Cruel Winter: A County Cork Mystery by Sheila Connolly

Author:Sheila Connolly [Connolly, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: FIC022070 Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Cozy
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Published: 2017-03-14T07:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Maura looked around the room. She was surprised to see that some of the younger guys had crept in from the back room. Cold? Looking for another pint? Or just bored? Whatever the reason, she didn’t mind. Fresh eyes on the cold case if they stuck around.

“Diane, let’s back up a sec,” Maura interrupted. “You said your husband was in England when the murder happened, right? And so was Sharon’s. How long did it take them to show up in Cork?”

“You’re thinking of their alibis? I don’t remember the flight schedules back then, and there were ferries, too. But neither ran often—maybe twice a day?” Diane appealed to the rest of the crowd.

“Could be right,” someone answered. A couple of others nodded. Maura guessed that few of them had done much traveling back then.

Maura started again. “So Sharon was killed late at night. Her body was found the next morning. The gardaí were called in, and it took until afternoon to sort out who was in charge. When did they notify Sharon’s husband?”

“How would I know?” Diane protested. “They knew who she was, and they would have found quickly that she was married. I assume there was a phone number for the man somewhere in her cottage. But I can’t say for sure.”

“How quickly did you call your husband?”

“I . . . I’d have to think. The word of the death didn’t go out immediately, you know.”

Is she avoiding answering the question? Maura wondered. Had she been afraid to give bad news to her husband—or afraid that he wouldn’t be where he’d said he would be? Or was she just waiting for garda approval to tell anyone else? “How did you find out that Sharon was dead?”

“You mean, who told me? I think it was my nearest neighbor, Mrs. Foster. Her house was on the larger road, a couple of fields over, and she would have noticed the garda vehicles passing by—that was a rare event then.”

“So she decided to spread the word? Without checking with the gardaí?”

“Well, at first she wouldn’t have known what the trouble was, only that there was something going on down the lane. But her sister’s son was a garda over at Bantry, so she may have called her sister to find out what was going on.”

Pretty casual communications for a major case, Maura thought. “When?”

“Maura, what are you goin’ on about?” Mick asked.

She turned to him. “Look, the gardaí didn’t know what they were dealing with for a while. They certainly wouldn’t have been making public announcements until they knew who was in charge. And remember, this was before mobile phones. So who would have announced that Sharon was dead, and who would they have told? And when?”

“It coulda happened the way Diane said—that Mrs. Foster found out from her nephew or someone at the garda station in Schull,” Mick said.

“So what did Mrs. Foster do?” Maura shot back. “Did she start running around the fields telling everyone she could?”

“The woman was past sixty!” Diane protested.

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