The Childish Churl (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 15)

by Frank W. Butterfield

  He'd started up a chain of seafood restaurants that were small and famous for being good places to get dinners to go. Most everything was fried, except for the cole slaw. The restaurants went by the name, "Captain's Seafood Bonanza," and were popping up all over the place in California. He was about 60, a little stout, and seemed to be the life of the party. Carter didn't like him and neither did I but we weren't planning on marrying him.

  "Who's up top?" asked Carter.

  Michelle said, "Ken and Jimmy and Bobby. Marnie and her husband, Alex, are up there, too."

  Carter and I had decided we would stay in the aft section in order to give Bobby some space to move around. It had always been our favorite part of the ship. There was a bench and a small table that faced the water. When we would go out for an afternoon on the bay, we would sit there and watch the world go by.

  Peggy, who was drinking a Coke, said, "Speaking of Bobby, I hope you two don't mind, but I would rather stay at your house."

  I smiled. "We don't mind at all."

  Michelle said, "I still can't get over those bedrooms. They do remind me so much of your mother. They're a little old fashioned but so stylish in their day." She shook her head. I wondered why she was trying to change the subject.

  Peggy, looking slightly annoyed, said, "I told Bobby that I would stay there tonight even if he insists on staying at your father's apartment."

  I saw Michelle glance at Peggy in disapproval, which was a little surprising. I had no idea what history they had but I would have expected Michelle to stand up for Peggy.

  Carter said, "We'd be more than glad for you to do that. It's up to you, of course."

  Michelle said, "Well, if you ask me—"

  Peggy said, "No one asked you, Michelle."

  Undeterred, Michelle said, "Bobby is being a foolish little boy right now but he needs you with him."

  Peggy shook her head. "That's where you're wrong. I agree with Ed. I think we all need to stop coddling him. That just makes him worse. I live with him, Michelle. I know what I'm talking about."

  Michelle looked out at the water and didn't reply.

  "Did you enjoy your shopping this morning?" asked Carter, trying to change the subject.

  I said, "We covered that already."

  He looked down at me and said, "Really?"

  Michelle burst out laughing.

  We all looked at her. "What?" That was me.

  "You two. You're more married than either of us."

  Peggy giggled a little. "It's true. In the little time we've spent together, I've gotten the biggest kick out of watching you two. It's shocking, really." She looked at Michelle, who nodded.

  "Shocking?" I asked.

  Peggy put her hand on my arm. "I mean that I've never seen two men act the way you two act. I think it's sweet. I just wish that Bobby could see what I see."

  Carter took a swig of his beer. He didn't look convinced. I was trying to decide whether to be offended or not. I decided to give it a pass. "I think Bobby's upset about being in my mother's house."

  Peggy and Michelle exchanged glances.

  Nodding, Peggy said, "He kept telling me last night he could smell her perfume. It was strange."

  Michelle said, "And Ken was talking about her in his sleep. We brought it up this morning over breakfast. Lettie claims the house is haunted. That's why she wanted to move."

  I looked at her, trying to decide whether she was joking or not. "Really? She said that?"

  They both nodded. Peggy said, "She told us about smelling perfume. And how she didn't like going up to the third floor."

  Carter said, "I know what she means. The first few nights we were in the house after they left, we slept up there. But I wouldn't call it haunted. I just felt like someone very kind was watching me." He looked down at me. "Did you notice that?"

  I shook my head. I told them about what Jimmy had said and what happened in the office with my father.

  "My goodness," said Peggy.

  Michelle asked, "You aren't going to change your mind, are you?"

  Peggy giggled. "First you wanted me to go with Bobby, now you want me to stay put. Which is it?"

  Michelle sighed. "You should stay. I like it up there. I feel like I'm at home in Alabama with my mama. Like in the old days, before I left to go to college. When I got up this morning, I halfway expected to find her, my mama that is, sitting at the dressing table, combing her hair."

  Peggy put her hand over her mouth. "I had the same thought. Isn't that weird?"

  . . .

