Murder with a Twist

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “Did Belinda date very often?” Duncan asked.

  “No,” Christine said. “She hardly did anything like that. Once in a while she would go out with some women friends from work to a movie or something, but I don’t think she’s been dating anyone since she split from her husband.”

  “Does he ever come by?”

  Christine looked momentarily confused. “Does who come by? Her ex-husband?”

  Duncan nodded.

  “I don’t think so, but I really didn’t see that much of Belinda. She never had much need for a sitter. She works at a day care and takes Davey with her every day. And, like I said, her social life was the pits.”

  Mrs. Wolff piped up then. “I think that ex of hers stopped by once or twice right after they split, but that was awhile ago and he never stayed long.”

  “Do you know if the ex-husband ever took Davey with him?”

  “Not a chance,” Mrs. Wolff said. “Belinda was very protective of that boy and I think she won full custody. I talked to her once or twice, just an occasional chat when we ran into one another on the street. I’ve been trying to lose some weight, so I do a thirty-minute walk every morning and every evening here in the neighborhood. Occasionally Belinda would be outside with Davey and we’d strike up a chat. She didn’t come right out and say so, but she hinted that her ex had a drinking problem and had gotten physical with her. I think that’s why she got full custody. And you can say what you want about that woman, but one thing was very clear: she loved that little boy. She’d never let her ex get his hands on him.”

  “Did you take a walk on Saturday night?” Duncan asked Mrs. Wolff.

  “I did.”

  “Did you see anyone at Belinda’s house? Or anyone in the neighborhood who didn’t belong?”

  Mrs. Wolff shook her head. “I went around east that night and Belinda’s house is to the west. I like to alternate my route so it doesn’t get too boring.”

  Duncan was scribbling notes, and there was a pause of several seconds while he finished what he was writing and formulated his next question. “You said Belinda took Davey with her to work every day.” Both Christine and Mrs. Wolff nodded, but they stopped and took on puzzled expressions when Duncan asked his next question. “How did she do it?”

  “What do you mean?” Christine said.

  “How did Davey ride in the car?”

  “In the backseat, in one of them kid seats,” Mrs. Wolff said. “Why are you asking about that?”

  “Do either of you know what the car seat looked like?”

  “Yeah,” Christine said. “It’s gray plastic with a blue plaid lining—bright blue, like my hair.” She grabbed the blue strand and pulled it forward to show us, as if we might miss it somehow.

  “Did Belinda use the car seat for anything else?” Duncan asked. “Did she ever take it out of the car?”

  “I don’t think so,” Christine said. “As far as I know, it stayed in the car all the time, but like I said, I didn’t see that much of her.”

  “Anytime I saw her driving around, she had Davey in the car seat,” Mrs. Wolff said.

  As I stood listening to this Q and A, I heard a constant squeaking noise that I recognized as a synesthetic sound. I leaned over and whispered into Duncan’s ear.

  He nodded when I was done and then said to the two women, “One more thing. Do either of you ladies use bleach for anything?”

  “Sure,” Christine’s mother said with a shrug. “Nothing kills germs better than bleach. I use it to clean my bathrooms all the time. In fact, I used it just this morning. Why do you ask?”

  Chapter 20

  Not long after, we left the Wolff house and headed back to my bar. Mrs. Wolff had been very patient in letting us question her daughter, but when Duncan asked if she would let us look around her house, she drew the line.

  “I’m not letting you do that until I can talk to my husband,” she said. “It’s my understanding that you can’t do it without a warrant unless we let you. Is that right?”

  “It is,” Duncan said slowly, “but if you don’t have anything to hide, there’s no reason not to let us look around.”

  “The hell there isn’t,” Mrs. Wolff said. “I watch enough of those crime shows on TV to know that innocent people get railroaded all the time. Just because my daughter has a connection to the Coopers, you want to try to blame this thing on her.”

  “No, ma’am,” Duncan said. “I assure you that’s not what we’re here for.”

