Midnight Rain: A Detective Jack Dunning Novel

by Arlette Lees

  “That was a long time ago, dear. You have a big bump on your head?”

  “I know. I was trapped under the wheel.”

  “You lie right here. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” He’s back in a flash, helping her sit up, handing her coffee with plenty of cream to cool it. He waits patiently until she’s finished and sets the cup on the bed stand. “Are you with me now?” he asks. “It’s 1936 last time I checked.”

  “Don’t try to confuse me with numbers.”

  “Was it your heart again?”

  “I was mugged, Joe. They were after my crystal ball?”

  “You weren’t mugged, Cookie. Your purse is on the chair and there’s not a big market for crystal balls in cow country. Look at me.” He notes the swelling and bruising around her eyes, the dark circles above her cheekbones. “You’ve had one of your headaches again.”

  “I should have said something yesterday, but I didn‘t want to be a nuisance. Joe, I had one of the strangest dreams last night.” Joe thinks of Chita and suppresses a smile. He had a pretty strange one himself.

  “Did anyone die this time, in your vision I mean?”

  “I don’t know. It was interrupted by a car wreck out front.”

  “Let me get you an ice bag to bring that swelling down.” Something rolls beneath his foot. He bends over and picks up a small glass bottle.

  “I thought you weren’t going to take this stuff anymore.”

  “I only take it when I have to.”

  “When I left yesterday there was an eighth of a bottle. That’s at least four or five doses. Now it’s empty. You’re going to kill yourself with this…this… Chinese devil juice.”

  “You Italians! Why do you have to turn everything into a major crisis?”

  “Dr. McBane knows it’s dangerous, probably deadly, the old fool.”

  “If you had migraines you’d understand.”

  “I know he gives you two bottles. Where’s the other one?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Alright, I’ll find it myself.”

  “If you do, I’ll call Jack and tell him you’re stealing from me. Don’t think I won’t.”

  “Go ahead, call Jack, then Dr. McBane and Li Dock Qwan can share a jail cell. Better yet, they’ll ship Qwan back to China.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t I?”

  “I want you out of here!” She sinks back on the pillow as a sharp pain shoots behind her eyes.

  Joe marches to the bathroom and gets the ice bag. He goes to the kitchen, fills it with ice and tosses it on the bed. “Put that on your head,” he says. He returns to the bathroom and gets the second bottle of elixir from the medicine cabinet. Cookie tries to get out of bed, but collapses back on the pillow. Joe points a stern finger at her.

  “You stay right where you are. I’m taking this with me,” he says, holding up the bottle. The golden liquid shimmers seductively in the light. “I’m calling Dr. Albright to come and check you over.”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “I don’t care if it’s the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception. I better not catch you going back to Quack McBane.”

  “I hate you! You’re just like Skipper. Get out of here and don’t come back.”

  “Let me remind you, I own this building.”

  “I’m moving.”

  “Then pack your crystal ball and go. What do I care.”

  * * * *

  I follow the van past Sparkey’s Roadhouse. A half mile further we pass the schoolhouse on the same side of the highway. Another quarter mile and the coroner pulls to the opposite side of the road behind a flatbed truck. Homer Platt and I exit our vehicles at the same time. I don’t see Lulu’s car.

  “Hello, Jack. How did you get here so fast?” says Homer.

  “I chase coroners like dogs chase cats. What have you got?”

  “A body in the ditch is what the caller said.”

  I see serpentine tire tracks along the road, but no car. “Are we talking about an elderly woman with a red dye job and a raccoon coat?”

  “Nope. A young boy from what I was told.”

  Homer is a tall, bony man as pale as the corpses on his autopsy table. A year back he took over the family business from his father who had the good sense to move to Florida.

  A man in overalls with a half-grown boy at his side walks toward us. A woman sits in the cab of the truck, three little girls and a dog looking on.

  “I’m Ed Thompson. This is my boy, Frank,” says the man.

  “I’m Homer Platt,” says the coroner. “We spoke on the phone. This is Officer Dunning with Santa Paulina P. D.” We shake hands. Ed is wiry and short, but hard-muscled with knuckles like oak knots.

  “Our dog is the one found the young fellow. Looks like he’s been there a spell.”

  “Let’s have a look Jack,” says Homer, leading the way.

  We slide into the ditch. The boy, about six or seven years old lies in a few inches of water. Not far from the body is a waterlogged school book and a blue knit cap. The boy’s head is scabby and shaved close to the scalp, indicating the presence of head lice. He wears a threadbare blue jacket that bears a few flakes of green on the shoulder, which reminds me again of Roland’s green Chevy.

  “That look like car paint to you?” I say.

  “Hard to tell.”

  “How long do you think he’s been here?”

  He feels the boy’s limbs. “Rigor’s already come and gone. Since yesterday sometime. Anyone report a boy missing?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  We get our cameras and shoot the scene from various angles. I take one of the zigzag tire tracks along the shoulder. We squeeze water from the boy’s coat and load him into the back of the van along with the cap and schoolbook. Even wet the boy feels weightless and hollow-boned.

