Scandal in Skibbereen (3 page)

“I bet the tourists love him,” Althea said drily.

Maura bit back a sharp remark: Billy was a local institution and on his way to being a friend, but Althea was right about his appeal. “They do, and he makes a point of entertaining them. Everybody leaves happy,” she said shortly. “So, do you want to talk to him or not?”

“Okay, if you think he’ll really be able to help. Would you ask him to come talk to us? But not here—somewhere where we won’t be overheard.”

“There’s Sheahan’s, the inn across the street. You could snag a corner table there, and you won’t be bothered. But why all the secrecy? And why do you need me?” Maura asked.

“Because I have a feeling I’ll need you as an interpreter,” Althea answered. “You know, like a go-between or whatever you want to call it. I don’t want to end up insulting someone, which I seem to keep doing. Please?”

Maura considered. It didn’t seem right to leave the pub at the busiest time of day—but since “busiest” meant maybe ten people, Rose could handle it, especially if her father managed to find his way back from Skibbereen or Mick came in. Besides, Maura had to admit she was curious. What could have led this woefully unprepared city girl to the wilds of West Cork?

“Okay. I need to get something to eat anyway, and I’m sure Billy would appreciate a meal. You’re buying.”

“Of course. Thank you. Can we go now?”

“We can start. It may take a while to get Billy out of his chair and moving.”

Althea stood up. “Then let’s do it.”

M
aura led the way back to the other end of the room. It looked like Rose had things well in hand. No sign of Jimmy, which didn’t surprise her. No sign of Mick yet either, which was more surprising: he was usually fairly prompt, at least by Irish standards, which were more flexible than she was used to. She checked her watch: it was only five thirty. She had to admit that, after a dark spring, she was glad that the days had lengthened at last. At school she had never quite figured out how the changes of the sun’s path translated to hours of daylight, but she enjoyed the results now. She made a beeline to Old Billy, who was holding forth from his favorite spot to a rapt audience of a tourist family of three. Maura couldn’t be sure whether they were fascinated by his tales, however, or completely bewildered by his thick accent. Thank goodness she’d grown up with her gran’s accent, but she knew it could be hard for outsiders to understand.

“Can I get you anything?” Maura asked the family, trying to be helpful.

They looked happy for the interruption. “No, no, thanks, we really should get back on the road . . . thank you so much, Mr. . . . uh. It was great to meet you. Come on, gang, time to get moving!” The father swept his small brood together and hustled them out of the pub, and Maura turned to Old Billy.

“Ah, Maura, if I’d had only a few more moments, sure and they would have bought me a pint.” He smiled to soften his statement.

“I’ve got a better offer for you, Billy. This nice American lady here has offered to buy you dinner if you’ll tell her some of your tales.”

“At the inn, will it be?” he asked, eyeing Althea appreciatively.

“Sure, fine, at the inn,” Althea said impatiently. Maura sent her a look, trying to tell her to slow down. Billy took his own time, and he’d earned that right after eighty-some years.

“Ah, that’s grand,” Billy said. “Give me a bit to get meself out of my chair here—my old bones don’t work as fast as they once did.”

“No hurry, Billy. I’ll just tell Rose we’re off,” Maura assured him.

Leaving Althea pacing while Billy extricated himself from the depths of the sprung chair, Maura went back to the bar to have a word with Rose.

“What’s that about, then?” Rose whispered.

“The lady in black, whose name, by the way, is Althea, wants to know something about the local gentry, and I figured Billy would be her best source, since I don’t know anything. But she wants me along anyway, to help with Billy, so I’ll be going too. Your father should be back soon, and Mick said he’d be in at six. If you have any problems just ring me on my mobile, all right?”

Rose smiled. “I think I can manage well enough. You’ll be having supper at Sheahan’s?”

“We will—Althea said she’d buy. I wonder if she has a place to stay yet. I hear Sheahan’s rooms are all booked.”

“Somehow I don’t think the likes of her would feel at home upstairs there. Maybe you could send her over to Skib.”

Good idea,
Maura thought. Skibbereen, population close to three thousand, might not be large by New York standards, but it was the biggest town around and had a decent hotel. Leap didn’t have much to offer, beyond Sheahan’s and a few bed-and-breakfasts. “I’ll wait and see what she wants. Thanks, Rose. I’ll be back after we eat.”

