by Gabi Moore
At least, sometimes it was cigarette smoke.
She sighed; this was her life. Both jobs gave her something she needed, but not everything. There was always something missing. Aurora was beginning to suspect that she’d never find it.
But nine o’clock was rolling nearer, and the bar was already bouncing. She waded into the fray and joined her coworkers behind the bar. Katrina and Amy were both rushing to put glasses and bottles in hands, so busy that Katrina didn’t even have time to notice the stink eye Aurora gave her over the jacket she’d borrowed (Really, my name is stitched on the back, for Christ’s sake, Aurora thought to herself, annoyed). With a third set of hands, they managed to get on top of drink orders, and things behind the bar settled down long enough for them to catch a breath.
“Smoke break?” Katrina asked breathlessly. Her long brown hair was done up in a tight ponytail, with heavy, dark make-up around the eyes. Aurora shrugged; she didn’t smoke, and they all knew it.
“I can hold things up here for like, ten minutes,” Aurora told them.
“All right, all right.” They excused themselves without much fanfare, retreating out the back door in a burst of cold wind. Aurora didn’t envy them one bit—it felt like a freezer outside.
She did, however, begin to wonder where they were when the rush returned. Aurora was a great worker and great bartender—anything else would have been buried as a mob of the night crowd came to riot around the bar. Handing out beers, pouring shots, mixing drinks, ringing tabs, and making tips fell into a steady rhythm. Snapping selfies, orchestrating belly shots, specialty booze pours, and the occasional ice bucket into the increasingly rowdy crowd—Aurora felt like she was batting against as tsunami. The DJ saw her distress and was trying to lure people onto the dance floor to give her a break, but there was only so much she could do from her booth. Aurora was good, but this was too much. Where were Katrina and Amy?
She’s just served up a round of three hurricanes and a hot saucer when the first scream hit.
Aurora spun around. Amy was back. Most of her, anyway.
Witching Hour and the panicking crowd tilted at a funny angle as what she was seeing sunk in. Aurora leaned a hand against the bar; her head felt hot. So warm… and so dizzy.
Amy had managed to wander back in from her smoke break, mumbling nonsense around what was left of her tongue. Blood gushed from her mouth, and from the sockets where her green eyes had been, blood matting into her red hair, down her neck, down her shirt, everywhere, everywhere…
An hour passed, but Aurora would have been surprised to hear it. Her mind kept taking unexpected leave, blanking out like a merciful white cloud, letting her body go through the motions. Calling Chip. The ambulance, the second ambulance today, arriving to find Aurora still holding a washrag to Amy’s eyes. It was sopping with blood. So much blood. But Aurora didn’t remember the worst of it, and when Chip was sitting with her outside some time later, reality began to catch up, and she began to cry hot tears that steamed in the biting cold.
“Breathe, honey, just breathe. The medics said to focus on taking deep breaths.”
That was Chip. He’d never sounded so caring. Aurora felt an arm around her shoulders, and knew it was his.
She looked down at her hands, the fingerless gloves gone. They’d been gone a while; the EMT had taken them off when she helped Aurora clean the blood off her fingers. There had been so much of it… Aurora could still feel it on her skin now, burning and thick and catching the light like rubies.
She felt a little sick, and gulped in frozen February air to stifle the nausea. Aurora hated vomiting ever since she was little. Besides, there was nothing left to throw up except bile and the sips of water she’d forced down.
The world was coming back into focus, a little at a time. She was outside Witching Hour, and a crime scene had been established. She and Chip were seated in the open back of a police van. Amy’s limp body had been loaded hastily into the back of an ambulance and shipped to the nearest hospital; her outlook wasn’t good. Two other ambulances waited on the scene, the medics and EMTs making rounds through the club staff and the club patrons who hadn’t run off at the sound of police sirens.
No one knew what had happened to Amy, yet. There were no witnesses, at least none that had stuck around to speak to police. Some psycho in the alley, probably. High on meth or PCP or some crazy street drugs. That was all the police could guess so far, when Chip asked.
