Irish Stewed (10 page)

I twitched away the thought. “I tried to switch up the menu today. No one was especially impressed.”

“Too soon after the murder.” What one had to do with the other, I didn’t know, but Declan was apparently convinced. He nodded. “Speaking of which, I’ve been watching the TV coverage. You know,
The Life and Times of the Lance of Justice
, that sort of thing. The local stations are all over it, just like you’d expect them to be, and now the national news has picked up the story.”

It was hard to swallow the bite of sandwich I’d just taken, what with the fact that my mouth felt as if it were suddenly as dry as the Sahara, where I’d once spent two months with Meghan when she was filming an epic about a legendary queen of the desert. I washed away the sensation with a sip of tea and though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer, I had to ask. “The story’s made the national news?”

“It was just a mention,” he said. “On one of the cable stations, I think. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the story doesn’t pick up some traction. Crusading reporter. Mysterious murder. You know how the media loves anything and everything sensational.”

Boy, did I ever.

A thought for another time, so I set it aside. “The story will lose its appeal if it turns out Jack was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If your cousin Owen is the killer—”

“He’s not.” I got one pickle, Declan got two. He finished the first and crunched into his second one. “Check out the news tonight. You’ll see. Owen was released this afternoon.”

So Gus Oberlin did believe me.

Or he realized he didn’t have enough evidence against Owen in the first place.

“That doesn’t mean Owen didn’t do it,” I said for argument’s sake.

“They’re free to bring charges if they ever find enough evidence.” Apparently, Declan didn’t think they would, because he didn’t sound the least bit upset by the prospect. “For now, I think it’s more important to concentrate on the other suspects, don’t you?”

It was pretty much what I’d told Kim Kline. No doubt, her reports were among those Declan had been watching. “So, what are the theories?” I asked him. “Who are the other suspects?”

“Your cook, for one.”

This was not news, and the way I waved away the information told Declan that. “He has an alibi.”

“Good. I’d hate to see George locked up for twenty years. You’d have to teach someone else to fry bologna.”

I hoped my pasted-on smile conveyed my opinion of that plan.

“I was thinking about suspects when I watched the retrospective of Jack’s career last night,” Declan went on. “They featured his most sensational reports.”

“Do you think there’s something there that explains why he was killed?”

“I don’t know. The old stories, that’s all water under the bridge, so to speak. The people he exposed in them—people like your George—have already been shown to be dishonest. So it’s not like any of those people would have anything to gain by silencing Jack. I guess one of them could still be angry, though. Is George angry?”

“Don’t you think he has the right to be?”

“They showed a couple minutes of footage from that story last night. And some others, too. George claims he was framed, right? That Jack Lancer trumped up that whole story about how his place was filthy and rat infested? If that’s true, then maybe Jack did it to someone else, too. That could explain why someone might have a grudge against the Lance of Justice.”

“Or somebody could have been trying to keep him quiet and not report some new story.” This was not a new thought. After all, I’d asked Kim what kinds of stories Jack had been working on at the time of his death.

Declan nodded. “Good point. The stories he was working on currently, well, those would be stories about people he hadn’t exposed yet. Those people might have more invested in making sure Jack kept his mouth shut.”

Again, my mind flashed to Kim. “It might be possible to find out what Jack was working on,” I said.

Admiration gleamed in Declan’s eyes. “That’s why you let that reporter in the restaurant yesterday.”

“I didn’t exactly pump her for information,” I lied.

His sandwich finished, Declan sat back. “What did you find out?”

“Not much.” I hated to admit it. “She thinks there might be a personal motive. It seems Jack Lancer was something of a ladies’ man.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s the whole TV thing. Some people are powerless to resist the pull of stardom.”

Apparently roguish gift shop owners also made the list. Myra showed up, her blusher touched up since last she was at the table, and she had a fresh coating of lipstick.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked Declan and not me.

He tipped back in his chair, the better to see the
refrigerated case near the cash register. “Peanut butter pie for me,” he said. “Laurel will have—”

“Nothing, really.” I’d already decided to take the second half of my sandwich home. “I’m stuffed.”

“She’ll try the key lime pie,” he said.

I waited until Myra was gone. “Are you always so bossy?” I asked him.

“It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

“What if I don’t want to try the key lime pie?”

“Then you wouldn’t be able to be objective about it when you find out it’s Caf-Fiends’ biggest seller.”

“And you know this how?”

He jiggled his eyebrows. “Myra. She’d do anything for me.”

“Like tell you which menu items sell and which don’t.”

“That, and other things. Like the fact that the night Jack was killed, she saw a car parked out front of the Terminal.”