Maura turned to find that Billy was now on his feet, if a bit unsteady—from age, not from drink. Billy could nurse a single pint longer than anyone she’d seen. Althea had taken a step back, probably because she’d gotten a whiff of Billy. He was a good and kind man, but Maura doubted if his clothes had been cleaned within the last year. Or longer.

“Are you ready, then, Billy?” Maura asked.

“That I am. And it will be my pleasure to escort two such lovely ladies across the way.”

Now that it was summer, traffic on the main road had increased by a hundred percent, which meant a car passed about once every thirty seconds. Still, it took Billy some time to cross the wide road, and Maura and Althea flanked him to be sure no hurrying car came too close. It took another minute or so for Billy to make his slow way up the steps in front of Sheahan’s door, and then he proudly led the way into the bar area there. He raised a hand to the woman behind the bar, who smiled at the sight of him.

“Well, if it isn’t Cousin Billy! I thought you’d grown roots in your seat at Sullivan’s!” she said. “Maura, your profits will drop like a stone in a well with him here.”

“Don’t worry, Ann, I’ll be sure to take him back over again. Can we have some supper by the fire there?” Maura waved toward a cozy corner.

“Sure, till the lads start coming for the darts later.”

“We’ll be out of your way by then.”

“Will you be needing menus?” the woman asked.

“Uh, please?” Althea said, looking none too thrilled at her shabby surroundings.

Maura made sure that Billy was settled in the seat nearest the fire. She let Althea take the corner seat, then settled in the one closer to the main room. Ann returned and handed out single-page laminated menus. Althea took one look and winced; Maura ignored her. When Ann returned, bringing a foaming pint for Billy without asking, she asked, “What can I bring yeh to eat?”

“I’ll be having the lamb dinner,” Billy said. Maura asked for the same.

Althea still looked pained. “Could I have just a salad, please? And a glass of water?”

“No problem. Maura, what’ll you be drinking?”

“A glass of Murphy’s, please.” Maura had a secret preference for Guinness, but since Murphy’s was brewed in nearby Cork city, she felt she had to show some regional loyalty, at least occasionally.

“Grand. And you, miss?” she asked Althea.

“Oh, just water for me. And could you put a slice of lemon in it?”

“Lemon it is. I’ll bring you some bread while you wait for your meals.” She left to go through a door behind the bar, where the sound of clanking pots emanated from the kitchen behind. Maura knew that Ann ran both the front of the house, when her husband wasn’t around, and the kitchen, with the help of two young servers, although she had no clue how she managed it all. She returned quickly with a plate of brown bread and a small crock of butter.

“I’ll bring yer drinks now,” Ann said, returning a few minutes later to set the glasses down in front of Maura and Althea. “Half a moment with the food, then.”

“No hurry,” Maura said. There seldom
was
much hurry around Ireland, she’d found. Maybe things in Dublin moved a bit quicker. Maybe someday she’d find out, if she had the time and the money and was sure that someone would keep an eye on Sullivan’s while she was gone.

Billy raised his glass to his companions. “May your glass be ever full.” He took a long swallow of his pint and looked very happy. Maura couldn’t blame him: free drink, free food, and the company of two women a third his age—as far as Maura could tell, this was Billy’s idea of heaven.

Althea leaned forward. “Look, can we . . .”

She was interrupted by Ann, returning with their plates. Ann set the more heavily laden ones in front of Billy and Maura: several slices of roast lamb, resting on a bed of mashed potatoes, the whole slathered with brown gravy. Then she set a plate heaped high with mixed greens in front of Althea, turned, and headed back to the kitchen.

“Did you know that your meal is called ‘mixed leaves’ over here?” Maura said with a straight face.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Althea muttered. “Now, Billy, what I wanted . . .”

Ann reappeared bearing a bowl heaped with boiled potatoes and another overflowing with cooked carrots and kale. “All set?” she asked, then left without waiting for an answer. Billy reached for the bowl of potatoes.

Althea was staring with horror at the laden table. “You’ve got to be kidding. They serve potatoes with a side of potatoes here?”

