Murder on the Rocks

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “I know, and I appreciate it, Riley.”

  “Uh-oh, it looks like I’ve got cops knocking on my door now. I better go but I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay.” I disconnected the call, turned off the ringer, and set the phone on the table.

  “He sounds rather . . . protective toward you,” Albright said.

  “Yes, I suppose he is. He and my father were good friends and Riley took over looking out for me after . . .” I let my voice trail off. Both of us knew what I meant.

  “Looks out for you like a family friend, or something more?”

  I laughed at the innuendo. “Riley? God, no! We’re just friends. He’s like a stepfather to me.”

  Albright cocked his head to one side and stared at me. I got the feeling he was weighing my answer, determining the veracity of my statement like some human lie detector. “Okay,” he said finally, looking back down at his notes. “Let’s get back to this little talent of yours.”

  I thought I detected a faintly skeptical tone in his voice and said, “You think I’m a nutcase, don’t you?”

  He smiled. “No, not at all. In fact, I find it rather intriguing. But I’m having a little difficulty understanding how it works.”

  “You and everyone else in the world it seems, including me.”

  “You say that certain things you experience are sometimes associated with the same reaction?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes.”

  “Can you give me some examples?”

  I thought, looking off into space. “Well, whenever I hear bells ringing, I taste cherries, and the higher the pitch of the bell, the tarter the taste of the cherry. If I eat broccoli, which I don’t care for by the way, I hear this annoying buzzing sound. When I listen to rap music, I see sharp, peaked lines that vibrate, usually in very bright colors. If I listen to classical music, I see one vibrating string of a line in a more subdued tone. Whenever I looked at my father during a particularly emotional moment, I would see a warm, yellow light, like the sun on a spring day. And his voice made me taste butterscotch.”

  “Butterscotch,” Albright said, sounding puzzled.

  “Yeah, I don’t always understand my reactions.” Like why your voice tastes like sweet chocolate.

  “Do you experience normal sensations along with your . . . unique ones?”

  “I do, at least as far as I know. Like I said, when I hear a bell ring I taste cherries. I’ve eaten cherries, so I know what they taste like to me, but whether or not they taste the same to anyone else . . .” I shrugged.

  Albright’s mouth turned up at one corner, a little half-smile. “Do you experience anything when you look at me?” he asked.

  The question caught me by surprise and made me taste chocolate again. Another uncomfortable silence followed and I saw Blunt shake her head in dismay. I looked back at Albright and as we stared at one another, I felt a warm vibration in my gut, just below my navel. “No,” I lied. “Nothing at all.”

  The way he was eyeing me I knew he suspected I was lying, but he said nothing more on the subject. Instead he scribbled something in his notebook. I tried to see what he was writing but he had his other hand placed just so, blocking my view. I figured his notes probably read something along the lines of nut job, whackadoodle, or a few cans shy of a six-pack. By now, he was probably having a synesthetic reaction of his own, hearing the music to The Twilight Zone every time he looked at me.

  “So let me see if I understand this,” he said. “These sensations you get are cues or clues to what you’re experiencing?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “And you can interpret them?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Though I don’t always get the cause and effect relationship right away.”

  “Ohhh-kay,” Albright said slowly, scribbling again. “Let’s switch gears a bit. Why don’t you tell me what you know about Ginny Rifkin and, if you’re up to it, your father’s murder.”

  I sighed, unhappy with the idea of reopening painful wounds. “I really don’t have time for this,” I told him. “I need to get back to my business. Things have been tight lately and I’ve got bills to pay. Having the bar closed isn’t helping. And it’s Friday. The weekend is when I do my best business.”

  “I’m sorry about that, but until I can sort a few things out, the bar will have to stay closed.”

  As blackmails go, this was a good one. Realizing I didn’t have much choice, I let out a resigned sigh and said, “Fine,” in a tone that made it clear I felt otherwise. “Are you a coffee drinker?”

  “Hardcore.”

