Whiskey Straight Up

by Nina Wright

  “I got pregnant the first month of my junior year in high school,” Mindy said. “So, after Christmas break, I didn’t go back. Now I got three kids under five and two deadbeat dads. Why do I work here?” She scratched her nose. “Daycare’s good, and they pay full benefits. Where else am I going to get a deal like that on the reservation?”

  “You live on the reservation?”

  “Sure. My kids are half-Kickapoo.”

  Having children of her own, Mindy seemed likely to sympathize with Chester. Or so I guessed. But I guessed wrong.

  “He’s eight? What’s a kid that age doing with his own cell phone?” she asked. “He sounds way spoiled.”

  “Well, his mother travels a lot on business, so she needs to keep in touch.”

  “The kid’s mom is rich, right?”

  “Right,” I conceded. “But the point is that the kid is missing. Possibly kidnapped. And we think he might have been here this morning.”

  “The kid’s mom lets him gamble? That’s illegal, you know. We could get in trouble if he even touched a slot. I could maybe even lose my job.”

  I could maybe even be wasting my time, I concluded. After over-tipping Mindy, I took my Pepsi and pretzels and walked away.

  Megan was the next waitress I cornered. A wee thing with slightly crossed almond-colored eyes, she was instantly concerned when I mentioned Chester.

  “Well, kids aren’t supposed to be on the floor,” she began, “but there was one here this morning. Light blonde hair, big glasses. Looked about six years old.”

  “That’s Chester! He looks six, but he’s really eight.”

  “Preemie?” Megan asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “Was he born premature? I was, that’s why I’m wondering. Growing up, I always looked a couple years younger than I was.”

  In fact, that was Chester’s story. He was born backstage at one of his mother’s first concerts. But I cut to the chase: “Tell me what you saw!”

  Megan had met Chester about an hour earlier, when he came up behind her and yanked on her beaded suede mini-dress.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “That is not an authentic Native American tribal costume.”

  Megan smiled and explained that she was not an authentic Native American, so it didn’t matter. Chester disagreed. He felt she was disrespecting Kickapoo tradition by wearing that outfit. Megan told him her bosses were Kickapoo, and they didn’t care. Anyway, she was hired to sling drinks, not make a statement about Native American rights and traditions. At that point, Chester motioned for her to lean down so that he could whisper in her ear. She did, and he asked her to tell him whether she could see a tall woman with black and gray hair who looked like she was looking for someone.

  “You have a better view than I do,” he added. “I’m only three foot four, and I can’t see over the slot machines.”

  Megan was moved by her own story. She told me, “I’m only five foot four, but I used my two-foot advantage to help him out. Sure enough, I spotted a woman who fit the description. She was heading straight toward us!”

  That was when Chester whipped out his cell phone and made a call. But the tall woman grabbed the device from his hand. She told Megan, “Thanks for finding my grandson for me. I’ve been looking everywhere.”

  Chester glanced back at Megan as the woman pulled him away.

  “He didn’t say anything out loud,” Megan said, “but he moved his mouth like he was trying to tell me something. I’ll never forget it. His lips went like this.” She demonstrated two silent syllables. For the first, she pulled her lips back; for the second, she half-way blew a kiss. She repeated the action several times as I stared.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “I have no idea!” cried Megan. “I was hoping you’d know!”

  “Like this?” I tried the mouth movement myself. Megan coached me until I got it right. But I had no clue what I was silently saying.

  “Tell me about the woman,” I said.

  In the commotion, Megan didn’t catch the details of her clothing. But one thing was certain: she was wearing a long fur coat. Megan also noticed that she was “kind of old but not feeble.”

  “She reminded me of somebody who used to be like a dancer or something when she was young. She moved that way, know what I mean?”

  I did. I pictured Mrs. Oscar Manfred Gribble the Third.

  When I flipped open my cell phone to call Jenx, Megan stopped me. She said I’d have to make the call from the lobby. Casino rule.

