Buried in a Bog (11 page)

She washed her hands one last time, noting the poor water pressure. Was that due to the plumbing? For that matter, how old was the plumbing—or the building? From what she’d seen around here, construction styles in the village hadn’t changed much in a century or so, which made it hard to tell. Rose had scrubbed the top of the bar, and Maura could see the grain of the wood for the first time. A quick
glance around the room told her that Rose had been diligent while Maura had been busy in the back; most of the surfaces gleamed, and the windows sparkled.

“Great job, Rose! This place looks a whole lot better,” Maura said sincerely.

“All I did was clean the tops a bit—I saved the floor to tackle later.”

“I’ll bet your father will be impressed.”

Rose waved a hand dismissively. “Ah, he wouldn’t notice. My ma showed me how to clean, and I’ve been keeping our place up since she…passed.”

“I’m sorry—has it been long?”

“Going on two years.” Rose swallowed. “I miss her still. My da tells me you never knew your own mother?”

“No,” Maura said without elaborating. She’d already told that story more often in the last day then she’d done in years. She turned the conversation back to Rose. “So, do you have any brothers and sisters?”

Rose shook her head. “No, there’s only me. And yourself?”

“Same here. I don’t know how Gran would have coped if there’d been more than me.”

The door opened, and Maura was surprised to see two twenty-something men shamble in. One nodded to a table in the back corner and headed in that direction; the other came over to the bar and said, “Two pints,” then turned away to join his friend.

“Friendly sorts,” Maura said in a low voice. Most people she’d served so far had at least greeted her, and they often chatted while waiting for their pints to settle. “Local?”

Rose studied them briefly. “I don’t know them.” When
the pints were ready, she took them over to the men, who looked up and nodded without smiling. When she came back to the bar, she changed the subject. She reached under the bar and pulled out a pile of letters, pushing them toward Maura. “I found these under the bar here while I was cleaning up. Should I give them to Da?”

Maura sorted through them. Mostly bills—presumably those should go to Jimmy or Mick, whichever was handling the books for the pub. They hadn’t been opened, though the dates on them were fairly recent. But there was one personal letter, handwritten, whose envelope had been slit open. Maura pulled it from the stack and was startled to see an Australian return address. She looked up at Rose. “Australia! Did Old Mick know anyone there?”

Rose craned her neck to look. “Nice stamp. No, I can’t say as he did. Wonder why the letter came here instead of to his home? I’m surprised Old Mick left it here—he was real private. But maybe he was feeling poorly and forgot to take it home with him.”

“How did he die?” Maura asked, hoping she wasn’t about to learn that he’d dropped dead in the pub.

“He went easy. He didn’t come in one morning, and when Mick went looking for him, he found him in his bed, gone. Old Mick was well into his nineties, anyways.”

“How long ago was this?” Maura asked. She wondered briefly what local regulations might be for burying someone; she was more familiar than she wanted to be with the American customs.

“Ten days, is it now?” Rose calculated in her head. “There was talk of waiting to put him in the ground until a next of kin was found, but nobody was sure where to look, since
most of his family’s long gone. The Sullivans have a plot behind the church, so they put him there. The funeral filled the church—everyone knew Old Mick.”

No wonder things were so unsettled about the pub. “Maybe we should look at the letter. If it’s personal, someone might be hoping for an answer, and at the very least they should be told that Old Mick is gone.”

“Go on, then—read it. It’s already open,” Rose said.

Feeling vaguely guilty, Maura pulled two sheets of paper from the envelope and scanned them quickly. They were covered with dense script, and it took her a moment to decipher what the writer, Denis Flaherty, was saying. Denis wrote that he was in his eighties and working on his own family history and thought that Old Mick might know something about the local McCarthys, from his mother’s side. It appeared to be an out-of-the-blue letter, and the first that Denis had written to Mick, because he took the time to introduce himself as the son of Bridget McCarthy, and he wondered if she was the sister of Ellen McCarthy, Old Mick’s mother, but he couldn’t be sure because he’d only learned bits and pieces from his family in Australia. Genealogy, then. Something Maura had had no particular interest in, and that Gran hadn’t encouraged—indeed, she’d often said that she’d made her choice to find a new life in America and looking backward was useless. And what was it with all these Denises and Bridgets and whatever? Mrs. Nolan had mentioned something about traditional naming patterns, but this was ridiculous. How did anybody keep straight who was who, and who was related to whom? Of course, they’d probably known all their lives, unlike her.

