Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(60)

Connie raised her hands and covered her face. Behind her fingers, she squeaked and wept. Joe reached out and touched her shoulder and said he was sorry for what had happened to her friend.

“He never did nothing to deserve what happened to him,” she said through sobs. “When you walked through that door tonight all alone, for a second I thought it was Bert. He always came alone.”

Joe didn’t respond for a moment.

“It’s not like it looks,” Connie said, suddenly defensive. “We don’t spend every Thanksgiving at the bar. We’re not here twenty-four/seven. But we like to sit here and unwind and watch the Steelers. I just didn’t feel like cooking for myself today, so . . . we ate down at the Catholic church. Then we came for a beer and ended up staying the whole damned night.

“I’m a good cook,” she said emphatically.

Joe looked at John. Behind her, John shook his head, indicating she wasn’t.

“How well did you know Bert Kizer?” Joe asked. “Did you know him pretty well?”

Connie swiveled on her stool to John and they both arched their eyebrows in unison, as if agreeing among themselves that it was okay to talk.

John said, “I guess we knew him as well as anyone. He kept to himself, but you tend to have all kinds of conversations when you’re sitting side by side with a guy drinking beer for hours. Some of them you even remember later.” He laughed. “We solved a lot of the world’s problems, Bert and me. Too bad no one listens to us.”

“To me, Bert wasn’t a big talker,” Connie said. “I think he was divorced and he might even have had a kid somewhere, but he never talked about them. But ask him a question about fishing or hunting . . . Christ. He’d go on and on.”

“What about that guy at the end of the bar?” Joe asked sotto voce. He glanced at the billy-goat man surreptitiously over his shoulder. The man was either listening intensely or lost in his own thoughts. “Did Bert talk to that guy?”

Both Connie and John shook their heads emphatically, as if to say, “No one talks to him.”

“Okay,” Joe said, nodding. “What I’m trying to figure out is who could have done this to him and why. Did he ever talk about having enemies?”

Connie and John looked at each other again. John said, “Not really. He was pretty pissed at a couple of out-of-state clients who stiffed him last summer, but I never got the impression they were enemies of any kind. He didn’t like politicians and he wasn’t shy about insulting them, but I can’t think of anyone else who might not have liked him. At least enough to do this.”

“What kind of situation was he in financially?” Joe asked. “Any idea?”

“Bert couldn’t rub two nickels together the whole time I knew him,” John said, shaking his head.

“Not that he wasn’t generous when he was flush,” Connie interceded. “When he got a big cash tip, he was in here buying for the rest of the night until it was gone.”

“So it’s likely he wasn’t saving any of it?” Joe said. “That was some speculation I heard: that maybe he was hoarding cash and somebody wanted it. Or that they thought he was hoarding cash.”

John shook his head again. “Anybody who knew Bert or saw his place would know he was dead broke. Money just burned a hole in his pocket.”

Joe sipped the rest of the beer and tapped his glass for another. He indicated to the bartender to serve another round to the Sheftics as well. They gladly accepted.

“Since you two seem to have known him about as well as anyone, did the sheriff talk to you about Bert?” Joe asked.

They said no. He wasn’t surprised.

Joe said, “If he did, is there anything you would tell him about Bert? For example, did he indicate to you that he was expecting company?”

“No, nothing,” John said. “Believe me, we’d try to help out. Whoever did this to Bert needs to go down. Connie and I have been talking about it all day. For the life of us, we can’t figure out why anybody would want to hurt him. We wish we could help.”

Joe believed them.

“I think it was strangers,” Connie said. “Itinerants. I think it was random.”

Joe looked at her.

She said, “Since the pandemic, there have been a lot of strange homeless people out there.” She indicated “out there” with a wave of her hand in the general direction of the mountains. “People left cities and now they’re just drifting around. We seen ’em in campgrounds last summer and they’re still out there. I think some homeless people found Bert’s place and hurt him for no good reason.”

“It’s a theory,” Joe said to be conciliatory.

“Connie has lots of theories,” John said with an eye roll.

The billy-goat man at the end of the bar suddenly cleared his throat with a wet, hacking sound that made Connie and Joe cringe.

“Tell him about the treasure,” the man croaked. He’d obviously been eavesdropping the entire conversation.

“The treasure?” Joe repeated.

Connie and John again exchanged glances.

Connie said, “That’s what Bert called it, anyway. He told us about it once when he was really, really hammered. Bert said he had a treasure that belonged to his old man and he was trying to figure out how much it was worth.”