Nice Girl Does Noir -- Vol. 1 (Intro by William Kent Krueger)

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “But I’ve got a job. I’m making good money.”

  “Good money?” My father whipped back around. His face was purple. “That kind of money you don’t need. You want a job, you work in Kahn’s bakery. It was good enough for me—it’ll do for you.”

  I wanted to ask him why he figured Henry Solomon, one of our most respectable Hyde Park neighbors, was over in Lawndale, but somehow I didn’t think the time was right.

  ***

  If the boredom didn’t get me, the pretense did. Life in Hyde Park was intolerable. And hot. Not even a wisp of a breeze fluttered through the curtains of our wide-open windows. About a week later, it got so bad even my parents took off for the Michigan shore. I pled a toothache. As soon as they left, not without suspicious glances at the icepack clamped to my cheek, I hopped the street-car over to Lawndale. Mrs. Teitelman was washing the floor of the restaurant.

  “Where have you been, Jake? Barney’s at a concert in Douglas Park. You just missed him.”

  “I’ll wait.” I looked around. The place was empty. I snuck a glance at the door leading to the stairs.

  “How are things?”

  Mrs. Teitelman followed my gaze. She shrugged, a grim set to her mouth.

  “Did Skull come back?”

  Another shrug.

  I was just breaking out a bottle of seltzer when the door to the stairs opened, and a man crossed the restaurant. He had blond whiskers, a round red face, and an odd twitch in one eye. He didn’t look Jewish. He hurried across the room, staring straight ahead, as if he knew he didn’t belong and wanted to get out fast.

  A few minutes later, Miriam skipped down the steps, her smile as bright as a box of new Shabbos candles. I froze. Who was this impostor? Where was Skull? I felt betrayed. She waved at me before gliding out the door.

  Barney got back from the park around four.

  “What’s been going on around here?” I asked

  “I don’t know.” He hung his head as if he were responsible for the turn of events.

  “Didn’t they get back together?”

  “Nope. He hasn’t been here at all. In fact—”

  “What?” I was starting to feel panicky.

  “I dunno, Jake. Sometimes she doesn’t come home at night. And then one time, her eyes were all red rimmed like she’d been crying, and her dress was ripped. She didn’t even have her key. My father had to let her in.”

  “Jesus, Barney.”

  He nodded. “And when she’s here, she’s ‘entertaining’ in her room. But it isn’t Skull.”

  “The guy I saw earlier?”

  “Yeah. I think he’s goyim. Mother’s ready to kick her out.”

  I turned to Mrs. T in desperation. “You can’t do that. Where will she go?”

  Mrs. T just looked at me. “Jacob, there are some things you’re still too young to understand.”

  That afternoon we ran down to the pool hall and caught up with Skull at Miller’s. We were sweating like pigs, but he was cool and dapper.

  “Where ya bin, Snake?” He grinned.

  “I was grounded, Skull. My parents.” I rolled my eyes.

  He looked at me speculatively. “Your parents must be real Nervous Nellies.”

  “They’re German,” I admitted.

  “So are Miriam’s,” Skull said. “Crabbers. Stiff as sandpaper.”

  I took that as an opening and screwed up my courage. “How is Miriam these days?”

  He ignored my question. “You know, it’s a damn shame about you Yeccas.” That was slang for German Jews. “One of the best guys I ever heard of was Arnold Rothstein. Practically started the Mafia. His family was German, but he was tops. You know what he did?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hustled the most famous pool shark in the country. Beat his tuckus off. And he hardly even played pool.”

  “How’d he do that?”

  “Kept the guy up until he won. Forty hours with no sleep.” Skull winked at me. “Rothstein had style too. He ran a casino, moved a lot of booze, financed all sorts of capers. But he always wore a tux and he danced with the ladies every night.” Skull’s chin dipped. “He was—whadda’ya call it—a smooth operator.”

  I wanted to ask him more about Miriam, but I didn’t have the guts.

  ***

  Mrs. T never had the chance to evict Miriam. She never came back. Three days later they found her body in an alley off Lincoln Avenue. The German part of town. She’d been raped, beaten, strangled. The cops identified her by her purse.