  We were just passing under the Golden Gate Bridge when John Murphy, the first mate of the ship, came up and said, "Pardon me, Mr. Williams. The captain would like a word with you, if you don't mind."

  I said, "Excuse me, everyone," and followed the first mate as we walked along the port side of the ship. "How've you been, John?"

  "Fine, Nick, just fine. Me and his nibs are settled in like a proper married couple these days."

  "I'm glad to hear it."

  He gave me a grin as he opened the door to the bridge for me and stepped back to let me walk in first.

  I smiled at Captain O'Reilly who walked up and gave me a bear hug. "It's good to see you, Nick. Didn't wanna be too familiar out in front of the family. But I'm always happy to see you. And Carter, too."

  I hugged him back and kissed him on his whiskered cheek. "Always good to see you, too, Captain." I stepped back and put my hand on his shoulder. "Murphy tells me you two are all settled in."

  "That we are. You never seen a cozier love nest." The captain leaned over and kissed his first mate on the lips. The pilot at the wheel, a young kid of about 25, snickered.

  "You there, O'Donnell. You keep your eyes on your job." The captain sounded harsh but he had a smile on his face.

  "What'd you wanna see me about?"

  "This." He handed me a radiogram.

  NICK WILLIAMS ABOARD THE FLIRTATIOUS CAPTAIN. CALL ASAP. MIKE.

  I looked up at the captain, who had a telephone receiver in his hand. "I called your office already. The operator is standing by for you." The receiver was connected by a long wire to a box in the bridge's console. It was a ship-to-shore telephone.

  I nodded. "Thanks, Captain." I took the receiver from him and said, "Hello?"

  A slightly scratchy female voice said, "I have a ship-to-shore call on standby for Prospect 7-7777, person-to-person for Michael Robertson from Nick Williams."

  "This is Nick Williams."

  "Stand by, Mr. Williams."

  I heard a couple of clicks. "Ship-to-shore ready."

  Another operator said, "Go ahead with your call."

  I then heard Mike say, "Nick?"

  "Yeah. What's up?"

  "We found her."

  "Dead?" I asked.

  "No. Very much alive. In the office right now. How long before you can get here?"

  "Hold on." I put my hand over the mouthpiece and said, "Can one of your crew take Carter and me someplace where we can get a cab? We need to get to the office right away."

  "We can circle under the bridge and take you to the St. Francis Yacht Club. I can have Mr. Lewis launch the dinghy and take you to their dock."

  "How long will that take?"

  "About fifteen minutes."

  I nodded and said, "Thanks, Captain."

  He said, "Of course, Nick." Looking at his first mate, he said, "Mr. Murphy, step to it."

  As Murphy left the bridge, I said to Mike, "We can be there in about forty-five minutes on the outside."

  "Good. See you then."

  Chapter 20

  Offices of Consolidated Security

  Friday, October 14, 1955

  A few minutes before 4 in the afternoon

  I looked at Mike and asked, "Where'd you find her?" Carter and I were standing in Mike's office. The cab from the yacht club had just dropped us off and we'd gone straight to his office.

  "Through that kid, Janice Lyon. Maria went up to Mill Valley this morning. She and Miss S
chepps, one of the secretaries on the eighteenth floor, they showed up on the girl's doorstep offering her a 'morning of beauty.'"

  Carter laughed. "That sounds like one of Walter's schemes."

  Mike shook his head. "Maria, all the way. So, they show up and the father is gone but the mother is there and she's all excited because Maria said that Janice had won a contest and it included a new washing machine. That was to get the mother out of the way because Maria arranged for the local appliance dealer to invite the mother down to their store to pick out the color she wanted."

  I said, "Smart gal. How much—" I held up my hand. "Never mind."

  Mike grinned. "Yeah, well, they got Janice set up in a chair. They also took some guy by the name of Mr. Fred to do the girl's hair. It was the whole setup. It didn't take long at all for Alicia to come out of the back bedroom. Maria pulled her aside and told her what they were really doing. Alicia agreed to come in as long as Janice got the full treatment. Nice kid."

