Claws Bared

by Sheryl Nantus

  A snappy dresser. Considering he made his living taking his clothing off it was rather ironic.

  Living room held a huge flat-screen television and DVD player with a stack of movies piled up on the floor in no particular order. His viewing habits consisted of documentaries, comedies and a few MMA shows. Furniture consisted of a black couch and coffee table with little wear and tear, a week’s worth of the local newspaper sitting on the varnished wood ready for the recycling bin downstairs. No video games, no smell of spilt beer and popcorn. He didn’t have the boys over for the Steelers games, in other words.

  The refrigerator was stocked with a variety of healthy foods including enough types of lettuce to put a rabbit into ecstasy. Energy drinks filled the door rack. The freezer held neatly labeled packages of chicken and ground beef, sorted by date. Cans of soup and stew in the cupboard along with a handful of spice bottles completed the food inventory.

  No dishes in the sink. He’d cleaned up before going to work and to his death.

  I winced, thinking about what someone would find in my house if I died suddenly. The days-old dried jelly on the counter and withered apples in the crisper wouldn’t impress anyone.

  The bathroom was my next stop.

  No double toothbrushes and no sanitary products hiding under the sink, no evidence of a stable girlfriend. Only one type of generic dandruff shampoo and bland soap bars in the shower and on the sink. A dirty towel sat in the laundry bin with clean ones hanging on the rack.

  I headed for his computer desk, hoping to find something meatier. Right now Hansa was too good to be true. Neat, single and a healthy eater.

  A grocery list—milk, bread, cereal. A mug sat on the counter, holding chewed pens and pencils.

  I frowned and turned around in a slow circle.

  There was no laptop. No tablet, no dock station, nothing.

  Interesting.

  It was a good bet anything regarding his girlfriends would have been electronically created and delivered. Text messages, photos, emails filled with sweet nothings.

  I didn’t think it was a coincidence Hansa’s cell phone hadn’t been found at the scene.

  The drawers were filled with scrap paper, a few paperclips and pencils scattered around. Bank account had no strange large withdrawals or deposits according to his checkbook sitting on the desk, just small amounts going out to the local stores and a weekly paycheck that would pay my mortgage twice over.

  This was too good, too pat. If Hansa was this neat and tidy he’d have been snatched up long ago by some lucky woman. He danced, he came home and hung out in a neat bachelor pad, he danced again. He watched porn, he watched sports and went back to work.

  If he was schtupping any of the Felis women, he sure wasn’t doing it here and he wasn’t getting paid off to either keep quiet or deliver the goods.

  He owned a pickup truck sitting now in the police impound yard. Maybe that’s where all the hot and heavy action went on, ’cause his bedroom was spotless. There wasn’t even a box of condoms in the bathroom.

  Wherever Hansa was socializing he didn’t do it here.

  The only Felis I could scent were the two thugs who’d rifled through my hotel room this morning. At least the Pride was consistent, using the same enforcers. They had probably been here before my plane went wheels-up.

  They’d been looking for clear evidence of guilt from a specific woman, Felis or human, trying to find a suspect for Carson to arrest and cancel my arrival.

  Hadn’t worked.

  I reached over to the coffee table and picked up Hansa’s day planner. It had nothing in it other than listing the length of his workouts at the local gym and his shifts at the Cat’s Meow. No phone numbers, nothing.

  The scene had been compromised to the point of uselessness. I wouldn’t find anything here.

  I locked the apartment and walked back to my car.

  The green truck was still there, the driver’s head lolling to one side. I resisted the urge to wave at him as I pulled away from the curb.

  He caught up to me a block later, hanging back behind a minivan. The guy wasn’t bad at this following thing. If I’d been in Toronto I’d be able to lose him in a few fast turns down the alleys, but this was his turf, not mine.

  It was almost lunchtime and I mentally shuffled between the three bars, trying to judge which one to visit first. I settled on the closest when my stomach began to growl. I tapped the address into the GPS and followed the cute little voice’s directions.

  Harvey’s BBQ had a full parking lot of battered pickup trucks. The aroma of freshly barbecued meat charged at me through my open window.

  My watcher drove in as I got out, parking between a pair of vehicles a sneeze and a cough away from the scrap yard.

  I headed for the front door of the square single-story shack doubling as a bar. No neon, nothing more than a hand-painted sign announcing the name of the place.

  Vegetarians were definitely not welcome. The second I stepped in my senses snapped to full alert. The Felis scents mixed with the heady musk of human men on the prowl and a whole lot of raw meat on the bone. The ratio of women to men ran at about one to five, not counting the overworked staff.

  The theme seemed to be “keep what you kill,” judging by the number of deer heads mounted on the walls. A fifteen-point buck hung over the bar, dark glass eyes staring down anyone who asked for milk or water.

  There was an open stool at the very end of the bar where I could put my back to the wall. Strange Felis in enemy territory—best place to be. Especially when I wasn’t sure who was friend and who was foe.

  I slid onto the faux red leather padding and took in a deep whiff of charred meat heaven.

  The bartender waddled down toward me.

