Murder on the Rocks

“So what do you think happened?” Albright asked.

I shrugged. “The cops said they thought it was a robbery attempt and that my dad fought
with the culprit or culprits, getting shot in the process.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“Because all our money for the night was still sitting on the bar untouched. Plus
we had the place completely locked up.”

Albright thought a moment and then said, “Your trash bin is out back. Maybe your dad
went out there to dump the trash and the robber or robbers met him at the door.”

I shook my head. “The bar trash hadn’t been emptied yet. All the cans were still full.”

“What if someone knocked on the back door? Would he have gone to open it?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s the theory the investigating cops put forth. But I don’t
buy it. Dad wasn’t stupid.”

Albright looked thoughtful. “But maybe your dad
was
suspicious. Maybe that’s why he took the gun with him. And then there was a struggle
and he got shot in the process.”

I frowned, unable to counter his argument, but not believing it either. “According
to the police, there
were
signs of a struggle in the snow,” I admitted. “But I’m telling you, my father wouldn’t
have opened that door to any stranger. Not with me in the building. He was very cautious
and protective that way.”

“Then maybe it wasn’t a stranger,” Albright suggested.

His words sent a chill down my spine because the same thought had occurred to me.
Had my father been killed by someone he knew and trusted? Had that same person killed
Ginny? And was I next?

Allyson K. Abbott

KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

S
tumbling upon a dead body before I’ve finished my first cup of coffee is not my idea
of a great way to start the day. Not that anyone would think it was, but the discovery
was more complicated for me than it would be for most people.

For one, I’m not and never have been a morning person, thanks to a biological clock
dictated as much by nurture as nature. I own and run a bar in downtown Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, which means I keep some odd hours. It takes a couple of cups of coffee
every morning to fully wake me and get me thinking clearly. As a result my senses
are dulled and sluggish when I first get up. Turns out this is a good thing because
my senses aren’t always kind to me.

The bar is called Mack’s, after my father. He bought it the year before I was born
and hoped to someday have a namesake son who would take over the business. I came
along instead, and while I didn’t have the right genital equipment, I did have my
father’s red hair, fair complexion, and, it seemed, his gregarious nature. According
to him, the nurses who cared for me after I was born were fascinated because I was
more interactive than any other newborn they’d ever seen. In hindsight, it may have
been my condition that accounted for that, but no one could have known it at the time.

Anyway, Dad was not a man easily deterred and he managed to pass along his name by
putting Mackenzie on my birth certificate and calling me Mack for as long as I can
remember. Over time we became known as Big Mack and Little Mack, and Dad’s future
plans for the bar moved along.

My mother died right after I was born, so my father brought me to work with him every
day, sharing my care with any number of patrons who came into the place. As a result,
I had a handful of “aunts” and “uncles” who had no claim to me other than the occasional
diaper change or play session. I’ve lived my entire life in the bar. I took my first
steps there, uttered my first words there, and did my first pee-pee in the big girl’s
toilet there. I knew how to mix a martini before I knew how to spell my own name.
During my school years, I spent every afternoon and evening doing my homework in the
back office, and then helping Dad out front by washing glasses or preparing food in
the kitchen. He always sent me to bed before the place closed . . . easy to do since
we lived in the apartment above, but the bar itself was the place that really felt
like home to me.

It has been my home for thirty-four years, thirty-three of them very good. Dad died
ten months ago so it’s just me here now. It’s been a struggle to go on without him,
though he prepared me well by teaching me everything I’d need to know to take over
running the bar. Everything, that is, except what to do with a dead body in the back
alley.

Milwaukee is no stranger to dead bodies turning up in unexpected places, but my neighborhood,
which is located in a mixed commercial and residential area built up along the river
that runs through downtown, isn’t a high crime spot. Despite that, this isn’t the
first time someone has died in the alley behind my bar. My father has that claim to
fame after being mortally wounded by a gunshot just outside our back door this past
January, though if you got right down to it, I couldn’t say for sure that anyone really
died in the alley. My father’s death occurred in the hospital a short time after his
attack, and I had no way of knowing where this second person died. All I knew for
sure was that there was a body next to my Dumpster.

