Murder on the Rocks

by Allyson K. Abbott

  Shortly after Debra’s arrival, Pete Sampson, my daytime bartender, showed up. He, too, was followed by the TV crew but he ignored them as he unlocked the front door and let himself in. Pete was in his sixties and a retired pharmaceutical rep who worked part-time for me to augment his income. At one time he had been a regular customer of ours, but around a year and a half ago, when my father found out Pete had once made his living as a bartender and was looking for part-time work, he offered him a job helping to cover our lunchtime rush. Pete started the very next day.

  He reminded me of my father a lot; they had the same white hair, blue eyes, and slightly pudgy build. Their personalities were much alike as well. Pete had the same affable nature, quick wit, and tender heart. He was also a widower like my father had been. His wife had died of cancer when she was in her late thirties and Pete raised his two sons on his own after that. They were both grown and out on their own now, and neither of them lived in Milwaukee. The eldest, Skip, was a successful criminal lawyer who lived and practiced in Madison; the other, Nate, was an IT guy who worked for Intel out on the West Coast.

  The fact that Skip was a lawyer wasn’t lost on me. Realizing I might need one, it was a subject I intended to broach with Pete today at the first opportunity. Pete knew what was going on; he had called me several times yesterday after I called him off for his regular lunchtime shift. He was up to speed on Ginny and the murder, but he wasn’t aware of my arrangement with Duncan, so as soon as he arrived, I took him aside and filled him in. I kept it brief, wanting to get as much info to Pete as I could before Duncan arrived. He listened carefully as I explained the charade and the fact that the other staff knew about it but were sworn to secrecy for now.

  “So I hope I can count on you to play along, too,” I concluded.

  He nodded his agreement, but didn’t look pleased. “Do they have a prime suspect?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, debating whether or not I should say anything about Gary. I could tell that Debra, though she made a great effort to look busy and distracted, was eavesdropping on our conversation. “They’ve been questioning a lot of people and I suspect you’ll be added to that list today if they haven’t talked to you already. So far, ironclad alibis seem to be few and far between and I’m not certain they even have a definite time of death yet, so there are a lot of people they’re looking at, including me.”

  “You?” Pete scoffed. “Why would they suspect you?”

  I shrugged. “Well, there is the fact that her body turned up out back, and the fact that I knew her. They seem to think I might have had some jealousy toward her because of her relationship with my father.”

  “That’s absurd,” Pete said.

  “Detective Albright seems to think there might be a connection between Ginny’s murder and my father’s.” Recalling the book and e-mail I found yesterday I asked, “Did my father ever say anything to you about Al Capone?”

  “Al Capone?” He looked at me like I’d just lost my mind. “No. Why? Do the cops think your father had mob connections?”

  Pete’s quick leap to this assumption startled me. “Did he?” I shot back, even though I knew in my heart that the idea was ridiculous. Pete didn’t bother dignifying my question with an answer. Instead he just stared at me with an expression of disbelief.

  A lump formed in my throat, which triggered a buzzing sound in my ears. Tears welled in my eyes and Pete’s expression morphed into one of sympathy. He reached over and pulled me to him, giving me a hug.

  “You listen to me, Mack. Those cops are a bunch of idiots to suspect you, or to try to drum up some imagined mob connections, but I get that they’re just doing their job.”

  I didn’t bother to correct his erroneous assumption. For all I knew, maybe the cops were looking into possible mob connections, though I imagined it would not be the Italian mafioso but rather the Irish mob.

  “I’m sure they’ll realize the foolishness of their ways soon enough,” Pete went on. “In the meantime, I’ve got your back. And if need be, I’ll get Skip involved on your behalf.” He released me and held me at arm’s length, looking at me. “Buck up, okay? This will turn out all right, you’ll see.”

