Murder on the Rocks

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “What’s wrong?” Duncan asked.

  “I had things all confused,” I told Duncan. “I thought it was a musty smell that was triggering that weighty feeling I had on my neck and shoulders, but feelings like that can also be triggered by things I see. And sometimes I smell things I see. That’s what happened here.” I stepped into the tunnel and picked up some of the concrete dust on the floor. “The musty smell was a reaction to the sight of this dust on Riley. I noticed it on his arms and clothing several times and he said he got it on himself from cleaning up after the flood in his basement. But I think it was really concrete dust from that hole in the floor. That same dust must have been on or around Ginny’s body when I found her.”

  Duncan nodded. “The techs did find concrete particulate on the cardboard that was covering her body.”

  “That dust was on top of my dad’s worktable, too.” I shook my head in dismay. “I should have put it together sooner.”

  “I’d say you did a pretty good job,” Duncan said. “I’m beginning to see how this little disorder of yours might come in handy.”

  I shook my head. “Not if I don’t learn to interpret it better. And that won’t be easy. I’ve spent most of my life trying to subdue and ignore it.”

  “It might take time, but I’ll bet you can do it. I’d like to help, if you’ll let me.”

  I looked over at him with a quizzical expression. “What are you suggesting, Detective?”

  “That you consider a future . . . um . . . collaboration with me.”

  Collaboration wasn’t quite the word I was hoping for, but considering everything else I had going on in my life, it was probably the safest goal for now. And the word came with all kinds of subtle innuendos and a burst of chocolate flavor so sweet and delicious I nearly moaned with delight.

  “You could be my personal consultant, my secret weapon,” Duncan went on. “Only if you want to, of course. It wouldn’t be anything official.”

  I walked back over to where Duncan stood, looped an arm around his, and headed for the basement stairs. “I’ll consider your offer and let you know. In the meantime, I don’t know about you, Detective, but I could use a drink. And in honor of all that’s happened, I’m going to fix us both a Bootlegger.”

  “That’s a drink?”

  “Yes, and a doozy of one. It’s equal parts bourbon, tequila, and Southern Comfort poured over ice, shaken, and strained into a chilled glass. You might want to arrange for a ride home,” I warned him.

  As it turned out, he spent the night . . . on the couch in my office.

  Chapter 28

  It was a gorgeous Saturday in late October with a crystal blue sky, temperatures hanging in the mid-sixties, and a light breeze coming in off Lake Michigan. The bar was packed to capacity and I had the front door propped open to let in the fresh air.

  Most of my regulars were present, a group that included all the suspects in Ginny’s murder—minus Riley of course—as well as a group of cops who now frequented my establishment nearly every day of the week, both for food while on duty and drinks after their shifts. Oddly enough, the suspects and the cops had drawn together and become friends, bonding over the fallout and discussions surrounding Ginny’s murder and Riley’s arrest.

  Even Gary was here, smiling broadly because he was a free man. He had been discharged from the hospital a few days ago after some minor abdominal surgery to repair a small tear to his intestine. He was healing nicely but it would be some time before he’d be able to make airborne leaps like he had in my basement when he saw Riley holding a gun and taking aim at me. Though Gary had hit me hard enough to rattle my brain for a few seconds, it’s a good thing he leapt the way he had or he would have landed in the water-filled hole and never reached me. He told me later when I visited him in the hospital that he made the decision to leap because he was afraid he wouldn’t reach me in time. As a result he managed to jump clear over the hole and never knew it was there until he saw Riley fall into it. “I thought I was dying,” he told me. “When I saw Riley disappear into the floor of that room, I thought it was some last-gasp hallucination my mind was drumming up.”

  I figured that was probably the closest Gary would ever come to understanding what my synesthesia was like.

