Chapter 1

The winter streets of Milwaukee could be tough to negotiate on the best of days, but this was the one time of year when no one seemed to mind. Bright lights reflected off crisp white snow in a kaleidoscope of color and holiday cheer. The air smelled of pine, cinnamon, and a buttery goodness, which helped to ease the bite of the bitter cold air that stung my nose when I breathed. Varying strands of music—some close, some from afar, some secular, some holy, some vocal, and some instrumental—mixed and mingled in my ears. Christmas was right around the corner, and the city streets were filled with happy-looking people, their cheeks flushed red by the cold winter air, their eyes alight with warmth and anticipation, their souls filled with holiday spirit.

My name is Mackenzie Dalton, though most everyone calls me Mack, and as I walked amid the holiday throng, I couldn’t help but feel like an alien, an impostor, a hypocrite. I had no interest in holiday shopping, sharing a wassail, or singing a carol. I wasn’t feeling the holiday spirit. And at that moment I hated the cold, because it reminded me of things frozen, unmoving, and dead. I’d never been a big fan of Christmas, and I was dreading this one in particular, not because I was a bah-humbuggy Scrooge type, but because all those noises, sights, and smells had an overwhelming physical effect on me. I have synesthesia, a neurological disorder that results in my sensory input getting cross-wired. Because of this, I experience every sense in at least two ways. For instance, I may taste something I hear, or see something I smell. Even my emotions come as a two-for-one sale.

My emotions during this holiday season were more intense than usual because I had recently lost someone close to me—several someones, in fact—and hanging over my head was the threat of more to come. It began with my father’s murder back in January, and then his girlfriend, Ginny, was murdered in August. Both deaths occurred in or near my bar, and the Grim Reaper had been a rather persistent companion of mine ever since, so much so that my planned Christmas gift to everyone was to try to prevent any more murders among my circle of friends. It wouldn’t be easy, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment.

Mack’s Bar was my father’s legacy to me. He opened it right before I was born and named it after himself. Then he named me Mackenzie, with the assumption that I would one day carry on the business. I grew up in the bar with my father; my mother died right after I was born, due to a traumatic head injury she sustained in a car accident. She was left brain dead from the accident, but the doctors were able to keep her alive long enough for me to grow inside her and make my entrance into the world. My father and I lived in an apartment on the floor above the bar, and now I live there alone. As a result, my childhood days were spent mingling with any number of strangers and “regulars” who patronized the place, and I knew how to mix a slew of drinks before I knew basic math. Up until my father’s death, my life was tidy, predictable and, some might say, boring. I liked it that way.

My father’s death put an end to my comfortable, complacent lifestyle, and Ginny’s death compounded the problem. A lot of new people came into my life, the most noteworthy being Duncan Albright, a homicide detective who was relatively new to Milwaukee at the time. As part of his investigation into Ginny’s murder, he worked undercover in my bar and ended up under the covers on my bed. He discovered my disorder could be useful in helping him solve crimes, and he dragged me into a few cases. I resisted at first because my synesthesia was something I felt a need to hide; it embarrassed me and made me feel like a freak. But when Duncan showed me how I could use it to do something good, my attitude began to change. I opened up my mind to the idea of my synesthesia being something both helpful and useful. And I opened up my heart to Duncan.

Neither change came easily. It seemed the general public and Duncan’s bosses weren’t as open-minded about my synesthesia as Duncan was. When the local press got wind of my involvement in a high-profile case involving a missing child, news pieces about how the local police were using witchcraft, ESP, and voodoo hit the papers and the airwaves. This didn’t go over well with the brass at the Milwaukee Police Department, and Duncan ended up getting suspended. We spent some time apart, hoping the furor would die down, but it didn’t. If anything, it got worse. My life was turned upside down to the point that it became the antithesis of that dull, predictable life I’d had while growing up. This was due in part to other deaths associated with my bar. One of those deaths was that of my bouncer and fill-in bartender, Gary Gunderson, who was murdered just two days ago. And in a way it was my fault.

