by Libby Kirsch
Larsa, who had been in the middle of settling into her seat, froze with her arm outstretched, her fingers just hovering over her purse on the table in front of her. She took a deep breath before asking, “And how are they?”
Janet was struck by the real depth of feeling in Larsa’s voice. “They are . . . devastated. That’s the only word I can think of to describe them. They’re still devastated over their son’s death all these years later. Your father’s death seemed to bring it all back to the surface—especially for Ollie’s dad.”
“Of course they are devastated. Their family was ruined after the death.” Larsa bent her head and Janet got the impression she was saying a prayer.
“It sounds like it ruined your father, as well.” Janet kept her eyes trained on Larsa for her reaction.
For a moment, there wasn’t one, but finally the other woman nodded slowly. “The fact that he wasn’t charged seemed so lucky at first. Of course, it soon became his cross to bear. The death ruined my family, as well.”
There wasn’t much to say to that, and after a moment, Janet got to work behind the bar, combining bottles of liquor, mopping the floor, and wiping down the ice machine. Larsa finally spoke again as Janet eyed a bin of lemons and limes with distrust.
“I tried to talk to them, the family—Ollie’s family—and even with the other boy on the bike, but they just couldn’t separate me from my dad.
“My mom killed herself, you know, about a year after the . . . the accident. She couldn’t take the notoriety of being associated with it all. Knoxville’s growing, but it’s still a small town, and everyone knew.”
Larsa picked up the sweating glass of ice water and took a long draw, then set it back down and stared at it curiously.
“You know, I don’t think she ever tasted alcohol. At least, if she had, she stopped completely when my dad started going down the road he went down. It’s hard to live with the knowledge that your husband killed somebody else’s kid. She just couldn’t do it.”
“Larsa, I’m so—”
“I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me.” She took two tea candles out of her bag and lit them carefully. “I guess I just want you to know what he was up against. Of course, he blamed himself for my mother’s death, and in my anger at the time, I did, too. In fact, I hadn’t talked to him since the night my mother’s body was found—until a couple weeks ago, anyway.”
Janet looked up from the fruit bin. She thought Larsa had said that she and her father hadn’t spoken in years. Janet pushed the bin away and really focused on Ike’s daughter.
Larsa’s eyes flicked up to meet Janet’s before she refocused on her ice water. “A friend let me know he’d been in another accident while driving drunk. My father only had minor injuries, but the car was damaged. I got in touch—I just wanted to tell him to stay off the roads. I really had the best of intentions, you have to know that.” She tucked her lighter back into her purse and stared at the candle flames dancing in front of her. “Before I knew it, though, he was shouting at me and I was shouting back. I hung up after saying something awful—just awful,” she repeated before falling silent.
Janet said quietly, “What did you say?”
She shuddered. “I said, ‘You cannot imagine the guilt I feel for being so relieved that you won’t be able to hurt anyone else.’”
Janet’s eyebrows drew together. “Because he was going to be charged, finally?” she asked softly. It suddenly made sense—what was driving Larsa’s behavior. More than just the sadness of a grieving daughter, the guilt of her angry last words to her father must have been eating away at her. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to admit that they’d spoken recently.
Larsa didn’t answer, though, as she was folded over in prayer, her lips moving without sound.
Janet decided not to ask about the conflicting number of days Larsa had been sober. The woman obviously had a lot on her mind. What was it to Janet if she couldn’t keep her sobriety straight?
She bent over the cutting board, moving a knife through the fruit with caution, but halfway through the first lemon, she stopped, distracted. With all that Larsa had just told her, her mind kept boomeranging back to one thing—person, really: the roommate on the other bike who had watched Ollie die.
Had the ten-year anniversary of Ollie’s death reignited the outrage of those who’d been closest to him? She wondered what the other boy on the bike thought about Ike’s death. More importantly, she wondered where he’d been the night Ike was killed.
Chapter Twelve
Janet couldn’t wait to get out of the bar, and as soon as Cindy Lou walked in, she headed for her car, unsure of where she wanted to go but certain she had to get some distance from Larsa.
How anyone could survive such devastation in their life, Janet didn’t know, but even more unsettling was how the other woman’s story made Janet think about her own past.
She’d been raised by her mother, a loving woman who more than made up for the fact that her father had walked out on them before she was even born.
Janet’s world had been rocked, however, after her mother died several years ago. Her father had tracked her down and shared a completely different story about why he’d been absent for her whole life. He’d had the audacity to blame her mother for not wanting him and not even telling him he had a daughter.
It had been a confusing new reality for Janet to come to terms with, and Larsa’s story brought it all to the surface. A man Janet had learned to hate in her youth had turned out to be a steady, calm influence in her life—at least, when she let him.
By the time she was able to focus on the road, she was already pulling up to the downtown library. Stuck at a light for a few minutes, she clucked a celebratory cheer when a car pulled out of a metered spot just ahead. “Do I have any quarters, though?” she muttered to herself as she wedged her car into the spot.
