Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  A Negro maid opened the door, her uniform a crisp gray, with starched white collar and cuffs. Very proper, down to white gloves and a silly cap. She was light-skinned, the kind of Negro Arlette called “peola.”

  Lennox announced herself. “Got some pictures for Mr. Vanvleet.”

  “What kinda pictures?”

  “Photographs. He wanted them today. I work for Amos Haddam.”

  The magic word. The maid let her in through a dark hallway with oak paneling, then into a large library. Lennox had been here once before with Amos.

  A grandfather clock announced the hour. One o’clock. It had taken some time to find someone to develop the film. That had been Willard’s job. She could enlarge and develop the prints herself. And had, finally.

  She scanned the dusty leather-bound books. Homer, Greek classics, forgotten Victorians, Dickens, Scott. The heavy odor of cigars clung to the leather furniture.

  She was fingering the brocade drapes when the door opened. The lawyer was dressed in a velvet-collared purple satin smoking jacket with starched shirt and paisley ascot. The tie belt on the jacket accentuated his girth.

  “Miss Lennox. The photographs already? I’m impressed.” He crossed to the fireplace. She handed the envelope over.

  Vanvleet peered over bifocals. “You satisfied with them?”

  “Shooting at night is hard under the best conditions. You remember the Wobbly pictures.” On one of his final assignments, Willard took night shots of union sympathizers for a Vanvleet client. None of them were good enough to make positive identifications.

  “These are as bad?”

  “See for yourself.”

  He untwisted the string and pulled them out, adjusting his glasses. “I thought you weren’t working for us anymore, Miss Lennox. I’m glad to see you had a change of heart.”

  She grit her teeth.

  “Some clients are a little more challenging than others,” he said, eyeing the shots. “It pays to leave your delicate sense of morality at home, in your hope chest, with your other girlish things. Not that I don’t admire you for it; I do.”

  Girlish things? Was that how he saw her, as a girl? “I don’t have a hope chest, sir.” He squinted at the photos. She said, “Someone broke into my room last night.”

  “Looking for these?”

  “Could be. Although why, I don’t know. She told me to stay out of her way. But she neglected to say who she was or where the hell she was going.”

  Vanvleet didn’t seem interested. He moved behind an oak desk the size of a small barge, laying the photographs out. There were eight in all, of the three different locations: the Hot Cha Cha Club, the Chatterbox, the bridge. In one at the Hot Cha Cha, taken early in the evening, Iris was visible, leaning over a table, holding four beer mugs.

  “This one’s good,” Vanvleet said, pointing at the shot. “But we knew she was there.”

  “It shows some of the men, regulars.”

  The lawyer rubbed his chin, leaning down to eyeball the river shots without his cheaters. “What is this?”

  “The river. From the bridge.” Lennox pointed to a white smudge. “Here. That’s her.”

  “You don’t say.” He stacked them up again. “No shots of her on the bridge.”

  “It was dark. The lights were out.”

  “But you saw her. Jumping off.”

  “Yes.”

  The lawyer slipped the prints back into the envelope and handed them to her. “I don’t think Mr. Terraciano needs to see them. But keep them handy.” He leaned his knuckles on the desktop.

  Lennox was halfway to the door when she turned. “Will he be having a memorial service for her?”

  “You want to attend, get some leads there?”

  “Can’t you be straight with me, Vanvleet?” She had never addressed him like that. He was old, but, damn, that wasn’t her fault.

  He smiled. “What is it you want to know?”

  “Why he wants to follow her, for starters. What he knows about her.”

  “I’ve told you all I know, Miss Lennox. She’s—she was his … well, his girl.”

  “In a pig’s eye.”

  “Miss Lennox—” Vanvleet was serene, unperturbed by her questions. That made her madder.

  “How can I do my job if you all clam up? Who is she? Who was she?”

  Vanvleet gave her a steady look. “Iris Jackson. Barmaid. Girlfriend. Sister. That should be enough to begin.”

  “You have a name or address on the sister? Where’s she from?”

  “Do your job, Miss Lennox.” He checked the time on the grandfather clock. “Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for dinner with my family. I’ll see you tonight at the country club. At the awards dinner for the Brookside Flyers.”

