The smoke of my cigarette burned into my lungs, withering healthy cellular structure like newspaper set aflame. They say you can learn to like anything, even pain; though I never understood why someone would want to. Still, my body needed that choking smoke, and not just because of the chemicals. I needed that pain to distract myself from the reality that constantly bombarded my eyes; a curtain to draw when the light becomes too intense.
I exhaled slowly, emotions billowing away with the hazy smoke; love, anger, and sadness, drifting away between the morning sunbeams of the half-open venetians; Only did I allow logic and cold reason to remain.
The last dying ember was struggling to devour the filter, so I made a new splotch on a dirty ashtray- a final stream of smoke trailing up like a white flag. A few short paces away from the booth in which I sat, a corpse curled bloodily around the base of a swiveling barstool. At first glance, one might take him for a simple drunk who had simply done what drunks do: his knees were bent, clasped together and against the ground, angled away from the bar and towards where I sat regarding him. It had an awkward look, though, as his hips were aligned ass to hell and cock to heaven, his left shoulder was crunched against the bar itself, and his right hand rested lightly on his gut. His mouth was even open in what could have been a loud snore.
Yet the spray of crimson, ceiling to floor, marked the final resting place(s?) of the poor bastard's head. A .44 above the right eye. Boom. The gun lay in its own drunken stupor on the counter-top next to a half-empty pint glass, recovering from its own night of shameful excess.
The uniformed officer who drove me to the bar reentered the building; his youthful face was clam and business-like.
"Sir," he said, "Forensics already did their thing, though they want that gun once you're done looking around. And it looks like the body-baggers are getting tired of waiting to get in here."
"Who discovered the body?" I asked.
"Ah, Mr. Douglas Hinter, the owner; found him here in the morning."
"Who closed?"
"Sir?"
I sighed and began rifling through my pockets in search of my smokes, "The bar! Who closed the bar last night?"
"I think Mr. Hinter's daughter, Annie Delwayne."
"So she's married. Okay. How do you know she closed last night?"
"Forensics spent a lot of time on the bar computer. I was standing guard at the door and overheard them."
My eyes flicked from the young officer to the black box of a ordering computer that sat behind the counter. I needed to have a look at that. I heaved myself out of the booth. "I want a look at that myself."
While the computer booted up (Why would Forensics shut it down? Habit?), I lit a smoke and took another calming pull. Homicide just wasn't the way to get a day started. The computer seemed to agree. Its hard drive seemed to balk at the task, crunching and grinding loudly.
"What are you looking for, sir?"
The menu screen popped up, and I began punching my gloved fingers at buttons. "You see that half-empty beer, there? The victim's?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want to know what kind of beer that was. It doesn't look domestic."
The officer peered at the beer.
I spotted the menu for the bar's order history and pushed at it eagerly. "See, I bet you Forensics will rule this suicide, and all the facts do add up to that; the side head wound, the lack of a struggle, and I bet shot powder on his right hand. Hell, he might even own that damn cannon there."
"So what is important about the beer, sir?"
My eyes flicked down the order history: A pint of Palouse Falls Crimson Pride (paid in cash, damn!). I opened a few drawers behind the counter until I found a clean glass. "The beer is a microbrew out of Pullman, Washington," I explained as I navigated my way down the wall of taps until I found the tear drop symbol I was looking for. "And in my experience, most people who choose not to drink domestic swill are beer lovers."
The officer was silent for a moment as helped myself to the tap. Finally, he asked, "So you're saying the dead guy was a beer lover? How is that important?"
I held the glass up to the streams of light arrowing through the closed blinds, admiring it's reddish amber color while the head calmed for a moment. "Stick with me and you might get yourself into some plain clothes, kid. The point is: if our John No-Head over there is a beer lover, and this happens to be a good beer; Why is the glass only half empty?"
"Because you're a pessimist?"
I guffawed before I could stop myself. "No. Why is it half full, then? Anyway, the point is: why isn't the beer ALL gone?"
The young uniform leaned against the bar to muse on that while I finally lifted the glass and took a gulp. The Crimson Pride was a red ale by the look, and I was a bit surprised by the calm, almost flavor-neutral first contact.
However, the body came to the beer's rescue and pleased my pallet with a hoppy, ale-ish carbonated burn. It was like the beer was a Trojan horse: it doesn't do anything as you tip it past your enameled gates, but once inside, flavor strikes like a host of angry Ageans.
"Oh! I see!", said the uniform as I swallowed, and the brew's dry, hoppy finish flowed about my mouth. It ended a bit like an IPA, but gentler.
The officer continued, "If that guy was a beer lover, and he was planning on killing himself; why wouldn't he finish the last beer of his life?"
I set the glass down with a loud thump. "Precisely! And this beer is good. Quite good. Or at least good enough to finish before you die, I'd say." I reached for my smokes, realized I had one lit already in the ash tray, and so hastily picked that one back up. "I have a hunch that someone helped our friend here pull that trigger, and I'm going to find out who." I began striding purposefully towards the door, questions and angles of inquiry already bouncing off the inside of my skull.
"Detective! Sir! Where are we going?"
"To talk with Mrs. Delwayne! I want to know some things about this bar!" I shoved the bar door open and sunshine blazed upon me. I had a case!
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