A Toast to Murder

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “Absolutely I would come,” he said. “I’m not seeing anyone right now, but I could probably rustle up a date if I had to, though I think a party with just this group would be fun.”

  At that point, Debra walked up to the bar, setting her tray down, and calling out her drink orders. Billy and Teddy went to work, and I approached Debra and posed the same question to her.

  “You’re asking me if I would enjoy the chance to celebrate New Year’s Eve like a normal person for once, rather than running my ass off all night waiting on a bunch of drunks? Hell, yeah!”

  “Your husband and sons would be welcome to come, too,” I told her.

  She frowned at that. “Yeah, I suppose I could let them come along. Although I have to admit that the idea of having a night to myself sounds wonderful.”

  “We could always do that another time,” I said. “In fact, I think we’re overdue for a girls’ night out. Let’s plan one. We can go to a show and hit up some other bars so you don’t feel guilty about partying at work. And I’m sure I can dig us up a designated driver. In fact, I’ll bet Mal would do it.”

  “It’s a date,” Debra said with a smile. “I’ll check my schedule and get back to you.”

  “What are you volunteering me to do now?” said a male voice off to my right. I turned and saw Mal standing there.

  “I was telling Debra you’d be willing to be a designated driver for us if we did a girls’ night out. Would you?”

  “Absolutely,” he said with an eager grin. “A car full of drunken, easy women is one of my favorite things in life.” He winked at me and then at Debra, who managed to blush. “When are we doing this?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I told him. “I’ll let you know once we set a date.”

  “In the meantime, I have something to show you,” Mal said. “Can we go into your office?”

  “Sure.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out my keys, and handed them to him. “Lead the way.”

  I gathered from the roll of paper he had tucked under his arm that he had something for me to look at regarding the elevator. Once we were inside the office and he had slipped off his coat, he unrolled the paper on my desk, and I saw that my assumption was correct.

  “Here are some plans I drew up,” he said, weighing down the corners of the paper with various items from my desk: a stapler, a tape dispenser, and a used mug. “I included a dumbwaiter as well because it makes sense to put one in if we’re going to open the walls and do the construction necessary to create a shaft. But keep in mind that it’s an option.” Once he had the paper laid out flat, with the corners anchored, he removed other papers from his coat pocket. “This is a reputable company I’ve worked with before that manufactures and sells elevators and dumbwaiters,” he said, handing me a brochure. “They have some standard models we can choose from, but they can also customize as needed. Of course, customization means more money.”

  I looked at his plan, which was pretty basic, and more or less what I’d had in mind all along, so I shifted my attention to the brochure.

  “You can look up this company online,” Mal said. “They have a lot more options and models other than what you see here. I just happened to have this brochure at home because it was the one we used for a job I helped my dad with right before I moved here.” He pointed to one of the models in the brochure. “I think this one would work nicely. It’s basic, but big enough to accommodate up to four people, or a wheelchair, or someone with a cart.”

  “It looks great,” I said.

  Mal handed me one more piece of paper that he had removed from his pocket. “Here’s a closer idea of the cost. It’s still rough, and there are always surprises with jobs like this, things like unexpected findings in the walls or electrical issues that have to be fixed in order to get past inspection. But I think it should be close.”

  It was a lot of money. I did a quick mental calculation of the hit I’d take to my savings and what would be left. It made me wince, but I felt it would be worth it in the long run. “I’m good with it, Mal. Thanks so much for doing all of this.”

  “If you’re serious about this plan, I think we should turn it in and get the permits so you can get started on it sooner rather than later. Like I said earlier, I can get things started for you myself this week while I’m off duty on my undercover job.”

  “That works for me.”

  “I have just enough time to get to the planning office before they close,” Mal said, rolling the papers up. “I could start on it first thing in the morning.”

  “Don’t forget the museum.”

  He slapped himself on the side of his head. “That’s first, of course. What time tomorrow should we head out?”

