Death in Living Gray

by John Clayton

  She was wrong about the Vitamin C. I was already fifty-two. Ha. But it annoyed me that she didn’t give me the chance to tell her my real troubles—even if I had intended to—which I didn’t. So I went back to dealing with the immediate problem.

  ***

  In the mystery stories that I read for relaxation, the detectives always have reservoirs of ready-made lies for getting information. I wondered how they did it, because I couldn’t think of anything. Ask about a relative. Lost their address a year ago. Nah. Could call another relative and get it. Throw myself on the Duggetts’ mercy. From what I’ve heard that wouldn’t be a fruitful approach.

  “I’m wondering if you could help me find a dealer who was interested in one of my tractor sofas about a year ago. She left her card but I lost it. She said she was staying here.” I made up a story as I stood in front of the desk at the motel, looking across at an outsize pair of bifocals covering a delicate face. A wisp of auburn hair escaped from the bun on the back of her head. She was little older than me, about the same height, but noticeably skinny—almost emaciated. Betty Duggett: proprietress.

  She looked dubious. “I’m not supposed to give out that kind of information.”

  So I tried a little harder. “She stopped by my shop the afternoon before Mr. Pickerill’s Confederate Ball. Last May 31st. I remember, because I was rushing to get ready and didn’t have enough time to really talk to her. Now I’ve got a slow time. You know how that is—when no clients seem to want your services, no matter what you do.” This seemed to have had hit a nerve, so I pumped it up a notch. “So I want to give her a call and see if she was serious. She said she really liked my stuff, but she never came back. You know how fickle customers can be.”

  She leaned down, pulled a cardboard box from under the counter, and started to shuffle through the receipts about halfway through. “Get a new box every two years and it’s almost time for another one. May 31st should be about midway.”

  It was going better than I hoped. I volunteered some more information. “Came from Baltimore—that’s what she said. Oh, and she was about my shape and size, if that helps.”

  “We’re not running a dress shop. Or a travel bureau. Put that thing away Betty.”

  I looked up at a skinny old man who came out from the living quarters wearing one of those armless ribbed undershirts over which were suspenders holding up plaid cotton pants. Alf Duggett.

  “What you want?” he growled.

  I repeated the story, trying not to notice the soup dribbling from one corner of his mouth.

  “Sounds fishy to me. We got to report suspicious people to Sheriff Overhouse ’cause there’s a murdering thief running loose. What’s your name?”

  “Prudence Abernathy, and I know Lou very well,” I answered, neglecting to mention that I might be on the receiving end of an arrest warrant from my friend, the sheriff.

  “You married to Jack Abernathy?”

  “Yes.” Being married to Jack Senior was almost like being a relative to everybody in Mason County. That ought to help.

  “No good sum’bitch took advantage of my Betty oncet with his fancy talk. Never forgave him and got no use for his kin.” He wiped the soup from his lips. “You’ll get no help from us, ya hear. And you don’t go helping, either.” He snarled at his wife. “Damned violent criminals. No respect for us law-abiding folk. Your boy still owes us fifty cents for that coke he stole back in ’89. You gonna pay?” He was leaning against the counter, grinning.

  That was a lie. Jack Junior and Billy Adams were coming back from rafting over on the lower part of the Salt Lick River and they stopped to get a soda from the machine out next to the laundry room. It took the money but didn’t cough up the drink, and when they complained to Alf, he just laughed. So they took a warm bottle from the box behind the machine and left. Alf called the police, but Lou ignored it because it happened all the time with everybody who tried to get a drink from the Duggetts’ machine. By this time, even I could figure from the tone of the conversation that they weren’t going to help, no matter what. So I backed out the door, slamming it and semi-accidentally knocking the Goldwater for President placard out of the window. The last I heard was Betty calling out that I should have a nice remainder of the day.

