Don't Dare a Dame

by M. Ruth Myers

  “Franklin’s already been by. Brought some groceries and a paper and that. Big bottle of aspirin.” He grimaced. Avoiding my eyes, he rubbed his hands together awkwardly. “I don’t know why he’s being so nice, the way I used to sniff at him.”

  The night before, once Neal got out of the shower and into the more-or-less-clean clothes I’d found for him, I’d offered a choice: I could take him back to where he lived with George, or to Franklin’s currently empty apartment. I wasn’t going to risk his sisters’ safety sending him there. He was smart enough, and sober enough by then, to realize he’d be safest at Franklin’s. I’d used the phone in the St. George lobby to call Franklin and make arrangements.

  Finding him up and around in fresh clothes that clearly belonged to his stepbrother was a nice surprise. He didn’t add anything new when I asked him the same questions I’d asked the previous night, but at least he wasn’t surly this time around.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take off, and I’m not going to pull anything stupid,” he said fervently.

  With one less thing to worry about, I went to my office — where things began to go downhill.

  Amid my mail was an envelope with no stamp. It probably had been dropped through the slot of the building’s phone booth- sized mail room. It bore my name and office address in impeccable penmanship. The writing looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t think where I’d seen it. Tearing open the envelope, I unfolded a sheet of typing paper.

  Miss Maggie, it began. My eyes jumped to the signature for confirmation. Yes, it was from the two Negro girls who cleaned in the building.

  Miss Maggie,

  Sophia and me thought you should know someone was snooping around in your office last night. We’d just come in and it was our night to do third floor first, and right as we started down the hall, Sophia saw a little bitty light go off in your place.

  Her brother Zekiel was with us so he could visit while we worked, cause he doesn’t get up to see her much. He’s a mighty big man, and when we whispered it wasn’t right, somebody being in there, but that no account night watchman wouldn’t get up from his card game even if we told him, Zekiel slipped into the mop closet and grabbed a handle that had broke off. He marched into your office, and told those hoodlums to get, that he’d already called the police. Guess they thought he was the watchman, cause they took off running. There was two.

  Gilead

  P. S.

  We thought it would be safer to poke a letter through the slot downstairs than leave it on your desk in case those men came back, so we used one of those extra envelopes you keep in your basket.

  Despite the bad news, it tickled me picturing the incident. When I worked late enough that Sophia and Gilead were around, I yakked at them and they kidded me. At Christmas I gave them each a couple of bucks, and sometimes during the year a peck of apples or beans that looked especially good at the market. They were hard working women trying to hold their own in the world, just like me. As I sat considering the ramifications of someone searching my office the telephone rang.

  “Hey, this is Donnie. How are you?” said a voice when I answered.

  My eyes jumped toward the clock. It was well past the time he’d start work at the factory, and much too early for lunch.

  “Good,” I said curiously. How about you?”

  “Okay, and I’ve got news. Not where Neal is, but something I’m pretty sure you’ll want to know.”

  He didn’t need to tell me he was in a hurry. It came through in his quick delivery. Either he was on a break or had sneaked out to phone.

  “Shoot.”

  “That place we had the beers together? I was in there last night. One of the bartenders called me over. Said a guy had come in Monday night hunting Neal. The bartender told him he hadn’t seen Neal, and that somebody else was hunting him too. The guy asking wanted to know if that somebody else was a woman. That chucklehead at the bar said Yes, trying to be helpful.”

  Every nerve in my body snapped to alertness, humming with certainty.

  “Did the bartender give a description?” I asked.

  “Brown hair. Nothing to notice, he said.”

  I suppressed a sigh.

  “Thanks, Donnie. I really appreciate it. Keep this to yourself, but Neal’s okay. I found him last night.”

  “Yeah?” He sounded pleased. His short pause held equally brief hopefulness. “Well. I better go.”

