“That’s your third smoke break in an hour, Pete. Get back to work,” he snapped.
The man shook his head, but as Abe watched, he caught the eye of another construction worker and winked. The man grinned at the young foreman.
“Liam Byrne?” Abe called, stepping around a pile of bricks and hopping over a length of steel.
“Sure am,” Liam said. “You lookin’ for a job?” Liam eyed him up and down.
Abe was almost as tall as Liam, but the Irish man likely outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Abe had a writer’s body - thin and pale with soft hands.
“No, I’d puke if I had to climb up there.” He gestured at the high building. “I’m a reporter from northern Michigan.”
Liam blinked at him.
“You’re here about Orla? Have you found her?” Liam asked, a hopeful tinge in his voice.
The concern in his face transformed the strapping man he’d witnessed seconds earlier.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m here to ask you some questions about her. Sometimes little details, can open up new avenues for investigation.”
Liam’s mouth turned down.
“You came all the way down here to ask me questions. Why didn’t you just call?”
“Because that’s not how I operate. Do you have lunch soon? Maybe we could meet somewhere?”
Liam gave him a wry look.
“I don’t take lunch. Gotta be on these guys like foam on a pint.” He bent over and grabbed a plank from the ground, plunking it on top of two saw horses. “Our very own park bench,” he announced, dropping onto the board. It groaned beneath him, but held.
“That works,” Abe told him, sitting next to Liam and pulling out his notebook and pencil. “This seems like a big job for someone so young.”
Liam laughed. “I’ve got a fourteen-month-old and another one on the way. Gotta feed ‘em somehow.”
Abe shook his head, incredulous.
“Sounds like a lot of pressure.”
“Nah.” Liam braced his hands on the board and stretched his legs out. “I always wanted a big family. Erin, my wife, did too. Our little girl, Aileen, wasn’t an accident. People like to think she was because we were so young, but when you know what you want, why wait?”
“Well said. I’d like to have kids someday, but…” Abe shrugged.
“But what? No woman?”
Abe laughed. “For starters, yeah, no woman. I work a lot too. I’m not sure I’m ideal husband and father material.”
Liam slapped him on the back.
“You’re wrong. Don’t ask me how I know, but I do.”
Abe grinned and wrote Liam’s name in his notebook.
“Do you have theories about Orla? About what might have happened?”
Liam’s face fell. He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees.
“Whatever it was, she didn’t run off. I can tell you that right now. Orla and I have been like this,” he held up his hand, the index and middle fingers crossed, “since diapers. She’s not the type to go bananas. If she wanted to leave, she’d leave, but first she’d say goodbye to her parents and her roommates. She’d call me and fill me in on the big plan.”
“Has she ever done that before? Taken off, or talked about it?”
“Nope. She travelled around Michigan, came down here a few times a year. She’s not a California girl. My ma said a rumor is floatin’ around up there. Orla is proud of this place. She loves Michigan, up north especially. She’s been haggling me to bring Erin and Aileen to visit since Aileen was born. We would’ve gone too, but then Erin got pregnant again and…” He held up his hands.
“When’s the last time you spoke with her?”
“The Friday before she disappeared.”
“Can you tell me what you talked about?”
“Sure, nothing major. She told me she’s been reading a lot. Talked about costumes she made for a play. I told her Erin was finally over the morning sickness and now eating everything in the house. Aileen got on the phone and baby-talked with her. Aileen only has a handful of words - Orla is one of them.”
“So, you’re still close? Despite the distance?”
Liam gave him a sidelong glance.
“Distance doesn’t matter. Not when you’re connected. Orla and I are connected. I’ve got four siblings, and not a one of them share what Orla and I have.”
“How often do you talk?”
“At least once a week, sometimes more. She talks with Erin a lot too.”
“Does she know Erin?”
“Course she does. I introduced Erin to Orla before she met my parents. They were fast friends.”
“Erin was never jealous of your relationship with Orla?”
Liam laughed.
“No. Erin calls Orla a bonus. She can pick her brain about me, and she can vent to her. Orla knows me better than anyone. Erin loves that. She got a husband and a great friend, too.”
“And Orla mentioned nothing to you or Erin about going anywhere that Sunday? Even just around town? Or having met someone?”
“Nope, and if she’d have met someone, we’d have heard about it. She’s dated a few chumps. Erin and Orla loved to laugh about these nightmare dates she had. She went out once with a guy who brought his cat in a duffel bag. The damn thing jumped out while they were eating dinner and almost scratched Orla’s eyes out.”
Abe laughed.
“That sounds like the date from hell.”
“Yeah, and he was one of the better ones.”
“So, she’s had trouble with men? With finding someone?”
Liam scratched his chin.
“Orla’s never been into finding someone, not like a lot of girls. When we were younger, she complained how all her friends talked nothing but boys. She had other things on her mind, big dreams. She never found anyone who trumped those.”
“Has she ever dated bad guys?”
Liam grinned.
“Depends on your definition of bad. They weren’t Pat and Fiona approved. In our family, your ideal mate is an Irish Catholic with eight siblings, and parents who fly back to the motherland every year to celebrate the St. Patrick’s Festival - not Orla’s type.”
“What was her type?”
Liam scrunched his brow.
“Guys with an axe to grind. That’s the one trait I remember from the few I met. They hated the man, or the pigs, or their parents. They walked with a kind of righteous indignation. Problem was, they seemed to get stoned more than do anything about it.”
“Does Orla use marijuana?”
“God, you sound like a cop.”
Abe smiled.
“Sorry, when I get rolling, I’m all professional.”
Liam shook his head.
“Once in a while. We smoked grass a handful of times.”
“Has she ever used other drugs?”
Liam shrugged.
“Here and there. She wouldn’t say no if the mood was right.”
Abe watched the men on the scaffolding. They walked with ease, as if there wasn’t a forty-foot drop beside them.
“I wish I could help more, man. I do. It’s been killin’ me not being there, looking for her. My ma’s been on the phone with Fiona every night. Pat’s fit to be tied. I’m stuck here. Never felt that way before, but with Orla missin’, that’s just how I feel. Trapped.”
“Is there anything else? Anything that might have gotten Orla into trouble.”
Liam set his jaw and his eyes darted away. There was something. Abe recognized the look, the holding back. He waited, not wanting to push him the other way.
“Maybe,” he said finally. “Orla wouldn’t like me tellin’ ya.”
“I won’t write about it,” Abe told him. “This is off the record. I’m a reporter, but I’m on this story for different reasons. I have no interest in making things hard for Orla. I want to find her while there’s still a chance-”