Whiskey Straight Up

by Nina Wright

  My ruse amused the patient.

  “I’m not into incest,” he wheezed.

  “That’s all right,” I said pleasantly, “because I’m not into you.”

  McKondin looked terrible. I had braced myself for a disturbing sight, but he was worse off than I had imagined. Multiple tubes, wires and monitors, all of them pumping or beeping or flashing, were attached to him. His chest was heavily bandaged, and so was most of his face. No doubt the latter damage was due to my handiwork—or footwork. I figured I wasn’t to blame, though, for the fact that he needed oxygen.

  “If you don’t like me, why’d you come?” he asked.

  “I want to know what your business card was doing in a dead girl’s purse.” I recounted Abra’s retrieval of the Gucci bag at Pasco Point. McKondin claimed he had no clue.

  “Okay,” I said patiently. “Here’s a question you can answer: Why are you making sure I don’t get blamed for your injuries?”

  “You didn’t stab me, did you?”

  “No. But I did hurt you—in self-defense. Why not let me take the fall?”

  McKondin motioned for me to draw closer. Given his history, I declined.

  “You’re a sexy lady,” he said. “Sexy but scary. That’s one mean-ass kick you got. I don’t want to mess with you again, unless we’re in it for fun.”

  “That will never happen,” I promised. “But there’s more going on here, McKondin. Who’s to blame?”

  Before he could reply, a male nurse appeared brandishing a hypodermic needle.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go,” he said in a jarringly high-pitched voice. “It’s time for me to draw blood from Mr. McKondin, and then he’ll need some rest.”

  “Of course,” I said, getting to my feet. When I turned to say good-bye, McKondin’s bloodshot eyes were darting back and forth between the nurse and me.

  “Wait,” he croaked.

  “Now, Mr. McKondin,” the nurse said soothingly, “you know I have to do this.”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow,” I told the patient. “Think about what I said.”

  McKondin made some kind of reply, but the nurse’s jovial comment drowned it out: “Oh, yes, I know you hate needles, Mr. McKondin. Everybody does! But this is all part of what we do to make sure you get better.”

  I had almost reached the door beneath the ICU’s exit sign when I froze. Something about the scene I’d just witnessed didn’t compute. Granted, I knew less than the next guy about medical procedures. But a nurse about to draw blood wouldn’t arrive with a syringe full of clear liquid, would he? If it weren’t for the fact that Lanagan County’s death rate had recently spiked, I might have ignored my paranoid instincts. With no plan whatsoever, I headed back to McKondin’s room, where I slammed into the male nurse hurriedly making his departure.

  When I tried to step around him, he said, “You can’t go back in there! This is a critical care unit, and Mr. McKondin’s asleep.”

  For the first time I looked closely at the nurse. He was around forty years old, a bald stout man with piggish eyes and a small nose. A glaze of perspiration shimmered on his pink face. My eyes shot directly to his hands. No syringe.

  “Where’s the blood sample, Mr. . . .” I glanced at his nametag to finish my question. “C. Richards, R.N.?”

  The absurdity of the moment struck me before he did. But I had no time to brace myself. It was a supreme sucker punch, and it snapped my head around. I reeled backwards into the glass partition outside McKondin’s room, then slid to the floor. Blood gushed from my nose. I let loose a strangled cry.

  By the time I could focus my eyes again, two bona fide nurses were bending over me. Mr. Oscar Manfred Gribble the Third was gone.

  Thomas McKondin was gone, too. Permanently. The faux nurse had jammed a syringe full of adrenaline into his carotid artery, or so one of the real nurses surmised. Breathing through my mouth, I did my best to report what had happened. A nurse immediately notified hospital security and local law enforcement.

  Mr. Gribble was grabbed before he could flee the building. I explained to police that I had seen the man only once before, at a distance, on Opening Day of the Jamboree when Odette pointed him out. He had avoided us, skating away before we could approach. If only I had recognized him today in time to save Thomas McKondin’s life.

