Murder on the Rocks (20 page)

My heart pounded, my legs trembled, and though I wanted to look away from him, his
eyes held mine fast, refusing to let go. His gaze shifted finally, moving down my
face, settling on my lips. He tilted his head the tiniest bit to one side and edged
his face an inch or two closer, still staring at my lips. My insides felt like hot
molten lava, flowing slowly but inevitably toward him. His lips parted and the tip
of his tongue licked the upper one briefly and I swear I felt it on my own mouth.

And then he backed away with a heavy sigh, releasing his hold on my arms. “Mackenzie
Dalton, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my objectivity when it comes to you and I’m not
sure I can trust my own judgment at this point. And until this case is solved, I can’t
let my emotions rule my decisions or my actions.”

“I understand.”

“So I’m asking you to bear with me, to give us some time to resolve the situation,
and to do what I ask of you until we do.”

I nodded.

“I’m going to have someone on you twenty-four hours a day for now for the two reasons
I mentioned earlier. If you go anywhere, someone will be watching you.”

His statement both reassured and chilled me.

“So it might not be the best time for carrying on romantic relationships.”

I pondered that, wondering if he was referring to Zach, or to himself. Then I realized
it was likely both. I felt awkward and embarrassed by the whole situation and I looked
away from him, staring at the wall.

“You do what you need to do, and I’ll do the same,” I told him. “But my personal life
is just that . . . personal. And I’ll do whatever I want to.”

It was a brave speech but deep down I knew I was being a bit hypocritical because
at the moment the only thing I wanted to do was get close to Duncan Albright again.

A
s the night wore on, Kevin and Tad returned and joined Cora, who had never left. The
Signoriello brothers had gone home to bed, claiming they were too old for those “crazy
late night bar hours,” but they promised to be back when I opened tomorrow. Lewis
Carmichael showed up around eight dressed in scrubs and he joined Cora and the others.
He ordered plain club soda to drink, stating that he had to be to work at the hospital
by eleven.

Shortly after that Jimmy came into the bar and after a few subtle signals to Duncan,
the two of them disappeared down the back hallway and stepped into the men’s room.

After a while they both returned, though they came out separately. Jimmy settled onto
a bar stool and ordered a beer. Duncan came out a minute later and stationed himself
behind the bar near Cora’s table where I suspected he was hoping to eavesdrop.
Good luck,
I thought. I’d been trying to do the same thing out on the floor by cruising by the
table regularly, but the place was noisy and it was hard to hear, particularly since
I kept getting synesthetic sounds mixed in from time to time. Jimmy and Duncan did
an admirable job of pretending they didn’t know one another, though I noticed Jimmy
kept a watchful eye on Cora’s table. After twenty minutes or so had gone by, Duncan
gave me a signal to meet him in the kitchen.

“What were you and Jimmy talking about?” I asked once we were behind closed doors.
“Any news on Gary?”

Duncan shook his head. “Gary’s still in the wind and I’m betting he’s far away from
here by now.” I must have done something that made him think I was relieved because
he added, “Don’t relax yet. Until we know something for sure, you need to be careful.”

“If there’s no news on Gary, what did Jimmy have to share?” I chewed one side of my
thumb as I waited for an answer, wondering if Duncan would reveal yet another bit
of discovered evidence that pointed to me as the killer.

“He was filling me in on his visit to Tad’s place,” Duncan said, and I breathed a
little easier. “A few questions came up after last night’s talk with him, so Jimmy
and another guy went over to Tad’s apartment this afternoon to talk with him some
more. They were hoping they might get invited in to look around the place, but his
shrew of a wife was there, all haughty and stuck-up, and she refused to let them in.
She also said Tad’s office was off limits unless we had a search warrant because it
contains confidential financial information on some very important people.”

“Does she have a say in Tad’s business?”

“She doesn’t own any of it as far as we can tell, but she does own the office space
Tad uses. Besides, she wouldn’t let Tad talk to anyone either, and as my guys were
leaving they could hear her yelling at Tad through the door, calling him an idiot
and a few other less than flattering things.” He paused and scoffed. “You’d think
an expensive penthouse like that would have thicker walls, especially if there’s a
shrieking harpy living there.”

“Wow,” I said, a bit taken aback. “You really don’t like that woman, do you?”

“Let’s just say I have issues with people who think they’re entitled and leave it
at that.”