  I nodded. "I have a feeling that Alicia is a pretty amazing kid, all the way around. How'd you know she would be there?"

  Mike grinned. "I didn't. This was all Maria's idea. She kept asking me about what Janice had said to you. Of course, I had it third-hand from you,"—he glanced at Carter, who nodded—"but I tried to tell her as best as I could remember. She kept saying that she thought Janice was on the look-out. That was the only reason she would have been watching the house."

  "How'd she know that?" asked Carter.

  "Because Janice had talked about Mrs. Grossman being mean to her. That's what tipped Maria off. She said that the girl should've been keeping her distance."

  I didn't follow the logic, but Maria had been right, so that was all that mattered. "Where's Alicia now?"

  "She's downstairs with Walter and Maria. They've been showing her the library and their research methods."

  . . .

  There was a brisk knock on the door. Carter and I were standing at the windows looking down at the street below.

  I turned and said, "Come in."

  Maria opened the door and ushered in Alicia Grossman. The girl looked a little embarrassed. She walked over to me and said, "I had no idea anyone was looking for me, Mr. Williams. I'm sorry to have been so much trouble."

  I smiled. "That's fine, Miss Grossman." Nodding in the direction of the sofa and chairs at the far end of the room, I said, "Let's have a seat."

  The two of them sat in the chairs. Carter and I sat on the sofa. I looked at the girl and said, "I'm sorry about your father."

  She pulled a handkerchief from her skirt and said, "Thank you, Mr. Williams." She dabbed her eyes and nodded.

  "Do you have any idea who did it?" asked Carter, getting right to the point.

  She looked thoughtful. "I'm guessing it was that Mozambican spy."

  Carter started to ask, "Why do you—?" I put my hand on his thigh and he stopped. We needed to let her talk.

  She sniffed. "I guess you know from Janice that he tracked me down on Wednesday morning. He kept asking me about my father and where I thought he was. He wasn't very nice and he scared me."

  I nodded but didn't say anything.

  "Something told me to keep an eye on him."

  That was a twist.

  "Did you?" I asked.

  She nodded. "He cornered me just outside of Wellman Hall. I followed him down to Oxford Street where he got in a Yellow Cab. I got the cab number and waited about fifteen minutes. Then I called the cab company from a payphone and told them the cab number and how my uncle, who was Portuguese and had trouble with his English, might have given the cab driver the wrong directions. The lady dispatcher was very nice and said she would check with the cab driver. About ten minutes later, she called me back and said that he had been dropped off at the St. Francis Hotel, here in the City, and I told her how relieved I was because I was afraid he might have ended up at the airport but that his flight was in the morning."

  I looked over at Maria who nodded at me with a small smile.

  "So, I got on the Key train and came over the bridge. I went to the Woolworth's on Powell. You know, the one where the cable cars turn around?"

  I nodded.

  "Anyway, I went in and bought one of those flat wool caps that men wear. I walked up Powell to Union Square and rubbed the cap around in the dirt a little to make it looked used. Then, I walked into the St. Francis and talked to the man at the front desk. I told him about this funny Portuguese man who I'd met earlier in the day who said he was staying at the hotel and how I'd seen him with the cap but then, as I was walking across the park, I saw the same one on the ground and wondered if he'd lost his."

  I nodded with a smile.

  She smiled in reply. "So, the man said that they didn't have any guests from Portugal and I said that, oh, yes, I'd forgotten that he lived in Mozambique. I batted my eyes and said how I'd never heard of Mozambique and did he know it was a Portuguese colony in Africa." She laughed. "That worked. It always does."

  "What?" asked Carter.

  "Whenever I bat my eyes and pretend that I'm stupid, men usually will do almost anything I ask them to."

  I chuckled at that. "And did he?"

  She nodded. "Oh, yes. The man's name was Carlos de Lima and his address was in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. I suddenly realized I didn't want the man to tell Mr. de Lima that I'd been asking about him so I pretended to see him on the other side of the lobby. I told the man that I would give Mr. de Lima his hat and then I ran off as if I was chasing him. I walked into the coffee shop and asked for a lobby phone. They pointed me to a phone on the wall I'd just walked by. I picked it up and asked for Mr. de Lima's room. When he answered, I said I was calling from room service for room 314. He said he was in room 605. I said I was sorry and hung up."

