Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  Inside the church, she turned left, in the direction of the efficient Miss Janes, although she hoped to avoid her today. The corridor was dark and smelled of disinfectant. She paused, wondering which way Wake had gone.

  Muffled voices came from the end of the hall. Treading carefully, she stepped down three steps to a longer stretch of corridor. The sounds seemed to come from one of two closed doors. The first read REVEREND RALPH NOLAN, CHORAL DIRECTOR. The second door’s plaque read simply ASSOCIATE PASTOR.

  As much as she wanted to eavesdrop, the barren hallway was a piss-poor hiding place. She crept a little closer to the choir director’s door. From underneath, a wedge of light spilled onto the hall floor. A man’s voice was low and indistinct. A tapping of heels sounded across a floor, then softened. Another voice, hissing with tension.

  “You need me. You know you do.”

  The other man’s voice was soft in reply.

  “The hell you say. You know who’s singing for me?” There was more, but the volume left his voice.

  Dorie backtracked to the lobby. Churches, in the middle of a weekday afternoon, were dull places. She didn’t want to attract the attention of Miss Janes. Another moment of serenity in the nave didn’t appeal. She picked up a pledge card and tried to work up enthusiasm for tithing. Less than a minute passed before the footsteps came up the hallway toward the lobby.

  She turned in time to see Wake exit the hallway and head for the door to the street. She caught up with him outside.

  “Mr. Wake. Barnaby Wake?”

  He turned smoothly on his heel at the top of the steps. Distress cluttered his handsome face, but he smoothed it quickly into a pleasant smile. He tipped his finely coiffed head in greeting.

  “Mr. Wake, my name is Doria Lennox. I’m working for Eveline Hines. This concerns her daughter, Thalia.”

  He smoothed his double-breasted gray suit jacket, tucking in his maroon tie. A tightening around his eyes told her he wouldn’t make this easy.

  “There has been an attempt on Thalia’s life.” Excellent icebreaker.

  “Dear Lord.” Concern now crossed his brow. It had an automatic quality. “Is she all right?”

  “Yes, she’s fine.”

  “What happened?” He put a hand on his forehead. “No, don’t tell me. Not here.” He looked down the street. “I have to sit down to hear this. Come. Have a cup of coffee and tell me about it.”

  Inside the coffee shop on the corner, the waitress slicked back mousy hair and moistened pouty lips at the sight of Barnaby Wake. She ignored Dorie as she poured coffee into china mugs.

  “I have your favorite pie today, Barnaby,” the waitress said. “Pecan.”

  “Not today, Josie, but thanks, honey.” He gave her a wink. He was the kind of man who gave winks and received promises in glances. Dorie felt her nostrils flare, and she huddled protectively over her coffee.

  As Josie walked away, he watched her backside for a moment too long. Dorie kept sipping the overcooked coffee. Wake fingered his cup.

  “What happened to Thalia? Is she in the hospital?”

  “She wasn’t hurt. Just scared. Her chauffeur was killed. There was a shooting.”

  “Lord have mercy. The chauffeur was shot?”

  “The car almost went off the bridge. But the cops think it might have been a kidnapping attempt.”

  His reaction was subdued on hearing this information. He put both hands around the warm mug and stared, frowning, into the coffee as if it would offer him a lie to tell.

  Then his mood calmed and he smiled in a businesslike way. “Thalia is rich. She’s lucky that way. She should be careful. I’m glad you’re watching out for her, Miss— Lennox, is it?”

  She cocked her head at him. “What’s your relationship with Thalia?”

  “She sings for me in the Hallelujah Chorus. I assume you know as much, since you found me at Plaza Methodist.” He raised his mug to his lips.

  “She has a nice voice?”

  “Lovely. She needs a little extra coaching to reach the high notes, but she’s improving.”

  Ah, voice lessons. That’s what she was doing at his house. “Just voice coach and singer?”

  Wake smiled again, wrinkling the skin around his eyes. “I’m a married man, Miss Lennox. Some of the women in the chorus have other ideas, but I have a reputation to uphold in the community.”

  “Oh, you’re married.” She let her eyes drift to his left hand. Bare of jewelry.

