Flawless(73)

“I’ll say hi to Declan and maybe ask Rory for something, and then I’ll head back and see if Kevin wants some company,” Kieran said, smiling.

Her brother frowned fiercely when she walked up to the bar.

“I told you to get some rest,” he said with a scowl.

“And I did. I just wanted company, that’s all.”

“All right, you can help out if you want. I need you to pull all the credit card receipts from the past three weeks, and then I need you to see if any of them were paid by a man named Joe or Joseph.”

“What?” she asked, wondering if she’d heard him correctly.

“Detective Mayo is on his way—says they have a lead on a guy named Joe. I need you to go through our receipts and see if you can find him.”

“They think that someone named Joe is involved in all this and has been here?”

“That’s what I gather.”

“If Joe were a crook, wouldn’t he pay cash?”

“Possibly, but then again, maybe he’s a stupid crook or just thinks we’ll never get onto him.”

“Okay,” she said, turning away from the bar.

A married couple from the old country who had been coming in as long as Kieran could remember were seated in the first of the bar tables. The second was empty. Jimmy was sitting alone at the third. The two musicians from the day before were seated at the fourth, talking animatedly over their Sunday roast.

“Kieran!” Jimmy called to her.

She walked over to his table. “Hey, Jimmy.”

“Bobby is doing well, I hear?”

“He’s going to be fine.”

“Ah, now, that’s a relief,” Jimmy said. He looked at his watch. “It’s so irritating when people don’t show up.”

“Someone is a no-show, huh?”

“Yes, but enough of my bad mood. You look quite professional today,” he said.

“I ended up working today,” she said. “Your beer is empty. Want another? Or maybe a coffee?”

“Irish coffee,” he said, as if he’d come up with a great idea.

“I’ll be right back with one,” she told him.

“That will be great. I’ll drink that, and then I’m done waiting.” His eyes widened. “Damn!”

“Damn what?”

“I forgot. I’ll bet that’s why he’s not here.”

“Why who’s not here?”

“Gary Benton. I forgot—I’m sorry. You asked him to stay away. Although, don’t you think that’s kind of silly. Sometimes marriages don’t work out. Doesn’t mean people should be banned from the best pub in town.”

“We haven’t told Gary he can’t come in here. We’ve just asked him to have some decency and stay away when Julie—who, quite frankly, he’s treating very badly—is here, which, I admit, is often.”

Jimmy shrugged. “He said she had a fit because he forgot to feed her dogs. That’s not exactly a hanging offense.”

Kieran decided that it wasn’t worth trying to explain how he’d left the animals in their own filth and without food or water, much less that he’d found it amusing to leave other women’s panties in Julie’s bed.

“I’ll get you that Irish coffee,” she told him.

She was in the area, so she decided to check on the married couple and then the musicians after she brought Jimmy his coffee.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked.

“No, we’re good, thanks,” said the one with the full beard.

There was definitely something odd about the man.

Could he have something to do with the robberies? Or the murders?

Was he watching her, waiting to hire another contract killer to do her in?

She smiled. She hadn’t really heard him speak much before, but now she had an opening. “You have an interesting accent,” she told him. “Where are you from?”

“Georgia,” he said. “The country, not the state.”

“Well, welcome to Finnegan’s.”

She walked away, still disturbed.

Then she reminded herself that they ran a pub. She didn’t have to like every customer. And it was unlikely the two men were involved in any way with the robberies or her own troubles. For one thing, she’d never seen them before yesterday.

Still...

She was telling herself to forget them when she saw that Jimmy had left his table to speak with them. Strange, but hardly proof of anything.

She headed back to the office, where Kevin was seated in front of the computer. He looked up at her and shook his head. “We need help.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she said.

Kevin eased back in his chair. “I’m trying to get the quarterly taxes ready for the accountant,” he said. “And I just got a call. A commercial for a dating service. I get to be a real person in this one. With a hot date,” he added. “I don’t even have to audition. But I feel guilty saying yes when Declan asked me to handle this. And now we’re all looking after Bobby, too—which is a pleasure, of course.”

Kieran smiled and sat down in the chair across from him. “It’s the curse,” she said. “Feeling that you were born guilty. The Irish-American curse, and it affects all thirty-five million of us with Irish lineage. Did you know at one time in the 1860s a quarter of the population of the city was Irish?” She grimaced. “I listen to Danny too much, huh? All that trivia rubs off.” She squared her shoulders. “Okay, how can I help?”