‘Who do you want? Butch?” the person who answered the phone shouted into the receiver. “Sure, he’s here, but he’s busy. It’s Happy Hour, you know. Can I take a message?”
“No, thanks,” Joanna said. “I’ll call back later.”
She put the phone down. Then, while she was still looking at it, it rang, startling her. “Joanna?” a man’s voice said. “I’ll bet you’re cracking the books, aren’t you.”
“Not exactly. Who is this?”
“Leann Jessup,” she said. “Your tablemate in class. And unless I’m mistaken, we’re next-door neighbors here in the dorm, too. Do you have plans for dinner? Most of the guys are going out for Italian but I’m not wild about pasta. Or the men in the class, either, for that matter. How about you?”
The unexpected invitation of going off to dinner with Leann Jessup was tempting. Maybe Joanna should take the call as a hint and drop the whole idea of stopping by the Roundhouse. Maybe Joanna’s tentative plan of questioning Butch Dixon, the bartender there, was a fruitcake notion that ought to be dropped like a hot potato.
For only a moment Joanna considered inviting Leann to come along with her, but the words never made it out of her mouth. If she went to the bar, talked to Butch, and ended up making a botch of things, why bring along a relative stranger to witness her falling flat on her face?
“Sorry,” Joanna said. “I wish you had called ten minutes ago.”
Leann seemed to take the rejection in stride. “No problem,” she said. “I’ll figure out some alternative. See you tomorrow.”
Joanna put down the phone and pulled on jeans and a sweater. Armed with an address from the phone book and her notes, she headed for downtown Peoria and the Roundhouse Bar and Grill. Based on the name, she expected the address would take her somewhere close to the railroad track. Instead, Roundhouse derived from the shape of the building itself, which was, in fact, round. The railroad part had been grafted on as an afterthought in the form of an almost life-size train outlined in orange neon tubes along the outside of the building.
This must be the place, Joanna thought to herself, pulling into the potholed and vehicle-crowded parking lot. As she parked the Blazer, she could almost hear Eleanor Lathrop’s sniff of disapproval. Women in general and her daughter in particular weren’t supposed to visit bars to begin with. And they certainly weren’t supposed to venture those kinds of places alone. “A woman who goes into bars without an escort is asking for trouble,” Eleanor would have said.
So are women who run for the office of sheriff, Joanna thought with a rueful smile. Squaring her shoulders, she climbed out of the truck and headed for the entrance. Just inside the door, she paused to get her bearings, allowing her ears to adjust to thee noisy din and her eyes to become accustomed to the dim light.
The joint was divided almost evenly between dining area and bar. The smoke-filled bar was jammed nearly full while the restaurant was largely empty. In both sections, railroad memorabilia—from fading pictures and travel posters to crossing signs—decorated every inch of available wall space. A platform, dropped from the ceiling, ran around the outside of the room and supported the tracks for several running electric trains that hummed overhead at odd intervals. One wall was devoted to a big-screen television where a raucous group of sports-minded drinkers were jockeying for tables in advance of a Monday-night football game. Above the din of the pregame announcements, a blaring jukebox wailed out Roger Miller’s plaintive version of “Engine, Engine Nine.”
The semicircular bar in the dead center of the room was jammed with people. Seeing the crowd, Joanna’s heart fell. She had hoped that by now the Happy Hour crowd would have gone home and the Roundhouse would be reasonably quiet. A slow evening would give her a chance to talk to the bartender. Under these busy circumstances, that wouldn’t be easy.
With a sigh Joanna made for the single unoccupied stool she had spotted at the bar. If she sat there, she might manage to monopolize the bartender long enough for a word or two. He was a short, round-shouldered man with a shaved head, heavy black eyebrows, and a neatly trimmed, pencil-thin mustache. The name tag pinned to his shirt said BUTCH.
Butch Dixon appeared in front of Joanna almost before she finished hoisting herself onto the seat, shoving a wooden salad bowl overflowing with popcorn in her direction. “What’ll it be?” he asked.
“Diet Coke,” she said.
“Diet Pepsi okay?”
“Sure.”
He went several steps down the bar, filled two glasses with ice, and then added liquid using a push-button dispenser. When he returned, he s both glasses in front of Joanna. “That’ll be a buck,” he said.
Joanna dug in her purse for money. “I only asked for one,” she said.
Butch Dixon grinned. “Hey, don’t fight it, lady,” he said. “It’s Happy Hour and Ladies’ Night both. You get two drinks for the price of one. You new around here?”
Joanna nodded.
“Well, welcome to the neighborhood.”
A cocktail waitress with a tray laden with empty glasses showed up at her station several seats away. While Butch Dixon hurried to take the used glasses and fill the waitress’s new orders, Joanna sipped her Diet Pepsi and surveyed the room. On first glance the Roundhouse appeared to be respectable enough, and, unlike the truck stop, no one tried to proposition her. She had finished one drink and was started on the other before Butch paused in front of her again.
“How’re you doing?” he asked.
“Fine. Is the food here any good?”
“Are you kidding? We were voted Best Bar Hamburgers in the Valley of the Sun two years in a row. Want one? I can bring it to you here, or you could move to the dining room.”
“Here,” she said.
“Fries? The works?”
After fighting sleep all morning, Joanna had skipped lunch at noontime in favor of grabbing a nap. Hungry now, she nodded.
“Have the Roundhouse Special then,” Butch said, writing her order down on a ticket. “It’s the best buy. How do you want it?”
“Medium.”
He nodded. “And seeing as how you’re new, I’ll throw in the Caboose for free.”
“What’s a Caboose?” Joanna asked.
“A dish of vanilla ice cream with Spanish peanuts and chocolate syrup. Not very imaginative, hut little kids love it.”
He came back a few moments later and dropped a napkin-wrapped bundle of silverware in front of her. “Just move here?” he asked.
There seemed to be a slight lull among the customers at the bar right then, and Joanna decided it was time to make her move. For an answer, Joanna shook her head and then pulled one of her business cards from her jeans pocket. She handed it to him.
“I’ll only be here for a few weeks. I’m attending police academy classes at the APOA just down the road,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” he said, shoving the card into his pocket without bothering to look at it. “Some of those folks show up here now and then. For dinner,” he added quickly. “Most of ‘em hang out in the dining room rather than in the bar, if you know what I mean. I guess they’re all afraid of what people will think.”
Joanna took a breath. “Actually, I came here today to talk to you.”
“To me?” Butch Dixon echoed with a frown “How come?”
“It’s about Serena Grijalva,” Joanna said quietly
Butch Dixon’s eyes hardened and the engaging grin disappeared. From the expression on his face, Joanna expected him to tell her to get lost and forget the Roundhouse Special. Just then someone a few stools down the bar tapped his empty beer glass on the counter.