The Tower of Evil (Bye-Bye Mysteries)

by Robert A. Liston

  Karen La Rocca came in about eleven, looking harried and guilty. She revealed her origins, lovely dark hair, olive complexion, an eye-popping figure and sultry brown eyes. There was an aura of toughness—maybe just worldliness—to her. But DeeDee figured it was the garland tattooed on Karen’s upper arm that made her think so. Tattooed women were seen as often as nose rings in her day.

  “Let’s go into my office,” she said and closed the door. “I know I have no right to butt into your life, Karen, but I have a business to run. When your affairs interfere with that, I—”

  “I’m sorry, I know I’ve let you down.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  DeeDee patted her hand. “And I’m sorry to be such a scold. I just wish…. Karen, something is bothering you. I’d like to help if I can.”

  Karen blew into a tissue and reached into her purse, extracting a piece of notepaper. DeeDee accepted it and read:

  Please don’t tell anyone you have Jamie.

  He’s in great danger.

  I’ll be back for him as soon as I can.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “It was in Jamie’s bag.”

  “Who is Jamie?”

  “He’s a friend of my son.”

  She knew Karen had a son, but he was awfully young. “How old is Jamie?”

  “I’m not sure, but he and Tommy are about the same age, going on three. They met in Alameda Park, you know, the one with the play castle.” DeeDee nodded. “They got along famously from the start. Tommy begged to go back to the park to see his friend.”

  Telling a cohesive story was not Karen’s forte. “How did you get this note?”

  “Last Tuesday morning I took the day off, remember?” DeeDee nodded again. “JoAnn, that’s Jamie’s mother, showed up at my door. Could I babysit him for a couple of hours while she went on a job interview? I said sure, Tommy would be thrilled.”

  “And she never came back for him?”

  Karen gaped at her. “How did you know?”

  “The note, obviously. You found it in his bag?”

  “Jamie had an accident and needed a change. There was a picture of JoAnn, too.”

  “So fascinating! She knew she wasn’t coming back and wanted her son to remember her.” She paced across the office. “How romantic! It’s like an old novel by one of the Bronte’s.”

  “What am I going to do, DeeDee? I like Jamie, he’s a good boy, but I can’t keep him. Tommy’s nursery school let him bring a friend this week, but I know they’ll want to be paid and I can’t afford it.”

  “Walter and I can help there.”

  “Then there’s Marco, my boyfriend. He’s okay with Tommy, but he doesn’t want me to have another kid. I’d hate to lose Marco, DeeDee. I’ve been hiding Jamie from him all week, as it is.”

  Where do young women come up with these guys? But she said, “One problem at a time, Karen.” She thought a moment. “We ought to be able to locate this JoAnn. What’s her last name?’

  Karen grimaced, showing teeth. “That’s just it, I don’t know. I only met her in the park that once. We only exchanged first names.”

  “You must have talked about something.“

  “Sure, little boys and potty training.” Karen sighed. “I got the impression she was new to Santa Barbara.”

  “You must have told her your last name. She knew where you lived.”

  “That’s because my place fronts the park. I pointed it out to her. She also pointed, but further up Garden Street.” Karen moaned. “DeeDee, I went for blocks all around, dragging Jamie, showing her picture. Nothing. It’s like the woman doesn’t exist.”

  DeeDee kept shaking her head. “She could be the tooth fairy, I suppose. Let me see her picture.”

  The black and white photo was of a thoroughly undistinguished-looking woman, perhaps in her late 20s. “What color is her hair?”

  Karen hesitated. “Light brown, looks natural.”

  “Eyes?”

  “Blue-green, light anyway, I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “Does the boy look like her?”

  “Not much, I guess, he’s a towhead, blue eyes.” She shrugged. “I just assumed he was her son, didn’t question it.”

  “Of course he is.” She turned back to Karen. “May I keep this?” Karen agreed. “I’ll ask Walter to make some discreet inquiries. I’m sure he’ll come up with something. Meanwhile, will you please, please, please try to forget all this and help me with these flowers? I’m going nuts.”

  Karen headed for the door. “I’ll go to work at once.”

