Don't Dare a Dame

by M. Ruth Myers

  “You want dirt on Cy Warren?” I said to whoever answered. “Get to his house — fast!”

  With my left hand I banged down the phone. With my right, I scribbled Warren’s name and another number in big letters. I grabbed my .38 from the pocket under my chair, giving orders to Heebs as I made for the door.

  “There’s the number for Market House. Tell them you’re calling from my office. Tell them to get to former councilman Cy Warren’s house. His wife is about to kill him.”

  ***

  When I got back from Jane’s, I’d parked a few doors down from my building. I took off at record speed, hoping someone among us got there in time. Telling the cops the truth, that Tessa was the one at risk, might have caused them to waste time walking on egg shells because of Cy’s status. The albino or whoever he sent — if he acted at all — might be useless once he got there.

  Second thoughts over my own audacity gnawed at me as I raced north over the river. If I was wrong about Tessa being in danger — if she’d been turning a molehill into a mountain in one of her little fantasies when she called — the police would put a black mark by my name that didn’t erase.

  My pulse was pounding by the time I turned onto the curving boulevard where Cy lived. Men had started to come home from work. There were cars in driveways. Would Cy be crazy enough to risk murder at this time of day, with neighbors around?

  Why not? He’d committed one in the midst of a flood.

  Whooping and laughing as if they were having the time of their lives....

  I tried to shake off the image from Jane’s account as I pulled up in front of Cy’s house and took a couple of breaths before going in. Several cars were parked on the street. Maybe one belonged to the albino. Maybe not. There weren’t any squad cars, and my straining ears detected no hint of a siren. I couldn’t delay.

  At the front door I slid the .38 out of its holster and rang the bell. I stepped to the side where I’d be out of view when it opened. If the maid came to answer, I’d feel foolish. There were worse things.

  No one answered. I tried the door. It was locked. Keeping down, out of sight of the windows, I ran to the back.

  The kitchen door had four concrete steps leading up to it, and a pane of glass maybe a foot square. Ducking down again, I approached it and peeked inside.

  Due to the miserly size of the glass, I couldn’t see much. To my right, toward the center, I could see one end of a plain looking kitchen table. Almost directly in front of me, a door to what looked like it might be a pantry stood ajar. My eyes came to rest on it and my breath caught. Just outside it lay a high-heeled shoe that assuredly hadn’t been worn by the maid with bad knees. Beyond that a silver teapot lay on its side. Peeping out of the pantry door, on the floor, was a slender leg in a dove gray stocking.

  If the maid was anywhere in the house, she’d be beyond helping anybody. I listened and heard only silence and knew it could be the sound of someone waiting for me. Maybe Tessa was still alive. Maybe Cy was still there and I could hold him at bay until someone else arrived to witness him red handed. Balancing my Smith & Wesson, I eased the door open and stepped in.

  My eyes swept right and I stopped in confusion. It was the same instant the barrel of a gun pressed the back of my head.

  Forty-six

  “I don’t like you,” said Tessa’s voice. Its cloud of gauziness had fallen away. It was the voice of a vexed child.

  “Put your gun on the table right now or I’ll shoot you,” she said. “I will. I know how. One of my sister Jane’s beaus taught me. I stole him from Jane.” She giggled.

  “Okay. Sure,” I agreed. “I’m too far away, though.”

  I was staring at the opposite end of the table, the one I hadn’t been able to see through the small window. Cy sat slumped in a chair, his head on the table, his eyes unfocused. I could feel Tessa nudging me forward. I put my gun down.

  “Did you shoot him?” I asked nodding at Cy. I knew he wasn’t dead. I could see him breathing.

  “Oh, no,” she said serenely. “I just gave him some of my pills. The ones he’s always pushing at me. I don’t take them often. Just when I’ll have to sit through one of those dreadfully dull affairs where everybody makes speeches. I had to keep him until you got here so I could shoot you both.”

  She’d stepped around me now. We could see each other. I wouldn’t bet on her aim, but her hand was remarkably steady as it held a small revolver.