  “What can I get you?” The plump woman smiled. She was maybe ten years older than me and every day showed in deep wrinkles and age spots. Her long red hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and her faded blue T-shirt displayed some old rock band insignia. I caught a whiff of charcoal and cheap perfume. She wasn’t family.

  “What’s on tap?”

  She squinted and studied me for a minute. Finally she wagged a finger at me. “You look like a Yuengling girl. Local beer, good tasting.” Her gaze darted to some of the men standing around. “Like some other items ’round here.”

  I spread my hands. “Make it so.”

  She laughed and grabbed a tall clean glass almost as long as my forearm from under the counter before expertly slapping the pull bar down to start the beer flowing. “You must be the investigator.”

  I clasped my hands to my chest in an exaggerated heart attack. “Are there no secrets in this town?”

  “Nope. Not in this place.” The foaming glass moved in front of me, daintily sitting on a cardboard coaster. “Sorry to hear about Mike. He was a good fellow.”

  I sipped the amber liquid. Damn fine beer. “Did you ever see him perform?”

  “A few times.” She shot me a saucy wink. “I appreciate fine man-meat.”

  I grinned. “Ever see him with anyone special outside of the club? A girlfriend?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I thought he got done by a bear.”

  “He did.” I sipped the smooth lager, using it to lube up my lies. “Just want to make things clean for the family. They don’t need someone showing up screaming paternity test in a few months, claiming Hansa knocked her up and now looking for a payday.” I looked at her over the top of the glass. “He had very good insurance, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh.” She pulled out a menu from under the counter and passed it to me. “I can see how that’d suck. I don’t remember him being with anyone, now that you mention it. He’d come in, grab a drink and that’d be it. Nice quiet customer, more of a listener than a talker.” Her eyes darted to one side. “Could use more of those.”

  I smacked my lips as I scanned the laminated sheet. “What do you recommend?”

  “The Penscotta Pig Out Special. Pulled pork sandwich. We put colesla
w and fries on it.”

  “On it,” I asked. “On the sandwich itself?”

  “And more fries on the side.”

  “Ah.” My cholesterol clots gave a happy leap. “One Pig Out Special, then.”

  The customers surged and ebbed around me in waves as I waited for lunch. It was a working man’s hangout, sweat and dust mixed in with plenty of well-toned muscles. Not that a few beer bellies didn’t sneak in here, but they were attached to honored old men who perched on their favorite stools and gathered their audience around them like the ancient shamans of old, dispensing wisdom and dirty jokes in the same sentence.

  There were Felis here but not in overwhelming numbers. They blended in and if they scented me they ignored me or at best gave me a short, curt nod and moved on.

  The food arrived in a red plastic basket with checked wax paper holding back the biggest sandwich I’d seen in a long, long time. The scarlet sauce dripping over and out of the meat managed to choke my taste buds into submission as I wallowed in juicy goodness. The coleslaw dripped through, the white dressing blending with the sauce. French fries with just the right amount of crunch and crispiness clogged my mouth and sopped up the drool.

  I could die happy right now. Given the amount of calories and saturated fat I was taking in, it could happen.

  Any minute.

  Without warning.

  I didn’t care.

  My moment of happiness shattered when I caught a whiff of who’d just walked in the door. I remembered it from the night before and winced inside, hoping I’d get a few more seconds of culinary orgasm before having to deal with her.

  Cassie Prosser made her way through the crowd and sat on the now empty stool beside me. She wore a dark brown blazer over a red blouse and jeans, her cowboy boots polished to a high shine. “Good food.” She waved over the bartender and placed an order as I continued my love affair with the sandwich.

  “Great food.” I snatched up a handful of napkins, glad I didn’t wear makeup as I tried to clean the spicy sauce off my face.

  “I checked you out. You don’t just do insurance investigations—you dig up all sorts of crap. Divorces, industrial spying—you do it all. And you’re from Canada.” Her nose wrinkled as if I’d just farted.

  “Canada’s nice.” I dipped a fat French fry into the escaping sauce. “We have curling.”

  The bartender placed a draft beer in front of her, giving me a curious glance.

  Prosser grabbed at the tall glass of beer like a dying woman at a life preserver, drinking a good mouthful before replying. “What are you really here for?”

  “Just paperwork.” I sipped my drink. “I’m just verifying the events before we pay out to the family.”

  “It was a bear attack.” Her eyes locked with mine. “Wasn’t it?”

  “What else could it be?” I lobbed the ball back into her court. “You’re a reporter. You tell me what you think it was if you disagree.”

  The left side of her face twitched, so small anyone else might have missed it. She wasn’t buying the bear story.

  The beer turned sour in my mouth.

  “You knew Hansa?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I saw him at a benefit the club put on for some returning vets. Raised money to help renovate homes, make them wheelchair-accessible. Big story so we covered it.”

  “But you don’t like the idea of a strip club in your town.” I filled in the blanks.

  “That club’s been bad news since it opened.” She took another sip. “They can hide behind good causes but it’s still a black spot on the community.”

