Murder on the Rocks (22 page)

I
slept like the proverbial baby and awoke the next morning a little after eleven. After
pouring my coffee, I decided to forgo the morning news and sat at the table with the
Capone book and my laptop instead. Ginny’s e-mail to my father had listed several
titles that I figured I’d have to go to the library to find, so after skimming a few
more Web sites about Capone, I threw on some clothes and escaped from the apartment
around noon to treat myself to brunch at a little café that just happened to be close
to the Milwaukee Public Library. It was within easy walking distance and the day was
a pleasant one, cloudy with a strong, cool breeze, closer to typical for this time
of year though still unusually warm.

I’d walked several blocks before I remembered Duncan telling me that someone would
be watching me all the time. Curious, I stopped and turned suddenly, scanning the
street behind me. Sure enough, a man wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball
cap was walking down the sidewalk behind me. He was a good twenty or thirty feet back,
but my sudden stop and turn hadn’t given him any time to adjust. For a second he faltered
in his step, as if debating a turnaround, and then he kept on walking. There weren’t
any good places for him to dodge into because it was Sunday and a lot of the businesses
in the area were closed. He seemed to realize this and kept on walking, going right
past me. I watched him turn the corner, wondering if I’d misidentified him. But when
I continued on my way and reached the corner myself, I saw him huddled in a doorway
a little ways from where I stood.

I smiled, walked up to him and said, “Are you the person assigned to follow me today?”

He shook his head and made a face like he was about to deny it and call me crazy,
but at the last second he sighed and said, “Yeah, busted.”

“You didn’t have to be so cagey about it,” I told him, smiling. “Duncan Albright told
me he’d have someone watching me.”

“Hmph, would have been nice if he’d told me that you knew.” He reached up and adjusted
his cap, giving me a clear look at his face. He had hazel eyes, a five o’clock shadow,
and at the least a receding hairline, though I couldn’t tell for sure if it was that
or if he was balding. I pegged him as mid- to late thirties. He held a hand out to
me and said, “Name’s Brian Gold.”

I took his hand and shook it, an action that triggered a sweet, citrus taste in my
mouth. “Mack Dalton,” I said. “But I’m guessing you already knew that.”

He nodded and smiled.

“Let me save you some trouble, Brian, and give you my itinerary for the day.” I filled
him in on my plans to have lunch and then hit up the library before heading back to
my bar in time to prep for my five o’clock opening. “You’re welcome to join me if
you like,” I told him.

“No, thanks,” he said. “But I will tag along behind you. Have to. Sorry.” He shrugged
apologetically.

“No need to apologize. You are just doing your job. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
With that, I turned my back on him and continued on my way, knowing he was meandering
along behind me. I caught sight of his reflection once or twice in windows I passed,
and I could hear the faint murmur of his voice as he talked on his cell phone. When
I arrived at the café, he took up a post across the street, leaning against a building.
He was there for only five minutes or so before someone came along in a gray sedan
and picked him up.

I was puzzled by the fact that no one else got out of the car to take his place. I
ordered a mushroom and cheese omelet with a mimosa to drink, and I scanned the street
outside while I waited for my food, searching for Brian’s replacement. If there was
one, I couldn’t see him anywhere, though I continued to search while I ate. Since
I was both hungry and aware of the time, I made fast work of the omelet, paid my tab,
and headed for the library, getting there just after one.

Ginny’s e-mail listed five books in total but I was only able to find three of them
on the shelves. I settled in and skimmed through the chapter headings and some of
the pages, looking for anything new or different from the information I’d found in
the book at home and on the Web sites I’d visited. The first two didn’t offer up anything
exciting, but the author of the third book put forth a new theory I hadn’t run across
before, that Capone might have hidden a stash of gold in one of the many buildings
in Milwaukee he frequented as a way of hiding income from the taxmen. There was little
in the way of solid facts to support this notion, just some anecdotal evidence and
copies of handwritten letters that contained wording vague enough to be interpreted
multiple ways. But one thing that did catch my eye was the author’s contention that
the treasure had most likely been hidden in one of four buildings, an idea he’d come
to after reading some other correspondence that referenced discussions between Capone
and several Milwaukee bar owners who were part of his bootlegging ring. One of the
buildings he named was mine, though the author also admitted that this information
amounted to little more than rumor and hearsay. Intrigued, I set the books aside so
I could check them out later and take them home for a more thorough reading. Then
I headed for the help desk to see if I could find the other two books from Ginny’s
list.

