Allison Brennan - Playing Dead

She retrieved her Taser C2 from her tactical bag in the back. She loved the new design-she’d bought the metallic pink version-as well as the intense voltage in a compact six inches. She could hit someone up to fifteen feet away. If Claire were being attacked, she’d rather take them down safely without having to touch or shoot them.

She stuffed it in her small purse, an image of hitting Mitch Bianchi below the belt with the two electric probes making her smile. Zap!

Much better. Focus on the anger, not the pain. Toughen up.

Claire surveyed the building. The Rabbit Hole was not much of anything to look at, but then again, at night Isleton pretty much rolled up the sidewalks unless it was their annual summer Crawdad Festival.

Downtown Isleton was quaint with restored buildings, a few gift stores, an old-fashioned ice cream “shoppe,” and a video arcade. A must, Claire thought, for a small town. A sporting goods store took up half the block across from the Rabbit Hole. No surprise there, fishing and boating were big here in the delta.

Though it was the middle of the day, there was little sign of life on the street. Three young teens were walking around with nothing to do. A mother with two young children exited the ice cream shoppe. There were no windows in the bar, but a red neon sign declared they were OPEN.

She crossed the street and walked in. The bar was a third full-almost all of the men over sixty-and the music greeted her warmly. She didn’t particularly like country music, but it fit the atmosphere, and the sound was definitely more pop-country than the soulful my-dog-died-and-my-wife-ran-away-with-the-sheriff ballads. Two men played chess in one corner, and a larger table had a quarter poker game going on.

“Hey, Tip!” one of the old guys at the bar shouted loud enough for her to hear, “you’re really bringing in the lookers with that snazzy new sign you put up.”

Claire had seen the sign-it looked neither snazzy nor new-but she turned her attention to the bar.

“Told you it would help,” a man behind the bar said. Claire couldn’t see him behind the heads of the patrons. She approached and sat on an empty stool next to a man who wore a military hat from WWII with SANDERSON sewn on the edge. He looked old enough to have fought nearly seventy years ago.

“Told you classy chicks like men in uniform,” Sanderson said. “I’d buy you a drink, sweet thing, but my military pension only covers two drafts a day and I’m already on my third.” He laughed at his joke.

She smiled. She liked this place. It had a good feeling about it, small-town folks of modest means coming together for a beer to keep each other from getting too lonely. She’d bet every one of the five men sitting at the bar was a widower.

Claire smiled at the bartender. He wasn’t exactly what she expected, but she didn’t have a description of Tip Barney. The bartender was in his mid-forties with an average build and average features. Pleasant looking.

“What can I get for you, pretty lady?” the bartender said, putting a cocktail napkin on the bar in front of her.

“Whatever you have on tap is fine.” Claire didn’t particularly like draft beer, but fitting in was important when you were looking for information.

There was an older couple sitting at a table near the bar, and the only other woman was two stools over from Claire. She leaned over. “Hi, I’m Lora. Who are you?”

The woman had a bright appearance and subtle manner that told Claire she might be developmentally disabled. She was very pretty even though she wore too much makeup.

“Hi, Lora. Claire.” She smiled.

The bartender put the beer in front of Claire. She sipped. Smiled. Ugh. She’d been spoiled after drinking Guinness for so long. “I’m looking for Tip Barney.”

The bartender crossed his arms and leaned against the back bar. “That’s me.”

Claire didn’t know what she was expecting, but he looked much younger than she thought he would. By the looks of it, he’d have been in his twenties when he’d owned Tip’s Blarney. Not impossible, she supposed, but odd enough that she made a mental note to check into the history of the previous bar.

“Popular guy today,” one of the guys at the end of the bar said.

Tip smiled and shook his head. “Ignore them. What can I help you with?”

She’d already decided that honesty would work best with Frank Lowe’s old boss.

“My name is Claire O’Brien.” She took a sip of beer. “I work for Rogan-Caruso Protective Services, and I have some questions about one of your employees.”

He knew exactly who she was. She saw the recognition in his eyes when she said her name.

“I don’t have any employees.”

“Frank Lowe. He died in a fire in your bar fifteen years ago.”

“Frank.” He nodded. “Poor Frank.”

“You’ve never talked about him,” one of the guys at the bar said. Claire wished she could have this conversation in private.

“He was a good guy. A friend, though he had some problems. A couple arrests, petty theft mostly, but I told him if it happened again I’d have to let him go.” Tip shook his head and reached for a half-empty water bottle on the back of the bar, took a long swallow. “It was a tragedy, really. The police thought that some gangbangers burned down the bar for fun, not knowing Frank lived upstairs. It was an old building, burned down quick.”

“That’s sad.” Lora had moved to the stool next to Claire, elbows on the bar and chin in her hands.

“What do you want to know about Frank?” Tip asked her.

“Fifteen years ago, my father was convicted of killing two people. You probably remember it, if not then, perhaps because it was all over the news after the San Quentin earthquake.”

“Of course I’ve heard of it.”

“Hey,” Sanderson said, “O’Brien. Isn’t he the guy Channel 3 did that report on a couple months ago? That he was capturing the other prisoners? I remember that. He’d been a cop, right?”

Claire nodded. She needed to get the conversation back to Frank. “As a favor to me, Rogan-Caruso is looking into the conviction.” She had no qualms about lying on this point. Rogan-Caruso’s reputation was such that everyone would take their involvement seriously, which gave everything she said credibility. In addition, if Tip Barney-or anyone else in this bar-had killed Oliver, they would think twice about attacking her if they believed that Rogan-Caruso had the same information she had.

She continued, “When Oliver Maddox turned up dead, I approached my boss and asked if he would look into what happened. I never believed Oliver when he told me my father was innocent and he felt he could prove it. But with Oliver being murdered, it looks like he was right.”

“I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me or Frank.”

“Rogan-Caruso uncovered information about Chase Taverton, the prosecutor who was murdered, that leads us to believe that he had a plea agreement with Frank Lowe regarding a capital offense that Mr. Lowe could testify to.” Claire remembered what Abrahamson said about big fish and little fish. “Mr. Lowe was a petty thief. I’m sure you know he was arrested several times. He always got off with a slap on the wrist or minimal jail time. But after the last time with the little girl in the house he graduated to the big-”

Tip interrupted. “I knew Frank very well, and he didn’t hurt kids. He never hurt anyone. He only broke into places where no one was home.”

She nodded. “Right. That’s what the records say. Until the last time.”

“What do you want?”

“Do you know what Frank told Chase Taverton? I know there was a plea deal. It might not have been signed, sealed, and delivered, but it existed.”