by Jae Vogel
Chip rolled his blue eyes. “Save me the story.”
“I’m the senior employee there. I had to see to it that the orders were finished up in time.”
“Why didn’t you call to tell me?”
“I told you! I didn’t expect the traffic!” Aurora dug through the chute, dressed in only her bra and panties. She paused. “Well? I need to know, Chip. What’s it going to be? Am I hosting tonight? Or do I need to find another job?”
Aurora tried to hide her nerves. This was a bluff, but she didn’t usually test Chip’s patience, so she felt like she had some slack to pull on. He’d fired girls for being late before, first offenders, too. But Aurora had a long history of being his most reliable, most hardworking. Hopefully that was enough.
For a long time, the only sound was the pulsing bump of the bass in the main room. People were already crowding in, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. Tonight was going to be busy, and they both knew it. Finally, Chip sighed.
“You don’t have to look for another job,” he sighed.
Aurora breathed again.
“But you’re not hosting tonight.” Her relief soured a little as Chip went on. “I already put Jeshaylah on hostess. It’s behind the bar for you. And be happy that you’re not fired. I don’t want any more surprise lates or absences from you.”
“Definitely not,” Aurora assured him, but Chip was already heading out the door. A blaring hip-hop/EDM hybrid nearly blew the door down, but then it closed, and Aurora was alone with the crate of clean uniforms.
“By the way,” Chip added, sticking his head back in the door. “Katrina borrowed your jacket.”
“What?”
But Chip was already gone.
Well, she would have preferred hostess, but better bartender than fired. And either of those was better than waitressing—Witching Hour wasn’t high on the respectable gage, and the last time Aurora had worked waitress, some asshole had nearly ripped her booty shorts trying to grab her ass. That was the waitress uniform: fishnet tights or well-ripped-up black ones, high-heeled boots, and either leather shorts or miniskirt. Witching Hour had a dangerously risqué theme of part electronica, part BDSM, like vampires on dubstep. Weird as hell, but it paid bank in tips.
Hostess was considered the cush job, hanging out right next to security all night and seeing to the VIP list. Definitely preferable, but bartending wasn’t bad. At least the bar was between herself and the clients, except for the most rowdy. There had been a couple brawlers tossed right over the bar, but that wasn’t a normal happening.
And the bartenders wore more. True, their outfit wasn’t exactly something she could walk out on the streets in, but at least her legs were covered. Full-length leather pants and boots, lots of metal buckles, and a top that qualified as a bralette, or maybe a very small crop-top. That was why she liked having the jacket, so she felt a little more like she had clothes on, but there was nothing to do about it now.
Lastly Aurora pulled on elbow-length fingerless gloves. They’d be soaked in alcohol by night’s end, but Chip insisted they matched the look. And so they did.
There was a large mirror across the back wall of the changing room, and Aurora looked over her uniform one last time. This morning, she’d gotten dressed for work in a multi-thousand dollar outfit, complete with diamonds. By night, she poured for the riff-raff and spent hours drowned in electronic beats and cigarette smoke.
At least, sometimes it was cigarette smoke.
She sighed; this was her life. Both jobs gave her something she needed, but not everything. There was always something missing. Aurora was beginning to suspect that she’d never find it.
But nine o’clock was rolling nearer, and the bar was already bouncing. She waded into the fray and joined her coworkers behind the bar. Katrina and Amy were both rushing to put glasses and bottles in hands, so busy that Katrina didn’t even have time to notice the stink eye Aurora gave her over the jacket she’d borrowed (Really, my name is stitched on the back, for Christ’s sake, Aurora thought to herself, annoyed). With a third set of hands, they managed to get on top of drink orders, and things behind the bar settled down long enough for them to catch a breath.
“Smoke break?” Katrina asked breathlessly. Her long brown hair was done up in a tight ponytail, with heavy, dark make-up around the eyes. Aurora shrugged; she didn’t smoke, and they all knew it.
“I can hold things up here for like, ten minutes,” Aurora told them.
