Diana and the Three Behrs

by Fleeta Cunningham

  “They’re off chasing down some ancient woman whose husband was an attorney who kept files back to Adam. I don’t think they’ll be back for an hour or more. Trey might come by before he goes to pick them up, but I don’t expect him.” She led the way to the two armchairs near the window. “Now, sit down and tell me what’s happened.”

  Pamina sank down in the chair, pulled off her hat, and ran her fingers through her marcelled waves. “Charlie Gaines didn’t come to talk to Dr. El today, did he?”

  “No,” Diana admitted with some aggravation. “We didn’t hear from him, nothing, not even a note to say he’d changed his mind. Trey and Dr. Pearce were awfully disappointed.”

  “I didn’t think he came.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “You aren’t going to hear from him, Di. Not at all. I saw a copy of the report on one of our local news desks. Man about sixty, short, wearing a striped shirt and a toupee. Riding a motorcycle. Hit by a dark touring car around eleven last night. About a mile from the Belle of the West restaurant. Identified as C. W. Gaines, employee of the restaurant. Dead at the scene.”

  “C. W. Gaines? Charlie? He’s dead?” Diana stared at her sister. “Around eleven? That’s just about the time we saw him leave. It must have happened right after we talked to him. That poor fellow. How awful.”

  Pamina hunkered in her chair, a rumpled mass of dejection. “I was certain it was the same man. It nearly had to be. The last name, the age, the shirt and toupee, the location, and you did say he left on a motorcycle. That’s why I asked if he’d come. I was hoping, hoping against hope, that it was just a nasty coincidence.”

  “I feel terrible for being put out with him.” Reminded of some of the silent epithets she’d sent his way, Diana mentally apologized. “I’m sorry for the old fellow, too. He seemed like a likable man just trying to make his way after a pretty hard life.” Thinking of what the loss of the bartender’s information would mean to Dr. Elmsford, Diana frowned. “Now we will never know what he could tell about Butch Cassidy and why he came to Fort Worth. Dr. Elmsford will be frustrated with one more lead that didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Trey will be, too. I think he was as excited about the Butch Cassidy stuff as Dr. El.”

  Diana looked out the window, not seeing the people passing but mulling the unanswered questions the sudden death of the bartender left in its aftermath. Now Dr. Elmsford wouldn’t be able to learn the name of the woman in Cassidy’s life. He’d never be able to verify the clues and hints he’d found in his studies. And…and I’ll never be able to ask Charlie why he raced off after the men in that car last night. Or what he meant about things being “wrong,” or if he was on his way to warn the Havers about what their son was up to. I’ll never find out why he said to forget what we saw.

  “Pam, did anything about Sheldon Haver’s escapade trickle into the gossip columns? Could the Havers have known Charlie? Maybe he was trying to get to their house first, to tell them about their son’s little slip-up before the others got him home, and lost control of his machine in the dark. Or was upset or distracted and drove too fast to avoid a collision.”

  “Not a thing about Sheldon or his friends hit the gossip mongers, that I’ve heard.” Pamina shook off the idea. “He’s probably hiding out in a dark room nursing the worst hangover in history.” She leaned forward and added in a confidential tone, “I did a little discreet snooping this morning. The girl over in the Society section didn’t know a thing about him or the family except what charities they support and where they put in an appearance for some cause or other. Sheldon’s name has been mentioned as a ‘frequent escort’ for Hallie Neff, Governor Neff’s daughter, but that’s all. Oh, except he’s expected to take on some of Reverend Haver’s reform crusade soon. The preacher is getting on in years.”

  Diana considered the situation. “Charlie had good reason to rush off and warn them. They probably wouldn’t want it known that the heir apparent was frequenting places like Tommy Gunn’s, not if he’s being primed to be the ex-governor’s son-in-law as well as a crusading voice for reform, too.”

  “No, likely they wouldn’t want that bit of scandal in the newspapers. Charlie was probably trying to help. A victim of his own kindly intent.”

  Before Pamina left, Trey and the professors returned. Sharing the grim news was hard, but Diana found the most difficult part was giving Dr. Elmsford the typed pages from their visit with Charlie and seeing the disappointment fill his eyes when he realized all the tantalizing information that had escaped him with Charlie’s passing. For once, the men had nothing more to add to the conversation and nothing left to quarrel over. They sat around the office quietly, a glum silence unifying them with their frustrated colleague.

