Don't Dare a Dame

by M. Ruth Myers

  “Might as well give up, sweetheart.” His chin pressed the top of my head as he gloated. “Dames aren’t cut out for the big league.”

  I fumbled for the silk flower decorating my lapel, hoping it would serve the purpose I’d envisioned. On my second tug the extra-long stick pin topped with the flower pulled free of my suit. I rammed the pin back and up. The scream of the man imprisoning me raised the hair on my neck as I felt the steel shaft find its target — a cheek, an eye, I didn’t care.

  All at once I was free and gasping for air. I managed to fumble my gun out, but my newly freed arm was too weak to raise it. Turning in a circle, I saw no sign of my attacker. Movement on the street caught my eye as a car pulled away from the curb, paused to open its door, and roared off, switching its lights on. The off-kilter beam of one suggested it was out of alignment.

  The nearly new hat I’d saved up for had fallen off in the struggle. Its feather was broken. I picked it up and unlocked the DeSoto.

  The last thing my assailant had said, and his taunting tone, made it clear he knew me. Or at least my occupation. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been Oats, so it was probably someone he’d sent.

  The only alternative I could come up with was too far-fetched to contemplate: That the attack had something to do with Alf Maguire or the Vanhorn sisters.

  ***

  Saturday morning seemed like a dandy time for a drive past Alf’s place. Two brief paragraphs on an inside page of the morning paper said that a man in a Haynes Street duplex had died after being overcome by gas. He wasn’t named, which was standard in cases of suicide, so if the police were still looking at the death at all, they didn’t appear to be looking too closely.

  It surprised me, therefore, to see a patrol car parked in front. I drove on, drumming my thumbs on the steering wheel in indecision. Freeze wouldn’t be happy if he caught me poking around. Then again, since he hadn’t returned my call yesterday, I’d never had a chance to ask if he minded. I did a U-turn and parked several doors away on the opposite side of the street.

  The story in the paper had mentioned that occupants of the other half of the duplex had been roused in time to escape unharmed. Their side might be a good place to start. Several minutes of knocking and waiting brought no response.

  “They’re not home,” called a voice from the sidewalk. A stout woman wearing carpet slippers held the leash of a mutt not much bigger than her footwear. “They’ve gone to stay with her sister a couple of days,” she said as I walked toward her. “Until the gas smell clears out.”

  “Gas smell?” I played dumb.

  Relishing the opportunity to share news of something so exciting, she told me about Alf’s demise. The man in the other side of the duplex had ‘some sort of job’ at a dairy. He’d set out for work in the wee small hours, smelled the gas, and raised an alarm.

  “If it was that girlfriend of his going back to Oregon or wherever it was last month that led him to do such a thing, then the poor man should have been counting his lucky stars instead,” she concluded. “She was a cheeky thing. And between you and me, I think the police should be showing more interest in who came to see him that night.”

  That wrenched my attention away from her little dog, who was sniffing my ankle and some nearby bushes with equal enthusiasm.

  “Mr. Maguire had guests?”

  She nodded wisely.

  “Not that I stick my nose into people’s business, but Patches needs a tinkle or two in the night, so I bring him out. He won’t use the back yard. A cat scared him once.”

  Right now I was hoping he didn’t decide to use my leg.

  “... so of course I know the cars that park along here. That night there were two that I didn’t recognize. Just as I was thinking that was odd — it was after one — I realized there was someone sitting in one of them.”

  My heart began to beat faster.

  “Well, I just walked on by, as fast as I could. I didn’t want to attract attention. He tried to duck down, but I’d already seen him, and — oh, it was awful!” She pressed a hand to her throat, glancing over her shoulder as if fearful she’d be overheard. She leaned toward me. “He was an Eskimo!”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.

  “An Eskimo?”

  “I tell you, it scared me to death.” She shuddered dramatically.

  “Uh, what does an Eskimo look like?”

  The woman frowned as though I were feeble minded.

