Murder on the Rocks (2 page)

T
aking over the bar hasn’t been easy for me, and not just because Dad is no longer
here. I’ve had to deal with an assortment of other bizarre happenings of late, like
discovering that a few of my open booze bottles had been drained and replaced with
colored water, something that didn’t go over well with my patrons. Toward the end
of this past winter I had this god-awful smell in the bar, and it took me two weeks
to find the rotting rat carcass inside a heat vent. In the early summer I was hit
with a cockroach infestation that gave me nightmares for weeks. And as if all of that
wasn’t enough, I’ve also come up several bottles short on my more expensive booze
inventory lately, and there have been a few times when money I set aside in the safe
for my bank deposits has gone missing. If I was more prone to believe in the supernatural,
I’d think the place was haunted.

I’ve managed to keep going despite these setbacks, but business is down and money
is tight. The last thing I need is one more reason for patrons to avoid my bar, which
is another reason why discovering a dead body in the alley, mere feet from where my
father was killed, ruined my day on many levels. Though given the sort of day the
person in the alley was having, I don’t suppose I had a right to complain.

I turned and stumbled back inside the bar, leaving the cops behind and feeling my
way along because all I could see at first was a mishmash of moving colors and images.
Fortunately once the door to the alley was closed the sounds and images began to dissipate,
and by the time I returned to the lounge both my vision and my hearing were nearly
back to normal. There was a pounding on the front door and it took me a few seconds
to determine if it was a real noise. Once I determined it was, I went over and let
more cops in. Three uniformed officers entered—two men and a woman—followed by a man
wearing slacks, a white shirt, a suit coat, and a tie. A detective, I presumed.

The uniformed cops hung back by the door, scanning the inside of the bar. The suit
walked up to me.

“Where’s the body?” he asked. Despite the abrupt and rather crude nature of his question,
I liked his voice. It was calming, deep, and soothing, and there was the faintest
hint of a Scottish accent. It made me see blue crisscrossed by even, steady lines
of bright green, and I also experienced an intense, sweet taste in my mouth, like
melting chocolate. The experience was puzzling but pleasant.

“It’s out back, by the Dumpster.” I pointed toward the alley door, having no desire
to go out there again.

The detective fixed his gaze on the female uniformed cop whose name tag read B. Blunt,
a moniker I would soon learn was stunningly apt. “You stay here with her,” he directed.
“The rest come with me.”

I stayed behind the bar, silent, shocked, and unsure of what to do next. I busied
myself washing glasses that had already been cleaned while B. Blunt stood at the front
door looking out and not saying a word. After several interminable minutes of awkward
silence, someone knocked on the front door. I expected to see more cops outside, but
when I looked over I saw Joe and Frank Signoriello peering through the window at the
top of the door. The Signoriellos are two elderly brothers who like to do lunch and
a beer at my place every day. They live together in an apartment above a clothing
store that’s located down the block.

Blunt opened the door and said, “Sorry, the bar is closed.”

She started to shut the door but the Signoriellos weren’t about to be put off that
easily. Frank stuck his foot in the opening with the practiced smoothness of the door-to-door
insurance salesman he used to be. “What’s going on? Where’s Mack? Is she okay?”

“I’m fine,” I hollered from where I stood, and upon hearing my voice both Frank and
Joe tried to edge their way past Blunt, who didn’t take it very well.

“I said the bar is closed,” she repeated, placing herself in front of them. It was
an impressive bit of bravado given that the brothers were a good foot taller than
she was and each of them outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. Then again, I suppose
having a loaded pistol and a Taser on your hip makes courage easier to come by.

“Mack, what’s with all the cops?” Frank asked, ignoring Blunt but not trying to push
past her. “Joe and I saw them pull up and we were worried something had happened to
you.”

“I’m okay,” I told the brothers. “But we had a little incident here this morning that
the cops are looking into, so I’m afraid the bar may be closed for a while.”

“How long?” Joe asked over Frank’s shoulder.