When I rattled off both titles to the librarian behind the counter, she said, “Those
aren’t on the regular shelves because they’re collections of historical papers that
have to be signed out and viewed here in the library. They can’t be checked out. Would
you like to look at them here?”

“Yes, please,” I told her, glancing at my watch. It was almost two o’clock already.
I mumbled a curse under my breath, wishing I’d known about the papers sooner because
I wouldn’t have wasted my time with books I could check out. Now that I knew, I’d
have to make the best of the time I had left. The librarian disappeared into a back
room, returning a minute later with two bound collections.

“Happy reading,” she said with a smile. She set the binders on the counter and pushed
a clipboard toward me. “Please fill in your name and the current time in the check-out
box. And make sure the time gets filled in when you return them and that someone signs
off on it.”

I nodded my understanding and slid the clipboard around to do as she instructed. Then
I froze. There on the sheet, on the line above the first empty space, was the name
of the last person who had signed out the collections, and not only was it a name
I knew, it was someone on Duncan Albright’s current list of suspects.

I
signed my name and carried the binders to a table. For the next hour or so I sifted
through hundreds of pieces of paper: personal and business letters, bills of lading,
old news articles, scribbled notes, written statements taken by cops who questioned
people suspected of being involved with Capone’s activities. It was fascinating stuff,
peppered with occasional references to caches of gold and money hidden away in parts
of the city. While nothing pointed directly to any one building, there were obscure
references to certain landmarks that made it easy to see how one might think my building
could have been one of Capone’s secret haunts.

When I was done, I grabbed my cell phone and called Duncan. “What’s up?” he answered.
His voice sounded sleepy and the chocolate taste came to me in a rush: rich and sweet,
making me long for more. I pictured him in my mind lounging around in bed, his hair
mussed, his eyes still carrying hints of sleep. “Did you find something in your stack
of papers there?” he asked.

My image of him lounging in bed burst and my synesthetic mind conjured up a snowfall
of colored confetti. Shocked, I looked around the library, trying to blink past the
confetti, searching for his face. Then I realized he might be getting information
from someone else so I started looking for anyone who was looking at me. “I did,”
I told him, my eyes scanning the room. “I discovered something you might find interesting.
Where are you?”

“Just outside the library. I’m about to relieve the gal who has been watching you
since you made Brian.”

A woman. For some reason I’d assumed the person watching me would be a man. Now I
realized how narrow-minded and biased that assumption had been.
Lesson learned
.

“I’ll be right in,” Duncan said. I disconnected the call and waited. It didn’t take
long. Duncan came strolling toward me about a minute later. Turned out my image of
him in bed hadn’t been far off. His eyelids were puffy with sleep, the faint remnant
of a facial crease arced across his right cheek, his chin bore the stubble of a day’s
worth of growth, and there was an adorable cowlick in his hair above his right ear.
In contrast, his shirt and khakis were clean and wrinkle-free, and I caught a whiff
of some kind of soap, which triggered an odd, feathery sensation on my legs and arms.

I looked down at my wrinkled capris and grubby T-shirt and immediately felt self-conscious.
“Hi,” I said, folding my arms over my chest to hide the rather large pinkish stain
in the middle of my shirt. “You look tired.”

“I am a bit. I’m not used to bar hours.”

“And then some,” I said. “I saw you parked out front last night.”

He shrugged. “Someone needed to watch the area to see if anyone returned to the scene
and there wasn’t anyone else available until morning. I hope it didn’t bother you
that I was out there.”

I knew the post was likely to watch me as much as anyone else, but I didn’t mind and
let him know so. “No, not at all. In fact, I found it reassuring. This whole thing
has me spooked. You can park out there every night if you like until we figure out
who did this.”

He arched one eyebrow and smiled. “Tempting,” he said, “but I can’t work the bar all
evening and stay awake all night for too many nights in a row. We’ve arranged for
the area to be watched by someone else for the next few nights so I can continue to
pretend I know how to mix a drink. Though I suspect that ruse won’t work much longer
now that your staff knows. If we don’t catch a break in this thing pretty soon, we’ll
have to take a different approach.” He looked from me to the books on the table. “So
what did you dig up?”

