Whiskey on the Rocks

by Nina Wright

  That was Leo’s summary of how to stay in business. I needed to win one soon. Although I trusted Odette to close her deals and my other agents to do the same, I wanted a victory of my own. It hurt to watch Mrs. R fire us and then, one minute later, hire Gil Gruen on the sidewalk in front of our office. Through the open window we could hear the Mayor’s plan for turning a murder scene into a money-maker. He was confident that Mrs. Santy’s grisly death would add thirty percent to Shadow Play’s resale value.

  “The newly rich get turned on by tragedy,” Gil told Mrs. R. “The more violent, the better. You might want to leave a couple bloody handprints on the wall. . . .”

  I needed a drink but opted instead for a dose of caffeine and Peg Goh’s common sense. Plopping onto a stool at her counter I said, “Give me the strongest thing you got.”

  She did and then listened to my tale of woe. Peg shook her head.

  “Gil’s wrong. Nobody wants to live in a haunted house. They only want to gawk at it. And there will be a lot of that. I’ll bet the Reitbauers’ neighbors will think about selling once the new traffic pattern sets in.”

  Why hadn’t I thought of that? People moved to Shadow Point because they craved privacy. Drive-by ghouls would drive them right out. I rushed back to the office and had my receptionist run a reverse look-up on the Reitbauers’ neighbors. Happy prospecting ahead.

  Jenx called shortly after noon.

  “Good news, for a change: Edward Naylor wants this nightmare to end. He’s going to take both bodies back to Canada as soon as Crouch releases them.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Maybe as early as the end of business today. Crouch is doing Mrs. Santy’s autopsy now. Her husband’s body is already cleared for departure.” I could hear Jenx shuffling papers. “I’m going to the coroner’s office later to get the report. Always a pleasure to witness his distaste for lesbians. But he prays for us.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Oh yes. When Crouch came to Noonan’s studio to see Santy’s body, he announced that he prays for all lost souls. And he looked my way.”

  “Last night did Edward Naylor mention anything about—oh, I don’t know—a lawsuit?”

  “Not to me. He was a quiet, cooperative guest. Even managed to thank us for our hospitality.”

  “You did him a favor.”

  “Maybe you can do your local police a favor: Brady wants to borrow Abra this weekend.”

  “That would be doing me a favor.”

  Jenx explained that Brady thought Abra could teach Roscoe a thing or two about purse-snatching.

  “Are you trying to corrupt him?”

  If Roscoe sees how she steals them, maybe he’ll learn how to recover them.”

  I reminded Jenx that Abra’s purse-snatching days were over. She was in recovery.

  Jenx said, “She grabbed that purse at Shadow Play, didn’t she?”

  “I’d prefer to think she retrieved it.”

  In any case, I agreed to bring Abra to the station. Always happy to be of public service, especially when it earns me a dog-free day. I felt a pang when I remembered that Chester had his own training program in progress. It wasn’t exactly guilt gnawing at me. After all, Chester is eight years old, and I’m an adult. An adult who’s going to end up paying him to be my houseguest. My real concern was how to amuse Chester if I couldn’t foist him off on Abra.

  As the afternoon wore on, Mattimoe Realty hummed with tourists dazzled by fall colors and Lake Michigan’s broad sandy shore. Jenx called again at 4:30; I hadn’t yet taken a break.

  “You can look for Magnet Springs on the news tonight,” she said and hung up.

  What the hell was that about? I cursed her in three languages—the only foreign words I know—and went back to work.

  Odette burst into my office without knocking.

  “Guess who just called?”

  “Please tell me it wasn’t my mother.”

  “It wasn’t your mother. It was Mr. Reitbauer.”

  “Is he suing us?”

  “No! He apologized for canceling the contract. But he said he defers to his wife in such matters.”

  “His child bride, you mean.”

  Odette perched on the corner of my desk in that eager, bird-like way of hers. “I picked something up in his voice, Whiskey. . . .”

  “Your telephone telepathy again?”

  “I don’t think the caller was really Mr. R.”

  “Why not?”

  “First, he didn’t feel like Mrs. Reitbauer’s husband.” Odette cocked her head as if recalling some psychic vibration. “Second, I know the voice on their home answering machine, and it doesn’t match his. The taped voice is older.”

  My desk phone buzzed again. Jenx said, “Do you or do you not want the scoop on how the wrong corpse left the country?”

  Five minutes later I was sitting next to Jenx’s desk, peering at her through a manila canyon. She doesn’t like to file; she prefers to stack folders as high as gravity permits and then shuffle as needed.

