Whiskey Straight Up

by Nina Wright

  Even in the blur of movement, Nash Grant looked great: about thirty-five, tall, dark, and handsome. My type.

  Never mind that I hadn’t actually ever had my type. My first husband, Jeb Halloran, was tall and handsome but not dark. My second husband, Leo Mattimoe, was dark but not tall or handsome. I wasn’t thinking “third husband” when I looked at Nash Grant, but I was feeling tingles in long-neglected parts of my body. Most inappropriate considering he was Avery’s guy and the father of Leo’s grandkids. Can you spell oogy?

  When he brushed past, I caught the delicious scent of citrus and spice. I didn’t think he even noticed me, his sole focus being to calm Avery—always a hopeless task. Odette and I blinked at each other before silently proceeding to the bar, where Walter St. Mary was clearing away their glassware.

  “You missed the show,” Walter said.

  “Not entirely.” Leaning coquettishly on the bar, Odette said, “I think Father Unknown caught Whiskey’s eye.”

  “No way,” I protested.

  Odette ignored me. “Tell all, Walter: Who is the man?”

  “Dr. Nash Grant’s his name.”

  “He’s a doctor?” I gasped.

  “He’s a prof at the University of Florida.”

  “So she screwed her teacher. . . .”

  Walter shook his glossy white head. Though sixty-something, his thick hair was the envy of younger men. “She never took a class with him. Met him at a campus anti-war rally, and afterwards they fell into bed.”

  “Was there a power failure?” I asked.

  Odette meowed.

  “Whiskey, be nice,” said Walter. “I still think of Avery as Leo’s lost little girl. Her mother took her away from Magnet Springs and almost never let her come home.”

  In fact, Avery had lived in Belize from age fourteen until she went to college in Gainesville. She didn’t get a degree, but she did get pregnant. Your tuition dollars at work. Maybe Nash Grant wasn’t as nice as he was nice-looking.

  “Avery’s babies are three months old,” I said. “What took their father so long to show up?”

  “First he had to find them,” Walter replied. “The poor guy went all the way to Belize. He found Georgia, who told him Avery was here. He called your house, but Avery made him meet her in a public place. He still hasn’t seen his children.”

  Walter poured a glass of Shiraz for each of us, himself included. We drank meditatively.

  Odette, who doesn’t believe in deep reflection, said, “With the professor’s genes in the mix, at least one of those kids should be handsome.” For my benefit, she added, “Not that Leo wasn’t good-looking.”

  “He wasn’t,” I said. “Except to me.” And I toasted my Late Beloved.

  Then Odette toasted Mrs. Gribble the Third and her fat checkbook. Our celebratory mood had returned.

  From the bar we moved into the dining room. About twenty tourists were in evidence, rosy-cheeked folks wearing brand-new knitted clothing and exclaiming about the view of Lake Michigan. Most were winter-sports enthusiasts inclined toward cross-country skiing, snow-mobiling, or ice-fishing, their sport of choice identifiable by public behavior, as well as wardrobe and beverage choice. Cross-country skiers tended to be subdued and self-righteous; they dressed the best and ordered liquor from the top shelf. Snow-mobilers were just plain loud. Chock it up to hearing damage from their machines. They wore lots of layers and were loyal to their brands of booze. Ice-fisherman often had blood on their jackets and started drinking out on the ice.

  Call me biased, but this was my take on each sport:

  Snow-mobiling’s hard on the ears and the spine, and it creates noise pollution, but it gets you across the frozen tundra fast.

  Cross-country skiing offered a smooth, silent glide through Nature’s white glory and a fine way to burn in advance the calories you’d consume to warm yourself later.

  As for ice-fishing, I had lived my whole life on the Lake, and I still didn’t know how anyone could sit for hours on an overturned bucket staring into a black hole.

  But ice-fishing had put Magnet Springs on the Winter Sports Map. Every year since the mid-1960s, the town hosted an Ice-Fishing Jamboree during the third week in January. This year’s event would start tomorrow. That meant Magnet Springs was about to be invaded by ice-fishermen. Their assorted makeshift shanties were already visible along the shore. Most wouldn’t wander as far inland as Mother Tucker’s, preferring one of the convenient dark bars near the docks. Still, Walter had laid in a supply of Blatz beer, just in case.