I filled him in on the e-mail, the book I found in my father’s office, and the subject
matter it addressed. “That explains your interest in Capone,” he said, “but I think
you’re reaching for the stars.” Undeterred by his pessimism, I told him about the
contents of the reference binders I’d just gone over. Then I delivered my coup de
grâce. “When I went to sign out the binders, guess whose name appeared on the previous
line?”

“Whose?” He sounded impatient and bored.

“Lewis Carmichael, the nurse who took care of my father on the night he died.”

I waited for the big
eureka
moment, but what I got instead was a long pause followed by a weighty sigh. “You
lost me, Mack.”

“It’s a connection. Don’t you see? Lewis knew Ginny, he took care of my father, and
he’s a regular at the bar. Now I find his name here on a list of people who have checked
out information that Ginny e-mailed my father about. I think it’s more than just a
coincidence, don’t you?”

Based on his skeptical expression I guessed not, but I wasn’t about to give in so
easily. “I found the most pertinent clues in these papers,” I said, pointing toward
the two collections. “It’s pretty clear that Capone was raking in the money during
the late twenties, somewhere around one hundred million a year. And while he did spend
some of it, there is a lot that’s unaccounted for. Some of the stuff I read in here
suggests that Capone not only used some of his riches to buy up gold bars, but that
he likely stashed some of those bars in buildings here in the city and in Chicago
so the IRS couldn’t find or confiscate them. It’s known that Capone had a few trusted
bar owners who were part of his bootlegging business, and these papers suggest that
those barkeeps could have been persuaded to hide the loot easily enough, particularly
if they got to share in some of it later on. My bar has been a bar since the building
was built in the late eighteen hundreds. And as it turns out, one of the barkeeps
suspected of being in on Capone’s business owned my bar back during Capone’s time.”

I spent the next twenty minutes pointing out the pertinent articles and papers, and
watching Duncan as he read them. Several times, while his head was bent over the papers
reading, my eyes drifted to the back of his neck, noting how muscled and tanned it
was. He wore his hair a bit long in the back and it curled ever so slightly over the
edge of his shirt collar. I recalled his suspicion that the proverbial cat would be
let out of the bag now that my staff knew who he really was, and the thought of him
no longer being around saddened me.

When he was done reading he scratched his head and looked at me with an apologetic
expression. “I can see how someone might interpret the stuff in here as indicating
that there’s a hidden treasure somewhere, but I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s
ambiguous as hell and frankly it could point to any number of locations, including
the river bottom.”

“I’ll grant you it’s a bit vague and to be honest I don’t put much stock in it myself.
But what if someone else did?”

“So you think Lewis Carmichael killed Ginny Rifkin because he thinks you have a hidden
treasure in your bar somewhere?” His tone made it clear what he thought of the idea.

Now that someone else was saying it out loud, it did sound rather far-fetched. “Look,
I know it seems crazy, but think about this a minute. On the night my father was murdered
he told me he had something he wanted to tell me but he never got to do it. Lewis
Carmichael took care of him at the hospital and according to the doctors on duty that
night, my father briefly regained consciousness before he died. What if there is something
hidden in the bar?” I saw Duncan open his mouth to object so I quickly added, “Or
what if my father simply
thought
there might be something there? If he had evidence along those lines and that’s what
he wanted to tell me that night, might he not have mentioned it to someone as he lay
mortally wounded? Maybe he said something to Lewis.”

“Okay,” Duncan said in a conceding tone. “But how does Ginny figure in?”

“Well, she was the one who cued my father into this treasure business in the first
place. Maybe she found out that Lewis knew about it and he killed her to keep her
quiet.”

“Ten months after the fact? Why wouldn’t he kill her right away?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they were in cahoots together.”

“Cahoots?” Duncan said, grinning.

“Call it whatever you want,” I said irritably. “My point is, if Ginny knew about this
stuff and Lewis found out as well, maybe they decided to team up to try to find the
treasure, or buy me out. That would explain all the weird incidents with the missing
money and watered-down booze. Ginny knew what my situation was moneywise, that my
father wasn’t insured. I don’t think anyone else did. I tried to keep the money situation
quiet because I didn’t want my employees to panic. But Ginny knew I was walking a
thin line and that it wouldn’t take much before I’d have to either sell the place
or take out a loan. Maybe Lewis Carmichael decided he wanted to keep any treasure
there might be for himself, and that’s why he killed Ginny.”

