Erin Hart - Haunted Ground

A small framed photograph on the mantelpiece caught her gaze. It was Cormac and Gabriel McCrossan, looking up from an excavation pit and showing off a hoard of artifacts they’d just uncovered, looking tired and dirty and immensely pleased with themselves. How was Cormac faring after losing this man he must have considered a second father? Maybe Robbie had some clue about how he was getting on. She set the picture back on the mantel as she heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Find everything all right?” Robbie asked. “For the tea, I mean,” he added hastily, and from the look that came with it, she knew he was giving her a gentle ribbing for having a look around the place.

“Everything was exactly where it ought to be,” she said. “Cormac is a very logical fella.”

“Oh, he is,” Robbie agreed, following her into the kitchen. “Promise you won’t hold that against him?”

“Robbie, I’m anxious to hear what you found out.”

“And I’m just as anxious to tell you. But hang on, hasn’t he got a biscuit or something to go with the tea?” Robbie asked, opening a cupboard and rummaging around until he found what he needed, an unopened packet of plain chocolate wheatmeal biscuits. “Doesn’t even fancy these, but keeps a few on hand because they’re my favorite. Commendable, isn’t it?”

“Very touching,” Nora agreed. “But, Robbie, what did you find out?”

“You understand that what I was doing was only very general research.”

“I do. Go on.”

“Well, it’s interesting,” he said, through the crumbs of his first biscuit. “Beheading was generally reserved for people of some importance. Old-fashioned hanging was considered sufficient for most crimes, and for most criminals, right up through the nineteenth century.” He was warming to the subject now. “And hanging generally meant slow death by strangulation. I found several reports of people being resuscitated after a half hour on the rope.” He spoke with some amazement at this fact. “Of course, we have a couple of Irish doctors to thank for the long drop. They took into account the prisoner’s weight, and how much force it would take to break his neck. It was all very scientific; they had tables for calculating the length of the rope. Though it seems the main reason for the change wasn’t to put the condemned out of their misery any more quickly, but to spare witnesses the discomfort of watching them dangle.”

“Absolutely fascinating,” Nora said, hoping that her exasperation wasn’t starting to show.

“But back to beheading—you’d have to be a fairly high-born person to get your head chopped off. Not only that, but you’d have to have done something pretty terrible, treason or regicide, or something equally heinous. That’s why not a lot of women would have been beheaded; I’m having trouble coming up with any actual historical accounts. But—and here’s what I found most interesting—” he said, leaning forward, “starting in the Middle Ages, beheading became a sort of standard punishment for infanticide. I suppose it’s always considered the worst sort of abomination to kill a child—”

Nora could hear Robbie’s voice continuing, but the noise in her head crowded it out. There was a dinning sound, like the beating of dustbin lids in her ears. She felt a prickling sensation down her neck and on the backs of her arms.

“Robbie,” she said suddenly, “we have a date now, or at least a rough time frame. Remember that piece of metal in the X rays?”

“I do.”

“It was a ring, possibly a wedding ring. And it was inscribed with a date—1652. How many women could have been executed in East Galway since then? If we were looking for a needle in a haystack, I’d say the needle had just grown larger.”

“Ah, but you’re forgetting that a large portion of the haystack itself went up in smoke,” he said. “Lots of documents from that period were destroyed when the Public Records Office was shelled during the Civil War back in 1922.”

“But surely not everything burned. There are other sources, aren’t there? I just can’t believe that would be the only place to look. What about the National Archives? Or the Public Records Office in London? And couldn’t the initials from the ring help somewhat? Maybe there are marriage records, or at least census records for the area somewhere that could give us a clue.” Nora was surprised at the urgency in her own voice. “Don’t give up on me now, Robbie.”

St. Columba’s Catholic Church was a severe-looking gray stone monstrosity, built in the nineteenth century, and now serving Dunbeg and several small neighboring communities. Father Kinsella was evidently just finishing up with the cleaners, a small brigade of nondescript, slightly doughy middle-aged women armed with mops, buckets, rags, and polish. Their beaming faces and collective posture told Devaney that the handsome, curly-haired curate knew exactly the effect he had on female parishioners of a certain age, and felt no compunction about using it—all to the advantage of the Church, of course. Devaney stood inhaling the atmosphere—that mixed scent of furniture polish, incense, flowers, and candle wax peculiar to a church—and waited for the priest to finish with his fan club and herd them off in the direction of the sacristy.

Despite its familiar essence, this modern space felt strange to Devaney, not at all like the ancient and mysterious church of his childhood. Perhaps it was the changes in the Mass since he was a boy; perhaps it was just that the rituals and accoutrements of faith no longer impressed him.

“Ah, Detective,” Kinsella said, rubbing his hands together like an eager young businessman when he turned and caught sight of Devaney. He paused to genuflect briefly in front of the altar, then came sprinting energetically down the center aisle to shake hands. “Garrett, isn’t it? I know your family, of course, Nuala and the children, but we haven’t had the pleasure of your company.” When Devaney offered no visible reaction, the priest was politic enough to press no further.

“Is there somewhere we could talk that’s a bit more out of the way?” Devaney asked, pulling a small notebook from his breast pocket.

Kinsella led the way to the baptismal chapel, and offered Devaney a seat on one of the benches that lined the walls. “Now, Detective, what can I do for you?”

“I’m going through the file on the Osborne case, talking to some of the original witnesses, just on the chance that anything new has come to mind.”

The priest’s helpful demeanor changed to a look of thoughtful resignation. “I had a feeling it might be that,” he said. “I try to keep hoping for the best. It’s getting more and more difficult. But I do pray for them every day.”

“You said in your original statement that Mina Osborne wasn’t a regular parishioner when you first came here.”

“That’s right. She only started coming to Mass after Christopher was born.”

“I was surprised to find that she was a Catholic,” Devaney said. “Coming from India—”

“There’s actually quite a large number of Catholics in India, Detective. Ever since the forcible mass conversions by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Not the most commendable period in Church history, I grant you. That’s when Mina’s family would have taken the surname Gonsalves.”

“Strange how they kept the faith, if it was only forced upon them.”

“Yes, that does seem curious, doesn’t it? But I suppose by the time they did have any choice in the matter, it was already something of a long-standing family tradition.”

“I think you said Mina spoke with you the week she disappeared, and in fact had been to see you more than a few times in the previous couple of weeks.”