A Novel Murder - Episode 7

The young bartender

I dropped Bob off at the clinic and drove back to the victim’s apartment. The forensic team had finished and I had the place to myself. The victim’s desk was dingy but well-used. A smudged glass held the dregs of what smelled like whiskey. Ashes from chain-smoked cigarettes covered Stephen’s hand-written notes. Writers live such solitary, unhealthy lives. I wondered how many hours he’d spent staring at that painting on the wall, poisoning himself with booze and nicotine day and night as he climbed into the recesses his mind. It looked like he first wrote with pen and paper, then typed the story out on an old typewriter. No wireless keyboard, no big screen monitor, no inkjet printer. For someone so young, Stephen liked an old-school process.

His manuscript was sitting next to the typewriter. The first pages showed what to me looked like some good prose. It made me want to keep reading. A blank piece of paper sat loaded in the typewriter, awaiting words that will never come. A friend who knows about such things once told me that young writers can rely on naivete, nerve and instinct to tell a good story, but it got harder as the world wore on you. It took 20-year-old Bob Dylan ten minutes to write Blowin’ in the Wind, but now that he’s an old man, he said he no longer has the energetic clarity to conjure such beauty so quickly. Stephen T. didn’t have to worry about any of that now.

A disposable lighter on the desk bore the logo of a local bar. The bar was around the corner, so I walked over to have a chat with the staff.

It was the kind of joint that was once the haunt of discount vodka-and-OJ day drinkers but had transitioned to an ironic dive bar for hipsters to pile into on the weekends, eager to deplete their trust funds. It was empty this afternoon, and Nick the bartender seemed happy to have the distraction of talking to a nosy old cop. He looked too young to be tending bar, but was open and affable - a bit of a goof, but he had a good memory and an eye for detail - my favorite kind of witness.

“Stephen came by almost every day. He’d told me it was how he rewarded himself for making progress on his book. He was a good guy - sometimes he’d have a few too many and start ranting, but I knew what to do to calm him down. He always left before it got too busy. He didn’t like being around people his own age. Since he lived close by, I’d sometimes walk him home and make sure he got in safely.

“He never came in with Jennifer, but I did see her here a few times with an older black guy. She never gave me the time of day. I think it was because she knew Stephen talked to me about her. They weren’t a real happy couple, but to be honest, Stephen wasn’t a very upbeat guy to begin with. He insisted that I call him Stephen instead of Steve. He was kind of full of himself - always going on about how people told him his book was going to change lives. I got sick of hearing about it, to tell you the truth. You know how writers are.

“Stephen met up with a guy here the night he was killed. The guy was in his mid-to-late 30’s. He wore a blazer and had a nicely trimmed beard. He ordered a 25-year-peated single malt Scotch. He and Stephen seemed to know each other pretty well. They were arguing. The evening rush had started and it was busy, so I didn’t hear everything they said, but apparently, the guy was mad at Stephen about something he was buying from him. I remember him shaking his head and telling Stephen over and over: ‘The deal is off.’ Then the guy left and Stephen started ordering double shots. He got belligerent with the other customers, so I had to him off, but he just sat at the bar staring at nothing. He was freaking out the other clientele so I tried to get him to go home, but he refused and sat alone until closing. In fact, he was the last to leave.

“I’m pretty sure the bearded guy paid with a credit card. I think I can find the receipt - I don’t sell a lot of peated whiskeys here…”

Nick went to the cash register, opened a black laquer box next to it, pulled out a stack of receipts and shuffled through them, then wrote on a notepad. He came back and handed me a sticky note with the name on it: Roger L. I thanked Nick for the lead. Before I left, I asked him if he had walked Stephen home that night. Nick smiled sadly and shook his head. “Maybe if I had, he’d still be alive.”