Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  “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.

  The old woman was bent and white-haired. She blinked her crepey old eyes. Lennox looked for a brightness there but saw only fear.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m looking for a woman who might have been around this neighborhood last Saturday. She’s tall, a little taller than me, nice figure, manicure—”

  The old woman slammed the door. The rush of foul air wafted by Lennox’s face. She turned on her heel and made her way back to the street and its wildlife. This time, it was stray dogs, sniffing the steps.

  Lennox stepped around a suspicious puddle and crossed the street. Last stop in this neighborhood. In the front window of the flophouse, a flower bloomed on the windowsill.

  Nameless and narrow, the building was sandwiched between other row houses, done in crumbling brick before the turn of the century. The front stoop was recently swept and displayed a welcome mat. She tried the front door, but it was locked. She knocked.

  A small boy wrestled the knob. He peeked around the door at her.

  “Is the manager here?” she asked, making him run for cover. In a moment a haggard woman with a large goiter arrived. She was wiping her hands on her apron. Lennox asked if she was the manager.

  “This is my house,” the woman said. “What you want?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m looking for a woman, a boarder. You take boarders?”

  The woman looked her up and down. Lennox was too tired even to stand straight in her damp blouse and wrinkled trousers. The woman blew her hair off her face. “You a lady dick?”

  Was it so obvious? “This woman’s been missing since late Friday. Trying to slip away, you know. Do you take boarders?”

  “Now and again. What’s her name?”

  “Iris Jackson. She’s pretty, a bleach blonde last time we saw her, tall, nice hands. She might have come around late Friday or Saturday.”

  The boy wrapped himself around the woman’s leg. She had a hardworking, kind face, despite the neck problem. Even with the insult about the house right off the bat, she still was trying. Lennox felt a rush of gratitude and tried to keep her eyes off the goiter.

  “A blonde, you say?”

  “Or dyed. She’d be trying to … well, look different.” Iris wanted to disappear, so she’d engineered her own death. For four days, it had worked like a charm. But being duped by a bar girl, or whatever she was, wasn’t going to play. Not for long, Miss Jackson. An image of the attacker in her room—it was Iris, had to be. “You know the type. Dark hair maybe.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. Her unwashed hair was loose from its bun. “We get ‘em all down here—you can count on that. Not a blonde, but a gal came around Saturday morning looking for a room. We didn’t have any, so I sent her on.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Pretty, like you say. No schoolgirl, been around some. Fancy manicure. Short black hair, I think. Bangs in front.”

  “Do you remember her clothes?”

  “A dress. Red. Carrying a satchel.”

  “And you sent her on?”

  “No rooms, like I said.”

  “Did you give her a name of another place?”

  “Wouldn’t know that, would I? She looked a bit like trouble, if you have to know. Like I’d be sorry I ever let a room to the likes of ‘er.”

  Lennox thanked the woman, patted the boy on the head. Finally, something. She didn’t know where Iris was, but the woman’s description meshed with the picture she had of her attacker. Iris had changed her appearance.

  Back in the Packard, Lennox scribbled the woman’s address in the notebook from the glove compartment, and Iris’s new description. Iris was close; she could smell her, around the corner, around the block. She would find her.

  She smiled to herself, starting the car, and couldn’t help whispering, “Curtains, sister.” Then knew she was premature. What if there were more than one dark-haired woman? She remembered the words: “Watch your step, Miss Snooper. Because I’ll be watching you.” She looked in her rearview mirror. The crap-shooters on the corner didn’t look so benign. Despite the heat, Lennox felt a chill. Her throat ached a little, remembering the boot’s pressure on her neck. Iris wouldn’t let a lady dick stop her, or anybody else.

