Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder

by Jessie Chandler

  I headed back into the kitchen to the basement door. I pulled it open, and nearly gagged again.

  The chunky brick wall was rough against my fingertips as I groped for the light switch. With a loud click, a single bulb illuminated a narrow stairway. Cautiously, I made my way down the steep steps with the collar of my sweatshirt pulled over my nose and mouth. Four light fixtures hung from the ceiling and did little to chase shadows from the cobwebby corners of the subterranean space. The cellar was definitely not a favorite hangout. I had always gotten the creeps whenever I descended into the dank dimness, and today was no exception.

  My father stored the bulk of the liquor and other odds and ends down here. It was cool in the summer, cold in the winter, and usually smelled of must and liquor. Now those odors were overpowered by sewer stench so strong I nearly retched every time I breathed in.

  Cases of booze were stacked on rolling wire shelves that lined the perimeter of the room. Each shelf held a hand-printed card with the type of liquor or beer that was stored there. The Summit driver had stacked a double row of boxes containing the popular ale down the center of the cellar. Otherwise everything else looked in order except for the back right corner of the damp space. The shelving had been rolled away to create an inverted square. An old window fan sat nearby, plugged into an ancient brown extension cord coming from a receptacle embedded in the closest light socket.

  I rolled one of the shelves out of the way and took two steps closer. My hand was back over my face, and I sucked the tainted air through my mouth. Black sludge had oozed up from a four-foot crack in the cement floor. The sludge had started to creep across the cement.

  My father must have been using the fan to try to disseminate the smell. I didn’t hold much hope that it would do much good, but turned it on anyway. We needed the Roto-Rooter man in a very bad way.

  three

  The minute hand on the Lucky Strike clock edged ever closer to the twelve as I hustled to finish prepping the bar. After chopping celery stalks, I topped off the olive and cherry containers in the garnish trays.

  I was about to unlock the front door when it dawned on me I’d forgotten to pull the start bank from the floor safe in my father’s office. Last night when I put away the New Year’s Eve proceeds, it was a huge relief to find he maintained his security interests by never changing combinations or passwords. They were all still they same as they’d always been.

  In less than a minute I was back behind the bar, stuffing bills into the till drawer as I tried to remember what else I was forgetting.

  Then it dawned on me. The gun. I’d entirely forgotten to look for my dad’s revolver. I ducked down and sifted through the detritus under the bar. Where I thought my old man used to stash the weapon now shelved extra glassware and a dishwasher. I systematically searched the rest of the area without success. It must be stashed elsewhere these days. Whatever.

  With a frustrated grunt I straightened.

  12:02 p.m. Show time.

  The deadbolt on the heavy, windowless front door retracted easily. I gave the door a good shove to make sure it was open.

  As it swung outward, I heard a grunt, followed by a thud and a muffled “Oof!”

  “What on earth?” I muttered and I warily stuck my head around the door.

  The first thing I saw on the ice-covered sidewalk were the soles of a pair of black snow boots. I’d face-planted a probable customer with the door.

  “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” My heart hammered hard against my ribs. Way to go, Shay. You’ve now given your dad a personal injury lawsuit in addition to the problems he already has. The person was probably going to whip out a mobile phone and dial 1-800-411-PAIN.

  “Shay! What are you doing here?” My vic was apparently a woman, and she batted at the fur-lined hood of her poofy black coat to push it away from her face.

  “Agnes? That you under all those layers?”

  Agnes Zaluski was an old friend with a troublemaking nephew. The previous spring we’d bailed said nephew out of some fishy water, and Agnes had taken a platonic shine to my father. Or, to be more specific, had taken a shine to the card games he conducted in his back room. It didn’t hurt that Agnes enjoyed her vodka as much as my father enjoyed his scotch. Two peas in an alcohol-infused pod.

  I said, “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “With the exception of my bruised nose, I’m fine. Help this old lady up.”

  I slid my arms under her armpits and hoisted her to her feet. Despite her years, Agnes still towered well over my own height of five-seven.

  She wobbled a little and I hung on as she regained her equilibrium.

  “Easy.”

