by Anne Hagan
Her eyes rimmed with tears. “It was all so bad...such an incredible nightmare. I didn’t have her and, and...on top of that I had to sell everything we had to pay her medical bills and fight the hospital in court at the same time. It was devastating.”
I was in shock but I managed to squeak out a response, “Barb, I apologize.” I blew out a heavy breath. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Thank you. It means a lot.” She braced her hands on the edge of the desk and leaned forward again. “Look, Melissa, I know we didn’t end things...I didn’t end things with you well. It...it was actually...I was actually pretty horrible to you back then.”
“Water under the bridge.” I said it and I meant it.
She dabbed at her eyes. “Where was I?”
I didn’t even know how to respond to her but she picked back up on her own after a few beats of silence.
“Eventually, the hospital settled with me. Small consolation in the grand scheme of it all...” She sniffled but she drove on, “Lisa died in Colorado. I couldn’t stay there once it was all over. I packed up what little personal possessions I had left and came back here to be with my folks for a while, while I still have them, you know?”
I nodded and thought about my own obviously ailing father.
“I can’t just do nothing though and this,” she waved her hand in the air, “this is what I know. It’s what we’d done for nearly a decade. When the settlement money showed up, I took some of it and I bought this place when I heard it was available. Lord knows it needed my help...and...it helps me too...” She dabbed at her eyes again while I sat idly by feeling like a first class heel.
“Anyway, I’m sorry for acting like I did earlier. I was actually surprised to see you here. You caught me off guard and my defenses went up. I shouldn’t be that way. That’s not me Melissa; not anymore.” Her eyes bored into me, pleading.
My shock at her apology and her admissions to me must have been evident on my face. She shuddered and then laughed. “Come on. Come with me. Let me show you what I’m dealing with here.”
We left the office and went through the kitchen into the main bar.
I looked around. It was the run down old bar of my memories but something was different too. It was evident in the look and the smell of the place. There was no stale old beer scent, no marked up floor, no dust bunnies anywhere. “Someone’s been cleaning in here – regularly.”
“Yep. It’s amazing what a little time and some elbow grease will do.”
“Will you be redecorating?”
“Eventually. The first priorities are always to do an initial clean up and to get everything in line – books, costs, staff...everything. Once we’ve...I’ve rooted out all of the issues and all of the bad apples, the transformation phase begins. With this place, working alone, I’m a long way from phase two. I called for police support because of some of the dealings I’m seeing go on here.”
“Then why didn’t you...”
She interrupted me, “Apologize to your detective for me. I had every intention of laying a few things out for him when I made the initial call but...well...when he showed up, it wasn’t a good day. Everything that could have gone wrong did. It’s no excuse but it’s the truth.”
We took seats on a couple of bar stools. “So tell me then, what’s going on?” I took out my notepad and got ready to write.
“The first thing I look at in a place like this is the people that are running it, the employees. They set the tone for the type of clientele you’re going to get and how those people act when they’re here. This place has so much potential. It’s on a State Route that’s the main way people get to the state forest and all the camping and such in the area and there’s nothing else out here to serve them. It should be crawling with people looking to catch a bite to eat or raise a glass in the evening to a good band...”
I grinned. “This place?”
“I know what you’re thinking but you’re looking at it as what it is and not what it could be. It’s the people that have been running the place that have kept it what it is.” The first thing I did after observing for a couple of weeks was fire the weekend bartender and then I brought in a couple of younger folks right out of training. I was pretty sure that guy was skimming and I think he may have been dealing too. My weekend ‘outlaw biker’ traffic dropped to nothing when I let him go and I say good riddance.”
I nodded. “What’s his name? Do you want me to check him out?”
“He hasn’t been back and I haven’t had any trouble. Let’s wait on that one, okay?”
I nodded again. “Go on.”
“When we would first acquire a place, we’d spend a lot of evenings in it, especially Thursday through Saturday nights. Those are the busy times if a bar does any trade at all and that’s when you get the best feel for what’s really going on. I picked up right away that there were issues with the one bartender. It took another weekend but I started to pick up issues with the bouncer too.”
“There’s a bouncer?”
Barb grinned. “You sound surprised but, yes, on weekends. He wasn’t checking ID’s though; at first, he seemed to be just a presence. A young lady walked right by him one Friday night that didn’t look a day over 17 and he didn’t bat an eye. She went right up to the bar and nodded at the bartender and he made her a drink. She was obviously a regular.”
“I confronted the bartender and asked why he hadn’t checked her ID. He shrugged; said he knew her and she was cool. I’m not going for cool here Melissa, I’m going for legal.”
“Mel, please. Call me Mel.”
Barb half smiled at me. “Mel it is. Anyway, it’s my liquor license that’s on the line with the state and, frankly, with the present clientele, this is no place for a teenage girl.”
“What did you do about the girl?”
“That’s just it; I started to approach her when a guy sat down at the table she was at. I stopped and watched. He said something to her that I couldn’t hear then he took something out of his pocket and passed it to her. I was thinking I was watching a drug deal go down but he kept talking to her while she wrote something in a little notebook and then put it back in her little vest pocket.”
