Around 9PM, after I had cobbled together a sad sandwich for dinner and tried to make myself look a bit less disheveled than I felt, I started for the bar on foot. It was a Saturday and the roads were far busier than I had seen them. An elderly gentleman and his family stopped along the road to ask me if I’d like I ride, but I declined. I explained that I need the air, and was enjoying walking, even though it was a bit cold.

 When I finally arrived at the Drift, I was a bit put off by how busy it was. I wouldn’t ever describe the place as lively, but the combination of the jukebox and a rowdy group of college-aged kids playing pool in the back made me feel like there was still a normal world out there I could rejoin with the right amount of alcohol.

“Hey,” I said to the spunky little bartender with the nicely defined biceps, with a nod of friendly familiarity, but so far my attempts to build some kind of rapport had failed. She glanced over, looking slightly annoyed, and raised up an index finger to let me know she’d be over when she was good and ready. Fortunately, she was pretty, not to mention the fact that she knew how to dress to maximize tips, so I didn’t mind her sour expression too much. There was plenty else to look at. Finally, after a few more minutes passed, I called over to her.

 “What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Rosalie, but my friends call me Rio,” she answered without making eye contact.

I hadn’t come to flirt, but she was too cute and I couldn’t resist.

“So, what should I call you?” I said with a smile.

“Are we friends now?” she said, rhetorically, her back still facing me. “What do you want to drink?”

I couldn’t imagine how someone who seemed to detest people so much ended up running a bar.

“Well, Rio, I suppose I’ll take a Miller,” I said, and the ice finally began to thaw. Her eyes sparkled a little by my subtle suggestion that we were becoming friends. I might think she was on the verge of cracking a little smile too, but her face just wouldn’t let her.

She put the bottle of beer in front of me, only slightly chilled, and cracked off the cap while I rearranged myself to sit near the end of the bar. The vinyl top of the stool was the least worn and it gave me a good view of the back room and the front door at the same time. It also happened to put me at a better vantage point to see Rio work. Not to sound creepy, but I just couldn’t help but notice that Rio wasn’t wearing a bra under her loose-fitting, low-cut top. Every once in a while, from the angle where I was sitting, I felt like I might just see a little nipple, but I never did. How she managed to wear what she wore and yet somehow kept the best bits barely covered was a true talent, and it drove me crazy. But I settled for the tease. I learned back in Boston that it’s always better to be your bartender’s friend than lover. They know everybody and, if something goes wrong, everybody finds out and you’ll have to find another bar.

“Hoh yeah! Corner pocket, baby!” The two pool players circled around the faded felt table while three young women watched from the side.

I caught myself hoping Misty would walk in, not necessarily because I wanted her company, considering all that had happened. I simply hadn’t met any other lesbians since moving to Cold Hollow and, as much as I enjoyed flirting with Rio, she was obviously straight. I figured there couldn’t have been many gay women in such a small town and feared that alienating Misty might have killed my chances of getting laid so long as I lived there. Little did I know.

Sipping on my beer and listening to the clack of billiards balls bouncing off one another was enough to keep my mind off of Nicole and the strange new developments in my investigation. I would have been more than happy to drink myself into a blissfully ignorant state of mind, but fate seemed to have other ideas for me.

“Almost didn’t recognize you without the notebook,” a man’s voice said to me as a glass of watered-down whiskey and half-melted ice cubes was set down beside my beer.

I glanced over my shoulder and, to my surprise, saw Detective O’Connor slide onto the barstool next to mine. He looked different without his suit and a ball cap tipped far over his face. There was something loose and carefree about him, like his body wasn’t capable of holding up his full weight anymore.

“Hey, even journalists have to go off-duty sometimes,” I said and tipped my bottle at him before taking a long swig. “So, detective, what’re you doing over on this side of town?”

He shrugged a shoulder and sipped from his glass. I couldn’t help but smile when I realized that he was drunk, plain and simple. It was something I didn’t expect coming from the straight-shooting, steel-jawed detective.

“Here? Oh, the Drift serves up the best whiskey sour in a fifty-mile radius. Rio here oughta be given some kind of award.” He raised his glass to the bartender and her lips cracked into the smallest of smiles.

How gracious of her, I thought.

“Damn. Well, guess I’ll have to get one of those next.”

“Rio, get me and my new friend here a couple more on the rocks, please, and thank you. Hell, just keep ‘em coming.”

I felt like I had hit the jackpot. Getting drunk with the detective meant secrets would certainly be spilled, so long as the liquor flowed. Owen then told me he didn’t usually drink at bars in Franklin County because of the chance he might bump into suspects or victims, but that he was glad he made an exception that night. Sometime during my second cocktail, I realized there was what felt like a genuine sense of camaraderie developing between us.

We sat together for another half-hour or so until I finally got the courage to bring up Senator McClinton.

“Well, Detective O’Connor, now that I’ve got you all liquored up... I want the goods. You know, what’s the gossip in this town? I mean, besides Lilly and Nicole obviously––I know you aren’t spilling the beans on that.” I tried to be casual about it, but I’m sure he could tell I was fishing for leads.

“Gossip, huh?” He thought for a moment, nodding along to the god-awful excuse for a country song playing on the jukebox. “Well, here’s something you might find interesting...” He looked at me with a glint in his eyes and a playful smirk. I liked him when he was drunk.

“Senator McClinton... you know the one... Well, this isn’t his first involvement with the law.”

I suddenly felt stone-cold sober despite being on my third drink. I leaned forward, letting on just how eager I was. “Yeah? What do you mean?”

“Human trafficking,” he said, punctuating the bombshell with a sip of his drink.

My jaw dropped, but I didn’t have my notebook so I was going to have to commit everything to memory. “So what happened? When was this?”

