Shots in the Dark Page 3

  “I’ll call him right now,” Billy said, taking out his cell phone. “Can you cover for me for a minute or two?”

  “Of course.”

  I took over behind the bar as Billy stepped away to make his call. He returned a few minutes later, still on the phone, though he put his hand over the speaker.

  “Teddy says he can come in anytime. Today even.”

  “Wow. He is desperate,” I said with a smile. Desperate was good. It meant he could likely start right away. “Can he be here in an hour?”

  Billy asked the question and a moment later nodded at me. “He says he can be here by two thirty. Will that do?”

  “It will.”

  Billy relayed the info, disconnected his call, and resumed his duties behind the bar. I stayed with him for the next hour to help out with the crowd. When two thirty rolled around, Teddy Berenson came walking through the front door. I knew him right away based on Billy’s description. He was a huge hulk of a guy in his late twenties, with big, soft brown eyes, a full head of dark hair, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. It was easy to see how he’d earned the nickname Teddy Bear.

  After Billy introduced us, I led Teddy into my office and directed him to sit in the chair across from mine at the desk. He handed me a piece of paper, which, I was surprised to see, was a neatly typed résumé—you don’t see many of those from job applicants in this business—and settled into the chair. It was a tight fit.

  As I interviewed him, I noticed Teddy’s voice fitted him. It was deep and rumbling, and it made me taste walnuts. His upbringing showed; he was polite, charming, and cultured. But there was also a comfortable easiness about him that made me believe Billy’s claim that the guy had no pretentions. I liked him and wanted to hire him on the spot. According to his résumé, he already had a bartender’s license, and he certainly had the physical characteristics I needed for a bouncer, but I had to do some basic checking to make sure everything was on the up-and-up.

  “When would you be able to start?” I asked him after I’d finished with my standard interview questions and a rundown of the job requirements.

  “Tonight,” he said with a shrug and a smile.

  I started to tell him I needed to check his references first, but given the family he came from and Billy’s personal recommendation, I wondered if that was necessary. Still, with everything that had gone on lately, it was better to be safe than sorry. “Tell you what, Teddy,” I said. “I need to check on a few things. Why don’t you go out to the bar and hang with Billy for a bit to get the lay of the land. I’ll get back to you shortly.”

  He flashed me a big smile and said, “Will do!” Then he popped out of his chair with amazing grace and headed back out to the bar.

  As soon as he was gone, I got on my cell phone and called Cora, who I knew was upstairs in the room used by the Capone Club. Cora was a daily fixture in my bar, and more often than not, she could be found in the Capone Club room.

  “What’s up?” she answered. Cora rarely mentioned me by name when she answered one of my calls, knowing I sometimes needed to meet with her on the sly.

  “I need a favor. I just interviewed a young man I’m considering as a replacement for Gary, and I’m wondering if you can do a license and background check on him. Run his name through whatever databases you have access to and check to see if he has any criminal record. And verify that he is who he says he is.” I then gave her his name.

  Cora let out a low whistle. “Is he related to Harley Berenson?”

  “Yep. He’s his son.”

  “What the hell is he doing looking for a job with you, then? His family is filthy rich.”

  “And he’s apparently the black sheep in that family. See what you can dig up.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “I’ll be up in a little bit.”

  I disconnected the call and then headed out to the main bar area. Teddy was behind the bar, shadowing Billy, and he looked comfortable and eager. I walked up to them and smiled.

  “Show Teddy here the ropes,” I said to Billy. Then, with a wink, I added, “Give him a trial by fire.”

  “Can do,” Billy said.

  “Any sign of today’s mail yet?” My mail delivery typically came mid-afternoon, and the mailman brought it inside and handed it off to whoever was behind the bar. But for the last week or so, the delivery had been later than usual due to the extra holiday mail.

  “Not yet,” Billy said. “I’ll put it in your office when it comes.” Billy and Debra were the only employees who had a key to my office.

