Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  “That’s right. And stay in your office until the police come. That’s an order.”

  The secretary turned and walked toward her office, rounding the corner without a backward glance. Dorie went upstairs and began opening doors. She found the maid she’d seen frolicking in the garden, sitting now on a bed. The cupcake hat bounced on her head, face in her hands. Horrible noises came from her. What was her name?

  “Beulah! Get up. There you go. Stop crying. Here, use this. Does Thalia have another suitcase? We need it, now. Yes, now. Start with her dresses. Put in three. Any three… . Yes, green is fine. Doesn’t matter.”

  Two hours later, they sat in the car again, waiting. All but the girl. Thalia Hines huddled in the backseat of a patrol car parked around the side of the house. She was wrapped in a blanket. The cops had made sure the patrol cars were hidden behind the hedge.

  The numbness was wearing off now. And in its place was the persistent image of the end of Julian Hines. Dorie tried to think of prettier sights. She had already talked to the cops. Amos had been told to stick around. The chief of police, the old G-man Reed, had showed up to throw his weight around. Reporters had started coming, but the cops turned them away.

  What was happening with Mrs. Hines during all the turmoil? As she thought this, the doctor showed up. He was a rotund man, bald, scurrying on short legs into the mansion with his kit.

  The help now filed out the front door, lining up on the driveway in the chilly breeze. Beulah had lost her cap. She looked pale, shell-shocked. Mildred Miller was ramrod-stiff. The cook was carrying a wooden spoon, as if he’d pulled away from the soup pot. Another maid, another cook, the new chauffeur, some eight servants.

  Amos rubbed his ear. In the parlor, he’d been standing close to Julian Hines, trying to convince him to put down the gun, when he’d done it. Amos had spots of blood on his shirt, lapels, and the backs of his hands. His eardrums ached. Gwendolyn sat beside him in the back, white as a sheet.

  Up the walk came Dorie’s uncle, Captain Warren. She stepped out of the Buick, hoping to catch his eye, but he had his head down, talking to a uniformed cop. They disappeared into the house. She walked toward the door. Miss Miller looked her way, a stricken look in her eyes.

  “Is Mrs. Hines all right?”

  The secretary shrugged. “Lined up like criminals. What do they think we had to do with it?”

  Captain Warren stepped out of the arched doorway and stood blinking in the light.

  Dorie called his name. The old bull looked dazed, and a little shaken. He brightened. “Dorie girl.” He squeezed her arm. “Best not to go in there.”

  “Eveline— is she being taken care of?”

  “The doctor and her nurse are there. They say she’s not been conscious for several days.”

  “The noise, didn’t—”

  He shook his head. “For the best.” He peered at his niece. “What’s this I hear about you going to court again?”

  Her stomach knotted. “I wanted to talk to you about that, Herb. I was set up by these two detectives. Richards and— “

  “Richards?”

  “What? Is he dirty?”

  “And well connected. What are you saying?”

  They walked toward the Buick. “He and his partner, Stewart, came to see me at my office. Asked a bunch of questions about the shooting on the bridge, even though I’d already answered all the same questions. Then I got a call from somebody who claimed to be Amos, saying that you and he wanted to see me at the station.”

  “It wasn’t Amos?”

  “No. I drive over, and they’ve got a search warrant. The cops got some anonymous tip that I had a gun in my car.”

  “And did you?”

  “Not one I’d ever seen. But, yes, they found one.” She looked up at him, hoping he believed her. “You know I don’t use a gun.”

  “All too well.” Herb squinted at her. “Stewart. Beefy, straw-colored hair?”

  “That’s right. I think they’re working for— “

  An ambulance pulled into the drive, making its way around the Buick. Three attendants jumped out of the back.

  “No hurry, boys,” Herb told them. “Sit a spell.” And he was gone, striding back into the house.

  She stood there a moment, until she began to shiver in the cool dampness. She got back in the Buick. Amos was stroking Gwendolyn’s hair as she laid her head on his shoulder. Dorie looked at her wristwatch. It was nearly noon. She slumped down in her seat and closed her eyes.

  A few minutes later, a tap woke her. She peered up at Harvey Talbot through the window. He opened the car door and slid in next to her.