“It’s going to be all right, Aurora, it’s going to be fine.”
First Madame Moreau, and now this? How much was one girl supposed to be able to handle?
Aurora struggled to sit upright. She seemed to be succeeding when an officer approached.
“You the owner? Christopher Henson?”
Chip’s real name; he answered in the affirmative.
The officer sighed. “Sir, do you know an Aurora?”
Both Aurora and Chip stiffened and exchanged a glance. “Well… yes.”
Another sigh. The officer, also, seemed to be having a long night, and looked truly sorry when he said, “There’s no easy way to tell you this, but I’m afraid we found her body in the alley behind the bar.”
Aurora forgot to breathe again. Chip looked at her, then at the officer. “That’s not possible. Aurora… well, this is her. Right here.”
The cop stared at Aurora for a moment, and frowned. “Well, we got an adult female, probably twenties, eyes and tongue missing, lying dead in the alley behind your establishment.”
Confusion, then realization. Aurora’s eyes welled up again and Chip closed his eyes. In a whisper, Aurora voiced what they both knew.
“Katrina.”
Chapter 5
The interrogation room wasn’t like the gray metal and stone ones Aurora had always seen in Law and Order. The table and chairs (and the two-way glass) were about the only parts in common. It was getting on towards eleven and Aurora was feeling extremely tired. If she were to venture a guess, her adrenaline and the terrible shock of seeing Amy and hearing about Katrina had wiped her of energy. She sure felt wiped of energy.
The officer sitting across from her was a middle aged black woman, overweight and plainly dressed and slacks and a polo, more resembling a DMV clerk than a plainclothes detective. She looked fully uninterested in being at work at eleven on a Friday, or perhaps any day, and she asked Aurora a string of questions in a deadpan tone that suggested obligation.
“How long did you know the victim?”
“Which…?”
“My apologies, Ms. Potier. Ms. Katrina Gersham. How long were you two acquainted?”
“Uh…” Aurora was having the hardest time pinning down dates, hours. “I only met her when I started at Witching Hour, about a year… and… a half ago?” Had it only been that long? Aurora felt like she had been bartending for Chip forever. What would happen to the bar now?
“Ms. Potier?”
“Yes! I’m… I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.”
“Did you hear the question?”
Had there been another question? Aurora felt like she could put her head down on the desk and fall asleep, and they were here asking her questions. Worse, they were mostly the same questions she’d answered for the police on-scene. Was there anyone suspicious in the bar tonight? Did you notice any strangers out front or out back when you arrived at work? Your boss informed us you were late—could you provide details of that, please?
“No, I’m sorry,” Aurora replied, dry-mouthed. “What did you ask?”
The officer nodded her head slowly, neither annoyed nor sympathetic, and repeated, “Please recount the last time you saw the victim—Ms. Gersham—alive.”
Aurora bit her bottom lip, thinking. That was a tough thing to do, although she remembered it clearly, as if it had only happened a moment ago.
“I arrived at work late, and joined Amy and Katrina behind the bar, probably around 8:45—PM. There were a lot of customers at the bar right then, so I jumped right in to help. We h
ardly spoke for the first half hour, we were so busy. And then, when it slowed down a bit, they wanted to go out and smoke before the real rush arrived…”
Aurora’s throat closed. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t smoke, see… They know I don’t… They… knew… That’s why they kn-knew I could w-watch—the bar—while they—” Unwelcome, images of Amy stumbling back without eyes, without a tongue, came rushing in. And Katrina—poor Katrina—she’d gotten engaged last month…
If only she’d told them no! Aurora cleared her throat, trying to compose herself. If only she’d refused! If only she’d been on time, then maybe someone else, another smoker, would have been behind the bar and they wouldn’t have been able to agree on who to stay—something, anything!
“Oh, God,” Aurora coughed miserably. The officer waited, face softening for the first time that Aurora had seen. Here she was, answering a police inquiry in her bartending outfit, recounting the events leading up to the death of one coworker and the maiming of another. They still hadn’t found Amy’s tongue or eyes.
