Last Call

Book 6: Mack’s Bar Mysteries

by Allyson K. Abbott

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Bar owner Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton and her barstool detectives love to puzzle through cold cases. But when one of their own disappears, danger is on tap....

Fresh off solving a murder that hit too close to home, Mack's trust is shattered. But when Milwaukee Police Detective Duncan Albright asks for her help with a shooting, she can't resist using her extra-perceptive senses to benefit others.

It turns out the victim was the ruthless businessman their friend Mal was investigating undercover. And now Mal is missing — and his fingerprints are on the gun. Was his cover blown, forcing him into hiding? Or could he be a straight-up killer on the run?/

Mack doesn't know what to believe anymore — except her own gut, which leads her to secret rooms, shocking revelations...and the fear that this could be her final round.

Release date: July 31, 2018

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

It is the beginning of a new year and, for many, it feels like a fresh start, an artificial marker that gives the day some imagined significance over its predecessor. For some, it signifies hope for the future; for others, it may mean establishing new motivations for personal growth. Sometimes it simply offers a fresh outlook on life.

For me, it means better-than-average business, and in the case of this particular coming year, a fresh—or at least different—outlook on death.

My name is Mackenzie Dalton, though everyone calls me Mack, and I own a bar located in downtown Milwaukee. The post-holiday season is a busy one for the bar. Some people come in hoping to extend their holiday spirit by lifting a few holiday spirits with their friends, family, or coworkers. Others come in to celebrate the end of the hectic, mad rush that always seems to be a hallmark of the holiday season. Still others come in simply because it’s part of their regular routine to visit the neighborhood bar, exercise their elbows, and share their holiday tales with other regulars they see throughout the year. And more than a few come in simply to escape the bone-chilling cold that is part and parcel of a Milwaukee winter. Cozying up to a drink with some friends is a great way to warm both the body and the soul.

My bar has a lot of regulars, the most notable of whom is an assemblage of barstool detectives who call themselves the Capone Club. This group is an eclectic collection of folks from many walks of life who share a common interest in crime solving. The Club got its start through some tragic events that happened over the past year, not the least of which was the murder of my father, Mack, exactly a year ago today. My father opened Mack’s Bar thirty-five years ago, naming it after himself and then giving me a name that would allow me to eponymously inherit. It was a huge assumption on his part that I would want to do that, but he guessed right. For me, the decision was a no-brainer. My mother died shortly after giving birth to me, so it was always just me and Dad, running the bar day in and day out. We lived in a three-bedroom apartment above it, and that made for a strange and memorable childhood. I knew how to mix a host of cocktails before I knew my ABCs, my extended family consisted of some of the bar’s regular customers, and I was the envy of many of my high school friends who coveted my constant exposure to free alcohol. Despite my unusual childhood, I’d have to say it was a happy and simple one. My life up until a year ago was uncomplicated and enjoyable for the most part.

Of course, there were a few rough spots. One in particular that marked me as different from the other kids and nearly got me declared insane is a neurological disorder I have called synesthesia. It’s an odd cross-wiring of the senses that results in its victims experiencing the world around them in ways others don’t. According to the doctors who evaluated me over the years, my synesthesia is a particularly severe case. The most commonly ascribed-to theory about how I acquired this disorder is that it resulted from the unusual circumstances surrounding my birth. My mother ended up in a coma due to injuries from a car accident that happened while she was pregnant with me. She sustained severe brain damage that left her essentially dead, but her heart—and mine—kept going. So she was hooked up to machines and her body was kept alive until it was safe for me to be born. Then the machines were removed, and she was allowed to die. Whenever I asked about my mother’s death, my father always told me it was peaceful—he believed my mother’s soul had slipped away the night of the accident—but there was a haunted look in his eyes whenever he spoke of it that let me know he had his doubts.

The doctors speculated that the conditions surrounding my gestation and birth contributed to an abnormal development of my neurological system. The result was that I experience each of my senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch—in at least two ways. For instance, I taste certain sounds; this typically is the case with men’s voices. Other sounds, such as music, are accompanied by visual manifestations, like floating geometric shapes or colorful designs. Most of my tastes are accompanied by sounds. For instance, the taste of champagne makes me hear violin music, whereas beer makes me hear the deep bass notes of a cello. But there are some tastes that trigger a physical or emotional sensation instead. For instance, I confess to being something of a coffee snob, and when I drink coffee that’s brewed just right, it makes me feel happy inside, almost giddy. Bad coffee makes me feel irritable and angry. I’m a coffee addict, and going without it for a length of time makes me feel almost homicidal, though I suspect that is more of a caffeine addiction issue as opposed to a manifestation of my synesthesia.

