Chapter Eleven
In Lomita, O’Hearn’s Bar and Grill was located right on the Pacific Coast Highway, which was the longest state route in California, running along most of the state’s Pacific coastline. Since it was located on a state highway, parking would’ve proved to be not only impossible, but also illegal, if not for the fact that the Irish-themed bar was positioned directly next door to a small shopping mall, with plenty of off-street parking spaces to accommodate both establishments.
At 3:36 p.m., Garcia parked his car at the south corner of the parking lot, right next to a wild-cherry Mustang Mach 1. As he stepped out of his Honda Civic, he paused for a second.
‘You should get one of these,’ he told Hunter, nodding at the Mustang. ‘You need to retire that bathtub on wheels that you call a car, and this would be the perfect substitute.’
Hunter chuckled. ‘Really?’ He too eyed the car parked next to Garcia’s. ‘Do you have any idea how much one of these costs?’
‘Quite a bit, I’d imagine,’ Garcia replied with a shrug.
‘Well, let me add a tag end to your answer,’ Hunter came back. ‘Quite a bit… more than I can afford.’
Garcia made a face at Hunter, as if he didn’t really believe his partner.
‘What?’ Hunter challenged. ‘Can you afford a car like this?’
‘Probably not.’
Hunter smiled back. ‘I rest my case.’
On the inside, O’Hearn’s did resemble a typical Irish pub, with a few added features to create a sports bar atmosphere.
At that time in the afternoon, the place wasn’t exactly busy. On the main floor, only three out of their fifteen tables were taken. At the large bar, which was located across the floor from the entrance door, three men sat alone at the stools, an empty seat in between each of them. Two of the men were busy with their cellphones and the third one was watching a basketball game re-run on one of the four large flatscreen TVs high on the back wall.
There was only one bartender – a tall, skinny man with a bushy goatee and a LA Lakers cap. He was standing at the far-right end of the bar, polishing glasses with a dishcloth.
Hunter and Garcia approached him.
The bartender put down the dishcloth and turned to face the two new arrivals.
‘Top of the morning to ya both,’ he said, placing both hands on the bar counter and leaning forward slightly. His Irish accent was very pronounced. ‘What can I get you fel…’ He paused, and as his stare bounced from Hunter to Garcia, his left eye narrowed just a touch. He leaned back from the bar, his expression a lot less relaxed than a second ago. ‘Yer five-o, right?’
The American slang sounded strange in an Irish accent.
‘Is it that obvious?’ Garcia asked, looking at his and Hunter’s attire.
‘Aye.’ The bartender nodded at Garcia’s waist. ‘It is when yer gun is showing, like.’
Garcia looked at Hunter, as he adjusted his jacket over his waist. ‘My bad.’
Hunter immediately noticed that the bartender had kept his voice quiet enough not to be heard by any of the other customers. That clearly indicated that this wasn’t the bartender’s first rodeo. Hunter expertly positioned himself with his back toward the three customers sitting at the bar, before quickly showing the bartender his credentials.
‘I’m Detective Hunter and this is Detective Garcia – LAPD Robbery Homicide.’
Garcia followed suit.
The bartender acknowledged with a nod. ‘I’m Conor. What can I do ya for?’
‘We were just wondering if you’ve ever seen this man.’ Hunter reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a photo of Shaun Daniels, placing it on the counter in front of the bartender.
Conor’s eyes moved to it for just a second before returning to Hunter.
‘It’s hard to say, like,’ he replied. ‘A lot of people come in here for a pint. We’re a busy bar, ya know?’
Garcia turned to look back at the empty tables just behind them. He didn’t say anything, but when he looked back at the bartender, it was as if the Irishman could read the words – you could’ve fooled me here – written on the detective’s forehead.
‘Nights are a lot busier than the days,’ he said, offering an explanation.
When the bartender glanced at the photo on the counter, Hunter had kept his eyes on him. The ‘it’s hard to say’ answer had come too fast. Not enough time for the human conscious mind to take in any details and match them against a memory; but Hunter wasn’t really surprised. He and Garcia were both very used to those sorts of replies – ‘I’m not sure… it’s hard to say… it doesn’t ring a bell…’ and so on. That usually happened because a great number of civilians tended to retreat into a shell of doubt when confronted with police badges and then asked about a person in a photograph. They usually did it not exactly because they had something to hide, or they didn’t want to help, but because they had recognized the person in the photo and they didn’t know what sort of trouble that person was in. They simply didn’t want to ‘rat’ on someone they knew, even if they didn’t know them that well.
‘Please, have another look,’ Hunter insisted, tapping the photo with his index finger. His tone was calm and non-threatening. ‘He was a regular at this bar – two or three nights a week, at least.’
Conor’s eyes returned to the photo. This time, it stayed on it for a couple of seconds.
‘Aye,’ he finally accepted, nodding sideways at the photograph. ‘I think I’ve seen him around a few times, like.’
