Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  “Mr. Wilkinson.” Amos turned to see the left fielder Booker McDaniels hit a line drive between second and third plates, then get thrown out at first by an unusually fast arm on the Blues left fielder.

  Gilmore slapped his thigh in disgust. Wilkinson’s frown didn’t change.

  “News on Saunders, Haddam?” the owner asked.

  “No, sir, I’m sorry.”

  “You did your best. I only wish these boys would.” Wilkinson glanced at Gilmore. “You better go down and light a fire under them, Quincy.”

  Gilmore, dressed to the nines as usual, eased his way out toward the dugout.

  “They’ll come back. They always do by the sixth or seventh inning,” Amos said. “Saunders’s murder must have thrown them for a loop.”

  “As it did all of us.” Wilkinson took a deep breath and spread out his hands on his knees. “It’s a game, Amos. That’s all it is. It’s America. Look at that.” He gestured to the field, where the Blues were now heading to the dugout as the Monarchs took the field. “Black and white playing together. Playing a game. What is wrong with that? We’re all Americans. We all love baseball. We all love sitting out here in the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon and cheering our boys, eating our peanuts, watching a game. We’re all the same. Am I wrong, Amos? Tell me.”

  Haddam looked at his dismal face, a face that had seen and heard every angle of colored baseball for the last thirty years. He hoped the reporter was wrong, that nobody on the team was guilty of fixing. Wilkinson was staring at him. He looked away, at the new Monarchs pitcher, Lefty Bryant, warming up on the mound.

  “No, sir,” he said. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Did they win?”

  Dorie pulled the Packard up parallel to the Buick. Amos’s auto was easy to spot, parked with one wheel up on the curb at a creative angle outside the stadium. He was already inside the car, talking to Gwendolyn.

  “Sure did,” he called back.

  “No trouble?”

  “Oh, yes,” Gwen said, excited, “they were batting terribly. Awful. They were behind most of the game; then in the tenth section”— she glanced at Amos— “the ninth inning, a very big man hit a home run!”

  “Joe Greene,” Amos added. “And no, no trouble. Seven to four. Come get a bite with us?”

  Dorie followed them to a diner in Westport that served barbecue all night. They sat in a booth and ordered. She thought the couple looked happy, and sunburned, from the game. But she had other things on her mind. She pulled the photos from her purse. Amos immediately picked up the one of Julian and his wife, Wendy.

  “That’s her?”

  “She’s a bit horse-faced, isn’t she?” Gwen said. “I mean, he’s nice-looking and all.”

  Unfortunately, Gwen was right. Wendy had little in the looks department. She must have brought her family’s wealth to the marriage. In the photograph, taken in a garden, Wendy stood apart from Julian, her hands gripped tightly in front of her. Julian had a lewd half smile on his face, but he wasn’t sending it Wendy’s way. His eyes pointed off to the left, presumably where the maid stood. Or some other young lovely.

  Dorie turned the photograph around for another look. Wendy was plain all right, with straight bangs and perm-waved fringe above her shoulders. Her hair looked perhaps light brown in the black-and-white photo, and her lips were pinched tightly together under a large nose and slanted, sad eyes.

  “I took these down to Fifteenth Street, to that place where the Silver Shirts met.” Dorie fingered the other two photos: Tommy Briggs and Barnaby Wake. Wake’s was a nice publicity shot with his hair waved and shiny. Tommy’s was less good: muddy, tiny, unclear. Mildred had found it among his belongings. Dorie had lurked around the front of the store, where the Italian woman had talked to her before, but it was closed and no one appeared inside. Finally, she’d gone around back.

  “I found these boys playing craps in the alley. Some not so old, but others old enough.”

  “To play craps?” Amos said, wiping his chin.

  “To have their palms greased. Two of them, brothers, live right next to the meeting room. They knew what meeting I was talking about.”

  “They in the group or cell or whatever you call it?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe.” She pointed to Wake. “They knew him. Barnaby’d been around every Saturday night for months. Since the spring. They also were pretty sure they knew Tommy, especially when I described the green sedan. They’re Italian, these brothers, and they know their cars.”

