Read Online Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) by Blake Pierce - Free Book Online Page B

said.
    “Yes,” she said. “I think we need to pay
a visit to the strip club that Hailey Lizbrook worked at.”
    “Why?”
    “To speak with her boss.”
    “We’ve already spoken to him on the
phone,” Porter said.
    “No, you spoke to him on the
phone,” Mackenzie pointed out. “For a grand total of about three minutes, I
might add.”
    Porter nodded slowly. He stepped fully
into the office, closing the door behind him. “Look,” he said, “I was wrong
about Traylor this morning. And you impressed the hell out of me with that
takedown. It’s clear that I haven’t been showing you enough respect. But that
still doesn’t give you the right to talk down to me.”
    “I’m not talking down to you,” Mackenzie
said. “I’m simply pointing out that in a case where our leads are next to zero,
we need to exhaust every possible avenue.”
    “And you think this strip club owner
might be the murderer?”
    “Probably not,” Mackenzie said. “But I
think it’s worth talking to him to see if he can lead us to anything. Besides
that, have you checked the guy’s rap sheet?”
    “No,” Porter said. The grimace on his
face made it clear that he hated to admit this.
    “He has a history of domestic abuse.
Also, six years ago, he was involved with a case where he supposedly had a
seventeen-year-old working for him. She came out later on and said she only
managed to get the job by performing sexual favors for him. The case was thrown
out, though, because the girl was a runaway and no one could prove her age.”
    Porter sighed. “White, do you know the
last time I stepped foot in a strip club?”
    “I’d rather not know,” Mackenzie said.
And by God, did she get an actual smile out of him?
    “It’s been a long time,” he said with a
roll of his eyes.
    “Well, this is business, not pleasure.”
    Porter chuckled. “When you get to be my
age, the line between the two sometimes blurs. Now come on. Let’s go. I imagine
strip clubs haven’t changed that much in the last thirty years.”
     
    *
     
    Mackenzie had only seen strip clubs in
movies and although she hadn’t dared tell Porter, she hadn’t been sure what to
expect. When they walked inside, it was just after six o’clock in the evening.
The parking lot was starting to fill with stressed out men coming off of their
work shifts. A few of these men gave Mackenzie a little too much attention as
she and Porter walked through the lobby and toward the bar area.
    Mackenzie took the place in as best she
could. The lighting was dim, like a permanent twilight, and the music was loud.
Currently, two women were on a runway-like stage, dancing with a pole between
them. Wearing only a pair of thin panties each, they were trying their best to
dance in a sexy manner to a Rob Zombie song.
    “So,” Mackenzie said as they waited for
the bartender, “has it changed?”
    “Nothing except the music,” Porter said.
“This music is terrible.”
    She had to give it to him; he wasn’t
watching the stage. Porter was a married man, going on twenty-five years.
Seeing how he was focused on the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar rather
than the topless women onstage made her respect for him go up a notch. It was
hard to peg Porter as a man who respected his wife that much and on such an
account, she was happy to be proven wrong.
    The bartender finally came over to them
and his face went slack right away. While neither Porter nor Mackenzie wore any
sort of police uniform, their attire still presented them as people that were
there on business—and probably not business of the positive kind.
    “Can I help you?” the bartender asked.
    Can I help you? Mackenzie
thought. He didn’t ask us what he could get us to drink. He asked if he
could help us. He’s seen our kind in here before. Strike one for the owner.
    “We’d like to speak to Mr. Avery,
please,” Porter said. “And I’ll have a rum and Coke.”
    “He’s busy at the moment,” the bartender
said.
    “I’m sure