Fortunately, Duncan was eager for the deal anyway. Amos, on his right, was mumbling to him. Haddam said it wasn’t strictly Duncan’s department, this Silver Shirt business, but he wanted to handle it anyway. Dorie didn’t argue. In fact, she’d kept her mouth shut this whole meeting. Anything to keep the boys happy.
“What’s going on?” she whispered to her uncle. Herb Warren flicked his eyes her way and patted her knee.
She sighed, tensing her fists and releasing them. The bag with Tommy Briggs’s shirt sat in the middle of the table. No one had touched it.
The prosecutor cleared his throat. “What is your recommendation, Mr. Duncan?”
Duncan folded his arms. “The way I see it, she’s offering you a lot more than you got on her. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is ready, as always, to cooperate with the locals on common ground. We’ll make this evidence available.” He gestured to the shirt. “Of course, we would take possession of it today. And Miss Lennox would have to be available for further questioning and for trial.”
“That’s not a problem,” Louie Weston said.
Assistant Chief Michaels piped up. “There is still the problem of her parole violation, and the weapons charge. I don’t see how we can just— “
“I thought you heard,” said Herb Warren. “Richards lost his report. Even if he were to refile it, he’s retiring next month.”
Michaels glared at him, then said, “There’s Stewart. He will— “
The county attorney, a thin man with glasses, stood up, buttoning his jacket. Michaels sputtered to a halt.
The county attorney cleared his throat. “Miss Lennox served the majority of her parole in exemplary style. I think we can cut it short now, with the proviso that she not be charged with any further criminal conduct for the next year. And she cooperates fully with both the federal and local authorities in the investigation of the death of Tommy Briggs.”
Dorie looked at her lawyer. Did that mean what she thought it did? Louie was smiling, so it must. He nodded around to Mrs. Vunnell, to the cops, to Howie Duncan and Amos Haddam.
“If Mr. Weston feels justice has been carried out, that is,” the attorney added.
“Absolutely,” Louie said brightly. “All is forgiven.”
He turned his grin on Dorie finally. She felt a little sick as she smiled back. Then it was done.
Finito.
Wilma Vunnell caught her in the hallway. “I went to bat for you,” the parole officer barked. “Don’t make a liar out of me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, trying to be serious.
“Are you still going to take flying lessons?”
“Does the county have a problem with that?”
Mrs. Vunnell gave an approximation of a smile. “Just flying? None at all. Good luck, dear.”
She ran down the steps of the courthouse to her Packard. A great weight had been lifted from her shoulders; then she remembered Eveline Hines. A smidgen of heaviness returned. She should be grieving. She hoped Eveline would understand.
On Charlotte Street, she saw a parking spot near Joe Czmanski’s garage. She had a jolt of gin planned in celebration. A big jolt. She’d somehow managed to keep the whole stabbing incident secret from the other boarders at Mrs. Ferazzi’s, so there was no one to celebrate with but Amos. He’d gone off with Duncan and Tommy’s silver shirt to make sure everything stayed on the up-and-up. Well, a bottle of gin was a good-enough companion.
On the radio, Harry James was playing the “Back Beat Boogie.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in time with the music. She would have to buy her uncle a bottle of gin, and Amos, too, for setting up that deal. She felt generous, and wealthy, since they’d all gotten paid off by Mrs. Hines’s lawyer. Hell, she’d buy everyone gin.
In the door of the garage, she saw two men talking.
“Just got a call from the hospital about Old Jenny,” Joe said after she parked.
“Good news?”
“She’s awake. And giving the nurses holy hell.”
“Well, get in. Let’s go see her.”
Joe opened the front door of the Packard. Behind him, the man in the fedora leaned down.
“You, too, Talbot,” she said. He climbed in the backseat. She caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “Ready for another tale from Charlotte Street?”
He leaned forward and tugged her hair playfully. “Don’t you people ever sleep?”