  “My wife isn’t well. She is in Arizona for her health.”

  “Asthma?” Dorie suggested, being a helpful creature.

  “Why, yes.” Wake’s face opened in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. You must miss her. And the children?”

  “No children,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “Well, living apart and all.” She smiled, and he nodded, as if grateful for her understanding. And understand she did. “You came here from Arizona, then?”

  “The East. Didn’t like it much. Too many immigrants. Kansas City is more to my liking. You can live here with your own kind.”

  She’d heard this litany enough to know not to argue. “Do you own a car, Mr. Wake?”

  “A car?”

  “An automobile? You know, a boiler?”

  “No, I don’t.” He frowned into his coffee again. “What’s this about?”

  “I was sent to check on all Thalia’s acquaintances. To see what kind of cars they drove. After last night.”

  “She saw the car— with the shooter?”

  “I saw it.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “A black coupe. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the plate number. So we’re looking all over the city for a black coupe.”

  “Sounds like a big job.”

  She pushed away the coffee. “But you’ve got no coupe, black or otherwise?”

  “To tell the truth, I haven’t had time to get a new driver’s license since I moved here. Too busy.” Wake stood up with her and rebuttoned his jacket. He wasn’t tall, almost eye-to-eye with her, compact though, like he was fit. “So I’m in the clear?”

  She tried to smile. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  He held out his hand suddenly, and she shook it. He held her hand with both of his, so sincerely. “Please come hear the chorus. You’ll love it. We’re singing Saturday afternoon for the arrival of the Willkie train. At Union Station.”

  “I’ll try.” She extracted her paw with some difficulty. “Swell meeting you, Mr. Wake.”

  “Very nice meeting you, Miss Lennox.” He beamed at her, then had a thought. “Will Thalia be at practice tomorrow?”

  “I can’t say.” Halfway to the door, she turned back. Wake was still at the table, looking through a pile of coins on his palm.

  “Mr. Wake,” she said, startling him. He dropped the pennies and dimes, then laughed at himself.

  “The news must have rattled me more than I thought,” he said, using what he probably considered his vulnerable look. The man had a future in vaudeville.

  She folded her arms. “You knew the deceased, didn’t you?” He looked blank. “The chauffeur, Tommy Briggs. You knew him.”

  “Well, I …” Wake laughed uneasily. “Yes. I mean, he drove me and Thalia once, maybe twice.” He stepped closer to her, so close she smelled the aftershave on his closely shorn cheeks, a musky blend. “I was hesitant to say anything, you see, Miss Lennox, because of my wife. It’s rather delicate, as I’m sure you appreciate.”

  “I appreciate,” she whispered. “But you did know him.”

  Wake frowned, disappointed with her lack of conspiracy. “We spoke, if that’s what you mean. He and Thalia did most of the talking, but I gave him directions.”

  “On Saturday night? You gave him directions to your house?”

  His head jerked up and he looked her straight in the eye. It wasn’t a friendly look. She bit down on her molars and held it until he looked away. “You aren’t the only one concerned abou
t Thalia, Mr. Wake,” she said. “Her mother has us watching her. And that goes for all her dates, formal or informal.” She patted his arm. “Word to the wise.”

  As she looked back through the window from the street, she saw him talking to the waitress. Difficult so far from one’s wife.

  In the car, she looked at the time. Five o’clock already. Dorie felt beat. The conversation with Barnaby Wake had been a temporary thrill. She loved goading slick boys like Wake a little too much. She shouldn’t let her mouth run off. Still, he had admitted being with Thalia; at least he wasn’t a fool. But what did that prove?

  She drove north to the Market and pulled the Packard into the alley behind the boardinghouse. Frankie was out in the garden at her mother’s boardinghouse, across the alley from Mrs. Ferazzi’s. They had a beautiful garden full of vegetables— tomatoes, greens, corn, beets, potatoes, they grew it all. And in October, too. Frankie had a basket of ripe tomatoes at her feet.

  “Hey, Frankie. Got a tomato for a poor white girl?”

  Frankie’s dark head popped up over the heavy yellowing vines. She grinned and reached into her basket, depositing a fat red tomato into Dorie’s grateful hand.

