“Miss Minsky, how nice to see you,” he said with a stiff smile. He nodded to me with no hint of recognition.
“An unexpected surprise, Mr. Hill.” Something in Rachel’s tone caused Hill to move on without further pleasantries. “I expect you’d met that little toad,” she said, watching him. “Works for one of the men Draper fleeced.”
“I don’t appear to have made much impression on him.”
Rachel snorted. “James C. Hill is sweet on himself. Thinks he’s superior to most of the human race.”
For once I was inclined to be charitable toward him. Hill was big on correctness; prided himself on doing things right. He’d probably been unsure if acknowledging me would reveal who’d hired me.
“I went out with him once too,” Rachel said.
“With Hill?” I couldn’t believe it.
“I was curious. He’s not nearly as much fun as Frank Keefe. Lively as a post.” She glanced at her rose gold wristwatch. “I have to be going.”
“One more thing. Who told you about Draper’s partner?”
Her eyes narrowed as if in thought.
“I think it was Draper himself. It could have been Frank. No, I’m pretty sure it was Draper. When I told him I wanted my money back. Something about he’d have to check with his partner.”
She scooped her lighter into her handbag and stood. We said good-by. She moved toward the door at a brisk clip. I got up too.
My opinion of Rachel Minsky was changing some. I was starting to like her.
I still didn’t trust her.
Thirty-four
A pretty little stand in the hall held Mrs. Z’s telephone. We girls were allowed to use it to make and receive short calls. In the daytime most of the calls were for Mrs. Z, so she answered. From five to ten in the evening, when all calls had to stop, someone was usually coming or going and picked it up. They’d come up and get whoever was wanted or leave a note under your door if you weren’t there.
There was a note under my door when I got in. It was from Rogers. I’d left a message with his landlady in addition to the one at Wildman’s place, and he’d called back to let me know he’d be in all evening.
“I need your help on something,” I said when he answered. “Can you get me a photograph, or it may take a couple of them, of everybody who comes to Mr. Wildman’s house on a regular basis? Not ones who make deliveries; the ones who stick around. Work there, come to small dinner parties. That kind of thing.”
He was silent.
“I could ask Mr. Wildman, but he’s got enough on his mind–”
“No, I’m sure I can get what you need. I was just thinking. Do you ... want one that includes Mr. and Mrs. Tarkington?”
“Them in particular.”
“He has a photographer come and take a big picture of everyone at the household Christmas party. The Tarkingtons come. And Mr. Hill, of course. And there used to be a cousin, but he died just over a year ago. Everyone gets a copy.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“When you asked, I was trying to think if I knew where mine is. If I can’t put hands on it, I’m sure Miss Fisher will let me borrow hers. I won’t tell her why.”
He agreed to drop it off first thing in the morning. Since I was heading for Wheeler’s garage first thing and didn’t know when I’d get in, I asked him to leave it with Evelyn at Simpson’s Socks.
“Not with the older woman, though,” I cautioned. “She’d feed me to wolves if she could. She’d be likely to throw it out and tell me she never got it.”
He laughed and hung up.
The tangle of weeds and briars I’d been picking my way through on the Draper case was finally yielding two fairly distinct paths. If one of them didn’t lead anywhere, I was confident the other would.
* * *
Wheeler’s opened at half-past seven so customers could drop their cars off for servicing on their way to work. It was busy that morning. A good twenty minutes elapsed before Eli, followed by Calvin, had a chance to get back to the little office where I was waiting.
Eli had offered me coffee from his Thermos and I hadn’t said no. I’d sipped it while I looked at the picture of a Nash Ambassador he’d borrowed for me. The page was the size of a magazine page and the drawing filled about half of it, so detailed that it almost looked like a photograph.
“I promised the fellow I borrowed it from you’d take real good care of it,” Eli said.
“And I will. Thanks a million.”
“He doesn’t sell Ambassadors, but he orders other things so they send him the ads. Not the color you asked about, though.”
“It’s perfect, Eli. Even has a little picture of it in maroon here at the bottom.”
I switched my attention to Calvin. He blushed and looked down.
“It never even occurred to me Calvin might know a place like the one you were asking about,” Eli said. “But then I got to telling him later, and he.... You go on and tell her about it, Calvin.”
The kid’s Adam’s apple worked a couple of times. His head raised bashfully.
“I’ve never seen the place or anything. Just heard about it from this fellow I ran around with some a couple years back. He liked talking cars and that. Wanted to build one like my jalopy. He said he’d heard of a place up on Milburn – around Lamont or someplace like that – where maybe he could get some cheap parts. Said his cousin had told him these brothers had a garage there, that the oldest one had done time for assault but all three were tough nuts – didn’t think much of cops and wouldn’t give them the time of day.”
