Chapter 8

I tossed the car keys to Carl, saying, “Take us to your bartender.”

At the Parliament House, Carl parked the cruiser in a no-parking zone right in front, locked the car, and we went inside. He led me to the back bar, where a twentysomething guy, wearing very tight square-cut trunks and little else, was polishing glasses. The guy had obviously been hired for his muscles, of which there were plenty.

He spotted us standing at the bar and came to stand in front of us. “Hi, good-looking,” he said. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“He had to go back to Jacksonville,” Carl said. “This is my boss, Lieutenant Martin.”

I shook his hand and ordered a Coke. Carl followed suit. The bartender, whose name tag read ‘Louie,’ set the drinks in front of us.

“On the house,” he said. “Did you find those two drag queens?”

“What he found was a house with two dead bodies in it,” I said.

“No shit?” Louie said. “Was it them?”