Death of a Rainmaker
Page 6
“It’s a sample from a salesman. Trying to talk me into holding Dish Nights. I take great satisfaction in defacing this cheaply made knickknack.”
Temple laughed. Chester allowed a thin smile.
“Moving on, it seems that Mr. Coombs attended your feature.”
“Could be. I didn’t even get to the main attraction. The storm hit in the middle of the newsreel.”
Temple made a note. “How many in the audience?”
“I took twenty-three tickets. I’d guess, of those, at least five or six were strangers, including a few CCC boys.”
“Plus the regulars?”
“Of course. Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Laycomb dragging along her mother-in-law,” Chester said. He stood and began to pace. “And that girl who goes steady with the Avery kid. What’s her name?” He snapped his fingers in rapid succession. “Cora? Carrie? Clara. Clara and Leroy.”
As Chester kept talking, Temple jotted down all the names he mentioned. He and Ed would need to interview the entire list. That would take time, and time was something he didn’t have. Not with the primary coming up fast and Doll hovering like a long-legged mosquito hungry for blood. In all, the theater owner unequivocally identified fifteen locals in the audience.
“And you think there might have been three or four CCC boys? Let’s say four. That adds up to twenty. Still missing three. Is there someone you forgot?”
Chester fingered his upper lip while Temple glanced around the small office. A low shelf to the right of the desk held a stack of trade magazines. Battered film boxes, scabbed with labels from movie houses across the West, were piled under the window. The desk was bare except for a typewriter, the cake plate, and a small fan that pushed out hot air smelling of dust and oil. No framed photograph of Lottie, of course. Chester had never seen her face. Temple couldn’t imagine not being able to watch Etha’s fingers running up and down the keyboard or admiring her slim figure when she rose on her toes to slide clean dishes into the kitchen cupboard.
Chester’s words intruded: “No. I’m positive that’s everyone I recognized. You’ll have to talk to my ticket seller Maxine about the CCC boys. How many there were and all that.”
Temple uncrossed his long legs. “Guess that’ll do it for now. Unless you can think of anything else?”
Chester shook his head.
Temple tucked the notepad in his pocket alongside the evidence envelope and stood. “I’ll let you know when you can open up.”
As he let himself out, Temple heard the click of the lighter. Another cigarette that would be smoked to the butt and then smashed into the pink cake plate.
Chapter seven
An organ’s thick chords blared from the parlor of Mayo’s Rooming House as Temple and Ed mounted the porch steps.
“Myra’s program,” Temple said, checking his watch. “Eight o’clock on the nose.”
The two lawmen had spent the past hour scouring the dirt where Coombs had lain and the remainder of the alley, coming up empty-handed. Not a weapon, not a button yanked from the killer’s coat, not a clue of any sort. They’d gulped down Etha’s dinner and hustled over to the boarding house. Temple was feeling the pressure to hurry, to scrape together the facts of the case, squeeze them into a narrative. The breath of Vince Doll burned his neck.
Two men occupied kitchen chairs on Mayo’s porch. Their legs were crossed in the languid posture of men who have no place to be at that hour of the day or any other. They seemed oblivious to the radio program washing through the windows behind them.
“How do? Mrs. Mayo in?” Temple asked.
A fellow wearing the striped billed cap of a farmer nodded. The other lit a cigarette and tossed the spent match into the dusty weeds skirting the porch.
Itinerant peddlers and bachelor shop clerks traditionally made up Mayo’s clientele, but recently lone farmhands on their way to California and tramps who had saved up enough scratch to treat themselves to a bed for a night had joined their ranks. The town’s well-heeled visitors lodged at the Crystal Hotel which boasted carpets, felted cotton mattresses, and telephones on every floor.
