Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  He knew how the night would go; he could feel it already. He would lie awake, the windows open, counting the seconds between autos passing on the street, savoring the sound— the hiss of tires, the rattle of engines. He would get up and turn on the wireless, so loud, the neighbors would shout and he would have to turn it down low and lie on the sofa to hear it. Anything to have noises filling his ears, filling the dark, filling the spaces. Anything to feel alive.

  Now the silence stretched long and awful, until Mother Ruth opened the door abruptly. The sound echoed like a boom.

  “Oh,” the old nurse said, “pardon me. Madam, Father Williams is here.” She backed out of the room.

  Amos blinked, wiggling his fingers to reassure himself. He felt very cold.

  The Commander opened her eyes. “Now. Let’s turn our attention to Barnaby Wake, shall we?”

  Out in the driveway, the chauffeur was nowhere in sight.

  Dorie walked to the green sedan, sitting long and shiny in the patchy sunlight. The wax was fresh, swirling in iridescent patterns on the bulbous hood. Oldsmobile, it said in chrome. Thalia had taken it to choir practice, driving herself that night. How had she managed to bribe the chauffeur into letting her take it, she wondered, remembering the girl’s erratic driving.

  High overhead, birds twittered in the trees. Squirrels scolded her, then went about their business hoarding acorns for winter. She leaned against the car and crossed her arms, feeling the sun like a stingy gift on one cheek. Autumn was her favorite season, when the air sharpened, losing the turgid humidity of summer, yet without the biting prairie wind of winter. The trees turned magically into their dream coats. It reminded her of school days, which had meant escape, return to order, to duties, to a strangely comforting regimen. She had been told what was expected of her. All she’d had to do to win praise was meet those expectations. If only life were so simple now.

  Footsteps tapped the cement driveway behind her. She turned, expecting the chauffeur at last.

  “Tom will murder you if you smudge his wax job.” The man stood with his hands on his hips, feet apart, chin out. The same man, confronting, questioning, again.

  She moved her backside off the fender. “Sorry, I— ” She straightened, squinting as the man’s aggressive pose. His attitude was tiresome. She walked briskly around the front of the car and stood in front of him.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. At least I didn’t get your name.”

  Another strange look crossed the man’s face. He lowered his fists from his hips. “I suppose the Commander didn’t describe me accurately.” He smiled. “I can believe that. Julian Hines, at your service, mam’selle.”

  His hand was cool and slick with sweat. Lennox released it gladly. “You’re Thalia’s brother?”

  “Half brother. My mother died when I was a baby. My father married Miss Eveline right after the war. But you’ve probably heard all the stories. The whirlwind courtship, all the folderol. The stuff of legend.”

  She hadn’t, but she nodded. He continued unabated.

  “The famous war heroine, saved hundreds— nay, thousands of lives behind the lines, in the medic tents, in the caissons— with her bare hands! Given a Legion of Honor medal by the French. Famous all over Paris, the toast of the town. One of her many admirers, my father, who had gone to France to look after his import interests. Fortunately, only half the farms were destroyed. Lean for a while, but he got them going. Then he met her. And that, as they say, was that.”

  “Ran off and got married, did they?”

  “How could he resist, a famous flame-haired patriot like the Commander?” The sarcasm sat unattractively on his face.

  “She must have been a beauty in her time.”

  “Good genes, as we see in darling Thalia.”

  “Yes, Thalia is a stunner.”

  Julian Hines shifted and stared at her, one finger on his chin, as if she’d said something thought-provoking.

  “Nice to meet you, then, Mr. Hines.”

  “It would be polite to give me a report of your meeting,” he said, frowning now, “since I was not invited to attend.”

  “You’ll have to talk to the Commander about that.”

  “I’m not important enough to know what’s going on?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Wendy was the Commander’s favorite; that was no secret. But then, nothing is really fair in the Commander’s castle.”

  She stepped back, bumping into the car. She busied herself shining up the chrome around the headlight with the corner of her sweater. Whatever the man thought he knew, she knew even less. But perhaps the Commander liked it that way. Maybe she was in there right now telling Amos the real mission.

