Murder on the Rocks (4 page)

I
was busy setting up the coffeepots when someone started banging on the front door
of the bar. Blunt glanced out the window and I expected her to shoo whoever it was
away. Instead she unlocked and opened the door. I couldn’t see who was on the other
side from where I stood because the cop only opened the door a little ways, but I
caught a glimpse of short, pale blond hair in the window and had a pretty good idea
who it might be.

Blunt said, “I thought we told you guys we didn’t need any transport. The victim is
DOA.”

“I know that,” said a worried male voice that confirmed my suspicion. “I heard the
call go out while I was on another run. I’m here because I need to know if Mack is
okay. I’m her boyfriend, Zachary Fairbanks.”

“It’s okay,” I hollered to Blunt, wondering if I actually had a say in the matter.
I’m sure Blunt would have deferred to Duncan Albright if he had been there, but at
the moment he was out back in the alley with the other cops and a team of evidence
techs. After a moment of indecision, Blunt opened the door wider and Zach came in
at a fast clip, heading straight for me.

“Mack, geez, are you okay?” His voice made me taste buttered toast. It was a comforting
taste: safe, familiar, ordinary. In contrast, his blue eyes were huge with worry and
his blond hair, which he normally parted on one side, stood up atop his head like
a Mohawk, a sure sign he’d been combing his hands through it the way he did whenever
he was anxious. He grabbed me in a snug bear hug with my face nestled in his shoulder.
His smell—a mix of laundry detergent and soap with an underlying hint of sweat—made
me hear a tinny, tinkling sound, as if the keys on a child’s piano were being plunked
in the distance somewhere. He held me tight for several seconds, one hand rubbing
my back, before he released me from the hug and held me at arm’s length, looking me
over from head to toe. “I heard a call go out on our scanner for a body in the alley,
and recognized your address,” he said. “I was scared to death it was you. What happened?”

“I’m fine,” I assured him, stating the obvious. “But I did find a body out by the
Dumpster when I took my trash out this morning.”

Zach shook his head. “Of all the people for that to happen to. . . .” He leaned over,
kissed me on the forehead, and then let me go, looking around the bar. His gaze settled
on Blunt and he stepped up and extended a hand toward her. “Hi, I’m Zach Fairbanks.
I’m a paramedic.”

“Yes, I deduced that using my keen detecting skills,” Blunt said with an impatient
smile.

Given that Zach was dressed in his uniform with badges on his shirt that read PARAMEDIC
in big, bold letters, I found this comment inordinately funny and snorted a laugh
that came out louder than I meant it to. Nerves, I guess.

“I’m also Mack’s boyfriend,” Zach said, stepping back and draping a possessive arm
over my shoulders.

“So I heard,” Blunt said, looking faintly amused.

The term “boyfriend” sounded so silly, like we were in high school or something. But
there wasn’t a more appropriate term I could think of. I’d known Zach for six or seven
months, ever since the night he came in with a group of firemen and other paramedics
for a stag party. I was working behind the bar and Zach kept coming up to order drinks.
We hit it off right away and the two of us chatted a lot that night. In fact, I think
he spent more time with me than he did with his fellow partyers. He came in again
a week later, alone this time, and we chatted some more. Soon it became a routine,
with Zach popping in two or three times a week. Over time our conversations became
friendlier and more intimate. Eventually he asked me out for dinner and a movie. I
wanted to go, but finding a night when I could do it was another matter. Taking time
off was difficult for me after Dad’s death and it was only after two of my waitresses
offered to work an extra shift so I could be off that I finally managed a free night.

That first date was pleasant enough and it ended with a heated make-out session in
Zach’s car. Two more similar dates followed, but when Zach hinted that he was ready
to move our relationship to another level, I balked. It wasn’t that I didn’t like
him; I did. And it wasn’t that I was a prude, or a virgin. That train left the station
years ago. But sexual intimacy meant an emotional commitment to me, and ever since
my father’s death I’d felt emotionally stunted—drained and exhausted. I needed more
time. Zach, bless his heart, had been infinitely patient with me in that regard.

