Free May Day by Jess Lourey Page B

hurriedly to see one of Kennie’s neighbors, broom in hand, giving me the “should you really be doing that?” eyebrow lift. A chair screeched inside the house, and I darted away like an antelope.
    What sort of person sweeps outside anyhow? How did he know when he was done? Damn neighbor. All the good reasons I had for lurking outside Kennie’s door whipped behind me with my hair. It was just as well. Lies only worked if I was caught spying, not spying and running. Running implied a certain level of guilt. That’s why I didn’t stop at my car and kept cruising through people’s yards and down the quiet streets. Logic told me the Chief would have no problem catching me if I was in my car. He had a radio, after all. If he caught me walking the streets, well then, I was just a citizen out on a nice night. I slowed to a stroll and regulated my breathing.
    The school park seemed like a good place to stop, so I pulled up on a swing and studied the brick of the Battle Lake Public School, grades K–8. The rumors in town were that Kennie and the Chief were an item, but small-town rumors were notoriously noxious and exaggerated. Their conversation, at least what I had heard of it, had been official: police chief talking to mayor in the wake of a murder. But why had he thought Kennie would know something about the murder? And what was the talk of gambling? And why couldn’t I shake the feeling that jealousy had colored the Chief’s voice when he asked Kennie about Jeff? And what had Kennie been about to say about Jeff when I had fallen off her stoop? “Jeff was in my past”? “Jeff was in my spinning class”? “Jeff was in my closet right up until I put his mutilated body in the Pl–Sca aisle of the library and isn’t that good rich fun”?
    Half an hour passed before I ambled back to my car. By the time I returned to the water tower, the Chief’s Jeep was gone and Kennie’s lights were extinguished. I would get no more information here tonight, but I knew where to go for the real dirt.

Anyone who is anyone knows the best small-town information can be found in a local bar, and the best local bar in the county was Bonnie & Clyde’s. Ruby, the bartender and owner, used the four-finger rule when mixing her drinks—four fingers of alcohol with a soda spray for garnish. The pool tables were usually full, the jukebox slammed everything from Joan Jett to Metallica to Shania Twain, and everyone knew not to drink the water or eat the ice. Something about a cistern problem in Clitherall, the tiny town located a bunny jump from Battle Lake.
    I had spent quite a few nights at Clyde’s, because it was a place where anyone could feel comfortable. People just didn’t care here, or they cared too much, but they never ignored you. On a Tuesday night, I didn’t expect to see much action. The karaoke machine in the bar across the street had drawn away the big dreamers, which was just fine by me. I was looking for pickled locals, the older the better. I had a hunch baking in my head about the Jorgensen land, and I wanted to knead it a bit.
    The bell over the door probably jingled when I walked through, but I couldn’t hear it over Patsy Cline lamenting on the jukebox housed in the corner of the massive room. Hal Henricks was swaying next to it, a whiskey Coke more whiskey than pop three-quarters full in his hand and threatening to spill. He had his eyes closed and his mouth open, every other tooth standing proud. “I . . . falllll . . . to pieces!” He was actually doing a pretty good job backing up Patsy. The smell of GPC cigarettes, aged beer, and something that would make good mushroom fodder crept under my pants and stroked my thighs.
    My eyes scanned the room, picking up the two epileptic dart machines against the wall, both empty except for plastic bar darts hanging from one. The two pristine pool tables, their surfaces a soft field of white-dotted green, dominated the bar, clearly the ruling gods of this space. In the