by Norah Wilson
Gawd, I’d better knit him a sweater. Something loose fitting and long-sleeved.
I just hoped I wouldn’t be sending it to him from a federal prison.
Chapter 5
Believe it or not, things got stranger.
A person learns a lot in this business — the kind of stuff that could never be found in any academic textbook. You won’t find Lying Jerks 101 among the possible course selections at your local university; they offer no degree in Psychology of Cheaters. I’ve yet to come across anyone with a Masters in Bullshit Busting, or a PhD in Intuition. But all of these and more are available to your average PI, if you’ve got the knack for reading people and are prepared to study their behavior.
Curse or gift? Damned if I know. Maybe a bit of both.
For example, I’ve learned that insecure men often laugh a lot, especially if they’re insecure businessmen, and they’ll watch you the whole time you’re laughing back to see if you really think that they’re funny. People who say they want to be left alone, often really do just want to be left the hell alone. Men with small dogs in the park are looking to get laid, especially if they put a ribbon in the dog’s hair. And oh, by the way, the pinker the ribbon, the hornier they are. (The men not the dogs). Yeah, if you watch closely you’ll learn a hell of a lot about people, but you’ll learn even more if you watch with sideways glances.
But here’s the trick of it. Sometimes it’s just as important to not let first impressions fool you. At least not when it comes to the way people look.
Because I’ve also learned that people come in all shapes and sizes, and in the long run, that means diddlysquat about their character. That is to say, we judge people by their external appearance at our peril. The most doe-eyed of women are often the strongest. The most macho seeming of men can be brought to their knees with a good solid kick to the … whoops, I mean with the right words. Although that foot-to-gonads thing does come in handy sometimes. So, okay, though I may mentally dub a person on first sight (e.g., Jennifer Weatherby as the Flashing Fashion Queen), I don’t judge on first sight. Maybe that’s why I’m rarely surprised.
Rarely, but Mrs. Jane Presley, the owner/caretaker of the Underhill was one of those people who managed to surprise me. Because on first sight — God, it was years ago now, when I was first running errands for Jones and Associates — I’d pegged her as a pushover. A sweet little old lady who probably had cookies baking out back and rescued kitties on the weekend.
Not.
To this point in my career, I’d probably been to the Underhill Motel a few dozen times. Posing as a hooker, running surveillance, chasing leads, following up on suspicions that so often proved true. That’s where I learned a lot of what I wanted to know, and the one thing I didn’t the first night I drove by here, so long ago. But hey, we all have our heartaches.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. I’d been to the Underhill so often, Mrs. Presley was on my Christmas card list.
She was a tiny woman, all of four feet ten and maybe ninety pounds with a brick in each pocket. When you entered the Underhill, it was she you encountered — standing under a sign that read, “No I don’t know Elvis”. She always wore flower-patterned, short-sleeved blouses with a pencil-pen-pencil combination tucked into the front pocket. Her skirts flowed from her hips nearly to the floor. I’d never seen her don the glasses that hung from the chain around her neck, but their granny style fit her image perfectly. Her make-up was understated, and her smile was wide and genuine. Friendly. Easy. Geez, you just wanted to give her a hug.
Unless you pissed her off. Because despite first impressions, Mrs. Presley was as tough as freakin’ nails.
She had a no-nonsense reputation, and her two hulking sons — Cal and Craig — each of them six feet tall, helped her keep the Underhill no nonsense. She had rules and they were ironclad. Once you were barred from her place, you stayed barred. No exceptions. No second chances. A person could come to the Underhill Motel, take care of business and pleasure, but keep it clean. The cops knew it was a local hooker hangout, but as long as things didn’t get out of hand, then they left it pretty much alone. Better to have things under one roof on the outskirts than under many near the ‘better’ parts of town. Plus, Mrs. Presley had been known to help the police out on occasion.
Oh yeah, and she always wore blue suede shoes. Really.
