Carol Clark - Laced

Regan liked it. Something about the place felt real. And the room had an energizing smell.

A tall man in shorts and a T-shirt was adjusting the weight on a machine for a guy who looked clueless. “Do a set of eight, rest, and then do it again,” he advised.

“Thanks, Coach.”

“That’s our guy,” Jack said to Regan in a low voice.

Spotting Regan and Jack, he hurried over and extended his hand. He was in his mid-forties and had shoulder-length wavy brown hair and intense green eyes. He was wiry, but the muscles in his arms and legs were highly developed like Popeye’s. “I’m Rory Donovan. We can talk in my office.”

Regan and Jack followed him through a door into a tiny windowless room with a metal desk. Papers were strewn everywhere, as were framed pictures of runners competing in what was obviously the Fun Run. A large framed cartoon of exhausted runners piling on top of one another at the finish line of a race hung behind the desk. A zaftig red-headed old lady in the crowd of spectators was leaning over, daintily dabbing one of their foreheads with her lace handkerchief.

“Is that the decal?” Regan asked as Rory unfolded a couple of chairs for them to sit on.

“Yes. Isn’t that too funny?” he asked as he paused, leaned his body to one side, and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s very clever,” Regan agreed.

“Too funny,” he repeated as he finished unfolding the chairs. “I advertised a contest in the newspaper. Said I’d pay two hundred euros for the best logo for the race. A woman sent that in. I never met her.” He pointed to an oil painting on the back wall. “She sent me that as a gift after I sent her the check. She was so happy to have won the contest, but she didn’t want any publicity at all. I honored her wishes.”

Regan and Jack turned and were struck by an unusual, eye-catching painting that portrayed a misty Irish landscape of rolling hills, a thatched-roof cottage off in the distance, and three cows in the field gathered under a lace umbrella.

“She’s good,” Regan said. “The landscape is gorgeous and ethereal almost, but the painting is so whimsical.”

“I told her that lace umbrella was too funny. I had to laugh, just had to. I wanted to have a show of her paintings here at the gym, but she said no way.” He sat at his desk. “Sit down, please.”

“Thank you,” Regan said as she and Jack took their seats. “This gym is yours?” she asked.

Rory nodded. “I was in the business world in Dublin until I had a heart attack three years ago, age forty-two. I weighed sixty pounds more than I do now. Sixty. That was some wake-up call. I quit my job, moved to Galway, started working out and running, and decided I should help other people get in shape. I know what it’s like to almost drop dead.”

“That is a wakeup call,” Regan agreed.

“We both work out at least three times a week,” Jack said dutifully.

“I can tell,” Rory commented.

Another detective in the room, Regan thought.

“People are afraid to get started, or they don’t feel the motivation until something happens as it did to me. I want to make it easy for people to start exercising. I didn’t want a gym that would be intimidating. You know the kind-where you walk in and everyone looks as if they grew up on Muscle Beach. Most out-of-shape people turn around and head for the pub. I purposely made this gym look the way it does. Kind of like where Rocky worked out before his first big match.”

Bingo, Regan thought. “Tell us about the Fun Run,” she coaxed.

Rory’s smile was crooked. He nodded with pleasure. “I can’t believe we pulled it off. There are a lot of road races around here now. A lot of serious runners. I wanted a race that would be like this gym-relaxed. I scheduled it for the weekend of the New York Marathon. The hard-core runners would be in New York. I told people who had never been in a race that ours was the first step on the way to running in the marathon. That’s why I came up with the idea of having a light-hearted logo. The problem is I can’t draw. Hence the contest.”

Jack leaned forward. “How many people were in your race?”

“Four hundred and forty-seven, give or take a few.”

“Were they all registered?”

“The vast majority were. Some even signed up that morning just before the race. But then others joined the race as it was in progress. We didn’t want to be too strict with them because the idea was to encourage people to get out and run. But one thing is for sure. We gave decals only to people who were wearing a number and were registered. We barely had enough. I should have ordered more!”

Regan’s pulse quickened. “That’s great news,” she said.

“Can we get a list of the people who were in the race?” Jack asked.

“I don’t see why not.” He looked at Jack. “This couple holds a grudge against you, huh?’

Jack gestured with his right hand. “Yes, I suppose they do.”

“They must be Irish,” Rory laughed. “Let me print out that list.” He logged onto his computer, found the file, and printed out three copies. He handed one each to Regan and Jack.

“I’ve gotten to know a lot of the people on this list, and if any of them turn out to be international jewel thieves, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Jane and John Doe are both probably in their forties,” Jack said. “We could start by eliminating anyone on this list who is very young or much older.”

“Let’s see,” Rory said. “Colleen Adams. You can cross her out. She’s about twenty-five. She had a baby and couldn’t lose the weight, so she joined our race and ran pushing her baby’s pram. It was too funny. That girl is looking good now. She’s down ten kilos since the race.”

This could take all day, Regan thought.

“Billy McFadden,” Rory continued. “He’s a young whippersnapper about twenty. At the beginning of the race he slapped his unathletic friend on the arse to get him started, then sprinted out of sight. A real showoff.”

Regan could tell Jack was trying his best to be patient.

“If we could just quickly go through the list,” Jack said gently. “The Does are an average-looking couple, probably in their forties. They’re masters of disguise, so we don’t even know what color hair either of them had when they ran the race or what they might have done to change their appearance. They could have paraded around that day as older people for all we know. I see some of the same last names here. Can we check to see if any of these people are married or have the same address?

Twenty minutes later they had narrowed the list down to five couples whom Rory did not know personally and who had registered the morning of the race. He tapped the keys on his computer. “One of the couples signed up at the very last minute, but their signatures were indecipherable,” he said. “They didn’t give their address.” He looked up. “The race was about to begin, and people were in a hurry to get to the starting line.”

“That might have been them,” Jack said, obviously disappointed. “They wouldn’t have wanted to give you their names. What can you tell us about the other four couples who signed up at the last minute?”

Again Rory tapped the keys of his computer. “One couple was staying at the Galway Bay Hotel.”

“That could have been them,” Regan said quickly. “What are their names?”

“Sheila and Brian O’Shea.”

“Sheila and Brian O’Shea?” Jack and Regan said at once.

Rory looked up. “You know them?”

“There’s a couple staying up at the Hennessy Castle named Sheila and Brian O’Shea. We met them last night when we had to leave the hotel because of the fire. They said they live in the States and have an Irish memorabilia business. It couldn’t be them,” Regan said.