by Clea Simon
“There you are.” The human voice startled me, and I turned with a gasp. It was only Cheryl Ginger, picking her way carefully along the trail. She had traded in her heels for boots, I noticed. Leather lace-ups that probably wouldn’t have been out of place in Milan. “I was worried that something had happened,” she said, ignoring the wet leaf mold that was darkening one capped toe.
“Why?” I don’t like being frightened. I also don’t like being set up.
“Oh, I didn’t think you’d be out here so long.” Something about her voice told me she was lying, as clearly as Stewie’s nose told him there was prey nearby.
“I thought you were afraid to come out here?”
She pasted on that smile as her eyes darted back and forth between the trees. “Alone, yeah.” Even Stewie turned to look up at her, her voice high-pitched and tense. “But I saw you from the doorway.” She pointed back to the hotel. “And when you left the lot to go into the woods, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Wait.” I held up a hand to stop her. “You were worried about us, but you saw us?”
“I was worried when I was up in my room, and so I came down.” That smile again. She made it seem natural. “Then I saw you, but you went into the woods and I thought, this is my chance to go for a walk and not be alone.”
“Did you talk to the desk clerk?”
Stewie whined. He heard the suspicion in my voice. Dogs don’t like dissent, and he could tell that the woman holding his lead was at odds with his owner.
“No.” She shook her head, a little too hard. “I didn’t. Why?”
“Someone came looking for you.” I was watching her face. “A big guy. Young. He asked for you at the desk.” I didn’t tell her he’d asked about any visitors. I wanted to draw her out, not give away the game.
“Oh, I know who that was.” She laughed. It almost sounded natural. “I’ll have to call him later. So, are we exploring this trail?”
“Bunny!” The spaniel barked once, assenting to the question in her tone. And so I handed over the lead and stepped back behind the pair as they began to walk. I had been hired to train the dog, to exercise him, but Cheryl Ginger was clearly the one giving the commands.
Chapter Twenty-six
I got to Happy’s early. After that encounter with the redhead, I was glad that I hadn’t cancelled, after all. Marty Parvis might be the one who had called with questions, but I wanted some answers too.
My timing was partly strategy. I figured I’d scope out the bar before this Parvis arrived, make sure he didn’t have any backup sitting in the shadows by the booths. Part of it was simpler: I wanted to drink. I wasn’t a fool. There was no way I would let my guard down with Theresa Rhinecrest’s investigator. But I didn’t have to get wasted to enjoy the simple pleasure of bourbon and a beer back.
When most people say they know how to handle their liquor, it’s a sign they don’t. I don’t brag about it, but I’ve drunk enough so that I can gauge its effect. Maybe that’s my father’s legacy—or the discipline my mother tried to instill. At any rate, with Wallis making herself scarce, my house felt as homey as a doctor’s waiting room. Better to come to Happy’s and set the stage as I liked it.
I chose my seat with care. Happy’s is a small place, long and dark as a shoebox. The bar up front might once have been classy, deep wood with a mirrored back. The years have darkened the finish beyond ebony, though, and decades of forgotten cigarettes have left the rounded rail nicked and burned. Still, this was my post of choice, offering a better vantage point than the booths in back, with their cracked leatherette banquettes and perpetual haze. Sure, smoking in bars is illegal now. I don’t know who would enforce that at Happy’s.
Not Happy, for sure. The barkeep—the second of that name that I knew—was as smoked-stained as the fixtures, yellowed and weathered. His scowl made a mockery of the moniker, dragging down his bristled cheeks like some kind of short-muzzled dog.
“Thanks.” Happy brought over my drink of choice, a lowball glass of liquid gold, without asking. When he saw me sipping, he hesitated with the follow-up, but I nodded and the beer followed. Better not to do back-to-back bourbons until I had some answers.
“Anybody been asking for me?” I wouldn’t normally talk to Happy. He’s good at what he does, but he doesn’t seem to like people much. Still, the only other customer was slumped so low over his shot glass, I doubted he knew that I’d walked in.