No, Aurora stopped herself. Don’t think of that. Anything but that. Determined, she put her mind in the office outside. It had looked like a normal government office space. It could have been an accounting office, or the back room of the IRS. Cubicles, computers, suits and ties and office casual. A man and woman flirted over a cubicle wall. Papers and files were being run, work was being evading with varying degrees of success. Everyone seemed ready to go home, some more than others.
Movement. Action. Life. Aurora focused on it, refusing to be sucked back into the empty holes of Amy’s missing eyes.
“Ms. Potier? Was that all you remember?”
Aurora nodded, still focusing on the hustle of office work she was envisioning outside the interrogation room.
The officer blinked slowly, as if she had all the time she could ever need, and leaned forward. “You failed to mention that Katrina Gersham was wearing your jacket when she died.”
Shocked, Aurora snapped out of her daydream. “Well… yes. She’d borrowed it before I arrived.”
“Without your permission?”
“Yes, I hadn’t gotten to work yet,” Aurora repeated. She was beginning to hear something like suspicion in her interrogator’s voice. “How much longer is this going to be? I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Almost finished, Miss.”
But for the next minute, she said absolutely nothing and proceeded to write what looked like pages of notes on her notepad, leaving Aurora to try and remain calm. The clock seemed to grow louder with each tick. Why was she still here? Aurora smoothed her hands over her leather pants anxiously. She’d answered all their questions, hadn’t she? Why was she being kept here? Why?
She watched the officer jot note after note, never once looking up. What was she writing? Aurora had the sudden and unwelcome thought. Was she a suspect? Why had they asked about Katrina and the jacket?
Without warning the door burst open like an explosion and slapped flat against the opposite wall. Aurora nearly jumped to the ceiling. In strode a second officer, this one looking even less the part than the one who’d finally paused her writing to look up in annoyance.
This officer was younger, perhaps in his late twenties. White and with a wide, obnoxious smile, his short blondish hair was cropped like he still thought N’Sync was a thing. He was wearing jeans instead of slacks, and a blazing red-patterned button-down shirt. His holster was still over his shoulders, weapon and all, though he wasn’t wearing a coat to hide it.
“Hey! How’s the interview?”
Aurora had no idea if he was asking her or the other officer. She just sat there, staring open-mouthed. The older officer glared, mouth thinning into a sharp line.
“Officer Milo, please have a seat.” She sighed heavily. “You have been asked repeatedly to please dress according to code.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Dora. Jeans are more comfortable.” He said this as he pulled up a chair on the table edge between them. “And they flatter my legs better.”
He did have a nice body. Aurora wasn’t really in a position to admire officers’ physiques at the moment, but the jeans suited him nicely. Sort of a Wild West feel. She was relaxing, which was a relief, because a moment ago her skin had been threatening to leap right off her bones. Her breathing was settling back into a normal rhythm; Aurora hadn’t realized she’d been breathing any differently until she’d gotten back to her usual rate.
“Did Dora ask you about the victims yet?”
Aurora nodded. “Yes. I told her everything I know. I was inside at the bar when it happened.”
Officer Milo looked at her closely; his wasn’t exactly an intimidating face, so the effect was more comical than anything, like Ace Ventura. This, she judged, would not be a good time to point that out.
“So you deny any connection to the assaults?”
“Milo!” Dora hissed warningly.
“What?” he asked, turning to her in confusion.
Aurora blinked. She didn’t understand at first. “Of course I didn’t have anything to do with them. That’s… that’s sick, what happened to Amy… to Katrina.”
Milo swiveled back to face her. “So you didn’t commit, or have any knowledge of, these crimes?”
Understanding began to dawn on her, and Aurora’s breath huffed out in an incredulous hiss. She had been so anxious just a few minutes ago—where had all that gone?
“Are you suggesting that it was me?” she asked flatly, raising her eyebrows.
“Well, the victim was wearing your jacket—”
“That she borrowed from me, without asking, before I even arrived,” Aurora snapped, cutting Milo off. She glared at both of them. “Should I call a lawyer?”
