Don't Dare a Dame

by M. Ruth Myers

  Interesting.

  I wanted the address, but I also wanted to talk to this woman, who must be his landlady, as well as to whoever else ‘we’ included.

  “I need to drop off some papers for him,” I improvised. “I’m afraid I’ve misplaced the address....”

  She told me and I arranged to stop by. Before heading there, I bought a couple of roast beef sandwiches to drop off for Pearlie. I had some concern that he’d get restless sitting around a house all day. If it looked necessary, I’d tell him the men headed for his fictitious business meeting had arrived. In that case I wasn’t sure what my next step would be. Maybe spend the afternoon with Corrine myself, and get nothing done.

  Remembering the car that had followed me the day before, I left my building through a door in the janitor’s closet in back. The door had been there before the neighboring building was built. It no longer opened completely. Once through it, I had to crab sideways between the two buildings to get to the alley. The maneuver was a nuisance, but it meant that anyone watching my office wouldn’t even be aware I’d left.

  When I got out at the tidy gray house where Franklin lived, a man with tufts of hair in his ears and cheeks red from exertion looked up from painting the lattice work around the foundation.

  “Tell her I’ll be in directly to get washed up,” he said in greeting.

  “Sure. Nice day for that kind of job.”

  “Long as the leaves don’t blow in it while it’s wet,” he grunted, absorbed in his task.

  Franklin’s landlady turned out to be a wiry little woman with frizzy hair. The house was immaculate, with starched curtains at the windows.

  “Gee, what a nice place,” I said when she’d let me in and offered a chair. “Has Franklin lived here long?”

  “Six years last spring. Poor man. We didn’t even know he had family, except for his sisters, and I don’t believe he saw them that often. We’ve talked about it, the mister and I, how he’s such a nice young man but doesn’t seem to have any fun at all. Spends all his time working, except for his night classes.”

  “Isobel says he’s quite keen on his work,” I nodded. “Clerking, I think she said, but I can’t recall where.”

  If I forgot as much as I claimed to, I’d be out of business.

  “Watkins Plumbing Supply.” His landlady frowned. “Don’t you know Franklin?”

  “No, just his sisters. As I said on the telephone, I’m helping them out. There’s so much to do after a death. Oh, here are the papers I came to drop off. If he has any questions he can give me a call.”

  I stood. If I asked more questions, the woman might get suspicious, which I didn’t want in case I needed to stop back. She glanced at the envelope I handed her. It was sealed, with Franklin’s name typed neatly on the front.

  Fishing could sometimes get just as much as questions could, and seemed innocent. I decided to risk a little.

  “You seem fond of Franklin.”

  “Oh, we are. He lends a hand to the mister sometimes, when Franklin sees him moving a heavy ladder or something like that. Some renters wouldn’t, you know.”

  “Then I think maybe it’s okay to tell you. Franklin didn’t have much to do with his father. The man was ... well, I hate to speak ill of the dead, but he was crude. Quite rowdy, really, from what I’ve heard. Spent a lot of time carousing and drinking.”

  Somewhere at the back of the house a door banged and someone clumped in. The mister coming in to wash up, no doubt. His wife was nodding wisely. Her voice became confidential.

  “I’ll bet that’s who it was the one and only time we’ve ever had any trouble with Franklin. Two men, and the way they were shouting and late as it was, I just know they’d been drinking.” One finger tapped my shoulder in excited emphasis. “The mister went out in his nightshirt and told them if they didn’t leave he was going to call the police. Poor Franklin. He came in the next day and apologized. He was so embarrassed.”

  We’d been moving toward the front door. I stopped.

  “When was this?”

  Twenty-one

  “We just may, possibly, be getting somewhere,” I told the DeSoto. I gave the steering wheel a perky little fingertip tap like Franklin’s landlady had given me.

  According to her, the incident with the men had happened about five months ago. No, she and the mister hadn’t been able to hear what was said, except when Franklin raised his voice and told them he wasn’t going to get involved. One of the men had replied with something quite crude.

