Fortune Favors the Dead

by Stephen Spotswood

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “Is that all? I have a shift change to supervise.”

  “That’s all,” I said with whatever smile I had left. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Meredith.”

  He was already opening the door and walking out.

  CHAPTER 16

  I left the factory along with the shift change. It was a good sixty degrees colder outside than in, and I was drenched in sweat. I was shivering by the time I made it to the car. I cranked the heater to full, pulled out of the factory parking lot, and immediately ran into rush-hour high tide.

  I used the delay to think about Meredith. Sure, he was big and ugly and an obvious brawler, but that didn’t make him a murderer. Still, he was the first player in this game I’d run into so far who looked like he’d be comfortable beating someone to death.

  I felt like I hadn’t gotten my money’s worth with that interview. The tight space and his attempt to run his eyes up my skirt had thrown me more than I’d thought. There were follow-up questions I’d missed.

  I began to wonder if Meredith had deliberately been trying to throw me and not just catch a glimpse of thigh.

  On the other hand, his motive for the murder was iffy. Resentment against Abigail for leaping up the social ladder? A thing for Becca, but her mother got in the way? Neither quite held together—not yet anyway.

  On the other other hand, he’d poked the first hole in Belestrade’s story, putting her in the house when the murder occurred. Decisions, decisions. Luckily, I didn’t get paid to make them. My employer did.

  When I got home, I found Ms. P still in bed but on the mend. It had been a bad day, but not a really bad one. She was propped on a mountain of pillows and working her way through the evening editions. Her hair was brushed out and hung loose to her shoulders, its streak of iron gray lost in the waves of brown.

  “I am home from the wars,” I declared, falling into the armchair in the corner. “You want the full report now or the highlights?”

  “Highlights,” she said, putting down the paper. “Then type up the interview notes so I can read them in full tomorrow evening.”

  “Brace yourself,” I warned. “It’s a short and not-very-thrilling ride.”

  I gave her the headlines, spending half the time on Meredith. As far as I could tell, Ms. P kept a resting heart rate throughout, even when I told her Belestrade had been seen after the murder room was cracked open.

  “It opens up possibilities,” I said. “She knocks. Mrs. Collins lets her in. She does the deed, locks the door, lights the fire, and waits. Door is busted down, but the room’s full of smoke. She slips out into the hall and skedaddles before the police arrive.”

  The only response I got was a “hrrrrmm” from the bedridden detective.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “On the contrary,” she said, “it’s an excellent theory. It deftly explains the door being locked from the inside.”

  I was so unused to compliments on my deductive skills that I didn’t trust it. Still, I let it stand.

  “I’m sorry you had to endure such a grueling day, but it was necessary,” Ms. P said, picking up the paper again. “Dinner will be somewhat delayed. Mrs. Campbell managed to procure scallops at the fish market this afternoon. She’s soaking them in some kind of butter concoction.”

  That was my dismissal. I went to my room and showered away the reek of solder and sweat. I considered burning the skirt, but who knew when I’d need to play prim and proper again. I changed into a pair of dungarees and a men’s undershirt, both left over from my circus days. We didn’t stand on ceremony at dinner, and Ms. P would likely show up in pajamas.

  Since I had a few minutes to spare, I decided to get to work typing up my notes. Saturdays are busy for us, and it’d spare me some trouble if I got started then. I was feeding the first fresh sheet of paper into my typewriter when the phone rang. It was after hours, but when we’re on a case I answer anytime, day or night.

  “Lillian Pentecost’s office, Will Parker speaking.”

  “Will. It’s Becca Collins.” Hearing my name in that smoky voice was not unpleasant.

  “Good evening, Miss Collins. What can I do for you?”

  “This is a little…I’m not quite sure…”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “Are you free tonight?”

  “It’s after hours,” I said. “Ms. Pentecost won’t be able to see anyone until tomorrow.”

  Her laugh was like river water over smooth stones.

  “No, Will,” she said, her voice buoyed by a smile. “Are you free tonight?”

  Have I mentioned that I am sometimes a little dull?

  “I’m asking because I was going to go to a club and my date for the evening canceled. I know it’s last-minute, but you did say you liked dancing.”

  “Miss Collins—”

  “Becca.”

  “Becca. It wouldn’t be very professional. Going on a…Going out socially with a—”

  Suspect.

  “—client.”

  “Please,” she purred. “A singer I absolutely adore is playing at this little hole-in-the-wall club near Columbia and I don’t want to go alone. Pretty please? Be unprofessional, just this once.”

  I told her to hold the line, then I hurried upstairs and poked my head into Ms. P’s bedroom.

  “Are the scallops ready?” she asked.

  “You’ll have to ask Mrs. Campbell,” I said. “I came up because that phone call just now was one of our clients—the one with the curls and the legs—who wants to take me out dancing tonight.”

  Both eyebrows, straight up, at least half an inch.

  “I don’t know what she has in mind, but if the place she’s suggesting is the one I think it is, her intentions might go beyond just needing to fill a two-top. I know she’s a client, or maybe not technically but the goddaughter of our—”

  “You should go,” she said.

