Part 21 (1/2)
I grabbed my coffee cup and took a good, long drink before I said any more. Between my early-morning visits to the food pantry and Serenity Oaks, the Irish music that raced through my bloodstream all night long, and the fact that I didn't get much sleep thanks to being nervous about that attempted break-in at Sophie's, I needed all the time I could get to clear my head.
”You're right,” I finally said.
Declan's expression brightened. ”Two little words I thought I'd never hear from you.”
”And you might not hear them again. But this time, you are right. As much fun as it might be for Jack Lancer to expose the Food Pantry Robin Hood, it's not exactly a story that would make or break his career. And it's certainly not worth getting killed over.”
Satisfied, he nodded. ”Exactly.”
”So, there has to be more to the story than just that.”
He was just about to take another sip of coffee, and over the rim of his cup, his eyes flickered to mine. ”You think?”
”Oh, I've been thinking a lot. About what Sophie was doing at the restaurant early that evening. About how you just happened to arrive on the scene once we got there. About how someone is using her suppliers to order goodies for the food pantry. And about Jack Lancer.”
I strolled to the front of the shop and looked across the street at the Terminal. ”You know, he'd been coming in every afternoon for pie and coffee.”
”Sophie has great pie.”
Declan had come to stand at my side, and I slid him a look. ”That's not why he was there.”
”The coffee's not that good.”
I ignored the comment. ”Jack sat at the same table every day,” I said.
”A creature of habit. I think habits are boring, don't you? Me, I'd rather be spontaneous. You know, pa.s.sionate.”
I ignored this, too, because it was an attempt to knock my train of thought off its tracks and because I knew if I let that happen, it would lead to a train wreck. ”The table Jack sat at”-I pointed out-”from there, he had a perfect view of this place.”
”Really?” Declan pursed his lips. ”What do you suppose that means?”
”That he had a line on something interesting. That he was watching you. He knew you were the Food Pantry Robin Hood and I think he knew something more, like maybe about how you were funding your little charity project. There's plenty of speculation around here about you and your family, especially your uncle Pat. If Jack Lancer knew-”
”First of all,” Declan was quick to point out, ”Jack Lancer didn't know anything. He might have suspected a thing or two, but truth be told, he wasn't a good enough reporter to really find out anything of value. He was a hack, a s...o...b..ater. And even if he did uncover anything interesting . . .”
It was Declan's turn to take a walk around the shop. He straightened the plaid kilts where they hung near CDs of Irish music. He grabbed a feather duster and danced it over the top of a gla.s.s display case. He moved a gorgeous pair of Waterford winegla.s.ses to make sure they were sitting square under a spotlight so that when it was turned on, the light would ignite the hundreds of facets cut into the gla.s.s. When he was all done, he grabbed something out of a pretty gla.s.s bowl, and when he came back, he dropped those somethings on the counter nearby.
”Irish pennies,” he said, running his hand through the little pile of copper coins. ”Look, there's a harp on this one. That's the national symbol of Ireland, you know. Here's a fairly new penny with a picture on it from the Book of Kells, and here's an older one.” He held the coin between thumb and forefinger. ”It's got a hen and chicks on it because farming is Ireland's chief economy.”
”And Irish pennies have what to do with Jack Lancer?” I asked.
”Nothing at all,” he admitted with a chuckle. ”But let's just say . . .” He whisked his fingers across the coins, neatly dividing them into two piles, one with just a couple pennies in it and the other one piled high. ”For argument's sake, let's examine the scenario you just mentioned. Let's say that this pile of pennies . . .” He touched a finger to the smaller of the two piles. ”Let's just say that this is the money the food pantry has for operations. Not much, is it? Not nearly enough to serve all the needs of the people who come looking for food. What are they going to do?”
I looked over his little example. ”Take money from the other pile?”
”That would not be keeping with the idea of charity, that's for sure.” He tapped the larger pile. ”But let's say there is someone with all the money the food pantry needs. Here it is. Only this money, it's not so easy to spend, if you know what I mean.”
I didn't.
