by Norma Huss
Lacy saw me first. “Look at Fancy-Dan Jo. Hoity-toity, snooty boots.” Then she screamed, “Get out of here. You can’t have my bin. It’s mine.”
“Mine,” Ears yelled.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
When Lacy wanted something, Ears wouldn’t leave her alone like everybody else did. No, he had to argue.
“Why don’t you both sleep in the darn thing?” I asked.
Ears wrinkled his face. “She smells bad. She eats garlic and beans. She smells bad from both ends.”
Lacy opened her mouth, roared like a tiger, and breathed all over Ears. “I’d eat worse if it keeps you away.”
Ears turned his back on her, conceding the battle. “You finish reading that paper?”
“I guess.” Then, nonchalantly tipping the paper, not to seem like I was too interested, I asked, “Ever see this woman? She was killed Monday.”
Lacy pulled at the paper and Ears pulled back, but not before Lacy got a glimpse. “I seen her. There was a fat man following her. Right down that street,” she said, pointing. “He did it. A fat man with yellow pants. And a black hat. Fat, he was.”
“Sort of brownish hair?” Ears asked.
“Chestnut. Long and curly.”
“You hear me? I seen her,” Lacy continued. “With two men and a dog, she was. Her crazy dog was barking and snarling at those men, so they slit his throat. Butchered him right here and we had dog for dinner. And that lady, she was that upset. Screaming and hollering. That’s when they killed her.”
“Ears scowled, ignoring Lacy completely. “Yeah, there was this dame. You bet.” He glanced around quickly. “It could ‘a been her. Who wants to know?”
“I’m just curious, that’s all.”
“How curious?”
“Not that curious.”
He gave up on any chance to con me. “Well, it was a couple days ago,” he said. “Not here, you know. Down by Ego Alley, like they’re watching boats. Her and some geezer. Goin’ at it like somethin’ else.”
“Something else?”
“Yeah. Mad like, you know?”
“You hear them?”
He eyed me, hoping more information would pry me loose from a dollar or two. I shrugged. “Nah. Could just tell with all that waving arms and stuff.”
Lacy bitched. “Why’d you ask me if you ain’t gonna pay me no mind?”
I turned to her. She could get violent. “When did you see that woman?”
“Last week. Last week Sunday. I chased her away from my dumpster. She got a package out of my dumpster.”
“How big a package?”
“Weren’t big at all. Like a loaf of bread.”
Ears rolled his eyes. Maybe Lacy really saw something, but you’d never know what. She couldn’t tell a straight story to save her life. Ears was different. He knew everything, which was why I had the newspaper with me. Ears probably heard Mrs. Hemingway and the man, if it were really her. He’d tell me too, if I paid the price. Too bad I had my bag lady reputation to uphold. I’d track down those rumors, get on the computer. Used to be an electric typewriter back in the day. With the editor saving space for the headlined story and the presses clacking to get it out before the local TV news went on at six. But I’m not on that story.
More of the guys came cruising by. Robin Hood, Chick, Orin, and some Rastafarian type I didn’t know. Orin had his word for the day. “Per-pen-dic-u-lar,” he said, leading the rest of them in a Charlie Chaplin strut, elbows tucked in. “I’m perpendicular.” The guys were having a ball, laughing like hyenas. But Orin lost his audience when they latched onto my newspaper.
“This here is the dead babe,” Ears told them. “I saw her, you know.”
Nobody else chimed in with similar sightings, but they all had to see the picture. They were more interested in Francine’s boobs than her face. Worth a try, but I hadn’t really expected the crew to know about the Hemingway murder.
I left. I had another key I wanted to use. I walked toward Queen’s Circle, glancing back a couple of times. Chick and the new one followed me. I speeded up, I slowed down, didn’t matter. They followed me. And, if I used the key, they’d want it. I’d be watching my back for days. I veered off.