But like me, Mrs. Presley could read people with sideways glances. And she used this instinct of hers to help keep the place out of trouble. It was somewhat unnerving to stand with someone who could read you as well as you could read them. I have often wondered what her first impression of me had been.
There was no doubt that Mrs. Presley’s keen eye for detail helped keep things under control. No one wanted to bite the hand that housed them. But as I learned, the prostitutes actually appreciated Mrs. Presley’s eagle eye. Once she saw a face, she never forgot it. She looked after ‘her girls’, too. She wasn’t a madam, she once told me, but she was a mama. And it gave the girls who worked the Underhill a small sense of security to know that she was looking out the curtains with her binoculars when they checked in with their johns.
I’d packed a few photos. If Mrs. Presley knew anything, if she’d seen anything, she’d tell me.
This was the scenario I envisioned: I’d show Mrs. Presley the pictures of Ned Weatherby, she’d identify him as a client (a Mr. John Smith, no doubt), and if she knew who the mistress was, she’d tell me. Especially when I told her that murder was involved. Then I could prove to Detective Head once and for all that I wasn’t lying. Prove that I didn’t imagine the whole freakin’ thing. That I wasn’t totally stalking Ned Weatherby like some love-starved fool. I’d locate the mistress, get a confession and present the evidence to the police by noon.
Damn, I was good! In my own mind, I had it all sewn up. Supper at Donatta’s on 33rd Street would be an appropriate celebration afterward. I’d order the grilled shrimp with a nice unoaked chardonnay.
Why, I was actually smiling when I walked into the Underhill.
But like I’d said, things got stranger.
+++
“This guy?” Mrs. Presley paused. “You’re sure it’s this guy you’re looking for?”
“Yes.” My answer came out with more exasperation than I intended to show. My finger pressed into the first photo of Ned Weatherby — outside his house, picking a rose from the garden.
When I’d first walked into the Underhill Motel, Mrs. Presley had been anxious to see my pics, and just as anxious to offer me a commentary of her thoughts on all of them. “Oh this guy looks angry. Look at the legs on that one, will you. I’ve seen chickens with more meat on their bones. Why the hell don’t men wear hats anymore? Hats are classy, don’t you think, Dix?”
“Excellent questions, Mrs. P, but right now, I just need to know if you’ve seen this guy.”
“Ned Weatherby.”
Great! She recognized him! I knew it. “Yes, Ned Weatherby!”
She pushed the photos back across the counter. “Never been here.”
My jubilance evaporated. Of course. Mrs. P knew him from the local rag, the front page of which he made every other month in recent years. She didn’t need my private eye pics to ID him. “You’re sure about that?” I asked, maybe a little too pleadingly.
“Positive. Ned Weatherby has never been to the Underhill.”
I’d been so sure she’d tell me Ned and his blonde bimbo had been frequent guests. Damn.
“Could you please go over the photos just once more?”
“Don’t see what good it’ll do,” she grumbled, but she pulled the photographs closer and studied them again.
“Ma,” the distinctively male voice rose from the back room. “Ma, you got any of that spicy pepperoni left?”
“Don’t you dare, Cal,” she called back over her shoulder. “You know damn well that’ll give you the heartburn.”
“Ah, ma. Come on!”
“Forget it. I’m not going to be up rubbing your back again to
night, young man.” She looked up at me. “Kids.”
“How old are your sons?” I asked. “They’re twins aren’t they?”
“Yes, they’re twins,” Mrs. P answered. “And they’ll be twenty-eight in November.”
“Really?”
“Just babies, eh, Dix?”
Babies? Those hulking creatures? “Full grown, I’d say.” I pushed towards Mrs. Presley the pictures from Ned’s choir practice — the one of him sitting with the other choir members, the one of him talking to the serious-looking Pastor Ravenspire. They were deep in conversation in this one, and I had the feeling they were discussing more than Amazing Grace. The pastor looked concerned; Ned looked tired.
Mrs. Presley looked over the pictures quickly. No matter. I knew she wasn’t missing a thing. She glanced up at me. “How old is that young fellow you got working for you, Dix? That good-looking one you had with you that time when you followed that deadbeat who was cheating on his pregnant wife.”
