Pearlie stopped the Buick. He came back and opened the door for Rachel. He didn’t offer a hand to help her out. Her air of bottled-up energy made me think she might find waiting on such niceties a waste of time. She looked back at me.
“Time to enjoy the view.”
I got out slowly, trying to figure what this was about. The place was out of the way, but not isolated enough to rough someone up in mid-afternoon unless you were crazy. It occurred to me there was at least a hint of craziness, or something like it, in Rachel Minsky.
“This is where Draper was going to build his big project,” she said when we’d walked a few yards. Two big factories. Warehouses. Supposedly.”
She’d tucked her hands inside the pockets of the fur coat swaddling her. Her eyes were narrowed on our surroundings. She didn’t say anything else.
Neither did I.
Neither did Pearlie.
For a good five minutes the three of us engaged in spirited non-conversation. I studied the bare land I saw. A section looked as though it might have been graded, ready for building. Then again, it might have been plowed. I was a city girl. I saw a barn in the distance.
“Well?” Rachel asked at last. “What strikes you about it?”
The only thing that came to mind was how far it would be for the workers. Five different trolley companies operated routes in Dayton, and I’d ridden every last route, either with my dad or during my first year in business when I hadn’t yet scraped together enough to buy a used car. Unless they’d built it the last couple years, not one of those routes came out here.
“Going to be awfully rough on the men who work in the factories,” I said. “Forty-five minutes to walk from the nearest trolley line with their lunch buckets, same at the end of the day when they’re dead tired.”
Rachel, her eyes closing, gave the same pleased little nod a teacher gives when a student answers a difficult question.
“Exactly. And before that, men building the whole thing would need to do the same toting their tools. I’m in the construction business. I know how to look at a site. I know what you have to consider to bid on a project, to estimate expenses. If you want good workers, on some jobs you need to cover some of their transportation.
“Draper had been vague on where Champion Works would be located. He gave an address, but when a street’s not mapped, that’s not much help. After I pressed him a couple of times, he finally brought me out to see it. Maybe afraid I was getting suspicious.” Her chin raised. “He probably thought I’d have no idea what I was seeing.”
“And when you did?” The wind had picked up. It was hard to keep my teeth from chattering.
“I asked how the workers would get here. He sat there and didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he told me there was a trolley line. When I got back, I checked. There wasn’t. I called him and told him I wanted my money back or I’d tell the other investors.”
The wind that was chilling me had whipped colors into her cheeks. She turned to me with triumph glinting in her eyes.
“Let’s get back in the car.”
Sixteen
“We have to make a stop a on the way back. Check on a job. Cooling my heels in your office put me behind schedule.” Rachel gave me an accusing look.
“Gee, making appointments prevents a lot of problems like that.”
She ignored me.
Her construction site was also southwest of the city, but in Van Buren Township. By the looks of its skeleton the building going up there was going to be four stories and decent size. Pearlie parked like before, only this time there were some pickups and one bigger truck to keep him company. There were also plenty of workmen braving what had now become a steady drizzle. Come the end of the day, they’d have less than a ten minute walk to the nearest trolley.
“Going to be offices,” Rachel said with a nod. “Come on. You might learn a thing or two.”
Pearlie closed the door after us, then got behind the wheel again where he opened a dime novel. Pearlie had a cushy job.
“Rain’s kind of hard on a nice coat like that, isn’t it?” I could see small beads of moisture attaching themselves to the tips of the fur.
Rachel slanted a look.
“Ever hear an animal complaining its hide shrank?”
What she thought I might learn watching the activity around me was anyone’s guess. A man who seemed to be the boss came over and took off his cap and they conferred. Some kind of beams were arriving tomorrow. Something else was delayed. If the rain got worse he’d have to send the men home early.
Rachel moved on, with me trailing. She stopped to ask one of the workmen if his new baby had arrived. The wind bit in harder here than at the last place. I started to shiver again. Rachel said something to the foreman, who tossed down a plank. She clicked briskly along it to survey something he pointed out above her head. I waited and watched. It was clear she’d navigated muddy sites like this before. Her high-heeled shoes didn’t waver, let alone veer off the plank, as she made her way back.
“You’re cold,” she observed, stepping off to join me on firmer surface not yet turned to goo by countless comings and goings.
I shrugged. “It’s that kind of weather.”
She turned, fixing onyx eyes on the building rising in steel and timber instead of on me.
“I don’t lie. You needed to see that.”
I let the lie part go for a minute and nodded. “You know what you’re doing.”
“Yes.”
She was quiet awhile, letting it sink in or maybe just contemplating her building. She spoke abruptly.