  A tough-looking Irish detective, Patrick O’Meara, came around to question us. Mrs. T told him everything she knew. About the theater. Skull. The man with the blond whiskers.

  O’Meara hustled over to Davy Miller’s to question Skull. We trailed behind. It was the first time we’d seen him ourselves in a couple of days. He looked bad. His shirt was wrinkled, he hadn’t shaved, and his bloodshot eyes kept darting around the room. His mood seemed to shift from arrogance to desolation, and his answers were clipped and curt.

  I began to think the worst. Miriam and Skull broke up. Miriam started up with other men. Skull must have been crazy with jealousy and he snapped. It looked that way to me. And to O’Meara. He wasn’t nice to Skull. Told him not to go anywhere for a while.

  Of course, the next morning Skull was gone, and no one knew where. Or they weren’t telling. That was the only proof I needed. He killed Miriam. Maybe my parents were right after all. Lawndale people were different.

  Barney and I were puzzling it over at the restaurant when O’Meara showed up. Mrs. T was upstairs getting dressed, so he nabbed Joey, the head waiter.

  “Ever seen this guy?” He showed him a picture.

  Joey shook his head.

  “You sure?” You could tell O’Meara didn’t believe him. “Seen Skulnick recently?”

  Joey kept wiping glasses with his towel. “Nope.”

  O’Meara turned around, saw us sitting at a table. We froze. His eyes narrowed, then he came over. I tried to look nonchalant.

  “Your turn, boys. You ever seen this guy?”

  He threw the picture down on our table.

  I could hear Barney’s sharp intake of breath. It was the man with the blond whiskers. I tried to be blasé.

  But O’Meara was patient. Eventually, my eyes drifted back to the picture. O’Meara was waiting.

  “So what’s it gonna be, boys?”

  “Who is he?” I croaked.

  “You seen him?”

  I met O’Meara’s eyes and nodded.

  “Name’s Peter Schultz. They call him Twitch. Some kind of problem around his eye.” O’Meara stared at me. I looked at the floor. I knew the name. Peter Schultz was the head of the German-American Bund in Chicago. They were Nazis.

  “He was murdered last night,” O’Meara said. “We found him in the same alley they found the girl.”

  Barney made a mewling sound in his throat. I felt old.

  “He was stabbed about fifteen times, then strangled. They got him pretty good.”

  I didn’t move.

  O’Meara kept the pressure on. “You know, it’s interesting. With him gone, their whole organization is up for grabs, you know?”

  I didn’t say anything, but the pieces were finally coming together. I knew who killed Miriam, and I knew who killed Schultz. I wondered if O’Meara knew too.

  O’Meara went on. “Someone—someone close to him—knew the Kraut’s habits so well they even knew what time he took a dump. They got him on his way to a Bund meeting. You have any idea who that might be?”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  He shook his head. “Well, whoever it was, now there’s one less Nazi in the world.” O’Meara stood up, put his hat on, threw us a world-weary glance. “They say all’s fair in love and war. What do you think?”

  What I thought was that I may have been wrong about Skull all along; that this was more about war than love. There may have been a reason why Miriam was dating Schultz; why Skull was pressuring M
iriam to get information she didn’t want to do. While Skull used Miriam, he was also her avenger.

  “I’ll be seeing you boys around,” O’Meara said, then stepped through the door and left.

  ***

  Skull never came back to Lawndale. At least we never heard from him again. I didn’t hang around much either. School started, and I got busy with homework and sports. I met a girl at Hyde Park High, Barbara Steinberg. She was pretty nice. Barney called a couple of times, but neither of us pushed it. Other things were fast taking precedence. Hitler annexed Austria, and the news coming out of Europe was grim. No one seemed to remember the day Miriam Hirsch disappeared.

  THE END

  Georgia Davis made her first major appearance in my third novel, AN IMAGE OF DEATH which was published in 2004. However, she was also the protagonist in this story, which was written and published about the same time. In this story, Georgia, who is still an officer on the Village police force, is anxious to move up to detective.

  COMMON SCENTS

  Officer Georgia Davis twisted her head toward her lapel mike. “Got it.” She turned back to her partner. “Another Geezer call.”

