“Oh!” The man in the bow tie was still busy. She hesitated. “Look, maybe I could help you. I’m Julia Harris. I was here that afternoon same as Pop, and saw it and listened to Myrtle. Why don’t we sat down.” Nodding at a wire table with two chairs in front of the counter, she untied her apron and came around.
I introduced myself and gave her a card. She had soft blue eyes and a pretty face.
“I suppose I should look at the picture you showed Mary rather than make assumptions,” she said. When I took it out of the envelope she nodded and touched one of the smaller pictures at the bottom. “Yes. That color. And it parked right there, where we could see.” She gestured toward the window, then gave a small sigh. “The truth is, we hoped at the time that Myrtle might get a ticket. Or better still, lose her license. She’s an awful driver.”
“Myrtle hit the red car?” Like Julia, I didn’t want to make assumptions.
“When she was pulling out, yes. Maybe going too fast; Myrtle tends to be in a bit of a hurry. Poor thing, she jumped out – or as close as a woman who must be sixty, at least, comes to jumping – and covered her mouth. Then she ran around and looked at the damage and wrung her hands. Pop was just starting out to see about it and calm her down when the man who owned the red car came back.”
“What happened then?”
Julia shrugged. “Myrtle caught his sleeve and took him around to the street side to look. A customer came in, so I didn’t see the rest of it. The next time I looked up, the red car was gone.”
The woman with the pie box finally was leaving. Julia’s father, who’d eyed us a few times, ambled over. Introductions were made. Since Julia now seemed keen on helping, I let her do the telling about why I was interested in the car. It dispelled any reluctance on his part, but he wasn’t able to add much to what she’d already told me.
“No, I can’t say where he’d come from. I’d just opened the door, starting out to help Myrtle when I noticed him. He came from that direction, though.” He pointed. “And he wasn’t running like you’d think he would if he’d been crossing the street and seen it happen. I’d guess he might have come from around the corner.”
“There are stores there,” Julia put in.
“Could you describe him? Notice anything he did?”
Mr. Harris shook his head in apology.
“A customer with a baby buggy and a little hellion who needs hanging onto came up from the other way right about then, and the kid was jumping around the way he usually does and I held the door for them. I didn’t really notice the fellow, to tell you the truth.”
“He must have driven away not long after,” said Julia. She turned and asked Mary, the dark-haired clerk, who was free now. Mary agreed.
“That little pest Tommy was still in the store when Miss Myrtle came in saying she was such a bundle of nerves she needed to sit down. I know that. And the car was gone.”
The car had made a bigger impression than the driver. None of them could recall a single thing about him. Showing the photographs proved futile. They gave me Myrtle’s address, and Julia gave me directions as another wave of customers began to arrive.
“I hope I didn’t make her sound silly,” she added as she rose and started to tie on her apron. “She’s a lovely woman; gave piano lessons to half the children in town, including me. But she’s a horror behind the wheel.”
I crossed my fingers that she was a horror with a good memory.
* * *
Myrtle’s last name was Bell. She lived just a few blocks north of downtown on a street of houses that looked like they dated back a century or so. They were modest but well built with nice yards. Myrtle’s was a little brick cottage.
I didn’t see a car in front, and the shed to the side that probably had been a stable once had an open front. Nobody answered when I knocked on the door.
“Myrtle’s not home,” called a woman who’d come out to sweep the steps next door – a common nosy neighbor tactic.
I moseyed over. “Do you have any idea when she’ll be back? I drove down from Dayton to see her.”
The interest in her eyes suggested she might be sharing the tidbit of news as soon as she went inside.
“Four o’clock,” she said firmly.
I gritted my teeth.
“She goes to some women’s meeting at church from two to four every Wednesday,” the neighbor was saying. “Gads around like gas was free. Of course when her husband was still alive, she didn’t get to go much, he was such a sourpuss. Now she’s gallivanting all the time.”
Church meetings didn’t sound much like gallivanting to me, but I thanked her and said I’d be back around four.
* * *
Chaffing at the long delay, I went back downtown and talked to people who worked in shops around the corner from the bakery. None of them had seen a maroon car. A few had heard something about Myrtle Bell denting someone’s fender, but none of them had any idea who the other driver was. At a quarter of four I went back to her place to wait.
Shortly after the hour an old but shiny Ford turned onto the street at an angle that took it close to the center before the driver corrected. In my rearview mirror I watched it drive more or less straight. As it came closer I saw the white-haired driver was peering through the steering wheel, her hands above her ears. The car nosed eagerly toward the curb where it stopped with a bounce. Glad I’d been forewarned about Myrtle’s driving and parked in front of the house just beyond hers, I watched her climb out. It engendered a certain amount of sympathy for her driving.