  Dorie blinked, caught unawares. “Oh, I hadn’t thought—”

  “As track coach for the children, you are expected to give out the medals. Two of your little runners are getting awards.”

  Their eager little faces flashed through her mind. So like Tillie, she thought. “It’s tonight?”

  “At five. Just mention my name to the doorman.”

  “Right.” She didn’t even know country clubs had doormen.

  “When you see Mr. Haddam, tell him we’re all hoping he recovers soon. Very soon.”

  She turned back. The man knew everything and shared nothing. Why was he paying Amos’s medical bills? What did they know about Iris? She stumbled through the carved door into the hallway. A statuesque old woman in a flowing red dress stepped down the stairs. Her gray hair was piled on her head in a way that had gone out of style twenty years before. A younger man, with her pointed chin and cold eyes, held her elbow.

  “Reggie. Who is this?”

  Reggie gave Lennox the once-over as Vanvleet came to the doorway behind her. She recognized the younger man’s name from the law firm. The wayward son, the one who’d had to pay someone to take his bar exam.

  The old woman tipped her head, her voice going sticky sweet. “Ah, pumpkin, is this a new friend? You didn’t tell her we dress for dinner. Naughty boy.”

  Lennox smoothed her gray slacks. She should have kept walking, out the door, but the heavy perfume on the old woman seemed too thick to move in. Across the hallway, the double doors to the parlor were open. Two teenage girls dressed in organza pouted on the frayed Empire sofa. The coffee-skinned maid stepped in from the dining room, ready to announce the meal.

  “I was just leaving,” Lennox mumbled.

  “Don’t make her go, pumpkin,” the old woman screeched. “The rules aren’t so rigid that we can’t make an exception.” She frowned at Lennox’s trousers. “She isn’t family, after all. We made an exception for Dick’s friend that time, before the war.”

  “This is Miss Lennox, Mae.” Vanvleet caught Lennox’s arm, swinging her to face the group. Reggie had the suave, blank look of the dutiful son, and, in his tie and tails, ludicrous. “My wife, Miss Lennox. And you know my son, Reg, of course.”

  “We’ve never met,” Reggie said with a nod, “but I’ve heard of your work, of course.”

  Lennox blinked at the strange ensemble. Her work?

  The old lady held out her gloved hand. “I can see you are from the countryside, miss. Sit at my right side, so I can advise you on proper attire. Come along.”

  She oozed away on Reggie’s arm, toward parlor and granddaughters.

  “Don’t mind her,” Vanvleet said in a low voice.

  “Nice of her to include me.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” The old man opened the heavy leaded-glass door. Outside, birds were singing. In here, time had stopped some years back. She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or relieved that Vanvleet had dismissed her. The smells of the roast turkey were at least tempting.

  “I appreciate the speed on the photographs, Miss Lennox. I’m sure all your work will be just as timely. Reports every day now. Do not disappoint me.”

  The door shut in her face. She was relieved, she decided, to be outsid
e instead of in the stuffy dining room with pinkies at the proper angle, discussing the grandeur of life before the war. She had been more right about the mansion harboring delusions than she could have guessed.

  At the bottom of the porch steps, she straightened her shoulders and felt the warmth of the afternoon sun on her head as she passed beyond the iron fence and the oak tree. Inside the hot Packard, she looked at the photographs again. They were thoroughly dry now, and curling at the corners. The shot through the saloon window was a good one; the old man had been right about that. In profile, the bar lamps lighting her from behind, Iris with her flowing hair caught behind her ear. She had a grim smile for the customers, who made no bones about ogling her tits. And nice ones they were, especially from this angle, with a close-fitting dress left open three buttons at the neck.

  She was pretty, but how old? Not thirty, although she looked it in the harsh light of the ladies’ rest room at the Muehlebach. Indoor skin, pale, nice hands, manicured. Even in the photograph you could see her dark nail polish. She wasn’t a barmaid for long. No, she’d done something else, office work, or sales, something where the hands are important. But something had aged her just the same. There’d been a hardness in her stormy eyes at the Muehlebach, as if the world had wronged her.

