One O'Clock Jump

by Lise McClendon

  “Well, Mr. Patrolman, sir,” she said, smiling at the look of him, the cropped blond hair, wiry frame encased in navy blue, with knee-high leather boots, gloves smartly tucked into his belt. It’d been over a month since he cleaned out his desk and put on a badge. “Pardon me. Mr. Wheel Man.”

  Roger reddened and glanced at the plainclothes policeman. “Dorie. What are you doing here?”

  “Just in for some chat and refreshments. Can we talk?”

  “You know Detective O’Brian?”

  She introduced herself, shook his cold, fishy hand. He spoke to Roger. “Watch the front. No more customers till we’re done back here.”

  Roger snapped his head toward the front door and they walked in that direction. Lennox nodded reassuringly at the old woman, whose stockings now cuddled around her ankles.

  They stepped out into the sunshine, where Roger took up his post, face stony, arms crossed, legs spread. Lennox stared, amazed. He had been so carefree before.

  “You are a man on a job, if I ever saw one.”

  He blinked at her. “Did Amos send you?”

  “I sent myself. I make my own decisions. It’s my investigation, after all, despite the—” She looked harder at Roger. “What do you mean? Has something happened to Amos?”

  “You don’t know? He’s in the lockup as we speak. The captain, his old friend and your uncle, took him in.”

  “For what?” Roger’s lips tightened. His eyes flicked back to the Chatterbox. “For this shooting, Davy Whatshisname?”

  “Esterly.”

  “But he’s sick. He’s been in the hospital since—”

  “Checked out yesterday. On his own, didn’t talk to no doctor or nurse.”

  “What happened here?”

  “Fella shot in the guts, back in the alley. Somebody saw Amos’s car down at the end, and a medium-sized joe in a gray suit. Word is his gun’s fresh, too.”

  Lennox turned to face the curb. This couldn’t be right. She was the one who should have been talking to Davy Esterly last night.

  “But he didn’t know him. He couldn’t have.”

  Roger squinted as she turned back. “You knew him?”

  She shook her head. “I was tailing this girl, Friday night. She came in here for a few minutes before she did the Dutch act. I wanted to talk to somebody who’d seen her. I talked to the mother a couple days ago, but he wasn’t here. His mother said he was working Friday night.”

  “That bartender?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was almost noon and the pavement was beginning to scorch. From the corner, two farmers, dressed in overalls and work shirts, with a wide-eyed redness to their faces, stumbled toward the Chatterbox. They took one look at Roger’s scowl and kept moving.

  “Did they charge Amos?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Will they let me see him?”

  “Word is even his lawyer’s having a hell of a time.”

  “Who’s his lawyer?”

  “Who do you think?”

  Lennox examined her friend’s face. His blue eyes had lost their twinkle since his enlistment in the Kansas City Police Department. But he hadn’t forgotten some things.

  “Vanvleet,” she whispered.

  She hadn’t been able to reach Vanvleet this morning, either. So Amos and Vanvleet were together, or at least in the same building. It made sense that Amos would call him. Want him on his side. The old man was many things, but he was good.

  “Have you seen Amos?” she asked. She had to see him, put this right.

  “Been on patrol since eight, then sent over here.” He shifted slightly in place, bit his lip. “Most miraculous job, Lennox. Most stinking miraculous.”

  “So you like the bike?” The Kansas City cops rode Harley-Davidsons with a ton of chrome. It was their best recruiting tool. Besides the plentiful opportunities for graft.

  He ventured a smile. “Oh, yes, ma’am. That I do.”

  She nodded, barely listening. Amos—sick as he was—in jail! The old woman peered out the tiny window glass, bringing Lennox back.

  “Who’s that?” Roger asked.

  “She’s worried about her daughter, who works here. Seems to have run away.”

  “Did you tell her to file a missing persons?”

  “Will the miraculous Kansas City Police do one damn thing with such a report?”

  Roger’s nostrils flared. “Do not malign the name of my employer, madam!” His mouth twitched into a smile. “Damn good to see you, Lennox.”

