Clawed: A Gin & Tonic Mystery

by L. A. Kornetsky

  Ginny ordered a fish taco and a Diet Coke, then found a quiet place where she and Georgie could sit, giving the dog a stern look when she made puppy eyes at Ginny’s food. “You know you don’t get any of this,” she said. When Georgie sighed and lay down at her feet, Ginny pulled a plastic Baggie out of her purse and gave the dog a treat. “Good pup,” she said, then pulled out her phone and called Tonica.

  “You got five?”

  He did, and she filled him in on the salient parts of her afternoon, ending with Asuri’s warning.

  There was silence at the other end of the line, just long enough for her to get ready to say something, then Tonica said, “She wasn’t telling us to stay out of it. Just not to get caught.”

  Like she hadn’t already figured that out. But she bit back the immediate retort, saying only, “Yeah. We probably should send her a fruit basket or something.”

  Ginny licked the last bits of her taco off her fingers and, crumpling the used napkin and wrappings back into the paper bag, reconsidered her words. “Or would that constitute bribing a federal employee? Maybe just invite her to our Christmas party.”

  He made a noise that could have been amusement or exasperation. Or both. “We don’t have a Christmas party, Mallard.”

  “We probably should.” The thought amused her, for a moment. “We have enough former clients now, we totally could.”

  “Most of whom really don’t want to see us again, because we gave them really bad news,” he reminded her. “Or helped put them in jail.”

  “Details . . . Anyway, yeah.” She considered tossing the bag into the nearby trash, figured the odds of her missing the trash can entirely—high—and stood up to walk it over. “That’s where we stand. Although it would have been nice if she’d have told us what new news had come in that got the waters so hot. Maybe we won’t send her a basket after all.”

  From the vague “hmmmmm” she got back, she knew he wasn’t really listening to her. There was a clink of something, glass on glass, she assumed he was behind the bar, either restocking the shelves or serving an early customer. Was he on shift today? She’d thought he’d given the afternoon shifts to Stacy.

  “Learn to burrow, huh?” he was saying now.

  “Pretty much exactly, yeah. Low, low profile.” But not “go home and don’t even look at this case again.” Which was interesting. Or maybe Asuri really did understand that they couldn’t just back off, not until she knew why she’d been roped into this.

  “Two days, Mallard. Two days you’re on your own, and you’re nose-deep in kimchee. Seriously, you’re the one who should be on a leash, not Georgie.”

  “Three days, technically.”

  “Oh, that makes it so much better.” She leaned back against the bench and let her eyes rest on the scenery. A jogger, two kids playing tag with a scruffy dog with a curled tail almost larger than it was, and two adults walking . . . no, one adult, a woman, kept walking, while the other had stopped, leaning against a tree, watching something. Her?

  Unease stirred, something not-quite-paranoia, and she turned sideways to continue the conversation, moving her face away just in case the watcher happened to be able to lip-read.

  “It sounds like something hotter than fake IDs is going on,” Tonic was saying. “If . . . nah. If it were terrorism-related, or they even thought it was, she’d have told you flat-out to stay out of it. Right?”

  Ginny swallowed a sudden lump of panic, then nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Absolutely. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to see either of us hauled up by Homeland Security. We haven’t pissed her off nearly enough.”

  And the guy watching her wasn’t wearing a suit. Or sunglasses. Not Secret Service, nope. Or did they dress them down, here in Oregon, to better fit in?

  “Yeah well, let’s keep it that way. Get your information and then get your ass back to Seattle, Mallard. This place isn’t the same without you—Penny’s sulking.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not just yet.” She wanted to. The thought of her own bed, her own apartment, and her own stool at Mary’s waiting for her made her want to turn the key in the ignition, head the car northward, and not stop until she was home. But there were still too many questions for her to relax, and the only way to get answers was to be here, on the scene.

