In the Drink (7 page)

We left our coats open during the trip back in deference to the unusually warm weather. When we arrived back at the bar, I led Mal upstairs to the Capone Club room. It was a little after ten—not that late for a Friday night—so most of the regulars were there. The Signoriello brothers were in their usual spot, chairs pulled up close to the fireplace. Our resident novelist wannabe and part-time waiter, Carter Fitzpatrick, was there, along with his friend, Sam Warner, a psych grad student. Carter's girlfriend, Holly, who worked with Alicia at a nearby bank, was also present, but Alicia was still downstairs making moon eyes at Billy. Cora was there, of course—these days she practically lived in my bar—and with her was Tiny. Tad Amundsen was also with the group, as was Kevin Baldwin, a local trash collector, though he preferred the title Sanitation Engineer. I made the necessary introductions and then asked the group what they were up to.

“We were looking at the case involving Tiny's sister, Lori,” Cora explained.

“I'd like to have someone bring me up to speed on where you guys are with that,” I said. “But I have to tend to a couple of things with the bar first.”

“That's fine,” Cora said, one of the few people in the group who had a clue what those things were. “Why don't you go do that and we'll give Mal here an introduction to the group by testing him on our case of the day.”

“A test?” Mal said, tossing his coat over the back of an empty chair. He held his hands up in a defensive motion. “You guys are tough on newcomers.”

Cora laughed; she had a rich, throaty laugh that was both sexy and engaging. “It's fun,” she said. “You'll see. They're mostly riddles designed to challenge your deductive reasoning and thinking skills.”

“I'm going to throw you to these wolves,” I said to Mal, “but I'll be back before they eat you alive. I'll send you up a drink to help you along.” I looked at the group and added, “Be kind to him. I think he's one of the good guys.”

With that I left the group and headed back downstairs. After checking in with Billy to order a drink for Mal and make sure everything was running smoothly with the bar, I made my way to the back hallway and entered the door to my apartment. I didn't know if Duncan would still be there, and I felt torn as I climbed the stairs, unsure if I would be relieved or disappointed if he was gone.

He was there. I found him sitting at the dining room table, the letters I had collected in the bag earlier, spread out around him.

“Hey, Mack,” he said when he saw me at the top of the stairs. “How did it go?”

“It went well, I think,” unsure if he meant my visit to the art shop or my date with Mal, though I assumed it was the former. “I have something new for us to look at, several somethings, in fact.”

I tossed my coat on my couch, and then proceeded to tell him how the art store visit had gone, and my conversation with Adam. I donned a pair of gloves and removed the items from my bag as I talked, laying them out on the table.

Duncan, who was already wearing gloves, zeroed in on the courier envelope. I, on the other hand, grabbed the bottles of honey and gum arabic and opened each one. I went for the honey first, sniffed it, and closed my eyes. The smell made me hear a faint low hum, or thrum. I resealed it, gave myself a moment to let my nose clear, and did the same with the gum arabic. It made me hear a very faint rustling noise. When I was done with that, I removed the lid on the bottle of lamp black and waved my hand over the opening to get a whiff of it. The bass sound I'd heard from the letter came through loud and clear.

“None of these triggers the exact sound I heard when I held and sniffed the letter,” I told Duncan, “but there are components that might join together to make that sound. Maybe if I make the ink the way the recipe says, it will help.”

“Does it matter?” Duncan said. “We know we hit the right spot and you got another letter, so it might not matter how the ink is made.”

“The instructions given to the guy at the store specifically said to give me the recipe, so it might be important somehow.”

Duncan shrugged. “I guess it can't hurt to make it.” He dropped the courier envelope back onto the table. “I'll get this envelope analyzed and I'll follow up with the courier service to see what I can find out.”

“Maybe
I
should do that,” I told him. “If you do it and the writer finds out, it will negate the rules of this nasty game.”

Duncan sighed and frowned. “At least let me dust it for prints first. If we can find something that will lead us to this sicko, you might not have to do anything more. In fact, we should dust that first letter for prints, too.” He took a pen out of his shirt pocket, held it as if he was going to write something, and then pretended to do so on top of my table with the point of the pen retracted. “The writer would likely have rested his hand on the paper,” he said, demonstrating. Then he lifted his own hand away and pointed to the faint hand print that had been left on the table's surface. “We might get a partial from the side of the hand of whoever wrote it, like this.”

“I have a feeling that whoever is behind this isn't stupid enough to leave prints on anything.”

“Perhaps, but can we afford to not check?” he countered. “I wouldn't want someone else to die because we made an erroneous assumption and credited this person with more cleverness than he or she actually has.”

His words stung and I felt another pang of guilt over Lewis Carmichael's death. “I suppose, but I have to say again that we need to keep it unofficial, off the books.”

Duncan nodded, looking a little perturbed by my insistence. I turned away from this look of disapproval and my eyes settled on the unopened envelope that Adam had slipped into my bag. I picked it up and examined it. It looked the same as the one the original letter had come in. “I suppose we should open this first and see what it offers before we decide on anything else?”

Duncan nodded and held out his hand. I gave him the envelope and after examining it for a few seconds, he went to the kitchen, got a knife from a drawer, and slit the envelope open. “Do you have a piece of plain white paper?” he asked.

I nodded and fetched one from my father's office. “Why the paper?” I asked, handing it to him.

