She called the owner of Lou’s, ironically a man named Sal, not Lou, and he agreed to meet with them at the bar and open it for inspection. Lorena was still reeling, but she couldn’t let it cloud her judgment. She had to catch Gingerbread before he struck again.
Paula called her just as they were pulling into the bar’s gravel parking lot. She reported that the gun was most likely the one stolen from Mrs. Sarchione’s nightstand. The one that Gingerbread took that night. He may have been using it as a slap in the face to law enforcement. But he may have just made a stupid mistake. Either way, it now linked him to both murders. Gingerbread wasn’t stupid. He knew the law. He knew it would link him. He just didn’t care because he thought they’d never catch him. Lorena had news for him. His days were numbered.
When they pulled into the parking lot of Lou’s, the owner was already there waiting for them. His bar stood alone, not surrounded by any other buildings or homes and on a short, side street. It was a two-story that probably housed an apartment on the top floor. Some of the building was covered in barn siding painted red, and the rest in well-worn weathered red brick. There were two satellite dishes on the shingled roof. Sal was a nice guy, despite his imposing stature and biceps the size of Christmas hams. He offered them seats at the bar while he stood behind it. Lorena figured it was where he was most comfortable. He even offered them a drink, but they declined. Instead, he put on a pot of coffee while she looked around the place, scanning the shadowy corners, the dark, heavy wood on the walls and matching wainscoting. This was a neighborhood bar, not some trendy, going to be open six months to a year kind of franchised place. This place had roots so deep that it’d take heavy, earth-moving equipment to tear it down.
“So who’s Lou?” she asked.
“That was my uncle,” he told her. “I inherited the place from him. I always hung around here, just about every day of the week. Worked for him once I got in high school. He didn’t have any kids, and I didn’t have shit for a family at home. He was like my dad. My real old man split when I was seven. This was like my second home. He left it to me about sixteen years ago now.”
“It’s cozy, homey,” she remarked as she glanced around. A pool table was in the other room. Red curtains hung on the windows. Scarred and scratched tables and booths lined the walls and the two aisles splitting the place into two sections. The bar top was shiny and clean. Everything was organized and neat. He obviously took pride in his small, family establishment. “I can see why so many people like to come here.”
“Hell, I know it ain’t no fancy place like downtown or one of them Chili’s, but I like it like this. I don’t want people to feel like they have to dress up to come in. Plus, we’ve got the best burgers in town. Hand-pattied every day for the last thirty years.”
“That’s why it’s been here so long, I’d guess,” Lorena complimented his bar. It was comfortable, like an old sweater. Worn-in just the right amount, and like a breath of fresh air from the ultra-modern, white on black, cold buildings in the hipster district of downtown Cleveland, Lou’s was cozy. It offered people a piece of nostalgic comfort that drugged them like a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek from their grandmother.
“Probably right,” he said.
Sal was meek, likable, genuinely heartbroken that his friend, ‘Spence’ as he called him, was gone. He went on and on about how he just saw him last night, he seemed to be having fun, his daughter was pregnant, he’d bought a round for the whole bar. He rambled, but Lorena had to interrupt him so that she could get real information that might help her solve his friend’s murder.
“Sir, did you notice your friend acting nervous or anxious about anything?” Lorena asked.
“No, not Spence,” he said. “He was always a happy guy. Always in a good mood. Never had a single enemy that I knew of.”
“What about their businesses?” Jack asked. “Did he say he was having troubles there?”
“No, far as I knew, they were doing great. Even talked about retiring. Hell, most of us talk about retiring. Haven’t actually got around to the doing it part, though.”
Jack chuffed and offered a grin to put the man at ease.
“What was his marriage like? Did he complain about Mrs. Adams a lot?” Jack asked.
“No way,” Sal offered. “They were the real thing, ya’ know?”
Lorena asked him, “Do you know anyone that would want to harm him or his family?”
“No, like I said, Spence was a nice guy. Everyone liked him.”
“Did he speak with anyone at the bar or in the restaurant that you noticed who wasn’t a regular, someone who was out of place that Mr. Adams wouldn’t have known?” Lorena asked.
He paused a moment before answering, “I’m not sure. We had a big crowd for a few hours there.”
“Did you notice anyone in the bar last night that wasn’t a regular, anyone dressed strangely or out of place?” Lorena asked, noting his responses in her notebook.
He poured three coffees and set a pint of cream on the bar top for them. Then he placed a little white, ceramic pot of sugar there, too.
“We were packed last night,” he said. “Don’t know what that was all about. We had regulars, locals, few outta’ towners- they were from Michigan headed to Florida. It was packed. Cooks barely kept up with the orders.”
“Is that normal?” Jack asked.