I was being stalked, taunted, and tormented by a diabolical killer. This person kept sending me letters with puzzles I had to figure out by a deadline in order to prevent the death of someone I knew. And just in case I doubted the veracity of that claim, the writer killed one of my customers, Lewis Carmichael, a nurse who worked at a nearby hospital. Lewis was not only a customer but also a member of the Capone Club, a group of crime solvers from a variety of backgrounds who came to my bar on a regular basis.

The first couple of letters that arrived after Lewis’s death I managed to interpret and solve in time, but I stumbled over the last one. My initial interpretation was wrong, and by the time I figured out what it was supposed to be, it was too late. Gary died because of my mistake.

On the heels of Gary’s death, my fear and frustration with the letter writer morphed into a white-hot anger. I became mad as hell and determined to find the person behind it all. I wasn’t alone in my efforts, because I had the help of some of the members of the Capone Club. A handful of them—those I was closest to, those I considered my family now that I had none of my own—knew about the letter writer. Cora Kingsley, a forty-something, redheaded man hunter and computer geek, was like a sister to me. Her skills with computers had proved invaluable, both in interpreting the clues and in logging my synesthetic reactions so I could better use and understand them. And Joe and Frank Signoriello, two retired, seventy-something brothers who were ex–insurance salesmen, were also in the loop. These two men have known me my entire life, and when my father died, they took on the role of advisers, becoming the closest thing to family I had.

These three people and Duncan knew about the letter writer. The others in the Capone Club did not, and this created a dilemma for me since the letter writer had said the victims would be among those I knew. The deaths thus far had proven the truth of this claim, and every hour I debated the wisdom of keeping the others in the dark. But I was afraid that if the news got out about the letters, the writer might seek revenge by going on a killing spree.

While the letter writer hadn’t specifically said I couldn’t use the Capone Club to help me solve the puzzles, I was wary of pushing that envelope. And the instructions did make it clear that I wasn’t allowed to use the help of any cops, with Duncan getting specific mention. This made my decision not to inform the club members about the letter writer a little easier, since some of the local cops participated.

Thus far I’d managed to skirt the no-cops edict by keeping Duncan involved on the sly while making it appear as if the two of us were on the outs. This facade was made easier by the fact that I was pretending to date someone else, a fellow named Mal O’Reilly, who happened to be both an undercover cop and a friend of Duncan’s. I allowed the cops who participated in the Capone Club to help us solve other crimes we were working on, but I kept the letter writer to myself and took care not to involve them in any part of that investigation.

It was a thin wire I walked, because there were lots of cops around at the time, and not just because they liked my coffee. They were also around because they were investigating Gary’s murder by questioning me, my employees, and many of my regular customers. Gary’s death hadn’t occurred at my bar, but the connection to it was clear. Not only had he worked for me, but his body was found with one of my cocktail napkins wadded up and stuffed in his mouth. Because of this, a trio of detectives had been more or less living at my bar since Wednesday night. Duncan was not one of them.

Gary’s death hit me hard, not only because it ramped up my anger and my fear level, but also because I felt indebted to the man. He was an ex-con—a fact I discovered by accident during the investigation into Ginny’s death—and this knowledge had colored my impression of him. When I realized how wrong I was, he not only forgave me, he literally took a bullet for me, saving my life. That put avenging his death high on my list, though my task wouldn’t be an easy one. Not only did I have no clue who the letter writer was, but I was also laid up with a broken leg I’d sustained in a car accident while rushing to get to the correct location indicated in the most recent letter before the deadline. That accident had cost me time and as a result, it had cost Gary his life. Though I was determined not to make the same mistake again, my confidence had flagged. And my investigative efforts had been further hampered by the reporters who were hounding me. Still, I was determined to find a way, to figure it out before another one of my friends, employees, or customers ended up dead.

It was this need that brought me out into the colorful holiday mayhem: I needed to visit the location indicated in the last letter, the location I hadn’t made it to on time. I was heading for the Milwaukee Public Market.