“Help you, ma’am?” he asked her, not moving his lips. Maude wondered how he did that. “Be done here in just a minute.”
She stepped back and walked outside, taking a minute to light up her second unfiltered for the day. The nicotine from the tobacco made her woozy for a minute; her head and stomach both seemed to be on the same merry-go-round. Still, she wouldn’t get another cigarette until late evening—four a day was her limit. One before bed, and three others for the day. Probably still get cancer, she thought. Waited too late to cut back. All this getting rid of bad habits might make her live longer, but at what price? She shook her head at what she believed to be foolishness. Of course she wanted to live as long as the Good Lord gave her, but a life of pain was not what she called living. There had to be a compromise somewhere.
Toward the end of her unfiltered, Freddy came outside with a cup of coffee for himself and one for her. She stood gazing at the double tracks where the passenger and freight trains bypassed one another on their way to multiple destinations. Something was still bothering her about the day of the murder, some piece of information that got by without being looked at closely. She looked at her notes but couldn’t find anything.
“Well, detective, ma’am, what can Freddy help you with?” His brown eyes danced, as though he knew a secret and was busting to tell it. Maude looked him over closely, wondering what filled a man with so much energy.
“Wonder what you can tell me about Henry Fonda and the day that woman was killed?”
“That woman was looking for trouble. I saw her that morning, had evil in her eye. Old evil, seemed to me. Henry was being his nice self, just talking, and she got up in his face,” Freddy said. “No call for it. Henry was making small talk, and she nearly tore him a new one. Sorry, ma’am. My language gets its own mojo going. Hard to control it.”
“Okay. I have my days too.” She sipped the cup he handed her, grateful for the heat of the coffee, if not for the taste.
“Yes, ma’am, I believe this might be one of your bad ones,” he said, his bent back leaning against the doorjamb as he patiently waited for what came next.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“The need seems to be on you, ma’am. Seems to be a right burden for you.”
She relaxed then, tired of hiding the truth. The craving for a drink was there every minute. “Does it get better? It doesn’t seem worth what it takes.”
“Ma’am, I’m considerable older than you, though I doubt I have seen as much. The drink gets a terrible hold on you, but it does not have to be master. Keep that thought. It helps me to keep it away.”
Maude looked at the man closely, grateful for the words of wisdom. Funny, she thought, I must be getting soft in my dotage. “I’ll remember that,” she said. “Back to the woman, anything strike you wrong about her?”
“Let me think. My memory’s not as clear as it used to be. Takes me a minute to call it back. Seems she was real concerned about folks looking her in the eye. Like she didn’t want to be noticed too close.” Freddy coughed then leaned over a little more, worrying Maude he was going to tumble to the concrete walkway.
“That was the part with Henry. Him being friendly, and her telling him to mind his beeswax. Something was off about all that.”
“Freddy, had you ever heard of Eve Devine before that day? Would you have known her if you saw her?”
“No, ma’am. I sure didn’t. Why, she could have been anyone.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Freddy. Just that. Thank you for your cooperation,” she said, turning to leave.
“Why yes, ma’am, detective. And if it gets where it wants to be master, get to a meeting. That’s how I do it.”
She shrugged, not at all sure about those meetings. They seemed to her to be nothing more than a group of people talking about their troubles. She couldn’t imagine how they might help her.
Sitting in the car after leaving the stationmaster, Maude looked at her notes again from the day of the murder, trying to remember what got her attention. She had spoken with the woman in the parking lot, a Marge Campbell, 3226 Winding Way. The woman had mentioned a man out jogging with his dog, running across the tracks! Those were the words that had niggled and nagged Maude since first she heard them. There must have been something distracting her not to follow up. Using the car’s GPS unit, she programmed the address and began driving to the Campbell residence.
A doghouse was positioned in the yard near the front door where a very large Rottweiler lay on the grass, enjoying the coolness of the evening. There was daylight for another couple hours, but the heat of the day had dissipated some. Without making an appointment, Maude took her chances that someone would be in the house. She had a need to know what Marge Campbell had seen.
The dog ran to the extent of his chain, the deep woof of the animal an indication of what he would like to do to her. She hadn’t had but a couple of dog bites through the years, working in the field, but they were enough to make her remember the pain involved. Staying to the right of the steps, she knocked on the front door, certain someone inside the brick house had heard the dog. They probably hoped she would go away and not disturb them during the dinner hour.
Knocking again set the dog off once more, his loud chuff warning her away from the door. Convenient way to discourage door-to-door vendors, she thought. Finally the door was opened by a thin, elderly man in his sixties or early seventies.
“Yes,” he said, when he saw Maude. “May I help you, miss?”
She liked the miss, almost made her feel young again.
Pulling her shield, Maude introduced herself and asked to see Marge Campbell.
“You must be Frank, Marge’s husband,” she said after consulting her notes.
“Yes, I am.” He nodded. “Please come in, detective. Marge is in the den, watching television.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “I have a couple of questions. It won’t take long.” Maude was trying to be as polite as possible. Calling on people in the evenings made some unhappy. She smiled, even though her mouth hurt doing it. About the time Marge came to the door, Maude’s stomach rumbled and growled loudly enough others could hear it.