  “You know. Scary. Not like other people. Oh — Patches did his duty. Good doggie. We have to go.”

  Too stumped to ask anything else, I watched them traipse back to a nearby house. Maybe she used the word Eskimo to indicate a foreigner. Maybe she’d seen a Chinaman. I’d read a book once where a woman used the word to mean anything forbidden, like cussing.

  Then again, maybe she was loony. It was interesting, though, that she’d seen two strange cars.

  ***

  “Why on earth are you interested in the flood? That was back before you were born.” Kate Leary wore a puzzled expression as she handed me a bowl of mashed potatoes. An unspoiled lake of butter cratered the white peaks.

  I had a standing invitation to Sunday dinner at Kate and Billy’s. Once every couple of months I took them up on it. Sometimes it was because I’d spent too much time wading through muck and needed to reassure myself the world had a good side. Other times it was to keep from hurting Kate, whom I liked and who was the only cop’s wife who didn’t grab her matchmaking bonnet each time we met.

  Today there were five of us at the table: Kate and Billy; Seamus Hanlon, a gaunt, tall cop with wavy white hair; Mick Connelly and me. Despite Connelly’s presence, I didn’t suspect Kate of an ulterior motive. He probably sat at their table more often than I did. He was here because he was Billy’s partner, just as Seamus was here because he’d filled that same role for so many years that he and Billy were almost inseparable. I explained about being hired to look into the long-ago disappearance. It drew the now familiar exclamations of disbelief.

  “Well, I’ll tell you about the flood — it was awful,” Kate said, startling all of us by taking the lead. “Every policeman in the city called out, and not knowing what happened to any of them for days and days.”

  “What happened was all of us got trapped downtown — right in the flood plain!” Billy bristled.

  He and the usually taciturn Seamus tripped over each other explaining.

  Previous floods had always hit the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods hardest, sometimes bringing waters two feet deep. When the man who was chief in 1913 was warned of impending flooding, he’d summoned all his men from outlying precincts to help with the central area. Even as they fanned out door to door, warning residents to evacuate to higher ground, levees on the three rivers hugging Dayton’s downtown ruptured. Waters surged to ten feet, then, as more rain poured unrelentingly down for the next two days, to twenty feet, then twenty-eight. The entire police force was trapped at the heart of the chaos. Help from and for outlying areas was cut off.

  “Your mother and I called each other if one of us had a snippet of news,” Kate told me, memories straining her face. “There we were, each of us alone with a toddler....”

  Her gaze crept to a photograph of a twelve-year-old boy. He’d survived the flood only to die of measles not long after the picture was taken.

  “All we could do was watch the water come up, and up, and try and reassure each other,” she said softly. “Then the phones went out.”

  Our forks had been clicking away, consuming Kate’s fine roast pork without the compliments it deserved. Connelly seemed as spellbound as I was. I tried to imagine my mother talking with someone — a friend. I’d never heard her use the phone except to make a doctor’s appointment or ask if something was in at the grocery store.

  “And when the cleanup started, Rudy Wurstner — he was just a constable walking a beat back then — he got stuck with disposing of all the dead horses,” chuckled Seamus. “Now I�
�d have made him chief just for being man enough to do that.”

  It banished the somberness and we laughed and talked about how Cincinnati had lost again yesterday and was going to be out for good unless they did better today. I helped Kate with the dishes and said my good-byes.

  “I’d better be off too.” Connelly rose hastily, pecking Kate’s cheek and catching up with me at the door. When it closed behind us, he cleared his throat.

  “Guess I should apologize for putting your fur up the last time I saw you. If I said I made that all up about the Fourth of July, any chance I could ask you a favor?”

  “Did you make it up?”

  He grinned.

  “Let’s say I did.”

  I didn’t like his answer, but I sensed an opportunity.

  “I’d need one in return.”

  “Deal.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  “Remember a while back when Seamus and I had been listening to tunes and came in with me picking at one on a whistle?”

  “Sure.” Connelly hadn’t been picking, though. He’d been whizzing along.