Duncan frowned as he considered all this. “If your theory is true . . .” I couldn’t
help but smile when he said this, so he held up a hand and in a cautionary tone added,
“I’m not saying it is true, or even that I’m buying into it yet, but if it is, then
how would Gary figure into any of this?”

“Well, if what you said about Gary sharing a cell with Ginny’s son is true, then maybe
Ginny had my father hire Gary on so she’d have someone on the inside who could snoop
around at will. That makes sense, because my father hired Gary during the time he
was dating Ginny and I still can’t believe he would have knowingly hired an ex-con.
Maybe Ginny vouched for Gary somehow and that’s how he got hired.”

Duncan looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “So if you think Lewis killed
Ginny to keep the money for himself, what about Gary?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Lewis and Gary are in ca—” I stopped myself before Duncan could
make fun of me again. Then it hit me. “You said Gary has disappeared and you’re assuming
he’s on the run because he’s guilty.”

Duncan shrugged and nodded.

“Maybe the reason Gary disappeared is because he’s dead, like Ginny. Maybe Lewis eliminated
all of his competition.” I thought this was a clever idea so I was chagrined to see
Duncan try to suppress a smile. “What?” I said.

“I think you’ve been reading too many mysteries, or watching too many episodes of
Law and Order
. Think it through. If Lewis’s goal is to get you to sell the place so he can buy
it and look around for some hidden treasure, why would he kill the real estate agent
who can help him buy it?”

The slight air of condescension in his voice irked me. “Well, Mr. Smarty Pants,” I
countered in a matching tone, “you don’t have to have a Realtor involved to conduct
a real estate transaction. All you need is a real estate savvy lawyer, and if you’re
comfortable enough with the contract end of things, you don’t even need that.”

If my sneering tone bothered him at all, he didn’t show it. “Carmichael is a nurse,”
he said.

“Yeah, so?”

“Nurses make decent money, but a place like your building and your bar . . . that
has to go for what, a couple of mil or so these days?”

“They wouldn’t have to buy the building. Someone could buy the business alone and
let me keep the building. That way I could continue to live in my apartment and charge
rent for the rest of the place.”

Duncan’s smile this time was a grudging one. “Okay, I’ll look into Carmichael’s finances.
Did you happen to notice the date that he signed these out?” he added, gesturing toward
the binders.

I hadn’t and, feeling stupid, I blushed as I shook my head.

“Let’s look.” Duncan scooped the binders up and headed for the reference desk, me
on his tail. He handed over the binders and the librarian slid the clipboard toward
me so I could sign that I had returned them. As I did, both Duncan and I made a note
of the date next to Carmichael’s name: January 25 of this year, just one week after
my father’s murder.

“I’m sorry, Mack, but I’m not buying it. Those papers suggest there might be a treasure
hidden somewhere, and while that is utterly fascinating, I suspect it’s nothing more
than a few conspiracy theorists and romantics trying to rouse the rabble. I’m with
you on being suspect of any coincidence, which is why I think Ginny’s murder is likely
connected to your father’s somehow. But we know Lewis didn’t kill your father. His
alibi is airtight. So either this coincidence is just that, or the two murders in
the alley behind your bar are. I’m leaning more toward this being the true coincidence,
but I’ll keep the connection in mind.”

Resigned to Duncan’s skepticism of my admittedly half-baked theory, and realizing
my desire to solve the crime might be coloring my objectivity, I nodded my acceptance.
“Well, thanks for coming down here,” I told him. “I’m sorry if my busting your tail
earlier interrupted your sleep.”

“It didn’t. I had to get up anyway so I could be at the bar when you open.”

I glanced at my watch. “I’m heading that way now. Are you coming?”

“I need to check on a couple of things first, but I promise I’ll be there before five,
okay?”

“Okay. See you then.”

I started to leave but he grabbed my arm and held me back. “Let me give you a lift
back. It looks a bit ominous out there.”

As we stepped outside I saw what he meant. The weather had done a sudden shift while
I’d been inside, one of the quirks of living on the shores of Lake Michigan. The air
had an ozone smell to it and the sky was leaden in color, hints of a rapidly approaching
storm. The temperature had dropped dramatically and I felt the dark turbulence of
the sky as a crawling heaviness along my arms and legs. Fierce tentacles of wind whipped
between the buildings, creating exploding dots of gray and white in my field of vision.