The Saint Paddy's Promise

by Kathi Daley

  “Lost it how?”

  “The guy was totally paranoid. He thought Dover stole something from him, even though Dover swore he hadn’t, and he was sure someone was stalking him.”

  “Stalking him? Did you tell Mike or Frank this?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “Given the fact that he was shot, I would say that he might have been on to something.”

  Rodney shrugged. “I guess you might have a point.”

  “Did you work the night Brick was shot?”

  “No. I quit my job two days before.”

  “Why?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I just told you, the guy was losing it. I have my job here, and I am usually able to pick up some hours in the bar over on Second Street. I figured I didn’t need to put up with Brick’s craziness if I didn’t want to, and I didn’t.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Did Brick ever say who he thought was stalking him?”

  “Not by name. But he did mention something about someone from his past whose comings and goings he had been researching for some reason. I figured that Brick was being stalked, if he really was being stalked, because he himself was a stalker at some point. Look, I’m sorry he is dead. I really am. But it has nothing to do with me, and I’d really like to be left out of things. Now, if you don’t mind, the pins in lane two keep getting stuck.”

  I felt like the information Rodney had tried very hard not to supply was relevant. If Brick thought he had a stalker, he most likely did. The idea that one of the men he was researching had turned it around and begun stalking him seemed like a pretty good theory. I needed to talk to Mike. Maybe this would make sense to him.

  Luckily, I found him in his office when I arrived. I filled him in on everything that both Hap and Rodney had told me.

  “I spoke to Luke after I found out about Brick’s sister,” Mike informed me.

  “You did? Did you know he was from Iowa?”

  Mike nodded. “I pulled the police report from the sister’s murder. It seems someone named Luke Warner was one of the people who was interviewed when Darlene’s body was found. I knew that Luke and Brick had been friends, and I seemed to remember Brick telling me that he’d known Luke for a long time, so I took a shot that our Luke Warner and the Luke Warner who had been interviewed at the time of Darlene’s murder were one and the same. Spoiler alert: they were.”

  “Was Luke a suspect in Darlene’s murder?”

  “More like a potential witness. It seems that Luke, who had been good friends with Brick since they were in elementary school, had been casually dating Darlene when she died.”

  Okay. The plot thickens. “And?”

  “And, according to Luke, Darlene had gone to a concert with some friends, so the two of them were not together on the night she died. The investigator was able to verify Luke’s alibi and he was not considered a suspect.”

  I slid off my mailbag, glanced at Tilly, who was playing with Leonard, then settled a hip against Mike’s desk. This was going to kill my schedule, but there was no way I was leaving without hearing the rest of the story. “Go on,” I encouraged. “What do we know about that night?”

  Mike cleared his throat and then continued. “Darlene had gone to a concert with her two best friends, Lacy Tilton and Ginny Lane. The concert featured a heavy metal band whose lyrics and theatrical presentation were geared toward mature audiences, so admittance was limited to those eighteen and over. The three sixteen-year-olds were able to purchase fake IDs that allowed them to attend. Lacy and Ginny were both interviewed after Darlene’s murder. They told the police that they had all been drinking and Darlene had begun to feel sick. She excused herself to go find a bathroom. She was never seen alive again by either friend. Her body was found the following morning in an empty field not far away from where the concert was held. Initially, it was assumed that some random person from the concert had killed her and then dumped the body, but Lacy said when interviewed that Darlene had seemed secretive that night, and she wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that Darlene had not been sick, as she’d claimed, but had used the excuse to sneak off to meet someone.”

  “Why would Darlene lie to her best friends?”

  Mike shrugged. “Lacy told the police that it had been Darlene’s idea to attend the concert in the first place, and that she had been quite determined to do so. She was the one who obtained the fake IDs and paid for all three tickets.”

