Whittaker 03 The Secrets We Keep

by Donna White Glaser

  Work was difficult after that. Belch’s intrusion into my professional space set loose a whirlwind of emotions. I was very good at what I did. It’s the one area I’d always been able to keep inviolate from whatever emotional chaos might be reining in my personal life. Back when I was drinking, I worked hard to hold my professional life encapsulated away from the insanity of drinking. Sobriety meant taking my special form of madness—addiction—and caging it off like a feral beast, killing it with neglect and starvation. I had good reason to fear loss of control; the alternative had nearly killed me.

  Once again, I was being swamped with a roiling mass of conflicting sensations: confusion, grief, fear… guilt. Not to mention the tensions Eli stirred up.

  This shit had to stop.

  Something about the club scene reduces people to their basest instincts. Booze probably helps, too. Thumping bass notes bled out to the parking lot of Red Hots, transmitting urgent messages of danger, like tribal drums across the sweltering blacktop. It was Wednesday night and early, so at least the lot wasn’t crowded. I scanned the cars, spotting Beth as she climbed out of her Mustang.

  How come everyone had a fancy car but me?

  She wore jeans and a light summer top. Having been out of the club scene for quite a while, I’d had trouble deciding what to wear. In the end, I’d gone with a filmy, baby-blue shell over a spaghetti strap tank in a darker hue. Tight jeans. Silver jewelry. Beth’s concession to fashion was glittery lip gloss and a fruity smelling perfume that hit me about two feet before she did. Not obnoxious, just what you might call assertive. Like Beth.

  Eli hadn’t been able to make it tonight, so she and I wasted no time heading in. First on the to-do list was to attempt to identify Big Dude. Stepping into the vestibule, I spied a pair of employees loitering near the door leading to the bar. The two twenty-somethings sported black tshirts with “Red Hot” written in fire-red letters, grey smoke wafting off the gothic-style lettering. They must have gotten their hair cut at the same discount hair-salon; each favored a center part with a uniform length skimming their shoulders in lank strands, pasted behind their ears. Eau-de-la-dope scented the air around them. Neither looked big and scary. Stoned, yes. Stupid, definitely.

  I sensed Beth sizing them up and heard her sigh under her breath. As expected considering their condition, Ding and Dong were willing, nay, eager to talk. Unfortunately, they were equally incapable of maintaining any focus or direction.

  After an incredible amount of perseverance, we learned Chet, aka Big Dude was scheduled to work later, but not until 10:00 p.m. We had more than an hour to wait. The Bell brothers also mentioned the cops had been talking to Chet but, when pressed, had no clue why. At least, none we could discern between their sniggering and conversational tangents.

  Leaving them to their dope-inspired chatter, we went inside. I doubt if we could have found an open seat on weekends, and I’d heard Wednesday Ladies Night was pretty crowded, but we were early enough to snag two stools at the bar without a problem.

  While we caught our bearings, Beth filled me in on her meeting with Rev. Gibson.

  “He said he counseled her. Called her a ‘lost, lonely, little spirit,’ Beth said. “And he said he tried to help her confront her ‘demons of the flesh.’”

  “Sounds like he contributed a few demons of his own.”

  “True, but I couldn’t push him on that since I’m supposed to be new to the church. I decided to stick with the cover story for now. We can’t cross him off yet. At least it tells us that in some circumstances, he’s keeping his affair quiet. It’s may not be as open and out there as we thought. I wish we could pin down where he was that Wednesday night.”

  Not being able to ask for alibis was certainly a drawback. The police had a definite advantage in that regard, and while I didn’t begrudge that, it slowed us down.

  “What do you think the police asked Chet?” I said.

  “Depends on if they were here about Trinnie or some unrelated problem. Bouncers have contact with cops all the time.”

  “Nature of the job, I guess. Do you have the list?”

  Beth pulled her copy out of her purse, and passed it to me.

  I trailed my finger down the line of names. “Okay, here it is. He definitely scared her, but she doesn’t specify why. I thought I remembered something about money, but that’s Twink. Whoever that is.”

