Dead Guy's Stuff

by Sharon Fiffer

  "I have a gun in my purse, Mary. I could just shoot her," Dot said. "I bought it when I turned seventy, for protection," she explained to Jane.

  Jane looked at Dot and saw she was reaching into her bag. What a loyal friend, Jane thought, as she watched Dot pull out the gun and point it at her.

  "Put it away, Dot, nobody's killing anybody. Not today. If Duncan was killed with potassium, the police would find an injection site, and nobody found an injection site, did they, Jane?" asked Mary, holding the jar with Bateman's finger up to her cheek.

  The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Everyone in the hall watched Mary slosh Bateman's finger to and fro in the jar. Jane had thought the police hadn't found an injection site because they hadn't looked hard enough. She knew now that they hadn't found a site because the site had been sliced away when the murderer cut off or tried to cut off Duncan's finger.

  What had Oh told her? If you want Mary to talk, keep directing the questions toward Susan. Accuse Susan.

  "You must have had small needles? The kind you could stick between his fingers. I mean, anybody who watches television knows that junkies run out of veins and they use the places between their toes, their fingers. He wouldn't be expecting it, and you could just stroke his hand and boom, he's stuck."

  Susan looked like she was going to be sick. Jane wasn't sure she liked this part of detective work.

  "Leave my granddaughter out of this, doll. She didn't do a thing," Mary said.

  "I'm a nurse, I wouldn't…," Susan said.

  "A nurse would know how to do it," said Jane.

  "I'm a nurse," said Mary, smiling.

  "So am I; so is Dot," said Ollie.

  Jane hadn't expected that. Was it going to be like that movie when the whole village stood up and admitted killing the bad guy? Nellie had already confessed and might pop up any minute wanting credit again. Pretty soon they'd have the whole womens' basketball league shooting free throws for the title of Duncan's killer.

  "And I have access to my granddaughter's supplies…"

  "We all met in nursing school," said Ollie.

  Jane nodded.

  "I am eighty goddamn years old. A man everybody in this town hated is dead, a heart attack waiting to happen. And I am a poor old woman whose husband had his finger cut off by that bastard, Gus Duncan. You know why? Because he thought Bateman made a deal to get out of jail. Thought he gave up names. Oscar never gave up anybody in his life. He got out." Mary hesitated, but only for a second. "He got out because I had friends, made friends in high places." Mary looked like she wanted to spit. "Duncan and his names, his famous record keeping, and his claim to having the goods on everybody. Plenty of people wanted to kill him. Because of Duncan and his bragging, people thought Bateman knew stuff, too. Kept records. Me, too.

  "That's why, when my daughter and her husband borrowed my car one night when theirs was in the shop and they got hit and run off the road by a driver who left the scene, I knew it wasn't just a drunk driver; I knew it was somebody supposed to…"

  Mary stopped. She wasn't out of control; she wasn't weeping. She was, however, watching her granddaughter's eyes grow wide. This wasn't the way to explain the way of the world to your granddaughter, Mary knew, but it looked like the kid was going to find out anyway.

  "When Gus Duncan and Oscar Bateman were partners, they ran a little gambling. They bribed a few cops, a few judges. Oscar handed an envelope to the wrong guy one night and ended up doing time and never turned anybody, even though people thought he did when he got out so soon. People thought he had things he never had. Duncan claimed to have records of everything: every payoff, every dirty cop, and every ward boss. Nobody ever saw them. I don't even think they exist."

  "But you killed him anyway," Jane said softly.

  "I am eighty years old. I live in an assisted-living residence. I have neighbors who think they played euchre with me when Duncan was killed. Whenever that might have been," Mary said. "In fact, my euchre partner, Leonard, will sign any statement about my whereabouts. And he will be believed, you know. Important man. Used to be alderman of our ward. Then judge. His son's running for reelection in the state senate. Leonard and I are very old friends," Mary said, and for the first time turning away from her granddaughter. "We became close when Oscar was in jail."