“For you?” Happy’s eyes shot up, making the resemblance to a pug even clearer. “No.”
He walked away before I could ask about Creighton, and continued wiping down the bar. Since cleanliness is not high on Happy’s priorities—and my sole fellow drinker was only a few stools away—I figured his barkeep’s radar was working. The sour old coot wasn’t thrilled to be asked about anyone.
“Pru.” The drinker roused and turned toward me, bleary-eyed and blinking. “As I live and breathe.”
“Hey, Vince.” I turned away. It doesn’t pay to engage with drinkers as far gone as Vince was. Then again, it also doesn’t pay to antagonize them, either.
“What you up to, Pru?” Happy’s isn’t big, but Vince is, and his voice carried. “You and that cop still hanging out?”
“What’s it to you?” I turned to face him. We’d gone to school together, back in the day. Vince hadn’t done much else since. But if he wasn’t going to shut up, I would at least make use of him. “You and he been catching up?”
He laughed. “Your old man’s got a better poker face than you do, sweetheart.”
I nodded. “So he was with you the other night?”
“If that’s his story, I won’t argue.” He pointed to my empty, his cold laugh ending in a belch. “You want? I’m buying.”
“No, thanks.” I looked over. The barkeep was ahead of me, moving in with his rag.
“Go home, Vince.” Happy reached for his glass.
“I got money.” Vince whined, pulling it back. Happy stood there, waiting.
“Hang on.” Vince made a show of lifting the empty tumbler, shaking out the last few drops onto his outstretched tongue. Only then did he slide off his stool, wobbling a bit as he turned back toward the bar.
“Don’t try to rip me off,” he said, raising a finger in warning. Happy ignored him. “No fun here tonight, anyway,” he grumbled as he waddled away. “I’m going home.”
“It is kind of quiet.” I looked around, once the heavy front door had swung shut again.
“Yup.” As I’ve mentioned, Happy is a taciturn fellow.
“Thanks.” I accepted a refill. I would’ve expected Albert and maybe Ronnie to be here by now. Vince had probably scared them off. He has that effect on people. My ex, Mack, didn’t hang here anymore. He’d been on the wagon for a few months, but I figured even coming into a bar would be pushing it. Still, tonight I would’ve welcomed the company.
“Happy, is there something else going on tonight?” It didn’t seem likely. Then again, I didn’t understand why Albert and his crew weren’t here. “Something I should know about?”
“Card game, I heard.” Happy is better with a direct question. “Someone staked a game at the VFW. Food, too.”
“You know who?” Happy only shrugged. “I guess that’s where Vince was heading, huh?”
“Maybe.” Vince liked to play. That was no secret. And if he did have money, I doubted that the bar had been his final stop.
Another bourbon and another beer later, I was ready to call it quits. I’d already tried this Parvis’ number. I’d wanted to leave a message—traffic on the thruway can be tricky —but the voice mail box was still full. No matter, over an hour and it’s not late, it’s rude. Or, I thought as I slid off the stool and made my way toward the ladies’, it’s a ploy. If I’d been a little steadier, I’d have kicked myself. Someone wants to look into me, they say they’ll meet me and…then what? Would I
get home to find my house had been broken into?
“I’m out of here.” I called to Happy on my return, reaching for my wallet as I did.
“No need.” He shook his head as he came to take my glass.
“Come on.” I wasn’t getting this. “I don’t need charity. Or sympathy.”
“Already paid,” he shrugged as he walked away.
“What? When?” I went after him, catching him halfway down the bar. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He looked up at me then, his eyes cold. I didn’t blink.
“Happy.” I felt as sober as a judge. “Somebody buys my drinks, I have a right to know who.” His eyes were as cold as a lizard’s.
“Shit.” I’d been set up. I was angry. “Happy, who was it? You want me to call the cops—or the department of health?”
That stopped him. Not because he was worried, I think, but because he could tell how desperate I was. He’s known me long enough to know I’m not the kind to alert the authorities.