  The story about Mike Levy telling Ginny he knew Gary was innocent of the convenience store robbery couldn’t be proven since all the parties in the know were now dead. But I believed Gary, and after putting out some feelers on the street, so did Duncan. Though we were still trying to clear his name, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if Gary was guilty. If my father had trusted him, that was good enough for me. Plus the man saved my life, and for that I was forever grateful. His old job was waiting for him as soon as he felt well enough to start doing it again.

  Gary no longer felt nervous around cops, a good thing since several of them were sitting with him, Tad, Cora, Kevin, and Lewis, playing with Cora’s new computer program. Frank and Joe were there, too, but they considered Cora’s program—and computers in general—as “newfangled contraptions” they preferred to steer clear of. It was just as well since the program still had a few quirks to be ironed out before it would be of any use in the real world. Despite that, several of the cops thought it had great potential, and the geekier ones were drawn to the computer gaming and programming aspects involved.

  Duncan was also skeptical of the Clue-like computer program, but he and I were using Cora and her computer skills for something else. Over the past couple of weeks the three of us had spent time analyzing my synesthetic reactions, trying to figure out what they meant, keeping track of our conclusions with a computer database.

  “Here,” Cora said, handing me a small perfume bottle. “Take a whiff.”

  I did so and after a few seconds I nodded. “That’s it. I hear the same chimes I heard when I found Ginny’s body.”

  Duncan nodded. “It makes sense now. We found this brand of perfume in both Ginny’s purse and in her bathroom. The reason you heard the same sound when you were near Cora is because she wears it, too.”

  Cora smiled and gave Duncan a saucy wink. “Do you like it, Detective? Or should I switch to something else?”

  Duncan arched an eyebrow while I hid a smile behind my hand. Duncan responded to the provocation by saying, “For now, let’s just log this into Mack’s database and move on.”

  Cora sighed and started typing. “Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she muttered.

  “The vibration I always felt when I was around Ginny was due to a smell, too,” I said. “But it was her laundry detergent, not her perfume. It explains why I felt the vibration with my father after he’d been with her. The smell from her sheets and clothing had rubbed off onto him.”

  “Got it,” Cora said, still typing.

  Frank Signoriello said, “Did you have your special reactions to all of us, Mack?”

  “Most of you,” I admitted. “I heard an oscillating hum the day Kevin came into the bar wearing his work-clothes and I’ve since figured out that it was the smell of diesel fuel that triggered the sound. That same smell lingers in the alley out back from all the trucks that have driven through and idled there over the years, so I had the same reaction when I was out there and found Ginny’s body, even though it had nothing to do with Ginny directly.”

  “And something similar occurred when she heard a twangy sound near Ginny’s body and when she was near Lewis,” Duncan said. “We’ve since figured out that it was the smell of cigarette smoke.”

  Lewis nodded and said, “Busted. A lot of the people I work with don’t know I smoke and it looks bad, you know. So I tend to hide it. And since there is no smoking allowed inside anywhere, it leaves me skulking about in alleys a lot of the time when we’re out. I’ve seen other customers from here go back to the alley to smoke and I figured I was less likely to be seen there than if I went out front and smoked on the sidewalk. The presence of all those alley smokers explains why the smell lingers back there. It clings to the walls of the bui
lding.”

  “It really threw me when I saw your name on the sign-out sheet for those Capone papers,” I told Lewis, giving him an apologetic smile.

  “Why were you looking at that Capone stuff?” Joe Signoriello asked Lewis.

  “For years my family has passed along a rumor that when my great-grandmother gave birth to a daughter out of wedlock, the father might have been Al Capone. That daughter was my grandmother and if she knew anything, she took it with her to the grave. I didn’t put much stock in it when I was younger but as I got older I realized I was starting to bear a faint resemblance to the man. I have the same dark hair, receding hairline, and overall build.

  “The night Mack’s father was brought in to the ER after being shot, he uttered a bunch of stuff that was incomprehensible, but one thing that came out clearly was Capone’s name. He said it to me just before he died. I know now that this utterance was his dying mind trying to communicate what had happened, but at the time I thought it was because he was disoriented and I resembled Capone. It piqued my curiosity so I went to the library a week later to do some research, wondering if the family rumors might be true.”

