Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder (8 page)

The woman handed me a twenty. “Keep the change.”

“No ma’am, you’ve got enough to deal with. Let me treat you to a New Year’s Day drink.” I handed back the twenty. I could see she was about to protest, so I added with a gentle smile, “Every once in awhile we all deserve a break. It’s your turn. Don’t argue, keep it.”

With the wind taken out of the sails of her argument, she smiled tiredly at me and stood to pull on a thigh-length black tweed coat. The man patted me on the shoulder. I followed them up to the front door. They exited, I threw the deadbolt and turned off the
OPEN
sign.

I resettled myself at the bar and said, “Okay, where were we?”

Eddy said, “We were figuring out how to find your father and get him out of this mistake. When’s the last time someone saw Pete?”

I scooped up my fuzzy navel and held it tightly. Condensation on the glass was cold against my palm. “Agnes saw him Friday night at his weekly poker game. Said he was planning for New Year’s Eve the next day. Doesn’t exactly sound like he was hell-bent on a bender.” I sucked a chunk of ice from my glass and pinned it between my molars. “But that doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s not like he ever
plans
on falling off the wagon.”

Lisa said, “Maybe someone at the game noticed something weird.” She raised a brow, her eyes steady on me.

Eddy asked, “Did Agnes tell you who was playing, child?”

I dragged my gaze from Lisa and ran down the list of players Agnes told me about.

When I finished, Eddy told Lisa, “These folks are all friends of Pete’s—that’s Shay’s dad—and they often come play poker in the back room after Pete closes the bar.”

“You know,” Lisa wiped her hands on a damp rag, “it’s getting late and I should probably get outta here.” She stooped and grabbed her jacket from under the bar.

“Hey,” I said, “Lisa, you’ve helped us—me, actually, out so much in the last two days, and I feel like I owe you an explanation and likely some funds.”

“Oh no, you don’t owe me a thing. I happened to be in a position to be able to help and that’s what I did. Think of it as my good deed for the year.”

“Cool your jets, girl,” Eddy told Lisa. “You put that coat right back down.” The tone in Eddy’s voice left no room for argument. With wide eyes, Lisa tossed her jacket aside.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know how you feel, Lisa. You do whatever she says when she talks like that.” I’d been on the receiving end of Eddy’s bossiness more times than I could count.

Eddy said, “In for a penny, in for a peso. Or something like that. Lisa, after what you’ve done for my Shay … ’Sides, you’re rather handy.”

Lisa gave a slightly strained laugh. “Guess I can stick around.”

“Good, good.” Eddy clapped her hands like a delighted little kid. She sprang from giddy to ferocious in a blink. “Now, Shay, supposing your father is still AWOL tomorrow, you see if you can track down the poker buddies and have a chat. Maybe he said something to one of them that’ll help clear this up.”

I didn’t know how anyone was going to explain away my father’s gun chilling in a block of frozen water, but at this point, I was willing try anything.

“Shay,” Eddy continued, “I’d come with you if I could, but the Knitters are doing a tour of the Mill City Museum. I’m a chaperone.” She leaned conspiratorially toward Lisa. “You gotta watch some of those old ladies real careful-like. They can get into all kinds of trouble.”

Lisa, eyebrows hiked high, slowly nodded.

Eddy turned her sights on Coop. “You go with Shay. Keep her out of trouble.”

He literally cringed. “I’m sorry, Eddy. You know I would. But I can’t until I wrap up my latest contract. It’s due to the state in a couple days, and I’m a bit behind. New Year celebrations kind of got in the way.”

Coop would be there anytime and anywhere if I truly needed him. In this case I was certainly fine to do a solo chitchat with my dad’s poker playing pals.

Lisa asked, “What do you do, Coop?”

“I’m sort of a computer geek—”

“Hacker,” I coughed into my hand.

Eddy thwapped me in the back of the head. “Fixer,” she corrected.

“Ignore them,” Coop said. “The simplified version is the state hired me to map projected income from electronic pulltabs and how those proceeds might be used to help fund a new Vikings stadium.”

The longer, unspoken story was that for the last year or so, Coop had been designing and implementing player reward systems for bingo halls and local casinos, along with other computer-type jobs on a contract basis.