  “I have a new motto: One suspect at a time.”

  “Catchy.”

  We split up to tackle the bartenders, two of whom flanked opposite ends of the bar. When the place filled up, they would probably need a third or even a fourth. They weren’t all that busy yet.

  The bartender at my end, a twiggy blonde named Jelly, if her name tag could be believed, hadn’t known Trinnie, and had only been working there a month. She didn’t like Chet, but wouldn’t say why. If he was as scary as everyone seemed to say, I couldn’t blame her. I returned to my seat fairly quickly, biding my time until Beth finished up.

  I could only stare at the liquor bottles for so long before needing to turn away. I swiveled my seat toward the dance floor, checking the place out. If you took an aerial shot of the place, the dance floor would look like a bull’s eye with tables circling it, then a low half-wall and finally the main bar—ringing outwards in concentric waves. The dance floor itself was sunken, giving the room a coliseum feel. The tables were finally filling up with women in chattering clumps of two and three. The few men present so far seemed to prefer hanging over the half-wall, using it as a counter and propping their feet up on a brass rail, cowboy style. This afforded them a bird’s eye view of the tables and of the dance floor—and the women.

  With a start, I recognized one of them from Taz. It was either Tyler or Bill; I couldn’t remember which. He noticed me about the same time and gave me a two-finger salute. Cleaned up, he had an artistically scruffy look to him that aimed for appealing and somehow just missed. I tried to figure out the problem and decided it was his attempt to dress for the younger crowd. He had to be in his mid-thirties, but wore dark jeans and a black hoodie. In July, yet. In the few moments I watched, he ran his fingers through his Justin Bieber-floppy hair three times. Apparently he liked to be well-fluffed.

  Unfortunately, he mistook my scrutiny for flirtation. Pushing off from the wall, he began moving toward me. Great. Feminism be damned—something about him made me wish I still wore Eli’s ring.

  THIRTY THREE

  “Hey, lady. How’re you doin’?” He let his eyes loose on my body. I could smell the beer rolling off of him and his eyes were small and not tracking well. I finally recalled his name: Tyler.

  Trying for a little small talk, I asked about Stan, his boss. He ignored that, looking over to Beth at the other end of the bar. “What’s the deal?” he sneered. “You two do everything together?”

  His sudden hostility startled me, especially as our only other encounter had been fairly benign. Then again, not everyone is lucky enough to be a happy drunk. In a heartbeat, he shifted his mood as well as his attention, turning back to me and grinning boyishly. “So, how come I haven’t seen you in here before?”

  “I guess we must have just missed each other,” I lied.

  “Well, that’s a dirty, rotten shame,” he drawled. I wasn’t certain, but I thought he was trying to pull off a John Wayne imitation, although for the life of me I couldn’t imagine why. This guy was all over the place. “What’s a guy gotta do to get a smile out of you?”

  “Just behave like a gentleman,” I answered.

  “Oh yeah? That what Snake does for you? Does he ‘behave like a gentleman?’” Tyler turned the phrase into a screechy falsetto.

  I did not sound like that.

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” My face grew hot, and I hated the tight, prissy way I sounded. I took a deep breath, forcing the knot in my stomach to untwine.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. I’ll bet that’s just what he does for you.” Again, his beady eyes crawled over my body.

  I s
tared at him, eyes deadpan. “Some men just know how to please a woman,” I said, lazily raising an eyebrow.

  His turn to flush with anger. Good. But before we could continue our verbal pissing match, Beth breezed up. Taking a swig of his beer, Tyler swallowed hard and tried to play the whole thing off. He relinquished his seat to Beth, tossing a contemptuous wink at me. “I’ll catch you later, lady.”

  “Not if I see you first,” I muttered. Beth looked at me quizzically, but waited until he had moved on. I filled her in, watching her face flicker in disgust.

  “I sure don’t miss that,” she said. “Let me tell you what I found out from my bartender. It’ll take your mind off that jerk.

  “It turns out,” she continued, “that Kiki—that’s her name—is dating Chet. She claims to know the whole deal with him and Trinnie, but obviously she’s biased. For starters, Chet hates being called Big Dude or Big Boy or anything size related. Trinnie’s little nickname pissed him off right from the start.