  ***

  “Where have you been?” I asked Fanny. When I’d returned home from the Bill o’ Rights, there was a message on my machine that she would meet me at four p.m. at Jezebel’s. I was late because of the fiasco over at the Bill o’ Rights and didn’t make it until 4:30, about five minutes ahead of Fanny.

  “Conked out,” she said, “I was asleep when you called. I haven’t been feeling too good lately. But I’m OK now. What do we need to do?” She was taking charge again.

  Jack Senior, who had extended his free lunch into happy hour, came back into the sunroom, bringing a double bourbon for Fanny and a white wine for me, since Jezebel appeared to be pretty busy with those who had arrived early for the Friday night brawl. I noticed as I came in that Hank Cooper had already looped his suspenders around the back slats of his bar stool so that either he wouldn’t fall off or would take his seat down with him when he went.

  “I see you finally got a job that befits your talents,” Fanny chirped. Jack Senior is the only person she ever puts down. But I think that’s because nobody else ever does.

  Jack Senior smiled indulgently and sat down on an adjoining swing as I explained about the trip to the Bill o’ Rights. He laughed about Alf Duggett. “I took Betty out once in junior high school. He had his skinflint heart set on her even then and eventually got what he wanted. But he never forgot or forgave.” He looked at Fanny for corroboration, drawing her in, finessing the slur. And Fanny, having done her insult duty for the day, nodded in agreement, even though she was a little younger than I was and hadn’t even known Jack Senior when he was in junior high school. Old South sociably acceptable little white lies it was called.

  “After that episode with the sheriff this morning, I took the liberty of calling Cousin Richard Clarke’s great-niece and making arrangements to see the old codger,” Jack Senior announced. “She said I could stay in an extra bedroom. She’ll meet me at the airport. I really think we need to check out all the possibilities.” His implication was that he was saving us a bundle of money.

  And I agreed that every avenue should be explored, especially since we weren’t getting too far with Maryland. But there was the plane fare. There wasn’t enough in our joint account to swing it. I kept my business money in a separate account in my name. Not that Jack Senior would plan to take it, but sometimes in the heat of the chase, he got carried away. I knew he wouldn’t ask for the plane fare in front of Fanny, so I reached into the watch pocket of my jeans and pulled out the one hundred and fifty business mad money that I use to make those little on-the-spot antique buys from people who don’t like banks or the tax man. Besides, if it was going to cost more than one hundred and fifty dollars, I had time to think about it while I went to get my checkbook. I slid the cash across the table. “That should almost cover the plane fare,” I told him.

  He accepted it graciously, not even glancing at Fanny. “I’ll put the rest of the fare on my tab here,” he said as he got up from the swing. I don’t know what was worse, having him sponge off me or having him sponge off Jezebel in public.

  Halfway out of the sunroom, he turned and said, “I’ll drive up to Dulles Airport and leave my car. I might go tonight if there’s a plane. Be back by Sunday.”

  Fanny took a sip but didn’t remark on Jack’s departure. “I don’t get along with the Duggetts either. Nobody does.” She swirled the ice around in the almost empty glass. “What do we do now?”

  I didn’t know. “Wait until Tuesday when the law starts working again,” I suggested.

  Fanny made a face and was turning to wave at Jezebel for a refill when she almost whacked the bar-lady with her arm.

  “Phone call for you,” Jezebel said, extending the handset in my direction and at the same
time acknowledging Fanny’s request

  It was Old Oilhead. “Asshole,” I was about to say, when I remembered Fanny; I managed a semisweet, “ Hello, Clarence.”

  “I heard you were at the Bill o’ Rights looking for a lady’s address,” the voice flowed right out of the receiver down my arm and plopped on the floor. I was busy contemplating the oily puddle and trying to think up a polite pejorative instead of Asshole when what he said sank in. But by that time, he had carried smoothly on. “Betty Duggett called and told me the name and number. Ready?”

  “Ready,” I mumbled.

  And he spelled it out: name, license number, and home address. In Baltimore, just like the traveling saleslady had said.

