He wrapped his glasses around his ears. He wore a crisp blue oxford shirt with no tie, soft sweater in green tones, wool slacks. Not the help, obviously. His skin was pale, as if he didn’t find any sun. His thin lips matched his eyebrows. He stared, and she squared her shoulders defensively.
“The Commander didn’t tell me, you know. I had to find out on my own.” His small blue eyes bored into her. She stepped back a pace. Perhaps she’d gotten him wrong.
“You don’t say.” Who was this jasper? He might be a relative. She decided to be polite. “How is the Commander today?”
The man tipped his head quizzically. “My sources tell me no change. What do your sources say?”
“I … um— my sources haven’t reported yet this morning.”
A smirk transformed the man’s face. He leaned closer and whispered, “Sources can be at cross-purposes. I found that out the hard way.”
A tangle of emotions danced across his visage, moving from menace to delight, suspicion to disgust. She stepped back again. Too early in the day for a nervous breakdown.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. She turned then toward the hall, where Amos had disappeared. And there he was, coming toward them, wiping his mouth on a handkerchief, but upright, his color good, walking steadily. Relief flooded through her.
She smiled at her boss as his heels tapped the marble floor and stopped in front of her. He looked up, wiggling his eyebrows. “No admittance to the sanctum yet?”
She shook her head, then remembered the man. “Amos, this is—” She turned, to find he’d vanished. “Well, I don’t know who he was.”
“Or where, either.”
“Are there more family members? Besides Thalia?”
“Bowl him over with your charm, did you?”
She shook herself, memorizing the man’s face, as if he might have been only an apparition. The maid returned; they followed her down a shadowy hallway to the library, through an arched wooden door that creaked as they were ushered in. Where there had once been a billiard table, a large four-poster bed took center stage. Propped on a dozen pillows was the Commander.
“Mrs. Hines,” Amos said, bowing slightly. The old woman loved Amos and his old-world ways. She’d served as an army nurse in the same war that had claimed Amos’s lungs.
“Mr. Haddam. Miss Lennox.” She peered over half glasses, then took them off and set them on a stack of papers in her lap. A dove gray wool shawl was wrapped around her thin shoulders. Her face was stoic, but in her eyes you could see the pain. Eveline Hines was dying, the slow way, from cancer.
“Come closer,” she commanded. “Tell me what’s happened.”
They nodded to Mother Ruth, the heavyset, iron-haired nurse, and settled onto two hard chairs to the side of the bed. Mrs. Hines put a finger on her lower lip and stared straight ahead, as if knowing the report wasn’t going to please her. “All right,” she said brusquely.
Mother Ruth pursed her lips unhappily and went out the door, shutting it without a creak. If you lived here, Dorie thought, you could slide through without making a ripple. Unless you were Thalia Hines, determined to make all the ripples you could.
“I’m ready,” Mrs. Hines said, her voice softer now.
Amos cleared his throat. He began with his scratchy voice, but the Commander raised a thin hand. “Miss Lennox, you take over.” She gave Amos a look of disapproval, one of her more common expressions. Dorie glanced at her boss. He sat slumped in his chair, holding back another fit. Make it fast, she told herself.
“She spent most of the night at the Three Owls. It’s over on Twelfth, upstairs. She danced and drank a little, not too much. She sang a song and— “
“What song?”
“Pardon?”
The Commander gave her a hard stare. “What song did Thalia sing?”
She looked at Amos. He didn’t meet her eye. “Urn. I think it was ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.’ “
She had no recollection of what Thalia had sung the night before. She’d sung at least ten songs that week, none of them memorable.
Amos was staring at her now. The Commander squinted, a venomous look in her eye. She turned it on Amos. “Mr. Haddam?”
“Might have been. I didn’t record the song, Mrs. Hines.”
“I specifically remember asking for all details.” The color rose in the old woman’s cheeks. She was angry. Probably what kept her alive. That and the prospect of leaving her only daughter footloose and fancy-free with a big fat inheritance. That worried Mrs. Hines. After a week of acquaintance with the girl, it terrified Dorie.