  “I’m okay. Nothing new to this ancient posterior of mine.” With a grimace she patted her jacket-covered butt and gave me a shove toward the door.

  Once we were safely inside, Agnes hiked herself onto the closest bar stool and shrugged out of her Pillsbury Doughboy replica jacket with a resounding “Uff da.” She draped the coat over the adjacent stool and rubbed her hands together. “So where is that scallywag father of yours?”

  “Wish I knew. He no-showed last night and still hasn’t come up for air.”

  Agnes squinted, her thin face reminiscent of Professor McGonagall’s from the Harry Potter movies. “Really? He was raring to go for New Year’s Eve! Night before last he was preoccupied during our game trying to make sure everything was in order.” She leveled me a calculating look. “How about a little squirt of the hard stuff since you bowled me head over keister?”

  “Sure.” I rounded the bar. There wasn’t much involved in fixing Agnes her “squirt.” I dumped a good amount of vodka straight into a glass and asked, “Did you have a good game?”

  “It’s poker. You know how poker is. It’s always good. Especially here.”

  I did know. My dad and his weekly games were legendary.

  I placed the shot in front of her, and Agnes tossed it back. She didn’t flinch as she swallowed.

  “Have you been playing often?” I asked, genuinely curious and a little surprised, although I shouldn’t have been. The previous spring I’d distracted Agnes from her nephew Baz’s shenanigans by stowing her and Eddy Quartermaine—the woman who owned the Victorian that housed the Rabbit Hole, and my pseudo-mom—with my father while Coop, Baz, and I nearly got ourselves executed during a drug cartel shootout.

  My dad, in usual form, had organized a back room poker game on the fly, making both Agnes and Eddy very happy. It was no secret Agnes loved poker almost as much as she loved her Stoli, but I hadn’t realized she’d become a regular participant in my father’s circle.

  “Oh yes.” Agnes muffled a belch behind her hand. “Every week.”

  “Did Dad seem okay? Not depressed, or … ” I trailed off and shrugged.

  “Pete was darn-tootin’ good. He won, which added up to a whopping booty of seventy-six bucks. When I left, the bunch of them were talking about Roy’s kid’s chances running for mayor of Minneapolis.”

  Roy Larson was one of my father’s closest friends. He was a Twin Cities fixture and a real character. He claimed to be a many-times-removed relative of Herbert Sellner, the man who invented the Tilt-A-Whirl. Every August when the State Fair came to St. Paul for twelve days of deep-fried food on a stick, carnival rides, and meltingly hot weather, Roy repeated the tale of Herbie’s debut of the venerable Tilt-A-Whirl at the 1927 Great Minnesota Get-Together.

  Roy’s son Greg, while not quite as quirky as his dad, was still an odd duck. He was a few years older than I was. We’d gone to the same high school, but he had graduated before I landed there. His run for mayor was interesting in light of his father’s political and rather unique business history.

  Roy Larson had started his business career as the owner of the bar that would eventually become the Leprechaun. My father purchased the joint from him back in the Seventies. Roy so
ld out to finance a failed bid for the highest office in the state, going up against the very popular Rudy Perpich. He was soundly trounced and quietly retreated back into the business world, eventually managing to build himself something of an empire in the development and production of biodegradable kitty litter. Larson’s Super Clump Flush-Away Cat Litter was a regional semi-success, as long as you were careful not to put too much of it down your toilet.

  Personally, I wondered if Greg was running for mayor to try to fulfill his dad’s lifelong—and lost—dream of holding political office.

  I asked, “Who else was playing that night?”

  “Let me think.” Agnes searched her vodka-soaked brain and ticked names off on the fingers of her right hand. “Me, your dad, a young coot—Brian Eckhart, I think his name was. Roy, the Vulc, and … ” Her lips pressed together so hard that the red of her lipstick stood out in stark contrast to the white, bloodless ring of wrinkly skin around her mouth. “Who else?” Agnes frowned and tapped her fingers on the bar top.

  Brian Eckhart was an ex-cop who now worked in security. He met my dad a couple years back after responding to an attempted till tap at the Leprechaun. Although he hadn’t managed to track down the potential robber, Brian had become a regular after-hours poker participant.

