Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder (6 page)

I tried to rein in and focus on what JT had said. I asked, “Who is this dead guy if it’s not Dad?”

“I don’t know. Right now neither does St. Paul. But they’re looking hard. The man was shot through the heart, then frozen in ice. The gun was imbedded in the ice with him.”

“Could he have committed suicide?”

“I asked the same thing. Problem with that theory is the bullet went in his back and came out the front.”

That would be pretty hard feat unless you were double-jointed and had a death wish. And then he’d have to what, freeze himself? I snagged the empty Coke bottle and started tapping on the steering wheel. “Shit.”

JT said softly, “I know, baby, I know. We find your dad and we’ll get this cleared up. You keep hunting, and let me know if you find him. I’m sure this is colossal mistake.”

“Right.” Yup, it was a mistake of supreme proportions, all right. Problem was, I didn’t know whose mistake it was.

Shake it off, Shay. Come on.
I mentally flipped through the other hotspots where my dad might be laying low. “I think I need reinforcements. I’m going to see if Coop can help. We’ll cover more territory faster.”

“Good idea. I’ll call if I hear anything else.”

“Thanks babe. And hey, I am sorry about Duluth.”

“It’s family, Shay. I get it. Duluth isn’t going anywhere.”

After I called Coop and explained the latest, he agreed to do some Pete-scouting. I didn’t know what I’d do without him. I’d known Coop a lifetime. He was my second-best friend—I had to admit that JT now owned the number-one spot—but he was still my confidante, and at times my conscience. We’ve been through a lot together, and he always had my back. As I had his.

Coop was willing to embark on an excursion up to Fish Lake, where the O’Hanlon family cabin was located. There was a decent chance my dad had holed up there, although I felt one of his favorite bars was more likely.

We disconnected, and I was struck by déjà vu. How many times had Coop and I made the rounds trying to find my father’s drunken butt? Too damn many.

I abandoned the Escape and headed for the front door of the Deuce. Pungent odors of booze, sweat, and old bar smacked me in the face as I walked in. It was weird how soupy tavern air was so very apparent until you’d been in the environment a few minutes and either your senses adjusted or the liquor you’d downed blotted it out.

Nothing much had changed since the last time I dropped by. The joint was still dim, with lots of neon behind the bar and a row of booths lined up along one wall. Tucked in one corner was a grouping of electronics that included a jukebox, an ATM, and a Golden Tee Golf game. Of course, as in all good Minnesota watering holes, pull-tabs sold from acrylic bins were available, benefitting local charities. A large spinning wheel used for meat raffles sat behind the golf game.

On the other side of the saloon, a short, curvy chick with a string bikini and a bad bleach job worked a pole, much to the delight of patrons crowding the T-shaped runway. Neon purple lights attached to the low ceiling glowed down on the dancer like risqué beams from heaven.

The place was packed, and the bar itself was hopping. A couple of bartenders efficiently worked in tandem, but neither of them was Willie Glowinsky.

I was about to wedge myself up to the bar and make an inquiry when a commotion broke out near the stage.

Someone howled.

The horde parted as an obviously inebriated customer stumbled through. Attached to the back of his jacket was a massive fist and attached to the fist was Willie. Curly iron-gray hair capped her head, and she wore an untucked navy button-down corduroy shirt over a pair of faded black jeans. I’d swear helming the Deuce was her fountain of youth.

She manhandled the miscreant to the front door, flung him outside, and rumbled, “Don’t bring your filthy, pawing ass back here ever again.”

The crowd surged back to stasis, closing the avenue that had opened for the premature exit of the alleged groper. I left the bar and dodged my way toward the towering, fine specimen of old age. When I got close enough, I hollered, “Willie!”

The thumping from a rock song drowned me out. I yelled again, putting a little more gusto behind it. This time Willie heard and swung around. When she recognized who was shouting at her, her expression softened. She plowed through the throng and lurched to a stop at my side.

“Shay!” Her voice was gravelly from too many Marlboros and too much bellowing. “What are you doing here?”

I wasn’t exactly short, but I had to tilt my head to look up at Willie. “Seen my dad lately?”