  “Everyone’s going to feel so sorry for me,” she said with a delighted sigh. “You pushed your way into our home and shot him — right in front of me. You’d have shot me, too, so I had to kill you.” She smiled dreamily. “I’ll make such a pretty widow. Good political wives are hard to find, ones who sit through speeches and smile and remember names. I’ll be snapped up.”

  I’d faced stone-cold killers who hadn’t unsettled me half as much as this woman standing dreamy eyed with a gun in her hand.

  “You ... bitch,” mumbled a thick voice.

  Cy was coming around. I wasn’t sure which one of us he meant. I still didn’t hear the sound of a siren, or even a car rushing up.

  “Tessa, listen,” I said. “If you tell that you saw Cy dragging that body out when you were a kid, he’ll go to prison. I know who the dead man was. Once you tell the police, and say Cy discovered you’d seen him, you’ll be safe.”

  “Are you stupid?” She actually stamped her foot. “If he’s not important, I’m not important! I’d be disgraced. With him dead, I’ll do just fine.”

  “Sweetheart ... we can work this out....”

  Cy had managed to push up on his arms enough to raise his head. Funny how the prospect of immediate death can clear your mind.

  “I don’t trust you, Cy.” Tessa’s gun, which had been favoring me, shifted toward her husband. “She spoiled it. She spoiled everything. Before that, you wouldn’t have hurt me. You thought I believed that nonsense you fed me about what I saw all being a dream.”

  Cy’s breathing was odd, deep and labored. His muscles tensed and slackened, tensed and slackened. I darted a glance at the gun I’d put on the table, but he’d be a fool to try for it. So would I. Was he heading into some kind of seizure?

  “Sweetheart....” he said hoarsely.

  “But then she found out,” Tessa went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “She found out about me and came to the house and - and after that, I knew I couldn’t trust you. You’d kill me so she didn’t have proof.”

  “Tessa! Think. Kill her ... ’s no danger to ... either of us. Two dead ... make them suspicious.”

  A flicker in her eyes told me she was considering it. I thought I heard something outside.

  “No,” she decided, her tone becoming that of a peevish child. “I like my plan.”

  “Fine. ’Long as she gets what’s coming to her,” he said harshly.

  “Like Alf got his when you killed him?” If I could keep the two of them arguing someone might get here.

  “Sure I got rid of Alf. Just like I did that poor sap who walked in on us as we were pushing the shelves down on old man Dillon. Alf had ideas — he’s the one who when word came of fires downtown ran over and said he knew how to get what we wanted — how to be more than clerks all our lives.”

  He gave an ugly laugh. Anger was making him lucid. “What he didn’t have was guts. He panicked when he heard those biddies tell you what they’d heard when they were kids. Called me and said we had to do something. So I did.”

  His eyes glittered hatred at me. He tried a new approach with his wife.

  “I’d have gotten rid of this meddler too, not you, you little fool. But go ahead — try to explain two bodies. You’ll rot in jail.”

  Tessa looked uncertain, wary of his sudden smugness. I played into it.

  “Shooting him would be self defense, Tessa. I’d swear that’s what it was. You’d be safe then.”

  “No. You - you’d tell lies about me.”

  “Suppose I did?” I said. “It’s you they’d b
elieve. You’re the pretty one.”

  Her attention wavered between Cy and me. She was losing confidence.

  “Tessa....” Cy broke off, giving a gasp and clutching his chest. “What was in — what did you give me?” He staggered to his feet, leaning heavily on the table and gripping its edge. “Poison — I’m having ... a heart attack.”

  Tessa wore a puzzled look. I saw his fingers shift. I realized what he intended, but before I could decide whose side to be on, he shoved the table.

  It slammed into Tessa with brutal force, knocking her backward. Desperation gave him strength. As he released the table he heaved upward, sending it over on top of her as she fell.

  By design or accident, the edge of the table caught my shoulder as I tried to dodge. I stumbled, going down on one knee. As I tried to recover my footing and spot my gun that had slid from the table, Cy went past, shoving me flat. Tessa had already wiggled and kicked herself free of the weight on top of her. She fired wildly. I grabbed for her skirt and yanked her toward me, trying to catch her arm to get her gun. My fingers closed on her sleeve. Tessa swung at me with her free hand, bucking and twisting like a rabid cat.

