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I shrugged. “Not really. I know he loves playing the pipes more than he loves working on construction crews. It’s okay. I’ll find someone else to help me.”
Her face relaxed. “Oh, good. I love it when things work out perfectly.”
“Me, too,” I agreed, leaning over to let her thick, silky hair brush against my face.
A stocky redheaded guy with a guitar and a skinny guy carrying a fiddle pushed their way through the crowd about a half hour later. Their eyes fastened on Eoin, lost in the rapture of a set of fast jigs, his eyes closed, arm pumping his bellows. They nodded to Nancy. The redheaded guy’s eyes lingered on me. I was still nuzzling her hair.
“That’s Matt with the guitar, and Eugene with the fiddle,” she said in my ear. “I’ll introduce you after the set.”
Matt and Eugene pulled out their instruments and dove into the seisiún without delay. Nancy extracted her hand from mine and patted it. “I have to go talk to Eoin,” she said. “Be right back.”
I watched, fascinated, as she swiveled her way gracefully through the crowd. She waited until the end of the set, then tapped Eoin on the shoulder, and started talking in his ear. Eoin shot me a bewildered look. I gave him a thumbs-up.
Nancy spoke again, and Eoin’s freckles disappeared in a deep blush.
Nancy made her way back to me and sat down again, grinning.
“I’ll let the boys take it from here. He’s shy. Needs some convincing,” she said, just as the players tore lustily into “The Abbey Reel.”
Not much later, I noticed a man I knew across the bar smiling at me and lifting a pint in salute. It was Charlie Witt, a cop from Latham who’d been partnered with Hank, my stepdad, back when Hank had been on the force. Charlie was a good guy. Past retirement age, but he kept on working.
An impulse struck me, and I leaned in close to Nancy’s ear, nuzzling her soft hair, sucking in a greedy chestful of that sweet warm scent that made me want to lick her all over. “There’s a guy I want to talk to over there,” I said. “Will you come with me?”
Nancy looked puzzled, but she nodded agreeably. We slid out of our chairs, and I clasped her hand and led her through the crowd just as the lads all followed Eoin’s lead and struck into another high-speed reel.
Nancy’s fingers curled around mine. Her hand was so small. I wanted to kiss it. Drag her out of there. Find someplace private.
I shook Charlie’s hand, introduced Nancy, and got a congratulatory thump on the shoulder from the old man as he looked her over. “You got yourself a dish,” the older guy said. “Treat her good, huh? Or else I’ll steal her for myself.”
The next reel had a couple of bodhráns thundering along, so I had to practically yell into Charlie’s ear. “I need some advice.”
“Anything for Hank’s kid,” Charlie shot back.
“Remember that elderly Italian American lady in Hempton who died in a burglary attempt about eight, nine days ago? Lucia D’Onofrio?”
Charlie’s smile faded. “Yeah, I heard about that. That was a fuckin’ shame. They say the house got tossed again. Even worse this time.”
“Yeah, it did. And I was the one who reported it yesterday,” I told him. “Nancy here is Mrs. D’Onofrio’s daughter.”
Charlie looked at Nancy again, his round, ruddy face grave. He jerked his chin toward the back of the bar. “Let’s go where there’s less noise.”
We followed Charlie into a quieter room, one with a pool table and a pay phone. Charlie slid into a booth and took a swallow of the pint that he’d brought with him.
“I don’t actually know a whole lot about that case,” he told us. “It ain’t my case, or even my town. I only just heard about it because my partner, Henry, is hangin’ out with one of the evidence techs.”
“I just wanted your take on it,” I said.
I outlined the facts for Charlie with a few interjections from Nancy, clarifying and explaining. Charlie read the transcription of Lucia’s letter, peering through his bifocals for several minutes. Then he scowled at Nancy, chewing his lip thoughtfully.
“Your investigating officer knows about this letter, miss? You told him about the connection with the Baruchins?”
“It’s a her, actually. Detective Lanaghan. And yes, I told her yesterday,” Nancy said. “The letter was bagged up and taken away by the forensics team. They might have even found more of it by now. God, I hope so. It’s our only hope of knowing more.”
Charlie shook his head. “Bad couple of weeks for senior citizens around here. The D’Onofrio lady, the clotheshorse. Now the Baruchins.”
“The clotheshorse? Who’s he?” I asked.
Charlie let out a grunt of disgust. “Nobody knows. Strangest shit I ever heard. Kid finds a body in a vacant lot in Jamaica ’bout a week ago. Some guy in his eighties, neck snapped. No ID, but the guy was dressed head to toe in Italian designer clothes. Like, ten thousand bucks was on the guy’s back. Steffi got on the Internet, did some pricing. His shoes alone would have cost two grand. But if he’s a rich bigwig, why doesn’t somebody report him missing? And if he’s a crook, his prints or DNA would turn up some priors, right?” He shrugged. “But no. Nothing. It’s like the guy never existed. But somebody popped him. Now somebody pops Baruchin, plus his wife and mother-in-law, and the same night that somebody comes back to the D’Onofrio house and trashes it again? It stinks.” He gave Nancy a long, considering look. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t know what these clowns are looking for, right, miss?”