  Robby Parker tossed his pop can in the trash. “Someone’s fixin’to die?”

  “No. Possible abuse. At Palatine Nursing Home.” She balled up the wrapper her burger came in. “Just me, though. You’re supposed to head back in.”

  Parker threw her a knowing look. “Sorry.”

  She shrugged as she zipped up her jacket. Juvies, Seniors, once in a while, a double D—the perks of the female cop in the suburbs. But it would end one day. She’d make detective. She had to.

  Exiting the food court, they walked past the newest store in the mall, “Scensations”, a luxury perfume shop where people designed their own fragrances. After customers chose a blend from over fifty oils and scents, the store poured it into a bottle, slapped on a label, and charged a hefty price for the privilege. The founder had to be a baby-boomer, Georgia thought, as she skirted the door. Who else would push the envelope of narcissism that far?

  “Six months.” Parker yanked his thumb at the window.

  She shook her head. “It’s a fresh gimmick. I give it a year.”

  After dropping Parker at the station, she headed to Palatine Nursing Home. A small, red-bricked building unrelieved by trim or shutters, it crouched behind a large tree whose branches were coated with glassy ice. Patches of dirty snow hugged the ground around it. Driving into a side lot, she parked next to an old Mercedes. The unremitting landscape, in desolate shades of gray, seemed to presage an endless year of Februarys. She pulled her collar up against the cold.

  A cardboard sign on an empty desk inside directed visitors to the second floor. There hadn’t been a receptionist in a while, Georgia recalled, as she mounted the steps. She braced herself at the landing, but the smell, a combination of urine and old people, covered by antiseptic, thickened her throat. She peered down a hall with green-painted walls and a scuffed linoleum floor. A staffing station occupied the other end, and a head of brown hair occasionally bobbed up and down behind it.

  Half way down the hall, a nurse emerged from a small storeroom, wheeling a cart with a water pitcher, tongue depressors, a jar of applesauce, and tiny cups filled with pills. Locking the door, she slipped a ring of keys into her pocket. Georgia approached her, the chatter from her radio muffling her footsteps. The nurse looked up with a harried expression, as if she were struggling to keep chaos at bay.

  Georgia couldn’t tell if her pale eyes, yellow hair, and washed out skin were the result of fluorescent lighting or her natural color. She checked her nameplate. Vivian Muldoon: Manager/Head Nurse.

  “Officer.” Muldoon stood straight and quiet, as if she was used to hearing bad news. “Is there a problem?”

  Georgia cleared her throat. “I’m following up on an allegation of abuse.”

  The nurse stiffened. With her peripheral vision, Georgia saw the woman behind the counter look up, too.

  “There must be some mistake.”

  Georgia pulled out her notebook. “Do you have a patient named Patricia Hanson?”

  She dipped her head and led Georgia to a room at the end of the hall. The shades were drawn, and weak light spilled from a bedside lamp. Lying motionless on her side was a figure under a blanket. “Patricia, wake up, dear. You have a visitor.”

  Georgia recognized the cheery hospital voice most nurses used, somewhere between patronizing and irritating. Muldoon repeated herself. The figure stirred.

  “Good girl, Patricia,” the nurse said. “Can you roll over?”

  Like an obedient dog, the woman began to push herself up, but when she saw the two women, her blank expression turned to horror, and she threw the bed-sheet over her head. “Don’t hurt me.” She shrieked.

  Georgia and Muldoon exchanged glances.

  “No one’s going to hurt you,” the nurse said soothingly.

  “Where’s Brandy? I need Brandy.” The woman’s voice spiked.

  “Brandy’s her daughter,” Muldoon explained.

  Georgia stepped forward. “Mrs. Hanson, I’m Officer Georgia Davis.” She made her voice low and calm. “Brandy thinks you’ve been hurt. I’m here to investigate. But I promise not to touch you. I’ll just look. Would that be okay?”

  The woman didn’t move, but Georgia could see her body relax. “Can you show me your face, Mrs. Hanson?”

  The woman eased the sheet off her head, revealing sunken eyes, chapped lips, and a web of wrinkles on crepy skin. The woman lips began moving, but no sound came out.

  Georgia leaned forward. “What’s that?” Hanson’s lips kept moving. “What’s she trying to say?”

