Owen Dougherty snapped the towel that normally hung over his shoulder. “Where you been, Davis? Place hasn’t been the same without you.”
Mickey’s, a bar and grill in Evanston, was way past its prime but still managed to pack in a crowd. And the owner, Owen, only snapped his towel for special customers.
Despite her black mood, Georgia grinned. “I can tell.” She glanced at the scarred bar, scuffed booths, and dim lighting. “It’s aged another five years.”
Owen, a rotund sixtyish man who reminded her of Jackie Gleason, glanced around as if noticing the furnishings for the first time. “Then it’s a good thing no one wants to take it off my hands.”
Georgia let his little white lie pass. She knew the offers were stacked up sideways. Evanston had been inundated by empty nesters with disposable income who were catered to by high-end establishments and restaurants. It took guts for Owen to hold on to Mickey’s. Then again, the bar was full. Maybe aging boomers needed a shabby Chicago tavern to remind them of their wild and wooly youth. Which would make Owen a marketing genius.
“Hey,” Georgia said, “aren’t you supposed to be in Arizona, soaking up the sun?”
“Yeah. But my daughter and her no-good husband went to Cabo, so . . .”
His son-in-law usually ran the place when Owen was away. “What’s wrong with this picture?” she bantered.
“Tell me about it,” he grumbled. “So. What’ll it be, gorgeous?”
She should order a Diet Coke with lemon. She usually did. She asked for a Chardonnay.
Owen didn’t react. He fished under the counter for a wineglass, set it down, and filled it with wine.
“Anything to eat?” Which was Owen-speak for “If you’re gonna drink, you better eat.”
It was way past dinnertime, but Georgia hadn’t eaten. “I’ll have the usual.”
“Burger, bloody as hell, with fries, crunchy as bones.”
“You got it.”
He wrote down her order and waddled off to the kitchen. Georgia eyed the wine. Even after all these years, that first sip was pure heaven. She twirled the glass as if looking for the perfect spot on the glass to place her lips, found it, and took a sip. She shut her eyes and felt it slowly slide down her throat. She might even have let out a tiny sigh of bliss.
But the contentment that came with the wine was short-lived. In lighter moments she called it the other-shoe theory of life. For every brief moment of joy, she would suffer an equally intense amount of misery. She never knew how, when, or why it came, but it always did. She felt destined to slog through life with one foot in the muck.
Sipping her wine, she wondered whether Jimmy had a point. Could her mother have finally atoned for her shortcomings? Become responsible? Georgia doubted it. JoBeth was incapable of growth. But what if she was sincere? Maybe she wanted to be part of a family again. People did change as they aged.
Nope. It wasn’t going to happen. Georgia wouldn’t let it. JoBeth would never be part of her life. Not after what she’d done. Georgia downed the rest of her wine and ordered another glass. Despair, her old friend, draped its arm around her shoulders.
She was three bites into her burger when her cell vibrated. Georgia fished it out of her bag. “Davis here.”
“Georgia, it’s Erica Baldwin.”
“Hi, Erica. I was going to call you tomorrow and give you an update.”
“Listen. Something happened this afternoon, and you need to know.”
“What?”
“A significant amount of money is missing from the foundation.”
Georgia slid off her barstool, shrugged into her coat, and went outside where it was quieter. “How much?”
“About thirty thousand. It doesn’t sound like much, but—”
“It’s not peanuts. How did you find out?”
“We’ve got a new accountant, and she told us.”
“New?”
“She replaced Iris, our bookkeeper. She left about six months ago.”
“You’ve been without a bookkeeper all this time?”
Erica’s voice went small. “Jeffrey didn’t think we needed one.”
“Oh.” Through the glass door Owen pointed to her plate of burger and fries and gestured for her to come in. Her mouth watered.
“Who’s been doing the books?”
“Jeffrey thought he could handle it. Until he turned everything over to the accountant for our quarterlies. That’s when they found the discrepancies.” Erica hesitated. “Georgia, I know we said you’d work a week and then reassess, but would you stick around for a while? I need your help.”
“You want me to talk to your son.”
“Yes.” Erica’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I just don’t think I can deal with this, too. Not right now.”
Erica’s world had collapsed. Her daughter had been murdered, her ex was an adulterer, and now her son might have embezzled her money. Despite her own troubles, Georgia’s heart went out to her. “Of course.”