  “What’s going on?” he said cheerfully, looking around the car. “I brought your car back. Couldn’t find you at the office.”

  Haddam frowned at him, glancing at the trembling Gwen. Dorie tapped Talbot’s elbow. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

  The ambulance had been moved while she napped. They passed a uniformed cop in the driveway. “I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she told him. The cop nodded, glancing at the Buick.

  “You’d think there was a Nazi invasion, all these uniforms,” Harvey said.

  They reached the sidewalk and turned down the hill. The clouds held— if anything, lower than before— but that didn’t affect Talbot’s mood. His feet bounced along the pavement.

  “I have to tell you what happened in Chicago.” His face was animated. “It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper.”

  She glanced at the Hines mansion, feeling drugged with the morning’s events. “Thanks for bringing the Packard,” she said. “I could have gotten it.”

  “Say, your handbag was under the seat. Did you miss it? You gotta hear this. Come on, sit down.” He perched on the curb, his feet in the dead leaves in the gutter. She sat wearily beside him, trying to feed off his energy. She felt as dry as the leaves.

  “Roscoe Sensa was tied into this Chicago tribe, all into sports betting. So I go up there and talk to this fella I know. He knows the players there. He says Sensa and his friends had been fixing the Monarchs games for years, or trying to. It wasn’t working out that well, and people were upset. Sensa wasn’t controlling the situation. They couldn’t get the players to go along.”

  “Like Gibson Saunders?”

  “Gibson told the other players to keep their minds on their game, not their wallets. They were hassling the team, the owner, all that, to get the Monarchs to forfeit. Or at least hoping some of them would get scared enough to quit.”

  “Who was doing this?”

  “Sensa’s boys. Some from here, some from Chicago. You ever hear of Maynard Reilly?”

  “No.”

  “Chicago bookie. He got fed up with Sensa’s blunders, and losing money, so they tried to blow him up in his car and take over his action here.”

  “But got Joe instead.”

  “They finally got it right, but they still can’t put the muscle on the Monarchs. So they decide to teach the other players a lesson and whack Saunders.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  Talbot bit his lip, trying to dampen his enthusiasm. He’d finished grieving for Saunders, it appeared, and now was hell-bent on justice. Dorie squinted at him, then laughed at his halfhearted attempt at seriousness.

  “Go get ‘em, Harve.” He grinned. She reached into her pocket for the switchblade. Taking his hand, she slipped the knife back to him, glancing at the cops up the street. “Thanks for the gift. Luckily, I didn’t need it.”

  “But you got her back?”

  “She listened to reason.”

  Talbot’s turn to squint. He stared at her, then shook his head. “You wouldn’t tell me what happened for a million years, would you?”

  Dorie leaned back on the grass, feeling the cool dew through her jacket. The sound of the gun blast was fading from her mind. This was just another pretty day. Playing hooky from school. At any moment, the truant officer would yank you back to addition and subtraction, to structure, to the teacher’s paddl
e. But for just a minute, you had freedom, laughter.

  Then she thought about Julian, and the mess inside, the tragedy, the family. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. She looked up at Harvey. There was a distraction.

  “Oh, sure, in a million years I’ll tell you everything, Talbot.”

  The sky was white, like heaven. Deep in the clouds, a crow was cawing, telling her to get up off the ground and get warm. But Talbot had leaned down on one elbow and was staring into her eyes.

  “What happened to the fascist philanderer?”

  “Off to Chicago and points east, I hope.”

  “You didn’t stick him with the blade?”

  “Mmm. I wanted to.” She grinned. “Would I tell you if I had?”

  “No.” He laughed.

  “You smell like cinnamon, Talbot.” She grabbed his brown tie, the one dangling in her face. “What did you spill on here, a candy tray?”

  Before he could answer, she yanked him lower for a kiss, just a quick one; then, on her feet again, she brushed off her trousers. He deserved a kiss for that switchblade, but school was back in session. Talbot fell back in the grass, moaning.

  “Get up, you masher. There’s serious business here.” She pulled him to his feet.

  “What are all these cops doing here?” Talbot straightened, focusing at last. “And there’s that bastard Russell. What’s he doing here?”