  “I hear it’s been good for the area. Town council approved it, right?” I chomped down on a fry, giving her time to react.

  Her tongue flicked out, wetting dry lips. “They’re wrong. And I intend to prove it.” She waved a hand at the crowd. “Small-town politics. Everyone’s a player and everyone’s got a price.”

  “Well, I’m not and I don’t.” I licked my fingers because it would have been gauche to lick the waxed paper. “If you’ve got anything else, feel free to share.”

  She nursed the beer for the length of time it took for me to finish my own, studying the condensation puddles on the wood.

  I put a twenty down on the bar, tucking it under my empty glass. The bartender looked over and gave me a smile and a nod.

  Cassie didn’t say anything when I headed for the door.

  The green pickup sat in the parking lot, watching me return to my car. A hot breeze sent the smell of freshly cooked beef over us.

  I hoped the driver was starving.

  The next bar had good coffee and bad chemistry. I sat there in the middle of a stack of youngsters bragging about their latest stock market conquests and wondered if I were in the same town. The neon colors of their shirts almost blinded me as I listened to the suits discuss things far, far over the head of a simple private investigator, such as stock trading and how to beat a drunk driving charge by chewing charcoal. A few Felis here as well, all snubbing me as if I had rabies. I lasted about a half hour before bolting for the door, feeling way too clean and leaving my seven-dollar latte half-drunk on the table.

  My tail was still there. I had to give the guy points for being persistent if not subtle. I waved at him and got no response.

  I got rid of the clean feeling at the police yard. The guard gave me the keys and waved me through with a nod and a thumbs-up, another family member.

  The pickup truck stayed outside, parked down the street. The guard glanced at it once before returning to the sports section of his newspaper and ignoring both of us.

  I made my way through the handful of impounded cars before finding Hansa’s truck in the far corner of the lot.

  The remains of a dozen fast food meals cluttered the front seat, shredded paper wrappers and empty mustard packets everywhere. He sure hadn’t romanced anyone here, unless they liked having mustard on their ass. It was an amazing contradiction, the man working out at the gym, frantically keeping his perfect form, and on the side stuffing his face with fast food hamburgers.

  The different smells mixed in my mind. But there was only one person’s scent—Hansa’s.

  He hadn’t slept with anyone at his place or in his car. The likelihood of keeping a secret lover rendezvous at a nearby hotel was small, given the amount of locals working there. Someone would have talked.

  If he’d been with any woman it’d been at her place, at her home.

  It took guts to have sex when a husband/boyfriend/mate could walk in the door at any second. More guts than brains, but it’d been my experience that some women liked their men big and dumb.

  I wasn’t sure if Hansa was dumb but after seeing him naked I could testify to the “big.”

  I nodded to the security guard minding the police lot as I drove out.

  The truck tailing me continued to hover in my rearview mirror, tempting me to slam on the brakes and confront the driver. I resisted, if only to tease him with the third bar and yet more food.

  The last bar turned out to be not far from the diner where I’d had breakfast, with some of the same crowd I’d seen earlier shuffling over from coffee and pancakes to beer and pretzels. A handful of people filed in and out, grabbing takeout orders as I nursed a coffee at the bar.

  The Felis bartender, a middle-aged man with a bit of a pot belly, eyed me again. He’d been slow to get me the first coffee, watching me like I was about to rob the place.

  His meaty fingers tapped on the bar as he glanced left and right, sizing up his clientele. Finally he came over to me, rubbing his bushy beard with one hand.

  “You’re here about Hansa,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe.” I sipped the lukewarm drink. “What if I am?”

  “Bad business, that.” He scratched his chin, sending a shower of flakes down onto the counter.

  I shifted my mug to one side, away from the snowstorm. “Why?”

  “The club’s been trouble since it opened. Got lots of ladies taking time away from
their families to go watch the punks dance.” His nostrils flared open.

  Angry old Felis. I glanced at his left hand. Unmarried.

  “Anyone hate the club enough to kill Hansa?” I took another swig of coffee.

  His grey and white moustache twitched. “Lots of angry men. Lots of husbands left alone while their women ‘ran errands.’ Say they’re going out for milk and come home two hours later smelling of sweaty men.”

  I held out the mug for a refill. “Care to share any names?”

  His hand touched mine, the thick fingers gripping hard. I tried not to wince.

  “You’d be best looking up, not down the ranks.” The mug went under the counter as he refilled it.

  “Thanks.” I resisted the urge to shake my hand out, get the feeling back in my fingers.

  He nodded and moved down the bar to chat with some regulars.

  I knew he was referring to Carson and his wife. Maybe the liberal arrangement hadn’t been as okay as the chief’d let on.

  The bar door opened.

  A man walked in and headed for the bar, strong hard strides across the hardwood floor in work boots that had seen better days.

  He slid onto the stool beside me, his Felis scent splashing everywhere. Tall, blond and about five years younger than I was.

  One finger went up, getting the bartender’s attention immediately. “Red Rock.”

  He turned toward me and smiled, deep blue eyes daring me to fall into them.

  I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. Felis may not technically be cats but we sure as hell could be cougars.