  “What about her?” Amos asked, his eyes flicking to Wendy.

  Dorie couldn’t help a tiny smile. She covered by taking a bite of ribs and chewing vigorously while Haddam fumed. Finally, she wiped her mouth, took a long drink of water to kill the flames, and told him.

  “They saw her. They remember the last meeting because of the commotion.”

  “What commotion?”

  “Gunplay. They heard the gun go off, then shouting, and people scattered. Later, after midnight, they heard footsteps on the stairs and a last car took off, squealing its tires.”

  “And Wendy?”

  “They saw her go in. Not many women at these meetings, just an occasional girlfriend, and she looked strange to them, dressed up and proper. Obviously rich. She looked at the number over the door and then checked something in her hand, the way you do when you first arrive someplace.”

  “And she went upstairs? They saw her.”

  “They saw her go upstairs. And nobody saw Wendy after that night.”

  Haddam set his napkin down gently. He stared at her. “Last sighting,” he said. “Good work.”

  “Last sighting,” Dorie agreed.

  “Good enough for me,” he said.

  “Do you think so?” For the last hour, she had been trying to think of alternative scenarios, that Wendy had run off with somebody, as unlikely as that seemed now.

  They would never know, in all likelihood, what happened at that Silver Shirt meeting. And it rankled her. She liked absolutes, dead positives. But this identification of Wendy at the meeting was probably the most they would get. No one at the meeting would probably tell. She tried to imagine torturing Barnaby Wake, or that storm trooper at the fancy hotel. Wake maybe— he didn’t look unbreakable. But he was the sort who skated away from trouble. His pants might be dragging, hanging off, but he somehow slinked away.

  “Oh, I think so,” Amos said. “One of two things happened. Wendy confronted Wake at the meeting and Tommy saw Wake kill her. Or Tommy, afraid he’d get the can back at the Hines now that Wendy had seen what he was up to, did it himself.”

  “Maybe Tommy shot her for Wake.”

  “Too complicated. They can’t have expected Mrs. Julian Hines to march right into a Silver Shirt fascist meeting. She’s hardly the type. To risk her upper-crust reputation, her society matronliness, on this chauffeur— who would have thought? She surprised them. Tommy could link Wake to both the Silver Shirts and the Hines. He could blackmail Wake into keeping quiet. Or maybe he still had an eye for Thalia honey.”

  “Jealousy?” That sounded cleaner.

  “Unlikely, but stupider reasons, if you need one for murder, have been used. For whatever reason, we can put both Barnaby Wake and Tommy Briggs at that meeting. No doubt they were at the same meeting the night Tommy showed up with Wake to sweep Thalia honey away from the Three Owls. At any rate, Wendy followed Tommy there that night to get some dope on him for Eveline. What a report that would have been. Tommy slips a gasket when she walks in. Starts running or hiding, then figures that won’t work, gets out his gun, or grabs somebody else’s, and starts shooting. It’s a bit too late to pretend you aren’t really a fascist when you’re standing around doing sieg heil in your special uniform.”

  “Then Wake realizes, after he starts getting heavy with Thalia, that Tommy can rat him out to the Hines. Maybe Tommy asks for hush money.”

  “Bingo. No more Tommy.”

  Gwendolyn turned to Amos, frowning. “The chauffeu
r shot her, then?”

  “My best bet,” he said. “But all in the past.” He patted her knee.

  The Englishwoman looked up at Dorie, her pale eyes solemn, a dab of sauce on her chin. “I’m leaving. Going to California to live with my aunt.”

  The glow of putting the puzzle pieces together drained from Amos’s cheeks. He swallowed hard, glanced at Gwendolyn, then at his hands.

  “So soon?” Dorie said, trying to smile. “Stay another week or two. Amos and I would love it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I would, too, but I’m out of money and my aunt is waiting for me. She sent me a ticket.”

  “We’ll miss you, Gwen.” Dorie let the silence yawn for a minute, then changed the subject. “Shall we tell anyone— the cops, Uncle Herb?”

  Amos blinked. “What do we know? What evidence do we have?”