The night wasn’t that bad. Unseasonably warm. Not that I’d slept out more than a couple of times. What street person wouldn’t prefer indoor accommodations? I could always add to my, “Under The Moon,” chapter. I did like fresh air. I found a spot in the park away from the sprinklers, behind some shrubs, overlooking a flower bed. Tulips, in clumps of red and yellow, that had no more smell than daffodils. I laid my space blanket down for a ground cover, then wrapped myself in my coat and a sweater from my tote bag.
I couldn’t see the others, but they were there. “Clyde,” I whispered. “Don’t go near those guys. They kill cats.” Clyde curled up on my feet. For an imaginary cat, he was toasty warm.
“Toasty warm.” Could that be a chapter title? No, didn’t make sense. Neither did my nightmares filled with yellow kilts, yellow tulips, a Rastafarian in yellow pants, and Francine Hemingway, trapped in a dumpster without her shoes.
Chapter 8
Either it was a gray morning, or it was awfully early when I heard the wake-up call.
“Okay, everybody out. This is no dormitory. Move your bones.” It was Officer Rivlin having his fun.
“You could have waited another hour,” I mumbled.
“Hey, Jo,” he said, but he didn’t get on my case. He passed Chick and stopped at the new guy. “What’s your name?” he asked—just like he’d asked me when I first showed up.
“He’s Zip,” Chick said. “Come from New York. He’s lookin’ for a job. He’s fast and he can do anything.”
“You looking for a job too, Chicken?”
“I got a job, man. I drive this lady ‘cross town most every morning.”
Zip was the nervous sort. Full of “Yes, sirs,” and “No, sirs.” He didn’t sound or look New York. More like the islands, the Caribbean, where everything is, “Later, Mon.” Still, he was jittery, about to run, which would ruin Officer Rivlin’s day. He’d have to catch him, and take him to the station house, and fingerprint him, and get his record from the FBI or someplace.
You don’t want to run from Officer Rivlin. Still, you can make yourself scarce when he isn’t looking, which is what I planned to do. He might get curious and find out Francine’s connection to my first ex. He’d drag me into police headquarters and do the questioning and the fingerprinting.
I brushed my coat and the sweater I’d wound around my legs, shook my space blanket, and opened my bag to stash the lot. Officer Rivlin headed my way the exact time my telephone rang.
“Jo, what do you need a cell phone for?” he asked.
I’d never answered him before and I wasn’t about to change. I yelled, “You stepped on my cat. Look at him go. It’s a wonder he didn’t scratch your face off.”
Officer Rivlin looked the way I pointed, but Clyde was too fast for him. “You’re one crazy old lady,” he said while my phone continued to chime. But at least he left, shaking his head.
Nobody called me so early. But I answered, “Sylvie?”
It wasn’t Sylvie. A female voice said, “Hello, Ms. Dustin. Is that you? Do I have your name right?”
“Sorry, wrong number,” I told her. Did those idiots who couldn’t dial straight realize I only had so much free time on my phone? And who was Ms. Dustin? Any relation to Joan? I was neither of those two. They wouldn’t get it right.
Or would they? Somebody was getting too close, and I had to get away. I’d give it two more days, and keep a very low profile in the meantime. No arrests for “crazy with cell phone.” I clicked the off button and slipped the phone into a pocket.
Officer Rivlin hovered over the new guy, hammering question after question. “Zip, that’s your name? You come from New York, you say? When did you get to Queensboro?”
Chick answered for him, laying on the illiterate lingo. “He su
re do come from New York. He come yesterday. He no trouble. I gets him a job. You see.”
No wonder Rivlin was on Zip. He was supposed to be from New York? A Rastafarian with dreadlocks and a Caribbean voice? He’d freeze in New York. But I was new enough so he’d be on me next.
I stepped back, past the tulips, and around the corner of the maintenance building. Ears had already slipped away. He lurked in the shadows, watching and listening silently.
Chapter 9
There were limits to my dedication to authentic research. I was not about to relieve myself in the bushes, so I knew where all the public rest rooms were. The nearest one was the mediocre kind: grungy, strung-out cloth towel on a roll, toilet paper in only one stall, but the sink drains weren’t clogged, and there was an outlet to recharge my phone. Not the place for the shampoo and full-body bath I needed, but you can’t have everything.
