A Toast to Murder

by Allyson K. Abbott

  Courtney simply looked bemused, though she was scrutinizing me closely.

  Suzanne’s interest was piqued immediately, however. “Tad told me about this letter writer thing,” she said. “Some person who is taunting you?” She said this in a dismissive tone, as if it was no big deal. And I noticed that her voice triggered a curious reaction in me. I saw small colored dots raining down, like hundreds of pieces of colorful confetti. But I also got a taste of something metallic. Never before had anyone’s voice triggered two reactions at once. Typically, I tasted something—that was always the case with men—though with some women I got a visual manifestation instead.

  “More than just taunting me,” I said. “Whoever is behind it has killed two people, two people who were part of our crime-solving group here at the bar. One of the victims was an employee of mine.”

  “Really?” Suzanne said, but rather than shocked, she sounded amused. She looked over at Tad. “You know how I feel about you spending time in this place.” She did a quick glance around the room with a look of distaste. “And now I find out that it’s not only an inconvenience for me when you come here, but dangerous as well?”

  Tad looked annoyed for a second, but he quickly morphed his expression into one of patient tolerance. “You don’t understand how it works,” he said to Suzanne. “This group, and Mack here with her special talents, are really good at solving crimes. You know how much I enjoy a good mystery,” he said in an appealing tone.

  “You could just read some mystery novels,” Whitney said, sounding bored.

  “Special talents?” Courtney said. She arched one brow at me.

  “And as busy as you are at work,” Suzanne went on to Tad, “you’re away from me a lot already.” She reached over and put a perfectly manicured hand on his arm. “We have so little time together as it is.” Suzanne switched her fawning gaze from her husband to me, flashing me a smile that looked forced and phony. “You understand, don’t you, Ms. Dalton?”

  Tad looked over at me and rolled his eyes toward his wife, giving me a see what I have to put up with look.

  “I suppose,” I said to Suzanne, not wanting to placate her. If anything, I wanted to rile her. “And please, call me Mack. But I think it’s important with any couple that they occasionally do things apart from one another, particularly if they have different, separate interests.”

  Suzanne’s expression turned hard, enough so that I had to fight an urge to rear back away from her.

  Courtney stayed silent but continued to stare at me.

  “Tad has mentioned to me before that you have some kind of special talent, Ms. Dalton. In fact, he’s gone on at length about it,” Suzanne said, rolling her eyes. “I confess that I tune him out most of the time, but I do recall him saying you’re like a bloodhound, or something like that, though I’m sure he didn’t mean to call you a dog.” She punctuated this with a brittle, artificial laugh. “So tell me, Ms. Dalton, just what is it that you supposedly do?”

  Courtney put her elbows on the table and leaned in closer, still staring.

  Suzanne’s blatant refusal to use my name as I had requested told me I was getting to her, so despite my annoyance with her and her comments, I pushed on. “I have a disorder of sorts, a neurological thing that both heightens and overlaps my senses,” I explained. “So I experience all of my senses in more than one way. For instance, all of you women are wearing Opium perfume. I know this not only because of the smell, but also because I hear a distinctive sound whenever I smell that particular perfume. It’s like that with all my senses. Sometimes sounds will come with a taste; sometimes I have a visual manifestation.”

  I had Suzanne’s full attention now, and even Whitney had refocused. Courtney’s stare hadn’t wavered.

  “And just how do you use this to solve crimes?” Suzanne asked, her voice rife with skepticism.

  “Mack is really smart and intuitive, and she’s like a human lie detector,” Tad said. He sounded proud and a little awed when he said this, and it seemed to annoy Suzanne. She squirmed and shifted in her seat and let out a huff of irritation. Then I realized it might not be annoyance, but fear. If Suzanne hadn’t been aware of this particular aspect of my synesthesia before, she might be reviewing and second-guessing our entire conversation along about now.

