by P. N. Elrod
He didn’t ask what that was and searched as well, turning up three others. “Should there not be more?”
“The shooter either dumped them into the hole or picked up all he could find. Leaving a pile of brass lying around would look funny and might get someone digging again. These are just the ones he missed.”
Barrett was six kinds of pale, with anger, disgust, and horror accounting for three of them. “He stood about here . . . and when we turned our backs . . . hideous.”
“We got lucky.”
“How is any of that lucky?”
“All that broken wood and nails inside the pit? Maybe we cracked our skulls, but we didn’t get impaled on anything or we’d still be down there.”
It didn’t seem possible, but he found another shade of pale, this one with a lot of green to it.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Barrett drove through a little place called Glenbriar, then took a road south a mile or so, pulling into a graveled drive that led to a rutted work yard. A sizable two-story brick building held court over the yard, which had a number of earth-moving machines and trucks parked in orderly rows. I thought I recognized the bulldozer and the shovel from the estate. They were filthy with mud that had I come to know all too well.
The building’s steel door had STANNARD CONSTRUCTION painted on it, the business office on the ground floor, while the top served as living quarters, or so I assumed. Not a lot of offices bother putting up lace curtains. No lights showed in the front; the place was ominously silent.
We got out and crossed the yard and did not bother knocking. The office door was locked. We exchange looks, vanished, and slipped inside.
Not much light filtered through the drawn blinds; I found the switch, turning on the overheads.
The office took up the whole lower floor. Stairs were at the back, leading up. A couple desks, some wide tables holding blueprints, and file cabinets filled most of it. One wall was covered with an oversized map of Long Island dotted with colored pins marking job sites. There was a pinhole on the Francher property, but the pin was gone, job finished.
Barrett went still, listening. “I thought I heard someone.”
“Look upstairs. Make sure.”
He vanished, which I didn’t expect. His invisible self was discernible to my eyes as a man-sized amorphous gray thing. It looked eerie as hell flowing up the stairs.
I located what seemed to be the boss’s desk, broke into the one locked drawer, and found nothing more valuable than a half a box of toffees.
The paperwork was up to date, including the bill for rental of equipment to a J. Barrett. It was marked paid in full, the yellow onionskin flimsy sitting in a wire basket next to the file cabinets waiting to be—
Upstairs a woman screamed: a full-throated, dissolve-your-bones, wall-shattering shriek.
Barrett yelped.
A gun went off.
That gray thing reappeared on the stairs, swept down, and surged toward me.
Barrett spookily emerged from the gray as he went solid. He looked rattled, but there weren’t any holes in him. “We should leave now,” he said, grabbing my arm and tugging me toward the exit.
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing. I surprised a lady in her boudoir. She’s in a bad mood, we should leave.”
A woman bellowed down from the head of the stairs. “I’m calling the cops, you creep!”
I shook off Barrett and yelled back. “Mrs. Stannard?”
“Who wants to know?”
“We’re just here to see your husband.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“I’m here with Mr. Barrett from the Francher estate. He rented a bulldozer and a shovel from your husband. We came to pay the bill.”
“Why did you not ring the bell?”
“The door was open.” I motioned for Barrett to go unlock it. He finally got the idea. It was even money whether he’d take off. He was unhappy.
“I am proceeding toward you,” she announced. “Try anything funny and I will drill you like the Swiss army drills the cheese.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was a clip-clop like a light-footed horse on the move. I knew the sound; Bobbi wore the same kind of low-heeled backless slippers. Barrett, who remained behind me, peered around for a look.
Mrs. Stannard, a sturdy brunette wrapped in a thick blue bathrobe, made her cautious way down. In one hand she grasped a nifty, short-barreled revolver. She paused at the bottom to give us a hostile once-over.
“You—” she said, pointing the gun at me, “I do not know. You—” she snarled at Barrett, changing her aim, “I have seen before. You came the other week and spoke to my mister about renting, of that I am sure. What are you doing walking in amongst my house like you are the owner of it?”
She had a familiar pattern to her speech, pronouncing each syllable as though it was a word unto itself. No one talked like that in New York, only certain parts of Chicago. I’d missed it.
