Irish Stewed (An Ethnic Eats Mystery)

by Kylie Logan

  I guess my blank stare said it all. Smiling, Declan leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Some people say that Travellers are Irish Gypsies, but that’s not technically right. We’re not related to the Romany people in any way. We’re Irish, through and through. The Travellers are an itinerant people; we have been for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, there are those who claim we’ve been separated from the settled community for more than a thousand years.”

  “So you . . .” The concept was new to me, and I turned it over in my head. “Travel?”

  “Well, some of us do. My immediate family—my parents, Uncle Pat, and his family— we’ve been settled here in Hubbard for going on sixty years now. There are whole communities of Travellers in the U.S., some in Texas, some in South Carolina.”

  “Where Owen is from.”

  He nodded. “A lot of the Travellers keep to the old lifestyle, even in this country. They settle down for the winter, then go on the road in the warmer months doing any work they can find. A lot of them do home repairs, yard work, maintenance. That sort of thing.”

  “But not your family.”

  “Not my immediate family. They’re all my family.”

  “And the Travellers, they’ve been doing this forever?”

  “Well, it depends which legend you believe. Some say that the first Travellers were the tinsmiths who made Christ’s cross. They were cursed to travel the world until Judgment Day. Another theory is that the Travellers are the descendants of the people who were made homeless by Oliver Cromwell’s military campaign in Ireland in the 1650s. I’m more inclined to believe that we can trace our roots back to the poets and minstrels of the Middle Ages. They traveled the country telling stories and singing songs and they were much admired.”

  A gene pool that included the entertainment industry. It explained his glib tongue and maybe even the smile that never failed to make me feel as if Declan and I were the only two people in the world.

  He used it on Myra when she brought over our sandwiches and I practically saw her melt beneath the heat of it. I was appalled to think I looked as starry-eyed when Declan looked at me that way, and vowed that I’d never let it happen.

  I couldn’t help but notice that his sandwich was considerably bigger than mine.

  “I love my family to pieces,” he admitted, unrolling his silverware from a not-quite-aquamarine napkin. “There’s no use even trying to fight being in the middle of them. They’ll never back off!”

  Myra had yet to walk away, and seeing that Declan was ready to eat, she set the wipes down on the table near my plate. “If you need anything else”—she smiled down at Declan—“you know where to find me.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  It was exactly what George had told Gus Oberlin, and, thinking about it and the murder, I pushed my plate away.

  “Oh no.” Declan already had his sandwich in one hand, but he shoved my plate closer to me with the other. “This is quality stuff, and you’re not going to waste it.” His wink would have been comical if not for the fact that his smoky gaze had a way of drawing me in and making me feel as if my feet didn’t touch the floor.

  I shook away the thought and grabbed my sandwich.

  He bowed his head for a moment before he took a bite and chewed. “So?” he asked between bites. “How does it compare? To Terminal food, I mean.”

  “Oh no. You’re not going to get off that easy.” I took a bite, chewed, and sat back. “You never answered the question I asked you before. Where would you rather spend your money, here or at the Terminal?”

  He’d just chomped into his sandwich and he held up one finger to tell me I’d have to wait for his answer.

  Yeah, like a stall tactic like that was going to distract me.

  “Well,” I said, the second he’d swallowed, “which is it? This place? Or Sophie’s?”

  “Depends what’s on the menu,” was his answer.

  “Comfort food or trendy wraps?”

  “Depends on what I’m in the mood for.”

  I refused to let him get to me. “But if you were just walking in off the street, if you didn’t know anything about the restaurants or the owners or anything else, which would you choose?”

  “It’s awfully good pastrami,” he said, then because he apparently saw the flare of anger in my eyes, he added, “but the espresso’s nothing to write home about.”

  “We don’t serve espresso at the Terminal.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  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.”r />
  “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.”

  Chapter 10

  All 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 glo
ssy 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.