  I paused to let that sink in. “Okay, so Darlene, a minor, seemed to go to a lot of trouble to go to this concert. If the real purpose was to meet up with someone, we should assume this was with someone she wouldn’t have just met somewhere else. She told her friends she was feeling sick, then ended up dead. Maybe the person she was meeting killed her, or maybe she ran into someone else while on her way to meet the person she was there to see. I’m not sure we can ever know what she was thinking, but if Brick had four DNA samples and one of them did turn out to be a match for the clump of hair in his sister’s hand at the time of her death, we can assume that he figured out who the four most likely suspects were.”

  “Agreed. Now all we need to do is make the same connection he did.”

  “Yeah, but he knew the players and we don’t. Plus, it was so long ago. Unless your search turns up a match for the DNA samples, I think this is going to be a tough one.”

  Mike leaned forward and rested his arms on his desk. “I don’t disagree, but Brick seemed to have done all the legwork. All we really need to do is figure out what he uncovered. I still think we may be able to find notes or some sort of a clue to lead us to the men he had tested.”

  I glanced at the clock. “I hope so. I need to get going. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Outside the police station, I glanced up at the sky. “Time to shift into overdrive,” I said to Tilly as I picked up the pace and moved down the street.

  Chapter 12

  “I don’t think that Mike told me everything he knows,” I said to Tony later that evening as I sat on a barstool in his kitchen and watched him stir-fry onions and peppers into some sort of sauce that smelled heavenly.

  “Why do you say that?”

  I picked up a piece of the fresh bread Tony had baked, plucked off a corner, and popped it into my mouth. “He opened the conversation by letting me know he had spoken to Luke Warner. Actually, I was the one who’d brought up Luke and suggested that Mike speak to him, which is when he informed me that he had. Anyway, once he told me he had spoken to Luke, the conversation veered onto the subject of how Luke knew Brick and why he was interviewed at the time of Darlene’s murder, but he never told me what sort of information Luke might have provided. Well, I guess that isn’t accurate either; he did tell me that Luke told him about the two best friends Darlene went to the concert with, and that they were underage and got in with fake IDs, but he didn’t really tell me if Luke had a theory as to who might have killed Darlene or if Brick had told him who he suspected.”

  Tony slowly added the garlic he’d been chopping to the butter sauce. “And you think that Brick had confided in Luke?”

  “I think he might have. Luke and Brick were friends. They had been for a long time. They were friends back when Brick’s sister was murdered. They both would have been close to her. It makes sense that Brick would have spoken to Luke about his investigation.”

  Tony laid huge shrimp carefully in the pan and then covered the whole thing with a sturdy lid. “So you think that Luke gave Mike something that could point him toward the killer, and he failed to share this with you during your brief conversation?”

  I nodded. “Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.”

  “And this has you upset?”

  “Of course I’m upset. Mike knows I am interested in this case.”

  “So even though Mike is the cop and you are a civilian, you believe he should share everything he knows with you?”

  I could sense that Tony’s annoying questions were leading to a point, so I asked hi
m what it was he was trying to tell me.

  “I seem to remember you telling me that you planned to stay out of things and let Mike do his job.”

  “I did say that.”

  “But I am sensing that you didn’t really mean it.”

  I let out a breath. “I wanted to mean it, but I’m not good at hanging back and waiting it out on the sidelines. If there is a murder to solve—or any mystery to solve, for that matter—I find that I need to be right there on the front lines. It might just possibly be in my DNA.”

  Tony chuckled. He handed me a glass of wine. “Now that I totally believe. Maybe Mike isn’t trying to keep anything from you. Maybe he knew you were in a hurry, so he just didn’t get into everything.”

  “I was in a hurry, and I guess I was the one to end the conversation by telling him that I needed to go.”

  “So maybe you should call him and check in with him,” Tony suggested. “After we eat. The scampi will be ready as soon as I boil the spaghetti. There is a salad in the refrigerator if you want to grab it. The dressing is on the door.”

  “Should I put the bread in the oven?”