Barrett whipped his hat off and actually looked humble. “Madam, I sincerely beg your pardon. You are right, I had no business intruding, none at all. I am sorry.”
“How many times I gotta tell people, the office is down here, the home is up there, and they are two different regions.” She pronounced it “re-gee-unz”.
“I do apologize.”
“There is a purpose to respecting such differences. I could have shot your head off. Instead, I put a hole through the wall. It is your good luck that no other damage transpired in regard to your head or my wall, but you should not be startling persons minding their own business in their personal domiciles.”
“No, madam.ont
“I am not a madam, I am Missus Stannard.”
“Yes, ma’am. May I ask where we may find Mr. Stannard?”
“You may ask, but it is evident that he is not presently here, else he would also take exception to you intrusioning yourself, though I expect him home soon. He is a hard-working man is my mister, so I do not begrudge him stopping at Louie’s Tavern up the road for a beer. As I am often on my own, he does not begrudge me a means of defending myself against creeps who walk in where they should not.” With her other hand she indicated the revolver. “You can wait for him or I can help you as I work down here when it is working hours.”
“Well, I. . .”
“What is this about paying the bill? There is confusion on the matter, for did I not stamp it paid in full already once today?”
“You have?” I asked.
“I have.” She pointed the gun at the wire basket by the files. “Your proof is there of the payment made in full. While I would enjoy a double payment for a bill, such a thing would be dishonest, and I am an honest woman, ask anyone. I would suggest one of you get organized.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I went back to the file for the yellow flimsy and held it out to Barrett. “Did you sign this?”
“He did not,” said Mrs. Stannard. “Was I not here when your two men came by at today’s crack of dawn to turn in the equipment and pay the bill? Was I not here while one of them signed off the bill and the other gave me the cash—which is in the bank now if it is anyone’s business but my own.”
“But I don’t emplo. . .” Barrett started, then caught himself “That is to say, I believe those men to be imposters.”
“Impostering whom?” she asked.
“Ah. . .”
I stepped in. “We’re not sure. Did they give you names?”
“Only the one when he signed, and he did not make a readable job of his signature, which you will see if you examine the page. They said Mr. Barrett was done and leaving town, but it becomes clear they were misinformed, for are you not standing here in the office, Mr. Barrett?”
“Yes, Mrs. Stannard. I am doing exactly that. I hope you will not mind that I am curious about two strangers paying my bill.”
“It does seem to be an altruistic presumption,” she conceded.
“And you neve
r saw them before?”
“I did not say any such thing. While they did not impart a name between them, except for that unconvincifying scribble, I have seen the two of them at least once before, and if my recollection is correct—I have a memory for faces, so I know that it is—they were here some years ago in this very room.”
“Indeed. Might you recall why?”
“Be it known that on special business deals my mister gives me a high sign, which means that I am to remove myself from the office here, and go up to the house there, until such time as his special business deals are concluded. Normally I do not put up with shenanigans, but we had a talk, and he convinced me it was safer for me to not know everything that he might be required to do by certain types.”
“What types?”
“Certain types. The ones who talk out the side of their mouth and carry bigger guns than this under their arms with the mistaken idea that nobody is gonna notice any such thing. I am a person who does notice such things, but I am not a person who would be so impolite as to remark about it. But in the interest of keeping my mister healthy and peace under the roof, when he gives me a high sign I go upstairs. This does not happen often, but the first time was a couple years ago.”
“Seven years, perhaps?” I asked.
“It could have been that long. Faces I am good at, time, not so much. It was when the old Francher house what burned to a cinder and needed a teardown. That was our first big job. Took every man we had, and the mister had to hire more. That was when I saw the certain types.”
“You hired them?”
“No, and I would not choose to do so, but in the city they were in the hauling business. The mister had to lease trucks and drivers for the teardown. Those two come in, and the mister gives me the high sign, so I cannot say what was discussed, but I expect it was to do with the leasing. Though why that should be a secret the mister did not see fit to share with me.”
“Would you have the name of the company he leased the trucks from?”
