Wicked Is the Whiskey: A Sean McClanahan Mystery (Sean McClanahan Mysteries Book 1)

We get our fair share of floaters in Pittsburgh — the bloated bodies found bobbing in our three rivers, the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela.

In an average year, Allegheny County records more than 100 of them: amateur boaters who fall over board while partying, homeless people who slip into eddies while bathing along the banks or lost souls who commit suicide by jumping from one of our many bridge spans.

The suicides are often men who are drunk and despondent. After wallowing in gin at a shot-and-beer tavern, they make their way to one of our city's many bridge spans. Sometimes they crawl over the four-foot railing that lines the sidewalk, then drop helplessly into the water. Other times they amble up the steel arch to its crest, where they stand high and visible to the world, tying up traffic for a time before they lean desperately into the open air.

Regardless of the method, the result is usually the same. Within an instant, the body is submerged 15 or 20 feet, sometimes hitting bottom. The air in the lungs floats the victim's body to the surface. If his neck or back isn't broken and he is still conscious, his will to live will awaken and he'll try to swim for the bank.

But most times the panic, injury and effort cause him to suck in water. It takes only a few teaspoons of water to block the air passage. He'll breathe out but not in, and as the air departs and the fight is choked out of him. To the bottom he'll go, not to rise again until the gases of decomposition bloat his body full, floating him to the surface.

Our most recent floater was far from typical.

His name was John Preston, a world-renowned relationship expert, whose books, seminars and DVDs helped thousands of couples rekindle their happiness — and make him a rich man.

News reports said he had recently moved his company’s headquarters to a small, defunct manufacturing campus in Maryville, PA, a former industrial town along the Monongahela River. 

His expanding company had renovated the main building in the center of the campus, with plans to develop and lease a half dozen other buildings that sat along riverfront.

He was married to Elizabeth Preston, who had achieved her own fame appearing in his broadcasts. The two had recently completed a restoration of the old Heinz family summer mansion. It had been featured in several architectural magazines. Mrs. Preston conducted her husband’s funeral in a private ceremony there.

Though the Maryville chief of police was still investigating the circumstances surrounding Preston’s death and the Washington County Coroner had not yet declared the cause and manner of death, many speculated that Preston had jumped off the Maryville Bridge a few days before a river barge captain spotted his lifeless body floating in the Monongahela’s muddy waters.

Talk of Preston’s demise was at a fever pitch — particularly among the colorful characters who congregated regularly at my family’s South Side pub. I was as curious as anyone.

Of course that was before I knew of the grief John Preston’s death would put me through.

As my Irish grandfather liked to say, I was in for some wicked whiskey that autumn.

I sat in my favorite booth in the back of the pub across from the hearth. The pub’s front and rear doors were propped wide open, allowing a morning October breeze to pass through the room. The sportscaster on the TV monitors above the bar predicted a Pitt victory over Notre Dame that Friday evening.

We’d just opened for business and I had the entire place to myself. It was a fine day to be the proprietor of McClanahan’s Irish Pub.

McClanahan's isn't just any pub, you see, but a Pittsburgh institution. It was here the Irish immigrants came for refuge. Union meetings were held here, numbers booked and funds raised to help the widows of men taken in coal-mine and steel-mill accidents.

McClanahan's is still the place where construction workers converse with Fortune 500 CEOs, where campaigning congressmen speak plainly with machinists and truck drivers. When off-Broadway shows pass through town, it’s to McClanahan's the actors flock afterwards. Legend has it that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis once conducted a bender there.

Numerous marital unions have been sparked at our Friday happy-hour gatherings, when young men and women meet for darts and pool and our famous fried fish sandwich. God only knows how many Pittsburghers owe their existence to the Irish aphrodisiacs — Jameson whiskey and Guinness — their parents imbibed here.

Since I'd enjoyed a brisk run along the bike trail to Homestead and back, I figured I’d earned my sweet reward. I walked behind the bar and placed a pint glass beneath the Guinness tap. I tilted it, filling it three quarters full, then waited a few minutes for it to settle. I completed the pour, admiring its thick, frothy head, then returned to my booth.

I raised the glass to the gods — sláinte — and enjoyed a glorious sip. No wonder Brendan Behan, man of Irish letters, would climb over 12 naked ladies for a pint of the stuff.