  Bruce Oh strolled out from the bedroom across the hall, as casually as if he had just awakened from a nap.

  "Mrs. Bateman, I know Detective Munson will want you to make a statement. Would you like me to drive you down to see him now?"

  "My pleasure," Mary said.

  "Grandma?" Susan sounded like a ten-year-old girl. Dot and Ollie came over to her, and Mary waved her hand. "I'm an eighty-year-old woman, baby. Don't you worry."

  The women walked toward the stairs where Don and Nellie stood. Bobby Duff was standing close behind them.

  "What about my dad?" he asked Mary. "Did you know Duff?"

  "Sure, honey. But that was between him and Gus. Personal, you know. Gus just liked doing that finger thing, like it made him a gangster or something. Go figure."

  Jane watched Bobby watch Mary move slowly and deliberately down the stairs. She accepted Oh's arm and now leaned a bit more heavily on her cane. Jane smiled. She didn't believe for a minute that Mary needed the cane any more than she had before; she was just practicing her eighty-year-old-lady act for Munson.

  Jane knew she'd have to tell Bobby what she had found out by reading the letters Lilly found: his mother and Gus. Looking at Bobby, she saw it. The eyes. The shape of his head. Gus Duncan and Louella. What had Duff done when he'd found out? Poor Lilly, facing this alone in Gus Duncan's basement.

  Tim was watching the clock downstairs. They were twenty minutes away from the arrival of the first bus with the visitors to the McFlea. Oh had planned on driving Mary Bateman to Munson, but Munson had come to them. Thank god he hadn't shown up in a black-and-white. He drove up in a subtle sedan and strolled into the McFlea just like any other paying guest— except for the paying part. Tim was relieved that Jane had worked it out with Mary and Susan on the second floor. They had alternative plans. They had hung all the old photographs, waiting for something to trigger a reaction, a conversation. Nice that it could work in isolation, and Tim could keep the party going in the basement. The student volunteers had arrived, and Tim had set up two at the front door to take tickets. Tim sent two others to sit at the kitchen door and direct any strays to the front. All would enter through the front.

  Betsy, the pretty senior, came back to Tim immediately.

  "What about the guy in the pantry?" she whispered.

  "What guy?" Tim whispered back.

  "The one with the spray paint. Is he just finishing up before everybody gets here?"

  Tim raced to the pantry, but he was too late. Jane's wallpaper and shelf paper was nearly covered with red spray paint. The sprayer was trying to finish the last shelf when Tim knocked the can out of his hand.

  Nellie had come in behind Tim and yelled, "Punch him in the stomach. He'll fold like a house of cards."

  "No, please," Stuart said, covering his midsection.

  Munson was right behind Nellie. He came in and cuffed the man, picked up the can of paint, and led him out to the car. Oh had promised him an arrest, but he didn't think the timing would be that smooth.

  Jane and Charley came in to check out the noise, and Jane felt her heart sink as she looked at her handiwork destroyed. Oh joined them, shaking his head sympathetically.

  "Two former Chicago judges had connections to Bateman and Duncan. One was a prosecutor on Bateman's case. His office had lost the files when the appeal came up. He died last year. The other one had been an alderman, and he had a stroke six months ago. His family was quite protective of his privacy, didn't want him bothered while he recovered. Seems he's been quite happy at the Grand Heritage, keeping company with Mary Bateman. Stuart, the spray painter here, is her friend Leonard's nephew.

  "Look," Oh said, pointing out the windo
w.

  Mary, standing by Munson's car, was patting Stuart on the cheek with one hand and putting a Tums in his mouth with the other.

  "Susan didn't have anything to do with this, did she?" Jane asked.

