The Big Brush-off

by Michael Murphy

  Chapter 21

  Uncle Sam’s

  I spent a restless night in bed thinking, my mind bouncing between my next Blackie Doyle chapter, Katie Caldwell’s murder, and David Selznick. I was intent on reclaiming my writing career, but I couldn’t face Laura missing a golden opportunity.

  I got up in the middle of the night and splashed water on my face. The clock on the nightstand read one-thirty. I glanced out the bedroom window.

  Beneath the corner streetlight, a man stood facing the inn. I couldn’t see his face, just a dark silhouette and a hat pulled over his eyes. At first I thought the figure was George Hanson.

  The man lit a cigarette. The glow from the match revealed the unmistakable collar of a priest. A chill shot up my spine.

  I hadn’t noticed Father Ryan and Hanson were the same height and build. What was the priest doing at this hour? Casing the place? Keeping an eye out for Laura and me?

  Although he’d acted strangely in the garden, maybe his presence wasn’t anything sinister. He could be waiting for a ride, or even a dame. Priests had secrets, and Father Ryan had more than his share.

  I grabbed my trousers from the night before and hurried downstairs for a better look. When I threw open the door, the priest was gone. No one was standing beneath the streetlight.

  I stared at the empty spot for a moment after realizing streets in Hanover weren’t so different from New York or Los Angeles, not when a man would smoke a cigarette beneath a streetlamp at two in the morning for no good reason.

  I went back upstairs, trying to not wake Laura as I climbed back in bed. I felt a bit foolish, like I’d overreacted. Surely Father Ryan wasn’t keeping an eye on Laura and me, was he?

  As the glow of dawn finally peeked through the window, I rolled out of bed. Laura was in the shower.

  When she finished and shut off the water, the door didn’t open for several minutes. Finally opening the door, she stood in the doorway with a comb in one hand, a brush in her other. “Does my hair look any better?”

  Before I could come up with a diplomatic answer, Laura’s eyes narrowed into slits. She went back into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  I got out of bed and stood beside the bathroom door. “Maybe you should go back to the beauty parlor. Have them fix it.”

  She opened the door a crack, just enough to glare at me.

  I’d learned in situations like a woman’s appearance, the least said was often the best response. I retreated into the room and quietly dressed, again wearing my lucky purple shirt.

  I carried the typewriter, my two chapters, and blank paper downstairs. I set everything up on the west deck, like the day before.

  To get back into the novel, I reread the chapters in the dim light then rolled in a new sheet of paper. I had a good understanding of the stakes involved in Blackie’s latest case, and as I typed, I found Blackie making eyes at the one-armed bartender’s daughter. By the time the sun peaked over the top of the inn, illuminating the tree line, I’d finished another damn exciting chapter.

  I read the new pages and liked what I’d written. Blackie was falling in love for the first time in years. The girl wasn’t a dame, but a woman who could handle herself. She was different from women in his past. She was tough, like Laura. He knew he could never live up to her standards, but like a tired trout at the end of a line, he was hooked.

  Readers would be challenged by the mystery, but I was developing new aspects of Blackie’s life that only complicated his job as a detective. I wasn’t certain how everything would play out, but I was off to a good start.

  Laura came around the corner, her hair covered by a pink silk scarf. The black hair that poked from the edges of the scarf looked better than when she came from the shower, more curls, less frizz. She set a steaming cup of coffee in front of me. She dropped Katie’s yearbook on the table. “I couldn’t sleep either, so I read through Katie’s yearbook, looking for something.”

  I kissed her, like I did every morning. “What are you looking for?”

  “More boyfriends, or boys who might have had more than a crush on her.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Plenty of flirtatious comments one might expect of a pretty girl’s yearbook. I made a list. We could track them down to see if they still live in Hanover.” She handed me the list: seven names on it. “Alan Tremain wrote something he thought was funny.”

  I took a sip of joe. “He probably thought he’d have other opportunities in one more yearbook.”

