Yesterday's News

by Jeremiah Healy

  I had Jane Rust’s address from the check she had given me. Stubborn pride kept me from running it down with Jones, but the gas jockey on the next corner sent me roughly in the right direction.

  The street number matched a modest, free-standing two-family on a postage stamp lot. The solitary tree and low bushes looked scraggly and parched.

  Leaving the Prelude at the curb, I walked up the cracked cement path to the steps of the front porch. Up close, the wood was warping, the walls peeling. I climbed the steps to the house door. There were two buttons, one with “Rust” and the other “O’Day.” Pressing Jane’s, I heard an irregular buzzing sound, like a giant bee with laryngitis. Getting no response, I leaned into “O’Day.”

  From an upstairs window, an elderly woman’s voice yelled, “Who is it? Come out so I can see you.”

  I moved from under the overhang of the porch roof and looked upward. A woman was framed by a light behind her.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s John Cuddy. I’d like to speak with you about Jane Rust.”

  “Jane’s dead.”

  “I know. I’m investigating her death.”

  “Wondered when you folks would get back around to me. Hold on. These days, takes me a while to get downstairs.”

  The second-story sitting room was fussy. Too many tables with little evident purpose, and crocheted doilies on every possible plane, flat or curved. Mrs. O’Day sat in a rocker, wattles under her chin and both hands around her cane, tapping its rubber tip on the old carpeting.

  “Private investigator, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Wasn’t aware she had any family to hire someone like you.”

  “Jane herself hired me.”

  “Now that she’s dead, how come you’re still working for her?”

  “She paid me for three days’ worth. It seems to me she has that coming.”

  Mrs. O’Day watched me for a moment through Coke-bottle glasses. “Are you an honest man or just a very clever one?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Are you honestly interested in Jane and honoring your contract with her, or are you just using that old-fashioned notion to get on the good side of an old lady you need to pump?”

  I laughed.

  She said, “Well, leastways you laugh honest.”

  “Mrs. O’Day, Jane asked me to look into something. Then she turns up dead that night, supposedly a suicide. That just doesn’t ring true to me.”

  “Don’t know much about suicide. Against the Church’s preaching, which makes it kind of hard to understand it. But I can tell you this, she was a mighty troubled young woman.”

  “Can you tell me what happened last night?”

  “Best I can. I was home here, up pretty late planning.”

  “Planning?”

  “Budget planning. I get $473.50 a month social security as sole survivor of the husband, God rest his soul. I never did work outside, so I don’t have any account of my own. Rent from downstairs covers the house costs and all, but still got to computate in advance where all of it should go. Today was Store Day.”

  “Store Day?”

  “Yes. The Church, Lord bless it, has a volunteer van, comes to pick up those like me what can’t get out on our own. Takes us around to the grocery, the drugstore, laundry, that kind of thing. Regular schedule. Feel mighty sorry for the others.”

  “What others?”

  “Those outside the Church. They’re the ones people like you never see, because they ride the buses from ten to two when you’re in working. That’s the only time the buses aren’t so crowded you can get a seat. When’s the last time you ever saw a man or child stand so an older person could sit down? Then there’s the hoodlums, too. Leastways most of them are still in school of some kind, probably reform school, till two o’clock, so your purses and wallets are safe from them if you’re back in and locked up by two. Your generation thinks it’s all set, you wait till you get older, sonny. Back in thirty-three, when my daddy started paying into social security, there were sixteen workers for every retired person. Read that in Reader’s Digest, I did. Sixteen to one. Now there’s only about three and a half to one, and by the time you’re into your sixties, never mind seventies or eighties, there’s only going to be maybe one and a half workers for every retired person. I thank the Lord every night he won’t be keeping me down here so long to see that day come, I’ll tell you.

  “About last night, you were up late?”

  “Planning.”

  “Planning. Did you see or hear anything unusual?”

  “See? Not rightly. I’ve got bad eyesight, need the two different kind of glasses to see straight, but never could stand having them on those neck strings, you know? So I’m forever putting the distance ones down when I put the close-up ones on, then forgetting where they are.”

  “Well then, was there something you didn’t see but heard?”

  “Heard a lot of things. Nothing wrong with the hearing, leastways not yet. Heard Jane coming in all the time. That’s the reason I gave the tenant the downstairs floor to start with. I didn’t have any use for the backyard myself, and I figured with me on the second floor, I wouldn’t be disturbed so much by the coming and going. But this time of year, I keep the windows open, which means I can hear the car doors or the damned, pardon my French, motorcycles or feel the downstairs door close. ’Course, that’s more vibration than sound, I guess.”

  This was going to take a while. “Did you hear somebody arrive last night?”

  “Well, yes, of course I did. Heard Jane first. She usually got home from work by six. Ofttimes she’d go out later. Jane was renting from me for nigh unto two years, her car door made a certain noise account of she had something loose there in the door panel or something, rattled every time after the sound of the door closing itself. Think she’d have that fixed, drive you crazy after a while, but she never did.”

  “You heard somebody else, too?”

