Bentley Dadmun - Harry Neal and Cat 09 - Dead Dead Dead, the Little Girl Said

by Bentley Dadmun

  Clara came up, put a mug of coffee in front of Priscilla, gave Cat a small bit of baked fish, looked down at Priscilla and said, “We’re fresh outa fifties and world peace and there ain’t never been liberty and justice for all, only for them with the buckets full of fifties.” And she turned and shuffled back to the counter.

  After a time I said, “Well, I admit we’re not on top of this thing, but we still have the Chief of Police and Shaleen Gogan, either of whom might lead us to Rundle, who might be able to tell us something pertinent. Plus we can go back to the funeral home and hassle Dorthea, obviously something isn’t kosher there.”

  Priscilla shook her head. “We can, but it isn’t going to do any good. Dorthea isn’t about to say squat about anything to us unless we come at her hard, which I think we shouldn’t do until we run out of all other options, and old T. William isn’t likely to say anything that would lead us anywhere.”

  She’d gulped down her coffee and was toying with the mug, so I stood up, put Cat in the sling and said, “Come on, we’ll go and chat up Anderson. If you don’t sneak up on him and pop your finger against his neck, he might condescend to talk to a couple of amateurs.”

  She gave me a look of wide eyed innocence, put a hand to her bosom and said, “Me? Me hassle a policeman? The protectors of society, those brave studs in blue that stand between me and all the bad guys. Me?”

  … . .

  PINE STREET WAS A WELL TENDED road of double wide trailer homes and modulars. Ronnie Anderson lived in a modular with yellow vinyl siding and green plastic awnings over the windows. The lawn was freshly raked, the hedges recently trimmed, and there was a new looking Ford Explorer parked in front of the two car garage. It was tricked out with huge tires, a row of lights across the top of the cab, and other off road gizmos, and it looked like it had been washed an hour ago.

  We got off our bikes and laid them on the grass next to a cement porch. As I squatted and started to unzip the trailer, Priscilla laid a hand on my shoulder and said, “Listen, no offense, but you look a little off when you have that ratty hairball hanging around your neck, like maybe you were let out of a county home a week ago. This is a retired chief of police we’re gonna talk to, so just this once, please leave the goddamn cat in the goddamn trailer.”

  I patted Cat, tossed in some kitty treats and zipped up the door again. As Priscilla pounded on the front door I looked at her and said, “A little off?”

  The door opened and a big man with wide sloping shoulders, a square face, and perfectly round eyes, stood motionless in the doorway staring at us. He was dressed in neatly pressed tan pants and a red plaid shirt. His boots, a mongrel blend of cowboy and woods, were polished. I gave him my friendliest smile, nodded and said, “Mister Anderson? My name is Harry Neal and this is Priscilla Matson. I wonder if we may talk to you. It concerns Priscilla’s grandfather, Frank Janky.”

  After a moment he frowned and said, “Janky? Janky. A Frank Janky died up on Branch Hill Road, oh, about ten, twelve years ago.”

  “Yes, and that’s who we’re referring to. Priscilla and I are trying to locate David Rundle, the patrolman who found him.”

  Anderson leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms. “David Rundle. He’s been off the force for… let’s see… about nine years now. Why do you want to talk to him? I mean, he came across Mister Janky’s body laying in the middle of the road and naturally stopped to investigate. If I remember right, he said he was going to give him CPR, but it was obvious the man was dead and was going to stay that way.”

  “We’re trying to trace Frank’s last day,” I said. “As you may know, Eva Janky, Frank’s wife, doesn’t believe Frank died of a heart attack. That’s why we’d like to talk to Rundle. Hopefully, he remembers finding Frank and can give us some details.”

  Anderson raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “I’ve seen that ad she has in the Gazette and I always wondered what she was thinking of. I remember telling myself I should talk to her, it’s hard to lose someone you love and sometimes it, uh, changes a person. But I never got around to it and time slipped by and finally I just forgot about it.”

  “Well, it would help a lot if we could talk to the guy who found my grandfather,” said Priscilla. “Do you know where he moved to?”

