Dig (Morgue Mama Mysteries)

by C. R. Corwin

  “And that woman backed him up?” I asked.

  Dale nodded like Oliver Hardy. “And so did the people in the apartments adjoining hers, upstairs and downstairs and on both sides, who’d all suffered through a long night of noisy carnal excess.”

  We’d all been shaken when the police took Sidney into custody. We’d seen it as a racial thing, of course, the cops looking for the nearest black man to blame. There was a lot of that kind of justice back then, in Hannawa and everyplace else. But the fact of the matter is that the police had every reason to suspect Sidney.

  You see, Sidney Spikes and David Delarosa had a very public fight the night before the murder. It was at Jericho’s, one of the hole-in-the-wall jazz clubs that thrived in Meriwether Square back then. It was Easter vacation, today what they call spring break. Most of the students had gone home to be with their families, but there were still enough of us bohemian-types on campus to keep Jericho’s jumping. In fact, the only Baked Beaners missing that night were my Lawrence and Gwen’s unlikely beau, Rollie Stumpf. Both were in Columbus, at the state debate tournament. Rollie was debating. Lawrence was covering it for The Harbinger.

  Well, anyway, Sidney that night behaved as Sidney always behaved. He played himself into a horny sweat during his hour-long sets and then during his breaks sought out as much physical contact as possible with the women in the audience. It didn’t matter whether you were young or old, married or single, good-looking, or as ugly as a bread and butter pickle. And he’d readily admit it. “I’m the same with chicks as I am with my music,” he’d say. “I’m always ready to go just as far as my abundant talent takes me. What can I say daddy-Os and daddy-ettes, I have been profoundly blessed, rhythmically and romantically, beyond the historic bounds of prim and proper behavior. I am such a rascal!”

  That’s how Sidney talked and that’s how Sidney behaved. But Sidney was not really a rascal. Beneath all the huff and puff he was a gentleman. He never pushed his musicians or his women any further than they wanted to be pushed. And he was rewarded for his good manners with all the affection he needed, on stage and off.

  And so Sidney was just being Sidney that night at Jericho’s when he encountered David Delarosa’s darker instincts. It was after his third set. He’d just finished a twenty minute version of Glenn Miller’s “Little Brown Jug” which, to everyone’s enthusiastic finger popping approval, didn’t sound a bit like Glenn Miller’s “Little Brown Jug.” He jumped off the stage and started hugging the women, purring in their ears about how gone they were, suggesting they disappear out the back door with him for little impromptu love-orooni.

  He propositioned his way through a half-dozen women before reaching our table. “How’s my happy little tribe of egg heads tonight?” he asked. He orbited the table, as he always did, slapping the men on the back and pulling the women to their feet for a hug. He hugged Gwen and Effie and then danced to the side where I was sitting between Chick and David. He bent over me and cooed in his easy bebop way: “How ’bout a squeezaroo, Dolly?”

  I didn’t mind Sidney’s attention at all. It was all in good fun. But David Delarosa for some reason did mind. He yanked Sidney’s hand off my shoulder. “Save it for your horn, sonny boy,” he said. There was beer foam on his upper lip.

  Sidney figured David was just kidding. We all did. He laughed and put his hand back on my shoulder. But David wasn’t kidding. He yanked Sidney’s hand away again. “I said save it!”

  Sidney kept smiling but his eyes narrowed with anger. I’m sure he wanted to knock David on his ass. And even though David was a wrestler, Sidney could have done it. But the fire in his eyes quickly dimmed to fear. Maybe he was Sidney Spikes, local bebop god, but he was also a black man playing in a white man’s club. He held up his hands in surrender. “We’ve got no problem, man,” he said.

  David stood up. Sidney waved his hands. David threw a punch. It landed square on Sidney’s mouth. Sidney wobbled a little then stepped back. He checked his lips for blood. “We got no problem,” he said again. David cocked his arm for another punch. But he didn’t throw it. Sidney went back to the stage and played like a demon for two hours without taking another break.