  “You’ll have to speak to your— to the Commander about that.” She smiled to sweeten it, but he wasn’t taking it. How did the abrasive old army nurse and Mr. Sunshine Stepson get along? And who the hell was Wendy?

  “Swell meeting you, Mr. Hines.”

  Dorie turned and walked to her car. She hadn’t gotten anything from the chauffeur, hadn’t even found him. Julian Hines stood staring at her with his hard eyes. She sat behind the wheel, looking at her hands, wishing Amos along. Hurry up, old chap.

  When she looked up, Julian had disappeared.

  Chapter THREE

  DORIE TAPPED HER WRISTWATCH, WAITING for Amos. When the door to the Hines mansion opened, she peered over the steering wheel.

  Thalia honey. In tennis whites, a sweater and short pleated skirt, and racket. She swung a set of keys over a finger, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She paused, bent one knee over the other as if posing for a photograph, looked at the green sedan, then at the Packard.

  Dorie straightened in her seat and rolled her window down a little farther, letting in a mix of scents, grass and burning leaves and auto exhaust. Thalia tipped her head, making up her mind, then strode directly toward the Packard, hips swaying to make the little skirt flip from side to side over her milky long legs. As she walked close to the front bumper of the auto, she paused, gave a little “Oh!” and slipped out of sight below the hood.

  Jumping out of the Packard, Dorie slammed the car door. She stepped toward the fender as the girl leapt up from her crouch, yelling, “Boo!” Dorie gasped and took a step backward, her heart thumping.

  Thalia’s mock-menacing roar switched to a belly laugh as she doubled over, pointing at Dorie with hilarious glee and letting her racket fall to the pavement with a clatter.

  “Oh my God, you should have seen your face! You looked like you’d had your last meal. Lord save me from starvation!” Laughter overwhelmed the girl. As she lost steam, she wiped her eyes. “That would have been a hoot. Mommy rapping your knuckles for driving over darling daughter. Or worse.” She put her hands on her own throat and stuck out her tongue, making strangling noises. “Poor little detective!”

  Her laughter trilled away. Thalia swept gracefully to pick up her tennis racket. She set it on her shoulder, walked to the sedan. With one leg perched in the sunshine, she turned in the car seat. “Don’t look so glum. I’m going dancing again tonight.”

  The sedan’s door shut as the motor roared to life. Thalia hit the gas and peeled away down the driveway and into the street, causing a blast of horn from a delivery truck.

  Dorie watched until the sedan turned a corner. She felt the black tide inside her drain from her ears and neck, and the thumping in her head softened. She forced herself to take a deep breath and looked down at her hands, clenched at her sides. She opened her hands, shook them out. Out of habit, she felt her trouser pocket for the switchblade. A small lurch tightened her stomach at the empty spot where the blade had always been.

  She rubbed her hands together, lacing her knuckles in a clench. An empty grasp. It was so unfair that she couldn’t have her switchblade even for its rabbit’s foot qualities. Its stabbing qualities, which she’d demonstrated in the spring, weren’t its only attractions.

  She shook out her hands angrily. God, why w
as she thinking about the switchblade now? Worthless child. Thalia had no business with a body like that. It was trouble on wheels. Already, Dorie was preparing a scenario in her head. It would end the tailing of Thalia Hines, and it involved nasty things— humiliation, at least momentary pain— why should Thalia be spared?— maybe handcuffs and the inside of a cold jail cell, definitely a good dressing-down from the Commander, which Lennox and Had-dam just couldn’t save her from, try as they mighty-might-might.

  Dorie smiled to herself, feeling her pulse slow. She was perverse, thinking like that. But she would enjoy Thalia’s comeuppance. No use denying it. Thalia enjoyed taunting them. It was hilarious that they were following her for her mother, simply hilarious. They weren’t to interfere with her activities unless she was physically threatened, and that seemed unlikely, since she would do anything any man suggested. And probably came up with a few naughty suggestions of her own. That man last night, Barnaby Wake, he had an air that was different from her other boyfriends, though. Possessive, that one. And as well dressed as any sharper on Twelfth Avenue.