“You see,” Mrs. Hines said, “if I knew the song she was singing, I’d have an indication of her attitude, her demeanor. Almost like I was there. But I can’t be there, can I?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just observe. That is why I have both of you along. I understand it’s hard to keep an eye on the girl. Believe me, I understand.” Mrs. Hines sunk back again into the white pillows and shut her eyes for a moment. “There is so little time. I must have all the details.”
Amos shot Dorie a look. She frowned back. Did they want her to follow Thalia to the toilet, sip her drinks, lift wallets off the men? She could do that, if that was what Mrs. Hines wanted.
She bit down on her molars. How would the old woman react about what happened next?
“Whom was she with?” Mrs. Hines said, eyes open again.
“Mostly the man she saw two nights ago, Oscar Gordon.”
“The attorney.”
“Right. He lives over in Mission Hills, by—”
“Yes, yes.” Mrs. Hines waved a hand. “She told me about Oscar Gordon. There’s no mystery there. No danger to her heart.”
“Her heart, ma’am?” Stop the presses: THALIA HINES HAS A HEART.
“It’s the ones she doesn’t tell me about that worry me, Miss Lennox. The men she keeps hidden away, the ones who will break her heart.”
Eveline Hines pushed back a wispy strand of copper hair from her forehead. Her face was pale and thin, with old freckles stretched across her sunken cheeks. She had been beautiful once, or at least striking, with her fine skin, fiery hair, and that composure. A portrait of her in her nurse’s uniform, her cap in her lap, hung over the fireplace. The steely blueness to her eyes made you look away, as if her strength, her will, took measure of your own. A woman to be reckoned with. Cantankerous now, but one couldn’t blame the dying for that. Or for worrying about the future of her daughter. There would be many hearts broken before Thalia was done.
“There was another man last night, Mrs. Hines,” Amos said flatly. “He came into the Three Owls before midnight and she left with him.”
“And who was he?”
“We followed them to a house on Thirty-eighth Street. Number one oh one. They went inside. The address is that of a Barnaby Wake.”
“The chorus director?” Eveline Hines stiffened.
Amos shuffled his notes. He cleared his throat, his neck a violent shade of purple.
“He’s employed at Plaza Methodist Church,” Dorie said.
“She sings for him,” Mrs. Hines said. “In that chorus. You would have seen him when she went to practice on Tuesday.” She squinted. “She did go to chorus practice on Tuesday, didn’t she?”
Amos flipped pages in his notebook. He wasn’t coughing— yet. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and croaked, “Chorus practice, seven in the evening.”
Dorie rose, circled the bed, poured a glass of water from Mrs. Hines’s bedside table, and carried it back to Amos. The old woman glared at her. Amos looked up, startled by the appearance of the water. He drank it and nodded to her to sit down. There was an awkward silence while he balanced the glass on his knee and the water at the bottom sloshed back and forth.
“At seven,” Mrs. Hines repeated.
Amos didn’t answer. Dorie looked at his notebook. “Yes, ma’am. She was there about two hours.”
The Commander�
��s eyes hardened. Her fingers, fretting with the edge of the crisp sheet, stilled. “You didn’t meet this Wake that night?”
“We waited outside, ma’am.”
Eveline Hines squinted at Amos. “Practice begins at eight. For one hour.”
Heels tapped by the doorway in the hall, hard against the stone floor. A tree limb creaked and scraped against the roof. Outside the leaded window across from the bed, the yellow leaves of an elm tree floated by, twirling in the autumn sun. What did that mean? Thalia had gone early to get some personal attention, possibly— or not— of the musical variety. Amos handed her the water glass, turned a page in his notebook, and found a pencil in his shirt pocket. The Kansas City Star on the foot of Mrs. Hines’s bed blared a headline: BOMBS RAIN ON LONDON. Dorie tore her eyes away. War news gave her the feeling of being on a runaway train.
“You know Mr. Wake?” Amos asked.
“I know of him,” Mrs. Hines said. “This choir, he calls it the Hallelujah Chorus. Through the church. Quite popular, so I hear. A big choir, forty or fifty men and women. They perform around town, for society events and charity.”
“Didn’t they march in that parade last week?” Dorie asked, remembering the scarlet robes and patriotic streamers as they sang a gospel hymn in the wind.