  When the detectives questioned me that day in my kitchen, I didn’t say boo about the trouble between David and Sidney. The only thing I was thinking about that afternoon was that goddamned poppyseed kuchen. But somebody must have told them about it. Sidney Spikes spent two miserable nights in a holding cell.

  “About this woman Sidney was ensconced with?” I asked Dale. “Did the police reports say who she was?”

  Dale fed the last piece of Styrofoam into Big Bertha. He grinned devilishly. “It was an old friend of yours. Fredricka Fredmansky.”

  “Effie? Well heavens to Betsy! Of course it was Effie!”

  ***

  While Dale and I were leaning on Big Bertha, yakking about David Delarosa’s murder and a dozen other things, the police were slowly evacuating the people in the apartment building. Then inch by inch, a SWAT team moved down the fifth floor hallway toward Kurt Depew’s door. They didn’t exactly knock. A battering ram tore the door off its frame. Tear gas canisters were fired in. We heard their woosh. Then we heard three quick shots.

  Dale would learn later that the first of those shots was fired by Kurt Depew. It struck Sargeant Brian Boyle’s metal-plated Kevlar vest and caused no more damage that a doughnut-sized bruise on his spongy belly, which he proudly showed to everyone he could before it faded. The second and third shots were fired by the police. One shot made mincemeat out of Kurt Depew’s hip. The other made mincemeat out of his heart.

  Chapter 10

  Friday, March 30

  It was Friday, a day I usually coast a little more than usual. But that Friday I couldn’t wait to get to the paper. I took a quick shower. Left my hair damp. Made instant oatmeal.

  You can understand why I was in such a hurry. Dale had dominated Page One most of the week. His Wednesday story had detailed Kurt Depew’s fatal shootout with police. His Thursday story had dug deeper into the possible link between the Depew brothers and Congresswoman Zuduski-Lowell’s brother. His story in today’s paper was going to knock a lot of politically sensitive socks off. I wanted to be there to see them fly.

  According to well-placed sources, after weeks of pressuring police to speed up their investigation into her brother’s death, the congresswoman was now warning them to move slowly. I’d stayed around long enough Thursday night to see the story before it went to press. The headline was wordy but wonderful:

  Zuduski-Lowell To Police:

  “Don’t you dare embarrass me”

  I’d caught Dale just as he was getting into the elevator. “This well-placed source wouldn’t happen to include a certain detective of Scottish heritage, would it?” I asked. He’d done his best to speak in a brogue: “Now lassie, behave,” he croaked, poking the elevator button. “You know darn well that’s something I’ve got to keep under me kilt.”

  So that morning I ate half of my oatmeal and left the rest to harden into cement. I threw on my coat and headed for the garage. And wouldn’t you know it the damn phone rang. It was Eric Chen. “I think I lost my truck keys,” he said.

  “You think you lost them?”

  “Well, I know I lost them. Just not how thoroughly.”

  So instead of zooming straight downtown, I had to zigzag north through the morning traffic to the old Cedar Hill apartments where Eric lived.

  “You should have a second set,” I snarled when he got into my Shadow with his daily six-pack of Mountain Dew.

  “That was my second set,” he said.

  I fought my way over to Cleveland Avenue and started south through an exasperating gauntlet of traffic lights.

  Eric took my cursing at the red lights personally—which he was smart to do—and did his best to get my mind on something else. “Any of that toxic waste stuff I gave you panning out?” he asked.

  “Too early to tell,” I said. “But I have confirmed
that eighteen drums of toluene are still out there somewhere. And I did learn that Gordon was involved with the original EPA investigation. And that the Wooster Pike landfill was one of the suspected sites. And that Kenneth Kingzette was paroled in November.”

  Eric added another and. “And you think he killed Sweet Gordon before he could find those other drums?”

  The light ahead of us turned red. “I think it’s a possibility,” I said.

  It was only eight-thirty on a very chilly day, but Eric couldn’t resist the temptation. He twisted the cap off one of his Mountain Dews and took a long chug of the green goop. “How would Kingzette even know Gordon was digging out there?” he asked. “He’s been in prison for several years, right?”