  After a moment Anderson raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and let out a long sigh. “Well, not really. The thing is, I had to fire him because I found out he was a drinker. One day he stopped a man in a Jaguar for speeding and was pretty belligerent. The man drove straight to the station and filed a complaint. I spent over half an hour driving around looking for David and finally found him on School Street, down by the river. He was sound asleep and when I woke him it was obvious that he was drunk. I canned him on the spot and he moved out of town a few days later.

  “When I fired him he made it pretty obvious that he blamed me for his problems, and he wasn’t in a mood to give me a forwarding address. At any rate, I don’t know where he went, just an impression it was someplace in the Midwest, Chicago maybe.” He looked at Priscilla and gave her a warm smile. “I know it’s tough losing a grandfather and it must be very tough on your grandmother, even after all this time, but the man died of a heart attack. He was probably in pretty in good shape, but he was getting on and Branch Hill Road is rough and steep. I’m sorry young lady, but those are the facts. Now if you will excuse me, I’m painting my bathroom and want to finish before dark.”

  I held out my hand. Anderson shook it as I said, “One more thing if you don’t mind. Why didn’t Rundle call an ambulance? Why take the body to the hospital himself?

  Anderson shrugged. “Probably time and paperwork, it would have taken an extra hour or more waiting for the ambulance and he would have had to follow it in to the hospital anyway. And the extra paperwork would have taken still more time. We had big Chevy SUV’s back then, so he placed Mister Jankey in the back and drove him in himself. And if you want an opinion, mine would be that David was ready for a drink or two and didn’t want to wait around for an ambulance.”

  “That makes sense. Thank you very much for your time, Mister Anderson.”

  “No problem. And if I can be of any other help, stop by, I’m usually home in the afternoon.” He smiled, stepped back, and closed the door.

  As we walked the bikes to the road, Priscilla said, “There was no autopsy, so why is he so sure Frank died of a heart attack? How would he know?”

  “Like everyone else we’ve talked too he probably just assumes it.”

  “Yeah well, he and they shouldn’t be so quick to assume, because it didn’t happen. Listen, since it’s close, let’s go to the mall and see if Gogan is working.”

  “Fair enough, want me to stay outside? Or can you tolerate being seen with a feeble minded old man and his handicapped cat?”

  She sighed dramatically and said, “Look at yourself through another pair of eyes. You see a man walking down the street with a mangy looking cat hanging from his neck in a sling and you’re not gonna think the dude is maybe a little strange?”

  “How about a woman who is mostly muscle and veins, has a man’s haircut that should have been trimmed two months ago, sports a nine pound mouth, and dresses in purple all the time?”

  After a time she said, “How about we drop it.”

  … . .

  WITH CAT SNUGGLED IN THE SLING under my jacket, we walked into Hannaford and traipsed to the deli, where we stood in a group of customers in front of a counter filled with processed meats, salads, and other concoctions. Finally I caught the eye of Janny Kay, an aging libertine with improbable jet black hair, mischievous eyes, and thirty extra pounds, most of it hung on her rump. “Hey Harry,” She yelled. “Where the hell you been?”

  “Taking a long weekend, by any chance is Shaleen working today?”

  “Now why would you want a skinny thing like her when you could have the real goods?” And she thrust out her chest and gave me a blatant come hither look.

  “You’re definitely the genuine
article, Janny, but I want to ask Shaleen a question that only she can answer.”

  Janny molded her face into a pout, put her hands on her hips and said, “She’s out back sucking shit into those tiny little lungs of hers.”

  I smiled my thanks and we walked back outside and around to the rear of the building to a fenced in area with picnic tables and trash cans crammed into it. Despite the cold, several people with jackets over their uniforms were hunched over on bench seats with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths or dangling from fingers. Above them, smoke hung in the cold air like a malevolent fog. The scene reminded me of a prison movie I saw years ago. A thin, sharp faced girl with brown hair and granny glasses looked up from a magazine, saw us and smiled. “Harry! You’re back, you doing first shift again?”

  As we walked up to her I said, “I haven’t come back yet, Shaleen, I still have two or three dollars in my pocket. Actually, I stopped by to see you. That is, we stopped by to see you.” I looked at Priscilla and grinned. “Shaleen, this is my friend… ” Steel fingers dig into the back of my neck. I winced and said, “Priscilla Matson.”