  I decided to push my luck. “How about the address for a man named Thomas Craven who was there about the same time?”

  “Betty said you only asked about the lady. I didn’t know you wanted more.” He sounded sincerely miffed at his oversight.

  “How did you…?” I started to ask.

  “Oh, I steer some business their way. Betty told her husband that she wouldn’t call you, so she called me instead—knowing that you and I worked together once in a while.” He paused for emphasis. Even his silence reeked of the sweet unguent of BS. So I shoveled it aside, gave him my heartiest thank you, and hung up. An asshole—a truly sincere asshole, admittedly, although that was probably the worst kind of rectal presence with which to deal.

  But we needed the information—and I was thankful to get it, no matter where it came from. Especially since the Craven person and the saleslady, one Ms. Emily Patowski, both had Maryland license plates.

  I pushed the two slips of paper, the one Weevil had given me, and the one I had just written, toward Fanny. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Ms. Patowski ought to be home. I’m going up to visit,” I said.

  “Might be an innocent little tryst. You don’t want to cause any needless trouble,” she said.

  “Better a little trouble for them, than me in jail,” I replied, “Want to come?”

  “No, I can’t be away from home that long,” she said as Jezebel put down a drink in front of her, and accepted a negative on a refill for me.

  “Besides, you’ll probably be more effective alone.” Fanny added.

  Chapter 5

  But my effectiveness was suspect. I was lost in Baltimore, driving my van around block after block with no end in sight. All the houses looked alike—tall, red brick, right up on the sidewalk, except that some of them had had stone facing added in the fifties. Each block had about the same number of stone fronts, so you couldn’t tell one block from another. You had to go by the street names, but some of the streets petered out and others were one-way in the wrong direction, and sometimes you got in a lane that would only let you turn left after you discovered that the street you wanted went off to the right at an odd angle. So you ended up completely lost trying to get back to where you thought you were. One of the things I noticed was that at every street intersection, three of the corners had bars or taverns and the fourth a church or cathedral. If the City Fathers had just required that all the churches be on the same relative corner—say the northwest—then you could at least figure out which direction was which.

  Suddenly I was confronted by a bulwark and water. I guessed it must be the harbor. That cut in half the possible directions in which to get lost. The street I wanted had to be behind me. I pulled up in front of a fire hydrant and pulled out my Official Tourist Map of Baltimore Including all Historical and Cultural Attractions. As I was trying to fold it so I could find the area where I was currently parked, I noticed, through the gap between the steering wheel and the top corner of the map, a familiar figure in the street.

  Jack Senior was heading up into the entrance of one of the fancy new condos they had made from old canning factories along the waterfront—at least it looked like him, from the white hair and the way he carried a bottle of wine in a tightly rolled paper bag in his right hand—the way he always did. In his left hand he carried what appeared to be a bag of groceries. Cleveland my eye. Instead of Richard Clarke, he was visiting his other third cousin, Isobel Turner. Normally his philandering was just an annoyance. But this time my life was at stake, at least the freedom of my life. And the SOB had volunteered to help just so he could chase some floozy—a sixty-year-old relative.

  I could feel myself building to a scream of frustration, teeth gritting and tears welling up, when there was a sharp knock on the window. A young crew-cut policeman already had his ticket book out. Damn, I’d forgotten about the fire hydrant. So I used what was handy—rolling tears. I leapt out of the car, scrunched the map up into his face, and blurted, “Here, you figure this damned thing out.”

  His manly instinct to explain overcame the rule about not parking in front of fire hydrants—well, I wasn’t really parked was I?—and he quietly asked where I wanted to go, reaching alternatively for the handkerchief in his breast pocket, and then pulling his hand away, unsure of whether to treat a hysterical woman the way his grandma told him or the way his politically correct rule book said he should.

  I showed him the address scrawled on the back of the now somewhat wrinkled paper and pointed at the map. “It’s somewhere around here, I think. Pratt Street.”