  After a quick stop at the Art Institute to get drawing instructor Lorna Hahn to sketch up Iris Jackson’s new look in pencil and pastels, using the description and one of the photographs as a guide, Lennox trudged up the stairs to the office in the Boston Building. Lorna had asked about Amos, said she hadn’t seen him lately. Apparently, she had missed him. News to cheer up the old soldier. Thinking about him in the slammer—batted about by bulls who believed that a successful investigation added up to one victim, one suspect, and six billy clubs—would he survive that? In his condition? She had to find Iris Jackson.

  As she passed the dentist’s office, moans mixed with the whine of the drill. She grit her own teeth at the keening sounds, slipped into the office of Sugar Moon Investigations, and shut the hall door quickly.

  The receptionist, Shirley Mullins, was on the phone in the outer office. Her eyes brightened on seeing Lennox, and she held up one finger for her to wait. The afternoon sun cut squares in the faded Oriental rug. Shirley chomped her gum, said “Uh-huh” a dozen times, and hung up.

  “Your uncle’s called three times, looking for you. That was his clerk now, saying that Amos is going to be charged with second-degree homicide. If that new chief don’t object. Anyway, they’re keeping him there, and he won’t confess, so they’re throwing the book at him. I can’t believe this.”

  Shirley’s eyes were wide in surprise, but more excited than concerned, as if she enjoyed this drama more than the last one, in the hospital room.

  “Did they say I could see him?”

  “Not as such. Oh!” Shirley stood up, lowered her voice to a whisper. “You have a visitor. In your office. I let her sit down in there, since your chair is more comfortable. Been there nearly an hour.” Shirley tried to peer through the milky glass of the door. “She’s just sitting there, like a statue.”

  “Who is it?”

  Shirley shrugged. “Mrs. T. she calls herself.”

  The woman straightened in her chair when Lennox came through the door. Today another stylish outfit, gray suit, with matching hat and gloves. On her face, the strain was apparent.

  “Marilyn. How are you?” Lennox sat behind her desk, laid down her handbag, notebook, and keys.

  “I could be better. I really could.” Her eyes teared.

  “Can I get you something, coffee, water?”

  “No, no, I’m fine. This has just been so hard for me, coming here, and I planned out what I would say, and then you weren’t here and I—” She broke off, stifled a sob with a handkerchief.

  Lennox put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It’s all right now. Has something happened?”

  “Another call. Actually, two. One I found out about later; the children took it. Richard, he’s seven. Always wants to be so important.”

  “From the same woman?”

  “I think so. But I didn’t take it, so I’m not sure.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That she was from the bank and needed to verify our account numbers. If I had answered it, I would have known immediately. But I was out, and the housekeeper lets the children run wild sometimes, I swear.” Marilyn squinted menacingly. “I think that whore was watching the house. She knew I wasn’t home.”

>   “So Richard gave her the numbers.”

  “He thought he was being helpful. He went into Georgie’s desk and got bank statements. I don’t know how he found them. He sat at his father’s desk, talked to the bank as if he were in charge of everything, and told that woman our account numbers!”

  “We don’t know for sure it wasn’t the bank.”

  “Oh yes, we do. Because this morning, the bank called me. Wanted to thank me for stopping in and asked if I’d gotten everything I needed.”

  “And you weren’t at the bank.”

  “Hell no!” she blurted; then her color rose, as if she was flustered that her mask had gone transparent. “Excuse me, I don’t do any banking. That’s Georgie’s job; he’s the man in the family, and he provides very well for us when he’s—”

  When he’s not catting around. Well, yes.

  “They thought this woman at the bank was you. But you never go in, so they don’t know you.”

  “That’s right. I think she wore dark glasses.”

  “Did you get a description?”

  “No, no, I was too upset.”

  “And you bank at—”

  “First Missouri.”

  Lennox went back around her desk and made a note in her notebook. Another description of Iris wouldn’t hurt.

  “What did the bank say she wanted?”

  “That was the curious thing. She wanted only the balances. She didn’t try to forge a check or anything. Just balances on each account.”

  “How many accounts do you and your husband have, Marilyn?”

