Partner In Crime (20 page)

I looked around. Cornelia Lester had mentioned speaking to the man who ran an antique shop next door. Because the gallery meandered down the street and filled three adjacent storefront buildings, next door was actually three doors away in a place called Treasure Trove Antiques.

I went there and let myself into a musty, dusty place stacked high with mountains of junk some people had thrown out of their lives. No doubt other people would be happy to part with far too much of their own hard-earned cash to bring the cast-off crap into theirs.

A bow-legged guy in cowboy boots and a Western shirt sat in a faded leather morris chair with a thousand-dollar price tag. He took off a pair of wire-rimmed glasses as he looked up from the paperback he was reading. “Howdy,” he said. “Let me know if I can be of any help. Don’t like to smother people. Not my style.”

I pulled out my badge and held it up for him to look at it. I hoped the combination of bad lighting and slightly below-par eyesight would fix it so he didn’t get that good a look. “Actually,” I said, “I understand the lady who owns the gallery next door has gone missing.”

“Sure enough,” he said. “Dee’s gone, and so is that jerk of a boyfriend of hers—Warren something or other. They’ve been gone almost two full days now. If Dee’s come to any harm, I’m guessing that Bobo Jenkins from up Brewery Gulch way might’ve had something to do with it. He was in there raising so much hell the other day—Thursday morning, it was—that the sheriff had to show up with her siren screaming and lights flashing just to calm things down. This here’s a quiet little town,” he added. “Don’t get a lot of that—lights and sirens, I mean.”

I jotted down the name. “You said Bobo Jenkins?”

“Yup. Used to own a place called the Blue Moon Saloon up in Brewery Gulch. I believe he sold it a couple of months back. I was outside having a smoke Thursday morning. That’s the thing with all the dad-gummed rules and regulations we have nowadays. A man can’t smoke in his own shop even when he ain’t hurtin’ nobody but his own damned self. So I was outside smoking when ol’ Bobo comes charging up the street like the devil hisself is after him. I do mean he was movin’. Not jogging. Not trotting along, but outright running. Looked mad enough to chew nails. Next thing I know, he’s in the gallery and him and Dee are screaming at each other something fierce.”

“Did you hear what was said?”

“I’m not one of them eavesdroppers. Even if I had heard, I pro’ly wouldn’t say. But it was loud, I can tell you that much. And they didn’t stop carrying on until Sheriff Brady showed up and made ’em. I didn’t vote for her, you understand, but I got to give her credit. She’s no bigger ‘n a minute, but the sheriff’s a feisty one, I’ll say that for her. She busted that argument right up. The next thing I know, Bobo was walkin’ down the street carryin’ this big old picture, and lookin’ like someone’d just told him to shut up and get the hell out.”

Sheriff Brady may be feisty,
I thought,
but she’s also one closed-mouthed little bitch!

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate the help. Your name is?”

“Harvey,” he replied. “Harvey Dowd. Most people call me Harve. And you?”

“Beaumont,” I told him. “J.P. As I said, you’ve been a big help, Mr. Dowd. Now, if you could direct me to the place you told me about. The one that Mr. Jenkins owns . . .”

“The Blue Moon?”

I nodded.

“Sure. That’s no trouble. You walkin’ or drivin’?”

“Walking.”

“Well, sir, you just go right down this here hill. Stick to the main drag. You’ll go through town and past the park. Turn left at the end of the park and just walk straight ahead until you get there. It’ll be on the left. Believe me, you can’t miss it.”

You’d be surprised,
I thought, but I set out with a spring in my step. Part of the spring was due to the fact that I’d finally gotten around to having the bone spurs removed from my heels. And it helped that it was all downhill. But something else—something perfectly simple—made me feel downright gleeful as I walked back down through the narrow two-lane street Harve Dowd had called Bisbee’s “main drag.” Nothing could possibly have improved my state of mind more than having a lead Sheriff Joanna Brady hadn’t given me and obviously didn’t want me to have.

Now, before she had a chance to stop me, I was going to see what I could do with it.

I
F YOU’RE A STRANGER IN TOWN
and want to dig up a few pertinent details about someone local, it’s a good bet to go where his friends might possibly hang out, keep a low profile, and listen like crazy. Which is why I left Treasure Trove Antiques and headed immediately for the Blue Moon.