  “Of course, I would never have busted the little boy for it,” she added.

  I fished a ten-dollar bill out of my coat pocket and tossed it on her tray. Megan said, “For that kind of money, let me get you a real breakfast. Something better than Pepsi and pretzels.”

  She said she’d be right back. While I waited, I watched a couple octogenarian women with cigarettes dangling from their lips pump coin after coin into three slot machines at a time. Clearly, they were professionals.

  Megan returned with a gooey bear claw pastry on a paper plate.

  “It’s our House breakfast,” she said, her slightly crossed eyes sparkling. “Enjoy.”

  I took the pastry, which was large and extremely sticky, and crossed to the lobby.

  Here’s what I learned: Never try to use a cell phone while eating a bear claw. You’ll get the sugary goop all over your phone. My fingers were too sticky even to speed-dial Jenx. I ended up washing my hands twice in the lavatory sink before I could make the call. I don’t know what the pastry chef at the casino used to glaze those things, but it had the consistency of glue. On the plus side, it was delicious.

  Not surprisingly, Jenx was in the field when I called. The dispatcher offered to patch me through. As I waited, David bounded into the Casino lobby, his green-blue eyes round with excitement.

  “I found the Jag! I found the Jag!” he panted. He was waving a scrap of paper.

  “Iowa plates?” I asked.

  He nodded, breathless. “I also found a second white Jag! With Illinois plates.”

  By now I was familiar enough with David-ese to translate “iwwinoy pwates.”

  “I wrote that number down, too,” he said. “Just in case.”

  When Jenx picked up, I gave the good vet the phone. Listening, I gathered that he had tried to get the hotel desk clerk to tell him whether either of those cars belonged to overnight guests, but the Bear Claw employee wouldn’t say.

  Jenx must have explained to David that he’d need police intervention for that kind of info.

  “Then send somebody in a uniform right now!” David insisted and handed the phone back to me.

  “It’s sticky,” he said, examining his fingers.

  I asked Jenx whether she planned to dispatch Officers Swancott and Roscoe to the Casino.

  “That’s State Police jurisdiction,” she replied. “I’ll see if I can get the MSP out there. Brady and Roscoe are already on the case. They’re following up on your suggestion of a door-to-door wardrobe search.”

  “They got a warrant to see people’s fur coats?” I asked.

  “Nope, it’s voluntary,” Jenx said. “So, technically, it doesn’t have teeth. But when folks open their door and see Officer Roscoe, they tend to want to comply.”

  Understandable, given that Officer Roscoe was a German shepherd of impeccable breeding and imposing stature. Though highly trained in the field, the canine officer’s greatest asset was his ability to stare people down.

  “That’s all well and good,” I said. “But the fur coat you want is currently being worn by Mrs. Gribble the Third. A waitress described the woman who pulled Chester away, and it’s got to be her!”

  Both Jenx and Dr. David listened to my story. The vet wasn’t interested in waiting for the MSP; he wanted to knock on every door in the hotel until he found Mrs. Gribble himself.

  I asked Jenx to hold a moment while I reminded David that the woman in question was wearing a coat. Ergo, she was probably on her
way out.

  “Or on her way in!” David and Jenx blurted simultaneously.

  “Was Chester wearing a coat?” said David.

  I had forgotten to ask Megan. Jenx chided me for the oversight, and David demanded the name of the waitress so that he could go ask her himself. Before he walked away, I grabbed the now-sticky slip of paper from his hands.

  “Can you run the plates David saw?” I asked Jenx.

  She promised to try, so I read them to her. The one from Illinois was a vanity plate: IMGBLN.

  “‘I am gambling’?” I guessed aloud. “Nothing like advertising your vice.”

  “Maybe that’s how they earned the Jag,” Jenx said. “Speaking of vices, did you catch the big commotion this morning at Coastal Med?”

  “What happened?”

  “Some nurse got caught playing peeping tom.”

  “Male nurse?”

