A Canary's Dame

It was a bright, cloudless day in the middle of June, and Winny was nearing the hotel she would be staying at for the next three weeks. She had finally made enough money while working as a nurse to buy a new car and ditch the ghosts of her past for a clean slate by herself. Although she was the sole heir of her parents’ money, it wouldn’t be available until she turned 23, though she had already designated half of it to go towards charity. She didn’t want to use that money,but knew that she would eventually need it.

After five hours of driving, her thin hands turned the wheel into the uneven parking lot in front of the Dame’s Hotel. It was a large building, and the ruby drapes in the opened windows glistened in the afternoon sun. Winny had booked a room on the top floor, which held only one other room. Compared to where she lived, this hotel was amazingly cheap and every single penny went into the beauty of the place that was outlined in gold finishings. The large wooden entry doors reminded her of a castle.

She looked in her side mirror and caught a glimpse of her unruly short hair that had been windswept from the windows being rolled down. Grabbing a violet cloche from the backseat and plunking it on her head, the brown-haired woman pulled on the door’s handle but her movements halted at the sound of screeching tires.

Flashes and bangs resounded in her head, but everything outside of her generously lush and decorated car remained calm. Winny shook her head to rid of the memories that still found a way to haunt her and pushed open the door, not wanting to waste another second with those awful thoughts. After all, it was never her fault.

She hopped out of the car and walked to the backseat for her luggage. It wasn’t much, only a small, rose-petaled suitcase and a travel bag that carried all of her necessities. The woman smiled to herself, glad to be free from her family’s past. She knew that would never really be possible, nor did she want it to be, but for now she just needed to pretend it was.

But Winny hadn’t realized her luck at the time. She hadn’t realized that she grabbed her bags at the perfect moment. Or that she had accidentally dropped her suitcase on the ground and had to reach down to pick it up. Otherwise, the shots that burst through the black metal of the car would have put her to an end during her new beginning. Letting out a small scream, the woman pressed her hands to her ears as tightly as she could, as memories and the current events played on her fear like a piano. To her, a symphony of guns rang out, but this time they were in the street as well as her head. Piercing dings and echoes of booms filled the city and a terrible knot dropped in her stomach as they got louder.

“Look out!” a woman’s voice yelled, shoving Winny to the ground with all of her weight. She placed a hand over Winny’s head, who only realized she had been frozen in fear once her elbows hit the pavement.

“What- what’s happening?” Winny cried through all of the echoing gunfire.

“What’s it look like? It’s a shoot-out,” the other woman replied, her honey-tinted hair chopped up in a ponytail.

The past began to unravel for Winny through the shots, but as they suddenly stopped, her memories retreated. The brown-eyed woman delicately picked herself up from the protective way she was shielding Winny and held out a hand to help her up.

“Sorry about the dress,” she started, looking at the woman’s once violet, but now blackened outfit. “You okay?”

She tried letting out an affirmation, but was met with a voiceless mind and began to collapse in front of her protector, who caught her with ease/ Although her worried expression did not reassure Winny much. She could hear the other woman calling out and trying to get her to stay awake, but her relief and panic had sent her into a frenzy and all she could do was drift away and fade from view.

* * *

Finn’s eyes snapped open to the sound of knocks on the hotel room’s door. She had gotten in late after waiting hours at the hospital to make sure the fragile women she met would be alright. Her eyes drifted to the ticking clock on the wall and she remembered how annoying it was while she was trying to get to bed, restless from the fight her meeting had brought. Unfortunately, not all police districts appreciated peaceful meetings between mobs. She was just thankful there were no casualties this time.

The blonde-haired woman pulled on the black robe she had tossed on the corner of her queen-sized bed and stalked over to the door. Through the peephole, she saw Detective Alister and held the door open curiously.

“Jim Alister,” she greeted, “what d’you got for me?”

“That girl from the hospital was pretty easy to look up,” the detective began, walking into the suite with a pleased smile on his face. His plum-colored suit and shiny leather shoes brought a boldness to the room's dull beige wallpaper. Jim carried a leather-bound briefcase and set it on the table, unlatching it to let Finn see its contents. As she picked up the documents and photos from the case, Jim set his hat and beige blazer on the coat rack beside the door. He marveled at the room's high ceilings, which held sparkling chandeliers. His eyes then shifted to the grand piano that stood at the entry of the little living room.

He pointed to the piano and looked over to Finn. “Mind if I..”

“Go for it, I don’t play,” she remarked, eyes still focusing on the police report in her hands.

As Jim played a gorgeous song, Finn looked over all of the information he had scraped up. The girl, Winnifred Blaise Oaks, as the police report stated, came from a very wealthy background. She had lived with her parents and two older sisters, Helen and May Oaks until around two years ago when they were shot and killed in a home invasion. Finn learned that Winny had been treated as an accomplice because her friend, George Marvins, was identified as the shooter. However, she was released and inherited her family’s estate, but shut herself off from the rest of the world.

Newspaper articles and headlines from the city she lived in knew her family very well, some even pushing rumors of how this happened because of her. Through the bank statements and documents in the briefcase, Finn found out she would only be allowed to access her full inheritance in about two weeks, on the third anniversary of her family’s deaths.

The absence of the music Jim had been arranging made Finn's head turn to the clock, realizing she had been sitting in place for nearly two hours. She reluctantly laid the documents back in the briefcase and clasped it shut, hiding it in the small cupboards of the tiny kitchen with its own pantry and stove in the corner. Her hand swept across the softly colored wood door as it closed to hide the information about a woman who grew more and more interesting to her by the second.