  Mrs. Terraciano looked up, startled. “I only have the one checking account. That I know of.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve never sat at Georgie’s desk and gone through the statements. Like Richard.”

  “No! I wouldn’t think of it. How Richard knew—”

  Lennox opened the door, asked Shirley to write up a letter for Mrs. Terraciano to sign, authorizing the agency to take a look at her bank accounts. Marilyn frowned a little at this, twisting her gloves between her hands.

  “Is there a problem with that, Marilyn?”

  “No. I mean, I just hope Georgie doesn’t find out. He’s very strict about money. I have to stay within my household budget or he goes through the roof. It’s very generous; it’s not a problem usually.”

  “Usually?” Lennox leaned against the side of the desk. “Have there been problems?”

  “It must have been my mistake, I added or subtracted or something. I’m not very good with numbers—that’s what he says.”

  “Were you in the red?”

  “I didn’t think I would be; I write everything down.” She clenched her fists. Finally, she whispered, “I know I was right. I know it.”

  “How much were you off—or they said you were off?”

  “Two thousand dollars! How could I make a mistake like that? It’s ridiculous. I know, it’s a lot, but, as I told you, he’s very good to us, and it was time to pay tuition at the children’s schools. And then I had to ask the schools to wait. It was so embarrassing. “

  Lennox walked to the window, listening to the typing slow and end. She opened the window higher. The river, just a sliver through the buildings and trees, glittered in the setting sun. The green of the trees seemed too beautiful, too alive. But someday their time would come. She thought about Sylvia, dead, in the morgue. Of her dear old mother, worried sick. Of Amos, sick and in trouble. And Iris, free.

  “Did you find anything out about her?” Marilyn asked.

  “No. Not for sure.”

  Shirley stood in the doorway with the letter, then set it down on the desk for Marilyn to sign. When Shirley had gone, Lennox picked up the letter.

  “This is jake?”

  The woman nodded. “Find out about the two thousand.”

  “And the woman who said she was you?”

  Marilyn put her hands on her face. Her nails were as nice as Iris’s. Lennox squatted down beside her chair.

  “I’ll see what I can find out. It’s possible this woman, whoever she is, is after Georgie’s money, not Georgie.”

  Marilyn dropped her hands, eyes wide, lipstick smeared.

  “We’ll see what floats up.”

  Behind her desk again, Lennox folded the letter into her notebook. Marilyn Terraciano took out a compact, dabbed her lipstick smear, stood up. Lennox walked her out in the hallway, where the drill whined, then down the stairs to the sidewalk.

  The streetcar was disgorging passengers, others shoving to get on. Quitting time at Eighth and Wyandotte, a hot, cranky time of day. Marilyn paused in the bustle, as if she’d forgotten this many people went to work every day.

  Lennox peered at her. “Marilyn?”

  A woman in a turban jostled Marilyn, the two of them doing a queer dance step on the sidewalk. The woman took Marilyn’s arm as if to push her out of the way. Marilyn’s purse landed with a crash, spilling lipsticks and combs and keys onto the Pendergast cement. The woman stepped over the mess and jumped onto the streetcar as it pulled away. The bell clanged.

  Lennox stooped to help retrieve the items. Marilyn tilted on the way back to standing. “You all right?”

  Marilyn stared blankly down the sidewalk. The bruiser with the tilted nose grabbed her arm. “This way, ma’am.” He gently directed her to the waiting black sedan, depositing her in the backseat. He gave Lennox a look as he drove away, as if to say, I wasn’t here. You didn’t see me. Or maybe, Say anything and you’re one sorry Jane. She remembered his laugh and his “Nice try, toots.” Who knew with that fella.

  Shirley stood in the office doorway with a hand on one hip. “What’s all that about, then?”

  Lennox sat at the desk. Marilyn and Georgie: O sweet mystery of marriage.