“Comes and goes,” he said with a shrug of his beefy shoulders. “Sometimes we get parties in here. Sometimes dumb college kids come in. They don’t stick around, though. The regulars don’t like ‘em. The weekend’s always busier.”
“But it was busy last night, busier than usual for a Friday?” Jack asked again.
“Oh, yeah, couple parties, people celebrating stuff, some city people…”
“Wait, how do you know they were ‘city people’?” Lorena asked.
He chuckled and sipped his coffee. “Really? You can just tell. They got that way about them.”
“Ok,” she said with a nod, agreeing with him. “And the regulars, ever have any trouble with any of them? Ever think any of them could be trouble?”
“You always have one guy that’s the town bum, the loser who wants to mooch a free beer. We’ve got a few of those, too. Never thought of any of them as killers, though. Just lonely, single men who didn’t have no-one to go home to.”
“What about drugs? Anyone ever try to buy or sell in here?” Jack asked, going back to his narco roots.
“Hell, no,” Sal said emphatically. “I don’t let any of that shit in here. My mother had her demons when it came to that shit. No way. Not in my bar, not in Lou’s.”
Lorena nodded.
“Look, let me make us some breakfast,” Sal said.
“Oh, no,” Jack said. “We’re fine. You don’t have to do anything like that. We just need to ask some questions.”
“Well, Detectives, I don’t really like to eat alone. My wife passed away a few years ago. I come down here every morning to get the place ready for the day. I make myself breakfast and eat alone. Eat with me. Give a guy a break.”
“But…” Lorena started.
“You’re gonna be here a while going through my video camera footage,” he said bluntly.
Lorena was shocked. She’d already looked for cameras and was disappointed to note that there weren’t any.
He must’ve read the surprise on her face because he explained, “Hidden. I don’t want my friends to think I’m spying on them. But I get the occasional fight in here. Going back to the college morons again. It doesn’t hurt to cover my ass if you know what I mean.”
He chuckled and wandered through a swinging door, presumably the kitchen. Lorena noted that he wore his brown leather house slippers. She wondered if he slept upstairs or just lived close by. Sal returned a moment later.
“Come with me to the office,” he said. “You can watch it back there on the t.v.”
They nodded, collected their coffees and bags and followed Sal to his office which was as organized and clean as the rest of the bar. He offered her the seat behind a desk, pulling over an extra chair for Jack from the restaurant.
“Take your time, Detectives,” he said. “Let me know if I can help. I’ll be back with some breakfast.”
He left them to their work. Finding someone so cooperative was unusual. Typically people ran the other way when they sniffed out the fact that she was a detective.
“Think we’ll find anything?” Jack asked her.
Lorena replied, “I sure as heck hope so. I want this over. I don’t want him doing that again.”
“I know,” he agreed quietly.
Lorena turned on the television and started the surveillance video. For being a small, mom and pop operation, Sal’s security system and cameras were pretty high-tech. They scanned the footage in silence for a while. Most of it was the employees coming in to work and the few locals who arrived well before the dinner hour. Sal came in a short time later and handed them platters full of food. He pulled a chair over for himself and returned again with a fresh pot of coffee that he placed on the desk.
“Thank-you, sir,” Jack told him, to which Lorena said the same. “This is great. We don’t usually get treated to a smorgasbord of food.”
“Gotta start the day right,” he answered.
Lorena smiled. This was her kind of breakfast. Scrambled eggs, not egg whites, bacon, hash browns, white toast and more coffee. It was exactly what she’d need to get through this day. She was, indeed, grateful, even though her stomach was upset from the murder.
“Find anything yet?” Sal inquired as if he, too, were involved in their case. Lorena just smiled.
“Not really,” she answered.
“Hey, there he is,” Sal said. “Spence.”
“Mr. Adams?” Jack confirmed to which Sal nodded.
They watched as others piled into the bar and restaurant. He had enough camera angles set up that every area except for the restrooms and kitchen were covered. There were close to a hundred people in Sal’s bar, which made it difficult to see individual faces or watch for strange behavior. Jack ate some of his breakfast as they played the video in slow motion. Sal pointed to people, noting the regulars for them. Lorena also ate but scribbled notes, too.
Sal carried away their dishes in a busboy’s gray tub when they were finished. Jack refilled their mugs, adding cream and sugar to Lorena’s. She thanked him, but her eyes were glued to the screen as she viewed the footage.
“He’s only talking to the guys at the bar, the regulars,” she said quietly. “If Dudek did it, somehow before we stuck him in the holding cell, then he hasn’t shown up on the video yet. I don’t get it. Where is Gingerbread? Where was he last night? Waiting at Mr. Adams’s home already?”
“How’d he know Gingerbread? I can’t imagine him doing this on a random whim,” Jack commented. “He doesn’t operate like that.”
