Page 36 of The Burning

“He was friendly enough,” Ellison adds. “You know. Talked to people, but never really saw him with anyone in particular.”

“How was his frame of mind?” I ask. “While you were with him? Anything bothering him?”

“He was kind of smashed,” Ellison tells me.

“Complained about his old lady if I recall,” O’Dell puts in.

“His ex-wife?” I ask. “What did he say about her?”

“Just called her fat and shit,” he says. “Disrespecting her mostly.”

“Did Swanz ever get into any fights with anyone?” I ask. “Or have any problems? Arguments?”

Once again, the two men exchange looks, shake their heads. “Never saw it,” Ellison says.

“What about your lady friend?” I ask.

“What about me?”

At the sound of the crisp female voice, I look over my shoulder to see the woman approach from the rear exit door. She’s in her twenties, slender and pretty, with a mountain of red hair that tumbles over her shoulders like silk. She’s not wearing a coat. Too much makeup. Big boobs with no bra. Navel piercing winking at me below the hem of her sweater. I catch a whiff of marijuana as she joins us and realize she’d gone out back to smoke.

Marco intervenes as if she requires handling with kid gloves. “She’s asking about Swanz,” he tells her.

I can tell by the way the woman’s eyes light up that she’s not too broken up about Swanz—and more than a little intrigued by the idea that she’s being asked about his death.

“What’s your name?” I ask her.

“Britney Gaines.” She looks down at my notebook. “With one ‘t.’”

“I understand you played a game of pool with Milan Swanz last night,” I say.

“Yeah, we did. Dude couldn’t play for shit.” Britney with one “t” rolls her eyes. “It was always a little weird to see an Amish dude in a bar. I didn’t know they boozed it up like that. And that haircut of his always cracked me up!” She laughs, and then her mascara-laden eyes narrow on mine. “The girl at the nail salon told me Swanz was burned alive. That there’s a group of witches living off the grid in those woods and they sacrificed him during some kind of ritual. Any truth to that?”

“There are no witches that I’m aware of,” I tell her. “And we’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened to Swanz.”

“No way someone should get away with that shit,” says Ellison.

O’Dell picks it up from there. “Milan might’ve been a loser, but he had a bunch of kids. And he sure didn’t deserve that.”

Feeling as if I’m spinning my wheels, I ask the woman some of the same questions I covered with her cohorts, ending with “Did you see him talking to anyone last night?”

For the first time, she looks at me as if her brain cells are firing and she’s actually considering the question. “Now that you mention it, he was talking to a dude.” She thrusts a red-tipped nail at the nearest booth. “They were sitting right there. I remember thinking it was odd because Milan usually sat at the bar.”

My interest surges. “Do you know the man’s name?”

“Never laid eyes on him before. That caught my attention, too. I mean, I come here pretty regular and I’d never seen him before.”

“What did he look like?” I ask.

Her brows knit. “All I remember is that he was wearing black, a good shirt and slacks, which is kind of weird because most of the guys that come in here dress like slobs.” She slants a look at the two men and laughs. “No offense.”

“Was he Amish or English?” I ask.

The question garners more serious consideration. “That kind of got my curiosity going, too, because he kind of looked Amish, even though he didn’t have a bad haircut like Milan. I think this dude had a ponytail or man bun or something.”

“Hat?”

“I think so. It was on the table between them. Black.”