Chapter 8
After Tanya went to face the breakfast crowd, I drove to Leon's private part of the world. He lived on one of those shabby side streets where dreamers no longer dreamed, and planners no longer planned. Each block was a collection of tiny tattered houses with tiny tattered yards, overgrown with not-so-tiny weeds. The boxer's home was a one-story affair, wood-framed and ticky-tacky. His had a recent green paint-job and red tile roof. It looked not unlike a fresh shipping-label pasted upon the top of a much-mailed cardboard box. Still, that gave the shack a modicum of distinction amongst its peers.
I parked Leon's truck near the alley at one end of the block, and then strolled back along the sidewalk. Crying children and barking dogs accompanied my movements as I thought about Moira, Leon's wife. Although I had no description to go by, I pictured her as an angel with either an undying tolerance for his rejection of soapy water, or a terminal sinus condition. I had little interest in angels. Invariably, they fell short with affection and went long with criticism. I preferred devil types; like Tanya—wanton women who were long on passion and short on guilt. I strode up to Leon's front door, smiling as I remembered her climbing upon me, completely naked and eager.
"She ain't home and the old boy's in the tank!" a rasping voice called as I reached for the doorbell.
I glanced about. An elderly woman stared at me from behind pink chintz curtains at the house next door.
"I gotta' talk to you, flatfoot," she added and then disappeared from view.
My opinion of Nosey Nellie's ran along the same lines as angels. Nevertheless, the former have provided more solutions to crimes than forensic science. I girded my loins and walked over to her house.
Before I reached the steps, she hobbled out and stared down at me as if having seen my photo on a wanted poster. Then with a flop of her scrawny arms she bellowed, "What in hell are you up to?"
"You said you wanted to talk," I replied, and climbed the steps to her porch.
She was well over seventy years of age, skinny as a rail and the top of her head almost reached my chin. Her hair was bottle-red and her dress was blue gingham; the former matched the shiny red riding boots on her small feet. Completing her ensemble was a brace of long-barreled nickel-plated six shooters, strapped around her tiny waist. They were the kind civil war generals had carried, at least the generals who were well heeled.
Her thick gray eyebrows furrowed with commitment as she blurted, "I don't spill my guts to the press and you gadabouts don't never come 'round less'n it suits you. And lately that ain't been the case."
"Trouble?" I asked, pointing to the holstered hog-legs.
She squinted her watery blue eyes up at my face and then grabbed my arm. "Inside," she snapped. "Can't talk out here. Too many noses sniffin' the air." She dragged me into her home with surprising strength.
"What's this all about?" I asked as she reached past me and shut the door.
"Gotta' set you coppers straight," she replied. "You flat-footed yo-yos got it all wrong."
"Anything in particular?" I asked, with more than a little confusion. "Or, are we talking local politics?"
She reached up and thumped my chest lightly with a wrinkled finger that was not unlike a chicken bone. "No way, no how did Leon kill that asshole brother, of his."
"I'm inclined to agree. What's with the hardware on your hips?"
"Murders go in threes," the old woman retorted. "Any fool knows that." She tugged up the gun belt before slapping its holsters as if practicing her quick-draw. "Eli may be the first. But, you can bet your sweet ass there'll be others. I ain't gonna' be one of 'em."
"You know who killed Eli?"
One scrawny finger went to the side of her head and tapped lightly. "I got ideas." She nodded toward the back of the house. "Let's mosey into the kitchen were we can chew the fat, proper."
"How long have you lived here?"
"Fifty years." She lead me through a living room cluttered with turn of the century furnishings and photos, to a closet sized room that had barely enough space for its sagging sink, greasy gas stove, tired refrigerator and two-chair dinette.
"How long has Leon lived in the neighborhood?"
"Take a load off," the old woman said and pointed to the red and chrome chairs. "Leon come here about ten years back. Ran the gas station across the street, or tried to. Poor bastard had dreams, then. Gonna' make a comeback, he was. Each night he spent hours in the garage. I'd hear him pounding away on the bags and skipping rope. But he was too old. Hell, he was too punched out, too."
I settled into one of the chairs and looked around. The kitchen walls were painted a pale yellow, the ceiling a similar color but for dissimilar reasons. The floor was tiled in black and white. A half-century of trodding had converted the black to gray and the white to a bile green. An old refrigerator chug-a-lugged against one wall, like a shivering ghost. And the oven was open, providing heat despite the searing temperature outside.
"What's on your mind, Mrs.?"