  My mouth made some sort of noise. I’m not sure what.

  “We need insight into that family,” she declared. “Too much of what we have is from the outside looking in.”

  I composed myself.

  “I’m to take Becca Collins out dancing and try to get a glimpse of her inner workings?”

  “Don’t be crude.” She sniffed and, dare I say it, blushed a little. “I trust you to use your best judgment. Don’t do anything you aren’t comfortable doing.”

  “You realize I used to dress up like a showgirl and have knives thrown at my face. My threshold for uncomfortable is pretty high.”

  She lifted her paper back up, I’m pretty sure to hide a smile.

  “I trust your judgment,” she said.

  I ran downstairs to tell Becca the good news. She said she’d swing by in a taxi in about an hour.

  “See you soon, Will,” she purred before hanging up.

  I sat at my desk for half a minute, vacillating between two kinds of nervous. Then I looked down at myself.

  “Shoot,” I muttered to no one. “I’ve got to change again.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Walked up to St. Peter

  Said hey what can you do?

  He said rejoice

  Just stay the course

  And you’ll be in Heaven, too.

  You’ll be singing in Heaven, too.

  So I went down to the Devil,

  Straddled the gates of hell.

  What do you say,

  I got bills to pay,

  My soul’s all I got to sell.

  It’s all I got left to sell.

  Times is hard.

  Angel, times is hard.

  The singer was draped in an ankle-length dress stitched together with sequins and a prayer. She clutched the microphone like it was a lifeline and made eye contact with
everyone in the club, even through the thick haze of cigarette and marijuana smoke, wailing about life and death and the tough choices we make in between.

  The stage was tight as a telephone booth, but she managed to share it with a drummer, saxophonist, and piano player, along with a string bean of a man plucking an upright bass. The music they created on that scrap of real estate set everybody in the place swaying.

  The club was a no-sign basement deal right on the edge of Harlem. The kind you used to find scattered all over the city, but had been forced out by high rents and nosey neighbors.

  I had never been to this particular joint, but had heard of it. It was known as a sort of late-night limbo that catered to people of all shades and predilections. All were welcome, as long as you paid the cover, bought drinks, applauded when proper, and didn’t attract trouble.

  That night most of the crowd, along with the singer and the band, were from the Harlem side of the line. The door and half the bar were going to pay for the funeral of Charlie Silverhorn, the jazz singer who’d been found dead with a needle in his arm earlier that week.

  Becca had scored us a corner table in the back. They seemed to know her there. The muscle working the door greeted her by name and all the waitresses smiled big, angling for tips. She looked in her element.

  “You clean up nice,” she said, sipping the house cocktail, which was basically straight gin with a mixer waved over it.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You turn out pretty good yourself.”

  To be honest, it was no contest. Picture Veronica Lake in…well, just about anything, and you’re halfway to Becca that night. She had on a red satin number that brushed the top of her knees and dropped dangerously low in the back. She finished the outfit off with matching heels and a set of pearl earrings.

  In the hour before Becca picked me up I’d gone back and forth on half a dozen outfits. Not knowing what exactly it was I was dressing for made the decision harder than it needed to be. Was it a date, was I playing escort, or was she looking to let slip whatever it was she’d been holding back the other day? Was she looking for sex appeal, or should I butch it up?

  I owned a teal wrap dress that had a slit up the side so high it was illegal in some states. It would have blended into any club in Manhattan. But I’d just spent eight hours in a pencil skirt. I was tired of dressing to blend.

  I settled on a navy blue, two-button pinstripe tailored by the same transplanted Italian Ms. Pentecost swears by. It was ingeniously cut so as to give the illusion I have hips. I also had him sew a special pocket into the lining on the left just about rib height. It was a perfect size for my .38, which I’d tucked carefully inside. The outfit came complete with a white, open-collar shirt and black leather pumps with two-inch heels. The latter gave me an added boost but didn’t interfere on the dance floor. They also did something to my stride that both men and women had found equally appealing.

  Turns out I needn’t have worried about blending. I wasn’t the only woman there in a tailored suit, and Becca and I weren’t the only women sharing time at a table. Seems the club really was neutral territory.

  A dance floor had been carved out in front of the stage and couples of all persuasions were cutting a rug to everything the singer served up.

  But even with the dapper threads, I felt like a sow’s ear to Becca’s silk purse. I’d made a half-hearted attempt to rouge away my freckles and had gone through four different eye shadows trying to find one that went with mud brown. Finally, I’d given up, washed the lot of it away, and settled on simple lipstick that I hoped was a bright enough red it would distract from everything else.

  “You look nervous.” She had to lean nearly all the way across the table to be heard. Her lips were only about a foot and change from mine. I breathed in her lavender perfume. “Is it me or the venue?”

  I wanted to ask her if she’d passed a mirror lately. Me being nervous was proof I had a pulse.

  Instead I said, “I’m a little on edge because I don’t know exactly what this is. I don’t usually fraternize with clients.”

