Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  Even the possibility of her own folly thrilled her. Reckless, impulsive, daredevil— she hadn’t been called those for some time, but they lived inside her, under control most of the time. Too bad she didn’t have her switchblade. But the blade was more a talisman than any real help against the trouble boys that roamed the city. The glare of the Widow Vunnell came back to her, chilling the feeling a speck.

  The streetlights shone pools of friendly light, the streets in quiet ripples of cobblestone and asphalt. The wheels of the Packard bumped; the springs bounced. She was off; she had a mission. She was a woman alone, off to save and protect, to know and seek, to work and be strong. She was the future, not some failed promise, some bombast of the past. The world was an oyster and she would find that pearl or die trying. Lennox laughed at herself. She hadn’t felt this free since the day Amos had sprung her from jail.

  But she wasn’t free. By two o’clock in the morning, the balloon of exhilaration was bust, the moment ground down to a fine sand and blown away with a hot breath. What was it that seemed so exciting again? She was tethered to a rich girl and the mission— just a job— was as fascinating as navel gazing.

  Inside the dance hall, a few couples shuffled in a last embrace. The band played wearily. Their trumpeter had fallen off his chair a half hour before and bruised his lip. He sat at the opposite end of the bar with an ice pack on his mouth.

  Thalia and her date swayed to the music. Tonight, her escort was a young puppy who watched her every move with warm, eager eyes. Dorie had been told by a note from the Commander— via the chauffeur— that the man was a college friend of the girl’s. Not a threat, the subtext read. Still, she was to be the old woman’s eyes and ears, to watch sweet Thalia honey for indiscretions and faulty judgment.

  Things had been hopping for a while. Thalia and her date, Lonnie, had taken off their shoes and waded in a fountain. Not just any fountain— the big one with the stone horses down on Main Street by the Country Club Plaza. The one with the lights that showed off the spewing arcs of water all night.

  And what could she do? They hadn’t stripped off their clothes. Thalia had rolled down her stockings right there on the grass, laughing at the top of her lungs. Dorie could do nothing but cringe from the car.

  She drained her coffee mug at the bar and wondered if they’d get a late supper. She could use some food, not that she’d be invited to eat with them. She was stiff from sitting on the stool. Her muscles ached from the workout at the gym two days before. She had the jitters from too much caffeine and was about to signal the bartender for a soda, when the music stopped.

  The bandleader, a scrawny fellow in a baggy green suit, announced they were done for the night. “See you back right here tomorrow night for more swing and more jive!” Dorie slid from her stool, amazed that her legs held her up. Just what she needed, more jive in her life.

  She threw two bucks on the bar and waved at the bartender. Thalia and Lonnie walked arm in arm to the coat check and retrieved their wraps. Thalia laid her head on Lonnie’s shoulder as he directed her out the door. The girl had dressed more square tonight: a high-necked blue-print dress with a Peter Pan collar, a real coat of rich burgundy wool, low-heeled shoes for dancing. Her date wore pleated trousers with suspenders and a loud shirt.

  What was Lonnie studying in college? Dorie missed college sometimes, the idleness, the abstract solitude. What would it be like to be in college now, now that she was older and, hell, maybe even wiser? It was an idle thought she had, watching him dance, overhearing him ask Thalia questions about what books she read, what music she listened to, who would get her vote for president. The girl had let Lonnie down with her answers. She had no time to read books, Thalia told him, laughing. She liked all music, as long as it was jazzy and jivey. And vote?! Dear boy, she had no intention of voting. How common.

  Lonnie got over it. He was kissing her now in the backseat of the green sedan. Thalia discouraged that with a yawn. Dorie slid into the Packard and started the engine. She hoped the yawn meant Thalia was packing it in. But she wasn’t surprised when the sedan veered right at Southwest Trafficway, then headed north toward downtown and away from the Hines mansion. Some of the barbecue places stayed open all night. Still, it was Sunday night.

  Yours is not to wonder why, Dorie told herself, tightening her grip on the steering wheel, keeping close to the sedan. No point in being coy at this hour.