As far as I could tell, Brewery Gulch is actually a street rather than a gulch. It looked a bit bedraggled and worn around the edges. In fact, it could easily have doubled for an old-time movie set. Brewery Gulch evidently did once boast a working brewery. In fact, there was a decrepit building bearing a sign that said brewery. But professional beer making in Bisbee, Arizona, had long since passed into oblivion. A single restaurant survived inside the brick-fronted hulk, but little else.

Other buildings along Brewery Gulch were similarly ramshackle. Many storefronts exhibited faded for rent signs. Others were entirely boarded up. Not so the Blue Moon Saloon and Lounge. That establishment was hopping. Thirty or so big, honking Harleys sat angle-parked outside along the curb. I’m an officer of the law. I don’t generally feel welcome in places of business frequented by bikers.

Looking at the building, I saw no reason the Blue Moon, unlike its nearest neighbors, hadn’t closed down years ago. I stepped inside, hoping the place wouldn’t fall down around my ears.

My eyes had to go from bright sunlight to hardly any light at all. When my pupils finally had adjusted, I saw that the interior of the Blue Moon was in better shape than the exterior. Reasonably new linoleum covered the floor. Pedestal cocktail tables scattered throughout the room were jammed with leather-clad, chain-wearing bikers, all of them drinking and smoking. A few were clearly well on their way to being drunk while others were just gearing up. Ironically, the atmosphere reminded me of a Twelve-Step biker bar a friend of mine used to run up on Eighty-fifth in Seattle’s Greenwood District. This establishment, however, was definitely not alcohol-free—not even close.

Beyond the tables, a magnificent wooden bar that dated from the eighteen hundreds ran the length of the long, narrow room. The bar, like the tables, appeared to be fully occupied except for a single seat three stools from the end wall, where dreary, painted-over windows obscured all trace of outside light.

Grabbing that one empty stool, I immediately understood why it had been left unoccupied. My neighbors to the right were two crippled old geezers who looked like escapees from a low-rent retirement home. Two walkers were stowed in what I had thought to be available leg space. Unfortunately, I noticed the walkers the hard way—by banging my kneecap, full force, into the handle of one of them.

“Sorry about that,” the guy nearest me said. “Let me haul that thing out of your way.”

“No,” I said, rubbing my bruised knee. “It’s fine where it is.”

“Hate having to drag that thing around with me everywhere I go, but it beats being locked up at home.”

“What can I get you?” someone asked.

I turned away from the old man to find myself facing what had to be the Blue Moon’s greatest asset—a killer blond bartender. She was a gorgeous young woman whose lush good looks would have turned heads at a Miss America Pageant.

“O’Doul’s,” I replied.

“Sure thing,” she said. I watched as she walked briskly away. My obvious admiration didn’t pass unnoticed.

“Look but don’t touch,” my neighbor advised. “Angie’s happily married, and she don’t take nonsense off nobody.”

I scanned the room for evidence of another bartender, cocktail waitress, or bouncer who might lend Angie a hand if the band of bikers started acting up. I saw no one. Filling glasses at the distant tap, Angie seemed totally unruffled by her roomful of tough customers. Obviously Angie was more than just a pretty face. And body.

When she returned with my bottle of alcohol-free O’Doul’s, Angie brought along two brimming glasses of beer. She set those in front of my neighbors, picked up their two empties, and then turned to me.

“That’ll be three bucks,” she said.

I pulled a ten out of my wallet and handed it over. As she walked back down the bar to the cash register, my neighbor leaned over to me. “It’s getting close to the end of the month,” he confided in a beery-breathed whisper. “Angie’s real good about carrying me an’ Willy till our checks catch up with us the first of the month, if you know what I mean.”

So Angie wasn’t above running a tab. The practice was most likely illegal, but it was something the two guys at the end of the bar really appreciated.

“You from around here?” I asked.

The man’s loud burst of laughter was punctuated by an equally loud belch. “You hear that, Willy?” he demanded, clapping his buddy on the shoulder.

“Hear what?” Willy asked.

“This fella wants to know if we’re from around here.”

Willy grinned at that, and they both laughed uproariously. Since they thought my question utterly hilarious, I took that to mean they were natives.

Angie returned with my change and laid it on the polished surface of the bar. “Are these guys bothering you?” she asked, giving my two bar mates a searing look.

“No,” I said. “Not at all.”

She raised a warning finger. “You and Willy behave yourselves, Arch,” she said. “You bother any of the other customers and you two are out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” a seriously chastened Archie replied. “We’ll be good.”

