Whiskey on the Rocks

by Nina Wright

  “I don’t drink coffee, Det. And I don’t puke, either. Thought you knew that by now.” Jenx adjusted her holster.

  “And I thought you knew by now that I answer only to my Christian name. Whiskey can spell it for you. Phonetically, if necessary.”

  “Come on. I give all my friends nicknames--Hen, Noon, Big Jim, Det. . . “

  “All your friends, yes. That should spare me.”

  I interrupted the fun. “Jenx, I understand you told the widow to call us?”

  “Yeah, what a head case. Called back three times to recheck the facts as we have them. Her husband’s heart quits on a massage table, and she calls me a loser.”

  From her cubicle, Odette harrumphed. Jenx ignored her.

  “Sure, he was young to go that way, but shit happens. Think of Leo.”

  I was, actually. “So she’s coming in to see about the disposition of the body?”

  “And to see where he died, who he talked to, and so on.”

  “She wants to interview people?”

  “I get the feeling Widow Santy had no idea her husband was in the States.”

  “You mean--?”

  “I mean, she now thinks he had a girlfriend in town.”

  “Did he?”

  “Don’t know yet. That’s one of the reasons I came by. To see if either of you ever saw this guy.”

  Jenx produced a Polaroid photo of a handsome, square-jawed man who appeared to be dozing.

  “It’s hard to tell with his eyes closed,” I said. “Most men I meet I never see asleep.”

  “He’s not asleep,” Jenx said.

  “I knew that.”

  “Let me see.” Odette emerged from her cubicle. She studied the picture. “Generically handsome Caucasian male, between thirty and thirty-five.”

  “Thirty-four, as a matter of fact,” confirmed Jenx.

  “Never seen that one before.” Odette handed back the photo. Returning to her cubicle, she added, “His eyes are brown, I think. And he’s six-foot-two.”

  Jenx released a low whistle. “You’re damn good, Det. And not just on the phone.”

  Before they could restart the name game, I said, “Have you shown the photo around town?”

  “I’m starting here, working my way down Main Street. Maybe somebody saw him with somebody, either today or another day. Noonan said he came to her place alone.”

  “Yeah, well, he wanted a massage, not a room. Speaking of rooms, why didn’t you refer the widow to Red Hen’s?”

  Jenx’s partner Henrietta Roca owns the largest inn in Magnet Springs, a sprawling Prairie-style mansion overlooking Lake Michigan.

  Jenx cocked her head at me. “Noticed the tourists lately? Seen what’s happening to the trees? Hen’s booked solid for the next three weeks.”

  “What made you think I’d have something?”

  “Your business changes all the time. Somebody sells, somebody rents, somebody buys. I figured you’d come up with something.”

  “If handsome Gordon Santy from Canada died of a heart attack, that’s tragic. But why does it matter if he had a girlfriend?”

  “It doesn’t,” said Jenx. “If he had a heart attack.”

  At 5:30 Odette left to show a new listing. I headed for Shadow Play to check the property before offering it for rent the next day. Mrs. Reitbauer said they kept an extra key under a flowerpot at the base of the biggest tree in the yard. Not helpful. At Shadow Play all the trees were huge, and all the trees had flowerpots. We’re talking densely packed pines. I couldn’t see the trees for the trees, let alone decide which was the tallest. After ten minutes of circling the yard and craning my neck, it dawned on me that Mrs. R might have meant girth, not height. And so I found my key.

  Gaining access to a house these days is rarely as simple as turning a key in a lock. The kinds of homes I sell come with alarm systems. Often very sophisticated alarm systems. Shadow Play was no exception. Fortunately, Mrs. R’s instructions in that department were easier to follow. Inside I readily located the lighted keypad and entered the prescribed series of digits. Colored lights flashed along the panel, followed by a high-pitched hum, followed by a click—then silence and the glow of a single tiny green bulb. I was clear. The Reitbauers had spared no expense in protecting their hideaway.

  I might as well admit something right now about my attraction to real estate: This biz lets me indulge my talent for snooping. No apologies. I pay attention. It’s one of the keys to my success. But technically I wasn’t snooping that evening at Shadow Play; I was following the client’s instructions. Mrs. R had faxed me a list of valuables that she wanted removed to a safe in the master-bedroom closet.

  So I had to look around. Very closely. One day soon I hoped to list this place for sale. Hardly a cottage, it was almost three thousand square feet and exquisitely decorated. The floors in the front half of the house were bleached hardwood; the rest were wall-to-wall white Berber. I noted murals and custom-made wallpaper, plus recessed lighting in the tray ceilings. Mrs. R collected watercolors, apparently. Every room was a testament to her taste: mostly garden scenes with pale flowers under watery skies. It wasn’t my style—too floral—but it was a classy style. One of the watercolors must have been truly valuable. A miniature painting of pansies and violets was on Mrs. R’s list of objects to be stowed away.