  “I’ve got his shirt.” He stared at her. “Tommy’s silver shirt. I’ve got it.”

  He nodded. “Nice insurance plan, Lennox. Money in the bank.”

  She stood for a moment inside the doors to Union Station. The high ceiling was shadowy and full of echoes, a far cry from the excitement and crowds of the Willkie rally. The floor was buffed and shiny, all the handbills gone. Moonlight trickled in through the big round window. On a wooden bench in the waiting room sat a box of Willkie buttons, abandoned to the whims of nonbelievers. Small groups of travelers clung to carpetbags and relatives.

  It was late, almost midnight, and the sunshine that had warmed the city was long gone. Dorie walked back under the clock to wait. Talbot had said his train was due in at 12:05, but the board by the door to platform four said fifteen minutes later.

  She felt wide awake. She thought again about Amos’s sorry face at the prospect of Gwendolyn catching a train right here, out to California. He was more attached to her than he let on.

  Where, oh where, was Arlette? Not in any hospital. She’d spent the evening canvassing them. She only hoped that quack doctor had kept sober long enough to patch her up. Arlette, such an odd duck. Almost had a death wish, didn’t she? Flirting with darkness, and guns. Dorie considered if she was any different, and decided, not much.

  No meeting with Eveline Hines today. She was still unconscious. Mother Ruth had the doctor coming round twice a day, but she expected no change. When Gwendolyn said quietly, “Looks like her time has come,” no one disagreed.

  Dorie curled into the corner of a wooden bench. The train was late. Thalia Hines had been on her own all day. After last night— futility, danger, gunshots— they had thrown up their hands. She was a big girl, old enough to mess up her life, if that was what she wanted. Amos speculated she had left town with Wake.

  God and the Commander couldn’t stop Thalia. Still, it felt like they were taking advantage of Mrs. Hines’s illness to stop carrying out her orders. It had been their own idea— and Mother Ruth’s— to deliver Thalia home to her mother’s bedside. The burden of unkept promises lay on Dorie’s shoulders as she sat hunched on the hard bench.

  If she were my sister … What would I do? Cut her loose? Try to persuade her? I would talk to her, make her see reality. Who he really is, what he believes.

  But Thalia didn’t have a sister. She isn’t my responsibility.

  Is she?

  The bench was cold. Dorie got up to walk around. A train arrived; passengers came up the stairs from the platform and out the door for platform six. A porter said it was coming up from Memphis. She stuck her head outside the main doors and saw the clumps of passengers readying their baggage, tipping porters, finding cars.

  The Chicago train was late. Finally, at 12:50, it rolled in. The brakes screeched through the floor of the waiting room. She made her way through the door and down the stairs. The lights were very dim next to the passenger cars.

  Talbot climbed down the train car steps, his hat on the back of his head, looking rumpled. There was a jump in his step, and she knew he’d found out something juicy in Chicago. He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a peck on the cheek.

  “You came,” he said.

  “I said I would. I don’t break my promises.” A rush of feeling hit her, as if they were still a couple. “You’re in a good mood. You get what you were looking for?”

  “Oh yes.” He laughed. “You might say that.”

  “Can you link Roscoe Sensa to Gibson Saunders?”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Just watch me.”

  They stepped around a pile of baggage at the end of the platform. Moving up the stairs toward the doors to the terminal, she felt a lightness that came from a place she didn’t get to often. She smelled Harvey’s cinnamon breath near her ear, felt his ribs next to her shoulder, and thought she might do something rash. It was so compelling, it scared her a little, and made her back away.

  Just inside the doors, she stopped, turning to block his path. She put a hand against his chest. “Just wait a second, buster— “

  “Lennox, look. There’s Wake,” he whispered, looking over her head.

  She turned back to the shadowy terminal. “Where?”

  “Getting out of that cab. He’s with a woman.” Talbot grabbed her hand and pulled her behind a cigarette kiosk closed for the night. “Christ, he’s running away with that married woman.”

  Dorie peered around the kiosk. Barnaby Wake was picking up a large suitcase. He wore a hat and overcoat, but he was easily recognized. Next to him stood a slim woman in a black hooded cape, black gloves, with a pile of luggage near her. Wake set his bag down and looked around for a porter.