Once again, Hunter had studied the bartender’s expression and eye movement. His reply had, yet again, been too quick for the human brain to identify and place a total stranger. The only way that the human brain could’ve recognized someone that fast, was if the brain didn’t have to do too much searching. That meant that Shaun Daniels wasn’t exactly a stranger to Conor.
Hunter needed to level with him.
‘You probably already know this,’ he said, meeting the bartender’s stare. ‘But his name is Shaun Daniels.’
Conor replied with an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Aye.’
‘The last time that he was in here, at O’Hearn’s,’ Hunter continued, ‘was a month ago, on May 18th. His last ever credit card transaction came at 10:41 p.m. on that night, registered to this bar.’
Hunter saw the bartender blink then frown.
‘Last ever credit card transaction? What do you mean?’
Garcia nodded. ‘Mr. Daniels was abducted. Very possibly on that same night, after he left here.’
Conor’s head jerked back slightly. ‘Abducted?’
A confirmation nod from Garcia.
‘Yer codding me, right?’
Garcia’s eyebrows arched at the bartender. ‘I’m not exactly sure I know what that means, but I’m quite certain that I’m not “codding” you.’
Conor looked at Hunter, who subtly shook his head at him.
‘We believe that Mr. Daniels was abducted just after he left your bar on the night of May 18th,’ Garcia continued. ‘Which makes O’Hearn’s the last traceable location for Mr. Daniels.’ He paused, giving Conor a few seconds to process the severity of his words. ‘So, what we’re really wondering is – on the nights that he came into O’Hearn’s, did Mr. Daniels use to drink with someone else? Did he have any beer buddies… any of the regulars we can talk to? Does anyone remember seeing him here on the night of May 18th? Did he have company that night? Anything that can maybe help us put together what might’ve happened to Mr. Daniels once he left this bar.’
Conor pinched his lower lip with his left thumb and index finger. His expression turned thoughtful for an instant. ‘I thought that that was odd, like – not seeing Shaun in here for a while. Especially on Saturdays. He was always here on Saturdays.’ He shook his head. ‘So Shaun’s been missing for a month?’
Hunter and Garcia exchanged a deliberating look.
‘He’s not missing,’ Hunter said.
Conor’s gaze once again bounced between both detectives, this time for a couple of hesitant seconds. ‘Wha… what ya saying?’
‘His body was found five days ago,’ Garcia informed the bartender. ‘He’s been murdered.’
‘Go way outta that.’ Conor took a step back, his eyes wide open.
Hunter and Garcia gave him a moment.
‘Were you friends?’ Hunter finally asked.
Conor shrugged. ‘Not exactly. We weren’t mates or anything like that, but like you’ve said, he did use to come in here quite often. I work most nights, so every now and then we’d chat, ya know? Mostly about sports, like.’
‘Were you working on the night of May 18th?’ Garcia asked.
‘I couldn’t say off the top of my head, but I have a feeling that I might’ve been. Like I said, I work most nights.’ Conor lifted a finger at both detectives, while retrieving his cellphone from his back pocket. ‘But if ya give us a second, like, I’ll find out.’
Hunter and Garcia waited while the bartender tapped through a couple of screens before scrolling through his calendar app.
‘Aye,’ Conor said with a firm nod. ‘May 18th – it was a Saturday, like. I was working the bar.’
‘I know that this is a big ask,’ Hunter said, knowing how unreliable human memory really was, especially when trying to remember a not-very-memorable event. ‘But can you remember seeing Shaun Daniels here that night? Did he seem different at all to you? Nervous? Agitated? Concerned? Anything out of the ordinary? Anything you can remember?’
Conor once again pinched his bottom lip. His eyes narrowed for a long moment, as he looked down at the floor.
‘I can’t be certain if it was the 18th or not,’ he began. ‘But it could’ve well been because it’s the last time I remember seeing Shaun in here. It was a busy night. The Lakers were playing, if my memory serves me right. They were sitting at that table right over there.’ Conor pointed to one of the empty tables on the floor.
‘They?’ Garcia asked.
Conor nodded. ‘Aye. He was here with a mate that night. I remember it because he usually comes in by himself. He’s the quiet type, ya know? Usually prefers to sit here at the end of the bar.’ He indicated the stool between Hunter and Garcia.
Hunter had already clocked the three CCTV cameras inside O’Hearn’s – one at the entry door and two on the bar wall, just between the flatscreen TVs. He indicated the ones between the TVs. ‘Do those work?’
Conor chuckled. ‘Aye, but you’ve got no chance if you think we’ll have a recording from a month ago. We only keep them for a few days. There’s no point in saving them if the tills cash out properly and there was no trouble in here.’
That reply didn’t surprise either detective.
‘This mate of his,’ Garcia asked. ‘Is he a regular? Have you seen him here before?’
