Murder in the River City(3)

Please God, please. He can’t be dead.

She stumbled at the thought of her grandfather’s old body, broken and bleeding on the floor of his beloved pub. She grabbed a pillar to steady herself when she caught sight of the police cars, an ambulance and news crew double-parked on the street in front of Dooley’s Irish Pub. Taking a deep breath and swallowing thick tears, she pushed off from the support and sprinted down the block to the entrance.

“Whoa, ma’am, you can’t go in there.”

A burly cop reminiscent of a bear blocked the entrance, effectively stopping her momentum when she bounced off his chest.

Winded and sweating from her sprint as well as the morning heat, she tried to speak. “My. Grand. Dad. I—”

“Slow down, young lady. This is a crime scene; you can’t go in there.” His voice was nauseatingly placating, and a flash of temper rose in her throat, as red as her hair. She counted to three and took a deep breath.

“Officer, my granddad is in there,” she said as calm as possible.

“No one is allowed inside, ma’am.”

“Dammit, he’s my grandfather!” She pounded his chest once with her fist.

The nice cop persona disappeared and out came the mean bear. “Stand back or I’ll put you in handcuffs and you can spend the day in jail for assaulting a police officer.”

“Oh, please!” Shauna wasn’t intimidated. She waved toward the news vans. “Fifteen minutes ago I heard a man had been killed at Dooley’s and I get here and the police are all over the place and you won’t let me go in and my grandfather owns this pub! Maybe the press knows what you refuse to tell me!”

The officer looked sheepish, but held the company line. “We haven’t issued a statement to the press, they are—”

“I want to speak to your superior, now!”

“Thompson, what’s the problem?”

If Shauna had pictured the mean cop as a bear, it was a baby bear, because this cop was a grizzly bear. Six and a half feet tall with dark hair and dark, probing eyes. He wore regular street clothes and Shauna assumed he was a detective.

“Are you in charge?” she asked, hands on her hips, not willing to show the big cop he intimidated her.

“Detective John Black. And you are?”

“Shauna Murphy and my grandfather is in there and this man won’t let me in and I need to know he’s okay and not—not—not—” She couldn’t say it, didn’t want to think it.

Dead.

Black said to the cop, “I’ll take care of this.” He took Shauna’s arm and led her into the pub. A cold draft from the air conditioner hit her over-heated skin, bringing goose bumps to the surface.

“If your grandfather is Pat Dooligan, he’s alive and kicking,” Black said.

“Thank God.” She crossed herself out of habit and twelve years of Catholic school. Relief made her lightheaded. She took another deep breath, and this one worked to steady her nerves. “Where is he?”

“Shauna girl!”

Spry, nearing eighty with the energy of a man half his age, Pat Dooligan claimed “a nip of Guinness every hour or so” kept him physically fit.

“Da.” Relieved, Shauna rushed over to where he sat at one of the pub tables on the far side of the bar, away from the yellow crime scene tape that blocked off half the room, including the antique mahogany bar. A CSI and deputy coroner stood behind the bar, looking down, conversing, their backs to the room. She couldn’t see the body, but the jagged sound of a long zipper made her shudder. A body bag, she thought. So final.

“Dooley, tell me what happened.” She ran a hand through her tangled curls as she looked around. Everything looked distorted because the bar-length mirror had been broken and the reflections she’d expected to see were gone.

“It’s Mack.” Dooley rubbed his forehead with one hand and picked up a pint of dark beer with the other. Shauna had never seen him look so old.

“No.” The tears she’d held back spilled over her lashes. Mack had been a bartender at Dooley’s for longer than Shauna could legally drink.

“He closed last night.” His clear blue eyes watered as he watched the deputy coroner wheel the gurney out the front door.

Shauna covered one of Dooley’s hands with her own and turned to the detective who stood next to them, watching with cool, dark eyes. “What happened?” she demanded.

“Our investigation has just started, Ms. Murphy, but sometime after closing Mack Duncan was attacked and killed in an apparent robbery. The cash register was emptied, as well as the tip jar. There is no sign of forced entry, the front door was locked, but the rear entrance was unlocked when Mr. Dooligan arrived.”