  I left the two of them and made rounds on the rest of my staff. Debra was her usual hustling self, and I was glad to see that Linda was moving faster than the snail’s pace she’d had when she first started the job.

  I walked up to Debra after she finished taking a drink order. “Billy said Linda is doing better. Is that true?”

  Debra nodded. “It is, thank goodness.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face.

  “Good. Are you managing okay?”

  She nodded and then gestured toward the bar. “Who’s the big teddy bear behind the bar with Billy?”

  “Funny you worded it that way,” I said with a smile. Then I filled her in. “Keep an eye on him and let me know what you think.”

  I left Debra and made my way to Linda, who was working tables in the new section of my bar, an area that had been open only for a few weeks. When the building that adjoined mine had become available, I snatched it up and did some renovations to expand the bar, a project that wouldn’t have been possible if not for Ginny leaving me a surprise inheritance. Eventually, I was hoping to have some live music in the new area, where Linda was working, but for now I wanted to see if I had enough business to sustain the expansion.

  I caught up with Linda in between tables and asked her how everything was going.

  “I’m feeling much better about things,” she said cheerfully. “I finally have a system worked out, and I’m getting a better feel for all the drink names.”

  “I’m happy to hear that. I’ve gotten some great feedback from the rest of the staff, so keep up the good work and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you.”

  I started to turn away but paused when her face screwed up and her eyes began to tear. The girl was rather plain looking, bordering on mousy, but at the moment her cheeks were rosy, her eyes sparkled, and her mouth had a hint of a smile. “Thank you so much for your patience with me,” she said. “For not giving up on me.”

  “You’re very welcome.” I gave her shoulder a squeeze, and then, in a tone of faux sternness, I added, “Now, get back to work, woman.”

  Her smile broadened, and she scurried off.

  I headed upstairs to check in with the Capone Club group. Most of the participants were customers and friends who became involved in solving Ginny’s murder and, in the process, discovered a connection between my bar and Al Capone. Hence the name. And when I expanded the bar, I created a special room on the second floor for the group to meet in, replete with a gas fireplace, comfy chairs, and an assortment of crime-related books on built-in shelves. The unofficial leaders and founders of the group were Cora, the Signoriello brothers, and Tad Amundsen, a local investor and a tax adviser to some of the area’s wealthiest residents. Tad used to be a run-of-the-mill CPA, but his good looks and charm had won him the role of trophy husband to Suzanne Collier, one of the richest women in Wisconsin. In turn, Suzanne diverted many of her friends to Tad for financial and investment advice, and he eventually opened up his own business, the offices of which were located around the corner from my bar.

  The original Capone Club members had enjoyed their sleuthing attempts enough that they decided to continue with them. They progressed from playing with made-up practice cases to assisting me on some real ones, and the number of participants had grown, thanks to word of mouth and some of the press attention garnered by the cases I’d worked with Duncan. There were always some members present on a daily basis, thoug
h their number waxed and waned throughout the day. It was a varied group, with folks from many different walks of life, and that brought a lot of expertise and ideas to the process.

  Some of the core regulars were Sam Warner, a graduate student in psychology; Carter Fitzpatrick, a writer and part-time waiter; Holly Martinson, a bank teller and Carter’s girlfriend; Alicia Maldonado, also a bank teller and Holly’s friend and coworker; Kevin Baldwin, a local trash collector, though he preferred the title sanitation engineer; Karen Tannenbaum, or Dr. T, as we called her, an ER physician; and Tiny Gruber, a construction worker and Cora’s current paramour. Several members of my staff also participated in the group when they could. Billy considered it a good prep for his future career as a criminal defense lawyer, while the others did it more for entertainment.

  The most recent case the group had worked on was the twelve-year-old unsolved murders of Tiny’s sister, Lori Gruber, and her friend Anna Hermann. The group and I had been able to solve the crime, and it generated a lot of publicity—most of it centered on me, because of the earlier media fiasco with me and Duncan. While the publicity had been a nightmare for me personally, it was great for business, drawing in lots of curious people who wanted to gawk and a few who wanted to participate in the Capone Club.

