Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  “Often? No.” Dorie felt a chill suddenly as the yaw of the midnight blue sedan swam back through her head, the open door to all sorts of possible nastiness. “The blade is good to have when it happens, though.”

  “For protection.”

  “It gives them second thoughts.”

  “Against a gun even?”

  The gun from last night, tucked safely inside Arlette’s jacket— had that been Arlette? Dorie had begun to doubt now, to look at the possibilities, the coincidence. Who else could it have been? How could she find this woman who had appointed herself protector? She squirmed on the chair, willing the seconds to pass. She had to find Wendy Hines first.

  “Miss Lennox? Do you find the switchblade adequate protection against a gun?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why bother?”

  “You’re absolutely right. I should have a gun.” She smiled mischievously. “What a brilliant idea.”

  The widow’s eyes darted to the clock. “Our time’s up, Miss Lennox. Try to stay out trouble.”

  “It’ll be my pleasure, Mrs. Vunnell. My complete pleasure.”

  To call the main building of the Shawnee Fields Country Club a “clubhouse” was technically correct. The rambling cream stucco building, with its red tile roof, green shutters, and curving ironwork, could have pinch-hit as a summer palace for Mussolini or a small cottage for Douglas Fairbanks.

  Dorie stepped inside and listened to the tapping of spiked shoes on the slate floor, so like that musical goose-step in the newsreels. A golden light shone in squares through windows that overlooked the lush greens dotted with yellow sycamores and red oaks. Then the sound of tinkling glassware and laughter drew her toward the barroom.

  As soon as she stepped into the doorway to look for Julian Hines, a man jumped to his feet, waving his arms.

  “Stop! Against the rules. No women allowed.” His red face made her step back, frowning. The official shagger for the manly domain.

  “Is Julian Hines in there?”

  The man had ceased paying attention to her, but he blocked the doorway, his chunky arms crossed. He laughed with a group of men at a table nearby. He looked surprised she was still there. Dorie repeated her question, louder this time.

  “Hines? He’s not a member, is he?” Some of the gents tippling nearby asserted that he was. One turned to her, an older man dressed in baggy knickers.

  “Finished his game awhile back. Try the putting greens.”

  A friendly caddy pointed her toward the putting greens, around the west wing of the building and down a short hill. Four egg-shaped greens were manicured to perfection and sunk with several holes apiece. They were quiet in midafternoon. Three men bent over their sticks and eyed the trajectory over the grass. One of them was Julian Hines.

  The mild weather, autumn sunshine warming the fields and fairways, had enticed Julian into a pair of royal blue knickers and matching blue-and-white-checked short-sleeved shirt. His high socks were white, his footwear brown-and-white saddle shoes. His hair fell forward over his glasses as he concentrated on his putter. Dorie stood quietly at the edge of the green, wondering how long it would take for him to notice her. After several more balls knocked toward but not into the hole, Julian straightened and walked toward a wire bucket of balls on the far side of the green. He looked up at the man at the next green. The other man nodded toward her.

  Hines brought his bucket of balls to greet her. “Is it the Commander?”

  “No. She’s fine. As far as I know.”

  “She’ll never be fine again.” Julian surprised her with at least a smidgeon of feeling for the old lady. “What brings you out here, then?”

  “We need to find Wendy before the Commander … before it’s too late. Mr. Haddam has given me the beef. That is what you want, right?”

  Julian was fiddling with the golf balls. He set the bucket down. He struck a nonchalant pose, perhaps remembering his screeching monkey routine in the front hall. “Search away.”

  “I need to know some of her haunts. Where she went, who her friends are.”

  “She didn’t have many friends. She wasn’t shy; it was just hard for her. She had strong opinions.” Julian rubbed his chin. He looked tanned and fit from a day on the links. She guessed work wasn’t an option, just which golf course. “Harriet Fox. She lives down the block. Um. Agnes Marchand.”

  “Agnes Marchand was her friend? The one you heard the rumor about?”

  “The same.” Julian looked unconcerned. “Agnes is a great gal. And her husband is a real ass.”

  “Any restaurants she liked, clubs, women’s groups?”