The tone in his voice was even more bitter than his words, like unsweetened baking
chocolate. “Do you still think Tad might be the killer?” I asked him.

Duncan nodded. “It’s not hard to see why he wants out of that marriage. But with his
wife holding the purse strings, he’ll need to reach a certain level of disgust and
desperation before he’ll walk away empty-handed. He could live off what he makes as
a CPA but not at the same level he’s at now and I think he’s grown accustomed to certain
privileges his wife’s money can and does buy. Plus a large number of his current clients
came from his wife’s circle of rich friends. If he leaves her I’m betting they will
all leave him. So the guy is stuck. Ginny basically screwed him out of the one chance
he had to escape with a decent amount of his own money, and because of that he’s still
pretty high on my list.”

I winced at this, still not wanting to believe that someone I’d known and liked might
be a cold-blooded killer.

“And what’s more,” Duncan said, about to rub salt in my wound, “he appears to have
the narcissistic personality of a sociopath.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I countered. “Tad has never demonstrated a big ego, or any indifference
toward others . . . outside of his wife, that is.”

“Wow,” Duncan said with a smile that made me nervous. “I had no idea you were so informed
on modern psychiatric disorders.”

“Yeah, well, when you have a few of those psych labels tossed out and applied to you,
you start to learn what they mean. Anyway, Tad’s always been a thoughtful and kind
person. Granted he has no trouble attracting the opposite sex and some women tend
to fawn over him, but he’s never been smug, or stuck-up, or conceited about it. I’m
sure it goes to his head once in a while; it would have to. But if he ever gets his
head up there in the clouds, he always descends back to earth quickly enough. The
guy can’t help that he’s so good-looking.”

Duncan shot me a sidelong look. “You think he’s good-looking?”

“Duh,” I said. “Is the sky blue? I haven’t met a woman yet who didn’t find him physically
attractive, and there have been a few men on that list, too. But I’m telling you,
he’s always been a very down-to-earth guy with no pretensions or airs about him, which
ironically, makes him even more attractive.”

“You like him,” Duncan said, sounding mildly perturbed.

“Yeah, I like him. He’s a decent guy.”

“Given all these admirers of his, has he had any relationships outside of his marriage
that you know of?”

“None that I’ve been privy to but I’m not sure I would be. He flirts when he comes
in here but I’ve never seen him do more than that and he always leaves here alone.”

“You’re quite defensive about him.”

“I’m not being defensive, I’m simply being honest. What reason would I even have to
be defensive?”

“Have
you
ever had a relationship with him?”

The question was so unexpected and so far from where my mind was that I flinched and
dropped the knife I was using to slice tomatoes. I turned and gaped at Duncan, sure
I’d misconstrued his meaning. “You mean a romantic relationship?” To my surprise and
dismay, he nodded. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” Duncan said, and then with that crooked smile of his he added, “Pun
intended.”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I mean, think about it. Tad is a good-looking guy; you said so yourself.
He’s desperate to gain some financial security on his own so he can escape from Suzanne’s
clutches. He comes into this bar . . . when was the first time he showed up here?”

I shrugged. “I don’t remember the exact date . . . two or three years ago I guess.
What does that have to do with anything?”

“Tad is a CPA. Any chance he does your taxes or your books for you?”

“He does now. My father switched everything over to him two years ago because our
other accountant was getting ready to retire.”

“So Tad comes in here and sees what appears to be a successful business operation
owned by you and your father. Then he finds out exactly how successful the business
is because your father hires him to handle the books. He wants out of his marriage
but doesn’t want to lose the lifestyle he’s accustomed to, so he starts flirting with
you. He figures that with your father out of the way, you’ll inherit the bar, the
business, and any life insurance your father had.”

“Nice theory but a bit short on facts.” I sniggered. “First of all, while the bar
does a decent business and earned my father a comfortable living, it’s hardly been
on the level that would afford us the sort of penthouse lifestyle Tad and his wife
have.”

Duncan shrugged. “It might have been a step down but if he had plans to ultimately
marry you and then get rid of you, I’m betting this place would sell for well over
a million. Add that to any inheritance monies and the life insurance, and Tad could
end up with a decent little nest egg.”

“And there’s the second flaw in your logic. My father, much to my dismay, had one
small life insurance policy that barely covered the costs of his funeral.”