“After that, I kept an eye on her for the next 40 minutes or so. Four more people approached her, all men. Two gave her money and she wrote in the book. One she gave an envelope to and she wrote in the book. One just talked to her for maybe a minute and another she tried to give envelope to but, after a brief conversation, she put it back in her pocket and made a note in her book. I knew then that she was a bookie and she was taking and paying on bets. I didn’t have to hear the conversation.”
Not a bookie per se, but a collector or a runner, possibly; the same runner I just spent an hour looking for. What the hell was she doing out here? “What did you do?”
“Nothing that night but she came back again Saturday. It was a nice night. The bikers were out in full force. I already had my hands full with a bartender who was obviously in cahoots with several of them when she walked in. When she walked right by the bouncer again, I said to myself again, ‘This is no place for a teenager, bookie or not.’ I went over to the bar where she was waiting for a drink, introduced myself as the owner and asked to see ID. She hemmed and hawed and said she left it in the car. I told her to go and get it, that I’d wait.”
“Let me guess, she didn’t come back?”
Barb shook her head no. “I thought that was the end of it but soon guys started going outside – out the front and then coming back a minute or two later. The smoking area is out the back.”
“She was out there collecting on their bets?”
“That’s what I figured. The front door was like a revolving damn door. I started think that sending her out there in the dark – it was after 10:00 – wasn’t such a good idea but my bouncer kept stepping outside. He was watching out for her.”
I nodded, “Could be.”
“Oh, I�
��m pretty sure of it. Occasionally he would stop a guy from going out and chat him up then, when someone came in that had left previously, he’d let him go out. Word must have spread like wildfire through the place that she was outside.”
“Do you think he works with her?”
“That, I don’t know but I’d put money on it; no pun intended.” She grinned ruefully.
“Has she been back since?”
“No.”
“Did you get any sort of a name?”
“The former bartender called her ‘Angel’ but I don’t know if that’s her name or a nickname.” I raised my own eyebrows.
“Can you give me a description?”
“Short, maybe 5’3” or 4”, thin but not painfully so, long dark hair and the most amazing blue eyes I think I’ve ever seen.”
I nodded. That’s Angie. Barb must have heard wrong.
Chapter 9 – Show Time
3:30 Tuesday Afternoon, August 12th, 2014
“Aunt Dana, could you go tell my mom it’s our turn?”
“Sure Beth.” Dana smiled to herself whenever either of the kids addressed her as ‘Aunt Dana’. To be respectful, they’d been doing it since she moved in with Mel and Kris but it made her feel like she was already a part of the family.
Dana hobbled to the other end of the steer barn where Kris was conferring with the kids 4H advisor. “I’m sorry to interrupt you two but Beth wanted you to know that it’s their turn in the wash basin.”
“Oops, gotta run Gene! We have to get those boys looking pretty for show.” Kris scurried away to help her kids.
Dana smiled at the advisor, half shrugged then turned and headed back the same way Kris had just gone. She marveled at the chaos of the barn as kids, parents and advisors prepared show animals in a mass frenzy of washing and trimming and brushing.
As she carefully picked her way down the aisle, she came to the area assigned to the Harpers and noticed the hasp for the lock they usually kept on the refrigerator was undone and the padlock was sitting on top of it. None of the Harpers were milling about and their steer stalls were all empty. She peered through the growing milieu in the aisle way but she didn’t see anyone from the family.
She glanced back over her shoulder to see if any of them were behind her. None were and, intent on their last minute show preparations, no one else in the barn was paying her any mind at all.
Dana sidestepped a couple of feet into the stall area while pulling her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. She flicked the camera on and, after peering around the area again to ensure no one was watching, she pulled the fridge door open and took a couple of quick pictures of the contents.
Closing the door seconds later, she stepped back into the aisle and was several steps away from the scene of her surreptitious photo taking when Mama Harper came barreling toward her. Dana sucked in a breath but the older women passed right by as though she didn’t even see her.
Not realizing she’d been holding her breath, Dana let it out in a burst and then continued on out of the barn and past the wash basin. The fairgrounds were teeming with people but she found a quiet spot behind a vendor’s tent to take a closer look at the photos she’d snapped.
The first photo, taken very hastily, wasn’t very clear. It showed a couple of bottles and a box but she couldn’t make out the writing. Her hand had been a little steadier for the second photo. She could clearly make out the word ‘Clenbuterol’ on the box. The two bottles were turned mostly backward so she couldn’t make out much writing on them.
Dana flipped to her web-browser and looked up Clenbuterol. She ran a hand through her hair slowly as she read about the drug. She tilted her head thoughtfully and stood silently for a moment while she thought but then she abruptly shut her browser down and returned to the barn.
###
Mel
One Hour to Show Time
I got over to the steer barn as fast as my legs would carry me. I knew the kids would be getting antsy because it was after 4:00 and I still wasn’t there but it couldn’t be helped.
After talking to Barb, I spent a couple of hours searching for Angie. I know that isn’t her real name; it’s Priscilla Chappell. She uses Angie as her informant name for me and it’s just between me and her. I didn’t even bother to let Holly in on that little piece of information.