“Really?” I thought this through. “But Myra said she hadn’t seen you in a while.”

“To Myra, a day without seeing me is a while.”

“So, yesterday you were here asking what she might have seen the night of the murder.”

“I thought it was worth a try.”

“Why?”

“My cousin was in jail, remember.”

“And you decided to get him out.”

“It’s what I do.”

“And this car, did Myra catch a license plate number? A color? A make?”

“You sound like Gus Oberlin.” The way Declan said this, I knew it wasn’t a compliment. I also knew that though Myra may have claimed to see that car, she didn’t have the particulars to back up her story.

“It might have been my car,” I said.

“No. She saw it earlier. Before you got here.”

“Then it could have been Owen’s.”

“Owen doesn’t have a car.”

“You think it was the killer’s?”

Declan’s shoulders rose and fell. “If we knew, we’d have this case wrapped up.”

“So that’s why you’ve been buttering up poor Myra.”

“Have I? Been buttering her up?” This was a new thought for him. “I thought I was just being friendly.”

“She’s hoping for more than friendly.”

“And you?”

Lucky for my equilibrium, Myra showed up at that very moment with our desserts. When she set mine in front of me, I smiled across the table at Declan. Two could play the same game. If he was determined to throw out titillating innuendos, I could be just as determined to pretend they didn’t bother me in the least. Or send my imagination soaring in directions it shouldn’t.

“What am I hoping for?” I swapped him smile for smile. “After that sandwich, I hope I have enough room left to finish this pie. It looks fabulous.”

A
ll right, I admit it—I completely got why the key lime pie at Caf-Fiends was their bestselling menu item. It was the most scrumptious thing I’d eaten in as long as I could remember. Then again, ever since Meghan tossed me out of her kitchen, her Beverly Hills mansion, and her life, I’d been conserving the money I stockpiled while I worked for her. Gone were the days of lobster salad and Japanese flower mushrooms, truffles and sea cucumbers, and all the other rare, wonderful, and expensive ingredients that made cooking for Meghan the best gig in the culinary world.

These days, salads were more like it.

Salads and leftover pastrami sandwiches.

Back at Sophie’s neat little bungalow, I tucked my to-go container with half my sandwich in it in the fridge and checked Muffin’s food bowl. Empty. Again. In the three days I’d been there, I’d yet to actually see Sophie’s cat, who apparently came out of hiding to eat only when I wasn’t
around. I refilled the food bowl, called out the requisite, “Here, kitty, kitty,” and when I was ignored as I’d been ignored before, I grabbed a bottle of water and headed into the living room, where I kicked off my shoes and sank onto the sofa.

I didn’t mean to fall asleep, and believe me, I had no intention of dreaming about Declan when I did, but I guess my subconscious has a mind of its own. In my dream, he leaned over the table at Caf-Fiends, took my hand in his, and asked, “Are you Irish?” in that as-smooth-as-brandy voice of his. I tensed. I held my breath. Even dreaming, I was aware enough to know I wasn’t sure I did—or didn’t—want to know what was going to happen next.

Thankfully, I never had a chance to find out; I was jolted awake by a noise from out in the kitchen.

I sat up like a shot and, still half-asleep, looked around at a room both familiar and foreign.

Yellow walls, white woodwork, worn blue carpet.

“Sophie’s,” I told myself, relieved now that I felt as if I was back on solid ground. I glanced at the clock on a nearby table. I had been asleep for only twenty minutes and still, my head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton.

I shook it and heard another sound from the kitchen.

Scratching.

Curious, I pushed off the couch and headed that way. When I flicked on the kitchen light, I was just in time to see a black-and-white blur race away from the back door and duck under the kitchen table.

Muffin.

“Here, kitty, kitty.” I tried for a voice both kindhearted and gentle—two things I generally am not—and bent down so the cat could sniff my hand.

Muffin had other plans. She swiped her claws across my
knuckles with enough oomph to draw blood, and I cried out and stood back up in a flash. “You little creep!”

I shook out my hand and, never one to easily give up, I closed in on the critter.

This time, my toes took the brunt of Muffin’s displeasure.

Except to admit I was grumbling when I grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and limped back into the living room, I will not report what I said in response to that last attack.

Instead, I sat back down on the couch, propped my foot on the coffee table, and applied the wet paper towel. It stung like the dickens and, okay, I was probably being a little too overimaginative, but I had the distinct feeling that when Muffin sauntered into the room, she was grinning.

I made a face at the cat.

Other than emitting a throaty sound that was definitely not a purr, the cat pretended I didn’t exist.