“What’s it about?” Rose asked.

“It’s a letter from some guy in Australia who’s looking for some of his relatives or ancestors around here. He thought Old Mick might be able to help, because he might be related.”

“Who’s he looking for, then?”

“His name’s Denis Flaherty, but he’s looking for his mother’s people. Her name was Bridget McCarthy. Do you know of any McCarthys around here?”

Rose giggled. “At least a dozen. I was at school with a few.”

“Should I ask people at the pub if they can help this Denis? I hate to just send the letter back, and I don’t know who’s who around here or where to find them.”

“You can ask, but it may not help you much.”

Maura looked down at the letter in her hand. Poor Denis probably didn’t have many years left to him, and she hated to leave him in the dark, if there was anything she could do. “Still, I think I should do something. If you see a McCarthy walk in the door today, point him out to me, will you? I’ll hang on to the letter for now. And maybe I’ll ask Bridget Nolan if she has any ideas—she’s probably around the right age to know. Oh, and thanks a lot for helping with the cleaning, Rose.”

The door opened, ushering in a few customers, who found their way to seats. Maura tucked the letter deep in her bag. If Old Mick had read and saved the letter, he must have had some reason, and it occurred to her that it might help give some clue as to who his relations might be.

“I’ll give these others to me da, when he comes in, shall I?” Rose asked.

“Sure. He’s the one that pays the bills, right? You want
to take care of those two?” Maura nodded toward the latest arrivals. “And when we have a moment, maybe we should go over the staffing schedule.”

“Right,” Rose said, then went to take the newcomers’ order. She chatted for a moment, then came back and started pulling two pints.

Maura began again, “Your dad said that the place doesn’t usually open until midafternoon this time of year?”

“That’s right, or later, especially in the middle of the week. No point in wasting the electric, now, is there? Of course, Old Mick was usually here, and if business was slow, he and Billy would sit by the fire and swap lies. He might have been old, but he stayed on until nearly closing, most nights. Da and Mick Nolan kind of shared the evening hours, but there was nothing like a plan—they just worked it out day to day. I cover afternoons mostly, and I help at night when things are busy. What’re you thinking?”

“I can be flexible, but I want a little time to look around the area. Mick’s grandmother knew my grandmother, so I want to spend some time with her, and I want to go see where my grandfather is buried. It’s kind of hard to plan when I don’t know how long I’ll be staying.” She slid off the bar stool and came around to the back of the bar. “Okay, walk me through what we’ve got here—you know, what’s popular, where everything is.” She noted that Rose had done a good job cleaning and tidying behind the bar as well.

After that there was a steady trickle of customers. Closer to six, another man came in and made a beeline for the bar. “Rosie, you’re looking grand, my love. And who’s this?” he asked, catching sight of Maura. “A new face for the old place?” He extended his hand. “The name’s Bart Hayes.”

Maura shook his hand. “I’m Maura Donovan.”

“American, are you? How did you find yourself behind the bar in this old dump?” He said it with a smile, so Maura had to assume he know the place well.

“My grandmother came from around here. What can I get you?”

The one-line explanation seemed to satisfy the man. “A pint, of course.” He looked around the all but empty pub. “I’d offer to buy a round, but that seems an empty gesture. Will you join me, Maura Donovan? Rosie here’s too young to raise a toast.”

“You seem in a happy mood, Mr. Hayes,” Rose commented.

“That I am. I’ve just landed a big order—that’s a rare thing these days, and cause to celebrate.”

Maura slid his pint across the bar and poured herself a soda. “Congratulations. What is it you do?”

