The Big Dive by Bruce Most

Author:Bruce Most [Most, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780998944258
Publisher: Big Sleep Press
Published: 2019-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

With my efforts to infiltrate Zingano’s burglary ring stalled, my only remaining line of investigation into Benedict’s murder was his mysterious link to the deceased Marcus Raschke. That meant finding his widow. Her bird-lady neighbor had pretty much ruled out local friends, which left motels and local bars the neighbor said she frequented.

Bars and motels. Now those were places I knew my way around.

I couldn’t check them out while on duty, however. Neither Perdue nor anyone else in the department could learn I was nosing into the professor’s death. Which left me combing local motels and bars before or after shifts. If Kim Raschke was a boozehound, noon was none too early to start, and after my shifts was none too late.

It took two days to find her—in a sad dark gin mill on Colorado Boulevard a few blocks from her house. It was early afternoon and the place was nearly deserted. Two older men played pool and an old woman drank at the bar. Mrs. Raschke leaned unsteadily against a jukebox, one hand holding a long-necked bottle of Coors, the other snapping time to Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On.” She looked as much barfly as beauty queen. Her neighbor hadn’t seen strange men sneak into Mrs. Raschke’s home, but a man was with her now. Tall, bearded, with a rough face and heavy black boots, standing opposite her by the jukebox, a Schlitz in his hand. Both were laughing over the sounds of a frantic fiddler.

Apparently she wasn’t overly grief-stricken that her husband was recently blown to smithereens.

The tall man saw me approach before she did. He straightened slightly and turned serious, as though he feared I might be her husband. She turned a moment later, tracking his eyes to mine. She didn’t seem to recognize me, but then she looked well on her way to getting snockered.

“This guy your brother, Mrs. Raschke?” I asked. “He’s not your husband, that’s for certain.”

She squinted and a vague recognition came into her eyes. “No, he’s—”

“Good, then we can talk alone.”

“Who the hell are you, bub?” demanded the man.

I flashed my badge. “You got any wants out on you—bub?”

The man put on a tough scowl for the lady, but slunk off to a far corner of the joint. I took his place beside the jukebox and rested one hand on the bubble tube that arched over the front of it. The tube felt warm. Bubbles rose from invisible sources at the base, dancing and gurgling to the top, while revolving fluorescent tubes turned Mrs. Raschke’s blond hair alternating shades of red, blue, and green.

“They want to jack these up to a dime,” I said, patting the big machine. She didn’t seem to care about the cost of a tune. Probably never needed to watch her nickels and dimes, unlike the rest of us.

Her eyes came into better focus and her brain engaged, though her mouth was a little slow. “You’re . . . you’re the detective who came to see Marcus a few days before he was killed.

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