  “It’s too bad Mrs. F. lets her land go to weeds like that,” Frankie said. They both frowned at the dead stalks in the other backyard. The thistle had been particularly healthy in August.

  She felt the warm roundness of the tomato, then sunk her teeth in it, the sweet juice running down her chin. Her mouth full, humming, she patted Frankie’s arm in thanks and walked through the gate into the weeds. The stalks scraped against her trousers as she rounded the side yard to the front of the house. She sat on the front steps to finish the tomato, feeling the long day and night in her tired bones.

  The sun had disappeared behind the buildings. The air was cool, but still as if rewarding you for surviving summer. She popped the last of the tomato into her mouth, tossed the stem joint into Mrs. Ferazzi’s Art Nouveau garden, a fascinating patch of dirt dotted with trash. She closed her eyes. There was nothing like a ripe tomato— it was its own thing, full of life, warmth, sunshine, and summer evenings. To savor one in October was stealing time.

  “Dorie?”

  She opened her eyes, wiping a drip from her chin. Joe Czmanski stood by the stoop’s low wall. “Hiya, Joe.”

  “I gotta talk to you. You got a minute?”

  She remembered Betty’s theory. Would he propose to her right here on the street? She stood up. “It’s almost suppertime. Maybe later?”

  “It’s important. Please?” His voice was hushed and anxious. Joe had been badly burned in the engine explosion several years before. His hair was mostly gone, and the odd tufts that remained, he kept neatly cut. His face was scarred and stretched. It was hard to look at him without feeling the suffering of those burns.

  She took a breath. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “Some things’ve happened. Odd things, ya know?” He eyed her. “You wouldn’t know because I didn’t tell you, but take my word, odd things. And I think they’re related to the fire, ya know? The one that done all this.” His hand, also scarred, fluttered around his face.

  She moved to lean against the other wall, the weariness settling into her legs. She let out the breath. At least it wasn’t a proposal. “What kinda things?”

  “Fellas comin’ round. Askin’ questions. I don’t like it.”

  “Did you tell the cops?”

  His lips sputtered derisively. “Oh, sure. Like they care.”

  “So what can I do, Joe?”

  He stepped closer. “Here’s the thing. I think I know who’s to blame for the fire. I had a lotta time to think about it. But I can’t prove it.”

  “Who do you think did it?”

  Joe looked up and down the street nervously. “It wasn’t meant for me,” he whispered. “It was for Roscoe Sensa.”

  “The bookie? Well, it was his car that blew up.”

  Joe was getting excited, too excited. It was obvious the bomb was meant for Sensa. Everyone knew that. Joe was just a mechanic who got in the way. She raised her eyebrows for him to continue. She was hungry again.

  “So we find Sensa’s enemies. Some other bookies. Somebody he owed money to. Who wanted him dead? The cops never looked at it; they was all crooked then. And then, ya know, Roscoe himself got popped.”

  “He did?”

  “Last month. Right before these fellas start comin’ around.”

  “What did these fellas want?”

  “Stuff about Roscoe. Like I even knowed him. I just worked on his heap.” He leaned in. “So you’ll check it out?”

  “I don’t know, Joe. That’s a big number.”

  “But you’ll do it, won’t you?” With his burns and scars, it was hard for Joe to show emotion through his expressions, but his voice still worked fine.

  “I’ll talk to my boss, okay?” She turned to go up the stairs. “No promises.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Thank you, Dorie. I knew you’d do it. I knew you would.” He squeezed her hand, let it go, and skipped across the street to his garage. She watched him sadly. Snowball’s chance she was taking on Roscoe Sensa’s droppers.

  At supper, Poppy served sliced tomatoes, cold chicken, and white bread. Betty and her new friend Carol whispered behind their hands. The bachelors smeared butter on their bread like it’d been years. On the crystal set, Jack Armstrong’s coach took him aside for a word about manly sportsmanship.

