Dames Fight Harder

by M. Ruth Myers

  “And guess, what, sis? Those sheets with all the numbers and columns, the ones about bidding? I found something in them.”

  I sat down faster than intended in the chair he’d vacated. My chair. I held up a hand.

  “Wait a minute. Let me catch my breath.”

  Oatmeal had once again proved its amazing restorative properties at the first real breakfast I’d had in days, but I needed a minute to stabilize before my brain could process whatever it was Heebs was throwing at me. I was a person who drew strength from the familiar. I needed to sit and look at my office. I needed to see my Dad’s picture in his police uniform, and the oak filing cabinet on which I knew the history of each scar and dent. As I looked at the Remington on which I’d typed countless reports and the stapler with which I’d once threatened a man, healing flowed in.

  Heebs was fidgeting. I leaned back in my chair and looked at him.

  “Found something, have you?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good, because I’m spinning my wheels.” I motioned for him to tilt the Remington. “Get them out and show me.”

  It felt good to sit after driving and walking, even though it hadn’t been far. Heebs spread the typed up lists on which I’d spent so many fruitless hours. He stood next to me as he talked.

  “You can’t exactly see it looking at these. You have to count what everyone got. That’s what I did. About halfway through these, this one guy, Lamont, started getting half again as many bids or contracts — is that what you call them? — as he did before. See—”

  I held up a hand. “Wait. Give me a minute.”

  Lamont. If I understood what Heebs was telling me, there’d been a point at which Lamont started getting more contracts. It was before he started shelling out to the late Gabriel Foster though. Had he been doing something crooked that got him more contracts only to fall prey to blackmail when Foster somehow learned about it?

  “Heebs, are you sure about this?”

  “Yeah, sis, I am. Pretty sure, anyway. Here’s where I counted up the six that got the most.”

  The sheet he handed me wasn’t typed like the ones from Cecilia. It was tablet paper on which vertical columns were marked off with a ruler. The hand printed names were passably neat and had hatch-marked groups representing numbers following each. I realized the columns represented years.

  “Heebs, I’m impressed. How did you ever spot this?” And why hadn’t I?

  Heebs squinted in thought. Only a bruise under one eye and a crack on his lip remained as evidence of his beating.

  “It wasn’t so much a matter of spotting, sis. I ran out of things to do. I’d stared and stared at those pages and I understood them, but they didn’t tell me anything, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “So I started wondering how much money guys that did this made, and I totaled up that. But then I got thinking that didn’t necessarily mean they got the most jobs, because once you’d pointed it out to me I knew the jobs were all different. So then I thought why not see who got the most jobs? That’s where I started to see a pattern. On this.” He stubbed his finger proudly on the sheet with the hatch-marked totals, then paused uncertainly. “It is a pattern, isn’t it, sis?”

  “It certainly looks like it.”

  “Does that mean I’ve broken the case?”

  “By rights it ought to. The trouble is, it wouldn’t exactly be accepted as proof. It gives me something to work with, though. I just need time to think.

  “Now I owe you some money—”

  The phone rang.

  “This is Bess, the super’s wife. She’s back. She’s up in her apartment.”

  I sat up so abruptly it jolted my spine.

  “Gloria’s back? Have you seen her?”

  “She had her hand out demanding that refund as soon as I opened the door. I told her his nibs was out and he had all the money.”

  “Don’t let her leave, Bess. I’ll be right over.”

  Thirty seconds or so elapsed as I weighed things. I didn’t know if it had been Gloria at Deeds Point or not. I did know I didn’t want to be jumped again. I was dialing Lt. Freeze when I remembered Heebs. I looked around. He was nowhere in sight.

  The good lieutenant’s voice grated in my ear.

  “The manager’s wife just called to tell me Gloria’s in her apartment. Since I was good enough to tell you, how about swinging by and giving me a lift? The wife doesn’t think much of you or Boike, so if you go there on your own, you’re likely to find nobody at home.”