“They do,” Maura said, taking the bowl from Billy. “You know, they’re good for you, unless you load on the butter—no cholesterol, good roughage, and plenty of vitamin C. A lot of Irish people survived on them for years, with not much else except a bit of milk and butter. Are you good, Billy?”

“I’m grand, thanks. It’s always a treat to eat here at the inn. Although I’d be pleased if you’d start offering food at Sullivan’s.”

“What, so you wouldn’t have to walk as far?” Maura laughed. “One step at a time, Billy. I’m still sorting out how the place works, and I haven’t even seen full tourist season yet. But I’m thinking about it.”

There was a minute of silence as all three dug into their meals. Maura forked up a piece of lamb. It wasn’t gourmet, but it tasted good.

Not surprisingly, Althea finished her salad first. “Can we talk now? Before this place gets too noisy?”

Maura looked around the room: there were maybe ten people in it, mostly men, in twos and threes, all raptly watching some sports event on one of the two high-def televisions, tuned to different stations. Nobody was paying their corner the slightest attention. “How about you start by telling us what you want to know.”

Althea took a moment to gather her thoughts and looked back and forth between Billy, happily chewing his way through his generous portion of lamb, and Maura. “I’ve been trying to track down rich families in this area from way back, most of whom aren’t even around anymore, which I probably should have guessed if I’d had any time to think about it, and I’m running out of time and this is the last place left on my list.” She looked around and signaled to Ann at the bar, who walked over to their table. “I need a drink. You have Johnnie Walker?”

“I do.”

“Make it a double.”

Billy was still absorbed by his food, but Maura could tell that Althea was wound up tight about something or other. She forced herself to wait and let Althea tell her story her own way.

Ann approached, deposited a glass on a napkin in front of Althea, and retreated silently.

Althea picked up the glass and downed half of it, then sighed. “Better. All right, here goes. I work in a midsize museum in New York”—she mentioned a name that Maura didn’t recognize, even though Althea seemed to expect her to—“and over the past year or two I’ve worked on a team that’s been putting together a major exhibition, called Portraiture and Social Class, which is supposed to open in October. It’s a really interesting subject. We’re juxtaposing commissioned portraits of the nobility with contemporaneous depictions of peasantry and following the evolution of each over a few centuries.” Althea paused when she realized that both Billy and Maura were staring blankly at her. “Okay, I’ll cut to the chase. Since it’s already June, the exhibit is pretty much locked in now, and the catalog is ready to go to press. In fact, it’s already late.” Althea took a smaller swallow from her drink. “Then, about two weeks ago, I got a call from an appraiser friend of mine who works at an auction gallery in New Jersey.”

“New Jersey? That’s near Philadelphia, isn’t it, now? I was there once,” Billy said, unruffled.

Billy had been to the United States? That was news to Maura—she would have bet that he had never been more than fifty miles from where he was born. The man was full of surprises.

“So what was that about?” Maura said.

“Well, every so often they hold an open house, invite people to bring in their treasures and have an appraiser take a look at them. Kind of like
Antiques Roadshow
, on television?”

“I’ve seen it,” Maura said. Usually a bunch of clueless people who brought in Aunt Minnie’s chamber pot and wondered if it was worth thousands.

“I’ve seen it on the BBC here,” Billy added proudly.

“So you get the general idea. Great,” Althea resumed. “Anyway, my friend, Nate Reynolds, called me and said, ‘There’s something you should see.’ And I said, ‘Can it wait?’ And he said, ‘No, it can’t.’ So I went out to Jersey to take a look at what had him so excited, and I saw what he meant. A woman had brought in a small painting, wrapped up in a blanket, and said she’d inherited it from her great-aunt but had no clue what it was. Nate had a pretty good idea, but he wanted me to take a look at it to confirm it. It was a seventeenth-century oil sketch of a young man, probably around thirty, and I’d stake my life that it’s an original Van Dyck!”

Althea looked expectantly at her audience, but Maura and Billy merely stared blankly back at her. Maura made a time-out sign. “Okay, I get it that you’re excited, but my high school didn’t teach art history, so you’re going to have to tell us who this Van Dyck guy is and why he’s important.”