“Be that way. If you’re not going to be nice, I can ignore you just like you’re ignoring me,” I grumbled, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV.

A sitcom that starred one of Meghan’s former lovers (as lousy an actor as he was a boyfriend) came on, but even before I could change the channel, the show cut for a commercial and Kim Kline’s face and glossy curls filled the screen.

“Tune in at eleven for continuing developments in the Jack Lancer murder investigation,” she said. “We’ve got the latest updates, including the release of Owen Quilligan, the prime suspect in the case.”

They rolled tape of Owen being led out of the local police station by a handsome guy in a snazzy charcoal gray suit.

A handsome guy who looked awfully familiar.

But then, he should. I’d just had dinner with him.

I sat up and turned up the volume on the TV, the better
to hear it over the rumble coming out of Muffin that intensified the moment I moved.

“Obviously, the police have determined that they don’t have enough evidence to hold my client,” Declan told the nearest reporter at the same time the subtitle under his picture identified him as
Declan Fury, defense attorney
.

The screen flashed back to Kim. “Owen Quilligan,” she said, “was the only suspect in Jack Lancer’s horrible murder. What will the police do now? How long will the Lance of Justice have to wait . . . for justice?”

A car commercial followed, but I’d already switched off the TV before the spokesperson got two words out.

Declan was an attorney?

Funny, he’d never bothered to mention that to me.

Just like he’d never bothered to mention that he was representing his wayward cousin in the murder case.

Thinking this over, I drummed my fingers against my water bottle. No wonder Declan was so interested in that car Myra from Caf-Fiends may or may not have seen in front of the Terminal the night of the murder. No wonder he’d been anxious to look around the restaurant the morning after I found Jack’s body.

He was looking for evidence, or maybe even more important, for exactly the opposite. Without concrete evidence, the cops couldn’t charge Declan’s client with Jack’s murder.

Another thought hit.

No wonder Declan invited me to dinner! It was his opportunity to pump me for information.

Knowing Declan had an ulterior motive and that he wasn’t looking for a relationship should have cheered me right up.

It did cheer me right up.

Well, except for the sourness that suddenly filled my stomach.

Hey, blame it on the pastrami.

I know I did.

*   *   *

By the next morning, I’d decided that two could play the same game. Declan was out to charm his way to information? Well, even on my best days, I’d never been accused of being charming. But I sure as heck could be proactive and clever.

As soon as ten o’clock rolled around and I knew George, Denice, and Inez didn’t need any help at the Terminal (why would we when our parking lot was empty and the parking spaces in front of Caf-Fiends were full?), I headed over to Artisans All, the gallery across the street that was wedged between the beauty shop and the empty storefront.

Like Caf-Fiends, Artisans All was housed in a redbrick building that had seen better days. Still, somehow the faded bricks looked just right with the tasteful robin’s-egg blue front door and the wreath of bright spring flowers that hung there along with the
OPEN
sign. Like Caf-Fiends, the front window was decorated to the hilt. This time, there were no stuffed bees or paper flowers. Instead, the gallery window held a tasteful array of handmade jewelry, a hand-painted silk kimono, ceramic pots, and hand-dipped candles.

I had never been a fan of artsy-craftsy and what I saw sure wasn’t worthy of Rodeo Drive, but most of it was interesting and some of it was downright impressive.

I pushed open the door and was greeted by a woman of sixty-some years with frizzy red hair piled loosely at the top of her head. Her orange caftan and bead-encrusted sandals seemed more suited to Key West than they did to Hubbard.

“You’re Laurel.” She held out a hand and, before I had a
chance to shake it, she introduced herself as Carrie Farmer and added, “You know, we’ve all been talking, everyone in the neighborhood. We knew you were coming. Sophie told us. But no one imagined you’d bring so much excitement along with you.”

“The excitement has nothing to do with me,” I was sure to tell her.

Carrie smiled. She wore a thick gold hoop in one ear, a thinner, bigger hoop in the other, and three rings on each hand. “I’ve got coffee,” she said, and turned to glide to the back of the store. “Cream and sugar?” she called from a back room.

I asked for sweetener and took a minute to look around. As I suspected from the display in the front window, the gallery was filled with pretty things: framed photographs of wildflowers, handmade soaps from a place called A Goat in Bubbles, beaded jewelry, knitted scarves. It was all displayed with style, and the prices . . .

I checked out a pair of earrings—dangling purple stone balls—displayed near where I stood.

I was in the Midwest; the price was a steal. Back in the day when I had a job—I mean a real job—I wouldn’t have thought twice. These days . . .