  Maria said, "She's good."

  I nodded. "Yeah." Looking at Miss Grossman, I asked, "What happened next?"

  "Then I went over to the newsstand and bought a couple of magazines and sat down in the lobby in a chair where I could see the elevators. After a couple of hours, Mr. de Lima came out of one of the cars and walked over to the newsstand. He bought a package of cigarettes, Pall Mall, and walked out through the front door. I followed him out. I was afraid he was going to get in a cab and that I would have to follow him and I didn't have much money left but he didn't, thank goodness. He walked down Powell Street, made a left on Geary, and walked down to Market. He got on a streetcar headed toward the Ferry Building. I got on the one behind that one and watched it at each stop. Fortunately, mine was right behind his. He went all the way to the Ferry Building and got off there. I followed him inside. He met a man in a bowler hat who seemed to be mad at him. They talked for about fifteen minutes. Mr. de Lima got really steamed. He walked off while the other man was talking. I think the other man saw me because he winked at me when I started to follow Mr. de Lima."

  "How old was the man in the bowler hat?" asked Carter.

  Miss Grossman thought for a moment. "Old. But he looked young. It was weird. I remember thinking his eyes were the part that made him look old. When he winked at me, I felt like he was looking right at me. As if he knew me."

  I cleared my throat and asked, "Do you think you would recognize him if you saw him again?"

  She nodded. "Yes. Definitely."

  I smiled. "What happened next?"

  "He went back to the St. Francis the same way, using the streetcar. I watched him go up in the elevator. I tried to stay as long as I could but then I noticed some men talking about me, so I left."

  "Where'd you go after that?"

  She sighed and looked down at her skirt. "I went to find Janice."

  "Why didn't you go home?" I asked.

  "I can't stand it there."

  Leaning forward, Carter quietly said, "You seemed to get along with your mother just fine on Tuesday."

  Janice looked out the window. "Yes. As long as we're in public, mother is fine. She's still rude to most everyone. But at home, she's always
mean to me." She sighed. "I was so glad to move to Berkeley when I did."

  Maria asked, "What about during the summer break?"

  "This last summer, I stayed for the summer term and took an English and a History class. There are a couple of weeks on either end of the summer term when the dorms are supposed to be closed. But I got permission to stay. There are some foreign students who can't go home, so they never really close. My father helped me with that back at the end of the spring semester."

  "So your father knew about your problems with your mother?" That was Maria.

  Janice tightened her lips and nodded.

  Carter asked, "Can you tell us more about that?"

  Looking over at Maria, who nodded, Janice sighed and said, "He hated Mother just as much as I did."

  "How do you know?" I asked.

  Her face lit up. "Do you know why we still live in that dinky house in Mill Valley? Because Mother didn't want to move into the City even though Father was making plenty of money to buy a house pretty much anywhere in town. He even found a small house on Russian Hill. It was darling and a steal. And Mother wouldn't let him buy it. That's why we have a Pontiac, and just the one, because Mother doesn't want a Cadillac. Mother likes to go to Monterey for vacation but Father and I wanted to go to New York or Chicago. Mother doesn't like fish, so we have roast beef all the time, even though I love fish and crab and shrimp and all that." Her fists were balled up in her lap and she was red in the face.

  Maria put her hand on the girl's arm and said, "So, you stayed at Janice's house because you didn't want to go home and you didn't want to go back to the dorm?"

  Miss Grossman nodded. "Yes. I was hoping I could get in the house without Mother knowing but she never left. I have an emergency stash of about two hundred dollars. Father always would give me a ten here or a twenty there and tell me to save it. He called it 'pin money.' I don't know what that meant but I did what he said and I'm glad because now I'm going to have to quit Cal and move into the City and get a job and I don't want to. I want to be an engineer." She began to cry. Big, fat tears rolled down her eyes and she leaned over and put her left hand on her forehead.