  I suspected the men had been Alf and George Maguire, or maybe George and Neal. The players mattered less than the subject. From the time frame, it could have to do with Alf’s challenge to Corrine’s inheritance, or it could have to do with his attempt to borrow money from Cy Warren — assuming that story wasn’t utter malarkey.

  Still chortling with my feeling of progress, I rang the bell at the Vanhorn house. Pearlie opened the door.

  “Everything’s O.K.,” he said. “Miss Vanhorn’s in the kitchen.”

  The fragrance of roasting chicken enveloped me as I stepped into the hall. Corrine came through the kitchen door wiping her hands on a tea towel.

  “I brought some sandwiches by,” I said, feeling foolish as I held up the sack.

  “Oh, how thoughtful,” said Corrine. “I’m afraid I’ve just taken a chicken out. Isobel and I were going to have it last night, but then it was too late and we didn’t have much appetite. I didn’t want it to spoil. Won’t you join us?”

  “Um, no. Thank you.”

  “I do believe Mr. Thomas has a knack for piano,” Corrine was saying. Pearlie had instructed me to introduce him as Paul Thomas. “We had a lesson and he can already play ‘Happy Birthday.’”

  I looked at Pearlie. He gave his dog like smile.

  “She’s got some students coming this afternoon,” he said. “Forgot to cancel them last night. I’ll make myself invisible. Sit and read.”

  I felt as though I’d fallen into one of those Walt Disney cartoons where animals danced and sang.

  “That’s good,” I said weakly. “Well, unless I hear from those people you’re going to meet with, I’ll stop by to pick you up around five.”

  His car was parked around the corner, but he nodded agreeably. I said good-by and got back in my DeSoto still holding the sack of sandwiches. At least I had lunch.

  ***

  Talking to Franklin Maguire was now high on my list of things to do. Digging into his father’s finances was higher still. Maybe I’d have a look at Cy Warren’s too, while I was at it. The more you know, the more directions you can veer off in when you question someone, and the more you can pick up from something they say.

  I spent the afternoon soft soaping clerks and looking at documents in public records offices. By the time I finished, my hand was cramped from taking notes and my face hurt from squinting at faded ink. I walked back to my office having learned a couple of interesting things.

  One was that Alf Maguire didn’t appear to be in any sort of financial bind. He owned a good-sized house up on Harvard, presumably the ‘monstrosity’ one he’d built after marrying Mrs. Vanhorn. Nobody held a mortgage against it, the taxes were paid and he’d been collecting rent on it for several years. Three years ago he’d bought the duplex where he’d installed his girlfriend. Everything was paid up there, too. The business he’d acquired when he landed a wife and stepchildren looked to be doing okay. I had no way of knowing his bank balance, or if he had gambling debts, or if he had other business ventures that weren’t doing well, but from what I’d learned so far, I couldn’t see him needing a loan.

  The second thing I’d learned was how Alf and Cy had gone from being under the thumb of others on Percy Street to where they were now. That might include Alf being six feet under.

  For both men, it had started with the sale of the properties destroyed in the fire. The fact that they’d sold wasn’t in itself remarkable. A number of the owners whose businesses burned had done the same. After a
ll, what were they going to live on while waiting for a new building to be constructed? Available funds might be better spent on restocking goods and equipment and renting space elsewhere. Alf Maguire and Cy Warren’s father had been the first to sell though, and with each sale after that, property values had dropped.

  It was what came next that intrigued me. Not six months after selling the lot once occupied by Dillon’s Drugs, Alf had bought another lot three doors down. Shortly afterward, Cy’s father bought two adjoining lots a block away. A few months later, Alf and Cy bought a lot together. Cy eventually became owner of record on the two his father had purchased, and still held those deeds. But the one Alf bought, and the one he and Cy owned together, as well as several others on the street, had been sold to an outfit called Swallowtail Properties.

  Maybe Alf and the Warrens had simply seen an opportunity and seized it. Still, it made me curious.