“Sorry, no lunch,” she said by way of explanation.
Marge had her lounge dress on, covering the wrinkles in her skin caused by the Naugahyde couch. She had a bright smile across her face when she approached Maude.
“Have you come to tell me what’s been done about the parking?” she asked.
“The parking?” Maude asked, confused. “What about the parking?”
“Why, officer, at the train station where those dark-skinned men drive their taxis and disturb other drivers. They just won’t obey the rules. I thought that was why you had come. Remember? I asked for the police to make them obey the rules.”
Marge was consistent if she was anything. She also remembered her grievances. Maude was hoping the woman’s memory would serve her well in other ways.
“Mrs. Campbell—” she began.
“Oh, my, just call me Marge, like all my friends do,” Marge said, headed for the couch, motioning for Maude to follow. “Sit down, honey, you look like you could use some rest. FRANK,” she yelled, “BRING SOME ICED TEA. He’s a bit hard of hearing,” she said in a stage whisper. “Now, if my complaint wasn’t what brought you here, what did?” she asked Maude, her large face red from the exertions of walking and yelling at the same time.
“Marge, when I spoke to you on the day of the incident at the train station, you told me you had seen someone crossing the parking lot earlier. Do you recall telling me?” Maude asked, taking the sweating glass of tea from Frank’s hand. She nodded her thanks, and drank it quickly, enjoying its cloying sweetness.
“Why yes,” Marge answered, her own tea at half-full already. “I saw a man crossing the parking lot and he had a dog with him.”
“Do you remember anything about the man,” Maude said, “any description of him? Or the dog, what kind was
it?” She emptied the tea glass and set it down, just as Frank refilled it from a pitcher. He caught her eye, a worried look crossing his face as he poured her tea. She had a feeling Frank read a lifetime of her troubles from that one glance.
She turned her eyes back to Marge and waited for her answer—the otherworldly feeling that someone had seen into her soul strangely uncomfortable.
“Well, as I recall, he was not a tall man. Kind of scrawny as I remember, had that flat-top kind of hair cut that the soldiers wear. But he wasn’t no soldier. Didn’t have that look about him. He was kind of sneaky, if you know what I mean?”
“You got all that from a quick look as he ran across the lot?” Maude asked, shaking her head, not disbelieving, but acknowledging most people wouldn’t have paid attention.
“Oh yes, I study people,” Marge said, and slurped the last of the tea from her glass.
“And the dog?”
“Why he looked to be a mutt, not much more than that. No pedigrees, either one of them. Seemed out of place. They ran across the tracks, like the fellow wanted someone to notice him. Kind of slow, making sure he was in the line of cars. Maybe he was looking for someone. I couldn’t say.”
“Thank you folks for your hospitality,” Maude said, standing, her right leg asleep from sitting. “Sorry to bother you,” she said again, moving toward the exit. Frank walked with her, stepping out on the porch, closing the door behind her. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a worn copy of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, a small book, well used, the pages dog-eared.
“Ma’am, I don’t mean to get in your business, and the last thing I want to do is upset you, but you have the look of a person in need, and I want to give you this if you’d like to have it. We call it the little book, and it has helped many. Should you decide you don’t want it, please give it to someone, don’t throw it away. By passing on the solution, we get one day closer to eliminating the problem.” With that, Frank Campbell turned and walked back in the house, leaving Maude with more questions than she’d had in the beginning. After tucking the book into her jacket pocket, she began the drive home, more than a little perplexed.
Darkness was on the countryside when she parked in the garage, an addition she’d had built in the last six months. Always wishing she had a place to park and store her police gear, she had about given up, until the man who had lived in her rent house volunteered to build it in exchange for rent. She always felt she got the best end of the deal, because it took him six weeks to finish it and she only lost that much rent. Since then he had moved away, to live with his eldest son in another state. She was sorry when he left. The rent house was currently occupied by a couple from the East Coast. They had decided to get away from the cold and wet winters, but Maude didn’t think they would last through the heat of a Texas summer. They ran the air conditioner most of the time, and she was thankful they had their own meter. Nice folks and good neighbors, she hoped they would stay for a while.
Inside her own home, the familiar walls greeted her, even though the atmosphere in the house seemed charged with tension. Silly, she knew; her house couldn’t respond to the feelings she had, but things did seem different. Maybe it was not having a drink for almost thirty-six hours. A frightening thought that she could count the hours since having her last binge. An evening cigarette was still to come, something she had begun to look forward to without the past ache of need. It had been six months since starting the four a day. The only reason for the number was four goes into twenty-four evenly, and it seemed to work. Sitting on the porch with her feet up, she gazed across the yard as she smoked, admiring a cloud bank lit from underneath, its mass glowing orange-pink as the last rays of the sun exploded across the horizon. God I love a Texas sky, she thought.
