Shamus in a Skirt

by M. Ruth Myers

  THIRTY-THREE

  It was on the early side for lunch, but I was hungry. When Jenkins got assigned to photograph some civic luncheon, as happened several times each week, he usually grabbed an early sandwich at the Arcade. I decided to go there in hopes I could kill two birds: appease my appetite and confer with my favorite nemesis.

  Halfway through a crusty bun overflowing with cold pork, I saw his halo of red-gold curls bob in from the entry directly across from the Daily News building. With efficiency born of experience, he wound smoothly through the assortment of carts and stalls that filled the street level of the glass-domed rotunda. Two stops and he set course for the Third Street exit. His direction changed as he saw me.

  “Hey, Mags.” He dropped down next to me on a backless bench. “Shouldn’t you be eating hummingbird under glass or something?” He popped a potato chip fresh from the fryer into his mouth. He transferred the paper cone holding them into his free hand, thereby gaining access to a frankfurter in the other.

  “I worried I’d start putting on airs if I spent too much time with the international set. Is that film ready yet?”

  “Jeez, Maggie. When did you start believing in miracles? It isn’t something I can develop. Ione took it down to Cincinnati yesterday. On the train so she could carry it both ways.”

  “On the train?”

  He nodded around a bite of frank. “Once she told me what was on it, I wasn’t going to risk shipping it. With luck she’ll be back today. I ought to bill you for what she’ll spend shopping while she’s there.”

  “She’s sure worth looking at in what she buys, though.”

  He got the dreamy look he sometimes wore when he thought of her.

  “Yeah. She is.”

  “Jenkins, is there any way to set up a camera so it would take a picture when somebody stepped in front of it?”

  “Sure. Hire a fairy to flit down and press the release. Or maybe train a canary to land on it.”

  “I was hoping for sense here. There’s no sort of gizmo you can attach?”

  “Short of a string tied to the release that someone might or might not step on, no. Even that would jar the camera so you’d get a blurred image.” He eyed me suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Someone’s been getting into my office. Pilfering my gin. I think it’s the night watchman. I don’t want to rearrange his ears until I have proof.”

  “Oh.” Disappointed, he leaned over his camera and wolfed a few more bites. “Got to run. I take it you want to see that film when I get it back?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I didn’t expect it to show anything. The business with the movie camera had been mostly to bribe Jenkins into staying away from the hotel, with a dollop of authenticity for my role as efficiency expert as a bonus. Still, there was always an off chance that something on the film would give me an idea.

  * * *

  After Jenkins left, I spent another forty minutes or so sitting in the Arcade sorting out what I’d learned about goings on at the hotel. It added up to a lot and yet not much.

  Who had dropped the bundle out of the hotel window last night?

  Who was the man who’d retrieved it?

  Why hadn’t Bartoz, vigilant sentinel of the alley, followed him instead of me?

  My failure to ask that particular question when I was sitting across from the man who could have answered it especially annoyed me. The accusation Bartoz had spit at me had rattled me more than I liked.

  If I was going to roll in remorse, I might as well do it in the privacy of my office. As I neared the building, I noticed a big black Buick parked in front.

  A man lounged lazily against the fender. He was thin and angular and even leaning against a car with his arms crossed, on a city street, he looked dangerous. Maybe more so on a city street.

  “You get lost, Pearlie?” I asked in greeting.

  “Rachel’s getting her hair done. Sent me to try and find you. She wondered if you had time for a chat.”

  The first time we’d met, the two of them hadn’t asked. They’d muscled me into a car with a gun in my ribs.

  I consulted the watch pinned to my lapel. There was plenty of time before my meeting at Rike’s, the status of which I still needed to check.

  “I’m meeting someone at three.” Better to have a half-hour cushion.

  “This shouldn’t take long. Rachel’s got some kind of meeting downtown herself. And before that, foremen on two of her projects are coming in. Think she’s going to read them the riot act.”

