treasure, if it exists, is supposed to be worth something. And what else could it be?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “Don’t they say the motive is almost always money or passion? The treasure is the only money angle, I suppose.”

  “Well, the money that John and Michael got reverts to the family, according to their solicitor, but I can’t imagine it’s enough to kill for.”

  “So what about the passion motive? A family secret or something. A horrible secret from Byrne’s past. Am I overdoing this, do you think?” she laughed. “All right then, a grudge of some sort. A former gardener, say, a psycho, who was fired by Herlihy for killing the orchids and who got back at Herlihy and his replacement. A little farfetched, I admit. But what about this Gilhooly fellow? Maybe he thought he was going to marry a fortune, and then was disappointed. But then,” she said, answering her own question, “he wouldn’t kill the staff for that, now would he? It’s a mystery, all right.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “There are hints, from time to time, of something in Byrne’s past, but it must have been a very long time ago, if at all, because he’s been here for at least thirty years, and no one around here seems to know anything specific. But I have another problem I could use your advice on, Moira, since you mention Gilhooly,” I added, then told her about Jennifer’s escapades.

  “Aieee!” she exclaimed. “Thirty-five or -six? This is bad. I think you had better tell Rob,” she said after a minute’s contemplation. “If you leave it too long, he’ll think you’re a party to this whole thing, that you’ve been hiding it from him, or worse, maybe even helping them get together. I’d give Jennifer about five minutes more to tell him, if I were you, and then, if she doesn’t, you do it!”

  “You’re right, as usual, Moira,” I said. “I’ve been intending to do it. It’s just that Rob has a new friend, a police officer by the name of Maeve Minogue. I think it’s serious, and he isn’t spending much time with Jennifer and me.”

  “What!” Moira exclaimed. “Are you telling me Rob has a girlfriend over there?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Oh,” Moira said. I could hear disappointment in her voice.

  “Moira!” I said. I knew what that tone meant.

  “I know,” she said. “I sort of had him in mind for you. He’s kind of cute, isn’t he? Steady job. Steady kind of guy, in fact. I thought he’d be good for you. And you for him,” she added lo
yally. “He can be a bit of a tight ass, and you’d lighten him up. I thought you two would be perfect together, in fact.”

  I laughed. Moira is always trying to fix me up with somebody. What are your women friends for, I suppose.

  “Don’t laugh. What about Jennifer? You like her, too, don’t you? Don’t you think they make a nice package deal?”

  “I like Jennifer very much. In fact, I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying her company, and Rob’s a lovely guy,” I said. “But he and I would drive each other crazy. Do drive each other crazy, and we’re just friends. I’d give up on him if I were you.”

  “We’ll see,” she replied, in a tone I’d come to recognize as only a temporary retreat. “In the meantime, be careful. Don’t go near that awful family.”

  “Okay,” I replied, and I meant it. I’d made up my mind to give up on this treasure thing, at least for a while, and get back to business. Nobody had died in a while, after all, and there had been no more threatening incidents. Maybe Moira was right, and it was about something else entirely. “I’m going to have a look around for some antiques while I’m here. I might as well do something useful until they let us go home, which I sincerely hope will be soon.”

  “Good,” she said. “Let us know when you’re flying back. We’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “Thanks,” I said, but knew I wouldn’t. Being picked up at the airport by Clive was more than I could manage, friendship with Moira notwithstanding, but I knew I’d have to try harder. “Tell Clive how much I appreciate what he’s doing for Sarah and the store, and that I can’t wait to hear his idea for the promotion,” I said, gritting my teeth.

  “I will,” she said, sounding pleased.

  When I’d hung up, I resolutely turned to execute my decision to tend to business right away. I called my shipper in Toronto, Dave Thomson, and asked for names of contacts I could use to send stuff home if I found anything. Then I called my bank and had them fax a letter of introduction to the Inn. Next, I made enquiries of the proprietors about places to look for furniture of the antique variety, old houses up for sale and so on, and armed with a couple of leads, headed out in the car to see what I could find. I spent a pleasant enough afternoon and was rewarded with a couple of great purchases a terrific dining room suite, early 1800s, and a beautiful silver tea service that I was so in love with, I thought I might keep for myself if it didn’t sell soon after I put it out for sale, within minutes, say. After making arrangements to have them picked up and taken to a shipper in Waterford, I went back to the Inn feeling altogether pleased with myself, promising myself a nice glass of wine as a reward, and to do the same thing again the next day.