In addition to the five basic senses, I also have synesthetic reactions to my emotions, either a visual manifestation or a physical sensation. My emotions were put through the wringer at times when I was growing up. I would say things like, “This song is too red and wavy,” or, “This sandwich tastes like a tuba.” It didn’t help me fit in with the other kids, and my teachers grew concerned when they realized I was seeing things that weren’t there . . . or at least things that weren’t there for most people. The visual manifestations I had were very real to me, and they still are. But the lack of understanding regarding my condition left many people fearful and confused. I quickly learned to keep most of my experiences to myself rather than share them. After spending time observing other people’s reactions to things, and hearing their comments and descriptions regarding their own sensual experiences, I gradually learned which of my responses were considered “normal” and which were my own peculiarity.

When the hormonal surge of adolescence hit me, my synesthesia became even more pronounced. Had it not been for one particularly patient and insightful doctor, I would’ve ended up committed to a psychiatric institution. Instead, my father and I learned how to control my disorder and hide it from the outside world. However, in private, he and I played with my abilities from time to time. My synesthesia is not only more severe than most, my senses are greatly heightened. I can smell, see, and feel things that others can’t. I can often tell when something has been recently moved because I can feel changes in the air pressure, or see a difference in the air surrounding the spot where the item used to be.

The aspect of my synesthesia that has turned out to be the most significant of late is that I’m something of a human lie detector. In the vast majority of people, the voice changes ever so slightly when they’re lying—a subconscious thing. This results in a variation in whatever manifestation I experience when listening to their voice. Once I’ve learned what someone’s voice normally tastes or looks like, I can tell when they’re lying because that taste or visual manifestation will suddenly change.

Because of my experiences as a child, I spent most of my life trying to hide my synesthesia from the world. It was an embarrassment to me, a handicap, a disability, something to be scorned and laughed at, something that made me stand out from the rest of the world . . . and not in a good way. That all changed this past year, however. It began with the murder of my father in the alley behind our bar, though I had no way of knowing at the time how that one event would drastically alter the route my life was taking. Eight months later, Ginny Rifkin, the woman who was my father’s girlfriend when he died, was also murdered, her body left in the same alley. Her death led to Duncan Albright entering my life, and my life becoming focused on death.

Duncan was a relatively new detective with the police force in our district, and he was the detective in charge of investigating Ginny’s murder. When he determined that the culprit was likely someone near and dear to me, he decided to do some undercover work at my bar, pretending he was a new hire so he could gain the confidence of my staff and customers, and dig for information and clues. In the process, he discovered how my synesthesia helped when it came to interpreting crime scenes, analyzing clues, or talking to witnesses and suspects. With the help of some of my customers, who formed the basis for what would become the Capone Club, we solved the murders of both Ginny and my father.

Intrigued by my ability, Duncan invited me along to some other crime scenes, where I was able to pick up on subtle clues that led to solving the cases. Duncan started calling me his secret weapon, and I relished the fact that my synesthesia was finally making itself useful. Instead of feeling like it was a shameful secret I needed to hide, I began to think of it as my superpower. We made a great team. I enjoyed helping Duncan, and he reaped the benefits of my abilities. Unfortunately, not everyone saw it the way we did, and things got messy fast.

The press caught on to me, and sensationalistic news stories started cropping up about the police using magic, witchcraft, and voodoo to solve their crimes. Then I got a little careless on one case and ended up nearly getting shot. Endangering a layperson in this manner didn’t sit well with Duncan’s bosses, and, as a result, he was suspended for a few weeks and ordered not to associate with me.