A pitcher of yellowish fluid, two empty beer mugs and a half-gallon of Jack Daniels formed the table's centerpiece. The bottom of the pitcher was littered with lemon pits. Its top was crowded with gray foam and little black fuzzies. I wasn't sure if the latter were alive and unconscious, or dead and floating belly up.
"The name's Lydia Thornton." The old woman sat down. "Missus. My old man's dead but I still keep the handle. After living with the old fart for forty years, I figure I've earned it. You want a little action with your lemonade?"
I tried not to pale "I'm sorry?"
Lydia grabbed the Jack Daniels and splashed several ounces into the mug nearest her, and then she slopped an ounce or two into the one in front of me.
"I like mine so it makes me sweat," she said proudly. "Nothin' like feelin' the heat."
I glanced over at the stove and loosened my tie.
"You look like a worried man, copper," she continued, grabbing the pitcher. "Pressure on because of this Huggins hit? Don't sweat it. That asshole mayor won't be in office much longer. Between that slut daughter of his whoring her ass around, and the tax money he's spending on his kit and kin, Woods'll be on a street corner begging for pennies before the year's out."
She topped off my glass with the pitcher's contents. Fortunate or not, I lucked out on the pits but I got more than my share of fuzzy-black.
She set the pitcher aside and then grabbed up her mug. "Who put you clowns onto Leon for the Eli snuff?"
"Leon confessed."
"That hairy, stupid, brain-dead, stinking son-of-a-bitch," she gurgled into her brew. She pointed a bony finger at me and clenched one bleary eye shut. "Leon and me's sat many a night over lemonade and talk, right where you are. I know the hairy bastard and I know he couldn't kill nobody: not the way Eli was done."
"I'm surprised your sinuses could take him."
She pondered my comment for a moment and then shrugged. "Well, I had the fan on, the window open and made him cross his legs. Bad smell don't make Leon a killer."
"Somebody killed Eli Huggins. Personally, I think Leon's covering for that somebody."
"Now you're talking my language." Lydia nodded toward Leon's house. "That bitch's the one you should be talkin' to! My money's on her."
"Who?"
"Moira." Lydia slapped a scrawny hand hard on the tabletop. "Leon's wife, a'course. Drink up, man. There's plenty more where that come from."
I swirled the contents of my glass to shift the fuzzy black to one side, before tasting the yellow brew. My eyes watered, my nose ran and my throat clenched shut with revulsion. I managed to swallow, but not without letting go a moan.
"Good, huh?" Lydia asked, over the top of her glass.
"You think Leon's covering for Moira?" I whimpered, still trying to cleanse my scathed throat with saliva.
"You talked to her yet?"
I shook my head. "That's why I stopped."
Lydia grinned and took another noisy s
lurp. "Leon might be covering for Moira. And, then he might not. But the cover-up don't count for shit on this killin'."
"Are you saying he's covering for someone who did not kill Eli?"
She leaned toward me and demanded, "How well did you know Eli Huggins?"
"He died before I had the pleasure."
Lydia cackled and eased back. "Moira and Eli were going hot and heavy for years right under Leon's nose— 'til that daughter of hers got in the way. Betcha' didn't know that."
"Which daughter?"
"Betsy, a course. That's the only one she got. What in the Sam Hill do you cops do in your background checks?"
The name 'Betsy' suddenly formed a fit to Tanya's remark about the blond kid whom she had referred to as Betty. "Mostly we drink coffee. Betsy's a blonde?
"So's Moira," the old woman said with a look of distaste. Then she added with a smirk, "Dye job."
I made a point of not noticing Lydia's hairdo. "Betsy's about eighteen or nineteen?"
Lydia nodded. "Moira's pushin' forty—if she'd admit it."
"So you think Betsy's the one Leon's covering for?"
"Who else is there?" she roared. "Not that Eli didn't have it comin'. What he done to that girl all them years is a crime. Not that anybody 'round here'd believe it. Eli was always puttin' on the straight and proper when it counted. And it counted plenty when Woods needed the votes. But I knows what I knows."
"Why not Moira?" I asked. "More than one woman has killed to protect her daughter."
Lydia picked up the jug of whiskey and gave her lemonade another flooding. "Bleached out like bad ink on good money, that bitch. Leon might've stuck his neck out for Moira a few years back. But, not after she rubbed his nose in her dirty business with Eli. No, he's protectin' Betsy."
"Eli was still involved with both Betsy and Moira?"
"You ain't no priest," Lydia cackled. "Them two don't have a pot to piss in, exceptin' what Eli hands out. He waves the long green and they come a runnin'."