“I’ve put in my appearance here – made sure everything’s moving along and the boys are keeping their noses to the grindstone. Let’s head back.”
Her quickness of movement caught me off guard. I trotted a couple of steps to overtake her.
“Don’t some of the workmen resent it, their wives darning a sweater the umpteenth time while you show up wearing furs?”
“I sign their paychecks. No reason I should freeze my bottom for them as well.” She gave me the once over. “I know a furrier who’d make you a good deal on something warmer than what you’re wearing.”
“This coat does just dandy.”
She looked amused.
“You figure any of the other investors went to see that site of Draper’s?” I asked when we were back in the car.
She shook her head. “It looked okay on paper. Three other lots in the area had been sold for business. Platted out. The thing is...” She turned to face me. “...no one had applied for building permits.”
“You think those lots were swindles?”
“Probably not. Just this lousy Depression. But it made Draper’s deal look less rosy; made me uneasy enough that I wanted to see it.”
We rode in silence. I was glad to have time to think.
“Did Draper’s partner know he’d taken you to see the site?” I asked at last.
Rachel shrugged, her expression suggesting her thoughts were elsewhere. “Probably.”
“And you have no idea who that partner might have been?”
Now I had her attention.
“Same answer as last time – no,” she said tartly. Her lips pursed and she regarded me with speculation. “But I know somebody who might be able to find out. If you’re interested.”
What was she up to? I couldn’t figure it.
“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
Pearlie pulled into a space another car was conveniently vacating in front of my building. He came around and opened the rear door. Rachel had gotten in first coming back from the building site, which maybe meant she’d displayed all the power she needed to, or maybe that she’d found out I didn’t scare easily. When I’d stepped out, I leaned back in.
“Kind of hard to take you seriously when you say you don’t lie. What about that goose chase you sent me on, telling me a nightclub owner who can’t even keep his bills paid on time invested with Draper?”
“I already to
ld you, I was testing you.”
“What about Draper having a partner? Is that a lie too?”
“No.” She was lighting a cigarette. She jutted her chin up and exhaled and grinned through the smoke. “But then if it was, that’s what I’d say, isn’t it?”
Seventeen
I didn’t trust Rachel Minsky much farther than I could spit. For what remained of the afternoon I thought about her claim that someone else had been in league with Draper. The more I considered it, the more it made sense. It would explain a couple of things, the main one being why someone might kill him once they found out I was trying to find him. The fact no one else had mentioned a partner was odd, but odd didn’t necessarily mean unlikely.
I still was thinking about it when I came out of Mrs. Z’s the next morning and found her overfed orange tomcat on the hood of my DeSoto, yowling and hissing. A stray dog so starved its ribs showed stood barking up at him. The cat excelled at escaping Mrs. Z’s apartment and sinking his teeth into every passing female leg, so I was on the dog’s side. If I got in the car and drove away, the cat would slide off after a yard or two, the pooch might get a good meal, and everyone at Mrs. Z’s would dance a jig of joy.
Everyone but Mrs. Z. She’d cry her eyes out.
Muttering darkly, I trudged back up the walk.
“Oh, Margaret! Of course I’ll get you a gunny sack,” my landlady said when I went back inside and explained what I needed. “Bless your heart, you’re the only one of the girls who seems to give a fig about my poor Butterball.”
Jolene, whose job as a cigarette girl meant she had her days free, came down the stairs with a kerchief covering her blonde curls. A laundry bag under her arm indicated where she was headed.
“Something going on?” she asked watching Mrs. Z’s hurried retreat toward the kitchen.
I told her.
Jolene leaned toward me, lowering her voice.
“I’ve got a better plan. Let’s lift the dog up so he can make short work of that nasty puss.”
* * *
By the time I got to the office, I was later than usual. A bandage hid a gouge inflicted by the furiously struggling Butterball, and I was trying hard to remember how crazy I’d been about the pet cats I’d had when I was a kid. On the bright side, no one was waiting to ambush me when I opened the door.
I went through my mail, relieved I could pay the phone bill that had arrived. I made a phone call or two. Finally I sat and considered the new paths opened to exploration if I embraced the idea someone might have assisted Draper in his swindle.
The place to start was narrowing in on who that might be. If it was someone I’d never heard of, any clever conclusions I reached would be futile. Therefore I’d stick to the theory it was one of the people I’d met.
Yesterday I’d made a list of all the people who might want to kill Draper. The idea of a partner would mean different motivation, though. Getting rid of Draper insured he couldn’t break and reveal your part in things. It might also mean you could get all the money instead of a split.
