*
A few minutes later, I pull into the gravel parking lot of McNarie’s Bar. I’m relieved to find only two cars in the lot. It’s one of many reasons I come here. The place is low-key and quiet—in terms of clientele anyway. McNarie never asks too many questions. Though he’s just a little bit shady, he keeps his ear to the grapevine and passes information on to me if he thinks it might be important. I guess you could call him a small-town version of an informant.
I stifle the little voice telling me to turn around and go home as I kill the engine and get out. Snow stings my face and blows down my collar as I traverse the lot and head for the entrance. Shoving open the heavy wood door, I step inside. The familiar smells of cigarette smoke, old wood, and spilled beer greet me like scruffy old friends. A classic Allman Brothers tune rattles from huge speakers mounted on the back wall. Two men sit on opposite sides of the bar, watching a football game on the tube. At the rear of the room, a young man with a goatee plays pool with a woman in tight blue jeans and a faux-fur coat.
I go to the last booth, where the bulb in the pendant light that dangles above the table is out. Taking off my coat, I sit facing the door. My butt has barely hit the bench when McNarie walks over to the table. He’s a large man with a full beard and a dingy white hair that reminds me of a dirty polar bear. Tomasetti once said he’s a dead ringer for Jerry Garcia.
“I hear them three Amish folks drowned in that pit didn’t get down there all by themselves.” Without looking at me, he sets a shot glass filled to the rim with Absolut and a Killian’s Irish Red on the table.
“That’s what the coroner says.” I reach for the shot glass first and down the vodka in a single gulp. The burn rips down my throat like a fireball. Shuddering, I set the empty glass on the table.
McNarie refills it without prompting. “You know who done it?”
“Not yet.” I give him my full attention. He’s got small brown eyes set in a big puffy face. The white beard partially conceals a scar that bisects his right cheek and runs downward toward his chin. It looks like someone slugged him with a bottle and McNarie never bothered with stitches. I ran a check on him when I first started coming here. Ten years ago, he did a year in prison for felony assault. A few years later, he did two more years on a felony weapons charge and possession of a controlled substance. He’s kept his nose clean since.
He lives on an old run-down farm north of Millersburg and rides his Harley into Painters Mill nearly every day, weather permitting. He owns this place and does a good business. He’s behind the bar every time I come in. I like to think this man is proof that the system works and that he’s been rehabilitated. Or maybe he just decided it was easier to make a living inside the law.
“You hear anything?” I ask.
He sets a pack of Marlboro Lights and a lighter on the table. “No one’s talking about it.”
I think about the escalation of violence against the Amish, decide to ask him about that, too. “Did you hear about the burning buggy incident today?”
“I heard.”
“Anyone bragging about it?” I smile, but it feels wan on my face. “Or have a sign taped to their back that says ‘I Did It’?”
His chuckle sounds like the growl of some rogue lion. “A few days ago, a couple of young guys come in—longhaired types. Laughin’ their asses off ’bout doing some shit to an Amish person.”
My heartbeat trips a couple of times. “You know their names?”
“Never seen ’em before.”
“You get specifics on what they did?”
He shakes his head. “Just caught snatches of what they was saying.”
“Do you know what they were driving?”
Another shake. “No, but I’ll keep my eye out.”
I watch him walk away, wishing he hadn’t left the Marlboros, because I know I’m going to smoke them.
Settling into the booth, I sip the beer and light the first cigarette. I watch the twenty-something couple play pool at the rear. They laugh and flirt, and for some reason that makes me feel old. Go home, Kate, that small voice of reason whispers. I silence it, down the second shot, then light another cigarette.