  I hung up and swivelled my chair and thought. Night One, someone on Neal’s trail learns a woman is also hunting him. Night Two, someone breaks into my office. My earlier surge of certainty told me one led to the other. What it neglected to mention was the identity those involved, or what team they played for. Most likely it was the same men who’d scared Neal into running. Still, Cy Warren could have gotten wind of Neal’s presence on the night of the murder, and be worried enough to try and learn what there was in my files.

  I decided it was late enough I could call Tessa Warren even if she was the sort to sleep late and have breakfast in bed.

  “Is Mrs. Warren in?” I asked the maid. “This is Margaret.”

  Tessa was bound to know a Margaret or two, and it was my name.

  Several minutes passed. The breathy voice that sounded like the end of a sigh came on.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Warren, I meant what I told you before your husband walked in on us yesterday. Your life is in danger. Even though you can’t testify against him, you can still tell people you saw him carry that body out—”

  “My husband would never hurt me! He wouldn’t,” she said petulantly. “And you don’t know what I saw that day. Nobody knows but me!”

  “What you saw? I thought it was a dream.”

  There was silence.

  “Don’t be a fool, Mrs. Warren. Please. Can we talk? Will you meet me—”

  “You’re jealous. You’re jealous of me. That’s why you’re doing this.” God help her, she sounded victorious. “Don’t bother me again or I’ll call the police!”

  She hung up.

  I went to the window and rested my forehead against the cool glass. There was one other person who’d been where Tessa was the day of the fire. Someone who might have seen the same thing.

  It was a long shot.

  Playing basketball in school had taught me sometimes you have to take those.

  ***

  Tailors and dressmakers can tell you things they don’t even know they’re telling about their customers. The trick is to get them talking without arousing suspicion.

  “Oh, my, yes. I used to do all the sewing for Tessa and Jane and their mother,” this one bragged. “Lovely people, all of them. They were all such ladies.”

  She was fiercely girdled, her plump form decorated by a measuring tape around her neck and a pincushion on her wrist. I’d told her I’d heard she was the magic behind Tessa Warren’s fine wardrobe. It seemed smarter than saying I’d picked up her name while knocking on doors in their old neighborhood.

  “Tessa looked like an angel in everything I ever made for her,” she enthused. “An absolute angel. And taste — my stars. Sometimes she drove her poor mother crazy putting her foot down, insisting on a different material than what we were planning.”

  The dressmaker had been on her knees, chalking the hem of a garment under construction, when I entered the shop. Now the customer having a fitting was gone, and a woman who seemed to be an assistant had disappeared through a curtain at the back of the shop. We were sitting across from each other, the dressmaker on an upholstered bench and me on a slipper chair.

  “It always looked just perfect on her though. Of course it would, with those looks. Poor Jane was on the plain side, I’m afraid.”

  I seized my opportunity.

  “You know, all the way over here I was trying to think of Jane’s husband’s name, and for the life of me I couldn’t, or her husband’s either.”

  “Mosley,” she said. “I don’t recall his given name, but I ran into her on
e day and she joked that he’s the last one in the phone book.” She lowered her voice even though the assistant I’d noticed would be well out of range. “She didn’t marry as well as her sister. I think he’s a teacher. Has to do her own sewing now, I expect.”

  She frowned, remembering why I’d come.

  “Now, you said when you came in that you’re hunting a dressmaker. I can’t take you personally — my eyes aren’t what they used to be, I’m afraid, or knees either. But my niece started working with me when she was in grammar school. She does lovely work and is starting to get her own customers. If you wanted me to call her in to take your measurements....”

  I heard the sound of a door in back, and supposed the niece had just returned from some task. I stood up, gathering my purse.

  “Oh, I’m afraid I’m meeting someone.”

  We had some more polite back-and-forth, I said I’d have to call, and I took my leave. To my surprise, the assistant I’d thought I’d heard returning stood just out of sight of the shop window, lighting a cigarette. She’d gone out instead.

  “Don’t believe the sainthood stories,” she said to me.