  “Check this out.” She passed me a Missing Person bulletin fresh off the wire. I studied the blurred black-and-white photo of a handsome, square-jawed thirty-four-year-old man named Daniel Gallagher, Jr., from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Missing since Tuesday.

  “Good-looking guy,” I said, returning the paper to Jenx.

  “If you’re into that,” she agreed.

  “Wait.” I grabbed the bulletin back. “I thought this was Gordon Santy.”

  “We all did.”

  I sank back in my chair. “Noonan said he said his name was Dan!”

  “We can thank our favorite forensic examiner, who released the body based on Mrs. Santy’s identification.”

  “But if it wasn’t Gordon Santy, why would Mrs. Santy say it was?”

  Jenx’s eyes flashed. “You’ll have to ask the Boys from East Lansing.”

  “Who?”

  “The state police. It’s their case now. This morning the Lanagan County prosecutor turned it over to them. Too big a crime for our small jurisdiction. Make that two crimes that are too big. And two bodies now on their way to Canada.”

  Jenx fired a rubber band across the room.

  I said, “The first corpse didn’t look like a homicide, but the second one sure did. Why did Crouch let both bodies go?”

  “In both cases, next of kin identified the remains. Crouch was satisfied, and so was the MSP.” She added, “Mr. Naylor’s threats to involve the Canadian Consulate probably speeded things up.”

  “Will Daniel Gallagher’s widow get back his remains?”

  Jenx said, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a corpse back from Canada?”

  I shook my head.

  “Me, neither,” she admitted.

  Before I left the station, Jenx reminded me that I’d have to feed Chester. So I picked up two dinners at Mother Tucker’s. When I arrived at Vestige, I found Cassina and eleven sulky people in my great room. They were watching Chester put Abra through a series of “pack moves,” none of which, fortunately, involved the oral exchange of chewed food. There was a lot of pushing and rolling and barking, however. Chester had mastered a convincing repertoire of howls and growls. At the end, Cassina’s black-clad entourage applauded uncertainly. Then one of her people approached me.

  “You’re Whiskey Mattimoe?” the sallow young man asked. “Cassina would like a few words with you about her son. In private.”

  I had expected him to call her The Great Cassina and was disappointed when he didn’t. I said, “Would she like a cup of coffee or a glass of wine?”

  He regarded me sternly. “Cassina drinks only Tahitian shark-fin tea.”

  I went off to the kitchen in search of a corkscrew and a bottle of Pinot Noir. I would imbibe even if the diva didn’t. A moment later, Cassina glided into the room. Her hip-length wavy hair was an unnatural flame red. Her translucent skin was alabaster, her immense almond eyes the deep moist green of a forest. This was my first face-to-
face encounter with a genuine superstar. Although I had waved to Cassina as she climbed in and out of limos, we’d never met. Now here she was in my under-stocked kitchen. Draped in a flowing gauzy gown like the kind she wore in concert and barefoot with emerald rings on all ten toes, she didn’t look like a neighbor. Or an Earthling.

  From behind her back Cassina produced a fifth of Glengoyne, arguably Scotland’s finest single malt whiskey. The Late Great Leo preferred bourbon, but my first husband Jeb Halloran loved Glengoyne; he called it “the cool burn.” Without smiling—without, in fact, showing any emotion—Cassina handed me the bottle.

  “Based on your name, I assume you love the stuff.”

  “Actually, I got my nickname because of my husky voice. And my first husband’s sick sense of humor.”

  Cassina murmured, “Ex-husbands, ex-lovers--they should all rot in hell.”

  She stroked her veil of hair and added, “Chester seems happy here, though it’s bizarre how you let him push your dog around.”

  I started to explain about Dogs-Train-You-dot-com but decided there was no point.

  “You can do what you want,” she said. “It’s your dog.”

  “Actually, it’s my husband’s dog. He’s dead, but not in hell.”

  “Are you going to open that?” she said, pointing to the Glengoyne.

  “Thanks, but I rarely drink whiskey.”

  “I meant for me,” she said. “I need a fucking drink.”

  Chapter Nine

  I can’t say that the Great Cassina and I bonded over that bottle. She did, however, drink her fair share. By the time she would let her people take her home, they had to carry her. Fortunately, it was just across the lawn and into a first-floor bedroom. I, on the other hand, had but a wee sip of Glengoyne to honor my Scotch-drinking ex.

  What Cassina wanted: It wasn’t to thank me for taking care of Chester. I must have been doing a decent job, though, since she tried to hire me to “keep him” during her upcoming World Tour. I was going to pay Chester to be Abra’s keeper, and his mom wanted to pay me to be his.

  When I explained that I was a realtor, not a child-care provider, Cassina disagreed. Then I insisted that I was just plain unfit. She snorted and said, “You think you’re unfit?” When I confided that I couldn’t even stop my own dog from breaking the law, she cried, “We all break the law!”