  Muldoon shrugged. “I don’t know. She has these—these moments.”

  Georgia nodded. “Mrs. Hanson, I’m going to come closer now.”

  The woman didn’t reply, but her lips stopped moving. Georgia took a step forward. “Can you sit up for me?”

  She pursed her lips as if considering the request, then drew back the covers and sat up. Georgia caught a glimpse of thin wasted legs freckled with brown age spots. But no bruising.

  She nodded. “Good. Now can you lift your gown so we can check your stomach?”

  She did. Georgia gasped. Several purple bruises were visible on her abdomen. The area around them was swollen and yellow.

  “Let’s see your back,” she said quietly. Hanson swung her legs over the bed, and taking Georgia’s hand, stood and turned around. There were more bruises on her buttocks. Georgia affected a calm she didn’t feel. “You can get back to bed, Mrs. Hanson. Nurse Muldoon, let’s talk outside.”

  In the hall her voice was sharp. “What the hell is going on?”

  Muldoon spread her hands. “I don’t know.”

  “Could some medical condition have caused these?”

  “No. She’s actually in pretty good shape for ninety-two.”

  “I’m taking her to the ER.”

  The nurse nodded her agreement. “Better to be safe. But bear in mind that bruising is common in older people. They’re unsteady, and their skin is so thin. They bump into things, fall out of bed.” She fixed her eyes on Georgia. “I’m sure there’s an explanation. I’ve been head nurse and manager for sixteen years. We run a clean place.”

  “Where’s her daughter? Didn’t she call it in?”

  Muldoon’s eyes narrowed. “She was here this morning. But she left.”

  Georgia used the phone at the nurse’s station. According to her nameplate, the young woman absorbed in paperwork was Louise Rooney, Nurse Administrator. Next to her near a stack of forms was a bottle of perfume, its amber liquid sparkling even in the flat overhead light. Georgia made out the word “Scensations” scrawled in loopy letters on the bottle.

  “That yours?” She cradled the phone between her head and shoulder.

  Rooney looked up. Georgia pointed to the perfume. The nurse nodded.

  “The place sure hit the ground running.” Georgia smiled.
“What’s yours called?”

  “Tiger’s Breath.” Rooney reached for the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and waved it under Georgia’s nose.

  She breathed in a sweet, fruity fragrance with a slightly metallic overlay. “Not bad. Did you make it yourself?”

  The nurse smiled coyly. “No. It was a thank-you gift.”

  “How’s it smell when it’s on?” Sometimes there was a difference.

  “I haven’t tried it.” She looked longingly at the bottle. “I’m saving it for a special occasion.”

  With short brown hair, rimless glasses, and wide-spaced eyes that hardly blinked, Louise Rooney looked more like a field mouse than a tiger. But everyone deserved a special occasion. Even a field mouse.

  ***

  A young doctor who reminded Georgia of the cocky resident on “ER” agreed the bruises were inconclusive. “Easy bruising, they call it. Very common. Happens from too much Heparin or Warfarin. Blood thinners.” At Georgia’s frown, he added, “The good news is that nothing’s broken.”

  “But what if they were inflicted by someone? What might cause them? Or who?”

  His faced emptied. “No way. I’m not going there.”

  She had the feeling that if she were a male cop, he’d be more forthcoming. “Come on, doc, help me out.”

  He looked at her, as if reading her mind. “Okay,” he relented. “You’ve heard of cases where some overworked, underpaid aide snaps and goes nuts on a patient, right?”

  Georgia nodded.

  “Well, if you wiped asses all day, listened to non-stop complaints, and never heard a thank you…” He shrugged. “Working the wrinkle ranch can get to you.”

  “Have there been problems at Palatine?”

  He hesitated. “Not that kind.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He lowered his voice. “From what I hear, they’re in a bad way. The owner can’t sell the place—it’s too small. Meanwhile, Medicare’s down, there aren’t enough nurses to go around, and he can’t raise prices. It ain’t the Taj Mahal.” He glanced impatiently at his watch. “Look. Just count your blessings she’s not seriously injured.”

  After she brought Mrs. Hanson back, Georgia called her watch commander.