  There was nothing else to learn here except the gruesome details of Davy Esterly’s demise, which would be screaming from headlines by dinnertime. Talbot might even be writing them. Might be in the alley right now.

  Lennox shook her head in disbelief, walking back to the car. Amos in the goddamn KC lockup, and Uncle Herb behind it! What was the world coming to? Maybe it was better with Pendergast; at least you knew who your friends were. Now it was all a crap game. And Amos was on a bad roll.

  She slouched in the Packard, trying to clear the haziness in her mind. She flipped the compact open, snapped it shut. Her stomach growled. She looked at the Chatterbox, pictured sitting here on Friday night, Iris going in, coming out. What else? She had the whole damn thing in her mind, tailing the Nash, turning around, watching Iris climb out of the car—again, slowly—and walk into the Chatterbox. She was moving so slowly that night, like she knew somebody was taking her picture. And wanted the picture to be good. Lennox remembered her feeling on the bridge, that Iris had made her, then ditched her.

  But Davy Esterly? Was it just dumb bad luck, or did it have something to do with Iris? Did she give him something that night—something that got him killed? What could that be? What had Iris been up to? And how did Georgie fit into it?

  She started the car and drove the ten blocks to police headquarters. Their lockup was on the third floor. She had to try to see Amos, see if he needed medical attention. Why had he checked himself out of the hospital?

  Uncle Herb’s office was on the second floor, in the corner. She knocked and he looked up through the glass and frowned.

  “Bad time?”

  Herb Warren stood up, pulling his large frame off the chair. “Doesn’t matter.” He pointed to a chair, but she stood against the wood and glass partition that was his office wall. “You’re here about Amos, I guess. I have to tell you, Dorie, it don’t look good for the old boy.”

  “This must be some kind of setup,” she said.

  “The best kind.” Herb’s face hung, unsmiling. “They’ve got a bullet out of Davy Esterly and it looks good for Amos’s gun.”

  “And his car at the scene?”

  Herb nodded. “He says you know he hasn’t been driving, though.”

  “I’ve seen him on the streetcar and I drove us on Saturday.” She frowned. “He says he told me he wasn’t driving?”

  Another nod. She chose not to confirm or deny Amos’s statement.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  He shrugged. “We’re checking his story about collapsing on the steps. Somebody must have seen that.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Not now, kid.”

  “Is he okay? He was so sick. Did he check out without his doctor’s okay?”

  “That’s what they say. He looks like hell. Says somebody must’ve slipped him a Mickey last night. Sick as he is, he’s not much of witness, even of his own innards.”

  Lennox sat down at last, and Herb followed. The silence lasted a long time. Finally, Lennox said, “Shit.” Her uncle didn’t contradict her.

  “Listen, Herb, I gotta tell you about something. You know that jumper the other night, the one I was tailing? Well, she went into that dive, the Chatterbox, just before she went to the bridge.”

  Captain Warren rolled a pencil between his big hands. “And?”

  “Davy Esterly was the bartender at the Chatterbox that night. Iris might have talked to him, or even known him.”

  “Iris being t
he jumper.”

  “Right.”

  Herb pursed his lips. “So … She comes back from the dead?” He flipped the pencil into the air and it landed on his desk in a clatter, then jumped off to the floor. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I’ll pass it along.”

  A thought jumped into her head: Iris going in, coming out. “That jumper. Anybody claim her body yet?”

  “Nope. Found a suicide note in her apartment, though.”

  Lennox had her hand on the doorknob. “Oh yeah?”

  Halfway to the basement, Vanvleet caught her arm on the stairs. Lennox hadn’t even seen him, skipping down the stairs the way she was. She straightened, tried to smile.

  “How’s Amos?” she asked.

  “Holding his own.” The old man looked tired. Maybe horse racing had worn him out. “I haven’t seen you for a while. I expect a report daily. You are aware of that?”

  “Yes, sir.” Lennox pressed against the wall to let two detectives pass between them. “I’ll have something for you tonight.”

  “Have you found anything new?”

  “Not really.”

  Vanvleet rubbed his scalp. Even the finely pressed suit and gold watch chain couldn’t disguise the deep circles under his eyes and the paleness of his face.