“Spencer Adams let him in,” she said. “Just like all the others who were murdered in their homes.”
“Exactly,” Jack said. “So where’s our connection?”
She frowned, which obviously reflected Jack’s own frustrated thoughts as he, too, grimaced with irritation.
“Wait, hold on,” she said quickly and sat forward.
Lorena skipped the video backward and paused it.
“Look here,” she said. “That’s the lawyer, the young one that seemed jealous of that Juliette Nicholson chick. What was his name? He works for Dudek. We interviewed him first, remember?”
Jack nodded, “Bryan… Brad…”
She started flipping through her little notebook at lightning speed. Mumbling under her breath, she found it, pointing at her notebook.
“Barry, Barry Winters,” she said. “That’s him.”
“Right, I remember,” Jack said with a nod. “That is him. No doubt. Looks like some sort of party.”
Sal sauntered slowly into the room again. He stood behind them, looking at the screen.
“What can you tell me about this group, Sal?” Jack asked.
“City people,” he said with a nod as if he was right all along.
“Do you know any of them?” Lorena asked.
Eyeglasses, hanging around his neck and resting on his chest, were pulled on. He peered closely but shook his head.
“Can’t say that I do,” he said. “Like I said, we had quite a few parties in here last night.”
“Do you remember this group?” Lorena asked.
He nodded, “Yes, I think I remember them. Kind of a loud, rowdy group, but not as bad as the obnoxious college kids.”
Lorena pressed play again and they all watched carefully as other members of their group arrived. She recognized Dudek’s secretary, their receptionist, likely a few other secretaries and lawyers, and the last to arrive was Juliette Nicholson and her own secretary. All in all, there were thirteen people at their table. They must’ve come together. Some people were carrying gift boxes with bows on them.
“Looks like a law firm party,” Jack noted.
“More people from the Dudek law firm that we now have to look at,” Lorena said. This case was exhausting. “Excuse me, guys. I need to call and tell my niece not to go with her friend today.”
There was no way she was letting Grace go to school, either. Maybe not until this case concluded, which she hoped was soon. Lorena would also need to stop at the school later in the week to pick up a few days’ worth of schoolwork for her. Grace was bummed but didn’t question her. This wasn’t the first time she’d done something like this. A few years ago, Lorena had been tracking a killer involved with a gang. He’d known who she was because she’d questioned him, twice. He’d openly threatened her, too. It hadn’t helped his murder case having that charge added on. He’d been an ignorant gang-banger. Gingerbread was a highly intelligent, professional serial killer. She wasn’t taking any chances with Grace. She could miss a little time with friends and school.
Lorena returned to the office to find Jack zooming in on each of the party members’ features to carefully scrutinize them. Another person, a man in his forties arrived with a birthday cake that he took out of a striped, bakery box. He had a younger, blonde woman on his arm.
“Couple people came with dates,” Jack told her. “But most of them just look like they were there for a birthday party.”
Lorena took her seat again next to Sal, who favored himself a junior detective. He was helpful, if not a bit too helpful. He made a lot of speculations.
“Who’s missing?” Lorena asked. “There’s an empty chair.”
“Nicholson,” Jack answered. “Looks like we catch her on this other camera. She went to the bar to order a round of shots for her co-workers. Weird.”
“What’s weird?” Lorena asked as he backed up the video to show her.
“She didn’t actually drink any of the shots,” he explained. “She just ordered them for the rest of the group. As a matter of fact, it looks like she’s drinking a seltzer water with a lime twist.”
“She’s not a drinker,” Lorena confirmed. “But that’s not a bad thing. Maybe she’s a recovering alcoholic.”
She sat quietly staring at the monitor, waiting for something to pop out at her. Lorena watched as Nicholson went to the bar again for rounds for her group and, this time, a pitcher of beer, too. She didn’t drink any of that, either. But she did wedge herself between Mr. Adams and a man with whom he was conversing. She carried the tray back to the table. Lorena wasn’t sure how she did it in those heels. She would’ve toppled it all onto someone’s head. Maybe she put herself through law school by waitressing. That theory seemed doubtful, though. Juliette Nicholson seemed like old money.
“Here comes Spence’s daughter,” Sal said beside her. “She came in to celebrate her pregnancy. Spence was so thrilled, so happy for her.”
Lorena grimaced as she watched a beautiful young woman of half-Asian descent hug and kiss her father with unconcealed joy and optimism for her future. She hadn’t been happy a few hours ago when they’d had to interview her and tell her of her father’s murder. It made Lorena even more depressed that Gingerbread had purposely killed Spencer Adams just to get at her.