“The Willkie parade?” Amos said.
Mrs. Hines said, “Thalia didn’t mention it.” She looked at the heavy oak ceiling. “It doesn’t mean she didn’t march.”
“Do they wear red robes?”
Mrs. Hines frowned, then rearranged her bedding for a moment. “He picked her up at this club?”
“They drove to his house. We followed them there and waited for about an hour.” Amos’s voice was going. He cleared his throat, took back the water glass, and finished it.
“For an hour?”
“Yes, ma’am. A policeman came by and made us move on. We would have stayed otherwise.”
“So you don’t know what time she left there.”
“No, ma’am.” Dorie glanced at Amos. He was taking even breaths and looked better. “I believe, Mrs. Hines, that your chauffeur was driving them. In the green sedan.”
The old woman frowned witheringly. “My chauffeur?”
“We just saw him out in the driveway, washing the same car.”
Amos was staring at her. The thought had just crystallized in her mind. The quick look she’d had of the chauffeur with his hat on, his tanned neck and handsome jaw: It had to be him.
“We think it was the same car, ma’am. I think so at least.” She widened her eyes at Amos to make him look away.
“You’re saying Barnaby Wake picked up Thalia at this club, this Three Owls, in my automobile, driven by my chauffeur?” Mrs. Hines laid her thin fingers at her throat.
“It does sound—” Ridiculous, but still, she was sure it was the same car. She wanted to jump right up and go ask the chauffeur about it. Prove she was right. Instead, she dug her nails into the chair seat.
“We’ll check that out, with your permission, Mrs. Hines,” Amos said, recovering his voice. “Is she going out tonight?”
“I haven’t heard otherwise, although her plans are always news to me.” The Commander sighed. “I’ll have you called as soon as I hear.”
“Do you know when she came in last night, ma’am?” Dorie asked.
The woman arched her penciled eyebrows. “That is your job, Miss Lennox.” After the obligatory guilty pause, she went on. “She did come home, if that’s your question. She knows better than that, I should hope.”
You should hope, thought Dorie. She escaped the sickroom by saying she had to use the bathroom, leaving Amos and the Commander with a few moments together. They seemed to like that. The old woman was dying, and if Amos Haddam could give her a few pointers on pain and suffering, or conjure up happier days, well, more the better. She thought of Mrs. Hines as old, but she was scarcely fifty, less than ten years older than Amos. They had both gone through fire in the first war, emerging battered but alive.
Dorie had her own scars. But a war— that was something alien, a faraway violence to the soul and body. She’d heard the stories, knew the pain. But she knew better than to say she understood.
Haddam gathered his thoughts in his notebook for a few moments, scribbling down a few words about Barnaby Wake. This job, if you could call it that— he didn’t— was a favor for Eveline Hines. She’d demanded the first week’s billing statement already or he wouldn’t even have charged her. She was dying and wanted some peace of mind with a wayward child. It was common enough. But there was nothing common about Eveline Hines.
He watched her pale closed lids, veins threading through the transparent skin, dark circles under her eyes, sagging flesh where once her cheeks had been plump and flushed with life. He’d known her for twelve years, since they’d been introduced at an Armistice Day picnic. Back then, he’d seemed the older one. She’d been a fiery redhead with a wicked tongue, choice opinions on all the candidates, on reform, on women’s issues, on everything. Her husband had seemed to understand her need to shine, to be in charge, to be, as everyone called her, “the Commander.” Amos never really understood that about Leslie Hines, but he certainly admired the man for it. It took a brave man to endure Eveline’s wit, her demands, her harsh nature. Apparently, it had killed Leslie, this bravery, for he’d gone four years before, quickly, of a heart ailment.
It seemed ironic, even cruel, that a nurse should die like this. She had helped so many in the war, bandaged them, held them, comforted them. And now, in her time of suffering, there was no one to hold her. Her daughter was more interested in men and a good time. Amos had his doubts about the girl, although he wouldn’t tell Eveline as much. He’d seen her type often enough in this shadowy business of his— the girl who uses her physical charm and connections to the full extent of the law, and then some. She didn’t care about any of the men, or she was an actress of star quality. Eveline would like that, in her strange way. Could Thalia care at all? That was an issue that would probably be decided by her own mother’s death.
