“I don’t see why that should matter.”
“Well, for the photos,” she said, as if she were explaining the obvious. “It may not matter to you. It may not matter to Peter. But in a few years it may matter to little Colin.” I said nothing, but she read my reaction. “You do want to marry my son, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” I hesitated. “But I feel a bit out of control of my own life right now. I wish I could slow things down. Take things more at my own pace.”
“Sorry, dear, but welcome to the world of being a parent. Your time no longer belongs to you. I won’t push you, though. At least for another week or two,” she said and winked at me.
I took a sip of my tea and then regretted it. The smell was what bothered me more than the taste. I fought a surge of nausea. Mrs. Tierney, Claire, reached out and pulled the cup away. “It’s all right. When I was pregnant I couldn’t abide cinnamon.” She took the cups and moved them over to the bar, returning to her seat with a much more serious look. “The baby. It’s healthy, right? Nothing unusual?”
“No, the doctor says everything looks really good,” I said in the most reassuring tone I could muster.
“I don’t care what the doctor thinks. What does Ellen have to say?”
I took her hand. “Ellen says the baby is fine. She swears that she can hear him singing.”
I thought this tidbit would entertain her, but her brow furrowed. “Takes after his father, he does,” she said. “Well, good. So tell me then,” she said, changing gears, “this tall fellow who has been staying with your family of late. The dark one who glowers all the time.”
“Emmet?” I asked, even though I knew full well that he was the only one who could possibly fit that description.
“Yes, Emmet. Is he a relative?”
“No,” I replied. “He’s more of a friend of the family.” I felt good about the level of honesty I could bring to that answer.
“So you’ve known him for a while then.”
“Only a few months, actually,” I said. “What about him?”
“It’s only that he’s been hanging around the tavern a lot lately. He spends his time nursing drinks and asking a lot of questions about our family—Colin, Peter, and me, that is. How did Colin and I meet? How long were we married when Peter was born?” She paused. “Are there any other oversized redheads in the family? That one almost earned him a sock in the eye.”
“He offended Colin?”
“No, he offended me. Even if he wasn’t implying anything by it, he still asked a whole lot more questions than a person might consider polite.”
“He’s a bit lacking in social skills, but he’s harmless.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like it, and I don’t like him.” Her eyes glowed with anger.
“I’ll talk to him about it, tell him—”
“No. I’m being silly,” she backtracked suddenly, waving a hand. “Don’t mention it to him.”
The door shook as someone tried the handle. “We’re closed. Come back at five,” she called out without budging from her chair. An insistent, authoritative knock sounded on the door.
Another knock came, this time much louder, and uniformed police officers appeared around the corner at the window. My heart rose in my throat as Claire and I exchanged a glance. Claire was a slight woman, but she pushed herself up from the table as if all the gravity in the world had dropped down on her. She struggled with the lock and then flung the door open wide. Detective Cook stood there, haloed by the sunlight that was pouring in around him.
“Mrs. Tierney,” he began, “is your husband here? I’d like to talk to the two of you.”
“Peter,” I said, jumping up and rushing to the door. “Is Peter all right?”
“Hello, Miss Taylor,” he said, obviously not thrilled to find me there. “Don’t worry. This has nothing to do with Peter.”
Claire let herself breathe. “Come in, officer.”
Cook stepped into the room, followed by the same uniformed officers who had been peering through the window. “Your husband?” he asked.
“Colin isn’t here right now. He’s disputing a bill with a distributor. He’ll be back before we open for the night. What is this about?” Cook looked over at me, and Claire surmised his thoughts. “It’s fine. She’s family.”
I realized that he viewed me as every bit as much of a bother, an inconvenience, as I saw him. I felt a bit slighted, even though I had no right to. Adam looked at me, curious about how I’d managed to make the leap from a kind of, sort of girlfriend to part of the Tierney clan. We hadn’t made the pregnancy public knowledge, and as yet there were no official wedding plans to relay.
“All right.” He pulled an old Polaroid out of his coat pocket. The picture had been wrapped in a clear evidence bag. “Do you recognize this picture?”
Claire took the bag into her hands and focused on its contents. Her legs collapsed out from under her as she fell heavily into a chair. I took the one next to her and reached out without asking permission and snatched it from her hand. The plastic somewhat obscured the picture, but the image was instantly recognizable. It was a photo of Peter’s father, Colin, and Claire holding a baby. It had to be Peter, but the child looked so scrawny and sickly I found it hard to accept that it could be. I focused on the background and realized that the photo had been taken in the very room where we sat.
Adam reached over and took the picture from me. “Mrs. Tierney?”
“Yes,” she said, regaining her composure. “Obviously. I don’t know who might have taken it, but it’s from when we first brought the baby—I mean, Peter—home. Where did you find it?”
“Are any family or friends visiting you right now?”
“No. No one,” she said, but then repeated, “Where did you find this picture?”
“We got a call this morning reporting that the body of an elderly man was found lying by the side of the road, just off Ogeechee. There was no form of identification on him, but we found this in his pocket. In light of certain unusual circumstances, we have to treat his death as suspicious.”
I felt myself blanching. My eyes were drawn to Claire, who had turned equally white.
“I hate to do this, but I need to ask you to come with me. See if you can identify the body.”
“Yes, of course,” Claire muttered. “I’ll call Colin. Tell him to meet us.”
“I would appreciate that, ma’am.”
As she stepped away from the table, moving over to the phone by the bar, Cook looked me deeply in the eye. “Do you know anything about this?”
“Of course not,” I snapped at him. Too quick. Too defensive. I shook my head. “I have no idea what’s going on.”
The biblical adage “Be sure your sin will find you out” came to mind. Guilt and regret caused a trickle of sweat to roll down my spine.
Adam nodded his head, as if he accepted my words, but I knew he didn’t. He forced his body into a more relaxed stance, and reached into his pocket for his omnipresent little black notepad. I’d witnessed this behavior before when he had come to question me about Ginny’s murder. He used the notepad as a prop, drawing a witness’s attention to it, leading him or her to believe that it contained a list of indisputable facts that pointed to that witness as the prime suspect in the crime being investigated. The pad could be considered an anachronism, but it was an effective tool all the same.
