by Arlette Lees
Quite the felonious little philosopher!
Pumpkin follows Joe to his bedroom. His personal possessions are intact. Apparently, Big Foot couldn’t get into his size nine shoes. He recalls the items in Chita’s car: the guitar, the candlesticks, the gun case. Now, he wonders whose house she burglarized before sliding off the road.
Joe decides against reporting the burglary. He should, but he won’t. It would be in the newspaper and he doesn’t want Cookie to know what an old fool he’s been. Even if she never speaks to him again, it’s important she thinks well of him.
Joe locks his doors for the first time in forty years, although it’s a little late to do him any good. He hangs his suit in the closet until the next wedding or funeral and gets into his striped pajamas. Between his flap with Cookie, burning the cake and being scammed by a flirtatious young tart, it’s been a very trying day.
He crawls beneath the covers and Pumpkin hops on his chest. There’s a small snap of electricity as they touch noses. When the purring and treading begins, Joe gives him a firm hug and tucks him into the crook of his arm. For a long time he lies staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow after Mass, he’ll drive to the coast of Big Sur where he and Mildred spent their honeymoon. From the cliff tops, he’ll release her ashes into the wind above the sea.
* * * *
Hank motions me over as soon as I walk in the lobby. It’s dark outside and the wind is moaning between the buildings. He tells me Angel was seen by Dr. McBane that afternoon. He sedated her so she can rest.
“Did he say what’s wrong?”
“A winter bug of some kind. She’s to rest, drink water and take aspirin. He’ll check on her later in the week. Anything new on Lulu?” Hank asks.
I shake my head. “It’s not looking good.”
“That’s a damn shame.” He looks at me like he has something else to say, but the moment passes and I walk to the elevator.
CHAPTER 11
The meeting of the Deutschlander Social Club breaks up a couple hours after midnight, men pouring out the door, laughing and back-slapping, everyone in high spirits as they head to their cars. During the meeting Singleton had walked through the empty parking lot jotting down license numbers in his notebook.
After the others are gone, Dietrich and the mystery woman linger in the lot as Singleton watches from his vantage point near the phone booth. The couple talks for the length of time it takes to smoke two cigarettes, relaxed in one another’s company, no intimate touching or sexual overtures. His feet are numb with cold and he yearns for the comforts of his motel room…a long shower, a warm bed, a nightcap. He doubts that anything of further significance will happen tonight.
Finally, the two comrades flick their cigarette butts into the darkness. They salute and click their heels with a hearty, Heil Hitler, and leave in separate cars. If they only knew how ridiculous they looked.
Singleton is about to call off surveillance when Dietrich pulls onto Cork Street and drives in the opposite direction of Hilliker Road. Another foray into Chinatown, he wonders? He closes the notebook containing the license numbers he collected while the meeting was in session. The nightcap and warm bed will have to wait. He keys his car. It coughs a couple times before the engine kicks over. He checks the gas gauge. It hovers near E but the stations are closed. He’s curious and decides to risk it. Besides, his vigilance might earn him a nice fat bonus from the rich Mrs. Dietrich.
The P.I. lets his subject get a head start before he pulls into the empty street. He prefers tailing subjects in moderate traffic, but sometimes you have to take it as it comes. The job that began as surveillance of an adulterous spouse has turned into something a little out of his line. Nevertheless, he’d like to wrap things up in another day or two and get back home to his wife and kids.
After a mile or so Dietrich pulls off Cork onto St. Finnbar Street. What the hell is on St. Finnbar Street that could possibly be of interest to Leland Dietrich? He passes the Catholic Church and adjacent parochial school with its empty playground and baseball diamond. With the exception of a dim light above the rectory door, the street is dark, leaves piling up in the gutters, wind rattling the chains on the swing set.
Dietrich pulls to the curb in front of the Jewish synagogue and a bad feeling creeps into Singleton’s bones. He passes him at a crawl, makes a u-turn and parks up the street. He kills the lights and turns off the engine. Dietrich exits his car and disappear behind the building. The unpainted structure is old and weathered, the architecture like something out of an Eastern European shtetl.
He waits for Dietrich to reappear, then waits some more, his back muscles aching, one foot gone slightly numb. What the hell is Dietrich doing back there? He catches movement in the rear view mirror, someone walking his dog or having a last smoke before turning in. It’s only when the shadowy figure gets closer that he realizes Dietrich has circled behind the buildings and come up behind him.
Singleton keys the ignition. Nothing. He tries again. His car lets out a mechanical groan but refuses to kick over. He tries again and again, rapidly pumping the gas pedal. What little gas is left in the tank floods the engine and the car fills with fumes. Another glance in the rear view mirror and Dietrich is coming toward him at a trot.
Singleton grabs his keys and notebook, jumps from the car and hits the ground running. He goes full out for a block, his lungs aching from the cold night air. In the deep shadow of a giant oak tree, he drops the notebook and keys into a curbside mailbox, barely breaking his stride. He bolts down the sidewalk without looking back. If he had, he’d see that Dietrich was holding a gun.