  Walter entered her office soon afterward. “Excuse me, ma’am.” He attempted a southern drawl. “Could you tell me where I might find a shop called Doreen’s Flowers?”

  She had to laugh. “I believe you want DeeDee’s Flowers, kind sir.”

  “Have I ever told you how much I hate that name?” His normal voice now.

  “Incessantly.” She sighed. “I guess you want the set-up line. Okay, I was born Doreen Dodd, everybody calls me DeeDee, I’ve always been called DeeDee, what’s wrong with DeeDee?”

  “Only B-girls in sleazy dives are called DeeDee. It’s a certified fact.”

  “Last time it was drooling debutantes.”

  “Them, too.”

  “My favorite was fizzy headed flappers.”

  He grinned at her. “You’re the same old carrot top I married. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s called Golden Surprise and comes in a bottle.” She grimaced. “If you’re noticing my hair, the roots must be showing. We’re so busy here I can’t even get to the hairdresser.”

  His inspection lowered. “I like your outfit.”

  She wore a pants suit, orange in color, sort of clingy. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You look like a Popsicle.”

  “Ready to melt?”

  “Don’t I wish.”

  He bent to kiss her, not easy since he was a foot taller. “You’ll shock my girls,” she whispered, then turned her cheek. “I thought I gave you a rain check this morning.”

  “Skies are clear today.”

  “I have it on reliable authority that rain showers, quite heavy at times, are forecast for tonight.”

  “Weather in California can be so changeable.”

  “Not to worry.” She patted his cheek. “What are you doing here at this hour? I thought you had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “That’s tomorrow. My urologist wants to put me on Viagra.”

  “That you don’t need, and I still don’t know why you’re here. The homeless have all found housing?”

  “Don’t I wish. Actually I heard some news on the radio. Don’t you know a woman named Gould?”

  “I know a Lorna Gould.”

  “Does she have a son Harry?”

  “Lorna brags about him constantly.”

  Walter grimaced. “Not any more she doesn’t—unless there are two Harry Goulds in town. One of them, a young lawyer, shot himself in his office above La Arcada.”

  She gasped. “Harry a suicide? Lord, Walter, Lorna will be beside herself. I’d better go to her.”

  “I thought you might want to, that’s why I stopped by.”

  “I’m glad you did but for another reason.” She told him about Jamie. “Would you look into it, try to find this JoAnn? I told Karen you would.”

  “Look into what? Doreen, the woman just went off for a few days. She’ll be back for the kid.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Okay, try this. She heisted the kid somewhere, probably from a supermarket, got cold feet, and dumped him on Karen. The only thing to do is phone Children’s Services and have it over with.”

  “What about the note? It says Jamie’s in danger.”

  “Nonsense. The note cinches it. This JoAnn—if that’s her real name, which I doubt—doesn’t want to go to the slammer for kidnapping. She does what anyone would do, concoct the danger bit so a couple of naives like you and Karen will hold on to the kid long
enough for her to disappear without a trace.”

  “You’re being your insufferable best, Walter.”

  “I can do better. How long has the woman been gone, a week? That’s long enough. Time the kid was returned to his lawful parents. They’re probably beside themselves.”

  She gaped at him. “God, how awful if you’re right.”

  “This is a job for the police, Doreen. You know someone on the force, don’t you? Some girl who used to work for you?”

  “Sure, Lupe Hernandez, looks Latina but was raised Anglo. She’s lost between cultures and doesn’t know where she belongs. Lupe’s had a terrible start in life. She was—”

  “Oh yes, she’s the shoplifter who took—”

  “Don’t be silly. She just helped herself to—“

  “After which the shoplifted took the shoplifter under her wing, gave her a job, paid for college, loaned her the down payment on her house—”

  “All of which she repaid. Lupe’s doing wonderfully. She just made detective.”

  “Detective? My, the caliber of your friends is improving.”

  3: Appearances Deceive

  LUPE HERNANDEZ SAT IN AN OUTDOOR CAFÉ under the palm trees lining Cabrillo Blvd., breathing in the sea air, absorbing the vista of wide beach, blue water and distant mountains. Stearns Wharf stretched toward the Channel Islands on the horizon. Bronze dolphins frolicked in the fountain sculpted by Bud Bottoms. She had grown up here, but she never ceased to appreciate what a beautiful place it was.

