CHAPTER ONE
I was horny. After a week-long dry spell, the itch was nagging again. A pesky throb teasing my gut. I knew just where to go for a scratch.
Queenstown men were plentiful and lonely at the Kings Cross Tavern, so I quit my office at ten P.M. to navigate Center Street in search of a fresh one.
Private investigator was a new line for me. No sergeant with daily assignments anymore; no academic dean setting my agenda. Now I made my own hours, worked my own cases. Small-bore stuff: divorces, employment backgrounders, process serving. Skimpy dough for measly jobs. A monthly retainer from my partner eased finances, but I was my own boss.
Evander Myrick, Investigations. The tag looked slick on business cards, snappy on the front door. Bearing my father’s name gave an advantage to me. Until they met me, most clients assumed I was a man. I lost a few bigots who couldn’t swallow the shock, but most people stuck.
Gusts skidded from the frozen surface of Lake Trask, whipping my calves as I trotted against the red light. Snow glare lit the street, mocking the flicker of leftover Christmas decorations dangling from lampposts.
I’d worked late every night this week. I deserved my prize. The tavern promised easy rewards.
At the bar’s entrance, I planted my boots on the mat and scraped until little Matterhorns of snow gathered in the treads of the rubber carpet. Icicles lined the roof overhang, their drips seeping inside the collar of my wool coat.
Before I could jerk the handle, a patron barreled out. I recoiled, arms spread to regain my balance. The man pushed a plaid cap off his nose and peered at me.
He slurped, “Baby.” More gargles. A leer exposed his tongue. “Oh, baby.”
White guy, my height, five-nine, maybe thirty pounds heavier. I stepped right; he followed, arms stiff. The lunge carried his hand to my breast.
He squeezed. “Oooo, yeah, baby.” The growl slathered my face with fumes of rye whiskey and salted peanuts.
I chopped the edge of my hand to his throat. His eyes bulged. A fat tear dripped. Jaw wobbling, he swiped his lids.
He swung a fist and grazed my coat button.
I shot a left jab to the point of his chin. No body weight, just a burst of energy from shoulder to wrist. His teeth clicked like castanets as his neck twisted. His head flew sideways, body following. The face-plant was highlight-reel-worthy. In the gray snow, blood dotted a halo around his cap.
I tramped his shoulder with my boot. No groans or twitches. I didn’t want him to smother. Of course I did. But January was for new beginnings, so I grabbed his jacket collar and pulled him to a sitting position.
Orange stripes of hair slanted across his brow. His lids shivered like mice were running under them. Saliva bubbled at the crack of his lips. Propped against the cement foundation of the tavern, my sparring partner looked like a puppet with his strings cut.
The fight was a nice warm-up round. I rolled my shoulders and shook my hands to release the tension. Now for the main event. I jerked open the green door and stepped across the threshold. I’d shed the icicle water inside, where the bartender, Mavis Jenkins, could rebuke me.
It was our standard game: I’d commit an outrage; Mavis would tut-tut. The moral balance kept us both sharp.
I flapped my arms against my flanks. I took a census of the dimly lit room. Mid-January dragged down the numbers. Five white men sat at tables arrayed along the perimeter; three white men hunkered at the horseshoe-shaped bar. Four Black men and three Latinos clustered at tables near the swinging kitchen doors at the rear.
I polled the racial math of every room I entered. In case I needed allies. Or witnesses. Or alibis.
The bartender and I were the only Black women on the premises. She owned the tavern. I was a private detective. Grit, if not math, was in our favor tonight.
I smiled at my friend and flicked water from my ears. Mavis Jenkins was short, round-hipped, and light-skinned. Lanky and slim, I was her dark foil. I shrugged off the coat, pinched my knit beret, and hung both on pegs to the left of the door.
“I knew your mamá from way back, Vandy Myrick.” The bartender’s voice rumbled toward me. “And Alma Myrick didn’t raise her child in no barn. Stop messing my floor.”
“Got it,” I said. Not an apology, but close.
I crossed the wide-planked floor at a measured pace. I flexed my left hand, checking for pain. The knuckles stung; tomorrow I’d feel the ache in my rotator cuff. But I rolled easy, arms still, head high. I heard breaths drawn, held, then spewed as I passed. I looked fine for forty-seven, so I gave my audience a good eyeful.