  “Are they?” Joe asked.

  “I can’t rule it out,” Lewis said with a smile. “But I can’t rule it in either.”

  Tad, who had remained pretty quiet up until now, said, “It’s kind of fascinating how you made these connections between Ginny and all of us, Mack. It’s like you’re a human lie detector or something.”

  “Not exactly,” I said, “though there are times when a different reaction to someone’s voice will cue me in that they might not be telling the truth. But for now, most of my reactions are simply confusing and misleading. That’s why I’m letting Cora try to track them and record the correlations. Because some of the reactions I had led me astray.”

  “Such as?” Frank asked.

  “Well, I was eventually able to attribute a dirt smell I detected when I hugged Zach to a spot I had seen on his shirtsleeve. It was dried blood from a patient he’d cared for and the fact that similar spots of blood remained in the alley where Ginny’s body was found explained why I had the same smell experience there. It was a connection that really had nothing to do with her murder.

  “I also experienced a visual manifestation of breaking ocean waves when I stood in front of my father’s worktable. I didn’t know what triggered it at the time but now I know it was a breeze I could feel coming from behind the work area. If I’d figured that out sooner, I might have found that hidden room quicker than I did.”

  “What about Riley?” Tad asked. “Did you have any specific reactions to him that clued you in to anything?”

  “I’m not sure I buy this one but I used to see these round silvery discs whenever Riley touched me, and Duncan thinks they were thirty pieces of silver, my mind’s way of telling me the man was a Judas who shouldn’t be trusted.”

  I paused, feeling a now familiar stab of guilt and anger. “If Duncan is right, I wish I had known. Because we did trust Riley and my father paid for that trust with his life.”

  Tad looked over at Duncan. “Are you going to be able to pin both murders on him?”

  Duncan nodded. “When we followed the tunnel from the secret room into Riley’s basement, we found excavating equipment, several books about Al Capone—including one that described how Capone had once put a noncompliant bar out of business using the very same tactics Riley used on Mack—and old blueprints of the two buildings that showed the tunnel and the secret room. When we used Luminol on Riley’s basement floor, we also found a huge bloodstain and DNA proved the blood was Ginny’s. So that was our crime scene.”

  I delivered the news that Duncan had shared with me a short while ago, news I wasn’t sure I liked. “Riley worked out a deal and got a lesser charge by agreeing to tell the cops everything that happened. Apparently after being confronted with all the evidence and told he was facing at least one, and possibly two first-degree murder charges, he was happy to talk.”

  Duncan eyed me warily. He knew I wasn’t very happy with the lesser charges against Riley. As far as I was concerned, the man should have gotten the death penalty.

  “So he admitted to killing your father?” Cora said.

  “Apparently. He told the cops my father didn’t know about the secret room until the night of his death. Then he discovered it by accident because Riley forgot to close the workbench door, leaving it ajar. He not only found the room, he saw that part of the floor had been dug up, though it was still shallow then. At the time of his discovery, the bar was open and hopping so I can only assume he decided not to do anything about it until after the bar closed. I feel certain that’s the big thing he wanted to tell me that night.”

  I choked up then with the memory so Duncan took over. “Given that it was apparent someone had been chipping away at the floor and that the tunnel led to the basement beneath Riley’s store, Big Mack figured Riley knew about the room and wanted to talk to him about it. So he called Riley that night and left a message for him to drop by after the bar closed.”

  “He must have come by while I was in the kitchen washing dishes,” I said, feeling more in control of my emotions. “That’s why I didn’t hear anything. And it also explains why my father let someone into the bar that late at night. Riley was someone he trusted, someone we both trusted.”

  “We all trusted him,” Frank said. “He fooled everybody so don’t beat yourself up over it.”

  “I’m not, I’m just angry,” I said to the group. “Angry that Riley could have such disregard for other human beings. Angry I didn’t see it. And angry that he robbed me of the person I loved most in this world.”