  Satisfying my curiosity would have to wait. Right now I needed to check in with Pearlie. Then I wanted to talk to Mick Connelly. After that, I was scheduled for a tête-à-tête with the chief of police.

  Not many girls have such a varied dance card.

  ***

  “I told her my business associates still hadn’t shown up. She said I was welcome to come back tomorrow,” Pearlie reported. While I thanked Corrine, he’d waited for me in my car even though his own was around the corner. He told me later she’d sense it if we didn’t leave together.

  “Fine,” I said. “Her sister gets off at noon on Thursdays. I’ll call around a quarter till and tell whoever answers that the people you’re supposed to meet have just gotten in. Then I’ll pick you up.”

  We’d reached his car. I stopped with motor idling for him to get out.

  “Hope she has some lessons scheduled,” he said. “They’re interesting. Had a boy this afternoon she said was an absolute terror, but he musta been on his best behavior. Corrine couldn’t believe it. Said maybe I had a calming influence.”

  Pearlie gave his smile. I grinned. The kid was probably on his knees right now vowing to mend his ways if he didn’t cross paths with Pearlie again. He might even be entertaining thoughts of entering a seminary. Pearlie stepped back and I drove away.

  I was running later than I liked, so instead of heading directly to Finn’s, I decided to drive toward Ford Street Station. The day shift was ending and cops would be heading home, or downing a pint at the end of the day. If I could catch Connelly between the two places, I might save the time required to park and wait while Finn filled my glass before finding out whether Connelly had learned anything.

  The Central Police Station, known as CPS or Ford Street, was a block-long warren of spaces and offices. Cells, booking, and interrogation rooms were headquartered there, along with most of Dayton’s sworn officers. The only exceptions were headquarters brass, detectives and some special units over at Market House. Not far from the CPS entrance, a railroad siding ran parallel.

  A block and a half before I got there I spotted Connelly moving along with his loose-limbed stride. Billy’s short figure bobbled beside him.

  Billy had a black eye.

  I cut across traffic and pulled to the curb so abruptly that horns blared.

  “Billy! What on earth happened to you?” I asked jumping out.

  “Ah, it’s nothing,” he scowled as I took his arm and tried to get a better view. “Saw a couple of punks breaking into the back of a house. While Mick was scrappin’ with his, the one I grabbed got his arm free and clobbered me. Couldn’t get to my club without losing him, so I unsnapped my holster and gave the pipsqueak a tap with the butt of my gun.”

  “Pipsqueak was going on six feet,” Connelly said dryly. “Hasn’t been an hour since it happened, and Billy’s making a stink over me wanting to see that he gets to the trolley okay.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re not taking the trolley,” I said firmly. “You’re riding with me.”

  “I don’t need fussing over, or like it either!” Billy complained as I steered him.

  “Gee, you get plenty of practice handing it out when other people don’t want it.”

  Connelly quickened his pace for a few steps and opened the passenger door of the DeSoto for Billy.

  “You coming to Finn’s? I’ve learned something,” Connelly said in my ear as Billy got in, his litany of objections flowing without interruption.

  Twenty-two

  Connelly caught my faint shake of the head in response to his question. I needed to freshen up and get something to eat before I saw Chief Wurstner. Running Billy home was going to make my schedule tighter. I wanted to hear whatever Connelly had to tell me, though, and he picked up my cue when I offered to drop him somewhere after we’d delivered Billy. He climbed into the back.

  “Guess it turned out kind of handy having your gun in that holster,” he said solemnly to the white head seated in front of him.

  “One time. Never going to happen again,” Billy blustered.

  I caught Connelly’s eye in the rearview mirror and saw his mouth twitch.

  Like most of the older cops, Billy had grumbled when new department regulations called for service revolvers to be worn in a holster on a Sam Browne belt. The sidearms previously had been carried in a policeman’s jacket pocket. Loudly, freely and frequently Billy had shared his opinion that ‘flaunting’ a gun would only make people fear the police.

  We turned Billy over to Kate, who sighed like she’d dealt with Billy’s injuries and tantrums more than a few times.