  “Yes, yes, Tad,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “I’ve heard you go on before about how wonderful Ms. Dalton is.” She uttered this with an exaggeratedly exalted tone that left no doubt how she felt about it.

  “Well, I am quite intelligent,” I said without modesty. “More so than the person sending those letters. And the writer is about to discover just how much smarter I and the police are, because we’ve found some trace evidence that’s going to be critical. The letter writer has been outsmarted.” I punctuated this statement with a smug, self-assured smile.

  Suzanne leaned back in her chair. If she was worried, it didn’t show. She simply looked as if she was deep in thought.

  “Little things like perfume, a trace of it, left on a car armrest, might be enough to give someone away,” I said.

  Suzanne narrowed her eyes at me, and there was a tiny muscle flinch in her cheek.

  Whitney said, “So this person you’re talking about is sending you letters with clues, or something like that, to see if this disorder you have works?”

  “Something like that.” I briefly described what some of the letters had said or contained, using adjectives like ridiculously simple and commonplace to describe some of the clues. “It’s really not been much of a challenge,” I concluded, and with this, Suzanne shot me a withering look. I decided to push her buttons a little harder. “It’s no wonder people like Billy and Tad, smart men with solid morals, are interested in following what’s going on. If the letter writer was hoping to break up the Capone Club and the crime-solving tactics we are using, they have failed miserably. It’s only served to pique the interest of the participants that much more.”

  “But this person has killed people?” Whitney said, looking aghast. Her horror seemed genuine, and I now knew that Billy hadn’t told her about any of it.

  “Yes, and for that this person will pay a very dear price, I promise you.” I said this with a high level of conviction, hoping to rattle Suzanne even more. I was moving away from my suspicion that Whitney might also be involved, based on her reactions. Much as I disliked her, I had a strong gut feeling she wasn’t a part of it.

  Courtney I couldn’t gauge. She looked intrigued by the conversation, but also amused.

  Suzanne, however, was another story. She was clearly growing uncomfortable with the tack our talk had taken. She was squirming in her seat, her hands wringing in her lap, her face drawn into a tight, angry frown.

  “You sound quite sure of yourself,” she said. “Such arrogance and conceit are rarely rewarded.”

  I was about to come back at her with another taunt, but her expression suddenly morphed into one of pleasure and delight. It almost made her pretty. Her gaze shifted, too, as she looked around the room with obvious distaste.

  “Have you had enough of this silliness, Tad, dear?” she said. “I think it’s time we left.” She rose from her seat and shot me a haughty look.

  “We can’t leave before midnight,” Tad said, and for a brief second there was a flint-hard glint in Suzanne’s eyes as she looked at him. But it was there and gone in a flash.

  “Let me give you the nickel tour,” Tad said. “You should see the Capone Club room. Mack has done a fabulous job with it. It’s quite cozy—with intimate seating, a lovely fireplace, and bookshelves filled with books about criminal science and mystery-solving techniques.”

  Suzanne was clearly not happy with this suggestion, and she opened her mouth, presumably to decline the offer. But before she got a word out, Tad added, “Come on, Suze. Give it a chance. You promised you would.” He sweetened this plea by walking over and draping an arm over her shoulders, and then giving her a kiss on her temple. This display of affection appeare
d to soften her some, though I could still sense the hardness in her just beneath the surface. She glanced at her watch, let out a disdainful sigh, and said, “If you insist.”

  With a contemptuous sneer of a smile at me, she snaked an arm around Tad’s waist and snuggled up against him. He steered the two of them away from the table and toward the newer section of the bar.

  Once they were out of earshot, Whitney gave me an intrigued, calculating look. “I do believe Suzanne is jealous of you, Mack,” she said, following the comment with a little sniff of derision. “Interesting.”

  Courtney, still silent, frowned.

  While I probably should have been put out by Whitney’s belittling behavior, I let it pass. I had bigger fish to fry. “Do you think so?” I said. “That surprises me. Why would a woman of Suzanne’s means be jealous of any other women?”