  There was a sigh, nearly as good as the ones her father let out. “Gin, Asuri just told you—”

  “She told me to stay off the radar. I can do that. I have friends in town. I’ll just be visiting with them, since the job turned out to be a bust.”

  “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Oh, it’s a terrible idea,” she agreed, almost cheerful with the thought. “And you probably should have bail money or something ready, just in case. But come on, Teddy.” She almost never used his first name, saving it for shock value, when she needed him to really listen to her. “Do you really want me to just walk away from this?”

  “Yes. Yes, I really do.” He sighed again, although this one was lighter, more for effect. “And I know you’re not going to. So tell me what you need me to do.”

  “You got a piece of paper and a pen?” Once he said yes, she started dictating a list of things she needed him to check for her, since he had access to a secure line and a laptop.

  When she looked up again, the watcher was gone. Somehow that didn’t make her feel better.

  If he’d been there when she left, she could have told herself it was just paranoia.

  11

  Lacking anything else interesting, Penny had curled up on one of the bar stools and was watching, her eyes slitted in thought, as the new girl moved through the sparse crowd of drinkers. Penny hadn’t entirely understood the exchange, but Stacy had been upset that things were missing from the jar on the counter, and the new girl’s paw-sweep had been over the jar, as well as the tables.

  Penny understood hunting for oneself, and the mouse went to the fastest or the most patient, but Stacy had been upset.

  Her whiskers twitched as an idea came to her. But before she could do anything, Theodore’s pocket-phone rang, and when he answered, it was clear it was Ginny on the other end.

  Penny settled back into place on the bar stool, and listened.

  When they’d finished speaking, Theodore put down the phone and stared at the wall across the bar. Penny lifted her chin so she could look at it, too, but other than the occasional flashes of light reflected in the picture frames from the outside window, she didn’t see anything particularly attention-worthy.

  “Damn, damn, and also, damn,” he muttered.

  “Boss?” The new girl paused in what she was doing, tilting her head to look at him.

  “Nothing. Just . . . nothing.”

  Penny watched her human carefully. She didn’t want to admit how adrift she felt without Georgie to discuss things with—the dog wasn’t always the sharpest claw on the paw, but she was a good listener, and her nose was as keen as anyone’s. Plus, Ginny talked to her more than Theo talked to Penny.

  She thought, doing her best to look like she was thoroughly engrossed in cleaning between her claws, that she needed to train him better. His side of the phone call hadn’t given her anything new to work with, only that someone had warned Ginny, and Ginny was ignoring the warning.

  Penny’s whiskers twitched, this time in amusement. Ginny might be Georgie’s human, but she was pleasingly catlike, in some regards.

  But that didn’t help her now, and Theodore had gone back to wiping down the counter, even though he’d done that just before Ginny had called. She realized, though, that he wasn’t really watching what he was doing. It wasn’t his hunting-look, where he was watching something somewhere else, but the thinking-look. If he were a cat, she thought, he’d be grooming his whiskers.

  As though on cue, he ran a hand over the top of his head, smoothing down his fur. She us
ed that as her cue to drop down from the top of the shelving unit and pad over to him, brushing against his legs. That served the dual purpose of marking him, because her scent faded every time he changed clothes, and getting him to pay attention to her.

  “Ginny’s being stubborn again,” he said quietly, reaching down to pick her up. She permitted it, fitting herself to the curve of his arm. The purr that started in her chest was involuntary, but she didn’t fight it, letting him rub under her chin. “She thinks if she just stares at someone long enough, they’ll tell her whatever she needs to know. And she’s right often enough that it just encourages her. But this . . . this has me worried, cat. Someone wanted her down there, and we don’t know why. We don’t even know if it was the guy who got killed, or someone else.”

  Penny leaned her head into his hand, asking for more, to keep him talking. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other humans moving around, and flicked her whiskers at them, warning them to stay away.

  “And now, with Asuri down there . . .”

