Clawed: A Gin & Tonic Mystery

by L. A. Kornetsky

  “Mmmmmhmmmmm.”

  He gave up, sitting on the edge of the bed while Georgie sniffed her owner’s leg and then went to the corner and curled up on her blanket, turning her muzzle under her paws. He was so used to seeing Penny curled between those paws, it gave him an odd twinge that the cat wasn’t there. He shook his head, refusing to admit that he might be missing the tabby’s company, and lay back on the bed, arms crossed behind his head, waiting patiently for Ginny to resurface.

  “I managed to track down nine of the eleven names,” she said, about ten minutes later. Teddy had almost managed to zonk himself into a meditative state—or maybe it was closer to a catnap—and so her words didn’t register at first.

  “Only nine?”

  “Only? Excuse me?” She turned in the chair, giving him a Look from under arched blond eyebrows. “That’s damn good work, than you very much. What do you have?”

  “Not a thing,” he admitted, sitting up. “Now that you’re herding the information superhighway, I’m just here for charm and intimidation factors. But I can tell you that our boy isn’t on any of the sexual predator lists, nor is he pending or under investigation for anything of the sort.”

  She raised her eyebrows even higher, and he held up his cell phone. “You’re not the only one who can make a few phone calls, even if I can’t make the Internet sit up and beg. Friend of a friend has access to the stuff the general public, even ones as talented as yourself, can’t get into. Called him while I was walking your dog.” He owed Corky for that—the other man had emailed him the contact info. The conversation had taken ten minutes, and while he couldn’t say if Penalta had been under investigation for anything, he could say what the guy hadn’t been. And sexual deviancy of any sort was on that list.

  “Yeah, the neighbor said the same thing. That he didn’t have a record, anyway. Doesn’t mean he’s not, just that he hasn’t been caught.”

  “Yeah well, I’d say someone caught him doing something.” Innocent people get killed every day, but getting beaten to death when you’re already involved in something illegal, and the feds are sniffing at your tail, upped the odds of not-a-sad-coincidence significantly. And Teddy might never have met the guy but he knew he didn’t like the company he kept.

  She nodded. Her shoulders were tight, and her fingers were still on the desk, not drumming the way they usually did when she was brain-deep in figuring something out. Everything about her screamed stress, and he could feel his own body reacting to it.

  “Mallard.” He said it softly, but it got her attention; she looked up at him. “You know, we don’t have to keep digging. We’ve got a reasonable guess why you were called in, even if not who, and if we’re not actually investigating his murder because the cops seem to actually be on that . . .”

  “We could just close up shop and go home? Forget about reaching Kim, getting her to talk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the girls on that list? Seven of the nine are seniors this year; the other two graduated last year. They don’t deserve to have their attacker exposed for the sleaze he was?”

  “He might not have . . . We don’t know for certain. It might have been a client list, maybe he was running a side deal, not cutting his partners in? That’s a real good way to get your neck broken and your face punched in, and Collins looked strong enough to do it.”

  “Maybe. But Collins . . . He’s a jerk but he didn’t seem like the brutal killer type.”

  “From what I’ve read, you don’t know who’s the type or not until they’re beating your head in. Sorry,” he added when she winced. “But all we know so far is that his neighbors called him a nice guy—and that’s always a warning sign—and his erstwhile business partner didn’t seem all that broken up that he’s dead. Maybe something else went wrong—he might just have been a small cog in a larger disaster, and Asuri was doing us a solid, warning us away from it.”

  “But she didn’t, did she? Not really. You’re the one who pointed it out, that she said just enough to make me jump for it.”

  He exhaled, unable to argue with that, since yeah, he had been the one to say it first.

  He realized that he’d clenched his hands and forced them to relax. Ginny angry was terrifying but exhilarating. Seeing her furious with guilt—he could have lived his entire life without that. But going into overprotective mode in response wasn’t going to help.