  “Hi Priscilla.” She swept a hand over her own buzz cut and said, “Like the do.”

  Priscilla shook her hand and said, “Thanks. Listen, I know you guys have a short break so we’ll get to the point. Do you happen to know where David Rundle moved to?”

  After a slack faced moment, Shaleen eyes widened. She pulled her head back and said, “Whoa, now there’s a blast from the past. I haven’t thought of David in years.” She fished a cigarette out of her jacket pocket, lit it from the butt of the one in her hand and blew smoke at the sky. She looked at me and said, “Why the hell do you want to know where David moved to?”

  “Priscilla is the granddaughter of a man named Frank Janky,” I said. “David found him dead up on Branch Hill Road about ten years ago. We’re trying to trace his last days and we’d like to talk to David, see if he remembers anything important.”

  “Hey! I remember that. I read about him finding that guy up on Branch Hill. It was just a little blurb in the local rag, but I remember it because Dave and I had just broke up. Hey, I’m sorry about your grandfather.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Priscilla said. “What we want now is to find out what was going on the last few days he was alive, do you happen to know where Rundle moved to?”

  Shaleen took a deep drag of her cigarette and blew a jet of smoke across the table. “Like I said, me and Dave had just broken up, he was drinking a lot and getting abusive. He didn’t hit me or anything like that, but his mouth… Jesus, you just don’t know. Anyway, about a month or so after we broke, he’s like, gone, not a word to me or anybody else. Even though we were busted up, I thought he would have told me he was gonna leave. I mean, he didn’t have anybody else. His folks were dead and he was an only child and I was about the only person he was close to. But no, he just left, didn’t say shit to me or anybody else. Someone told me he might have gone to Chicago. Sometimes he talked about becoming a big city cop because of all the action, but then he was always saying how he hated big cities. Hell, he didn’t even like to go down to Manchester to that big mall they got down there.”

  She sucked on her cigarette and held the smoke in her lungs while she snuffed out the butt in a tin ashtray. She let the smoke drift out of her mouth, stood up, looked at us and shrugged. “Sorry, but I haven’t a clue where he might be. About two months after he left I called the Chicago Police Department and got put on hold at least twenty times before I got a guy who said they didn’t have a David Rundle on their roster.” She shrugged. “So there you go. Hey, when are you coming back Harry?”

  “Probably pretty soon, my cash flow is down to a trickle.”

  “Good.” She looked at Priscilla and smiled. “I like working with Harry, he’s one of the smartest, nicest people I know.”

  “Sometimes,” Priscilla said, “Sometimes.”

  … . .

  WE SAT IN THE LAST BOOTH with our hands wrapped around mugs of steaming coffee. Cat lay in front of the napkin holder with her head between her paws and a cube of warm beef a millimeter in front of her nose. Actually I sat. Priscilla slouched with her back to the wall and her feet pressed against the front of the booth. I sipped my coffee and said, “Well, I guess that’s that. Rundle seems to have gone to someplace nobody knows about.”

  Priscilla grunted and said, “I guess. But, Shaleen, Christ, what a name, if I was named Shaleen I’d have changed it when I was two weeks old. Anyway, she seemed pretty surprised Rundle left without telling her, and I think something’s strange about his leaving and not telling anybody.”

  “According to her he left a month or so after he found Frank. And according to Anderson he left a year after finding Frank.”

  She shrugged. “Well, it was ten years ago and people are always saying things like that, and if you make them think it out, they’re usually way off base. If we’d asked Shaleeeeeen to think it out, she’d probably realize Rundle left a hell of a lot later than he did. Remember, she was polishing his knob around that time, so she’s libel to be a little mixed up about the time frames.” She slurped down the last of her coffee and said, “I’ve got to go to The Muscle Stop for a while, set up my classes for next year and dicker for a raise. It shouldn’t take more than half a hour, okay?”

  “I’ll go along and do the machines while you’re working.”

  “Listen, will you wait until later this afternoon? That’s when I like to work out. We can exercise around four, just before the joint closes, and then come back here for supper, I’ll buy.”

