The Big Blast

by Lister, Michael

  One of the many amazing things Lauren did with her money was buying supplies for the USO Clubs in town—both the white club on Harrison and the Negro club on 6th Street. On occasion she even used her own rationing tickets to get certain items she wanted the boys to have. And she always got the exact same things for both clubs.

  “There shouldn’t be separate clubs,” she had said, “but as long as there are, they’re going to have the same supplies.”

  The three of us unloaded the bags and boxes filled with everything from staples to soda at the USO on 6th, then headed to the one on Harrison, hoping to talk to Mildred after we unloaded there.

  “You do all this ’cause you feel guilty ’about somethin’?” Clip said.

  Lauren smiled. “Not guilty, grateful.”

  He nodded.

  “I know it take a toll on you,” he said. “See how tired you get.”

  “Do not grow weary in well doing,” she said. “I just keep reminding myself of that—that and service is the rent we pay for citizenship.”

  “You gots the highest rent of anyone I know.”

  “But I can afford it,” she said with a smile.

  “We all be able to you keep passin’ out those big stacks of bills,” he said. “Hell, you got me and Miki thinkin’ ’bout buying a house.”

  “Oh, Clip, you should,” she said. “You really should.”

  “Ain’t sure ’bout gettin’ that damn domesticated,” he said.

  “You could sleep outside and use an outhouse if that’d make you feel better,” I said.

  “That what you do?”

  Before I could respond, we were pulling up in front of the USO on Harrison and I could see that David Howell was waiting for us.

  David Howell was a quiet, youngish cop who worked for Henry Folsom. He was tall and too thin and walked with a slight limp as the result of his service overseas, which he never spoke about.

  “Got a minute?” he said as I got out of the car.

  As usual, he was simply but impeccably dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Every hair was in place, and he stood as erect as anyone I knew.

  I nodded. “Just let me help get the supplies in first.”

  “I’ll help too,” he said, and did.

  When we were done, he said, “Take a little walk with me?”

  I turned to Lauren. “You okay here for a little while?”

  “I was just gonna stay and start my shift early anyway,” she said.

  “I’ll check on you later when I come back to talk to Mildred.”

  “Sounds swell,” she said. “Be careful and miss me.”

  “Always do the former because of the latter,” I said.

  We then kissed and I turned to leave.

  As Howell and I started walking way, Clip just stood there, seemingly not sure what to do.

  I turned back toward Clip.

  “You want me to head back to the office?” he asked.

  I looked at Howell. “This is official, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Then Clip is with us. He’s a full partner in our agency.”

  Howell nodded and Clip joined us. We walked slowly, letting Howell set the pace with his slightly halting and awkward gait.

  “Where we headed?” I asked.

  “Crime scene not far from here,” he said.

  He led us back up Harrison toward Beach.

  “Mind if we talk about Joan Wynn on the way?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “I heard you were helping the big fella look for her. How’s that going?”

  “Just started but got nothing so far. You?”

  “The girl just vanished,” he said. “Haven’t found a single trace of her. Got no leads. Not a single one. Nothing.”

  When we reached Beach Drive we took a left, then a right behind some buildings and over to Oak.

  “Which means she either wanted to disappear,” I said, “someone took her and made her disappear, or she’s dead somewhere and just hasn’t been found yet.”

  He nodded. “That’s the way I got it figured.”

  “Got a frontrunner for one of those?”

  “Got nothin’,” he said. “I told you. And it’s not from lack of looking.”

  We took Oak to 4th and when we turned on 4th, my heart sank a little.

  “Where we headed?” I asked.

  “Vacant lot over here on the other side of that warehouse.”

  It was the place where Betsy had disappeared into the darkness with the john when I was out here on the sidewalk talking to Orson last night.

  “Is it Betsy?” I asked.

  He stopped walking. “What can you tell me about it? How’d you know?”

  “Saw her go in here with a john last night. Figured she used this spot a lot. Odds were good it was her. High-risk work.”

  “Witnesses say they saw you two together at Nick’s,” he said.

  “We were both sitting at the bar,” I said. “We were next to each other. I even bought her a drink. We weren’t together. I was working. And I guess so was she.”

  He nodded. “I don’t suspect you. I just wondered if you could tell me anything you remember from last night?”

  “How was she killed?”

  “See for yourself,” he said, ushering us onto the vacant lot. “But brace yourselves—she was beaten to death, and the guy took his time and did it right.”

  We walked past a few cops in the front of the lot to a few more cops with the coroner in the back.

  Betsy was so badly beaten I had to take Howell’s word for it that it was her. Her bruised and bloodied head was misshapen, kind of oblong and egg-shaped, her eyes swollen shut in large puffy purple masses. Her clothes were still on, but torn and ripped, lifted and shoved aside to reveal her breasts and genitals.

  “Got damn,” Clip said, whistling softly.

  “It’s bad,” I said.

  “Bad? That the worse shit I ever seen,” Clip said. “And I seen some bad shit.”