  In the end, I offered to help her find another sitter; she said that wouldn’t be necessary since I was her choice. Out of curiosity, I asked how long her World Tour would last. She replied, “Either six months or forever.”

  Then she began blaspheming someone named Rupert—who might have been her agent, her manager, her lover, Chester’s father, or all four—and passed out. She briefly revived as her people slipped her through the back door like a pizza delivery in reverse. Cassina tried to sit up, cursed Rupert again, and fainted. The pale young man who had arranged our “meeting” pressed an envelope in my palm. Before I could speak, someone caught Cassina’s mile-long hair in the closing door, and she roared like a leopard with an arrow in its flank. Abra raced into the kitchen, made three rapid circles around me and then started bouncing like a pogo stick. Chester appeared. When he threw back his head and howled, she froze in mid-jump and sank to the floor, her tail thumping.

  Chester peered at me through smeary lenses.

  “She still has a love-hate relationship with performing,” he explained.

  “Well, she’s a novice.” I patted Abra’s blonde head.

  “I meant Cassina. That’s why she gets weird sometimes.”

  “Oh, sure. That makes sense.” It didn’t, though, and we both knew it.

  “Will I live with you while she’s on her World Tour?” Chester wrapped an arm around Abra, who nestled against him. They both looked at me hopefully.

  I swallowed. “I probably can’t afford you. How much is this training costing me, anyhow?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Open the envelope,” he said.

  As I stared at the contents, Chester said, “Let me guess. . . . Three days’ care and accommodations, plus the guilt of forgetting me and failing to return your calls. I’m going to say Cassina paid you . . . twelve hundred dollars.”

  I gaped at him. “Chester, I can’t take this.”

  “Everybody else does.”

  “But I’m not a nanny. Or a sitter. I’m not what your mother seems to think I am.”

  “You’re taking care of me, aren’t you?” He produced a brush and began grooming Abra. She always ran away when I tried that.

  “Well, sure. But this was . . . an emergency.”

  “That’s the only reason you let me stay?”

  “Of course not,” I lied.

  “Why else?” he asked. Abra emitted a low moan of pleasure as he brushed her throat.

  “Well, Abra adores you. And we know she needs training.” I was stalling. “But you can train her without living here. Right?”

  Chester grinned, and I noticed he had lost another tooth.

  “You’re missing a canine—I mean, an incisor.”

  “It was loose. Abra knocked it out while we were playing.”

  “I hope you didn’t swallow it.”

  “Abra did. It happened last night when we shared the burger. She already passed it. Want to see?”

  “No thanks.” I sat down to match his eye level. “I can’t keep your mother’s money, and I can’t keep you. But I do want you to work with Abra.”

  He said, “Give Cassina’s check to charity. She won’t take it back. You might as well make somebody happy.”

  Leo used to say that.

  Good-natured Brady Swancott forgave me for bringing Chester to the police station the next morning. He’s a family man, after all.

  “I have a son just your size,” he said, patting Chester’s white-blonde head.

  “Is he six?” asked Chester.

  “Yes he is!”

  “I’m eight.”

  “Oh.” Brady looked at me, unsure what to say next. “Well, you’ll catch up.”

  “Probably not. I was a preemie. But I’ll always be smarter than your son.”

  Wordless, Brady patted Chester’s head again.

  “Please don’t do that,” Chester said.

  Brady didn’t approve of the greasy fast-food breakfasts I had brought.

  “Definitely not regulation canine-officer chow.” He arced the paper bag into the waste basket. When Abra dove in after it, he said, “I guess we can make an exception.”

  Always busy on Saturday mornings, Mattimoe Realty thrums in Leaf-Peeping Season. When I arrived at 8:15, Odette was on the phone, and two other agents were chatting with eager-dreamer tourist families. Odette tossed me the Magnet, our local news weekly. The headline read: “Magnet Springs Murder: Canadian Widow Slain While Looking Into Husband’s Sudden Death.”

  “They say all publicity is good publicity,” Odette said.

  I closed my office door and sat down to read. Who needs caffeine when you can contemplate a fresh unsolved murder? The article was thin on details, for which I was grateful—especially since the missing facts included my name and my firm’s. I had barely finished my second read-through when I heard Odette’s rapid-fire three-tap knock.

  “It’s already started,” she announced. “The new traffic pattern at Shadow Point. Carol Felkey called to say that she can hardly get in or out of her driveway! The story’s on every TV station in the tri-state area. People yell out their car windows, ‘Is that Murder House?’” Odette rubbed her hands together. “I smell money waiting to be made!”