Unfortunately, going in that direction added names to my list instead of shortening it. More people would kill for money than out of anger. That meant all the men Draper had swindled were once again possibilities, except Ferris Wildman unless he’d hired me for his own twisted amusement, which I thought unlikely. It also meant adding Cecilia Perkins to the list of suspects. Who’d be better equipped to work with Draper than his own secretary, who already knew his habits and who, by her own admission, needed money?
Oddly enough, I was willing to eliminate Rachel Minsky this round. She might be capable of killing, but I didn’t think she’d do it for money. She was proud of what she could do, and of making her way on her own terms. Moreover, I couldn’t see her playing second fiddle to someone else.
I also had some new possibilities since this time yesterday.
First there was Wildman’s sister, Dorothy. I couldn’t see her killing someone, at least not when she was sober. I was fairly certain I didn’t agree with her brother’s assessment that she was a scatterbrain, but she probably didn’t have patience enough to plan a murder. Given how often she apparently went on a toot, I couldn’t see anyone trusting her to help pull off a swindle either. Or anything else demanding secrecy, for that matter. She’d recognized Draper’s name, though. Her husband had been angry when her very denial made it obvious.
Which brought me to Vern, a dandy new candidate in my opinion. His concern for his wife yesterday had been a good deal less convincing than his irritation. Still, that could result from extricating her from countless scrapes through the years. Wildman had referred to him as a spendthrift, which if true meant he might not be particular how he came by money. Vern needed a closer look.
And maybe I should add James C. Hill to the list as well, though it seemed like a stretch. He seemed to revel in the status bestowed by being Wildman’s adviser, and as fussy as he was, I couldn’t see him trying anything as messy as bashing someone on the head. All the same, he understood the ins and outs of investment deals better than most. Maybe I’d start there; pay him a little visit. I needed some information he could give me anyway.
Rachel Minsky’s implication that my coat wasn’t up to snuff had rubbed me the wrong way. It was only a couple years old, and good wool even if it wasn’t the finest. The coat did look drab, though, so that morning I’d decided to break out the sky blue muffler Billy’s wife had knitted me for Christmas. Blending in was a virtue in my line of work, but I could always leave it behind when I didn’t want to be noticed. Decked out in the scarf and a perky blue hat, I set out for the Hulman Building feeling just about as fashionable as a woman in fur.
* * *
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hill has a very busy schedule this morning,” Hill’s secretary reported dutifully as she replaced the phone with which she’d announced me. “He says he could possibly fit you in this afternoon if you’d care to leave a message telling him what it concerns.”
“Perhaps you could ask him if he’d rather I called Mr. Wildman directly,” I suggested.
She complied while staring at me as if I’d developed a case of rabies. She hung up hastily.
“This way.”
Hill stood at his desk consulting his pocket watch as I entered.
“I can spare you five minutes. No more,” he said crossly. “I’ll do what I can to assist you with this ... quest of Mr. Wildman’s, but please bear in mind I have other responsibilities which Mr. Wildman himself would tell you take priority. I assure you he wouldn’t be pleased if you bothered him with your questions. There are proper channels for reaching men in his position. I am that channel.”
The paperwork spread on his desk confirmed his busyness, but his pompousness grated on me. He hadn’t invited me to sit down, so I did.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” I settled back, nodding at the cart holding tickertape loops that sat beside his desk. “Looks like you got your standards on time. And you need to report to Mr. Wildman by eleven, as I recall.
“Now here’s how my channels work, Mr. Hill. I tell you what I want, and the sooner I get it, the sooner I’m out of your hair and you get back to those priorities.”
He stared at me in disbelief.
“And since you’re busy, I’ll get right to the point,” I continued. “I need the full names of everyone working in Mr. Wildman’s household, when they started there, where they worked before and their home addresses if they live elsewhere. Also the names of anyone who left in the last two years. Organized as you are, I’m sure you have their employment records somewhere out there.”
Hill sat down. His fingertips patted the edge of his desk, the only hint of his displeasure.
“Yes, of course. If you deem it important. I assure you, though, none of Mr. Wildman’s household staff is capable of being this ... mythical partner if that’s what this is about.”
“All the same, I want it. I’m sure your secretary is a lightening fast typist.”
He fr
owned. He gave me a sulky look. He called his secretary and conveyed the request.
“While we’re waiting, since you don’t think any of Mr. Wildman’s household is a likely candidate, why not humor me and give me your thoughts on who would have been capable of running the swindle with Draper?” I said when he’d replaced the receiver.
Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries) Page 9