“Do you know who the dead woman is?” Zach asked.

“How do you know it’s a woman?” Blunt asked. “All Mack said just now is that she found
a body. She didn’t mention any gender.”

Zach thought a moment and then said, “I think the call that went out on the scanner
said it was female, or maybe it was the chatter we were listening to afterward.” He
shrugged. “Not sure where I heard it, but I did.”

“It’s Ginny Ri—” I started to say but Blunt interrupted me.

“Until we have confirmation of the ID, we’d rather it not get out,” she said, looking
pointedly at me.

Zach winced and said, “Sorry, but Mack got enough out that I think I know. It’s Ginny
Rifkin, right?”

Blunt sighed heavily and I gave her an apologetic shrug.

“My lips are sealed,” Zach added quickly. “I won’t say a word to anyone. My only concern
is for Mack here.” He turned a worried gaze toward me. “This has to be awful for you
after everything else that’s happened. I tried to call you when we got back to the
station but it went to voice mail.”

“Sorry about that. My cell phone is upstairs and I turned off the ringer on the bar
phone.”

“Well, let me tell you, it scared me something terrible. I thought for sure something
had happened to you. I got one of the guys to cover for me for an hour or so, so I
could come down here and check on things.” He paused and glanced at his watch. “I’m
glad you’re okay and I wish I could stay here and offer you some moral support, but
I need to get back to the station.”

“No problem, I understand. And I’ll be fine.” I flashed him a smile that I hoped would
convince him, though I wasn’t so sure myself.

“I get off at seven tonight so I’ll drop by after to see how you’re doing. But in
the meantime, remember you can call me anytime, for anything.”

“Thanks, Zach. And thanks for checking on me.”

Zach took hold of my shoulders, pulled me close, and gave me a kiss on my lips that
lasted just long enough to make me blush and see an orange circle that shrunk in size
like a deflating balloon. As he turned to leave I refocused my attention on the coffee
makers, my back to Blunt. Just as I heard the front door close behind Zach, Albright
walked back in and Blunt hurried over and began filling him in on Zach’s visit, including
his prior knowledge that the victim was a woman, his current knowledge about who the
victim was, and the kiss we shared right before Zach left.

Albright remained silent through it all and I avoided looking at him for the most
part, though I did glance over at him at one point during Blunt’s update and found
him staring at me with a curious expression. I quickly turned my attention back to
the coffee duties and by the time I had the coffee brewed and poured mugs for all
three of us—Blunt eyed her mug warily for a few seconds before taking it, as if she
thought I might have poisoned it—Albright had settled in at one of the tables. When
he took a sip from his mug, his eyebrows arched in surprise.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked.

“Quite the contrary. This is some of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.”

It wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting. “Thank you,” I said, beaming. “It’s nice
to hear someone else likes it since I’m never sure if I can trust my own taste buds.”

“Does the taste of coffee trigger some other reaction in you?”

“It does. I get a tactile sense from it, like a hand touching my arm. I can tell when
the coffee is just right for me because that touch feels like a caress. Crappy coffee
feels like someone has me in a vise grip.”

Albright looked at my arms, first the left, then the right, and then looked back at
me. “So coffee feels like a caress.”

“Good coffee, yes.”

“Then what does a caress do to you?” His voice was low, almost murmuring, and as he
stared into my eyes I got that funny tingling sensation low in my gut again. He was
quite handsome and very affable, considering the circumstances. I suspected this was
a practiced technique he had used before, coming across as flirtatious and amiable
whenever he had to interrogate a woman. And he was trying it out on me now, no doubt
hoping I would fall for his charms and let my guard down. Two could play at that game,
I decided.

“It depends on who is doing the caressing,” I said.

Albright’s lips flickered into a hint of a smile and he finally broke eye contact.
“Fair enough,” he said, picking up his pen. “Let’s get back to the task at hand. I
can’t help but feel that your father’s death is related to Ginny’s somehow. It’s too
much of a coincidence that her body ended up here.”

