Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries)

by M. Ruth Myers

  I rolled my eyes, unable to stifle a groan. Next to me Connelly chuckled, raking a hand through his hair as he gave me a sideways glance.

  “Looks like the spring thaw came early,” he said.

  “And none too soon.” I lifted my glass. “I was starting to think of finding a gunny sack big enough to hold them both.” I slid from my stool. “Think I’ll move to a table.”

  “Was that an invitation, then?”

  I hadn’t meant it as such, but I shrugged.

  “Since when do you need one?”

  Tables weren’t as popular at Finn’s, at least not on a weekday. We sat down. Connelly tossed his uniform hat on the chair beside him.

  Back at the bar Seamus was saying proudly, “... when we’ve finished our pints, we’re going to go have a listen.”

  “Glad they’ve made up,” Connelly said. “They were miserable.”

  “Yeah.”

  I could feel him watching me as I watched the two old friends. Something had shifted between us, and I didn’t like the tilt. It was time to restore balance.

  “You ever hear of some brothers named something like Kirkland or Curtis? Run a dodgy garage? Sell car parts cheap, maybe make repairs with no questions asked?”

  Connelly tipped back in his chair and started to chuckle.

  “Safe ground, is it? Or did you come here tonight to pump me? Their name’s Kirkmann. It came up early when we started hunting the car from that hit-and-run.”

  “You checked their place, then?”

  “The boys in Auto Recovery did. It’s up on Milburn. Legitimate repairs up front, good-sized bay in the back with a separate entrance is how I hear it.”

  “No sign of a banged up black car either place?”

  “Nope.”

  He hadn’t told me where it was. I drank some Guinness. Mouth slightly ajar, I trailed one finger slowly along my lip to wipe it as Connelly’s eyes followed the motion.

  “What about a maroon Ambassador? Anyone mention seeing something like that?”

  “Maroon. No. That is, I’m not familiar with that make of car. It have something to do with the hit-and-run?”

  “Maybe with Draper. I thought those brothers might be doing the dirty work for his partner. But from what you’ve said, I can check them off my list,” I said brightly. “If you hear anything about a maroon car, will you let me know?”

  “Sure. You leaving?”

  I was gathering my purse.

  “Long drive ahead of me tomorrow. See you later.”

  Seamus and Billy had vanished. Wee Willie hadn’t come in. I waved good-by to some of the regulars on my way out.

  Then I scampered, in hopes Connelly would go for the bait I’d just tossed him.

  Thirty-nine

  A few minutes after I’d trotted over to the parking lot and brought my car around to where I had a good view, Connelly came out of the pub. He swung along with a stride more at home on country roads than city streets. It brought to mind rolling green hills and sheep and thatched roof cottages ... and the violence he’d spoken of almost casually a short while ago. I pushed those images out of my mind and concentrated.

  Since Connelly didn’t own a car, I knew he’d have to borrow one if he did what I expected him to. Sure enough, after a block or so he crossed the street and opened the door to an old sedan. Its make was indeterminate. I strained to make out the license number as it went past.

  He’d be quick to recognize my DeSoto if I got close. That was okay, because by the looks of things so far, I knew where I could pick him up next. Connelly was smart and he learned fast, but I’d grown up in Dayton, and I’d driven a lot of neighborhoods since I’d hung out my shingle. I knew where traffic lights were. I knew shortcuts. I cut north until I hit Milburn and followed it into an area where factories squatted alongside houses of hard-working Poles, Hungarians and Lithuanians. Just south of Leonhard I pulled up next to a small machine shop and doused my lights.

  If I didn’t get any results from tomorrow’s trip, I knew I might want to take a look around the Kirkmann brothers’ establishment. Unfortunately, Calvin hadn’t been very clear on its location. Neither had Connelly when I’d raised the subject. Then, sitting across the table from him, I’d recognized an opportunity.

  Asking questions about the garage itself would make him suspicious. Bringing up the maroon car might tempt him to check the garage. If the car was there, he’d tell Freeze of the possible connection, and possibly get a small feather in his cap. A nice feather for someone who wanted to work his way to detective. My plan was to sit and wait and let Connelly lead me to the right building.

  I rolled my side window down an inch to keep the windshield from fogging. It let in the smell of the Kay & Ess paint and varnish factory on Kiser. Until a few years ago Maxwell automobiles were still being built not far from here, but a new subsidiary of Chrysler had taken over that space ... and here, unless I missed my guess, came Connelly.

  Only one other car had passed since I’d parked. It was going on eight and the streets around me were black as pitch. Sitting had let my eyes adjust. As this car rolled by, I was able to make out that it was the one I’d expected. If it went all the way to Lamar, I’d have to put on my lights and risk being seen. Instead, it stopped half a dozen buildings away from where I sat.