  “Worse than anything I ever saw in the war,” Howell said. “Even guys sitting there with their arms blown off. As if just remembering my arm, he glanced at it, then away, and flushed. “I just meant . . .”

  “Don’t feel like you have to dance around it. It’s gone. No big deal.”

  “It a big deal when you tryin’ to hang wallpaper,” Clip said.

  “True.”

  “Just like my missin’ eye a big deal when I tries to wink. Or see a right hook coming.”

  “I could’ve said legs,” Howell said. “Like mine. I should have. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “Seriously,” I said, “I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t try to dance around it. I’d rather you joke about it like Clip does.”

  “I wasn’t jokin’,” Clip said. “I gets tired of havin’ to hang all the wallpaper.”

  We laughed.

  “Have any idea when she was killed?” I asked.

  “She was seen back at the bar after you left,” he said. “She drank some more, tried to find some more work, but it wasn’t until your friend, the big fella, came back that she struck it lucky. Or was it unlucky? They drank together for a while. Then she left with him around midnight and was never seen alive again.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dusk growing toward dark.

  A cold, brisk breeze blew trash and leaves and bits of sand around the lot and out onto 4th Street.

  Visibility was decreasing quickly.

  I scanned the lot again.

  It was mostly sandy soil, but there were also some clumps of grass and weeds scattered about, yellow-brown, brittle, waving wanly in the wind.

  The entire lot was clearly visible from 4th Street, and would be somewhere Betsy could only use at night.

  At night, there would be plenty of cover of darkness toward the back or on the side next to the warehouse for the services she was paid to render.

  Howell had invited us to look around, and we were. When the light was gone so
was the scene and any evidence it might contain.

  I looked at the body again.

  “Do you know what time it stopped raining?” I asked Clip.

  “Didn’t think it did ’til mornin’,” he said. “She dry, ain’t she?”

  “Mostly, yeah.”

  “That what, in the peeper trade, we calls a clue.”

  “You’re a natural,” I said.

  While the cops were focused on the body and the lot, we walked over to get a better look at the warehouse.

  It was a large two-story tin building with a sliding cargo door on the side next to the empty lot.

  “Look at that,” I said to Clip.

  There in the dirt near the door were a man’s footprints and two long narrow and shallow trenches like the heel marks of someone being dragged.

  “You mind trying the door?” I said.

  He did.

  It slid open easily.

  “Got something?” Howell yelled from across the way.

  “Careful not to step on the tracks in front of the door,” I said, then we stepped inside.

  The warehouse was obviously just for storage of old stuff and not used on a regular basis—except by Betsy. To the right of the door on the floor was a pallet of blankets and a pillow. Next to it, an overturned crate serving as a nightstand held a candle, a bottle of cheap booze, and a book of matches.

  “No wonder the body’s dry,” Howell said, coming up behind us. “She had a regular little hot-sheet hotel rent free right here.” He turned to one of the other cops who had just entered the building. “Find out who owns this place and what they know about this.”

  “Anybody she ever brought here knew about it,” I said. “Could easily hide and watch, attack her when the john left.”

  “Sure,” Howell said, “but it makes more sense that it was one she was with.”

  I shrugged.

  “I know you don’t want it to be your friend, but . . .”

  “Just looking at everything, considering all possibilities that occur to me,” I said. “Know better than not to.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “Lots of suspects when a working girl’s killed,” I said. “Could be any of a number of sad, lonely, frustrated, drunk, angry guys.”

  “Yeah, or it could be the one she was last seen with.”

  “Could be,” I said. “Any evidence that it is?”

  “I don’t see a note or nothing,” he said.

  “Did you notice the footprints?” I asked.

  He turned back to look and we stepped over to the open door.

  “They’re big,” I said, “but nowhere as big as Orson’s.”

  “Huh,” he said, lifting his hat and rubbing his head. To the other officers he said, “Get pictures of all these—and the setup inside.”

  The cop with the camera walked over and began doing just that.

  “I want measurements too. Casts if we can swing it. And make sure they’re not bigger than they look and just got pushed down some. That’s what it looks like to me.”

  He turned back to me. “Seen enough?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll walk y’all out.”

  He made a move out of the warehouse and toward the front of the lot, and we followed.

  “Did you find her purse?” I asked. “Any money on her?”

  He shook his head. “Not so far.”

  “So it could be a robbery.”

  “Could be,” he said. “It could be. Or it could be meant to look like it.”

  “We haven’t known each other long,” Howell said.

  He, Clip, and I were standing on the sidewalk on 4th Street down a little ways from the lot and away from the other cops.

  “But I think we’re both honest and try to do the right thing.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m gonna conduct a thorough investigation,” he said. “Follow where it leads me—no matter where that is. And right now it looks to be leading toward your friend. Just wanted you to know.”

  “You’ve got an eyewitness that puts them together,” I said. “Same as me.”

  “Not the same,” he said. “Much later and he’s the last person she was seen with. Seen leaving with.”

  “But that’s it,” I said. “That’s all you got. There’s plenty that points in other directions—and it’s far better evidence than someone seeing them leaving a bar together. The footprints, the body being dry, the missing purse.”