  The Vulc, better known as Mick Simon, was a river man who worked with my dad on the Mississippi. He looked like a year-round Santa Claus. Somewhere in the late ’90s or early 2000s, he’d been Vulcanus Rex, the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s God of Fire.

  “Oh!” Agnes startled me out of my own reverie as she tried to snap arthritic fingers. “Harvey Benjamin and Limpy Dick.” She nodded. “That’s it.”

  “Who’s Harvey Benjamin?”

  “You haven’t heard of old Hemorrhoid Harvey?”

  “Can’t say I have.” Nor was I sure I wanted to.

  Agnes scrutinized my face. “Don’t suppose you would. You’re too young. But you just wait.” She chortled in a rather terrifying way. “Harvey’s the owner of Benjamin’s Drugstore in Richfield. Kind of like Merwin Drug in Robbinsdale. Not that Merwin’s is there anymore though,” she said wistfully. “Oh, Merwin’s. They had the best soda fountain in the back. When I was a kid, we’d head there for malteds after some hot and heavy necking at the drive-in. Hoo boy.” She shuddered and fanned her face.

  Thinking about Agnes making out with someone was as bad as thinking about my parents having sex. Agnes patted my hand. “Benjamin’s focuses on the needs of us senior types,” she said. “He has some of the best hemorrhoid creams anywhere. That’s where he gets his nickname. Now if only Harvey would put a soda fountain in … ”

  Agnes droned on, extolling the virtues and pitfalls of ice cream, butt cream, and eventually denture cream. I certainly didn’t need to know in such stark detail the bodily malfunctions of the senior set, but out of respect I did try not to make a face.

  I nodded and smiled and turned my mind to Limpy Dick instead. His name was actually Richard Zaros, another guy who’d worked with my father back in the day. He was probably one of the most eccentric and definitely the craziest of my dad’s friends. Long ago, he’d lost two fingers in a barge accident. Another time his left leg was pinned and crushed between a barge and a pier. It had to be removed below the knee. Now he was one half of South Africa’s Blade Runner.

  During the time that I’d talked to Agnes, a few additional patrons had drifted in. A number of them were wearing the drooping, squinty-eyed look that indicated a whopper of a New Year’s Day hangover.

  A college-aged couple sauntered to one of the booths at the back of the bar, and three slack-faced guys parked themselves a few stools apart from each other at the bar. All these customers were a good thing, but they made me feel trapped. What I really wanted to do was look for my dad. I refreshed Agnes’s glass with another squirt and wandered off to make my father some money.

  Things picked up considerably by late afternoon.

  Agnes had caught a cab some time ago. It was a good thing, because her complimentary shots were putting a serious dent in the Stoli bottle.

  I pulled an on-the-house pitcher for the Shamrock O’Taters—one of the co-rec broomball teams my father sponsored—and weaved through the crowded floor to deliver it amid catcalls and friendly insults. Earlier in afternoon, the Taters won a game against a rival neighborhood tavern, and the crew was in full celebratory mode. For a long time, I’d played broomball with the Taters, until Kate and I sponsored our own team through the Rabbit Hole. Now, when I had an opportunity to hop into a game and work my aggressions out on the ice, I tried to pick games against them. The crew all still liked me, but it didn’t take long before a friendly rivalry ensued.

  Instead of taking a few minutes to sit and catch up with my ex-teammates, resentment and duty coiled around each other. Duty propelled me to keep working. Of course, rancorous pangs really shredded my gut when I thought about the cozy, unoccupied room at the bed-and-breakfast in Duluth where JT and I were supposed to be getting away from it all.

  My father was a selfish bastard, and I was worried sick about him.

  Along with the buzz of chattering voices, the heavy beats of “American Woman” thumped in the background for the fourth consecutive time. Whoever was plugging the juke had a serious case of relationship woes.

  I snagged empties and pushed chairs in, straightening up as I made my way behind the bar. Beer bottles clanged loudly against each other as I dumped them into the recycling bin. I scanned the customers lined up on bar stools, assessing who needed help, who had reached their limit, and who needed a refresh.

  A man animatedly waved a folded bill in front of me, and I pivoted toward him. Before I could move, someone put a hand on my forearm.