  Dorie stepped into the Packard as Amos emerged from the mansion. She watched him take a breath of autumn air, tipping his nose to the wind like a foxhound. He often had a skip in his step after visiting with Eveline Hines— but not today. Still, he looked glad to be released into the fresh air.

  “I caught the chauffeur on the way out,” Amos said, settling into the wide seat. “Name is Tommy. Says he gives Thalia the keys whenever she wants them. Like today, she’s got a tennis date. And always for chorus practice. He stays around here if she’s got a date— usually.”

  “And last night?”

  “He was a bit vague. Says the Commander gave him the night off. Does every Saturday, in fact.”

  “And the sedan?”

  “Part of the job. He doesn’t have his own wheels.”

  “So he’s working on the side for this Wake?”

  “He denied it. Said he was at a meeting last night, then went out with some friends for a drink.”

  “That wasn’t him?” She could have sworn it was.

  Amos shrugged. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  She started the car and drove down the driveway to the street. “Which way?”

  He flicked his hand left. “To the Plaza.”

  They were almost to the end of Ward Parkway, with the Spanish-style red tile roofs of the Country Club Plaza in view, when Amos slapped his thigh. “I have an appointment back in the office in ten minutes. Step on it.”

  Some minutes later, she pulled up in front of the Boston Building. “Am I supposed to do something at the Plaza?”

  Amos turned on the sidewalk, shook his head as if clearing cobwebs, and walked back to the window. “Go check out this Barnaby Wake. He’s at Plaza Methodist.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “It’s the big new one. By the fancy architect. The one in the papers.”

  That explained a lot. She turned south again on Wyandotte. She read the Kansas City Star, but usually just to see what Harvey Talbot was up to. His reporting had been fairly lackluster this summer, just writing about school boards and petty criminals. She hadn’t read about any big fancy church. But it couldn’t be that hard to find.

  Traffic was thick through downtown, even on a Sunday. The war in Europe had lighted a fire under business, and manufacturers were scrambling to predict what soldiers would need. There was a greedy glee to it that left a bad taste in the mouth, but Kansas City had come back to life in a way that Franklin D. Roosevelt had tried to achieve but never quite accomplished. FDR was making noises about airplanes and tanks and bullets and boots, and Kansas City was listening.

  A streetcar-auto incident at the corner of Eleventh and Wyandotte had the traffic tangled for blocks. A streetcar hack waved his hat around while jumping on the bumper of an automobile, shouting at the driver cowering inside.

  Lennox settled into a slow, stop-and-go rhythm down Broadway through Penn Valley Park— a mistake on a Sunday afternoon, but pleasant and grassy— then on to where Broadway turned into Mill Creek. She turned right on Forty-seventh Street and was in the midst of the Country Club Plaza District, with its Moorish towers, Spanish buildings, fountains, fancy people, and money.

  The stores were closed today, making it easy to find the churches. Autos were parked in clusters around them, one at the far western side of the district, which turned out to be a Catholic church, and another near the northeast side. Here was Plaza Methodist, new, bright, modern. Dorie parked a block away and walked back to the building. She assumed the many vehicles parked nearby meant a church service was under way. It seemed late for services, but she didn’t have much contact with churches, hadn’t even when she was a kid. Her mother hadn’t been welcome in any in Atchison.

  She pulled open the heavy wood doors embellished with leaded glass. The foyer was hushed and dark, the stone floor dotted with utilitarian rugs. Lennox stood on one and listened for the preacher. The doors to the nave were closed tight, blocking sound and light.

  She stood swaying for a moment on the mat. New construction smells wafted up: paint, varnish, good wood, wet cement. The long green wall that faced her was a clean sweep of color, broken only by a long, low wooden table set with a single brass bowl. If she held her breath, she could hear singing somewhere deep inside the church.

