Forty-four
“Who was it that came there?” I asked sharply.
“I don’t know,” said the voice on the phone. “I wasn’t here, and she’s not making much sense. She said there was three of them.”
“Call Mr. Wildman–”
“I tried. The line’s busy.”
Wildman and his calls coming in at all hours about business, I thought in frustration.
“Keep trying. When you get through, tell them to keep their doors locked. Mr. Wildman’s expecting me pretty soon, but I’ll come to your place first. I’ll flash my lights long and short when I pull in. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As soon as I hung up I tried Wildman. Still busy. I shrugged into my coat. Snatching the carbon set out of the platen, I peeled off the top sheet. On slow days I addressed and stamped a few envelopes to my post office box for when minutes counted. This qualified. I shoved the notes I’d typed into the envelope and my .38 into my pocket, grabbed some extra bullets and ran down the hall. As I was licking the envelope I spotted Sophia wringing a mop out.
“Put this in your pocket and mail it somewhere when you leave tonight, will you?”
She nodded.
In the DeSoto, with engine purring, I took a minute to think. Could this be a setup? Not likely. If someone wanted to lure me into a trap, they wouldn’t have a Negro maid call me. They’d use a gun to the temple to get Dorothy or Wildman himself to make the call.
I drove furiously. A knot in my gut told me Hill and the men he’d hired had decided the game was up. They wouldn’t care what they did from here on out. They were cutting their losses. And as Hill liked to say, tying up loose ends.
Vern was one of those loose ends. He knew too much. His worthless hide wouldn’t merit a second’s worry, save that he was my best way of connecting Hill to Draper. My greater concern was Dorothy’s belief that the men who’d taken him meant to do something to Wildman. She was probably drunk. Maybe she’d misunderstood.
* * *
As soon as I got a look at Dorothy Tarkington, the certainty I had to act, and fast, intensified. She’d been slapped around hard. Her lip was split and bruises already were forming on her fair skin. Crouched on an ottoman, she held a china coffee cup that threatened to chip its saucer from her shaking. Her eyes had a glazed look as she lifted a tear-stained face and stared at me without recognition.
“She’s not drunk,” said Juniemay flatly. Going to her employer’s side, she stroked her blonde hair. “She was all tied up in the coat closet with a gag in her mouth. I wouldn’t of found her except for her thumping the door. Couldn’t get no sense at all from her for the longest time. When I finally did, that’s when I called you. She’d tossed that card you left last time into the wastebasket, but I’d fished it out and stuck it in a drawer in the kitchen.”
“Did you reach Mr. Wildman?”
“No, ma’am. Line’s still busy.”
“Come on. We’ll sort out the rest of this over there.”
“No!” Dorothy spoke for the first time. “No, I can’t.” She started to weep. “He thinks I’m an idiot, anyway ... and this ... it’s all–”
“Do you want to keep on being an idiot, or do you want to help him? If you stick around and those men come back, they’ll use you to get at him. Is that what you want?”
She blinked. The glazed look receded. She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Oh, God!”
“Do you have a gun?”
“A gun? I ... Vern does. Up in the bedside table.”
“I’ll get it.” Juniemay set off at a run.
“Juniemay said there were three men. What did they look like?”
She pressed her forehead again. “Big. One was. The others ... I don’t know. They had flour sacks over their heads, with holes cut to breathe. I think Vern knew them. He ... then two of them grabbed him and tied his hands. That’s when I started to scream. I threw a sofa cushion. One had a gun. And the other one slapped me so hard I fell over. And then they tied me up....” She started to sob.
I patted her shoulder awkwardly. Juniemay returned with an automatic. I checked and saw it was loaded.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ll all go in my car.”
For the first time that evening, Juniemay’s eyes widened nervously. “I can’t–”
“Please, Juniemay! I need you!” Dorothy clung to her arm like a drowning woman. “Don’t leave me!”
The maid looked at me in appeal.
“She needs you,” I stressed. “You can ride in the back seat. Let’s get a move on.”
* * *
“What made you think Vern knew them?” I asked as we moved through the streets as fast as I dared.
“He didn’t seem scared at first. Just mad at seeing them,” Dorothy said.
I’d already learned that Juniemay went to her sister’s place every Wednesday. She was usually there until half-past ten but her sister hadn’t been feeling well, so she’d come home early.
“And what made you think they might do something to your brother?”
Dorothy was silent. When I glanced over, tears were sliding down her face. She struggled to speak.
“One of them said ... ‘Wildman’s got plenty of ready cash he can cough up. We may need her to convince him.’” Her voice broke. “It’s my fault. I don’t know what Vern’s mixed up in, but I know it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t told him about hearing my brother and that insufferable manager of his talking about some big opportunity.” She started to sob.