  It probably had. The world had a way of doing that.

  Sugar Moon Investigations smelled like the chemicals she hadn’t taken time to dump before rushing off to Vanvleet’s. She opened the windows, one on the south, one on the west, and listened to the sounds of the streetcars on the avenues below. Amos liked this location, on intersecting streetcar lines, but from Lennox’s point of view, the building did nothing for their reputation.

  A four-story brick building, the Boston Building was home to shady lawyers, bookies, a rummy dentist, a get-rich-quick outfit, and competing beauty parlors. The only decent office was occupied by a real estate company with a reputation for hustling farmers. The rest—all of the fourth floor and half of the third— sat empty, waiting for tenants who had moved farther from the clang of the railroad yards and the mingled stench of swamp and manure that seeped up the cliffs from the bottoms.

  At least they had a nice corner on the second floor, where she now spread out the photographs on her desk. She and Willard and Roger had once shared the battered metal surface. There were two small offices and a reception area with a threadbare Oriental rug, a hard wooden chair for clients, and one dead plant. On weekday afternoons, Shirley Mullins came in to chew gum.

  The darkroom occupied a large closet in her office. She pulled the string on the light, dumping the dead fixer and developer into a bucket. Trotting down the hall to the women’s rest room, she poured the chemicals down the sink, rinsed the developing pans, and dried them with towels, all the while thinking about the phone calls she would make. She made a mental list of every place or person associated with Iris. It took five or six seconds.

  Back in the office, she looked up Iris’s address in the reverse directory and dialed the main number.

  “Mrs. Faron?” Lennox explained she was Iris’s sister Florence. “I’ve been trying to call her all weekend. Have you seen her?”

  “Eh? Who?”

  Deaf as a post, but so very good of her to answer the phone.

  “Iris. Upstairs. Have you seen her?” Loud, and slow.

  “Never see her. Works nights, my husband tells me. He keeps an eye on her.”

  Just bet he did. But Bud Faron knew no more than his deaf wife. He was pleasantly ignorant of all of Iris’s activities, although he did say he hadn’t seen her car since Friday. Didn’t know if she’d been home. Didn’t know if she had any friends. Knew exactly nothing.

  Lennox hung up the receiver and leaned back, fingers laced behind her head. Shirley should know about Amos. Reaching one of the receptionist’s grown sons, Lennox left the message that Amos was at City Hospital, then hung up.

  She chewed on her fingernails and decided she could make one more phone call. The bartender at the Hot Cha Cha sounded irritated, and he got more so when the topic of Iris was brought up.

  “Hey, I know she’s your sister and everything,” he said, “but tell her she’s fired. She doesn’t show up Saturday night, that’s our busiest night.”

  “She didn’t show? I’ve been trying to get her since Friday.”

  “She was here Friday. I remember. It was late, but she drove off. I saw her myself. Then nothing. Not a phone call or a note, just disappears.”

  “That’s not like her. Is it?”

  “Hell if I know. I got beer to tap.”

  “Did she mention anyone she might be visiting? A friend, a boyfriend?”

  “She mentions nobody. One cold doll. Wouldn’t take lip from any customer.” His tone changed. “You look like her? Where you calling from?”

  “Here in the city. I’m here on business.”

  “Oh, yeah, what business you in?” Suddenly he’s friendly.

  “Carpet. Wall-to-wall.”

  “Huh.” Suddenly he’s not friendly. Wrong business.

  “You interested in any wall-to-wall?” “Hey, you pay for that, buddy?—So long, toots.” She hung up the phone and said to no one, “Yeah, yeah— toots.”

  The afternoon had reached the temperature where motion ceased. Hot, moist air pushed down all desire for movement, purposeful or not. Lennox drove past a fountain of water escaping through the sidewalk from a water main. Children and dogs splashed and played. The rest of the city was taking a nap.

  On Charlotte, the shadows of the buildings created spots of relief. On the far corner, the lady doomsdayer had set up her placards in the shade, proclaiming the end of the world. Who knew, this time she might be right. In another shadow near the boardinghouse was Luther. He was stripped to a sleeveless undershirt and torn gray pants, and barefoot. On his head, he wore a derby with a hole in it. Lennox started to pass him, but his speech caught her.