I cleared my throat. “Twenty-eight.”
“Yep, full grown man. But I don’t have to tell you that.” She winked.
Damn her and her sideways-glancing intuition!
I felt the color rising in my cheeks. “Mrs. Presley, if we could go back to the pictures. Let’s go through them one at a time.”
She slung out a dramatic sigh to emphasize what I already knew — she was losing patience. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. My intuition told me I was missing something. Something vital. Something I’d find here.
The picture I pointed to now was one of Ned and his lawyer leaving the gym. An easy, casual picture. Both held racquetball rackets held loosely at their sides. But that’s where the similarity ended. Ned was tall, while Jeremy was shorter than average. Their legs stuck out under the white of their gym shorts, but while Ned’s legs were hairy and dark, Jeremy’s were nearly as white and smooth as his shorts. In the photo, he bent to scratch his ankle, his finger digging into the socks as he walked. He looked more like the bell-ringing Hunchback of Notre Dame than one of Marport City’s finest young lawyers.
I directed Mrs. Presley’s attention to the picture of Ned and a red-faced Billy Star angrily exchanging words in the parking lot, tapping my finger on Ned’s image.
Mrs. Presley shook her head. She handed the pictures back to me and I let my breath out slowly.
“Ned Weatherby has never been here, Dix.”
I resigned myself to defeat on this point. The motel was a dead end. Damn! I’d been so sure. “Thanks anyway, Mrs. Presley.”
“You didn’t have to bring the pics in, Dix. You could have just asked me if I’d seen that guy who’s been all over the news.”
I cringed. Ned Weatherby was indeed all over the news. And no staid head-and-shoulders file shots needed — every camera had flashed towards the house when he’d stood in the open doorway.
“It’s on every channel. Here, I’ll find it for you.” Mrs. Presley picked up the remote control and aimed it at the small television that sat high and muted in the corner. No sound came over the speakers as the thin-faced, big-haired weather girl in the corner mouthed the latest weather report, while the caption gave all the information anyway.
“That’s okay, Mrs. Presley,” I said. “I’ll catch the news later.”
And I certainly would. I sighed. And I just hoped later in the day I wouldn’t be the news. God, I hoped Dylan had had better luck. As it stood now, Detective Richard Head would be having me for breakfast.
“Dix, you look like hell all of a sudden. What’s up?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “I was just so sure that you’d recognize Ned from visiting the motel. But I’ve got other leads.” I gathered the photos up again and tucked them back into the folio. “Thanks for the help.”
“Any time.”
I turned and headed towards the door.
“And Dix,” Mrs. Presley called to my retreating form. “If you want me to tell you about the other person in those pictures — the one that used to come here all the time, just let me know.”
“Other person?” I turned to face Mrs. Presley again. “What other person?”
“That one you didn’t ask about. But you’re the detective, Dix Dodd. I’m just the lady at the desk. You go on now. Have a nice day.”
I’m an idiot. “I’m an idiot.”
I should have just handed Mrs. Presley the pictures and let her fill in the blanks — all the blanks, any of the blanks. Instead, I’d told her what blank I wanted filled in and with whom. My intuition was right on track; my brain had simply derailed.
“What did I miss, Mrs. P?”
“Sit down, honey.” She nodded towards the small sofa and coffee table in the small lounge. “I’ll ask Cal to make us some lunch. We’re gonna be here awhile.”
My face dropped.
Mrs. P looked at me and grinned. “Ah, come on, don’t look so sad. This isn’t some kind of Heartbreak Hotel, you know.”
Chapter 6
Now, I’m not saying Mrs. Presley is one to gloat.
Oh, hell, who am I kidding? She sat there with a sandwich in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, and a self-satisfied smirk on her face. Yeah, yeah, I guess I asked for it. And man, did she make me suffer, talking about the weather and countless other trivialities before getting to what I was dying to hear.
