Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder by Jessie Chandler. Page A

doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s not like he ever plans on falling off the wagon.”
    Lisa said, “Maybe someone at the game noticed something weird.” She raised a brow, her eyes steady on me.
    Eddy asked, “Did Agnes tell you who was playing, child?”
    I dragged my gaze from Lisa and ran down the list of players Agnes told me about.
    When I finished, Eddy told Lisa, “These folks are all friends of Pete’s—that’s Shay’s dad—and they often come play poker in the back room after Pete closes the bar.”
    “You know,” Lisa wiped her hands on a damp rag, “it’s getting late and I should probably get outta here.” She stooped and grabbed her jacket from under the bar.
    “Hey,” I said, “Lisa, you’ve helped us—me, actually, out so much in the last two days, and I feel like I owe you an explanation and likely some funds.”
    “Oh no, you don’t owe me a thing. I happened to be in a position to be able to help and that’s what I did. Think of it as my good deed for the year.”
    “Cool your jets, girl,” Eddy told Lisa. “You put that coat right back down.” The tone in Eddy’s voice left no room for argument. With wide eyes, Lisa tossed her jacket aside.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I know how you feel, Lisa. You do whatever she says when she talks like that.” I’d been on the receiving end of Eddy’s bossiness more times than I could count.
    Eddy said, “In for a penny, in for a peso. Or something like that. Lisa, after what you’ve done for my Shay … ’Sides, you’re rather handy.”
    Lisa gave a slightly strained laugh. “Guess I can stick around.”
    “Good, good.” Eddy clapped her hands like a delighted little kid. She sprang from giddy to ferocious in a blink. “Now, Shay, supposing your father is still AWOL tomorrow, you see if you can track down the poker buddies and have a chat. Maybe he said something to one of them that’ll help clear this up.”
    I didn’t know how anyone was going to explain away my father’s gun chilling in a block of frozen water, but at this point, I was willing try anything.
    “Shay,” Eddy continued, “I’d come with you if I could, but the Knitters are doing a tour of the Mill City Museum. I’m a chaperone.” She leaned conspiratorially toward Lisa. “You gotta watch some of those old ladies real careful-like. They can get into all kinds of trouble.”
    Lisa, eyebrows hiked high, slowly nodded.
    Eddy turned her sights on Coop. “You go with Shay. Keep her out of trouble.”
    He literally cringed. “I’m sorry, Eddy. You know I would. But I can’t until I wrap up my latest contract. It’s due to the state in a couple days, and I’m a bit behind. New Year celebrations kind of got in the way.”
    Coop would be there anytime and anywhere if I truly needed him. In this case I was certainly fine to do a solo chitchat with my dad’s poker playing pals.
    Lisa asked, “What do you do, Coop?”
    “I’m sort of a computer geek—”
    “Hacker,” I coughed into my hand.
    Eddy thwapped me in the back of the head. “Fixer,” she corrected.
    “Ignore them,” Coop said. “The simplified version is the state hired me to map projected income from electronic pulltabs and how those proceeds might be used to help fund a new Vikings stadium.”
    The longer, unspoken story was that for the last year or so, Coop had been designing and implementing player reward systems for bingo halls and local casinos, along with other computer-type jobs on a contract basis.
    His reputation as a highly skilled, out-of-the-box systems developer caught the attention of some muckety-muck in state government. They contacted him to see if he’d be interested in working with some high-level, hush-hush video gaming software company to assess the potential for re-creating and marketing electronic pulltabs to increase state revenue. Pulltabs were a Minnesota bar and bingo tradition, and I supposed it seemed natural to see what more sales could do.
    But Coop’s computer