“I don’t care what happens to Vern! I wish I’d left him a long time ago. Ferris makes me so mad, but if anything – if anything–”
“It’s not because you told Vern about overhearing that conversation,” I said sharply. “It’s because of Hill.”
That brought her up short. “Hill? What—?”
“He and a man named Draper cooked up a big-time swindle. Your brother was one of their pigeons. Vern’s greed got him nosing around and he caught wind of it. He threatened to blow the whistle unless he got a cut.
“Your brother hired me to find out who was behind the swindle, and knowing I was getting close, Hill’s decided to run.
“I don’t know what he intends to try with your brother. But I know you need to walk into that house and be a help for once. Plenty of people think you’re pretty fine when you’re not drinking, and your nephew’s crazy about you.”
I turned into Wildman’s drive.
“Dorothy, you stay down until I make sure everything’s all right inside. Juniemay, you watch for my wave.”
Forty-five
What I found in Wildman’s house was chaos.
“There were three of them,” Rogers said. He’d met me at the door wielding a crowbar.
The men he was talking about had forced their way in half an hour earlier, about when I was getting Juniemay’s frantic phone call. The butler had seen only Vern when he opened the door, and he hadn’t realized there was a gun in Vern’s back. Then the others pushed in and bashed the butler over the head. He lay on the floor of the study where we all had gathered save for the cook, who to the surprise of all kept a gun in the pantry and was guarding the back door.
The butler’s still-bleeding head was on a cushion. He’d been unconscious until shortly before I arrived, but he was brushing aside suggestions he needed a doctor.
“But don’t even think of trying to get up,” ordered Dorothy. “You may be concussed.”
To my surprise, she hadn’t gone to pieces at the news the intruders had taken her brother. She was, in fact, taking a stab at being in charge, though she looked frequently to make sure Juniemay hadn’t left her. The household staff seemed to welcome her hand in things.
“Did the men wear flour sack masks?” I was sure they must be the ones who’d snatched Vern.
The maid in the frilly apron nodded. She was the only one who’d gotten a look at them, except for the butler in the seconds before they’d knocked him out. Sh
e was wringing the edge of the apron between her hands. Its frills were limp.
“I think maybe there was another man outside, too. After they used Mr. Vern to get in, one of them shoved him outside. That’s when I saw his hands were tied. Somebody grabbed onto him.”
I stopped my restless pacing. Four men made sense. Two captives, two men guarding each. That way they could use two cars, make sure their struggling captives couldn’t conspire together. Four also added up to Hill and the Kirkmann brothers.
“Should I bring some tea?” The maid’s sudden question suggested her need to return to things she understood.
Dorothy, who knelt by the butler, patting his hand, looked up and managed a smile.
“What a good idea. Juniemay can help you.”
The maid eyed the black girl nervously, but she nodded.
“One more thing,” I said to the maid. “Did you happen to notice if one of the men who came here had a bandaged finger?”
“Yes! His pinkie.”
“Good. I know where to look first.”
I slid into my coat. The household had been in too much turmoil for anyone to think of taking it.
“Should we call the police?” asked Rogers. It was a stroke of good luck he’d stayed late to see about a faulty connection one of the cars had developed late in the day. He instinctively gave the direction the others needed. Dorothy had left the room but was probably still within hearing distance. He lowered his voice. “Those men said not to or they’d kill Mr. Wildman.”
I hesitated, not sure yet what Hill’s game was. Maybe he only wanted Wildman as insurance, until he got away. Yet Dorothy had told me one of the man had said her brother had plenty of cash. Hill was in a position to know how much and where. Maybe he meant to force Wildman to get it, greedy little viper.
Hill was an amateur, albeit a smart one. Amateurs panicked. Having the cops burst in probably wasn’t a good idea. At least not until I had a better sense of what was happening.
I did some quick time calculations. Spotting a notepad on top of the little mahogany secretary, I wrote a street name and the words Kirkmann bros.
“Give me one hour,” I said. “If I haven’t called you by then, tell the police to check here.”
By then I’d either have things straightened out, or be uncommonly glad to see them.
* * *
Frost stretched skeletal fingers across the windows of houses I passed, hiding things. It gripped my thoughts as I left Wildman’s place. I went north toward downtown, past hobos huddling around a fire they’d scratched together, through streets where traffic was sparse at this time of night at midweek. Time pressed at my back. Time and memories of the last time I’d faced men with guns. I hoped nobody had to die this time.
I drove as fast as I dared without attracting notice. I thought about Connelly and was glad he wasn’t working nights any more. If I couldn’t pull something off to free Wildman, things were going to get messy.
Finally I crossed the Little Miami, and not long after cut over to Milburn. The little houses scattered between the factories and tool and die places were already dark. Only a couple of beer joints showed signs of life.