“Plenty of time for sleep. When you’re dead.”
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
MR. ROOSEVELT HAD BEGUN HIS third term when Dorie Lennox saw Thalia Hines again.
It was a cold day in late spring, one of those days that reminds one of winter’s long icy fingers. A gentle knock on her door from one of the twin librarians who lived next door. A lady and gentleman were calling, waiting in the front hall. Dorie had been asleep, dozing off while reading Moby-Dick. Her first evening home in two weeks, as she’d been tailing an accountant suspected by his employers of embezzling funds. Today, they’d fired him.
Dorie leaned over the railing. “Lovely young woman,” Nell Crybacker said on her way back to her room.
“Blond?”
“Not originally. Didn’t think much of the fella, though.”
Thalia Hines wore her powder blue suit again. The sight of it took Dorie by surprise, as if it were last fall again, that day in Eveline’s sickroom when she’d last seen mother and daughter together. Before the Hines’s world had imploded.
Thalia looked no different, her cool exterior as placid and unreadable as china. No sign of grief, struggle, or tragedy. The man next to her looked irritated, his good looks dark and a little dangerous. Just Thalia’s style.
“Nice to see you again.”
“Mildred said I had to come myself,” Thalia said bitterly. “She said you were a good friend to my mother, and to Wendy. Wherever the hell she is.”
Yes, wherever. Dorie put her hands in her trouser pockets. No one knew where Julian’s wife was, but it wasn’t among the living. If Wendy had been alive, she wouldn’t have missed Eveline’s funeral. Not a trace of her had ever been found, and with Barnaby Wake and his thugs on the run, there was little hope of finding any. Someday, perhaps. Although who would press for answers now?
“What brings you out?”
“We’re selling off some things,” Thalia said. “Things we don’t need. Mildred said you might like this. As a token. It’s that Edith woman.”
Dorie tore the brown paper off the book. Edith Wharton’s memoir, A Backward Glance. She opened the cover. Inside it read: “To Eveline, with affection always, Mildred. Christmas 1934.”
“Tell Mildred it’s very kind of her to think of me.”
Thalia sniffed in reply and turned to the man. He set his hat at a rakish angle, holding his arm bent for her.
“Wait.”
Dorie felt her heart beating too hard in her chest. She had gone round and round in her mind about this, whether it was right. She’d struggled for months without a clear plan. It was probably wrong to do it now.
Thalia turned back, one eyebrow lifted.
Dorie considered again, but the reasons to stay silent swam into the vortex, leaving her high and dry. This was the only chance. She cleared her throat.
“I have something for you, too. But you have to promise not to ask where it came from.”
The girl shrugged. “What’s this about?” She was curious, in her greedy way. From her pocket, Dorie extracted the locket on the chain. Thalia stared at it, frowning.
“That was Mother’s. I’ve seen it. How did you—”
“No questions.” Dorie closed her hand and withdrew it. “All right?”
Thalia rolled her eyes. “Oh, good God.”
The boardinghouse was quiet. Even Mrs. Ferazzi had turned off her radio set and gone to bed. The man cracked his knuckles impatiently.
“All right. Give it to me.”
Dorie handed it over. Thalia opened the locket and stared at the picture. She fr
owned. “But I thought— I thought it would be Daddy. Or me.”
“You recognize him?”
Thalia looked up, her blue eyes troubled. “Who is he?”
“You met him that day with the Willkie people. Teddy Lafferty.”
“Oh. Mother’s friend.” She stared at the tiny photograph. “Much younger.”
“About twenty-one years younger. Or maybe twenty-two.”
Thalia straightened her back, her neck muscles tensing, nostrils flaring as she let out a hot breath. She blinked, then looked back at the locket. She snapped it shut.
“Teddy Lafferty, you say.”
She turned to her boyfriend as she unlatched the chain. He took it from her, moving around behind her to hook it. The locket fell on the swell of her bosom, next to her heart.
