Irish Stewed (An Ethnic Eats Mystery)

by Kylie Logan

  “Or three or a dozen or a hundred times.” I didn’t need the reminder of my former life. Not when my current life was turning out to be so complicated. When we looked over the crime scene earlier, I’d left my coffee cup on one of the tables, and I snatched it up and again walked far enough away from the windows to be sure Kim couldn’t see us, even with her nose pressed to the glass. I held the coffee cup in both hands against my chest. It wasn’t much in the way of a shield but only an idiot could miss the symbolism. I doubted very much that Declan was an idiot, but just in case, I thought it only fair to tell him, “I don’t like pushy men.”

  “Neither do I,” he confided. “Though I do confess I have something of a soft spot right about here”—he laid a hand over his heart—“for pushy women.”

  I bit back the reply I was tempted to hurl at him and matched him smile for smile. “Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m not a pushy woman, isn’t it?”

  “Jury’s still out on that.” He laughed and his eyes sparkled with way more mischief than anyone should have been able to muster at that time of the morning. “I’m not about to pass judgment, because I don’t know you well enough. Not yet, anyway.”

  I puffed out a sigh of frustration. Or maybe I was just trying to catch my breath. “You’re exasperating.”

  “And you’re intriguing.” He took a couple steps back, the better to look me over as he had a time or two before. This time, just like those other times, heat raced up my neck and into my cheeks. “When are we going to have dinner together?”

  I hesitated. But then, being blindsided will do that to a girl.

  “I’m free tonight,” Declan said.

  I shook myself back to my senses. “I’ve got to go to the hospital tonight. To check on Sophie.”

  “Tomorrow, then.” He turned and headed for the door and called back over his shoulder, “Unless you still think I’m a murderer!”

  “I never said you were a murderer. I only said it was a possibility. And I didn’t agree to dinner,” I added. I shouldn’t have bothered. By the time I got to the front door, Declan was already out on the sidewalk and ignoring her when Kim Kline scrambled over, tape recorder in hand.

  “Pushy and exasperating,” I grumbled.

  That is, right before I smiled.

  Just in case Declan might see, I spun away from the door.

  And spun around again when there was another tap on the window.

  This time when I grumbled, it had nothing to do with the handsome gift shop manager. I opened the door a crack. “Really, Ms. Kline, there’s nothing I can tell you about Jack Lancer and even if there was—”

  Like a bolt out of the blue, an idea hit. I was being perfectly truthful; there was nothing I knew about the dead TV star.

  But that didn’t mean Kim Kline didn’t know plenty.

  I swallowed my words, and when I opened the door I took a step back so she could walk into the restaurant. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” I asked her.

  Don’t worry, I hadn’t forgotten the pledge I’d made to myself the night before: I would stay far away from the cameras, and there was no way I’d let myself be quoted and thus end up with my name plastered in the newspapers and on the Internet.

  “This is off the record,” I told her before she could open her mouth and say a word. “If you promise not to quote me—”

  “You’re an anonymous source.” Kim actually crossed her heart with one finger. “I appreciate your help. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened around here in a long time. Jack and I worked together, and when I got this assignment . . .” Her cheeks flushed. “Well, this is the biggest break I’ve had in my career. Anything you can tell me will put me one step ahead of the competition.”

  I led the way into the kitchen and when we got there, I dumped my cold coffee, refilled my coffee cup, and poured a nice, hot cup for Kim.

  “So what do you think Jack was doing here?” Kim asked.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  She flinched. “You mean you don’t know? You mean . . .” As if she might actually see something interesting in a kitchen that was so far out of date I wondered how anyone could cook anything in it, she looked around at the fryers and the grill, at the tiny salad prep station, and out the pickup window where Sophie’s one and only cook passed food through to the servers. “Do you believe what the police are saying, that Jack Lancer actually broke into the restaurant with the guy they arrested, the one who was stealing copper in the basement?”