Not that she could afford it. Maybe she could find someone to defend her pro bono; how did you find someone like that? How did people go about procuring lawyers? It came up all the time in Law and Order and CSI—which Aurora loved to watch when she had a split second off work—but really, how did you find one in real life?
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Ms. Potier,” Officer Dora replied. “You’ll have to forgive my partner. He was dropped on his head as a child, and many times since.” The last she drawled with a level stare at Milo, who barely looked sheepish.
“Yeah,” he added. “We’re just having a conversation, right?”
“There were dozens of people in the club,” Aurora continued, unconvinced. “I’m accounted for—the entire time that the crime must have happened. I was at the bar when Katrina and Amy went out to smoke, and I didn’t leave until… after.”
“The witnesses at the club have all vanished,” Dora replied. “Many disappeared into the night the second that poor girl made it back behind the bar. The rest are claiming they weren’t even there.”
Aurora stared, dumbstruck. “The… the cameras. Chip has cameras…”
Dora shook her head. “It seems Mr. Henson had been having some technical difficulties with the security cameras. He says it’s been going on for a day or two—hadn’t gotten around to having someone out to look at them just yet. We’ve checked his contacts; the company has an appointment for Witching Hour on Monday, but trouble always happens when you aren’t ready for it, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I didn’t do it,” Aurora insisted. “That’s crazy! Why would I? I’d have to be nuts to want to hurt either of them like that.”
“Honestly,” Milo shrugged. “We’re just low on suspects.”
Fury welled up Aurora’s stomach like a fireball. “That’s why I’m being given the third-degree? Because you’re low on suspects?”
Milo exchanged a look with Dora, who looked at him with the same flat expression she’d been wearing for most of the interview.
“So, you don’t have any proof—or—or whatever?” Aurora snapped. “You don’t have any reason to suspect me at all? Just, there’s not really anyone else?”
“Well, it’s not—”
> “Are you even allowed to hold me here?”
Dora stiffened, and Milo shook his head. “Now, don’t get too excited. You’re involved in a violent crime investigation, Ms., and we’d appreciate it—”
“No,” Aurora slammed to her feet. “If I’m not under arrest, I’m leaving. I’ve told you everything I know. Don’t contact me again without a warrant.”
And with that, she snatched her purse and stormed out the door of the interview room, heart pounding in terror and triumph. She couldn’t believe she had just done that. Nerves twittered over her skin like ruffled feathers as she walked with her chin up out into the office.
“Hey, wait up!”
Aurora didn’t even turn around. It was Milo, of course, catching up with her. But she’d had a long night, and a long night is even longer in heels, and she was in no mood to mince any more words with this particular nuisance.
“What’dya want?”
“To apologize.”
The nerve! Aurora spun around furious, but before she could say a word, Milo pressed on. “Look, we wanted to push you a little, make sure it wasn’t you. We can learn a lot from how someone denies an accusation. It takes a little acting, but you passed. You weren’t involved.”
“I told you that from the beginning!” Aurora almost yelled it in his face, but she was painfully aware of the room full of cops that she was standing in. They had nothing to indict her with, at present. Even strung out on adrenaline and horror, she had the sense not to hand them a sentence.
Milo looked down at her, not in wariness or anger, but in sympathy. That made Aurora even more furious.
“I’m sorry for all you’ve gone through tonight, but we needed to be as sure as possible that you weren’t the killer before we let you walk out.”
“Well, it’s not me. And I’m walking out now.” Aurora spun on her clunky boot heel and stomped out into the freezing rush of a New York winter night.
Immediately, Aurora felt foolish. Her own clothes (and her sweaters) were in her locker at Witching Hour. Well, it was a crime scene, now, so there was no point in trying to go back and get them. She’d been lucky to snag her purse before she was driven downtown. And now, she was standing in front of the police station, her purse over her shoulder, dressed like a hooker, or a dominatrix, out alone on the streets of New York. And home was a long way away.