  His lips contracted in a grin reminiscent of a dog that flashed its teeth in warning. Pearlie took getting used to. He opened a door to the Buick and I slid into the back seat.

  We only drove a couple of blocks before he pulled to the curb in front of a fancy salon whose windows were hidden by Austrian shades. Rachel marched out. She had on a russet suit that was right for the weather and possibly silk.

  “Hair looks nice,” I said as she got in beside me.

  “The secret of my great strength. Like Samson.” Satisfaction began to dance on her face. “My brothers were dumbstruck, and I do believe somewhat peeved, that their shvester had learned of Count Szarenski’s arrival and they hadn’t. Molière could have written another play if he’d seen the three of them and my father calling this acquaintance and that as they tried to get details.”

  “Which are?”

  She smiled.

  “Not a great deal more than what you told me. The count thought he had a cousin here and wanted to settle near family. But it looks as though he got the city wrong – maybe somewhere else in Ohio, maybe another city that starts with D.”

  “Detroit?”

  She shrugged. “He’s been meeting with some sort of Polish group, most of them born here, some who have been here for years. Working men, small business owners. They have a social hall north of the river, a block or so away from some church on Valley Street.”

  St. Adalbert, I thought.

  Rachel lowered her window an inch. Her lighter snapped. We were heading east on Springfield. Houses mixed with factories, some still shuttered from when things went bust.

  “These men the count meets with are raising money. Financing for some partisan group back in Poland.” Her out blown smoke expressed her view of the scheme’s futility. “They got wind of the count – or maybe he got wind of them. Anyway, he’s become a big draw. He speaks at their gatherings. People cough up money.”

  It matched what Bartoz had told me last night.

  “The group’s beginning to put the word out to men who don’t ordinarily come to their meetings,” Rachel continued. “Ones with fatter checkbooks, like my brothers. Joel, the lawyer brother, who actually sits down and talks to me sometimes as if I might have a brain, telephoned one of his friends. He barely got Szarenski’s name out before the friend started telling how he was going to hear the count speak, and did Joel want to come.”

  “Are you going too?”

  She snorted. “You think women are welcome?”

  They had been at Irish meetings. Countess Markievicz, an Irishwoman married to a Pole, had plotted the 1916 Rising with Padraig Pearse and the others. When it failed, she’d berated the British for not having guts enough to execute her along with the rest of the leaders. Before and after her, hundreds of her countrywomen had asked questions and expressed opinions.

  We turned onto the rutted street that led to Rachel’s office. On my left was a coal yard. On the right was a fenced-in area where some sort of earth mover sat beside stacks of lumber and pipe. Pearlie stopped in front of the wooden building next door. A sign read MINSKY CONSTRUCTION.

  “You’ve changed the last word,” I observed.

  “It describes the size of our projects better.” Rachel slid through the door that Pearlie had jumped out to open. She leaned back in. “Joel’s going to the meeting. I’ll let you know if there’s anything interesting.”

  “Thanks, Rachel.”

  “Do you still want me to try my ques
tionable language skills with the count and his wife? To ask questions on your behalf?”

  “If you’re willing.”

  “No guarantees he’ll even see us.”

  “I know. Any chance you could make it tomorrow?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  Rachel closed the door briskly. With her decisive stride, she marched toward the building that was her office and her pride. Pearlie resumed his spot under the wheel.

  “Okay if I move up front?”

  “Makes me nervous.” He put the Dodge into gear and we pulled away. I gathered he was taking me back to my office.

  “Are you still taking piano lessons?” I asked.

  I caught the flash of his teeth in the rearview mirror. His nickname, I assumed, derived from their whiteness.

  “Just started working on a Jelly Roll Morton piece. Told my teacher I’d quit if she gave me any more minuets.”

  I was surprised his teacher knew any Jelly Roll Morton. I tried to picture him playing a minuet.

  The drive from Rachel’s office to downtown took less than ten minutes. I waited until we were almost there to raise a question that had been on my mind.

