The Narrows(47)

“Hey, Ben. Haven’t seen you in a while,” Alvin Toops said, sliding down to Ben’s end of the bar. Toops was a big truck of a guy, with tattoos up and down his arms and a shaved head. A gold hoop hung from each earlobe. “Get you a beer?”

“I’m on the clock. Make it a cranberry and club soda. You still got those minicheeseburgers?”

“Sure do.”

“I’ll have some of those, too.”

Alvin Toops punched Ben’s order onto an LCD screen behind the bar. Then he dumped some cranberry juice into a highball glass, squirted some seltzer into it, and slid it in front of Ben. “How’d the old homestead hold up in the storm?” Toops asked.

“Got some flooding in the cellar,” Ben said, “but otherwise, all is good.”

“Good for you. I didn’t get no flooding up at the house, or here either, for that matter. The power knocking out cost me a small fortune in supplies I had to dump, and Trish chewed my ear off about it, like it was my fault. Like I did some kind of rain dance or something.”

“They’re calling for another storm by the end of the week,” Ben informed him, sipping his cran and soda.

“I heard. I need to get some fuel for the generator for this place. I can’t afford to lose another shipment.”

When the minicheeseburgers arrived, Ben shook copious amounts of ketchup on them then ate them slowly and methodically, like a cow chewing cud. When Ben drained his glass, Alvin Toops appeared to refill it.

“Thanks,” Ben said. “Can I ask you a question? It’s a police question.”

Toops laughed. “Shoot. Am I in trouble?”

“Just a witness,” Ben said, then added, “maybe.”

“Go for it.”

“Did you see Maggie Quedentock in here Friday night?”

“Sure did.” Toops pointed toward the far end of the bar. “Sat right over there.”

“Was she alone?”

“She came in alone,” Toops said, his brows knitted in recollection, “but she talked to a few people throughout the night.”

“About what time did she get here?”

“Maybe seven.”

“And what time did she leave?”

“Not sure. Maybe eight or so.”

“So she didn’t stay very long,” Ben said around a mouthful of cheeseburger.

“Nope.”

“How much did she have to drink?”

“I’m really not sure, Ben. I could pull the receipts and have a look for you.”

“Could you? Is that too much trouble?”

“It’s either that or cater to these deadbeats all night.”

“Hey,” growled one of the deadbeats within earshot.

“If you don’t mind,” Ben said.

“No sweat.” Alvin Toops swiped a dish towel across the top of the bar. “Mrs. Quedentock in some kind of trouble?”

“Just a little fender-bender Friday night,” he said. “Nobody got hurt, except maybe her pride.” He hoped he sounded somewhat disinterested about the whole matter.

“I’ll get right on it,” Toops said, slinging the dish towel over one shoulder and moving toward the bar’s back room.

When he returned with a single receipt, Ben was just finishing up his meal. He downed the rest of his cranberry and soda, dabbed the corners of his mouth with a paper napkin, then took the receipt Alvin Toops handed him.

“It took me a while to find it,” Toops said. “I was searching for her name but I’d forgot that Tom Schuler picked up her tab.”

“Oh yeah?” The receipt showed just two beers: a Heineken and a Budweiser. She hadn’t drunk much at all, assuming one of those beers was Tom’s. The time on the receipt read 8:12 p.m.

“I can make you a copy of it, if you want,” Toops offered.

Ben handed him the receipt back. “That’s okay. Just curious, I guess. No need to make a federal case.”

“Roger that,” Toops said, examining the receipt himself now, as if able to divine something from it. He stuffed it into the breast pocket of his shirt just as Ben tossed his balled-up napkin onto his plate.



4



Later, Ben arrived at the station to find things quiet. Shirley was in the dispatch office, feeding her goldfish and playing her iPod through a set of small plastic speakers on her desk. Without checking the roster, he knew Platt and Haggis had the evening shift, though he was willing to cut one of them loose since they’d gotten up early that morning to assist with the search for Matthew Crawly. Let them bang it out between the two of them which one should get to go home.

“Joe and Mel around?” he asked Shirley, leaning in the doorway.

“They’re out at Ted Minsky’s farm on a call.” She set the jar of fish food down beside the fish tank then turned around in her swivel chair. She wore a pair of bifocals halfway down her nose. “Another call about mutilated livestock.”

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“They just left, if you wanted to catch them.”

Ben rubbed his tired eyes.

“What time did you get up this morning?”

“I don’t know. Four thirty, maybe.”

“You’re really worried about Wendy’s kid. You think something bad happened to him.”