Page 10 of Cast in Shadow
It was midafternoon, and the place was pretty dead. No more than half a dozen patrons occupied the space. Among those were three older guys who sat at a scarred square table, their attention temporarily averted from the baseball game playing on a mounted screen in the corner to stare at him.
One of them got up and moved behind the bar. “What can I get you?”
“Whatever you’ve got on draft is fine.”
The guy nodded and poured him a beer with the smooth, rote movements of someone who’d done it thousands of times. Then, he put down a thick cardboard coaster in front of Zeke and set the frosty mug on it.
“Passing through?”
“Looking for someone actually,” Zeke said, pulling out his wallet. “I understand she works here.”
The bartender’s eyes flicked to the photo and flashed with recognition, then looked back at Zeke. Took in his long hair, piercings, and tattoos. Zeke could guess what was going through the guy’s mind, and it wasn’t, This guy looks trustworthy. I should tell him everything I know.
“Sorry. Can’t help you.”
The guy began to walk away.
Time to change tactics.
The bartender wore a wedding band and looked old enough to have a daughter about Robin Hood’s age. The faded American-traditional tattoos on his forearms—an eagle on one and an anchor on the other—suggested he’d done some time in the service.
“She’s my sister,” Zeke lied easily, casually pushing up his sleeve to display the bone frog ink he hadn’t gotten around to covering up yet.
The older man’s eyes landed on the tat, just as Zeke had intended. “Your sister, you say?”
Zeke nodded. “You’re Mick McTavey, right?”
“I am.”
“Aggie told me about this place. Said she liked working here, that the tips were good and you were a decent guy. She’s worked in some real shitholes, let me tell you.”
Zeke paused and let him digest that for a moment before leaning forward and dropping his voice. “I’m worried about her, Mr. McTavey. She hasn’t had an easy time of it, you know? Not since our parents passed. But she’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide. She doesn’t like to accept help from anyone.”
McTavey nodded as if he understood, maybe even had seen evidence of that.
“Like I said, I worry, so she humors me and calls every week, just to let me know she’s doing okay. But I haven’t heard from her lately, and now, she’s not answering her phone. When’s the last time you saw her?”
McTavey frowned, searching back in his memories, as if every day was the same and he was trying to distinguish one from another. “A few nights ago. She worked closing. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
“She didn’t contact you to say why?”
McTavey shook his head. “No. But I figured she’d just moved on. I knew it was only a matter of time.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When she came in, looking for work, she told me it was a temporary thing. I expected her to give me some warning, though.” His brows pulled together as if just realizing something might be amiss.
“Do you know where she was staying?”
“Above Torito’s store over on 8th Street. The store’s been closed for years, but the nephew rents out the upper floors on a month-by-month basis.”
Zeke finished his beer and set the mug back on the bar along with a hefty tip, and then he thanked Mick McTavey and walked back out into the open air. The old guy hadn’t been very helpful, but then Zeke hadn’t really expected him to be. Robin Hood was smart. She knew leaving a minimal footprint was part of the game.
Dusk was settling in, lending a bit of color to the otherwise gray sky. No doubt the paper mill upriver had a lot to do with that. It operated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, spewing dirty smoke into the air and probably dumping toxic waste into the water.
Which, of course, was exactly why Robin Hood had chosen to come to Parryville.
The building where she lived was narrow, three stories, with an alley running between it and the carbon copy of it to the right. The first floor looked like it had been a mom-and-pop store once. A peek inside the grimy display windows on either side of a central door revealed empty shelves and a bare counter toward the back.