  “Good. Me, too.” I turned away and headed for my two coffee makers. “I think I’ll put on both pots,” I said over my shoulder. “I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”

  Chapter 4

  I was busy setting up the coffeepots when someone started banging on the front door of the bar. Blunt glanced out the window and I expected her to shoo whoever it was away. Instead she unlocked and opened the door. I couldn’t see who was on the other side from where I stood because the cop only opened the door a little ways, but I caught a glimpse of short, pale blond hair in the window and had a pretty good idea who it might be.

  Blunt said, “I thought we told you guys we didn’t need any transport. The victim is DOA.”

  “I know that,” said a worried male voice that confirmed my suspicion. “I heard the call go out while I was on another run. I’m here because I need to know if Mack is okay. I’m her boyfriend, Zachary Fairbanks.”

  “It’s okay,” I hollered to Blunt, wondering if I actually had a say in the matter. I’m sure Blunt would have deferred to Duncan Albright if he had been there, but at the moment he was out back in the alley with the other cops and a team of evidence techs. After a moment of indecision, Blunt opened the door wider and Zach came in at a fast clip, heading straight for me.

  “Mack, geez, are you okay?” His voice made me taste buttered toast. It was a comforting taste: safe, familiar, ordinary. In contrast, his blue eyes were huge with worry and his blond hair, which he normally parted on one side, stood up atop his head like a Mohawk, a sure sign he’d been combing his hands through it the way he did whenever he was anxious. He grabbed me in a snug bear hug with my face nestled in his shoulder. His smell—a mix of laundry detergent and soap with an underlying hint of sweat—made me hear a tinny, tinkling sound, as if the keys on a child’s piano were being plunked in the distance somewhere. He held me tight for several seconds, one hand rubbing my back, before he released me from the hug and held me at arm’s length, looking me over from head to toe. “I heard a call go out on our scanner for a body in the alley, and recognized your address,” he said. “I was scared to death it was you. What happened?”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him, stating the obvious. “But I did find a body out by the Dumpster when I took my trash out this morning.”

  Zach shook his head. “Of all the people for that to happen to. . . .” He leaned over, kissed me on the forehead, and then let me go, looking around the bar. His gaze settled on Blunt and he stepped up and extended a hand toward her. “Hi, I’m Zach Fairbanks. I’m a paramedic.”

  “Yes, I deduced that using my keen detecting skills,” Blunt said with an impatient smile.

  Given that Zach was dressed in his uniform with badges on his shirt that read PARAMEDIC in big, bold letters, I found this comment inordinately funny and snorted a laugh that came out louder than I meant it to. Nerves, I guess.

  “I’m also Mack’s boyfriend,” Zach said, stepping back and draping a possessive arm over my shoulders.

  “So I heard,” Blunt said, looking faintly amused.

  The term “boyfriend” sounded so silly, like we were in high school or something. But there wasn’t a more appropriate term I could think of. I’d known Zach for six or seven months, ever since the night he came in with a group of firemen and other paramedics for a stag party. I was working behind the bar and Zach kept coming up to order drinks. We hit it
off right away and the two of us chatted a lot that night. In fact, I think he spent more time with me than he did with his fellow partyers. He came in again a week later, alone this time, and we chatted some more. Soon it became a routine, with Zach popping in two or three times a week. Over time our conversations became friendlier and more intimate. Eventually he asked me out for dinner and a movie. I wanted to go, but finding a night when I could do it was another matter. Taking time off was difficult for me after Dad’s death and it was only after two of my waitresses offered to work an extra shift so I could be off that I finally managed a free night.

  That first date was pleasant enough and it ended with a heated make-out session in Zach’s car. Two more similar dates followed, but when Zach hinted that he was ready to move our relationship to another level, I balked. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him; I did. And it wasn’t that I was a prude, or a virgin. That train left the station years ago. But sexual intimacy meant an emotional commitment to me, and ever since my father’s death I’d felt emotionally stunted—drained and exhausted. I needed more time. Zach, bless his heart, had been infinitely patient with me in that regard.