  Trey finally interrupted the melancholy filling the room. “Diana, I think we’re going to need a little time to absorb this. Why don’t you plan to take tomorrow morning off? By afternoon, this shock will wear off, and El can decide how he wants to proceed. I think, once he’s considered the situation, he’s likely to put Butch Cassidy out of his mind for a while and concentrate on the historical impact of some of the other outlaws of the period. You remember mentioning them to me earlier? Some days ago? Right after you joined us?”

  “I remember we spoke about some of our more notorious residents.” Sam Bass, the Bellows brothers? Not as colorful as Butch Cassidy, but maybe it’s better for Dr. El to take a look at them than give up his research entirely. “Do you think you can interest Dr. Elmsford in changing his subject?”

  Trey raised dark eyebrows and glanced at the hunched figure staring out the window at the darkened street. “I’m not sure, but I’ll give it a try.” He picked up his hat and nodded toward the door. “It’s late, and you ladies have probably missed dinner at your boarding house. Let’s have a bite in the dining room, and then I’ll drive you home. I wouldn’t want you to be out by yourselves this late in the evening.”

  The suggestion put a touch of pink in Pamina’s cheeks. Diana could see something good was coming out of what had otherwise been a disheartening day. Pamina would have another evening with Trey.

  “That’s thoughtful of you, Trey. Pam and I would welcome dinner somewhere besides the boarding house. A ride home beats a late streetcar any time.”

  ****

  Diana sat in her step-ins and chemise, staring into the wavy mirror of her dressing table. The morning was too hot to dress before she had to. Picking up the hairbrush again, she slowly drew it through her long blonde hair. Every strand seemed to cling to her damp skin. She held the thick mass up off her neck, hoping to feel a tiny stream of air. Even the small breeze coming through the open window didn’t offer a cooling breath. Outside, the sky was a cloudless blue bowl reflecting the sun’s relentless heat.

  “Pam’s right. It’s too darn hot to have to comb it out, pin it up, and put a hat on top of it.” She’d been weighing the temptation for an hour, ever since she woke up to the blast of sun pouring into the bedroom. Decided on her course of action, Diana coiled the honey-colored waves around her hand and jabbed enough pins into them to secure an untidy bun at the nape of her neck. Refusing to take time to reconsider the matter, she rolled on her stockings, wriggled into a thin rayon slip, and reluctantly put on a fresh middy blouse. The gray pleated skirt she buttoned under it felt hot even as she fastened it, though it was lightweight crepe. Her kidskin pumps to match looked smart, she supposed, but were going to feel like branding irons to her feet by evening.

  Determined to accomplish her mission before she lost her nerve, Diana grabbed her handbag and hat and hurried out the door. She didn’t stop to exchange pleasantries with her landlady as they passed in the hallway, just nodded a greeting and rushed on, her heels clicking a sharp tattoo on the hardwood floor. If Pam hadn’t dashed off to the office so early, I probably would have asked her advice about where to go. Or maybe she’d have gone with me. Instead, it looks like I’m on my own.

  The streetcar stop wasn’t her usual one, but she remembered a sh
op on the corner near it, a shop that would serve her purpose. She saw the red-and-white pole just ahead, its spiral stripes bright against the summer sky. It looked respectable enough, she thought, casting a surreptitious look through the window. Only one man and no customers. He was folding towels and sweeping up. She took a firm grasp on the door handle and pushed the door open.

  “Good morning.”

  He turned at the sound of her voice. “Morning, miss. Were you looking for someone? My last gentleman left half an hour ago, if he’s the one.”

  Diana took a breath. “No, no, I wasn’t looking for anyone. I just wondered…” Taking the plunge was harder than she expected. “Could you…would you…bob my hair?” The last words came out in a rush, quickly, and before she could change her mind, she tugged off her hat. “It’s hot…and heavy…and I thought…will you cut it?”

  A broad smile and a twinkle in the barber’s eye reassured her. He’d done this before.

  “Just what my wife and daughter said when the weather got hot. Cut it off, have done with it.” He snapped open a striped apron-like drape. “Sit down right here and tell me what you want me to do. I could give you spit curls, and a shingle.”