  “You’re suggesting that men, including Tad, can be bought,” Whitney said, a devilish gleam in her eye. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, plenty of them can be. Women too. But not all of them. And Tad . . .” She made an equivocal face and waggled her hands. “He’s one of those guys who falls somewhere on the fence. He likes Suzanne’s money well enough, no doubt about that. But he’s a smart guy who I think wants and needs something more, something that Suzanne can’t give him. And Suzanne Collier is known for being intolerant of things that don’t go her way.”

  Billy, who had sat through the entire conversation looking embarrassed, said, “Whitney, stop.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, anxious for her to go on. The more of her true nature Billy saw, the better.

  Whitney drew in her lower lip, as if she was trying to suck back the words she was about to say, but I could tell from her expression that she was dying to dish some dirt. She leaned in closer and dropped her voice down to a conspiratorial level. “There are rumors about Suzanne and her temper,” she said. “I’ve seen her go off on people before, and it’s a scary sight. Money does that to you, you know.”

  This struck me as a rare bit of insight for Whitney, and I started to think there might be hope for her, after all. But then she kept going.

  “Of course, only weak, stupid people with money have that problem,” she clarified in a haughty tone. “There are certain responsibilities and rights that come with that sort of wealth, and if you don’t handle it and the people around you with the proper level of discipline and direction, everything can backfire.”

  Billy suddenly shot his chair back and got up. “I need another drink,” he said, and then he hurried off toward the bar.

  Whitney watched him leave, sighing heavily. “I’ve been trying to teach this concept to Billy, to make him understand that wealth puts you on a different plane, but he insists on groveling with all manner of low people.” She paused and looked around the room. “I mean, come on, this job he has here. What is up with that? He doesn’t need to work here. And mingling with the sort of lowlifes who frequent a place like this will only cast him in an unfavorable light. He needs to start acting and behaving the way his station in life dictates.”

  I gaped at her, dumbstruck, trying to determine if she was truly so blinded by her classism that she couldn’t see how insulting and crass her comments were.

  “Billy loves what he does here,” I said. “And he’s very good at it.”

  Whitney had taken a sip of her drink, and with my last comment, she nearly spit it out. “Good at it?” she echoed with blatant skepticism. “Good at what? Good at passing out booze to people with no life? Good at chatting up loose women, and begging for tips, and doling out liquid to help people forget how miserable they are. Yeah, right.”

  “Billy doesn’t have to beg for tips,” I told her, feeling my ire rise. “In fact, he makes more in tips than any bartender who has ever worked here. His customers love him.” And then, after a split second of trying to convince myself not to go there, to stay on the high road, I went wading in the mucky end of the pool, simply because Whitney and her condescending, holier-than-you-and-everyone-else attitude had ticked me off.

  “The women customers in particular love him,” I went on, and I had the satisfaction of seeing Whitney’s patronizing, pompous smile fade a smidge. “They flirt with him unrelentingly, though Billy seems to enjoy it well enough, because he dishes it right back at them. The women just eat it up. Believe me when I tell you that Billy knows how to impress people. And while I’m sure he’ll likely make more money once he’s done with school and starts working as a lawyer, he does quite well with what he makes here. It’s helped to put him through law school.”

  Whitney looked exasperated, the face of someone who just can’t understand why no one gets it. “But he doesn’t have to do it that way,” she grumbled. “I’ve told him I can help, but he—”

  “He wants to do it on his own,” I said, cutting her off. “He’s a proud, independent man, Whitney, and you, of all people, should respect and value that in him. If you can’t see what a wonderful person he is just the way he is, then you shouldn’t be marrying him.”

  With that, I grabbed my crutches and got up from the table as fast as my casted leg would let me.