  I walked through a second time admiring the home’s best features, which included floor to ceiling windows overlooking the flagstone terrace. The better I knew the place, the faster I could move it once I got the go ahead. Shadow Play would be a quick sell when the Reitbauers were ready; I knew people who were in the market for just such a second home.

  Mrs. R was “selective” about tenants. She had inserted a clause in the property management contract, reserving the right to approve or disapprove of any prospective tenant I recommended. She said she understood that Mrs. Santy was a special case since the police had requested our help. Of course, I would still interview the widow, ask for references, and run a credit check before administering the Shadow Play “entrance exam”: Mrs. Santy would have to be able to work the alarm system. No point renting this place to a technophobe.

  I completed my second walk-through, admiring the home’s overall design. Shadow Play combined shade, seclusion, and just enough brightness, thanks to the terrace’s southern exposure. The sooner the Reitbauers were ready to part with it, the happier I’d be. Selling a place like this is a lot simpler than managing its rental. And vastly more lucrative. I double-checked the sophisticated lock on the bedroom safe, reactivated the home’s alarm system, and departed.

  I didn’t mean to be impatient with the Reitbauers. Postponing the inevitable was something I understood. It had been five months, one week, and three days since Leo died, and I still hadn’t gone through his things. Even worse, every day I put off as long as possible going home. It wasn’t just that I dreaded walking all alone into that big house we built together. It was also that I dreaded Abra. She still rushed past me to the door, her head and tail held high in expectation. And when she saw that I had once again failed to bring home her man, the expression she turned on me broke my heart anew.

  A ruddy setting sun turned Lake Michigan blood red as I drove along the coast toward Vestige. Leo and I intended the name of our modest estate as a nod to another era. This land and our crumbling barn had once belonged to a vast farming dynasty, long ago sold off and subdivided. Now it’s a vestige of something else: the dreams that Leo and I shared.

  I did what I do whenever I pull up the driveway. I tried not to look at the sign out front, hand-carved by my late husband. But that evening, my peripheral vision detected a small blur due south. The blur had waving arms, churning legs, a bobbing white-blonde head, and glasses. It was moving toward me. Fast.

  “Hey, Chester,” I said as I stepped from my Lexus RX 330, a modest-sized SUV. He was panting dramatically. Chester does everything dramatically, or it wouldn’t be worth doing.

  “She got out!” he announced.
/>   “Who did?”

  “Abra! I’ve been trying to catch her since I got home from school!”

  Chester is eight years old, small for his age, and also my next-door neighbor. He’s obsessed with Abra, and she makes the most of it.

  “How could she get out?” I began and instantly saw how. The side entrance to my garage gaped open.

  True confession time: Unlike my clients, I don’t activate my alarm system every morning. I don’t even lock the door leading from my kitchen to the breezeway that connects my garage. Usually, I lock the garage itself, but apparently that morning I hadn’t. If motivated, Abra can open most doors. Afghan hounds are uncanny that way. The worst of them, that is. Leo didn’t name her Abracadabra for nothing.

  “Where did you see her last?” I asked. Chester pointed toward the edge of the bluff overlooking the lake.

  “I think she wanted to go for a swim.”

  That was unlikely. Abra hates the water unless, of course, I want her to stay away from it.

  “How long ago was that?”

  He pressed a button on his dauntingly complex sports watch and reported, “Three minutes and forty-eight seconds.”

  “Let’s go.” I dropped my purse, my briefcase, and my rapidly cooling take-out dinner back into the car. Fortunately, I was already wearing my Nikes.

  Chester and I jogged around the house to the edge of the bluff. I looked out over the wide wooden stairway down to the water. Leo had designed it to include two decks above dock level. On the lower deck stood Abra. I swear she was waiting for me. The wind lifted her glossy blonde tresses as she stared at us impassively.

  Like a bad actor, Chester pointed and declared, “There she is!”

  She responded with a toss of her head that distinctly said, “Screw you.” Then she bolted for the water. I was sure she was testing us.

  Chester glanced at me worriedly. “Can she swim?”

  “All dogs can swim. You’ve heard of the dog paddle? But this one won’t go in.”

  “She looks like she’s going in. And that current is really strong!”

  “She won’t go in.”

  “Look!” He pointed again. “She’s getting ready to dive!”

  “She won’t go in.” My voice held less conviction that time. I could hardly believe it, but Abra was bounding down the dock like a stunt diver making her approach.

  Anyone who has seen an Afghan hound run knows they’re poetry in motion: the long ears trailing behind them like a woman’s sleek straight hair, their pom-pom feet barely touching the earth as they cover yards in a single stride. Now she was airborne. I felt my jaw drop as Abra arced over Lake Michigan, the surf crashing beneath her.

  “You said she wouldn’t do that!” cried Chester.