  Because it was the weekend, most of the core regulars in the group were present, but I saw a few new faces, too. I was greeted with a chorus of cheery hellos as Cora pulled up a chair for me next to her. As soon as I settled in and propped my crutches against the wall behind me, she leaned over and whispered in my ear.

  “Your boy checks out. He is who he says he is, and I can’t find any bad stuff about him.”

  “Good,” I said with a smile. “Because I think I’m putting him on the payroll as of tonight.”

  Cora gave me a cautionary look. “Is the rest of the staff going to be okay with that, you think? I mean, so soon after Gary and all.”

  I shrugged. “They’re going to have to be. I need the help.”

  Cora switched gears, nodding toward the unfamiliar faces in the room. “We have two new folks here today,” she said, her voice still low. “I got their names and checked them out. I’m pretty sure they aren’t reporters, but be careful with what you talk about.”

  I nodded my understanding and prepared for introductions, but before that happened, yet another new face entered the room. Nothing about her looked extraordinary—she was pretty, but in an everyday kind of way—yet I sensed something as I watched her walk in. It didn’t take long for my instincts to prove reliable, because within a matter of minutes our newest arrival introduced us to our next case, which would turn out to be the most interesting one yet.

  Chapter 4

  The weekends were when the Capone Club was at its fullest, and they were also when we got the most new people wandering in. Most of the newcomers expressed an interest in participating, and they were treated with polite wariness by the others initially. Local reporters had tried to infiltrate the group several times, so whenever anyone new showed up, they were asked to provide an introduction and to say why they were there. Until Cora, with her computer sleuthing skills, could do a background check, the group would stick to posing test scenarios or discussing crime solving in general, never offering up information on any of the real crimes we were or had been working on. This had a tendency to weed out the vast majority of the newcomers, most of whom were curiosity seekers or lookie-loos who never came back again.

  So far, the only person who had come back after the initial visit, and after he passed Cora’s muster, was Stephen McGregor, a physics teacher at a local high school. He was present on the day in question, and I later learned who the two first timers in the group were: a man in his forties named Greg Nash, who worked as a local Realtor and who had known Ginny, and Sonja West, who said she was the owner of an upscale hair salon named Aphrodite’s, located a few blocks away.

  The latest newcomer—the one who had entered the room shortly after I had—introduced herself as Sandra Middleton but offered up nothing more. That was enough for Cora, who started typing away on her laptop. I invited Sandra to have a seat, and she took an empty chair next to Sam, setting the large purse she was carrying—though actually it looked more like a messenger bag—on the floor beside her. As soon as she was settled, Holly asked her what she did for a living.

  “I’m between jobs at the moment,” Sandra said with a sad little smile. “I love mysteries, and I heard about your group, so I thought I’d check it out.”

  Cora’s quick machinations on the computer revealed that Sandra’s interest in the group was likely due to more than a love of mysteries. “You’re related to Benjamin Middleton,” she said.

  Sandra nodded, looking sheepish. “I am,” she said in a very soft voice that triggered a faint herbal taste in my mouth. She sighed and flashed an apologetic smile, shifting in her chair. “Okay, the real reason I’m here is that I’m hoping your group can help me. Benjamin is my brother, and he’s in prison, convicted of the murder of his wife, Tiffany.”

  “How do you want us to help you?” I asked.

  “He didn’t do it,” Sandra said with absolute conviction. “He’s innocent. I know he is, but I need someone to help me prove it.”

  I and the group were typically skeptical of innocence claims—an all too common theme among criminals—and Sandra wasn’t the first person to come to us with such a plea. But I learned the hard way that sometimes those claims were true, because it turned out that Gary Gunderson had done time for a crime he didn’t commit.

  Because of the publicity surrounding me and the Capone Club, the core group had a discussion not long ago during which we agreed not to take on any active, ongoing investigations and to consider only cold or concluded ones. My relationship with the police was dicey enough as it was. I didn’t want to antagonize them further by interfering in an active investigation, and the cops who participated in the group from time to time had warned us that if we interfered in an active investigation, it could get us into some serious trouble.