  “Yeah, but it gets better: the nurse wasn’t really a nurse. Turns out he was using a fake ID.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said as my stomach did a double back-flip. “C. Richards.”

  “So you heard about it,” Jenx said.

  “Not exactly. I let the guy stare at my breast. Then I gave him a ride home.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Technically, it was David who gave the guy a ride home. And not exactly home. More like to edge of a woods,” I told Jenx.

  “A woods where?” she demanded.

  “East of Sugar Grove. We had just let him out when you called about Chester being at Bear Claw.”

  “Could you give a description of the guy who’s not C. Richards?” Jenx said.

  “Yeah. But I’ve got to tell you, he looked a lot different out of uniform.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “On the job, he looked young. Off the job, he looked too young. Like barely out of high school.” I cringed.

  “Stop by the station before you go home.”

  “Okay. But there’s something else you should know: he has my cell phone number.”

  “How’d he get that?” Jenx asked.

  “Long story. . . .”

  “You’re sure he’s got it?”

  “He called me!”

  “What’s his number?”

  I hadn’t thought to check until she asked. As I did, I realized David was right. Some parts of my phone were still sticky.

  “The creep blocked his number when he dialed,” I told Jenx.

  “Smart perverts are predators,” she said. “Dumb ones get caught and go to jail.”

  Jenx updated me on the state of the Jamboree: all activities postponed till tomorrow. Peg would be Acting Mayor until we knew more about Gil’s fate.

  We were concluding our call when David returned, munching a bear claw.

  “Let me talk to Jenx,” he said through a mouthful of pastry. As if he wasn’t already hard enough to understand.

  “You’ll get my phone all sticky!” I protested.

  “Your phone’s already sticky.”

  When I handed it over, he told Jenx, “Chester wasn’t wearing a coat. He had on a navy-blue turtleneck sweater and jeans.”

  I knew that turtleneck. I missed that turtleneck. Dammit, I missed Chester.

  Returning my phone, David saw the tears in my eyes. I hate it when I get sentimental. I hate it even more when there are witnesses.

  “We’ll find him, Whiskey,” David promised. “Jenx says the State Police will be here soon.” He took another bite of his bear claw. “Delicious. Now I know where they got the name for this resort.”

  “From the pastry?”

  “The pastry’s a happy coincidence. According to legend, the Kickapoos and Shawnees used to be part of the same tribe. They split up after a fight over a bear paw.”

  “Did Megan the waitress tell you that?”

  “I read it on the men’s room wall.”

  Mentioning Megan reminded me of Chester’s last known lip movements. I demonstrated them for David. His eyes bugged out.

  “Abra!” he cried.

  “What about her?”

  “That’s what you’re lip-synching! That’s what Chester was trying to say!” The good vet beamed. “Let’s go to Vestige and pick her up. Abra will help us find him!”

  I couldn’t imagine Abra being helpful, period, and I said so.

  “Are you forgetting? Abra has police training,” David argued. “Jenx told me.”

  “Did Jenx tell you what her ‘police training’ consisted of? Abra demonstrated how to steal purses so that the cops could better understand the crime.”

  I didn’t have the energy to add that in the process, Abra had stolen yet another purse, this one essential to a police investigation. In general, contemplating the topic of Abra made me very tired.

  When we emerged from the dimly lit casino, I was startled by the brightness of the day. The sun smiled in a clear azure sky, making the layers of ice that coated everything sparkle like crystals on a chandelier. I reached for my sunglasses.

  “Let’s make sure those two Jags are still here,” David said, squinting.

  But they weren’t. In the Animal Ambulance, we circled the vast parking lot twice without spotting either car. David became agitated.

  “Did that woman drag Chester out in this weather without a coat?”

  Although that question was rhetorical, I knew the next one would have my name on it.

  “Whiskey, did Chester have a coat on when he left Vestige?”

  “He had a coat on at my office, which was the last place I saw him. So far.”