His reputation as a highly skilled, out-of-the-box systems developer caught the attention of some muckety-muck in state government. They contacted him to see if he’d be interested in working with some high-level, hush-hush video gaming software company to assess the potential for re-creating and marketing electronic pulltabs to increase state revenue. Pulltabs were a Minnesota bar and bingo tradition, and I supposed it seemed natural to see what more sales could do.

But Coop’s computer talents encompassed much more than simple player reward systems. If the government wasn’t careful, Coop could hack into their systems so fast they’d have no idea what hit them. He had the ability to seriously mess with any mainframe’s inner workings. It was a very bright idea to keep Coop on your good side.

Lisa leaned against the back counter again and crossed her arms. “What are you finding in your research?”

Coop smirked. “It’s confidential, and they might kill me for sharing, but the one thing I can tell you is that they need to dial back their expectations.”

“Pshaw.” Disgust colored Eddy’s tone. “Those yahoos. Why should I—a geezerly taxpayer who has nothing to do with football, help fund a ridiculous roofless stadium—in Minnesota, of all places, when they have a perfectly good one now? Well,” she added, “as long as the roof don’t cave in again. ’Sides, those millionaire owners could stand to drop a wad of their own dough for their cause. The state shouldn’t have anything to do with how businesses run their affairs, ’specially when it’s all about dopey football.”

“Let’s not get her started or we’ll be here all night,” I said.

Eddy ignored me. “Lisa, can you go with Shay tomorrow? I’d feel a lot better if someone were with her. She’s got a bit of a temper—”

“I do not,” I interrupted indignantly.

Coop whacked me. “Yeah, you do.”

I made a face at him.

Eddy gave us her patented settle-your-asses-down-before-I-whup-’em evil eye. That look worked as well now as it did back when we were knee-high like the corn in July.

“See what I mean about her temper?” she said to Lisa.

Lisa laughed. I wondered if she thought we were all whackadoodles. But honestly, I didn’t need to wonder; we were all whacka-
doodles.

“I’m doing an internship at the Walker Art Center,” Lisa said. “I’m on vacation for another week. I certainly can help out tomorrow if you like.” She drilled me with an intense look. “But only if Shay doesn’t mind.”

There was something disturbing yet mesmerizing in those eyes. If she did come along tomorrow, we were definitely going to have to have a heart-to-heart. I needed to make damn sure she was clear on the fact that I was completely and thoroughly attached. I mentally smacked myself. I didn’t even know for sure the woman was gay, and here I was jumping to some probably very wrong conclusions.

I mentally heaved a peevish sigh and rearranged my expression into something a little more inviting. “Whoever would like to accompany me on tomorrow’s fact-finding mission, meet me at the Rabbit Hole at ten a.m.”

It was almost midnight when Lisa and I finished up at the Lep. Coop left to take Eddy home, and Lisa restocked the bar while I tried to tie out the day’s receipts. In all, the weekend had been a good one for my father. He was damn lucky we’d all been around to help him.

My fury at his bailing out on such a huge weekend was tempered by the knowledge that something else very unseemly was going on. There was no other explanation. Maybe this cluster was all tied into one massive booze orgy. His track record was full of them, so there was no discounting the possibility.

After some fits and starts, I managed to bumble through the maze of paperwork and prepare the deposit. Luckily, like the safe combination, nothing had changed since he opened the place.

I shut off the light to the office and pulled the door closed. I double-checked the front door to make sure it was locked and killed the lights in the front of the bar.

My phone vibrated with an incoming message. A quick check showed that JT was on her way home. One beautiful, bright spot to end my evening.

In the kitchen Lisa was tucking away the last of the dishes, her back facing me.

“Hey,” I said.

Lisa let out a startled yip and spun, hand to chest. “Oh my god. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry about that.” It wasn’t good manners to kill the help.

“It’s okay. Whew. My heart’s still working.” She patted her shirtfront a couple of times, probably just to make sure.

“Anything I can do to help?”

“No, I think I’ve got it all. Not sure where your dad puts everything away, but I did what I could.”

“And that is good enough. Let’s get out of here.”