  I swallowed down my tears and nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat. A pounding at the front door broke us apart and when I went over to see who it was, I found Duncan standing outside looking very impatient as the TV crew fired questions at him and tried to shove the camera in his face. As I locked the door, I wondered if the TV crew would want to come inside the bar once I opened. The last thing I needed was them harassing me, my staff, or my customers. “Good morning,” he said, once he was safe inside. He looked tired and I suspected he’d gotten even less sleep than I had.

  “Good morning,” I countered. “Are you ready for round two?”

  “Probably, but I need to talk to you.”

  Pete was watching us from behind the bar so I lowered my voice and said, “We can talk in the kitchen in a minute. First let me introduce you to my daytime bartender.”

  I led Duncan over to the bar and made the necessary introductions, letting Duncan know Pete was aware of our little subterfuge. I wondered if Duncan would be upset by the fact that I had clued Pete in, but if he was, he didn’t show it. As soon as the introductions were done, Duncan pulled me into the kitchen, clearly anxious to have our little chat.

  “I have some news,” he said, his expression grim. “And you’re not going to like it.”

  I braced myself with a deep breath and crossed my arms over my chest. “Lay it on me.”

  “First off, Gary is in the wind. I had some guys head for his place last night to keep an eye on it and him, but he never went home after leaving here. I have no idea where he is. That makes me nervous, and if it makes me nervous, it should make you nervous.”

  “It does,” I admitted.

  “Have you done anything about changing the locks yet?”

  “Good grief, no. When would I have had time?”

  “This morning?”

  “I have a business to run here, in case you hadn’t noticed. And besides, it’s a Saturday,” I said with no small amount of exasperation. “Good luck finding a locksmith who will come out on a Saturday. Even if I did find one, I’m sure he’d charge some horrendous fee for the short notice and the weekend trip. I can’t afford that.”

  “You can’t afford not to do it,” Duncan said. I opened my mouth to protest but he stopped me by holding up a hand. “It’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t set anything up yet. I thought you might have trouble getting it done on a weekend so I asked around down at the station and got a name and number for a guy who will do it for you. He owes one of our guys a favor so we called it in. I hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and set him up to do it today. He should be here anytime.”

  Duncan’s inquiry as to whether or not I minded his efforts left me uncertain. On the one hand I was impressed, relieved, and even a smidge touched that he had gone to the trouble to make sure I was safe. On the other hand, I have a fierce independent streak in me and something about his taking on this task without consulting me had me feeling put out. Duncan must have sensed my mental quandary and misinterpreted the cause because the next thing he said was, “If you’re worried about paying for it, don’t be.”

  “I’m not worried about paying for it,” I lied, annoyed at how defensive I sounded. To compensate, I smiled at him and added, “Thank you for setting it up.”

  “No problem. The other thing I wanted to tell you is that we found the murder weapon and it’s the knife missing from your kitchen.”

  So much for smiles. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded solemnly.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “On a concrete shelf in a sewer grate at the end of the alley. It’s a perfect match for the one missing from your set and for the wounds on Ginny’s body, and it had blood on it that matches Ginny’s type.”

  I swallowed, hard.

  “It also
had several fingerprints on it,” Duncan added, and from the expression on his face I knew what was coming next. “A few of the prints were smeared but some were left pretty much intact. They were a match for yours.”

  Blood started pounding through my body, in my chest, in my head, in my throat. The sensation triggered a bitter, tart taste in my mouth. I tried to swallow it away but to no avail. “Of course my fingerprints would be on it,” I said. “I use that knife every day. It doesn’t mean I used it to kill Ginny.”

  “I know that,” Duncan said. “Fortunately for you, unfortunately for me, that knife could have been taken by any number of people in this bar. The fact that your prints were the only ones we found is rather damning, but they are explainable, particularly since none of them were made with Ginny’s blood. My guess is the prints are from you cleaning and handling the knife when you closed up the night Ginny was killed, and whoever used it afterward wore gloves.”