  “And Rose said Finn should get his fiddle out?”

  I nodded, mystified at where this was headed. Connelly shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked as close to shy as I’d ever seen him.

  “Well, we’ve been getting together, playing some jigs and that. Thought it might be fun if we could find a few others who’d like to try some tunes together. Now and again. There in the back room.”

  At first I couldn’t find my tongue. Of all the things I could have imagined he’d ask, this wasn’t one.

  “You mean ... like a band?”

  “Nah, just get together. Have fun.”

  Like my dad had adored, I thought swallowing. I probably couldn’t count half a dozen times those evenings had happened, but I knew he’d lived for them.

  Connelly examined his toes and ducked a look up at me.

  “Seamus said if anyone knew who played, or used to, it would be you.”

  For several seconds the years peeled away from him. With shock I realized I might be glimpsing the real Mick Connelly, one buried deep inside the man whose easy-going ways camouflaged a hardened watchfulness that never let down.

  In spite of that, I shook my head.

  “I’d help if I could, but I don’t know of anyone. There was a guy with a fiddle who used to come play with Dad now and then, but he’s pushing up daisies. Don’t know what became of the old guy who used to take his teeth out and play a harmonica. Never even knew his name. Wee Willie had an uncle or such who played something ... a flute, maybe. But I’ve heard he doesn’t know his own name most days.”

  I wasn’t about to mention my dad’s fancy lady.

  Belatedly a face I hadn’t thought about in years came to mind.

  “There was an old woman who wasted six months or so giving me concertina lessons,” I said slowly. “I can ask about her. But she was old then, so don’t get your hopes up. Your best bet is to ask Wee Willie. Could be he knows of some friends of his uncle’s.”

  I shifted, feeling like a skunk to let him down when he’d been so eager. “Want a lift?”

  Connelly smiled, his youthful look gone, but still in good spirits.

  “Thanks, but it’s too fine a day for stretching my legs. They’ll forget what they’re for. If you do come across anyone, tell them Thursday at seven, back room at Finn’s.”

  He strode away on legs formed walking miles, not blocks. I knew he missed country lanes. Missed Ireland, though he never said as much. I watched until he turned a corner, and I heard him burst into his trilling whistle. Connelly had the gift of joy.

  Eleven

  I was wondering whether I’d learn anything by attending Alf’s funeral that afternoon when I unlocked the door to my office on Monday.

  A gun in my ribs couldn’t have stopped me any faster.

  “Couldn’t call and make an appointment since you weren’t here,” said a razor thin man lounging to one side of my window. He always stood where he could watch the street as well as the room. I had a hunch it stemmed from his line of work. Not that anyone ever had put a name to that work. “You need a better lock,” he said.

  “The super and I aren’t exactly pals. He said if I changed it, he’d have me evicted.”

  “Thought it might disturb your neighbors less if I waited inside.” Pearlie bared the snowy teeth responsible for his name. It passed for a smile. It was also the look a dog wore when it might either lick your hand or bite it. He was edging toward attractive, and his suits cost enough that they fit to perfection, but he had the same air as a closed switchblade.

  “Rachel okay?” I asked.

  “Rachel’s fine. She don’t know I’m here.”

  I nodded. Rachel employed him. His last comment made me curious why he’d come, and more than a little uneasy. He opened the window beside him a couple of inches, then lighted a cigarette.

  “Oats Ripley’s looking for you,” he said.

  I gritted my teeth. If one more person told me that, I was going to scream.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I could make sure he didn’t bother you.”

  Some people might think Pearlie was hitting me up for a bribe. I was pretty sure he wasn’t. I was also pretty sure his solution would be the permanent kind.

  “Thanks, Pearlie. I appreciate it. I’d just as soon take care of Oats by myself, though. So people don’t get the idea I can’t.”

  Pearlie frowned. It wasn’t an expression I’d ever seen him wear.