  “Look,” Mrs. Wolff said, walking over and opening her front door, “I’m real sorry about what happened to Belinda, and I hope her little boy is okay and you find him. But I’ve seen and heard about enough cases where the government or the police overstepped their bounds and an innocent person paid the price. You cops get your eyes on a target and it’s like you have blinders on. I’m not letting you do that to my daughter. I would like you to leave now.”

  We all stood there in silence for several seconds, and the cold air wafting into the foyer triggered a cold, tart, sour taste in my mouth, as if I were sucking on a frozen lime. Christine looked spooked and I thought her mother’s words had probably scared her.

  Without another word, we turned and left, and when we got back in the car I could tell Duncan was in a foul mood.

  “She’s kind of right, you know,” I said. “There have been plenty of cases where the cops zero in on a certain suspect and then devote all of their efforts to proving that person’s guilt. Look at that poor man who was a suspect in the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics.”

  “We aren’t focusing all of our efforts on one person,” Duncan grumbled.

  “I didn’t say you were. I’m just saying that it’s understandable that people are reluctant to simply invite the cops into their homes.”

  “Usually it’s the guilty ones who are reluctant.”

  “If you really think one of them is guilty, you can get one of those search warrant thingies, right?”

  Duncan glanced over at me and smiled. “Search warrant thingies?”

  “Hey,” I said with a shrug, “I don’t do this for a living. The tricks of your trade are as foreign to me as the ingredients in a Macktini were to you the first time you came into my bar.”

  “I know. I’m just ribbing you a bit. And let me educate you. I’m not going to be able to get a search warrant based on the fact that someone, namely you, thought you smelled bleach in the victim’s car, and Mrs. Wolff admitted to using bleach. Now, if you’d smelled some very rare and uncommon substance that isn’t likely to be found in every house in the city, I might have better luck. Though we sometimes wish it were the case, we can’t get a search warrant just because we want to. There has to be probable cause, a reasonable suspicion, or some sort of specific evidence we’re looking for, like a particular weapon.”

  “Thanks for the education.”

  Duncan sighed and, as we pulled up in front of my bar, he said, “Tell you what. We’re both tired and a little cranky. How about I drop you off here and let you have a break. I’ll go back to the station, sift through the evidence we have so far and do a few background checks, and if I have anything that I think you can help with, I’ll let you know, okay?”

  “Fine,” I said. Without another word, I got out of the car and went inside the bar. Duncan waited until I was inside and had locked the door behind me before he pulled away. I went upstairs to my apartment and fixed myself something to eat—some toast and scrambled eggs—and then, after setting my alarm, I went back to bed.

  The alarm woke me at three and I got up, showered, and headed downstairs to begin my bar prep. Debra and Billy showed up a little after four to help, and at five o’clock, Missy and my new cook, Jon, came in, too, and we opened the doors. Almost immediately the place began to fill up.

  As usual, a group of people gathered in one corner, pushing several tables together near the end of the bar. Within an hour, all of the usual, expected regulars were there: Cora, Tad, Sam, Carter, Alicia, Holly, Joe, a
nd Frank. Soon a new guy came in and joined the group, someone I didn’t recognize, a massive hulk of a man who stood at least six-foot-six and probably weighed somewhere around three-fifty. He had long, blond hair pulled back into a ponytail and incredibly blue eyes that reminded me of morning glories. Cora introduced everyone to the newcomer.

  “This is Tiny Gruber. He’s working on a construction site a few blocks over and I invited him to come in for a drink tonight.”

  “Hey, dere,” Tiny said, marking himself as a born and bred Wisconsinite. I knew from that little bit of speech that Tiny was someone who would travel up Nort’ and come in for a drink because he was t’irsty and couldn’t find a bubbler, a term I’d learned is unique to Wisconsin. When I went to my first Bar Owners Association meeting out east, the blank stares I got from folks when I asked where the bubbler was clued me in. Turns out everyone else calls them drinking fountains.