  “You take care of that shiner, Billy,” I urged, giving him a soft little peck on the cheek as I said good-by. It always flustered him when I kissed him, but this was this first time I’d seen him injured. Minor as it was, it worried me some.

  “He get hurt anywhere else?” I asked Connelly as we went down Billy’s front walk to my car.

  “Just his pride. Did I guess right that you wanted to hear what I knew while we drove?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got an appointment with somebody who may have useful background for me, but I’ve got things that need doing first. I talked to the concertina player, by the way. She claims her fingers have gotten too old to keep up, but she talks like she’ll bring a student of hers who’s a whiz.”

  “Thanks.” Connelly shifted, resting his back on the door and facing me as he spoke. “In addition to a note, the cops found a nearly empty bottle of whiskey on Maguire’s kitchen table. He was on the floor next to the table. Looks like he passed out — from the booze or the gas — and fell out of his chair. It had scooted some.

  “There was a broken glass with whiskey residue not far from his head. Could have been knocked off when he fell, or dropped when he hit the linoleum.”

  “Tidy.”

  “It is that.”

  “Innocent?”

  “Homicide has concluded it is. They’re calling it suicide.”

  “Ten bucks says they’re wrong.”

  Connelly was silent.

  “Anything in what you’ve heard that would make you question the suicide verdict?” I asked.

  He rubbed his thumb across his chin and I could hear the rasp of stubble along his jaw. It made the confines of my car feel uncomfortably intimate.

  “Nasty bump on the side of his head,” Connelly ventured.

  “Enough to knock him out while somebody turned on the gas?”

  “Hard to say without seeing the scene. And he could equally have gotten it when he fell.”

  “Not much reason to question it when all the other trappings fit so nicely,” I said.

  “‘Tidy’ I believe is the word.”

  We were at Finn’s. I pulled to the curb and he got out.

  “If I pick up anything else I’ll let you know,” he said through the door. “What’s the concertina player’s name?”

  “Brennan.”

  “First name?”

  I thought for a minute.

  “Mrs.”

  ***

  I set out for Chief Wurstner’s h
ouse driving the same car I’d borrowed when I went to talk to Theda. The neighbors kept the car in a shed at the back and I went out the back door at Mrs. Z’s to collect it. This time around the precaution was more for the chief than it was for me. No sense letting anyone know he’d done a private snoop a favor.

  The house was handsome without being fussy. It was three stories tall, dressed in awnings, with a small balcony over the front door. A peppy middle-aged woman with spectacles on her nose answered the doorbell.

  “Miss Sullivan?”

  “Yes.”

  “How nice to meet you. I’ve read about you. My husband’s in his study. Let me show you the way.”

  A sense of unreality made me unaware of details for a moment. I was in the home of the chief of police. The trance ended as I stepped into his wood-paneled study. There was a large desk in one corner, but he rose from a wing-back chair in the opposite one, putting aside what looked like a thick report of some kind.

  “Miss Sullivan. Won’t you sit down?”

  “Thank you. And thank you for seeing me.”

  He had traded his uniform jacket for a cardigan over his white shirt and tie, the closest he got to informal, perhaps. I perched on the edge of a chair that faced his.

  “I generally have a whiskey this time of evening,” he said. “Will you join me?”

  I hesitated. This was chummier than I’d expected. I wondered if he had some unseen agenda; if he was assessing me in some way.

  “If you’ll put a good deal of water with it,” I said.

  A small chest against one wall held an ice bucket and the various accouterments one could take with whiskey. He didn’t speak again until he’d brought me mine.

  “I reconsidered your request,” he said, resuming the seat he’d occupied. He brought his glass of whiskey, which he drank neat, level with his eyes. He studied it without drinking. “I see no harm in speaking about things that happened in 1913. You appear to have ruffled feathers by your attempts to learn something about that time. I believe in your position I would be curious. I believe if someone appeared to be pulling strings to silence me, it would make me dig all the harder.”