  I was surprised to see Lisa Vecoli tucked up against the bar.

  “Hey,” I said and I swung back to face her. “You recover from last night?”

  A smile crinkled the corners of her eyes as she surveyed the room. “Oh yeah. It’s been awhile since I’ve had that much fun.”

  I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or sarcastic.

  She finished her assessment of the crowd, probably looking for the presumably preoccupied Pete. “I assume if you’re running the bar, your father still hasn’t turned up?”

  “Nope.” I gave her an apologetically wry grin, still not understanding why she was so damned determined to talk to my dad. “What is it you need him for?”

  An emotion I couldn’t identify flickered across Lisa’s face, and for a moment I thought she was going to spill it.

  “It’s … well, it’s a story.”

  “Hey, lady!” The guy who’d tried to flag me down was getting antsy. “Can I get some help down here, for chrissake?”

  “Hang ON!” I yelled at him and refocused on Lisa. My customer service score was going to be in the toilet.

  She said, “Tell you what. Let me give you a hand and later on maybe we can sit down and talk. But,” she nodded at Mr. Impatient, “let’s get him taken care of before he goes all whoop on your ass.”

  After Lisa’s successful audition last night, I’d be an idiot to turn her down. I was going to have to pay her well for her services.

  Forty-five minutes and a number of happier patrons later, we’d conquered the masses and worked ourselves into a sort of equilibrium. I wondered what JT was doing and if Coop was on his feet yet. They might still be wiped from New Year’s revelry, but at least they were free while I was stuck here taking care of Daddy’s business. When my father showed his face, he was going to get a serious piece of my mind. If I had any mind left.

  During a lull in the action, I leaned against the edge of the bar, stuck my lip out, and blew air onto my damp face.

  Lisa propped herself next to me. She grabbed onto the edge of the countertop and arched her back with a groan. “I have to admit I’m not used to being on my feet so many hours at a ti
me anymore.”

  I wondered what she did now, but she’d obviously tended bar sometime in her past. She hadn’t lied when she’d said she knew how to pour. I was sure the lull in thirsty customers wouldn’t last long enough for a conversation beyond “pass me the Jim Beam,” so I simply said, “I hear you.” My own body felt as if I’d climbed the rock wall at the gym fifteen times too many. I allowed a half-smile and took a critical look out at the main floor. There were actually a few empty bar stools, and maybe half the tables were occupied. The tide was starting to turn in our favor.

  The front door opened. Agnes tottered in with Eddy, Rocky, and Tulip in tow.

  Hallelujah! More help had arrived. I’d gotten so busy I hadn’t said goodbye to Agnes, and here she was with people who could help me keep things, including my sanity, together.

  Rocky, a savant of some kind, lived above the Rabbit Hole in my old one-bedroom apartment with sweet, quiet Tulip, his balloon-animal-

  creating bride of three months. Rocky and Tulip’s whole situation still stunned me nearly speechless every time I thought about it. But as wacky as the two of them were, it was cool to see them happy.

  As motherly stand-ins went, Eddy took the prize. She was a second mom to all of us, actually, and I loved her dearly. I couldn’t help but admire her eccentricity—like the hot-pink low-rider sneakers

  she was currently wearing that Coop had given to her for Christmas. She gave me hope that I could be as cool as she was when I became a Woman of a Certain Age and retired. Not that I was guaranteed a retirement at all, considering the way the economy was going.

  “Shay O’Hanlon,” Rocky said, his green plaid aviator hat pulled low on his head and a delighted smile on his face. “Happy New Year! Did you know that the first recorded celebration of the Eve of the New Year goes back four thousand years? Four thousand years, Shay O’Hanlon! That is a very long time.”

  Rocky was a round little man somewhere in middle age—maybe forty-five?—with the personality of a sweet teenager. His savantish specialty was facts. He had a photographic memory and knew a bit about almost everything, and that was no exaggeration. If he came across something he wasn’t familiar with, he’d dash right to the computer and Google the hell out of whatever it was until he gleaned all there was to glean. Then he enjoyed sharing his newfound knowledge with the rest of us—whether we wanted to know it or not.