She checked the change tray and found just enough to get her a half hour inside.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” an elderly librarian called as she walked through the front door, but Janet waved her off and headed to the computer section. She signed up for a machine and settled in between two elderly people.
It was much easier to navigate on a real computer than on the small screen of her phone, and soon she was reading Ollie Daniels’s obituary from the Knoxville Times.
Ollie had been nineteen when he was killed. The article also listed the names of his two roommates, Abe and Benji, one of whom had been at the accident. She searched for both online and in just a few clicks she had their information, amazed to find that they both still lived in town. She looked at the clock: it was already after four. Business would start picking up soon back at the bar. This hunt for information would have to wait until the next day.
Janet heard crying as soon as she stepped out of her car. She felt her blood pressure increase and wondered what she was going to do with Larsa. It was one thing to sit unobtrusively in a corner booth, but it was completely another to wail and disrupt her paying customers. She pushed open the door to the Spot, prepared to have a come-to-Jesus conversation with the most spiritual person she’d ever met, but she pulled up short when she was met by the tear-stained face of Cindy Lou.
“I—I—I’m so sorry, Janet,” she sobbed. “You know Chip is leaving for college in just a few weeks? We just got his first tuition bill in the mail, and I thought I was so excited to get rid of him—I mean, not rid of him, but to get some extra time back—but now I—I—I just don’t know how I’ll get along without him!”
Janet’s eyes widened and she glanced from Cindy Lou to Larsa, who looked guiltily away. She tried to focus on the problem at hand; she couldn’t have tears behind the bar, even if Cindy Lou was going to miss her only son when he went away to school.
“Isn’t he going to UT Knoxville?” Janet asked. The university was right in town.
“Yes, but he’ll be living in the dorms. I might only see him once a week!”
She doubl
ed over in tears and Janet winced; her outfit was so tight and short that drastic movements like sobbing and bending over quickly made the R-rated ensemble teeter toward NC-17.
“I have just the job for you today, Cindy Lou,” Janet said, thinking fast. She’d been meaning to organize the cooler for weeks but hadn’t thought of it until Bud deposited dozens of cases of bottles and cans. “Did Bud come by while I was gone? You can head into the back and cool off while you organize—”
Instead of calming down, however, Cindy Lou wailed even louder and threw her head back in angst. “No!”
“Okay.” Janet instinctively stepped back. “Oh—oh, I’ve got it! Our renters are fostering a new baby, and I know they must be overwhelmed. Why don’t you head over and see if you can help out—give them a break for a few minutes—and come back to work once you’ve calmed down?”
“A baby?” Cindy Lou sniffled, looking up at Janet with watery eyes.
“Yes, a beautiful baby girl.”
Cindy Lou grabbed her keys and turned to Larsa before heading out the door. “Th-thanks for your in-insight, Larsa.” She took a loud, shaky breath. “You’re right. T-t-time does move too fast!” With another sniff, she was gone.
Janet turned her back on Larsa, exasperated that the woman had not only put her in a funk that day, but had also apparently sent Cindy Lou spiraling out of control.
She ran a hand through her hair, then rolled out the tension in her shoulders. It was time to get to work. The condiment container was full, the ice chest was replenished, and everything behind the bar was clean and sparkling. But they were short two rows of their most popular beer—and Cindy Lou said Bud hadn’t been in yet. She depended on him, and he was usually so prompt and consistent, but it had been a solid week of mistakes and missed deliveries. She hoped she wouldn’t have to change distributors.
She checked the walk-in cooler to see whether they could make it through the night when the very deliveryman in question knocked on the back door.
Janet opened it, prepared to give Bud a piece of her mind, but for the second time in less than ten minutes, she stopped before she spoke. Bud, usually so open and friendly, looked nervous as he glanced everywhere but at Janet’s face.
“Sorry . . . traffic . . . ,” he mumbled as he held out a clipboard for Janet to sign, still not making eye contact.
“No problem, Bud. You know where it goes.”
He worked faster than she’d ever seen; the usually chatty deliveryman loaded up the walk-in cooler with cases of beer and left the bar without saying goodbye.
She watched him climb into the truck and drive away, wondering what was going on there. Something wasn’t right. He’d been acting funny since . . . well, since Ike’s murder.
She closed the door and turned the dead bolt, then groaned as pain sliced her finger. Despite her liberal use of hydrogen peroxide and a triple-action ointment, her finger hadn’t gotten better. The long-awaited doctor’s appointment wasn’t until the following day, and the cut had turned a funny shade of green that surely wasn’t healthy. The throbbing was like a nonstop low tone in the background, always with her and getting louder by the hour.
By seven o’clock, business was going strong. It was another busy night, and Janet looked around her bar with satisfaction. Her regulars sat in their unofficial assigned seats and were happy to be there after the crowds following Ike’s murder.
“It’s like church on a regular Sunday compared to Christmas or Easter, ain’t it?” Cindy Lou asked. She was back from visiting with the baby and more chipper than before.
