Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

enjoys his meth. From the looks of him, a little too much. He’s balding on top with a precision-cut goatee and a missing canine on the left side. He’s wearing a black tee-shirt with the sleeves torn off. The tattoos on his biceps jump as he dries a shot glass with a moldy-looking towel. He’s staring at me with the lazy nonchalance of an alligator sunning itself on a muddy bank while watching some fat rodent come down for a drink.
    “How’s it going, Jimmie?” I say.
    “Fair to middlin’.” He doesn’t look pleased to see me. Judging by the way his eyes are jumping around, I’d venture to say my presence is making him nervous. I’m not surprised. People like Jimmie are always up to no good. He leads a life of crime and spends most of his time trying to keep people like me from finding out about it.
    “You’re not going to ruin my day, are you?” he asks.
    “That depends on you.” I smile. “You got any coffee made?”
    “Anything for you, Chief.” Turning his back to me, he snags a carafe from beneath the bar and slides it into an ancient-looking Bunn coffeemaker. “What brings you out here this afternoon?” he asks, scooping grounds from a Sam’s-size Folgers can.
    I turn, set my elbows on the bar, and scan the room. The people at the rear have resumed their pool game, a few shifty gazes still flicking my way. The couple on the dance floor are swaying in time to Neil Young & Crazy Horse, oblivious to everything except the spot where skin meets skin. A young woman sits alone at a table, arguing with her iPhone.
    “Did you hear about that accident out on Delisle last night?” I begin.
    “You mean that buggy wreck?” He turns to the cabinet behind him and pulls down a white mug.
    “There were three people killed.”
    “Man, I hate to hear that.” He checks the mug to make sure it’s clean and sets it on the bar in front of me. “Them damn buggies is hard to see at night.”
    I want to tell him they are particularly hard to see if you’re knuckle-dragging drunk and doing eighty, but I hold my tongue. “Did you work last night?”
    “I’m here ’bout every night.” He doesn’t meet my gaze as he pours coffee into the mug. “You want creamer, Chief?”
    “Black’s fine.” I reach for my wallet, but he stops me.
    “It’s on the house.”
    “Thanks.” I pick up the mug and sip. The coffee is weak, but it’ll do. “Jimmie, do you remember who was in here about this time yesterday?”
    “Aw, we were so damn busy, I couldn’t even get away to take a piss.” He picks up a glass that’s already dry and starts wiping. I can tell by the way he’s concentrating on the task that he knows where my line of questioning is going and he doesn’t want any part of it.
    “Anyone overly intoxicated?”
    “Not that I noticed. Pretty mellow crowd out here most days.” He wipes the glass faster and harder. “I cut off anyone gets out of line.”
    “So you say.”
    Jimmie sets down the glass, picks up another.
    “The Brass Rail isn’t too far from where that wreck happened,” I tell him.
    “I wouldn’t know anything about that, Chief.”
    “We think the driver might have been intoxicated,” I say conversationally. “If someone left here and headed toward Painters Mill, they would have had to cross that intersection.”
    He dries faster, harder, and scrapes at a spot with a dirty thumbnail.
    “Do any of your regulars drive a Ford F-250?” I ask.
    “I dunno.”
    “Jimmie.” I say his name sharply.
    He looks up from the glass and meets my gaze. His mouth is slightly open and in that small space between his lips I see he’s got a bad case of meth-mouth. “What?” he says.
    “There’s a five-hundred-dollar reward for information.”
    He tries not to look interested, but he doesn’t quite manage. “What’s the catch?”
    “No catch. Any information that leads to an arrest and conviction.”
    “Can they stay anonymous?”
    “Far as I know.”
    He turns away, picks up another glass and runs his towel over it. “Leland Dull was in here ’bout seven last night. Had some big fight with his old lady. He was all shit-faced and mean. You know how he gets. You didn’t hear it from me, okay?”
    I’m familiar with Dull. He and his wife live in Painters Mill, a small house by the railroad tracks. My officers have been called to their address several times in recent months. Leland has been arrested twice for domestic violence. Both times were alcohol related. If he was here