On the Rocks

by Mia Gold

  Detective Anderson gave a flat smile and rang a buzzer. “Detective Pinder, three coffees, please.”

  I wonder who the third coffee is for.

  As they waited for their coffee, Detective Anderson hunched over and started flicking through some forms, deliberately ignoring Ruby and leaving her to fidget in her chair.

  This is a tactic to psych me out, Ruby told herself.

  Yeah, and it’s working.

  After a couple of minutes, a female Bahamian officer entered carrying a tray with three cups of coffee in paper cups, along with packets of cream and sugar.

  “This is Detective Ayanna Pinder. She’s going to be helping us today.”

  Detective Pinder set the tray down without a word. She didn’t even look at Ruby. Both detectives took their coffees. Detective Pinder took hers black. Detective Anderson poured in three packets of sugar. After a moment, Ruby took the last cup. She drank it black, of course. Empty calories in the sugar, God-knows-what in the powdered imitation cream.

  The female detective went and closed the door. Ruby sensed she had not left the room. She glanced over her shoulder and found Detective Pinder standing right behind her.

  Ruby forced herself to relax. Her body had immediately coiled into readiness, as if she was going to spring up and give the woman an uppercut to the jaw. Briefly Ruby had a vision of Detective Pinder flying back, head caving in the cheap wooden door before slumping unconscious to the floor.

  In the cage, she had always fought women, and it had left her with the gut reaction that women were bigger threats than men.

  Usually untrue, but maybe not this time.

  She turned back to Detective Anderson, who was studying her like some scientist analyzing a sample under a microscope.

  “Please stand up and empty your pockets,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because he told you to!” Detective Pinder snapped. It took all of Ruby’s reflexes not to spin around. Leaving a threat out of sight behind her went against all her instincts.

  “I do not consent to a search,” Ruby said.

  “You don’t have to,” Detective Anderson said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Ruby thought for a second. She wasn’t familiar enough with the laws here to know if the police needed a warrant or probable cause to search her.

  Hell with it. I have nothing to hide.

  As soon as she took out her wallet, she realized that she did.

  It was fat with Elaine’s money. She hesitated, then put it on the detective’s desk, quickly following it with more mundane objects such as her house keys and some loose change.

  The detective opened the wallet. An eyebrow raised. Deft fingers flipped through the bills as lips pursed, counting silently.

  “Nine hundred and forty-five dollars.”

  He raised his eyes from the wallet and studied Ruby.

  “Mrs. Wainwright gave it to me. She asked me to investigate her husband’s murder.”

  “You’re a private investigator as well as a bartender?” Detective Anderson’s question came out with a faint tinge of amusement.

  “No, but she’s desperate.”

  “We’re already investigating. Why would she need you? And why pay you so much?”

  “Ask her.”

  “We will. Until then …” He pulled out the bills.

  “Hey!”

  “We’ll fill out a form for it and keep it for you. Don’t worry. You’re not in Haiti.”

  He made a show of putting a fifty back in Ruby’s wallet. “For getting home. And drinks.”

  Very funny.

  The room descended into silence as the detective filled out a form. Ruby remained standing since she had not been invited to sit. After an awkward minute, the form was finished, Ruby and Detective Anderson signed it, and the money was sealed in a clear plastic bag. During all that time, Detective Pinder remained behind her, silent as a shadow.

  Detective Anderson handed Ruby a copy of the form, indicated that she could sit, gave her another a flat smile, folded his hands on the table, and said, “Let’s go through the events of the other night once again, shall we?”

  Ruby began to go through the story she had originally told, the one she had practiced all over again on the way to the police station. She was just getting to the part about seeing the shadowy figure of a man in the alley when Detective Pinder spoke up.

  “Tell us what really happened,” she snapped, a little too loud and a little too close.

  Ruby tensed, but she did not give the female detective the satisfaction of seeing her turn around. Instead, she directed her answer at Detective Anderson.

  “As I said, I saw a man in the alley and I thought he was peeing, so I went to the other dumpster.”

  “You stayed in the alley with a guy who had his thing out?” Detective Pinder said from right behind her. Ruby could feel the heat of her breath on the back of her neck.

  This time Ruby turned around, irritated, and locked eyes with the female detective. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Answer the question.”

  Detective Anderson cleared his throat. They both looked at him. He raised a hand. “Ayanna, please. Now Ms. Steele, when you were in the alley, did you hear him urinating?”

  The question caught her off guard. “Um, no.”

  “Did you smell urine?”

  She relaxed a little. “Yes.” That place always smelled of urine.

  “So you don’t actually know if the man was urinating or not.”

  “I think he just finished, because he moved off right after I came out.”

  “Then why go to the other dumpster?” Detective Pinder asked in that loud, demanding voice of hers. Ruby imagined her knuckles splitting the detective’s lips.

  “Because the opening to the alley is right there. He could have been just around the corner.”

  Detective Anderson gave her a long look. “So, not knowing where this man was, you went down a long, poorly lit alley in the middle of the night, turning your back on him—”

  “I looked over my shoulder a couple of times.”