“Indefinitely,” said Blunt, making me groan.

“Can we get something to go?” Joe asked. “A sandwich and a beer, perhaps?”

“How about a citation for being a public nuisance?” Blunt snapped, clearly tired of
their game.

When I heard Frank mutter, “Pushy damned broad,” and saw Blunt put a hand on the butt
of her Taser, I hurried over to the door, hoping to salvage the dedication and freedom
of two of my most reliable customers. “Hey, guys,” I said. “Why don’t you come back
tomorrow and I’ll give you a beer on the house to make up for your inconvenience,
okay?”

Joe and Frank looked at one another and frowned.

“I’ll throw in the sandwiches, too,” I offered, upping the ante.

The brothers shrugged and Frank said, “I suppose we can go to Singer’s just this once.”

Joe’s frown deepened. “Their beer tastes like piss,” he grumbled. “But I guess we
don’t have much choice.”

Frank pulled his foot back and, as the two of them turned away, Blunt shut and locked
the door.

“Don’t you have a closed sign we can put up?” she said, sounding irritated.

“It’s already there, in the window to your right.”

She looked over at it with a frown.

“They live nearby and I’m sure they got worried when they saw the cop cars pull up.
They didn’t mean any harm. They were just looking out for me.” I started to tell her
why the Signoriellos were so concerned but when I saw the unfriendly look on her face,
I changed my mind. No need to complicate things yet.

I returned to my spot behind the bar and started drying the glasses I’d just washed
while Blunt and I shared a spell of awkward silence. Moments later the suit came back
in and settled on a stool across from me. He removed a notebook and pen from his jacket
pocket and then took the jacket off, tossing it onto the stool beside him. The armpits
of his shirt were damp and I caught a whiff of him. Fortunately it was a clean smell,
like just-laundered sheets, and as I registered the scent I heard a faint rushing
sound in my ears, as if a gentle wind was blowing by.

The suit opened the notebook, clicked the pen, and then pinned me with his gaze. “I’m
Detective Duncan Albright. I’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” I said, tasting chocolate again. “Go ahead.”

“You found the body?”

“I did.”

“Your name?”

“Mackenzie Dalton. People call me Mack, or sometimes Little Mack.”

“Like the bar?”

I nodded.

“I take it you own the place, then?”

“I do, though it was originally my father’s. His name was Mack Dalton.”

Albright was scribbling this information in his notebook when he paused and looked
up at me. He was attractive, with even features, light brown, sun-streaked hair, and
a pleasant face with laugh wrinkles around the corners of his eyes and mouth. His
eyes were a deep, dark brown, the kind you find on cuddly puppies. I pegged him as
around my own age—somewhere in his mid- to late thirties—and I ran a self-conscious
hand through my hair as he stared at me, wishing I had showered and fixed myself up
a bit before all this happened. My hair is a nest of wild red curls that I typically
pull back into a ponytail or clip, but I hadn’t done so yet this morning. The least
the killer could have done was give me a heads-up so I could fix my hair and put on
a little foundation to cover my freckles.

“Forgive me,” the detective said finally. “I’m new to the area, but that name rings
a bell.”

“That’s probably because my father was murdered this past January, shot in the alley
out back, not far from the body that’s out there now. It’s still an open case. The
cops who investigated thought it was a robbery gone wrong.”

“And you don’t?”

I shrugged. As far as I was concerned, there were a lot of unanswered questions surrounding
my father’s death.

Albright studied me a moment longer, making my insides squirm strangely, and then
he scribbled something else in his little book. I set my glass down, tossed the bar
towel over my shoulder, and stepped back away from him. I was hoping a little distance
would lessen my reaction to him.

“What time did you get here this morning?” Albright asked, still scribbling and not
looking at me.

“I live here, in an apartment upstairs. I found the body when I took out my trash.”

He stopped writing then and looked at me, his eyes doing a quick head-to-toe assessment.
“Do you live alone or with someone?”