I slowed considerably, knowing this hard-working, hard-drinking neighborhood might not be the friendliest to a woman out on her own at night. I didn’t have time to deal with interference if I could avoid it. The smidgen of guilt I’d felt over tricking Connelly dissipated as I pulled to a stop in front of a welding shop just beyond the building he’d entered last night.
As I was waiting for my eyes to adjust, I heard a scream that raised the hairs on my neck. A man’s scream. Terrified.
No time to delay. I reached for the car door. Four-to-one weren’t very good odds, even if Hill wasn’t armed, which I was counting on. An extra gun might turn out to be handy. I took the automatic from under my seat and left the Smith & Wesson in my coat pocket.
Opening the car door, I ran to the rear of the car and ducked down and waited. No movement. No sign of anyone coming in my direction. I took a couple of breaths and sprinted for the corner of the Kirkmann brothers’ garage. Then I listened for sounds outside. There weren’t any. Just a penetrating cold. Slowly I began to work my way down the side of the building. Connelly had mentioned a back entrance.
Stop. Listen. Stop. Listen. My eyes strained against shadows. At the corner I paused and peered around cautiously. There it was. A door. I moved again. From inside I caught the murmur of voices.
I put my foot forward carefully, feeling to make sure I didn’t hit a discarded can or crumpled up paper which would announce my presence. As I began to shift my weight, an arm like the trunk of a tree caught me from behind, and the automatic was wrenched from my fingers.
“Going somewhere, girlie?”
Forty-six
I tried to kick the big gorilla who’d grabbed me where I could do some damage, but he was tall as well as strong. He shifted me under one arm like a sack of feed. The back of a hand that now held my automatic smacked against my windpipe. What would have been a yell for help collapsed in a choking, agonized gasp for air.
Before I’d recovered from the blow to my throat, Brutus carried me through the door I’d seen and dumped me not very gently onto a brick floor.
“Lookit what I found.”
He walked over to stand between two other roughly dressed men.
I pushed up with effort. I was getting tired of this particular bunch of goons inflicting bruises on me. It filled me with more lip than common sense.
“Gee, you must be the charming Kirkmann brothers. I’ve heard so much about you. Mind if I get up?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I got to my feet and brushed myself off. The back room of the garage was about what I’d expected: Parts stacked here and there. A disassembled car. Just inside the large double door I’d been hauled through, two new cars, one Vern’s, looked as if they were poised to be driven away. Behind me a wall separated this room from the repair shop seen from the street. I stood more or less in the center of things, getting my bearings in light cast by a few bare bulbs.
A guy whose pinkie was splinted and bandaged stood directly in front of me and maybe eleven feet away. The giant who’d carried me in was to his right. On the end a boy of no more than sixteen stared at me, slack-jawed. They all had guns and the guns were pointed at me. The one with the bundled up pinkie wasn’t likely to be as fast or as accurate as usual.
“You!” he hissed as he got a look at me.
“Took this away from her.” The one I’d dubbed Brutus flourished my automatic and slid it across the floor toward the kid. “Ronnie, put that away.”
I hooked my thumbs in my pockets and swayed my knees like a playground flirt. Cool as a cucumber. Wondering what in hades I was going to do.
“If you boys are smart, you’ll run while you can. A cop was sniffing around here last night. I saw him come out just when I was getting ready to stop and have a look-see myself.”
“She’s lying, you idiots!”
At last I looked at James C. Hill, hoping I’d bruised his pride by not immediately making him the center of attention. He had a gun too. By the way he held it, he wasn’t used to using one, but Ferris Wildman sat in front of him and Hill was keeping the gun too close to Wildman’s head for me to take chances.
Wildman was tied to a chair. Vern, similarly restrained, sat next to him. Vern had a gag in his mouth. It had probably followed the scream I’d heard.
“Mr. Hill, you look immaculate as ever,” I said. “Hair not even mussed. But then you didn’t have a sack on your head like the hired help, did you?”
He started.
“And in case you’re thinking of getting money from Mr. Wildman by threatening to kill his sister – she’s not tied up any more. She’s at his house, safe, boosting everybody’s spirits and pulling things back into order.”
“How did–? Tie her up,” he snapped at the one with the broken finger, who gave an unpleasant grin.
“I don’t
think so.”
The .38 slid smoothly out of my pocket, halting the thug in his tracks. It took them all a minute to absorb. Meanwhile I searched desperately for some way to pull off a miracle. A yard and a half to my left were some tires. If I could reach them, lean against one somehow, start it rolling.... I took a sidling step.
“Oh, and for all Mrs. Tarkington cares, you can go ahead and kill Vern. She plans to leave him anyway.”
Vern squealed through his gag.
Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries) Page 23