Myrtle Bell was short, partly by stature and partly because of a humped back that reduced her height by a good ten inches and put her head an equal distance in front of her shoulders. She was a pretty little woman, though, with a peppy manner. I was fairly certain the pink of her lips had come from a tube, which in a woman her age probably caused tongues to wag.
“Mrs. Bell?” I asked, getting out of my car and starting toward her.
“Yes?” She peered up at me brightly.
“I’m Maggie Sullivan. I came down from Dayton. I’d like to ask you a question or two about the man with the reddish car you parked behind in front of the bakery a while back.”
“Oh! Oh, dear!” She clutched her purse and a brown canvas tote to her chest, worried and fluttering. “Is it about insurance? The man said it was such a tiny dent I shouldn’t worry!”
“It’s not–”
“I offered to pay, but he said–”
“Mrs. Bell, it’s not about bumping the car. It’s the man himself who’s in trouble.”
It took her a minute to switch gears. “In trouble? What do you mean?”
The way she had to cock her head to look up gave me the odd sensation of talking to a bird. I lowered my voice and stepped closer, suspecting she’d find the hint of secrecy thrilling.
“I’m afraid he may have stolen some money.”
“Stolen! Oh, my!” Her eyes were bright. “I don’t know what I can tell you. He seemed so nice.... Would you mind if we went inside? I’ve been away all afternoon and I’m a bit tired.”
Forty-two
Myrtle offered to make us some tea. One of the first things I’d learned as a gumshoe was that if I showed up asking questions and someone offered me tea, accepting was usually a good idea. The preparations were familiar. They made whoever I wanted to talk to feel more in charge, which relaxed them. Myrtle didn’t strike me as part of that minority who wanted the time to concoct a lie.
While she fussed in the kitchen, I had a chance to learn about her from her surroundings. One corner of her living room held an upright piano with a metronome and stacks of sheet music. A kid’s cap next to the piano bench suggested she still gave lessons. On the wall, a framed photograph with an oval mat showed her and her husband on their wedding day. She’d been taller then.
When her bent little shape appeared with a tray, I hurried to help. I said she had a fine piano. She beamed. She still gave lessons, though not to as many students, she volun
teered. Finally we got down to business.
“I want to make sure I’m asking about the right man,” I said. “Can you tell me what he looked like?”
“Oh dear.” She thought. “I don’t remember much. He wasn’t burly. My brothers were both burly.” After some more thought, she sighed. “He had nice hands. I do remember that. They were so well tended I wondered if he might be a musician. I didn’t ask him, of course.”
“Dark? Fair? Bald?”
She tittered. “Not bald. Fair, I think. I’m not certain. I was so upset.”
“Do you think you could pick him out in a photograph?”
She brightened. “What a nice idea! Why, yes.”
I opened my envelope and took out the pictures. First I showed her the car, which she agreed was the one in question. Then I showed her the two photographs.
“Let me have a better look, dear. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.” Peering intently, she brought first one, then the other to within a hand’s length of her nose. She began to nod. “Yes, that’s him. Right there.”
She tapped the same image as the bartender had yesterday.
They’d both identified James C. Hill.
* * *
Myrtle Bell might not make the most reliable of witnesses. I began to suspect her poor driving was the result of poor eyesight. The old doll needed glasses. Still, she’d shown no uncertainty at all in picking out Hill as the driver of the expensive car, a car he couldn’t likely afford on his salary. If he’d been driving a car that belonged to somebody else, it was doubtful he’d have been sanguine about the dent. On the other hand, if he owned it and was up to no good, he’d want to attract as little attention as possible.
As I left Lebanon, I evaluated the implications of what I’d learned there. I’d connected Hill to the car, and I’d placed both him and the car in Lebanon. Vern had described the car and admitting to leaving a package in it just outside Lebanon. He’d also admitted to knowing that Draper and someone else met at a roadhouse. The bartender at that roadhouse had picked out Hill and Draper as the ones who met there. Yes, I had the proof I needed.
Vern would roll in an instant if the cops squeezed him. On Hill, on Draper, on whoever had been hired to run me over but killed somebody else instead. My guess was Wildman wouldn’t lift a finger to help his leech of a brother-in-law. He’d show even less sympathy toward the trusted manager who’d helped bilk him, and was possibly behind the whole scheme. As soon as I’d laid it all out for Wildman, it would be time to bring in the cops.
I frowned at the road ahead of me. The leaden gray sky had the look of snow. Getting away from Myrtle had taken some doing, especially since I still had a couple of questions I wanted to ask her. In the end, it had been almost five when I left her house, and she hadn’t had anything else useful to add.
By the time I passed the deserted roadside park, the light was fading. A few cars passed going south. Those I glimpsed ahead of me disappeared, one by one, the last turning onto a gravel crossroad. The ones I could see in my rearview mirror slipped away too. As I crested a hill, a big cattle truck swung out of a farm lane. My body tensed remembering the truck that had rammed Wildman’s Cadillac with me inside it. There was no one else on the road. Just the two of us. The big truck rumbled along, not far behind me. And then, all at once, it turned off onto what must have been nothing more than a track, maybe some shortcut used by locals, or leading to a barn somewhere. My breath eased out. I began to relax.