“Look,” he said. “I know you can take care of yourself, Pru. I seen enough to know that. But this guy? I don’t know. He came in, smooth as silk. Said you’d be by. Said you shouldn’t have to pay for anything. Like it was your birthday, or something.”
He reached into the register and lifted the cash drawer. From underneath, he pulled out a crisp Benjamin, and I whistled. At Happy’s prices, I could have been drinking all night. “Said he wanted you to have a good time, and stay out of trouble. All right?”
“All right,” I said. Smooth as silk, with bucks to boot. It had to be Benazi. “But next time—if there is a next time—tell me up front, okay?”
The barkeep shrugged, his eyebrows eloquent in their silence as he went back to wiping down the bar, and I shrugged on my coat to face the night.
I’m not a fool. I had my phone in my hand before I hit the door. Parvis, or whoever he was working with, must have wanted to set me up, must have figured that the generous bar tab would keep me at Happy’s. Keep me out of the way. Maybe this card game—if it even existed—was for the same reason.
Something was going down. I didn’t know how Benazi fit into it—or even if I’d been correct in putting together a smooth guy and a C-note to come up with the gangster. But if I was wrong, or if something had changed with the old gent, the motive could be darker. Someone—again, Parvis came to mind—could have wanted me incapacitated. Tipsy, if not drunk, and leaving alone, late at night. I thought of Albert and his cronies, lured off by hot dogs and a chance at a fifty-dollar pot. Neither the animal officer nor his pals were the chivalrous type. I was a better fighter than most of them, even if they had the weight and the reach. But bystanders make for complications, I knew that.
I’m no coward, and Beauville isn’t the city. Not by a long shot, and in my years here I’d come through iffier situations without a scratch. Maybe I was getting old. Past thirty, a girl stops believing in her immortality. Maybe it was the body I had stumbled over, just days before.
Maybe it was just the constant morass of lies and play-acting, I didn’t know anymore. Something was wrong, and I was sick of it. But I wasn’t going to be its next victim. As difficult as it was for me to admit to any vulnerability, I made myself dial Creighton as I pushed open the door. Hey, at the very least, maybe the sound of me talking to someone—talking specifically to our town’s top cop—would give pause to whoever might be waiting for me out back.
“Jim?” It was his voice mail, but as I stepped out the bar’s back door, I decided to pretend otherwise. “Yup, I’m just leaving Happy’s now. Parked in the back, like always.”
I was going to pay for this. Not that Creighton would be mad. He’d love it, in fact. Say I was being sensible, when in truth he’d be thinking that I’d come to rely on him. Times like this made me wish I had other friends in town. Friends of the two-legged variety, that is. But when your main confidante is an eleven-year-old tabby, your options for a possible late-night rescue are limited.
“I’ve got to tell you about this new client of mine.” I kept talking, even as the machine cut me off. There was something odd going on. Beauville isn’t the city, as I’ve said, but the parking area behind the row of storefronts seemed even darker than usual. Clouds, maybe, over the moon. Or a case of our spare streetlight going out.
“She’s a hoot, this Marnie Lundquist.” I’d parked off to the side, my usual m.o., even more important when I was heading to a drinking establishment. My baby blue baby was not going to get dinged or scratched just because someone else couldn’t hold his booze. “And she’s got this bunny.”
I paused. Maybe it was the thought of Henry. Creighton isn’t involved with the fish and wildlife commission, but he is law enforcement. The last thing I wanted to do was out the old lady and her illicit pet. But, no, there was something else. Some shadow over by my car.
“Hang on, Jim.” I switched the phone to my left hand. With my right I pulled out my knife. A drunk, maybe, keeled over before he could get to his own vehicle. Albert, or some other regular, hoping for a lift home. Then again, if someone was waiting for me, crouched down by my car, I was not going easy. “Who’s there?” I called. “Show yourself.”
Nothing. The shadow didn’t move. I made myself breathe and approached, my knife at the ready.