“All right, all right.” They excused themselves without much fanfare, retreating out the back door in a burst of cold wind. Aurora didn’t envy them one bit—it felt like a freezer outside.
She did, however, begin to wonder where they were when the rush returned. Aurora was a great worker and great bartender—anything else would have been buried as a mob of the night crowd came to riot around the bar. Handing out beers, pouring shots, mixing drinks, ringing tabs, and making tips fell into a steady rhythm. Snapping selfies, orchestrating belly shots, specialty booze pours, and the occasional ice bucket into the increasingly rowdy crowd—Aurora felt like she was batting against as tsunami. The DJ saw her distress and was trying to lure people onto the dance floor to give her a break, but there was only so much she could do from her booth. Aurora was good, but this was too much. Where were Katrina and Amy?
She’s just served up a round of three hurricanes and a hot saucer when the first scream hit.
Aurora spun around. Amy was back. Most of her, anyway.
Witching Hour and the panicking crowd tilted at a funny angle as what she was seeing sunk in. Aurora leaned a hand against the bar; her head felt hot. So warm… and so dizzy.
Amy had managed to wander back in from her smoke break, mumbling nonsense around what was left of her tongue. Blood gushed from her mouth, and from the sockets where her green eyes had been, blood matting into her red hair, down her neck, down her shirt, everywhere, everywhere…
An hour passed, but Aurora would have been surprised to hear it. Her mind kept taking unexpected leave, blanking out like a merciful white cloud, letting her body go through the motions. Calling Chip. The ambulance, the second ambulance today, arriving to find Aurora still holding a washrag to Amy’s eyes. It was sopping with blood. So much blood. But Aurora didn’t remember the worst of it, and when Chip was sitting with her outside some time later, reality began to catch up, and she began to cry hot tears that steamed in the biting cold.
“Breathe, honey, just breathe. The medics said to focus on taking deep breaths.”
That was Chip. He’d never sounded so caring. Aurora felt an arm around her shoulders, and knew it was his.
She looked down at her hands, the fingerless gloves gone. They’d been gone a while; the EMT had taken them off when she helped Aurora clean the blood off her fingers. There had been so much of it… Aurora could still feel it on her skin now, burning and thick and catching the light like rubies.
She felt a little sick, and gulped in frozen February air to stifle the nausea. Aurora hated vomiting ever since she was little. Besides, there was nothing left to throw up except bile and the sips of water she’d forced down.
The world was coming back into focus, a little at a time. She was outside Witching Hour, and a crime scene had been established. She and Chip were seated in the open back of a police van. Amy’s limp body had been loaded hastily into the back of an ambulance and shipped to the nearest hospital; her outlook wasn’t good. Two other ambulances waited on the scene, the medics and EMTs making rounds through the club staff and the club patrons who hadn’t run off at the sound of police sirens.
No one knew what had happened to Amy, yet. There were no witnesses, at least none that had stuck around to speak to police. Some psycho in the alley, probably. High on meth or PCP or some crazy street drugs. That was all the police could guess so far, when Chip asked.
“It’s going to be all right, Aurora, it’s going to be fine.”
First Madame Moreau, and now this? How much was one girl supposed
to be able to handle?
Aurora struggled to sit upright. She seemed to be succeeding when an officer approached.
“You the owner? Christopher Henson?”
Chip’s real name; he answered in the affirmative.
The officer sighed. “Sir, do you know an Aurora?”
Both Aurora and Chip stiffened and exchanged a glance. “Well… yes.”
Another sigh. The officer, also, seemed to be having a long night, and looked truly sorry when he said, “There’s no easy way to tell you this, but I’m afraid we found her body in the alley behind the bar.”
Aurora forgot to breathe again. Chip looked at her, then at the officer. “That’s not possible. Aurora… well, this is her. Right here.”
The cop stared at Aurora for a moment, and frowned. “Well, we got an adult female, probably twenties, eyes and tongue missing, lying dead in the alley behind your establishment.”