Duncan winced. “Sorry to hear that,” he said. “But maybe Tad didn’t know. One would
assume a business owner like your father would not only have a policy, he’d have pretty
significant coverage.”

“So much for assuming,” I grumbled.

“Tell me this. Did Tad flirt with you when he showed up here?”

“Sure, but not just with me. He flirted with every woman he met. It’s his nature.”

Duncan gave me a give-me-a-break look.

I shook my head in dismay and went back to slicing tomatoes. “I think you’re targeting
Tad because you’re jealous.”

“
Pfft!
Hardly.” After a brief pause he added, “All right, maybe I’m a little jealous, but
it’s not influencing my opinion of the man.”

This time I shot him the give-me-a-break look while my insides went squishy over the
fact that he admitted to being a little jealous.

“I can’t convince you?” he said.

“I think you’re seeing bogeymen where there aren’t any.”

“Then tell me this. Did Tad grow much more attentive toward you after your father
died? Because I’m betting he did. I’m betting he set about wooing the poor bereaved
daughter who was about to inherit a ton of money.”

“A ton of debts is more like it,” I muttered, irritated because Duncan’s guess was
spot on. There was a point not long after my father’s death when I thought Tad might
have had something romantic in mind, but I was never sure. I chalked it up to a clumsy
effort on his part to reach out to a friend he knew was hurting. Now I wondered.

“You may not have inherited any money, but Tad didn’t know that. He played the odds.”

Silence while I stewed over what Duncan was saying.

“And when things with you didn’t pan out the way Tad hoped, he had to put all his
faith in the real estate investment Ginny turned him onto. When that fell apart, he
snapped and took his frustrations out on her.”

My gut squirmed uncomfortably and for a moment I thought I might be sick. I swallowed
hard and gripped the edge of the prep counter, waiting for it to pass. Duncan’s theory
made sense and I realized that it wasn’t that I couldn’t believe Tad was a killer,
it was more that I didn’t want to believe it. No one wants to think their perceptions
of people can be so easily duped, or their impressions so readily manipulated.

“You need to take off your rose-colored glasses, Mack.”

“Maybe so,” I agreed sullenly. “But I’m not going to start convicting people until
I have some hard evidence as opposed to a bunch of half-baked theories.” With that
I headed back out to the bar and started working the tables, fighting a constant urge
to look over my shoulder.

A
s the evening wore on, Duncan’s prediction about cops coming into the bar continued
to bear out. Whether they were coming in at Duncan’s behest or on their own I didn’t
know, but most of them were dressed in casual, off-duty clothes and they ordered alcoholic
drinks, making me suspect—and hope—they weren’t on the job. Despite the lack of uniform,
most of them were easy for me to recognize.

I don’t think I was the only one who could tell which customers were cops. Each time
one of them came into the bar, I’d see several customers scrutinize them and then
bow their heads together to share a quick chat. No one seemed upset or bothered by
the cops’ presence and my fear that they might drive customers away proved unfounded.

My theory that the cops were easily identifiable was born out when Riley came in again
a little after ten. “How’s the night going?” he asked, taking a seat at the bar. He
scanned the room. “It looks like you’ve been busy.” His gaze settled on three guys
at one table. “And I see the cops have settled in.” He turned back to me. “Are they
here on business or pleasure?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s pleasure unless they are able to drink on the job.”

“Have they questioned anyone?”

“Not officially. What can I get you tonight? Your usual dirty martini?”

“Sounds good.”

“Anything to eat?”

“Not tonight. I bought the kids pizza since we were so busy at the store today and
I managed to put away four slices.” He patted his stomach.

“One dirty martini coming up.” I made his drink and served it to him, and as I turned
to leave he grabbed my arm. “Your new employee watches you pretty closely,” he said.
“I think he may have a crush on you.”

“Duncan?” I turned and looked over at the other end of the bar where Duncan was chatting
with a couple of women. The way they were leaning across the bar toward him told me
they were flirting and I felt an unexpected twinge of jealousy. “Nah, he’s just grateful
for the job,” I said, looking away. “He’s had a rough time of it lately and needed
a chance to start over. Our relationship is more of a brother-sister thing.”

Riley looked skeptical. “You may think so, but I’m not so sure he does. How is it
you know him again?”