  “She played bridge with a group from Grace Episcopal. I don’t know their names. We ate at the Muehlebach once in awhile. Don’t think they’d know us there particularly.” His eyes cut sideways. “I told you. We weren’t together much the last six months.”

  She blinked into the breeze that blew up from the creek, full of moldy odors. An omen for the question. “Did she have a boyfriend?”

  Julian bobbled the golf ball in his hand, dropping it onto his foot. “Ah— no.” He took a deep breath. “Not that I know of.”

  “But it’s possible?”

  “Anything’s possible, Miss Lennox.” He squinted at her. “You think she ran away with somebody?”

  “You got any ideas? Men she fancied, a friend?”

  “She isn’t like that. You don’t know her. She isn’t a flirt. She’s very serious-minded. She was in charge of all kinds of civic and charity work. Ask the Commander. She’d do anything Eveline wanted— all the causes, the righteous indignation, the flaming letters to the newspaper. Like she was Eveline’s right arm.”

  “Didn’t that make Mildred jealous?”

  Julian smirked. “Sure, Mildred did away with Wendy. That’s a brilliant theory. Oh, you’re kidding, aren’t you? Come to think, Mildred might know something. They were close.”

  He picked up the bucket and held it awkwardly to his chest. Such a puppy dog, Dorie thought. Wendy must have felt sorry for him, if nothing else.

  “Is that it?” he barked. “Because I’m due inside for a martini.”

  What was it about piecing together a life from a few scraps, the inadequate and foggy memories of the nearest and dearest, the petty barbs and long-held grievances, the woeful lack of giving a flying damn. It made her tired. She spent the rest of the balmy afternoon, what precious little was left after the drive back to the city, trying to track down Harriet Fox and the bridge club ladies from Grace Episcopal. The third woman in the club depressed Dorie the most. How hurt she was— how incensed!— that Wendy hadn’t arranged her own substitute for the game. They were left with an odd number for cards. And after all, she had made baked Alaska.

  Harriet Fox proved elusive. Her mother, at a rambling, porch-fortified joint down the street from the Hines mansion, reported indignantly that the young woman had moved out of the house. She gave out a telephone number but was suspicious enough that she wouldn’t provide an address for Miss Fox, age twenty-seven but still coddled. The telephone at Harriet’s rang a lot, but no one answered.

  Dorie would check the reverse directory tomorrow in the office. But tonight, she went back to the boardinghouse and ate dinner with the gals and bachelors, with Mrs. Ferazzi, with her elaborate hair and flowered apron, with her son Tony, sporting a scrawny new mustache, with the prim old maids and shop girls who made up her life.

  What would they say about her if she disappeared? She knew it wouldn’t be much. A shadow, they might call her, a strange and private person. Never knew her, they would say.

  Dorie looked at them around the table, trying to summon the strength to speak, to ask them about their day, their jobs, their loves. But the plates were cleared, pudding brought in by Frankie, and they ate and left, in ones and twos, off to live their solitary lives. She sat alone, wishing she had spoken, wishing she could do something for them, touch them, let them know they mattered, that everyone mattered. Why couldn�
��t she? It was so little, just a small moment that could have been so much more. And yet, it had passed unnoticed.

  “Somebody to see you, Miss Dorie.”

  She turned in her dining chair, to see Poppy holding a bowl, drying it, and bobbing her head toward the front hall. Just inside the door stood Joe, hat in hand.

  With a sigh, she rose. Her legs felt heavy as she moved toward the hall. Joe had cleaned himself up; his hands were as grease free as she’d ever seen them. He wore clean blue pants and a starched white shirt.

  “How are you, Joe?”

  “I’m going to the hospital to see Jenny. Do you wanna come?”

  The ward for the poor at City Hospital was a large room with a long line of white-sheeted beds, a little dying sun coming through high windows facing west. The dusty panes defused the light, turning what should have been another depressing moment into a momentary slice of orangey heaven scented with disinfectant. She stood with Joe Czmanski at the nurses’ station as he tried to describe Jenny to the nurse. Dorie watched the dust motes in the stream of color, high above the misery.

