Free The Death of an Irish Lass by Bartholomew Gill Page A

Galway City and one in the States, too. Minneapolis, wherever the hell that is.”
    “As a man?” McGarr asked.
    “A loner. His father wasn’t much different, though, but hard workers, the both of them. The doctor was quite a scholar, too. A Gaelic language whiz, and mathematics and history and whatnot. They say some big foundation paid for all his years in New York.”
    “He struck me as a hard man. No sympathy for anybody who wants something different from him.”
    “Ach. We’ve all got to pick and choose. And everybody’s glad he chose to come back. Sure, the sawbones we had before him knew the anatomy of a porter bottleand little else. And he’s not as fussy as he’d let on, Fleming isn’t. When the vet died he subbed at that too, and I’ll tell you something—he was better at animals than the new boy. There’s some farmers who refuse to go to anybody else when they’ve got big animal trouble. For operations, there’s nobody like him. He’s got small, fast hands and a good mind, too. Nerves of steel.”
    McGarr got into the Cooper and called the Lahinch barracks. Much to his surprise, his wife answered. “Everybody else is busy.”
    “They are, are they?” O’Malley was embarrassed. “We’ll soon see just how busy, we will.”
    McGarr assumed O’Malley’s notion of retiring had left him.
    Noreen went on. “Hughie says you should meet him at Griffin’s. It’s across from—”
    “I have Superintendent O’Malley with me now,” said McGarr. “We’ll find it.” He wanted her to know of O’Malley’s presence so she wouldn’t make any observations about the barracks or the town.
    “He says he’s having a drink with a fella by the name of O’Connor, who was with May Quirk last night.”
    McGarr and O’Malley swapped glances. “Rory O’Connor?”
    “He didn’t say. But he added that the fellow either doesn’t know or pretends not to know about the woman. He says rumors are flying thick and fast, but nobody’s certain of anything. He imagined you’d want to talk to him immediately.”
    “I’m on my way. Meet me there too.” McGarr threw the Cooper into first and pointed it toward Lahinch.

FIVE
Fleeting Things
    GRIFFIN’S BAR had leaded glass windows and snugs. In one sat Noreen, Hughie Ward, and a young man with a shock of thick black hair swept across his forehead. The snug door was open. The barman was bending to place a tray of drinks in front of them.
    McGarr waited for the barman to complete his task. He then asked for a small Jameson. “The old stuff.” He meant the twelve-year-old whiskey. He was tired of Canadian Club, as good as it was; somehow it just wasn’t his drink. It was too light and didn’t have enough taste for slow, steady drinking, which over the years had become McGarr’s method of imbibing. He well knew the practice had become a habit for him, but he never allowed himself to get out of the way and he had the experience necessary to avoid hangovers. And for the connoisseur, which he undoubtedly was, alcohol in all its forms was such a pleasant habit. He stubbed his cigarette out before entering the snug, however. That habit bothered him, mostly because, hedecided then, it spoiled the taste of anything with alcohol in it.
    “Peter McGarr.” He offered his hand to Rory O’Connor, sat, and gave his wife a peck on the cheek.
    Noreen was a diminutive woman with delicate facial features and a body the beauty of which relied upon proportion, not size. A tight nest of copper curls and a fresh complexion made her seem doll-like, perhaps the creation of a master craftsman who knew what would please the eye without being obvious. What was more, Noreen, like most Irish women, had a delicacy of manner. One glance at her and you knew she was polite, well meaning, and a person you could trust. Also, she was brighter than McGarr (which he admitted only to himself, of course), and she was twenty-one years younger than he. That fact he never forgot. Her passion was