  “Turning your back on him to put the trash in the far dumpster, then returned to where you had last seen him.”

  My God, a child could come up with a better story than that. No wonder he doesn’t believe it.

  Ruby flailed around for a believable answer.

  “Like I said, people hang out in that alley all the time. Plus I was tired, and I … had a couple of drinks on my shift. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  Note to self: Don’t go to a police interrogation after an all-nighter and no sleep. You’ll sound like a complete idiot.

  “So your judgment was impaired.” Detective Anderson said this as a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And your powers of observation?” Detective Pinder asked loudly in her ear.

  “Well, my hearing is just fine,” Ruby grumbled. She winced at her tone. Getting sassy was not the best option right now. It came naturally, though, especially with someone like Detective Pinder.

  “Tell us what really happened,” the female detective demanded.

  “I’ve told you a million times. There’s nothing else to tell.”

  “His wallet was missing,” Detective Anderson said quietly.

  “So he got mugged.”

  “That certainly appears to be a reasonable motive,” he replied. “We know for a fact that he had at least a thousand dollars in cash on him, plus a gold Rolex that was also missing.”

  There was the slightest emphasis on the term “thousand dollars.” Ruby squirmed.

  Ruby’s answer came out rushed. “The papers say attacks on tourists have been going up. Poor guy.”

  She felt Detective Pinder lean in close and whisper into her ear. “How much you make at the bar, Ruby?”

  Ruby leaned away and glanced at her, irritated. “Enough to get by.”

  “At a dump like that? I don’t think so. You live in a cr
appy part of town and dress like a broke college student. You don’t have a car, you don’t even have a moped. A grand could sure help you out, not to mention whatever you could hawk that Rolex for.”

  “I didn’t mug that guy! Elaine gave me that money. Just ask her.”

  Detective Pinder rolled right over her objections. “You’d be perfect. A young and pretty white woman would put a tourist off his guard. Maybe you flirted with him. Maybe you suggested a quickie in the alley. Richard Wainwright might have gone for that. Then you slit his throat and made more money than you see in two, three months.”

  Ruby’s heart pounded in her chest. She tried not to let it show. “You don’t have any evidence.”

  Detective Pinder’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll get it.”

  “Or make it up?” Ruby snapped.

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized she had said the wrong thing.

  The temperature in the room felt like it had plunged fifty degrees.

  “We don’t have to make anything up, you damn American! You think you’re above the law? You think we believe that story you spun? We’re onto you, Ruby, we’re—”

  “Ayanna!”

  Detective Anderson’s shout stopped her cold.

  “That will be all, Ayanna. You can go now.”

  The detective gave Ruby a final scowl and stalked out the door, slamming it behind her.

  Detective Anderson gave Ruby a brief, apologetic smile and said, “It must have been very traumatic, finding him in there like that.”

  Does this mean you don’t believe I did it? Ruby nodded. “Yeah.”

  Her hopes were immediately dashed.

  “It doesn’t look good for you, Ms. Steele.”

  “Search my house if you want to. Take my fingerprints.”

  “We will take your fingerprints before you leave today. I doubt it will do much good, though. Your fingerprints are naturally all over the dumpster, the murder weapon is missing, and it’s tricky to get fingerprints from fabric such as Mr. Wainwright’s clothes. A smart murderer would wear gloves anyway. As for searching your house, I doubt we’d find anything there, now would we?”

  Just a few damning documents that I’m going to give Kristiano as quick as I can.

  Detective Anderson leaned forward, keeping his voice calm and level.

  “Solid evidence is difficult to find, although it does have a habit of appearing eventually. The homicide division doesn’t buy your story. I sure don’t. And any story that doesn’t add up means the person lied, and if they lied they have something to hide. Do you have something to hide, Ms. Steele?”

  “No.” Ruby couldn’t meet his gaze.

  “I’m not talking about killing Mr. Wainwright. Perhaps there’s another reason? You’re young and sound educated. Why leave the United States to work in some low bar in the Bahamas? Are you running from something?”

  “No.”

  Pause.

  “Ms. Steele, if you don’t level with me, things might go very badly for you. Tell me why you lied about the body. Tell me what’s going on so I can proceed with this investigation. Help me help you.”

  If I told you the truth, the next people who would be grilling me would be from the U.S. government.

  “I have nothing to say.”

  Long pause.

  “Go.” Detective Anderson said with a dismissive wave.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Get out of here. Detective Pinder will take your fingerprints and then you are free to go.”

  “Thank you,” Ruby said, rising.

  Detective Anderson looked her in the eye. “To be continued.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Now utterly exhausted, Ruby returned home.

  Over and over again, she ran through the interrogation in her mind, and found that she had done everything wrong. If they had been suspicious of her before, they were ten times as suspicious now. Elaine would vouch for her, but their suspicions would linger, and she hadn’t wanted them to discover she was on the case too. They might get territorial.

  She collapsed on her bed, setting the alarm for ten o’clock. Judging from what the croupier said, she got the feeling that asking around at night might get her more leads than during the day. It seemed like Richard Wainwright had a bit of a double life.