  Odette and I warmed ourselves with Jonny’s trademark fresh breads straight from the oven, crocks of steaming chicken-corn chowder, and plates piled high with the Pasta of the Day: prawns, mussels, cod and salmon in a creamy lobster sauce on a bed of tagliatelli. No dessert, but even so, it was a noon-time feast guaranteed to render one unfit to return to work.

  We were idling over mugs of black coffee when David Newquist, DVM, appeared at our table. As usual, he was wearing his bright yellow parka proclaiming

  MAGNET SPRINGS VET CLINIC

  YOUR PET’S A PERSON, TOO

  David was the new vet in town. He got me through Abra’s problematic pregnancy and delivery. Problematic for me, that is. Abra sailed through the entire trauma as if it were happening to someone else, which in a sense, it was. Like Avery, Abra expected to be protected from any and all of life’s discomforts. Dr. David helped me do that, with a little assistance on the side from Chester, Abra’s official keeper.

  I wasn’t sure how to read David Newquist. Recently divorced and relocated to our fair town, he seemed always on the verge of asking me out. If he ever did, I wasn’t sure whether I’d say yes or no. Not that I failed to find him attractive . . . in a rumpled and earnest kind of way. Unlike Professor Nash Grant, Dr. David was definitely not “my type,” i.e., not my male fantasy. The good vet was a regular-looking guy in his early forties: balding and paunchy with sloping shoulders. But his greenish-blue eyes twinkled. He was about Leo’s height—five foot ten—and had a slight speech impediment (his Ls and Rs sounded like Ws), which I found endearing. His four-legged patients, including Abra, adored him.

  So why would I hesitate to date him should he eventually ask?

  Dr. David was an animal rights activist, one of those politically committed, possibly crazy people who thinks that dogs and cats are equal to humans. I had trouble with that theory; I shared my life with an Afghan hound who already had more rights than I did. Giving her even more clout would invite disaster. We all read Animal Farm. . . .

  Then there was the possible lawsuit by Gil Gruen. Before Dr. David met me, he had rented office space from Best West Realty. Instantly miserable in his lease, David fell in love with one of the buildings I owned and operated, a storefront that suddenly became available next door to Noonan’s massage therapy studio. But Gil’s contract didn’t allow for lease-breaks unless Gil found a new tenant willing to pay at least ten percent more than David was paying for the already overpriced space. In addition, their agreement stipulated that Gil was David’s real-estate agent of record in all transactions for six months from date of signing. David, therefore, was obligated to Gil even as he continued his search for a place to live. For now David was renting, week by week, a room at the fleabag Broken Arrow Motel out on the highway. He desperately needed a better situation but was reluctant to do more business with Gil.

  I didn’t need to tell David that he never should have signed Gil’s contract. His brain fogged by divorce and the pressure to set up his new practice fast, he hadn’t read the fine print. When Gil learned that David was looking at my property and discussing future business with me, he threatened to sue us both: David for breaking his contract, if he tried, and me for soliciting Gil’s client, whether David signed with me or not.

  It was like a curse hanging over both our heads.

  “How are you?” David asked pleasantly, his speech impediment reminding me of Gilda Radner doing “Baba Wawa” on Saturday Night Live. When h
e asked if he could sit down, Odette and I said yes. Almost immediately her cell phone rang, and she excused herself.

  “Well,” David began. “I suppose you know about Chester.”

  “Oh yes.” I smiled and then realized that David was waiting for me to say more. “What about him?”

  “He and Prince Harry have run away from home.”

  Chapter Five

  “I’m sure they’re just playing,” I said, still smiling.

  Chester was Abra’s keeper as well as Prince Harry’s. No way he would have left me alone with her. We had a contract.

  David Newquist shook his head. “A man named Roy Vickers came by my office a few minutes ago. He found a note from Chester, and he was looking for you.”

  “Why would Roy look for Whiskey at your office?” Odette was back at the table. “Tina would have told him where to find us.”

  “He said Tina wasn’t at your office when he returned.”

