“Seán Pól Dwyer, about half a mile on. After that it’s grazing and forest till it turns down the mountain again, over towards Knockfarraney. There’s aul’ Mary Frances Murtagh on the way down.”
“Knockfarraney’s where Rushborough was staying. Right?”
Trey nods. She slides off the hood and goes around to the side of the car. “At the bottom of the mountain. In that aul’ cottage that Rory Dunne rents to tourists.”
“I know it,” Cal says. So Rushborough could have been headed to or from his place, the Reddy place, or Ardnakelty, got jumped along the way, and then been dumped in this spot to widen the suspect pool. Alternatively, he could have been killed somewhere unrelated, and left here to point things in the wrong direction. “You see him yesterday?”
Trey is digging in Cal’s glove compartment, presumably for the water bottle he keeps there in this weather. “Nah. I was home all day, he didn’t call in. You sound like a cop again.”
“Nope,” Cal says. “I just sound like a regular guy who’d like to know what went down here. What, you wouldn’t?”
Trey has found the water bottle. She shuts the car door. “Nah,” she says. “Don’t give a shite.”
She leans against the car door, downs half the water, and passes the bottle to Cal. She’s hardly glanced at Rushborough’s body since Cal stepped back from it. It would be natural enough for her to flinch from the sight, but Cal doesn’t think that’s what’s going on. The kid seems at ease, like the dead man is barely even there, too faint a presence to contaminate her home territory. Whatever terms she needed to make with him, she made them before she came to find Cal.
He’s still baffled by her mood, and disturbed by being baffled. Over the past two years he’s got pretty good at interpreting Trey, but today she’s a mystery to him, and she’s not old enough, or solid enough, that he can afford to let her be a mystery in a situation like this one. He wonders if she’s given a thought to any of the implications and ramifications Rushborough’s death could hold.
There are three or four black-faced sheep meandering across the path and among the trees, cropping at weeds. “You know whose sheep those are?” Cal asks.
“Malachy Dwyer’s. There was more of ’em in our yard. I was gonna go tell him they were loose, only…” Trey motions with her head at the body.
“That’d take your mind off sheep, all right,” Cal says, handing her back the water bottle. So Malachy’s sheep have been out since before dawn, trampling all over any footprints or tire tracks that a killer might have left behind, and covering up any scent that a K-9 could have followed. Sheep do get loose on a regular basis around here, what with most of the mountain fields being bounded by ancient, patched-up stone walls; nobody much cares, and they all end up back where they belong in the long run. But this escape came in pretty handy for someone.
The crows have transferred themselves by degrees to lower branches, testing the waters. They’re a dirty ash-gray, with a sheen like a bluebottle’s on their black wings. Their heads twitch back and forth so they can keep tabs on Cal and Trey while evaluating Rushborough possessively. Cal leans over to find a good-sized rock and throws it at them, and they flap lazily up a few branches, unimpressed, prepared to bide their time.
“When you talk to the cops,” he says, “they’ll likely let you have an adult there. I can do it if you want. Or you could have your mama. Or your dad.”
“You,” Trey says promptly.
“OK,” Cal says. And she came to him rather than to Johnny when she found Rushborough, even though Johnny’s interest in this development would be considerably more intense than his. Something has changed for her. Cal would very much like to know what, and whether it’s something to do with the body lying on the stained dirt. He believes the kid that she had nothing to do with it getting there, but the question of what she might know or suspect is smudgier. “Once the Guards get here, we’ll head back to my place. They can come talk to you there, when they’re ready. We’ll make them tea and everything.”
The sheep have stopped cropping and raised their heads, looking up the road towards Trey’s house. Cal straightens up off the car. There’s the crunch of feet on pebbles, and a flash of white between the trees.
It’s Johnny Reddy himself, freshly shaved and shiny, hurrying down the road like a man with important places to be. He sees Cal’s red Pajero first, and stops.
Cal says nothing. Neither does Trey.
“Well, and good morning to the pair of ye, too,” Johnny says, with a whimsical cock of his head, but Cal can see the wariness in his eye. “What’s the story here? Is it me ye’re waiting for?”
“Nope,” Cal says. “We’re waiting with your buddy Rushborough over there.”
Johnny looks. His whole body goes still, and his mouth opens. The shock looks genuine, but Cal doesn’t take anything out of Johnny at face value. Even if it’s real, it could just mean he didn’t expect the body to be where it is, not that he didn’t expect it at all.
