Thank goodness the midwife had called the timing right. Both she and Harry had each ended up holding one of Gillian’s hands—and Maura wasn’t sure all her bones had survived intact—but it hadn’t taken long for Henry Townsend Callanan to make his entrance into the world, weighing a healthy eight pounds, five ounces. Mother and baby were both fine, to everyone’s relief. Gillian was going to stay the night, and Harry would see to getting her home in the morning, so Maura was free to go. She found her way out of the hospital by following the signs and stepped out into the fresh air, breathing deep. She was surprised that it was still light; in fact, it was barely six o’clock. She’d always believed that delivering a baby took quite a while. She thought for a moment about just sitting on a bench and absorbing what she’d seen and heard over the past few hours, but it would take her an hour to get back to Leap—more if traffic was heavy—so she should get on the road.

She made her way back to her car, then pointed herself westward. At least it was a road she knew as well as any in the area, because her attention was not exactly on her driving.

Harry had come through the delivery well. Squeamish though he might be, it was clear that he loved Gillian. Too bad it had taken the two of them so long to realize that they belonged together, but they’d finally figured it out. Where and how they’d be living was still an open question, but things like that had a way of working themselves out. She’d have to follow up on her idea of recruiting the guys at the pub to help out with the renovations at the creamery and get them to ask their wives to haul out their old baby furniture and clothes. Those were practical things that could be done quickly once she got the word out. Another plus of owning the pub: it meant she was kind of information central.

So why was she crying? She told herself that she was heading straight into the setting sun, but she knew she was lying to herself. Maura brushed away tears angrily, but it didn’t help much. Seeing Gillian and Harry with their child had been unexpectedly overwhelming. Why had Gran never told her anything about those first two years of her life, when she’d had a mother and a father? What had her father been like? She knew that Gran had loved him fiercely, and maybe that was why she never spoke of him. And Gran had already lost her husband when her son died. Maura had avoided thinking about all these questions, much less asking Gran, but now she had to face them. Why had her father married Helen? Where and how had they met? Had they been in love? Would they have stayed together if her father hadn’t died? No way to know, not now. No one to ask.

Except Helen. That realization hit Maura like a physical blow. Helen was her only link to her father now, the only person who harbored any memories of him. And to get Helen to share those memories, Maura would have to work out some sort of relationship with her. She’d have to be nicer to her, open up at least a little. Which meant that she’d have to let go of some of the resentment and anger that she felt to get what she wanted. She could do that, right?

It was half dark by the time she arrived back at Sullivan’s. She parked and walked toward the pub, and when she walked in, everyone in the place, staff and patrons alike, turned to look at her. It was almost funny.

“Healthy boy,” she said. “Eight-plus pounds. Name of Henry Townsend Callanan. Mother and child doing fine. And the next round is on the house.”

Maura’s statement was met with cheers, although whether it was for the baby or the pints wasn’t clear.

She moved behind the bar after taking off her jacket and took stock. Jimmy as usual was chatting with some pals in a corner, and Rose was already behind the bar handing out pints. Mick? She had to look around and finally located him in the far corner. At first she thought he was alone, but when he shifted, she realized that Helen was sitting at the same table facing him, and they were talking intently.

Maura wasn’t sure how to react. Helen had every right to be here—or anywhere else, for that matter—but she hadn’t given Maura any warning. Unless she’d tried to call Maura’s cell phone, which she’d turned off at the hospital. What could she want? Had the gardaí figured out how John Byrne had died and decided everyone could go home? And what were she and Mick talking about?

Somewhere in the midst of her reveries, Maura realized that they were both looking at her, and then Mick came over.

“So all’s well?” he asked.

“Fine and dandy.” Maura nodded toward Helen. “Did she introduce herself?”

“She did that. Did yeh want her to stay in her room and hide?”

“No, I guess not. But what does she want?”

“Fer an intelligent woman, yer not very smart, Maura Donovan. She wants to talk to yeh. Why else would she be sittin’ there? Surely the two of yeh have somethin’ to talk about? The weather? The value of the euro? Where to buy fresh fish?”

He was annoying her, and Maura didn’t like it. “Mick, it’s not a joke for me. Of course I’ll talk to her. I’ve got plenty of questions. And I won’t yell at her or hit her or even throw her out of the pub. But I don’t need you in the middle of things.” There was already a too-long list of people who were trying to tell her how to talk to her mother. “You can handle the pub?”