  “In prison in Lucasville, not on the moon,” I said.

  “You ever been to Lucasville?”

  I jabbed my finger at the canvas bag crowding his feet and told him to find the folder marked ROWE/DIG. “You remember that day at the bookstore when you called me a sweet potato?” I asked.

  He pulled the bag onto his lap and dug through the thick stack of folders. “I think you called yourself a sweet potato, Maddy.”

  The light turned green, but not long enough for me to get through it. “I guess it was me,” I admitted. “But only because you were already thinking it. I don’t know why you think I’m incapable of doing a computer search on my own.”

  He found the folder and opened it. “Fifteen years of empirical experience—whoa!”

  He was looking at the printout of a story written by Doris Rowe. Read the headline:

  GORDON’S GOLD MINE

  College garbology class is a blast from the past

  “As you can see, it’s hardly an in-depth story. It ran in that Our Crazy Town column that used to run in the back of the Sunday magazine. Four summers ago. When Gordon first started digging out there.”

  “So you think Kingzette may have seen this, held his breath hoping the professor wouldn’t find the missing toluene, and then when he got out—bang—to make sure he never did?”

  Not only did I get caught by another red right, I found myself in the left turn-only lane. I had to detour off Cleveland Avenue through a maze of one-way streets. “I checked with the prison library,” I said. “They don’t have a subscription for The Herald-Union. But Kingzette’s son has one. And apparently he’s pretty thick with his father. At least he brought him into his moving business as soon as he was paroled. Maybe they were in cahoots back then, too.”

  Eric finished his Mountain Dew. “Good work.”

  I found my way back to Cleveland Avenue and headed for the Memorial Bridge. “Maybe it’s all just a bunch of rubbish. But it keeps Kingzette in the mix a while longer.”

  ***

  I still don’t know why I had such a bug up my behind about Kenneth Kingzette and those missing drums of toluene.

  It was such a silly probability. As silly as thinking Andrew J. Holloway III killed Gordon. As silly as thinking Gordon’s murder had something to do with David Delarosa’s murder. As silly as thinking Chick Glass killed Gordon over that alleged slice of cheese. There could be a million things buried out there that somebody didn’t want found. And there could be a million other reasons somebody wanted Gordon dead.

  But, good gravy, my dander was up. And so was my curiosity. As silly as those four possibilities were, and as silly as I knew I’d look when Scotty Grant arrested the real murderer, I knew I simply could not stop my silly investigation.

  ***

  The worst thing about Eric losing his keys, which he manages to do three or four times a year, is that he attaches himself to me like a barnacle on a shrimp boat until he finds them. But that particular Friday I was glad he’d lost those damn keys again. Right after work I was going to see Effie. It would be good to have Eric with me. Not for physical protection, of course. And certainly not for moral support. He was absolutely worthless in both of those departments. But Eric’s irritating presence would make it easier for me to make a quick exit if things didn’t go well. “I’d love to stay and talk,” I could say to Effie, “but I promised to get Eric home by six. Bye-bye!”

  So at five o’clock I herded Eric into the elevator, and into my Dodge Shadow, and headed across town to Hemphill College.

  Effie’s used book store, Last Gasp Books she called it, was located in a ramshackle shopping plaza at the corner of White Pond and Parvin, just two blocks west of H.E. Hemphill’s glorious statue. It was a narrow storefront sandwiched between rival Mexican restaurants.

  I made Eric open the door for me. I protectively covered my elbows with my hands and went inside. “Maddy!” Effie sang out. She was wearing a sleeveless denim jumper and a pair of lace-up boots better suited for marching across the Gobi desert. Several turquoise necklaces were orbiting her wrinkly neck. And of course she was wearing those big yellow lollypop glasses.

  Seeing that my elbows were covered, she drilled Eric’s. “This your boy toy, Maddy?”

  “I’m too old for boys or toys,” I said. “This is Eric Chen, my assistant at the paper.”

  Effie tried to give him a welcoming hug. But Eric, still rubbing the pain out of his elbow, kept backing away. Effie loved that. “I like skittish,” she said.