Lisa glanced at the closed basement door. “I think that smell is getting worse. I ran down there earlier when I restocked, and shit’s really oozing.” She paused and grimaced. “No pun intended.”

Said smell wafted beneath my nose. “I know. I’m going to call someone tomorrow. I don’t know why my dad didn’t do it sooner, but it’s
got
to be fixed.”

We bundled up and I doused the kitchen lights. Lisa stepped outside and I followed, pulling the door closed behind me, keying the deadbolt. It was cold and clear, and a few stars sparkled overhead. Without much wind, it wasn’t half bad.

“Where are you parked?”

“On the street, down the block.”

“Come on, I’ll give you a lift.” I bobbed my head toward my vehicle, which was almost swallowed up by the darkness.

“Cool.” She angled around one side of the SUV. I headed for the driver’s side and unlocked the doors with the fob.

As I reached for the handle, I heard a soft grunt and then a thud.

“Lis—” Someone upended me before I could get her name out, literally tackling me to the ground. I hit the snow-packed lot so hard my teeth slammed together and my breath jolted from my chest.

Hands wrapped tight around my neck. I blindly swung a glove-covered fist at body mass, connecting with a glancing blow. My assailant uttered a stifled oath and loosened his hold. Then something smashed into the side of my face so hard I saw stars.

Momentary bewilderment vanished, replaced by stone-cold fury. I yowled and shook my head, tried to clear it. I squirmed, desperate to get away.

My attacker groped for a handhold. I thrust a knee upward and caught enough of his gonads to get his attention. He grunted, his hands disappearing from my anatomy and grabbing at his own, the full weight of his body pressing down on me. Scraping my heels frantically against the snowpack, I managed to get my feet under me and arched up, trying to buck him off.

I awkwardly drove a fist toward his face. There was a satisfying
crack!
followed by a choked howl.

Take that, fucker.

Our thrashing abruptly slowed as we bumped up against one of the tires on the Escape. The lunatic let go of his crotch and managed to get his fingers around my throat again.

Through the roaring in my ears, I heard him growl, “You tell O’Hanlon time’s running out for him to sign before things get ugly.”

I gathered my waning strength and bucked mightily, blackness crowding the edges of my vision. I managed to wedge one hand under his chin. With my other hand, I bashed repeatedly at one of the arms that held me down.

My vision started to constrict.

Frantically I let go and slammed both fists against the sides of his head, gong-style. His grip loosened a bit. I did it again. The blow must have stunned him to some degree, because for a moment he stilled. I tore myself from beneath him, sucking in precious air as I scrambled to regain my footing.

He grabbed my ankle and yanked.

I went with the momentum, kicking backward. My heel connected with something soft—I hoped whatever I hit hurt like hell. The leg that had been holding me up slipped sideways and both my knees slammed into the ground. Pain blossomed. More yowling filled the air—mine or his? Maybe both. I struggled to get back up and so did he.

He crouched, lunged low and fast.

I lashed out with my foot and caught him in the side.

He staggered.

I rebalanced and charged like a drag racer squealing out of the gate.

He sidestepped. I stumbled, trying to stop my forward momentum. I crashed into the side of the vehicle, bounced backward, and spun. Instead of coming after me again, the man whipped around and hightailed it across the parking lot toward the street as if the hounds of hell were on his ass. He rounded the end of the lot and disappeared from sight.

I had no energy to pursue him. Hardly had enough gumption to stand. My lungs ached, and my flanks heaved. I kept myself in decent shape, but was in no condition to be doing any of this hand-to-hand crap.

Then I remembered Lisa. Oh shit.

I hobbled around the SUV. Lisa was nowhere in sight.

Son of a bitch.

I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe. I propped myself against the hood of the Escape. My throat ached. I bent at the waist, hands on my knees, which I realized were very tender, and tried very hard not to throw up.

As I caught my breath, I heard footsteps pounding the frozen earth, coming fast. I tried to reset myself for another go-round, then recognized Lisa barreling toward me like a wild animal.

She skidded to a stop. “Oh my god. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, mostly. You?”

“I’ll live,” she wheezed.

I limped around in a slow circle and my furious gaze fell on Lisa. “Shit. You’re bleeding.”