Reaching in her pocket to move the bulk that punched her in the ribs, Maude found the small book given to her by Frank Campbell. She laid it aside, not believing she needed a book of its sort. She knew that once her mind was set on a plan it was just a matter of doing it. She could do this by herself. Besides, she hadn’t decided to quit drinking, had she? Last night was just a test to see if she could, and it was obvious she had it under control. The thought of food was suddenly on her mind, since she couldn’t really remember the last time she’d eaten. She got up from her rocking chair and went inside, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out two frozen burritos and lettuce for a salad. In the window were two small tomatoes from the market, their skins rosy from sun ripening. Humming a little, Maude put the burritos in the microwave and began tearing the lettuce and slicing one of the tomatoes. Five minutes later the food was ready and she sat down at her table and began eating, at the same time reading the field notebook she kept in her shirt or blazer pocket.
The man Marge Campbell had seen could have been Buzzcut, the blond man who had kidnapped her niece Lilly Ann some months back. The man was a mystery, but he seemed to have a connection with Robert Dawson. She and her partners had chased the man for years in Chicago, finally ending it all in Madison. The thought of Dawson unnerved Maude. Not that she was afraid of him—on the contrary, she had no use for the man—but he had formed an early attachment to her and had made it his business to hurt one of the people she cared about.
Standing after her quick meal, she automatically went to the refrigerator for ice and tonic, knowing exactly how much to put in the glass. A little bit would be all right, maybe help her sleep. The bottle of Gilbey’s was one of three in the liquor cabinet—all full, for Maude was the type of drinker who didn’t want to run out of her chosen beverage. Considering her options, she decided to wait a little, maybe see how long she could go not taking a drink with it in front of her. The dials moved slowly on the Elgin watch, from 8:00 o’clock to 8:05, ticking so loudly it seemed unreal. All the fingers on her right hand trembled, wanting to pick up the glass, to stop the calliope music playing in her head, ticking off the seconds on her watch. Without another thought, she poured the gin into the glass and took a long drink, her mouth burning with the familiar taste. So good, but just one. She could do that, drink just one. Her head was hurting, but not like it had been, the noises finally shutting down as she poured the second drink. No ice this time, no need for tonic. Just the cool fire of the alcohol singeing her lips, her brain. Two and that’s all. “No more,” she said. “No more.”
At 4:00 a.m. the neighbor east of the sunset view turned his car lights on, splaying their beams through her window. Across the table, her head lay face down in the paper plate with burrito residue from the night before. The empty gin bottles lay side by side in the middle of the table, their missing caps on the floor near her feet, where she had flipped on the fifth drink. Maude awoke, groggy and drunk, unsure of where she was, talking to herself as she moved to the bathroom, holding on to the walls along the way. She fell across the bed afterward, passing out again as her face hit the pillow.
At 6:00 she woke again for a few minutes and buried her head in the pillow for another two hours. The phone was ringing, its sound going straight to the brain, bringing her back to the world of the living. Sitting up in the bed, she saw the offending noisemaker on the floor, where it had fallen sometime during her nightly exercises. Crawling from the bed to pick it up, she saw the name Joe Allen printed across the silent screen, his smiling face indicating a message was waiting.
Maude sat on the floor trying to get her bearings, the urge to vomit strong as she crawled to the bathroom, still unable to stand. Finally getting herself together, she ran the shower for a few minutes on cool then climbed in after stripping off the clothing she had worn the day before. The effort took all the strength she had in reserve. Leaning against the wall, she held on to the hated showerhead, hoping her body weight would pull it down. The water was cold, sending pin prickles down her body. Shivers started down her back as the relentless showerhead pounded her with its spray. Finally, after turning the water off, Maude climbed out, her joints screaming from the night before. A hard-back kitchen chair had been her bed for al
most eight hours, and she still felt every slat.
The mirror showed a bedraggled, red-eyed woman, with stringy wet hair, a droopy mouth, and bent back. She didn’t yet have it together. Finally the smell of old, burned coffee got to her brain, and she headed for the coffee pot, thinking the black stuff inside had boiled for three hours, staying hot. One of the benefits of habit was she had loaded the pot before going to work yesterday morning and set it to be ready at 6:00 a.m., the time her alarm went off in the mornings. Sitting on a chair in the bedroom, she slurped the strong, burned coffee, not caring about anything except feeling human again.
She picked up the phone again and called the Cop Shop. Joe was there and answered the phone.
“I’m sick,” she told him. “Be in to work within a half-hour. I’m okay, just feeling bad. A little more coffee and everything will be fine. How did you get to work?”
“Walked. The weather’s not bad. Muggy, but okay. You sure you’re okay?” He knew her too well. Maude Rogers didn’t voluntarily show up late for work.
“Yeah, Joe, quit worrying about me,” she said angrily. “I’m not doddering yet.”
Joe got quiet. His feelings were hurt, and she knew it. “Okay, Maude. See you soon,” he finally said before hanging up.
Hanging around the house a few more minutes, she tried to recall the night before. She remembered pouring the third drink, but nothing after that. The bathroom was heavily fumed with the smell of vomit and stale gin. Maude knew enough about alcohol poisoning to look in the toilet and see if there was blood across the rim. She breathed a long sigh that none was there.
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 61