  I didn’t think it fair to reveal what Declan and I had already determined. Someone broke into the basement, all right. But chances were, that someone wasn’t Jack. Whoever was downstairs had never come upstairs. Which meant Jack couldn’t have gotten up here from down there and the person who was down there—Owen—could never have been up here. Jack must have come in through the back door. But why? And if he was with Owen, why wouldn’t the two of them just come in together?

  I finished my coffee and set down my cup. “Do you believe it?” I asked Kim.

  “The kid could have been desperate,” she suggested.

  “Desperate enough to kill? To cover up his copper stealing?” I shook my head. “Even if he was, from what I saw of Owen Quilligan, he was young and fit. Jack would have been no match for him. To me, that means if he ran into him and wanted to keep him quiet and get away, the kid could have punched Jack in the nose and run. Or whacked him with a piece of copper tubing, knocked him out cold, and gone on stripping the copper out of the building. But he didn’t. He didn’t even finish stealing what he started to take. The kid is the one who ran, and he left the copper where he dropped it. Seems to me, the question has to be why.”

  A new thought hit me. “Did he carry a weapon?” I asked Kim.

  “Jack?” She had just taken a sip of coffee, and she swallowed so hard, I heard the gulp. “I don’t think so. I don’t think . . .” She made a face. “That just doesn’t seem like the Jack I knew. And even if he did carry a weapon, why would he bring it here to your restaurant?”

  Just hearing the words, a prickle of annoyance shot over the back of my neck. “If you’re going to get your anonymous source right, you can start there,” I told her. “It’s not my restaurant.”

  “Of course not. You’re not Sophie. Not that I know her or anything,” she added. “Until I was assigned Jack’s story, I’d never been here before. I mean, why would I be? It’s not like it’s a dinner destination. I mean, for anyone.”

  She was working her first big story so I guess she was allowed to be a little nervous and a little thoughtless, too, so I cut her a little slack.

  A little was all I ever cut anybody.

  “So what kinds of stories was Jack working on?” I asked Kim.

  Her shrug was noncommittal. “From what I could see when I went back to the station last night and looked through his files, just the usual. Something about school cafeteria lunches not being nutritional enough. Something about the local food bank Robin Hood, too, though that file was so slim, I have a feeling it was initiated by a tip and then Jack discovered there really was nothing to the story. I mean, really, how interesting could it possibly be to do a story about somebody who leaves anonymous donations at the St. Colman’s food pantry now and again?” It wasn’t and Kim knew it—that’s why she rolled her eyes. “There was a file about some car repair place, too, a shop on the other side of town that charges for parts they don’t really install.”

  “Nothing about the Terminal at the Tracks.”

  Another shrug told me all I needed to know.

  “So why Jack? Why here?”

  “Maybe . . .” Kim finished her coffee and set her cup on the stainless steel counter. “Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe the cops are right. He ran into that Quilligan kid and the kid killed Jack to keep him quiet.”

  “If that’s true, it would be the wrong time, but what about the place? It was a place he had no business being.”


  Since this was obvious, Kim didn’t bother to answer. Fine by me. That gave me a chance to ask, “Could he have been meeting someone?”

  Kim’s cheeks paled. “Like the Quilligan kid?”

  “Forget the Quilligan kid!” I controlled my temper. Just barely. It wasn’t Kim’s fault that I knew about the umbrella stand and she didn’t. “Let’s try out some other theories,” I suggested from between gritted teeth. “You know, just in case the cops find out they’re wrong about Owen.”

  I guess Kim had never even considered the possibility, because she wrinkled her nose and cocked her head. “Okay.” She didn’t sound sure of this at all. “So let’s start with Jack’s files. The school cafeteria story . . . You people here at the Terminal, you don’t have anything to do with the food provided to the local school district, do you?”

  As far as I knew, the restaurant didn’t, and I told her so. Right after I reminded her—again—that I was not in any way, shape, or form to be included in the “you people.”