Damn, I was blown away.
“You can close your mouth now, sweetie,” she said when she’d finished dishing.
I closed my mouth. “Sorry, Mrs. Presley.” Like any well-chastised schoolgirl, I mumbled my apologies.
The frequent visitor to the Underhill Hotel was none other than the fist-shaking, hostile, bristling Billy Star of my surveillance photos. And get this — he always appeared in the company of a blonde. A blonde who crouched low in the seat while he signed in (W.P. Smith). Mrs. Presley even had the dates and room numbers — Room 10 (that was the mirror-ceilinged room) February 5,12, and 19. Room 108 (vibrating bed) on March 12, April 2. Room 101 — that was April 9 — had a notation beside it: Fix light fixture, customer complained of shock. Briefly, I got sidetracked wondering what the hell they were doing in that room to get a jolt off a light fixture, but forced my focus back to the issue at hand.
There were other rooms and other dates. Usually twice a week, sometimes more. Until about a month ago, when the rendezvous ended suddenly. My mind roiled with questions. Who was the blonde? Why the Underhill Motel? And why did it end so abruptly?
And most importantly, how was this connected to the murder of Jennifer Weatherby?
No, wait — the most important question was, how was this all going to save my ass?
Afterward, I’d driven back to the office with a death grip on the steering wheel and Mrs. Presley’s spicy pepperoni churning on my insides. I think she’d spared her son the poison and fed it to me!
But no matter, I would surely live. I had to, if only to impart this juicy tidbit to Dylan. I couldn’t wait to catch up with him, to find out what he’d found out, completely certain that my information could trump his information, in my best school-yard nyah-nyah, my-snitch-is-better-than-your-snitch-so-there mentality. Because, well, I was one to gloat too.
But Dylan had some pretty good information of his own.
+++
The phone was just starting to ring as I took my coat off. My first thought was that it would be the police with more questions. Or worse, the press with some questions of their own.
“Not now, damn you.” I decided to let it click to voice mail. But no sooner had it rung four times and flipped into voice mail, then it started ringing again. Then again.
Damn it. A glance at the display simply showed “Outside Call”, which meant the caller was blocking caller ID. No messages either.
I’d been half surprised to see that Dylan wasn’t back yet, but when I looked out the window I could see him pulling his bike into the parking lot. Damn, he looked good on that thing. My gaze took in long legs straddling the powerful bike. I also took
in the fact that he didn’t have his cell phone pressed to his ear. Whoever was calling, it wasn’t Dylan Foreman.
“Oh, just give it up will you. Or leave a message already.”
Who the hell calls ten times?
Truthfully, I didn’t want to answer it. I just couldn’t get my mind around the concept of new clients right now, not while the murder of Jennifer Weatherby still hung over my head. Worse, I thought it might be Detective Head asking me why the hell I’d not brought Jennifer Weatherby’s receipt, deposit record and contract (yes, the non-existent paperwork) in to the station yet.
So I glared at the ringing phone and willed it to stop, scrunching my eyebrows in concentration. I wanted it to stop. Specifically, I wanted it to stop before Dylan walked in. The only thing worse than avoiding a call I really didn’t want to take was having someone else know I was avoiding it. Having Dylan know it….
The door to my office started to swing open. Shit. I dove across Dylan’s desk and lunged for the phone, making a very unflattering oomph/slide across the oak surface.
“Hello, Dix Dodd speaking.”
Dylan arched a questioning eyebrow. I mouthed the words ‘had to pee’ and pressed the phone back to my ear in time to hear a female voice.
“Oh.” A pause. “Oh, I was just about to hang up.”
Well don’t let me stop you.
“Just got in the door,” I lied to the still unknown caller. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling for Dylan Foreman. Is he there?”
“Oh.”
“Ma’am? Is he there?”
“Certainly. Just a moment, please.”
I was just about to hand the phone over to Dylan when she said, “And er, sorry to rush your pee break.”
Grrrr.
Oh, great, THIS I was able to mouth silently.