  A waiter approached, said, “¿Esta lista para ordenar, señorita?”

  She sighed and shook her head. It always happened when she least expected it. There was no escape. She saw his poised pencil and understood he wanted to take her order, but she had no idea what he actually said or how to reply. Her brown skin made her an expatriate in her own land. She didn’t belong anywhere.

  “I don’t speak Spanish.”

  “I was sure you were Latina.”

  No, I’m not! She wanted to scream it at him. It takes more than a name and skin color. She gritted her teeth, struggling for civility. It wasn’t the waiter’s fault. She sighed. Her unknown father was Hispanic, thus her dark skin, but her mother was Anglo. So what did that make Lupe Hernandez? The blonde mother—greatly idealized for a long time, but barely remembered now—abandoned the dark-skinned baby, leaving her to uncaring Anglo relatives, then a succession of foster homes, all Anglo. By the time Children’s Services realized her mother was never going to be rehabilitated, it was too late for adoption—or to know where she belonged.

  “I look it, but I don’t speak it.” And she didn’t think it or act it. To be taken constantly for something she was not and didn’t want to be was the curse of her life.

  “Do you want to order?”

  The waiter was clearly Hispanic but with fair skin. Some people have all the luck. “I’m waiting for a friend, just coffee meanwhile.”

  “And I’ll have iced tea.”

  She turned to see Walter Byerly. Tall, white-haired and gangly, he reminded her of Jimmy Stewart, only he was even more laid back. He wore tennis whites.

  “Hope I’m not late. We had to play a tie breaker.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Finally, 15-13, on a drop volley.”

  “You were evenly matched.”

  He sat opposite her. “Evenly bad, you mean.”

  “Don’t pull that phony self-deprecation on me. I happen to know you’re a shark among the senior players. I’ll bet the guy you beat was 20 years younger.”

  “Ten anyway.” He looked at her, blue eyes bright, a slight smile on his lips. “I hear you’ve made detective. How’s it going?”

  She grimaced. “Don’t ask. How’s DeeDee?”

  “Doreen’s inimitable.”

  “Remind me to look up that word.”

  “I’m to say hi from her.” He accepted his iced tea, then sugared and stirred. “You certainly must qualify as the most beautiful detective in Santa Barbara.”

  “You’re not serious!”

  “Smooth ebony hair, luminous brown eyes, exotic complexion the color of dark honey, tall, slender, wears clothes like a model. It works for me.”

  She looked down at her coffee, shook her head. She wanted to hear those words so badly. Then why did she deny them when she did? “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Okay, let’s try again. How’s the detective business?”

  She sighed, shook her head. “Nobody takes me seriously. I get all the scut assignments. At the moment I’m relegated to juvenile, for which I feel particularly unqualified.” She made a face. “For some reason I don’t relate to kids very well.”

  “You were an outsider yourself. Who’re you working with?”

  “I’m assigned to Sgt. Brogan.” She made a gesture of futility, couldn’t help it.

  “Good ol’ Buster Brogan, hasn’t solved a case since they took away his rubber hose.”

  “To Sgt. Brogan, women in law enforcement are about as useful as Supreme Court justices.”

  He laughed. “Very apt, I like it. Are you being harassed?”

  “Oh, everyone knows better than to paw me or make open comments, but it’s always there, behind almost every comment. I’m the department bimbo.”

  “You’ll be fine, Lupe. I have that from a reliable source.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Doreen.”

  “My number one fan.”

  “Number one after me.” He grinned. “Just keep up the fight—he said wisely.”

  “Advice I’m about to take.” She fished her notepad out of her purse. “That was a strange list of things you asked me about this morning. I haven’t come up with much so far. The only blond, blue-eyed, recently missing three-year-old boy came with a five-year-old sister.”

  “Could be, I suppose.”

  “Thought to be a father abduction.” She saw his grimace. “It would be helpful if you had a name other than Jamie.”

  “All I can tell you is that a woman claiming to be his mother left him—oh hell, I might as well say it—abandoned him with someone we know.”