Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  “Now, Mrs. F. Before she dies in your parlor.”

  Joe was digging in his pockets. “I’ll do it.”

  The ambulance took a long time. Dorie rubbed Jenny’s hands and feet to warm her, then had to wash herself. Mrs. F. finally relented and brought a hot-water bottle. It was all Dorie could think of to help Jenny, since reviving Gwendolyn. The old woman was still blue and stiff, barely breathing, when the crew loaded her into the ambulance.

  Dorie and Joe stood on the steps and watched the ambulance pull away.

  “Think she’ll make it? They musta beat her up bad. I saw some bruises.”

  “I don’t know, Joe. She’s old.”

  “Who was that fella, the one with the gun?”

  “Wish I knew.”

  “You talk to your partner about me, about finding Roscoe Sensa’s enemies?”

  She blinked and fixed on Joe, his face a mask of scars. She’d almost forgotten about his accident, but he never would. “Sorry, I haven’t had a chance.”

  “But you will?”

  “Sure, Joe. As soon as I can.” She looked at him. “But remember. No promises.”

  He stepped down a stair, hands in his pockets. “I remember.”

  The door opened. Mrs. Ferazzi, still in pink chenille, held the oily blanket between a finger and thumb.

  “Does this belong to someone, or can I burn it?”

  In her room, the smell of an overripe banana had to be dealt with. Dorie threw it into the bathroom wastebasket and opened a window. The heavy sweetness lingered, finally mixing with smoky city smells and the sirens wailing. The long wait for Jenny’s saviors had been maddening. If the old woman died of shock, or bleeding, or whatever was wrong with her, it would be the fault of those boys in the white pants as sure as it was the attacker’s. Tomorrow she would go to City Hospital and see if Jenny was alive. She rubbed her forehead. She had no great hopes.

  On the edge of her bed, she eased the bottle of gin from behind the nightstand and looked at it. The colorless liquid sloshed— half gone, half left. She stared at it for a long time, then finally got up and poured a short one, recapped the bottle, and stuck it back in its hidey-hole. Mrs. Ferazzi didn’t like drinkers. She was partial to Swedish bachelors, especially if they spoke no English. Also partial, in a negative way, to her own people as boarders, prone as they were in Kansas City to foul deeds and whoop-‘em-up. But to hear her talk, she was proud as all get-out to be Italian, wouldn’t hear a bad word against II Duce, the goose-stepping nincompoop who made Leonardo daVinci roll over in his grave.

  The juniper and its after-bite rolled around her tongue and down her throat. One drink, Mrs. F. Just one. Because tonight a ghost from the past came back to save me.

  Could it really have been Arlette? Dorie heard her voice again in her head, that sassy talk. It had to have been Arlette. But why had she run away? What was she doing in Kansas City? Why had she appointed herself protector? And how could Dorie ever pay her back?

  She shivered, thinking about the yawning door of the sedan, waiting for her. Who did the goon work for? The same one who’d tried to snatch Thalia and tore Tommy apart instead? She stared into the gin for answers but received only a call to pour it down the hatch. Which she answered.

  The last time she’d heard from Arlette, her friend was in Chicago. They’d grown up together. They’d discovered speakeasies and moonshine and men together, too early. The favor Dorie’d done for her when they were both fourteen, a favor that had almost killed Arlette, had bound them together. Even through the years and the miles between them, it was there. Yet Arlette had stood in front of her tonight and she hadn’t recognized her. How could that be?

  Did Arlette think she had to repay her? There had never been a question of that. She’d never blamed Arlette. It had been only six months in Beloit. Six months on the inside, and several lifetimes on the outside. When she’d gotten out, Tillie was gone. Her mother was on her road to destruction. But there had never been a question of owing.

  But what had Arlette written in postcards over the years? Dorie opened the cabinet over the sink and found the stack held together by a rubber band. The crumbling band snapped in half as she pulled it.

  On an Easter card from two years ago: “I think about those days you spent in Beloit for me and sometimes I go to church. A Catholic one near my place, with a Spanish priest. I sit in the back and think about the good things you did for me.”

  A year earlier, more cryptically: “Don’t think I forget.”

