Free Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder by Jessie Chandler.

too young.
    Time to check in with Coop and rethink my game plan.

four
    “AGH,” I yelped. Blistering hot cheese and bacon squirted from between two burger patties to scald my tongue. I gingerly rolled the rest of the bite around my mouth until I could chew and swallow without further damage.
    Elsie’s Restaurant, Bar, and Bowling Center in Northeast produced one of my all-time favorite burgers, the Juicy Brucy. It was a loose cousin to my second-favorite burger, the Jucy Lucy, found at Matt’s Bar in Minneapolis, among others. The Juicy Brucy added chunks of bacon to the molten cheese sealed in the middle of the burger.
    “You,” Coop said, watching me grab my ice water and down a couple swallows, “always manage to burn yourself when you eat that.”
    The now tender buds on my tongue scraped against my front teeth. I hated the feeling, but I was always too impatient to wait until Elsie’s masterpiece was cool enough to eat. Served me right, I suppose. “I know, I know.” I stuffed another bite in anyway.
    Coop took a huge chomp of his grilled cheese, crammed it all to one side of his mouth, and chewed. “So what now?”
    “I called the Lep after extracting myself from the cemetery. Eddy assured me that things were running slick as a pig’s greased ass—don’t ask me—and she and Lisa are getting on fine.” I bit into one of my waffle fries. “Man, I don’t know what to think. I mean—Dad disappears, this dead guy shows up in a block of ice, Dad’s handgun is found with the body? The whole thing with being pressured to sell the bar and the threats … ” I trailed off and popped the last of the Juicy Brucy in my mouth.
    “I don’t know. But Shay,” Coop leaned toward me, suddenly earnest, “your dad no more iced that guy than I offed Kinky on the barge.” A little over a year earlier Coop’s boss had been killed on a floating bingo barge where Coop had been working, and for a while he thought the police had fingered him as the prime suspect. He wasn’t guilty, but it was quite the endeavor to get things straightened out in his favor.
    I drained my water and sat back in the booth. “I also got a hold of Johnny.”
    “Barboy Johnny? What’s he doing now?”
    Johnny was the steadiest bartender my father ever had. He’d been hired on before he was old enough to drink and had stuck by my father and the Lep throughout years of ups and downs while he went to college. I think my dad felt a little like Johnny was the son he’d never had. I didn’t feel slighted because Johnny was an all-around good guy.
    I said, “Remember Johnny graduated from college not too long ago?”
    “Yeah. Landed himself a nice job, didn’t he?”
    “Yup. But with the unstable economy, they laid him off. He decided to go back to school for his masters in urban planning.” I waved a fry in the air. “I don’t get how some people can keep going to school year after year after year. That would drive me nuts. On the bright side, Johnny’s school schedule has a lot of flexibility, and he’s agreed to help out.”
    “Maybe your dad can bring him on again for a while.” Coop pushed his plate away with a grunt. “That was good shit, man.”
    “Since there’s no one to replace Whale, that’s a fine idea, Mr. Cooper. I’ll run it by Johnny and see what he thinks. When Dad surfaces, he can deal with that fallout.”
    “Hey, thanks,” Coop said to the waiter who stopped by to top off our glasses of ice water.
    I turned my attention back to Coop. He grabbed his glass and guzzled the entire thing, using his front teeth to keep the ice at bay. My own teeth ached watching him. He banged the glass down on the tabletop and said, “Let’s go.”

    After waiting for Coop to speed-smoke in the bowling alley’s parking lot, I rolled into the Lep about nine thirty with Coop trailing along behind me. I wondered if Lisa had decided to hang around longer than she’d anticipated or if she had checked out. Couldn’t blame her if