  “Pearlie, I hope it won’t damage your opinion of me if I tell you my work had caused me to be acquainted with some unsavory characters.”

  “Unsavory.” He rolled the word around on his tongue. Pearlie liked to enhance his vocabulary. “Rats, you mean?”

  “Small ones. The sort who tell me things for a price.”

  “Because they know you won’t squeal.”

  “Or because I know things about them that could make life unpleasant for them if they don’t. Now, though, I need information I don’t think any of them can provide. I’m hoping you might know someone who can.”

  “Maybe.” His eyes met mine in the mirror. He gave his canine smile. “I know one or two unsavory people, too. What sort of information?”

  I scooted forward and rested my chin on the back of the seat.

  “Who around here fences expensive jewelry? The sort the Kettering-Patterson crowd might wear?”

  He nodded serenely, maybe thinking about minuets.

  “My guess, nobody local could handle something like that,” he said finally. “You’re talking Cincinnati, Cleveland, maybe Detroit.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Melva Cummings was middle aged, nicely groomed, and looked as if she hadn’t slept well for several days.

  “I like the place I’m working now.” Her voice wobbled slightly. “I’ve been there twelve years. But Mr. Lagarde didn’t have any family. When things settle down, I expect the store will be closed.” She frowned. “Does that seem callous? Thinking ahead like that?”

  “Not a bit.”

  We sat on opposite sides of a desk in a tiny room adjoining Ab’s office. Ab used it for grilling shoplifting suspects and conferring with department managers on confidential matters. I’d already asked Melva all the things I covered on a background check, which I didn’t usually conduct in person. I was edging into questions for my own purposes.

  “I suppose I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit I’m nervous working there now as well,” she said. “I’m not a fraidy-cat, but every time the back door opens...”

  She looked down at her hands. They were clasped on top of the navy blue cotton gloves she’d removed when she sat.

  “It shakes you when something like that happens,” I reassured. “Especially if you’re the one who found him.”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t. Mercy! But I did... I did hear him arguing with a man Friday morning. From all their questions – the police – I’m sure they think it could have been the man who killed him.” She shivered involuntarily.

  My ears had grown as long as Peter Rabbit’s.

  “Goodness!” My brain scrambled after innocent-sounding questions that would wring out what she knew. “Was he someone who’d been in the store? A regular customer?”

  Her head shook once. “I’d never seen him before.”

  She seemed willing enough to talk. Glad to, perhaps, when she wasn’t sitting across from someone with the authority of a policeman. Maybe she didn't have a girlfriend or female relative to whom she could spill out worries. I put my fountain pen aside.

  “I’ve always wondered, do robbers and, well, killers, do they look like the faces on those Wanted posters down at the Post Office?” I hunched over my folded arms. “Mean, I mean. Did he?”

  We were talking woman-to-woman now. Melva warmed to it.

  “Oh, I just caught a glimpse, really. It was first thing. Mr. Lagarde must have just opened up. I came in the back way like we always do and was hanging my hat up when I heard someone shouting – angry. Well, I thought... I’m not sure what. That I should see if there was trouble, I guess.”

  Melva, as she’d claimed, was no fraidy-cat.

  “So I peeked through the door to the front of the store, and saw a man snatching up an envelope Mr. Lagarde had given him — Are you sure you want to hear all this?”

  I nodded. “I’m curious what he looked like, of course. You know, if he looked like the posters? But some of these details may interest Mr. Simms. There might be something he’d think it prudent to caution the clerks here to be alert for.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “You were saying something about an envelope?”

  “Oh. Yes. It was one of the thick manila ones like we put jewelry in when someone brings it for repair or appraisal. I didn’t catch what the man said, but Mr. Lagarde apologized, told him something was excellent quality. The man stormed out, and I heard the other clerk and our assistant coming in the back way, and that was that.”

  ”And what did he look like? In that little glimpse?”

  “Not hard like the faces on the posters. In fact, I remember thinking that if he hadn’t been so furious, he might have been quite good looking. Well, except for two moles right here, next to his eyebrow.”

