Gin Mill Grill

by Marja McGraw

  Pete returned, shoving his cell phone into his pocket. “Rick should be here soon. He said he needs a break from what he’s been working on and he’d rather take a look at a mummified body than a fresh one.”

  “I don’t blame him,” I said.

  A jar sat on the floor, next to Harley’s foot – assuming it was Harley. It was filled with some type of dark brown liquid. Without thinking, I reached for it.

  “Don’t touch it,” Pete said. “You don’t know what’s in it, and Rick will probably want to take it with him.”

  Eloise scratched her cheek, her eyes squarely on the bottle. “I may know what that is. There’s more to the cousins than meets the eye. During Prohibition they ran a business called the H&H Diner. It was a diner, all right, but there was a back room. You know, a speakeasy – a gin mill. I have a feeling that bottle contains homemade hooch. According to my father, when Prohibition ended, there was still a lot of stock on hand.”

  Stanley had returned from calling Felicity. “Oh, my gosh. This is becoming quite interesting. A speakeasy? I can’t imagine such a thing.”

  Pete smiled. “You watch vintage films. I’m sure you’ve seen them depicted in the movies.”

  “Oh, yes. Dark, smoke-filled rooms, noise, a lot of jovial people… But was that truly what it was like in those days?”

  Eloise laughed. “None of us, and I do mean none of us, would know anything about that. Why, I wasn’t even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes during Prohibition.”

  There was a knock at the front door and she excused herself to answer it, returning shortly with Rick Mason, a homicide detective and Pete’s closest friend.

  He nodded at Pete and Stanley, and stopped short and looked me in the eyes. I thought he’d say something, but he just shook his head and took my flashlight to look into the hidden room.

  “You two continue to amaze me,” Rick said, dryly. “I’ve got more cold cases, if you want to try your luck on those.”

  “Not likely,” I said.

  “So tell me what’s going on and how you managed to find another victim.”

  We told him what had led up to our discovery, withholding nothing.

  Eloise looked like she was watching a tennis match, studying each of us as we tried to talk over each other.

  Stanley ended the conversation with, “And another missing person bites the dust.” He looked quite pleased with himself for coming up with his little joke.

  There was a knock at the door. The team had arrived to process the site and take the body away.

  “I hope you realize that this case will have to go on the back burner,” Rick said. “In all honesty, you’d be doing me a favor if you dig in and try to solve this.” He looked tired. “We’ve had three murders in the last two days.”

  Stanley stepped forward. “We have a paying client who wants us to do a job, which is to find out what happened back in 1932. We’re on the case.”

  Pete and I smiled. Stanley could be so formal sometimes, and yet he frequently tried to sound like he had street smarts. He didn’t, but he was learning. I’d been surprised to find out a few years earlier that he’d been the only child of a circus fortune teller. He was full of surprises, but he kept most of them to himself.

  I glanced at Rick while pointing at Stanley. “What he said. We’re on it.”

  Pete, Rick and Stanley walked outside together while Eloise and I watched the team process the room. They’d brought in lights to help, which gave us a better chance to see what was in the room.

  “Is it okay if I enter the room?” I asked.

  One of the techs shrugged. “I don’t think it can do any harm. It looks like several people have already traipsed through here.”

  I smiled at him. “Yeah, us.”

  He returned my smile. “At least it doesn’t appear that any of you touched anything. Thanks.”

  “We knew better, and you’re welcome.”

  They carefully removed Harley’s body from the chair, and as they did so, I saw something fall off of his backside. Something had been stuck to him.

  “May I?” I asked the tech.

  He glanced at the object and then back at the body. “It’s just a piece of paper. Let me look at it before you handle it.”

  I backed off while he opened and examined it. “Rick tells me you’re going to take some of the load off of us. Here.” He handed me the paper. “Take a look and then let me bag it.”

  It wasn’t brittle like I thought it would be, and it had folded itself back into quarters.

  The only thing written on the paper was a name – Edgar Barrow.

  Chapter Five

  I showed the paper to Eloise. “Does the name Edgar Barrow mean anything to you?”

  She didn’t answer right away, but seemed to be pondering my question. “There’s something familiar about it. I wish Archie was here. He’d know who it is.”

  “You call your father Archie?”

  “It depends on my mood. Sometimes he’s Pop, sometimes he’s Archie, and sometimes he’s Daddy.” Her voice softened. “The night he died he was Daddy.”

  I found myself choking up and cleared my throat. I was young when I lost my father, and I knew how she felt. “Why don’t you give it some thought and let me know if anything comes to you.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “I know why that name sounds familiar. I saw it in my father’s notes. Let me see if I can find it.”

  I watched her sit down on the chair I’d vacated. She began rummaging through the box as though she knew exactly what she was looking for.

  I returned to the secret room just in time to see one of the techs pick up the jar that was filled with brown liquid. It looked like some kind of fruit jar, but the liquid sure didn’t look like fruit gone bad.