  “Sure did. Jane seemed to be home to stay last night. Heard her drive in, car door, and downstairs. She’d been in the dumps lately, don’t know why, just real troubled, like I said. Well, I hear her come in, put on her victrola. Didn’t play it loud or anything, real considerate girl that way. Then I heard another car come up. Somebody got out, come up to the door and knocked, then Jane let them in.”

  “Them?”

  “Him or her. Couldn’t tell. They must’ve cut across the lawn or was wearing sneakers or something, cause I didn’t hear any clicks like from the women’s shoes or taps like from the men’s. Jane knew whoever it was, though.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Jane knows somebody, she tells them … sorry, told them not to ring the bell. Needs fixing and can wake me out of a sound sleep, so she’d warn them not to use it. Considerate that way, like I said.”

  “No idea otherwise who the person was?”

  “No. There were a lot of them, though.”

  “A lot of them?”

  “That didn’t use the doorbell. Jane got more than her share.”

  “Her share of what?”

  Mrs. O’Day’s eyes seemed to move independently behind the lenses as she leaned forward in the rocker. “Of what? Of sex, what the hell do you think, pardon my French again.”

  “Did you … were you under the impression that it was more than one man?”

  “Was I … sonny, all I know is I heard a lot of different doors slam out in that driveway, if you get my drift. The Church says we’re not supposed to sit in judgment of each other, but even without the suicide, I doubt she got to spend much time before Saint Peter last night.”

  “How long did this person stay?”

  “Hours. Didn’t really pay attention to when, I was focusing on my planning here. But they must have been going at it pretty good, because her phone rang four or five times for five rings without her answering it.”

  “Was that typical?”

  “Typical of her going at i
t, you mean?”

  “Typical for her not to answer her phone when she had a man, not a woman visiting.”

  “Sonny, I don’t for one moment believe Jane was that way.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply anything, Mrs. O’Day. I just … look, was Jane’s failure to answer her phone something she’d do only when she had a male visitor?”

  “That I don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t try to spy on the woman.”

  “Right. So you don’t know when her visitor left.”

  “No, I don’t. Wasn’t too long before another one came by, though.”

  “Another?”

  “Right. After the first one left. Another car door, different sound to the motor and the door both.”

  “Different how?”

  “Motor sounded bigger, door more solid. Don’t know much more about cars than how they sound. Never got my driver’s license. The husband was always after me about that, said I’d regret it some day. But I ask you, how can I regret never learning to drive when I’d be a menace out on the roads with this eyesight? I mean, if I can’t keep track of my distance specs in this house, how would I ever remember them each time before I cranked up a car?”

  “You’ve got a point there. Did you hear anything about this second person?”

  “No. Except Jane must have been expecting this one.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because this one didn’t even knock. Door downstairs just opened and closed.”

  “How long did this one stay?”

  “Minute, maybe. Then out, banging the door shut and off into the car and tearing up the street to beat the band.”

  “And no idea whether this second one was a man or woman?”

  “Nope.”

  I thought about it.

  Mrs. O’Day said, “I found her, you know.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. It was the victrola. Like I said, usually she was real good about playing it low, but I was finished with my planning, and I wanted to get four hours of sleep before Store Day. You know, so I’d have plenty of energy. Funny, four hours is enough now, even when I let the planning slide till the night before and I have to stay up most of the night to plan when I had all the week before to do it. Of course, you never know for sure what you really need till just before you go out to buy, and it’d be crazy for me to just stock up at the prices they’re getting these days, although when did you ever know the prices on anything to go down?”

  “Never. You mean her stereo was still on when you tried to go to bed?”

  “That’s what I said. It was, oh, two-thirty maybe? I tossed and turned for a while, but it was no good, I could still make out the words the radio announcer was saying. If it was just music, I might have been able to ignore it, but you know how it is when somebody’s talking, you sort of strain to make sense of the sentences even if you’re hearing only a few words from each.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went to the telephone to call her. It’d happened before, she’d fall asleep with the radio on and then let it play. So I called her, but I could hear the phone ringing, like I said before, and she wasn’t answering. So I went down the back stairs to the kitchen and knocked and called out her name, but she didn’t answer that either, so I walked through the kitchen and—”

  “Wait a minute. The lights were all on?”

  “Well, not all on. I mean, Jane did have some respect for the electric, and it never seemed to me to make sense to have the company come in and do separate meters. That’s always a waste so long as you don’t have some sloth down there, doesn’t know how to turn off a lamp.”

  “But some lights were on?”

  “Yes, and then I moved through into the living room and she was on the couch. Lying on it, dead.”

  “You were sure she was gone?”

  “You grew up when I did, sonny, you learned what to look for. And smell for, more’s the pity. I remember clearly my mother herding my brother and me in to see Gramp on his deathbed. That’s where the expression comes from, you know. In the old days, people actually died in their beds, even when they knew it was coming. They didn’t go to some hospital, lying on some stranger’s sheets and being felt all over by some stranger’s hands. No sir, you sent for the doctor once, and if he said, ‘That’s it,’ you didn’t waste anybody’s money or the dying person’s dignity on some hospital. You let them stay right where they were, in their own house, in the bosom of their family. They could die where they lived, not behind some canvas screen in a cold room. The husband passed on in the hospital, then got dumped into a green bag and wheeled onto an elevator, God rest his soul.”

