“Yeah, you did. You did it because they was going to stiff me!” Peggy cried angrily.
“God damn it, I’m not going to hang for what you did! They both found you rifling through their things. You told me so yourself.”
“So when they went to call the police or something, you shot them in the back of the head. Both of them,” I ended for Johnny. Peggy. Had killed two men.
Peggy glowered at me. Then she sneered. Then she said, “What do you know about anything, anyways? You and your prissy, goody-two-shoes act. You don’t know what it’s like to have to grub for a living or have disgusting men like those Gossett and Preston characters paw you.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said quietly. “You could have gone into some other line of work.”
“Yeah? Well, I did something else. I shot the bastards and got away with hundreds of dollars! Hundreds, I tell you!”
“Christ, Peggy,” said Johnny Autumn, pleading. “Will you shut up?”
I kicked him in the bandage, making him howl.
“Stop swearing in my house.” Then I turned to Croft. “Get these two out of my home. You have a confession.” I could barely look at Peggy, but I forced myself. “I’ve never met anyone truly evil before, Peggy Wickstrom. I think you’re a first for me.”
“Bitch,” said Peggy.
The police escorted Peggy and her erstwhile boyfriend to the police station. Phil was going to accompany them, but I stopped him by putting a firm hand on his arm. “I presume you’re going to release Calvin Buck now?”
Phil kicked the carpet with the toe of his shoe. “If the ballistics--”
“Damn the ballistics!” I shouted, shocking myself, not to mention Phil, Ernie, and the rest of the members of my household. “You didn’t have any ballistics when you arrested the boy! You locked him up on the word of a woman who didn’t know what she was talking about! You just heard confessions from two people about who did the shooting! Release that young man, or I’ll sue the Los Angeles Police Department and every officer in it!”
“Mercy,” Ernie grumbled. “Take it easy.”
“I won’t take it easy! The Los Angeles police arrested Calvin Buck for no better reason than that he’s a Negro boy. I talked to Mrs. Wallace yesterday. She didn’t even see the face of the man she fingered as Calvin Buck, Phil Bigelow, and you know it! She only said it was Calvin because she saw a Negro man walking on Carroll Street the day of the murder, and the only Negro man whose name she knew was Calvin Buck’s! She also saw Johnny Autumn and Peggy Wickstrom at Gossett’s house that day, but did the police arrest them? Lord, no! They didn’t want to arrest a couple of white people, did they? Even though the machine Mrs. Wallace described was a nineteen twenty-five Pontiac, and Johnny Autumn drives a nineteen twenty-five Pontiac!”
“Mercy,” said Ernie once more, a little louder this time.
But to my surprise, Phil shook his head. “No, Ernie. She’s right.” Turning to me, he said, “Yes. We’ll release Calvin Buck. We’ll have to verify the confessions of Autumn and Wickstrom, but if they pan out, and I’m sure they will, one or both of them will be arrested for Milton Halsey Gossett’s murder and that of Gregory Preston. Calvin Buck clearly didn’t have a thing to do with either crime.”
I’d have thanked him, but I was too shocked to do anything but stare at his back as he and Ernie followed the policemen to the station.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mr. Buck came home as Ernie and Phil were driving away. He hurried through the back door, looking worried, especially when he saw his wife crying in my arms.
“What happened?” he cried. “What did them policemen want?”
I think he suffered a shock when I looked up from Mrs. Buck’s heaving back and gave him a mile-wide smile. “It’s all right, Mr. Buck. The police have the real murderers in custody, and they’re releasing your son today. This very evening.” I frowned. “If Phil Bigelow told me the truth. And if he didn’t, the L.A.P.D. is going to have to defend itself against a lawsuit filed by me.”
Mr. Buck looked blank for a moment. The Mrs. Buck pulled away from me and hurled herself at her husband. “It’s the truth, Em! Miss Mercy found the killer!”
“I . . . I . . . I . . .”
“I didn’t really,” I said. “It was Buttercup. She saved the day.”
Evidently Mr. Buck was too overwhelmed to take in any more information. Still clutching his wife, he more or less fell into a kitchen chair.
But it all worked out all right. After Caroline made a fresh pot of tea, the entire bunch of us sat at the kitchen table, supplementing the kitchen chairs with chairs nabbed from the hallway, and ate lukewarm apple brown betty with cream and drank tea.
I called the police station after we’d partaken of our delayed dessert, and spoke directly to Phil Bigelow. Not, I must add, without some difficulty and assorted threats of lawsuits, etc. But I finally managed to talk to Phil and ask him when the Bucks could go to the police station and pick up their son.
A heavy sigh came through the telephone wire. “Give me an hour, will you? Jeez, Mercy, there’s a lot of paperwork to wade through before we can let a guy out of jail, you know.”
“An innocent man who was arrested for no good reason,” I reminded him in a steely voice.
“Right. Right. You’re right.”
“And I want him released this evening.”
“He will be.” Phil sounded frazzled.
Suddenly a new voice came through the wire. “Quit harassing Phil, Mercy. I’ll bring Calvin Buck home as soon as he’s released. Will that be all right with your majesty?”
“Don’t ‘your majesty’ me, Ernest Templeton! The police arrested Calvin Buck on the word of a woman who didn’t even see him! What’s more—”
“Stop!”
His voice was so loud, I stopped. Then I snapped, “Well?”
“I’ll bring him home in an hour. Will that suit you?”