Her leathery face rearranged itself into a sincere look of concern. She too knew that if I was asking for my father, something unpleasant was going on.

“Come on.” Willie dropped a heavy hand on my shoulder and dragged me through the crowd. She was a very hands-on kind of gal. I was propelled down a back hall to a postage stamp office, pushed inside, and shoved into a threadbare chair. Willie slammed the door and dropped heavily into the chair behind her desk.

The desk was immaculate, devoid of anything except a yellow legal pad and a silver pen. Willie looked like a mess most of the time, and she often ran roughshod over customers who pissed her off, but the woman couldn’t do any work unless her office was in order.

“How ’bout you tell me what’s going on?” Willie gazed curiously at me through watery green eyes.

I ran her through the last twenty-four hours, ending with my failure to find Pete at Rudolph’s. During my recitation, she leaned back in her chair, hands clasped against her ample, saggy middle, and simply took my words in.

She sucked in a contemplative breath and narrowed her eyes at me. I couldn’t help it. I squirmed like a naughty kid. The woman could intimidate a python into turning tail and slithering away.

She said, “First of all, I haven’t seen your father for, oh, maybe three months. Seems like it hasn’t been that long, but when you get to be my age, time moves a hell of a lot faster than it used to.” Willie studied me again, and it seemed as if she were weighing her words before she spoke. “Regarding the trouble Beezer mentioned, I’m not sure what he may have been referring to. I do know that someone was pressuring Pete to give up the bar and the land.”

I asked, “Do you know when this started?”

“Well.” One side of Willie’s face bulged as she stuck her tongue between her molars and ran it up and down the inside of her cheek. The bulge disappeared and she said, “I think the first Pete mentioned it to me was early summer. Sometime last summer, anyway.” She thought some more. “There were threats. Some vandalism.”

Good god. “Why didn’t he ever mentioned any of that to me?”

Willie’s rheumy eyes followed the trail of emotions that ran across my face. “Now don’t you go getting your underoos in a twist, kid. You know how your father is. I’m sure he didn’t want to worry you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I tried not to roll my eyes. “What kind of vandalism are we talking about? Did he tell you?”

“Some graffiti, a couple broken windows. Pete went out one morning and found one of his tires slashed.”

While I had a good idea what she was going to say, I was unprepared for the reaction my body had to the words. A pinkish haze floated behind my eyes, and that was never good. My irrational response to certain kinds of triggers long ago earned me the nickname Tenacious Protector. I fought an ongoing struggle to tame the urge to
mete out justice O’Hanlon style when something tripped me off. Occasionally things I’d done in the grip of the red weren’t always on the right side of the law. Luckily both Eddy and Coop were good at talking me down, and JT was catching up fast. Right now, I was on my own to quell the rising tide. I rubbed damp hands briskly on the knees of my jeans and took a calming breath. The room came back into focus. Willie was watching me intently.

“Okay,” I said. “Did he say if the vandalism was related to the guy who was pressuring him to sell the bar?”

Willie shrugged her massive shoulders. “Don’t know.”

After a bit more small talk, I thanked her and retreated outside to further calm the Protector and pull my head together.

I sat in the Escape with my forehead on the wheel and concentrated on breathing.

In. Out. In. Out.

My emotions began to settle and rational thought crept back into my consciousness.

Focus, Shay.
Damn, how many times had I said that to myself in the past?

Too many. I turned on the radio and cranked the volume, focusing on the driving beat of the music. I almost laughed aloud when I recognized the song. It was Shinedown’s “Cry for Help.” That was fitting in my moment of despair. I gripped the wheel and pushed myself back against the seat. Sometimes I swore there were multiple personalities inside me.

Someone was obviously fucking around with my father, and I hadn’t known a thing about it. Or rather, I’d had a hint from the old man, but he never elaborated after that first mention, and I hadn’t followed up.

Way to go yet again, Shay. Maybe if you’d been paying more attention you’d know what the hell was going on.