Though it appeared occupied, Angie wasn’t at her last known address and she wasn’t at any of the places I’d ever found her before. I’d struck out all over town. The only hope I had was for her to show up at The Boar’s Head again soon. Barb said she’d call me if she did.
I did Barb the small favor of letting her know that her liquor license, at least, was safe with Angie. She might look young but I let her know that if she was who I thought she might be, then I knew that she’s at least 22. That seemed to make Barb feel just a tiny bit better but she still didn’t want a bookie or a bookie’s runner operating on site and I didn’t blame her.
Kris and mom were pinning show numbers on the kids when I walked up. Dad was standing by looking even more nervous than I knew Beth and Cole felt. He took personal pride in every animal the kids raised.
“How’s everybody?” Several sets of eyes turned to me.
“Aunt Mel,” Beth all but shouted, “I’m so glad you’re here! We can’t do this without you.”
Dad rolled his eyes while mom swatted a light backhand in Beth’s direction.
Kris’s eyes bored into her daughters’, “So what am I, chopped liver?” Before Beth could respond, Kris turned her back around by the shoulders so she could affix the other side of her competitor number.
I gave Dana the once over. She looked so cute in her tight Levis with a plaid western style blouse. “All dressed up for show I see. Are those cowboy boots on your feet?”
Her eyes flickered downward and then back to me. “Why yes, they are. Your sister and your niece talked me into them at a vendor tent this morning and, I have to say, they’re quite comfortable. Who knew?”
“We all did,” Cole responded as he tried to squirm away from his grandmother who was now focused on some strands of wayward hair on his head.
Dana waived her hand at him dismissively and grinned at me. “I see you’re still in uniform; rough day?”
“Just a long one; we can talk later. I’ve got to get these kids to toe the line for the next few hours.”
“Good luck with that,” she smirked back at me.
I stood just outside the coliseum with Kris, Dana, Beth and Beth’s steer Hunter. The weight class before Hunter’s was in the show arena inside. Beth was a bundle of nervous energy but Hunter was a study in calm. He’d been in the ring as a 6 month old calf the year before. He knew the drill.
Dana questioned Beth, “I can understand Cole naming his steer Big Boy but why did you name yours Hunter?”
“Really?” Beth rolled her eyes.
“Beth! Be nice!” Kris and I both cautioned her in unison.
My niece sighed. “He’s named after Hunter Hayes.” At Dana’s blank look she just shook her head.”
Dana turned to me, “I guess I should know who that is?”
“He’s a very popular, very young, country music singer.”
“Ah. I get it.”
Beth’s class was called and she and Hunter entered the show arena along with 6 other competitors and their bovine charges. Kris moved toward the rings exit gate. She would help hustle Hunter back to the barn to switch the only show halter we seemed to have from him to Big Boy.
Dana and I went to stand by Dad who’d taken up a spot along the tubular metal fencing that was what the fair board placed to make up the small show arena in the middle of the Coliseum floor. I watched as he spat tobacco juice into a cup. There was no smoking on the fairgrounds. He could normally go for hours without a cigarette. If he was chewing, it was because he was nervous for the kids.
Beth put Hunter through the limited paces a large steer will actually deign to do. She was luckier than a couple of the othe
r kids showing in her class whose steers fought against being paraded in a circle so a judge could get a good look at them.
Dana addressed both me and dad, “He looks good, doesn’t he?”
Dad spat into the cup again. “He’ll be lucky to be top two in this group.”
“Why top two?”
I told her, “The top two in each weight class automatically get called back after all the classes are judged. They have a shot at getting into the ring for Grand and Reserve Grand Champion.”
Dana’s brows knitted. I patted her shoulder, “You’ll see. From what I’ve seen in the barns, Big Boy is actually the one that has a real good shot at taking it all but then, it’s all up to the judge and what he likes.”
As we watched, the judge stepped among the competitors and asked them questions while taking a closer look at each of their steers. Finally, he called out one steer to the center of the ring and named it the overall winner of the class. He then singled out Beth and another competitor to bring their steers forward. Dad started chawing hard on the inside of his lip, his dip and the spit cup forgotten.
After circling the two additional steers and taking a long pause, hand holding his chin, the meat judge ranked Beth’s steer second and the other third as the crowd applauded and Kris let out a whoop for her daughter from further down the fence by the gate. From somewhere in the stands, mom’s voice rang out, “Atta girl Beth!”
I was drawing too much attention in my uniform to be able to relax and just watch the kids show. In between classes, I rushed over to the camper to change. Dana followed Kris and Beth back to the barn.
When I got there the leather show halter had been switched between the two steers and Cole was already set to go and lineup but they hadn’t called his class yet. He was pacing around, chomping at the proverbial bit while Big Boy strained at his real one. Dana and Kris were sitting in bag chairs trying to catch a breather.
The PA system buzzed to life and Big Boy’s class was called. That meant the weight class before him was entering the show arena. Cole and Big Boy would be next. He tugged Big Boy into the aisle as Kris reluctantly levered herself out of her seat.