  I put a shocked look on my face and said, “You’ll buy? For that I’ll wait.” She grinned, touched me on the shoulder and strutted out the door.

  I drank too much coffee while letting more of my life dribble away and looked at my watch every few minutes just to keep the irritation level up. After an hour had dragged by, I grabbed Cat and put her in the sling. She squirmed and meowed and flapped her good paw at me until I finally understood and picked up the cube of beef and dropped it in the sling. She gave my face a lick and burrowed into her sanctuary.

  Halfway to The Muscle Stop I braked, straddled the bike, and gently kneaded Cat’s neck while turning things over in my mind. Then, decision made, I turned around and pedaled up Main Street.

  … . .

  THE CHAPMAN FUNERAL HOME APPEARED AS imposing as ever. I stopped, straddled the bike and looked down the street. After several indecisive moments I decided working off my caffeine jag on the machines would be the more prudent course of action and pedaled back the way I came. The Chapman’s could wait a bit longer.

  As I was turning off the street I glanced in my helmet mirror and saw a dark green station wagon turn into the funeral home drive and disappear around the back of the house. I stopped, dithered about in a state of indecisiveness for several moments, then turned and pedaled back down the street until I came to a large dilapidated house that had been divided into apartments. I pedaled up the gravel drive to a three car garage in the back that looked like the next good wind would drop it. I leaned the bike against the garage and looked across four backyards at the back of the funeral home.

  Dorthea was putting two suitcases into the rear of the station wagon. She slammed the door and went back into the house. The driver’s side window was down and part of an arm and an elbow clothed in some dark color rested on the window sill. Every few seconds the driver gunned the motor.

  Dorthea came back out of the house with T. William clinging to her arm. She guided him around the front of the wagon, the passenger door opened, and she helped him into the front seat. She leaned in, perhaps to hook the seatbelt, then straightened and walked around the station wagon and talked briefly with the driver. Then the station wagon slowly pulled away. Dorthea watched it leave and walked back into the house.

  In the next yard a dainty Siamese cat was stalking a red squirrel. The cat was a handsome thing, obviously healthy and well tended. Cat spotted it
and leaned out of the sling. The fur along her spine bristled and she uttered a low growl that seemed ridiculous coming from such a small, beat up piece of fluff. At the last moment I clapped my hands and the squirrel shot up a spindly willow. The Siamese shook a paw at me, pranced to the back steps of its house and began licking itself. Cat pulled back into the sling and licked her bad paw.

  Okay. Priscilla was getting pumped at The Muscle Stop and I was wired with caffeine and I’d just witnessed something I didn’t understand. It was time for a little assertiveness. Standing on the left pedal with my right foot, I coasted out of the driveway and down the sidewalk to the funeral home. I pushed the bike and trailer up the steps and laid the bike down behind the stained oak railing, opened that dark, somber door, and danced a jig on the mat. I was rewarded with the ringing of bells. Standing in the middle of the silent, gray room, I kneaded Cat’s ears and waited.

  Dorthea suddenly appeared, framed in the ornate portal of the chapel. Her gaze was reptilian, like something that stares out at you from a glass cage at the zoo. She drifted toward me, stopped, and gazed at me for a time. Finally she cleared her throat and said softly, “I thought I made it clear I do not allow animals, especially sickly animals on the premises. Why are you here?”

  “I saw someone leave with your husband, is anything wrong?”

  She moved a few steps closer. “I want to know what you’re doing here. What is your purpose?”

  “I want to know where the special place is, the one where you and T. William put Frank Jankey’s body.” I waited. If my verbal blast hit home it didn’t show, Dorthea was about as surprised as a brick.

  “Frank Jankey? I don’t know the man, so why should I know where he is?”

  “Ten years ago he was found dead on Branch Hill Road by a policeman named David Rundle. He supposedly took him to the hospital where your brother, Amos Conrad, declared him dead and wrote out a death certificate. Then he was supposedly brought here and you buried him. But we have evidence that he wasn’t taken to the hospital, that he may have been taken directly here. Now the question is, where did you bury him?”