The Touch Of Ghosts: Writer's Cut (Alex Rourke) by John Rickards Read Free Book Online Page A

dark green. I’d been in here a couple of times with Gemma but I didn’t remember it being quite so funereal.
    There were no more than thirty people inside, and I wasn’t surprised to see that none looked like tourists. Not that the locals were grizzled mountain types out of some cheap TV movie; as far as I knew maybe half the people in town were white collar workers unable, like Gemma, to afford anywhere closer to their jobs. The rest were either farmers or retirees. More than one pair of eyes tracked me to the counter, though the music didn’t die and the conversation didn’t stop. A couple in their forties were tending bar and waiting tables. The woman intercepted me.
    “What can I get you?” she said, not bothering to hide the fact that she was trying to guess what I was doing in town.
    “A Bud, thanks. Is the kitchen still open?”
    She checked her watch. “Yeah, just about. Best not ask for anything fancy, though.”
    “A burger, fries maybe. Whatever's big and won't be too much hassle this time of night.”
    “No problem.” She scribbled down an order on a notepad and the old guy took it from her and vanished out back.
    I sat at the counter, nursing my beer and absentmindedly listening to such snatches of conversation as I could make out. Normal nothing talk for the most part — complaints about work, road repairs, hockey games. Husbands bitching about their wives, wives bitching about their husbands. The closest I had to a pack of suspicious types in long coats lurking in the shadows was a pair of old timers at one of the tables, talking in voices too quiet for me to catch. One of them eyeballed me periodically; I watched him in the polished surface of the beer tap in front of me.  
    This continued while I worked through my dinner and another beer. The Owl's Head filled up a little, but not enough to come close to crowded. Eventually, on one of his occasional trips to the counter, one of the old gossips said, loud enough to catch my attention, “Cold evening we're having. You from away?”
    "Yeah. More or less.”
    He nodded like that was expected. “We do get folk passing through. On your way out again tonight?”
    I looked across at the old man. His question was a typical 'get rid of the unwanted outsider' type, but his tone made it seem less of a threat and more as though he suspected he already knew my answer. Like he already knew who I was and what my business was here.
    The guy himself was unassuming, not even looking at me but instead trying to catch the barmaid’s eye. He must have been in his late sixties at least, with a whitish-grey beard and close-cropped white hair thinned almost to baldness on top. Dressed for the cold.
    “No, I'm not,” I said. “I’m probably going to be around for a while.”
    “The hiking or somesuch? Same again, Bella.”
    “I’m here because of my girlfriend.”
    “She live here? If you don't mind me prying.”
    I drained the bottle and gestured for another. “Not any more. She was killed last week just north of town.”
    “I see.” Expectation, hope maybe, flared in his eyes. I guessed a theory of his had just been confirmed. He held up a hand to stop me paying for my drink. “Here, I'll get that. Fair exchange for putting up with an old man's questions.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Don't mention it. So are you just sorting out everything that needs sorting out, or is there something else on your mind?”
    “Some of both. I thought maybe I could find out why she died, and who killed her.”
    “So you're a cop.”
    “No, not these days. Do you know anything about what happened?”
    “Only what I heard.” He picked up his beers and nodded his head in the direction of his drinking buddy, who was still sitting at their table. I followed him over and found a vacant chair while he placed one glass in front of his companion and took a slow draw from the other. “Ed Markham,” he said. “And this here's Charlie Kanin.”  
    Charlie was almost identical to Ed,