The Celtic Riddle

"He was walking her to the bus, but he had his bicycle, so he would have used that to get to the house. She would confirm this, I'm sure."

"She has, more or less. Sullen young woman, isn't she? Has she said anything to you?"

"Not a word," I said. "Literally. She's not speaking to me."

"She's not saying much to anybody, I gather. Okay," he sighed. "The last bus was at ten-thirty. Breeta was on it: the driver remembers her. He thinks Michael was at the stop, which makes sense. He would have waited with her until the bus came. Then he bicycles to Second Chance. That would take at least twenty minutes. Brendan here," he said gesturing to the officer at the desk next to him, who smiled, "strapping young man that he is, did the route and timed it. Let's say he got there about eleven. Now Conail was in and out of various pubs all evening, although he has difficulty accounting for his time beginning around ten or ten-thirty. He says he ran into Fionuala, and they had another argument, a loud one, I gather. Several people say they heard a man and a woman shouting at each other out in the street. That may account for a few minutes, but that's all. What do you figure Michael did?"

"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."