I leaned against the headrest, put a hand to my temples, and squeezed at the ache that had settled in above my eyes. No, my dad was an adult. There was no way I could have forced him to tell me anything he wasn’t ready to share anyway.

There was one last place I wanted to check before I powwowed with Coop. I gave my temples a final rub and exited the parking lot. I pointed the Escape down University, made a right onto Hennepin, and headed back toward Uptown.

Lakewood Cemetery, where my mother was buried, was situated near the southeast side of Lake Calhoun. I didn’t visit her grave often. It was too hard and hurt too much. The only time my dad showed up was when he was in the depths of an alcoholic haze. The odds weren’t all that great that he’d be there, but I was pretty much out of options.

On Sundays the gates were locked for the night at five and it was now almost six thirty. Not that those cemetery hours had ever stopped my father or me when we needed to spend some time talking to my mom.

A black wrought-iron fence enclosed the cemetery. With a sigh, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to hop it. It had been a few years since I’d felt the need to slither over the metal palisade after hours and sneak through the headstones to the grave that held my mom’s remains.

The cemetery itself was huge. It was made up of more than 250 acres of tombs and yet-to-be plotted space that would one day become a final resting place for the dearly departed. There was lots of greenway in the summer, and fields of snowdrifts covered the plots in the winter. A web of narrow automobile paths was so vast the cemetery felt like a miniature city—a very silent city without the usual amenities offered by a settlement of living, breathing human beings.

I killed the engine and looked around. There wasn’t anyone on the sidewalks at the moment, and vehicle traffic was light. I got out and pocketed my keys, then rummaged in the back for an old pair of mittens I kept for emergencies.

With one more furtive glance around, I walked along the fence. I came to an area that was semi-dark, far enough between streetlights that their glow wasn’t reflected in the dirty snow. This was the location where I usually made my clandestine entry into the land of the dead.

The daytime din of traffic had died down, and the silence felt strangely surreal. My muscles tensed and a shiver ripped through me. A car was coming and would pass in seconds. I clumsily pulled off a mitten, dragged my phone from my pocket, and put it to my ear, feigning a conversation. The car rolled past and continued on its way, taillights reflected in the snow. The driver braked and made a right onto the street that curved around Lake Calhoun.

I shoved the cell back into my pocket and gave the area another careful gander. Seeing no one, I waded into the snow piled on the edge of the sidewalk and pulled my mitten back on.

With a running start I launched myself at the fence. It was a good head taller than I was, and it took some careful scrambling and a bit of fancy maneuvering to clear it without impaling myself on the metal spikes that topped each post. Summertime was definitely a better season to do this kind of thing.

Heart thundering, I dropped silently to the ground on the other side, my feet sinking shin-deep into pristine white snow that hadn’t yet been disturbed by anything other than squirrels and rabbits. “Goddamn it,” I grumbled quietly as snow fell into the sides of my tennis shoes. Once it melted into my socks, my feet were going to be very unhappy. Should have worn boots. And long johns. However, I never dreamed I’d be skulking around a closed cemetery when I’d gotten dressed this morning.

After making sure no one had raised an alarm, I set off along the perimeter, about fifteen feet inside the cemetery. I knew that not far behind me was one of the main buildings, and I didn’t want to accidentally alert any workers—if there were any still on site—that an interloper was on the grounds. There were plenty of trees to use for cover, although if they had leaves they would’ve worked ever so much better.

I made my way toward a pond that was within the confines of the graveyard. The only sound that broke the stillness was the crunching of my feet in the snow. The air was calm, and for that I was grateful. It was cold enough without dealing with a wind chill.

Thinking about wind chills brought me back to thoughts of my dad. If he were here, he’d have to be damn cold, assuming he hadn’t already frozen to death. Of course if he was full of firewater, that’d help keep the blood flowing through his veins.

I passed a turnaround and in a few more yards crossed a narrow road. My mom’s grave was a bit north of the pond on the west side. I mentally counted the rows between the service road and the pond and stopped at the eighth one. I turned to the right and counted down another six headstones. The seventh was a creamy marble marker—my mother’s final resting place.

The snow around the stone was undisturbed. My father hadn’t been here.