  “So did Riley say how the shooting happened?” Cora asked.

  Duncan nodded and took over the explanations once again. “According to Riley, he and Big Mack discussed the Capone treasure theories and Big Mack got angry over the fact that Riley was doing all this in secret. He told Riley he thought the secret room was mostly if not all bar property and that he was going to file a complaint against Riley for trespassing and destruction of property. Riley tried to talk him into a partnership of some sort to share any treasure that was found, but Big Mack wouldn’t go for it and threatened to take Riley to court. Apparently their discussion escalated from an argument to fisticuffs, and ended when Big Mack escorted Riley out the back door of the bar at gunpoint. A scuffle then ensued and the gun went off, wounding Big Mack. Riley, who had arrived gloved and stayed that way during the discussion and scuffle, dropped the gun and ran, leaving Big Mack there to die in the snow and no sign of Riley’s fingerprints on the gun.”

  I shook my head in dismay. “Riley had the nerve to try to comfort me during that time, knowing all along that he was the one who killed my father. When he started talking to me about selling the bar and starting over, I thought he was doing so out of concern for my welfare. Now I know his true motivation was selfish greed. He was convinced there was a hidden Capone treasure in gold somewhere on the property, and he wanted to buy it from me so he could find it and keep it for himself. When he realized I wasn’t planning on selling, he started his campaign of terror and financial woes, hoping it would force me to sell. He knew the combination to my office safe because he’d been in the office dozens of times with my father, and after watching Dad open it a few times, he had the combo figured out. Getting into the bar at night after I’d closed was easy enough. All he had to do was use the tunnel.”

  “I still don’t get how Ginny was involved,” Kevin said.

  “At one point, Riley thought he’d worn me down enough to consider selling, so he contacted Ginny and asked her out, hoping to build a romantic relationship with her so she would be more willing to help him. He needed her money as well as her real estate expertise. After a few weeks of dating, he asked her to consider going in with him and investing in the purchase of my bar, and doing so by writing up an anonymous offer. Ginny had balked at the idea, knowing I didn’t want to give the place up, but
Riley kept insisting it was the only way to help me get a new start on life.”

  “We’ll never know if Ginny would have done it because she never got the chance,” Duncan said. “She and Riley were supposed to meet up the night before her death, but Riley was forced to cancel because of the plumbing leak. Ginny decided to stop by the store anyway to see if Riley needed any help. He had gladly accepted, and the two of them had worked side by side for several hours, disposing of the already ruined books, and moving boxes of others and Riley’s collection of rare editions out of harm’s way.

  “Early in the wee morning hours Riley took a break and dozed off on an old couch he had in the basement. While he slept, Ginny kept working and at some point she stumbled upon the Capone books and the old building blueprints. After studying the blueprints, she discovered the access to the tunnel in Riley’s basement, a set of wooden shelves that hid a door much like the one in Mack’s basement. After seeing where it led, she started putting two and two together and wondering about both Big Mack’s death and the mysterious plagues that had befallen Little Mack ever since. She returned to Riley’s basement and woke him, confronting him with her suspicions. Fearing she would expose him, Riley grabbed a knife he’d been using to open boxes and stabbed her in the chest. At first he thought about tossing Ginny’s body into the river, but it was getting close to sunrise and he was afraid of being seen. Then he had a better idea. The initial wound had incapacitated Ginny but it didn’t kill her. As she lay on his basement floor bleeding, Riley broke into Mack’s bar, stole the knife from her kitchen, and returned to his basement to finish Ginny off. That, plus his disposal of Ginny’s body by Mack’s Dumpster and the careful planting of the knife where it could be found were all attempts to pin the murder on Mack and force her to sell the place.

  “In an attempt to cover up the evidence, Riley hosed down his basement floor, using an industrial vacuum to suck it back up. He figured the plumbing leak would explain all the water.”