  I smiled at the newcomer and said, “Tiny? That seems like the perfect name for you . . . not!”

  He smiled back at me and made a funny face. “Yeah, I know it’s silly, but I’ve been called dat since I was a kid. Even den I was huge.” He shrugged. “I used to hate it, but I’ve gotten used to da name.”

  His voice, with its strong Midwestern cadence and a tone as deep and rumbling as thunder, gave me a fizzy taste on my tongue that was like a mix of dark ale and coffee. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant taste but it wasn’t terrible, either. It was just unusual.

  Cora, who I suspected had marked Tiny as her next romantic conquest, said, “Tiny is intrigued by the crime-solving stuff we do here and he brings a unique history to the table.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “His sister was murdered and the case has never been solved.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said to Tiny. “I know how that feels.”

  Tiny shrugged. “It’s been twelve years now, so I don’t have much hope of anyone ever solving it, but I heard about da group here and thought maybe something someone said, or did, would give me some new insight into Lori’s case.”

  “Lori? That was your sister’s name?” I asked, and Tiny nodded. “How old was she when she died?”

  A couple of the people in the group squirmed when I asked this question, I suspect because it was so blunt. But having been there myself, I know how frustrating it can be to have people tiptoeing around the subject. It was always refreshing for me when someone just said it like it was: murdered . . . dead . . . killed . . . whatever. The euphemisms, like passed, gone, and departed, drove me crazy. And I figured that twelve years of separation from the events would have left Tiny with enough distance to deal with the rawer words.

  “She was fourteen,” he said, and the rest of the group winced, though I’m not sure if it was because they hadn’t known this fact already or just because it was so awful to hear of anyone so young meeting such a tragic end. “She was wit’ her friend and dey went to da store on the corner to get a soda. Needer of dem was ever seen alive again. The police found dere bodies two months later.”

  “Your sister’s name was Sharon Gruber?” Joe asked.

  Tiny nodded and said, “Her friend was Anna Hermann.”

  “I remember that case,” Joe said. He nudged his brother with an elbow. “You remember, don’t you, Frank?”

  Frank nodded solemnly.

  “Did the cops have any ideas about what happened?” Tad asked.

  Tiny shrugged and shook his head. “No one saw a t’ing,” he said. “Least not as dey were sayin’.”

  “I’ll mention it to my detective friend, Duncan,” I said. “He told me once that he likes to work on cold cases, so maybe he’ll take a look at it for you.”

  “T’anks,” Tiny said. He had a very childlike smile that didn’t quite fit with his appearance and voice. Despite the incongruences, I liked him.

  “Well, welcome to the group,” Frank said, and the rest of us nodded our agreement. Frank was holding an unlit cigar, a prop both of the brothers used from time to time. It was their way of mourning their inability to smoke inside the bar now that there were laws against it. “Our group likes to try to figure out crimes, and sometimes we make them up for practice.” He turned and looked at me. “Mack here, in particular, needs the practice, and Tad and Cora have developed a new case for us to work on.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, guys,” I said, shaking my head and making a face. “I’m not sure I’m up for a game right now. It’s been a long day. And kind of a rough one.”

  “Then you need something that’s fun and relaxed to help you unwind,” Frank insisted.

  “Yeah, let us have our fun,” Tad said. “You still don’t think like a cop and if you’re going to be of any help to Duncan, you need to be able to. These games will help.”

  “I don’t think they have so far,” I said.

  “You figured out the last one,” Cora pointed out. I suspected there was a double meaning behind her remark—a reference to Dan Thornton’s case—that only a few of the people in the group would get.

  “Probably just luck,” I posed.

  “I don’t think so,” Frank said. “Practice makes perfect.” Then he pushed his glasses up on his nose, stuck the cigar in his mouth, and did his Groucho Marx impression. “It’s like getting older . . . you just have to live long enough.” It was a bit I’d seen a hundred times over the years, but it always made me laugh. Both of the brothers did Groucho impressions because they both bore a resemblance to the man. Personally, I thought Frank looked more like Super Mario than Groucho, but he had Groucho’s voice and mannerisms down pat enough that the impression generally worked.