“Ready to head to work, boss?” Jim asked, shoving on his blazer. His accent was an exciting one and Finn found it amazing that his voice, combined with his annoyingly good looks made it easy for him to two-time the police station.

The hat that hid his soft golden hair and shadowed his brown eyes was a familiar one, reminding Finn of the first time she ever met his family. The Alisters had worked for the mob for generations. Finn and Jim had been friends since they first met, with his dad wearing the exact same hat and his ill mother smoking a cigar. Looking at the hat brought back the memory of how Ellody Alister smelt of cinnamon and smoke.

“Yeah, I’d better think of somethin’ so the fuzz don’t catch on to us,” Finn sighed, walking to her room to pull on her own navy suit that Jim kindly had made for her birthday last week.

“I mean, didn’t Oaks see you out and about? You should probably make sure she doesn't know nothing.”

Finn scoffed. “I’ll ask her then, how ‘bout it?” She pulled off her tie in exasperation. She never liked the feeling of them, and it made Jim chuckle to see her so upset over a piece of fabric.

“I mean, you know where she is. And those papers have where she’ll go.”

“Yeah yeah, I get it. If I weren’t a mob boss I’d be a peeper like you.”

Jim shrugged, his lips curling up in a teasing smile. “Well, we’d better hop off to the drum before the bootleggers decide to call it a day.”

The ride over to the speakeasy was smooth, and the alley from the parking lot to the bar’s illusion of an appliance store was calm. This early in the afternoon was the easiest time to slip in and out of the building without any notice, especially when a detective was walking around with the place's boss. They stepped through the slightly narrow gap of apartment buildings, which opened up to a larger space scattered with toys. The kids in the apartments used this as a playground, but it was the best place for back exits and entrances that nobody wanted the police to know about. This entry was only used by the people who worked there though.

Near the end of the larger square space, Finn pulled out a set of keys and jingled them into place. Feeling a slight resistance on the knob, she knocked in a five-sequence pattern. When the door opened slightly, she whispered a set of numbers that Alister never cared to learn the meaning of, and the heaving metal door swung open.

“Good to see you boss,” a large man with long red hair tied back into a low ponytail, styled with a matching beard smiled. He wore a grey pinstripe suit with polished shoes and golden cufflinks. His suit almost seemed too small for him, but the way he stood proved it was a perfect fit.

“Afternoon Evan,” Finn smiled, walking through the open door with Jim behind her. He shut all four locks on the door and stood in front of it again, completely loyal to his position. Though, his gentle smile when he saw the janitor lit up slightly.

The pair walked down a flight of stairs behind another door, which led them to a very well-furnished basement living space. The walls were paneled, covered in flowered wallpaper, and crowned with oak wood. The soft chairs with their rich burgundies sat near white marble tables or clear glass vases filled with flowers. Standing in front of a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe, the tall woman felt around its frame until her fingers pressed against a button. There was a quiet clicking and light whirring sounds, then the panel pushed back and slid to the side, revealing a thin hallway. Her mother had thought of the idea of a hidden speakeasy when Finn was young, and she decided to make that idea come to life with gears, cogs, and a lot of time studying clockwork and engineering.

After walking a couple of feet, the small space opened up to a stunning bar. The Hub was still closed until 9 pm, but with all of the lights on, its beauty struck a happy chord for Finn. It reminded her of how she built her own image, and how successful doing so had made her. The bar on the right of the room was stocked full of bootlegged goods. It was nicknamed the “grocery aisle,” which had some snacks for those who felt peckish but weren’t quite ready to leave.

There were red and beige tables and chairs scattered on the outskirts of the room, outlining the dance floor that faced the stage. Behind the second bar on the right, filled with alcohol, Finn caught Robert Moura. He was a tall and well-built man wearing a white dress shirt and midnight suspenders, setting down two boxes filled with moonshine and other liquors snatched from the docks. He grabbed the little sheet of paper and started marking his treasures down carefully.

“Heya Bobby,” Finn teased, walking up to him and looking over the cases. “Wait, is this all you got?”

The tall man hunched over the bar table and rubbed his eyes in frustration. “The cop over here was right,” he started, looking over to Jim, “the fuzz was all over the docks today. Something about the fiasco by the Dame’s.”

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause of the dead body found down the river. The clubhouse has been agitated, and they’re thinkin’ it was one of the mobs.” Jim rolled his eyes and Finn understood why.

The person that had been found was somebody from her gang, and he hadn’t been killed by any known mob group. The others were too scared of her to kill the innocent kid that knew nothing but her favorite coffee style. The way he was killed wasn’t normal either. It was the work of a human turned animal, slashes everywhere but deep wounds nowhere. She wanted the killer found - wanted to find them herself.

“On a separate and less horrific note,” Robert announced, “we still need a Jane for our open canary position. Any thoughts?” As Jim shook his head and shrugged in response, Finn’s eyes opened in slight realization.

“Jimmy, do you remember Ms. Oaks' file?” she asked, smiling slightly with a triumphant gleam in her eyes.

“I do remember something...She used to sing for parties!”

“And people loved her too,” Finn’s tight smile grew into a cheerful one, her hands smacking the bar table victoriously. “Boys, I think we mighta found our canary!”