I set down the earrings, and when Carrie returned to the front of the gallery I took the cup of coffee she handed me.

“So . . .” She looked me over. “I guess everything they say about you is true.”

I sipped my coffee. “That depends on who they are and what they say.”

When she laughed, she opened her mouth wide and threw back her head. “Alexander McQueen shoes, and that green-and-black-striped jersey top is from the spring collection at Saks, if I’m not mistaken. The jeans . . .” She gave them
another look. “Maybe not top-of-the-line, but very close to it. You were some hot shot out in Hollywood, weren’t you? Just like Sophie told us.”

“Sophie tends to exaggerate. I was a personal chef, that’s all.”

“Well, you were a personal chef with very good taste.” Carrie set her china coffee mug down on the glass-topped display counter and folded her hands together at her waist. Her fingernails were very long and painted a blue that matched the front door. “And now you’ve got a murder mystery on your hands.”

I was grateful she’d brought up the subject. It saved me from doing it. “The police have released their only suspect.”

Carrie wore lipstick that was nearly the same shade as her flowing caftan. When her top lip curled, it left a smudge of orange under her nose. “Those people!” She snorted. “You can’t tell me that little twerp didn’t do it.”

“You know Owen Quilligan?”

She tsked. “I don’t have to know him. I know
them
.”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. I was sure from the tone of her voice that whatever she was talking about, it was sure to piss me off. “Them? You mean the Quilligan family?”

“Like I said, never met the kid. Or his family, as far as I know. But the Sheedy family, the Fury family . . . all those types who call themselves Travellers. That’s who I mean. I wouldn’t put it past any one of them to kill somebody and not blink twice.”

Her assessment didn’t jibe with what Declan had told me about family and loyalty. “What can you tell me?” I asked Carrie.

“Gypsies. Crooks. Every one of them.”

Oh, don’t think I’d forgotten that Declan was only out to charm the socks off me so that he could help his cousin out of a bind. But that didn’t make him dishonest. Did it?

“They’ve got records?” I asked Carrie.

She gave an unladylike snort. “They should. You know what they do, don’t you?” she asked, then without waiting for me to answer, she told me. “They live by some old-time, old-fashioned, outmoded set of rules and they keep to themselves because they have plenty of secrets and they don’t want anyone on the outside to find them out. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them spend their days gazing into crystal balls and reading tarot cards! The rest of them? They travel through the area, mostly in the summer. They go around and offer to do maintenance work on people’s houses. You know, new roofs, new driveways. Then they do a half-baked job. Or they use crappy materials. Or they take a person’s money, start the work, then never come back to finish it. Travellers!” Another snort emphasized her opinion. “Around here, we know better than to trust any of them.”

“Declan doesn’t seem to be like that.”

“He doesn’t have to be, does he? All right, I admit it, the man deserves one of those Sexiest Man of the Year awards. No doubt you’ve noticed. But, you know, him being over at that gift shop, that’s just a front of sorts.”

I guess I was not as immune to charm and a handsome face as I’d hoped because the very thought made it hard for me to get the words out. “A front for something dishonest?”

“For his law practice!” From the way she said it, I wasn’t sure Carrie thought that made it dishonest or not. “The man’s job is to
keep
his relatives out of trouble and when that’s not possible—and believe me, it’s not usually possible—his job is to
get
his relatives out of trouble. You know that, don’t you? He’s an attorney, all right, but he only
has one client, his own family. You can see why they’d need him, all those Traveller types showing up here from down south and pulling their scams. And that uncle Pat of his . . .” Carrie leaned closer and lowered her voice at the same time she slid a look in the direction of the beauty shop next door. “They say he used to run the Irish mob in this part of the state, you know.”

“Used to?”

“Not what it used to be.” I couldn’t tell if she approved or if she thought less of Uncle Pat because he hadn’t made it to Al Capone status. “Not nearly as influential or as violent as they were back in the day. But that doesn’t mean they still don’t get in trouble. The whole lot of them! Oh yeah, Declan, that’s his job. He runs interference between his family and the law.”

Another thing he’d forgotten to mention.

I made a mental note of it, but rather than get distracted, I got down to business, and since Carrie apparently had something against Declan and his family, I decided to leave him out of it. “Myra over at the coffee shop told me that on the night of the murder, she saw something outside the Terminal. A car. Parked there sometime before Sophie and I showed up around nine o’clock. I don’t know if you were open late that night, but—”

“Monday nights, I close at five.”

I guess Carrie saw the way my shoulders drooped because her plucked-to-a-hair-breadth eyebrows rose and she was quick to add, “But I was here late that particular night, going over the books.”