  “So one night, Trinnie got drunk, no surprise, and got herself tossed. Chet, of course, was the bouncer, only it seems our little girl put up a bit of a struggle.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said.

  “She broke his nose.”

  “Wow. That couldn’t have been good for his reputation. Unless he’s one of those humble, self-effacing kind of bouncers.”

  Beth snorted. “He claimed it was a freak accident, that she was flailing around and caught him on the schnoz. And it seems after that, he spent a lot of time harassing her. Kiki said it was all harmless stuff, and thought it was funny. But it sounds like Trinnie was pretty scared.”

  “Maybe she had reason to be?”

  “Maybe. But, as far as the night of the murder, Kiki says he was working. From what she said, people here assume the murder happened sometime Wednesday night. The cops were asking questions about that time.”

  “If it happened that early it’s hard to believe the killer would’ve hung around til we got there Thursday afternoon. I’d always figured it happened right before we got there.”

  “I thought so, too,” Beth said. “Maybe the guy forgot something and came back?”

  “I can’t believe anyone would be that stupid.” Inwardly, I shivered, and forced the memories down. “Anyway, even if Chet worked until closing, he still could have gone over there right after or anytime on Thursday. We can’t rule him out.”

  We couldn’t rule anyone out, it seemed. I hated this. It sure wasn’t the way I’d imagined it would progress. Why anyone would want to do this for a living?

  “Hey!” I said. “Check that out. What’s he doing here?” Not wanting another run-in, I’d been keeping an eye on Tyler, making it easy to spot the people he talked with.

  “Who?”

  “See that kid with Tyler? That’s Caleb Gibson.”

  As though implanted with radar, they both looked over just as I pointed them out. Busted.

  Beth turned to face the bar, pretending they weren’t the center of our attention. “I guess the pot-heads aren’t carding tonight. So, is he the one?”

  “The one?” Was she talking about Eli?

  “The kid. D’you think he’s the kid Trinnie felt guilty about?“Beth caught my blush and grinned. “Who did you think I was—”

  “Makes sense,” I blurted. “An affair with his father would certainly be something for Trinnie to feel guilty about. Where’d he go?”

  While we talked, Caleb had disappeared.

  “Probably took off when he saw you recognize him. Are you going to tell his daddy?”

  I shrugged, still scanning the crowd for the teenager. Beth nudged me and pointed to the door. Since I was looking for a scrawny adolescent, my mind couldn’t compute the significance of the modern-day Paul Bunyan who strode in —corkscrew nose jutting like a doorknob from a thatch of bushy, black beard, a straining-at-the-seams Red Hot t-shirt, and scruffy biker boots completed the picture. Chet—aka Big Dude. There was no resisting the word huge from leaping to mind. He radiated big-ness. And this was the guy who hated references to his size…

  He plowed his way to the end of the bar where Kiki worked. She stretched up (and up), and they kissed hello. Much tongue. Blech.

  Kiki must have given him a heads-up, because they both turned to stare down the bar at us. Beth waggled her fingers at him, and he lumbered toward us with his upper body held in the peculiar rash-in-the-armpit manner that steroidal body builders use.

  “Can I help you?” Chet’s reedy voice was ill-matched for his tough guy persona.

  It was at this point I realized the conspicuous absence of a game plan. I hated being backed into the truth just because of bad planning, but there we were. “I’m trying to find out what happened to a friend of mine. You knew her.”

  “Trinnie.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What makes you think I know anything?” Chet scratched his chin.

  “The cops must think so, too,” Beth chimed in.

  “Yeah, they talked to me. And I told them the same thing I’m gonna tell you. I didn’t kill her. Why would I?”

  “Maybe because she humiliated you?” I ventured. “Maybe she owed you money? We know you didn’t like each other; she told someone you scared her.”

  “Good. She shoulda been scared. But that don’t mean I killed the little skank. Besides, I was here.”

  “You mean until closing?”