Eli made a tsking sound. I felt my breath quickening. Calvin tugged at his ear.
“Anyways, his cousin told him you could get parts there cheap, if you didn’t ask where they came from.” Excitement at what he was telling made Calvin forget to be shy. “The cousin claimed those men with the garage had fixed up the car of a city councilman involved in a hit-and-run. Did it so fast the councilman never even got looked at. Said they’d do just about any sort of dirty work for a price.”
I let out a whistle. A car was pulling up outside, but Eli said he’d get it.
“Sounds like the place I’m looking for,” I said. “You know the name of those brothers?”
Calvin rubbed his head.
“I think maybe it was Kirkland ... Curtis ... something like that. You’re not fixing to go there, are you, Miss Sullivan? They sound like real bad apples.”
“I know a couple of gentlemen who’d be glad to check it out for me,” I said with a wink. It was true, if I asked, which I didn’t intend to do just yet. “This friend of yours, where can I find him?”
Calvin shook his head that he didn’t know.
“Night he told me that was the last time I went out with him. It made me think maybe he wasn’t the sort I ought to be mixed up with,” he said stoutly. “I’d seen him smoke, and he’d let on a couple of times as how he’d had beer.”
Calvin was some sort of protestant and didn’t believe in drinking, which seemed to me like a pretty strong argument against being one. From what he’d heard, the fellow who’d told him about the garage wasn’t around any more.
“Calvin, you are a gem,” I said handing him four bits.
“Hey, no,” he protested. “I don’t want anything.”
“Yeah, but those ribs of yours could use about a dozen milkshakes.”
* * *
Some details remained before I could follow the trail of Vern leaving a bag in a swank car he claimed he’d never seen before. Meanwhile, there was the question of what could make someone suggest a dead man might still be alive. After thinking it over a good deal, I came up with what could be an answer. What I lacked was anything to support my idea, so after I let Izzy serve me my oatmeal, I headed to see Cecilia Perkins.
“Oh, hello,” she said, looking up with a smile as I entered.
She’d been crying, not before I came in, but maybe the night before or that morning. Red still rimmed her eyes.
“No lu
ck on the job front?” I asked as I noticed envelopes neatly opened on the desk in front of her.
Cecilia shrugged.
“Two said I should check back in a couple of weeks, that my qualifications were wonderful and they’d keep my letter on file.” She fought to keep the bitterness from her voice. “What can I do for you?”
“Is Mr. Draper’s bank account still open?”
Her cheeks flushed.
“Yes, but I haven’t written any more checks–”
“That’s not what I was getting at. I was wondering if all the checks written to it had cleared.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “I-I’m awfully sorry. I don’t know why ... you’ve been so nice....” She drew a breath and closed her eyes momentarily, gathering control. “I should have said that as far as I know the account’s still open. I believe all the checks have cleared, though it was a bit fuzzy on one. You’d need to ask Mr. Draper’s lawyer.”
“Galen Miller.”
“Yes. He’s taken charge of settling the financial things that need to be settled. He said he’d let me know when the account was closed, just in case any late bills came in.”
My pulse had quickened a little at mention of a “fuzzy” check. I was pretty sure Galen Miller would tell me the status on that, but I couldn’t count on getting much more from him.
“What was the date on that last check you wrote?”
Cecilia blushed again, but only faintly.
“Somewhere around the first of the month. Let me check.” She opened a desk drawer and took out a ledger. “Here it is.” She pointed.
The sixth. A good week before Draper turned up dead, with no entries after it. Apparently it wasn’t activity in Draper’s bank account that suggested he might be among the living.
“Did Mr. Draper have any other bank accounts?” I asked slowly.
“Savings, I should think, since he made quite a lot of money. And I believe he had a personal account as well.” A frown formed between her eyebrows. “Why?”
“Someone said something odd, but maybe I misunderstood. Were his others accounts at the same bank?”
Her blonde head shook. “I don’t know.”
Galen Miller would probably also be willing to tell me about the other accounts.
“I hate to be a pest,” I said, “but could you give me the telephone number of that place where Draper got the massages? I’ve got a friend with a bad shoulder. Also, I’d like to borrow a photograph of Mr. Draper if you have one.”
Cecilia flipped through a long leather address book.
“If you ever learn what Ingrid is like, I’d love a report,” she said as she slid me the phone number. Her smile faltered. “Of course I won’t be here. Let me get that photograph.”