  “Then I looked for something else and came up empty.”

  “What’s that?”

  Laura sat beside me and opened the book to Katie’s class picture. “A best friend.”

  “A best friend?”

  “Everyone liked Katie, right, but she’d have a best friend, wouldn’t she?” She answered her own question. “Of course she would. Most girls wrote the usual thanks for being my friend and have a great summer, but I couldn’t find one that I’d point to as a best friend.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have one.”

  She pulled the Ford key from her purse. “You need to write. I’m going to take a drive and clear my mind.”

  I handed her the pages. “I’d really like to know what you think.”

  “Chapter three. You finished another whole chapter? You’re not rushing through this, are you?”

  In the past when my writing was good, the words flowed. “When I have a clear vision of my characters and the obstacles and complications they’ll face, the scenes almost write themselves.”

  She flipped through the nine new pages. “What time did you get up?”

  “Mark Twain used to write by the light of a full moon.” The author, not Mildred’s dog.

  Laura chuckled. “You made that up, didn’t you?”

  “You read. I’ll go for a drive.”

  Reluctantly she handed me the keys to the Ford.

  I took a gulp of coffee. “When I get back, I need to know whether these chapters are good enough to send Mildred.”

  “Oh, I hope so.”

  I didn’t need a drive to clear my head. I had another purpose in mind.

  I reached Sam’s Garage and parked the Ford near the entrance of the two-bay garage. Most of the cars outside the bays were heaps.

  The place smelled of oil and grease with more than a hint of cigarette smoke. Tools were scattered on a greasy worktable, along with rags, oil cans, and a girlie calendar that had fallen onto the table, leaving a rectangle on the wall, the only clean surface in the whole damn place.

  I’d never trust a car to a tidy garage or a mechanic with clean hands.

  Two legs in grimy blue coveralls poked from beneath a ’29 Hudson, the kind Blackie Doyle drove. It was fate.

  Alan Tremain slid from beneath a car and wiped his mitts on a blue rag. “Swell Ford.”

  “It’s a rental.”

  As a high-school kid, Katie’s boyfriend was always a little rough around the edges. He hadn’t changed for the better since the last time I saw him. In a green Sam’s Garage cap and a gray work shirt, he rubbed the stubble on his chin.

  Alan stepped forward into the sunlight shining through the open bay door. “I heard you were in town. I was wondering when you were going to get around to dropping by.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Beat it, Donovan. I got nothing to say to you.” He turned and fired the rag onto the worktable.

  From the beginning, Alan was the local cops’ top suspect. They’d been pretty hard on the kid. He spent a few days in jail. A couple of tough state detectives grilled him pretty good. When they gave up, the local boys took over again.

  By the time I arrived in Hanover, most folks said he wasn’t the same person. He’d clammed up, but I was polite and he eventually answered my questions. I was more certain than the cops the kid had nothing to do with Katie’s murder, and I included that assessment in my report.

  He popped the hood on a Pontiac and stuck his head inside.

  “Alan,
I’m not a detective anymore.”

  He peered out from beneath the hood. “Just the same, last time you were in town, I was only a kid. I believed what cops and dicks like you said, but I’ve wised up since those days.”

  “I’m here to attend Sunday’s memorial service and work on my novel, not stir up painful memories.”

  “Then why’s your wife sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong?”

  “Would it be so bad if someone discovered Katie’s killer after all these years?”

  Alan pulled a long-handled screwdriver from his back pocket, popped a frayed fan belt off the alternator, and tossed the belt behind him, onto the floor. “You’re still here, flatfoot?”

  “I don’t get it, why are so many people against finding Katie’s killer?”

  He stuck his head under the hood. “Beats me.”

  Alan giving me the cold shoulder came as a surprise; then again, maybe he was that way with everyone nowadays. “I was straight with you and your uncle ten years ago.”