“In case there's any trace inside the envelope or the letter . . . a piece of dirt, a grain of salt . . . anything that might help.” He set the paper down on the table and then held the envelope over it. He squeezed the edges together and caught a one-page letter as it slid out. As if he'd known somehow, a small, dark hair also fell out of the envelope and onto the paper.

“We got something!” I said, excited.

Duncan's expression looked less enthusiastic. “I suspect we were meant to get this something. That hair is too obvious to be in there by accident.”

I bent down and studied the hair. It was coarse and dark and there was a faint odor to it. Then I heard heavy breathing, or rather panting, and it made me turn and look at Duncan. I expected to find him bent down close to me, breathing in an odd, panting way for some reason, but he was still standing, just watching me. His breathing appeared normal. I realized then what the sound was but, to verify my suspicion, I bent down again and took a big sniff. The panting sound, sort of a repetitive
chuff,
grew louder.

“I'm pretty sure it isn't human,” I said, straightening up. “It's some sort of animal hair.”

“Like a dog, perhaps?”

I wrinkled my face in thought, and in doubt. “I don't think so, but I can't be sure. I haven't spent a lot of time around animals and never had any pets other than a couple of goldfish when I was growing up. But whenever I've encountered animals, like the cats that hang out in the back alley, or the occasional service dog in the bar, their smell makes me hear a rapid breathing sound, like the way a dog pants. This hair does that, too, but the sound is different. It's harder, more grunting. I suppose it could be a different breed of dog, but I get a sense that it's another animal all together.” I paused, frowned, and shook my head. “I don't know. What does the letter say?”

It was folded in thirds, and after Duncan carefully unfolded it, I stood beside him to read it along with him.

“Look at the misspellings,” I said. “I don't think those are accidental. We have the word
deer
instead of
dear,
and
meat
instead of
meet
. Plus there are the words
wolf,
and
bear
. I don't think that's a coincidence given the hair that was enclosed.”

“I'm inclined to agree,” Duncan said. “Maybe the word
game
has a double meaning, too.”

“Where would we find all of those animals? Where would we find meat and game?”

We looked at one another and came up with the answer at the same time.

“The zoo,” we said in stereo.

“I assume it's the Milwaukee County Zoo,” I said. “But what part?”

“The letter mentions eating. Aren't there animals there that visitors are allowed to feed?”

I nodded. “Yes, the giraffes, I think. I remember reading an article about it in the paper not too long ago.”

Duncan glanced at his watch. “We have some time, at least. But we should probably plan on a trip to the zoo tomorrow.”

“
I
should plan on a trip to the zoo, not we,” I reminded him.

“Let me think about it,” Duncan said with a frown. Then he reached over and rubbed my arm. “In the meantime, what should we do with the rest of our night?”

“I should go rescue Mal from the Capone Club if I'm going to keep up this charade. Maybe he can go to the zoo with me.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Duncan said. I wasn't sure I agreed. “Why don't you go do whatever you need to with Mal and the bar and see if he can go with you to the zoo tomorrow. If it's okay with you, I'll wait here for you to finish for the night.”

“Make yourself at home,” I said, smiling warmly. “I'm not sure how long I'll be. The club was going to test Mal on a crime puzzle, but they are also working on Tiny's case. Which reminds me—”

“Right.” Duncan walked over to his coat and took a roll of papers out of an inside pocket. “These are copies of the spec sheets for the primary suspects from the initial investigation. You can use the information on them, but the sheets themselves can't be distributed or my ass will be on the line. And if we're going to continue our little charade we need to find a way to present the information to the group members without them knowing you're in touch with me.”

I thought about that. “What if I give them to Cora and have her present the information in an entirely different format and tell the group she dug up the info on her own using her computer skills?”

Duncan nodded. “I suppose that could work. Cora is trustworthy, but I wouldn't extend that trust to too many other people. Have you considered that the author of these letters might be someone who frequents your bar? Maybe even someone in the Capone Club?”

I nodded, feeling a shiver of fear and uncertainty race down my spine. “I have. I'll be careful.”

“Please do.”

He moved closer then, pulling me into his arms and giving me a long, deep kiss that made me rethink my plan to leave. But duty called, so with a sigh of regret, I whispered, “Wait for me,” and left.

I went downstairs to my office and sent Cora a text message to meet me there as soon as possible. She tapped at the door a mere two minutes later and when I opened it she hurried in, laptop in hand.

“How are things going?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine as far as the letter is concerned.” I filled her in on what had happened at the art store and the contents of the second letter. “We were going to have you research some stuff for the first letter, things like other
happy days
references or Greek connections in the city. But we don't need that now that we have the second clue. Duncan and I agree that it has something to do with the zoo, though we're not sure how or what. So the plan is for me to head to the zoo tomorrow.”

“What can I do to help?” Cora asked, setting her laptop down on my desk.

“I don't think there's anything you can do with the zoo thing, but I have something else you can help with.” I then showed her the papers Duncan had given me regarding the suspects in Tiny's case and explained what we wanted her to do.

“No problem,” Cora said. “I can tell folks I dug this stuff up on my own. I'll retype it and print it out to make it look like something I found on my computer. I'll give it to them tomorrow since it's getting late tonight.”

“Thanks.”

“How did things go with Mal?”

“They went fine,” I said with a smile. “He seems like a nice guy.” Since Cora was supposed to be an acquaintance of his, I then filled her in on some of the history he had shared with me about his family, his love life, and his interests.

When I was done, Cora cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, my,” she said after a few seconds. “You like him, don't you?”