  “This entire shitstorm, it’s been me being manipulated. Someone wanted me down here, and Asuri took advantage of that, played me, and I dragged Ron into it, dragged you down, too, and . . .”

  “I dragged my own self down here,” he said sharply.

  “Okay, yeah.” She wasn’t so guilty that suddenly the entire world was her fault, and he was thankful for that, at least. “But you wouldn’t have if I hadn’t gotten so tangled up in this, like Penny when she can’t get her claws out of something and ends up doing a faceplant.”

  “Gin, stop it. If we’re right, this guy was at the very least a sexual user, and nobody knew about it, because nobody was talking. Whatever Asuri’s using us for, whatever game she’s playing with her own case, none of that matters. You said the girls were scared, but not unhappy that he was dead, right? If we’re right, we’ve got the chance to expose him for being a sleaze.”

  Because if the feds were looking at him for identity theft and crap like that, they weren’t going to care about what he did on the side. Not enough to dig into it. Not if none of his victims could make a difference in their case. And they sure as hell wouldn’t be able to get the girls to talk.

  He didn’t say any of that to Ginny. He didn’t have to: she was smarter than he was, she already knew it.

  “All right.” Her body untensed, just enough. “All right. So you don’t think I was supposed to find the body?” He could see her turning that idea around in his head, reslotting the puzzle pieces until the picture made sense again.

  “Maybe not. Maybe that was just the worst possible timing in the history of bad luck? Maybe you were supposed to arrive when he was harassing Kim?” The timing was too uncertain, the case too flimsy, but for once in all this mess, it felt right.

  “Maybe it was one of the girls on this list,” she said, finally. “Or a friend of theirs, or a parent who didn’t want their daughter to have to step forward, not if they could protect her. That makes sense. All right.”

  “You good?”

  “No,” she said. “But it’s going to have to do. Poking further is liable to run us into the murder investigation, and I’m not going to count on Asuri bailing me out again, no matter what game she’s playing. And I don’t feel like doing the feds’ dirty work, not without a please and thank-you and maybe a tax break out of it.

  “I’m tired of being someone else’s puppet, Teddy. If Kim doesn’t get in touch with me . . . it’s time to go home.”

  He must have betrayed his surprise, because she smiled at him, a wry curl of her lip. “Ron texted me while you were out. Either he got in trouble or he got assigned something else big, because we’re on our own. So that door’s shut and . . . short of going to Asuri, I don’t know what else to do. This isn’t a matter of public records I can search out, or witnesses you can schmooze, not if Kim won’t talk to us.” She frowned. “And the younger girl, Sally, I think her name was. I should have pushed more to see what she remembered, but I didn’t want to challenge Asuri without knowing what she was up to, and now . . . if Sally’s folks are smart, and I’m betting they are, they won’t let me talk to her without some kind of official notice and identification.”

  “Her memory’s not worth it now, anyway,” Teddy said. “Even trained witnesses have memory degradation after a few days. A kid? Between what she actually saw and what she’s heard since then, there’s gonna be a lot of gray.”

  “Like I said, there’s not much more we can do. And it’s not like we have a case, or a client, anyway. I
just wish I’d—” A sound came from her phone, and they both jumped. Georgie, reacting more to the movement than the sound, opened one eye, then, seeing there was nothing going on, went back to sleep. “It’s Kim.”

  * * *

  “Damn it, cat, what is with you? You feel the need to make my life more difficult?”

  The tabby stared at her, those unblinking eyes still unnerving, and flicked her tail once as though to say “you idiot human, I’m trying to tell you something.”

  “Yeah well, I’m not the boss, Mistress Penny. I don’t speak cat, fluent or otherwise. So please leave the damn tip jar—and my arms—alone, okay?”

  She righted the jar for the third time and glared back at the cat, daring her to tip it over again.

  “Seriously. What’s with you?”

  The bar phone, an old-fashioned landline, rang just then, interrupting their staring match.