“He’s the son of an old friend of my father’s. We used to play together back when
we were kids, but his family moved away when Duncan was eight or so. I don’t remember
much about his folks but I recall Duncan being a part of the group of kids I used
to play with.”

The lying was getting easier; I’d told the story about Duncan and I enough times that
I almost believed it myself. And now I was embellishing beyond what we had agreed
to, trying to make the story sound more believable. It worried me a little, wondering
how angry and betrayed some folks might feel once the truth came out. My staff seemed
to be taking it all in stride, but I could tell a couple of them—Billy and Debra mainly—were
hurt by the fact that I had duped them. I knew they’d get over it—for the most part
they already had—but while I understood the necessity for the deception, it still
felt wrong.

I left Riley with his martini and went back to waiting on tables. At ten-thirty, Lewis
Carmichael left the table of regulars sitting with Cora and headed off to work. Half
an hour later, both Kevin and Tad left as well, leaving Cora alone with her laptop.
I walked over and sat in one of the just-emptied seats and asked Cora if she needed
anything.

“No, I’m going to be leaving soon, but thanks.”

“You guys have seemed pretty intent and kind of hush-hush over here all day. What
have you been working on?” I asked, nodding toward the laptop.

“It’s quite a project,” Cora said with a wink. “One of my programmers has been working
on a new computer game that’s basically a sophisticated version of the old board game
Clue. But he altered it so that players can put in their own data, essentially creating
a scenario for others to solve, like a role-playing game. You can create your own
crimes, victims, suspects, methods, weapons, alibis . . . whatever you want. You can
make it simple for young kids to play, or complicated for more adult sleuthing fans.
Given that Frank, Joe, Tad, Kevin, Lewis, and I all seem to be on the list of potential
suspects for Ginny’s murder, we figured anything we could do to narrow down the field
or point the cops in a different direction might be helpful. Plus Billy was saying
he has no alibi, and I’m sure you’re on the list, too. So we’re plugging in evidence
and trying to analyze it to see if we can come up with the most likely suspect.”

“You think you can solve Ginny’s murder by playing a computer game of Clue?” I didn’t
want to kill her buzz by sounding too skeptical, but the idea seemed far out there
to me. Cora, however, was not easily deterred.

“We just might,” she said with slightly drunken optimism. Given how long she’d been
at the bar today, she’d far exceeded her usual one glass of chardonnay and I could
tell it was having an effect on her. “The program still needs a lot of work before
it’s marketable, but Jeb, the guy who’s developing it, assures me that the bulk of
the functional program is done and all he’s working on at this point is the graphics
and some of the interfaces. So I’m going to give it a try and see what it comes up
with. What have I got to lose?” she said with a shrug. “The biggest obstacle at this
point is getting enough information. The program basically sorts the data that’s entered
and runs a series of algorithms based on probabilities. But if the data is insufficient
the results won’t be accurate.”

“And you really think this thing might work?”

Cora shrugged. “It’s based on facts and logic. It eliminates the emotions, prejudices,
and assumptions we humans tend to make, although I suspect that may turn out to be
one of its shortcomings. Emotions do play into murder much of the time. But emotions
aside, the program will give us a list of likely suspects based on probabilities,
with suggestions about other evidence or facts it would like to have. We’ve got all
of our names in here as suspects and we added you and all of your staff’s names, too,
some based on simple proximity. Missy and Debra both have pretty good alibis so I’m
guessing they’ll be eliminated early on. Speaking of which . . .”

She looked around the bar and then wagged a finger at me, urging me to lean in closer.
I did so and she dropped her voice to just above a whisper. “Did you let Gary go because
you think he might have killed Ginny? And if you did, can you tell me why you think
that so I can enter the facts into my program?”

I straightened up and frowned at her. “I don’t know, Cora.”

“Has he been arrested?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Not that I know of.”

Cora gave me a frustrated look. “You know more than you’re telling, Mack. We all know
that. Help us out here. Give us some info to work on.”

I was intrigued by her idea and thinking about what I might be able to tell her when
I heard Duncan’s voice behind me.

“What are you two ladies up to?”

“Just some girl talk,” I said quickly, hoping the guilt I felt wasn’t visible on my
face. I got up from the chair and headed for the bar where I saw Riley preparing to
leave. He tossed money onto the bar and I slid it back to him. “Keep it. Your drink
is on me tonight.”