“Wha’d she say?” Willy asked.

“We got to behave,” Archie shouted.

“Right,” Willy agreed, raising his glass. “Absolutely.”

It seemed unlikely that I would glean any useful information from this pair of doddering old drunks, so I turned hopefully toward my neighbors on the other side. No luck there. The person next to me—someone I had actually thought to be a guy—turned out to be a leather-booted, leather-jacketed babe whose face was almost as well-tanned as the cowhide she wore on the rest of her body. When I glanced in her direction, the man next to her glowered back at me in the mirror. Resigned, I returned to Archie.

“Who owns this place?” I asked.

Archie frowned. “Why’d you want to know?”

I shrugged. “Maybe I’m thinking about making some investments around town,” I offered. “Maybe I’d like to buy it.”

“No way!” Archie glowered. “The Blue Moon’s not for sale.”

“Wha’d he say?” Willy asked. The man must have been stone- deaf. As far as I could tell, that was his only line.

“If you know it’s not for sale, you must be the owner then,” I remarked casually.

“Angie and her husband own it,” Archie allowed, nodding toward the shapely blonde. “Bought it off Bobo Jenkins a couple of months ago, and it’s a good thing, too. Bobo was tired of running it. Can’t blame him there. Workin’ too hard’s not good for you. ‘Sides, I hear he’s thinking about running for mayor. You ask me, he’d do a helluva job. If I ever get a chance, you can bet I’ll vote for him, too.

“Bobo might’ve just closed up the place and walked away. Locked the door and throwed away the key. Lucky for us, Angie come along and saved our bacon. She and that husband of hers offered to buy it off him, and he sold, just like that. The place runs a little irregular now. You can’t always count on it being open.”

“Does Angie’s husband work here, too?” I asked.

Archie sipped his beer and shook his head. “Hacker’s an odd duck. He’s a Brit and a bird-watcher besides. Does something with birds. I’m not sure what. So when he goes out into the boonies to do whatever it is he does, Angie sometimes shuts the place down and goes with him. Who can blame her? They’re newlyweds, after all. Why shouldn’t she? But that’s mostly during the week. Weekends the place is open regular, like it should be.

“It’s like I told my good friend Willy here. So what if we can’t always count on the hours? It’s better than having no Blue Moon at all. Me and Willy’ve been coming here for what, forty years now? I’d hate like hell to see it shut down and boarded up.”

“What?” Willy asked.

“Never mind,” Archie told him. “Just drink your beer. The man’s deaf as a post, you see,” Archie explained unnecessarily to me. “Too many years of working with dynamite in the mines. You ever been in a mine?”

“No,” I said. “I never have.”
And never wanted to, either,
I thought.

“They’ve got theirselves a underground tour over across the way, in case you’re interested,” he suggested. “Takes you right back into the mountain.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said.

What I really wanted was information about Bobo Jenkins. If I could manage to prime Archie’s pump, I guessed he’d turn out to be a veritable fountain of information, some of which might be useful.

“I hear there’s been some trouble around town the last few days,” I suggested innocently.

Archie took a sip of beer and then slammed his glass onto the bar, splashing beer in every direction. “Boy howdy!” he exclaimed. “If that ain’t the truth! Poor old Bobo. Me and Willy’ve knowed that man for years and years, ever since he come to town and bought this joint. In all that time, he wasn’t never sweet on anybody before that Shelley Baxter woman showed up. They just seemed to click, know what I mean?

“Not that I’m prejudiced or nothing,” he continued, “but I like it when whites stay with whites, blacks stay with blacks, and Mexicans stay with Mexicans. That’s how God Almighty meant for things to work. But there weren’t hardly no black women in town for Bobo to hook up with, so he was sort of a lone wolf. Then she turned up and put a smile on his face.”

If Archie wasn’t prejudiced, then Willy wasn’t deaf, either. I kept my mouth shut and let him talk.

“But now Bobo’s girlfriend, this Shelley, up and died at her place down in Naco. That’s Naco, Arizona, not Naco, Sonora, you see. So what do the cops do? This morning they haul poor ol’ Bobo’s ass into the sheriff’s office for questioning. Like they think maybe he did it. Like maybe he’s responsible for what happened to her. I was telling Angie a little while ago, it’s all so much BS. I didn’t use that word, of course, not in front of the lady. But between you and I, that’s what it is. All bullshit—and knee-deep, too.