  They wove through the market, not far from where her friends were all asleep in their beds in the boardinghouse. The thought did not help her mood. Glare from headlights behind the Packard flashed off the rearview mirror, hurting her eyes. She tipped the mirror and turned onto Broadway. They were going to the bridge.

  Now what sort of pie could you get in North Kansas City that you couldn’t get here? The Hannibal Bridge took them high over the Missouri River. She chose to keep her eyes on the car’s taillights. The bridge was not a place of fond memories.

  The vehicle behind her switched its lights to high beam. Was he trying to blind her? She slowed, just for spite. Was he trying to make a late plane at the airport? She could see Thalia and Lonnie up ahead, cuddling in the backseat of the green sedan. Dorie flipped on the radio. At the Palladium in Los Angeles, a dance band was playing, but the transmission was scratchy and weak. Still, it was music, and it kept her awake.

  With a roar, the car behind passed on the left. A black coupe was all she saw, one driver, one passenger, both males. The surprise of it delayed her looking until it was too late to see faces. She hit the gas, but the Packard backfired in response.

  The coupe was taking advantage of clear sailing to pass the green sedan, as well. It pulled up even with the sedan. Dorie felt her heart skip a beat. She slammed the gas pedal to the floor. An arm with gun attached came out of the coupe’s window. The chauffeur must have seen it; he swerved, scraped the curb with the tires, then bounced back toward the coupe.

  The shot sounded like a popgun, its flash a puff of orange in the dark. The sedan slowed. Screaming. Another shot. She watched helplessly as a front tire blew out and the sedan went out of control, flopping this way and that. The coupe backed off, let it flop. Dorie gunned the Packard forward, trying to ram the coupe, but it sped up, coming even with the lame sedan. Another shot, for good measure, and the coupe was off, streaking north across the river.

  The sedan jerked to a stop half up on the walkway. She pulled up next to it. Lonnie opened the back door and jumped out, pointing at the fleeing car. Thalia sat screaming in the backseat. Lonnie pulled open the passenger door of the Packard.

  “Go! Go get them!” he yelled, then slammed the door shut. Dorie obeyed, throwing the car into first, her bald tires squealing. By the time she came to the north end of the bridge, the coupe was gone. She gunned it by the airport. Dozens of autos sat in a large parking lot. The coupe could be any one, anywhere. She drove on, slowing at cross streets, then turned around and went through Harlem following along the riverbank. Her heart thumped. Where were they? She drove for ten minutes, then turned around and sped back to the bridge.

  Beside the sedan, on the narrow catwalk along the edge of the bridge, Lonnie held Thalia in his arms. He was stroking her hair. Dorie pulled in front of the sedan and got out, leaving her headlights on. One light was shattered on the sedan.

  She ran up to the couple. Lonnie had struck her as nothing more than a gadabout frat boy, but he now was grim, holding the girl against his chest protectively as she sobbed and shook.

  “Did you find them?” he demanded.

  “Is she hurt?”

  Lonnie cupped Thalia’s head in his hand. “Just scared.”

  Dorie frowned. “Get in my car.” His anger softened, and he led the girl toward the Packard. Thalia could barely walk, and she never stopped crying long enough to look up or speak.

  Lonnie’s words cut like a knife. She hadn’t found them. Had lost the coupe. But she couldn’t worry about that now. There would be another time for blame. Dorie walked around the rear o
f the green sedan. The morning’s waxing still gleamed in the headlight’s glow. The car tilted toward the blown-out front tire. She pulled open the driver’s door.

  She had imagined— hoped— that he had run off. That the handsome tanned chauffeur had simply disappeared in the gunplay, like a coward or any sane person, even cowered on the floor. That the ruined tire had taken the brunt of it, that the heavy steel body of the car had saved them all. A new car, a new tire: Money solves all. Brush hands, move on.

  She sucked in a breath. The gun blast had thrown him sideways on the seat. His face was bloody and torn. Shards of the window lay scattered like diamonds over his navy uniform. His neat cap lay on the seat next to him, holes eaten into its edge.

  He would not be buying a new tire. He would not be brushing hands. He would not be moving on, not in this life.