Declan chose his words carefully when he explained. ”Let's pretend this money came to the person who owns it by means that are . . . well, let's just say that they're not exactly legal.”
Instantly, I thought about everything I'd heard about Declan's Traveller family and especially his uncle Pat Sheedy, the purported leader of the local Irish mob. He must have known it, because he jumped right in with a disclaimer.
”Not that I'm saying anyone's done anything wrong,” he said. ”Or that anyone has gotten money by illegal means. You understand, this is all just for ill.u.s.tration purposes.”
Oh, I understood, all right. And he understood that I understood. I knew this because he nodded once and went right on.
”Let's say the person who has all these pennies wants to make sure that everything he has is safe and that no one knows about what he's doing or how he's getting the pennies he has. He has to protect it, right?” He took some of the pennies and built a third pile. ”He has to put it somewhere.”
I pushed that third pile farther from the other two. ”You mean like offsh.o.r.e accounts. We're talking money laundering.”
He winced. ”Such ugly words. But if that's what you want to call it, sure. We'll call it money laundering. For ill.u.s.tration purposes. Now, let's say that there's someone who's supposed to take care of the details for the person who has all this money.”
I watched him carefully. ”You.”
Declan rolled his eyes. ”It can't be me. Because it's not real. It's just an-”
”Ill.u.s.tration. Yes, I know. So the person who's made all this money wants it taken care of.”
”And the person who's taking care of it decides it can be put to better use than just sitting in a bank account somewhere.”
I looked from what was still the largest stack of pennies to that stack I'd sent to an offsh.o.r.e account. ”Doesn't the person who owns the pennies want to know what's happening to all his other pennies?”
”He does.” Declan put one finger on the newest stack of pennies and glided it closer. ”He hears all about it from the person he's put in charge of taking care of it for him. And someday . . .” One by one, he flicked the pennies off the counter and into his hand. ”Someday when the FBI starts asking questions and the person with all those pennies is backed against a wall . . . well, if the money was in an offsh.o.r.e account or if there was anything havey-cavey going on, then he'd be up a creek. But this way . . .” He had all the pennies from the largest stack in his hand and all the pennies from the newest stack, too, and with a c.h.i.n.k he added them to the pile he'd used to represent the food pantry.
”Someday when he's up against a wall, the person who owns all this money will thank the person he put in charge of it,” Declan said. ”Because the authorities, they won't be able to prove a thing.”
I ran my finger through the coins, spreading them out on the counter. ”So, if a reporter found out about the pennies, and the person in charge of those pennies thought the truth was going to come out-”
”The reporter didn't find out, and the person in charge of the pennies was never worried,” he a.s.sured me. ”Besides . . .” He swept up the pennies into his hand, dropped them back in the bowl they'd come out of, and came back to the front of the shop, brus.h.i.+ng his hands together.
”It's all hypothetical, anyway. Just an example.”
”An ill.u.s.tration.”
”Exactly.” His eyes gleamed. ”But if it was real and if someone found out . . .” The someone he was talking about now wasn't Jack Lancer. I suspected it from the start, and my suspicions were confirmed when he tapped the tip of my nose with one finger. ”Well, it would be a shame to reveal the secret to the world, wouldn't it? And what good would it do, anyway? The only people who would suffer are the ones who come to the food pantry and find the shelves empty. It would be a shame to reveal the Food Pantry Robin Hood and spoil things for them, wouldn't it?”
I gritted my teeth and smiled. ”Not if it meant catching a killer.”
He puffed out a breath of annoyance. Or maybe it was a sound of surrender. ”All right, since you know Sophie was at the Terminal early on the night of the murder, you should know that I was, too. We were discussing the details of something we were working on together.”
”Ordering from her suppliers for the food pantry.”
”I didn't say that. I'm not going to say it. I will say that when I was there, I had a list of sorts with me, you know, things we were going to talk about, and when she realized how late it was and how she had to get home because you were scheduled to arrive, she hurried me out and I left my list behind.”
”That's what you were looking for when you came over to the Terminal once Sophie and I arrived!”