Then, to her surprise and Jack’s as well, Mr. Adams’s pregnant daughter, who they knew as Rose McCallister, excitedly greeted the table of lawyers from Dudek’s law firm. Most of the lawyers greeted her, as well. She must’ve known them. Now Lorena had to figure out how she knew them. Winters spoke with her a few seconds and then Nicholson. Juliette Nicholson even followed Rose back to the bar to meet her father. They exchanged a few words, and Juliette returned to the table after she shook his hand.
And a few minutes later, Steven Dudek walked through the front door talking on his phone. He also carried a gift wrapped in pink paper with a white ribbon. Apparently they were celebrating his secretary’s birthday.
“What the hell?” Jack swore. “He was in a holding cell at this time. Look at the time stamp. This was about eight o’clock. This was just a few hours after we raided his apartment. Look at this jerk. Mr. Smiles and Charm.”
Lorena immediately buzzed their captain. She hung up a moment later in a fury.
“They let him out last night,” she snapped. “He had a judge friend get him released. Threatened the precinct with a full-blown wrongful imprisonment suit. Filed a writ against us already. Juliette Nicholson got him out and drove him back home around six-thirty. This is bull.”
“Damn,” Jack swore again. “Now our number one suspect’s out on the streets and another person was murdered a few hours later. Talk about a hard to explain coincidence.”
“He’s either got the world’s worst luck, or he’s playing us for bigger fools than we are,” she said. “Captain’s working on picking him up again.”
“Good luck with that,” he said. “Judge’ll never allow it.”
Dudek worked the table like the professional employer he was supposed to be. Barry Winters introduced him to Rose at the bar when they both went there to order drinks. He shook her hand and even spoke a moment with Rose- probably congratulating her- before the young woman turned, kissed her father and left. Dudek was so smooth and slick. He also made Lorena’s skin crawl just a little bit as his large hand rested a tad too long on the shoulder or lower back of each woman from his office.
Mr. Adams left the bar in good spirits soon after his daughter departed to find her mother. He was probably anxious to hurry home to celebrate the prospect of being a grandparent with his beloved wife when she got home from her girls’ night out.
“How do they all know her?” Lorena questioned rhetorically.
Jack stood and left the room. She continued to watch the footage with Sal, who now sat quietly beside her. The greasy, comfort food breakfast he’d made them was turning sour in her stomach. She was watching the last hours of a loving husband, devoted father and good friend play out on a twenty-inch television screen. Juliette Nicholson was the first person to leave the law firm party, waving cordially to her friends. Some of the others stayed longer. Winters left soon after Nicholson.
“She works for the city,” Jack told them when he returned. “She’s in the zoning department down in city hall.”
“And did she say she knows any of these people? Obviously, she did,” Lorena said.
“She said she knew Nicholson and Winters and some guy Winters mentioned named Tim. She just met Dudek last night. Sees a lot of lawyers in the city hall all the time working on zoning and planning corporate crap for their clients.”
“Not Dudek?”
“No, she met him last night for the first time,” Jack reiterated. “Said he was suave and charming but that she had never worked with him before down in city hall.”
Lorena pointed to the screen and said, “He’s leaving.”
They watched as Dudek pulled on his suit jacket again which he’d laid on the back of his chair, and left the bar.
“Evans,” Jack said.
“I know. I see it. The time is eleven-thirty. I don’t even know if that’s enough time for him to head over to the Adams’ residence, kill Spencer Adams and get out of there before his wife arrived home. This is a significant gap.”
“Huge,” he agreed.
“There is so much here,” Lorena said finally when the tape was done. “We need to go over this again. Go over the time stamps and get with Paula again.”
She wanted to speak with their M.E. again just to be sure on that time of death and also to find out if she had anything. Lorena wanted a damn hair or a skin cell or anything that would tie Dudek to this crime.
Sal left them alone and went to work somewhere else in his bar. Lorena spun in her chair to face Jack.
“What if it’s not him?”
“Dudek?” he asked to which she nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “What if it’s one of the other ones? What if we’re barking up the wrong tree?”
“Don’t think we are,” he said. “We’ve still got his car. Wanna’ go check what the team found in it before he gets that back, too?”
“Heck yeah,” Lorena said and sprang to her feet. She took the cd with them of the bar footage.
They thanked Sal again and left. She felt bad for the man. He’d lost his friend, and Spencer Adams seemed like a good one.
“I just want one, solid thing on this guy,” she told Jack once they were on their way to the precinct.
“Then let’s go talk to your nerd friends,” he said.
She sent Grace a text and got a smiley face from her. She sent back a pair of Japanese samurai. It was something they liked doing, sending emojis that didn’t make sense in the conversation. Grace sent her a western saddle emoji. Lorena laughed aloud. She sent one of the Australian flag. Then she sent up a prayer that she’d catch Gingerbread before anyone else got hurt.