Mayo’s didn’t aspire to those lofty heights. Two days after opening in 1900, Edward Mayo keeled over from a massive stroke. It was speculated that the effort of getting the place built to Mrs. Mayo’s liking had contributed to his death. The widow immediately took on the job of running the place, despite her persistent gallbladder, spleen, and bunion problems. In recent years, she had handed off most of the menial tasks to her spinster daughter Beatrice. Still, Mrs. Mayo ruled the place with an iron hand. She kept the books, enforced the rules (“No spitting,” “No cussing”), and performed daily room inspections. Despite her efforts, Mayo’s had grown tatty. The yellowed shades continuously flapped against the windows, inhaling and exhaling stale air; the wallpaper was blistered at its seams and the baseboards bore permanent scars from a procession of sturdy boots. The screens bowed outward like the bellies of middle-aged men.
Temple tapped on the door and called into the dark hallway, “Miss Beatrice?” No one stirred.
After two more attempts, Ed said, “I don’t see how she could hear you over the radio. It’s turned up awful loud.”
“She hears us. Just taking her time. It’s her way of getting back at her mother.”
After a bit, a fleshy woman of forty in a matronly housedress emerged from the shadows of the hallway. Her warm brown eyes and finger perm were not unattractive but she had an unfortunate receding chin that melted into an elongated neck.
“Just finishing up the dishes. Come on in,” she said.
“Thank you. Appreciate it.” Temple removed his hat. “Full house?”
Beatrice shook her head. “Only eight. Who you tracking down?”
It was not unusual for Temple to seek out Mayo’s guests, who were often good sources of information on the location of stills around the county and the comings and goings of itinerants.
“Your ma.”
“Oh. Well, she’s in her room. You know the way.” Beatrice retreated to the back of the house.
Temple wasn’t sure how cooperative Myra would be. After all, Vince Doll was married to her sister, and if he won the election, she’d have a lawman who took her side when neighbors complained about roomers whooping it up, passing out on the porch, or spitting tobacco juice on the sidewalk. Halfway down the hall a door stood open. Temple tapped on the frame.
Myra Mayo lay stretched out on the bed, fully clothed, including her shoes, which rested on a newspaper protecting the white chenille spread. Her eyes were shut. Myra, at age sixty-two, was half her daughter’s weight. But she made up for that with a pair of heavy lace-up pumps that, at the end of her thin legs, resembled anvils.
She held up a hand and announced, without opening her eyes, “Just a minute.”
“Stop it. Stop it, I tell you. I had no reason to kill him!” Helen Trent, the radio drama’s heroine, exclaimed from the parlor. There was a pause, followed by the purr of the announcer’s voice: “Join us tomorrow for the next chapter in The Romance of Helen Trent, the story of a woman who is out to prove that romance need not be over at age thirty-five and beyond.”
Only when the final notes of the theme song faded did Myra’s eyes snap open. “My doctor says I’m to lie down after I’ve et. Since they took that fibroid out I’ve had terrible spells with my gallbladder. Big as a grapefruit, they said. Never seen one bigger.” She swung her legs off the bed, her weighty shoes thudding against the floorboards. The bedside table was cluttered with medicine bottles, wadded hankies, eyedroppers, and a frame displaying three images of Myra’s younger self. “What can I do for you? Must be important to come at this hour.”
Temple said, “We have some questions about Roland Coombs. He’s rooming here?”
“Yes, but he’s not in. He went to the Maid-Rite this morning and I’ve not seen him since.” Myra turned to a blue parakeet hopping energetically in its pagoda-shaped cage. Tilting its head, it observed her with a silken black eye. “Do
es Sweetsie want a snack before beddie-bye?”
Temple caught Ed rolling his eyes and shook his head. The sheriff cleared this throat. “We know he’s not in. His body was found in the alley next to Chester’s this afternoon.”
Myra paused with a pinch of birdseed between her fingers, but didn’t flinch. Temple hadn’t expected her to. You don’t operate a rooming house for thirty-odd years without running smack into the seamy side of things. Drunks, gamblers, fast women, and the occasional body.
After a tick, Sweetsie got his treat and Myra played patty cake over a tin wastepaper basket, spattering the remaining seeds clinging to her fingers. “All I can say is at least he was paid up.”
Temple said, “We need to know when he got here. What he did. That sort of thing. Can we go someplace to talk?”
“The kitchen. But you know I don’t pry into my roomers’ business dealings.”
“Of course not,” Temple said smoothly.