"Did Leon tell you about Eli and Betsy?"
She wagged her head. "I seen 'em out front. Many a time when he brung that girl home, after dark." Lydia's face put on a wistful faraway mask, then. "Sitting in that big car of his. Him pawing her and her crawlin' all over him, doing what a girl her age ought not be doin'. If I was a God fearin' woman I'd say it was a mortal sin—at least at her age. Nothin' wrong with a woman like me getting' a little on the side. Are you married?"
"Divorced. But Eli's well over fifty and if Betsy's in her late teens"
She jabbed her chicken bone finger straight down on the tabletop with a loud tap. "Weren't then. More like twelve. And age or not, it ain't right a girl doin' the dirty with her uncle. You see where I'm headed, copper?"
"I'm trying not to think about it, Lydia."
She gave me a piteous look before shaking her head. "Betsy could get knocked up and have a kid with two heads. Now a woman like me you don't have to worry about getting in the family way. You ain't drinkin', man. Does it need another coaxing?"
I shook my head and reluctantly took another taste of the hideous yellow concoction. It burned all the way down, and back up like shards of dirty glass floating on molten asphalt. "Did Moira know about Betsy's relationship with Eli?"
"'Course," Lydia bellowed. "They both did. Leon may be numb from the neck up but he ain't blind. And, Moira—well a woman knows when the servicin's over, even if it ain't from her own husband. They knew, all right."
"Did Leon talk to you about that?"
"Blubbered about it many a night."
"What about Moira?"
"Moira was mad as a wet cat. Screaming and yelling at Betsy like the kid had killed somebody. That's when Leon kicked the shit out of Eli, giving that horny old bastard a three week hospital stay."
"Why didn't Moira call the police?"
"Hell's bells, man. Start thinking with what you got between your legs. Moira was after Eli's money. And, puttin' him in the joint ain't no way to endear herself. She kept shut and she made Leon keep shut and she kept Betsy doin' what she'd been doin'. The way I figure it, Moira planned on giving Eli's money tree a good steady wag only it didn't take."
"Why not?"
"Don't rightly know. One day I heard her braggin' how she was gonna' be livin' high and wide. Next, she was sulking and waitin' on Leon to die. Somethin' changed her tune big time, and quick."
"Did Leon ever talk to you about his brother's business?"
Lydia slurped her glass and then said, "Just that damn gas station across the street. Poor Leon was too good-hearted to turn people away. They'd come in with a sob story and a promise to pay, and Leon'd give 'em credit. The whole neighborhood owes him. But not one'll stand up to say anything good about him. Except for me, a 'course."
"You like Leon?"
"Wasn't I the one who talked Leon out of killin' Eli after he found out Betsy was still seein' the dirty bastard? Wasn't I the one who told Leon to call that snot-nosed Bascomb? 'Course I like the hairy bastard. I just prefer he stay up-wind when he comes 'round."
I felt like the impotent old man whose young wife just told him he was to be a father. "When did Leon find out Betsy was still seeing Eli?"
"Just last week. Come over here and cried like a baby. I tried to tell him to forget it. Betsy's all growed up, I said. But the more Leon drank the madder he got. Sure as hell I figured Eli was gonna' get his ribs stove in, good and proper if I didn't do something. So I slipped Leon a little something to calm him down. That's when the hairy son-of-a-bitch slept for two days on my kitchen floor. Not, that Moira would give a shit or even notice."
"And you still don't think Leon killed Eli?"
"'Course not. Leon don't know nothin' 'bout guns. If he'd done it, he'd have done in Eli good and righteous with them big fists."
"Maybe Eli pulled a gun on Leon. Leon could've taken it away and used it."
She jumped to her feet and leaned across the table toward me, her long nose twitching like a vulture's beak about to bite. "I know Leon and I knew Moira before she married the hairy bastard," Lydia shouted. "And I'm here to tell she's capable of anything, including murder. And I should know. That bitch worked for me and my old man when we owned that truck-stop over on the interstate. We got the full low-down on her back then. That slut's been nothin' but trouble since and before."
"Trouble, how?"
"Always tryin' to get her hooks into anything in pants that looks like money," Lydia grunted. Then she slumped back into her chair, looking limp and tired. "Moira'd latch onto 'em, easy enough, her bein' a fair lookin' piece. But she couldn't hold 'em any longer than a weekend. Tried that with my son, too. But, I set her straight, quick enough. My boy was married and not about to get tied up with the likes of some jailbird. I set her straight, all right."
