The Searcher(71)

“Cunning little bastards,” O’Malley says, with the melancholy of experience. “Good luck.”

“Well,” Cal says, “the only other thing I got to hand is a tree full of rooks messing up my lawn. Maybe you can tell me: they good eating?”

O’Malley looks startled, but he considers the question out of politeness. “I’ve never et rook myself,” he says. “But my daddy told us his mammy used to make rook stew when he was a little fella, if they’d nothing else. With potatoes, like, and the bit of onion. I’d say you’d get a recipe on the internet; sure, they’ve everything on there.”

“Worth a try,” Cal says. He has no intention of shooting any of his rooks. He has a feeling the survivors would make bad enemies.

“I wouldn’t say it’d be nice,” O’Malley says, thinking it over further. “Awful strong-tasting, I’d say.”

“I’ll save you a helping,” Cal says, grinning.

“Ah, no, you’re grand,” O’Malley says, slightly apprehensive. “Sure, I’ll still be working my way through this cake.”

Cal laughs, gives the counter a slap and is turning for the door when a thought strikes him. “Almost forgot,” he says. “Some guy was telling me a couple of officers got called out to Ardnakelty, back in March. Would that have been you?”

O’Malley thinks that over. “ ’Twasn’t, no. The only times I’ve been out that way this year, I was up the mountain, trying to get those Reddy childer to get an education. Ardnakelty doesn’t have much call for our services.”

“Well, that’s what I thought,” Cal says, frowning a little. “You got any idea what that thing in March was about?”

“Can’t have been anything serious,” O’Malley assures him. “Sure, if it was, I’d have heard about it.”

“I’d love to know, all the same,” Cal says, his frown deepening. “I can’t rest easy unless I know what I’m living with. Side effect of the job—I mean, hey, who am I telling, right?”

O’Malley doesn’t look like this angle has ever occurred to him before, but he nods along vigorously all the same. “Tell you what I’ll do,” he says, an idea striking him. “You hang on here a minute, and I’ll look it up in the system.”

“Well, that’s kind of you,” Cal says, surprised and pleased. “I’d appreciate that. I’ll bring you some rook stew for sure.”

O’Malley laughs, extracts himself from his chair with a few loud creaking noises, and heads back to the office. Cal waits and looks out the window at the sky, where the clouds are thickening, getting darker and more ominous. He can’t imagine ever getting accustomed to the effortless hairpin turns of the weather around here. He’s used to a hot sunny day being a hot sunny day, a cold rainy day being a cold rainy day, and so on. Here, some days the weather seems like it’s just fucking with people on principle.

“Now,” O’Malley says, coming back out, happy with his results. “Like I told you: nothing serious at all, at all. March the sixteenth, a farmer reported signs of intruders on his land and a possible theft of farm equipment, but when the boys got out there, he told them ’twas all a mistake.” He resettles himself in his chair and pops a chunk of cake into his mouth. “I’d say he found out ’twas the local young scallywags messing, like. They do get bored; sometimes the bold ones’ll hide something just for the crack, to see the farmer go mental looking for it. Or maybe it was robbed, but the farmer found out who done it and got the stuff back, so he left it at that. They’re like that, around here. They’d rather keep us out of it, unless they’ve no choice at all.”

“Well, either way,” Cal says, “that sets my mind at ease. I don’t have any farm equipment to get stolen. I got an old wheelbarrow that came with the place, but if anyone wants it that bad, they’re welcome to it.”

“They’re more likely to put it on top of your roof,” O’Malley says tolerantly.

“It’d probably improve the look of the place,” Cal says. “There’s designer guys who charge yuppies thousands of bucks for ideas like that. Who was the farmer?”

“Fella called Patrick Fallon. I don’t know the man. That means he’s not a regular, anyway; there’s no local feud going on, nor nothing like that.”

Patrick Fallon is presumably P.J. “Huh,” Cal says. “That’s my neighbor. I haven’t heard him mention any trouble since I got here. I guess it must’ve been a once-off thing.”

“Lads messing,” O’Malley says, with comfortable finality, breaking off another big hunk of cake.



Looking at that cake has made Cal hungry. He finds a café and gets himself a slice of apple pie and more coffee, to pass the time till his laundry is ready. While he finishes the coffee, he gets his notebook out of his jacket pocket and turns to a fresh page.

He tosses around the possibility that Brendan was setting himself up as a source of stolen farm equipment, boosted P.J.’s stuff, got spooked and gave it back when he found out the cops had been called in, and skipped town to avoid the fallout or was run out, like the cat-killing Mannion kid. It doesn’t sit quite right—anyone with half a brain would have expected police, and Brendan is or was no dummy—but maybe he didn’t think the theft would be noticed so soon. Caroline said he didn’t take people’s reactions into account.