Free Shadows Still Remain by Peter de Jonge

calls home, and doesn’t stop until she reaches the corner of First Avenue and Fifth Street. That’s the address McLain gave her for a bar he said he’d been working at called Three of Cups. Even though she’s standing directly in front of it, it takes her a while to spot the steel stairs dipping beneath the curb to the basement.
    Chris Rock used to do a bit about women needing only fifteen seconds to decide whether or not they want to fuck some guy. The first time O’Hara heard it, she laughed out loud because she knew he was right. O’Hara is the same way about bars and, to her surprise, hits it off with this one right away. She likes the purple felt cap, circa Sly and the Family Stone, 1974, jauntily perched on the head of the bartender, and she likes the band stickers plastered three deep on the ceiling, but mostly she likes what she hears: Aerosmith.
    O’Hara grabs a stool at the bar and flags the barkeep, butdoesn’t tell her she’s a cop. “I’m trying to get in touch with a family friend. His name is David McLain. I was told he’s been working here.”
    â€œDavid’s a sweetheart. A couple nights a week he picks up empties and helps me out. Actually, I’m a little worried about him. He missed his last two nights, doesn’t answer his phone. He didn’t seem like the type to disappear without telling anyone.”
    â€œHe isn’t,” says O’Hara, buttoning her coat to leave. “That’s why I’m looking for him. I’m sure he feels bad about not calling.”
    â€œCan’t I get you a drink?”
    â€œNext time.”
    McLain told her the truth about where he worked. Hopefully, he told her the truth about his Thanksgiving shopping, too. Key Food, where McLain claims to have done it, is one block east and one block south, on Avenue A. When O’Hara enters the dated all-night supermarket, it’s 2:50 a.m. Behind the Entenmann’s rack is a ladder, leading to a tiny perch of an office where the manager works at a desk looking directly over the cash registers. The ceiling is so low, even the five-foot-three O’Hara can’t stand straight. When the manager tells her he needs a couple of minutes, O’Hara sits on a milk crate and pulls out the menu from Empire Szechuan.
    McLain’s list runs in a thin green column down the right side. The first item is stuffing mix, and an arrow, shooting off it to the left, points to a sublist: chicken broth, mushrooms, celery, bread crumbs, pecans, eggs, sage.
    For the past four hours, Lowry has been calling McLain a loser, and maybe, compared to a potential Rhodes scholar, he is. But how many nineteen-year-olds make their own stuffing?
    After the detour for stuffing ingredients, the list continues: brussels sprouts, cauliflower, Yukon Gold potatoes, olive oil, chives, butter, cream, turkey (eight to twelve pounds), roasting pan.
    The final item, added as if as an afterthought, is cranberry sauce, and, as with the stuffing, there’s an arrow pointing to a sidebar: cranberries (one bag), apples (two), sugar, vinegar, ginger.
    Ginger is the only item in the entire list that doesn’t have a thin blue line running through it.
    What the hell? thinks O’Hara. The dude makes cranberry sauce from scratch too. Either he’s perfect, or he’s gay. Her patience spent, O’Hara pulls out her shield and explains her need to verify a purchase made by a suspect early on the morning of November twenty-four.
    The manager looks at O’Hara like she’s nuts and he’s busy. “How do you expect me to do that?”
    â€œI got a list here of everything that was bought,” says O’Hara, and holds up her Chinese menu.
    â€œThis is some kind of joke, right? Tell me, I’m being Punk’d.”
    O’Hara remembers that McLain also recalled the exact price of his purchases, and turning the menu over, finds it in her own handwriting beside