“Can I ask how she was killed?”

He hesitated and I expected him to hedge the question, but he didn’t, I guessed because
he thought I’d seen more of her body than I’d admitted to. “I’ll have to wait for
the autopsy for the official cause of course, but it appears she was stabbed multiple
times and then dumped out there in the alley.”

“You mean she wasn’t killed there?”

He shook his head. “There’s little to no blood around the body. Given the number of
stab wounds she had, there should have been a lot of it.”

“So why dump her in the alley?”

“That is an excellent question,” he said, pointing the pen at me. “Which is why I’d
like you to tell me about the night your father was killed.”

“Why?”

“To see if there are any other connections.”

“It’s not something I like to talk about,” I said, hoping to avoid resurrecting those
memories. “Besides, I’m sure it’s all in the police report.”

“Yes, I’m sure it is, and I’ll review the case file later. But in the meantime I’d
really like to hear things from your perspective, including any of your . . . unique
experiences.”

I eyed him suspiciously, wondering if he was mocking me.

“Why don’t you begin with the events that occurred just before he was killed,” he
urged. “Start a few hours before it happened.”

I sighed, closed my eyes, and let myself drift back to a time and place I’d been working
hard to block from my memory. “It was mid-January, a little shy of ten months ago,”
I began. “I’d been out of town all week attending a barkeeper’s convention in New
York City and I was late getting back because of a snowstorm. It was a cold Saturday
night and business was good. The bar was crowded all evening and my dad put me to
work as soon as I got back. By the time we made last call, the place was still pretty
full. Along with our usual crowd of singles and couples, there were several groups
partying: some nurses who had gotten off duty a couple of hours before, a half dozen
guys who were having a “freedom wake” for their friend who had just gotten engaged,
and a group of about ten people who had just come from some corporate shindig here
in town.

“Dad had me and another girl working the floor, and he and Billy—he’s a night bartender
here—were sharing duties behind the bar and in the kitchen.”

My mind replayed various scenes from that evening—faces, voices, the reverb from the
jukebox—and because it was a memory rather than real life, I could recall it all without
the interference of my usual synesthetic filter. Most of the time, my synesthetic
experiences are like background noise, there but easy to ignore. It’s only when I’m
stressed, or when the sensory input is very powerful that they interfere.

“There was a bit of a scuffle just before closing,” I recall. “Two of the guys in
the reunion group were arguing over something and they ended up exchanging blows out
back in the alley. Dad went out there and broke it up while the rest of us were shooing
people out the front door so we could lock up for the night. Normally our bouncer,
Gary, would have handled the fight, but he was off that night because he was sick
with the flu. We were down a bartender at the time because one of them had quit the
week before. Billy had worked eight or nine days straight, so Dad insisted he leave
as soon as we closed. Carolyn, the girl who was waiting tables with me, was a single
mom and she had to get home so her baby-sitter could leave.” I paused and gave Duncan
Albright a bitter smile. “She doesn’t work here anymore; in fact she never worked
here again after that night.”

“Because of the shooting?” Albright had his pen in hand and it was poised over his
notebook, but he wasn’t writing anything.

I nodded.

“I take it the cops who investigated looked into the guys who were involved in the
fight?”

“They said they did, and the guys all had airtight alibis.”

“So what happened next?”

I looked away, remembering the horror of the next few moments. “With everyone else
gone for the night, it was up to me and Dad to do the closing and cleanup stuff. He
told me he had something important to tell me when we got done. I was in back in the
kitchen and, the last I saw him, Dad was out front counting out the money in the till.
I didn’t hear anything at first because I was hand washing some dishes and the water
running in the stainless sink was loud enough to drown out most noise. At one point
I thought I heard people yelling so I turned the water off. It was quiet for a few
seconds and then I heard my father shout out something. I’m not sure exactly what
his words were, but it sounded like,
Go away!
or
No way!
. . . something like that. And then I heard the shot.”