  “Is that Agnes Marchand?”

  “Who else? All they’ve got left is each other, after her husband ran them up that flagpole.”

  “Unfortunately it could be many women. Including his so-called wife.”

  “He’s married?”

  She moved around to the other side of the kiosk. “Talbot, let’s just walk by and we’ll find out. We’ll never see who it is if we hide back here.”

  He stuck out his elbow gallantly and she took his arm. “You are in some mood,” she whispered as they strode out from the kiosk, making for the front doors of Union Station.

  “You would be, too, if you had perfect hunch-making machinery rattling around in your head.”

  “Maybe you’ll start putting some money on the ponies now. Make a small fortune.”

  “I could. A large fortune.” Wake and his companion were close now. Dorie tore her eyes away from them and smiled up at Talbot.

  “You don’t say, big boy,” she said, batting eyelashes.

  Wake and the woman were walking in the other direction, around a porter’s cart, toward the door to the platform for the Memphis train. Dorie pulled to a stop. “Turn around. Turn,” she hissed quietly at the departing couple.

  “Damn,” Talbot said. “Well, au revoir.”

  “Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.”

  “Look out, Granny.”

  The couple disappeared through the platform door. She stamped her foot. “Who is that woman?”

  “Does it matter? He’s gone. Good riddance.”

  She squinted up at him for a second. “Hell yes, it matters.”

  She ran across the marble floor to the platform door. Inside the baggage room, porters were loading carts onto the elevator to take below to the platform. The trains ran right underneath the terminal’s waiting room, all twelve lines going to the north and south, east and west. She skidded around luggage and hit the stairs. Her knee wrenched on a step and she winced, slowing. She could see the train was still in place.

  The platform was nearly empty, just a single porter handing up luggage into the baggage car.

  “The woman and man— she was wearing a cape with a hood. Which car, do you know?”

  “Cape?” He looked at her quizzically.

  “A cloak. A long, billowy thing. The man had an overcoat and a brown hat.”

  The porter shook his head. She dashed past him along the passenger cars, jumping to see into windows, tappi
ng on the glass. Annoying but effective— story of her life. In the next to last car, she saw Wake’s hat, then his hair, then his profile. Climbing the car’s steps, she went down the aisle. It was a first-class car, with closed compartments. She peered into the window of each one, finding a large family, a single salesman, then Barnaby Wake.

  She tried the door. They had locked it and pulled the shade down, so only a crack let her see the choir director. The woman was still in her cloak, huddled in a corner. Wake had his hand on her knee, talking to her.

  Outside on the platform came the call: “All aboard! All aboard for St. Joe and Chicago! All Aboard!”

  Dorie looked down the aisle at the exit. She should take Talbot home. He was waiting for her. She didn’t know who this dame was, and what’s more, she didn’t care what woman Wake tangled with. Let him wreck marriages; it was out of her hands. For Harriet Fox’s sake, she wanted to throttle him, but that wouldn’t do anybody much good now.

  She looked back at the pair in the compartment. Wake was taking her cloak off now, touching her face, smoothing her hair as he pulled off the hood.

  Thalia. Sweet Thalia honey. Her heart sunk.

  Dorie jumped from the steps to the platform. Talbot stood at the bottom of the platform stairs, a pained but patient look on his face.

  She thrust her car keys in his hand. “It’s Thalia. I have to go.”

  He held her wrist. “Wait.” He dug in a pocket and pulled out a knife, one like hers, with an ivory handle. He slipped it covertly into her palm, rolling her fingers over its handle. “A souvenir from Chicago.”

  The blade felt warm and solid in her hand. She could tell by its weight that it was a fine one. She looked up, expecting his mocking look. But he was serious, his cynical expression gone, as if he’d come to some conclusion in Chicago, had some epiphany. Like he’d accepted who she was, what she did, in a way that she couldn’t even manage for herself.

  He gave a small smile and a wave of his hand. She looked at him for a second to memorize the color of his eyes.

  “Go,” he said.