  Taking the chair he offered, Diana sat and put aside her cloche. “It’s not really curly,” she began as she pulled the pins loose and let the hair fall freely to her waist. “But it has a lot of waves. What do you think?”

  He put his hands on his hips and walked around her, picking up a strand, running it through his fingers. “Lovely hair. Almost hate to cut it, but since you want to, I think, clip it fairly close to your head and let the waves arrange themselves. A little side part, a bit of a dip across your forehead, and fan the sides toward your face.”

  “Do it before I change my mind,” Diana insisted. “I’m afraid if I think about it anymore I’ll lose my nerve.” She shut her eyes until she heard the first snip of the scissors.

  “Are you sure, miss? You look a little flushed.”

  “It’s all right. Go ahead. I’m committed now.”

  The barber was quick, and Diana was amazed at the amount of hair falling to the floor as he worked with scissors and comb.

  “That what you had in mind?” The barber put a small mirror in her hand and waited.

  Her head felt pounds lighter, and the slow turn of the ceiling fan whipped a little breeze across the back of her neck, a neck suddenly bare enough to feel it. Diana raised the mirror and looked at herself. Her small, oval face looked back, but she wasn’t certain she was that girl, the one she saw in the mirror. Her blue eyes seemed larger, a little deeper in color, and her high forehead, with the soft sweep of bangs curling across it, was more in balance with her round chin. The color of her hair even seemed lighter, as if sunlight danced through the wisps of curls.

  “It feels…different. Yes, it’s perfect.”

  The barber chuckled. “That’s what my wife said after I bobbed hers the first time. Our girl had insisted she wanted hers cut, and one day, when I got tired of her begging, I just up and did it. Once my wife saw how easy it was for the girl to keep it, she had to have hers done, too.” As Diana continued to preen, he pointed her toward a larger mirror at the end of the shop. “Go on back and take the hand mirror, so you can see how it looks from behind. Don’t think I ever saw natural waves fall so pretty. Like one of them Greek statues you see in pictures.”

  Not quite believing him, Diana took the mirror and retreated to the far end of the building. Electric light cast a brighter glow above the mirror. She turned her back and raised the hand mirror so it showed the soft ruffle of waves rippling across her small head. Twisting side to side, she continued to admire the barber’s handiwork. It felt deliciously cool and airy. She was engrossed in her transformation; she scarcely noticed when the bell over the shop door tinkled and someone entered.

  “Ed, didja hear? Didja? Some outta-town swell got hisself bumped off. Couple of picnickers found the body. Bootleggers got him, I bet. Or mebbe a gunfight like the old days, and this one lost the fight.”

  “Clyde, you razzing me? You’re all the time coming in here with some fairytale. Where’d you hear this one?”

  “Couple of fellas over in the cigar store told me, but it’s legit, the real McCoy. Found this stiff out in the country. Been shot. Nothing on him, not a stitch. Just one of them yaller slickers like the fishermen up north wear. I’d s’pose he had to be from back east or somewhere. Nobody in these parts would be caught in one of them sissy things, alive or dead.”

  “Well, since you know so much, just who is this dead fisherman from out of town? Anybody said? Anybody that might know, I mean.”

  “Not that I heard. But let me tell you, it’s gonna take some doin’ to put a name to him. Fellow at the cigar store, he works down to the newspaper and heard all the particulars. He says somebody took a shotgun and…”

  “Hold on, Clyde.” He waved toward the back of the shop. “There’s a lady present who don’t need to hear the gory details.”

  Diana had heard enough, however. A dead man? And found wearing nothing but a yellow slicker? She hurried to pay the barber, then almost ran from the shop. She had to get back to the hotel. Surely she could get to a telephone there and put a call in to Pam at the newspaper. Pam would know if it was true. Her hands shook, and in spite of the heat of a Texas summer, she felt chilled to the bone. Had what she and Dr. Pearce seen been the beginning of what would shortly be a murder? Had Charlie realized it and gone after the culprits, hoping to stop them, and lost his own life because he’d failed? She shuddered at the thought. Poor Charlie.

  Chapter 6

  Diana didn’t have to search for a telephone at the hotel. Pamina, her hat pulled low, her face pale, was waiting at the door of the hotel sitting room the professors had designated as “the office.” One look at Pam was enough to tell Diana her sister had heard the news about the grim discovery and the rumor was true.