  I walk over to Ed Thompson, get his statement, take notes. He doesn’t know any more than we do. “Unless I can be of further help, I’d like to get going,” he says. “I have a front headlamp out, so I’d like to clear the Altamont Pass before dark.”

  “Thanks for your help and good luck to you.”

  Homer heads to the mortuary and I drive to the station. The Chief is out and Sergeant Boyle is on the front desk.

  “Anybody report a missing schoolboy?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “If they do, leave a message for me at the Rexford and notify Platt. He brought a dead boy in off the highway, but we haven’t I.D.ed him yet.”

  “Hit and run?”

  “Probably.”

  “Between Sparkey’s and the Kingsolvers?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “It’s odd, that’s all.”

  “How so?”

  “When you and Angel were vacationing back in September, another boy was found on the road. When you get more dead kids than dead dogs on the same stretch of road it makes you wonder, don’t it?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Joe is not himself for the rest of the day. He bumbles through his routine dropping change, spilling a cup of coffee, burning a chocolate cake. He wanted to apologize for the mean things he said yesterday, but his opinion about the dangers of the devil juice haven’t changed.

  Cookie watches Joe pull into traffic at the end of the day, then goes down to the bakery for the newspaper. Dr. Albright’s visit had been a waste of time. All he recommended were the things that hadn’t been effective in the past. He told her to keep the ice bag on her head and charged her an extra quarter for the house call.

  She sits at the bistro table and flips through the pages of the Morning Sun. If there’s something about a murder or assault, it might explain her strange dream. There’s news of foreclosures, liv
estock sales, a church rummage sale and a .22 slug in the gas station window. No violence, mayhem or murder. As she’s folding the paper, she sees what appears to be a business card on the floor near the door. Curious, she walks over and picks it up.

  CONCHITA MONTOYA

  Dance Instructor

  TOP HAT SCHOOL OF DANCE

  Rumba, Samba, Tango Classes

  Saturday Evening 8:00 O’clock

  Cookie turns the card over and sees a penciled message on the back. “Cho, is complimentary lesson, 11213 Railroad Spur Rd. XOX Chita”

  Cho? Chita?

  So, this is what Joe is up to, stealing her elixir, starting an argument…a sneaky way to justify making time with another woman. Her miserable days with Skipper come back in a sickening rush. The lies. The late nights at the office. The weekends with “the boys.” Shards of light slice through the neural pathways of her brain, distorting her vision to the point of partial blindness. By the time she feels her way up to the apartment, one eye is swollen shut and her head is exploding with pain.

  * * * *

  Frances has had a bad day and when Frances has a bad day, so does everyone around her. When Mittie, her twenty year old house maid, broke a Tiffany lamp, she blew her stack and banished her for the weekend. Now, she’s alone with no one to talk with and coughing up more blood than usual. She’s always considered herself indestructible, but just lately she has to admit to not being entirely well.

  Frances lights a cigarette and pours a whiskey straight. It burns her throat going down. Like father, like daughter. If Red O’Hara smoked and drank, she smoked and drank. In her eyes, he could do no wrong, nor she in his.

  Tonight she sits in the living room in one of her darker moods, missing her father more than ever. She’s never been the same since he took a bullet in the back, nor has she been able to establish with any certainty, Leland’s movements on the night he died.

  Now that she knows that Leland isn’t even Leland, her suspicions have deepened. Red wouldn’t let down his guard with a stranger, but he might with his son-in-law. With their marriage unraveling, Frances is worth more dead than alive and a bullet in the back is one tradition she doesn’t intend to share with her father.

  The phone rings and a vein jumps in her temple. She snatches up the receiver. “What?” she says. A flurry of dry leaves shoot past the windowpane and a branch scraping against the house sounds like fingernails on a blackboard.

  “It’s Darrell Singleton, Mrs. Dietrich.”

  “Yes, yes, what is it?”

  “There’s been a new development. I’ll give it to you now and send you a written report in the morning. I’m calling from a phone booth across from the auction barn. I followed Mr. Dietrich to the German Social Club.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Tonight’s their first meeting. Before the doors opened I mingled with the crowd out front.

  “So?”

  “Your husband met up with a young woman, but I had the feeling they weren’t meeting for the first time.”

  “Singleton, this is redundant. I already know he’s a dog.”

  “Hear me out. I didn’t sense any romantic undertones this time. Of the fifty or so men in attendance, she was the only woman, so she must be someone with status. In the lot were license plates from all over the state…San Francisco…Fresno…Los Angeles…like this meeting was a big deal. They’d come to hear a lecture by…you want to take a guess?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Ludwig Gerhard von Buchholz.”

  It takes a moment for her to associate the name with her husband.

  “You’re a man of many surprises, Singleton.”

  “So is your husband.”

  Frances coughs a husky laugh.

  “There’s something else. Although Mr. Dietrich was the guest speaker, the head honcho is a man named Hansel Von Stroheim, and his license plate is out of L.A. When he arrived, his name was on everyone’s lips. He looks like an Aryan god. Six foot five. Sandy blond hair. Carries himself like an Olympic athlete.”

  “What, no dueling scar?”

