“OK, look. You don’t like your sister being a stripper. I get it, but—”
“That’s her business,” Grade said. “I just need to know about Verne.”
There was a pause, and then the intercom cut out for a second time. Before Grade could jam his thumb back down on the button, the door popped open. He shoved it all the way open and went into the dimly lit corridor.
With no strippers to keep on track, the Choke’s management saw no need to light up the backstage area. Grade paused for a second as he waited for his eyes to adjust and then followed the bass beat of music to the main bar of the Choke.
A woman in a tailored suit, leather suspenders pulled slanted in aVeither side of her breasts, posed on a dais with the pole behind her and a selfie light in front of her. One of the bouncers had pulled a chair up and stood on it as he filmed her.
“TikTok,” the man at the bar, his voice familiar from the intercom, said. He looked up from the books he was working on, columns of numbers marched down a lined page, and nodded at the stage. “I say all we need to do is flash some tit, but Sal says that it’s all about the transition. I guess we’ll find out when we see what goes viral.”
Grade shrugged. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’m not on social media.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Grade had a handful of accounts on most platforms, but that was business. He didn’t interact, not as himself. Like tattoos, social media gave people way too many ways to identify someone. The little things that people didn’t think to change about themselves: Coffee orders. Favorite podcasts. Hobbies and habits.
“And look what you’re missing,” the man said as he nodded at the stage.
Grade half turned to get an eyeful as the dancer peeled her shirt off, her body artfully splattered with gold.
“I think I’ll live,” he said.
“Your loss,” the man said. He capped his pen, set it down in the crease of the book, and extended his hand. “Aidan Dunphy. And you’re Dory’s little brother?”
Grade tried not to sound annoyed by the need to correct that assumption. “I’m older than her.”
Dunphy raised his eyebrows and looked Grade up and down.
“Huh,” he said, turning his mouth down at the corners. “And she’s never mentioned she hates you?”
“Why state the obvious?” Grade asked.
Dunphy smirked and sat back, his elbow braced against the bar. He was a solid, heavy-shouldered man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a slightly grayer beard. Old tattoos stretched over his knuckles as he picked up a glass of iced water to take a drink.
“So what do you want to know about Verne?” he asked.
“Where I can get in touch with him.”
Dunphy set the glass down and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “You know what’s funny? Someone just dropped his new address off this morning.” He stretched over the bar and shuffled around for a second before he came up with a business card. There was a coffee stain on one side of it, and the corners were thumbed over. Dunphy held it out between his fingers and flicked the edge with his nail. “Here you go.”
The Cargill County Sheriff’s Department logo was printed on cheap card stock in smudged ink. Grade wasn’t usually paranoid, but that seemed like the setup for an embarrassing end to his career. He didn’t take the card; instead, he tilted his head to the side to read it.
“Deputy Paul Martin?” he read out.
“You want to see Verne, talk to him,” Dunphy said. “He’ll get you into the morgue.”
When Grade didn’t take the card, Dunphy shrugged and tossed it back behind the bar.
“What happened?” Grade asked.
“He died,” Dunphy deadpanned.
“How?”
Dunphy shrugged and picked up his pen again. He pulled the cap off and set it to the side, next to the glass of water.
“Deputy Martin wasn’t here to shoot the shit with me,” Dunphy said. “But he was here because he knew Verne was a regular. Asked if he’d had any problems with any of the girls or other customers, so I’d guess he didn’t die of natural causes.”
That sounded like a safe bet.