The cellar door burst open and in walked Maureen Brennan, pub manager, bartender, waitress, cook, bookkeeper, bouncer and my best friend. She muscled a fresh keg of Iron City with both hands as though it were a quarter full.

“What’s on the docket today, Sherlock?” she said, sliding the keg under the bar.

Maureen loved to razz me about “The Sean McClanahan Report,” a humorous investigative segment I appeared in now and then on a local news broadcast.

“The case load is light,” I admitted.

She pulled her black shiny hair over her broad shoulders and let loose a hearty, barrel-chested laugh.

“But haven’t you cracked some of Pittsburgh’s biggest cases?”

I nodded.

“It was I who videotaped a city sanitation worker carrying railroad ties from his pickup truck to his backyard planter, while on full disability.”

“You’re a regular J. Edgar Hoover.”

“It was I who snagged our Allegheny County's Parks and Recreation director chartering his fishing boat up in Cook Forest, while still on the county clock.”

“You go, Dick Tracey.”

“And it was I who caught a self-righteous school superintendent partaking in an extramarital dalliance in the back seat of a Dodge minivan — after firing two married teachers for doing the same.”

“Admit it,” said Maureen. “You would’ve done that one free.”

Maureen and I became rookie cops together some 20 years earlier shortly after I’d graduated from Pitt. While I managed to stumble upward to the rank of detective faster than anyone in Major Crimes Unit history — I still have the highest solve percentage of any homicide detective in the city’s history — Maureen never left the beat. That was due to her propensity to dole out “a little extra justice” to wife beaters, child abusers, drug pushers and anyone else who got on her nerves. Facing numerous lawsuits, the city had to let her go.

She went on to successfully manage some restaurants, so when my Uncle Mick offered to sell me the family pub, I persuaded her to join me.

Truth be told, Uncle Mick offered me the pub to help me get through a tragic time — one that had claimed the life of my wife, Lauren, who died when an arsonist I’d put away years before made good on his threats after he was released from jail. He burned down our house while Lauren slept — while I worked late protecting and serving the public.

When I found him, it took everything I had to not put a bullet between his eyes. I quit as soon as he was in custody, then promptly went to pieces. It was only through the grace of God, and the support of my family and friends, that I made it through that dark period.  

In any event, Maureen possessed the pub-management skills I lacked. I offered her the lion’s share of our meager profits, so long as she protected me from whatever it is pub owners are supposed to know and do.

To generate extra income to keep myself and the pub afloat, Maureen talked me into getting my PI license and joining Uncle Mick’s firm (his office was in a storefront next to the pub). She next persuaded a local news channel to hire me to conduct light investigative reports. She figured the exposure would promote my PI work and the pub — and, boy, did that turn out to be the case.  

“Thanks to you, dear Maureen, I took on all three of those regrettable cases to help us raise funds for a new boiler. Thus, I credit you for the odd phone calls and frequent visits from crazies of every kind — folks who have leads on everything from Jimmy Hoffa’s burial site to who really shot JFK.”

Maureen laughed heartily.

“They’re obviously unaware that you couldn’t detect your way out of a paper bag!”

A woman walked through the front door. She was trim and attractive and moved with a nervous energy. She wore faded jeans, stylish black shoes and a white silk top that tastefully outlined her petite frame.

“May we help you?” said Maureen.  

“I’m looking for Sean McClanahan,” said the woman.

Maureen raised her arm and pointed to my booth in the back, then headed down to the basement to tend to the inventory. 

The woman’s features came into focus as she walked toward me. She appeared to be in her early 30s (I'd learn later that she was 42). 

“I’m Sean,” I said standing to shake her hand. Her fingers were delicate and cold, but her grip was firm.

“My name is Erin Miller.”

“How may I assist you?”

“You will think I’m crazy.”

“Give me a try,” I said.

“John Preston did not commit suicide.”

“Please sit,” I said. 

She slid into the booth in a swift, elegant motion.

“May I get you a beverage?”

“No, thank you.” 

I sat across from her. 

Her black hair was boyishly short which served to draw out her milk-white skin, the freckles on her small nose, and intense hazel eyes that burned as brightly as a coke oven. She set her hands on the top of the table. Her fingernails were perfectly manicured and painted red. She sported a modest rock on the ring finger on her left hand.