  “You’ll get Amos off,” she said.

  His eyes snapped back to her. “Report at six tonight.”

  A skinny, freckled kid slouched behind the desk at the morgue, reading Dashiell Hammett. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and squinted at Lennox. “Help you?”

  “I, ah, yes, that is, I hope not, but—” She gave him her sad smile. “My sister’s missing and I hope, I hope very much that you don’t have her down here.”

  He put The Dain Curse facedown and stood up. “So you want to look at the Jane Does?”

  “Are there lots of them?”

  He leafed through a couple sheets of paper on a clipboard. “A few. When did your sister disappear?”

  “Let’s see. Sometime after Friday night. Over the weekend, I guess.”

  He poked a finger on the list. “Only one to look at, then. The other two been stinking here longer than that.” He gave her a devilish grin. “Smells don’t bother you, do they, miss?”

  Even with the cold air, the overripe odor of the body bloomed from the drawer. It had only been two days, but the deterioration was plain. Lennox didn’t have to pretend to be shocked by the appearance of the corpse as the attendant pulled back the cloth.

  She clapped her hand over her nose and mouth. The nibbled face was greener, more shriveled and sunken, eyelids a deep gray. The roots of her hair looked darker. Was it true that hair continued to grow after death? Lennox leaned in. Iris’s eyelashes were almost invisible, very light. Funny, she’d always assumed Iris was a bottle blonde. There was peroxide in her apartment.

  “Smells like dead catfish, don’t it?” The attendant was still grinning.

  Lennox stared at the dirty, sand-filled hair. It had streaks of dark gold through it, and light brown. Like natural hair. She felt her heart race a little.

  “Well? Is it her?” he asked, his grin gone. He scowled at the mangled face.

  “Urn, can I see down here?” She nodded halfway down the body. “She had a birthmark on her thigh.”

  “Which side?”

  “This side.” He reached across the body, lifted the drape that covered the left side of Iris’s left torso and hips. Lennox looked at the hands.

  The fingers were curled under, fists balled at her sides. Out of sight of Freckles, Lennox pulled out the girl’s fingers.

  “Do you see it?” he asked.

  “I’m looking. It’s hard with the skin so … you know.”

  “My arms are going numb, that’s all. But take your time. She’s got all the time in the world, poor stinking devil.”

  Lennox touched the nail of the forefinger. Unpainted. Plain. She bent closer, looking for traces of polish. Only broken, dirty, uneven nails. She tipped up the finger. Calluses, old scars on the shriveled fingertips. She looked up at the face again, wishing the fish bites hadn’t disfigured it so. But there hadn’t been time to take off nail polish. And the peroxide in her medicine cabinet: Iris’s hair was bright, like Harlow’s. Definitely a bottle blonde.

  “Okay. You can lower it.”

  He dropped the drape. “So? What’s the verdict?”

  Lennox took a last look at the face, the girl’s sunken mouth, the gray cheeks. The tangled hair, the battered neck. Poor unfortunate child. Whoever she was.

  “Does she, um …” Lennox nudged the corpse’s temple away from her, twisting the neck. She bent down to look at the head, parting the pale hair.

  “What’re you looking for?”

  She gave him her sweet look, moved around the drawer front. Another gentle push of the head.

  “Hey,” protested Freckles.

  “Look at that.” She pointed to a clotted black tangle of hair. The area around it was angry and dark.

  “Yeah, she broke her leg, too.” He rearranged the girl’s head again. “Is it her, your sister?”

  She didn’t know much about how a body reacts to a hard slap against the water, but splitting open, bleeding? It was possible. But would the blood have clotted in her hair if it happened in the fall—or rinsed away into the river water?

  Lennox stepped back.

  “It’s not her. No. Thank heavens. It’s not her.”

  Back upstairs, Lennox hunted for her uncle so she could get permission to see the clothes the jumper had been wearing when they fished her out. He had disappeared. She went down to the Property Room and tried to sweet-talk a look at them. But the clerk was a stickler for procedure, a new wrinkle in a department where thousands of dollars in bond money had often disappeared.