  There were other short comments. She stacked them all up, some twenty-five postcards over nearly ten years. Dorie had never replied. Never knew how. Arlette somehow found her, at Beloit, in Atchison, in Kansas City with her aunt and uncle, at the university in Lawrence. And here. She should be a private detective.

  Dorie washed out the glass, dried it, and set it back on the shelf. She replaced the postcards without the band and shut the cupboard. It took so little effort to keep order in her tiny world. And so much to find it out there.

  She lay on her bed. There were so many things she wanted to ask Arlette. Where she’d been, who she’d seen, where she worked, if she was happy, whether she had children. That had always worried her since the botched abortion. Would Arlette be able to have children? Was she married? Dorie smiled, remembering her fierceness on the street. Not likely with that comment about marching down the aisle. She was so strong, so fearless! The way she kicked that gun out of the fella’s hand as if it were candy. The familiar way she handled her own piece.

  Was Arlette a criminal? A thief, a burglar? Or worse, did she do hits for the trouble boys? No. Not Arlette.

  So many questions. Where is Wendy? Who is Barnaby Wake boffing? Who whacked Roscoe Sensa and burned poor Joe? Why is Harvey Talbot so cold? Who beat up a crazy doomsdayer? Who is harassing the Monarchs?

  As she drifted into sleep, the questions jumbled in her head, Wake and Wendy, Sensa and Jenny, Arlette and … She saw Arlette on the sidewalk again, examining the man’s gun, a knowing look on her face.

  A look that said, This will come in handy.

  Chapter TEN

  THE SEASON END PARTY AT the Monarchs owner’s house hadn’t been a festive affair, and Amos Haddam was ready to go by ten o’clock. The owner’s mansion had been cleaned and straightened. One would never know there had been a breakin. Gwendolyn had one cocktail and sat, slightly drunk, in an armchair while he talked to Wilkinson and Gilmore about the threats.

  “I will not be cowed by these bastards. Cowards, that’s all they are. Stinking cowards,” Wilkinson declared. “I have seen this dozens of times over the years, and it’s absolutely ridiculous to think we would take this seriously.”

  The boy, Leroy, dressed tonight in another secondhand outfit of black pants and shoes, white shirt, and an oddly attractive red sweater, turned his head to stare at the owner. His face showed the fear that Amos had seen in his office, but it had deepened now.

  “Absolutely, sir,” Haddam said. “It’s just that it upsets the boys. Some of them.”

  “It upsets me, goddamn it!” Wilkinson pounded his fist into his palm. “This has got to end, this hatred. It has to. God knows, I’m doing everything in my power to bring the races together, to find common ground.”

  Gibson Saunders stepped into their circle. “Beg your pardon, sir, but that is just what makes ‘em crazy. Maybe we should think about canceling the Blues game.”

  “Never! How can you suggest that, Gibson? To give in to idle threats, to this— this hillbilly nonsense! I won’t do it. Let them come and get me. Let them just try to stop the game.”

  Saunders stepped closer to Quincy and Wilkinson. “Some of the boys, you know,” he said in a low voice, glancing back at Leroy and his bunch, “some of them seen some lynchings up way too close. That’s all.”

  Haddam shivered. He’d seen some— too many— during his revenuer days in the South.

  “Dear Lord,” Wilkinson muttered.

  “We don’t have thin
gs like that in Kansas City, Saunders,” Quincy said. “You tell ‘em not to worry. This ain’t the South.”

  Saunders nodded, straightening and taking a breath. “I’ll tell them.”

  “There’s a lot of money riding on the game, Gib,” Quincy Gilmore said. “Not just betting money, either.”

  “We make a good gate at that game, Mr. Saunders,” Wilkinson explained. “Last year’s was the best turnout of the year. We need it to get us through to next season.”

  Saunders demurred. Haddam watched him drift back to a group of players standing in a corner. They looked awkward in their best clothes, their wives and girlfriends nervous in a white man’s fancy house, their big hands wrapped around delicate crystal. Amos felt for them. He didn’t feel much more comfortable.