  The group’s decision hadn’t come easily. The members were desperate to look into the deaths of both Gary and Lewis Carmichael, since they had known both of them. Lewis, in fact, had been a part-time participant in the Capone Club. On the surface, Lewis’s death appeared to be a mugging gone wrong, an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Aside from Duncan and Mal O’Reilly, my purported new paramour, only Cora, Frank, Joe, and I knew otherwise. I feared other group members might become targets of the letter writer if they dug too deeply into either Gary’s or Lewis’s death, so with the secret help of Duncan, and some in-your-face advice from the local police, it was made clear to the group that current, ongoing investigations were off the table.

  I did my best to reinforce this as subtly as I could, and in away, Sandra’s arrival and plea aided me in that endeavor. The case fit our initial parameters since it was closed, with the presumed culprit sentenced and behind bars. I hoped that the distraction of a new case would get everyone’s minds off of Gary and Lewis for a while and keep the group from doing anything stupid. But I also was wary of giving Sandra Middleton any false hope.

  To Sandra, I said, “We’ll be happy to hear you out regarding your brother’s case, and perhaps even look into it. But you need to understand that we don’t offer any promises. If at any time we feel like we should drop the case, we will.” I paused and looked around at the others in the room, hoping I was playing it right and didn’t seem overeager. “Does everyone agree?”

  There were a bunch of nods and a couple of murmured assents.

  Sandra smiled meekly. “I understand,” she said. “Thank you for even considering it. I don’t know who else to turn to, and when I heard on the news about how your group managed to solve a couple of other cases recently, I thought you might be able to help.”

  “Let’s start by hearing your thoughts on the case,” I said. “Convince us it’s worth pursuing.”

  Sandra l
ooked perplexed. “My brother is innocent, and I need help proving it,” she said with a shrug.

  “I understand that,” I said, giving her a patient smile. “But we need a little more than your admittedly biased opinion on the matter.”

  Cora, hands poised over her laptop, prompted Sandra for more information. “Tell us the details of the case as you know them,” she said. “Start with some background information about your brother and his wife, and then tell us what your brother says happened on the night in question.”

  Sandra sucked in a deep, bracing breath before she spoke. As she began to talk, Cora typed away, taking notes so we could review the details later. “Ben met Tiffany four years ago, when they were both students at Northwestern,” she began. Her voice was lilting, rhythmic, even, and its soft tones threatened to lull me to sleep. “Ben and I come from a middle-class family. My mother is a nurse executive, and my father is the CFO of a big trucking company. We aren’t what I would call wealthy, but we never wanted for anything, either. Tiffany Gallagher, however, came from money, and lots of it. Her father owns and runs the Gallagher Shipping Company, and he’s estimated to be worth several hundred million.”

  A few eyebrows in the room arched with this information, but no one said anything, so Sandra continued.

  “When Ben first met Tiffany, he didn’t think she’d give him the time of day, but something clicked between the two of them right from the get-go. Her father wasn’t happy about it. He did everything he could to try to break them up, but Ben and Tiff were meant to be together. They loved one another. There’s no way my brother would have killed her.”

  She paused and looked at the faces in the room, her expression begging us to believe her.

  Sam said, “I don’t mean to discount the fact that you know your brother better than we do, but you have to admit that your opinion is bound to be biased. So why don’t you tell us what you know about the facts of the case, things like when, where, and how the crime occurred.”

  Sandra nodded. “It happened almost a year ago, on February fifteenth. Ben and Tiff were coming back from Door County, where they’d gone for a weeklong getaway to celebrate Valentine’s Day and their second wedding anniversary. They’d stayed in an isolated rental house along the shore of Lake Michigan, and on the day Tiff was killed, they were headed back home. It was late in the day. They had originally planned to stay another day, but a snowstorm had come through the night before, and there was another, bigger one coming in the next morning. So they’d decided to leave around five or so, because they wanted to get home before the roads became impassable.