  His struggle to decide was almost audible. Unaware of how depleted my energy was, he was thinking if he turned me down I might beat him.

  “Be down in front of your building, then, and don’t take time to powder your nose.”

  ***

  “Give me ten minutes alone with her before you come in,” I said from the back of the unmarked car used by the detective bureau.

  “Did I miss out on why you’re giving orders?” Freeze lighted a cigarette and dangled it out the window while Boike drove.

  “What I said about the manager’s wife not warming to you? That’s pretty much how all the women you’ve talked to on this feel. Her, the girls who worked with Gloria. You’re a cop, you’re a man, and I hate to say it, Freeze, but you don’t exactly have a winning way. Some of them don’t like me much either. I have a feeling Gloria won’t. But I pick up on little things. I recognize ways to get their goat, or make them trust me enough to spill things. It’s a skill, Freeze, like working a silk stocking up your leg.”

  He snorted.

  “Okay. Five minutes.”

  My patience snapped.

  “Dammit, Freeze, I said ten and I meant it! You’ve been playacting with me this whole case, all of a sudden listening to my ideas like you thought they had merit, sharing bits of information. Not because your opinion of me has changed. Oh, no. It’s all because you think I might know things I’m not sharing!”

  “Hey, now—”

  “Well maybe I do, and if I do, it’s because I’ve dug for them, same as you do. Only I dig deeper, Freeze, and okay, maybe you can’t. Time constraints, cops leaving — I get that. But maybe, just maybe, now and again you could at least play fair with me. Because I’ve helped you plenty, and we both know it. I even went to meet someone who claimed to be Gloria, and got tossed in the Great Miami for my efforts. I have earned every one of those ten minutes, and I intend to have them!”

  Boike let out a sound of dismay when I mentioned the river. It didn’t slow me or my anger. I swung the door open and hopped from the car before it came to a full stop in front of Gloria’s apartment building.

  THIRTY-NINE

  I rapped on Gloria’s door with the fleeting thought it might be satisfying to give Gloria’s nose a tap or two as well when she opened it. If she opened it. There was no response from inside. Before I knocked I’d caught a sound or two, and the manager’s wife, who was keeping vigil in the downstairs hall when I arrived, assured me the girl hadn’t left.

  “Gloria, I know you’re in there. You can either talk to me or talk to the cops. Or waste enough time and you might get a chance to talk to the men who roughed you up last time. Take your pick.”

  A dollop of silence melted away. Then footsteps whispered across carpet. The door opened just enough for me to shove my foot through it if needs be.

  “Who are you?”

  She was my height, made an inch or so taller by high heels. Her blonde hair looked natural. She was pretty enough to cause envy among girls in a small office, but not much more. Apart from a hint of petulance, her eyes lacked animation.

  Shelving thoughts of a pop in the nose, I managed a mild tone.

  “My name’s Maggie Sullivan. Ring any bells?”

  “No, should it?”

  I waited. Her petulance deepened into a frown.

  “I didn’t work with you. I never saw you before in my life. You must be looking for someone else. Now hit the road.”

&nb
sp; This girl was the authentic Gloria. The superintendent’s wife had recognized her. Now I also knew she wasn’t the one who had called me last week and led me into an ambush. The blonde who was barring my way had a lisp, albeit a slight one. Whoever had spoken to me on the phone didn’t. I pushed my way in.

  “Hey! Get out or I’ll scream for the super.”

  “He’s out right now, remember? The quickest way to get rid of me is to answer some questions. I’m a detective.” I tossed her a card. She fumbled it. I tossed her another. “I’m trying to find out who killed your boyfriend — and who slammed you into the wall back there.”

  “I don’t know anything!”

  “What were they hunting? Who were they?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “What did they look like then?” Dropping onto her couch, I crossed my legs and leaned back, suggesting I’d stay all day if necessary. “You might as well start answering. Either that or pop into the kitchen and make us some tea.”