“I’ll ask his parents.” My voice was so cold, I’m surprised the telephone wire didn’t freeze and break.
“Fine.” Ernie sighed. I heard him.
So I asked Mr. and Mrs. Buck. Mrs. Buck began crying again. So did Mr. Buck, but he wiped his eyes and said, “That would be mighty nice of Mr. Ernie.”
I said, “Mighty nice, my foot.” I was still angry. Nevertheless, I told Ernie to bring Calvin Buck home in an hour. “And it better not be longer than an hour. I have a lawyer at my disposal, you know.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
Sometimes being taken for a spoiled rich girl can have its benefits. Not often. For instance, I didn’t really know any lawyers in Los Angles at all, except those who worked with Harvey Nash. But I’m sure I could have called Chloe and Harvey and managed to come up with an attorney in no time flat if I’d had to.
But Ernie was as good as his word. The Bucks, Caroline, Lulu and I were in the living room, nervously waiting and shooting quick glances at the Ormolu clock on the mantelpiece—for some reason, Peggy Wickstrom hadn’t taken it—when I heard Ernie’s ratty old Studebaker pull into my driveway. We all looked at each other.
Mrs. Buck had her hands folded and pressed to her bosom. She whispered, “Thank God. Thank God.”
“Come on, you two. You can meet your son at the door.”
They both rose from the sofa and headed toward the kitchen. “Where are you going?” I asked, surprised.
“To the back door,” said Mr. Buck as if I should have known that.
“Nuts.” I said. “Ernie will bring him to the front door. Come along with me.”
They exchanged a glance. I knew what they were thinking: black folks used the back doors to white folks’ houses. Nuts to that.
I swung the front door wide and, sure enough, Ernie and Calvin Buck were climbing the front porch steps. I instantly forgave Ernie for his many sins.
The reunion was a happy one. More than happy, really. Ecstatic was more like it. Soon, however, the Bucks and Calvin removed to their own quarte
rs, where they could be private and catch up on each other’s news. It took them a long time to finish thanking Ernie and me. And Lulu, Caroline and Buttercup, but I finally put my foot down. It’s not a very big foot, but it belonged to the owner of the house, so they quit thanking us and carried their son off.
I sat with a plop on the sofa. “Whew! That was harrowing for a while there.”
“It sure was,” said Lulu.
Ernie stood before us shaking his head for a while, then he too sat. “I can’t believe Buttercup saved the day.”
I eyed my dog with love and favor. “Well, she did.” Then the events of the evening rushed back upon me and it was my turn to shake my head. “Peggy Wickstrom. Killed two men. She’s only eighteen years old.”
“She’s bad,” said Lulu. “No two ways about it.”
“I guess so,” I said, discouraged. I’d really and truly hoped that my newly established apartment-boarding house operation would be used to give young working women the chance at a good life in this ugly world.
“She’s not your fault,” said Ernie.
I glanced up at him, wondering how he managed to read my mind with such unsettling regularity. “I suppose I know that. I’m . . . disappointed, though.”
“You’re not to blame,” said Caroline Terry, her soft voice ringing with honesty. “You truly tried to help the girl.”
“She’s right, Mercy. Not everyone can be helped.” This profound truth came from a woman clad in a violent yellow kimono with orange flowers embroidered all over it. Lulu, of course.
“And that’s a lovely charm bracelet you gave me,” said Caroline.
“Maybe,” I said, “but it’s not the one you had stolen.”
“That’s all right. My grandmother wrote to tell me she’ll replace the charms.”
“That’s nice of her,” said Lulu.
“It is. Mercy was nice when she tried to help Peggy, too,” said Caroline.
“True,” said Lulu. “Peggy’s just a bad egg. Nobody can help her.”
“Well . . . thank you all. I still feel really bad about allowing her into my home, because she stole from you and Caroline, Lulu.”
“She stole from you, too, Mercy. She stole your innocence,” said Ernie.
I eyed him for any trace of irony, but didn’t see any. “I guess so,” I said uncertainly. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Right. But from now on, I’m interviewing candidates for tenancy in your house.”
“Bother. Ernie Templeton, if you’re not—”
The telephone rang just then, interrupting me as I was getting into full-rant mode. Since the Bucks were otherwise occupied, I answered the telephone.
I must have looked a little shaky when I re-entered the living room, because Caroline jumped to her feet. “Mercy! What’s wrong?”
Lulu, too, stood and came over to me. “What’s the matter, Mercy?”
Then Ernie showed up at my side. “What is it, kiddo? Don’t tell me Autumn and Wickstrom escaped from police custody.”
I looked at each of my friends in turn. “It’s worse than that.”
A general gasp met this announcement.
“That was Chloe. Mother is coming to visit for Thanksgiving!”
They all laughed. Which just goes to show that not even friends can be relied upon sometimes.
About the Author
Award-winning author Alice Duncan moved from her home town in Pasadena, California, and now lives with a herd of wild dachshunds (enriched from time to time with fosterees from New Mexico Dachshund Rescue) in Roswell, New Mexico. She’s not a UFO enthusiast; she’s in Roswell because her mother’s family settled there fifty years before the aliens crashed. Alice would love to hear from you at [email protected]. And be sure to visit her website at http://www.aliceduncan.net
Please also visit her Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925 and https://www.facebook.com/AliceDuncansBooks
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Angels of Mercy Page 24