  “Isn’t that the wife of Georgie Terraciano? Whose girlfriend you were following?” Shirley had on her Irish-mother look. “Are you working both sides of the street?”

  “Pretty crooked street.”

  “I wouldn’t cross that Georgie if I were you. He has a hot temper, hotter even than my Bernie. You remember the Pony Jump.”

  “The what?”

  “Five, six years ago? Ach, you were in university then. Well.” Shirley sat down, warming to her tale. “Some argument between the North Enders and them Pendergast boys. There was always these tugs-o’-war going on, but this one got personal. Of course, Georgie was a staunch North Ender; all the Italians were, wherever they lived.”

  “He lives down in Brookside now.”

  “Their hearts remain in the North End. Georgie was a Lazia man.”

  “The John Lazia who was gunned down over on Armour Boulevard?”

  “The same. Whatever you say about the Italians, they invented loyalty. Course, the Irish ain’t been n’ better.” She rolled her eyes. “Can’t say I wasn’t too glad to quit making excuses for that Boss o’ ours.”

  “You and every God-fearing citizen. So what’s this Pony Jump?”

  “Well. You hear how the redskins used to kill their buffalo, run them off a cliff? They say this Pendergast man had it in for Georgie. He took down some sections of fence where Georgie’s prize racehorses grazed. Then ran them out the gap, over the cliff, into the river.”

  “Not a way to Georgie’s heart.”

  “Ooh no. Word was, he tore up the restaurant he was at when he heard. Threw chairs, broke dishes. Then went and cried over his poor dead ponies.”

  “And then what—to the fella?”

  “Broke his legs. I mean it, broke both the poor man’s legs. He never walked again. In fact, he died last year of some infection.”

  “Never caught, I suppose.”

  “Neither of them. That was the Boss’s way. The police were all bought, so what was the point? No justice in this town. So he let the two of ‘em work it out to their own satisfaction. I hear he let it be known that enough was enough. He didn’t want no gang wars. What do they call it—goin
g to the mattresses?”

  “You know more about it than I do, Shirley.”

  “Aye, I do, child, so don’t be crossing that greaser. I don’t want to see you with your legs broken. And believe me, neither do you.”

  At six that evening, Lennox sat uncomfortably on the slick leather chair in the lawyer’s office. This room was small, no big window overlooking the city, just the staff attorney’s regular mahogany expanse of desk and shelving. The window looked west, at the slaughterhouses and livestock yards stretched along the Bottoms like a Missouri version of hell. But Louie Weston didn’t seem to mind. He fingered the cleft in his chin and smiled at the scene, then back at her.

  “So I’m to report to you now?” she asked.

  “For the time being. We’ll see how we get on, I guess. And how Mr. Haddam’s ordeal plays out.”

  “That’s one way to describe being arrested for murder.”

  “Especially when he didn’t do it,” Louie said.

  “You’re so sure?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I’ve known Amos a long time.” Longer than I’ve known you, Louie Weston. He was playing the toady, and why? What influence did she have? Where were his plaid pants—there was something so toady about golf clothes. Must be the pink shirts.

  The thought of giving him her hard-won information rubbed wrong, very wrong. Especially the fact that Iris Jackson is very much with us, she thought. The moist gleam in his blue eyes, the clear, untroubled brow—had he beat the bricks in search of a dead girl?

  If it had been Vanvleet, she wouldn’t have hesitated. Although she disliked the old man, she found it impossible not to seek his approval. When this was over, she’d experiment with lying to him, see how it felt.

  “So,” Louie said, clapping his hands. The awkwardness after the plane ride was forgotten, at least by him. He glanced at her chest and ankles, licked his lips. Lennox squeezed the arms of the chair. “Since I know nothing about this business, how about you filling me in? You were to follow this Iris Jackson?”

  “At the place where she worked. On Friday, after a week of that, she went to another joint, walked to the Hannibal Bridge and jumped.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “Then they wanted me to check into her background, talk to her friends, her landlady, all that.”