One look in the mirror, and I knew the situation demanded a bit of levity.
“Clyde, wash behind your ears,” I said as I ran a second bowl of water for him. “We must keep up a business-like appearance. No alley-catting in the office. Clean shirt, brushed teeth, and fur smoothly groomed. You look like a black bristle brush.”
I stared at the reflection of my stubborn hair in the mirror, but I could sense Clyde’s discomfort. “You’re black and white today. Is that a problem?”
It was. And so was the bowl of water, for a gigantic bubble erupted noisily. I looked just in time to see the water slowly drain with groans and burps.
“Couldn’t you be polite about it?” I asked. But it was much too early to argue with an imaginary cat. “Clyde, you look lovely. I see you do recognize the value of a proper appearance.” I wet a section of my hair and recombed it. “Lovely coat, so shiny and well groomed. I particularly like the swirls of your tiger stripes. If I looked so handsome, I’d purr too.”
Clyde did not return the compliment. But then, my grooming efforts hadn’t met with much success. However, I was presentable when I walked into the office at Abbott Computing Services.
Barb stood over my desk, shuffling papers and slamming drawers. I cleared my throat. She lifted her head. “Do I look like Mr. Talbit’s private secretary?” she demanded.
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes, then dumped the papers on my desk. “He lost a ticket to some museum do. Naturally, it wasn’t his fault. One hundred bucks he shelled out, and now the ticket is gone.” She grinned like a Cheshire cat, something Clyde would never do. “Isn’t that just too bad? Now you can look for it. Who knows where Francine put it.”
Would that be a ticket to Waterman’s Museum, I wondered. “A museum do?”
She shrugged and left, glad to evade more turmoil. Because there was more turmoil. After I tossed my desk, Mr. Talbit called me into his office.
“Well, did Barb tell you?” he demanded. “Did you find my ticket?”
I shook my head, only to get a ranting lecture about slipshod office practices and incompetent employees. “Find it,” he insisted.
“Certainly, I’ll try.” I went through his file cabinet, then turned to his desk.
“I’ve thoroughly searched that desk,” he said, but I opened each drawer as he seethed. I lifted the pile of papers from his “in” basket and there it was, underneath everything else.
He glared at the museum envelope as I handed it over.
“I went through that basket three times.”
Nothing was his fault, just like Barb said, but I kept my cool. “It’s easy to miss something under the whole pile.” Of course my explanation did little for his apoplectic countenance.
His envelope and Francine’s were identical. Did that mean I had a one-hundred-dollar ticket in my bag? She hadn’t been killed for the ticket, or someone else would have it. But why would a swinger, or a slut, especially one without a trace of maritime decor in her home, want to donate that much to a museum devoted to crab pots, oyster canneries, duck hunters, and lighthouses?
Mine not to reason why.
Still the turmoil continued. Vanessa was in a state worse than Mr. Talbit’s. “Look at this mess,” she said. “Just look. Those cops left a disaster behind.”
I didn’t see any disaster, or even a mess. Of course, I hadn’t been there when they searched hard drives, emptied drawers, and listed everything down to the last paper clip. They’d given me my bag and coat and shown me the door when they learned I was the temp who replaced the deceased.
“What were they looking for?” I asked, hoping to pick up a clue.
Barb said, “It’s just something they do after a murder. Evidently, they...”
“Invade the victim’s privacy, and waste our time,” Vanessa said. “We’re behind as it is. If you’ve got to gossip, do it on your own time.”
That started our day, and it only got worse as the morning progressed. Bickering, sniping. “Catty, catty,” I wanted to say, but not in front of Clyde. And the pile of work sat waiting unattended while Mr. Talbit called us into his office, one by one.
First Barb, then Vanessa went. They growled about “damage control,” and “save his butt,” when they returned so I was surprised that my session wasn’t along the same lines. Instead of explaining how Francine’s murder, coming on top of personal problems, had affected him more severely than might have been the case, he asked what the police had taken from Mrs. Hemingway’s desk.
“I didn’t notice anything missing,” I assured him.
