Murder on the Rocks

by Allyson K. Abbott

  I knew the post was likely to watch me as much as anyone else, but I didn’t mind and let him know so. “No, not at all. In fact, I found it reassuring. This whole thing has me spooked. You can park out there every night if you like until we figure out who did this.”

  He arched one eyebrow and smiled. “Tempting,” he said, “but I can’t work the bar all evening and stay awake all night for too many nights in a row. We’ve arranged for the area to be watched by someone else for the next few nights so I can continue to pretend I know how to mix a drink. Though I suspect that ruse won’t work much longer now that your staff knows. If we don’t catch a break in this thing pretty soon, we’ll have to take a different approach.” He looked from me to the books on the table. “So what did you dig up?”

  I filled him in on the e-mail, the book I found in my father’s office, and the subject matter it addressed. “That explains your interest in Capone,” he said, “but I think you’re reaching for the stars.” Undeterred by his pessimism, I told him about the contents of the reference binders I’d just gone over. Then I delivered my coup de grâce. “When I went to sign out the binders, guess whose name appeared on the previous line?”

  “Whose?” He sounded impatient and bored.

  “Lewis Carmichael, the nurse who took care of my father on the night he died.”

  I waited for the big eureka moment, but what I got instead was a long pause followed by a weighty sigh. “You lost me, Mack.”

  “It’s a connection. Don’t you see? Lewis knew Ginny, he took care of my father, and he’s a regular at the bar. Now I find his name here on a list of people who have checked out information that Ginny e-mailed my father about. I think it’s more than just a coincidence, don’t you?”

  Based on his skeptical expression I guessed not, but I wasn’t about to give in so easily. “I found the most pertinent clues in these papers,” I said, pointing toward the two collections. “It’s pretty clear that Capone was raking in the money during the late twenties, somewhere around one hundred million a year. And while he did spend some of it, there is a lot that’s unaccounted for. Some of the stuff I read in here suggests that Capone not only used some of his riches to buy up gold bars, but that he likely stashed some of those bars in buildings here in the city and in Chicago so the IRS couldn’t find or confiscate them. It’s known that Capone had a few trusted bar owners who were part of his bootlegging business, and these papers suggest that those barkeeps could have been persuaded to hide the loot easily enough, particularly if they got to share in some of it later on. My bar has been a bar since the building was built in the late eighteen hundreds. And as it turns out, one of the barkeeps suspected of being in on Capone’s business owned my bar back during Capone’s time.”

  I spent the next twenty minutes pointing out the pertinent articles and papers, and watching Duncan as he read them. Several times, while his head was bent over the papers reading, my eyes drifted to the back of his neck, noting how muscled and tanned it was. He wore his hair a bit long in the back and it curled ever so slightly over the edge of his shirt collar. I recalled his suspicion that the proverbial cat would be let out of the bag now that my staff knew who he really was, and the thought of him no longer being around saddened me.

  When he was done reading he scratched his head and looked at me with an apologetic expression. “I can see how someone might interpret the stuff in here as indicating that there’s a hidden treasure somewhere, but I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s ambiguous as hell and frankly it could point to any number of locations, including the river bottom.”

  “I’ll grant you it’s a bit vague and to be honest I don’t put much stock in it myself. But what if someone else did?”

  “So you think Lewis Carmichael killed Ginny Rifkin because he thinks you have a hidden treasure in your bar somewhere?” His tone made it clear what he thought of the idea.

  Now that someone else was saying it out loud, it did sound rather far-fetched. “Look, I know it seems crazy, but think about this a minute. On the night my father was murdered he told me he had something he wanted to tell me but he never got to do it. Lewis Carmichael took care of him at the hospital and according to the doctors on duty that night, my father briefly regained consciousness before he died. What if there is something hidden in the bar?” I saw Duncan open his mouth to object so I quickly added, “Or what if my father simply thought there might be something there? If he had evidence along those lines and that’s what he wanted to tell me that night, might he not have mentioned it to someone as he lay mortally wounded? Maybe he said something to Lewis.”

