Big Red married her bronze hulk and her father underwrote a lavish, some would say gaudy, ceremony and reception to which Billy was not invited. He did wonder, though, how the two poseurs would survive the winter inside where they couldn’t preen and pour oil on each other.
Chick Lester and Elsie Lomborg both got probation for their roles in the cigar factory caper. They lost their jobs and to whomever would listen, disparaged the other in the harshest language imaginable. People would tolerate their harangues and start to snicker uncontrollably when the image of their over-heated imbroglio at the drive-in was recalled. Friends and strangers alike frequently asked Lester for the time and begged to see the infamous watch.
Oscar Peterson kept his job at the Institute after both Braddock and Meacham came to his defense. But he was placed on probation with the understanding that a single incident of running booze for patients would be dealt with severely. Peterson’s bigger concern among his own crowd was being labeled a “snitch” for his cooperation with “the man”.
Mrs. Hawkins, already in fading health, was taken back to Boston by her brothers and cloistered there, never leaving the family homestead again. To the surprise of some, Mrs. DePue decided to stay in Parlor City and, in a strange twist, befriended the DeLong family. Maybe it was because Mike DeLong had been wrongly implicated in her husband’s murder but Meacham thought it was a desire to help break the common bond of alcohol that had destroyed one family and still had its claws into the other.
Reverend Carmichael flourished in Boston, his soaring, mellifluous rhetoric mesmerizing young parishioners tired of the stilted sermons of the old Brahmin guard. Billy Graham was drawing big crowds in Paris and other major European cities at the time and some Carmichael acolytes actually compared him to the famous evangelical preacher. It was not long before word appeared in Parlor City society pages that he was engaged to a prominent socialite’s debutante daughter, causing Gwen to quip that she should probably be given credit for forcing him to work on his eloquence outside the pulpit. When Billy asked her to elaborate, she only smiled.
In an unsolved case still under investigation, Crater’s had burned to the ground late at night, two days before Halloween. Luckily, it was empty of patrons so no one was injured or killed. The only clue of any kind was that an elderly woman living in a boarding house across the street insisted that she had seen someone dressed in a devil costume running from the scene.
And finally there was Winston Siebert III. No doubt he had discarded the Reginald Carver and Ripley Maxwell aliases and one could only guess as to the name was he going by now. Meacham’s brow furrowed when he thought of the mystery man he had never seen but who had brought misery to so many people in Parlor City. A few tips had come in early on but they had completely dried up a few weeks after his departure. Meacham didn’t know how he would do it but he made a silent vow to bring Siebert back to Parlor City.
As he parked in his reserved spot at the station and closed his car door, Meacham gave it a hard slam as if to sanctify his determination to see Winston Siebert III stand trial in Parlor City for murder and other assorted crimes.
***********************
That afternoon, a call came through to Meacham from Boston. It was the tired, defeated voice of Mildred Crimmons saying “She’s disappeared again.”
Meacham’s eyes lit up but he was hardly listening to the words as Mildred Crimmons droned on. After he got her off the phone, he called for Fogarty to come in. Meacham leaned forward with both hands spread across his desk and said excitedly, “We’re back in the game, Fogie. The blonde bombshell left Boston sometime last night and is on the move. Something tells me she will lead us to Winston Siebert III.”
finis
The Parlor City Boys Page 29