  Alan banged his head on the hood and rubbed the back of his noggin. “I guess I don’t remember who was polite and who knocked me around. That’s a part of my life I’m determined to forget.”

  I could understand. “Katie’s mother is on your side.”

  “Yeah, well, she and a handful of others maybe.” For a moment his face softened.

  I hopped on a stool beside a worktable. “You going to be at the memorial service?”

  He grabbed a new fan belt from a dozen or more hanging from hooks above the table. “I wouldn’t want to be around people who still think I did it. I see enough suspicious looks without going out of my way to find them.”

  “Maybe staying away keeps people’s suspicions alive.”

  “I never thought of that.” He slipped the fan belt around the bottom pulley and, with the screwdriver, slipped it onto the alternator pulley.

  “This might be Mary’s last service.”

  “That’s what I hear, but it ain’t my problem. Now beat it. I’ve got work to do.” He adjusted the belt tightness and slammed the car hood.

  “Katie was your first love.”

  “Katie was a swell girl.” For a moment, his anger appeared to wane and his focus returned to the old days when he and Katie were teenagers. “We were kids. I was a senior just hoping to graduate. She was sixteen, the darling of all the teachers. It was a high-school crush, that’s all.”

  I didn’t believe that for a minute. “I married my high-school sweetheart.”

  “Well, goody for you. Why don’t you go interrogate one of the other suspects?”

  “Like…?”

  “How should I know?” He stared across the garage. “Go talk to Father Ryan. He’s the strangest priest I’ve ever known.”

  “Did Katie have a crush on him too?”

  “Plenty of girls back then did, Katie too. I mentioned that to the cops and it worked against me. They said I was jealous and killed her. So, no thanks, Donovan. I’m not going to help you, your wife, or the cops find who murdered Katie.”

  I never ruled out anyone. “What about Mr. Hanson?”

  “Damn, you’re stubborn.” He patted his pockets. “You ask a lot of questions for someone who’s no longer a detective.”

  He pulled out a pack of Camels. “I could use a break.”

  I followed him outside, where we sat on two wooden chairs facing a gray metal drum.

  Alan offered me a Camel. I shook my head.

  He lit the cigarette. “It’s easy for you, Donovan. You come into town every ten years for a few days, stirring things up. I have to live here and, since my uncle died, it’s up to me to keep this place going.” He took a deep puff and blew smoke my direction. “I spent two years being grilled by the cops, who wanted me to say my uncle wasn’t there or he’d fallen asleep and I left and killed Katie. For years, everywhere I went people looked at me like I was some kind of monster. The last couple of years, people seemed to have forgotten. Now you’re here and I’m getting those looks again.”

  If life was so rough, why was he still here? “How come you never left?”

  “Where would I go?”

  Something about the way he didn’t look me in the eyes caused me to think he might have had another reason not to leave. He didn’t wear a ring on his left hand, but mechanics often removed them. “You married?”

  Alan shook his head.

  “I never thought you had anything to do with Katie’s murder, but you knew Katie about as well as anyone, except her mother, so why don’t you level with me? Start with Hanson.”

  “Mr. Hanson’s become a big man in this town since you left. Married a rich widow, got elected to the town council, and gives out city jobs in exchange for IOUs. Brings his car in for service on time. I don’t want to make an enemy of someone like that. Besides, I never thought he had the guts to go after a girl as young as Katie, or to kill her if…if she got in trouble, you know what I mean?”

  He took another drag from the cigarette. “I never liked Mr. Hanson, most of the fellas didn’t, but plenty of girls thought he was a real charmer. He quoted poetry and stuff.”

  “Mary implied Katie didn’t like him as much as he liked her.”

  Alan nodded. “That’s a good way of putting it. Back then I didn’t think anything of it. He was a teacher and teachers didn’t mess with students.”

  “And now?”

  Alan ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. “I’ve wised up. Anything’s possible.”

  “As a Pinkerton, I worked more than one case of a student-and-teacher love affair.”