Confusion, then realization. Aurora’s eyes welled up again and Chip closed his eyes. In a whisper, Aurora voiced what they both knew.
“Katrina.”
Chapter 5
The interrogation room wasn’t like the gray metal and stone ones Aurora had always seen in Law and Order. The table and chairs (and the two-way glass) were about the only parts in common. It was getting on towards eleven and Aurora was feeling extremely tired. If she were to venture a guess, her adrenaline and the terrible shock of seeing Amy and hearing about Katrina had wiped her of energy. She sure felt wiped of energy.
The officer sitting across from her was a middle aged black woman, overweight and plainly dressed and slacks and a polo, more resembling a DMV clerk than a plainclothes detective. She looked fully uninterested in being at work at eleven on a Friday, or perhaps any day, and she asked Aurora a string of questions in a deadpan tone that suggested obligation.
“How long did you know the victim?”
“Which…?”
“My apologies, Ms. Potier. Ms. Katrina Gersham. How long were you two acquainted?”
“Uh…” Aurora was having the hardest time pinning down dates, hours. “I only met her when I started at Witching Hour, about a year… and… a half ago?” Had it only been that long? Aurora felt like she had been bartending for Chip forever. What would happen to the bar now?
“Ms. Potier?”
“Yes! I’m… I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.”
“Did you hear the question?”
Had there been another question? Aurora felt like she could put her head down on the desk and fall asleep, and they were here asking her questions. Worse, they were mostly the same questions she’d answered for the police on-scene. Was there anyone suspicious in the bar tonight? Did you notice any strangers out front or out back when you arrived at work? Your boss informed us you were late—could you provide details of that, please?
“No, I’m sorry,” Aurora replied, dry-mouthed. “What did you ask?”
The officer nodded her head slowly, neither annoyed nor sympathetic, and repeated, “Please recount the last time you saw the victim—Ms. Gersham—alive.”
Aurora bit her bottom lip, thinking. That was a tough thing to do, although she remembered it clearly, as if it had only happened a moment ago.
“I arrived at work late, and joined Amy and Katrina behind the bar, probably around 8:45—PM. There were a lot of customers at the bar right then, so I jumped right in to help. We hardly spoke for the first half hour, we were so busy. And then, when it slowed down a bit, they wanted to go out and smoke before the real rush arrived…”
Aurora’s throat closed. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t smoke, see… They know I don’t… They… knew… That’s why they kn-knew I could w-watch—the bar—while they—” Unwelcome, images of Amy stumbling back without eyes, without a tongue, came rushing in. And Katrina—poor Katrina—she’d gotten engaged last month…
If only she’d told them no! Aurora cleared her throat, trying to compose herself. If only she’d refused! If only she’d been on time, then maybe someone else, another smoker, would have been behind the bar and they wouldn’t have been able to agree on who to stay—something, anything!
“Oh, God,” Aurora coughed miserably. The officer waited, face softening for the first time that Aurora had seen. Here she was, answering a police inquiry in her bartending outfit, recounting the events leading up to the death of one coworker and the maiming of another. They still hadn’t found Amy’s tongue or eyes.
No, Aurora stopped herself. Don’t think of that. Anything but that. Determined, she put her mind in the office outside. It had looked like a normal government office space. It could have been an accounting office, or the back room of the IRS. Cubicles, computers, suits and ties and office casual. A man and woman flirted over a cubicle wall. Papers and files were being run, work was being evading with varying degrees of success. Everyone seemed ready to go home, some more than others.
Movement. Action. Life. Aurora focused on it, refusing to be sucked back into the empty holes of Amy’s missing eyes.
“Ms. Potier? Was that all you remember?”
Aurora nodded, still focusing on the hustle of office work she was envisioning outside the interrogation room.
The officer blinked slowly, as if she had all the time she could ever need, and leaned forward. “You failed to mention that Katrina Gersham was wearing your jacket when she died.”