This might not have been a huge issue but for two things. One, I had invited Duncan into my bed as well as into my life by then, and we were in the process of exploring the potential behind our relationship. Letting go of that wasn’t easy. And two, I’d discovered I liked this crime-solving stuff, and putting my synesthesia to good use. The intrinsic high it gave me was strangely intoxicating and I didn’t want to let it go. My synesthesia had been an albatross around my neck most of my life; almost literally so because whenever I grew nervous about exposing it, or revealing it to someone for the first time, it triggered an uncomfortable strangling sensation around my throat.

As if Duncan’s suspension and the edict to avoid me weren’t big enough nails in the coffin of our relationship, things got even more complicated when I attracted the attention of a deadly stalker, someone who wrote letters that demanded I solve a series of complicated puzzles by a prescribed deadline, and do so using only my “special talent” without the assistance of Duncan or the police. The consequence of failing to do so was the death of someone close to me. The letter writer proved this wasn’t an idle threat by killing one of my customers—someone who was also part of the Capone Club—and using the first letter I received to tell me where the body was. Then, a week or so later, my bouncer, Gary Gunderson, was murdered in cold blood when I failed to correctly interpret clues in one of the letters by the set deadline.

After several harrowing and frightening weeks of skulking around so I could still see Duncan with no one being the wiser, the stalker was finally exposed and caught. Sadly, it turned out my stalker wasn’t a lone wolf. One of the trusted members of the Capone Club was working with the culprit, and the whole thing left everyone involved reeling and feeling unsettled. We were all struggling at that point to regain some semblance of normalcy.

For me, the definition of normalcy remained unclear. In our hunt for the stalker, I was approached at one point by Mark Holland, the chief of police, and Tony Dixon, the current DA, both of whom had decided that a philosophy of if you can’t beat them, join them was their best recourse. In a period of a few days, I went from being persona non grata with the police department to being invited to work with them on a consulting basis. While I suspect the motives of the chief and the DA were primarily political in nature, given an upcoming election, their offer benefited me in enough ways that I decided to accept their invitation. It not only allowed me to use my synesthesia in a way that was intrinsically rewarding, it provided me with a new stream of income, and freed me to openly pursue my relationship with Duncan.

So, after a year of incredible loss, emotional pain, tumult, and confusion, I found myself starting the new year with a renewed sense of hope for the future. Ironically, it resulted in me standing in a home and staring at a dead man on the anniversary of my father’s murder. I couldn’t decide if this was a good omen or not.

I’d been brought to the murder scene by Duncan, who was with me in my apartment when he got the call. Knowing it was the anniversary of my father’s death, he had made it a point to be with me. And because of the day it was, he had offered me an out when he got the call, even though my presence in my new role as a consultant had been requested. It took me less than ten seconds to decide what I wanted to do. I welcomed the distraction.

We drove to the site together in Duncan’s car. I was encumbered by a cast on my left leg, the result of a car accident that had delayed me from making it to one of my stalker’s locations. It was a delay that Gary Gunderson had paid for with his life. The cast was a nuisance in many ways. Not only did it make negotiating the icy winter streets a dicey prospect, my leg itched like mad underneath it, an annoying sensation that left me with a near-constant taste in my mouth of what I can only describe as salty dirt. It also smelled odd, which triggered a crunching sound that provided background noise all day to everything else. Fortunately, I was hoping to get the thing off soon. It had been just over five weeks with it so far, and I had an appointment with the doctor in the morning to see how well the bones had healed. For now, I was stuck with the thing and the crutches that went with it.

The home Duncan drove us to was in an upper-middle-class neighborhood that consisted of houses built during the first half of the twentieth century that had belonged to well-to-do German American families in their heyday. During the 1980s, the neighborhood had become a hotbed of crime, and many of the homes fell into disrepair. At the turn of this century, much of the crime was pushed out, the streets were cleaned up, and many of the homes were bought by people who intended to fix them up and restore them to their original glory. Now, fully gentrified, the neighborhood had become a popular one for young families, and it served as home to a mix of ethnic and economic groups.

The particular house Duncan steered me toward was a midcentury ranch-style built of brick. A large picture window in the front had blinds drawn across it, and the front door was a solid slab of wood. Though it was bitterly cold outside, the sun was shining, and when Duncan opened the door and steered me inside, I was temporarily blinded. It was dark, with only a lamp on in the living room and an overhead light in the dining area off to the right. As my eyes adjusted to the darker interior, I realized we were standing in a large, open great room: a combined living, dining, and kitchen area separated by a pony wall and counter between the living room and kitchen. The furnishings were Danish modern style, and the color scheme was blandly neutral in varying shades of beige.