“I would, but why should I mention it to you? Certain types might get annoyed with my mister.”
“Perhaps, Mrs. Stannard,” said Barrett, “it could be arranged that certain types do not trouble you or your good husband ever again.”
She thought it over. “I would not be unpleased, but it might be bad for business. In this hard and wicked world it is often necessary to deal with certain types just to get things done.”
I raised my hand. “How does this sound: suppose you were upstairs and unaware that some other certain types broke into your mister’s office and looked through the address files you have. No one could blame you or your mister if that happened.”
Some more thought and she nodded. “I am liking how you think, though you do not look like a nosy burglar. I will not lie to my mister, but I could not mention everything to him in the interest of doing him a favor for his own good.”
“I’m sure you have his best interest at heart.”
“Which I do. In that case, a nosy burglar would find the address in that file box—not that one, that one!—under the letter B for Brogan Trucking. A nosy burglar can write the address down, but not using the note paper with our letterhead on it as that would be a bad thing.”
I wrote what I needed on an unadorned scrap and thanked the lady, putting things back as I’d found them, including the flimsy. “I’m sorry we startled you, Mrs. Stannard.”
She gave a regal nod. “Next time ring the bell. As I missed committing a perforation to Mr. Barrett’s person—do not get me wrong, I am glad of that now—I shall be devoting effort toward improving my aim.”
“Quite rightly, Mrs. Stannard,” said Barrett.
“Now if you two are done here, you will please to make an exit and I will lock up behind and proceed with my evening. The mister will want his dinner and it does not cook itself.”
“No, ma’am.”
We obediently shuffled out.
She clip-clopped after, still pointing the gun more or less in our direction as though herding us. “I will say this to you, since I cannot say this to the mister, I will say this: that as nosy burglars and creeps go, you two are not so bad.”
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
It was good that Barrett continued to be the driver. I was laughing so hard I’d have wrecked the car.
He didn’t see the humor. “You weren’t there when she pointed that cannon my way and touched it off.”
“It was just a thirty-two, nothing to get excited about. Stings a lot, but you can vanish.”
“That banshee scream of hers froze me in place—”
“Yeah, I heard that. Healthy lungs.”
“It fair split my eardrums. God in heaven, her husband must be a man of iron to deal with such a woman.”
“She’s a sweetheart. You just have to get her to warm up. You’re not used to dealing with armed dames.”
“And you are?”
“It’s a knack.”
He made a sound low in his throat. I took it to mean he thought it was eyewash.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Into the city to the address of Brogan’s Trucking. Since those interlopers made away with that man’s body—”
“Or reburied it.”
“—or reburied it—we don’t have so much as a shoe to take to Marnucci and Sons for identification of the owner. This Brogan or his two henchmen require our attention.”
“Yeah, and if it’s the Brogan I’m thinking of, then Mrs. Stannard was just the opening act of a full bill, if you know what that means.”
“Your slang is mildly annoying but comprehensible. I’m not that far removed from modern idiom.”
“I talk how I talk and I was referring to the fact she had a little thirty-two, while the bird we want plays with machine guns. Not good. I’m thinking that seven years ago when Stannard needed help, someone with Brogan Trucking came out, saw an opportunity to dump an inconvenient body, and did just that. Stannard might not know details, but he’d have been told to keep shut.”
“Why would Stannard agree to such a devil’s bargain? I’ve always found him to be an honest, hard-working man.”
“Mrs. Stannard said it’s a wicked hard world. Her husband is in no position to argue with certain types who have bodies to bury. He turns a blind eye to protect himself and his wife and with simple silence. Maybe he’s getting money under the table, maybe he thinks it’s none of his business, but keeping shut is safer than saying no.”
“Then when I hired equipment from him. . .”
“He’d have phoned someone to warn them you were digging. They came out to keep an eye on you.”
“You think someone was watching me the whole time?”
“Plenty of cover nearby. Binoculars would help. They didn’t care when you recovered Maureen’s remains—God knows what they made of that. They probably wondered why you didn’t call in the cops.”
“Instead I arranged for a funeral.”