“The police may have taken something of hers that didn’t concern her murder. People do leave personal items in their desks, such as notes to themselves—reminders, you might say.”
Nodding, I said, “Grocery lists and so forth. But I saw nothing like that.”
“In case of emergency,” he continued. His offhand manner belied his insistence. “For example, I keep an extra key in case I lock myself out of my car.”
“Amazing,” I wanted to say, but it certainly wasn’t.
“Did you see any keys?”
How could I answer? I matched his nonchalance. “I’m sure the police took no keys.”
That was true. The police never saw any keys. I’d already taken them. And now it was way too late to return the keys I’d liberated from a dead woman’s desk.
“Would you mind searching her desk?” He made an amazing throat clearing rumble, and with obvious discomfort added, “After all, you find things others miss.”
Mr. Talbit stood, just inside his doorway, watching me open each drawer. Made me nervous. I hated someone looking over my shoulder. I forced my hands to move slowly, without a tremble as I removed bundles of papers, boxes of paperclips, packets of tissues, and several pencils and pens. I threw out an empty candy bag and a shredded stocking, but set aside a new paperback. Then I put it all back.
As I returned the last pen to its drawer, Mr. Talbit came out of his office. “Look again. Perhaps a key slipped under, oh, I don’t know, an envelope?”
They paid me to follow orders. “Search again,” he’d said. Should I care if it was the third time?
I nodded. “Of course. I’ll do that.” What I wouldn’t do was find any keys. Obviously, he knew Francine had a key, and he wanted it. But he couldn’t have it. Unfortunately, those keys were mine now. I could never return them. No, impossible.
“You have the keys?” some cop would ask. “And what did you do with them?”
What could I say?
“You were in her house? Now you’re in her job? Why?”
Naturally, I made an even greater show of searching, dumping paperclips to search the box, fanning through papers, retrieving the empty candy bag and peering inside. But I didn’t find any keys. Mr. Talbit turned, stomped into his office, and slammed his door.
Did I feel guilty? Not in the least. If that key were his, he would have had it.
Barb passed as I reorganized my papers. She leaned close and gestured toward Vanessa. “Better get to those records. She’s on her broomstick.”
“Mr. Ta
lbit did ask me to search Mrs. Hemingway’s desk,” I said, letting her know that I wasn’t just fooling around.
Warily, she asked, “What does he want?”
“A key.”
“A key,” she repeated, then, coming to the conclusion that had occurred to me, added, “The boss’s key?”
I shrugged and turned to my cluttered desk. The search had done nothing for my productivity. After three days recording invoices I had a receivables backlog.
Mr. Talbit wanted one key. He didn’t mean the ring of keys. He meant the single one, nearly small enough to unlock a suitcase. It had been lying loose with the paper clips. I hadn’t found its lock, but then, I hadn’t looked very hard. The three keys on the ring were easy to figure. One opened her front door. One was for her car. The third was a neighbor’s house, the boy friend’s apartment, or possibly, the office.
So what did that fourth key open? Was Mr. Talbit acting the guilty suitor, afraid his wife would discover his indiscretion? No, the key he wanted would never open the door to any love nest, unless he wanted one of the three on the ring. Somehow, I doubted that.
I turned to my pile of paid invoices. With all those hard copies alphabetized in metal drawers, management was not as computer-reliant as the folks who wrote their programs. After entering receipts in a master file, I had to pull the folders.
Six “A” folders, with individual sheets to remove, then refile in the paid drawer. Same with “B” and “C,” except one of the “C” folders held at least ten invoices fastened together with an oversize paper clip. They all belonged in the “D” file. Not only that, they were all overdue for payment.
“Clyde,” I mumbled, “I’ve run into somebody’s booboo.” Naturally, I pulled the lot and placed them on my desk. Had Mrs. Hemingway been interrupted and placed them in the wrong folder, then forgotten them? From habit, I checked for my name in that rogues’ gallery. No Durbins. I wouldn’t have minded if my last ex were included. The closest was Deefer, Andrew. He owed $4,087, and he’d owed it for sixteen months.