  “The earlier the better,” I said. “It will be late by the time I get to bed tonight because I told Billy I’d give him a ride home. Although I suppose I could ask Teddy Bear to do it.”

  “How does eleven-thirty sound? That gives you time to make sure everything is up and running before we leave, and time to sleep if you’re up late.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’ll see you then.” He grabbed his coat and headed for my office door. “Are you okay?” he asked before leaving.

  I shrugged. “Duncan was here. We had a bit of a spat.”

  “About that woman you saw him with?”

  “That woman turned out to be his ex-fiancée, Courtney Metcalfe.”

  “Oh,” he said with a grimace.

  “He says he’s not seeing her, that she tricked him into the meeting. But apparently she’s been calling him for months, begging him to take her back. He claims he hasn’t spoken to her before yesterday, but I’m upset that he didn’t tell me about it.”

  “Why would he?” Mal asked.

  “So if the same thing happened to you, you wouldn’t tell your girlfriend about the phone calls?”

  “Probably not,” Mal said with an apologetic look. “Maybe it’s a guy thing.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Okay then, let me run this by you. You’ve admitted to having feelings for me. Let’s say Duncan and I broke up, and you and I started seeing one another. Would you want to know if Duncan started calling me regularly because he wanted to patch things up and get back together?”

  “Only if you were having thoughts about going back to him,” he said. “If you assured me that the two of us were a couple and gave me no reason to doubt you, why would I need to know? Particularly since Duncan is a friend of mine. That would place an undue amount of stress on our friendship.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “You men really are from Mars,” I said. “Sometimes I feel like I need an advanced college degree to understand any of you.”

  “Sometimes we feel the same way about you gals,” Mal said with a crooked smile. “I suggest you get a good night’s sleep and revisit this in the morning. That’s what I’m going to do.” With that, he walked back over to me, kissed me on the cheek, and left, closing my office door behind him.

  I spent the next ten minutes or so lying on my couch, staring at the ceiling, and replaying the scene with Duncan over and over again in my head. Was I being ridiculous? Were my objections out of line? Was I overreacting to the situation? I didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, but I knew how I felt, and I needed to stay true to myself.

  In an effort to shift my focus, I removed the list Clay had given me from my pocket and studied the names on it. Some of them seemed more likely to me than others, but this was based solely on my own gut feelings . . . and perhaps a bit of desire. Some of the names were harder for me to accept than others, and I knew that wasn’t a very good way to go about assessing things.

  Frustrated and in need of a distraction, I stuffed the list into my desk drawer and locked it, then I went back out to the main area of the bar, thinking some busy work would be good for me. But it turned out there was little for me to do. Without my asking, Billy had already arranged with Teddy Bear to get a ride home. And the bar crowd was dying down.<
br />
  Since I was now off the hook as chauffeur, I asked Billy if he would handle the closing duties for me. He happily agreed—he always did—and I decided to retreat to my apartment. I spent the rest of the evening in bed, watching home-improvement shows until I fell asleep.

  Chapter 14

  I awoke the next morning just before nine o’clock. Despite all the angst in my mind when I had gone to bed the night before, I slept well and awoke feeling refreshed and ready to tackle a new day. After a quick cup of coffee, I wrapped my cast in a plastic bag and hopped in the shower. My leg itched something fierce beneath the cast, and the sensation made me see small dots scurrying about along the periphery of my vision, like a small swarm of bugs. I couldn’t wait to get the thing taken off.

  After getting dressed, fixing my hair, and putting on a bit of makeup, I decided to take a few minutes to scan the day’s news on my laptop while I finished off my coffee. One of the first articles I came to nearly made me choke on my brew. The headline read: POLICE SEAL DEAL WITH LOCAL BAR OWNER, and there in the first sentence was my name. Apparently Chief Holland and Anthony Dixon had jumped the gun.