  “So you knew Jane was dead?”

  “Aren’t you listening to me anymore? You watch enough people die, you know what dead is.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Well, I looked around. But all I saw was some cocoa in a mug long gone cold. So I said a prayer for her right there, though I knew she was damned for taking her own life. I thought I ought to, being I knew her and I didn’t see any family of hers likely to arrive before they took the body away.”

  “There was no note?”

  “Note? Well, none that I saw, but I couldn’t have read it of course, even if there was one. Had on the distance specs, not the close-ups. I try to go downstairs wearing the reading glasses, and it’s me what they’d be finding stiff at the bottom of the steps.”

  “Mrs. O’Day, did you tell the police all this?”

  “As much as they’d hear. They didn’t seem to have quite the patience you do.”

  “Well,” I said, “I appreciate all the time you’ve given me.”

  “My pleasure. Good to talk with a sensible young man for a change. Don’t you want to see her place before you go?”

  “The police didn’t seal it off?”

  “My goodness, no. It was just a suicide.”

  “In that case, I will, thank you.”

  “Just don’t break anything. I’m not worried about a man like you stealing, but I’d be embarrassed if you broke something.”

  “A woman at the newspaper is arranging Jane’s funeral. I’ll call you when I know the details.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. Funerals depress me. Besides, she was a suicide, remember? The Church wouldn’t like for me to be going to one of them.”

  Except for the narrower sitting room to accommodate the first-floor expanse of staircase outside her door, Rust’s apartment was the twin of Mrs. O’Day’s. The bedroom contained a pine four-poster with a bedspread that looked like an heirloom. The dressers matched the bed. On top of the lower dresser was a nearly empty jewelry box, some change in a large seashell, and framed, stand-up photos. The first shot was a shorter-haired Jane with a longer-haired Liz Rendall, both in swimsuits. Each had an arm draped around the other’s shoulder, Jane looking sheepish and Liz brash.

  The second showed an older woman and a much younger Jane, probably in her early teens. They stood at the corner of a house with a flat meadow background that disappeared only at the horizon.

  The third photo caught a current Jane handing a drink to a skinny, hippie-like guy sitting on what appeared to be her living room couch. Coyne, maybe?

  I plodded around the apartment enough to tell that no forensic team had been there. Nothing apparently was missing except Rust’s body. If my client had been killed as part of a “police conspiracy,” someone should have tossed the rooms, searching for whatever evidence Jane might have had on the conspiracy. A forensic investigation of a suspicious death would have provided the perfect cover for that kind of search. It didn’t seem anyone had bothered, though it’s hard to spot a slow, careful search if the place isn’t your own to start with.

  I skimmed through what files I could find in a box in her closet. They all seemed to be just copies of stories from her previous jobs. Nothing about Coyne or Dykestra. I closed Rust’s door to the front hallway and the outside door to the house, both locks snicking securely
behind me. Walking to the Prelude, I looked back at the two-family. An unremarkable place to die.

  As I approached the motel, Sal’s Sub Shoppe still had its lights on. I got an Italian with everything on it and directions to the nearest package store, Sal warning me that only the bars in town stayed open past ten.

  At Nasharbor Liquors, I bought a cold six-pack of Molson Golden ale just as the clerk was cashing out. I tried Nancy from the pay phone outside. No answer.

  The odor of oils from the sandwich filled the car on the way back to the Crestview. Loading up on carbohydrates, I watched TV for an hour before surfing to sleep in the Honeymoon Suite.

  Seven

  THE NASHARBOR POLICE headquarters was on Main Street next to city hall. The department occupied a massive Gothic building with miniature gargoyles on the corners and a modern, masonry block annex. I went through the double doors atop the old steps and walked up to the desk sergeant’s Plexiglas enclosure.

  The sergeant was olive-skinned with black wavy hair. “What can I do for you?”

  Td like to speak with Captain Hagan.”

  “Captain’s a busy man. What about?”

  “The death of Jane Rust. My name’s John Cuddy.” I opened my ID under the small slit on the counter.

  “Private, huh? Insurance?”

  “I’d like to talk with him about it.”

  “Probably be a while before I can call him.”

  A bench was pushed against the wall. “I’ll time you from over there.”

  The sergeant shuffled a few forms to save face, then dialed an internal extension.

  Hagan folded my ID and leaned back across his desk, careful not to knock over the triptych portraits of wife and assorted kids on the corner. Mounted commendations crawled up the wall behind him. He’d stood and shook hands when I’d come in the room. A little shorter and a little huskier than I am, maybe forty-two or forty-three, with auburn hair in a Madison Avenue cut and a herringbone jacket with elbow patches. Clean-shaven, he looked like the sort who slapped Aqua Velva onto his cheeks in the morning mirror.

  Hagan said, “Anybody on Boston I can call about you?”