  Behind me metal screeched and groaned. I heard a faint hissing. My nostrils caught an odor. Gas. Jesus.

  “’Limpie?” called a frightened little voice from the depths of the house. “’Limpie? Where are you?”

  I froze. Their kid.

  Tessa used my lapse of attention to pull free. She brought the gun up, aimed at something beyond me.

  “Tessa, no! Gas!”

  I slugged her as hard as I could and dazed her enough that she dropped the gun. A door slammed behind us. Acutely aware how this struggle was using up what little strength I’d regained in the past week, I slugged her again. This time I knocked her out cold.

  A key rattled in a lock. My blood ran cold at the sound.

  “’Limpie!” the child called again.

  Stumbling to my feet, I ran to the kitchen door in time to see Cy disappearing. He’d locked the door from the outside. I pounded it with my palms.

  “Damn you, Cy, your kid’s in here!”

  Frantically my eyes swept the doorframe, the nearby wall. There was an empty peg for a key. The gas line hung drunkenly where Cy had yanked it loose at the stove. I paused just long enough to kick the revolver Tessa had dropped away from her reach. Then I ran for the stairs.

  The little girl huddled fearfully at the top.

  A pretty mite of about three, she had her mother’s hair, but the terror in her eyes told me the child lived firmly in reality. At sight of me, she bolted and ran.

  “Wait!”

  Halfway up the stairs, I began to feel lightheaded. This time I knew it wasn’t because my ribs were taped — and that I didn’t have much time. Breathing as little as possible, I climbed on. What was the kid’s name? Her aunt had told me just hours ago. Annna? Hannah.

  “Hannah?” I called as I neared the top. “Hannah? I’m your Aunt Jane’s friend. She wants me to bring you to her. Where are you?”

  There was no answer. Then a small voice said, “Aunt Jane?”

  I spotted her peeking uncertainly from the last door on the left end of the hall.

  “That’s right. Aunt Jane has lemonade. I’ll bet she’d read you a story, too.”

  Everything was fine now. Everything was lovely.

  No! I was succumbing to the gas. It seemed worse on the stairs. Worse up here. I moved toward Hannah as briskly as I was able.

  “Try not to breathe the stinky air, okay? It’ll make you sick.”

  Her eyes were already drooping as I eased her fingers away from the doorjamb and lifted her. She was tiny, so the gas was affecting her more.

  “Hold tight to my neck,” I said. My legs weren’t feeling too steady.

  “No! Stringy! Don’t leave Stringy!” She began to scream, arching and thrashing so she almost toppled me. Her hand reached frantically back.

  I retraced a few precious steps and looked into the room.

  “Your rag doll?” It sat on a shelf.

  She nodded.

  Still more squandered steps and she had it. Fighting an urge to close my eyes, I carried the child and the doll she clutched down the stairs. At the bottom I had to stop and rest against the newel post a minute. My legs felt wobbly ... not connected to me....

  My eyes snapped open. The door. I had to reach the front door. I started forward again and staggered.

  Sweet Mary, I don’t deserve any favors, but let this innocent little girl get out.

  The pale blue carpet I’d thought so pretty the first time I saw it dragged at me like quicksand. I nearly fell as we reached the door. Hannah’s head rested against my chest. Her eyes were closed. But she was breathing.

  Breathing poison.

  I shook her, rousing her a little.

  “Hannah,” I said thickly. “I have to put you down for a minute.”

  I propped her against the wall as if she were a doll herself. My fingers fumbled, turned the doorknob hard, then shook it in frustration. Locked. Thoughts floating now, I looked vaguely about. On the other side of the door from where I’d put Hannah, there was a pretty little table with a footed silver bowl. I veered over and peered in the bowl. Inside were a pair of gloves.

  And a key.

  It took three tries to fit it in the lock. It turned. Opening the door half a dozen inches brought me to my knees. I reached and pulled it wide in time to see a cop’s puttees. They ran past my head and I felt hands preparing to lift me.

