“Ro!” The man came forward, capturing her in a giant bear hug. Rowenna was five-ten, but the man seemed to dwarf her. Jeremy found himself standing a little straighter as he waited for an introduction.
“Welcome home, Ro. No, wait, it’s welcome home ‘your majesty,’ isn’t it?” he teased. He looked at Jeremy then, not trying to hide the fact that he was assessing him carefully.
“You’re the private detective, huh?” Joe Brentwood said, keeping Rowenna at his side and taking a step forward.
“I’m a private investigator, yes,” Jeremy said, offering his hand. “Jeremy Flynn. You’re Detective Joe Brentwood. Glad to meet you.”
“So Johnstone is an old friend of yours,” Brentwood said, automatically offering his hand in return.
“Friend, and former partner. I used to be a police diver,” Jeremy said.
“He’s a loose cannon right now,” Brentwood told him.
“I’m meeting him tonight at seven. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Well, Ro and I have a little catching up to do,” Brentwood said. “In fact—” he turned to look at her consideringly “—I thought I would have seen her earlier.”
“My fault,” Jeremy said, stretching the truth. “I asked her to show me the cemetery first, and time just got away from us.”
Jeremy wondered what it was about the human race. He and Joe were just standing there talking politely, but both of them were tense and rigid. They were like a pair of roosters sparring for the attention of a hen. The older man was her friend. He was her lover. All right, so far he was a one-night stand, but he didn’t intend for things to stay that way. His instincts had been right, though. If he’d just stayed away from her, he wouldn’t be feeling now as if he had to fight for her in the midst of a modern world where she was free to make her own decisions—even decide against him, if she wanted to.
Rowenna seemed to sense both men’s agitation. Who knew? Jeremy thought. Maybe they actually looked like a pair of puffed-up roosters.
“Why don’t we all go have a drink together first?” she suggested.
“That would be great,” Jeremy said casually, staring at Joe Brentwood.
First round to him for appearing to be friendly and cooperative.
“Red’s is right across the street. It’s a bar and grill, and I’m famished,” Joe said. There was a note of reproach in his voice, as if to say he and Rowenna should have been having dinner alone.
“Sounds fine to me,” Jeremy said.
They settled at Red’s, where a waitress brought a round of drafts while Rowenna and Joe pored over the menu. Jeremy, who was waiting to eat until he met with Brad, leaned forward. “You say that Brad’s a loose cannon?” he asked.
Joe let out a long sigh, shaking his head. “The kid’s in bad shape.” He looked at Jeremy and shrugged. “It’s probably a good thing you’re here. He needs someone. His wife’s parents are threatening to come up here, but they’ve been suggesting he had something to do with it, so even if they show up, they’re just going to make things worse for him.”
Jeremy nodded. He knew Mary’s parents, knew they’d wanted her to file for divorce, but she had decided to fight for her marriage.
“So, do you have any experience in this kind of work?” Joe asked him. “You were a police diver. There’s a lot of difference in looking for objects underwater and finding facts above ground.”
“Are you asking if I’ve worked missing persons and murder cases? Yes,” Jeremy assured him.
“Well, cheers, then. We seem to have one hell of a mystery on our hands.”
“Want to catch me up?” Jeremy asked.
“There’s probably not much to tell you that you don’t already know. Dave O’Reilly, a patrolman, found your friend Johnstone in the cemetery shouting for his wife, supposedly only moments after she disappeared. And I have to admit, I’ve asked around, and as near as I can tell, it seems he’s telling the truth about how they spent the day and the timing of her disappearance. The only one I haven’t found to corroborate the story was some guy who managed to pitch a fortune-teller’s tent in the middle of the psychic fair without a permit. He’s long gone. But other people remember seeing the tent, and some of them went in for one of his readings. Anyway, that doesn’t really matter, since the Johnstones were seen together afterward. In fact, they had a late lunch right here.”
“So it looks as if it’s true, as if Brad and Mary were having a nice day together—and then she just disappeared,” Jeremy said, thinking that he would have to come back and ask questions here at the restaurant when Joe Brentwood wasn’t around.
“That’s what it looks like,” Joe agreed.
That’s what it looked like. It was obvious that Brentwood was still suspicious of Brad.