  Dorie sat on the curb, head in her hands. Around her, lights flashed like heartbeats and policemen scurried about, talking to Lonnie and Thalia, making measurements of skid marks, examining the chauffeur’s lifeless body.

  She had given them everything, but they wouldn’t let her go. Lonnie must have said something to them that made them suspicious. Thalia was hopeless; she could only remember the chauffeur’s first name, Tom. She collapsed, and Lonnie insisted the cops take both of them home. Dorie was hesitant to mention her uncle, police captain Herb Warren. Herb wouldn’t like this. Hell, she didn’t like it one bit. And think how Tom felt.

  They were taking him away now, loading a stretcher into a hearse. Poor sod. If only he hadn’t worked for the Hines family. They were poison. The thought made her sink lower. She worked for the Hines, too.

  The lead detective was heading her way. She stood up, wiped off her seat.

  “Can I go now?” she asked, aware she sounded testy. But it was after four o’clock and the sun would be up soon. Over the river, the sky was already graying in the east. Barges lined the docks, dark hulks against the silvery water. Her hands were numb with cold.

  “Thomas Briggs,” the policeman read from his notebook. “You meet him?”

  “For a sec, tonight. He handed me a note about the girl.”

  The detective was short but not bad-looking, with wavy brown hair and melt-away eyes. He didn’t seem to hate private dicks like most cops. In fact, he gave her more than one quick once-over. A ladies’ man, she figured, pulling her jacket closer. Or maybe he was just checking her pockets for switchblades.

  “Dancing at the Pla`Mor.”

  “That’s right. We just left there.”

  “You were following in your car?”

  “Yes, sir.” He squinted at her, as if he knew why she always called cops “sir.” An old habit, unshakable. She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. Another old habit, eyeballing authority. “You talk to Mrs. Hines yet?”

  “We got that covered. Now, you say you followed this black coupe.”

  “After I stopped and saw that Miss Hines and her date were okay. I went past the airport. Circled back down First Street. Under the ASB ramp. But I never saw them.”

  “Just disappeared?”

  “That’s right. Poof.”

  “Do you own a gun, Miss Lennox?”

  “No, sir.”

  He eyed her for a moment, as if thinking again about checking her pockets.

  “Ever use one?”

  “No.”

  “I see you’re on probation. Stabbed a fella with a blade, did you?”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “That so. I heard about you. They say he called you a name.”

  “And tried to grab me. Can’t a girl defend herself?” She took a breath and felt her temper rise. “What’s this got to do with anything? I didn’t shoot the chauffeur. Didn’t Lonnie tell you what happened?”

  “Done some juvie time, too, huh.”

  “That’s not supposed to show up.”

  “Yeah, okay. We’ll talk again later.”

  “Can I go now?” she called as he turned away. He waved in answer as he walked his cocky walk back to the uniformed men.

  As she put the Packard in reverse and eased around the cop cars, she knew why he was questioning her. She was a known factor, a convicted criminal. And on top of that, the black coupe would never be found. Because she had not seen a license number, or even a face, there was not a snowball’s chance in hell that a single black coupe could be parsed out from the thousands of look-alikes in the city. The cops would rather believe she was lying about the coupe than try to find it.

  She drove down the ramp, back into the wee-hour quiet of the Market. Thalia Hines would be useless as a witness. She probably was kissing Lonnie, or asleep. Or hysterical, under sedation by now, not to mention the protection of one of Kansas City’s top hundred families. But Lonnie had told her to follow the car. He had seen it. Could she count on Lonnie?

  Parking at the end of Charlotte Street, she shoved her cold hands in her pockets and made her way home. Relying on a frat boy. How had it come to that? She unlocked the front door with her key, pushed it open, careful to pull up at the point where the hinges always creaked, and flipped the latch inside. She tiptoed up the worn flowered stair runner to the third floor, wondering if she might get more than an hour or two of sleep. Wondering if sleep would come at all.

  In her small room, furnished with a single cot, a small dresser, night table, and lamp, she eased onto the creaky bed in the dark. The rusty faucet on the sink in the corner was dripping, hitting the porcelain in a dull rhythm.

