“Yeah. That’s all. What’s this about?”
“Was she here last Tuesday night? Around eight o’clock?”
“Last Tuesday? Buddy, I can barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning. She’s been here before, that’s all I know for sure.” He hands me back the photo. I hate that he called me buddy. It’s denigrating.
“Detective,” I say.
“Huh?”
“It’s Detective Hoffman. Not buddy.” Then I ask, “Can you tell me who was working last Tuesday night?”
“What’s this about?” he asks again. I tell him not to worry about it. I ask him again who was working Tuesday night, this time with a militant tone that completely goes over his big head. He isn’t too fond of my disrespect. He knows he could kick my ass if he wanted to. Only one problem: I carry a gun.
But he retreats into a back room anyway. When he returns he’s empty-handed. “Sarah,” he says.
“Sarah?”
“She’s the one you need to talk to. She was serving that table,” he says, pointing to a filthy booth at the back of the bar, “Tuesday night. She’ll be here in an hour.”
For a while I sit at the bar and watch him stock bottles of booze. I watch him refill the ice bins and count money into the cash register. I try to make small talk to throw him off as he tallies up what seems to be thousands of pennies. I lose track at forty-nine. I pace.
Sarah Rorhig appears within an hour, coming through the front door with an apron in her hands. Her boss engages her in a secret exchange, during which her eyes turn to mine. There’s a worried look on her face, a forced smile. I’m at the table, pretending to be rummaging around for clues when all there is is the vinyl booth and a slab of wood masquerading as a table. That and a frilly little green candle I consider swiping for my own home.
“Sarah?” I ask and she says that she is. I introduce myself and ask her to have a seat. I hand her the photo of Mia. “Have you seen this woman?”
“Yes,” she admits.
“Do you remember if she was here last Tuesday, around eight o’clock?”
It must be my lucky day. Sarah Rorhig is a full-time medical assistant and only works Tuesday nights to make a little extra cash. It’s been a week since she was here and so Mia’s image is fresh in her mind. She says with certainty that Mia was here last Tuesday; she says Mia is always here Tuesday nights. Sometimes by herself, sometimes with a man.
“Why Tuesdays?”
“Tuesday-night poetry slam,” she says, “or so I assume that’s the reason she’s always here. Though I’m never entirely sure she’s listening. She always seems to be distracted.”
“Distracted?”
“Daydreaming.”
I ask what the heck a poetry slam is. I’ve never heard of it. I imagine works of Whitman and Yeats being thrown on the ground; that’s not the case. The idea of listening to people recite their own poetry on stage, however, has me even more baffled. Who the hell would want to listen to that? It appears I have a lot to learn about Mia Dennett.
“Was she by herself last week?”
“No.”
“Who was she with?”
Sarah thinks for a minute. “Some guy. I’ve seen him around here before.”
“With Mia?” I ask.
“That’s her name?” she queries. “Mia?” I say that it is. She says that she was nice—the use of the past tense runs into me like a freight train—and always very friendly. She leaves a good tip. She hopes that everything is okay. She can tell from my questions that it’s probably not, but she doesn’t ask to know what happened and so I don’t say.
“This man Mia was with last Tuesday night...they’ve come together before?”
She says that no, they haven’t. This was the first time she’s seen them together. He’s usually at the bar, alone. She’s noticed him because he’s apparently cute, in an enigmatic sort of way—I write that down; I’ll have to look that one up in the dictionary. Mia is always at this table, sometimes alone, sometimes not. But Tuesday night they sat together and they left together in a hurry. She doesn’t know the man’s name but when I ask she can describe him: tall, sturdy, a mound of messy hair, dark eyes. She agrees to meet with a sketch artist later to see if they can come up with something.
I ask again, “Are you sure they left together? This is really important.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see them leave?”
“Yes. Well, sort of. I brought them the bill and when I came back they were gone.”
“Did it seem she was leaving on her own free will?”