  “I was going to wait to heat it until the pasta is almost done. I have fresh Parmesan grated if you want that. It is in the Baggie in the cheese compartment.”

  I opened the refrigerator and grabbed the salad, dressing, and Parmesan. It was a good thing I walked so much during the course of my working day. Otherwise, Tony’s cooking would make me fat. “How’d things go today with the video game?”

  “Really well. We messed around with some design options today. We want the interface to be user-friendly but not too user-friendly. Real gamers don’t want their games to be so easy that even someone inexperienced can excel.”

  “Yeah, I can see how a game that is challenging enough to get the attention of competitive gamers would be important. I’m sure between you and Shaggy, you will come up with something really awesome.”

  Tony slipped the bread into the oven and then poured the pasta into a strainer. “I think so as well.” He shook the water from the strainer and then transferred the pasta to a bowl. “Shaggy gave me a game he has to test if you want to play later.”

  “I’m in. In fact, I’m still on a high from beating your pants off the other night.”

  “You are more than welcome to beat my pants off any time you want,” he said with a smile.

  I threw a piece of bread at his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Tony winked. “I know. I spoke to Nona today.”

  “Oh. How is she?”

  “Good. I told her that we might try to come for a visit in the fall. She was, as predicted, very excited about the idea.”

  I sat down at the table after topping off my wine. “I want to meet her, of course, but I have to say that I am sort of nervous as well. Does she speak English?”

  “Not a lot,” Tony admitted.

  “So we won’t even be able to talk to each other. Could be awkward.”

  “You have months until the trip. I could teach you some basic phrases in Italian. Enough so you could get by.”

  I served myself a tongful of salad. “I’d like that. Very much. I’ve never learned another language. But it seems difficult.”

  “Not really. Every language has rules to follow. Once you understand those rules, you can get by. We’ll start with some easy phrases and build on that.”

  “Okay. I’m willing to try. How long do you want to visit for?”

  “Maybe three weeks? Less if you can’t get the time off work, but Italy is beautiful in the fall. I think that once you get there, you’ll want to have as much time as can be arranged.”

  Three weeks. What if Nona hated me? Three weeks seemed like a long time, but Tony had done a ton of favors for me, and he never asked for anything in return. I supposed I could endure whatever I needed to if it was going to make him happy. “We should pick dates soon, but I think I can manage three weeks.”

  “Maybe we can leave the end of September and be back in plenty of time for Halloween. Why don’t you check with your supervisor about any vacation limitations and I’ll check my schedule, and we’ll settle on dates in the next couple of weeks?”

  “Will we go to Rome?” I’d always wanted to see Rome.

  “Of course. You can’t go to Italy and not go to Rome. We can do anything you want to do.”

  “Venice. I’ve always wanted to go to Venice.”

  It wasn’t until later, after we’d eaten and the kitchen was clean, that Tony shared with me the rest of his news. The news he wasn’t even sure he wanted to share but knew I would be angry with him for not sharing if he didn’t.

  “I got a call from one of the men from the CIA who came by the other night. He told me that he has reason to believe that your father has returned to Montana. He wants us to try to track him down and then fill them in on his location.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t seem right. Were you ever able to confirm that they really are CIA?”

  Tony nodded. “I checked, and they are. But I agree that something seems off. It isn’t at all like the CIA to enlist the help of civilians. It is true that we have had some success in tracking him down in the past, and I can even see why they feel he might be here to try to connect with you.”

  I raised a brow. “Connect with me? They think he is going to try to contact me?”

  Tony nodded. “That seems to be their theory.”

  “Why would he do that? He went to a lot of trouble to make me think he was dead. Why would he just show up here after all these years?”

  “I guess they figured that he knows we have been looking for him and might have decided to make contact to stop the searches. Or perhaps they think he needs something from you, or even possibly from me. Maybe your trip to the lake alerted him to the fact that you had been provided with part of the story and he wants to fill in the blanks. I really don’t know why he might contact you, but they seem to think that contacting you is the reason he is in Montana. They want to use you as bait, but they also want to be sure you notify them right away if he tries to make contact.”