  She took his arm and led him back up the sidewalk to the Hines mansion. Nothing good was going to happen there, unless you were a newshound sniffing out a juicy story.

  Dorie shook her head in mock sadness. No, it was real sadness she felt, but for Talbot, she kept it mocking. It was shocking how easy it was to be cynical around Talbot.

  “Bad news, Harvey. Terrible stuff.”

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  THE HEIRESS OF THE HINES fortune buried her mother on a Monday, the day before Election Day. The old Commander had clung to life with the same tenacity she’d always had, stringing her remaining family member along for weeks. Thalia had disappeared for days at a time. The detectives from Sugar Moon Agency had learned not to worry. Sooner or later, a report of Thalia singing a naughty number or dancing on tables would reach them and they would scrape her off the floor, or pry her out of some joe’s arms. The folks at her regular haunts had taken care of her until they couldn’t; then they’d called Haddam.

  The rest of the time, Thalia had sat up with her mother or wandered the quiet house. She’d taken long baths and kept to herself. She’d rarely sung at home anymore, Mildred had reported, and they all could see that she was a shadow of her vibrant youth. But on any given night, out on the town, the old self returned, with such a short, fierce blaze that with time the coals would be stoked again.

  Now, at the graveside, Thalia Hines stood straight and solemn, a blond statue of grief as the priest read from the Book of Common Prayer and blessed the ground. A black veil covered Thalia’s face. No word from Barnaby Wake, although Dorie had half-suspected him to turn up at the funeral to press his case.

  As they began lowering the casket, Harvey Talbot threw a handful of fragrant red petals onto it. Dorie looked at him, wondering where the hell he’d come up with rose petals, and bumped him on the elbow.

  There had been a truce in their war since that night at the station. Besides the gift of the switchblade that had brought Thalia home, his sensitive story about the demise of Julian Hines had given her the feeling that he was different from other men. Maybe she’d known this, but her heart was a willful beast. The story was really unique in the rag trade, a suicide story that never mentioned the fact. With some reading between the lines, one knew exactly what had happened. No one offended, children and the religious spared, truth told, more or less.

  His other story, the one that connected the murders of Gibson Saunders and Roscoe Sensa to the Chicago bookies, had caused a ruckus among the various jurisdictions, all stumbling over themselves to be the ones to solve the cases and bust up the racket. So far, two lieutenants of Maynard Reilly, the Chicago boss, had been arrested, with more promised.

  Across the open grave, Amos Haddam stood alone in his overcoat. The cold wind fluttered the brim on his hat, making him look as fragile as a butterfly wing. He looked like one of the family, so glum was his expression. Gwendolyn Harris had taken the train to Los Angeles two days after the shooting. Nothing Amos or Dorie could say would stop her. It was hoped her aunt lived a sheltered life out there in the golden state.

  Haddam said he was resigned to it. But he had changed. No longer strictly accepting of his solitary ways, he looked and acted lonely now. Dorie had invited him over for dinner at the boardinghouse one night. Carol had burst into tears when one of the bachelors called her a floozy, and Mrs. F. had given young Tony a smack for laughing. That had gotten the rest of them going about hitting children, and dinner had ended in disgust and thrown napkins.

  “Entertaining,” Amos had called it, “but hard on digestion.”

  A woman was singing now, her high, quavering voice rising and falling on the wind. Several relatives had surfaced in the last two weeks; this one, Florence, was a second cousin by marriage. The news of Julian Hines’s suicide and Eveline’s poor health had brought them out of the woodwork. Florence had come from Wichita, and there was no sign of her leaving.

  Earlier, as they’d filed into the cemetery, Dorie had seen the urn inside the crypt. The Hines family had a large, moldy crypt, but Thalia had insisted on her mother being outside in the sunshine, and no one had had the nerve to argue with her. But inside the barred door of the crypt, the shiny new cobalt blue urn sat in a carved niche in the wall. There had been no service, no singing for Julian. Another of Thalia’s orders. He was gone, vanished from their lives. Dorie couldn’t fault the girl’s decision. But still, she hoped someone would sing a song over her grave.

