Shadow Of Misgivings by Nora Kane (classic books to read TXT) 📗

“I assumed he was eating.”

“If he was here, he would be.”

“Somebody slept in his bed.”

“Yeah, but for how many nights? One or three?”

“You think he could have gone before the meeting?”

“It’s possible. Nothing here says he wasn’t.”

“You know, he never was much for putting away his dishes when he was a kid.”

“That didn’t change.”

They made their way back to the kitchen. There was one plate sitting on the counter. It looked like someone had eaten off of it recently, but it could have been an hour ago or it could have been a couple of days.

“I only see the one plate,” Marv said as he looked around the kitchen.

“Mal would only use one plate,” Margot told him. “He’d wash it off after he ate and then use the same one.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Mal. That doesn’t help us much then.”

“How tight do you keep the inventory?”

“Not tight, We ain’t a restaurant. When we start to run out, we go get more.”

“Yeah? It’s not like there’s a store around the corner.”

“If we’re having an event, we make sure we have plenty of everything, but otherwise we play it by ear.”

“You said it was fully stocked when Mal came three days ago?”

“Yeah.”

Margot went to the freezer. She wasn’t sure if she could tell the difference between Mal eating here one day or three, but it was worth a look. She opened it up and let out a short sharp scream as she jumped back, reaching instinctively for the gun in her purse.

She moved her hand away as she realized the blue eyes of the man in the freezer matched the color of his skin. Stuffed in amongst the rib eyes and the T-bones was a dead man.

Her first thought was it was Mal, but even in his frozen state, it was clear the body was someone else. He was too short and his hair too long. Plus Mal never wore a Devil’s Racers motorcycle jacket.

Marv saw her initial reaction and asked, “What’s up? You got a fear of red meat or something?”

“Did you have a dead body on ice before you put up Mal?”

Margot stepped aside as Marv went to look.

“What the hell?” Marv yelled as he stared at the blue dead man in his clubhouse freezer.

“Do you know him?”

“Yeah, club member, newer guy but not that new. His name was Chester, but everybody called him Cheese.”

“At my place, when you were talking about the outlaw side of your outlaw biker gang, you said some people were more in it than others. Where did Cheese land on that scale?”

“The deep end. You think Mal killed him?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past him. He wouldn’t do it for no reason though.”

“I can’t think of a single reason. None of this makes sense.”

“Is this the only freezer?”

“Why?”

“I don’t think you could get Mal’s body in this one with Cheese in there too.”

“Before I answer that question, there are some things we need to be clear on. This here, this body—this is club business. This happened at our place and we don’t call the police, ever.”

“You want me to pretend I didn’t see this?”

“No, I want you to keep the law out of it. No good will come of it if you call it in and we both know it. Cheese will still be dead and the odds the cops will bring his killer to justice before we do are astronomically high.”

“Even if that killer is your brother?”

“Some shit is out of my hands. If he had a good reason, I can guarantee we’ll listen.”

Margot didn’t like it, but she didn’t see a lot of choices. If she said no, there was a chance that Marv would be looking to put her in a freezer.

“Okay, I’ll respect that as long no citizens end up in the crossfire.”

Marv nodded. “Killing citizens is bad for business.”

“So, back to the question. Are there any other freezers?”

Marv pointed to another door and said, “I’ll check the others. The workshop is off limits to everybody but the O.G.s.”

Margot thought this over for a second and then asked, “The workshop? Did somebody put a body in the wrong freezer?”

“Just stay here.”

Margot did as he said. It was bad enough she had just pledged to be quiet about one murder. If there were more and they didn’t involve Mal, she didn’t want to know about it. She closed the freezer door and left the kitchen area. Margot didn’t want to hang around with Cheese’s frozen corpse.

She went back to the bar area where she found a tumbler and a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Technically, she was working, but stumbling on a body when there's a full bar just a thin wall away seemed to be a good reason to make an exception to her usual rule. She poured herself two fingers and then went around to the other side of the bar and found a stool.

Margot had reached the bottom of her glass when Marv came back in. She didn’t figure the length of time he had spent back there was a good sign. He went around the bar and poured himself a shot of Jack Black.

He knocked it down and poured another. He stared at this one for a while before Margot asked him, “Mal?”

Marv shook his head.

“But you found something.”

“Two more bodies, Racers like Cheese. The reason Cheese was in the kitchen freezer was the one back in the workshop was full. Found the steaks too. The killer dumped them out back. They’re spoiled, if that makes a difference.”

“It means they didn’t commit the crime this morning.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t narrow it down much, does it?”

“No,