Deadly Dirty Martinis

by Nicole Leiren

"I promised Julie I'd take her to the movies this evening, so I'll have to skip poker night."

  Poker night? Abe? The same man who proclaimed to want to leave his gambling troubles in the past, Abe? "Sure, I can let him know. Not a problem."

  Charlie nodded and smiled. "Thanks. Well, I guess we better get going. Restaurant opens soon." He laughed. "We're always busiest on Monday since Smugglers' Tavern is closed."

  "Gotta love when the competition takes a day off, right?"

  They headed toward Charlie's restaurant while I retraced my steps, much slower this time, until I arrived at the park. The allure of the swings no longer called out to me. Too much to do. Before I could text Abe, my phone rang. Hitting the green button on the screen, I answered. "Hi, Hope! Are you enjoying your vacation with Harvey?"

  Hope laughed. "Over here it's called a holiday. And yes, I'm enjoying myself very much. This is the first time in years I've been out of the country. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is over here."

  Hope and Harvey met prior to my arriving in Danger Cove, but from what I'd seen, they were head over heels in love with each other. "I'm glad you had a chance to get away and that you're having a good time." Now that the pleasantries were over, I waited for the real reason for her call.

  "Ruby mentioned the last time I talked to her some trouble had found us at the tavern. You doing okay?"

  The call I'd been dreading. I didn't even blame Ruby. She was loyal to a fault, and Hope was one of her best friends. "I'm sorry. I understand if you want to demote or—" I swallowed hard "—fire me."

  Hope's chuckle traversed the ocean through the airwaves and rang in my ear. "I'm not sure why you always think I'm going to fire you. For the record, I've never fired anyone. Unless you were the one who killed Donny Z, I'm certain you aren't to blame. Ruby said you handled everything like a champ. Even when your favorite, Detective…what is it you call him?"

  "Pizza Guy," I admitted as a blush she couldn't see heated my face.

  "Right, Detective Pizza Guy showed up. You held it together, handled Freddie, and were still ready to open as soon as the police gave the go-ahead."

  She was right. I did. "I had a lot of help. We have a great team." Notice how I threw that we in there for good measure?

  "The best team. Have there been any developments in the murder investigation?"

  My bottom lip was called into service again to serve as my reluctant chew toy. It was a bad habit, but not the worst one I had, so for now it comforted me. "They are holding Harmony for questioning."

  There was a long pause before she clarified. "Harmony, as in Harmony Waters, your mother?"

  I couldn't remember if I'd confided in Hope some in the past about my mother or if she remembered the personal information from my employment application. Maybe Ruby told her. "The very one. We'd just had a great conversation on Sunday night, really made some progress, you know. I thought…" The sentence was too hard to finish. Maybe the universe didn't want Harmony and me to be close for some reason.

  "I understand. I'm sorry."

  "Don't worry. I'm confident Danger Cove's finest will get to the bottom of this, and she'll be released in no time." Not a chance, but no need to be a Debbie Downer. Hope was on holiday, after all.

  "Be careful as you're nosing around. You may not get as lucky as you did last time." Hope's warning waxed more like a veiled approval to put the investigative skills I'd honed earlier in the year to good use.

  My bottom lip was freed as I smiled into the phone. "I'll be careful, promise."

  "Great. Now can you do me a favor?"

  "Anything, Boss Lady." She really was one of my favorite people. I missed her being around but appreciated the trust she'd put in me.

  "Still not used to being called that. If you see Abe, can you ask him to call or text me with an update on the shed and the hothouse for the herbs?"

  Now I had two reasons to find Abe. "Sure, no problem. I'll even remind him there's an eight-hour time difference so he doesn't reach out to you in the middle of the night."

  "That would be great. Thank you. Enjoy your day off, Lilly."

  "Thanks, Hope. Tell Harvey we all said hello. You both enjoy the rest of your holiday."