  Odette and I nodded knowingly. Probably another Winston and Neville Emergency. Until recently, Tina had performed most of her office-manager duties from home so that she could watch her two toddlers. Then, just before Christmas, husband Tim had lost his job and become temporary full-time child-care provider. Like me, he wasn’t a natural at the job. Tina frequently flew home to calm him and the kids.

  “What was in the note Roy found?” I asked David.

  He extracted a neatly folded piece of yellow tablet paper from his pocket and passed it to me. In Chester’s loopy cursive I read:

  Dear Whiskey,

  It’s time for Prince Harry and me to go out on a mission.

  Don’t worry about us. I have Cassina’s American Express card, and I printed out all the commands from dogstrainyou.com

  We’ll call when we get to our destination. (I also brought my cell phone.)

  Love,

  Chester

  Odette’s next comment stunned me.

  “My daughter used to do that.”

  I kept forgetting that Odette had a daughter. We’d worked together for three years, and yet I’d never met the girl. I didn’t even know her name.

  “That’s why we sent her to boarding school,” Odette said. “She didn’t want to live with us.”

  There was no trace of sadness in Odette’s voice. In fact, I heard relief.

  She added, “When you call Cassina later, I can recommend a good school.”

  “But we don’t even know where he is!” I protested.

  “He’ll come home before dark. They always do. . . .”

  “But I don’t want to send Chester away,” I said.

  Odette scowled. “I thought you didn’t like children. Or dogs.”

  “But I need the child to take care of the dogs!”

  Dr. David reached across the table and took my hand in his. I was surprised how soft his paw felt.

  “The most important thing, Whiskey, is to stay calm. Everything will be all right.”

  “Aw-white” sounded pretty good from where I was sitting, especially with David holding my hand. His eyes were an amazing turquoise when viewed this close up. I could almost get lost in them. . . .

  “Well, well, if it ain’t the two folks I’m most likely to litigate.”

  Gil Gruen stood next to our table, arms crossed over his sheepskin coat.

  “You were here already. We saw your sign,” Odette said. “No need to come back. Ever.”

  Gil barked his staccato laugh.

  “I’m meeting a client. Unlike Whiskey here, I do business the legitimate way. She lets her hormones run her business.”

  His eyes shifted to David.

  “A little free advice: Stay away from this lady. She’s not good-looking enough to be worth the trouble.”

  The veterinarian rose to his feet so fast that his chair toppled backward.

  “Nobody talks that way about my friends,” he said.

  Gil took a step in reverse and raised his palms to signal peace. Given his costume and the current dialogue, it was like being in a TV western.

  “No offense intended, Doc. Just a friendly—or should I say ‘fwend-wee’—warning.”

  With that, the Mayor of Magnet Springs exited to the bar. David stared after him but said nothing. After an extremely awkward moment of silence, Odette cleared her throat.

  “Somebody should go make some money, and it might as well be me.”

  On her way out, she told David that she admired his self-control.

  “If I had pets—which of course I never will—I would bring them to you,” she added.

  That was the perfect moment for David Newquist to ask me out. Or so I thought. But as soon as Odette left, he checked his watch, announced that he had a feline teeth-cleaning scheduled in fifteen minutes, and departed.

  He did pick up his chair on the way out. Odette had left the check for me to pick up.

  I stepped outside to discover that the temperature had dropped, and the wind had stiffened. Walking back to Mattimoe Realty, my shoulders hunched against the elements, I tightened the wool scarf around my neck. Thank god for big fuzzy earmuffs. Though hardly a fashion statement, they did keep my earlobes from freezing and falling off.

  They also reduced my hearing even as my raised collar eliminated my peripheral vision. Thus I was unaware until the driver honked that one of Magnet Springs’ two patrol cars was nosing along the curb at my side.

  At least Jenx didn’t deem it necessary to turn on the siren. For that I was grateful.

  “Yo, Whiskey!” she called out the open passenger window. “I hear you lost Chester and Prince Harry! Maybe Abra, too.”

  “We don’t worry about Abra. She always comes home.”

  “Get in so I can roll up the window!”

  Who would argue with the Chief of Police? Judy “Jenx” Jenkins fought crime and kept order in Magnet Springs. She got a little help from Officers Swancott and Roscoe, the second of whom was a dog. Roscoe was better at his job than Brady Swancott although, to be fair, he’d had more training.