  “Okay,” Duncan said in a conceding tone. “But how does Ginny figure in?”

  “Well, she was the one who cued my father into this treasure business in the first place. Maybe she found out that Lewis knew about it and he killed her to keep her quiet.”

  “Ten months after the fact? Why wouldn’t he kill her right away?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were in cahoots together.”

  “Cahoots?” Duncan said, grinning.

  “Call it whatever you want,” I said irritably. “My point is, if Ginny knew about this stuff and Lewis found out as well, maybe they decided to team up to try to find the treasure, or buy me out. That would explain all the weird incidents with the missing money and watered-down booze. Ginny knew what my situation was moneywise, that my father wasn’t insured. I don’t think anyone else did. I tried to keep the money situation quiet because I didn’t want my employees to panic. But Ginny knew I was walking a thin line and that it wouldn’t take much before I’d have to either sell the place or take out a loan. Maybe Lewis Carmichael decided he wanted to keep any treasure there might be for himself, and that’s why he killed Ginny.”

  Duncan frowned as he considered all this. “If your theory is true . . .” I couldn’t help but smile when he said this, so he held up a hand and in a cautionary tone added, “I’m not saying it is true, or even that I’m buying into it yet, but if it is, then how would Gary figure into any of this?”

  “Well, if what you said about Gary sharing a cell with Ginny’s son is true, then maybe Ginny had my father hire Gary on so she’d have someone on the inside who could snoop around at will. That makes sense, because my father hired Gary during the time he was dating Ginny and I still can’t believe he would have knowingly hired an ex-con. Maybe Ginny vouched for Gary somehow and that’s how he got hired.”

  Duncan looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “So if you think Lewis killed Ginny to keep the money for himself, what about Gary?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Lewis and Gary are in ca—” I stopped myself before Duncan could make fun of me again. Then it hit me. “You said Gary has disappeared and you’re assuming he’s on the run because he’s guilty.”

  Duncan shrugged and nodded.

  “Maybe the reason Gary disappeared is because he’s dead, like Ginny. Maybe Lewis eliminated all of his competition.” I thought this was a clever idea so I was chagrined to see Duncan try to suppress a smile. “What?” I said.

  “I think you’ve been reading too many mysteries, or watching too many episodes of Law and Order. Think it through. If Lewis’s goal is to get you to sell the place so he can buy it and look around for some hidden treasure, why would he kill the real estate agent who can help him buy it?”

  The slight air of condescension in his voice irked me. “Well, Mr. Smarty Pants,” I countered in a matching tone, “you don’t have to have a Realtor involved to conduct a real estate transaction. All you need is a real estate savvy lawyer, and if you’re comfortable enough with the contract end of things, you don’t even need that.”

  If my sneering tone bothered him at all, he didn’t show it. “Carmichael is a nurse,” he said.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Nurses make decent money, but a place like your building and your bar . . . that has to go for what, a couple of mil or so these days?”

  “They wouldn’t have to buy the buil
ding. Someone could buy the business alone and let me keep the building. That way I could continue to live in my apartment and charge rent for the rest of the place.”

  Duncan’s smile this time was a grudging one. “Okay, I’ll look into Carmichael’s finances. Did you happen to notice the date that he signed these out?” he added, gesturing toward the binders.

  I hadn’t and, feeling stupid, I blushed as I shook my head.

  “Let’s look.” Duncan scooped the binders up and headed for the reference desk, me on his tail. He handed over the binders and the librarian slid the clipboard toward me so I could sign that I had returned them. As I did, both Duncan and I made a note of the date next to Carmichael’s name: January 25 of this year, just one week after my father’s murder.

  “I’m sorry, Mack, but I’m not buying it. Those papers suggest there might be a treasure hidden somewhere, and while that is utterly fascinating, I suspect it’s nothing more than a few conspiracy theorists and romantics trying to rouse the rabble. I’m with you on being suspect of any coincidence, which is why I think Ginny’s murder is likely connected to your father’s somehow. But we know Lewis didn’t kill your father. His alibi is airtight. So either this coincidence is just that, or the two murders in the alley behind your bar are. I’m leaning more toward this being the true coincidence, but I’ll keep the connection in mind.”