  “No. Get the kid out.” I pointed. “I’ll be along. I just need a minute.”

  Forty-seven

  I crawled outside and sat gulping air and saying some thank-yous. As soon as my legs would let me, I stood and rested my back on the doorframe. More breathing cleared my head enough for me to see there was only a single patrol car parked at the curb. No sign of Cy Warren being arrested. His car was gone. He could be halfway to his political hangout by now, soon to have an excuse with his lackeys all swearing he’d been back for an hour. If I told how he’d tried to kill me and his wife and his daughter, he’d deny it all.

  But Tessa might be mad enough that she’d tell on him now. About John Vanhorn, and about today. She was vain and childish and she’d tried to kill me, but Cy Warren didn’t deserve to get away with yet another murder. If I was alive, chances were she was too.

  I saw more cruisers arriving, one already pulling up with others behind it. There’d be help soon. Drawing a final breath of sweet, clean air, I went back inside.

  Before I’d gone three steps, I knew I’d made a bad decision. The air was so thick I choked. A hundred miles away, at the kitchen door, I saw movement. An arm came up, and my blurring vision made out a gun.

  “Tessa, no!” I croaked. “The spark—”

  I turned and tried to run. Instead, I felt myself falling.

  The fall accelerated. Everything around me spun upside down. Long seconds swirled past before my sputtering consciousness registered that strong arms had scooped me up.

  Connelly. My body sensed it. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe the gas had already gotten to me. But I heard a fiercely pounding heart where my head pressed his chest.

  I saw light. The dwindling of a fall day. Outside. We cleared the front steps and Connelly broke into a run. The patrol cars had gone, parked up the street in front of a different house.

  Behind us something went whump. Connelly pulled me parallel to him and fell on top of me, covering my body with his and tucking the top of my head down under his chin.

  “Don’t breathe!” he shouted.

  Searing heat blistered over us, wave after wave. After an eternity I felt Connelly’s form lift a fraction. He turned his head to the side and coughed.

  “You okay?” he asked hoarsely.

  I nodded and coughed and gasped some air and coughed again.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Once before he’d tried to save me. This time he had.

  “What kind of fool woman r
uns back into a house filled with gas?”

  “What kind of fool man runs in after her?”

  His whole face hardened. Then he smiled.

  “Sure you’re okay, then?” He pushed up on his forearms, his eyes taking inventory.

  “When my head clears, I will be. I was never as glad to see anyone in my life as I was you, Connelly.” He flinched as I have him an awkward pat. “Shite, Mick! The back of your neck’s burned.”

  “Worth it,” he said with a wink.

  A pair of cops thundered up. One knelt.

  “Shall we make a stretcher for her? Sally’s on the way.”

  “I’m okay,” I rasped. Over Connelly’s shoulder I could see flames shooting skyward. Sally, the City’s only ambulance, operated by the police, couldn’t help anyone now.

  “The little girl. She’s crying for her aunt. Do you know who that is?”

  I told him. He and his partner trotted off shouting.

  Connelly looked down at me

  “I’ve dreamed of being with you like this more than a few times. Can’t say it ever included a crowd.”

  Becoming aware of other voices, activity all around us, and sirens coming, I started to laugh. Connelly’s rich, full chuckle resonated in my bones as well as my ears. His hand moved into my hair. Then, as he was maybe fixing to kiss me, Boike ran up.

  “You two okay?”

  I felt a faint disappointment. Connelly cleared his throat.

  “Just need to catch our breath for a minute. That gas we breathed made us both pretty wobbly.”

  “Don’t take too long, or you’re gonna get trampled. Fire trucks are just turning into the street.” He leaned around Connelly, speaking to me. “Freeze wants to see you, soon as you’re able. Some muckety-muck claims he happened by to talk to Warren about a political matter and overheard him confess to two murders.”

  So I had heard someone outside.

  “Make it three,” I said. “Warren’s wife was in there.”

  Boike went quiet. After a moment he rallied, pointing a finger at Connelly.

  “And you — you’re in Dutch, telling him you’d swipe a car if he didn’t bring you too.”