The hallway was dim, but lights blazed in the kitchen where Beatrice was folding towels on an ironing board. Myra, Temple, and Ed sat at the table.
“Go turn the radio down,” Myra said to Beatrice. “And give us some privacy.” She shook a finger at her daughter. “You’re a Nosy Nora if I ever saw one.”
Beatrice clamped the stack of towels against her bosom and silently marched out.
Myra finger-combed her hair. “I must look a sight. Anyway, Mr. Coombs showed up with two suitcases about noon yesterday. I figured he was a salesman. I can spot them a mile away. Grins too wide. Hand out for a shake, even from a lady. He wanted a room for three weeks. One in the back, he said. I guess he thought he was at the Maid-Rite ordering roast beef and mashed. I showed him one at the front and he took it. He stayed up there until suppertime and then didn’t get back here until the Idle Hour closed. Two in the morning. I heard his footsteps on the stairs.”
Ed broke in: “How did you know he’d been at the Idle Hour? Did he say that’s where he was going?”
“No. But where else would a fellow be until that hour and come back soaked in beer? I smelled him.” Myra stood and set a kettle to boil on the range. “I’m to have a cup of hot water an hour before bed. Doctor’s orders for my spells.” She took a china cup and saucer from a cupboard. “Naturally, Mr. Coombs didn’t get up until late this morning. Beatrice was complaining to me that she couldn’t get in there to clean the room but he must have eventually got on his hind legs since she stopped yammering about it.” She poured out the steaming water and sipped.
“Did Mr. Coombs tell you why he was in town?” Temple rearranged his long legs under the table in search of a comfortable position.
“Said he’d been hired by the Commercial Club to make it rain. I said, Good luck to you.”
“Did he say where he was from?”
Myra studied the far wall. “Might have. Let me think. He said he’d come in by way of Kansas. Coldwater, I believe. I didn’t get the impression he was from there, though.”
“Any mention of a truck?”
Myra leaned against the counter. “Parked over by the freight yard, he said. Seeing it was loaded with TNT, that seemed a sound idea.”
Temple turned to Ed. “Make a note. We’ll have to secure those explosives.” Swiveling back to Myra, he asked, “Mind if we check out his room?” He employed his Sunday manners. He didn’t want Doll trying to make the case that his sister-in-law had been manhandled. “Then we’ll get out of your hair. I know it’s late. We’d surely appreciate it.”
Myra’s brows, which had been plucked within an inch of their life, rose. “No skin off my back. I’ll get the keys.”
Coombs’s room was of the austere rooming house variety, with a steel bed frame, straight-backed chair, and washbasin on a stand. A cheap dresser occupied one wall with a brush, comb, and shaving kit arranged on top. A suitcase was lying open on the floor. In years past rooms such as these harbored the dreams of young men pushing west, excitedly hoping to make their own stake on the land. The rooms had smelled of raw lumber and new paint. The dreamers themselves were green, with the vigor of growing wheat. But since the drought began and the Depression set in, the air in the rooms had taken on the stale scent of a closed-off attic. The men who collapsed onto the cotton ticking were worn and brittle.
Temple pointed at the bureau. “You start there, Ed. I’ll tackle the suitcase.”
Myra leaned against the doorway, cupping the china just below her chin. “My mister never was one for shaving lotions and all that. He always said, Leave that stuff to the ladies.”
The two men worked in silence. After a bit, Ed said, “These are empty.” He scraped the drawers shut. “He must not have had time to unpack.”
“Or maybe he wasn’t sure how long he was staying,” Temple said. He kneeled beside the suitcase, slowly pulling out clothing and examining each piece. “He said three weeks, Myra?”
“Yes. And paid for one, which is standard. I don’t have to give that money back, do I? After all, it’s going to be tricky renting out the room of a dead man.”
Temple laughed. “Yeah, your clientele is awful persnickety.”
Myra sniffed. “Some are.”
Ed sorted through the toiletries on top of the dresser. “Our man was worried about losing his hair.” He held up a bottle of tonic. “Just socks, shirts. The usual. Nothing personal.” From his jacket pocket, he removed a notepad and jotted a few lines.