  He had on gloves, and carefully tried to take off the lid. It was stuck and he had to struggle with it, but he finally prevailed. He took a careful sniff and made a face. “Oh, this is definitely liquor. I think it might have been the homemade kind, and it’s definitely past its prime.” He grinned and turned to me. “Want a sniff?”

  Before I could answer, another tech leaned toward the jar and sniffed. “Oh! That’s some nasty stuff. I’ll tell ya a story. My dad grew up in the south, and he told me about an old geezer who lived on a nearby farm. The old guy used to make his own booze. My dad and uncle were kids at that time, and they talked the old man into giving them a taste. Dad said they each took a good swig and commenced to choking throwing up. The old geezer just laughed and brought in a bucket of water to clean up the mess. My dad was never a drinker, and he said that experience was why.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “I think I’ll pass on that sniff.” Actually, the odor had wafted in my direction and, yes, it was disgusting.

  The first tech put the lid back on the jar. “We’ll take it in to the lab. I have a feeling that by now it’s probably turned into a poison.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “I can’t get that smell out of my nose.”

  I decided to join Eloise until the smell dissipated.

  “I was listening while I sorted through the notes,” she said. “Yeah, I’d say that’s a jar of old hooch.” She laughed.

  “Have you found anything?” I asked.

  “Not yet. Oh, wait! This is what I was looking for.” She pulled a sheet of paper out of the box and read it. “Edgar Barrow was the bartender in the speakeasy. I wonder if he’s still living. You can find out, right?”

  “Probably. What happened to the diner? I suppose it’s been torn down by now.”

  “No, it’s still there. It was renovated and some people opened up the back room, turning it into a restaurant. The place had a reputation from the old days, and the people who opened the restaurant named it the Gin Mill Grill. They served barbeque type food. They kept some of the furnishings, and the old oak bar is still in place.”

  “Are they still in business?” I was excited. If they’d give us access, we might be able to do a little investigating.


  “You know how times have been. They went out of business a few years ago. No one has ever picked up a new lease on the place.”

  “I’ll do some research to find out who the owner is and maybe they’ll let us take a look.”

  Eloise grinned. “You don’t need to do any research.”

  “Why? Do you know who the owner is?”

  “Well, yeah, she’s sitting right here. I never let the place go. My husband and I bought it as an investment when we were young. I never made much money off of it, but… I guess it’s a family thing. I never could talk myself into getting rid of the building, just like I never left this house.”

  My eyes lit up. “I’ll give you one clue about what Pete and I will be doing tomorrow. Gin Mill Grill. That’s the clue.”

  The techs packed up to leave. “It’s all yours, ladies.”

  “Let’s go take another look,” Eloise said. “I can’t believe I’ve lived here all these years and had no idea there was an extra room with a body in it.”

  “There aren’t many things that upset you, are there?” I asked.

  “Not many. Especially when it’s something that took place so long ago. Will they make sure it’s Harley?”

  “Of course.”

  Pete and Stanley finally returned from talking to Rick.

  “Did Rick have anything to say?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He took a look at the body before they carted it away. There were some things in his pockets that indicate it was probably Harley.”

  “What timing,” Eloise said. “I just asked about identifying the body.”

  I turned to Stanley. “I think we’re going to stay here for a while and take another look at the room. If you want to take off and meet Felicity, go ahead.”

  He looked at Eloise. “If it’s acceptable to you, my wife is going to buy dinner and bring it over here. I didn’t think you’d want to cook after all of this, and I’d like to work on this case, too.”

  “That’s great,” she replied. “I can’t wait to meet your wife.”

  “I’ll call her and let her know it’s okay.” Stanley pulled out his cell phone and walked to the living room.

  “So did you find out anything?” Pete asked.

  “Not much. That jar by Harley’s feet was liquor. The tech opened it and, whew, what a stench.” The odor seemed to be etched into my mind.

  “Is there anything left to look at?”

  “The techs didn’t take as much care as they usually do. I guess because it’s such an old crime. Of course, Rick said they’d had a busy morning.”

  “Then let’s go take a good, long look. We have time to study things more than they did.”

  The three of us entered the room and started looking things over. Stanley joined us shortly.

  “While we look around, Eloise, tell us a little more. Anything you can remember or that your father told you.” I picked up the old mystery book that sat on the side table.

  The room had an old braided rug covering the floor. It was round and only covered the area under and around the chair. There was a desk in the corner and a bookcase on the back wall. Harley must have been an avid reader. I’d have to check out his book collection. I noticed there were blood stains on the rug, although the body had been found sitting in a chair.

  Pete stood in front of the desk, rummaging through papers.

  “Well, Archie was just a youngster when Horace was murdered. He was horrified that something like that could happen to his cousin. I’m sure you can figure out that the twins were much older than my father.”

  I nodded.

  “A couple of years went by before he started investigating. He said he always felt that the police hadn’t done enough to find the killer. They had their minds made up that Harley had done his brother in.”

  “So much for that idea,” I said, glancing at the easy chair where the body had been found.

  “Archie didn’t believe it, not for a second. He knew the cousins pretty well. He’d even run errands for them when they needed help, and for a time he worked as a busboy in the diner. Oh, yes, he knew what went on in the back room.”