"Why didn't J-D Bascomb do something about Eli's affair with Betsy?"
Lydia leaned forward her face pink with renewed interest. "How? By the time Leon got around to complaining to Bascomb, Betsy was of age. It was only Leon's word it all started when it did. Moira refused to wade in on Eli. Probably 'cause he had her by the shorthairs on somethin' big-time. And, no way was Betsy gonna' point the finger at the man. He bought her a goddamn new house. Betcha didn't know that either!"
"You said Moira was a jail-bird. How so?"
"Sweet Jesus, don't you guys do any digging?"
"I'm new on the case. Why was Moira in jail?"
"Second degree murder. Killed her first husband. Put the gun to the back of the poor bastard's head and blew his brains out. Moira claimed self-defense sayin' her old man beat her. But, the jury didn't buy that bullshit. She did five years hard time and was out on parole when she worked for me: still is, for that matter. Even then she was whoring around. Got herself knocked up right off: probably didn't even know the guys name."
"When did she kill her husband?"
The old woman shrugged. "Can't rightly remember." She once more sagg
ed back in her chair. "Long time ago. Some days it feels like a long time. Some days it don't. Some days I'd like to kill the bitch, myself, for the way she done Leon."
"Do you think Betsy's capable of murder?"
"With a mother like Moira, she's capable of anything."
"Did you talk to Betsy about her relationship with Eli?"
"Sure as hell is hot, I did," Lydia roared, sitting up drunkenly. "And, you know what she said? It don't matter since Eli weren't blood. Well, it sure as hell does matter. Blood or not you don't get it on with your uncle. That fool kid had some lame idea Eli was going to make her a partner. Partner, hell. All he was after was between her legs."
"Betsy knew the kind of business Eli was in?"
"'Course! I asked about it one time. But she just giggled and said I was too old to understand. I damn well understand plenty. And, whatever Eli was up to it sure as hell wasn't suited for a young girl. I told that to Eli, too. Right after that, the kid moved out."
"Where's Betsy living, now?"
The old woman leaned her scrawny forearms on the table and shrugged. "Got a new house and is gone: all's I know. And, since then I don't see Eli comin' around. But that other bastard makes the trip, often enough."
"Somebody else was giving Betsy the eye?"
"Not Betsy! Moira. Big cop. White hair and half an ear."
"Delaney?"
She nodded. "That bastard's so twisted a fair breeze would screw him in the ground."
"Will Moira be back, soon?"
"Today?"
I nodded.
"Maybe; maybe, not. She's got a cleaning business. Used to be just her. But now she's got other women workin' for her. I don't know where she is today. But, tomorrow she and her whole crew are at that Catholic Orphanage over on Gilmore. The Children of God Orphanage, it's called. Moira cleans there for free. Penance for her sins, I'd say if I was a church-goer."
Her chin tilted down, then, and her forehead thumped the tabletop.
I said, "Does your son live close enough to check on you, Lydia? I could give him a call."
"His grave's within driving distance." Lydia sadly raised up. "Not that it does me any good. I got a new car in the garage but I can't drive it—lost my license. Delaney said I was driving drunk when I tried to run the half-eared bastard down. I was, too. Otherwise, I'd have hit the crooked son-of-a-bitch. One of these days I'll try that again and do it right."
I stood up, surprised by her revelation. "Why did you do that?"
"Don't matter no more. You got kids?"
I shook my head.
"I had hopes for grandchildren you know. My Davey married what I thought was a good woman: smart, hard worker. But, after his funeral she ain't been to his grave once. I go every Sunday. Now I got to decide whether to be buried next to my son or my old man. I miss the old fart, sometimes."
I thanked Lydia for her help and turned to leave.
"You ain't goin' already?" she blurted, in disappointment. "I'm just beginning to warm up to you."
"I've got an investigation, Lydia," I said. "But, you've been very helpful."
"You want me to keep an eye on what goes on, next door?"
"If you think it would help."
She nodded toward the window overlooking Leon's property. "How about that?"
I looked out through the pink chintz in time to see Delaney going up Leon's front walk. He did not bother to knock. He simply pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and went inside.
"Bastard makes himself right to home," the old woman cursed. "When Moira gets back they'll have a tumble, and then about midnight he'll leave. It's that way anytime Leon's gone. You think you can take Delaney in a toe-to-toe?"
"You think I ought to try?"
She held up her gnarled hands and made a pair of knobby fists. "I'd do it myself if it weren't for my arthritis."
"And my money'd be on you, Lydia." I headed out the way I had come in.
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