  Dorie felt numb. She knew she should be reviewing what had happened. She wanted a drink but was too stiff to get the bottle from its hole behind the dresser. She sat still on the bed for a moment, listening for Luther’s piano music, hoping for its reassuring lilt. But it was quiet outside.

  Wiggling under the wool blanket, she closed her eyes. A loud buzz in her head told her to open them again. She obeyed.

  Getting up again, she found the gin bottle and took a mouthful from the neck. Her eyes burned as she put in the cork and stashed the bottle.

  Lies, she thought angrily. Thalia is full of lies. Dorie frowned. Where did that come from? Had Thalia lied to her? Dorie was more likely to lie to herself. What did the rich girl have to lie about?

  She lay down again, holding her sides. The sight of Tommy Briggs lying sideways on the seat made her feel ill. Was Thalia not what she seemed? Was she really sweet and pure inside? Dorie knew about facades, about lies and how they changed you, made you someone you weren’t, even if that wasn’t what you intended. If you told lies about yourself, and they came true, what did that make you? An actor? A confidence man? An evolved human?

  She stared at the ceiling. Was it possible to change who you were? Wasn’t that set in your blood, in who your parents were, in the way you were raised? She pulled up the blanket and tightened her grip on it. She didn’t want to believe that. She wanted to believe in free will, in self-determination, in the lightness of airplanes and the possibility of changing fate.

  But she slept in her clothes again.

  Not long after, dawn crept through the gable window. Before she opened her eyes, a dog signaled daybreak with a series of high-pitched yelps. She lay very still. There. There it was.

  Tillie’s voice, light and sweet. Had she summoned it? It had been months since Tillie had sung to her. Her baby sister, an angel now, had an angel’s voice. She sang a gospel hymn, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and the words stuck to Dorie like kisses. Her voice was tiny, with breaths at awkward places, full of an innocence Dorie would never feel again. Or could she? Could Tillie restore some purity, a clean, unspoiled charm? Was it possible to go back, to erase the mistakes, the pain, the messy pages of living?

  No purity at Verna Lennox’s home. Their mother had scoffed at such antiquated notions, seduced by flapper beads and John Barleycorn, and possessed of moxie enough to do as she pleased. To be the rule-breaker, the sinner, that was Verna’s banner. Purity was old-fashioned. Plain dull and for those without i
maginations.

  Coming for to carry me home. The tiny voice trailed off. Dorie wanted it back, wanted Tillie to prove to their mother something Verna had never understood. But it was too late for that. Now only Dorie could understand. She tried not to hold too tightly to Tillie. The little girl’s spirit was too much inside her, yet so far away. If she grasped at it, it would break into a thousand pieces.

  She stared at the ceiling again. The water stains didn’t speak. They didn’t answer her question.

  Was it crazy to find that your only real friend, the only person you could count on, was a little girl buried high on a grassy hill overlooking a wide river?

  Chapter FIVE

  THE COFFEE WAS RICH AND hot and black. Dorie cradled her china cup under her chin, letting the exotic smell warm her. A big improvement from Mrs. Ferazzi’s watered-down Eight O’clock brand, that was for sure.

  The scene around the Commander’s bed was somber. Many of those present, like Dorie, had gotten only a few hours’ sleep. A few had been rousted out of their beds by coppers in blue, like she had. Amos maybe. Why had he brought the English girl? Gwendolyn sat half behind him, like a shadow. She wore last night’s clothes, too.

  The Commander’s secretary was talking about the Willkie visit. As if the chauffeur hadn’t been gunned down, as if Darling Daughter hadn’t almost bought the farm. Thalia held her coffee cup with both hands, like Dorie. Her matted hair fell over her face. She sat like a child, knees together, heels splayed, wearing green satin pajamas and robe. Sedated maybe. On her feet sat puffs of pink feathers.

  The Commander looked pale and drawn. She sat stiffly in bed, following her secretary’s words, concentrating hard, as if the Willkie visit was her primary reason for hanging on. At the foot of her bed sat the red-faced oaf, Assistant Police Chief Melvin Michaels, and the friendlier mug of Capt. Herb Warren. Dorie kept her eyes away from her uncle’s. She knew that guilt sat plainly on her face.