But it was the phone I would use. “Creighton, it’s Pru.” I wasn’t feeling conversational this time. “You’ve got to meet me behind Happy’s—as soon as possible. I’ve found another body.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“I don’t know, Pru.” Creighton handed me a coffee, shaking his head. “You’ve got to stop doing this.”
“Finding bodies?” I cradled the Styrofoam cup. Its warmth made me realize I was shivering. “It was never my intent, Jim.”
“Maybe not the bodies part, but the people you work with—you associate with.” He was standing, probably looking down at me. But with the floodlights up, all I could see was his outline, tall and lean in the frosty night. And so as I huddled over my coffee, staring instead into its steaming depths. “You know, just because we’re not city out here…”
“I know, Jim.” I took a sip. Whoever had prepared it had made it milky and sweet. Utterly wrong, but exactly what I wanted at the moment. “I did call you.”
“I know.” He’d shown up in record time, that first long message redirecting him as he drove home from “a late meeting.” With whom, I didn’t ask, not even when I overheard him discussing the vagaries of five-card stud. “It’s just…”
I looked up to see him running one hand over his face. It was late. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I was exhausted, and he didn’t look much better.
“Pru,” he started again. “It’s one thing when it’s people you know. Beauville people. I get that. But to get involved with this Cheryl Ginger just because you felt bad for her—”
“Jim, that’s not it.” I didn’t have the energy for this, I really didn’t. “I’m not ‘involved.’ I found her dog and now she’s having me walk it.” I hadn’t told him about Benazi. There was too much he knew—or suspected—about me that I didn’t want to share. Besides, I thought the old gangster would consider it a breach of etiquette.
“Uh huh.” Then again, Creighton had his sources, too. I turned away, looking for an answer in my sweet, hot drink.
I hadn’t known who it was at first. Even as I’d called, my hand starting to shake, I’d told myself it was one of the regulars, too drunk to even make the door. Or that Vince had forgotten where he’d parked—that he’d come around the back and gotten into a fight. But when Creighton had roared up, his headlights had shown me the mop of light hair. Or what had been light. In the artificial glare, the white-blond was splotched with something dark. I was grateful, then, that the bulky body was slumped forward, and that I couldn’t see his face.
Creighton had taken over, ushering me away and callin
g in his crew. The body was now out of sight, if not already on its way to the county morgue. And I’d told Creighton what I knew. The light-haired man had been following Cheryl Ginger. I’d seen him at the restaurant and at the hotel. And while Ronnie hadn’t ID’d him as the redhead’s other man, I thought it likely that he was involved with her—and maybe involved with what had happened to Teddy Rhinecrest.
He’d let me talk—partly, to calm me down. And then he’d disappeared, handing me off to an EMT who wrapped me in a blanket and sat me here, on a low wall behind the bar. Now that he was back, I was ready to start over—to dredge up any details I’d forgotten. Anything except Benazi. I wasn’t going to fool around with murder.
“What happened to him?” I didn’t want to know, not really. The question just came out.
“To your friend?” Creighton’s face was still shadowed.
“He’s not—honest, Jim. I don’t know who he is.”
“He knows who you are, Pru.” He sat down next to me. I could see his face, now, tired and sad. “He’s got pictures of you in his cell phone. Out on your walks. Driving. And don’t say you didn’t know him. I’ve seen your number in missed calls.”
“Calls?” The coffee had gone cold.
“You kept trying to reach him.” Jim’s voice was flat. “Tonight. While you were at Happy’s.”
“Wait, that’s Martin Parvis?” Clearly, we’d crossed signals.
“So you do know him.”
“I—no, he called and asked to meet. I thought he was driving up from New York.” I explained the situation to Creighton, ending with my theories about Theresa Rhinecrest. “I gather Teddy Rhinecrest was hiding assets, or his wife thought he was. But why she’d bother investigating him now, I don’t understand. I mean, it will all come to her anyway. Unless he made a will?”
That was all I had. Creighton, however, wasn’t giving me anything back. “Okay, I believe you,” he said. “But others might not. And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not working the Rhinecrest case. So Pru? Go home. Go to bed. And don’t do anything foolish.”