  "I don't think so. I don't think Mary told her anything about the past. Mary is very loyal and knows how to keep secrets. Dot and Ollie drove her down to see Gus. Wanted to ask him about his records, she said. Wanted him to get rid of everything if he had anything. Said she was doing it for Susan and as a favor to Leonard. Claims Gus was alive when they left."

  "These weren't Duncan's accounts, though," said Jane, studying the wall to see if anything readable remained. "It was just some beautiful old handwriting. And spelling tests."

  "Elmira's stuff?" Charley asked.

  Jane nodded, touched that Charley remembered the little girl's name. She hadn't thought he had seemed that interested when she first brought it home.

  "All of this over records that we don't even know are for real."

  Tim yelled to them that the bus was coming. They tidied up the pantry as quickly and as best they could. Jane went over to the window to see if she could open it and diffuse the paint fumes. If she couldn't get the paint smell out, Tim's pie baking was going to be wasted.

  The partially used punchboards were still lined up on the windowsill. Jane grabbed them, stacked them, and opened the window. A rush of air came in and began the cleansing. Jane picked up a yellow-and-blue Cigarette Stakes board and held it to the light, looking at the punched-out holes.

  "Funny, it almost looks like…," Jane said aloud, then, "Detective Oh, Tim, Mom, Dad, Charley, come here."

  "Jane, the guests are arriving," said Tim, shushing her as he came in.

  She held up the board. "What do you see?"

  "Is this like one of those tests to see if you're color blind?" Tim asked.

  "The punched-out holes are all surrounded by non-punched holes, and it makes a pattern," said Oh.

  "More than a pattern," said Jane, handing off that board and picking up another one. "Look."

  This one was unmistakable. Held up to the window, the light shining through the punched-out holes, it was clear that the open pattern formed the letters EZ.

  PINK, DUFF, they were all spelled out, each in a separate punchboard. The pieces of paper rolled up and inserted into the board were small, but not too tiny for Duncan's meticulous printing. Jane used one of the keys that had been Scotch taped to the back of the board that said EZ and pushed out a few of the tightly rolled pieces of thin paper measuring two inches long, three-quarters of an inch wide. "You love Chinese food," read the fortune. On the back, in his tiny printing, Gus had written:

  8/13/52 Slots payoff

  Don to L. S. Teetch

  "Remember somebody named Teetch, Dad?" Jane asked.

  "I think there was a cop named Teetch, an old-timer," Don said. He picked up one of the boards and held it up to the window. "Duncan sure as hell was more ambitious and creative than I ever thought he was."

  "So that's what the son-of-a-bitch did all day," said Nellie.

  * * *

  The McFlea was a huge success.

  The buses dropped off thirty to forty people every hour, and they were wowed by the creativity and innovation of Tim's brainchild. He had three offers to buy the Gerber place, which prompted him to think about getting a real estate license.

  "Yeah, you can be a florist, antique dealer, appraiser, realtor. Your business card will be five by seven," Jane said.

  She and Charley had adjourned to the back porch, where there was a glider and two lounge chairs that Jane was sure she remembered from the days Eddie Gerber had lived in the Gerber house. Jane was studying one of the punchboards coded with the word JUG which surely meant Hunter's bar, the Brown Jug. She wasn't really seeing the punches, though, she was thinking about Charley, next to her on the glider, his long legs thrust out in front and his arms draped across the oilcloth-covered back cushions. The sun was low in the afternoon sky, and Charley had closed his eyes as the beams fell across his face.

  What had been different about Charley when he'd walked into the McFlea? What had given her that rush of feeling, that involuntary lightness that used to pick her up whenever he walked into a room? It had almost faded away in the last year, now here it was, making her as warm and itchy as would a full box of vintage Bakelite priced as old plastic junk.

  Same khaki pants, same blue shirt, same brown hair and eyes, same weathered skin, same gorgeous hands, large and strong. His inventory was the same. What about hers? Same jeans and T-shirt, same plaid shirt worn over, a Charley reject as a matter of fact, same short, dark hair, same deep worried eyes, and same… no, different… smile. She hadn't smiled like this for so long: content, satisfied, happy. She was just purely happy, sitting on this thirties glider with a good, handsome man on a late September day in Kankakee, Illinois.