  “Left cheek. Two inches long. Either that or he doesn’t know how to use a straight razor. When he arrived the crowd was mesmerized. After he went inside security bolted the door. What I’d give to be a fly on that wall.”

  “I don’t know where all this is leading, but stay on it and see what develops.”

  At midnight, Frances walks to the stable, her .38 in hand. She wears jodhpurs, riding boots and a white blouse speckled with blood from all that coughing. The horses are bedded down for the night, but when Sahara Princess hears her enter, she’s greeted with an excited whinny.

  Princess was this year’s anniversary present to Leland, but clearly, he no longer deserves such a magnificent animal. She’d take everything back if she could…the Auburn…the fancy clothes…the box at the San Francisco Opera House. He shows his horse off to friends, but never gives her the amount of exercise a spirited animal requires. The black Arabian is a desert horse whose ancient pedigree is rooted in the sands of time. At a gallop her long mane and tail ripple on the wind like liquid silk.

  Frances paid more for the horse than your average man makes in five years. She strokes the animal’s neck and whispers into her mane. Princess nudges her right hand, but instead of a sugar cube, it holds a gun.

  Frances picks up the telephone on the far wall and dials Will Bernside’s home phone. He’s the owner of Consolidated Rendering Plant in Manteca, an unusual name for a town, meaning ‘lard’ when translated into English. Like most people at this hour, Will is sleeping.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he says.

  “This is Frances Dietrich, Will. I have to put down an injured horse. How soon can you pick up the carcass?”

  Will is grumbly with sleep. “Call me tomorrow at the plant. I don’t take the schedule to bed with me.” He hangs up with a sharp click.

  “Some people!” she says.

  Princess prances and circles, impatient for her treat. Frances leans against the half-door of the stall. The mare nibbles playfully at her ear. Another whinny. Big brown eyes, bright with curiosity and intelligence. Fran’s anger dissipates. She pockets the gun and gives Princess her sugar as she presses her cheek against the mare’s warm neck. She fights back a tear. When she fires a bullet, it’s not going to be into something as noble as a horse.

  Frances brings the pickup around, puts the gun under the front seat and hooks the horse trailer to the hitch. She loads the mare for transport to another of her properties where Leland won’t find her.

  When her husband took it upon himself to fire their groom last year…a former jockey, who’d been ten years with the family…she’d been furious, especially when he marched away from her without explanation. Now, she knows why.

  The groom was Benny Silverstein. A Jew.

  * * * *

  Joe has a date…well, sort of a date. He’s filled with both trepidation and excitement as he puts on the dark suit he reserves for weddings, funerals and jury duty. It’s dated, but nicely tailored to his tall, slender physique.

  He fastens silver cufflinks at the wrists of his spotless white shirt, holds up a dozen ties and selects the blue one with the narrow, silver stripe to match the silver at his temples. He tilts his fedora at a rakish angle, takes a deep breath and blows it out. Gloves and a top coat and he’s as ready as he’s ever going to be.

  On the drive to town, he reflects on Chita’s parting words. “Be honest, Cho. I know when a man is die to play with fire. Eight o’clock. You no come, I cry like baby.” He hasn’t had an invitation like this since he was on the high school basketball team. If he waits for another, he’ll be too old to strike a match, let alone fan the flames.

  He checks his map. Railroad Spur Road b
ranches off to the packing house and various factories in the industrial area east of town. A quarter mile down the road and the last streetlight vanishes in his rear view mirror. The road is deeply rutted, his car rocking and bouncing over the pot holes. A spray of tarred gravel strikes the undercarriage. He needn’t have bothered polishing the car and scrubbing the whitewalls. He drives slowly, scanning the darkness for the Dance School, but all he sees are buildings locked down for the night and the green fluorescent glow from the packing plant.

  After a five minute drive the road dead ends at an auto supply warehouse. For a moment he sits bewildered behind the wheel. He’s looking for 11213, but the numbers don’t run that high.

  The ever-punctual Joe is running late and there’s no second chance to make a first impression. He resumes his search, growing more frustrated by the minute. At eight-forty he slams on the breaks and fishtails to a stop. With a sickening jolt he realizes there is no school of dance. There never was.

  Cho has been duped!

  Sweat pops in his arm pits and his face flushes with embarrassment. He slaps the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “You stupid old fool,” he says, making a three point turn and racing back toward home.

  The front door is standing open when Joe pulls in the driveway. Two pair of muddy footprints crisscross the porch, one small and one belonging to Bigfoot.

  A trace of perfume still lingers on the air when he takes the stairs to the second floor, anxiously calling for Pumpkin. He rushes to his bedroom, then the guest room and finally Mildred’s room where his traumatized cat crawls out from under the bed with his fur standing on end and his eyes as big as moons.

  He sweeps the cat into his arms and holds him so close he can feel Pumpkin’s rapid heartbeat. After a few minutes Pumpkin begins to purr and Joe sets him on the bed. Mildred’s clothes are scattered across the floor. Her furs and expensive shoes are gone along with the silver brush and mirror set, M being for Montoya and all. In its place is a note: Sorry Cho. You nice man. In future no be so trusting. Scatter ashes. No good for finding new wife.