  “Then what about the church food pantry?” Kim’s nose twitched. Since it was such a big nose, it was hard to miss. “If you donate leftover food—”

  “We do. That is, the restaurant does,” I corrected myself. This anonymous source wanted to make sure she stayed clear of any close association with the restaurant. After all, she wasn’t sticking around. “Sophie told me that on Fridays and Saturdays, any food that’s left over goes to the homeless shelter downtown. And she says if there’s ever any canned goods that are about to expire, she sends them to the food bank because she knows that over there, they’ll give them out right away and the food won’t be wasted. I can’t imagine knowing something like that is the kind of thing that gets a man killed.”

  That morning, Kim had her glossy ringlets pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing the same black suit she’d worn the night before when she tried to push her way into the restaurant, and now that I thought about it, it was probably because she’d been working nonstop since she heard Jack was dead; she hadn’t had a chance to change.

  That would explain why there were bags under her eyes, too. And why Kim put a hand to her mouth and yawned.

  “Sorry.” She apologized instantly. “It was a long night.”

  “Then you’re probably anxious to get going.” I led the way out of the kitchen and, as weird as it seems since I was reluctant to let Kim in, now I hated to see her go. She hadn’t told me anything, not anything useful, anyway.

  Maybe she was feeling the same way about me.

  Kim paused outside the kitchen door. “Can you show me . . .” Her eyes positively gleamed when she glanced around. “Can you show me where he . . . I mean, where it . . . Sorry!” As if to gauge whether I was thinking less of her, she gave me a quick look. “I’ve never worked a murder before. Could you show me where the body was found?”

  As far as I could tell, it wouldn’t hurt. And it would give me a few more minutes to question Kim.

  I led her to the part of the restaurant where those few tables were wedged between the front windows and the wall of the waiting area. From there, it was really a no-brainer to determine where Jack had been killed; the table, the chair, and the floor around both were still sprinkled with fingerprint powder.

  “Oh, right here!” With two fingers, Kim touched the back of the chair where Jack had spent his last moments on earth. “Was there a lot of blood?”

  I hoped my quick smile told her this was something I would rather not discuss. “I’m sure it’s all in the coroner’s report.”

  “And you can be sure I’m going to get my hands on that as soon as I can, but until then—”

  I headed her off at the pass. “Until then, tell me about Jack. We’ve talked about how he might—or might not—be somehow connected with Owen Quilligan. We’ve talked about the stories he was working on. But what about him? What kind of person was this Lance of Justice?”

  Kim’s shoulders shot back just a tad. She stood a little straighter. When she spoke, even her voice was different. It rang with conviction, like she was in front of the TV cameras.

  “Jack Lancer was a mainstay of this community. A man of integrity and mettle. He stood up to corruption. He refused to back down from controversy. He was a hero.”

  “Great. Fine. Wonderful.” I waved away her words at the same time I swiped at a dust mote that floated by. “But what kind of person was he?”

  She gave me a sidelong glance. “Truth?”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

  Kim leaned nearer. “Professionally, Jack had it all going for him. He’d been at the station for, like, forever, and he had all the perks that went with his job. You know, wardrobe allowance, primo parking spot, more days off than anybody else on the reporting team.”

  “And were the other reporters jealous?”

  She thought about this for a moment. “I don’t think so. I mean, most of us, we weren’t even born back when Jack started at WKFJ. And most of us . . .” One corner of her mouth pulled tight. “There aren’t many people who are happy staying at the first station where they get a job after college.”

  “Like you.”

  “Like anybody who has an ounce of ambition. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for this opportunity at the station. But I’ve got bigger plans. You know, bigger markets. Network news. There must have been hundreds of reporters who’ve come and gone since Jack started at the station. And I can’t imagine any of them were jealous of a guy who sank into a rut and settled there. They all moved on. Just like I’m going to do.”

  “Which makes me wonder why Jack never did.”