  She gave us the nickel tour. The front of the store was bright and airy. There were tables piled high with newer books. There was a rack of humorous greeting cards and a display of fancy pens and stationery. The middle section of the store was dark and cramped, a claustrophobic maze of ceiling-high shelves crammed with thousands and thousands of musty books. “These are my meat and potatoes,” Effie said. “When you can’t find it anywhere else, you find it here, and you pay dearly.” At the back of the store was a narrow doorway. The sign above the arch said, in Old English, Ye Dirty Stuff. “My erotica collection,” she said. “None of it later than the Kennedy administration.”

  We headed back toward the front of the store, to Effie’s tiny office behind the counter. Eric immediately excused himself. “Think I’ll browse a bit,” he said. He headed straight for Ye Dirty Stuff.

  Effie didn’t have any tea bags, but she did have a coffee maker. She divided what was left of the sludge in the carafe. “I guess I’m having trouble with Gordon’s death,” I began.

  “Aren’t we all,” she answered.

  She offered me an ancient jar of artificial creamer. I waved it off. “I’m afraid the police may get the wrong idea, Effie,” I said. “About some people.”

  “Some people like Andrew Holloway?” she wondered.

  I nodded. “He seems like a nice boy. And a smart boy. But I gather he’s pretty thin in the alibi department. And God knows what his relationship with Gordon was.”

  She put a lethal dose of the creamer in her mug and stirred it with her pinky. She took a bitter slurp. “I can’t vouch for Andrew’s predilections.”

  “How about Gordon’s?”

  She laughed like a flock of ducks. “If you didn’t know me as well as you do, I think I’d have to be insulted.”

  More than likely I was blushing. “You know what I mean, Effie.”

  “Yes I do, Maddy. And I can swear on a stack of Masters & Johnson studies that Gordon was quite fond of the opposite sex.” She paused and took a quick sip. “If he went the other way, too, well, I never saw any evidence of it.”

  “Which brings me to David Delarosa,” I said.

  The ducks were back. “I’ll have to put on another pot of coffee if you’re going to bring up every man I’ve slept with.”

  I forced a smile. “I can’t help but think Gordon’s friendship with Andrew was a little like his friendship with David.”

  Effie spread her fingers across her necklaces, like she was Scarlett O’Hara or something. “My oh my! I don’t think you’re getting enough sleep, Maddy.”

  This time I made sure I was frowning. “As I recall, Gordon’s friendship with David Delarosa was quite intense, and quite out of the blue. And then a few weeks later David was dead.”
>
  Effie now told me something I hadn’t known. “The way I remember it, David hired Gordon to tutor him. In biology. And they just hit it off.”

  “Gordon did do a lot of tutoring,” I said. “So I suppose you’re right.”

  Effie backtracked a little. “But, to tell you the truth, I’m not sure David was as crazy about Gordon as Gordon was about him.” Her voice shrank to a whisper now, as if we were surrounded by ghosts. “I think he latched onto Gordon to get laid. He was a horny boy from the boondocks. And Gordon was up to his armpits in female acquaintances majoring in liberal arts. So he figured he could put up with a little poetry and bebop jazz in exchange for a little beatnik—”

  The store’s heavy wooden door squealed open. The windows shook from the hurricane of cold air gushing inside. “That’ll be Edward,” she said.

  A man hidden deep inside a fur-lined parka appeared at the counter. Effie excused herself. She handed him a stack of discreetly wrapped books from under the counter. He handed her a Ziploc bag filled with half dollars. “One of my regulars,” she said when the man named Edward left. “He likes Victorian stories about bisexual pirates.”

  If I was going to get anything useful out of Effie, I knew I’d have to risk telling her my discreetly wrapped theories. “At the memorial service, you said maybe Gordon had been digging where he shouldn’t have been digging.”

  “Ah—so you’re the one who put that bug in Detective Grant’s ear.”

  “He’s already talked to you about all this?”

  “Not the David Delarosa stuff,” she said. “That’s all yours.”