  Gibson Saunders was wearing a plain but well-cut suit and a fancy bow tie. He was a good-looking man, but he’d brought no woman with him. Well-spoken, too, Amos thought. Not afraid to speak his mind even if it meant getting slapped down by management.

  Amos caught Gwendolyn’s eye and nodded. She frowned as if she didn’t understand. Amos looked at his watch meaningfully. Then Quincy bumped his elbow.

  “Got any money on the game, Haddam?” he whispered.

  “I’m not much of a betting man.”

  Quincy nodded, brushing the sleeves of his jacket compulsively. “Good idea. If you were a betting man, it would be hard to not hedge a little. Monarchs got good odds. Almost too good.”

  Haddam squinted at him, trying to decipher a message, if there was one.

  Quincy smiled. “If you was a betting man.”

  ~~

  “There.” Amos Haddam smoothed the freshly laundered case, plumped up the pillow, and placed it on the clean sheet. “Now you’ll be comfortable.”

  “I was comfortable before,” Gwendolyn said. “But this is quite lovely, Amos.”

  She stood in a tattered dressing gown scattered with yellow roses, her thin ankles blue in the pale light. Amos had spent the afternoon washing the linens in the bathtub, drying them on the line in the yard, pressing them with his sputtery old steam iron. He knew he should be tired, but he was only relieved that he still had it in him to do all that work— and that he hadn’t scorched the fabric. He pulled back the sheet. “All right now, hop in.”

  The nights in the shelters in London had made Gwendolyn easy about her body. All shyness was gone. She pulled off the dressing gown and draped it on the end of the bed. She wore a thin pink slip underneath but made no motions of distress over his seeing her in it. Her body was thin, even bony. Still, he felt a reverence at seeing a woman’s body again. She stepped in and pulled the covers up to her chin.

  “You’ll leave the window open?” she asked, glancing at the street.

  “It may get chilly.”

  “You put the extra blanket on the bed, Amos. I’ll be cozy as a clam.”

  He rubbed his chin. “No screaming?”

  She smiled. “It seems to have left me. The sky is so blue here. So safe.”

  “Yes. Sleep easy.” He thought about his own poor sleep, about the deaths he’d seen here, about the way the past had haunted him. He cleared his throat. “Good night, Gwendolyn.”

  At the door, she called his name.

  “Can you sit here? For a minute or two while I fall asleep?”

  He eased down on the edge of the bed. It was a double bed, though he had rarely had a need for it. So strange to have a woman in his bed. He patted her hand and she grasped his tightly.

  “The dark still bothers me. Just a little.”

  “I’ll stay, love.”

  Her eyes sparkled in the dim light of the bedside lamp. “Do you remember the time you took me fishing? You were so certain you knew the best places to fish, the best type of bait. You had that old bamboo rod, remember that?”

  “It was my father’s when he was a boy.”

  “I don’t remember your father.”

  “Neither do I. Not much.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Nothing. He didn’t come out to the cottage that summer but a weekend or two. He was a bond trader, always working.”

  “I didn’t know bond traders worked weekends.”

  “He didn’t think much of relaxation. He’d been through a few crashes. Lost a few shirts.”

  “Is he— “

  “The last crash killed him. He’d saved enough to safeguard my mother, but the losses for his clients did him in.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I caught a very fat fish, do you remember? A smelly old pike. And you caught nothing.”

  He couldn’t remember, and he wanted to so badly. It seemed he could remember the things that hurt, and none of the other.

  “Lie down here, Amos. Put your head on the pillow. For a moment.”

  He lay on his side, looking into her small, tender face. She drew her hand across his cheek. “Has America been good for you?”

  “Good enough.” He took her hand in his. “Yes, good.”

  “Do you love it? This country?”

  He frowned. “I’ll always be English.” The letter crinkled in the pocket of his jacket. “I heard from my mother. But the letter was written in August. Before her house was bombed.”

  “Poor Amos. You’ll hear again soon.”

  Their talk petered out, their voices tiring. Memory and regret. It wore Amos out, all this trying to remember. He watched Gwendolyn’s eyes close and her breathing slow. He kept her hand in his a long time, its soft palm against his rough one, the tips of her fingers like tiny pillows against his neck. Behind him, the open window let in cold air, chilling his back through his suit. He shivered, watching her sleep, the tiny veins in her eyelids so delicate. He dreaded the day she’d go on to California. Having her here, even with the exhausting nature of memory, brought back a piece of him he had lost, a piece of his Englishness that was good and honorable.