At the door, she paused, looking back over her shoulder. Dorie waited, wondering what else could be said. You are not alone. She couldn’t say it.
Thalia reached up and hooked her hair behind her ear. Her eyes were still cloudy with confusion. But in them was also her mother’s strength, the ability to hold secrets, to carry on, to make the best of the muddle.
Dorie rubbed the Wharton book with a palm. The boyfriend put his hand behind Thalia’s back and pushed her out the door.
To make the best of it. To see yourself out there on life’s complicated stage, under the lights, in costume, speaking lines. To imagine the words are your own, that the lies don’t matter, that everything fits together. To be a heroine to yourself.
That was all you could do. Then— if you were lucky— all the lies you made up about yourself might come true.
• • •
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Read ‘Snow Train’ now — the Dorie Lennox short
Snow Train
a dorie lennox short story
by
Lise McClendon
© Lise McClendon, 2013
Thalia Press
USA
Author’s Note
This story is a continuation of the events that took place in One O’clock Jump and Sweet and Lowdown, the two mysteries featuring Kansas City private detective Dorie Lennox. In One O’clock Jump she’s working her first tail, following a rich man’s girlfriend, when the woman appears to have jumped from a bridge into the Missouri River. It’s a story bestselling writer Michael Connelly called “wonderful… a richly detailed story that quite simply gets to your heart.” Sue Grafton called Dorie Lennox “a humdinger of a private eye,” echoing the evocative language of the thirties in the book.
One O’clock Jump begins in late summer 1939, as World War II is breaking out in Europe. Dorie’s boss at the detective agency is Amos Haddam, a Brit who served alongside Dorie’s uncle in the World War I. His lungs were ruined by mustard gas back then and the war continues to plague him in Sweet and Lowdown, the second Lennox adventure. This mystery is set in 1940 as London is in the midst of the Blitz and is an homage to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, published that year. A dying widow hires Dorie and Amos to help protect her wayward daughter. Publisher’s Weekly said: “The author masterfully evokes the period, from details of dress to a rally for Wendell Willkie. This is a book to be savored.”
And now, in Snow Train, the US has joined the war. A tumultuous, terrifying time in American history is told from the perspective of one woman, stateside, trying to do her best.
For Delmo, who asked
Snow Train
a short story
by
Lise McClendon
Dorie Lennox huddled on the platform in the frigid Missouri wind, waiting for the late train home to Kansas City. She was in St. Louis, the other city on the river, slightly older and dirtier, rode hard with cattle, corn, ragtime, and goodbyes. And now, three days before Christmas, weary families struggling to keep smiling for their children, trying to get back to the farm, to the home place, to the relatives, through the blizzard that blanketed the plains.
The big Christmas tree in Union Station had shocked Dorie. She’d nearly forgotten about the holiday. She can’t have been alone, not with the events of the month. It was two weeks since the devastation at Pearl Harbor. The reports were still coming in, every headline bringing fresh grief. Five battleships, sunk and gone. Many more ships beached. Planes strafed on the ground. Thousands dead. The stories broke your heart, once, then again.
It took a full week of bad news for most folks to rally, to change their thinking from avoiding the war to the reality. Japan, of course. They asked for it. When Germany and Italy declared war there was no choice. We were in it up to our epaulets now. Dorie had barely slept that week, her emotions bouncing from hope to fear to hope again. Then hope was gone and action was all that remained.
She hadn’t decided what she’d do yet, but she would be part of it somehow. A numbness had set in with disaster at every turn. She looked across the platforms at the uniforms, soldiers embracing their wives, crying girlfriends and mothers, children clinging to pant legs, handkerchiefs damp. It was already too familiar. A man was looking at her, not in uniform but a long dark overcoat and brown hat on the back of his head, a lock of black hair flopped over his forehead. He was staring. She turned away.