  “Jenny. Old lady.” Joe looked at Dorie. “You know her last name?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, we’ve got several older women here. Twice as many men. Young ones, too— sometimes they fool you on their ages,” the nurse said, standing. She was close to fifty, pretty still with her chestnut hair. She had a plaster cast on one wrist. “Better come take a look.”

  “She came in last night, late.”

  “I’ve been off for a week,” the nurse said, holding up her cast. “I slipped on a wet floor.”

  They had to look at each ravaged face, bandaged, twisted with pain, sagging with age, decrepit, with rotting teeth and clouded eyes. This is what happens. This is where we’re all headed, Dorie thought, shuffling slowly, looking ahead of Joe and the nurse, eyeing the other side’s beds, hoping to spot Jenny. There, that hair, three beds down. She trotted to the bed.

  “Over here,” she called in a loud whisper.

  The nurse picked up the clipboard hanging on the end of the bed, balancing it on her cast. She frowned as she read. Joe stood at the side of the bed and picked up Jenny’s limp hand.

  The old woman had seen better days. One side of Jenny’s face was discolored and swollen. One eye was puffy and red. Both were closed now and she appeared to be resting. The hand Joe wasn’t holding was streaked with blue bruises that continued up her arm, inside the stiff hospital gown.

  The nurse set the clipboard back on the hook and walked around to Jenny’s side, touching her head gingerly. Dorie stepped closer, seeing the goose-egg bump and bruise on the old woman’s scalp.

  “Did she wake up?”

  “No. They think she has internal injuries. Did she take a beating?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Joe spread her hand out again on the sheet. “Will she wake up?”

  The nurse’s face softened. “Time will tell.”

  “How long will you keep her?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  Back in Joe’s car, they were quiet on the drive to Charlotte Street. As he pulled the car into his garage and turned it off, Joe made an odd squeak. Dorie turned and saw that his shoulders were shaking, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

  She waited. Finally, his sobbing ebbed. He gulped for air and wiped his face with the back of his hand.

  “Sorry, I— ” He stopped, put his hand on the door. He let out a moan.

  “It’s okay, Joe. She’s old and off her nut. But we’ll miss her around here.”

  “I should have helped. I saw that man talking to her,” Joe said. He made a fist and hit the steering wheel, not hard but angry. “Then I heard you shouting. I just hid inside. I saw the gun and I didn’t do anything.”

  “No sense both of us getting shot.”

  “I’m yellow. Ever since Sensa’s car blew up— no, before. I’ve always been yellow.”

  “I doubt that very much.” She put her hand on his arm. “Besides, I was scared, too. Anybody would be when somebody comes after them with a gun.”

  Joe glanced at her for reassurance. She nodded and let her hand slip away. “I was just lucky last night. And Old Jenny wasn’t.”

  Joe hung his head. “Do you think she’ll die?”

  “We all die, Joe.”

  They got out of the car inside the dim garage. Joe watched her over the roof of the car. Dorie was sure he would ask again about finding Roscoe Sensa’s enemies, the scum who’d burned him. But he didn’t. She said goodbye and walked out into the street, where the streetlights provided watery spots of light in the dark. Pausing, she checked the autos parked along Charlotte Street. The street and sidewalks were deserted. She wondered if Arlette— if it had been Arlette— was still watching her back.

  The night air was cold. Dorie shivered, not just from cold, then walked deliberately across the cobblestones and up the stairs into the boardinghouse, feeling silly in the relief she felt as she locked the door behind her.

  Chapter TWELVE

  AMOS HADDAM KNOCKED ON THE heavy oak door. Built like a little Norman castle, the house had a front door built into a round turret stuck onto the front. Amusing how so many of Kansas City’s houses had recently been built like this. In England, they would be the butt of jokes, the occupants considered martinets full of pompous gas. He glanced back at Gwendolyn in the car. She had one cheek lying on the seat back, her eyes closed.

  The door opened suddenly, creaking on heavy black hinges forged by a smithy, no doubt. A tall, imposing man with a tanned athletic face and a cocktail glass in one hand stood glowering in the doorway. He raised dark eyebrows that matched his thick brilliantined hair.