  “Hey, the guy was a hometown legend. He cut the ribbons when buildings were opened, and he wrote books that were published by some small, local press. You know, about his exploits as an investigative reporter. He even had a wall calendar he sold every year and he donated the money to charity. The Lance Gives Back, he called it. Corny, but people around here, they loved it. So why would he move somewhere else? Big fish, small pond. The Lance liked being the center of attention and he got plenty of it around here.”

  “So the guy was at the top of his profession. You still haven’t told me what he was like, personally, I mean.”

  “Personally?” Kim picked a thread from the skirt of her black suit. “Well, I didn’t know him all that well. I mean, why would I? This is my first job since I graduated from Kent State. But I’ll tell you what . . .” She looked left and right and out the front window. A TV sound truck from another station had just pulled up and as if there were any chance the people inside could hear, Kim lowered her voice.

  “Professionally is one thing. But I hear that personally, Jack was a scumbag.”

  This was something. At least more something than the nothing I’d already gotten from her. I inched nearer and lowered my voice, too, the better to make it seem as if we were trading confidences. Would she open up? I was about to find out.

  “A scumbag, like a scumbag who cheats on his taxes? Or shoplifts in the grocery store? Or—”

  “Women.” Kim’s lips pinched. “A couple ex-wives, a couple girlfriends and, from what I heard, the wives and the girlfriends all happened at the same time. If you know what I mean.” She winked.

  “So you think one of them might have a motive to kill Jack?”

  “You mean, if this Owen guy didn’t do it.” She considered this for a moment before she scooted a little closer. “There were plenty of fights. And I’m not just saying that because I got some information from somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody. I heard a couple of them myself. You know, the phone would ring in Jack’s office and he’d pick it up and the fireworks would start.”

  “Who was he fighting with?”

  “From what I heard, it had to be one of the exes. It was always all about money. How Jack still owed and Jack didn’t pay and Jack had to abide by the decisions of the court. Only of course . . .” She looked away. “Of course, I didn’t hear that part of the fight because tha
t’s the stuff the woman on the other end of the phone would be saying. I filled in the blanks. You know, the way you do when you’re in on only one side of the conversation. Over in my cubicle, I only heard the fights from Jack’s side of the phone. So I guess technically—I mean if I was reporting what I heard—I’d have to say it was more like Jack didn’t owe a dime, Jack always paid on time, and he followed the letter of the law, well . . . to the letter!”

  “You heard more than one fight like that?”

  “Absolutely. But then, like I said, there’s been more than one Mrs. Jack Lancer. I have no idea which of them he was fighting with.”

  “So at least one woman was angry with him.” I made a mental note of this and I couldn’t help myself, it brought back memories of all the high-powered, high-visibility, high-voltage Hollywood marriages I’d watched dissolve. Meghan’s friends were a lot like Meghan herself: self-centered to the max. When their relationships imploded there was fallout of epic proportions.

  I found myself thinking about the time an actor famous for playing superheroes (I’m not going to name names) showed up on our doorstep in Tuscany drunk as a skunk and crying like a baby.

  Or the woman with three Oscars to her name who was so screwed up after her husband dumped her for a younger, more beautiful woman that she disappeared for six months and was found wandering the streets of LA and sleeping under a bridge. No, that story didn’t make the tabloids. But then, the actress had a PR agent who was obviously worth his weight in golden statuettes.

  Love did crazy things to people’s brains.

  Love gone bad only made things worse.

  Suckers.

  If they’d learned like I had—early on and with constant reinforcement—that nothing lasted forever, maybe they wouldn’t have taken it all so personally.

  Maybe Jack’s ex-wives wouldn’t have had those screaming matches with him on the phone.

  “It really doesn’t make sense, though,” I said, more to myself than to Kim. “If one of those women was mad at Jack for not paying what he owed in alimony or child support . . . Well, he for sure couldn’t pay if he was dead.”