I reached the barstool opposite Mavis and tossed her a wink. I tugged my sweater, smoothing its hem over my hips.
Leaning close, I delivered the news: “You’ve got a spill on your front stoop.” I balled my left fist on the bar top, rolling the knuckles.
Mavis glanced at the scratched skin. “Need to call the cleanup crew?”
“Nah, you’re good. He’ll find his way home.”
“Tidy Sutton was drunk on his ass when I refused him another round. He called me every name, but a child of God. So when Tidy stumbled out, I figured he’d meet some kind of trouble.”
“That boozehound was Tidy Sutton?” Surprise tweaked my voice. “He anchored the defensive front line for the Panthers’ varsity team.”
“Always cleaned up, hunh?” Mavis got the old nickname’s simpleminded joke. “Well, those high school glory days are long gone.” She swiped her cloth over a nonexistent smudge. “For all y’all.”
I settled into the green leather cushion, grinning. “When you’re right, you’re right.” My head tilt subbed for regret in our little play. “As usual.”
“’Bout time you learned that. You been back seven months and still thick as a side of beef.”
Queenstown was my childhood home. Land of skinned knees, Jheri curls, and coke-bottle eyeglasses; science contests and track meets; fried perms and prom snubs. After Q-High, I’d escaped to Temple University in Philadelphia. Seven months ago, I’d returned in pain. When I left at seventeen, I couldn’t sneak into the tavern. I’d had to find boys and booze elsewhere. Since returning, I’d made up for thirty years of lost opportunities.
I watched Mavis rummage below the counter: she retrieved an aluminum bowl filled with lemons and limes, a paring knife, and a bamboo slab. Under her pale fingers the fruit fell into neat quarters. “And ’bout time you showed up this evening.”
This was Thursday. I’d already hit the bar Monday and Tuesday this week, so the gap was negligible. But I played along. “You missed me? I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be.” Narrowed eyes didn’t screen her amused glint. “I got a new job for you. Big bucks this time.”
“What’s up?” I always wanted fresh clients.
I didn’t need to place my order. Mavis knew the drill: simple syrup spiced with finely ground black pepper; a shot of lemon juice, three ice cubes, club soda. A swipe of lime around the rim and a sliver of celery plopped into the drink completed the work. No gin, no vodka, nothing but fizz. A mocktail minus the ironic name. She set the glass on a coaster between my forearms.
I sipped and sighed. “This virgin Tom Collins is the best you’ve made so far.”
“You say that every time,” she growled. “And every time I ask you to skip calling it virgin.”
Dry for a year, I’d quit cold turkey. There were times when my tongue curled with longing and doubts clanged through my head. But I’d made a promise to my daughter. Sticking to that pledge held my life together, like a staple clamped in the corner of a frayed letter. Shredded or ripped, I was going to keep my promise to Monica.
“Lower your voice, girl.” Whispering, Mavis swiveled her head. “You call it Clean Collins if you gotta name it, hear?”
I glanced around the bar, antenna up for disturbance. Two of the Black men guffawed when the third slapped their table. The Latinos passed a cell phone between them, pointing at a photo. At the far end of the counter, a white man in a trucker cap raised his glass for a refill. No one paid attention to my conversation with Mavis. As she skated to replenish her customer’s order, I tipped my glass until ice struck teeth.
When Mavis took her spot in front of me, I asked, “What’s this new job you got for me?”
“Big-time connections,” she said. “Large cash. Right up your private eye alley. I got you a date with Leo Hannah, prince of Queenstown.”
Lights in the tavern shimmered as I swiveled on my stool. I knew the name. Hannah was a big deal. What could he want with me?
CHAPTER TWO
While Mavis fixed her shrewd bartender eyes on me, warmth rose up my neck. If I played this right, Leo Hannah could be my breakout client, my jump to the major leagues. I touched my left earlobe, hoping to quell the pulsing heat there.
“You do need the job, don’tcha?” Mavis said the jab loud.