  “Thinking of Prohibition, I wonder why the police didn’t close the place down,” Pete said.

  Eloise laughed. “Are you kidding? Half the customers were cops, according to Archie. That’s one of the reasons he was surprised they didn’t investigate more than they did. I’ve thought about it though. If they were frequent customers of the speakeasy, they surely didn’t want to be tied to it. Archie always thought they just closed the place down and tried to sweep everything under the rug after the murder. I think he was right. Harley was a good scapegoat. They could blame everything on him and pretend they didn’t know the gin mill was there.”

  “Things have changed,” I said. “Nowadays they probably couldn’t get away with ignoring the murder. They’d be accountable.”

  I held the book in my hand that sat on the side table and browsed through it while I talked with Eloise.

  “What did your father’s note say about Edgar Barrow?”

  “Not much. He wrote that Edgar was only about twenty or twenty-one when he bartended for the cousins. He made a note to himself to ask Edgar if there were any troublemakers who hung out at the bar. Oh, and he made a note to talk to the other bartender, but he didn’t write down the man’s name.”

  “I wonder if Edgar is still living,” Stanley said.

  “Well, if he is, he’s got to be close to a hundred by now,” our client said.

  “I can do some research. If he’s still living, I might be able to track him down, but I can’t be sure. If I can find him listed in an old city directory and look at some census records, then there’s a chance I can follow his path.”

  “You and I can do that together, Stan.” I knew it could be a very time-consuming job from past experience. We didn’t have much to go on other than a name and possible age.

  “I’ll take a closer look at Archie’s notes, too,” he said, turning to Eloise. “It’s acceptable if I refer to him as Archie, correct?”

  “Certainly,” she replied.

  I thumbed through the book that had sat on the table, and something fluttered to the floor. I picked it up and read it.

  “Here’s something,” I said. “It’s a note from Edgar Barrow. All he wrote was, ‘I quit!’ and he signed it.”

  Chapter Six

  “That’s interesting,” Eloise said. “Archie never mentioned that Edgar had quit. There’s nothing in the notes about that.”

  “Who knows?” I said. “Maybe Edgar gave Harley the note because of Horace being murdered. That would have been pretty scary for a young man. No,” I said slowly, “it looks like the two men were murdered on the same day. Edgar had to have quit before the murders.”

  Stanley was paying close attention to our conversation. “If Edgar has passed on, maybe there are relatives who know the story. They might be able to add to what we’ve learned.”

  Pete had finished perusing the desk and wandered around the room, checking things out very carefully. “Maybe I can add something, too.”

  He held up a notepad.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It was in the desk, and it looks like Harley was keeping track of people and their debts to the gin mill. It seems he let some of the customers run up a tab. At least it gives us some names to work with, right?”

  Stanley put his hand to his forehead, fortune teller style. “I see a lot of research in my future.”

  I had to laugh because of knowing about Stanley’s background and fortune teller mother, and the fact that he very seldom joked around.

  “Sandi will help you,” Pete said, grinning.

  “Thanks for offering my services, pal. You can help, too. We’ll make it a group effort.”

  Pete waved me off with his hand and continued searching the room.

  There were no secret hiding places and no other clues to be found. I’d come to the conclusion that the room wasn’t
a safe room, but simply a place for Harley to get away and have some quiet time – with his books.

  After finding Edgar’s resignation, such as it was, in the book on the table, I thumbed through the books on the shelf hoping to find something else. I didn’t find anything, but I discovered that Harley had a passion for both westerns and mysteries. While I wasn’t a huge fan of westerns, Harley and I had the mysteries in common.

  “Are you an avid reader like your cousin?” I asked, turning to Eloise.

  “Yes, but I’m not into the old books. You can take them if you want them.”

  Pete whipped his head around. “Sandi, we don’t have any more room. You can’t take all these books.”

  My turn to grin. “I guess we’ll just have to buy another bookcase.”

  “But you already have five.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  He lifted his left shoulder in resignation. “We’ll go furniture shopping after we’re done with this case.”

  “He gives up too easy,” Eloise said.

  “He knows me well,” I said. “Give me a vintage movie or a good book and I’m oblivious to everything around me – kind of like him and football games.”

  My comment wasn’t lost on him. He curled his lip at me.

  Someone rang the bell and Stanley headed for the front door. “That’s probably Felicity with our dinner.”

  I glanced at my watch. We’d been at Eloise’s house for hours. It was seven o’clock on the dot.

  I hurried out to meet Felicity, my closest friend. “I hope everyone likes Chinese,” she was saying while Stanley took some bags from her.

  “How were things at work?” he asked.

  “Good.”

  My friend is a tiny woman, maybe four foot ten, and she’s drop dead gorgeous. She’s a hand, make-up and jewelry model. Because of her height, or lack of it, she doesn’t do runway modeling. She has long almost black hair, blue eyes and adorable dimples. I always said she reminded me of a little China doll. She’s like the sister I never had.