  “Is it…” She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question.

  Pamina fluttered one hand at the door. “I don’t want to talk about it out here. Let’s get out of the hall.”

  Diana unlocked the door and hurried inside. A wave of stale pipe and cigar smoke lingered. Her dear owls must have stayed up far into the night worrying over the lost interview with Charlie and what use Dr. Elmsford could make of the information they’d gleaned from the visit to Tommy Gunn’s. She wrinkled her nose at the hot, stagnant air and hurried to open the curtains and push up the windows.

  When she turned back to her sister, Pamina had tossed her bag and a folded newspaper on the table and was skimming the typed pages Diana had left for Dr. Elmsford the night before.

  “What have you heard, Di?”

  “No details. Just that somebody—picnickers, I think—found a dead man this morning. No identification, no clothes even, but someone mentioned a yellow rain slicker.” She sat down heavily in the armchair, suddenly feeling as if her legs wouldn’t hold her. “I…I hope I’m wrong, but I immediately thought about the man we saw leaving Tommy Gunn’s place. And, well, I thought about Charlie. The slicker and Charlie and what he said about forgetting what Dr. Pearce and I saw. Do you know? Was it Haver?”

  Pamina ducked behind the typescript, screening her eyes and letting her red curls tumble forward. “Nobody’s said who it is, not yet.” Her voice sounded strained and tight. She looked up, facing Diana. “One of the crime reporters was at the police station this morning when the call came in. Sounds as if some sheik and his sheba got a nasty climax to their early morning petting party. Our reporter followed the patrol car and came back to file the story. So far nobody’s come up with an identification. But he did say the body was wrapped in a yellow slicker. It wasn’t far from where Charlie had his…well, they called it an accident. If somebody—some respectable professors and their secretary, for instance—managed to connect a couple of coincidences for them, I think a lot of police assumptions might change.”

  Diana gulped and realized she was shaking
. “But nobody knows we were there. Or that we saw anything. Do they?”

  Pam’s pale face, her slumped form, told Diana her sister hadn’t revealed everything. Without answering, Pam reached for the newspaper and unfolded it. “Remember when I told you I’d had a little chat with one of the gossip columnists? I’d just asked a question or two about Sheldon Haver, harmless questions, nothing noteworthy. Just routine gossip like we trade back and forth most days. Not even suggestive. It was enough to get her attention. When I picked up my copy of the paper this morning, I noticed a few lines, just another bit of idle gossip. Idle gossip. Remind me there is no such thing.” She opened the newspaper and folded it to display a small column in the upper corner. “Is the son of a well-known minister, highly regarded for his labors in the reform movement, doing a little practical research on sin in one of the city’s better-known dens of iniquity? One of this newspaper’s reliable sources tells us the young man was escorted out Tuesday night, apparently not ambulating under his own power. One can carry first-hand observation, even for a worthy cause, to extremes, don’t you think, S.H.?”

  “Pam! No!”

  Pamina put the newspaper aside. “I’m afraid so. Di, I just didn’t think before I opened my mouth. It seemed like innocent chatter, sharing what was sort of a joke on the mighty Havers. Not that I specifically said we were the ones who saw something or suggested it was anything but gossip. I thought young Sheldon’s private vice might be common knowledge over in Gossip Central. That’s the only reason I said anything. I work for the paper. I should know better; everyone’s nose is down, sniffing for a story, and the Havers are hot copy. Truly, I just didn’t think before I spoke, but I never thought it would get into print. And, of course, I didn’t know about Charlie then. Certainly I never expected anything like…like a body in a slicker.”

  The room swam before Diana’s eyes. “I suppose we should go to the police.” She gripped the arms of her chair and tried to slow her pounding heart. “They’ll find out about us anyway, if they question your friendly gossip columnist. No matter how casual you were, they’ll get to us. Someone will see that bit in the paper. I’m sure they will tie all the threads together as soon as the Havers report their son is missing.” She forced herself to breathe slowly and think logically. “No, you don’t have to go to them, I guess. You didn’t see the car, or the men, or watch Charlie ride off after them. I did, and Dr. Pearce did, though with his eyesight, he probably couldn’t identify anybody across a dark parking lot. He heard Charlie’s warning and knew he went after that car.”