  “Do you know who the dead woman is?” Zach asked.

  “How do you know it’s a woman?” Blunt asked. “All Mack said just now is that she found a body. She didn’t mention any gender.”

  Zach thought a moment and then said, “I think the call that went out on the scanner said it was female, or maybe it was the chatter we were listening to afterward.” He shrugged. “Not sure where I heard it, but I did.”

  “It’s Ginny Ri—” I started to say but Blunt interrupted me.

  “Until we have confirmation of the ID, we’d rather it not get out,” she said, looking pointedly at me.

  Zach winced and said, “Sorry, but Mack got enough out that I think I know. It’s Ginny Rifkin, right?”

  Blunt sighed heavily and I gave her an apologetic shrug.

  “My lips are sealed,” Zach added quickly. “I won’t say a word to anyone. My only concern is for Mack here.” He turned a worried gaze toward me. “This has to be awful for you after everything else that’s happened. I tried to call you when we got back to the station but it went to voice mail.”

  “Sorry about that. My cell phone is upstairs and I turned off the ringer on the bar phone.”

  “Well, let me tell you, it scared me something terrible. I thought for sure something had happened to you. I got one of the guys to cover for me for an hour or so, so I could come down here and check on things.” He paused and glanced at his watch. “I’m glad you’re okay and I wish I could stay here and offer you some moral support, but I need to get back to the station.”

  “No problem, I understand. And I’ll be fine.” I flashed him a smile that I hoped would convince him, though I wasn’t so sure myself.

  “I get off at seven tonight so I’ll drop by after to see how you’re doing. But in the meantime, remember you can call me anytime, for anything.”

  “Thanks, Zach. And thanks for checking on me.”

  Zach took hold of my shoulders, pulled me close, and gave me a kiss on my lips that lasted just long enough to make me blush and see an orange circle that shrunk in size like a deflating balloon. As he turned to leave I refocused my attention on the coffee makers, my back to Blunt. Just as I heard the front door close behind Zach, Albright walked back in and Blunt hurried over and began filling him in on Zach’s visit, including his prior knowledge that the victim was a woman, his current knowledge about who the victim was, and the kiss we shared right before Zach left.

  Albright remained silent through it all and I avoided looking at him for the most part, though I did glance over at him at one point during Blunt’s update and found him staring at me with a curious expression. I quickly turned my attention back to the coffee duties and by the time I had the coffee brewed and poured mugs for all three of us—Blunt eyed her mug warily for a few seconds before taking it, as if she thought I might have poisoned it—Albright had settled in at one of the tables. When he took a sip from his mug, his eyebrows arched in surprise.

  “Is there something wrong?” I asked.

  “Quite the contrary. This is some of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.”

  It wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting. “Thank you,” I said, beaming. “It’s nice to hear someone else likes it since I’m never sure if I can trust my own taste buds.”

  “Does the taste of coffee trigger some other reaction in you?”

  “It does. I get a tactile sense from it, like a hand touching my arm. I can tell when the coffee is just right for me because that touch feels like a caress. Crappy coffee feels like someone has me in a vise grip.”

  Albright looked at my arms, first the left, then the right, and then looked back at me. “So coffee feels like a caress.”

  “Good coffee, yes.”

  “Then what does a caress do to you?” His voice was low, almost murmuring, and as he stared into my eyes I got that funny tingling sensation low in my gut again. He was quite handsome and very affable, considering the circumstances. I suspected this was a practiced technique he had used before, coming across as flirtatious and amiable whenever he had to interrogate a woman. And he was trying it out on me now, no doubt hoping I would fall for his charms and let my guard down. Two could play at that game, I decided.

  “It depends on who is doing the caressing,” I said.

  Albright’s lips flickered into a hint of a smile and he finally broke eye contact. “Fair enough,” he said, picking up his pen. “Let’s get back to the task at hand. I can’t help but feel that your father’s death is related to Ginny’s somehow. It’s too much of a coincidence that her body ended up here.”