  “I mean until after closing. I didn’t tell the cops, because I didn’t want to get my boss in trouble, but we had an after-hours party. And after that, I went home with Jelly.”

  “I thought Kiki was your girlfriend?”

  “So?”

  He stomped off, not even bothering to ask us to keep quiet about his dalliance.

  “As alibis go, that one is pretty good.” Beth pointed out. “I would have expected him to say he was with Kiki.”

  “Yeah, whether it was true or not.”

  “You know, he didn’t even have to tell us this much. It’s not like we’re the cops or anything.”

  “Sounds like he even told us more.” Idly, I let my eyes roam over the growing crowd. The comment I was about to make caught in my throat when I locked eyes with a thin, little blonde snugged up under Tyler’s arm. I gasped.

  “Who’s that?” Beth asked.

  I had to turn away before I could speak. “My sister.”

  “You scared me; I thought we were running into an old archenemy or something. Gonna duke it out in the parking lot.”

  “We are. And we might.”

  “I was afraid you were going say that. Aren’t therapists supposed to have loving family relationships?”

  “That doesn’t help. Look,” I went on. “I just want to get out of here without causing a scene.”

  “Too late,” Beth sighed. “She’s heading our way.”

  THIRTY FOUR

  “So, the mighty has fallen, huh?” Kris eased up next to me.

  I resisted the urge to correct her grammar; Kris didn’t take criticism well. At least, not from me. Despite being three years younger, the drinking and late nights were taking a hefty toll on her. I suspected more than alcohol was to blame for the deterioration. In addition to being wraith-thin, her once beautiful teeth had noticeably deteriorated. Maybe bulimia, but meth was just as likely.

  “Hey, Kris.” I kept my voice even. Maybe too even, but then nothing I said would have made a difference.

  “Gee, Sis. Don’t get all mushy on me. What’s it been? A year now?”

  “Closer to two. How’ve you been?”

  “Finer than frog’s hair. What are you drinking? I’ll buy.” She turned towards Jelly and circled a finger in the air over our glasses.

  As Jelly moved our way, I took a deep breath. “Just an orange juice for me,” I said.

  “Are you kidding me with that shit?”

  “Kris, don’t start.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, Violet. What are you doing here anyway? And don’t give my any of yo
ur bullshit lectures; I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I’m not here to lecture you. Why I’m here has nothing to do with you.”

  I regretted my choice of words even before I saw my baby sister’s face close down.

  “It never does,” she snapped as she pivoted and walked away.

  “Kris, wait!”

  Ignoring me, she walked to a group of people and disappeared among them. Curious stares flicked my way. Beth stood quietly beside me while I fought the urge to chase after her. It wouldn’t have done any good. The most it would accomplish would be a front row seat to her destructive choices, and I couldn’t stand that thought, either.

  “You okay?” Beth ventured.

  “No, but I’m used to it. It’s been like this with her ever since I quit drinking.”

  “Was she your drinking buddy?

  “Sometimes,” I replied, “but not often. I think it’s more that she feels my decision to quit drinking is a criticism of her. Growing up watching my dad, we swore to each other we’d never drink. Now, the more I try to talk to her, the worse it gets. So I leave her alone, and she hates me for that, too.”

  “Rock and a hard place.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not going to change tonight.” I sighed, but the weight on my heart didn’t lighten. Recognizing it wasn’t the best idea to sink into a depression in the middle of a bar, I said, “Maybe it’s time to go.

  It was full dark by the time we got to Beth’s. I needed to pick up Eli’s ring for Couples Corner, so I followed her inside, trying not to gawk. We traversed so many rooms, I’d need an escort back to the front door. Eventually, we ended up in an office near the back. Crossing to a back wall, Beth swung a painting aside—just like in the movies. Nestled in this little hidey-hole resided her safe. Her expression forbade comment, and I moved discreetly away as she twirled the knob, muttering under her breath. Moments later, as I slipped the ring on, Beth swung the safe door shut and an ear-piercing alarm shrieked. Stupidly, I equated the shutting of the safe door with the alarm going off. Seemed rather backward to me.