  A piece left behind in a sea of mud.

  Gwendolyn fiddled with the knobs of the wireless, which had recently been installed in the reception area. Shirley had come in early to type up some letters and found the office of Sugar Moon Investigations full of music. She and Gwen laughed. Their happy voices came through the doorway into Amos’s office, where he sat rubbing his tired eyes. Lennox sat across from him, her hair freshly done, the blond streaks arranged in clips, a turquoise sweater tight on her not-so-ample chest. She looked a little wide-eyed at the commotion and had even given Gwendolyn a grilling about sleeping arrangements— which Amos found amusing.

  On the wireless, Ella Fitzgerald was trying to convince listeners that “A Chicken Ain’t Nothin’ But a Bird.” Gwendolyn’s laughter cut into the song, and abruptly it was gone. Dorie started to say something but closed her mouth, overpowered by the annoying static.

  “Pick something, Gwendolyn, would you, ducks?” Amos called. “And lower it a touch?”

  The static crackled madly between snatches of news programs, studio applause, game-show numbers. The dial fixed on a sonorous voice. A preacher. He was going on about the “yellow peril” and “the enemy within: Jews, Catholics, Negroes.” Drivel that sat sourly in the morning stomach.

  “Not Father Coughlin, Gwen. Please,” Dorie called over her shoulder. She turned to Amos. “He’s trying to start a war inside this country.”

  Amos cocked his head, frowning as the dial moved again. Finally, Ella came back. “What of last night?”

  She told him about Old Jenny, the man with the gun, the mysterious protector. “I think I was set up by Wake. He sent Thalia home early so he could send goons around.”

  “Only one.”

  “I’m not very dangerous. Everyone knows I don’t have my switchblade.” The Star had reported all the details, if anyone cared to read the back pages. Dorie squinted her eyes, then looked at the ceiling with an odd, dreamy look, as if something nice had come out of being shaken down and almost taken for a ride. “I did get Wake’s goat last
night. He tried to throw me out.”

  “Got angry, did he?”

  “Threatened to call the law.” She had a malicious twinkle in her eye. “That choir isn’t half-bad.”

  “Glad you enjoyed it, since you’ll be hearing a lot of them.”

  Haddam had other things to do tonight. Like take Gwendolyn out for apple pie. He felt guilty about it, but not as much as he should have. “First, we go visit the Commander.”

  “Again?”

  “Every day now.” He opened the door for her. “She’s fading fast. It won’t be long.”

  A half hour later, they were arranged around the large four-poster bed, the shrinking world of Eveline Hines. Her bedding looks even cleaner than mine, Amos thought, wondering what sort of massive laundering machinery was necessary for this household. Odd little thoughts, domestic details, came at him.

  What sort of bleach does she use? This morning, he had made a note to buy butter for toast and cream for tea.

  Eveline looked no worse than on the last visit, nor better. She rested her head against the tower of pillows at her back. The top pillowcase was embroidered and laced on the edges, a beautiful old piece. My mum would love that case. Amos shook his head, annoyed by his wanderings.

  They said good morning. Dorie looked rested and fresh in the bright sweater. The silver beads on one shoulder caught the sunlight. Eveline rallied as she blinked at the reflection.

  “Goodness, Miss Lennox. Don’t you look chipper this morning.”

  “As do you, Mrs. Hines. I hope you had a good night.”

  Eveline closed her eyes. “Could someone get me some water?”

  Dorie did the honors, pouring a small glass of water and holding it to the sick woman’s lips. Haddam felt useless. He had left Gwendolyn with Shirley at the office, and he missed her. Absurd, missing the fawning attention of a half-wit. Ah, but one English half-wit was as good as most full-witted Americans. He smiled to himself. How ridiculous he was.

  “Appears one of us had a good night,” Dorie said, catching Amos’s eye. “Thalia came home about ten. I waited an hour here, but she didn’t leave again, so I went home.”