And Eveline’s stepson, Leslie’s boy— Amos looked up, surprised at himself. That must have been the person Dorie had seen in the hallway. The elusive stepson. What was his name? Julian. Amos had never met him, in all these years. He was married, Amos recalled. And still living at home, watching over the wicked stepmother? Amos scribbled the stepson’s name in his notebook, with the notation “Meet?” He was curious, if nothing else.
Amos flipped his notebook back to the appointments section and checked his watch. He had a meeting with a new client at noon, and it was after eleven o’clock now. He would have to wrap things up soon. He cleared his throat.
“So, my dear friend,” Mrs. Hines said, her eyes still closed, head deep against the down pillow, “what will we do with little Thalia?” Her lips curled up. Was she secretly enjoying her daughter’s exploits? Her sigh was unconvincing.
“We’ll keep an eye on her for you, Eveline,” Amos said, patting her arm. “Don’t you worry.”
“Oh, I do. I worry day and night.” She opened her eyes and gave him one of her now-rare smiles. “But having you come and visit me every day almost compensates for the worry.”
“I would come anyway; you know that.”
“Yes, yes.” She squeezed his hand. “Of course.” She peered at him. “You look tired, Amos Haddam.”
He gave her a brave smile. “No more than yesterday, Eveline.”
“Don’t give me that stiff upper lip nonsense. Your cough is worse. Your eyes look awful. You aren’t sleeping.”
He looked at her, lying there dying and worried about him. Still the nurse. His chest ached, not because of gas damage, but at losing her.
“It’s nothing,” he said. She waited, eyes boring into him. “My mother. I haven’t heard anything for some time.”
“I’ll have Ned look into it. With his embassy connections, he can find her.”
“I’m sure Ned has better things to do than
track down old fussbudgets in bomb shelters. It’s got to be chaos over there.”
“All the more reason. What’s her first name?”
“Cassandra.” He tried to smile, but his emotions were thick this morning, what with the war news and the prospect of more pain for this woman. “Thank you, Eveline.”
She squeezed his hand again. “If I can do something out there …” She turned to the window. “So.” She sat herself up, composed her face. “Europe at war again. It seems so unreal here. So very far away.”
Not so very far for someone with a draft notice in his pocket. What had Lennox said last night? You won’t pass the physical. Then her face had dropped, as if his gas-ravaged lungs were a touchy subject. She was a funny girl, with a warm heart, which it took most of her energy to disguise.
A draft. Here in the States. The war seemed closer every day to him, like a thunderstorm on the horizon, moving into position directly overhead. And his mother under attack— again. He could almost smell the ozone from the lightning. It was not unreal; it was all too horrifying.
She was staring at him again. “But not for you, I see. Tell me what’s happening.”
Amos fingered his notebook, then shook his head. “Nothing. Really, dear.”
She frowned at him. He could see she was eager for details. But he knew no more about it than the Star. Maybe telling her Uncle Sam wanted him would give her a much-needed laugh. It was amusing, in an ironic way.
A grimace of pain crossed her face. When it passed, she sank again into the pillows. “You were in France, weren’t you, Amos?”
He felt a chill. “Yes, Eveline.”
“I remember the quiet, between the battles.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “When the shelling was going on, we didn’t have time to think, to let anything sink in. We didn’t want to. And now all I remember is the quiet. Eerie, breathy quiet. A moan perhaps, a clink of spoon on tin cup. No birds, I remember that. Not a bird in sight. They knew better. So very, very quiet. It was like purgatory. You knew you were dead. You wondered, Heaven or hell? But you knew perfectly well that this was hell’s waiting room.”
She lay motionless on the white pillow, her face only a few shades darker than the case. Her eyes closed again. She was in France, listening to the nothingness. Amos couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wanted to leave, to get away— from her memories and her dying and her pain. But his body wouldn’t move. He could hear the quiet, too, as if he lay in the mud again, under the fragile blue sky, waiting for death as his lungs burned with every breath. His ankle had been broken in the crash, the big mapping camera shattered. He’d lain in the soft warm mud, and had been quiet.
Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set Page 29