  “Can I ask how she was killed?”

  He hesitated and I expected him to hedge the question, but he didn’t, I guessed because he thought I’d seen more of her body than I’d admitted to. “I’ll have to wait for the autopsy for the official cause of course, but it appears she was stabbed multiple times and then dumped out there in the alley.”

  “You mean she wasn’t killed there?”

  He shook his head. “There’s little to no blood around the body. Given the number of stab wounds she had, there should have been a lot of it.”

  “So why dump her in the alley?”

  “That is an excellent question,” he said, pointing the pen at me. “Which is why I’d like you to tell me about the night your father was killed.”

  “Why?”

  “To see if there are any other connections.”

  “It’s not something I like to talk about,” I said, hoping to avoid resurrecting those memories. “Besides, I’m sure it’s all in the police report.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it is, and I’ll review the case file later. But in the meantime I’d really like to hear things from your perspective, including any of your . . . unique experiences.”

  I eyed him suspiciously, wondering if he was mocking me.

  “Why don’t you begin with the events that occurred just before he was killed,” he urged. “Start a few hours before it happened.”

  I sighed, closed my eyes, and let myself drift back to a time and place I’d been working hard to block from my memory. “It was mid-January, a little shy of ten months ago,” I began. “I’d been out of town all week attending a barkeeper’s convention in New York City and I was late getting back because of a snowstorm. It was a cold Saturday night and business was good. The bar was crowded all evening and my dad put me to work as soon as I got back. By the time we made last call, the place was still pretty full. Along with our usual crowd of singles and couples, there were several groups partying: some nurses who had gotten off duty a couple of hours before, a half dozen guys who were having a “freedom wake” for their friend who had just gotten engaged, and a group of about ten people who had just come from some corporate shindig here in town.

  “Dad had me and another girl working the floor, and he and Billy—he’s a night bart
ender here—were sharing duties behind the bar and in the kitchen.”

  My mind replayed various scenes from that evening—faces, voices, the reverb from the jukebox—and because it was a memory rather than real life, I could recall it all without the interference of my usual synesthetic filter. Most of the time, my synesthetic experiences are like background noise, there but easy to ignore. It’s only when I’m stressed, or when the sensory input is very powerful that they interfere.

  “There was a bit of a scuffle just before closing,” I recall. “Two of the guys in the reunion group were arguing over something and they ended up exchanging blows out back in the alley. Dad went out there and broke it up while the rest of us were shooing people out the front door so we could lock up for the night. Normally our bouncer, Gary, would have handled the fight, but he was off that night because he was sick with the flu. We were down a bartender at the time because one of them had quit the week before. Billy had worked eight or nine days straight, so Dad insisted he leave as soon as we closed. Carolyn, the girl who was waiting tables with me, was a single mom and she had to get home so her baby-sitter could leave.” I paused and gave Duncan Albright a bitter smile. “She doesn’t work here anymore; in fact she never worked here again after that night.”

  “Because of the shooting?” Albright had his pen in hand and it was poised over his notebook, but he wasn’t writing anything.

  I nodded.

  “I take it the cops who investigated looked into the guys who were involved in the fight?”

  “They said they did, and the guys all had airtight alibis.”

  “So what happened next?”

  I looked away, remembering the horror of the next few moments. “With everyone else gone for the night, it was up to me and Dad to do the closing and cleanup stuff. He told me he had something important to tell me when we got done. I was in back in the kitchen and, the last I saw him, Dad was out front counting out the money in the till. I didn’t hear anything at first because I was hand washing some dishes and the water running in the stainless sink was loud enough to drown out most noise. At one point I thought I heard people yelling so I turned the water off. It was quiet for a few seconds and then I heard my father shout out something. I’m not sure exactly what his words were, but it sounded like, Go away! or No way! . . . something like that. And then I heard the shot.”