  I breathed a small sigh of relief at his explanation, though I knew I wasn’t in the clear yet. Not by a long shot.

  “We also narrowed down the time of death,” Duncan said. “Ginny was killed early in the morning yesterday between the hours of five and six. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help much in whittling down our list of suspects. I don’t know too many people who have alibis for those hours of the day unless it’s from someone they’re sleeping with, and those types of alibis are always suspect.”

  “So where do we go from here?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear the answer.

  “We continue looking into possible suspects and analyzing the evidence. Now that we know what the murder weapon was and the time of death we can be more specific with our questions. Since access to the knife is key at this point, I’m going to stay focused on your bar, your employees, and your patrons. The ability to enter the kitchen implies an employee over a customer, excepting the ones you seem to give special privileges.”

  His tone sounded the tiniest bit snide and the chocolate taste his voice triggered was bitter.

  “I’ve got a team of guys going through Gary’s apartment,” he went on, “and we’re still working on Ginny’s place, too. I’ll continue to hang out here today if you’ll have me, mostly as a base of operations and just to see if anyone says or does something of interest. But I don’t think we’ll do any more interrogations on site.”

  “Thank goodness for that. I think you scared off half of my customer base yesterday.”

  “Nah, you wait and see. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many of them return. Let’s just play things by ear and see what develops.”

  The kitchen door opened then and Pete poked his head in. “Mack? There’s some guy out here who says he’s supposed to change the locks on the place?”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Duncan took out his cell phone, punched a number, and while he was waiting for someone to answer said, “Don’t give anyone a copy of the new keys, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  With that, I left him in the kitchen and headed out to the main bar area where I found a short, stocky, bearded fellow who looked to be in his mid-fifties standing just inside the front door. He had a classic drinker’s nose: bulbous, red, and lined with fine, superficial vessels. It gave me an idea about how he ended up owing a cop a favor.

  “Marty Giordano at your service,” he said, extending a hand.

  “Mack Dalton.” We exchanged a quick, awkward handshake and I tried not to wrinkle my nose at a briny smell that might have been a synesthetic reaction or Marty’s body odor on this hot, humid morning.

  “I know who you are,” Marty said, smiling. “Though you’ve changed a lot since the last time I saw you, except for that red hair of yours. I used to come into your bar back in the day, but you were just a little tyke then. I knew your dad real well. It’s a shame what happened to him.”

  “Yes,” I said, at a loss for anything else.

  “I understand you want all the locks changed?”

  “That’s correct,” Duncan said from behind me, catching me by surprise. I hadn’t heard his approach and thought I’d left him in the kitchen.

  “Ah, Mr. Dalton I presume?” Marty said with a wink, extending his hand again.

  I bit back a smile and avoided looking at Duncan, who ended up having the last laugh.

  “Nah, I kept my own name,” Duncan said with a counter wink, giving Marty a hearty handshake. “It’s Albright, but please call me Duncan.”

  “Duncan it is. I’m Marty.”

  “Nice to meet you, Marty. Let me show you exactly what needs to be done. We need to replace the locks on this front door here, and also the back door that opens into the alley. There’s some police tape back there but you can ignore it to do what you need to. I’ll show you where it is because I also need you to put a lock on a couple of other doors back that way.”

  While Duncan led Marty toward the back hallway I stood slack-jawed a moment, trying to decide if I was amused, angry, or merely annoyed. Then I followed, curious to see where this was going. When I got to the back hallway, Duncan was dishing out instructions for my office door.

  “This door is easily visible from most of the bar area and kitchen, but I want a new lock on it anyway.” Then he turned and pointed at the door leading to the stairs to my apartment. “This one has a perfectly serviceable dead bolt on the other side but we need the knob lock on this side changed and given a separate key from the office door.”

