He looked up briefly when I approached. “Auditions only on Tuesdays,” he grumbled.
I tugged at my skirt. “I’m not here to audition.”
I guess he didn’t believe me. I guess I couldn’t blame him. He sipped his drink and looked me over. This time he paid more attention. To the skirt. To the top. To the way every inch of Sammi’s outfit hugged every inch of my body in ways nobody’s body should be hugged. Unless the body in question belongs to a body who’s selling her body. “You sure?”
At least if I sat down, there’d be less of me to ogle. I slipped into the chair across from his. “I’m here to talk to you about Vera Blaine.”
His eyebrows were bushy and met in the middle of his forehead. They dipped. “She ever dance here?”
“You used to date her.”
In spite of the sign in living color right above his head that said it was illegal to light up in a public establishment in the state of Ohio, Steve pulled out a cigarette and a silver lighter. He fired up, took a drag, and blew a stream of smoke. “She’s dead.”
“I know that. That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to figure out who killed her.”
Anybody else would have mentioned that Jefferson Lamar was convicted of the crime and asked why the hell it was any of my business, anyway. Not Ganley. All he said was, “It wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Why else would you be here?” He poured another inch of scotch into his glass, downed it, and plunked the empty glass on the table. “I had an ironclad alibi.”
“Because…”
“Because Vera and me, we hadn’t seen each other in months. She was pissed at me, see. She said I was irresponsible, that I’d never amount to anything.” He looked around and chuckled. “If she could see me now, huh?”
I thought it best not to answer.
“As a matter of fact, though…” He took another drag on his cigarette. “I talked to her that morning. You know, the morning of the day she got killed. Told the cops about it, too. Me and Vera, we were thinking about getting back together again.”
I gave him a level look. “What, so you could beat her up again?”
He stabbed out his cigarette. “Don’t know who’s been telling you that. Ain’t true.”
“Is it true you talked?”
“That morning?” He grinned. “Gospel.”
“And she wanted to see you the next day? She didn’t mention she was coming to Cleveland that evening?”
“Said she was busy. Couldn’t see me that night. That she had a prior commitment.” The way he accentuated the words made me believe he was quoting Vera.
“Do you think she was in town to see a man?”
He sloughed off the thought. “I figured she was seeing somebody else. Otherwise, why would she break up with me? But like I said, we talked. She said she’d had a change of heart. I swear to God, that’s the exact words she used.”
“Did she explain what that meant?”
“Not a clue.” He swirled the ice cubes in his glass. “I figured she was thinking of breaking up with the guy she was seeing. Figured she realized she was missing out on a good thing. So you see…” Ganley added another inch of scotch to his glass and downed it in one gulp. “I didn’t have any reason to kill Vera.”
“Not even because you were jealous of the other guy?”
He shrugged like it was no big deal, and I wondered if he was that nonchalant about the whole thing twenty-five years earlier. “She obviously came to her senses. Too bad she got offed before I got her back in the sack.”
“That’s very romantic.” I hoped he realized I didn’t mean it, but the way his eyes glittered in the reflected glow of the stage lights, it was hard to tell. The dancer made her way around the audience so she could collect tips in her G-string, and Ganley watched her. I had to keep him on task, or he’d start tallying up the total so he’d be sure to get his percentage. “You’re telling me your ironclad alibi is that you loved Vera?”
He swiveled his gaze to me. Or more precisely, to the front of my purple top. When he laughed, it made my skin crawl. “Hell with love! I couldn’t have killed Vera because not three hours after I got off the phone with her, I got nabbed on a drunk and disorderly. I was a little down on my luck at the time and I couldn’t afford bail. So you see, the night Vera was killed, I was in the county jail, locked up good and tight.” He picked up the scotch bottle and offered it in my direction, and when I declined, he poured himself a little more. “Satisfied?” he asked.
I was. In a disappointed sort of way.
I’d already gotten up and turned toward the door when he called after me.
“You’d bring ’em in by the hundreds, honey. If you change your mind about that audition, give me a call.”
In my sweetest voice, I told him I would.
Yeah, right.
When hell froze over, I joined a convent, or I was dumb enough to step out in public again in another Sammi Santiago original.
13
According to the coin dealer I went to see the next day, the silver dollar we found at Jefferson Lamar’s grave wasn’t in the greatest shape. It wasn’t especially rare. It wasn’t famous for some weird minting error like an upside-down date or anything. It was worth exactly thirty-seven dollars.
Not exactly a fortune.
Which made it not exactly worth mugging me for.
That pretty much sealed the deal. With that piece of the puzzle in place, I was convinced the coin had nothing to do with the attack outside my apartment building, and since the attack-and what it meant in terms of my investigation-was what I was supposed to be thinking about, I was grateful to eliminate it as a possibility. I was sitting on my couch holding the coin, with my legal pad in my lap. I ripped off page three with its question about the coin, wadded the sheet into a ball, and tossed it onto my coffee table, officially eliminating it as an avenue of investigation.
It wasn’t the most exciting way for a girl to spend a Sunday evening. But believe me when I say that being home alone thinking about clues and murder and a mugging gone (thankfully) wrong wasn’t the worst thing in the world. If I was deep in thought about my investigation, I could avoid answering my phone when it started to ring.
And it was going to start ringing soon.
How did I know?
Well, for one thing, the latest episode of Cemetery Survivor was scheduled to start in about five minutes, and when it did, I knew Ella would call immediately to tell me how cute/smart/hard-working I looked. My two aunts would wait a little longer. But then, they’d be busy throughout the show on a three-way call with my mom, giving her the play-by-play. Once the show was over, I was fair game. For all three of them.
As for me watching the show…
I’d already thrown out the khakis and the emerald green shirt I’d worn to work on Friday. No way I was going to relive the whole ugly experience by watching myself go down in the mud.
So there I sat with time on my hands and questions spinning through my head. I wondered why anyone would bother to bury a pretty ordinary coin at Jefferson Lamar’s grave. And yes, I couldn’t help it. I wondered, too, if the coin meant anything in terms of Vera Blaine’s murder.
Maybe it was the sitting there thinking and the staring thing. Or maybe I was just getting better at the whole Gift that kept on giving. In the empty spot next to me on the couch, I actually saw a little ripple that reminded me of the shiver of air around a candle flame-right before Jefferson Lamar showed up.
That explains why I didn’t screech when he said, “That’s a Morgan silver dollar you’re holding. George T. Morgan was the man who designed the art on it, what we collectors call the obverse and the reverse of the coin. The coins were produced between 1878 and 1904, then again in 1921, and the silver they’re made out of came from the Comstock Lode-you know, that big silver strike out in Nevada in the 1850s.”