  I stood up and began to pace around the room. “No way. If my dad contacts me, I am going to hear what he has to say. There is no way I am going to tell these men, whose intentions are completely undetermined.” I looked at Tony. “Should we try to get a message to him? To let him know the CIA is after him?”

  “Get a message to him how?”

  I paused to think about it. “I’m not sure. I suppose he might be watching us the same way we are watching him. If this were a movie, there would be some sort of dark web chat room where we could leave a message.”

  “That actually might not be a bad idea. It does seem like your dad might be watching us, although for the chat room idea to work, we’d need to find a way to let him know what we are doing. Maybe we could post a cryptic message to social media. Let me work on it and see what I can come up with.”

  “Okay. In the meantime, I think I’ll call Mike to see what he might know about Brick’s murder that he hasn’t shared yet. If he doesn’t feel inclined to do it now, I won’t push it.”

  Unfortunately, Mike didn’t answer his cell, so I had to be content with leaving a message. I wondered once again if I should tell him that Dad could very well be right here in Montana and that the CIA might be looking for him. On one hand, I was afraid that he would totally overreact; on the other, if he was keeping a secret like that from me and I eventually found out about it, I was sure that I’d be madder than a cat in a bathtub. Was I willing to risk my relationship with Mike on the off chance that doing so might protect my father, whose motives I still didn’t understand completely?

  Chapter 13

  Wednesday, March 27

  By the time Wednesday rolled around, I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do about Mike. Should I tell him what was going on with the CIA and their search for Dad? Should I let him know that Dad had been in Montana as recently as last week? Should I push t
o find out what he knew about Brick’s murder, or should I just let it go and allow him to do his job? He had returned my call the previous day and seemed intentionally vague about Brick’s murder, which I had to admit I found irritating. Part of me wanted to keep the information about Dad from him the same way he appeared to be keeping information about Brick from me, but his information was connected with his job and mine was personal to us both. Perhaps I should sit him down and try to share what I could. But it would be just like Mike to recognize the CIA guys as fellow law enforcement and give them everything we had. And if Mike did side with the CIA, would he be right in doing so? Were Tony and I wrong in our basic mistrust of the men? Lordy B, this was complicated.

  In fact, the uncertainty of the whole thing was making me just a tiny bit crazy, so when Bree invited me for drinks after work, I jumped on it. In my mind, even wedding planning catastrophes, which I assumed were behind the invite, would be better than obsessing over Brick’s murder or whether or not to fill Mike in on the updates regarding our dad.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Bree said as I slid into a booth at one of our favorite bars.

  “No problem. What’s up? It’s not the venue?”

  Bree shook her head. “It’s not the venue. It’s not even the wedding, for that matter. It’s Mike.”

  “Mike?”

  Bree looked uncertain. She hesitated, appeared to reconsider even talking to me, and then finally said, “I’m not sure I should say anything. Mike is my fiancé and I know I should keep his confidences. It’s just that things have seemed odd the past few days.”

  “Odd?”

  “Maybe odd is an odd word to use.”

  I took a sip of my drink. “Just start at the beginning and tell me what you are trying so hard not to tell me but clearly want to.”

  Bree sighed. “A couple of nights ago, Mike and I were at dinner. This man walked in and asked to speak to him privately. Mike got up and followed him out into the parking lot. They talked for maybe ten minutes and then Mike came back inside. I asked him what that was all about, and he just said that the guy had a tip about one of the cases he was working on and wanted to deliver it in private. I didn’t think much about it at first. Mike is a cop, and he does receive tips from sources who don’t want to speak to him in an official capacity. I continued to chat on about the caterer for the reception, but then I realized that Mike wasn’t listening to a thing I was saying. I called him on it and he apologized and made a real effort to pay attention.”