  Connelly waited five minutes, long enough to observe any movement around him. Long enough for anyone who’d noticed him to come out and check. Finally he opened the car door just enough to ease out, keeping his head below the roof of the car. He waited again before moving, the same way I did in such situations. The way my dad had taught me in childhood games, never guessing I’d put his lessons to real use someday.

  When Connelly moved, he blended into the shadows so well it was hard to follow his progress. For an instant I thought I’d lost him and I swore. Then I saw a figure gliding toward the side of a building. It disappeared for so long I fidgeted. To the back, I presumed. The streets around were silent, except for the slam of a door and the protest of a cat being put out. At last Connelly reappeared, moving briskly now.

  I waited until he pulled away from the curb and did a U-turn. Then I put my lights on and swung out, stopping where he’d have to go around me. His engine pitch changed, as though he meant to outrun any potential trouble. As he got close enough to realize who it was, he stomped on the brake.

  We were window to window. I cranked mine down first.

  “Find anything of interest?” I asked cheerily.

  His jaw was set as hard as the brake.

  “No – but maybe you should check for yourself, since you apparently don’t trust me enough to ask me along. Or do you just have such a swelled head you can’t even admit you might like company?”

  With a grinding of gears he drove off before I could answer.

  * * *

  McCrory’s had barely opened when I showed up for breakfast. The rest of the store was still roped off against early birds who wanted to shop. I was eager to get on the road. Although I had a map, I’d never gone to Lebanon before, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take. It looked like somewhere around thirty-five miles, so maybe an hour and fifteen minutes, or even more. In my impatience I scalded my tongue on my coffee.

  By being out and about this early, I was hoping I could catch Jenkins before he set out for his first assignment. I’d left a couple messages yesterday, but I’d been out so much his chances of reaching me when he called back were slim. As I was crossing Ludlow, he came barreling out of the newspaper building’s front door.

  “Hey, Mags,” he called as I waved. We fell into step. He was between feedings, poor lamb.

  “What’s the best route to Lebanon?”

  “Scenic or speed?”

  “Speed.”

  “State route, then. The national’s better in places, but it swings west so far you lose time cutting back over. Speed limit’s thirty-five on both, so there’s nothing to even out the extra distance.”

  “It entered my mind I m
ight risk forty if I took the US route.”

  “Adds lots of time if you get a ticket. Or blow a gasket.”

  It sounded like the voice of experience. Jenkins and Ione had driven to Lebanon several times. He stopped to button his coat collar. The temperature was heading down.

  “It’s the middle of the week. Why are you going to Lebanon?”

  “My reputation is growing,” I said grandly.

  “Your reputation for being a pain in the backside?”

  Ahead of us a traffic light changed. Jenkins broke into a trot. I headed back toward my office to pick up items necessary for my trip.

  * * *

  I’d already logged more miles working for Ferris Wildman than I usually did on a case. By the end of today I’d easily triple it. When I wrapped things up, it might be smart to take my car in so Eli could look it over to see if it needed grease or hoses or anything.

  Once out of Dayton proper there was the city of Oakwood, and after that Van Buren Township, which was building up. From there it was about ten miles to a town called Centerville, which wasn’t much more than a crossroads lined with old stone houses. I’d been that far a couple of times. I’d even driven it once when some of us from Mrs. Z’s had gotten the notion to have a picnic. When the stone houses disappeared in my rearview mirror, though, I was in unknown territory.

  The fields opening out on either side were probably pretty in spring and summer. Right now they were desolate. Here and there I saw a farm house set back up a lane, and occasionally some cows or horses. I began to conjugate Latin verbs to pass the time. I thought about Seamus and his new record player. The world felt right again now that he and Billy had made up.

  A couple of wide spots not even big enough to be villages came and went. It was as lonely an area as I’d ever seen. When I’d been driving about an hour, I started to keep my eyes peeled for the pull-off with picnic tables Vern had described. I saw it ten minutes later, a small roadside park that looked like it might have been put up by some kind-hearted farmer. There were three tables under a big tree that would give nice shade when it had leaves. The only other features were a can for trash and a weathered one-hole privy.

  Apparently Vern sometimes told the truth.

  I pulled off to look.

  Forty

  Lebanon was bigger than I’d expected. Besides the route I’d come in on, which in town became Broadway, there were at least eight intersecting streets. When I reached what I thought was the center of town and circled a few blocks to park, I saw there were also streets parallel to the main one. The business district, the important part, I could manage, though I might have sore feet by the time I finished.

  The center of things was a four-story brick hotel called The Golden Lamb. I’d heard it was the oldest hotel in the state. Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln and bigwigs like that had supposedly stayed there. So had Jenkins and Ione. They’d driven down and spent the night to celebrate one of Ione’s magazine sales. She said the creaky bedsprings had cramped their style some but the food in the dining room was first-rate. I picked up the envelope with my assorted pictures and started my rounds.