  As I read the story, I could feel my anger growing. I was tempted to call Holland right away and tell him to go to hell, and then demand a retraction.

  I managed to squelch the urge as I continued to read. The article stated that the Milwaukee Police Department was not only willing to work with me but had been working with me on several cases already. It specifically mentioned the Ben Middleton case. Chief Holland was quoted a lot. Dixon was mentioned but not quoted directly. Overall the article represented me in a reasonable light, stating simply that I had an ability to interpret certain things and certain people in a way that investigators found helpful. And because of this, they had asked me to work with them on a consulting basis. Chief Holland was quoted as saying he was excited about this new arrangement and looked forward to working with me.

  The article spent a few lines discussing my “ability,” which was simply described as a neurological condition that allowed me to have keener senses than the average person. This was not only a reasonably apt description, I liked the fact that my synesthesia was referred to as a condition rather than a disorder. However, the word synesthesia did not appear anywhere in the article.

  When I reached the end of the article, I sat back in my chair, shaking my head, feeling my blood boil. I reached for my cell phone, and after looking up a number for Chief Holland on my laptop, I placed a call. A woman answered, and when I asked for Chief Holland, she asked who was calling. I told her, and she put me on hold. I expected Holland to be the next person I spoke to, but that wasn’t the case. A man answered, but I knew immediately from his Southern accent that it wasn’t Holland. Once again, I explained who I was and who I needed to speak to, my fingers tapping irritably on the tabletop. After a second spell on hold, I was rewarded with my quarry.

  “Mack!” Holland said in a cheery, overly familiar way. “How are you this morning?”

  “I’m angry,” I said, my voice seething. “Where the hell do you get off publicly announcing a working relationship between us when I haven’t gotten back to you?”

  “Whoa!” he said. “I talked to Albright yesterday evening, and he told me you had decided to go ahead with our deal.”

  “I was leaning that way,” I said. “But I hadn’t made up my mind for sure yet.”

  “Are you telling me Albright lied about it?”

  “No,” I sighed, shaking my head in exasperation. “I did tell him that I was going to go ahead with it. But he had no right to tell you that.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but he did tell me. And I was eager to get the news out.”

  Oh, I’m sure you were, I thought unkindly, given that the police department had taken a lot of flak over the Ben Middleton case lately. This announcement framed their shortcomings in a much more forgiving light.

  “Did Duncan know you intended to announce this in the paper this morning?” I asked.

  “No, he had no idea. I know a lot of people at the paper, and I had one of my contacts write the article up last night after talking to Albright. It was solely my doing.”

  It might be my undoing, I thought. “This has complicated things for me in ways you can’t imagine,” I told him.

  “I’m really sorry, Mack,” he said, and his voice sounded sincere. It sucked a lot of the gusting wind from my angry sails. “I hope this faux pas hasn’t prejudiced you against me or made you change your mind.”

  Had it? It was out there now. A retraction wouldn’t do much to undo the damage. If it was handled like most other retractions, it would appear in the paper in a tiny little corner, in tiny little print, buried alongside other, more interesting stuff. No one would see it. And I had a feeling that even if the letter writer did see it, she probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.

  “What’s done is done,” I said with a resigned but impatient sigh. Though my voice sounded settled, I was anything but. By announcing in the paper that I not only had agreed to work with the cops in the future but had been working with them in the past, I was in direct violation of the rules set down by the letter writer. Duncan and Holland had put me in a position of great jeopardy without realizing it. And unfortunately, it put a lot of other people in jeopardy as well.

  “Are you still willing to work with us?” Holland asked.

  Yeah, if I’m still alive. Now that the cat was out of the proverbial bag, there was no reason not to work with them. “I am, but I have some conditions I would like to discuss before we strike a deal.”

  “Of course,” Holland said. “I’m sure there are a lot of details we need to bring out, not the least of which will be the remuneration for your work. Let’s get together after the first of the year. I’ll have my assistant, Bruce, get in touch with you and set up a meeting. Is there anyone else you’d like to have there besides me, Tony Dixon, and yourself? Duncan Albright, for instance?”

