“Hello. I need to report a murder.”
SHE WALKED THROUGH THE DOORWAY, AND EVERY MAN IN THE PLACE looked at her: the painted red smile, the blue skirt swishing around perfect legs. She didn’t seem to notice, walked right up to the bar and pulled herself onto a stool.
“I’ll have a scotch, double, on ice,” she said.
Rick set aside the rag he’d been using to wipe down the surface and leaned in front of her. “You look like you’re celebrating something.”
“That’s right. You going to help me out or just keep leering?”
Smiling, he found a tumbler and poured her a double and extra.
“I have to ask,” Rick said, returning to the bar in front of her, enjoying the way every other man in Murray’s looked at him with envy. “What’s the celebration?”
“You do have to ask, don’t you? I’m just not sure I should tell you.”
“It’s just not often I see a lady come in here all alone in a mood to celebrate.”
Murray’s was a working-class place, a dive by the standards of East Colfax; the neighborhood was going downhill as businesses and residents fled downtown, leaving behind everyone who didn’t have anyplace to go. Rick had seen this sort of thing happen enough; he recognized the signs. Murray wasn’t losing money, but he didn’t have anything extra to put into the place. The varnish on the hardwood floor was scuffed off, the furniture was a decade old. Cheap beer and liquor was the norm, and he still had war bond posters up a year and a half after V-J Day. Or maybe he liked the Betty Grable pinups he’d stuck on top of some of them too much to take any of it down.
Blushing, the woman ducked her gaze, which told him something about her. The shrug she gave him was a lot shyer than the brash way she’d walked in here.
“I got a job,” she said.
“Congratulations.”
“You’re not going to tell me that a nice girl like me should find herself a good man, get married, and settle down and make my mother proud?”
“Nope.”
“Good.” She smiled and bit her lip.
A newcomer in a clean suit came up to the bar, set down his hat, and tossed a couple of bills on the polished wood. Rick nodded at the woman and went to take the order. Business was steady after that, and Rick served second and third rounds to men who’d come in after work and stuck around. New patrons arrived for after-dinner nightcaps. Rick worked through it all, drawing beers and pouring liquor, smiling politely when the older men called him “son” and “kid.”
He didn’t need the job. He just liked being around people now and then. He’d worked at bars before—bars, saloons, taverns—here and there, for almost two hundred years.
He expected the woman to finish quickly and march right out again, but she sipped the drink as if savoring the moment, wanting to spend time with the crowd. Avoiding solitude. Rick understood.
When a thin, flushed man who’d had maybe one drink too many sidled up to the bar and crept toward her like a cat on the prowl, Rick wasn’t surprised. He waited, watching for her signals. She might have been here to celebrate, but she might have been looking for more, and he wouldn’t interfere. But the man spoke—asking to buy her another drink—and the woman shook her head. When he pleaded, she tilted her body, turning her back to him. Then he put a hand on her shoulder and another under the bar, on her leg. She shoved.
Then Rick stood before them both. They hesitated midaction, blinking back at him.
“Sir, you really need to be going, don’t you?” Rick said.
“This isn’t any of your business,” the drunk said.
“If the lady wants to be left alone, you should leave her alone.” He caught the man’s gaze and twisted, just a bit. Put the warning in his voice, used a certain subtle tone, so that there was power in the words. If the man’s gaze clouded over, most onlookers would attribute it to the liquor.
The man pointed and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Rick put a little more focus in his gaze and the drunk blinked, confused.
“Go on, now,” Rick said.
The man nodded weakly, crushed his hat on his head, and stumbled to the door.
The woman watched him go, then turned back to Rick, her smile wondering. “That was amazing. How’d you do that?”
“You work behind the bar long enough, you develop a way with people.”
“You’ve been bartending a long time, then.”
Rick just smiled.
“Thanks for looking out for me,” she said.
“Not a problem.”
“I really didn’t come here looking for a date. I really did just want the drink.”
“I know.”
“But I wouldn’t say no. To a date. Just dinner or a picture or something. If the right guy asked.”
So, Rick asked. Her name was Helen.
RICK ANSWERED THE RESPONDING OFFICER’S QUESTIONS, THEN SAT IN THE armchair in the living room to wait for the detective to arrive. It took about forty-five minutes. In the meantime, officers and investigators passed in and out of the house, which seemed less and less Helen’s by the moment.
When the detective walked in, Rick stood to greet her. The woman was average height and build, and busy, always looking, taking in the scene. Her dark hair was tied in a short ponytail; she wore a dark suit and white shirt, nondescript. She dressed to blend in, but her air of authority made her stand out.
She saw him and frowned. “Oh hell. It’s you.”
“Detective Hardin,” he answered, amused at how unhappy she was to see him.
Jessi Hardin pointed at him. “Wait here.”
He sat back down and watched her continue on to the kitchen.
Half an hour later, coroners brought in a gurney, and Hardin returned to the living room. She pulled over a high-backed chair and set it across from him.
“I expected to see bite marks on her neck.”
“I wouldn’t have called it in if I’d done it,” he said.
“But you discovered the body?”
“Yes.”
“And what were you doing here?” She pulled a small notebook and pen from her coat pocket, just like on TV.
“Helen and I were old friends.”
The pen paused over the page. “What’s that even mean?”
He’d been thinking it would be a nice change, not having to avoid the issue, not having to come up with a reasonable explanation for why he knew what he knew, dancing around the truth that he’d known Helen almost her entire life, even though he looked only thirty years old. Hardin knew what he was. But those half-truths he’d always used to explain himself were harder to abandon than he expected.
With any other detective, he’d have said that Helen was a friend of his grandfather’s whom he checked in on from time to time and helped with repairs around the house. But Detective Hardin wouldn’t believe that.
“We met in 1947 and stayed friends.”
Hardin narrowed a thoughtful gaze. “Just so that I’m clear on this, in 1947 she was what, twenty? Twenty-five? And you were—exactly as you are now?”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed friends with her all this time.”
“You say it like you think that’s strange.”
“It’s just not what I expect from the stories.”
She was no doubt building a picture in her mind: Rick and a twenty-five-year-old Helen would have made a striking couple. But Rick and the ninety-year-old Helen?
“Maybe you should stick to the standard questions,” Rick said.
“All right. Tell me what you found when you got here. About what time was it?”
He told her, explaining how the lights were out and the place seemed abandoned. How he’d known right away that something was wrong, and so wasn’t surprised to find her in the kitchen.
“She called me earlier today. I wasn’t available but she left a message. She sounded worried but wouldn’t say why. I came over as soon as I could.”
“She knew something was wrong, then. She expected something to happen.”
“I think so.”
“Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill an old woman like this?”