‘Nah, I don’t remember ever seeing the likes of him before, or since.’
‘Did they come in together that night?’ Hunter asked. ‘Do you remember?’
The bartender thought about it for a few seconds, his tongue poking on the inside of his left cheek. ‘Nah, I can’t remember if they did, but in all fairness, probably.’
‘And why do you think that?’ Garcia pushed.
‘Like I said, I never seen the likes of his mate here before and Shaun was the pretty quiet type. He wouldn’t be the one to start a conversation with many folks, let alone a stranger, so aye, they probably knew each other from before and chances are that they did come in together that night.’
The customer sitting at the opposite end of the bar from where they were signaled the bartender for a new pint of Guinness.
‘I won’t be but a minute,’ Conor said, as he poured the customer a brand-new pint of the black stuff.
‘Can you remember any other time that you saw Mr. Daniels here with a friend?’ Hunter asked, as Conor returned to their end of the bar.
The bartender paused again and the lip pinching came back. ‘Nah,’ he finally said after a few long seconds. ‘I actually can’t remember ever seeing him in here with a mate. He really was the quiet and lonely type.’
‘Lonely?’ Hunter prodded.
‘Aye.’ Conor’s nod was firm. ‘He usually came in, sat at the bar, had a few beers… a couple of shots of whiskey sometimes, then he’d be on his merry way. Always by himself. No mates. No ladies. Nothing. Sure,’ the bartender gave the detectives a careless shrug, ‘sometimes he would get fluthered, we all do, but even then, he wasn’t one to make a fuss, like. He would just stagger out and that was that.’
‘This friend of Mr. Daniels,’ Hunter asked. ‘How was he dressed?’
Conor frowned at the detective.
‘What I mean is,’ Hunter explained, ‘Mr. Daniels was a plumber. Did this friend of his look like he was a plumber as well? Or a builder, or something like that? Could they have been on a job together before coming in for a drink at the end of their work day?’
‘Umm…’ Conor paused, yet again. ‘There’s no way I can be sure. We’re talking a month ago here, but I don’t think that either of them was dressed in their work clothes, to be fair.’
‘Do you think that you’d be able to describe what Mr. Daniels’s drinking partner looked like?’ Garcia asked.
The bartender took no time in shaking his head. ‘Nah, I barely looked at the fella. Like I said, I only really remember it because Shaun never comes in with a mate and he never takes a table. Always sits at the bar.’
‘Do you remember if they seemed to be arguing at all?’ Garcia asked.
‘I can’t really say, but if they were, it wasn’t anything serious or loud.’
‘I take it that they left together?’ Hunter, this time.
‘Can’t say for sure again, but probably. I don’t remember serving the fella on his own, or seeing him here by himself.’
Garcia quickly peeked at Hunter in a peculiar way. The look was almost code for I think that we’re done here.
Hunter reached into his pocket for a card and handed it to Conor. ‘If you remember anything else, or if, by any chance, you happen to see the person that was sitting with Mr. Daniels that night in here again, or anywhere else for that matter, please, contact me straight away. No matter the time. That person is probably the last person to have seen Mr. Daniels before he disappeared… probably the last person to have seen him alive too. We need to find him.’
‘Aye, no bother,’ the bartender said, taking the card. ‘If I see him again I’ll get in touch.’
As Hunter and Garcia turned to leave, Conor halted them.
‘There was this one night, like. He said something… odd.’
Both detectives exchanged a quick glance before returning to the bar.
‘I’m not quite sure exactly when this happened,’ the bartender began. ‘But I’m pretty certain that it wasn’t too long before the last time I saw Shaun in here. It was also one of the nights that he got pretty ossified, like.’
‘He got what like?’ Garcia asked.
‘Umm… quite drunk,’ Conor replied before continuing. ‘So that night we got chatting here at the bar. It was a slow weeknight. No games on TV or nothing.’ He threw his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the TVs high on the wall behind him. ‘So I’m guessing it was probably a Monday or a Tuesday.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, we’re chatting about something or other and somehow the conversation turned to “feck-ups”.’
Garcia’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ya know, life feck-ups – I should’ve done better with my life, but I fecked up and everything went arseways. Ya know what I mean, right?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Hunter replied. ‘So what happened?’
‘Well…’ Conor pressed his lips together and subtly shook his head. ‘I think that it was Shaun who mentioned something about being a feck-up and that his whole life was a feck-up. So I said something back like – we’ve all fecked up in life one time or another, ya know… we just gotta carry on… that’s what’s important. I fecked up plenty in mine, I told him.’
‘OK…?’ Garcia nodded him along.
‘I remember that when I said that,’ Conor explained, ‘Shaun looked at me with this terribly sad look in his eyes, finished his pint, downed a shot of whiskey, and just before he walked off he said – and these were his words – “Not in the way I have, Conor. Not in the way I have.”?’