“I don’t know where to begin,” she said.  

She looked over her shoulder toward the front door, then back at me.

“How about at the beginning?”

She took a deep breath and looked me directly in the eyes. Crazy maybe, but I was smitten by her feminine graces. 

“I knew John,” she said. “He didn’t take his own life.”

Ah, she was on a first-name basis with Preston. I did everything in my power to prevent myself from snorting — a habit I’d learned from my father, who always snorted when someone tried to pull the wool over his eyes.     

“You think he was murdered?” I said.

She nodded.

“Why tell me?” I said. “Why not tell the Washington County Coroner? He is investigating the cause and manner of Preston’s death. Why not tell the Maryville chief of police? She is leading the police investigation.”

“I
did
talk to them. I visited the coroner this morning. He said he couldn’t talk to me about the case, as he could only share the details of the autopsy with the next of kin.”

“Standard protocol,” I said.

She looked over her shoulder, then back to me.

“Then I visited Chief Sarafino. She rushed me out of her office like she thought I was mentally insane.”

Imagine that, I thought.

“I don’t fault you for thinking the same of me, but if you come with me now, I can offer some proof.” 

“Come with you?”

“To our home,” she said.

“
Our
home?”

“John and I lived in Donora, not far from Maryville.”

“You lived with John Preston?”

“I know how it sounds, but it is true.”

I pointed to the ring on her finger.

“You were engaged to Preston?” I said, fighting the urge to snort. “Married?”

She smiled sheepishly.

“I realize how odd I may appear to you, but it will all make sense if you come with me.”

“Can’t you show me what you have to show me here?”

“It is not safe here. I think they are following me.”

Of course. What good is a conspiracy without someone following you?

“They?”

“Two men. One is big with black curly hair, the other is small with red hair. They approached me when I left the police station in Maryville. I ran to my car and drove away as fast as I could. I think I saw them behind me on the highway.”

“I see,” I said, hoping Maureen would come up from the basement and help me fashion an excuse to end this discussion.

Two men walked into the pub. One was built like a Coke machine. He wore a rumpled suit and had black curly hair. The other was short and pale with thinning red hair. Unlike the large man who bought his suit a couple of waist-sizes ago, the smaller man’s suit was black and perfectly tailored.

“May I help you?” I said.

“We have business with the lady,” said the big man. His voice gurgled like a ‘67 Cadillac with a hole in the muffler.

He moved fast for his size. He grabbed Erin's shoulder.

“Hey,” I said, swatting his arm away.

“Mind your own business,” he growled, grabbing her shoulder again.

I jumped out of the booth and shoved him away from the booth.

He lunged at me with a looping right. I ducked it and drove a hard right into his gut — hoping to compress the nerves in his solar plexus and knock the wind out of him.

He fell back against another booth, barely able to breathe. His eyes displayed confusion — nobody had ever hit him that hard before, particularly a 5’10, 185-pound fellow who could obviously hit a lot harder than it looked like he could hit.

“You do realize there is a city ordinance against walking zoo animals without a leash,” I said, turning to the little man.

“You can take him, Tony,” said the little man, ignoring me, his voice high pitched.

“Shut up, Terry,” said the big man, still catching his breath.

He came at me with another looping right. I jabbed him in the windpipe with a couple of quick lefts, then threw everything I had into another gut shot.

He fell against the booth near Erin, struggling to breathe.

Erin tried to slide out of the booth. He shoved her back. She dug her fingernails into his right cheek. He moaned.

“Enough!” said the squeaky-voiced little man.

I turned. He had his pistol pointed at me.

“I’ll shoot you,” he said.

I stared at the little man and didn’t move.

I remember hearing a thump — the sound a blackjack makes when it contacts the skull. The big man, behind me, had whopped the side of my noggin with his blackjack.

The floor rose up at my face like a freight elevator.   

Everything went into slow motion. Lying on the floor, I looked up to see the big man hold Erin as she fought him, while the little man stuck a syringe in her neck and squeezed. She became instantly limp. The big man, struggling, picked her up and headed toward the back door.

“Hey,” I whispered, trying to push myself up.

The big man kicked the side of my head with his heel.

Everything went black.