It was a little after nine in the morning on an unusually hot and humid October day,
the sort of strange weather that has people nattering on about global warming and
Armageddon. I’d gone down the private back stairs to toss my personal trash before
readying the bar for opening. Because it was pickup day, the Dumpster was overflowing
and extremely ripe in the stifling heat. The smell hit me as soon as I opened the
back door and I had to force myself to mouth breathe. As I drew closer to the Dumpster
the stench grew, becoming a palpable thing, something I not only smelled, but saw.

The combination of the heat and the olfactory overload triggered a reaction that might
seem strange to most people, but is all too familiar to me. My mouth filled with odd
tastes and I heard a cacophony of sounds: chimes, bells, tinkles, and twangs . . .
some melodious, some discordant. My field of vision contained flashing lights, swirling
colors, and floating shapes. I struggled to see past this kaleidoscope of images and
that’s when I saw the arm—small and pale—sticking out from under a pile of torn-down
boxes beside the Dumpster.

My first thought was that it wasn’t real, that perhaps someone had tossed out a mannequin.
After blinking several times in an effort to see past the weird stuff, I realized
this thought was nothing more than blissful denial. The arm was real. Then it occurred
to me that it might belong to someone who was sick or injured. It wouldn’t be the
first time I found a drunk passed out somewhere outside my bar. Just in case the person
was more than ill, I grabbed a baggie from my personal sack of trash and used it to
raise a corner of the cardboard without actually touching it.

I tried to see what lay beneath but my visual kaleidoscope swelled into something
so big and encompassing it blinded me to all else, forcing me to drop the cardboard
and stumble-feel my way back into the bar.

Once I was inside with the door closed, the smell dissipated and the air cooled. The
images, sounds, and tastes began to fade. I made my way down the hall, past the bathrooms
to the main lounge area, where I normally would be getting things ready in preparation
for opening the doors to my lunch crowd: my neighborhood regulars and the hardcore
drinkers who provide a source of steady income for me at the expense of their own
livers.

I grabbed the bar phone since my cell was still upstairs and dialed 9-1-1.

“9-1-1 operator. Do you have an emergency?”

I felt weak in the knees and leaned against the back bar. “There is a dead body in
the alley behind my place.” I relayed my name and address to the operator, who instructed
me not to touch anything.
Too late for that.

“I’m dispatching officers there now,” the operator said, and then she started asking
questions, some of which I couldn’t answer. “You said the body is outside?”

“Yes, it’s on the ground beside the garbage Dumpster.”

“Is it male or female?”

I hesitated, struggling to interpret what I’d seen when I lifted the cardboard. I
knew the arm was small and not muscular, and I thought I recalled a hint of femininity
in the edge of a sleeve. “I think it might be female,” I told her.

“But you’re not sure?”

“No.”

“Is the body mutilated?”

“I don’t know. There’s cardboard piled on top of the body, so I couldn’t see the whole
thing, just part of an arm.” This was a tiny lie but with any luck, no one would know
I’d lifted the cardboard.

“I see,” said the operator in a tone that sounded skeptical. Realizing our conversation
was likely to get more confusing if it continued, I prayed the cops would arrive soon.

And just like that my prayer was answered. Someone pounded on the front door and a
male voice hollered, “Milwaukee police.”

I hurried over and undid the locks, letting in two uniformed male officers. “The police
are here,” I told the operator. I relocked the doors, disconnected the call—thus ending
my inquisition, though there would be plenty more to come—and switched my attention
to the officers.

“You have a dead body here?” said the taller one, whose name pin read P. Cummings.

I nodded. “It’s out back in the alley, by the garbage.”

“Male or female?”

“I’m not sure.” I repeated my covered-with-cardboard lie as I led both cops to the
alley door. As soon as I stepped outside I switched to mouth breathing to try to forestall
another reaction. I stopped several feet from the Dumpster and pointed to the pile
of cardboard where that one pale arm protruded.

Both officers were wearing gloves and Cummings’s partner, whose name pin read L. Johnson,
walked over and lifted the cardboard. Instinctively I clamped a hand over my mouth,
a fatal mistake since it forced me to breathe through my nose.

The heat and smell hit me full force, triggering a cacophony of sound. The kaleidoscope
of images blinded me again and some weird tastes followed. I found myself wishing
for a drink as alcohol tends to minimize my reactions. And with the way things were
going, this was starting to look like a four-martini day.