“I work for one of those pharmaceutical companies, over toward Cork. One of them that arrived under the Celtic Tiger and managed to make a go of it. Business has been slow for a while, let me tell you, but maybe now things are looking up.
Sláinte!
”

After a while, Bart Hayes recognized a newcomer and went over to talk with him. It was only her second night, but Maura fell easily into the rhythm of serving. The patrons seemed to enjoy the chance to chat her up. Many were curious to meet the American girl they’d somehow already heard about. The first question was usually, “So, you’re from America?” most often followed by some variation on “Why are you here?” although usually phrased more politely than that. Maura felt a bit embarrassed to be the center of
attention, but from what she could see it was meant kindly. Funny—the bartending part she could handle, because she’d had plenty of experience, but she’d never been good at making small talk, much less flirting, with patrons. They all seemed to know each other, and she was the odd one out, but she was welcomed warmly. Her stock answer quickly became, “Because my grandmother came from near here,” as she had told Bart, which usually led to an exchange of stories about relatives near and far, and Maura was soon lost in the maze of surnames: there were few names, but many families with the same names, widely scattered, and it was not something that her brain was ready to sort out. Hearing that she was a Donovan often prompted more questions that she couldn’t answer. Sometimes that segued into stories of other relatives who had gone to America—and almost everyone could name one or two.

Luckily she could take advantage of such a conversation with a question about local McCarthys, although the answers were just as confusing. But, she rationalized, if Aussie Denis Flaherty had waited this long, a couple of days couldn’t hurt, and maybe she could produce some sort of answer for him.

Some twenty minutes later Maura saw Bart Hayes head out the door, with a wave directed at her. It wasn’t long after that the two dour young men who’d been hogging the corner table and nursing their first and only pints made their exit, which opened up that table, occupied quickly. Business remained brisk.

The other main topic of conversation, of course, was the body in the bog.

“They’ve had the man from the museum down, to take a look at him,” one man volunteered.

“What does that mean?” Maura asked.

“Oh, these days whenever you find such a thing, the history folk have to make sure it isn’t a national treasure. That means all work stops until it’s been checked out. They’ve made a big thing of it, this last decade or so. There’s a whole bunch at the National Museum who’re working on it.”

“And what did the museum man say?”

“Seems the poor guy isn’t a thousand years old, so they’re not interested. Now it’s back in the hands of the gardaí.”

“So how old is he? Or maybe I mean, how long has he been in the bog?”

“Fifty to a hundred years, like. Can I get another?” He held up his empty pint glass, which Maura refilled.

When the first man drifted away, another took his place at the bar, also talking about the Bog Man.

“What happens now?” Maura asked him as she presented him with the pint glass of Murphy’s he’d requested.

“Well, once a doctor declared the man dead, which any one of us could have done, he was shipped off to the University Hospital in Cork for an autopsy. The gardaí’ll want to know how he died.”

“What if he just got lost and fell into the bog and drowned?” That had been Bridget Nolan’s suggestion.

The man shrugged. “I only know what I see on the telly. Them shows—they’d have you think that the scientists can tell you what time of day the deceased met his fate, and what his last meal was. Wonder if that’s still true if his last meal was a century ago? Good entertainment, but I don’t believe
the half of it.” He slid a few coins across the bar and went to join friends on the other side of the room.

Jimmy breezed in about eight and sent Rose home—Maura hoped it wasn’t far, because it was full dark and rather wet outside—although maybe she was projecting her own anxieties about walking home late in Boston, which wasn’t always a good idea. Were there muggers in Leap? Drug dealers? On the face of it, it seemed unlikely, but there was crime everywhere these days, even in quiet Ireland. Better to be safe than sorry, she thought.

Jimmy was greeted enthusiastically by several people in the room, and Maura watched him make the circuit. Pulling pints did not seem to be his first priority, but generating goodwill had to count for something. Did he see himself carrying on Old Mick’s tradition, as master of the place? He finally came over to talk to her.

“How’s it goin’?” he asked, his eyes watching the room.

“Fine. Did you get more chips—crisps?” Maura responded.

“Ah, forgot. Tomorrow’ll do. Hey, you did a grand job with the loos—I didn’t even know that floor had a pattern to it.”

“You owe me for the cleaning supplies. I couldn’t find any here.”

“Take it from the till, and we’ll sort things out later.”