Ten minutes later, in the middle of nowhere, I heard a thump, soft at first, but repeating louder and harder. The DeSoto started to shimmy. I pulled to the side of the road.
Swearing a blue streak I got out and circled the car. I saw the bad news I expected. Stalking back to the luggage compartment, I opened it to start the long process of changing a flat tire.
Forty-three
Reason told me I was probably safer out here in the middle of cow pastures than I was in the city. Farms didn’t grow thugs the way cities did. Nonetheless, given all that had happened on this case and how isolated I was, the first thing I did was get back in the car and retrieve the Smith & Wesson from my purse.
Changing a tire was a miserable task in any weather. The fact it was getting cold enough to see my breath didn’t improve my mood. Nor did thoughts of how much more this was going to delay me. Nor the knowledge it would be full dark soon, with unfamiliar road ahead. I put my new coat in the back seat. Using the car to curtain me in case another vehicle happened along, I pulled off my skirt and got into the overalls I kept in the trunk for dirty work. I’d tossed the shoes ruined in the alley into the trunk for a similar purpose, never guessing I’d use them this soon. All the while, my .38 rested reassuringly on the running board.
I looked around for a rock to put under the back wheel with the good tire to keep it from rolling. The only one I could see wasn’t quite as big as I wanted, but it would have to do. I got out the parts of the jack and used one to pry off the hubcap. Preliminaries out of the way, I put the jack together, slid it into place and set to work.
Halfway through, a car that was headed toward Lebanon pulled off on the other side of the road. A guy in a suit and topcoat came over.
“Flat tire, huh?” He seemed somewhat nonplused, either at my overalls or the .38 I’d picked up.
“Want me to call somebody to come finish changing it? I think there’s a place in Lebanon stays open ‘til eight. I’d help you myself, but I’ve got to get to a lodge dinner honoring my father-in-law. There’ll be family fireworks like you wouldn’t believe if I’m late.”
I did a fast estimate. I could be done before help even got here.
“Thanks anyway. I’m doing okay.”
I bent to it again, feeling more isolated than ever when the sound of the other car faded. It was full dark now, the only visible light a pinprick so far away I couldn’t even guess the distance. A frail old fellow in a pickup stopped and apologized three times that he couldn’t help.
“I’ve got a bad ticker. Doctor’s real firm about me not lifting and such.”
I thanked him and told him I was just about finished. Forty-five minutes or thereabouts after I’d started, I was. The sprained shoulder I’d forgotten about all day was screaming about the mistreatment it had gotten working the jack. I got back into the car, shivering so my teeth were rattling.
When I reached Centerville, the desire to stop for a whiskey almost overwhelmed me. Instead, I swallowed a couple of aspirin, dry, to calm my shoulder. I wanted a sharp mind when I had my meeting with Wildman. He was going to have questions aplenty. Maybe he’d offer me some of that nice whiskey of his. Mostly I wanted to be back in familiar surroundings before I chanced stopping again.
* * *
In Van Buren Township there was a place that served great chili. I pulled in and had a bowl. When I’d finished, I flirted with the idea of swinging by Mrs. Z’s to change into warmer clothes and clean up better than I’d been able to in a ladies washroom. It was getting close to eight o’clock, though. I wanted to type up some notes before I saw Wildman.
This time of night there were parking spaces in front of my building. I was glad to save some energy. No one parked after I did, so I got out my key for the front door and went inside. The two Negro girls who cleaned were just starting on my floor. I told them they could skip my office since I’d been out all day and wanted to work.
“Um-um. You movin’ stiff,” clucked Sophia.
I grinned. “Think maybe I’ll take boxing lessons. Toughen me up.”
They laughed. They worked hard and were plenty smart. Not many of the other people who worked here ever saw them. I always gave them some money at Christmastime because that seemed right.
In my office I turned up the radiator, cranked a carbon set into my Remington, and started to type. I’d been at it half an hour or better and was almost finished when the telephone at my elbow started to jangle. Instinctively I reached for my gun. Who would expect to find me here at this hour? Unless
they’d been watching.
My eyes flew to the door and then to the windows. The phone beside me repeated its summons. In my lap my hand wrapped comfortably around the contours of my .38. I answered the phone.
“Miss Sullivan? Miss Sullivan, is that you?”
The woman’s voice on the other end sounded terrified.
“Yes, it is.”
“This is Juniemay, Miz Tarkington’s maid. Come help her, please! She’s in a terrible state – all beat up and scared. They took that no-good man of hers. She’s scared they’ll come back, and that they’re going to hurt her brother!”
Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries) Page 22