Page 21 of Dead to Rites

His body was right next to me…but he was there, asking in a genuinely puzzled voice, what had just happened to him.

Damn. It sure looked to me as if Copper State Cellars had just acquired another ghost.

The problem was, I couldn’t answer him, not with Marco on the phone with the 911 operator only a few feet away. Most likely, the shocked look on my face hadn’t changed too much, although the reason for that surprise was now entirely different.

I settled for the smallest shake of my head I could manage, even as I mouthed, Later.

Father Frank seemed to understand, because he didn’t try to engage again and only stood there as if he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do.

Well, that made two of us.

Already, sirens were wailing outside. It appeared the Prescott police department wasn’t too busy on Thursday nights.

And then they were all there, uniformed cops and paramedics swarming into the bar. Marco and I got out of the way so they could investigate the crime scene — if it even was one. So far, I had no reason to believe that anything had happened beyond Father Frank falling and hitting his head. That slate floor was pretty hard, after all.

One detective pulled Marco away to talk to him in the kitchen. Another one, a middle-aged guy who introduced himself to me as Joe Ruiz, took me out to the bar.

“Why don’t you tell me everything you remember?” he said. His tone was mild enough, but those brown eyes behind the readers he’d put on to write down my statement didn’t seem as if they missed much.

My heart was still beating way too fast, but I gulped down some air and told myself I was completely innocent, so I had nothing to be worried about. That was true enough, and yet I also knew I was a newcomer here. This Detective Ruiz didn’t know me from Eve.

I wondered if Hazel had known him — she’d seemed to know almost everyone in Prescott, or at least, everyone in the downtown area — but since she was stuck in the house, it wasn’t as if I could turn to her for advice. No, I’d have to handle this on my own.

“Father Frank came in a little after eight-thirty,” I said, and was relieved to hear that I sounded calm enough. Then again, I was pretty good at being calm during the big stuff. It was the little things, like a broken nail or a lost shoe, that tended to throw me for a loop. “He ordered a glass of the Mangus, and when he was done with his wine, he went to the restroom. Neither Marco nor I noticed at first how long he was gone, because we were getting ready to close up. But then I realized he hadn’t come back and his check was still sitting on the bar, so I thought I’d better go check on him.”

Detective Ruiz was making rapid notes on a pad he’d pulled out of his jacket pocket. Like pretty much every detective I’d ever seen on TV, he was wearing a sports coat over a button-up shirt and somewhat rumpled dress slacks. “And that’s when you found the body.”

I wanted to wince but managed to hold it together. To me, Father Frank wasn’t a body. He was a kind man I’d known far too briefly…and now he appeared to be a permanent resident of the bar.

“Yes,” I replied. “Marco went with me because I felt kind of weird about walking in on someone in the men’s restroom. But as soon as we opened the door, we realized something was horribly wrong.”

As we were speaking, I noticed more officers heading back toward the bathroom. Some of them were carrying what looked like briefcases or satchels of some kind, and I guessed they must be the forensics team, going in to sweep the space for any physical evidence they could find.

The detective wrote something else on his pad. “Anything seem unusual about this evening?”

“No,” I replied. That was something I was sure about, no matter how shaky I might be feeling. “It was a regular Thursday. Some tourists earlier, a few regulars later on. It was quiet.”

“And did Father Francis say anything to you that might lead you to believe he had any enemies, someone who might want him dead?”

Ouch. Talk about being blunt. It looked like Joe Ruiz thought this had to be a homicide and wasn’t waiting for the results from all the forensic tests.

But again, that question was easy enough to answer. “No,” I said. “I haven’t been here very long, but I could tell everyone loved Father Frank.”

A nod, followed by more scribbling on the notepad. Then he asked, “And he didn’t say anything to you that seemed off, something you might not have noticed at the time? Sometimes even the smallest details can make all the difference.”

Well….

“He did say he wanted to talk to me about my great-aunt Hazel,” I replied slowly. “He didn’t say what, only that he’d try to talk to me next week, maybe sometime when we could speak alone.”

One eyebrow lifted behind the bulky reading glasses. “And you didn’t think that was odd?”

I shrugged. “Not really. I mean, pretty much all the locals want to talk to me about Hazel. She was kind of an institution.”

Detective Ruiz made another note. “You inherited the business from her, correct?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering what that had to do with anything. “My father was her oldest nephew, and he was her heir originally, but I lost both my parents in a plane crash last year.”

“I’m sorry.”