“That’s very generous of you, but I insist on paying. You make a killer martini, Mack,
and it’s worth every penny.” He stuffed his wallet into his pocket and said, “Since
tomorrow is your late opening day, would you like me to bring you something for brunch
when I come in to open the store? I can stop at that bakery you like.”

“Aw, that’s sweet of you, but I have plans tomorrow.” That wasn’t true but I was looking
forward to some quiet time alone and figured a tiny white lie was called for.

“No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He gave me a quick buss on the cheek and
left. I looked around for Duncan and saw him heading down the back hallway, talking
on his cell phone. I took advantage of his distraction to go back to Cora and her
little project.

I settled into a chair, taking the one closest to her this time, and leaned in, speaking
in a low voice. “I don’t know if this game thing of yours is a smart idea, Cora,”
I said, gesturing toward the laptop. “At least not as a group project. One of the
people playing it with you could be the killer and what’s going to happen if your
game fingers him? Are you going to turn that person over to the police?”

Cora shook her head. “Any answer it provides is only a probability, not a certainty.
You have to understand that the more information we plug in, the more accurate the
game’s guess will be. In the beginning, it simply generates a list of suspects based
on the information we provide about method, motives, and opportunity. Once that list
is generated, we provide the program with additional evidence as it becomes available,
things like fingerprints, weapons, or blood . . . that sort of stuff. We can even
plug in motives if we think there are any. The program then applies the information
provided by the added evidence to the list of suspects and narrows it down.”

“And the list it generates is in order of likelihood?”

Cora nodded.

I had to admit, I was intrigued and I wondered whose name was currently at the top
of the list? Was it Gary? Tad? Billy? I debated the question for about a nanosecond
before caving, knowing I wouldn’t rest until I knew. “So who’s at the top of the list
so far?

Cora finished off her current glass of wine and smiled at me as she set down the empty
glass. “You are,” Cora said. “In fact, so far you’re the most likely suspect by a
rather wide margin.”

I remember my father cautioning me when I was a little girl to make sure I really
wanted to know the answers to any questions I asked before I asked them. The advice
came about when I first started asking about my mother and the circumstances surrounding
her death. It came back to me now for obvious reasons. Of all the names I expected
Cora to spit out, mine wasn’t one of them.

“Oh, my,” I said, feeling dizzy. My heart began to pound. My lungs felt tight and
constricted, as if the air in the room was rapidly thinning. I felt the walls of the
bar begin to close in on me, getting closer and closer with each passing second. Any
moment now I would be trapped, unable to escape, unable to breathe.

At first I thought I was experiencing a weird manifestation of my synesthesia, but
I quickly recognized the symptoms for what they really were. I was having a panic
attack. I knew this because I’d had them when I was younger, back when I first began
to realize I was different from everyone else. Over time and with counseling I learned
how to recognize them and talk myself through them, and I hadn’t had one since my
teen years. But I remembered them well enough and it wasn’t hard for my logical mind
to figure out why I was having one now. I was suspect number one amongst my own customers
as well as the police. Both the evidence and the law were closing in on me.

“Are you okay?” Cora asked, looking concerned. “Did I upset you? Because I can tell
you that none of us believes for a second that you killed Ginny.”

“I’ll be okay,” I told her, focusing on my breathing. Her reassurance helped some,
and after a few seconds I felt like I had control again. “What information did you
put in there to make my name come up?” I asked.

“We put in what we knew, that you found the body, that you knew her well, that your
father was murdered in the same general area, that he and Ginny were a couple, and
that you are the beneficiary of Ginny’s insurance policy.”

I gaped at her after hearing that last bit. “How the hell did you find that out?”
I asked her.

“Frank and Joe,” Cora said with a shrug. “They called some old buddy of theirs in
the insurance business and he told them.”

I shook my head and glanced around to see where Duncan was. I felt certain he’d be
pissed if he knew. He was behind the bar with Billy, serving and mixing drinks. He
appeared to be enjoying himself and was paying me no attention at the moment.

“So you can see why you’re at the top of the list,” Cora went on. “The data we have
is heavily skewed toward you. We need more information.”

And I needed to get my name off the top of everyone’s suspect list. If information
is what Cora needed, I’d give it to her.

“Okay,” I said, turning back to Cora. “What is it you want to know?”