  “I always wanted to snatch at the world with twenty hands, and not for a very laudable motive, either,” he said, voice vibrant and dignified. “That was wrong, and am I to show now that not even a year’s trial has taught me anything? Am I to leave this world as a man who has no common sense?”

  She blinked at him. He was quoting the book she’d given him. She recognized the speech, near the book’s end. Luther was eloquent, his bearing straight, hands gesturing. Now and again, he’d take off the derby to make a point.

  He finished, doffed the derby, and bowed. Lennox stood rooted to the pavement. Impossible that any book could remake Luther into a proud, confident man. A poor choice of literature perhaps. Should she have given him her copy of Gone With the Wind. At least Scarlett would have charmed him with la-di-das.

  The sound of clapping came from the curb. A man in shirtsleeves and dusty black slacks came forward, applauding. Luther took another bow.

  “Humdinger!”

  Lennox turned at the voice. The man smiled at her, still clapping. Luther took a step backward, derby at his chest, panic back on his face.

  “Yes, Luther. Amazing. Wonderful.” Lennox tried to touch his arm, but he pulled away. He shook his head, muttering.

  “I never expected sidewalk theater in your neighborhood, Miss Lennox,” the man said.

  She stared at him, the lanky dark, hair. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m crushed. What we had was fleeting, yes, but oh so sweet.”

  Lennox glanced at Luther. The would-be actor squinted and continued shuffling away, bent again with life’s burdens. She looked from one to the other. Had the heat turned everyone loony?

  “Harvey Talbot, at your service.”

  From Friday night, at police headquarters. “Oh, yes, the scribbler.”

  “Ouch. Headlines are my game. Did you like it?”

  She walked after Luther, toward the front steps of the boardinghouse. A flowerpot with its contents dried to a crisp lay broken in the dirt. Talbot trotted along next to her. Again.

  “Did you at least see it?”r />
  “Oh, yes. Thanks for mentioning me in the article.”

  “No sweat.” He laughed, fanning his face. “Well, today there’s sweat. Listen, I want to do a follow-up.”

  Lennox could smell him, damp cotton and aftershave and hair oil that wasn’t doing its job. “I can’t help you.”

  Talbot mopped his face on a handkerchief and leaned into the pillar of the shady stoop. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “Let me put it this way, Talbot. I don’t want to help you.”

  “Call me Harvey.” He looked up at the hulking boardinghouse, its clapboard a deep oyster gray peeling to reveal a sickly yellow, and, in a few places, an innocent pink. “Nice place. You live here alone or with your husband?”

  “Look—”

  “Wait. Don’t tell me. Divorced. I can spot a divorcee a mile away.”

  “I’ll bet.” She started up the steps, and damned if he didn’t follow her to the door. “You’re annoying me. Go away.”

  He put his hand over hers on the doorknob. “Not until you hear what I know about that jumper.”

  She slipped her hand away. “What do you know?”

  “I know where she is.” He grinned at her. “See? You are interested.”

  Across the street, Luther was setting up his crate of apples and sad little sign in front of the Czmanski’s garage, ready for business. Down on the corner under the green awning at Steiner’s grocery, Anna Steiner made short work of the sidewalk with a broom.

  “Okay, I’ll bite.”

  He took her elbow, but she refused to budge. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  “Where is she?”

  “You’re a hard case, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you. But you have to agree to go with me.”

  “Go where}” She felt her blood pressure rising. Why did he have to keep touching her?

  He threw up his hands, as he had on Friday night. “Oh, I guess you got a date or something,” Talbot said, nonchalant now. “I s’pose I could go see her by myself.”

  “You’re right, Talbot. I don’t have all day. So spill it.”

  “Call me Harvey.”

  She gave him her level look. “Don’t fuck with me, Harvey.”

  He laughed. “That’s good. Trashy but good.” He skipped down the steps. “My car’s right here. She’s waiting for us. Cool as a cucumber, and divinely peaceful.”