Shocked, Aurora snapped out of her daydream. “Well… yes. She’d borrowed it before I arrived.”
“Without your permission?”
“Yes, I hadn’t gotten to work yet,” Aurora repeated. She was beginning to hear something like suspicion in her interrogator’s voice. “How much longer is this going to be? I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Almost finished, Miss.”
But for the next minute, she said absolutely nothing and proceeded to write what looked like pages of notes on her notepad, leaving Aurora to try and remain calm. The clock seemed to grow louder with each tick. Why was she still here? Aurora smoothed her hands over her leather pants anxiously. She’d answered all their questions, hadn’t she? Why was she being kept here? Why?
She watched the officer jot note after note, never once looking up. What was she writing? Aurora had the sudden and unwelcome thought. Was she a suspect? Why had they asked about Katrina and the jacket?
Without warning the door burst open like an explosion and slapped flat against the opposite wall. Aurora nearly jumped to the ceiling. In strode a second officer, this one looking even less the part than the one who’d finally paused her writing to look up in annoyance.
This officer was younger, perhaps in his late twenties. White and with a wide, obnoxious smile, his short blondish hair was cropped like he still thought N’Sync was a thing. He was wearing jeans instead of slacks, and a blazing red-patterned button-down shirt. His holster was still over his shoulders, weapon and all, though he wasn’t wearing a coat to hide it.
“Hey! How’s the interview?”
Aurora had no idea if he was asking her or the other officer. She just sat there, staring open-mouthed. The older officer glared, mouth thinning into a sharp line.
“Officer Milo, please have a seat.” She sighed heavily. “You have been asked repeatedly to please dress according to code.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Dora. Jeans are more comfortable.” He said this as he pulled up a chair on the table edge between them. “And they flatter my legs better.”
He did have a nice body. Aurora wasn’t really in a position to admire officers’ physiques at the moment, but the jeans suited him nicely. Sort of a Wild West feel. She was relaxing, which was a relief, because a moment ago her skin had been threatening to leap right off her bones. Her breathing was settling back into a normal rhythm; Aurora hadn’t realized she’d been breathing any differently until she’d gotten back to her usual rate.
“Did Dora ask you about the victims yet?”
Aurora nodded. “Yes. I told her everything I know.
I was inside at the bar when it happened.”
Officer Milo looked at her closely; his wasn’t exactly an intimidating face, so the effect was more comical than anything, like Ace Ventura. This, she judged, would not be a good time to point that out.
“So you deny any connection to the assaults?”
“Milo!” Dora hissed warningly.
“What?” he asked, turning to her in confusion.
Aurora blinked. She didn’t understand at first. “Of course I didn’t have anything to do with them. That’s… that’s sick, what happened to Amy… to Katrina.”
Milo swiveled back to face her. “So you didn’t commit, or have any knowledge of, these crimes?”
Understanding began to dawn on her, and Aurora’s breath huffed out in an incredulous hiss. She had been so anxious just a few minutes ago—where had all that gone?
“Are you suggesting that it was me?” she asked flatly, raising her eyebrows.
“Well, the victim was wearing your jacket—”
“That she borrowed from me, without asking, before I even arrived,” Aurora snapped, cutting Milo off. She glared at both of them. “Should I call a lawyer?”
Not that she could afford it. Maybe she could find someone to defend her pro bono; how did you find someone like that? How did people go about procuring lawyers? It came up all the time in Law and Order and CSI—which Aurora loved to watch when she had a split second off work—but really, how did you find one in real life?
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Ms. Potier,” Officer Dora replied. “You’ll have to forgive my partner. He was dropped on his head as a child, and many times since.” The last she drawled with a level stare at Milo, who barely looked sheepish.
“Yeah,” he added. “We’re just having a conversation, right?”
“There were dozens of people in the club,” Aurora continued, unconvinced. “I’m accounted for—the entire time that the crime must have happened. I was at the bar when Katrina and Amy went out to smoke, and I didn’t leave until… after.”