I glanced at the other bar patrons. I didn’t want these men to learn I was a private investigator. Personal security dictated that caution. Queenstown, New Jersey, was small, nine thousand souls crammed into twelve square miles fenced by cornfields, warehouses, pharma labs, and tract housing. Privacy was hard to come by in Q-Town, and worth guarding.
“What’s Leo Hannah want with me?” Low, to hide the tremor in my voice. Cool, like it didn’t matter.
Mavis dropped her jaw to reply. Before she could answer, a fist of January cold pushed a newcomer into the bar. He was tall and underdressed in a fake leather biker jacket that grazed his belt. He clapped hands before his lips like he meant to pray the chill away. Construction-worker grime framed the nail beds. Nice cheekbones, dirty blond hair hanging in ropes across his brow. Eye color indeterminate, not that I cared. The blue-and-gray-plaid flannel shirt and crosshatched jeans were a country song cliché poised to burst.
My future boyfriend took the stool nearest the entrance, eyes wide and neck stiff, as if he intended to bolt. When he raised a hand, then a dimpled chin, Mavis scurried to take his order. She pulled a spigot, scraped the foamy head, and delivered his draft beer in double time.
As soon as she returned, I bit on our previous line. “Don’t let sweetness over there turn your head, Mavis. What’s this job you found for me?”
“Leo Hannah came in around seven asking if I knew a detective.”
“You know him personally?”
“Never seen him before. But when he gave his name, of course I knew him. He’s Leo Hannah.”
“As in Mayor Hannah?”
“The one and only. She’s his auntie.”
I bobbed my head. Josephine Hannah had won reelection the previous November to a fourteenth two-year term as mayor of Queenstown. She was the longest-serving municipal leader in Mason County and a key broker in statewide Democratic party politics. Governors came and went; congressmen were bought a dime a dozen; county freeholders fizzled into obscurity. But Mayor Hannah was North Star permanent. Two attributes made her famous: dedicated service to her community and a take-no-prisoners leadership style. When Jo Hannah decided something would benefit Queenstown, she battered the gates of heaven and hell until she delivered the goods. In this state, crossing the mayor was a trick never tried twice. Disturb her, you paid in precious skin. According to legend, trout in Lake Trask grew fat nibbling on people who’d defied Jo Hannah. When anyone in Trenton, Princeton, Perth Amboy, or Newark needed a favor or a rock-solid guarantee, they kissed the ring of the mayor of Q-Town.
“Hannah connections could be a giant win for me,” I mumbled over the bar.
Mavis’s panting brushed my forehead. She whispered, “When you hit big coins inside those Hannah pockets, just remember ya good old girl did you a solid.”
I swallowed the dregs. “Did Leo Hannah want me in particular?”
“He didn’t put it that way.” She scratched a circle in the curls over her ear. “He asked if I knew the name Evander Myrick. I said yes.”
“Maybe he wanted my dad.”
“Nah, he said he needed a detective, not a cop.”
Mavis knew my father was a retired police officer, now confined to a nursing home. She’d figured Leo was looking for an active investigator, not an out-of-commission cop. I asked, “Did he say why he wanted a detective?”
Mavis poked her tongue inside her cheek. Dryness forced a hack. “He said he wanted to save his wife.”
Her lips hitched into a grimace. She dropped her glance to the towel twisted in her fist.
Leo Hannah sounded like a truckload of drama. Toting a butt load of cash. I sucked my teeth. “So you told him I was the woman for the job.”
“I didn’t tell him nothing. He was muttering and slotting his eyes sideways like one of those old-time crybaby dolls. I could smell the man’s crotch sweat across the bar.” She rubbed knuckles at her nose to erase the memory. “I fished your card from under my cash register tray and handed it to him before he shit a brick.”
“Did Leo say when he’d look for me?”
“He ’bout broke my thumb grabbing that card. He studied it so long, I thought he was going to kiss it. Then he tucked your card in his breast pocket like it was his last valentine. He said he’d stop up to your office tomorrow morning first thing.”
“Then I better get this night wrapped fast and tight,” I said. To ease the tension, I forced a chuckle. “That Brad Pitt looker at the end of the bar. What’s he drinking?”
Copyright © 2024 by Delia C. Pitts
