Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries)

by M. Ruth Myers

  Two intersections later I turned right. The Chrysler turned too. A few blocks later I doubled back.

  This time the gray car continued in the direction it had been going. Maybe I’d been wrong about seeing it earlier. Nevertheless, my work had sharpened my awareness of cars and people. Sometimes survival depended on it. I couldn’t shake off a wisp of suspicion.

  Rogers’ landlady sang his praises.

  “I have two rooms I rent, both to men. It’s just easier that way. It’s been, oh, ten years now, ever since my husband died. I’ve had a few bad apples. Nothing terrible – just noisy or late paying rent. There’s nary a problem like that with Mr. Rogers. He’s a gem. Polite. Mannerly. Even offers to shovel my walk when it snows, but I pay a boy up the street for that.” She leaned close, whispering, even though it was just the two of us in her white frame house. “Family needs the money.”

  I smiled and nodded. I’d told her I was collecting information about his habits for an insurance policy.

  “I’d like it just fine if Mr. Rogers stayed forever,” she said patting my arm. “Of course I’d be happy for him if he met a nice girl.”

  “I take it he doesn’t have one?”

  She sighed her answer. “A pity, but he doesn’t go out much.”

  By the time I got back to my office, my ears were worn out. There was just enough time to read the late edition before leaving to meet Frank Keefe. At five o’clock I fluffed my hair and freshened my lipstick and set out, wondering whether the information he’d dangled as bait would turn out to be useful.

  People were getting off work. It was a cheerful time of day. Trolleys chuffed along, swinging to the curb at stops to pick up passengers. Girls from the secretarial pool laughed and chattered together. Men turned up the collars of overcoats. At the corner of St. Clair and Second a knot of grim-faced matrons held signs denouncing women who held jobs needed by men with families.

  Scott’s was a pleasant, modest sort of establishment. It was too large and too far uptown to be exactly cozy, but the atmosphere was friendly. Business people went there for a drink after work. So did buyers from Rike’s and Donenfeld’s. I saw an architect I’d dated a year or two back. He was deep in conversation with a cute blonde.

  I hung my coat and muffler on a rack near the door and threaded my way toward a table. There was no sign of Frank Keefe. It was still five minutes until our appointed time. When the waiter came over to take an order, I told him I was meeting someone.

  Ten minutes later, Keefe still hadn’t shown. At half past five, I concluded he wasn’t likely to. My guess was he didn’t have a long attention span when it came to women. He’d found a more receptive candidate than me for his charm. Or he’d forgotten about the appointment.

  Since I’d been taking up a table and was in the mood for something, with or without Frank Keefe, I beckoned the waiter over and ordered a martini. When I’d finished it and nibbled the last of the olive, I headed back to the lot near my office where I parked my car. Lights had come on in store windows and people were lining up to catch trolleys. Temperatures were dropping. The damp cold penetrated clothing, causing newsboys to hunch their shoulders as they hawked their wares. I decided to cut through the alley that ran between St. Clair and Jefferson. It was warmer in the narrow space between buildings than it was on the street, and if I happened to meet the woman I’d seen digging through garbage cans, I’d give her a quarter so she could get a room for the night.

  I was halfway to Third when I heard the engine behind me, only a sound at first, then growling with power as it gathered speed. I swung to step back out of the way, thinking the driver must not have a lick of sense to drive so fast in a space like this. The lights of a big car almost blinded me. In the split-second I saw it veer, I realized whoever was at the wheel intended to hit me.

  There was nowhere to dodge; no time to run. As my .38 cleared my pocket I fired. Ineffectually. I pumped two more shots at the tires. Heard a pop. Heard the squealing and sliding of rubber as the car fishtailed.

  It was on top of me now. I heard a crash. Something hit me and tossed me into the air. I felt myself slide across metal and slam down hard. I was jerked, pulled, no longer sure what was happening as I was yanked back and forth. Something squeezed my neck, choking me.

  Twenty-four

  Lucidity came with blinding pain as my cheek scraped pavement. When the car hit me I’d been knocked off my feet. The long blue scarf wound around my neck had caught on something and I was being dragged along behind it. I clawed at the tightening loop of wool, then calmed enough to go against logic. Forcing a hand beneath the loop at my neck I fought panic. I shoved with all the strength I could muster. All at once I spun back like an unrolled carpet, free of the scarf and free of the car.

  My forehead banged more times than I could count. I came to a stop face down, on my nose. Something thumped. I heard screaming. Then everything ebbed.

  “Miss Sullivan? Miss Sullivan, can you hear me?”

  The voice sounded distant, but I knew it came from close to my ear. With a groan I opened my eyes and tried to make out the figure kneeling beside me. When I did, it didn’t make sense.

  “Boike?” I squinted.

  “Don’t move.” He touched my shoulder gingerly. “Lie still a minute. I’ll be back as soon as I see what happened up there.”

  It took me a an interval of struggling through cobwebs before I recalled where I was and what had happened. When I did, I realized Boike had gone off toward where the car must have left the alley. I wanted to sit up, but right then it didn’t seem like such a swell idea.