* * * *
Angel is asleep when I crawl into bed. I smooth the damp hair from her forehead and feel her soft breath on my shoulder. Her nightgown is inside out, the tag visible at the neckline. She shivers and fever-talks in her sleep and I wonder how much of her suffering is due to fever and how much to her encounter with Leland Dietrich.
I drift off. I’m not sure how long I’d been sleeping when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes and see Angel standing beside the bed.
“What is it?” I say, sitting up. “Are you alright?”
“Jack, something’s going on.” She takes my hand and pulls me to the window.
“Look,” she says. “Over there, above the rooftops.” The sky to the east blooms with a flickering orange glow. A fire truck, its sirens screaming, flies past the hotel. I hear footsteps in the hall, the murmur of voices, the elevator rattling up and down. “Let’s find out what’s going on,” she says. “Please, help me with my robe.”
The lobby is a-buzz with people in nightclothes. Jake, Albie and Cantor Nemschoff stand in a shivering crowd gathered on the sidewalk out front. Angel is weak and leans more havily on my arm.
“I think I’d better sit,” she says.
“You should be in bed. Let me take you back up?”
“Not yet, Jack. Go see what’s happening first.”
I get her settled in the lounge and join the people at the curb. Wind whips the distant flames hundreds of feet into the air, sirens pulsing in the distance.
“That’s one hell of a fire,” says Jake.
“That was going to be my school,” says Albie, as Bo snores softly in his arms. “St. Finney’s is burning down.”
Cantor Nemschoff, wrapped in his blue and white prayer shawl, is pale and shaken, his hand trembling on his cane. “No,” he says, “that’s the synagogue. It’s starting all over again, just like back in Germany.”
CHAPTER 12
SAGUARO CORRECTIONAL
In the chilly dawn, Hedy Greiss shows Head Administrator, Horace Churchwell, the key ring Penelope Hanover left in the record’s room. Together they walk down the path to Bungalow 5. The door is locked and scattered coins lie among shattered pieces of glass from the petty cash jar. Very incriminating. Just the wa
y Hedy planned it.
“She must have panicked when she realized she didn’t have her key,” says Horace.
“And her car is gone from the parking area,” adds Hedy.
“But look, her car key is on the ring,” he says.
“She keeps a spare in the glove compartment because she’s always misplacing things. She’s very sweet, but you know how scatterbrained she can be.”
“Well, let’s hope she returns. She may have a reasonable explanation for her behavior.” Hedy smiles. There is one, but Horace Churchwell is never going to hear it. “She’s an excellent teacher. I’d hate to lose her before the semester is over. If you’d woken me during the night, Miss Greiss, she might have had an opportunity to explain herself.”
“I realize that now. Penny thought she could handle the isolation of the desert, but with no movie theater, no place to shop and no marital prospects she’d become disillusioned.”
“She told you that?”
“Oh yes, on more than one occasion. She talked often of returning to the city.”
“Well, let’s give it a day or two and see what happens. “I’ll have Jesus clean up the glass. By the way, with all the midnight oil you’re burning, I hope you’re ready for the state audit.”
“You needn’t worry, Mr. Churchwell. I’m on top of it.”
CHAPTER 13
Angel and I listen to the morning news. Her fever has dropped to 100 degrees, her bad ear resting on a heating pad. “Feeling any better?” I ask.
“Better than yesterday. So, Cantor Nemschoff was right. It was the synagogue that burned. Do you think he was right about things starting over?”
“You mean Nazis? I know they’re spreading their poison in a lot of places, but why target a speck on the map like Santa Paulina?
“Think Jack. It’s our central location that attracts them. We’re a hub with spokes reaching out to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockton and Sacramento, seats of money and influence. We’re easily reached by train, Greyhound or a day’s drive.”
“That makes sense, but the first thing the fire inspector is going to look at is the frayed wiring in that old fire trap, not arson.”
The phone rings and I pick up. By the time I hang up, Angel knows we won’t be spending Sunday in bed.
“I know that look, Jack.”
“You’re right. Homer wants me down at the mortuary.”
“Oh no, not Lulu.”
“It’s about the boy we found on the road.”
“Poor little fellow.”
“I might be late, so have Albie pick something up for you at the Memory Lights. Are you going to be okay?”
“Sure. Don’t worry about me.”
She goes silent, just looks at me, all blue-eyed and thoughtful. I think she’s about to tell me about Leland Dietrich, but I’m wrong.
“I’ve been thinking about the dining room off the lobby,” she says.
“The dining room? What about it?”
“When Hank bought the place, the dining room had been closed off for years, but there are still tables and chairs and a full kitchen in the back. It would be nice if it were up and going again, no more running back and forth to the café in bad weather.”
“It would be nice.”
“I’m going to talk to Hank about it.”
“I like the idea, but it would take a lot of work. He’d need a license, a cook, a dishwasher…”
“You’re not following me, Jack. I’d manage the dining room myself. One meal a day at dinnertime. I could set it up buffet style, make it really nice with flowers on the tables, chili and hotdogs one night, chicken or meatloaf the next. A lot of our older residents don’t eat right because it’s either hard for them to get out or the cost is too high. I think some of them miss meals more often than we know.”
