Irish Stewed (4 page)

Declan puffed out a breath of annoyance. “Gus Oberlin is a bully.”

“He said when there’s trouble, you’re always around. That seems pretty odd for a guy whose business is cute little stuffed leprechauns.” Since there was one sitting on a pretty carved table nearby, I picked it up and wiggled it in Declan’s face.

“Paddy.” With one finger, he poked the leprechaun in the stomach. “He’s sort of the shop mascot. And like I said, the shop itself, it’s not exactly mine. It’s a family business.”

I patted Paddy on the head and put him back where I’d found him. “Detective Oberlin doesn’t like you.”

“And I’m not particularly fond of him. Which is why I didn’t think you should mention that I’d been to the restaurant earlier tonight. Gus doesn’t need any reason to believe things that aren’t true.”

“Like that you had something to do with Jack Lancer’s murder.”

Declan grinned. “Do I look like the kind of guy who would get involved in murder?”

“Do I look like the kind of woman who would believe a guy like you, just because you have a terrific smile?”

“Do I?” Yeah, like he hadn’t heard that a thousand times from a thousand different women, Declan acted like it was news. “My parents will be thrilled. Seven thousand dollars’ worth of orthodontia. But then, I played rugby in high school and college and some of these babies . . .” He pointed at his own wide smile. “Don’t spread it around, because I’d hate to disappoint all the other women who think I have a terrific smile, but some of these choppers aren’t even real.”

I doubted it was true, but it made for a good story.

I wondered how much of everything else Declan said fell into the same category.

I, it should be noted, was not inclined to play such games. In the interest of full disclosure, I brought Declan up to speed. “Detective Oberlin thinks Jack Lancer’s murder has something to do with somebody trying to steal copper out of the restaurant.”

I thought that, like me, he’d see this as slightly preposterous. But the curse Declan grumbled told me that wasn’t so. “Did he say who?”

“Not in front of me.”

“He’s probably just blowing smoke. Gus has that way about him. You’ll see. Or you would, if you were planning to stick around.”

“Which I never said I would.”

He slid a look toward the back room. “She thought so.”

“Sophie’s an eternal optimist.”

A slow smile brightened his expression. “Maybe she’s not the only one.”

“Maybe you both need to realize—”

What?

I never had a chance to tell Declan, and it was just as well. At that point, I wasn’t sure what Sophie needed to realize except that I didn’t appreciate the fact that she’d spent years talking up a fine-dining establishment that didn’t exist.

As for Declan, what he needed to realize was a whole different thing.

Fortunately for my soul-searching, we heard a voice call from outside, “Hey, Sarge!” A cop ran out of that side parking lot where I’d seen Declan disappear just a little while before. “We got him, Sarge! We found him hiding in back of the Dumpster. We caught the killer.”

The crowd surged forward and before I even realized it, I was out the front door and joining them. Declan was at my side. We pushed our way to the front of the crowd and we were right near the entrance to the parking lot when one of the uniformed cops came out of the shadows. He had a young man with him whose hands were cuffed behind his back.

The kid’s shock of flaming red hair looked especially vibrant against a face that was as pale as a vampire’s.

“Son of a—” Declan ground the words from between his teeth.

“What?” I looked from the kid to Declan. “What’s going on? Who is that?”

“It’s Owen Quilligan,” Declan growled. “My cousin.”

“I
t’s not much, but it’s home sweet home.” When I’d picked up Sophie to go to the Terminal, I only got as far as the front door of her house. Now she escorted me through the tiny entryway with its tile floor and hand-hooked rug and into a living room that was about the size of the closet I’d once had at Meghan Cohan’s Italian estate.

The walls were a yellow that looked suspiciously like the yellow on the outside of the Terminal. The woodwork was painted white and the carpet had seen better days. My guess was that it used to be sky blue. These days, the color was worn and as tired-looking as Sophie was herself. Then again, it’s not often (thank goodness) that a middle-aged woman finds a dead body in her restaurant. I couldn’t blame her for the V of worry between her silvery eyebrows or the way her shoulders sagged.