  “Fraternize.” She felt the word out in her mouth. “Now, that’s a five-dollar word that sucks all the fun out of things.”

  “You know what I mean. What do you want?”

  “What do I want?” She said it like it was a foreign question. “I want a night off. I want to stop worrying. Stop living afraid. I want to stop walking on eggshells.”

  She leaned in even closer. Another three inches and we’d be rounding first.

  “I just want to dance,” she said.

  Oh well. My boss had practically ordered me. And I am, if nothing else, an excellent employee.

  I led her through the packed tables to the dance floor just as the singer started in on a jitterbug medley. Becca let me lead, which I appreciated.

  I’d learned to dance from spec girls and snake charmers, and I think I held my own pretty well. We shook and twirled through a trio of tailshakers, then the singer switched gears to a slow number. Most of the dancers fled to the bar, but Becca and I stayed put.

  For three minutes I forgot all about murder and ghosts and truth and lies, and maybe she did, too. I don’t know about her, but my world had shrunk to my fingers pressed against her bare back, her chin on my shoulder, the smell of perfume and cigarettes.

  When the song was over we stumbled back to our table. I was feeling a little high, either from the dancing or the marijuana haze. Becca ordered another gin and nothing, and I topped off my ginger ale.

  “Sure you won’t have anything stronger?” she asked.

  “Afraid not,” I said. “I’ve got a lifetime ticket to ride the water wagon.”

  “You’re missing out on some fantastic gin. They don’t have to make it in bathtubs anymore.”

  “Some days it’s tempting,” I said. “But my father drank enough for the whole family.”

  “Does it bother you if I drink?” she asked.

  “Not at all. Imbibe away.”

  She took a healthy sip.

  “I probably like it a little too much,” she said. “According to Randy, a lot too much.”

  “It hasn’t been the easiest year.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “Were you close to your mother?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.

  “Depends on who you’re comparing me to,” she said. “Were you close to yours?”

  “I asked you first.”

  On the stage the singer went into something I hadn’t heard before—a quick number with a good beat. The tables around us emptied onto the dance floor. Suddenly we had a little bubble of privacy.

  “How about this?” Becca said, letting the leash slip on a sly grin. “We trade off questions. One for one. We have to answer and we have to be honest.”

  I was more comfortable digging up secrets than sharing them, but I agreed.

  “I asked first, though,” I said. “How’d you get along with your mom?”

  “All right, I suppose.”

  “I’m going to need you to fill in that pencil sketch if you want me to play.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I guess I was just closer to my father, that’s all.”

  “Really? I understood he wasn’t the…warmest individual.”

  “He was a hard man,” she said. “But he had to be, didn’t he? To run a company. He had to be cruel sometimes.”

  I wasn’t sure if cruelty was a necessary ingredient in success, but I kept that to myself. Becca took a long sip of her gin and kept going.

  “He was never cruel to me, though. He’d let me sit on the floor in his study, reading or playing with dolls or whatever I wanted, while he did company business. I was never his pretty little princess. I was always his smart little girl. Too bright to be some blue blood’s showpiece. When I, um…When I had my first crush on a girl, he was the
only person I told.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that. So what if he let her draw on his office walls with her crayons? That’s not a thing you let slip lightly.

  “Well, I didn’t really tell him,” she admitted. “I talked around it the way you do. But he, um…he figured it out. It was this friend from school. I’d had her over, so he’d seen the two of us together. How I acted toward her. He asked if I was talking about my friend. Eventually I admitted I was.”

  “How did he react?” I asked.

  “I expected him to be angry. To tell me I was being foolish,” she said. “Instead, he told me to be careful. That the world was not a kind place, and that I would have to keep my heart hidden if I wanted to survive.”

  She traced the rim of her glass with one long, slender finger, lost in thought.

  “So I hid my heart,” she said in a voice almost too quiet to hear. “Then he died and being careful didn’t seem so important anymore.”

  I waited a ten count before prodding her. “You never told your mother?”

  She snapped out of her reverie and shook her head. “She wouldn’t have understood. She really would have called me a fool. She believed the best thing a woman could do was to smile, dress well, and marry up.”

  I’d met a lot of smart women who’d shoved their light under a bushel in order to marry their way into stability. I didn’t know Becca well, but I couldn’t picture her hiding her fire for anyone.

  “My turn,” she said. “How did you get along with your parents?”

  “My mother died when I was pretty young, so we never got a chance to get along,” I said.

  “I’m sorry.” She rested her hand on mine and the fine hairs on my arms shot up. “How did she die?”

  “Pneumonia. Mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  I pulled my hand away and pretended to be captivated with a hangnail. “She was never the healthiest. Always walking around with bruises, you know? I was little, so I never understood. Doctor said pneumonia could kill even a hale and hearty woman. But she never got the chance to be hale and hearty.”

  I could have lied. I’m a good liar. Shoot—I’m a great liar. Not sure why I gave her the truth. To her credit, Becca didn’t say she was sorry or pat my hand or anything. She just gave me a moment.