“Mmm, five or six years back.” He pursed his lips and crossed his arms over the small hill of his belly. “Case fell apart, though. Couldn’t hold onto witnesses.”

I willed myself to remember every detail that was coming out of Owen’s mouth.

“Why? Were they pressured not to testifying? I knew that guy would be into some corrupt shit,” I said and slammed my hand down on the table with satisfaction.

Owen laughed. “Oh, no, no, no,” he said, his voice low in the back of his throat. “We couldn’t hold onto witnesses because they kept dying. Overdoses. One after another.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “Oh, that’s... uh, yeah.”

“Yep. McClinton is what you might call ‘untouchable.’ Guy has so many damn connections with his fingers in so many different pies. Can’t get to him. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not all that bright, but he’s weaseled his way into a house of cards so he’s protected on all sides by people much smarter than he is. But mark my words, one of these days he’s going to make such a mess that he’ll become too much of a liability. That’s when he’ll wind up like all those women you’ve been asking about.”

I went quiet, my mind twisting and turning over what crimes a state Senator could get away with when even the police considered him untouchable. A part of me felt a bit nervous but, mostly, I felt satisfied knowing my instincts about this whole affair had been right since that weekend Elle and I first visited Cold Hollow. This story was going to be big.

Owen and I were both quiet for a moment then, drinks in hand, minds far away from one another. I looked over at him and, for the first time, I noticed a vulnerable look in his eye. Sadness even. It wasn’t immediately detectable, but the longer I stared at him the more I sensed it.

“Hey, Owen,” I said, softly. I leaned a little closer. “You alright?”

He didn’t respond immediately, just wavered slightly on his barstool, like he might fall off at any moment. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and exhaled loudly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to reassure me of his invincibility.

I considered putting a hand on his shoulder but decided that would only make him pull away from the conversation even further.

“Sorry,” he mumbled after a few moments. “Today’s special. Not in a good way. I, uh, I come to the Drift these days because it’s where my son used to hang out.”

I nodded along, my stomach filling with dread realizing that he wasn’t haunted by happy memories.

“He’s not alive anymore,” he explained casually, as if we were talking about sports. “Tonight’s the anniversary. Three years.”

I watched Owen take another long sip. I could feel his pain radiating off of him. “Fuck, Owen. I’m so sorry.”

“Y’know,” he said with an awkward little laugh. “Sorry is the last thing people want to hear when they lose a child or parent or whatever. Sorry. I don’t want you to be sorry. I don’t want anybody to feel anything about it. It is what it is. It just... it happened. That’s all.”

I didn’t know what to say, but Owen’s discomfort at the word ‘sorry’ quickly shut me up. I hadn’t really ever thought about it before, but he was right. What the hell did that word even mean? What did it do for anyone?

“How did he—?” I wouldn’t normally ask such a direct question but Owen, in spite of what he said, seemed like he wanted to talk about it.

“Overdose.”

“I didn’t realize drugs were such a big problem here.”

“Yep. Police can’t do anything. We try to plug up one source and another one bursts open. We’re chasing ghosts out here. Leads that usually go nowhere and certainly don’t end in convictions. The whole damn political establishment is in on it.” His voice got louder. “Top to bottom. Senator McClinton down to the local State Attorney’s office. People look at us, at cops, and say, ‘Why can’t you stop it?’ But what are we supposed to do when the people to blame are…” he stopped himself, realizing he was in public and talking to a journalist.

I stayed quiet, sensing that Owen just wanted someone to listen.

He sat quietly for a moment, but he couldn’t stop. “For instance, I once busted a guy with an entire trunk full of cocaine. Kilos and kilos of it. You never seen so much powder in one place in your entire life. So, I call it in, we test it and it’s real, so we impound the dope, the car, and take the bastard to jail. And the prosecutor makes me turn the guy loose.” He chuckled again, deep and low in his chest. “Even made me let the guy take the car full of drugs with him. You believe that shit?”

“I... no. No, that’s... really hard to believe.”

Cold Hollow, on the surface, seemed to be a sleepy resort town. I was slowly realizing just how many secrets the place had. I realized then that Owen shouldn’t have been saying the things he was telling me. It wasn’t safe for him or for me.

“Owen, listen, it’s getting a bit late. Can I call you cab or something?” I asked, but he brushed me off. I didn’t know what else I could do for him, but I knew it was too risky to be seen getting drunk with a cop, especially a cop with a grudge against the state.

I excused myself to visit the ladies room and, on the way, I leaned over to Rio and she assured me she’d make sure Owen made it home safe.

I left the bar and walked home with my hands buried in my pockets and head pointed towards the ground to avoid the bite of the wind. I realized how drunk I was when I got back to my apartment and had the urge to call my ex, Elle. She didn’t answer.

In some form of misguided retribution, I turned on the television and left it on a half-scrambled late-night porn channel. It wasn’t doing much for me and, before I could really get into it, the phone rang. I was expecting Elle when I picked up but to my surprise it was Misty.

“Hey, Kelly. I was, uh, just checking to see... if you were home.” Her words were long and drawn out and I wondered if my luck had changed and that she was ready to make up.

“Oh, uh... yeah. Yeah, I’m home,” I said, but even I realized how drunk I sounded.

“Cool. Can I drop by? There's something I want to talk to you about.”

Fortunately, a wise little voice deep in the recesses of my mind told me nothing good could come of a late night rendezvous with Misty while I was in such a state. Maybe she was just horny, like me, and wanted a quick pick-me-up, but maybe she wanted talk about the way things went down last night. Part of me thought it was worth the gamble, but I knew the right move was to go to sleep.

“Um...you know, I’m not really…how about tomorrow, Misty?”

“Yeah. Okay,” she said. “Tomorrow.” We said goodbye and I stumbled back to bed to finish what I had started before she called, but I passed out instead.