When she shuffled through the living room and dropped her purse on the chair in the dining room, Sophie sighed.

She never even looked at me when she asked, “You’re not staying, are you?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to.” I guess I was tired, too. That was the only thing that would explain why I even bothered to try and soften the blow. Me? Worry that dancing around the truth was somehow going to stop reality from crashing down? That was a waste of time.

If there was one thing I’d learned from a lifetime in the system, it was that.

Still, there was something about the way Sophie shuffled into the pint-sized kitchen with its avocado-colored refrigerator that made me stumble over what I knew I had to tell her. “The restaurant is just not what I was expecting, Sophie. It’s not what I thought I was getting into. Don’t worry, I can still take you to the hospital in the morning, just like I promised I would. I’ll just sleep on the couch tonight so I don’t mess up a bed or anything.”

“Don’t be silly.” She filled a teakettle and set it on the stove. “I’ve got your room all ready for you. I bought new curtains and had the room repainted. You know, because I thought you’d be staying the whole time I was gone.”

It was my turn to sigh. “You’re not going to make me feel guilty.”

Her laugh was as weak as her smile. “I’m not trying to. I’m just telling you what I did. Just the facts, plain and simple. When I knew you were coming, I had the room painted. Orange. I thought . . .” She lifted one shoulder. “It seemed like a California color to me.”

“I appreciate it. Really.” There was a green Formica countertop and a sink along one wall and over the sink, a window that looked out onto a postage stamp–sized backyard. At a right angle to that was the fridge and stove and there was a door next to the fridge that was open just a
tad and probably led into the basement. Across from the sink, there was a table big enough to seat two and I dropped into one of the wooden chairs beside it. “Nice paint and new curtains don’t change the fact that you lied to me.”

Sophie took a plastic container down from the cupboard and popped the top. “Oatmeal cookies?” she asked, holding out the container to me. “They’re homemade.”

Sweets don’t fit in with the healthy lifestyle I advocate, and oatmeal cookies—homemade or not—don’t provide anything but empty calories. Then again, on a night that included a dead body, a surly cop, and Declan Fury in all his exasperating glory, empty calories weren’t such a bad idea.

I grabbed a cookie.

Sophie took two for herself and put the open container on the table between us, and when the kettle whistled, she poured two cups of tea and came over to the table to sit down.

“I was three years older than Nina,” she said. “But Nina was always the one . . .” Sophie tipped back her head. “Nina was
that
girl. You know the one. I bet you met plenty of them in school.”

“I never stayed in one school long enough to meet much of anyone,” I told her. “At least not until Nina took me in.”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” Sophie polished off a cookie in three efficient bites before she got up to add sugar and milk to her tea. She would have done the same to mine if I didn’t shake my head. After a cookie and the tea I had at Declan’s, the last thing I needed was more sugar.

She brought the tea back to the table—hers in a chipped china cup decorated with violets and mine in a mug that said
University of Youngstown Penguins
—and plunked down across from me. “Nina was just that kind of person,
the kind who contacts a foster agency for no other reason than that she figured there was a kid out there somewhere who needed a home and some stability in her life.”

I guess the bite of cookie I took was a little too big. That would explain why it was hard to swallow. I took a sip of tea. “She was right.”

“Nina was right about everything. Oh, I didn’t hold it against her!” Sophie laughed. “But she had that way about her. I was the older sister, but more often than not, Nina was the one who taught me what to do and how to act. She was the one with all the boyfriends. She was the one who was a cheerleader and the star of the high school plays. She was the one who joined the debate team just because it gave her something to do, and the swim team because it helped her stay in shape over the winter, and the high school newspaper because that way she could write about sports and meet all the football players.” Sophie’s smile said it all.

