Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(30)

“It starts picking up in here about five. She came in maybe an hour later. She left just before eight. A bunch left around then, which gave me some breathing room, and I didn’t see her after that. The place was hopping.”

“What’d you serve her?” Lonergan asked. “Seeing as she was underage.”

“Diet Coke. Two. Out of a bottle, not a glass. You know, you got no shot at winning Mr. Congeniality anywhere. Just saying.”

Foster glanced around the bar, noting the security cameras. “We’d like to take a look at your cameras. That going to be a problem?”

Valentine’s eyes stayed on Lonergan’s. “You’ll have to talk to the manager. Like I said, I just pour. Cameras aren’t my deal.”

“He here?” Lonergan asked.

“She’s in her office.”

The three stood quietly for a half moment.

“Want me to call her?” Valentine asked.

Foster offered a patient smile. “Please.”



The manager was Maureen Pike, or Mo, as Valentine called her. Foster pegged her to be in her mid-to late sixties. Her auburn hair, dyed to an unnatural tone, was scooped up into a top bun, and cat-eye glasses hung from a chain around her neck, hitting her ample bosom dead center. The back room looked like it served as office, locker room, and break room, smelling of old coats, boiled soup, and long-ago-eaten ham sandwiches. Pike, like Valentine, didn’t look happy to see them.

“We didn’t serve her,” Pike said right out of the gate. “Giles knows to check ID. And we’re not just a bar, right? We’re a bar and restaurant. We serve burgers and fries, fish and chips. We have a full menu. So if you’re thinking she left out of here half in the bag, you’d be wrong.”

“Sounds like you remember her too,” Lonergan said.

“I saw her.”

“At the bar,” Lonergan said. “Her being nineteen.”

“No law against pouring the kid a pop. Look, I get it. I’ve got grandkids. I can guarantee you she didn’t get served here. I’d stake my life on it.”

“Right,” Lonergan said. “You got footage of last night or not?”

Pike keyed up the playback on the security footage and then slid her chair back for the cops to gather in to get a better look.

Hoping not to see Keith Ainsley anywhere, Foster watched the screen as smoky images of the front of the house ran past, starting at around four the previous day. The camera faced the door, focusing on the south side of the bar and a few tables, mostly those closer to the window. There was Valentine working the bar, paying particular attention to the female clientele. The bar was crowded, everyone appearing to be in a good mood.

“Busy for a Sunday,” Pike offered, “thanks to the march. That meant dollars for us and every other place around here. Poor kid. How was she killed?”

Foster shook her head. “Sorry. Can’t discuss that.”

“The news said mugging,” Pike said. “We get a lot of that down here. Tourists mostly. They forget where they are and put their guards down. They call the police, of course, but it’s not like you people bust a sweat looking for anybody. But every incident impacts us, you know? People don’t feel safe, they don’t come out. They don’t come out, we don’t make money. We don’t make money, I end up living in a box under a bridge, and I don’t get to help my grandkids get to college. See how it goes? Last year, some idiot tossed a brick through my car window. Cops wouldn’t even come out to take the report.”

Lonergan turned from the screen to stare at Pike. “You file a complaint?”

“Get real. We both know what happens with complaints. The old File Thirteen, am I right? I feel sick about the kid, though. She was all smiles yesterday; now she’s dead. Sucks. This area gets its fair share of drunken idiots who end up floating face down in the river. Not from here, though. I got no problem cutting people off. But like I said, she never got served an ounce in here.”

Lonergan’s eyes narrowed. “File Thirteen. You ex-military?”

Pike nodded, then gave him a sly grin. “You see me, I see you. Jarhead, right? Most humorless bunch of jokers I ever met. Me? Army. Fifteen years. So when I say I run a tight team, I run a tight fucking team.”

Lonergan looked at Pike as though she’d passed a test, then turned back to the screen, his eyes focused on the footage as Pike forwarded the playback up to 6:00 p.m., when Valentine had put her in the bar.

Foster pointed at the screen. “There’s Birch. At the bar. Pink backpack.”

The young woman was alive, laughing, talking, a bottle of Diet Coke in her hand, a gang of revelers crowded around her. She had no idea that her life would soon be cut short. “There’s Valentine. Busy, like he said.” He was wearing the fedora, tilted, and appeared to be in the swing of things, pouring drinks, engaging with patrons, leaning across the bar to flirt with a middle-aged woman in a tight black dress.

“Valentine always flirt while he’s working?” Foster asked.

“He fancies himself a Casanova type,” Pike said. “He’s a popular guy with a certain kind of gal.”

Lonergan grumbled, “The kind being married but pretendin’ they aren’t?”

Pike chuckled. “You got it. The ones looking for a one-off. But he’ll take the young and stupid ones, too, if he can move fast enough to catch one of them.”