Free Whiskey on the Rocks by Nina Wright Page B

twenty-nine years old with at least that many arrests for prostitution.”

    “And you thought the Broken Arrow Motel was reformed.”

    “Lomax failed to check in with her parole officer in Grand Rapids last week.”

    I said, “Grand Rapids was Dan Gallagher’s hometown. Coincidence?”

    “Most of life is.”

    Jenx invited me to join her and Mrs. Gallagher for coffee later.

    “Her husband died on your turf. She might want to meet you.”

    I pointed out that Noonan owned the massage table.

     

    Marilee Gallagher was nothing like the late Ellianna Santy. She wasn’t Canadian or blonde or beautiful. She also wasn’t a bitch. When I stopped by the police station, I thought Jenx’s office was empty. The door was ajar with no one in sight. Then I heard whispering. Stepping cautiously inside, I glimpsed a puffy brunette hairstyle bobbing low on the far side of Jenx’s desk. A moment later, the attached face and body appeared. Marilee Gallagher struggled to her feet.

    “Oh!” she exclaimed when she spotted me. “I was just on my knees having a word with the Lord. I’ll bet you’re looking for Chief Jenkins. She’s checking her fax machine.”

    Marilee Gallagher gave me a radiant smile. A large woman with lovely dimples, she possessed a perfect heart-shaped mouth and sparkling teeth.

    I thanked her, turned to go, and crashed right into Jenx.

    “Mrs. Gallagher, this is Whiskey Mattimoe, a local real estate broker.”

    “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Mattimoe.”

    I asked her to call me Whiskey, but she was uncomfortable saying the word since her church outlaws liquor.

    “Why would your mother do that to you?” she asked, her eyes shining with sympathy. “Was she . . . an alcoholic?”

    I explained that the nickname was based on several weird factors, beginning with my real name. My dear mother is a teetotaler. Nothing stronger than decaf for her. Sweet Irene Houston christened her baby girl Whitney. She chose the name after reading it in a romance novel. I never liked it, and eventually it became a joke. I’m not black, I was never beautiful, and I have no musical talent whatsoever. What I do have is the raspy voice of someone who lives in a bar. Or someone with a three-pack-a-day habit. Never mind that I rarely drink the hard stuff, that I haven’t lit up since I turned thirty, and that I’ve sounded this way since I hit puberty. That’s when a kid named Jeb Halloran dubbed me Whiskey, and the name stuck. A few years later, I married Jeb Halloran. That didn’t stick.

    Marilee Gallagher still wasn’t “at peace” with my nickname. So Jenx sadistically encouraged her to call me Whitney—the birth name I loathe as much as Jenx does hers.

    “Why don’t we all use our first names then?” I said brightly. “Chief Jenkins loves to be called Judy, or—even better—Judith.”

    Jenx’s eyes narrowed as if prepared to fire lasers.

    “My sister’s name is Judith,” chirped Marilee. “I always wished my mother had saved that name for me.”

    Suddenly, she shrieked and went spinning away from us as if flung by an unseen dance partner. At the same instant, everything made of metal on Jenx’s desk jumped, and all the phones at the station started ringing. I glanced at the acting police chief, whose eyes now bulged.

    “Easy, Jenx,” I whispered.

    “Oh my,” Marilee said again, from the corner where she had landed. “I do believe I felt the Holy Spirit in me!”

    What she had felt was a disturbance in our local magnetic fields. Such occurrences are legendary, dating back to the earliest days of Magnet Springs’ history. In recent years, though, the phenomenon has been linked exclusively to Jenx. I’d never seen her so exercised about her birth name and said so.

    “It’s not about that,” she hissed.

    “I haven’t felt like this since the tent revival in Kalamazoo,” Marilee cried. “Let us pray!”

    “Let us not,” said Jenx. She handed me the paper she had been holding