  Banks, shoe stores, grocery. Dress shops, cafes, appliance repair places, dry goods. Every place I passed, my routine was the same:

  “I’m trying to locate a man who has an inheritance coming. He may live around here, or come to visit. Do you recognize anyone in these photographs...? Maybe you’ve seen the car he drives....”

  By the time I’d worked my way down one side of the main drag and reached the hotel, I had absolutely nothing to show for my efforts. Maybe Vern had lied after all. Maybe he knew about the place with the picnic tables from catting around. But sometimes you have to trust instinct. Instinct told me there really was a maroon car. Since nobody seemed familiar with it in Dayton, if Vern had left something in it, the car almost certainly had come through here.

  I fortified myself with coffee and pie in the hotel, gawking at beams that made me feel like I was sitting in an earlier century. I’d worked my way through half the stores on the remaining side of the street before I got my first crumb of encouragement.

  “I think I saw that car. I’m pretty sure I did,” said a barber who was whisking out the chair of a departing customer when I came in. His eyes lingered hungrily on the picture I’d borrowed from Eli. “Reddish, anyway, and fancy. I tell you, if I was a millionaire, I’d spend it on cars.”

  The other barber in the shop cast up his eyes and continued clipping away at the back of a customer’s hair.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty certain that’s the one I saw,” said the one I was talking to. “Just once or twice, though. It’s sure not from around here.”

  My pulse had quickened.

  “You saw it more than once?”

  He tugged at his ear and squinted.

  “Yes, it had to be. Once when I was standing here working and saw it pass. Another time I saw it parked somewhere. If it’s the same car.”

  He couldn’t remember where it was parked or when he’d seen it, and he didn’t recognize anyone in the photographs. Still, it was more than enough to keep me going.

  At a bakery at the end of the street where I’d started, I got lucky again. They did a good trade, and I had to wait while sacks were filled with rolls and cinnamon bread and cream horns and cookies. Jealous of the aromas, my stomach set up a clamor for lunch. Finally one of the two women working behind the counter was free. She gave me a smile.

  “What may I get you?”

  “Half a dozen of those sugar cookies,” I said pointing. It seemed only fair. “And I’d like to know if you’ve ever seen a car like this.”

  She finished filling a sack and slid it toward me. Standing on tiptoe to lean closer, she glanced at the picture of the Ambassador. Another smile curved her lips.

  “Oh, yes. That looks just like that lovely car that Miss Myr—”

  “You better wait until Mr. Harris gets here,” cut in the other clerk as she counted out change to a customer. “He’s the one who saw it. And he might not take it too kindly, us talking about a customer.”

  “You know who drives it, then?”

  “No....” The dark-haired woman helping me dropped her eyes. She was fairly young.

  The departing customer went out the door. For the moment it was just the three of us. I struggled to curtail my growing frustration.

  “Look, this won’t make trouble for anyone. It has to do with a matter up in Dayton.” I waved vaguely. “The person driving this car could come into a good deal of money.” Not honestly, but that was another matter. “But I need to find out who it is.”

  The clerk who’d been helping me shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. She’s right. It’s Mr. Harris, the owner, you need to talk to. He’ll be in at one-thirty.”

  Forty-one

  It was almost one anyway. I had some lunch. I thought about my meeting with Ferris Wildman tonight, and the numerous things I had to tell him. I thought how I hadn’t expected Connelly to get as sore as he had over what I’d pulled. What I tried not to think about was how the day was slipping away and what it would be like if I had to drive back on that empty road in the dark.

  At half-past-one I returned to the bakery.

  The dark-haired woman I’d spoken to was filling an order. Replacing the other clerk was a very tall woman who was ringing a sale on the cash register. A man in a bow tie leaned on the counter, making sympathetic sounds to a customer who had a tied-up pie box waiting before her. The tall woman closed the cash drawer and came over.

  “What could I get for you?”

  “I’m actually here to talk to Mr. Harris.” I nodded.

  “About that car? Mary said you’d been in.” She glanced down the counter. “He’s going to be tied up a while with that one. She’ll talk your ear off.” Her manner was cordial, but her lips pursed uneasily. “Is Myrtle in some sort of hot water over the car? The man who was driving it said it was just a little dent. At least that’s what she told
us.”

  Like that, I had information enough to work with.

  “Myrtle doesn’t own the maroon car, then?”

  The tall woman gave a startled laugh.

  “Good heaven no! She still drives the blunderbuss she’s had for ages. Only a few steps up from a Model-T.”

  “The man who was driving the car is the only I’m interested in. There’s a good chance he’s mixed up in something shady.”