  “What?”

  “Saint Tessa. I guess you’re a friend of hers, but she treated my aunt like dirt when they came here. I went to school with Tessa, sang in a choir with her. I know what she’s like. All that gushing turned my stomach.”

  Her head went back defiantly, waiting for my reaction. I fished a card from my pocket and handed it to her.

  “I didn’t come here hunting a dressmaker. I needed to find out her sister’s last name.”

  The assistant chuckled and swept a fleck of tobacco off the tip of her tongue with a fingertip.

  “You’re good.” She had chestnut hair and a wryness which she probably had to hide a lot. “I take it Tessa wouldn’t tell you?”

  “Tessa didn’t seem to like me much when I tried to talk to her.”

  “She doesn’t like anyone other than Tessa. I suppose I sound jealous. Maybe I am. But she’s been a snot her whole life. That wonderful fashion sense my aunt was going on about, and how Tessa would pick different fabrics? If she couldn’t get her way by turning all big-eyed and crying, she’d make herself faint.”

  “Actually faint?”

  “It sure looked genuine. They even called a doctor once. I think she held her breath or something. Of course she had that fairy princess act down to a T.”

  “Is she looney?”

  The assistant shrugged.

  “She liked to say things that set her apart,” she said thoughtfully. “She knew it would get attention. It was very ... clever, in a childish sort of way. Made her fascinating even when we didn’t believe her. Once she said the art teacher had asked her to take off her clothes so he could paint her. Another time she said she knew a man with lots of money who’d marry her in a flash because she’d seen him do something naughty.”

  I tried not to show particular interest.

  “Did you believe her?”

  Her cigarette was almost done. She crushed it under her foot.

  “Tessa may have believed it. The rest of us didn’t. I’ve got to get back.”

  Forty-three

  Jane Mosley had told the dressmaker they were the last Mosley in the phone book. The one in my office listed a Z.W. Mosley, but no one answered there. On the off chance the book had changed since the two women talked, I tried the listing above it, but the woman who identified herself as that Mrs. Mosley wasn’t named Jane.

  Twice more that afternoon I tried Z.W. Mosley. I checked on Neal. I checked on Corrine. I fidgeted. I took a walk to clear my head. When I got back from the walk I sat down and typed a note to Gilead and Sophia.

  Every floor in the building had a utility closet, but those small spaces held only a sink for filling scrub buckets and a trash can on wheels for emptying wastebaskets from the various offices. The buckets and mops and such that the women used every night all stayed in a janitor’s closet downstairs. It was the same closet with the obsolete door opening into the gap between buildings. I didn’t want to use the door just then, but the room itself seemed like the best place to leave a note where the women would see it and no one else would. I found what I surmised were clean rags since they weren’t stiff as boards, spread one across a bucket, and put the envelope I’d addressed to them on the top.

  I needed a favor.

  ***

  Nobody answered my knock at the address I was guessing belonged to Jane Mosley. It worried me. I decided to ask a next door neighbor if they’d gone somewhere.

  “Why no,” she said. “Jane’s usually home in the afternoon. Perhaps she went shopping. Or maybe she’s at her book club, except I think that’s on Tuesdays. Shall I tell her who stopped?”

  “My name wouldn’t mean anything,” I said genially. “We have a mutual friend.”

  I was starting to feel uneasy.

  ***

  Whoever had been monkeying around in my office was likely to try again. I’d learned enough to make them sweat, so chances were even they’d try again tonight. This time, though, they’d be smart enough to wait until the cleaning women finished up.

  Most offices in the building closed at half-past five, but the podiatrist on the second floor stayed open until seven most weeknights. Sophia and Gilead came to work at seven thirty. They generally finished somewhere between midnight and one in the morning. Knowing that schedule allowed me to have a nice long nap at Mrs. Z’s.

