Mackenzie was reading over the final report on Clive Traylor, wondering where she went wrong, when Porter stepped into her office. He still looked a little disgruntled from the morning. Mackenzie knew he'd been sure Traylor had been their guy and he hated being wrong. But his constant irritable mood was something Mackenzie had gotten used to a long time ago.
"Nancy said you were looking for me," Porter said.
"Yes," she said. "I think we need to pay a visit to the strip club that Hailey Lizbrook worked at."
"Why?"
"To speak with her boss."
"We've already spoken to him on the phone," Porter said.
"No, you spoke to him on the phone," Mackenzie pointed out. "For a grand total of about three minutes, I might add."
Porter nodded slowly. He stepped fully into the office, closing the door behind him. "Look," he said, "I was wrong about Traylor this morning. And you impressed the hell out of me with that takedown. It's clear that I haven't been showing you enough respect. But that still doesn't give you the right to talk down to me."
"I'm not talking down to you," Mackenzie said. "I'm simply pointing out that in a case where our leads are next to zero, we need to exhaust every possible avenue."
"And you think this strip club owner might be the murderer?"
"Probably not," Mackenzie said. "But I think it's worth talking to him to see if he can lead us to anything. Besides that, have you checked the guy's rap sheet?"
"No," Porter said. The grimace on his face made it clear that he hated to admit this.
"He has a history of domestic abuse. Also, six years ago, he was involved with a case where he supposedly had a seventeen-year-old working for him. She came out later on and said she only managed to get the job by performing sexual favors for him. The case was thrown out, though, because the girl was a runaway and no one could prove her age."
Porter sighed. "White, do you know the last time I stepped foot in a strip club?"
"I'd rather not know," Mackenzie said. And by God, did she get an actual smile out of him?
"It's been a long time," he said with a roll of his eyes.
"Well, this is business, not pleasure."
Porter chuckled. "When you get to be my age, the line between the two sometimes blurs. Now come on. Let's go. I imagine strip clubs haven't changed that much in the last thirty years."
*
Mackenzie had only seen strip clubs in movies and although she hadn't dared tell Porter, she hadn't been sure what to expect. When they walked inside, it was just after six o'clock in the evening. The parking lot was starting to fill with stressed out men coming off of their work shifts. A few of these men gave Mackenzie a little too much attention as she and Porter walked through the lobby and toward the bar area.
Mackenzie took the place in as best she could. The lighting was dim, like a permanent twilight, and the music was loud. Currently, two women were on a runway-like stage, dancing with a pole between them. Wearing only a pair of thin panties each, they were trying their best to dance in a sexy manner to a Rob Zombie song.
"So," Mackenzie said as they waited for the bartender, "has it changed?"
"Nothing except the music," Porter said. "This music is terrible."
She had to give it to him; he wasn't watching the stage. Porter was a married man, going on twenty-five years. Seeing how he was focused on the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar rather than the topless women onstage made her respect for him go up a notch. It was hard to peg Porter as a man who respected his wife that much and on such an account, she was happy to be proven wrong.
The bartender finally came over to them and his face went slack right away. While neither Porter nor Mackenzie wore any sort of police uniform, their attire still presented them as people that were there on business-and probably not business of the positive kind.
"Can I help you?" the bartender asked.
Can I help you? Mackenzie thought. He didn't ask us what he could get us to drink. He asked if he could help us. He's seen our kind in here before. Strike one for the owner.
"We'd like to speak to Mr. Avery, please," Porter said. "And I'll have a rum and Coke."
"He's busy at the moment," the bartender said.
"I'm sure he is," Porter said. "But we need to speak with him." He then took his badge out of his interior coat pocket and flashed it, returning it back as if he had just pulled off a magic trick. "But he needs to speak to us or I can make some calls and make it really official. It's his call."
"One second," the bartender said, not wasting another minute. He walked to the other side of the bar and went through double doors that reminded Mackenzie of the kind she'd seen in saloons in those cheesy Western movies.
She looked back to the stage where there was now only one woman, dancing to Van Halen's "Running with the Devil." There was something about the way the woman moved that made Mackenzie wonder if strippers lacked dignity and therefore did not care about exposing their bodies, or if they were just that confident. She knew there was no way in hell she could ever do something like that. While she was confident in many things, her body was not one of them, despite the many lewd glances she received from random men from time to time.
"You look a little out of place," someone beside her said.
She looked to her right and saw a man approaching her. He looked to be about thirty years old and as if he had been sitting at the bar for a while. He had that sort of gleam to his eyes that she'd seen in many a drunken altercation.
"There's a reason for that," Mackenzie said.
"I'm just saying," the man said. "You don't see many women in places like this. And when they are here, they're usually here with a husband or boyfriend. And quite frankly, I don't see the two of you," he said, pointing to Porter, "as being an item."
Mackenzie heard Porter chuckle at this. She wasn't sure what annoyed her more: the fact that this man had gotten brave enough to sit beside her or that Porter was enjoying every minute of it.
"We're not an item," Mackenzie said. "We work together."
"Just here for the after-work drinks, huh?" he asked. He was leaning in closer-close enough for Mackenzie to smell the tequila on his breath. "Why don't you let me buy you one?"