  Resigned to Duncan’s skepticism of my admittedly half-baked theory, and realizing my desire to solve the crime might be coloring my objectivity, I nodded my acceptance. “Well, thanks for coming down here,” I told him. “I’m sorry if my busting your tail earlier interrupted your sleep.”

  “It didn’t. I had to get up anyway so I could be at the bar when you open.”

  I glanced at my watch. “I’m heading that way now. Are you coming?”

  “I need to check on a couple of things first, but I promise I’ll be there before five, okay?”

  “Okay. See you then.”

  I started to leave but he grabbed my arm and held me back. “Let me give you a lift back. It looks a bit ominous out there.”

  As we stepped outside I saw what he meant. The weather had done a sudden shift while I’d been inside, one of the quirks of living on the shores of Lake Michigan. The air had an ozone smell to it and the sky was leaden in color, hints of a rapidly approaching storm. The temperature had dropped dramatically and I felt the dark turbulence of the sky as a crawling heaviness along my arms and legs. Fierce tentacles of wind whipped between the buildings, creating exploding dots of gray and white in my field of vision.

  The cold and the crawling sensation had me rubbing my arms as I followed Duncan to his car, the same nondescript, dark blue sedan that had been parked outside on the street the past two nights. The car puzzled me because I pictured Duncan in something that was a bit flashier, not a showboat or anything, but certainly fancier than this ordinary sedan. That led me to wonder if it was his personal vehicle or an unmarked police car. I wasn’t able to tell because though the interior was as nondescript as the exterior, I saw no evidence of any police lights or a radio.

  The ride was a short one—only a couple of minutes, and the skies opened up seconds after we got in the car. Thunderous rain on the car roof made conversation nearly impossible and we rode in silence until Duncan pulled up in front of the bar.

  “See you in a bit,” he hollered to me and then he went about trying to clear the inside of the windshield with his sleeve. Sensing I’d been dismissed, I got out of the car and dashed to the door, huddling beneath the small overhang while I fumbled with my new keys. Duncan waited until I had the door open before he pulled away.

  The inside of the bar was dark and spooky. I went around turning on lights and the usually familiar sizzle of the neon signs as they came on seemed to trigger the bigger sizzle of lightning outside, making me taste little bursts of hot spice, like a bite into a peppercorn. Flashes of light came in through the windows, triggering a faint whiff of citrus for me that rapidly dissipated when deep rumbles of thunder shook the glass.

  I looked around, thinking about the whole Capone thing and wondering if it was possible for something like that to remain a secret all these years later. If I was Capone, where would I hide something? I looked at the obvious places first: the floor and the ceiling. The ceiling was a high one, covered with old-fashioned tin plating that had, unfortunately, been painted several times over. Its current color was a dingy white, marred by all the years when smoking was allowed inside the bar. I had no idea if there was space above that tin to hide anything and I didn’t have the means to climb up there and look. The floor was equally as old: large wooden planks that had been aged and scuffed to a fine patina. In some places the boards had shrunk and shifted, leaving cracks big enough to see through. No way was I going to pull up my floor to see if anything was hidden beneath, but I did walk the entire main floor, looking for any irregularities that might indicate a spot where boards had been moved.

  There were only two areas that fit the bill. The first was a spot behind the bar beneath the rubber mat by the sink, but this one I knew had already been explored. Two years ago the sink sprung a leak and the plumber had to take out some of the floorboards in order to make his repairs. The second was a space in the side room near the wall where the dartboard hung. Three planks in the floor just below the dartboard were darker than the rest, and they appeared to be a different type of wood, or at least from a different source given the visible grain. I couldn’t recall any repairs having been made there, but I supposed it was possible something had been done years ago that I couldn’t remember or didn’t know about. As I looked around the rest of the room, I realized there was a large unexplored area of floor beneath the pool table, but it was too heavy for me to move alone. Maybe I could tackle it later, assuming I could convince someone to help me and come up with a reason for moving it that wouldn’t sound too crazy.