  At half-past eleven I took a slow pass down Patterson in front of my building. There were only two cars on the street, and neither looked occupied. Our building’s service entrance as well as its main both opened on this side. Since there was no discernible door at the rear, there’d be no reason to station a lookout in the alley. I checked anyway.

  To kill time I went to an all-night diner. When I got back to Patterson, there was a different car parked across from my place. I saw a shape on the driver’s side as I passed.

  I wasn’t worried about being spotted. My car tonight was a jalopy borrowed from the young assistant at Wheeler’s Garage and I had my hair tucked up under a man’s cap. I rounded the corner, doused my lights, and did a U-turn, pulling to the curb. I got out and hugged the shadows back to where I could watch the guy in the car. He made no move to get out. I counted to sixty in case he was slow, then drove into the alley.

  It was pitch black. Roof overhangs blocked moon and stars. There were no outside lights. As soon as my eyes had adjusted, I got out and, with my .38 at my side, walked the alley’s length. Satisfied no one was watching, I made my way through the narrow passage to the old door.

  As I’d requested in my note, it was wedged open slightly. Getting in was harder than getting out, and I had to squeeze some, but I managed. Then I stood amid the damp smell of recently used mops and rags, waiting for my breath to slow.

  Before leaving Mrs. Z’s I’d changed into gum-soled shoes. My steps were soundless as I made my way along the back hall. Through a half-open door I could see the night watchman playing cards with pals, as he did most nights. When I heard them laying their cards down and figured eyes were intent on the table and who had the winning hand, I crept by.

  Next it was a matter of up one flight of stairs and listen; up another flight and listen. I was on my own floor now. Ducking through the door from the stairwell to avoid weak light from a single bulb above it, I stood watching and listening. The only other night illumination came from an equally feeble bulb at the far end next to the elevator. After several minutes my eyes caught a splinter of yellow leaking beneath the door to my office.

  Shifting my weight from heel to toe with each step, I moved without noise. My pulse had accelerated, but I moved with confidence on my home turf. As I neared my door, I bent low to keep from being seen through the frosted glass panel on top. I was holding my breath.

  Now I was in position. I watched for a minute. Sure enough, I caught sight of a shape moving inside. Then came a whispered spurt of speech, foll
owed at once by another. Like last night, there were two of them, though right now I couldn’t see either. Then one bobbed up from rifling my desk drawers. His chum was probably keeping lookout where the opening door would give cover if someone came through it.

  I took a breath.

  “Guns down, hands up!” I ordered slamming the door back hard as I switched on lights.

  The door banged into the wall, and I knew I’d been wrong about where the second guy was. He stepped out of the corner next to the window, hands empty, while the figure in front of me dropped a gun on the desk. I snagged the weapon with my free hand while the intruders were still half blind. Finally I took a look at the one closest to me.

  Skinny and ratlike. Lank hair.

  “Oats Ripley,” I said through my teeth. “You lying s.o.b., I ought to put a bullet in you just for the aggravation you’ve caused me.”

  He tried to make a run for it, but I tripped him, following up with a shove that sent his top half sprawling onto my desk. Stuffing the semi-automatic he’d relinquished into my pocket I ground the nose of my .38 against the back of his head.

  “Whoa, whoa, honey. Wait. You got this all wrong,” said the one by the window.

  For the first time, I spared him more than a glance ... and tried not to stare. I’d never seen a live person who was that pale. His hair was white even though he looked like he hadn’t hit fifty. His skin was equally void of color. Pink rimmed his squinting eyes. If he wasn’t a true albino, he was close.

  Albino. The association dropped faster than a hooker’s drawers.

  Albino.

  Eskimo.

  They sounded vaguely similar. Rare and exotic. To someone who seldom used either word they’d be easily confused.

  “No, I’ve got it just about right,” I said slowly. “You hire an ex-con who’s threatened me all over town to break into my office. You come with him because you want to know what I’ve dug up on Cy Warren. And because you hope something in my files will lead you to Neal Vanhorn so you can threaten him some more and maybe kill him—”