  "I solved another crime, Charley," she said. "Sort of."

  "Yes."

  "I have two job offers."

  "Impressive."

  "We're taking Nick back to our house," Nellie said, poking her head out the kitchen door. "He's bored as hell."

  Jane gave Nellie the punchboard she had been holding and asked her to give it to Hunter if he was still in the basement. All the saloon keepers would be leaving with a party favor, their customized gambling payoff/bribery history, hand printed and fetchingly presented on a vintage punchboard, courtesy of the late Gus Duncan. Out in the yard, on two wooden Adirondack Chairs, Bobby Duff was sitting with Mary Bateman's granddaughter, Susan. The two orphans had found each other. They were talking intensely, Bobby holding the punchboard that spelled out DUFF, Susan looking like she was hanging on for dear life to the straps of her purse.

  Jane knew she owed Susan an apology for accusing her upstairs, for scaring her. She decided to wait a few days. Susan would be in no hurry to speak to Jane, let alone listen to her rehash what she had heard from her grandmother. Jane owed Bobby an explanation, too. Tomorrow. His parents' secrets had been buried for a lot of years; they could wait a few more days.

  "Those two could talk forever and never run out of stories," said Jane.

  "Or questions," added Charley.

  Bruce Oh had accompanied Mary Bateman when she left with Dot and Ollie to give their statements. Jane tried to picture them that night, the three women reminiscing with Gus, talking about bowling tournaments, basketball games. It was after dinner, he was probably half smashed. Mary took his hand, for old time's sake, and stuck him. Loaded him up with him some potassium from the medical supplies she had so carefully stored in her basement. Jane had asked if Mary needed a lawyer.

  "Possibly. But as she says, she's eighty years old. She hasn't admitted anything. No murder weapon has been found. There's no record of any of those medical supplies because Mary begged them from Susan for the church. The potassium and syringes were never in Mary's possession because they were allegedly destroyed after they were no longer needed by Susan's patients. They didn't exist," Oh had said.

  "They waited for him to crumple, then Mary took a knife off the counter and wrapped Gus's hand around it and sawed at the finger where she'd injected him," Jane said. "Eighty-year-old Mary almost sawed the damn thing off thinking about what he had done to Bateman."

  "Revenge can make you strong," Oh said.

  "She waited a long time. If she hadn't been worried that there might be something in all that Shangri-La stuff I bought, none of this might have happened. She probably felt safe with everything in the basement, everything all packaged up. Losing control of that and seeing Leonard again after all those years…" Jane shook her head.

  "If you're worried, Mrs. Wheel, you needn't be. I suspect that, just as she said, Mary will be back playing card games with Leonard at the Grand Heritage in record time," said Oh. He promised to call her when they finished at the police station.

  Jane stretched her own legs out and relaxed against Charley's arm.

  "I might become
a dealer with Tim," Jane said to Charley.

  Charley kept his eyes closed and nodded.

  "Or a detective with Bruce Oh," she said.

  How did Charley manage to raise his eyebrows while keeping his eyes closed, Jane wondered?

  "What do you think?"

  "I think the rest of your life is full of possibilities," Charley said.

  Jane thought that sounded like something she might read in a fortune cookie. Just the same, she wondered, did it make it any less true? Was there any reason she should make a smart aleck remark to Charley about it and send him reeling to the other side of this vintage glider? Was there any reason to argue about the wonderful possibilities that loomed large? Continuing as a picker for Miriam, becoming a dealer with Tim, or working as a private investigator with Bruce Oh? Or all three? And how about the wonderful immediate possibility— going home with her husband and son?

  Never allow perfect to be the enemy of good.

  "Me, too, Charley," Jane said.