Janet grinned. Nell caught her eye and motioned for another round. Janet poured vodka over ice in a shaker, mixed it, filled a clean rocks glass with ice, dropped two limes onto the rim, and poured in the chilled liquid.
The older woman’s silvery-gray hair shone under the low lights at the bar, and Janet wondered if she’d ever know her sad story. Nell had been a regular for as long as Janet had worked there, but she didn’t know much more about her than she’d learned after the first week.
There were other regulars, too: the one-night-out-a-week section, the barflies desperate for contact, and the lonely old people pining for better days. Some might have seen the motley crew as pathetic, but Janet was glad to know they all had a place at the Spot. Sometimes, all you needed was somewhere to call home—to be comfortable and to be yourself—to make the difference between a good day and a bad one.
As the crowd thinned and people filed out of the bar for the night, Janet bused a table by the door and overheard Frank talking to Larsa.
“I’m just saying, if you want one, it’s on me.”
“I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t help,” she responded, her dreamy voice flatter than usual.
“I’ll bring one over. If you change your mind, it’ll be right there.”
Janet watched suspiciously as Frank left Larsa’s table and headed behind the bar, reemerging moments later with a bottle of beer. She cut him off halfway to the woman’s booth.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She snatched the beer from Frank’s hand. “She doesn’t drink. Why are you bringing her this?”
“Like I told her, it might help her tonight. She seems low.”
“So you decided to pressure a recovering alcoholic into having a beer? Her father is dead and she’s in the throes of sadness and depression, for God’s sake!”
Frank looked unabashedly back at Janet. “Uh-huh.”
“Stop talking to the customers and do your job, Frank.” She was livid, but softened her tone when she turned to Ike’s daughter. “Go home, Larsa. You kept watch tonight; we’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I just wish I’d taken him seriously,” Larsa said gloomily into her water.
“Frank? Nobody takes him seriously—”
“No, not Frank. On the—on the phone? It was just before my father and I argued that last time. All he could talk about was a ghost from his past, and I could only focus on the present. If I had just stopped talking long enough to really listen, I bet he’d still be alive.” She pushed up from the table and slung her bag over her shoulder before heading out the door.
Janet watched her walk away, worried for Ike’s daughter’s mental health. The poor woman was blaming herself for her father’s mistakes. What a heavy burden to bear.
She loaded the white ceramic mug onto her tray, along with two empty glasses of water, then handed the beer to a customer at the next booth over. As she wiped down the table, she wondered which ghost had haunted Ike just before he died. It seemed like there were plenty to choose from.
Chapter Thirteen
“Where have you been?” Janet asked as she watched Jason walk across the bedroom through one slitted eye. “It’s the crack of”—she turned her head and pried her eye all the way open to look at the clock on the bedside table—“nine! It’s the crack of nine! What are you doing?”
“Janet, a massive virus has disabled my entire computer system. Wex has been here since midnight, and it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg, but I can’t have my system compromised. I should have had him come here two days ago, but I really thought he could walk me through it.”
“Wexford Restin is here?” Janet asked as Jason changed into a clean shirt. She sighed when all his skin was covered up. “If your old hacking buddy is going to do the job for you, doesn’t that mean you can come back to bed?” She patted the spot he’d just vacated.
He took an involuntary step closer to Janet before stopping himself with a grin. “No, God only knows what Wex will hack into if he’s left alone.” He walked to the door and then stopped and turned back. “We’ll be in my office for the rest of the morning. Are you headed to the doctor today?”
“Och,” Janet groaned, knowing it might be days before she saw her boyfriend again. “Yes, finally.”
“Good,” he said before disappearing down the hall.
She stayed in bed for another minute and then climbed out to get ready for her own busy day, which would
start with tracking down a stranger.
The knock echoed in the hallway of the fancy apartment building in downtown Knoxville. Janet had managed to slide in the main door behind a resident, and she bounced on her feet, hoping Benji Watts would answer his door.
With the sudden rattle of the lock and twisting of the doorknob, Janet found herself face-to-face with a bald man who looked like he was caught between two different worlds. A few tattoos crept up from the neck of his dress shirt, and he wore an expensive-looking suit and tie. He pulled the strap of his messenger bag over one shoulder and held a bike helmet in his other hand.
He stopped just short of walking into her, and fumbled with his keys. “Can I help you?”
“Benji?” He nodded. “I hope so.” She took a step back to let him out. He locked the door behind him and motioned for her to walk with him to the elevator. “I . . . I guess I’m looking into Ike Freeman’s death.” She kept her eyes trained on Benji’s face to see if the name drew any kind of reaction. It did.
He stopped walking and looked at her again. “Who are you?”
“I own the bar outside of which he was found murdered.”
“You’re here why?”
“It turns out the police don’t have a lot to go on, and I thought it made sense to investigate Ike’s past. It sounds like you are a big part of it.”
Benji snorted. “You could say that. He definitely changed my life.”
“It was a terrible loss,” Janet said.
“It was terrible—terrible that it happened and terrible that Ike wasn’t charged with murder. He’s a criminal, but he walked free. It was unbelievable. Still is.”