  Like Roy Vickers, I ended up in the Emergency Room, where a pleasant female physician assured me that my nose was not broken and would heal looking exactly the same as it had before. That would have been comforting news had I actually liked my original nose. At least I wouldn’t have to get used to a different one. For now, though, it was swollen, stuffed with cotton, and reddish purple. Not the look I’d planned to wear at tonight’s bonfire. Maybe if I stayed far enough back from the flames, no one would notice.

  That was not to be—even though I added a floppy-brimmed hat as a last-minute accessory when I changed out of my blood-splattered clothes at home. Without fail, every single acquaintance I saw at the bonfire asked what had happened to my face. A few couldn’t resist warning me that I’d probably have lingering sinus problems as a result. God love the doomsayers—because I don’t.

  Still, I had a pleasant evening. Jeb entertained the crowd with more Rockabilly hits, including my personal favorite, “I Had All the Angles and She Had All the Curves.” Eventually, he brought me a beer and his Blue Moon pool-playing fan Bud.

  “Hey, Whiskey. Bud just told me something you’ve got to hear.”

  I took a sip of my beer, blandly expecting either a fishing story or a pool-shooting story.

  “Remember how I told you a lady came to my shanty today? Asking if I’d seen anybody?” Bud said.

  I nodded.

  “Well, I remembered something else.”

  “What?”

  “Two things. I didn’t look at her for more than a second, but she was wearing a fur coat and hat—kind of silver-gray, like. Not what you’d wear to the Jamboree, more like what you’d wear to the opera. Not that I’ve been to the opera.”

  My heartbeat quickened. That was proof Deely had seen what she said she saw when she commandeered the snowmobile. But what did it mean? Bibi’s chinchilla coat was on the dead waitress. So Bud and Deely must have seen Evelyn Huffenbach. Except that Mrs. Huffenbach had been at the Broken Arrow Motel.

  “What’s the other thing, Bud?” I said.

  He slid his eyes toward Jeb, who nodded encouragingly. “Well, it dawned on me later that the lady didn’t exactly seem . . . like a lady.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bud cleared his throat. “Well, I glanced at her just long enough to see she was ugly. And now, well—now I think she might have been . . . a guy. You know, a guy with a kind of high voice dressed like a girl.” He appeared sickened. I figured it wasn’t his slowness in putting the pieces together that bothered him, but rather the fact that he’d been that close to a possible transvestite.

  I comforted Bud by assuring him that the man wasn’t a female impersonator, just a nurse impersonator and a killer.

  Jeb bought me a few more beers, which was nice of him considering I kept scanning the crowd for Nash Grant. Jeb was celebrating the return of his Van Wagon—in improved condition. Roy the handyman-mechanic had repaired the passenger-side door and replaced the overhead light bulb.

  Dr. David and Deely joined us after a while. Grinning happily, they appeared to be out on their first official “date.”

  Deely explained that Avery had excused her from duty when Nash arrived at Vestige. My heart sank because that meant I probably wouldn’t see the professor tonight. Still, I hoped their meeting had turned into a conversation and not a confrontation. The twins’ recent kidnapping just might help both parents realize what was important.

  The abduction served to remind me that I should use the expensive alarm system Leo had installed. I seemed to have a mental block against activating it, probably because it reminded me of my late wise husband—and all the reasons I needed to be nice to Avery.
Leo had always looked out for his family. How could I turn my back on his only daughter and her children, no matter how much I disliked her and lusted after her ex-boyfriend?

  Maybe it was the beer talking, but I had a question for Dr. David. I asked him point-blank if he’d been harassing Gil Gruen.

  “Harassing? No. I used an approach Fleggers call Conscience-Calling.” David made it sound like conscience cawing. “We alarm someone in small ways as a means of reminding him that he’s doing something wrong.”

  Or wong, as David pronounced it.

  “Okay,” I said, “but how does Conscience-Calling excuse your theft of Martha Glenn’s homemade dog and cat treats?”

  “That’s what we call a Community Intervention,” David said. “We tried talking to Mrs. Glenn, but she doesn’t get it. She insists on putting chocolate in her pet treats. Chocolate is toxic to cats and dogs.”