  “Yes?” His voice was a baritone growl.

  “Sir.” Amos removed his hat. “Mr. Marchand? Amos Haddam, sir.”

  He offered a hand, but the man needed more information. “Do I know you, Haddam?”

  “No.” And you’ll wish it had stayed that way. “I’m sent here on a mission by Mrs. Eveline Hines. It’s a matter of some delicacy. Is Mrs. Marchand at home by chance?”

  Amos had called the house an hour earlier, from the Monarchs offices, and knew that Agnes Marchand was due home by four o’clock. It was now an hour later, cocktail time. Mr. Marchand sipped his while making Amos stand in the chill evening breeze. It had been a long, trying day and a small refreshment wouldn’t have been refused.

  “Eveline? How is the old girl? I’ve been meaning to pop in and see her.”

  “She’d welcome the call, I’m sure. Is Agnes about, then?”

  Marchand suddenly remembered his manners and ushered Haddam through the tiny turret into an overly decorated living room complete with fringed footstools and green tasseled drapes. The pink sofa with its gold cording looked delicious enough to eat. Amos was shown a chair covered with a fabric printed with gigantic rose-colored flowers. Peonies? He didn’t know his flowers anymore. Damn uncomfortable for something so pretty.

  “Drink, Haddam? I’ll get Agnes.” Marchand was now the suave fellow.

  “Whatever you’re having, thanks.” Haddam settled into the hard chair. Anything wet would be welcome. Emotions had been running high at the Monarchs office when he arrived. The fact that he’d brought Talbot along only made them more volatile. Probably a mistake. The reporter was so passionate about the Monarchs, he was beside himself. Amos had been able to calm the nerves a little by telling them he thought the latest threat, a letter sent from somewhere in Kansas City, wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. The sender was a coward, not even signing the letter, trying to scare them— again— into stopping the game on Sunday. If they listened, he won, whoever he was. If they carried on, they won. He advised carrying on.

  “Stiff upper lip and all that?” Talbot had asked as they left the offices.

  “Onward, mate.”

  “You really think it’s all groundless, that there’s no basis for alarm? Because I’ve been hearing this stuff othe
r places, and maybe there’s some group getting riled up. Because of the war, the election, who knows.”

  “What would the Kluxers or some such group gain from threats?”

  “They scare the players. Maybe they play badly. If they play at all.”

  “Do they want publicity, to boost their own candidates? Like that Silver Shirt fellow— what’s his name, Pelley?”

  “Or the Monarchs don’t show up. The game is forfeited. Or only a skeleton crew is there to play the Blues.”

  Haddam and Talbot had run through a few other possibilities, but this one rattled around in Amos’s brain as he waited for his drink and Agnes Marchand. He hoped to have a bit of liquid sucked down before she showed up. He needed the courage. If the husband was present— but of course he would be. He’d be hanging on her arm, and every word.

  The other if was more intriguing: What if the Monarchs had to play on Sunday with a nominal team? No substitutes, no relief pitchers, no pinch hitters. They could still probably beat the Blues, but it would be more difficult. What if somebody had money on the Blues— a lot of money?

  The boy, Leroy Williams, who had found the first note in the locker room, had no doubt infected others with his fears. Quincy Gilmore seemed unflappable, but Mr. Wilkinson was in a cold sweat. Wilkinson probably took plenty of heat at his old-boy clubs as it was, being the white owner of a black baseball team. Not only an owner but an advocate, an enthusiastic drumbeater and all-around booster for colored baseball.

  Gilmore had a plan, he’d said. Amos hadn’t had time to hear more than a few details— a ballplayer, a statement of solidarity to the press. If they have a plan, he thought, more power to them. It was more than he had.

  “Manhattan, how’s that?”

  Marchand had crept up on him on the thick carpeting. He handed Amos a stout glass of reddish liquor with a cherry. These fancy new drinks were unappealing to Haddam, but he wasn’t in the position to refuse. He thanked Marchand as the man brought his wife out from behind him. Introductions were made and the couple settled into the candy pink couch, next to each other but not touching. No holding of hands.