  His voice changed, and the pressure of his fingers slackened, then he put her down on the floor and started polishing the counter again. It was like grooming for him, she knew: a way to occupy his body so he thoughts could work. Penny jumped up onto the counter, then onto one of the stools on the other side before he could scold her. She needed to stay out of his way, but be close enough that she could hear him clearly.

  “If this is a federal investigation, not just a cop thing, we should get the hell out. Asuri should be telling Gin to get the hell out, to go home. Instead she’s almost . . . encouraging her. Everything she said, from what Ginny said . . . it’s like she’s deliberately pushing Ginny’s buttons.”

  Penny’s ears flickered forward, hearing his tone change again. He was thinking something, planning—no, realizing something.

  “Penny, I don’t like this. Ginny’s smart—smarter than I am, in some ways—but she’s used to manipulating, not being manipulated. Not by someone she trusts.”

  This other person, Asuri, was a hunter, Penny gathered. Hunting the same things Theodore and Ginny sniffed out. What did a hunter need? Prey. And shelter. Ginny was away from her own home, so she couldn’t offer shelter. . . .

  But there was something else hunters needed, if the prey was out of reach.

  Penny flexed her claws into the fabric of the stool, frustrated beyond her whiskers that she couldn’t communicate with him, because it was so obvious to her, but he was being human-slow again.

  Her tail thumped once, and he reached over the counter to scratch under her chin. She allowed it, because it helped him think, then pulled her head away and glared at him, willing him to see what she had.

  Someone came in the front door, and they both turned to see who it was. The newcomer, a tall male, lifted a hand at them in greeting, but went to one of the tables instead of the bar, saying something to the new girl that made her laugh. But it was a fake laugh, they could both tell that; the new girl didn’t really like him, but would pretend, because even Penny knew you had to be nice to customers—she wasn’t allowed to hiss at them, even when they smelled wrong, or she’d get banished to the back room.

  “And all right, yeah, Asuri’s come through for us before,” Theodore went on. “The way Gin thinks, it’s logical to assume that she would again. But previously, we’d had something, some information that the agent wanted. What does Ginny have now, that Asuri wants? What trouble is my partner in?”

  He stopped the motion of the cloth, leaning his upper body back as though someone had just bitten him. “Shit.”

  Penny allowed just a bit of smugness to creep into her tail. She knew he’d get it, eventually.

  * * *

  The first thing Teddy did was call Stacy, and tell her to get her ass in, pronto, and never mind that she technically had the day off. Then he made a few phone calls and waited.

  Asuri was playing them. Both of them, even though it was only one set of strings she was pulling directly. Ginny was too much of a straight shooter to see it, but Teddy had grown up around politics and gamesmanship, however much he despised it himself, and he’d seen that about Agent Elizabeth Asuri from the very start.

  She wasn’t a bad person, or cruel, or even a casual user, but she would manipulate people to get them to do what she wanted, to get her the results she wanted. And, for some reason, she wanted Ginny—and him—to stay on the case. Not because she thought Ginny would solve it, but because she thought Ginny’s poking around might flush something out that Asuri could use. Something . . . or someone.

  It was a smart plan, actually. Clever, using someone who already had a stake in the game, who could just be wound up and pointed in a potentially useful direction, and then ignored until needed again. And no matter how much he wanted Ginny to drop it, to come home and go back to working with actual people who were paying her actual money and not dragging her into a murder investigation, he acknowledged that she was already in it, at least hip-deep.

  And he was miserable up here, trying to stay out of it, trying to do her job of fact-checking and fact-chasing.

  Screw that. He hadn’t gotten anywhere except dead ends and an “I’ll call you back” from his list, anyway.

  He always kept a spare kit in the back office, in case he ever needed to change, or—as had happened several times in his life—things went pear-shaped enough to require him staying overnight, either in the bar itself or in the waiting room of an ER or police station. The car could stay in the parking lot overnight, no worries, and he didn’t have any other obligations he had to deal with other than the ones right in front of him.