  “All right,” I said, resigned to my fate. “But first I want to get myself a drink.” I headed behind the bar and, while I was prepping my drink, Duncan came in, saw me behind the bar, and joined me.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “I feel better after taking a nap.”

  “I’m jealous. And I feel bad about the way we left things earlier. Are we okay?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  Duncan poured himself a cup of coffee and asked, “Who’s the new guy?”

  “That’s Tiny,” I told him, and he smiled at the incongruous name. “He’s someone Cora brought in, and I suspect she has him targeted as her next paramour. He seems like a nice enough guy and he has a special interest in the Capone Club.” I then filled him in on Tiny’s story about his sister and her friend.

  Duncan wrote down the girls’ names in his little notebook. “I’ll see what I can dig up once we resolve this current case,” he said, tucking the notebook away.

  “I can introduce you if you want. The Capone Club has a new crime they want to run out tonight and they’re ready to get started. They seem to think I need more practice. Care to join us?”

  “I can’t now, but I will another time. I have to get back to the station and keep working on this case. You’re going to join them?”

  “I am.”

  “Good, because they’re right. If you practice at thinking like a detective, it will help you, which in turn will help me.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, still hesitant. “It’s hard to get my mind off the Davey Cooper case.”

  “I know, but there’s nothing you can do right now anyway. I’ll let you know if there’s any news. In the meantime, take care of your bar and yourself. If something comes up that I need your help with, I’ll call you. I promise. Otherwise I’ll see you in the morning. I have a suspicion that it’s going to be a late night.”

  “Okay.”

  “What time do you think you’ll be up?”

  “I’m always up by nine so I can have a cup of coffee and check the morning news before I come down and start prepping for my opening. Debra and Pete have offered to do that stuff for me now and I’ve agreed to let them come in early, but apparently my body isn’t aware of the new arrangement yet. I wake up every morning at the same time whether I want to or not.”

  “Maybe you need p
ractice with that, too,” Duncan said. “Tell you what. On the off chance that you can sleep in a little, I’ll either call or come by at ten then. Does that sound okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Duncan frowned and said, “Are you sure we’re okay here?”

  I sighed. “We are. I’m just in a funk worrying about that little boy.”

  “That’s understandable. I think we’ve all been affected by this one.” He leaned down then and kissed me, not on the lips, but on my temple. It could have been a brother’s kiss, or a father’s, but it was the first time Duncan had kissed me at all in public and it had a powerful effect on me, triggering an odd image of chocolate-colored fireworks and hot bursts of chocolate flavor in my mouth. “See ya, Mack,” he said. And then he left.

  The kiss had not gone unnoticed by the group at the Capone Club table.

  “My, things certainly appear to have moved in a new direction,” Cora said.

  “It’s about time you two quit dancing around one another,” Joe said.

  “Yeah,” Frank said, agreeing with his brother.

  “Can we please stop focusing on my love life and get back to tonight’s test case?” I said, settling into an empty chair with my drink.

  I had to admit that I liked having the financial freedom to hire enough employees so I could sit with my customers and enjoy some fun time. Prior to Ginny’s inheritance money, I barely had time to eat, work, and sleep. But while I was enjoying my newfound downtime, I also knew I would never give up my bartending duties altogether. I loved being behind the bar, mixing drinks, hearing snippets of conversations, getting to know my customers’ trials and tribulations, offering up suggestions or advice whenever someone asked. And invariably someone would. Some bartenders I know are reluctant to give out advice of any kind, but I’ve never been bothered by the idea. I’m a firm believer in free will and if I offer up a suggestion to someone, they have the power to accept or reject it. And after so many years behind the bar, I think I’ve seen and heard enough about life and all its ups and downs to build a decent base of knowledge regarding others’ experiences, and human nature in general.