Swing, Baby! Swing!

She came into my office like a whisper … quiet, smooth, and just dangerous enough to make the air feel heavy. One blink and she was there, leaning on my desk like she owned the sheet metal monstrosity and maybe the woman behind it. The door hadn’t made a sound. Maybe it never opened. Maybe she just materialized out of the bakery aroma curling in from the corner. She was dressed for the night, and not the kind that ends with cocoa and slippers. Black leggings that clung like grief, a dark shirt buttoned just enough to keep the peace, and a scrunchie trying—and failing—to tame a storm of jet-black hair. Her eyes were deep … the kind of eyes a man might fall into and not climb out of. Skin pale as a chalk outline. The kind of complexion that didn’t see the sun unless the moon dragged it there. “Dancer?” I asked, pulling my hands away from the theremin, which had been whining like a ghost with a hangover. I reached around and killed the power. The silence hit like a verdict. “I heard you were weird,” she said through ruby lips. “That’s what they told me anyway.” “They?” “Those folks at the Irish pub on Lorain. You know. Near the corner of Rocky River Drive? The bartender gave me your card. Old guy. Cute.” On the west side of Cleveland, there’s a veritable sea of Irish pubs. But the one she mentioned was as familiar to me as the back of my hand. And the bartender? “That’s my Pop. He owns the dump. Got it from my granddad, who’d inherited from his father. If it stays in business long enough, my brother will get it.” “Why not you? Because you’re a girl?” “Because I don’t want it.” I swiveled my desk chair, slapping my MacBook shut. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t exactly knee-deep in a case that needed solving. I’d been playing solitaire before playing my theremin. It passes the time while I wait for circumstance to rear its ugly head. In this case, it was a pretty head attached to an athlete’s body. “So, to answer your question: yes, I’m a dancer.” She blew a stray strand of jet black hair away from her pert little nose. “But not that kind.” “What kind?” “Don’t be that way. We’re just getting to know each other.” “Is that what we’re doing?” “Sure. I need to know I can trust you. I have a job for you.” “Grab a seat,” I said, pointing to the chair occupied by my bag. “You can toss the oversized purse on the floor.” She slid into her seat, and it groaned with a metallic sigh. It’s an old office chair, possibly dating back to the Eisenhower administration. Everything in my office, save the computer and perhaps the theremin, is about that vintage. The furniture was there when I rented the place. The air inside had the aroma of the bakery adjacent to my office. We’re the only two businesses in a one-story building that’s the size of a couple of double-wides slapped together. My office is the size of a master bedroom. I have an adjoining bathroom where I freshen up after a jog up and down Ridge Road. Petra, the queen of dough and sugar, tossed me the keys to this joint after I cracked the caper of “who stole the kishka?” Turns out, it was a pack of neighborhood rascals snatching them from her back door. The kishkas came fresh from the Krakow Deli just a stone’s throw up Ridge Road. Petra’s shop is the best bakery in Ohio, bar none. I allow myself to have the occasional kolachki. A girl has to watch her weight, or so I’m told by the men in my life. My fiancé, a detective in the Cleveland PD, has no problem telling me how my ass is growing. He also can’t seem to keep his hands off it. “Should I call you ‘Rose’ or ‘Miss Rowan’?” she asked, studying my card. My Pop would say, “You can call me anything but late for dinner” at this juncture. But I’m not my Pop. “My friends call me ‘Rosie.’ You can call me ‘Rose’ for the time being.” I reached over the sheet metal monstrosity that functions as my desk and we shook hands. “I’m Liz. My stage name is ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzie.’ I dance at the Top Hat on Lorain.”