Hmm . . . why is he asking me that?
“Alone.”

“And were you alone last night?”

Wow, nosy much?
“Yes, I was.”

“Ever been married?”

“No.”

“Are you dating anyone?”

“Yes.”
Well, sort of.
“How about you?”

“What about me? Have I ever been married, or am I dating?”

“Either.”

“Neither.”

Interesting
. “What’s with the twenty questions? Am I a suspect?”

He flashed me a smile and tossed back a non sequitur. “Do you know the woman whose
body is out back?”

So it
is
a woman.
“I don’t know. Like I told the 9-1-1 operator, I wasn’t even sure if the body was
male or female. It was underneath a pile of cardboard and all I saw was an arm.”

One eyebrow arched and he scribbled some more. I felt myself relax a smidge now that
he wasn’t staring at me like some bug on a pin, but his next question tensed me right
up again.

“But you moved the cardboard to look at her, didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer right away as I debated the pros and cons of telling the truth. Realizing
that my hesitation alone was enough to make me look suspicious, I tried to cover by
assuming a confused but hopefully innocent-looking expression.

“There was a light rain this morning,” Albright explained, pinning me with his stare
again. “And it left the cardboard wet. Part of one of the victim’s arms was damp,
too, but there was another part of that arm that was exposed, and it was completely
dry. That tells me somebody moved the cardboard.”

I briefly considered continuing with my lie but then thought better of it. “Okay,
I did try to look but I couldn’t see anything.” Before he could commence the lecture
I sensed was coming, I added, “But I was careful not to touch the cardboard directly.
I used a baggie.”

His perturbed sigh told me my efforts didn’t impress him. “What do you mean you couldn’t
see anything? You obviously knew it was a body or you wouldn’t have called it in.”

“I knew there was a body there, but I couldn’t see it clearly.”

“Why not? Do you have some sort of vision problem?”

“I guess you could call it that.” He cocked his head and gave me a questioning look.
I shifted from one foot to the other and back again, squirming under that warm but
intense gaze. I realized I was going to have to explain myself and I didn’t relish
the idea. Every time I try to describe my condition to anyone, they always look at
me like I just escaped from the loony bin, which would be more amusing if not for
the fact that I almost ended up in one a time or two in the past. “I couldn’t see
the body because I saw other things instead.”

“Other things?”

“Yes, colors and shapes, stuff like that.” Over his shoulder I saw Blunt roll her
eyes.

Detective Albright’s expression turned wary and he wiggled the pen in his hand as
he studied me. “Are you saying you’re some kind of psychic or something?”

“No, I’m not a psychic,” I said with a weary sigh. “I have a neurological disorder.
I’ve had it since I was born. My mother was involved in a car accident early in her
pregnancy with me and she hemorrhaged internally. She also had a very serious head
injury. The doctors were able to keep her body alive but she ended up brain-dead and
in a coma. They kept her on life support until I was full term. After they did a C-section
to deliver me, they removed the ventilator and let her die.”

“I’m sorry,” Albright said, and he looked as if he meant it.

I shrugged. “It’s not like I ever knew her or anything. But apparently the stress
of all that affected my development . . . at least that’s the theory the doctors put
forth. As a result I ended up with some minor . . .” I hesitated. The words
brain damage
always sounded so damning. “I ended up with a few things in my brain cross-wired.
The doctors call it synesthesia. It’s a condition that affects the senses so that
they don’t respond normally, and mine is a rather extreme type according to the doctors.
As a result, I may taste or see sounds, hear or feel smells, taste or feel things
I see . . . stuff like that.” I paused, expecting to see the same skeptical expression
I get from most people when I try to explain my condition. But so far Albright simply
looked curious, so I went on.

“When I was out back by the Dumpster, the heat and the smell were both so strong,
so . . . intensely visceral, that I heard and saw them.”

Albright arched his eyebrows, looking skeptical. “You heard and saw what, the heat
and the smell?”