  Alan took another puff. “Things weren’t easy on my uncle either. The cops grilled him about me being in the garage and accused him of lying. He lost a lot of business. And when things started to pick up, the stock market crashed and…well, you know. A friend of mine opened a shop in Harrisburg and offered me a job. I turned it down ’cause I couldn’t leave Uncle Sam in the lurch.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “You should change the name of this place to Uncle Sam’s Garage. Might be good for business.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’ve got all the answers, don’t you, flatfoot?”

  I thought about Laura’s work with the yearbook. “Katie have any other boyfriends?”

  Alan doubled his fists and jumped to his feet. “I was her first and her last, damn you.”

  “Calm down, Alan. You’re a smart guy. If I was accused of shooting my girl, I’d want to find out who did it. If her killer was arrested, people would look at you differently. You could hold your head up in this town.”

  “I was just a kid back then trying to keep the cops from throwing me in the can. They didn’t care I had an alibi.”

  “Your uncle.”

  “And Luke Jackson. That louse is still around. He’s a janitor at the high school. Go ask him yourself.”

  Maybe I would. “Who was Katie’s best friend in high school?”

  He paused for a moment. Just when I thought he would answer, another car drove up and parked beside the Ford. A customer climbed out. “Morning, Alan. You busy?”

  Alan dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his heel. “Mr. Donovan was just leaving.”

  Chapter 22

  The Ladies’ Man

  What had Alan almost said before the customer arrived? Maybe Katie didn’t have a best friend.

  I returned to the inn and found the west deck deserted, except for my Underwood. I carried the typewriter upstairs. In our suite, Laura, still in her pink scarf, was curled up in a soft leather chair with my chapters in her lap and a hankie dabbing tears from her eyes. “Darling, this will be your best Blackie Doyle novel yet. I like him. I worry about him.”

  Had I really regained my ability to bring Blackie alive to readers? Wives were supposed to say wonderful things about their husbands’ work. I was pleased with what I’d written, but the only opinion that mattered was Mildred’s. “You mean it, dollface?”

  She laughed and set the papers on the
desk, got up, wrapped her arms around me, and gave me a big kiss. “Does that answer your question?”

  “I like your answer, doll.” I kissed her again as my thoughts drifted from my writing to the bedroom.

  She held up one hand and spoke with a Southern accent. “Why, Blackie Doyle, I’m a married woman, and I don’t recall you getting involved with married women.”

  I went along with the act. “A dame’s a dame.”

  Laura’s voice returned, and she placed a hand against my chest. “Before this goes any further, Casanova, I want to mention, I think you should send these chapters off to Mildred right away.”

  I drew her close and kissed her. “Later, dollface.”

  —

  An hour later, we lay in bed beneath the sheets. The midday sun shined through the bedroom curtains. As she lay on my chest, I stroked her black hair and kissed her.

  Laura climbed out of bed and slipped into a silk robe. She stopped in front of a mirror and fluffed her hair and chuckled. She turned and smiled. “Looks better, don’t you think? Maybe that’s all I needed.”

  I smiled and sat up in bed. “After I mail my chapters to Mildred, can I drive you to Philly to catch a plane to Hollywood?”

  “I thought we settled this.” She set her hands on her hips. “I can’t miss the memorial service Sunday. Until then, I want to do all we can to solve Katie’s murder.”

  I wouldn’t be satisfied until Laura was on the plane to Los Angeles. I told her about seeing Father Ryan outside the night before.

  She crossed her arms. “And you’re just telling me this? What was he doing out there?”

  I shrugged and told her about my visit with Alan Tremain. “He never answered who Katie’s best friend was.”

  “From the yearbook, it doesn’t appear she had one.”

  When Laura went into the bathroom, I checked the clock then climbed out of bed. I found my lucky shirt and got dressed.

  Laura opened the bathroom door. “Are you going to mail the chapters to Mildred?”

  “I want one more chapter. Blackie gets thrown in jail.” I grabbed some typing paper.