  She closed her eyes, reaching out for the edge of the door frame for balance. Was it singing here— or in her head? She gulped a breath and listened hard. Men’s voices, young men, a boy’s choir, singing a hymn, something in Latin, words she didn’t know. It was pure and beautiful, and when it stopped, she was disappointed.

  “Can I help you?”

  A woman stood peering over rimless glasses, holding a large black notebook tightly against her chest. She wore a plain blue dress and the kind of shoes schoolteachers wore, simple and sturdy. Gray streaked through her light brown hair, which was pulled back off her face with combs.

  “Are you all right?” The woman held out a hand as if to show how steady it was.

  “I’m looking for Barnaby Wake,” Dorie said.

  “Oh.” The woman gave her a strange look. “I don’t believe he’s here right now.”

  “But he does have an office here. For the Hallelujah Chorus? Maybe I can leave him a message.”

  “He rehearses here on Thursdays. You should come back then.” The woman turned to go.

  “Wait, I—” She touched the woman’s arm, causing her to flinch and frown, then pull her arm away. “I’m sorry. I thought Mr. Wake was the choir director here. I was listening to that choir, the boys. It was swell.”

  The woman straightened, her posture becoming even more upright. ” ‘Swell’?” she repeated, then coughed as if spitting the foul word out. “Reverend Nolan does a fine job with the boys.”

  “Reverend Nolan?”

  “The choir director.” The woman raised one eyebrow. That’s that, the eyebrow said. “Good day.”

  “Wait, Miss —”

  “Janes. Hazel Janes.”

  “Doria Lennox. Nice to meet you, Miss Janes.” Lennox had no luck getting the woman to shake her hand. Must give it a good wash and manicure. Heck, she’d do both hands— why scrimp?

  “One last thing. I was wondering if I could …” She pointed toward the doors. “Just a peek?”

  ~~

  In the Packard, Dorie sat for a moment, looking at her perfectly presentable hand. There was a smudge of grease or something on the back. She rubbed it.

  Standing inside the nave had been strange. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, since her church visits could be counted on the fingers of one filthy hand. It was huge, she had expected that. With a high wood-beamed ceiling and modernist stained glass, no saints or Resurrection scenes, just geometric shapes in a variety of colors.

  Dorie stood there, just inside the big heavy door, letting it close behind her. The quiet was dense. Light came through the stained glass, watery but clear, like ra
indrops, creating a dance of prisms on the long wooden pews. The front of the church was open, with a raised stage. Above a single unimposing podium, a long red-and-gold banner hung on the wall.

  She was enjoying the quiet when the smell of lilies came to her. Large vases sat on either corner of the stage, filled with white lilies. The sweet scent of the flowers took her back to Atchison, to a time she had gone to Easter service with her friend Arlette at her father’s church. The only white face in the crowd, twelve and awkward and embarrassed by the attention. But the singing. The voices of that choir had been rich and bold, reaching out and grabbing your heart and wringing it out.

  She shook herself in the Packard. It had been a long time since she’d heard from Arlette. She hadn’t seen her friend in years, not since Atchison, but Arlette usually dropped her a postcard from her travels. Now that connection seemed broken, too.

  Just as well, since she never wrote back. Arlette never gave an address, as if to keep the correspondence under her control. As if it was a duty. Dorie never felt her getting pinched for stealing the car, and winding up at reform school, was Arlette’s problem. She had made her own choice, the only choice, to take the car, to drive to the doctor in Kansas City, because Arlette was desperate and had to have an abortion. Arlette would have done it for her. There was no obligation, no duty. Still, Arlette had written, little scribbled notes of affection and gratitude, all those years.

  Back on Charlotte Street, the boardinghouse had a lazy feel. Two girls sat on the front steps gossiping. The afternoon had warmed and was so inviting that neighborhood children had set up a game of stickball in the street. Dorie threw the ball back to them as she stepped out of the Packard. It was Sunday and she had to tail the rich girl again tonight. She’d be damned if she was going to work all day, too.