  “For the record, I didn’t lose anyone,” I informed Jenx as I settled in the passenger seat. “Chester ran away from home for the day. See, here’s his note.” I held it out for her to see before she pulled away from the curb.

  Jenx didn’t touch the note as she read it. “How many sets of fingerprints are on that thing, besides yours and Chester’s?”

  “I don’t know. Roy Vickers brought the note to David Newquist. I don’t even know where Roy found it.”

  “Roy Vickers?” Jenx looked at me sharply. “Roy’s back in town?”

  “He just got out of jail. I gave him a job.”

  Jenx’s jaw dropped.

  “Noonan told me to,” I said quickly. “She said you thought it was a good idea.”

  Chapter Six

  Jenx stomped the brake pedal. Although the patrol car had barely been rolling, it rocked to a stop. Chester’s farewell note floated from my gloved fingers.

  “You don’t think hiring Roy’s a good idea?” I said.

  “I told Noonan it was a good idea in theory,” Jenx fumed, her face darkening. “I swear that woman hears only what she wants to hear!”

  Suddenly I felt the tingle that signaled one of Jenx’s “episodes.” Though barely five foot-five, our police chief packed a legendary wallop: when riled, she could channel the electrical currents for which our town was named. I’d seen her make phones ring, metal objects jump, and annoying people go spinning across a room. In self-defense I gripped the door handle with both fists.

  The patrol car’s siren wailed plaintively even though Jenx hadn’t flipped a switch. I stole a peek at the driver. Her eyes bulged, and she no longer appeared to be breathing.

  “Easy, Jenx!” I shouted. “Inhale! Now!”

  She did. A few seconds later the siren died, and I loosened my hold on the door.

  In a flat voice, Jenx said, “I’d never recommend hiring a violent felon without knowing his profile first. I have contacts at the prison. I told Noonan
I’d check him out. She didn’t give me time.”

  “Well, you can still check him out,” I offered. “If you get a bad report, I’ll let him go.”

  Jenx whipped a handkerchief from her pocket and leaned across my lap to scoop Chester’s note from the floor by my feet.

  “Let’s hope it’s not too late,” she said, slipping the paper into a plastic evidence bag.

  I gulped. “But Odette said her daughter used to run away from home all the time.”

  “You would, too, if you were Odette’s daughter. Chester, on the other hand, runs away from Cassina to stay at your house.”

  That was true. Until I had agreed to “keep” him while his mother was on her World Tour, Chester used to break into Vestige, my house in the country, just to hang out with Abra and me.

  “How did you even know Chester and Prince Harry were gone?” I asked.

  “I ran into Odette at the Goh Cup.”

  “She was at the Goh Cup? We just had lunch.”

  “She likes their espresso better than Mother Tucker’s. Don’t tell Walter.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. You feeling okay now?”

  “Fine.”

  “Somebody should study you. . . .”

  “Why? It runs in my family. Most of us can make water boil.”

  By 6:30 that night it was pitch black all around Vestige, and Chester had not yet returned, with or without Prince Harry.

  Neither had Abra, but I knew she’d be back. I had arrived home at five to find Avery locked in her room, the nanny attending Leah and Leo. The babies looked peaceful enough, and there was no sign that their father had been to see them. No new toys or other love souvenirs. I briefly considered asking the nanny what she knew about the day’s events, but I didn’t even know the nanny’s name. Because Avery hired and fired a new one every few weeks, I didn’t want to get involved; I just wrote the checks.

  But Chester’s absence alarmed me. Should I call Cassina? I checked her Tour Itinerary, which I kept in my home office, near the phone. Tonight she had given a concert in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. No hotel was listed for this date, and it was unlikely that I could reach her by cell phone. Even if I could, given the time difference, by now she’d be either long asleep or deeply drunk. Or both. Chester swore that his mother had given up the booze, but I’d seen evidence to the contrary. Cassina’s famously ethereal appearance and angelic music belied a turbulent nature. Now half-way through a six-month-long tour with Rupert, Chester’s estranged father, Cassina had stopped checking on her son.