  I disconnected from Hope and dialed Abe. Got his voice mail. I texted him: Have message from Hope. We need to talk.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  At noon, Abe and I met behind the tavern. He handed me a sandwich and a bottle of water. He sat on the bench and reached into the cooler to retrieve the same for himself. "Some lunch for us. Though not one of those wonderful BLTs Clara and Tara whip up, it's deli sliced turkey, swiss, alfalfa sprouts, and just a touch of tarragon mayo."

  "Thank you." I took a bite of the sandwich. The mayo sealed the deal on this one. "Mmm. Clara better watch her back, or you'll be whipping up new recipes in the kitchen."

  He waved off my compliment. "She has nothing to fear from me. Just wanted to try some of the herbs from my window garden at home. I'm looking forward to finishing the full-size hothouse, which will allow Clara and Tara to use the freshest of herbs with their far-superior skills."

  Once the bite in my mouth was gone, I started with the first, and most pleasant, of my reasons I'd asked Abe to meet me. "Before I get too distracted with this great lunch you made, Hope called me today. She asked that you reach out to her with an update on that and the painting of the shed."

  Abe nodded. "I'll do that this evening."

  I shook my head. "Not this evening. She's eight hours ahead of us. Depending on what time you called her, it might be the middle of the night there."

  He smiled, the blue of his eyes twinkling. "Thanks for the reminder. I'll do it when you and I are finished with our lunch or first thing tomorrow morning."

  "Speaking of the shed…when do you think it will be finished?"

  Using the rag always looped through his belt, he wiped his face and sighed. "I'd hoped it would be done by now. We lost time with the…"

  "Incident?" I supplied.

  Abe's lips formed a thin smile. "Yes, incident. And earlier today when I was assessing where to start tomorrow, providing the weather holds out, I found where the paint has been smudged. Now I'll have to sand that down and repaint it before moving forward."

  Maybe if I trusted Abe with a confidence I was keeping, he'd do the same for me. It was worth a shot. Figured it best to try that before lecturing him about poker night. "I noticed those impressions the day after Donny was killed. I think it's possible they were created during the struggle." To prove I was telling the truth, I pulled out my phone and found the picture. Using my thumb and forefinger, I enlarged the picture to make the outline of the impression easier to see.

  "What an odd shape," Abe commented before taking a sip of his water.

  "I know, right? Tan and I haven't been able to come up with anything yet that could've caused the shape."

  He grinned. "Another puzzle for you to solve. Have you asked Mandi for help? She's very good at problem solving."

  "I asked for her help with the puzzle I showed you earlier. You remember the one you said looked like your Illinois driver's license number? I'm researching if the note was written with the same code, Soundex. Mandi wants to help, but with Freddie being out and everything going on, we haven't had a lot of time to dedicate to it. It's on the top of my to-do list today."

  "Have you seen Freddie?"

  "Not since he stormed out of the tavern Sunday." Remembering that Michael Mahoney was Freddie's father and Abe freaked out when he heard Michael's name made me worry again about the connection Abe might have with the Giovanni family. Which brought me to the next item on the agenda. "Before I forget, I ran into Charlie earlier today." No need to mention I really did run into him. "He asked me to let you know he wouldn't be able to be at the poker game tonight."

  Abe's coughing fit made me feel a little better. At least he felt a little guilty about his secret sin-city-esque nights. Okay, maybe that wasn't a thing, but I wasn't letting Neon Nemesis go. Once
he'd composed himself, he turned to look at me. "Let me explain."

  Oh, now he wanted to explain. "I'm listening."

  He delayed by finishing off his bottle of water. "I've mentioned to you about my challenges with gambling in the past."

  I nodded and refrained from pointing out that those problems appeared to be in the present as well.

  "It will be hard for you to understand, since you're not a gambler, but it wasn't really about the money for me. It was more about the thrill of taking a chance—on betting whether I was right. I loved being able to study my opponent for their tells and use that to strategize against them and win. The art of a calculated risk and, of course, the payout for my ego when I was right."

  "Or the payout for your wallet." My smile hopefully softened my statement. "You're right. I can't relate on that level, but I understand what you're saying." Maybe sticking my nose into police business equaled my willingness to take a calculated risk to help those I cared about?