  But figuring out what he needed to do was, as it turned out, the easy part. Ginny might have perpetually well-lined-up ducks, but his insisted on wandering off, quacking, just when he’d thought he had them sorted.

  “Seriously, boss?” Stacy’s eyes were wide, and a little panicked, when he told her what he had planned. “Seriously?”

  He was uneasily certain she was about to start hyperventilating.

  “You can do it,” he said, putting every bit of persuasive encouragement into his voice as he could manage. “You can totally do it.”

  “I know I can do it,” Stacy said, but her expression wasn’t as confident as her words. She glanced around the bar, empty save for the man who’d come in earlier and his just-arrived companion, sitting quietly at a back table, talking over nearly untouched beers. “I just . . . What if something goes wrong? What if Patrick shows up?”

  “Nothing’s going to suddenly go wrong that you haven’t already handled or seen me handle,” he said. “And if Patrick shows up, you wow him with your ability to wrangle a crowd and he gives you a much-deserved raise. But he’s not going to show up, Stace. It’s a weekday, and he never shows up on a weekday.” Not since he’d started working on his “expansion bar” downtown and made Teddy the manager of Mary’s. Life had been better for everyone all around, he thought, even if the job did give him more headaches. . . .

  “Look, I’ll be gone twenty-four hours, two days, tops.” He didn’t try the soothing smile or any of his other “compassionate bartending” tricks, just a steady meeting of her eyes. “You’ve worked weekends before, and those are way worse; you know you can handle this. It’s not like I’m abandoning you during Trivia Night or anything.”

  That didn’t even get a smile out of her.

  “This is your court,” he said. “You know everyone, everyone knows you. And if anything goes seriously upside down, Seth will be here, and don’t give me that face, you know he’ll back you up, and nobody wants to give him trouble.”

  The man in question, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, gave a dour nod of agreement. Seth might be old, but he’d kept his boxing skills reasonably fresh, and Teddy had seen him lay out a drunk half his age with one swift hit. More, he actually liked Stacy, as much as the old
man liked anyone. They’d be fine.

  “I hate you,” she said. “You need a ride to the train station?”

  “Please.” It was either that or call a cab, and he’d rather not have to wait around on someone else’s schedule. Bad enough to be taking the train, but Ginny already had a car down in Portland; they wouldn’t need two. Probably.

  He picked up his bag, handed Stacy the bar keys with as much formality as he could muster, making her, reluctantly, smile, and then stopped at the stare Penny was giving him.

  “Oh. No, Penny. No,” he said.

  The cat didn’t blink.

  “I’m taking the train, cat. You can’t come with me.”

  Stacy didn’t have the decency not to laugh, while he lost a staring match with a seven-pound cat. “I don’t think she believes you.”

  “Just because I’m leaving you in charge for now doesn’t mean I can’t put you on the shit shift for the rest of your life,” he warned her.

  The tabby followed them out the back, and watched while Teddy threw his bag into the backseat of Stacy’s rinky-dink little car. “Look, you gotta keep an eye on the place, Penny,” he told the cat, as seriously as he could manage. “Okay?”

  He felt more than a little like an idiot, but on the other hand, the cat had responded to him enough times; who was he to say how much she did or didn’t understand?

  “I’ll be home tomorrow. And hopefully I’ll bring Georgie back, too, okay?”

  “Let’s go, boss,” Stacy said. “If we hit traffic you’re going to be cutting it tight.”

  He watched the tabby intently, looking for . . . what? A sign? An all-clear thumbs-up? He sighed and shook his head. “I’m spending too much time with Ginny,” he said, and got in the car. That cat would be fine. He needed to focus on what he was going to do once he got down to Portland.

  As Stacy drove downtown, Teddy picked up his phone and rubbed his thumb across the display, then tapped Ginny’s contact info. It rang three times, then went into voice mail.