  I lingered by the bonfire until the last flames faded to embers. Jeb lingered with me, neither of us talking. I think he knew I was disappointed that Nash Grant never showed up. With some effort, I managed to interpret the professor’s absence as a good sign. A sign that he and Avery were working things out.

  My night was hardly a bust, however. Besides my informative conversations with Bud and Dr. David, I enjoyed a brief chat with Chester.

  “Rupert likes dogs!” he announced. “He might convince Cassina to let me bring Prince Harry home.”

  “I hope so,” I said sincerely. “One dog for the long term is definitely my limit.”

  We chatted about dogs and how to train them, a subject I clearly knew nothing about. Chester was losing interest in Dogs-Train-You-dot-com now that Deely had started teaching him The System.

  Changing the topic, I asked Chester how he felt about Bibi going to jail.

  He shrugged. “She’ll get what she deserves, I guess. But I’ll still have a grandmother.”

  “You mean, Rupert’s mom?” I knew nothing about Chester’s paternal lineage.

  “Her, too, but she’s in London. I mean Mrs. Huffenbach. She’s not crazy, after all, just lonely.” Chester pointed toward a long-haired man wrapped in a cape standing next to a red-haired woman in a chinchilla coat. “Rupert likes talking with Evelyn because she’s an Anglophile. That means she loves everything about England—even the pub food.”

  “Maybe Rupert will change Cassina’s mind about Evelyn,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” Chester agreed. “It would be nice to have a whole family.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Two weeks passed before the Gruen-Gribble-McKondin-Mindy the waitress connection became clear. News about that arrived the same day I hosted my first solo dinner party.

  There was no Leo Mattimoe to plan the menu or do the cooking for me. And bear in mind that I had never cooked. As I fretted over the menu, my poor mother received more phone calls from me than she had in her whole life. She said she appreciated hearing my voice. But I could tell that by about the fortieth call that she was getting annoyed by my questions. Finally, she recommended the Cooking Channel and wished me luck.

  I decided to make something simple yet satisfying. Then I asked Odette what that would be.

  “Simple for you, or simple for a normal cook?” Odette said.

  When she found out I meant me, she suggested spaghetti.

  “You can boil water, can’t you?”

  I honestly wasn’t sure. But the more I thought and read about spaghetti, the more confident I became.

  Brainstorm: If I could manage to cook the pasta, the only other things I’d need were sauce, garlic bread, tossed salad, and dessert—all of which could be purchased pre-made by somebody else! For that matter, I could have bought the whole meal from Mother Tucker’s, but that seemed dishonest.

  “Baby steps,” Leo used to say when teaching me something new.

  I planned my dinner party for the night before Magnet Springs’ annual Groundhog Day Dance Extravaganza. Our town’s traditional celebration offered a chance to be either sexy or silly, depending on your talents. It began in the 1950s as a flimsy excuse to attract moneyed tourists who wanted to dress up and dance. At the Town Hall there was still a formal dance, complete with live big-band music. But now there were as many as twenty casual to downright crazy dance parties at locations all over the area. Peg Goh hosted one of the most popular: a Specialty Costume Dance that required participants to come as rodents. You wouldn’t believe how many people enjoyed dancing the night away dressed like chipmunks and squirrels.

  My pre-Groundhog Day dinner guest list included Roy Vickers, Jeb Halloran, Deely Smarr, David Newquist, Nash Grant, and—of course—Avery Mattimoe. I felt awkward inviting Jeb when I wanted to flirt with Nash. But since I would have to deal with Avery, I counted on my easy-going ex to be the social lubricant.

  Roy, convalescing in his new apartment downtown, referred to my venture as a Redemption Dinner. The phrase set my teeth on edge. I was experiencing waves of guilt because I knew something about Roy that only one other person on earth knew: that he was Cassina’s father and Chester’s grandfather. When Bibi Gribble was hauled off to prison, I became the sole possessor of her earthshaking secret. What I had at first regarded as potentially hot gossip quickly morphed into an ethical burden. I wasn’t sure what I should or would do with the information. So, in typical fashion, I tried not to think about it.

  Odette helped Nash Grant obtain a short-term lease on a small house in Magnet Springs. I thought he was being silly to insist on so many family-friendly amenities when his children were just a few months old. Peg explained it like this: “Nash wants to show his true colors, his commitment to doing the right thing.”

