"I'm not asking you for a date, Padraig," I retorted to his retreating back. "Just for a drink. Sullen men with chips on their shoulders are not my cup of tea. I mean do you fight with everybody on principle, or are you just having a bad day? And by the way, I don't care what girls of your acquaintance do." And don't call me a girl, I added to myself. He ignored me and kept going.
I looked back to see the old guys on the bench laughing so hard the tears were running down their cheeks. Two of them, that is. The third, who'd not yet spoken to me, appeared to be having a long discussion with either himself or a post on the pier.
"If yer not interested in sullen young men," Malachy said finally, wiping the tears from his eyes, "how do you feel about happy old ones? Dere's tree of us," he added, dropping the "h" in "th" the way many of the people in these parts appeared to. "I don't see so good, and Kev don't hear so good, and Denny, well, as you can see, Denny's a bit special, if you know what I mean. But put us together, we're someting."
I had to laugh, too. "Come on," Malachy said. "Take a pew." He gestured toward a broken-down old chair a few feet away. "Drink?" he said, pulling a bottle of whisky and a couple of tin cups out of a little bag beside the bench.
"A little too early in the day for me," I replied. "But thank you. I'm Lara," I said, shaking their hands in turn, before risking the chair. Even Denny broke off talking to himself long enough to shyly shake my hand. Malachy, Kev, and Denny, all dressed in gray wool pants, white shirts, and black fishermen's hats: "Brothers?" I asked. Malachy and Kev nodded in unison."Kev and me's brothers. Denny's our mate. We're all named for saints, you know: me for St. Malachy, Kev for St. Kevin, and Denny for St. Denis. Paddy too, of course, for the greatest Irish saint of them all, St. Padraig. He's not so bad, our Paddy," Malachy added when he'd stopped laughing long enough to catch his breath. "Bit of a chip on his shoulder, maybe. You might be right about that." The other two agreed.
"He'd do no such ting as run you down in the water," Kev said.
"And leavin' you dere to drown," Malachy added. He set the cups on the ground in front of the bench and carefully filled them, handing one each to his brother and friend, keeping the bottle for himself. "May you find yourself in heaven before the divil knows yer dead," he said, raising the bottle in a toast, and then taking a long swig. The others did the same.
"Paddy doesn't get along too well with the people at Second Chance, does he?" I asked. If Padraig wouldn't tell me himself, maybe these three would.
"Not so well at all," Malachy agreed, "but those boyos up dere at the big house don't much get on with anybody these days. Now Eamon, he liked the young lad. Gave him the boat, didn't he?" I waited, but he added nothing more. I was wondering how far I could push this line of inquiry before they got mad at me and clammed up. I had a feeling that, as a foreigner, I would be tolerated only as long as I behaved myself.
"It's nice here, and a lovely day," I said looking about me. And it was: the sea, the boats, the rocky coast stretching out in both directions, part of it shrouded in mist.
" 'Tis, tank God," Malachy agreed.
"Do you tink she'd like to hear a story?" Kev asked Malachy. "Denny tells a good story," he said to me. "No, she wouldn't," Denny said, suddenly, as if he'd come out of a trance.
"Sure, I would," I replied.
"Come on, Denny," Kev said. "Tell this nice young girl a story." I considered how irritating I found it when Gilhooly called me a girl, but how sweet I thought it was when Kev did. The path of feminism is not always simple.
"The young ones don't listen to Denny's stories anymore," Malachy whispered. "That's why he tells them to the post and the pier. So he won't forget them."
"What did you say?" Kev said, elbowing his brother. "Speak up!"
Malachy glared at him.
"Why doesn't he just write them down?" I asked.
Malachy looked horrified. "Dey can't be written down," he said. " 'Twould spoil them. They're too special for that."
"Tell her the one about the golden ring," Kev said, reaching over to poke his mate.
"No, that's no good," Malachy said. "Everybody knows that one. Tell her the one about the mirror. That's the best!"
Denny didn't say a word. "Okay, Denny," Malachy said in an exasperated tone. "Tell her whichever one you want."
"One of the old ones," Kev added. "I don't suppose you'd have someting to help Denny wet his whistle, now would you?" he said, looking dolefully at the now empty bottle. "A little liquid libation to get him going?"
"No, I'm afraid not," I replied, "not knowing that I was about to make your acquaintance. But I'll be sure to bring something next time I'm here," I added. "What does Denny like?""Whiskey, of course," Malachy said.
"Me too," Kev said. "It doesn't have to be really fine. Just about any whiskey will do."
"No, don't bring us the good stuff," Malachy agreed. " Tis no use acquiring the taste for that, our circumstances being what they are. A shame they keep perfectly good whiskey around so long without drinking it, anyway."
We all looked over at Denny.
"You'll just have to wait," Malachy whispered. "Denny talks when he wants to."
As we waited to see whether the spirit would move Denny, we all sat in companionable silence. I, of course, thought about the treasure hunt, as it had come to be called in my mind. I thought again about John Herlihy and the plunge to his death. It had to be linked to the treasure in some way, although how was not immediately apparent. Neither Deirdre nor Herlihy had been given an envelope to participate in the treasure hunt. It was a team-building exercise, to use that nau-seatingly overused business term, a ploy to get the family to work together. But Alex, Michael, and Gilhooly were included, for reasons I simply didn't know and couldn't guess.
On the surface at least, the ploy seemed to be working, with the family sticking together. We were seriously outnumbered, Alex and Michael against the rest: Breeta, Margaret, Eithne, Fionuala, Sean, Conail, and Padraig Gilhooly. I'd had unpleasant run-ins with two of the seven, if you counted Conail's nasty glance and the run-in with the boat as one, and counted Paddy as the second. If events unfolded the way they'd started, I had five more unpleasant encounters to go.
On the other hand, it was pretty hard to imagine that if Herlihy had been helped over the side-and I had to admit the jury was still out on that one-it could have to do with anything else but the treasure hunt. Alex had read his clue aloud, and everyone had heard him, Herlihy included. Perhaps Herlihy immediately linked it to the little boat, the Ocean Crest, in the cove and had made his way there as fast as his drunken legs would carry him, hoping to be cut in on the deal. If that had been the case, maybe one of the family had raced him to it, with deadly consequences. Once Herlihy's body had been found, the police were all over the site, and it would be difficult for any of them to get to the boat.
Maybe that's what Conail was up to. He'd been biding his time until the police left and was about to make his way down to the cove, when we breezed in from the sea. Or perhaps he'd been there already, but hadn't been able to find it. Seeing me pulling the little plastic packet out of the bow would certainly explain the ugly look on his face.
The other problem was the sodden scrap of paper I'd pulled out of the boat. I'd assumed that with only seven clues handed out at the reading of the Will, finding the treasure wouldn't be all that complicated: Put seven clues together, and presto, the treasure would be found. But if each clue led to another, did that mean there were fourteen clues, or even more? Or did it mean that there were seven separate trails that led to the treasure? I decided that the latter wouldn't be the case, because for all of them to pursue their separate ways would not accomplish the family salvation Byrne was hoping for. Maybe, I thought, the clue in the Ocean Crest wasn't a clue at all. I'd had a look at it, of course, as soon as we'd got to shore safely. It didn't look like much at all, although the writer had had the foresight to use ballpoint pen, so there was still ink to be seen. Morelike doodling than a clue. But if it was just doodling, why wrap it in plastic and hide it in the boat?