  It was just before four in the afternoon, leaving me a little over an hour to get my preps done before opening at five. I could do it in less time than that so I dug up a pry bar, a hammer, and a flashlight, and knelt down by the darkened boards at the base of the dartboard. Five minutes later I stared down through the hole in my floor. There, in the space between the rafters, I found some old water stains, a pipe that ran to an outside spigot, and several coins. Unfortunately all of the coins were modern and ordinary; meaning my reward for my effort was a grand total of thirty-eight cents—most likely coins that were dropped and rolled down one of the cracks in the floor—and reassurance that yet another plumbing leak had been successfully repaired. Feeling foolish, I replaced the boards I’d pried up and nailed them back into place.

  Since I had to go down to the basement anyway to bring up some beer for the night, I headed there next. The combination of the lightning flashes and thundering booms had my senses reeling, making it hard to focus. I began along the wall where Dad had stashed and boxed up his papers and such, moving them enough to make sure they weren’t hiding anything. None of these boxes had been touched since he died, and I had no idea how long before that they had remained in place. Judging from the layer of dust I stirred up whenever I moved a stack of boxes, and the many cobwebs that connected the boxes to one another, as well as to the open studs in the ceiling and wall, it had been a long time. The feel of the cobwebs on my skin triggered an odd taste that I could only describe as biting into a towel. I studied the newly revealed floor area but it appeared to be intact with no evidence of tampering, concrete replacement, or cavities of any sort. The walls that had been hidden by the box stacks were cinder-block and they also appeared intact.

  The part of the basement where I kept my extra beer and liquor was an area I’d seen hundreds of times in the process of rotating the stock. I knew there were no defects or hidden niches in the wall there, and the floor was congruent with the rest of the concrete in the basement, with no signs of any disturbances or replacements.

  There was one other section of the basement I hadn’t
searched, a separate room that my father had used as something of a catchall. It was filled nearly to the ceiling with junk: toys from my childhood, old dishes and glassware, small appliances that still worked but had been upgraded or replaced in the bar kitchen, leftover flooring from a remodel on the apartment years ago, some aged camping equipment my father kept threatening to use but never did, and God knew what else.

  I stood in front of Dad’s worktable and stared across the basement at the catchall room, knowing I should probably go through it—something I would have to do sooner or later anyway—but not wanting to tackle the task. The storm raged outside, and bright flashes of light pierced the gloom through the small basement windows. I saw a synesthetic image that looked like waves breaking against the shore and couldn’t tell what had triggered it. The hairs on my arms rose as a parade of goose bumps marched across my skin. The air had a strong, musty odor to it and I felt that cloying sensation settle in along my neck and shoulders.

  I glanced at my watch and saw that it was close to opening time. Realizing there was no more time to search even if I wanted to, I went about fetching beers for my bar stock instead, pushing all thoughts of hidden treasures and vicious killers out of my mind.

  Chapter 25

  Back upstairs, I kept myself distracted and busy with the minutiae of my opening prep. Billy showed up at quarter to five and jumped in to help, but Helmut, Missy, and Debra all had the night off. Between that and Gary’s absence, things felt both rushed and awkward. Billy, to his credit, asked no questions. He just worked. The one saving grace was the knowledge that Sunday nights tend to be slow and a Sunday night marked by a huge thunderstorm was likely to be at a near standstill.

  Duncan arrived just before five dressed in a denim shirt and khakis. There wasn’t much prep work left for him to do so I put him behind the bar with Billy.

  At five we unlocked the front door to an empty street. A couple of people straggled in out of the pouring rain five minutes later. They were followed by a handful of others, a few locals who were willing to brave the weather for a drink, and some out-of-towners who sought shelter after getting caught in the storm. I did a decent business in food and mixed drinks—particularly my coffee martinis—in part I think, because of the weather. People drink beer when the sun is out, but when storms blow in, they tend to seek the warmth and comfort of something stronger, something to fill the gullet and warm the blood.