  Avery was as chilly as ever. Since her crisis with Bibi and the twins, however, she seemed less inclined toward temper tantrums and crying jags. I could only hope that the change was permanent.

  On the day before Groundhog Day I left work early. In fact, I took the afternoon off. I needed lots of time to prepare my spaghetti.

  By six o’clock, I had lined up all my ingredients and equipment on the kitchen counter. Boiling water for the spaghetti was beginning to loom as a fearsome task. So I was distracting myself by setting the dining room table when Jenx arrived. Slack-jawed, she first surveyed my kitchen and then froze in the archway to my dining room.

  “I heard about your Redemption Dinner, but I had to see the evidence for myself.”

  “It’s not about redemption—” I began.

  “Oscar Manfred Gribble the Third could use some of that,” Jenx said. Without waiting for an invitation, she pulled out two chairs, one to sit on, the other to prop her booted feet on. “This morning the Grand Jury indicted his sorry ass: one count murder, one count kidnapping.”

  “Do we know why he did what he did?” I asked.

  “Blame it on a triangle of warped personalities,” Jenx said.

  That sounded like a great excuse to postpone my culinary destiny. I pulled out a chair and sat down to listen.

  If Noonan had been telling the story, she would have said that Manny Gribble, Thomas McKondin, and Mindy Mad Hawk were three lost souls doomed to collide and implode. Jenx called them “three complete losers looking for revenge.”

  “Manny Gribble resented his wife because she made him beg for money,” Jenx began. “Thomas McKondin blamed Gil Gruen for wrecking his life because Gil fired his dad. And Mindy Mad Hawk had a grudge against anybody whose life wasn’t as screwed up as hers. These three charmers found each other at Bear Claw Casino.”

  According to Jenx, McKondin was a little older than he looked—twenty-one, to be exact. Before Manny Gribble came to town, McKondin liked to hang around the casino and brag to Mindy about his criminal exploits. Another waitress overheard him. She told police that his boasts ranged from stealing Gil Gruen’s life-size cut-outs and his best Stetson to embarrassing women with lewd talk and impersonating a nurse at area hospitals.

  “The waitress—I think her name is Megan—reported that McKondin showed Mindy
and Manny his fake-nurse nametag,” Jenx said. “Manny offered him twenty bucks for it—and McKondin sold it.”

  “Worst deal he ever made,” I remarked.

  “After Gil Gruen publicly humiliated Manny Gribble at Mother Tucker’s, Gribble and McKondin found common ground hating Gil,” Jenx said. “They sat around the casino buying drinks from and for Mindy, hardly aware that Megan was listening. The boys hatched a payback scheme that went like this: The night before the Jamboree, McKondin would set up an ice shanty north of Fishburg. He knew the ice was dangerously thin there due to too-shallow water and thick vegetation. On Opening Day, he would lure Gil to the shanty on the promise of meeting a wealthy prospective client. There McKondin and Gribble, wearing flotation devices and ice skates, would scare the crap out of Gruen by almost letting him fall through the ice.”

  “What went wrong?” I said.

  “Everything. McKondin lost his temper and stabbed Gil with a fish-cleaning knife before Gribble even met them at the shanty.”

  I recalled my Jamboree memory of Oscar Manfred Gribble the Third on skates. He was probably still waiting for McKondin’s signal. By then he must have surmised that something had gone awry.

  Jenx went on: “McKondin was so shocked by his own actions that he left Gil’s body in the shanty and got the hell out of there. Roy Vickers saw the kid skating madly away and entered to investigate. He tried to revive Gil. In the process, he got blood all over himself. Roy admitted he was having a ‘post-Leo Mattimoe flashback’ when you saw him making his way to shore.”

  “Why didn’t McKondin just leave town?”

  “You’re forgetting: he was a loser,” Jenx said. “McKondin decided to blackmail Gribble, threatening to tell the police that Manny had hired him to kill Gil for revenge. Gribble told the cops that much himself. He said McKondin demanded fifty thousand dollars to keep his mouth shut.”