  I didn’t miss his use of the term “we” and pondered its significance for a few seconds before deciding there probably wasn’t any. Duncan was simply trying to expedite things by avoiding tedious, time-consuming explanations. I listened as he instructed Marty to change the locks on the alley door—both the dead bolt and the knob—and started adding up the cost in my head. I had a feeling this was going to be way more than I could afford. Fortunately Duncan’s next instructions gave me a minor reprieve, though it felt like too little, too late.

  “There’s also an emergency exit opening onto the alley on the other side of the building, back by the pool table. It has no access from the outside and it’s alarmed, so I think we’re okay leaving it as it is. Any questions?”

  Marty didn’t have any, but I did. I was a hairsbreadth away from going ballistic. As soon as Marty left to get his work tools, I grabbed Duncan by the arm and pulled him around to look at me.

  “You’ve got nerve deciding what I can and can’t afford to have done here, Duncan. There’s no need to be changing these inside locks now and I’ve already told you I can’t afford to have any of this done. Where do you get off making those decisions for me and passing yourself off as my husband? I get that you’re worried about Gary and people with keys and all that, but damn it, this is my bar, and it’s my money, and I get to say what does or doesn’t get done. Is that clear?”

  Duncan looked down at me and smiled. “Wow,” he said in a calm tone that belied the word. “There’s that redheaded temper again.”

  I gaped at him for several seconds, momentarily speechless. “That’s it?” I said, finally. “That’s all you have to say for yourself? Because if you think you’ve seen my temper now, you have another think coming, Detective. Just you wait.” With that I whirled away from him, hauled open the door to the stairs leading to my apartment, and stomped my way up there, slamming the door in my wake. Though I couldn’t be sure, I thought I heard Duncan chuckle as the door closed.

  Furious, but not sure why or what to do with my anger, I paced in my apartment, muttering to myself about pushy, presumptuous men in general and Duncan Albright in particular. Eventually I wore myself—and my anger—out and with a sigh of resignation, I went back downstairs where I found Marty at work on my office door.

  Duncan was behind the bar talking with Pete, and Debra was hauling beer up from the basement. I thanked Debra for restocking—a job I usually did—and apologized for being so distracted and scattered.

  “Don’t worry about it,” s
he said with a warm smile. “We’re all a little out of sorts with everything that’s happened.”

  “Quick question,” I said. “Did my father ever say anything to you, or did you ever hear him talk about Al Capone?”

  “Al Capone the gangster?”

  I nodded.

  “No, why?”

  “No reason, just curious. Forget I asked.”

  “Okay. What do you want me to do next? Have you had time to chop up fruit and veggies?”

  “I haven’t,” I told her. “But you may find it more of a challenge than it should be since the police confiscated my knife set and I haven’t had a chance to buy a new one yet.”

  “Oh . . . my,” Debra said, her eyes growing big. “That’s interesting.”

  If only she knew.

  “I have an idea. Let me see what I can dig up,” she offered. With that, we both went behind the bar, me to finish stocking the beers, and Debra to grab her purse, which she kept tucked toward the back of the shelf beneath the bar at the end farthest from the kitchen. Pete and Duncan were behind the bar, too, and whatever discussion they were having stopped as soon as we approached.

  Debra said, “I’m going to make a quick run to that little kitchen store a couple of blocks over and see if I can get Mack a new set of knives. Back in a jiffy.”

  The rest of us got down to work, scrambling to get everything ready for opening time. Debra was true to her word, returning fifteen minutes later. I saw her through a front window as she knocked on the door and then scared the reporter off with a look I imagined she had honed on her teenage boys. I went over to unlock the door and let her in.

  “I got a great deal, Mack. I bought three different carving knives and a new paring knife. They don’t match and there wasn’t a block to go with them, so Myrna gave me all four at a steep discount.” She pulled one of the knives out of the bag she was carrying to show it to me. The business end was wrapped in cardboard but the hasp and handle looked solidly made. When Debra showed me the receipt I saw that if all the knives were up to the standard of the first, she had indeed gotten a fantastic deal.