  “Guy’s a sneak. Doesn’t have backbone enough to face somebody fair and square. He’s the sort shoots somebody in the back.”

  “Yeah, but his aim’s lousy. And anyone who wasn’t deaf would hear him breathing through his mouth before he got close enough to try.”

  Pearlie regarded me somberly. He took a drag on his cigarette, tossed the rest out the window and lowered the sash.

  “I figured you might not be receptive,” he said, and walked out.

  I sat down, amused by the final word, which suggested Pearlie continued his efforts to improve his vocabulary. I took off my hat and tossed it onto my desk. Before I had time to speculate on the meaning of Pearlie’s visit, or his offer, my telephone rang.

  It was Freeze.

  “Sorry I didn’t return your call on Friday,” he said. “I was ... called away.”

  His almost indiscernible hesitation snagged my interest. Indecision wasn’t Freeze’s style. I hadn’t seen anything in that morning’s paper to suggest Alf Maguire’s death or anyone else’s was under investigation. If a new case had popped up Friday afternoon, Freeze wouldn’t be sitting in his office now talking to me. I waited a minute in hopes he’d volunteer more, but he didn’t.

  “Chief Wurstner suggested I call you,” I said when I’d waited as long as I could without annoying him. “Remember at the Maguire place I told you I was there because his stepdaughters had hired me?”

  “The stepdaughters who only recently had gone round with him in court over an inheritance,” he said coldly.

  “Just one small part of that inheritance, and the suit was settled in their favor. That had nothing to do with why they hired me.”

  Did I need to cross my fingers? Probably not, since I wasn’t sure their dad’s disappearance was even remotely related to Alf’s death or the slop poured over me since. Before Freeze could turn too ill-disposed, I ran through the case I was working, omitting the women’s suspicion Alf Maguire had played some role in the disappearance.

  “The chief said he didn’t care if I poked around in something from that far back, but he said I should clear it with you first,” I finished.

  “If you want to follow a trail that cold, go right ahead. Just don’t put your foot in anything we’re looking at now.”

  “Does that include Alf Maguire’s death?” I asked innocently. “Hard to put my foot in the right place if I don’t know where the messes are.”

  “Don
’t play dumb. If you turn up anything you think might remotely be of interest to me, let me know, or you’ll have more black marks against you than you can count.”

  ***

  My failure to learn if they were classifying Alf Maguire’s death as a suicide miffed me. I took it out on routine chores: Paying bills that came in and sending some out to regular clients whose small retainers kept me going in lean times; cleaning out some old files. It didn’t use up nearly enough of the time that stood between me and noon when I could return to Percy Street and talk to the clerk named Theda.

  I eyed the dessicated plant decorating one corner of my office. Going upstairs to the ladies restroom for a glass of water to pour on it would take at least five minutes if I stretched it. Then again, the plant had been brown and lifeless for a couple of years. It would be cruel to get its hopes up.

  Having nothing else to occupy me, I rose and paced the margins of my office. I opened the same window Pearlie had a couple of inches. I could hear the sounds of carts bumping over bricks at the produce market. Today the wind was right so I even caught the fragrance of apples.

  I wasn’t as cavalier about Oats Ripley as I’d let on to Pearlie. Oats wasn’t a good enough shot or fast enough on his feet to be a first-rate thug, but he was mean as a snake. The kind who’d shoot you in the back, as Pearlie said. The kind who’d have no qualms about using a baseball bat or tying you up somewhere to starve or setting your house on fire. Needing to deal with him on my own was a matter of honor.

  Even the slipperiest lawyer wouldn’t have gotten him sprung if it had been a man who’d caught Oats standing over a woman he’d beaten to death with the bloody crowbar still in his hands. But it had been me. A judge had been persuaded that my failure to mention a missing button made my entire testimony unreliable. No doubt there’d been an innuendo or two — how a woman coming into a half-lighted warehouse on her own might have been understandably a little rattled. It didn’t help that the other witness, elderly and nearsighted, was no longer quite so certain what he’d seen.