  That was an unanticipated question. “I’m not sure at this point,” I said evasively. “I’ll let you know when your assistant calls to set up the appointment, if that’s okay.”

  “That will be fine. And again, I apologize for the confusion.”

  “Thank you. I’ll talk to you soon.” Without further ado, I disconnected the call. And then I dialed Duncan’s number. His phone rang and flipped over to voice mail. I couldn’t help but wonder if he didn’t answer because he was busy or because of our discussion last night. Frankly, voice mail worked for me just fine. I left him a terse, to-the-point message mentioning the article in the paper and expressing my disappointment and anger over the fact that he had told Holland about my decision. “I’m sure you realize the ramifications this will have with the letter writer,” I concluded. “If someone dies because of this, it’s on your head.”

  I disconnected the call and immediately wished I could somehow delete my message. Blaming him for any deaths that might occur was a bit harsh. But it was too late now, and I needed to shift my focus to how to mitigate the damage. Ready or not, like it or not, my relationship with the letter writer was about to come to a head. It served to reinforce my idea about the New Year’s Eve plan.

  I headed downstairs to the bar to do the morning prep. The coffee was brewing, and I had an assortment of fruit set out to chop up when Debra and Pete arrived. I wondered if either of them had seen the article in the paper, but if they had, they didn’t say anything about it. I noticed Debra looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes, and a lighter than usual pallor to her skin.

  “Are you feeling okay?” I asked her once she had her coat off and her apron on. “You’ve been working a lot of extra hours lately. Maybe you should take some time off.”

  She gave me a wan smile and shook her head. “Believe it or not, working here is my relaxation. Things at home are a little tense right now.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. If you need some time off to deal with things, all you need to do is ask.”

  She n
odded. “I know, and I appreciate it. But right now, the best thing I can do for myself is to be here.”

  “Is it something with the boys?”

  “No, they’re both doing surprisingly well, considering they’re teenagers.” She made a fist and knocked on the wooden bar top.

  “Is it your husband?”

  She licked her lips and didn’t answer right away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said. “I probably will need to talk about it at some point. But not yet. Thanks for asking, though.”

  “No problem. I’m having some men issues myself right now, so anytime you want to talk let me know. I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks, Mack.”

  With that, we went about our morning duties in relative silence. Pete and Debra had both been with me for a long time, and as a result, we worked well together as a team. It was like that every morning. Even though the daily tasks and duties that needed to be performed changed hands on a regular basis, it all got done with a minimum of fuss and discussion. Some mornings I made the coffee and chopped fruit, sometimes Debra did it. Restocking the beers and ice was something I typically did, but because it required a trip to the basement, Debra and Pete had taken it over since I broke my leg. Jon, my morning cook, showed up at ten-thirty and went about getting the kitchen set up. That was his domain, and we left him to it. When eleven o’clock rolled around, I unlocked the front door, and both Cora and the Signoriello brothers arrived moments later. Judging from the curious, wide-eyed looks they gave me, I guessed that they had seen the article in the paper.

  Per their usual routine, the three of them settled in at a table and ordered up drinks and food. Debra fetched the drinks, and as soon as she was gone, all three of them spoke at once.

  “What the heck is going on?” Joe said.

  “Is this thing in the paper true?” Frank said.

  “Why did you let them print that in the paper?” Cora asked.

  I held up a hand to them, and they immediately settled down, waiting for my reply. I explained to them what had happened, and my conversation with chief Holland this morning. “The cat’s out of the bag,” I concluded. “We’ll just have to figure out how to deal with it. In a way, I’m almost glad this happened, because I’m tired of letting the letter writer—or writers, as the case may be—lead me around like a dog on a leash. It’s time to put an end to this, and I have an idea about how to do it.”