  “I’m not saying it’s him,” he said. “I’m saying he’s a suspect—my prime suspect—and I just wanted you to know.”

  “The guy I knew before the war could never do something like that,” I said. “I don’t know about the guy who came back. But I doubt he could either. I doubt the war could change a man that much.”

  “That’s because you weren’t over there in it,” he said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Clip and I walked back to the USO, but instead of going in, we got in my car and drove back over to Orson’s.

  “You a’right?” Clip asked.

  We were on 6th Street in light traffic.

  I nodded.

  “What did you see over there?” I asked. “Could the war change the sweetest guy I knew growing up into a monster who could do that?”

  “Clouds,” he said. “All I saw was clouds. I’s high up in the sky in a metal bird. But stories I heard . . . directly from the guys what lived them . . . yeah, it could.”

  “It’ll take a lot more evidence to convince me.”

  “Question is, could any amount?”

  I nodded again. “Sure. If the evidence says so or if he tells me . . . then, yeah. I’ll believe it.”

  “Well, let’s see what he has to say.”

  “Jimmy, I swear to God I can’t remember,” Orson was saying.

  We were outside again, out of reach of his grandmother’s earshot.

  “Have you remembered anything else?” I asked.

  “I remember things, but I don’t know which night they go with.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, just . . . Like I remember this guy borrowing a buck from me, but I don’t know when it was.”

  “At Nick’s? Do you know him?”

  “I was drinking . . . but I don’t think it was Nick’s. I didn’t know him. He just looked thirsty. Wait. Maybe . . . it could’ve been at the USO. I’m just not positive.”

  “But he wouldn’t need money at the USO,” I said.

  “Oh yeah. I just . . . I don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s like everything is loose inside my head and somebody jumbled it up and now it’s all mixed up.”

  “Did you go back to Nick’s and talk to Betsy?” I said. “Did you leave with her? Did you and she . . . have sex?”

  “I wanted to,” he said. “I just don’t know if I did.”

  “It was raining,” I said. “You got wet. Where did you go? Who were you with?”

  “Jimmy, I just can’t remember,” he said, hitting his head with his fist. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I wish to God I could. One way or another. I don’t want to have done it, but I want to know. Either way, I want to know.”

  “Either way,” I said, “we’re gonna find out.”

  “Can we keep looking for Joan while we do?”

  “We?”

  “Yeah. I’ll help you find out who killed Betsy—even if it was me—and you help me find out where Joan is.”

  “I don’t know, Orca,” I said. “I don’t think it’s you, but what if it is?”

  “Then who better to help you prove it?” he said. “And if it was me, I will. I’ll help you prove it and turn myself in. You know I will. If I did it, I didn’t mean to, didn’t know I was, and wouldn’t be able to live with myself, so I’d want to turn myself in anyway. Come on, Jimmy, you know that’s the truth. Besides, if I’m with you, you can keep an eye on me.”

  I knew what he was saying was true.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Which wa
s how half an hour later, after dropping Clip off at the office, Orson and I were back at the USO talking to Mildred Wade while Clip and Miki were tailing Gary and Rita Thomas.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Lauren’s told you what we’re up against, right?” Mildred Wade asked.

  Orson and I were standing out front of the USO with Mildred Wade, a tall, very thin older woman with a long neck, a small head, and a raspy voice as if she had smoked or yelled too much. Her short, gray-brown hair was plastered to her head like a flying helmet—an illusion aided by her large black glasses that resembled pilot goggles.

  I nodded.

  An enemy nearly as dangerous as the Germans or the Japs—but far more covert—were all the victory girls and good-time Charlottes, the hardened professionals like Betsy, the idealistic amateurs, the lonely widows and wives, and the sexual diseases being transmitted to our troops. An army doctor who treated VD had put it just right: “While mothers are winning the war in the factories, their daughters are losing it on the streets.” Because Florida was the site of so much military training, our state was an epicenter for venereal disease. In addition to everything else they did, the USO clubs were meant to keep our boys out of bars and brothels in order to keep disease and infection out of them.

  “We don’t call it VJ Day, we call it VD Day,” Mildrid said.

  She showed no signs of embarrassment, and didn’t even lower her voice so that the parade of young servicemen passing by us on their way into or out of the club wouldn’t hear.

  “It’s an epidemic. It could cost us the war—and that’s no exaggeration. So we offer an alternative. A safe, wholesome place for the boys to unwind and have fun. They also get the feeling of home and get reminded of what they’re fighting for. Women like Lauren and me remind them of their mothers.”

  Mildred was much older than Lauren, but even in her prime couldn’t compare. I was fairly certain Lauren didn’t remind any of the boys of their mothers.

  “Sure, she’s young and beautiful, but she carries herself in such a way . . . She’s very maternal.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m very proud of the work she’s doing.”

  “You should be. It’s not easy—and with her health . . .”

  I nodded.

  The night was cold, and Mildred didn’t have a jacket, but didn’t seem to need one. She had refused the offer of ours and appeared unfazed.