  He laughed. "Yes, the payout for my wallet was always a plus."

  "There were lots of negatives, though, right? I can calculate that without you even telling me all the details."

  Abe pulled a stocking hat from his jacket pocket and pulled it onto his bald head. "More negatives than you can imagine."

  I wasn't sure about that. Because he'd been so vague about what happened in his past, I'd spent a great deal of time in a fictional world inside my head trying to figure it out. "So why start up again?"

  From my view of his profile, I could see the corner of his mouth lifting in a small grin. "Charlie, some other guys in town, and I get together once a month to play poker." He turned to face me, the smile expanding. "We bet with matchsticks or candy pieces—whatever we have available. Personally, I like the candy because then I can eat my winnings."

  His admission made me laugh. "So not a serious game?"

  "Oh, it's serious, but the stakes aren't. I've had enough high-stakes games to last a lifetime. Those are the kind I've vowed to stay away from."

  "The kind like the Giovanni family offers to people like you—or like you were?" I know. I had a serious problem. Not knowing had to be worse than all the things I'd imagined since Abe first confided the detail about his past to me.

  Instead of getting angry, as he usually did when I brought up this subject, he reached over and took my hand. His blue gaze penetrated straight to the center of my heart. "Lilly, I know you want answers. I'd love to give them to you. For reasons that can't be explained, you must trust me when I tell you that it's for your own good I keep these secrets. Can you do that for me?"

  I wanted to say yes, but the nosey kitty that lived inside of me was a beast to be reckoned with. Squeezing his hand, I offered the best I could. "I don't want to lie to you, so I promise I'll try. That's the best I can do."

  He returned the squeeze of my hand. "Then that will have to do."

  We finished our sandwiches in silence. I wiped the crumbs from my mouth. It was time for me to get about the items on my list. "Thanks for lunch and for the honest talk. I need to get going."

  Abe nodded. "Be careful, Lilly. I know how you get when you're trying to prove someone is innocent. The fact that this someone is your mother could make you take unnecessary risks. The Giovanni family and their attorney are not people to be taken lightly. Calculate your risks carefully."

  If I didn't have the heebie-jeebies already, his words of warning would've dumped a whole pile of them on me. "I'll be careful. Promise. Don't forget to call Hope."

  With Abe's words of warning ringing in my ears, I decided to head for home, where I could do some investigation behind the safety of the World Wide Web. The coded message I'd found in Donny's hat needed to be solved. Before heading out, I texted Mandi to see if she wanted to join me.

  No answer. No worries. Some time alone to process everything would probably be good for me. A short time later, I was snug as a bug in a rug under my great-grandmother's quilt with a cup of green tea at the bedside. I'd thought about indulging with a glass of wine, but it felt too early to open a bottle. Maybe later though. My laptop desk was situated so I could recline against the pillows to relax while surfing.

  I pulled up the previously saved tab from my earlier search and began scrolling through to see if I could find a page that would allow me to interpret the message:

  A100-M230-P000 K000-H500-24-H620

  As I studied the code more in-depth, I realized with the exception of the section labeled 24, each of the other sections began with a letter. Maybe that meant the rest were words and the twenty-four was simply a number. From what I'd learned about Soundex, it would probably be difficult to code a longer word, so simply using a numerical form might be easier.

  After several pages of scrolling, my frustration level was rising. I could find all kinds of pages that would convert a word to Soundex code but none to translate it from the code. Finally, I stumbled across a site that provided more details. The page simplified things by showing what code numbers were the equivalent to which letters. I grabbed a notepad and pen from the nightstand and wrote down the first section: A100.

  The website indicated that letters such as A, E, H, I, O, U, W, and Y were all skipped in the code. Looking at the chart they provided, the number 1 could be one of four letters: B, F, P, or V. I listed my options: AB, AF, AP, or AV. The number zero was not listed in the chart. Since Soundex operated in four-digit sections, maybe the zeroes were placeholders if the word was only three letters or maybe a vowel since those letters were skipped?