  Chapter 24

  As the final hour of the year wore down, the food and drink kept flowing. Clearly New Year’s Eve wasn’t about making friends. After ticking off Whitney and Suzanne, and having who knew what effect on Courtney, I moved on to some of the other guests, feeling as if I was poking sticks into the ground of a mine field. I hadn’t planned to do this until after midnight, but now that I’d started, I felt unable to stop. I made the rounds, settling in at tables and joining a few standing groups of folks, each time mentioning how we were closing in on the letter writer because some trace evidence had been found that would lead us to the culprit, and how I hoped to expose the suspect later on that evening.

  At the table where Sam, Carter, Holly, and Alicia were sitting, my pronouncement was met with badgering pleas to reveal what it was we had found. I told them I didn’t want to share the information yet, because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and risk a lawsuit.

  Carter gave up begging first, telling me that I had a knack for creating suspense and should consider trying my hand at writing a mystery novel. Alicia and Holly didn’t give in so easily, and they took turns making guesses while I sat there silently, giving them my best Mona Lisa smile.

  Sam was by far the most persistent of the group, claiming it was unfair to tease them like this. He even tried using some logical arguments with me about how they as a group might be able to strengthen the evidence by looking at it from their experienced, crime-solving perspective. When I finally got up from their table to move on to the next group, Holly, Carter, and Alicia looked amused and curious. Sam just looked frustrated, and even a little bit angry.

  My next quarry was going to be Nick, who was sitting at the bar chatting with Missy, whose face looked like that of a trapped animal. Missy isn’t a bright girl, but she’s got it all going for her in the looks department, and as such, she attracts a lot of men, most of whom get brushed off rather quickly. Judging from the pained expression on her face, her conversation with Nick wasn’t a run-of-the-mill flirtation or she would have dumped him and moved on already.

  I eased over in their direction. Nick had his back to me, so he didn’t see me coming, allowing me a chance to eavesdrop on their conversation. I heard Duncan’s name come up, and then mine.

  “He’s all wrong for her,” Nick was saying. “Mack needs someone who will take care of her, worship her, be there whenever she needs something. This craziness with this letter writer is a classic example. How can Duncan not be here all the time with that going on?”

  Nick didn’t know that Duncan had arranged for someone—albeit not himself—to be here as much as possible by setting up the situation with me and Mal.

  I cleared my throat as I closed in, and when Nick turned around and saw me, he blushed. I wondered if the color was because he was worried that I had overheard him, or simply because of my prese
nce. I leaned toward the former, only because I hadn’t seen Nick blush on other occasions when he was around me.

  “Missy,” I said, “I wonder if you could do me a favor? The ginger ale soda gun is spitting and needs a new canister hooked up. I’d do it myself, but negotiating those basement stairs is a bit tricky for me these days. Would you mind?”

  Missy looked like she not only wouldn’t mind, she’d be delighted to do anything I asked of her, as long as it allowed her to escape from Nick. “I’m on it,” she said, sliding off her stool. “Can I use your keys?”

  “It’s not locked. I sent Duncan down there earlier and never locked it back up again.”

  She nodded and hurried off, looking relieved. I made a mental note to remember that the dead ginger ale canister wasn’t really empty and could be hooked back up again later. Then I slid onto the stool Missy had vacated and smiled at Nick.

  “Are you having a good time?” I asked him.

  “Sure. It was really nice of you to do this, Mack.”

  “Well, I had an ulterior motive when I planned it.”

  “Really?” he said with a quizzical smile.

  I nodded. “I wanted to provide a safe place for everyone to gather tonight while that lunatic letter writer is still on the loose.”

  “Lunatic?” Nick echoed. “Do you think the person doing this is crazy?”

  “Crazy and careless,” I told him. He looked skeptical. “I mean, come on, you’d have to be crazy to kill people that way, and even though the person writing the letters and coming up with those clues thinks he’s being clever, he’s made some dumb, stupid mistakes. His days—perhaps his hours—are numbered. I intend to expose the person involved later tonight.” I used the male pronoun intentionally. If Nick was involved in the scheme, I wanted him to feel as if I was describing him personally.