I had a feeling she was fighting tears as she hopped up and fled through the door to what had been Draper’s office. It gave me a chance to peek at the ledger she’d left out. Sure enough, peeking from under the back page were two more blank checks Draper had signed and left with her. In Cecilia’s position they must be a strong temptation, but one I felt sure she’d resist. Jotting down Draper’s bank account number in case I needed it, I went to join her.
“Are you after a good likeness of him?” she asked frowning at a framed eight-by-ten she’d removed from the wall. “Something to jog someone’s memory on what he looked like?”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
“There’s this.” She handed me the photo from the wall. “But I think.... Let me look....”
She checked in a cabinet, then lifted a cardboard box from the floor to look through that. Meanwhile I took the opportunity to flip through Draper’s appointment book, going back to the last day he’d come to work.
“I think this one’s better, don’t you? Or there’s this one.” She handed me two more eight-by-tens framed in walnut.
The one from the wall was of Draper getting some award from the head of the Chamber of Commerce. Too much camera flash had partly washed out their faces. Both of the other pictures were good, though. They showed Draper and some other men hobnobbing at what looked like a banquet. There were women in the background. Faces there were indistinct, but I thought one might be Rachel Minsky with someone I couldn’t see clearly.
“I recognize Mr. Keefe and Mr. Smith,” I said, studying the main group, “but who’s the other man?”
Cecilia peered over my shoulder.
“That’s Mr. Preston, poor man. He ... died shortly after Mr. Draper disappeared.”
She knew he’d killed himself. I wondered if she suspected why.
The remaining photograph showed the same men applauding. Smith was missing, though, and Frank Keefe was looking away.
“I’ll take this one,” I said, indicating the foursome.
As Cecilia turned, I took a final look at the page I’d turned to in Draper’s appointment book. On the day before he disappeared, the last appointment listed had been with Rachel Minsky.
Thirty-five
“A very nice man in a chauffer’s livery left something for you,” Evelyn smiled when I stuck my head through the door at Simpson’s Socks. She was pretty in an old-fashioned way, with dark hair rolled at the top of her head. Reaching under the counter, she slid me a paper-wrapped photograph the size of the one I was carrying.
“We are not your personal delivery service!” snapped the older woman reading a newspaper at the other end of the long counter. Her only expression was sour, and Evelyn had the misfortune to be her daughter-in-law.
“You know, Maxine,” I said leaning in confidentially. “For someone who wears such flirty underpants, you’re not very friendly.”
She began to puff like Vesuvius. “I do not– How dare you!”
I gave a departing wave to Evelyn, who was holding her sides to keep in laughter.
A sealed, unmarked envelope had been shoved under my door. I tossed it onto my desk and unwrapped the picture from Rogers. As expected, it was a dandy professional job. It showed Wildman and his son, Dorothy and Vern, all the members of Wildman’s staff. I set it and the one from Draper’s office aside to use in the afternoon.
Then I called Galen Miller.
“I have just five minutes between clients,” he said when he came on. “How may I help you, Miss Sullivan?”
“You’re settling the late Harold Draper’s affairs.”
“That’s correct.”
“And his bank account is still open?”
“As is customary for an interval until it’s determined there are no outstanding claims.”
Did I remember that from when my dad died? That part of my life was blurry. I’d been nineteen, on my own, drained by the final weeks of his illness.
“It’s a bit of a moot point,” Miller was saying. “Even my own fee won’t be forthcoming until his house is sold.”
“He drained both accounts when he left town? Business and personal?”
Miller hesitated. “You might owe me a favor or two.”
“Fair enough.”
“He left enough in the business account to cover two checks he wrote to his secretary, for salary, and matters that might be outstanding. He closed the other the day he left town.”
“Were the checks to his secretary the last ones written on his account?”
“Yes.”
“Savings? Safety deposit box?”
“Don’t push your luck, Miss Sullivan. Tell whoever you’re making these inquiries for there’s not enough left for a fly to dine on.”
I opened the envelope next. Inside was a sheet of paper with the handwritten note PAID IN FULL. A string of numbers followed. To anyone else it would look like a simple receipt. Except FULL was underlined several times and I recognized Jenkins’ writing. Just now, though, I wasn’t as interested in the Chicago phone number he’d dug up for me as I was some things closer to home.
* * *
I decided to take a chance on calling Freeze directly, and was somewhat surprised when he took my call.
“It has been suggested to me that Draper might still be alive,” I said.
“No. Impossible. The body was in good shape. Two people identified him.”
“What I’m wondering, though, is if anything might have happened since his demise – something signed or sold or activity in his bank account – that could make someone think that.”
Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries) Page 18