While the visual impact of entering the house was a mild one, I was immediately assaulted by the sound of shrill, high-pitched notes that sounded like they came from a trumpet. I recognized the sound right away as my synesthetic reaction to the smell of blood, and I knew then that the crime scene would be a messy one.

There was a bag by the door that contained paper booties and two boxes of gloves, one large and one medium. Duncan helped me put a bootie on my casted foot—which only had a heavy sock covering it because I didn’t have a shoe that would fit over it—as well as my other foot, and then he handed me a pair of latex gloves.

“Do I have to bootie my crutches?” I asked him. I was making a joke, but Duncan seemed to consider the question seriously.

After a moment, he shook his head. “I think it will be fine,” he said.

There were five people—all of them men—standing in the dining room area next to a table, and Duncan steered me toward them. One by one they all turned and stared at me: two uniformed officers, two guys in casual street clothes, and one man in dress slacks, a dress shirt, and a tie. Their expressions as they watched us approach ranged from curious to suspicious. All but one of the men were still wearing their outdoor coats, and they looked uncomfortably warm. I had a feeling I’d be joining them soon. Dressing for the single-digit temperature outside left one seriously overdressed for the toasty warmth inside. But I supposed it was a discomfort one would have to bear because removing our coats would have risked contaminating the scene.

Duncan made the introductions. “Gentlemen, this is Mack Dalton. I suspect most if not all of you have heard about her in some form or another. She is here today because the Milwaukee PD has hired her on as a consultant to help us in assessing and analyzing both our crime scenes and any persons of interest related to those crimes. Mack has some unique abilities in this regard, and I promise you, she will enhance our efforts. Today is her first official day on the job as a consultant for us, so please be kind.”

Duncan then pointed to the two uniformed officers, a Hispanic fellow who looked like he was barely out of high school and a big African American guy who looked like a linebacker. “This is Miguel Ortega, and this is Hank Johnson,” Duncan said, gesturing toward each of the men in turn.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Hank said with a nod, his voice as deep and rumbly as an earthquake. It tasted like potatoes. “I heard about you from Nick Kavinsky,” he went on. Then he smiled. “He says you da cat’s meow.”

Nick was one of the uniformed cops who participated in the Capone Club on a regular basis. I’d been told by others in the group that Nick had something of a crush on me, and I wasn’t sure what to make of Hank’s repeated remark. So I smiled back at him and said, “Thank you, I think.”

“That guy over there is Wesley Donovan, one of our evidence technicians,” Duncan went on, pointing to the only person not dressed for the frozen tundra, a thirtysomething, short fellow holding a computer tablet of some sort. Duncan then pointed toward a tall, balding, older man in street clothes, who had his parka unzipped but still on. “And that’s Charlie Hammerman, another one of our evidence techs.”

Finally, Duncan gestured toward the guy in a suit and tie, a somewhat portly fellow in his late forties or early fifties with a heavily lined and wrinkled face that I suspected had seen lots of life, sun, and cigarettes. “And the overdressed fellow over there is Mike Linz, a detective from this district. This is his case.”

No one said anything once Duncan was done, so I smiled at all of them and said, “I’m mostly here just to observe. If I do anything that interferes with your jobs in any way, or if you have any questions for me, please don’t hesitate to speak up. I’m here to help, not hinder you.”

Linz shifted his narrow-eyed gaze from me to Duncan and said, “Just what, exactly, is she supposed to do?”

His voice was hoarse and gravelly and tasted like raisins. I didn’t miss the fact that he asked his question of Duncan, effectively dismissing and ignoring me. Before Duncan could provide an answer, I jumped in.

“I have a neurological disorder called synesthesia,” I explained. “It’s a complex and complicated disorder, but I can sum it up best by telling you that I have extremely heightened senses and can see, smell, hear, and feel things that other people can’t.”

Linz’s eyes narrowed even more, but he said nothing.

Duncan jumped in and said, “It will make more sense if you just let her show you.”

With that, the men shifted, turned, and separated, milling out around the table and allowing me my first glimpse of the victim.