Myra stabbed a finger at the bureau. “Check under the drawer liners. Sometimes they tuck stuff underneath.”
Temple smiled slightly. “Thought you didn’t pry.”
“I don’t.” With that, she turned away. “Let me know when you’re finished,” she called over her shoulder.
“Got her back up,” Ed said with a grin after she’d left.
Temple sighed. “Hard not to.”
There was nothing but bare wood under the liners.
Voices floated up from the front porch along with the sweetish scent of cigars. There was a phlegmy sound as someone gathered saliva and spit. Temple studied the ceiling abstractly. What kind of fellow pulled into town and within twenty-four hours or so managed to rile up someone bad enough that he got his brains bashed in?
“Well, well. Looky here,” Ed said slowly. He drew out a small photo from a barely visible fold in the leather shaving kit. It was of an older man and woman posing stiffly in their best cloths. Across the bottom of the image was stamped, Olsen Photography, St. Joseph. “Probably his folks.” Ed handed it to Temple.
“Good find,” Temple said, slapping Ed on the shoulders. “St. Joe again; same as on his business card. Maybe a place to fill in the missing pieces about Mr. Coombs.”
Ed nodded. “No wedding ring.”
Temple cocked a finger at Ed. “Speaking of which, I better call Etha before we leave and let her know we have one more stop to make.”
“Yeah?”
“The Idle Hour. I trust Myra’s nose. Sure as shooting, Roland was there last night just around this time. So the iron is hot for striking, as they say. I think we checked everything . . .” Temple gazed around the room. “Except here.” He sat on the bed. Its springs creaked in rebuke. There was a single drawer in the rickety bedside table. Inside, a tattered dime novel and a couple of loose cigarettes kept company with a tiny megaphone, no longer than an inch.
Before Temple could examine it, Ed snatched it up and, seeing the puzzled frown on the sheriff’s face, said, “Know what this is? Check it out.” He put the small end of the megaphone up to his eye and blew out a slow wolf whistle. “Roland here preferred ladies on the buxom side.” He handed the viewer to Temple.
“I would say so,” the sheriff said, taking his turn. A dim photograph of a young woman as nature made her smiled back at him. As he rose from the bed the springs repeated their chorus of sighs. “And make a note for me too, before I forget, about talking to the boys at the CCC camp. Chester said he was sure some CCCers were at the movies today. Maybe they noticed something.”
“I know, but this is something we need to do together. I don’t want to be accused by anyone, primarily Doll, of conflict of interest. Just make a note of it in that pad of yours.” Temple’s eyes swept across the room. “I think we’re done here for now. Bring the shaving kit with the snapshot and let’s hit the Idle Hour.”
Temple and Ed were descending the stairs when Beatrice stepped into the hallway. A stack of linens was still pressed against her bosom, though the pile was considerably smaller.
“You’re working late,” Ed said.
Beatrice shrugged. “Sometimes it takes all day to clean the rooms and wash the linens. You finished in there?”
“We are. But we’re going to need to keep it locked for another couple of days.”
Tipping her head toward the room she’d just left, Beatrice whispered, “We need to talk.”
“All right,” Temple said slowly.
Inside, she dropped onto a straight-backed chair, still hugging the towels to her chest. “Close the door.”
Ed swung it shut.
“This morning when I went in to clean Mr. Coombs’s room, his handkerchief had blood on it.”
“A lot?” Temple’s voice rose in surprise.
“Yes. It’s not unusual to have a couple of spots from shaving nicks, but this was a gusher. Probably got punched in the nose. I didn’t think much of it. Only that it was going take a lot of work getting the blood out. I soaked the hankie in bleach, then tossed it in the tub with the rest of the stuff. It still had some rust spots, so I put it aside to soak again.”
“Where is it now?” Ed asked.
“In the laundry room.”
Temple mused that there were some daughters, grown women even, who were eternally outshone by their mothers. Seemed to be a combination of a daughter who was by nature reserved, and a mother who clung with ferocity to the glory of her own youth. The sort whose bedroom was ornamented with framed photos of her younger self. He wanted Beatrice to understand she had his full attention. “We appreciate you letting us know.”