  Her mouth opened and then closed again. She looked around helplessly. Not in panic, though. There was a strange indifference about her. I wondered if she saw most things in terms of herself.

  “How do I know you’re what you say you are?”

  “You don’t — but I haven’t roughed you up like the others did.”

  She processed that, while I tried not to think about seconds ticking away from my five minutes. Ten minutes if my outburst had worked miracles and spurred Freeze to some semblance of fair play.

  “I don’t know what they were looking for, or who they were. It was something to do with Gabe’s work.” Without taking her eyes off me, she edged onto the arm of a chair. “Some kind of receipt, I think.”

  For blackmail payments? She had to be lying. But she was speaking again.

  “They... I think they called it an invoice.”

  Now she had my attention. “For what?”

  Her head shook. “I don’t know. Honest. They kept yelling at me about had I seen it, where did Gabe keep things, where would he hide it. But I was blindfolded and they’d tied my hands, and that was after one of them had banged my head on the wall to make me talk.” She swallowed. “I was too scared to think.”

  That admission was the first time she’d seemed human. It was also the point at which I decided she was telling the truth.

  “You said what they were hunting had to do with Mr. Foster’s business. What made you think that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think.”

  She gave a sigh of exasperation.

  “It just seemed...” She broke off as a thought occurred. “It had something to do with building things, that’s why.”

  From down below I caught the murmur of voices. Freeze and Boike. I ground my teeth.

  “Bids? Contracts?” I pressed.

  “No, no. Things you use. Shingles. Or maybe lumber. Or pipe. Yeah, I think it was pipe. No, lumber. I think.”

  A key clattered at the lock. Gloria sprang from her perch. The door opened, admitting the two detectives.

  “Everything okay in here?”

  “Dandy,” I said through my teeth. To be fair, the time I’d spent with Gloria was probably closer to what I’d asked for than not.

  Freeze was temporarily sans cigarette. His mouth gave a tic, which was probably meant to be a smile.

  “Miss Overbrook? I’m Detective Freeze. This is Detective Boike. We’ve been worried about your welfare.”

  Gloria looked from the men to me.

  “You said if I talked to you, you wouldn’t call the cops!”

  “Don’t you want them to catch whoever killed your boyfriend?”

  “Well, yeah, sure. But it won’t bring Gabe back, will it? I gotta think about myself now, so all of you clear out.”

  Freeze’s gaze slid over to meet mine.

  “She’s heartbroken,” I said.

  “Yeah, I see that.” His index finger made a circular motion as he spoke to Gloria. “You might as well sit down.”

  “But—”

  “The men who roughed her up were hunting an invoice for lumber,” I said. “Or maybe pipes. Tell the nice policemen what you told me.”

  The blonde glared. Flouncing into the chair she’d perched on earlier, she crossed her arms and repeated her story.

  “And you’d never seen these men before?” Freeze asked for the third time.”

  “No! I already told you. I mean, I didn’t even get enough of a look to know. I opened the door, and the first one — he filled the whole doorway — before I could even ask what he wanted, he smacked me so hard it knocked me down and my head went woozy. By the time it stopped spinning, he’d rolled me onto my belly and was tying my hands. He told me Gabe was dead and if I tried to scream, I would be too. Then he blindfolded me.”

  “What about the second one? You said there were two.”

  “He had on a hat. He was standing to the side, though, out in the hall. That’s all I saw.”

  “What kind of hat?”

  “I don’t know... snap brim, I think.”

  She didn’t remember anything useful about their voices, timbre, pitch, words they used. The one who’d tied her up and slammed her against the wall so hard she’d cut her head sounded ‘tough.’ The other one sounded ‘mean.’

  Freeze had hitched up a chair while she talked. When she finally ran down, he leaned forward. He gave her a hard look, but his words were uncommonly quiet.

  “Why do you think they left without killing you?”

  Gloria’s eyes shifted. It was her first sign of nervousness.