  When David pressed me, I admitted that I hadn’t checked Chester’s closet at Vestige to see which clothes were gone and which remained.

  “And you call yourself an amateur sleuth,” he fumed.

  “Actually, I call myself a real estate broker. I never intended a career in crime-solving. Or child care.”

  “I know what you mean,” David conceded. “I never intended a career in messianic politics, but it called me.”

  “You’re talking about . . . Fleggers?” I asked cautiously.

  “I’m talking about the whole animal rights movement. I first got involved years ago. Before I even went to vet school.”

  “How? Why?”

  David took his eyes off the road to study me. “You don’t get it, do you, Whiskey?”

  “No, I really don’t. I mean, I like animals—in small doses and at an appropriate distance. But I don’t think they should be competing for our jobs.”

  David burst into laughter. I’d never heard him guffaw before.

  “Is that what you think I’m advocating?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you? What does ‘equal rights for animals’ mean?”

  “Before you can understand what I advocate, you need to understand what I oppose. I’m against speciesism.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The practice of giving preference to a being simply because it’s a member of our own species—in other words, the human race.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s start small, Whiskey. Let’s start with cruelty to animals. It’s ethically indefensible, do you agree? I mean, you wouldn’t club a baby human to death, so why a baby seal?”

  “Okay. . . . ”

  “Okay! That’s animal rights advocacy, in microcosm.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Yes, there’s more to it, but let’s leave it there for today. Shall we?”

  The good vet gave me his most winning smile, and so help me, I felt a small flutter. Was it possible that Dr. David was going to ask me out, after all? I waited. But he didn’t speak again until we reached Vestige.

  “I didn’t know your late husband, but I assume he wanted the best for Abra, am I right?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Then I’m sure he wanted her to have the best training.”

  “Actually, Leo wanted to breed her—with an AKC stud in Chicago. But they didn’t hit it off. She ran away and . . . well, you know the rest
of the story.”

  David nodded solemnly. “My point, Whiskey, is that I’d like to make you a proposition.”

  “Yes?” The moment felt very sexual.

  “I understand you have in your employment a woman named Deely Smarr.”

  In David-ese, her name came out “Deewee Smaw.”

  “Yes. Avery hired her for damage control—I mean, child care. She’s the Coast Guard nanny. Why do you ask?”

  “She’s also an experienced dog trainer and animal rights advocate. Deely helped me found Fleggers.”

  “She did?” The conversation had shifted from titillating to icky.

  “I would like you to authorize Deely Smarr to train Abra in rescue and retrieval,” David said.

  “Abra’s got the retrieval part down already, provided you’re talking about other people’s purses.”

  “I’m talking about training her to find humans, dead or alive.”

  I gasped. “You think Chester’s dead?”

  “I think Chester’s missing, and Gil’s dead. Deely can do it, Whiskey. She can train Abra to find them both.”

  “But isn’t that speciesism?” I ventured. “I mean, I wouldn’t want the job, so why give it to a dog? Besides, Officer Roscoe’s already trained. He’s a paid professional.”

  We pulled into the driveway at Vestige just as Deely was coming around the side of the house with Abra and Prince Harry. Everyone was dressed for the weather. Identically. I couldn’t imagine where Deely had found Mother and Son olive-green parkas that matched her own. Or was Deely wearing Avery’s parka?

  Neither Abra nor Prince Harry was on a leash, yet both walked companionably at Deely’s heel.

  “How did she do that?” I wondered aloud, more impressed by the behavior than the wardrobe. If it weren’t for Deely’s alleged involvement in Fleggers, I would have suspected either electroshock treatments or severe beatings.

  “It’s called The System,” David said proudly.

  “Is that anything like Dogs-Train-You-dot-com? Because Chester couldn’t get that to work.”

  “The System is very advanced,” said the vet, his voice husky with awe. “It’s for difficult cases placed in the hands of skilled professionals. Like Deely Smarr.”

  “I didn’t know they trained dogs in the Coast Guard,” I remarked.