  The blasted animal lives to prove me wrong. No belly-flop for her. She entered the water as gracefully as she’d left dry land. From where we stood, she barely seemed to break the surface, and then she was swimming. That dog doesn’t paddle. She cruises. Holding her proud, pointed nose high, she moved determinedly away from us.

  “Where is she going?” Chester said.

  “Maybe she needs some exercise.”

  “But it’s deep out there, and look how high those waves are!” His voice had taken on a querulous quality that set my teeth on edge.

  I regarded him frankly. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  He pointed at the dog again. “Save her!”

  “Oh, get real.”

  And then . . . he started to cry. He’s only eight, after all, and his mother won’t let him have a pet of his own.

  “Look how far out she is,” he moaned. “The waves are crashing over her head!”

  Damn if he wasn’t right. The next thing I knew I was on the edge of the dock, calling frantically. Begging, really. Abra never glanced back. Since I was shouting into the wind, I doubt she even heard me. Chester was sobbing. Thank God it was a balmy evening, and I’d learned to swim before I’d learned to walk. In seconds, the Nikes were off, and I was in the water. The very cold water. Nobody swims in Lake Michigan in late September without a wetsuit. Unless they’re nuts—or goaded by an emotionally needy child.

  Like Abra, I don’t dog paddle. I don’t cruise exactly, but I do have a powerful crawl. Arm over arm into the oncoming waves I went, cursing the Affie with each stroke. Catching up to her was a challenge. We were both panting hard by the time I seized her rhinestone-studded collar and yanked her drenched blonde head to my chest. She didn’t resist. She’d known I would follow and save her, so she had spent herself.

  Chapter Three

  “She was challenging you to rise above your self-inflicted pain. Abra is a message from the Universe. You should meditate on that.”

  I stared at Noonan over my steaming double-mocha-super-latte.

  “You should sit on that,” I wanted to say. I didn’t, though. Noonan is not only Magnet Springs’ genius massage therapist, but she is also one of its sweetest citizens. And a dream tenant. So I nodded noncommittally and continued to sip my favorite wake-up beverage. The way my ribs ached, I knew I’d need another free massage soon.

  After rescuing the dog who does not deserve to live, I had shivered all night. Two long soaks in a very hot tub did nothing to dispel my chill, which was surely due as much to fury as exposure. Odette stopped by around eight o’clock to report that her evening’s appointment had led to an offer. She found me blow-drying the bimbo, my own head still dripping. Leo used to insist that Abra had a delicate constitution. So, in deference to him, I made reviving her Job One. She was the perfect canine Camille, playing the scene as if she’d washed up on her own. In Abra’s eyes, I was merely doing what any human should.

  Odette is my witness to the dog’s ingratitude. She is also the reason every Main Street merchant knew the story by morning. In the Goh Cup, our local coffeehouse, every customer greeted me with “How’s Abra doing?” Never mind that my eyes were red and swollen, my nose was leaking, and my naturally wavy hair was a mass of lumps. I hadn’t taken the time to blow-dry myself. I’d even forgotten about the carry-out spinach lasagna until I sat on it in my car that morning. But no one worried about me.

  “Drink deeply from the well of truth” was Noonan’s exit line. What the hell did that mean? I glanced at Peg Goh, proprietor, who winked. Thank God, I thought. A fellow cynic. Then she said, “I’m just glad Abra’s okay.”

  A few hours later, I was in my office at Mattimoe Realty, struggling with paperwork and a nonstop runny nose. Odette knocked and entered before I could discard the dozen dirty tissues spread before me.

  “They’re here!” she announced, surveying the sticky landscape of my desk. “The grieving party from Canada. Well, the male portion. His sister is with Jenx.”

  “What does the male portion want?”

  “He’d like to discuss possible rental properties.”

  “Shadow Play,” I said, reaching for the appropriate file.

  “He will require a selection.” The glint in Odette’s eye was unmistakable.

  “Did you explain that there is no ‘selection’ for last-minute visitors during Leaf-Peeping Season?”

  “Oh, yes. He insists on seeing the proprietor.”

  “I thought Canada was a kinder, gentler nation,” I sighed.

  “Perhaps. But this Canadian is not.” Odette reached past me into my center desk drawer and extracted a small mirror. “He is, however, very handsome.”

  Accepting the mirror, I shuddered at my red nose, rumpled hair and pouchy eyes.

  Odette said, “He’s not patient, either, so work fast.” She paused at the door to evaluate me. “If the lights were out, you could almost get away with it.”

  The Canadian proved to be beyond handsome. More like movie-star magnetic. Young, too—no more than thirty-five. I tamped down my hair as I approached, hoping to at least make the lumps symmetrical. Dressed in expensive though casual clothes, he was taller than I, which meant well over six feet. The word “strapping” sprang
to mind. He cast cool blue-gray eyes in my direction.