  Lying in bed, it took her a long time to fall asleep as questions whirled around in her mind. Why was there no CCTV footage of Richard leaving the hotel? Or if there was, why was security lying to Elaine about it? Richard sounded like a jerk when he got drunk, grabbing some woman while on his honeymoon. Was that why he got killed? Had he grabbed the wrong woman? And wasn’t he supposed to be on the wagon? And what about that AA token that had been by the dumpster and had disappeared by the following night? Was that his? Why would someone take that?

  All these questions made her realize just how out of her depth she had gotten. She didn’t know anything about investigating a murder, and yet it was more than Elaine’s money that had convinced her to try. Maronique had told her the cops were eyeing her as a suspect, and Neville had said the Nassau police weren’t above doing something like that. Crime against tourists was on the rise, and the government feared it would hurt the island’s main industry. They’d want this murder solved quick.

  And that meant she was under the gun.

  When she finally did drift off, her dreams were fragmentary, strange, filled with dark rooms and shouting croupiers. She wandered through a huge dumpster, clambering over mountains of garbage as she called out a name she couldn’t hear. Then she stood in front of a chalk outline in the middle of the Pirate’s Cove. The bar was empty, but the walls echoed with her father’s voice.

  Team Wayne!

  Her dream persona stumbled out of the bar, not through the door but passing through the wall, and turned to go down the street to where a nubile feminine form in neon flashed off and on, off and on.

  ***

  The Tropical Twerker stood just a few doors down from the Pirate’s Cove but Ruby had never been inside. Strip clubs that had brothels upstairs weren’t her scene.

  She wasn’t sure if it was Richard Wainwright’s scene either, but since his body had been dumped so close by, maybe he’d been inside.

  It was still early evening, and the club was more than half empty. A few guys, mostly locals, stared vacantly at a Bahamian woman in nothing but a G-string twisting herself around a pole on the red-lit stage. In one corner a DJ stood in a small booth working the sound. A bar ran along one wall. The fat Bahamian man behind it was the only person who seemed to notice her enter. He gave her a big gap-toothed smile and waved. Kristiano had pointed him out once on the street as the owner. Ruby walked over.

  “Hey, girl, you looking for a job?”

  “I already have one, thanks.”

  His face lit up in recognition. “Oh yeah, you’re the bouncer at the Pirate’s Cove.”

  “Bartender.”

  The man laughed, a big rumbling sound that made his body shake like a volcano threatening to bury Nassau like some modern-day Pompeii.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, girl. You’re far more famous as a bouncer.”

  Ruby shrugged. She knew their two businesses shared some trade. It was inevitable that her fights would end up getting discussed here. She hoped they didn’t get discussed in many more places.

  “I was wondering if you could help me,” Ruby said, pulling out her phone.

  “Suuure. I know you work nights, but we have a day shift too. Pretty slow, sad to say. Having a white girl would help business. I pay good.”

  “I’m not looking for a job. I’m looking for a friend’s husband. He’s gone missing.”

  She held out her phone. His wide, jovial face turned to stone.

  “That’s the tourist who got his throat slit.”

  Ruby could have kicked herself. Of course he would have been shown Richard’s picture. The cops must have asked everyone in here. If she was going to play detective, she really needed to work on her a
pproach.

  “Um, yes it is.”

  Suspicious eyes flicked from the phone to her.

  “And this is your friend’s husband?” he asked in a tone that made it clear he didn’t believe a word.

  “She asked me to find out what happened. The police are being useless.”

  The strip club owner snorted. “That I believe. I’ll tell you what I told them. He never came in here. I got a good eye for faces. I need to remember the troublemakers and the big spenders. He didn’t come in here.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.” He turned his back and started arranging bottles, signaling the conversation was over.

  “Mind if I ask your patrons and the girls?”

  He turned to her. “Yes.”

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “You going to stop me?”

  He gestured behind her. “No, he is.”

  A hefty man stood behind her with a neutral expression on his face. With the dance music blaring over the cheap speakers, she hadn’t heard him approach.

  Ruby appraised him in a second. Slow. Ponderous. Plenty of strength and size and a frightening scowl, though. That was probably all he needed to deal with troublemakers in this place.

  She could take him down in three moves.

  But she didn’t fight people unless she absolutely had to. She headed for the door.

  She didn’t make it two steps before the bouncer said, “She’s OK, boss. Let her ask around. It can’t hurt.”

  The owner frowned for a moment, then clicked his tongue. “Oh, all right. We don’t have anything to hide. Just hurry up about it and don’t bother anyone. John, go with her so nobody tries to get a piece. If she wants a fight, she can have it in her own damn place.”

  They walked toward the audience.

  “Your name’s John?” Ruby asked. “I thought that was the name of the guys who come to this place.”

  The bouncer laughed. “That’s what I go by. It’s sort of an inside joke. Hey, I’ve seen your videos. Pretty good stuff.”

  Ruby wondered if that was the reason he was being so accommodating.

  “Who showed you?”