  With a big red pen, he carefully drew a route on the map, marking my current location, the block on Pratt Street that I wanted, and patiently explained which streets didn’t lead anywhere and advised me to avoid those traffic lanes that give you four right-turn-only-signs in a row, like the city fathers wanted to exact retribution for your mistakes by making you go back to the bar or church you were just in.

  When he was through, I took back the map, thanked him between sniffles, jumped back in the car, and whipped out into traffic before he could remember the fire hydrant. But instead of turning back toward the main part of the city according to his instructions, I headed along the waterfront, looking for my conniving husband’s car. I found it about three blocks further on, parked on what looked like an undeveloped lot right up against the harbor wall, a fifteen-year-old Chrysler convertible that he’d bought just before the trust fund fiasco. I didn’t know whether he’d put it there because it was too beat-up to be seen in public or because there was no other place else to park—but it was his, right down to the red Virginia mud on his license plate.

  ***

  It was one of the neat little brick row houses out near Patterson Park. Except it wasn’t really little: three stories and probably a kitchen in the basement. The lady who answered the door was about my age, give or take a few pounds and a different hair coloring—silver blond rather than strawberry. Like me, she had freckles.

  “We already gave,” she said as two kids romped around the living room off the entrance hall behind her.

  “I’m looking for Emily Patowski,” I said, and then thinking that I ought to shake her up for whatever advantage it might give added, “or Thomas Craven.”

  “Thomas is out on a job,” she said. “I’m Emily Patowski.”

  That slowed me down. Maybe they were married and these were their kids. The ages didn’t really fit the lady in front of me, but then modern medicine made lots of things possible. “Do you sell aluminum siding?” I asked. No more cute I thought.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Could I ask you a few questions?”

  “Sure, come on in.” She turned toward a little blond girl of about six and said, “Jane, take your brother upstairs to play.” She ushered me through a large entry hall. “Want a soda or coffee? It’s too early for any thing stronger.” She had a coffee cup in her hand, so I suggested that if there were some coffee still on the stove, I’d appreciate it. She left me in an enormous parlor with a twelve-foot ceiling and a mélange of real-looking antiques and children’s toys. Sitting prominently on a Southern Empire style desk over by the window was a picture of a young blond hunk of a man and a blond lady in a bikini on a sandy beach, each holding up one of the two small kids that I had seen.
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  Apparently no secret tryst here. But I couldn’t understand how she did it. I slid around so I could see both the picture and Emily as she came back in through the doorway from the hall. Maybe she could give me lessons on how older people can look good in a bikini. Or maybe that’s why she did jewelry heists all over the country. Paid for health spas and face-lifts. But looking at her as she entered the room, it didn’t ring true. In person, she was flabby under her light summer dress, with a pleasant enough face surrounding slightly buck teeth. Certainly no cosmetic surgery there.

  “That’s my daughter, Mary Ann, and her husband, the Thomas Craven that you wanted. He installs the aluminum siding after I sell it.”

  Now that set me back. I felt so guilty that I plunged ahead without any more subterfuge. “You were both down in Mason County just before May 31st last year.” She looked blank, so I added,”You stayed at the Bill o’ Rights Motel.”

  “That’s right.” She scowled. “In separate rooms.” She put down her coffee cup and looked straight at me. ”What’s this? What do you want?”

  “You were asking around about houses and who owned them. And…” I explained the whole background about the burglary and the dead soldier.

  She picked up her cup again. “I thought you were talking about me and Tom. Sometimes we get a stare or two, but I find it better to have him close by so he can start the work as soon as I make a sale. That way the customers don’t have time to reconsider. He’s too nice and weak-willed to be a real salesperson himself, but he does OK at the manual stuff. Although, to tell the truth, I only keep him on because he’s my son-in-law. He spends all his spare time trying to write adventure stories that are going to make a bundle when he finally sells one to the movies. The problem is that blond good looks are his only strong suit. Mary Ann chose a man who was just like her father, What’s-His-Name, and I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”