“Nina taught me to color my hair and she showed me the right way to wear lipstick and she took me for my first manicure. She had a spirit that couldn’t be contained. I have to admit”—Sophie’s cheeks darkened—“I was a little jealous. I always wished I could be more like her, and when she turned nineteen and announced she was moving all the way to California, well, I just couldn’t wrap my head around news that momentous. As much as I wanted to be more like Nina, I would never have had the nerve to do something like that. Leave Hubbard! It’s never going to happen. The Midwest is in my blood. But not in Nina’s. Oh no! She was a real adventurer.”

I’d lived with Nina Charnowski from the time I was fourteen until I graduated from high school and aged out of the foster system. She was a kind woman, and she’d taught me to appreciate hard work, good food, and the intricacies
of cooking. Nina was the reason I went to culinary school and as I’d told her so many times over the years, I could never thank her enough.

Nina laughed loud and long. She bought bottles of wine she couldn’t afford and enjoyed every last drop of every last one of them. She wasn’t rich by any means. In fact, I would say she wasn’t even financially comfortable. But she dressed well by adding pop to her wardrobe with just a few tasteful accessories.

Nina had style, and she was a good woman. But I’d never thought of her as an adventurer.

“She worked as a cook at Cal’s Diner forever,” I reminded Sophie. “She never talked about leaving.”

Sophie reached for another cookie. “You don’t have to wander to be an adventurer. Sometimes”—she tapped her forehead with one finger—“sometimes the adventure is all up here.” She took a bite of cookie, swallowed, and washed it down. “So you see, that’s why I lied.”

“About the restaurant?”

Sophie nodded. “I’d go out to California and visit Nina, and I’d see that she was growing orchids. Or learning tai chi. Or taking tap dancing classes. And I’d feel so . . .” Her lips pinched. “I guess I felt inadequate. I could never measure up. Not to Nina. So when I bought the restaurant, all I told her was that it was a local place. I’m ashamed to admit that I never told her that it was the Terminal. If I did . . . well, the restaurant wasn’t exactly first-class, not back when Nina and I used to go there for a bite on weekends. I wanted her to be impressed, and I figured I’d tell her the truth once I got the Terminal up and going the way I wanted it. That . . .” Sophie lifted both hands, then let them fall to her side.

“That just never happened. Every time I got up the
courage to tell her the truth, I realized that if it was her place, the Terminal would have a little more panache. So I’d decide to change something. Or paint something. Or renovate something. And I told myself that when I was finished, then I’d tell Nina that the place I owned was really the Terminal. She died . . .” Sophie cleared her throat. “Poor Nina died before I ever got up the nerve. So you see, when you were living with Nina and I came to visit, rather than show you pictures of the real restaurant—”

“You showed us pictures of the place with the candles and the linen tablecloths.”

Sophie leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “I wanted to impress Nina. I wanted to show her I could be as exciting as she always was. So yes, I lied. For years. And lucky for me, Nina never came to town to visit or I would have had to confess. I’m not proud of what I did, Laurel, but I thought you’d understand. Haven’t you ever wanted something so bad that you did the same thing?”

I had. In fact, I’d spent most of my life lying, trying to convince foster family after foster family that I was that ideal kid, the one they’d be crazy not to adopt.

“I get it,” I admitted, and I don’t think it was my imagination; some of the heaviness lifted from Sophie’s expression. “But that doesn’t mean—”

My words dissolved in a little whoop of surprise when the door next to the fridge popped open.

Sophie laughed. “Oh, that’s just my little Muffin,” she said.” She leaned back in her chair. “Here, kitty. Here, sweet Muffin.” When no cat appeared, she looked back my way. “I always leave the basement door open just a tad so she can come and go when she pleases. She must have run down when she heard us come in, and now she was coming up to see me. She didn’t recognize your voice, though, and she’s
a little shy. I’m sure that’s why she took off again. Don’t worry. Once you’re here awhile and she gets to know you better . . . Oh. Well.” Sophie’s nose twitched and her expression fell. “Never mind. Maybe you’ll have a chance to see her before you leave in the morning. She’s a darling little thing.”