  * * *

  In the interest of fairness, I tried on several explanations after I left Rike’s. Only one of them fit like a glove.

  An unknown customer had quarreled with Lagarde shortly before I saw Nick Perry return to the hotel in a fury. Perry had refused to answer his girlfriend’s question about where he’d been. He’d used a disguise he could put on in a minute or less in a public restroom, or even using the reflection from a shop window. One he could discard as easily.

  Perry was the man with the moles that drew attention away from all other details about him. The one who’d visited Skip hunting someone to make copies of jewelry. The one Melva had overheard arguing.

  And probably the one who’d killed Polly and Lagarde.

  Walking back to my office, I looked at other aspects of my theory. The man who’d quarreled with Lagarde had left jewelry. If the man was Perry, then the jewelry had come from The Canterbury’s safe. So that, too, made sense. But what had caused the quarrel?

  According to Melva, Lagarde had told his visitor something was excellent quality. His own workmanship? Maybe. He might have been apologizing because the work his visitor wanted would require too much time. Or suppose... suppose the jewelry he’d been asked to copy had, on closer inspection, turned out to be a high quality fake? Like the stone in Mrs. Szarenski’s necklace that Daniel Drew, the jeweler who’d evaluated every piece in the safe, wasn’t sure about.

  “Yes!” I said, jabbing the elevator button and practically dancing as the ancient cage shimmied and shuddered up to my floor. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  That scenario answered the question about why Perry hadn’t simply cleaned out the safe and run. Sneak something out. Get a copy made. Return the copy to the safe while you sell the real thing for tens of thousands of dollars, maybe more. If you had the nerve to pull it off, chances of having it noticed were almost nil. You faced none of the risk of an out-and-out burglary.

  If Perry had concocted a scheme that clever, risked getting into the safe, and then discovered what he’d stolen was only a fake, he’d be furio
us. Especially if he’d been noticed by an unfortunate cleaning girl whom he’d killed to silence.

  The elevator stopped. I waved at Maxine and her daughter-in-law through the glass front of Simpson’s Socks wholesaler as I passed. Maxine wasn’t in black today, and I didn’t see the sign she’d been carrying. By the time I opened the door to my office, however, my good mood was waning. As neatly as the various puzzle pieces fit when I’d worked them out downstairs, I still lacked proof.

  Okay, I’d dig in and get some. I could follow Nick Perry tomorrow and see where he went. Or I could sit and observe who called on Delbert Rose, who claimed his only business was sticking chunks of colored glass on cheap tin crowns and such. If I was on the right track, I’d bet the two crossed paths at some point.

  I wanted to find out more about Rose. Also, although I couldn’t see how it fitted with any of this, I wanted to find out more about the stiff in a flophouse Freeze had mentioned. As unlikely as that connection seemed, I couldn’t let go of the fact his body had turned up not long after an unknown man went missing from The Canterbury. The vanished guest had left something in the safe. Someone — I was going to say Nick Perry — was getting into the safe.

  A trip to Finn’s might help me see things more clearly.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Wee Willie had walked his mail route fighting a cold and reeking of camphor. He’d only ordered half a pint and was nearly through with it when I came in. He looked so miserable I didn’t have the heart to torment him.

  “It’s how the devil punishes us for kissing girls,” he said hoarsely.

  “Those little devils you call kids aren’t punishment enough for kissing your wife?”

  “Not me. Our oldest smooched some little girl on the playground last week. Next day she started sneezing. Then he did. Now me.”

  “That’s about how I remember you courting Maire. The smooching part anyhow.”

  Willie caught a sneeze in a well-used handkerchief and made an inelegant exit. I took my nearly full glass to a table. Time to think through my theory about Nick Perry again. The more I did, the more my mood deflated. With a little work and anything short of lousy luck I’d be able to link him to thefts from the hotel safe. What I couldn’t see was any way to prove he was Polly Bunten’s killer.