The dead man was lying face down near the wooden dining table. The top of the table was covered with a spray of blood, and there were spatters of it on the back wall of the room and the drapes hanging in a window there. There was an expensive-looking wool rug beneath the table, a concession to the large expanse of hardwood floors. The original colors in the rug were black and white, a speckled pattern that reminded me of the static one used to see on a TV screen in the precable days once a station signed off. This pattern was now marred by a large splotch of dark red blood emanating from around the victim’s head, with smaller specks of the same red spattered outside its circumference.

These observations were my first impressions, each one accompanied by a secondary sensory experience. I had known as soon as we entered the house that there would be a lot of blood because I could smell it, and I also knew that a gun had been fired because I could smell gunpowder, too. Each of these smells came with an accompanying sound: those shrill, high-pitched notes of a trumpet in the case of the blood, and something akin to a plucked string on a ukulele in the case of the gunpowder. These smells and sounds were in addition to numerous other smells I picked up on, including the various aftershaves used by the men in the room, the scent of their laundry detergents, the smells of the house itself, and the odors from the various soaps and shampoos used by those in the room. And this covered just one of my senses.

My first task was to sort through all my reactions to determine which ones were real and which were synesthetic, and to determine what exactly I was reacting to. This parsing of my sensual data is something I’ve learned to do over the years. When I was younger, it didn’t take much in the way of jeering remarks and scathing looks from other kids before I learned to keep my reactions to myself until I could determine which ones were what the other kids considered normal. Over the years I have become accustomed to my synesthetic reactions enough to know what each one is related to most of the time. However, my work with Duncan has exposed me to a lot of new experiences and situations, and as a result I have a whole host of new reactions to deal with and interpret.

One of my regular customers at the bar, as well as a founding member of the Capone Club, is helping me with this. Cora Kingsley, a single, fortysomething, man-crazy tech wizard is my right-hand man, or in this case woman. Cora owns her own company, one that deals with computer hardware and software, providing consulting services to individuals and other companies. Like me, Cora is a redhead, though her color comes from a box whereas mine is natural. Cora has taken it upon herself to create a database of my synesthetic reactions to everything in the world around me. It’s been an eyeopening experience for both of us, and although it’s an overwhelming task at times, it has proven useful.

In addition to helping me better understand and track my synesthesia, Cora is also the closest thing I have to a sister. I have no family of my own anymore; my father’s death essentially left me alone. But I have an adopted family of sorts that includes Cora, as well as two elderly brothers, Joe and Frank Signoriello. The brothers have been coming to the bar every day since my father opened the place. Both made their living as insurance salesmen, but now that they were in their seventies, they were retired. They, like Cora, are my most trusted confidantes, and now that my father is gone, they do their best to fill his role, like two doting, elderly, dear uncles. I’ve grown close to other customers who are regulars in my bar, but none are as close to me as Cora, Joe, and Frank.

Then there’s Duncan. Our relationship has been a confusing one, complicated by several things, including the edict issued by my letter-writing stalker to stay away from him at all costs. To appear to comply with this demand but still ensure my safety, Duncan had arranged for a friend of his, Malachi O’Reilly, to step in and serve as my pretend new boyfriend. Since Malachi—or Mal, as most of us called him—was also a cop currently working an undercover assignment, this little subterfuge came in handy. What didn’t come in handy were the very real feelings that had developed between Mal and me. He laid his cards out on the table, letting me know how he felt, and giving me time to weigh my own feelings. I liked Mal a lot; I would even say I cared for him a great deal. But there was something between me and Duncan—a spark, a thrill of excitement, a depth of feeling—I didn’t have with Mal. To his credit, Mal took the rejection well, and I knew I could count him among those I called close friends or even family.

The men in the room watched me, standing around and waiting for me to do or say something. I had no idea what they might be expecting but figured I should probably get with the program sooner rather than later. So I started talking, explaining aloud about the various synesthetic reactions I was having to the scene before me.

“In addition to having highly acute senses, I also experience every sense with at least one other one. For instance, I hear a lot of shrill, high-pitched trumpet notes right now, and I know that sound goes with the smell of blood. I also hear a note that sounds like it’s being plucked on the strings of a ukulele over and over again. That sound I recognize as going with the smell of gunpowder. So I can tell a gun was fired in here re. . .