  “At least let me look at the sign-in sheet. I don’t need to see the articles themselves,” she said, batting eyelashes furiously. The clerk was a former sergeant, bumped down to the Prop Room and, from the look of it, not happy about it. He took no interest in ocular gyrations.

  “Not without an okay from above.”

  “So call Captain Warren.”

  He thought about that. “They’ve got some homicide bust upstairs.”

  “I heard. They’re probably beating a confession out of the criminal right now.” She smiled. “I mean, persuading him to see that justice will be done.” She hopped up on the counter, sitting pretty for the ugly old sarge. “It might take hours, but I can wait.”

  A few minutes later, he capitulated, with grumbles, and brought out the small sheet of paper listing the effects of one Jane Doe fished from the river. One blue shirtwaist dress, one gabardine jacket, one garter belt (no stockings), one pair cotton underpants, one brassiere. One torn sheet of music—Cole Porter?—one matchbook from the Hot Cha Cha Club, one white handkerchief with the monogram I.

  “No shoes, huh?”

  “If they aren’t listed.”

  “No jewelry, either. I suppose the fellas that found her relieved her of her rings.”

  “This type’s hocked it all.”

  That night at the Muehlebach, Iris had worn gold earrings. But she probably wouldn’t have worn them to work. Might have been in her handbag. Where was the jewelry in the apartment? Had she pawned it?

  Lennox saw the death mask of the jumper in her mind again. No, she hadn’t pawned anything. It wasn’t Iris. The old woman in the saloon—her daughter missing. Why hadn’t she asked for a description? But old Alfie had mentioned a Sylvia, too, when Lennox had described Iris.

  She slid off the counter, head whirling. Iris at the Chatterbox—a switch with same-hair Sylvia, giving Sylvia her clothes, meeting her on the bridge. How had she convinced the girl— money? Sweet, good Sylvia, with the worried mother. A little extra money for impersonating Iris. Easy money, she must have thought.

  Then, dead, unclaimed in the morgue.

  Matchbook from the Hot Cha Cha, monogrammed hankie. Messages from Iris. Who wanted all to beli
eve she had jumped.

  Lennox slapped the list hard on the counter. “Hot damn,” she said. Amos would be cleared. By finding Iris, she would do it. The clerk stared at her.

  Iris was still alive.

  FOURTEEN

  The rat leapt from the third step of the Jayhawker Hotel and disappeared into the alley. Lennox froze at the bottom of the steps, letting cohorts, if any, have a chance to escape. The rat was thin and mangy. He ought to catch a streetcar uptown. The afternoon sun shone weakly through the grime on the hotel’s dirty windows. Down the street, a circle of men sat on the curb, playing dice games.

  The neighborhood was a little far from the bridge for walking, the farthest she’d tried today. The circle she’d drawn on the map was just a mile in radius—hard to imagine Iris walking too many cobblestones in high heels. The North End and near downtown hadn’t panned out, after three hours of hitting the bricks. The West Bottoms was a good place to hide, and only half a block from the streetcar line. The Jayhawker had that affordable look to it, and rats in the bargain.

  The hallway was dark and smelled like rot. Like most of the flophouses she’d been in, it wasn’t really a hotel, but a converted house with a resident manager. She knocked on the first door. The man who answered wore a sleeveless undershirt and black trousers, and he needed a shave. He blew cigarette smoke in her face. “Yeah?”

  She’d given up introductions. “I’m looking for a woman who took a room last week, Friday or Saturday, twenty-five to thirty, nice figure, maybe blond, maybe not. Sound familiar?”

  The man scratched his head. She’d interrupted his cocktail hour. “When, you say?”

  “Friday or Saturday.”

  “What’s today?”

  “Tuesday.”

  He scratched some more.

  Lennox said, “You the manager?”

  “Don’t remember no broads. Mostly men here. Only an old lady who lives in the back.”

  “She live here a long time?”

  “Who?”

  “The old lady.”

  Lennox ¼new an act of desperation when she saw it. She knocked on the old woman’s faded blue door. She was tired of talking to derelict managers who couldn’t remember the day, or their own last name. It took forever for the door to be answered.