  “I-I told them there was somebody who might know where they could find what they wanted. It was a lie though, see. Gabe had this old girlfriend who sang at a club up on Salem. I don’t even know if she’s still there or not, but I said he’d gone out to see her one night and told me not to be jealous, he just needed to drop something off to her.” She swallowed. “The one who did the talking said if they found out I was lying, they’d be back.

  “I didn’t have much to lose. I figured if Sally — that was her name — if she was still working there, they’d have to wait until she took a break and then grill her. If she wasn’t there, they’d put the screws to whoever ran the club, same as they did me. Either way would give me enough time to stuff some clothes in a suitcase and get to the train station, so that’s what I did.”

  ***

  “You buy what she told us?” asked Freeze as the two of us walked to his car. Boike was watching Gloria until a uniformed unit arrived to take her to a holding cell so the cops could get a formal statement and Joel a deposition if he wanted one.

  “That she’d sic her attackers on some innocent woman to save her own skin? Sure.”

  “I was thinking more about her busting out of the bathroom and using a kitchen knife to cut the ropes around her hands.”

  “It’s just a thumb latch on the bathroom door. She might have scraped her chin, but she could maneuver the lock around with it like she said. And using the knife to saw through the ropes? Sure. Half of getting out of a pickle like that’s keeping your head.”

  “Voice of experience?”

  I shrugged.

  “You looked like you might have an idea who one of the men might have been, the one she said was big.”

  “An idea, no proof. One of the workmen on Miss Minsky’s project is the size of a boxcar, and he doesn’t like her.”

  “Enough to pin a murder on her?”

  “For money. He’s not the sort who could plan it all out. He’d be muscle for someone.”

  “Still think that would be Lamont?”

  “Who else? If Gloria’s right about them hunting a bill or an invoice, it fits nicely with blackmail.”

  “Over shingles or lumber? Why?”

  “Billing for more than you get? I don’t know. Rachel may have some ideas.” I shot him a sideways look. “Yeah, I know. I need proof.”

  What starch I had left in me was evaporating. Frustration at know
ing more than I had before, but not how or where to plug it in didn’t help.

  Steering with one hand, Freeze scraped a match with his thumb and started a cigarette.

  “Lot of lumberyards in this town. If you want to go looking for a needle in a haystack, be my guest.”

  I started to smile. There was looking in haystacks, and then there was burning a few down to see what was left.

  FORTY

  I called Rachel.

  “We need to brainstorm. I need to ask you some things about construction and materials. I’m not sure where it’s going to go, or maybe even the questions to ask, but it’s important.”

  She didn’t speak for a moment.

  “Let me see if Mo can pick me up and chaperone.”

  “You’ll need to come to my office. I’m not up to any more running around this morning.”

  “Wait a minute.” A voice murmured in the background. “Mama says if Mo’s not available, she’ll come with me. We’ll call a cab.”

  “She doesn’t like the way you drive?”

  “Joel confiscated my car as part of his initial deal with the judge.”

  “Ah.”

  “Regardless of which it is, don’t expect us for forty-five minutes. We’ll need time to get properly attired.”

  Either she was signaling that one or more of them were still in their nighties, or her kin thought coming to my office was a dressier occasion than could be satisfied by their current togs.

  While I waited, I put my feet up and closed my eyes for ten minutes to get my starch back. Then I thought some. Though all claimed to lack the capacity to take over Foster’s project, any of the other three unsuccessful bidders could potentially benefit if Rachel was out of the game. There might be others, but none with a connection I’d turned up so far. Moreover, both the developer financing the murdered man’s project and the one behind Rachel’s had despaired about other local construction companies of any size already having their hands full. The fact the men who’d threatened Gloria were hunting a paper related to construction materials — even if she couldn’t recall what kind — appeared to eliminate a grudge unrelated to that world as a motive for murder. As to why Rachel had been framed, learning why Foster had been killed, and by whom, might lead to an answer there as well.