He looked around at the sparse collection of patrons. “I think I can manage it. G’wan, talk to the woman, will yeh?”

“Fine.” Maura stalked out from behind the bar and headed for Helen’s table in the corner. Helen was watching her approach, and when Maura dropped into a chair opposite her, she said, “So, nothing new about John?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been . . . busy,” Maura told her.

“You look exhausted.”

That didn’t begin to describe how Maura felt. She’d just helped deliver a baby. She was hip-deep in another investigation of a suspicious death. She was trying to figure out how to talk to the mother she had never known. She didn’t know where to start, and what she wanted more than anything was some quiet time alone to give her brain a rest and then to try to sort through everything that she’d learned in the past couple of days. It didn’t seem to be happening.

It occurred to her that food might help. “Have you eaten yet, Helen?” Maura asked.

“Uh, no. I came in looking for you and got to talking with Mick. Where do you want to go?”

Maura stood up again. “It’s been a crazy day, and I just helped deliver a baby, and I’m crabby as hell. Let’s go over to the bistro and see what the special is tonight.”

“All right,” Helen said, looking bewildered but game. “Lead the way.”

Helen followed Maura out onto the street and down to the corner, where they crossed and walked into a small restaurant with a pool table tucked into a corner. She waited until they were both seated and had ordered before asking, “You said something about a baby?”

“Yeah, a friend of mine just had one. Today. Her first. She asked me to hold her hand during the delivery since her partner was kind of squeamish.”

“Oh, my!” Helen smiled. “I’m glad you have friends here, Maura. It must have been hard after your grandmother died and you ended up here, where you didn’t know a soul. How did that happen?”

Safe ground, ground she’d covered before. “Gran rigged it with her old pal Mick Sullivan, who owned the pub. He had no one in his family to leave it to, and I was going to need a job and a place to live, so they fixed it up between them without telling me. I’d never known that she kept in touch with people here. And some of them still remember her. That makes me glad and sad at the same time.”

“She was quite a woman,” Helen said softly.

“I keep forgetting that you knew her.”

“More than that—we all lived together in the same apartment for a couple of years, remember. Money was tight even with your father working. Then it got tighter, after—”

Maura stopped her quickly. “Let’s not go there now, okay? There’s a lot I want to know about my father, but I’ll probably just bite your head off right now.”

“I’d love to share it with you, Maura. He was a good man, and he adored you. I wish you could remember him.”

Maura struggled to answer. “I’m glad to know that. But let’s stick to a few basic facts for the moment.”

“I’m sorry. Really. But this whole thing is such a mess! I never expected you to welcome me with open arms, but I didn’t think we’d be in the middle of a police investigation. I thought we could ease into things a bit more slowly.”

Maura smiled reluctantly. “It’s not your fault—unless you killed John, and I don’t think you did.”

“Thank you for that, at least.” Helen sighed. “What are the categories for deaths in Ireland? Apart from natural, I mean. Is it like in the States? Murder and manslaughter?”

“Helen, I really don’t know. I could ask a friend if you like.”

“Let’s see how it goes. And if there’s a suspicious death but not enough evidence to bring charges?”

That sounded all too familiar to Maura. “It does happen. Arresting someone and bringing that person to trial are not automatic—it’s the coroner’s decision. And in Ireland, if it’s declared a murder, the case will stay open even if no one is convicted.”

“So if the local police don’t solve this fairly quickly, will they let us leave?”

“I guess. Unless they’ve got some pretty strong evidence, they probably will. How’re you going to decide what to do about the hotel?”

“Well, at least it was functioning well enough when John died, so it’ll carry itself while we consider our options. We’ll have to get the management team together, look at where we want to go as a group—which projects look viable, which ones we should divest. That kind of thing. So the short answer is, we probably won’t have an answer for a while. Tell me, is the hotel important to the local economy?”

Maura shrugged. “Look, I hadn’t even heard about it until your crew called me, and I don’t run in your circles. I don’t think any of Sullivan’s customers do either—they’re mostly local farmers or shopkeepers with tourists added in the summer. But I think most ordinary people in Skibbereen are more likely to go to the West Cork Hotel or the Eldon Hotel down the street than out to Crann Mor. Skibbereen isn’t exactly a fancy destination resort.”

“From what little I’ve seen of the place, I think you’re right. I don’t really know what John was thinking when he went after it, but he didn’t always share his brainstorms with the rest of us. But he was usually right.”