Sophie popped out of her chair and went into the living room. She was back in a flash, holding a framed photograph that she handed to me.

The picture showed a short-haired cat that was either black with white markings or white with black markings. Her face was half-and-half, divided almost exactly down the middle. One front leg was white and that foot was black. The other front leg was just the opposite.

“She’s a sweetheart,” Sophie said. “So gentle and well behaved. I hope you get to see her because you’ll love her, just like I do. Of course . . .” When I put the photograph on the table, I saw that Sophie had her head cocked to one side and her mouth screwed up. “Now that you won’t be here, I’ll need to find someone to stop in and feed my dear little Muffin. But don’t you worry about that!” She reached across the table to pat my arm. “Mr. Butcher down the street might be able to. Except on Wednesdays and Sundays, of course, when he’s so busy at his church. Or Joanie Carlyle. She lives that way.” She waved toward the backyard. “She might be able to come in the mornings, but I don’t know about the evenings. And I would like Muffin checked on at least twice a day. That’s the least we can do, don’t you think, for the animals we love?”

Since I’d never had a pet, I couldn’t say, but rather than be suckered in by the way Sophie’s eyes twinkled in a way that told me she was trying to guilt me into staying, I decided to change the subject.

“Do you know that Owen guy?” I asked her.

It took her a moment. “You mean the murderer?”

“Declan told me Owen is his cousin. But his Uncle Pat and Aunt Kitty’s last name is Sheedy and Owen’s is Quilligan.”

“Declan has a lot of cousins.”

“And you’ve never met this one?”

Thinking, Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t think so. I would remember his red hair. Maybe he’s just passing through.”

“To steal your copper?”

“That’s what the police said, isn’t it?”

It was, but something about the scenario just didn’t track with me. I considered it for a moment before I said, “I guess I can understand the part about stealing the copper, but why would this Owen character kill Jack Lancer?”

Sophie sniffled. “I guess we’ll never know. Poor Jack.”

“But what was he doing there?”

“Stealing my pipes, apparently.”

“Not him.” It was the same question that had been niggling at my brain all night. “This Lance of Justice guy. What was he doing in the Terminal tonight? The restaurant was closed.”

Sophie took a minute to think this over, her fingers tap, tap, tapping on the wooden table. “The Lance has been coming in pretty regularly,” she finally said. “Over the last few . . .” She thought some more. “I’d say it’s been about three weeks. He’s been coming in just about every day for three weeks.”

“But never before that?”

“Oh no. I’d remember that. Jack Lancer is . . . that is, he was . . . he was a big TV star. Me and Denice and Inez—
Denice and Inez, they’re my waitresses—we were just as pleased as punch when Jack showed up the first time. Imagine, having someone like him eating our pie and drinking our coffee! Then he came in the next day and the next and the one after that. I’ll tell you what, he created quite a sensation with the regulars. Even had his picture taken with the boys. You know, Stan and Dale and Phil and Ruben, the guys who have lunch at table three every day. That Jack Lancer, he was just the nicest man. And now—”

I saw her tear up and knew if I didn’t distract her fast, it would be too late. “How do you suppose he got in? Through that outside back door with the smashed window? And why was he there in the first place?”

Sophie snuffled. “Jack? Tonight?” Though this seemed like a critical piece of the puzzle to me, she had apparently not thought about it before. I could understand; Sophie was dealing with the shock and the surprise. She was intimately connected with the restaurant and since she’d met Jack Lancer and seen him on TV, there was a link there, too. One I did not share. To me, Jack Lancer’s death was an interesting puzzler and thinking about it gave me something to do other than worry about where I was headed in the morning when I left Hubbard.

“Well, maybe . . .” Sophie considered my question. “Maybe the Lance of Justice and Owen, maybe they came in together. You know, to take the copper.”