  In her room in the rafters, Dorie tried to remember if Tillie had liked tomatoes. The tiny things, so ordinary, were so hard to remember. She put a record on the old Victrola, one of her father’s old ones with a bad scratch in the second song. She placed the needle on the third song and got back in bed. The slow blue voice of Jelly Roll was tinny but rich: “Tell me baby what you got on your mind.” This part always made her smile. “I’ll be your wiggler till your wobbler comes.” Tillie used to laugh and laugh at that.

  She would never be lonely. Not as long as she could still hear Tillie’s laugh. Her little sister was six when Dorie had been labeled a delinquent and sent to Beloit. Tillie was only six and a half when she played with the matches that caught the rug on fire. The burns might have left her like Joe, except they didn’t; they killed her. Dorie should have been there, but she wasn’t; she was busy inside the friendly fences of Beloit, learning the finer points of switchblades. Tillie’s death, and the guilt, drove their mother to drink. And drink led her to her own accidental end in a car. One mistake after another, that was the Lennox curse.

  Her body felt like lead. She was so tired. She closed her eyes and saw the car on the bridge again, remembered opening the door, the chauffeur’s body. A ripple of pain passed through her, the fear of death and the finality of that bullet.

  The pain settled in her chest, so that she could hardly breathe. She tried to listen for Tillie’s laugh, for Jelly Roll’s saucy lilt. They were gone, blown away by the real sounds. The screech of tires, the thud of gunfire— these were the sounds of her life.

  She was in a deep, restful place when the pounding came. She rolled over and hollered at whoever it was to go away.

  “Phone call, Miss Dorie Lennox!”

  Pushing herself upright, she went over and opened the door. The new girl, Carol, stood there with her lipstick smeared and a run in her stocking.

  “What time is it?”

  “How the hell should I know.” Carol turned to the stairs. “Get your phone call, missy. Sounded important.”

  Dorie went back for her wristwatch and a sweater to cover her nightclothes. Twelve-thirty. She worried the time down to the second-floor landing, where the receiver dangled for her. “Yes?”

  “Lennox!”

  It was Haddam. “What?”

  “Lennox, there’s been a breakin. They’ve really bashed things around. I’m down here with Quincy, seeing if we can figure anything out before the cops descend.”

  “Where?”

  “At Mr. Wilkinson’s. It’s a fine mess
, it is.”

  “The Monarchs’ owner? I don’t understand.”

  “They’re the new client. Some threats— now this.”

  A scuffling noise and muffled conversation stifled her next question. What had happened? It must have been more than a simple burglary. Finally, Amos came back on the line. “Still there, lass? Guess who showed up with the coppers? Your old swain.”

  Louis Weston? She hoped not. She hoped never to see her old Atchison pal again. He’d caused her enough trouble. “Who?”

  “The newsman. He’s snooping around. Chessie cat grin on his mug.”

  “Talbot?”

  “That’s the one. Look, Lennox. I need you to go over and see to Gwendolyn. I ran out of there in a hurry, and she was mumbling and carrying on. Wanted me to take her. My blooming shadow, poor girl.”

  “You want me to check on her?”

  “Would you, ducks? Buy you another spot of tea. You weren’t taking a kip now, were ya?”

  “I was wide-awake. Shall I stay until you get back?”

  He explained it might be necessary to stay. Gwendolyn had spells. Dorie remembered Gwen’s explanation as she dressed and drove the fifteen blocks to Amos’s brick apartment building. Lights were on in the living room. There was an eerie silence as she pushed open the door.

  The woman was nowhere to be seen. Dorie called her name. Under the bed: the last place a claustrophobic would hide. She opened the closet, then checked the backyard, alley, bushes. Gwendolyn had disappeared.

  Dorie stood in the middle of the living room floor, hands on her hips, trying to work out her next move. Screaming erupted, a banshee wail, high-pitched but muffled. She went to the bedroom door. The screams stopped. She walked to the kitchen, opened the little pantry closet. Another screech cut through the air.

  The upstairs neighbor began beating on his floor. “Stop that racket,” he hollered. “Stop it now or I’m calling the cops.”

  “Hold on to your shorts,” she called through the ceiling. Another scream. From the bedroom?

  She looked around the room, its bed and dresser and lamp stand. A picture of a country house in a lush meadow with grazing sheep hung over the bed.