The train approached, the sound of brakes squealing on the rails filling the frigid air. Dorie walked down the platform, away from the crowd. She stepped into the car as it stopped, throwing her small valise into the rack, sitting in an aisle seat to block an uninvited seat-mate. Pulling her hat low over her eyes she leaned back, folding her arms and feigning sleep. Passengers arrived in her car, shuffling, bumping, talking, sitting. She ignored them, snug in her rejection.
Someone bumped her knee. “Is that seat taken?” She stayed silent, hoping they would move on. She opened an eye, saw a black wool hem, scuffed oxfords. Closed her eye again. “Excuse me.” A briefcase was tossed across her onto the window seat. Dorie grit her teeth. He could step over her legs. And he did, quickly, onto the seat then hopping down to the floor.
She sighed and pushed her brim back. Harvey Talbot looked quite pleased with himself.
“Miss Doria Lennox. As I live and breathe.” He grinned like a monkey then cocked an eyebrow. “Too much? I’ve been in Alabama.”
Dorie rearranged herself, pulling in her feet and sitting tall. What should she say to him? She couldn’t think of a thing. Luckily he kept talking.
“Fancy running into you. What brings you to old St. Louie? Or have you been traveling?” She shrugged, hoping he’d just stop now. He set his briefcase by his feet and turned in his seat. “I can wait all night. With this snowstorm it might take that long to get home.”
Their affair, or whatever you called it, had only lasted a few months. That was two years ago and it was over. But he still had the ability to make her heart race and it was annoying. Best to act normal and wait for it to pass.
“What were you doing in Alabama?” she asked smoothly.
“Checking on the progress of the pilots at Tuskegee.”
“How’s that going?” Dorie had a stab of envy for those pilots, for their adventure, dangerous as it would be. Someday she would fly a plane. She’d made a promise to herself.
“Good. Quite a story, if I do say so myself. The Ninety-Ninth Pursuit Squadron they’re calling them. They’re still talking about Mrs. Roosevelt down there. I interviewed the pilot who took her up.”
She nodded, tugging on her hat.
“Your turn. What’ve you been up to?”
She swallowed hard. “Seeing somebody off. I rode over with him.” She glanced at Harvey, checking how that information was taken.
His eyes hardened. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot of that these days.”
She put her hands under her legs. The ring on her left hand tapped on the wooden seat. It felt odd. She’d meant to take it off.
“When did you get married?” He’d noticed it.
“Last week,” she said quickly, as if
that’s was all there was to it. “After he enlisted. What about —?” She bit off her words. Too personal.
“What about me? Why haven’t I enlisted?” He folded his arms and lowered his eyebrows angrily. “Are you questioning my patriotism?”
“No. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” His glower eased. “Where were you, on December Seventh?”
“Working the weekend shift. We got the news on the teletype.” His arms fell to his lap. “Terrible day.”
“Terrible week.”
He gave a short nod. “Where were you?”
“Nowhere. At the boarding house. We listened to the radio all day. And bought the Star, of course.” She gave him a little conciliatory smile. It wasn’t so bad really, having him here on the long ride home. Someone who knew her, someone to talk to. She was reminded again how few friends she had, and that she shouldn’t push them away. The train had pulled out of the station, moving slowly past the stockyards, the shanties, the pastures and fields, out to the river. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it. Since we’ve talked.”
He glanced at her, then turned to the window, silent. The snow along the tracks was thick, the round piles under street lamps like cream sodas with a straw. The click-clack of the wheels was slow, methodical, promising a long night.
“My mother asked about you, at the end.”
Dorie startled. “At the —? Is she gone?”
“In November. I thought you might have seen the notice in the Star.”
Impulsively she took his large hand. It was cold. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known I would have come.”
He was staring at her hand. He tightened his grip and looked out at the night. It was dark and silent, outside the city. Even the mighty Missouri was cloaked, invisible. Snow fell sideways across the glass. They sat like that until the ticket agent came by and the spell was broken.
Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set Page 54
