Nina Wright - Whiskey with a Twist

Perry Stiles kneeled alongside the mound that was Ramona. He checked her pulse as everyone else formed a murmuring circle. I couldn’t help but notice that Ramona’s silvery pajama-like outfit, now splotched with red, showed no sign of a breath beneath it.

Since I don’t do well in the presence of body fluids, I quickly stepped back. To be accurate, I stumbled backwards and narrowly missed the team of charging EMTs, who arrived post-haste with black bags and sundry portable equipment.

Just as I wondered who had dialed 9-1-1, my peripheral vision snagged a glimpse of the cleaner-slash-bodyguard. MacArthur wasn’t lurking at the edge of the cornfield; he was standing there waving at me. Weakly I waved back. Then I realized that his gesture meant “Come over here!” So I went. Nobody in the crowd was watching anybody except Ramona.

MacArthur wouldn’t let me speak 'til after we’d receded into the cornfield. Our progress through the drying stalks wasn’t silent, but it was furtive. Despite telltale rustling, cornstalks provide good cover. The exhibit hall and the melee outside it had completely vanished from our view. Which meant nobody could see us, either.

“I’ve been alternating between watching you, Susan, and Ramona,” MacArthur began.

“Don’t forget Kori,” I said. “You fit her into your schedule, too.”

He smiled. “Every working man needs a break now and then.”

“Where is Kori, by the way? I hope you know that the dog she was handling took off after Abra!”

“So I heard. I had just finished my latest tour of the exhibit hall-“

“You were inside the hall? When?”

“I tour and secure it every hour on the hour,” he said.

“Then how come I’ve never seen you in there?”

“Because I know how to do my job. May I continue?”

I nodded.

“I slipped out the side door just before your dog and that champion. No sooner had I started my exterior tour than I heard a voice raised in anger. It was coming from the other side of the building.”

“Only one voice?” I asked.

“Correct. It was Ramona’s. She sounded agitated. Then she screamed. I rushed ‘round the corner and found her lying there-just as I heard the uproar from inside the building.”

“You mean, when Silverado went after Abra.”

“Presumably.”

“Did you call 9-1-1?” I said.

“Yes. I would have administered CPR, but it was not appropriate.”

“Because Ramona’s… dead?”

“No,” he replied. “Because she was breathing just fine… although somebody shot her.”

“Why would Ramona have been shouting at the shooter?”

“I didn’t say she was. If you looked closely, you would have seen her mobile on the ground.”

“Her cell phone?”

“Yes. I believe Ramona was arguing with someone on her mobile when she was shot. The two incidents may or may not be related. I checked her phone,” he added, “and reported the latest numbers to Jenx.”

“Will Ramona live?”

“I’ve never known anyone to die from a bullet wound to the arse.”

“But… she’s nonresponsive!”

MacArthur cocked an eyebrow at me. “Is she now?”

“She didn’t respond to Perry Stiles. And there’s so much blood!”

“It’s a flesh wound, and the woman has a lot of… flesh. That explains the blood,” MacArthur said. “As for her being nonresponsive, she used to be an actress. Off-Broadway. Strictly heavy drama.”

Jenx herself called before I could ask MacArthur what he’d told the chief. She was in the process of identifying the other party in Ramona’s latest conversation. The former actress had dialed a cell phone in the 630 area code. That covered northwestern Cook County, Illinois-including Itasca, where Susan and Liam lived.

“It doesn’t mean the person Ramona talked with lives there,” Jenx reminded me. “It just means the phone was registered there. And it’s a cell phone, so he-or she- could have been anywhere. Even at the dog show. We won’t know 'til we run down the records.”

The Magnet Springs Police Department didn’t have a forensics team. Or any technology worth mentioning. I was about to ask Jenx how she planned to acquire cell phone records since the latest shooting wasn’t even in her jurisdiction.

“Brady’s cousin Lonnie is going to hack into the other cell phone account,” the chief announced happily.

I didn’t bother to comment on the obvious, that hacking was illegal. But I did call the chief’s attention to the fact that Lonnie was incarcerated.

“That’s the beauty of if!” she exclaimed. “He’s been good since he’s been inside, so he’s a low-security inmate-with web access. And he’s already in the slammer, so there’s no risk and no down side!”

“Except to you,” I pointed out. “If he got caught, you could be charged as an accomplice.”

“Not a chance,” Jenx said. “He won’t get caught cuz he’s good, and the phone companies aren’t smart. Besides which, he’s Brady’s cousin, and family is family. They don’t rat each other out. Lonnie won’t mess with me, either. I helped get him the lightest possible sentence for grand theft auto. The kid’s messed up, but he’s loyal as a dog.” She paused. “Loyal as most dogs. I hear yours ran away again.”

“Yes, but this time it wasn’t really her fault.”

Jenx harrumphed. “I don’t like the direction this thing is taking. Too many flying bullets. We already have one corpse and one casualty. Not to mention two missing dogs.”

“We always have missing dogs,” I sighed.

“And you attract dead bodies.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Get the hell out of there!” Jenx said. “You’ve been humiliated, so you’re morally free to leave.”

“Except now I have to find Abra.”

Wailing sirens on my end made it impossible to hear what Jenx said next. I assumed that the EMTs had loaded Ramona aboard the ambulance and were heading to the nearest hospital. Probably in Elkhart.

By the time I could hear again, Jenx had disconnected. MacArthur was still with me, his considerable bulk squeezed sideways between tidy rows of yellowing cornstalks. He hadn’t yet answered my question about Kori. So I asked him again where she had gone.

“She had an emergency,” he said.

“What kind of ‘emergency’?”

Given what I knew about Susan’s niece, I could imagine a wide range of crises, from scoring dope to stealing cars.

“Kori had to counsel her sponsoree.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She’s a sponsor in a step-program. The woman she sponsors was ‘right on the edge,’ so Kori gave her a reason to live.”

“Kori… advises people… how to fix their lives?” I couldn’t buy it.

MacArthur nodded. “She’s good. I heard her on the phone. Then she went off somewhere to talk in private.”

What kind of step-program would designate Kori as an advisor? Was there a self-help group for irresponsible women inclined to crash cars? And, if so, had Kori graduated?

Did MacArthur actually believe that story or expect me to? I wondered if the cleaner was determined to cover for Kori, even to the extent of bamboozling me. Was she that good a kisser?

Then I had a troubling thought: Kori currently lived with Susan and Liam. In Itasca. If she had a cell phone, it might have a 630 area code.

But why would Ramona call Kori? And even if she did, was the call relevant? I strained to imagine how Ramona’s phone conversation could be connected to her getting shot in the tush.

“MacArthur, you said you were inside the exhibit hall just before Silverado got loose. Did you see what happened?”

“Sorry, no. I do have a theory, however.”