“You manage the dining room?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I’ve given it a lot of thought.” She tries to rise on an elbow, then dizzy and weak, sinks back on the bed.
“Are you sure this isn’t the fever talking?”
“I’m capable of clear thinking, Jack? I can’t continue living off of you and being your…whatever it is I am…without doing something constructive with my life. Otherwise, I’m just taking up space on the planet. You’ve got your job. Hank has his hotel. Even Albie has his newspapers. I’m like everybody else. I need to do something useful in this world.”
* * * *
I have an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach as I drive toward the mortuary. Angel’s message had as much to do with our relationship as with flowers and meatloaf. I had no idea she felt the way she did.
Whatever it is I am.
It was painful to hear those words and it’s my fault she had to say them. I’ve been given a second chance for happiness and I’m afraid to own it, not because I don’t love Angel, but because I screwed up so badly in my first marriage. I’d turned Sandra from a trusting young woman into a shrike who hated me almost as much as I hated myself. I didn’t want to risk doing the same thing to Angel.
Now, I’m in control of my drinking, or at least I think I am, but it’s a daily struggle to keep it from getting out of hand. In fact, I could go for a shot right now. When Angel said she needed something of her own, I think she really meant someone of her own, someone ready to get off the fence and make the kind of commitment that requires a Justice of the Peace and a ring.
Whatever it is I am. Those words haunt me.
Today, if I get killed on the job, Angel has no legal standing. In the eyes of the law, we’re simply “shacked up.” Everyone at the Rexford loves her, but it’s a wide world and Angel has to live in it, hopefully with a modicum of dignity.
Then there’s Tom, a good young man who doesn’t lug around the baggage I do. If I were noble, I’d step aside, but I’m not that selfless. On the other hand, if I don’t make a decision, someone will make it for me and I probably won’t like it.”
* * * *
“Murder? You mean hit and run, don’t you? Negligent homicide?”
“No, the old fashioned, premeditated kind,” says Homer.
I shiver and rub my arms. It’s freezing in the basement morgue of the old Victorian house on Cedar Street. The air smells sharply of formaldehyde, which conjures up a lot of unpleasant images, starting with dissecting frogs in high school biology.
“What about the paint on the jacket?” I say, still thinking about Roland’s green sedan.
“Poster paint. The kind kids use in school.”
“Hmm.” There are two autopsy tables in the room. The boy is under a sheet nearest the entrance. An elderly man is on the one against the back wall.
“Who’s his neighbor?” I ask.
“Wexler Culken. A couple nights ago Wex was coming home from his 80th birthday party when he was broadsided by a drunk. Happened over on Cork and St. Ambrose. The man who hit him was treated for a broken thumb. I’d rather have the other guy on the table, but you take ’em as they come.” Homer walks over and covers the dead man’s face with a sheet. “Wex gets his send-off tomorrow. You look a little pale, Jack. You sure you’re up to this?”
“I’d rather be home reading the funny papers if that’s what’s you mean.”
Homer laughs and snaps on his rubber gloves. “Okay, let’s get it done. I’ll show you what I found.”
We step up to the table and he pulls back the sheet. The boy has a freckled face and elfin ears. He would have been a cute kid before he ended up on a slab. His stomach is sunken and I can count his ribs. I see no blood. No bullet holes. No stab wounds.
“He’s about seven years old and pitifully undernourished,” says Homer.
“I see a few bruises like kids get on the playground and an abrasion on the bridge of his nose, but it doesn�
�t strike me as significant. I don’t see an obvious cause of death. If he wasn’t hit by a car my second guess would be hypothermia due to lack of body fat and exposure to the elements. What am I missing?”
“I found something I should have looked for when the other boy came to me back in September. I put the first case down as blunt force trauma due to hit and run, because internal injuries aren’t always apparent on external examination and opening the body was against his parent’s beliefs. Now, I’m having second thoughts.” He lifts the boy’s eyelids with gloved fingers, first one then the other. His once blue eyes are bulged and frosted over in death, the whites webbed with burst capillaries, something I’d seen dozens of times as a Homicide Detective in Boston.
“Okay, I’m on board,” I say. “Petechial hemorrhaging.”
“Yes, check this out,” he says. “Homer raises the boy’s upper lip. Like so many poor children, his teeth are decayed at the gum line. There are swollen lacerations where the teeth cut the underside of both upper and lower lips.
“He was suffocated.”
“Yes,” says Homer. “Something was held with force over his face, a hand, a pillow, something of that nature. He was too fragile to put up much of a fight.”
“Now the abrasion on his nose makes sense. Do you know his identity yet?”
“Not a clue. I looked for a name in his book but it was too waterlogged. Whoever he is, he probably goes to the one room schoolhouse, but there won’t be anyone there until tomorrow.”
“If he was murdered elsewhere and dumped, it would likely be from a car,” I say. “That suggests adult involvement either in the crime, after the fact or both.”