  “Mary’s Place, how can we—hey, boss. No, everything’s fine, you were right, I humbly apologize for even doubting you an instant, all right?” Stacy rolled her eyes, although there was nobody at the bar just then to see it. They’d opened late, her morning gig running overtime, but there was no need to tell Teddy that, not if nobody was around to hear it. Fridays started slow—Thursday nights were busy but the afternoon after was the calm before the storm. “Yeah, no, no, I—”

  There was an ungodly noise, like a car engine stalling, and Stacy looked up to see Penny stalking toward her, tail erect and whiskers quivering, demanding—and there was no other way to describe it—to be heard.

  “That? Is your cat, boss. I think she’s pissed at you.”

  She laughed at his response. “Nuh-uh. Let me put you on speakerphone.”

  “Hey, Penny,” Tonica’s voice came through. “You keeping everyone in line up there?”

  Stacy was pretty sure Penny said something rude in reply, and a deep woof came from the background on the other end of the line.

  “I’m sorry, did you want to say something?” she heard Teddy say, muffled enough to be turning away from the phone, and she could imagine Georgie looking up at the boss, asking where Penny was, why she could hear her but not see her.

  Penny let out another meow, this one less insistent if still as loud, then came up to the phone and butted her head against Stacy’s hand, a rare signal of affection. Or, possibly, asking for control of the phone held in that hand.

  “No,” she told the cat. “Not until you grow opposable thumbs. And start paying for your share of the phone bill.”

  Teddy came back on the line. “All right, I accept that the place hasn’t burned down in my absence. And Seth hasn’t given you any backtalk?”

  “I think he’s actually better behaved than when you’re here, honestly,” she said. “He likes being the sole rooster.”

  That got her a snort, and she heard Ginny saying something in the background.

  “Well, he’s got the chicken legs for it,” Teddy said, and he had to speak loudly to be heard over Georgie’s woofs, and that was odd, because Georgie was usually quiet, not like Parsifal, who still yipped like a crazy thing every time he saw her. “Damn it, dog, hush.”

  Penny was sitting on the bar in front of her, ears pricked up, eyes wide and staring at the phone like she expected it to turn into a mouse at any moment.

  “We’re going to be here another day, looks like,” Teddy said, “but I’ll be back in time for tomorrow night, promise.”

  “You’d better,” she said. Friday nights were bad, but Saturdays were when things could get iffy, if they picked up overflow from other bars, and she was already going to be exhausted working double shifts today. “I’m going to make Seth bus tables tonight, because there’s no way we can keep up.” They’d managed last night, but only because their regulars weren’t drunk assholes, and started clearing up after themselves. She couldn’t count on that over the weekend.

  “Call in Allison to work the floor,” he said. “Off the books.”

  That would help. Allison was a retired career waitress who could still handle the average drunk with a quip and a touch on the shoulder, and she never minded picking up an under-the-table shift over the weekend, to help pay off her tab.

  “Seriously, kid, how’s it going? You going to be okay working double shifts today?”

  She wasn’t, really, but he’d never asked her to do this before and she knew it was because Ginny needed help, so she’d suck it up and hold it over him later. And like Allison, she wasn’t going to turn down the extra paycheck. Being an artists’ model—her other job—meant less time on her feet, but the tips were for crap and there was only so much posing she could stand before the need to talk to someone got overwhelming.

  “You guys just finish up whatever you’re doing and come home safe,” she said. “If you leave me here alone much longer, though, I’m gonna redecorate. I think a nice retro eighties look would really bring in the crowds, don’t you?”

  She hung up before he could reply, and grinned triumphantly at the cat. “That’ll get him back here, don’t worry.”

  * * *

  Penny could feel her tail lashing back and forth, and she stalked the length of the bar, aware that one careless flick could send something breakable to the floor but not caring a bit. Just then, if there had been something she knew Theodore cared about, she would have happily pushed it to the floor while he watched, just to say “so there.”

