MARY CLARK - Piece of My Heart

As he watched Rocky settle into his usual spot at the end of the bar and take a long pull from his on-the-house beer, Finn allowed himself to enjoy a moment of pride in the business he had built.

The snow was really starting to stick by the time Clarissa appeared at his booth with a glass mug filled with dark liquid. He could tell from the way she carried it that the drink was hot.

“Is that what I think it is?” Finn asked.

“Your favorite.” Favorites , Finn thought. Just like with his kids, Finn would never admit that he had favorite employees, but Clarissa was indeed his favorite. According to her birth certificate, she was twenty-six years old, but he was convinced that her soul was born in 1937. Plus, she made a hazelnut hot toddy that tasted like heaven in a cup.

A loud roar came from the back room, and she responded with a cross look. “We’ve got some numbskulls back there tonight. Angry vibes if you know what I mean. Too much testosterone. No offense, of course.”

“Of course,” he said with a smile.

“Some guy with a big mouth is celebrating his twenty-first birthday. He’s home on winter break from Vassar, which he is quite loud and proud about. According to him, he’s already got a top job lined up on Wall Street. He’s going to own this town by the time he’s thirty.”

“So when’s the wedding?” Finn asked.

“To him? Not in this lifetime! Besides, he’s got his eyes set on someone else. He’s trying to move in on one of the women back there, buying her drinks all night.”

“Let me know if he crosses a line. If he’s looking to cause trouble, I’d rather toss him out of here before he gets started.”

As Clarissa turned toward the bar, the volume from the back room suddenly burst to an even higher decibel level, nearly causing Finn to spill his hot toddy. The heavy purple curtain separating the room from the rest of the bar billowed as if a heavy gust of wind had found its way inside, and two men came tumbling out, shoving each other, surrounded by a crowd. A tall guy in a sports jacket and loosened collar cried out, “Come on, Wall Street tough guy. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

They were moving so quickly that Finn could only make out the dark hair of the taller fighter, and the red hair of the shorter, squatter one. A woman screamed, “Jay, watch out!” as the dark-haired one threw a punch that landed against his opponent’s jaw.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Finn hollered, jumping up from his booth with both palms up. Finn’s was known for being a low-key hangout, but you don’t own a bar for three and a half decades without learning how to break up a fight. It’s just a couple college kids , Finn thought. Amateur hour. I’ve got this.

The men paid no attention to Finn and continued to shove and punch each other, carried by the momentum of the crowd around them. Finn jumped into the group, trying to reach the two fighters to break them apart. Before he knew it, he was being pushed through the doorway outside. The sidewalk in front of the bar was beginning to become slippery. A younger man next to him lost his footing and fell to the ground as the dark-haired fighter bent low and charged toward the redhead, letting out what sounded like a loud growl.

Finn inserted two pinkies into the corners of his mouth and gave the crowd his best attention-getting wolf whistle. “Enough of this, fellas. Break it up, break it up.”

He felt a push behind him and was heading even closer to the action. Once they can see and hear me , he thought, I’ll be able to calm them down I’ll get right between them if I have to.

The redhead’s eyes opened wide as he registered Finn’s presence in front of him. His lips parted. He’s just a kid , Finn thought. I can tell he’s scared and wants this to be over. We’re all fine here. Almost done.

The kid’s gaze lowered, and Finn allowed his eyes to follow, suddenly aware of a strange feeling in his abdomen. A sharp pain. The glow of the corner street lantern was refracted from the top of the metal blade, two inches of it visible between Finn’s sweatshirt and the knife handle. The fingers wrapped around the handle were clenched into a fist. He watched the blade get pulled out of his body, and then took a deep gasp for air, like a swimmer coming up from the water. The air turned into a scream as the knife plunged into him again.

Finn’s knees buckled beneath him, and he collapsed to the sidewalk. The last thing to fall was his head against the first snow of winter on the concrete.

“Fiiiiinnnn! No, Finn, no. Please, someone call an ambulance. He’s stabbed.”

It was Clarissa. The last thing Finn saw was his favorite employee, futilely pressing her bar apron against his sweatshirt.

The bystanders failed to stop the bar brawl, but the sight of their beloved bar’s owner, bloodied on the ground, drastically altered the mood of the crowd. No longer onlookers, they jumped into action, working together to detain the two fighters until official help arrived.

The EMTs pulled up within minutes, but Lou Finney was pronounced dead at the scene. Meanwhile, the bar regular named Rocky found an open buck knife about twelve feet from Finn’s body, tossed or kicked there by either his killer or someone else, intentionally or not, during the chaos after his stabbing. As a last way to help his friend, he watched over the weapon, making sure no one touched it, until police arrived.

The earliest responding police officers learned that the dark-haired fighter was Darren Gunther, a junior at Vassar College, the one celebrating his twenty-first birthday. The redhead was Jay Pratt, a twenty-seven-year-old commercial real estate broker. Lieutenant Leo Farley, a rising NYPD star, was the detective to get the call out.

Chapter 18

Laurie noticed that her father had stood up and was pacing back and forth as he recounted the history of the case against Darren Gunther for the murder of a beloved West Village bar owner named Lou Finney. That was always a sure sign that he was feeling anxious.

“It was a bar fight that spun out of control,” Leo explained. “Gunther was a good-looking, charismatic college student with the confidence of the multimillionaire he was determined to become. Jay Pratt, by comparison, was a nerdy little pipsqueak—a fancy Upper East Side kid who walked into a ready-made job at his dad’s commercial real estate business. And Lou Finney? He was the nice guy who was trying to keep two hotheads from getting rowdy in his establishment. His death was a major blow to the neighborhood. Word spread fast. The entire sidewalk in front of the bar was covered with flowers and handmade sympathy cards by the following morning.”

Alex leaned forward from his position on the sofa next to Laurie, his elbows against his knees, fingertips steepled. “I actually remember when that happened,” Alex said. “I was in college at the time, too. A couple of my friends from Fordham went down to the village that night for drinks, but I stayed home. I had one last final exam to cram for. My friends were on their way to Finn’s later that night when they saw the police and crime tape out front. The next day, they said they might have been there when the fight broke out if they hadn’t been caught in traffic caused by the snow.”

“I remember it, too,” Laurie said. “I had just gotten home for winter break, and I remember you telling Mom about the case the next morning when you came back for a quick pit stop. By the time you returned later that evening, you had Gunther’s con-fession.”

“No,” Leo said, tapping a corrective finger in the air. “It was more complicated than that. When I came home for a break, I had the first version of his confession, but I knew Gunther was holding back—spinning the facts to give him a shot with a sympathetic jury. It was that conversation with your mom during my break that cracked it all open. I went back to the station and questioned Gunther again. Got him to show his true colors.”