"Look," Mackenzie said, still not looking at him. "I'm not interested. So just move along to the next unwitting victim."
The man leaned in closer and stared at her for a moment. "You don't have to be a bitch about it."
Mackenzie turned to him finally and when they locked eyes, something in the man's gaze shifted. He could tell she meant business, but he'd had a few drinks too many and apparently just couldn't help himself. He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her. "I'm sorry," he said. "What I meant to say is, well, no, I meant what I said. You don't have to be a bitch about-"
"Get your hand off of me," Mackenzie said softly. "Last warning."
"You don't like the feel of a man's hand?" he asked, laughing. His hand slid down her arm, groping now rather than simply touching. "I guess that's why you're here to look at naked women, huh?"
Mackenzie's arm came up with lightning speed. The poor drunk man didn't even realize what had happened until after she'd thrust her forearm into his neck and he was falling off of his barstool, gagging. When he hit, it made enough noise to attract one of the security guards that had been standing by the edge of the lounge area.
Porter was then on his feet, stepping in between the guard and Mackenzie. He flashed his badge and, to Mackenzie's surprise, stood nearly toe-to-toe with the much larger guard. "Slow down, big boy," Porter said, all but rubbing the guy's face with his badge. "In fact, if you want to avoid the spectacle of having someone arrested in this seedy establishment, I suggest you toss this jack-off out of here."
The guard looked from Porter to the drunk man on the floor, still coughing and gasping for air. The guard understood the option he was facing and nodded. "Sure thing," he said, hauling the drunk man to his feet.
Mackenzie and Porter watched as the guard escorted the drunk man to the door. Porter nudged Mackenzie and chuckled. "You're just full of surprises, huh?"
Mackenzie only shrugged. When they turned back around to the bar area, the bartender had returned. Another man stood beside him, staring down Mackenzie and Porter as if they were stray dogs that he didn't trust.
"You want to tell me what that was all about?" the man asked.
"Are you Mr. William Avery?" Porter asked.
"I am."
"Well, Mr. Avery," Mackenzie said, "your patrons need to do a better job of keeping their mouths shut and their hands to themselves."
"What's this about?" Avery asked.
"Is there somewhere more private we can speak?" Porter asked.
"No. Here is fine. This is the busiest time of the day for us. I need to be here to help tend bar."
"You sure do," Porter said. "I ordered a rum and Coke five minutes ago and I still haven't seen it."
The bartender scowled and then turned to the bottles behind him. In his absence, Avery leaned forward and said, "If this is about Hailey Lizbrook, I already told your other cop buddies everything I know about her."
"But you didn't talk to me," Mackenzie said.
"So what?"
"So, I take a different approach than almost everyone else, and this is our case," she said, nodding toward Porter. "So I need you to answer more questions."
"And if I don't?"
"Well, if you don't," Mackenzie said, "I can interview a woman named Colby Barrow. That name sound familiar? I believe she was seventeen when she started working here, right? She got the job by performing oral sex on you, I believe. The case is dead, I know. But I wonder if she'd have anything to tell me about your business practices that might have been swept under the rug six years ago. I wonder if she might be able to tell me why you don't seem to give a damn that one of your dancers was killed three nights ago."
Avery looked at her like he wanted to slap her. She almost wanted him to try it. She had encountered far too many men like him in the last few years-men that cared noting for women until the lights were out and they needed sex or something to punch on. She held his gaze, letting him know that she was much more than a punching bag.
"What do you want to know?" he asked.
Before she answered, the bartender finally delivered Porter's drink. Porter sipped from it, smiling knowingly at Avery and the bartender.
"Did Hailey have men that came in and usually flocked to her?" Mackenzie asked. "Did she have regulars?"
"She had one or two," Avery said.
"Do you know their names?" Porter asked.
"No. I don't pay attention to the men that come in here. They're just like any other men, you know?"
"But if it came down to it," Mackenzie said, "do you think some of your other dancers might know their names?"
"I doubt it," Avery said. "And let's face it: most of the dancers ask for the man's name just to be nice. They don't give a shit what their names are. They're just trying to get paid."
"Was Hailey a good employee?" Mackenzie asked.
"Yes, she was, actually. She was always willing to work extra shifts. She loved her two boys, you know?"
"Yes, we met with them," Mackenzie said.
Avery sighed and looked out to the stage. "Listen, you're welcome to talk to any of the girls if you think it will help figure out who killed Hailey. But I can't let you do it here, not right now. It would upset them and screw with my business. But I can give you a list of their names and phone numbers if you absolutely need it."
Mackenzie thought about this for a minute and then shook her head. "No, I don't think that will be necessary. Thanks for your time, though."
With that, she got up and tapped Porter on the shoulder. "We're done here."
"I'm not," he said. "I still need to finish my drink."
Mackenzie was about to argue her point when Porter's phone rang. He answered it, pressing his free hand to his other ear to block out the godawful noise of the current Skrillex song blaring from the PA. He spoke briefly, nodding in a few places before hanging up. He then downed the remainder of his drink and handed the car keys to Mackenzie.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It seems I am done," he said. Then his face became set. "There's been another murder."