  I really wished Mandi were here to help. The two-heads-better-than-one philosophy would be ideal in this situation. I checked my phone, and she'd returned my text. She was hanging with her mother right now but would be available later.

  Looked like I was on my own for now. Back to work. Reviewing the possible skipped letters, my heart stopped beating for a second. The first word that made sense filling in with the skipped letters was: ABE.

  Holy shitzus. What if this message was about Abe? If he did have a run-in with the Giovanni family while he lived in Chicago, when Donny saw him, he might've alerted the "family" about his presence here in Danger Cove.

  This message needed to be decoded—now!

  The next grouping: M230. This one was much harder as the number two had eight possibilities. Breathe, Lilly. You've got this. I needed to think logically. Operating under the same assumption that M was the first letter in the word and all vowels were omitted from the word, I scanned the list of options to see what made the most sense. Out of the choices, the only one that worked to form any kind of word was the letter S.

  The number three was easier, as there were only two choices: D or T. The latter was the best choice, leaving me with: MST. I'd try to fill in the vowels in once I had more words to help provide context.

  Next section: P000. Not very helpful. I would come back to that since I truly only had the first letter of the word. Sadly, the following section wasn't much better: K000. Same problem. Ugh. I never thought I'd admit to liking word problems better than coded messages, but this particular message was testing that belief.

  I sipped my tea, hoping for some calm. Didn't work. I looked at the next set: H500. This one was easier. The number five represented either an M or an N, which meant the word was either HM or HN. I skipped over the twenty-four with the hope it simply meant twenty-four.

  Finally, the last section: H620. The six was easy as it could only be one letter: R. The number two had the most options, but only one that really made sense: S. Writing it all down with the decoding I'd managed so far left me with:

  ABE MST P__ K__ HM 24 HRS

  My phone vibrated. A text from Tan: Dinner tonight at six?

  Sounds good.

  It's a date, so I'll pay.

  LOL–a date?

  Yes. I did kill the ants.

  True that. See you at six.

  I'd been clear about not wanting a serious relationship, and Tan had been very understanding. Every
once in a while, however, I'd give in and agree to a good old-fashioned date. After vanquishing the ant army, he was right—he'd earned something more official than just hanging out together. I might even shave my legs.

  Looking over the text again, a couple of words jumped out at me. Words that started with the same letters as my puzzle. The words would work with the Soundex rules. I swallowed hard and tried to keep my hand from shaking as I wrote out the possible solution:

  ABE MST PAY KILL HM 24 HRS

  Shitzu! If this was the right interpretation, Donny Z had received a kill order on Abe. I knew all those crime shows would eventually pay off. I ripped the piece of paper from the pad and jumped out of bed. Michael Mahoney's words flashed like a neon sign: The next people they send in won't be nearly as nice or accommodating as I've been.

  If Donny Z had been given the task of killing Abe and had failed—that meant Abe's life was still in danger.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  My legs burned from the nonstop pedaling of my bike. I prayed to God Abe was home. What if they'd already gotten to him? My heart pounded in my chest with such intensity I feared it might break through my rib cage. Unrealistic, but with the free flow of adrenaline in my system, anything could be possible. Abe would have to live closer to Smugglers' Tavern. And, of course, that meant an uphill ride. After my run along with the extreme biking today, somewhere in my schedule I needed to find time for some cardio training.

  Abe's home was a modest cottage with a white picket fence. Talk about living the American dream. Correction, Abe must be living in a nightmare right now. With Donny Z and then Michael Mahoney in town, his past had not only caught up to him, it was threatening to kill him. I pounded on the door. "Abe. Abe!"

  After what seemed like an eternity, he opened the door a crack—just enough to fit his pointed nose through. "What is it, Lilly? I'm rather busy right now."

  "If you're playing poker, that needs to wait. I need to come in."

  "I cancelled the poker game. Now's just not a good time."

  There would never be a better time. I looked around and saw some of his neighbors peeking out of their doors to learn the source of the commotion. "I don't want to do this out here. Please, let me in. This is important." A matter of life and death.