Lori Devoti - Amazon Ink

Liar. It wasn’t Bubbe and Mother who had stopped me from publicly admitting my sorrow. It was me. I hadn’t been ready to face that I had felt a connection to a man. It was just wrong-against everything I’d been brought up to believe.

I’d heard humans talk about Catholic guilt, but it had nothing on Amazon guilt. It was amazing how easily you could say things with your mouth, even believe them with your brain…but your heart, your gut…those two were a lot harder to convince.

I pulled onto Frances Street and found a rare parking spot off street. The bar, actually more of a tavern, opened at eleven for lunch. It was five after. My timing was perfect. I went in and sat at the counter. A bartender, female and somewhere in her fifties, took my order-fried cheese curds and a burger. Major benefit of being an Amazon, no need to watch calorie intake.

When she brought my water, I added a local microbrew they had on tap to my order. It would take a lot of alcohol to affect me, but maybe it would take the edge off my nerves. Besides, it gave me another chance to chat with the bartender.

When she came back, I already had a twenty lying on the bar in front of me. I motioned to the bill. “You can ring me out if you like.”

She cocked a brow. “You in a hurry?”

I took a sip of the ale. “No, but I thought you might get busy. Might as well settle up now.”

She shrugged and went to the cash register.

A few seconds later she was back, my change in hand. “You need anything else, just holler.” She started to turn, but I held up a hand.

“Actually, I was hoping to run into someone here. A boy my niece used to date. Great kid.”

She waited, a noncommittal look on her face. “What’s his name?”

“Tim.” It was all Dana had told me, because it was all she knew-I had asked for a last name. “Works part-time, I think, bartending?”

“Common name.” The woman’s eyes drifted to the door, then jerked back to me. “But we don’t have anyone by it on the payroll.”

“Really?” Dana hadn’t lied to me. She’d had no reason to. “I was pretty sure she said he worked here.”

“A lot of bars around here. She must have been confused.”

“Could be.” I held her gaze. She was lying to me. I didn’t know why, but she was. I wasn’t one to play polite and just let her walk away. “But I don’t think so.”

The door to the bar opened and a group of state workers, easily identifiable by badges and practical shoes, filed in. She made a move to grab a stack of menus. I placed my hand over hers to stop her.

“What gives?”

She sighed, the wrinkles around her eyes relaxing with the breath. “He comes in sometimes. Works a few hours when we’re busy and he needs the cash. I’m a small business owner, trying to eke out a living. Someone’s willing to work for tips-who am I to send him away? You know?”

I did know. I removed my hand and finished my beer.

A man willing to work for just tips-even a young man. That was odd-Amazon-like, even. Cash-only jobs were our mainstay. Anyone’s mainstay who wanted to fly under the radar.

What was up with Dana’s Tim? What was he hiding or hiding from?

He, just like this bar, was a common thread connecting the dead girls and life outside the Amazon camp. I thought of Dana, her hand on her belly and her face alight with joy. The burger I’d just eaten hardened to stone.

I slipped my messenger bag over my head and turned to leave.

“Enjoy your lunch?”

I spun. Detective Reynolds stared at me over crossed arms.

I adjusted my bag so it sat in the small of my back, then smiled. “Hit the spot. What about you? What brings you here? You aren’t following me, are you?” I tried to sound flirty, but failed miserably.

“Should I be?”

Behind him a blond man watched us with interest. I could tell by the travel-worn suits they were together.

“Long drive to stalk one lone tattoo artist, but…whatever.” I dug another five out of my bag and slipped it under my beer mug. I hoped the extra tip would convince the barkeep I was on her side and maybe keep her from telling Detective Reynolds too much about our conversation-in case he asked.

He raised a brow. “Big tipper.”

Ignoring the jibe, I nodded to his partner and made for the door. I only got a few feet.

“You going to be around this afternoon?”

I stopped but didn’t turn. “Should be.”

“Try. I think we might need to have another chat.”

Goody. I couldn’t wait.

Once on the streetI let out a breath. Just what I needed, Detective Reynolds poking around the shop while Zery and company were doing whatever the hell they would be doing today. Maybe if I were lucky, they’d have brought up a team of horses and be jousting or something.

That would be fun to explain.

Maybe I’d just go for the truth. Detective Reynolds, meet my old friend Zery, the Amazon Queen. I know she looks thirty, but really she’s pushed past ninety. And don’t mind Bubbe over there in the corner-she’s just calling up a serpent to guard her prized collections of animal parts and hunks of stone. And Mother? She wouldn’t hurt anyone with that broadsword-at least not today. After all, it isn’t that “time of the month” just yet.

Yeah, good times.

Mumbling to myself, I looked for an excuse to hang out-out of view-and see how long the detective stayed in the tavern and where he went next. A book/crystal shop across the street offered the best solution and, as a bonus, it doubled as a coffee shop.

I wandered in, bought a coffee, and plopped myself down at a table near the window. I had barely got my coffee to proper drinking temperature when Detective Reynolds and his companion stepped out onto the street. I pulled back, letting the purple gauze curtains disguise my presence, but my caution was unnecessary. Reynolds and his friend made a hard right, back toward Frances Street where they, like I, had most likely left their car.

I wandered out of the shop, keeping enough distance between myself and the pair that I could play at coincidence if caught. (Not that I thought the detective would buy that excuse, but he wouldn’t be able to disprove it either.) One block down, they climbed into an unmarked car, did a U-turn, and left.

I walked over to a park bench and sat down. I’d said I’d be back at my shop today. I hadn’t said when.

I took a sip of coffee and let the caffeine roll through me. It was lunch hour on a warm October Monday, and State Street was busy with state employees and university students resisting the work week by stretching their lunch break as much as possible. I tilted back my head and closed my eyes, let the sounds and smells of State Street encompass me.

The downtown area was one of the reasons I’d picked Madison. Like Dana and her friends, Zery and I used to come here back in our younger days-the late 1960s, so not that young for me, but still a lot younger than I felt now. Our hangout of choice had been about a half mile southwest, off Mifflin, home of counterculture and all things anti-establishment. A dream for an Amazon looking for a no-commitment fling.

Zery and I had been friends before that too. Our families seemed to wind up at the same camps a lot. We’d first met in Texas when I was ten and Zery was seven. A hurricane had destroyed a safe camp there, and Bubbe was called in to help with cleanup. We had met off and on every decade since then, surviving everything from the Great Depression to disco. And we had always been friends, always found a place and a way to be ourselves, to have some fun no matter how horrid things were in the human world at the time. But here in Madison, those had been some of the best times-the last few years before Zery started her queen training in earnest.