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same time every day, they might stop by for a quick pint or a cup of coffee or tea. Maybe. She came around the bar to open the front door, only to find Skibbereen garda Sean Murphy standing there, his expression serious, his hand raised to knock.
    “Hey, Sean—were you coming in?”
    “Good morning, Maura. I’m afraid I’ve come on official business.”
    “Okay,” Maura answered warily. “Official business” rarely meant good news. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee? Or are you in a hurry?”
    “I’ve been up since first light, so coffee would be grand. I don’t think the news will mean much to you, except that you may have a bigger crowd come evening. There’s been a death.”
    Maura loaded the espresso machine for a single cup and waited while it brewed. “Who was it? Anyone I’d know?” she asked when she slid a cup of coffee in front of him.
    Sean ducked his head and stared at the foam in his cup. “Doubtful—it’s a fellow by the name of Seamus Daly. He worked part of the time at the old Townsend estate, over the road. Kind of an odd-job man and gardener. He is—was—there’s no good way to say it—kind of simple. He was a good worker, very careful and thorough, but he was . . . limited.”
    Yesterday she hadn’t known the Townsend estate existed, and now Sean was telling her about a death there? “I get what you mean. How did he die?”
    “Struck in the head with his own shovel. He was found on the lawn by the housekeeper’s husband this morning—he saw him out the front window, just lyin’ there. He must have been out there much of the night.”
    So it was murder
. “I’m sorry.” It seemed the right thing to say, even though she’d never known the man. “Do you have any idea who could have done something like that?”
    “That we do not. But an investigation’s already under way—my sergeant is there now, the chief superintendent has called a meeting for early this afternoon, and the forensic folk are on their way. I’ve got to get back in a minute.”
    “So why are you here, Sean?”
    “I wanted to ask if you’ve seen many people from elsewhere here in the last few days.”
    Ah
. Clearly Sean thought—or hoped—that the killer had come from somewhere else. Ireland had a very low murder rate, particularly outside of the cities, and she couldn’t blame Sean Murphy for hoping that the killer wasn’t someone he knew. “You do know I don’t exactly know everybody around here, right? So I can’t always tell a local from a visitor. Plus we’ve been getting a trickle of tourists—there was a family in yesterday in the afternoon, and a few others. But . . .” She wondered if she should tell Sean about Althea. She had trouble seeing Althea, with her fancy New York clothes, bashing someone’s head in with a shovel, but Sean should be told about her. Maybe Althea had an accomplice who’d hidden in the car or checked out one of the other pubs while Althea had tried to charm her way to some useful information.
    “There was someone here yesterday . . .” Maura began, and she gave Sean the rundown on Althea. “Yesterday a woman named Althea Melville came in, and Billy and I had supper with her over at Sheahan’s. Ann served us—she’ll remember. Althea’s American, from New York.”
    “Friend of yours?” Sean asked, pulling out a notebook.
    “No, Sean, I never saw her before yesterday.” As if a blue-collar girl from South Boston would’ve ever had dealings with a swanky New York gallery girl in the normal course of things. But she didn’t say it. Actually, Maura was continually surprised by how many people in Ireland—the whole of which had a population about the same size as New York City’s—did know each other, or at least, knew of each other. “She arrived around five o’clock and then spent an hour having dinner with me and Billy at the inn. She said she was looking for a place to stay, so I sent her over to Skibbereen. I don’t know if she found a