  But he wasn’t there. He was Elsewhere, and Georgie needed her help, they all needed her help, and she was stuck here. They were sniffing out something, and she wasn’t part of it, and meanwhile there was a threat here, and while Stacy was kind, and good-tempered, she wasn’t up to Theodore’s or even Ginny’s level. Yet. There might be hope for her, but Penny couldn’t wait for that to happen now.

  Penny swatted at the girl’s paw in annoyance, careful to keep her nails sheathed, but the girl tried to scoop her off the bar anyway. She hissed, ears back and tail flat.

  “Hey!” The girl sounded outraged and hurt and Penny felt a little bad but not enough to apologize. Some moods, humans should just know to keep their hands to themselves. If she wanted Penny to get down—

  “Penny, off the bar.”

  She waited a minute just to show that it was her idea, not just following orders, then leapt down to the floor, her tail a warning to anyone else that she was not in the mood to be admired today.

  There was a ledge at the back wall, high enough above that nobody could reach her, and most people never looked up to even see her. Only Theo, and Theo wasn’t here today.

  Three leaps and she was invisible, blending into the shadows near the ceiling. It was quiet, the girl moving behind the bar, the old man in the back, his muttering a soothing, familiar sound, and no other humans had come into her domain yet. She curled her tail around her flanks, unable to keep the tip from twitching irritably, even here.

  The new girl had upset the proper order of things, with her taking of things out of the jar. That had to be dealt with first. Once she had made sure the Noisy Place was running smoothly, she’d get back to solving Theodore’s other problem, now that Georgie had—finally—checked in.

  A rumble of irritation rattled in her throat. Georgie said that they were about to go meet with someone, the girl they’d talked to before, because the girl might be in trouble, but that was all the dog knew. Georgie had been stressed, unhappy. Georgie wasn’t good going into situations she didn’t know; she needed Penny to explain things. And she. Wasn’t. There.

  Penny intensely disliked not being in the middle of things. Georgie and the humans were good, but they weren’t good enough. Not without her.

  14

  It had been an awkward-as-hell conversation, but Kim had agreed, very reluctantly, to meet with them after school, in the gym. Ginny figured that meeting on school grounds—Kim’s turf, as it were—might make the girl feel more in
control of the situation. The point here was to get information from the girl, not scare her. If they were right, she’d had enough of that already. God, if she could just lay hands on that bastard, and he wasn’t dead already . . .

  “Ease up, Mallard.”

  “What?”

  “You look like you’re about to go in like an avenging angel. Ease up. So maybe the guy traded sexual favors for fake IDs. Maybe. Your yelling at her isn’t going to—”

  “Is that what you think?” She turned to face him, her eyes wide with a mix of shock and irritation. “Is that what you think I’m . . . You think that’s what happened?”

  “You can’t assume worst-case scenario off the bat, Mallard.”

  She made a sound of disgust. “Only a male would say that. Didn’t any one of your sisters ever explain the facts of life to you, Tonica? Always assume the worst-case scenario is going to happen. Because you’re right more often than not, and that assumption’s what might keep you safe. So, no, I’m not going to assume it was consensual until she says so.” And maybe not even then. Seventeen was about as dumb as you got, from her memory.

  “Shit.”

  “You really didn’t—” She stopped herself from saying it. He was a guy, however good a guy he was, however well his sisters might have taught him not to be a jerk. His brain wouldn’t automatically go to the same place hers did.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said, instead. That would be bad enough, but not as bad as it might be.

  Bu somehow, Ginny didn’t think it was going to be only bad. Only bad didn’t end up on a hidden list of underage girls, or have someone hiring a PI to poke around, without telling them why or what they should be looking for.

  “This might all still just be tied into the identity theft stuff,” he said. “Maybe one of his partners . . .”

  “When was the last time someone got beaten to death for identity theft, Tonica? Collins is a sleaze, but can you see him actually taking a tire iron to someone else’s face? Or spending money hiring someone to do it?”