"I think he did what he said he would do. He went back to Second Chance to get Vigs. He could let himself in at the back door. The staff had keys to the staff entrance. It was late…"
"Not all that late, but the family, that is Sean, Eithne, and Margaret claim to have gone to bed very early, and didn't hear a thing. Deirdre has a room up in the attic, so she probably wouldn't have heard anything. She claims she didn't. She does say, though, that she saw Conail creeping around outside the house. She looked out the window, apparently. It was raining a little, so it might have been difficult to see in the dark, but she says she recognized his walk and his shape. Conail is adamant that he went nowhere near the place."
"So Michael would have gone looking for Vigs. Deirdre had Vigs, though. She gave him to me when she went to Dublin. That may mean Michael didn't find Vigs, that he never made it into the house, or that he did and took him outside. Did Deirdre say where she found Vigs?"
"In the house, she says."
"So Michael could have run into Conail before he got into the house. And then what? Conail stabs him with a hypodermic?"
"Conail doesn't seem to have a drug problem, just an alcohol and temper problem," Rob replied. "These Irish do seem to like their drink, don't they? Almost a stereotype, some of them. But I don't know. Conail insists he didn't see Michael that evening at all. Too busy yelling at his wife to have seen Michael in the bar at the Inn, apparently. The question is, even if he did, why kill him? Just because he'd had a very bad day? It wasn't Michael's fault Conail's wife ditched him, although I suppose she could have been flirting with him. She was flashing a fair amount of leg around that evening, chest too, if I remember correctly."
I smiled to myself. I'd thought he was so besotted with Maeve that he hadn't noticed Fionuala, but apparently he had.
"And it wasn't Michael who flattened him out at Malachy and Kevin's place: It was our very own Alex." He grinned. "Sure wish I'd been there to see that. So what would he kill Michael for?"
"For a clue?" I said. "Michael had a clue in his hand, part of one at least."
"We've looked into the clues, of course, talked to those lawyers, McCafferty and McGlynn, one of them anyway. I can't seem to tell them apart," he said, checking his notes. "McCafferty it was. He says they had nothing to do with hiding the second set of clues and didn't know who did. Nor did they know which line of the poem went in each of the envelopes. I suppose we have to believe him, being a fellow member of the justice system and all that." "Did you find out what clues everyone had? That would be important, wouldn't it?"
"Of course I did," Rob said. "I'm a seasoned crime investigator, remember? Conail and Fionuala got one about," he stopped and looked at his file again, "a ray of the sun. Conail showed it to me, or rather he threw it at me. Margaret claims to have destroyed hers, without looking at it, so it could be anything; Eithne and Sean got the clue about the stag of seven slaughters; Padraig Gilhooly got…"
"Salmon in a pool," I interjected. "Michael got the furious wave, Alex, the sea-swell. The trouble is there are more clues than people, or original envelopes if you will. The beauty of the plant might have been Breeta's clue, the one stolen from the safe at Second Chance. Michael must have found it-maybe he wrestled Conail for it. Michael was awfully fond of Breeta, and he'd not want anyone else to get her clue."
"Wrestled Conail or somebody else," he replied. "Could be. Or maybe he just found it in the house somewhere. A lot of speculation isn't there? We'll keep seeing what we can get from Conail. Ban Garda Minogue is interrogating him now." I noticed he always referred to her as Minogue in my presence and never Maeve. "We haven't got enough evidence to hold him for the murder-at this point it's her word against his-but fortunately perhaps, he's given us another reason to keep him here. Garda Murphy might not agree it's fortuitous, of course. His nose is being looked at right now. Broken, most likely, and swelling up something fierce. By the way," he said, "can you decipher this?" He handed me a sheet of paper, one that I'd come to recognize, with Eamon Byrne's initials and Second Chance at the top.
"Conail's clue?"
"Yup. He gave it to us. Said it was a worthless piece of junk. Jennifer told me you'd all been able to decipher any that turned up, ogham or something I think she said."
"It is. Alex is really the expert. He broke the code, so to speak. I recognize some of the letters now, but I'd have to have my cheat sheet. It's in a safety-deposit box at the Inn. Make me a copy, and I'll go right back there, do it and call you back."
"Thanks," he smiled. "That will save us some time. I already have a copy, so here it is. I'd like the rest of the clues, too, if you don't mind, although I gather they don't say much. Don't say anything about Deirdre's accusations, will you? We don't want to reveal our source to the family, most especially to Conail himself. We've just told him that an unspecified someone passing by saw him hanging around there. How's Jennifer doing, by the way? She's all right, isn't she? I haven't seen her much lately, but she seems happy."
The question I'd been dreading. I looked about me. There was one garda, Rob's deskmate, working just a few feet away, two others well within earshot. Somehow, I didn't think this was the time to tell him his daughter thought she was in love with an Irish sailor twice her age. "She's okay," I said. "But I think she misses you and your fatherly guidance." There, that was a big hint. "You should try and spend some time with her, just the two of you, so you can talk."
"Yes," he replied. "I should, and I will. I'm sure she's getting plenty of guidance from you, though. Just like you're guiding me, right now." He smiled. "Thanks for the advice."
I got up to leave. If he thought I was giving his daughter guidance, he wasn't going to be too pleased with the result. "Since I'm dispensing advice right now, I have some more for you. Get some sleep," I said as I headed out the door. I heard him chuckle, but didn't look around.
Conail and Fionuala's clue, the ray of the sun, was Grianan Ailech to Granard down the line of the noonday sun. No more helpful than any of the rest. I wrote them all down on a piece of paper and dropped them off at the garda station for Rob on the way to my next buying expedition. I'd heard there was an auction at a town on the other side of the Dingle Peninsula called Ballyferriter. I stopped off for a bite of lunch at a little wine bar on the main street of town and found, to my surprise, Jennifer and Gilhooly, Malachy and Kevin. I smiled at her and the two brothers, and glared at Gilhooly.
"How'd you get all the way over here?" I asked them.
"Paddy borrowed a van," Jennifer said, gesturing toward the window. A dilapidated van sat outside.
"We've found another clue," Jennifer said. "I made a copy of Uncle Alex's ogham table and brought it along."
"It's a mystery," Malachy said. Jennifer handed me the paper.
"All seen and seeing ring of fire," I read. "Which line of the poem did this one come from?"
"A flame of valor," Malachy replied. "And we've found another one, the one that goes with he who clears the mountain paths. Kev here had the idea that would refer to Mt. Brandon, named after St. Brandon, so we hiked all the way up the path to a cairn, and found it there."
"That's great," I said.
"Not entirely," Malachy said. "Tere's a small problem with it, you see. 'Twas hidden the same way as the others, and it has Byrne's initials on it and everything."
"But?"
"But it's blank! Here, take a look."
I looked. The now familiar paper was there, but it was, as Malachy said, quite blank.
"What does this mean?" Jennifer asked no one in particular. "The paper doesn't look as if it's ever been wet, or anything. Like the ink might have washed away."