Erin Hart - Haunted Ground

“I suppose you always get a few animal pests disrupting the beds—moles and birds and the like.”

“A few. We manage to deal with them. The crows are a terrible scourge. I had to resort to poison, but that seemed to take care of them.”

“Poison? So what do you do when a dead crow turns up in the garden?” He watched for any change in her demeanor but saw nothing.

“Jeremy takes care of it for me.” Then she stopped, puzzled by his line of questioning. “Why are you asking me all this?”

“Just routine. I want to make sure I speak to all the potential witnesses. If your son is outside, would you mind sending him in?”

“I’m afraid he’s not here, Detective. He was running an errand for me this morning and hasn’t returned yet. But he should be back any time now; I’ll tell him you’re waiting to speak with him, shall I?” Devaney now understood why Lucy Osborne had so eagerly volunteered: she hadn’t a clue where her son was. Just then the library door opened slowly, and Jeremy Osborne’s dark head peered cautiously around it.

“Hugh said you wanted to see me—” When the boy saw his mother, he turned his face away automatically, but the movement was not quick enough to keep her from seeing the cracked, swollen lip and the darkening bruise on his left cheek. Lucy Osborne’s alarm was instinctive; she stepped protectively between Devaney and the boy.

“Jeremy, what on earth happened? Did someone hurt you?” Devaney could see her inspecting her son’s face and frame for any other injuries. The boy’s face and clothes were clean, as were his hands, though the knuckles were swollen and abraded.

“I’m all right. I slipped climbing over an embankment when I was out.” As Lucy searched her son’s face, Devaney saw ordinary motherly concern, but something else as well: wordless entreaty, supplication. He realized that at this moment, for the first time since he had met her, Lucy Osborne seemed completely bereft of her usual and formidable lines of defense.

“Thank you for your statement, Mrs. Osborne,” Devaney said. “I’ll just finish up with Jeremy here, and then be on my way.”

“I’d like to stay, if you’re going to question my son,” she said. The boy looked pained.

“There’s no need. This isn’t a formal interview, just a couple of routine questions.”

“Nevertheless—”

“I’ll be all right, Mum, don’t worry.” Devaney thought they’d have a harder job getting rid of her, but Lucy Osborne withdrew without another word. He gestured for the boy to sit on the sofa, and placed himself in the chair facing. Jeremy’s eyes traveled nervously to the door a couple of times, as Devaney began jotting down a few brief notes in his book.

“Sore head?”

The boy’s eyes snapped toward him. “Sorry?”

“I asked if you had a sore head.” Jeremy studied him curiously. “You have to watch yourself with the whiskey,” Devaney continued. “Only takes a few before you’re stone mad. You’re better off on the beer at your age.” Jeremy took this fatherly advice with a trace of suspicion, but Devaney could see that underneath the brusque exterior, the boy craved this kind of attention.

“Why don’t you tell me what you were up to last night, Jeremy? Don’t worry, it’s strictly between ourselves at this point.”

“You’ll have to put it down in there,” Jeremy said, looking at the notebook.

“That’s right. But nothing goes into any file except a formal statement, if that becomes necessary. You may be sure I don’t pass this round for people’s mothers to read. Were you down at Lynch’s again last night?” Jeremy shook his head wordlessly, and Devaney could see the dim memory of the evening coming back to him in the successive waves of shame, anger, and disappointment that washed over his face. Devaney leaned forward and spoke as gently as he could. “Where were you, Jeremy?”

The boy’s eyes were on the patterned carpet, his voice was barely audible. His long fingers picked at a thread coming out of the seam of his black jeans, and Devaney could see that his nails had been bitten to the quick. “I nicked a bottle Hugh keeps in his workshop. I remember having a few drinks from it, but I don’t know what happened then. I woke up this morning in the woods.”

“So what you told your mother about slipping on the embankment—”

“I couldn’t tell her I’d been out all night.” The pathos in his voice was sincere. “I’m not supposed to be drinking. She gets worried enough as it is.”

“So you don’t know how you happened to get those—souvenirs?”

“No.” Jeremy gingerly touched his broken lip, and winced. Well, fuck me if he isn’t telling the truth, Devaney thought. If he did do it, the scene-of-crime boys might soon have the evidence; drunks weren’t normally careful about not leaving prints.

“And you know nothing about a dead crow turning up last night in one of the bedrooms upstairs?”

“No!” The boy appeared genuinely taken aback, even horrified by this bit of news, and Devaney pushed a little further.

“Maguire tells me you’ve been helping him with the excavation at the priory.”

“Well, I’m finished with it.” Hurt and anger flashed in the boy’s eyes.

“And why’s that?”

Jeremy Osborne looked down, and tried valiantly to regain control of his emotions. When he’d succeeded, he raised his face to address Devaney once more: “Bloody boring work, isn’t it?”

Devaney wasn’t sure what he expected to find out by speaking to Brendan McGann. He remembered what Maguire had told him, of McGann’s veiled threats at the priory. The information didn’t surprise him; everyone knew Brendan had a short fuse, and bickered with his neighbors—over livestock gates left open, property markers and fences, the usual small irritations between farmers. Devaney would wager that every perceived indignity, every slight that Brendan McGann had suffered over the years had been banked and kept alive in his belly like the embers of a turf fire. Eventually, those things either ate away at you from the inside—he had seen it happen to his own father—or they came bursting out. On the murder squad, he’d seen the consequences of the latter far too often.

Brendan’s statement in the Osborne case file had been true to form: few words, grudgingly delivered. He’d offered no alibi for the time of the disappearance, said he’d been driving cattle home from pasture. Devaney pulled into the drive, feeling the Toyota vibrate dangerously as it rumbled over the cattle grid. Jesus, something was going to fall off the fucking car any minute. No one answered when he rapped at the door, which was shut, and locked, when he checked the handle. Something popped under his foot, and he looked down to see several shards of dark brown glass on the footpath. Looked like a piece of a broken Guinness bottle. He flipped it aside, and was just stepping away from the door when he saw Brendan McGann round the corner of the house, wiping his hands on a bit of a rag.

“Devaney,” he said curtly. It was a greeting.

“How are ye, Brendan? Thought I might have a chat with you about what happened last night at Bracklyn House.”

“What happened there? I’ve not been to town today.”

Now there was a strange thing, Devaney thought. For all his roughness, Brendan McGann was known as a regular churchgoing man, and he’d been to confession last night. “Bit of a shemozzle over a couple of motorcars.”

“And I’m meant to know something about it, am I? I’ll tell you once and for all, anything going on at that house is nothin’ got to do with me.” Brendan jerked a thumb in the direction of the shed. “D’ye mind? I’m in the middle of something here.”