  Once again, the Arlette question nagged at her. She’d spent a considerable amount of time the last weeks looking for her, driving through the colored neighborhoods, asking at stores and restaurants. There had been nothing in the Star about a death or the shooting of a Negro woman. Dorie had moments where she thought she’d dreamed it, but the dark stain on the upholstery of the Packard’s front seat told her it was real.

  One night, she’d actually sighted Dr. Friedkin. He’d skulked out the door of the apartment building and walked to a bar on the corner. But when she’d tried to talk to him there, he’d cursed her, threw a beer on her, and disappeared out the back. She’d never found him again.

  Cousin Florence didn’t have a bad voice. She sang a stiff old hymn— one Dorie didn’t recognize— about living forever and heaven and being godly. Relief was Dorie’s main feeling, as the Commander was released from her pain. Would Thalia sing a song, too? Dorie couldn’t tell what the girl was feeling, her veil did its job so well. The song continued as the men released the straps on either side of the grave.

  The sight of the coffin disappearing into the earth caused a sharp, piercing pain in Dorie. Her mother’s coffin, in the Atchison public cemetery, only three or four people there, and not one of them willing to sing. Why hadn’t she sung? She could have done something, said something, sung something. What song could she have sung? What would you have liked, Verna? Lavender blue, dilly dilly. Tillie Tillie.

  Harvey squeezed her shoulders. The tears came unwillingly. She lowered her head and tried— but failed— to stop them. Around them, raindrops began to fall in loud splats, hitting the flowers on the coffin, the men’s hats, the ladies’ feathers, the dry dirt and brown grass.

  The preacher hurried to the end of the service and the crowd scattered.

  Amos watched the mourners move away in the cold rain. He stood for a moment alone as the grave diggers began to shovel dirt on her coffin.

  He’d tried to prepare himself, these last weeks, as she lay unconscious. But the hollowness he felt now told him he hadn’t tried hard enough. Eveline was gone, and with her a bright part of his own life. He took a dee
p breath of the sweet moisture and tried to relax the tightness between his shoulders. A cough made the grave diggers look up.

  He walked slowly back to his old Buick. He had to drive himself now. Lennox was back with the newsman and Gwendolyn was gone. He’d gotten a postcard from her. The Santa Monica pier, and a funny note about sunburn and the beach. Good old Gwen. He wished her well.

  In front of his apartment house, he watched the windshield wipers go back and forth, then shut off the engine. He was out of the car, feeling the rain on his face, before he saw the bicycle and yellow slicker of the Western Union boy.

  Threes. He stood waiting for fate on the sidewalk. The boy pedaled toward him. Things come in threes. Eveline and Julian were two. Here, in this telegram, would be the third.

  He tipped the boy and went into the apartment. His overcoat dripped on the rug as he stripped it off. His hands were shaking as he dried them in the kitchen and tore open the telegram. Glancing quickly to the end, he saw it was from his mother.

  She was alive.

  NED FOUND ME STOP NO WORRIES DEARIE STOP NEWS FROM BERYL STOP IN PORTUGAL WAITING FOR BOAT STOP CHIN UP STOP MUM

  She was alive.

  Amos let out his breath, holding himself up against the counter. His eyes blurred and he wiped away the tears. They were all alive. There where death rained down from the skies, where countries disappeared overnight, they all lived.

  He slumped into a chair and reread the telegram. He looked at his watch. He had a meeting in less than an hour.

  He was changing his suit when it came to him. The third death. Wendy Hines, who’d simply fallen off the face of the earth. Lennox had proven that the Silver Shirts were the last to see her. But he’d never been certain what had happened. Until now.

  She was number three.

  Dorie leaned forward in her chair to concentrate. She still wore the blue suit she’d worn to the funeral that morning. Her shoes and stockings were splattered with mud. The funeral had left her edgy and distracted, but this meeting had been set up for over a week. No delaying it.

  The assistant county attorney and Wilma Vunnell were talking in a low tone. She watched the eyes of her lawyer, once again her friendly victim: Louie Weston, a man she seemed incapable of avoiding. She no longer found him handsome, his eyes cold, his hair greasy, his skin dissipated. But he did have a way of charming the officials, her parole officer, the county attorney, the cops. The only one who didn’t seem beguiled by Louie was the fed, Howie Duncan.