the first part of the night.”
“Where was the party?” Jacob asked.
“Also a matter of record, Detective Knight. It unfolded at Gilhoolie’s Pub, and before you make a snide remark about the earthy nature of the venue, I’ll remind you that I’m a self-made man whose father traveled from Galway to America at the age of fifteen and worked in a Portland, Maine, fish processing plant for much of his life. As a teenager, I worked hard alongside him.”
Romana gave Jacob’s ankle a kick before venturing a pleasant, “How on earth did you go from processing fish in Maine to making furniture in Ohio?”
Barret’s eyes glinted. “My father, bless his whiskey-soaked soul, met a man very similar to him in a bar. His name was Ben Brown. Ben had an idea, and my dad had every dollar he’d saved since arriving on these shores. I was nineteen at the time and more than ready to leave the smell of fish behind. We formed a three-way partnership. My father passed on three years into the deal, leaving Ben and me to build on the framework of our infant business venture. We built well. Our partnership held fast until Ben died six years ago.”
“The same year Belinda Critch died. And under somewhat questionable circumstances.” Jacob’s prod was deliberate. It earned him another kick from Romana and a cool arch of Barret’s left eyebrow.
“Did I mention, Detective, that I wasn’t the only man Belinda came on to that cold New Year’s Eve?”
“You haven’t mentioned much at all-about that night or any other.” Jacob ignored Romana’s hissed, “Mayor’s your boss, Knight,” and countered Barret’s visual dagger with a level one of his own. “I’ve read the police report on Belinda’s death. Details are sketchy in several areas. Yours is one of them.”
“Possibly because I was never a viable suspect. I cooperated with your department in as much as I was required to. However-” Barret revved up the false smile again and gave his right cuff another vicious snick “-if it’s details you want, I can give you one I neglected to pass on to any of the officers I encountered.”
“Not going to be good,” Romana predicted from Jacob’s side.
“Is this detail connected to Belinda’s death?”
“Your call, Knight. I’m sure you know that off-duty police officers frequently stop by Gilhoolie’s for an after-shift drink. The pub’s divided into two sections-public front, private back. On that particular New Year’s Eve, about seventy of us were partying it up in a back room that was as tight for space as the sardine cans my father and I used to stuff. It was approaching midnight, and I needed air to counteract Gilhoolie’s special blend of whiskey. I stepped into the front of the pub and immediately spotted a group of off-duty officers. I also spotted Belinda. She was wrapped around a guy with curly brown hair who had cop written all over him. Now the guy might have been wearing a wedding ring, but I’ll tell you this for nothing. From my vantage point, he wasn’t using it to fend her off.”
Although Jacob maintained his neutral expression, he sensed where this was heading. Still, he shrugged. “Spit it out, Barret. I don’t shock as easily as you might think.”
“Cop’s name was Michael O’Keefe,” Barret obliged. “Married for ten years, I discovered later. One kid. Impeccable record on the force. Apparently, not quite so impeccable on his own time.” His eyes glittered, steely- blue. “I saw your partner slip the publican a C-note, Knight, then watched him fumble his way toward the upstairs rooms in the company of one very drunk, very married Belinda Critch.”
Chapter Five
“He’s lying.” Romana tried to sound adamant but knew she fell short. “Even if he was having problems at home, O’Keefe wouldn’t have had sex with a married woman.” She slanted Jacob a mistrustful look. “Unless you introduced him to Belinda Critch before that New Year’s Eve party, so she wasn’t a complete stranger to him.”
“Which would make it okay for him to have had sex with her?”
“No.” She breathed out. “No, it would just make them not strangers.” Frustrated, she pressed on her temples. “I’m trying really hard to untangle this mess of knots we’ve tied, Knight.”
And coming to a lively restaurant-his idea, not hers-in even livelier Mount Adams probably wasn’t the best place to do that. The chili at Bitte might be the best in the city, and the owners, a pair of second-generation German brothers, might be famous for bursting into song, but Romana had had two bombshells dropped on her that night-one involving Jacob, the other his former partner-and neither one was sitting well.
As she struggled with her thoughts, she moved her gaze around the room.
Holiday oompah music underscored laughing patrons at more than three dozen tables. Being German, the brother/owners had Christmas trees stuffed into every nook and cranny. The one precariously angled over their booth tended to grab Romana’s hair every time she moved.
She swirled the lager she hadn’t really wanted and, beginning with the less complicated prospect, backtracked through the newest knots.
“What was the state of O’Keefe’s marriage nine years ago?”
Jacob gave a small laugh. “Come on, Romana, guys don’t talk personal on the clock.”
“In my experience, they don’t talk personal off the clock, either. But even a guy can get a sense of another guy’s life. Was he snappish, moody, tense, depressed? Or the opposite- upbeat, relaxed, eager to leave when his shift ended?”
“He was O’Keefe, steady and dependable. A solid cop. We talked baseball, football, politics and punks.” Jacob took a long drink of beer. “If you’re interested, Barret’s friend, the mayor, is a dick.”
She tugged on strands of her hair that were currently snagged in the tips of the Christmas pine. “Really? I’ll have to mention that to my colleague at the university. The mayor’s her stepfather.”
“Steps can be dicks, too.”
Although the word
“Alleged sex.”
“Don’t nitpick. It wasn’t an official question.”
“Then the unofficial answer is, no, I don’t think he knew her, but yes, he’d met her.”
“Through you?”
“Through the department. We deal with people in forensics every day. It’s part of our job. And Belinda was very people oriented.”
Mostly male people, as Romana recalled, but she let it go and ran a contemplative finger around the rim of her glass. “It could have been a one-time thing between them. New Year’s Eve festivities gone awry.”
“Could be. Why aren’t you looking at me?”
She’d been expecting this. Raising her head, she forced a steady stare. “Better?”
He leaned over his drink, and it took all of Romana’s willpower not to grab his T-shirt and haul him closer. Or shove him away and escape.
Jacob watched her but didn’t speak until the young restaurant owner, who’d launched into a boisterous rendition of Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus, finished to a round of applause. Jacob’s green eyes moved over her face with a slow, almost dangerous kind of seduction. Her skin warmed, and her heart made a dizzy revolution in her chest.
“Who did you run into in the park?”
She could lie and call herself a coward, or go with the truth and brace for impact.
She took a deep breath-then sighed it out. “One of Belinda’s phone conversations was overheard during that weird and eventful forty-eight-hour period prior to her death. Your name came up.”
“Not in a good way, I assume.”
“She told whoever was on the other end that you wanted her dead.”
“Did this eavesdropper happen to know who Belinda was talking to?”
“I’d guess no.” Now that it was out, Romana gave in to temptation, slid closer and ran a fingertip from his cheek to his jaw. “Deny it, Jacob. I’d rather believe you than someone who listens in on private conversations.”
His eyes fixed on hers. “Why would I want Belinda dead when I didn’t want her in the first place?”