  Every inch of me felt like the devil. I wiggled my fingers. They moved. I tried my arms. The left one caused me to jerk in my breath at the pain. Since it functioned, it didn’t appear to be broken, though. I pressed my stomach, which turned out to be the only part of me not feeling the worse for wear. By the time I’d assured myself my legs were okay and I wasn’t seeing double, I heard Boike returning.

  “Couple of boys went for a stretcher,” he said. “We’ll get you to Miami Valley.”

  “No need,” I said. “Everything’s working. I wouldn’t mind help getting up, though.”

  “You ought to get checked,” he objected, but I was already struggling to sit.

  “Some s.o.b. tried to run over me,” I said thickly.

  “Yeah, I saw. I’d been over at Ford Street checking something for the lieutenant. Saw you marching along. Minute you went into the alley a parked car lit out like a bat out of hell and turned in after you. Nobody takes off like that unless they mean trouble. I got there right when they spun and their back bumper clipped you. If it’d been the front of the car, you’d be a goner.”

  “Thought I was for a while. I shot out their tires.”

  “I figured. What’d you get snagged on?”

  “No idea. You going to help me up or sit there jawing?”

  With a breath of resignation he put a hand under my elbow, steadying me. I became aware of sirens. We were halfway between Market Street headquarters and the central police station, mostly called Ford Street. Still faintly disoriented, I looked around and saw a crowd at the end of the alley where I’d been headed.

  “What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing you want to see.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Boike didn’t know what else to do, so he let go of me. I hobbled along muttering words more than one nun had washed my mouth out for saying. One side of my cheek was scraped and bleeding, but I figured wiping it with the back of a grimy hand wasn’t a good idea, and I’d lost my purse.

  When I neared the end of the alley that opened on Third Street I saw police and a small knot of horrified onlookers out on the sidewalk. A few steps more and I saw a pair of thin legs jutting out from a cotton dress too thin for the weather. The soles of the shoes were worn through, stuffed with pasteboard and bound with rags. The dress had faded sprigs of purple.

  The woman I’d seen scraping the last scraps from garbage c
ans lay stretched before me. She was alive, but not by much. One side of her face had been smashed to a pulp. Blood bubbled from the edge of her mouth. More seeped through the waist of her dress where there was a gaping tear.

  “Black Mariah’s coming for her,” Boike said.

  I nodded. Mariah was the backup ambulance, an old paddy wagon pressed into service when the new ambulance was in for repairs, which was most of the time. It was only coming from Ford Street, but the woman stretched before us probably wouldn’t last the drive to the hospital.

  She looked so cold lying there in her thin dress. I took off my coat and spread it over her. The coat was in pretty bad shape now. The sleeve on the side where my scarf had caught was ripped half off from bearing the brunt of my weight as I’d been dragged. Other spots were almost worn through from cushioning me. It was stained with oil and dirt and God-knew-what. The young patrolman squatting beside the woman eyed me curiously.

  “You know her?” Boike asked, frowning.

  “Not who she is. I saw her a block or so over yesterday scraping the bottom of garbage cans hunting something to eat. I gave her a couple of apples.”

  Boike took off his suit coat and draped it over my shoulders. I realized I was shaking, not so much from the cold as from what had happened. To me. To the woman.

  “That bastard came shooting out of the alley and hit her, didn’t he?” I said. “Drove on with no more thought than if he’d driven through dog droppings.”

  “She might have stepped into the alley,” said Boike. “Garbage cans there, too. Let’s get in a patrol car. It’s warmer. Sure you want to leave your coat?” He cleared his throat. “It’s not going to help her.”

  But I was remembering the woman’s tone when she asked me if I thought dying of poison was any worse than starving to death. I hoped she felt the same way about dying quickly instead of freezing.

  Twenty-five

  I woke up cranky. Having a sprained shoulder, along with relentless stinging from a three-inch scrape on the shoulder blade, will do that to you. At least my sleep hadn’t been troubled by the dreams of recent months in which I squeezed a trigger and a man fell dead. Instead I’d dreamed of headlights roaring toward me and a woman’s broken body flying into the air.

  Sliding my feet to the floor, I sat on the edge of the bed and waited while most of the muscles in my body objected. My recollections of what took place after I put my coat over the dying woman felt like remembering a picture show. Boike had maneuvered me to a patrol car and told the driver to take me to the hospital. The doc who patched me up had told me to keep the dressing on my shoulder dry for a couple of days. Boike and his boss had been waiting when I came out of the treatment area. They’d handed me my purse, which someone had retrieved, and asked more questions than I could handle. Finally, in a surge of gallantry, Freeze had told a patrolman to drop me off at Mrs. Z’s. I’d had a quick soak — taking care to keep the dressing on my shoulder dry. Then I’d crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head.

  This morning, to add to my other miseries, my stomach growled and my head felt fuzzy. A cup of tea would help, and I knew Genevieve would be up. Getting into the bathroom when everyone was getting ready for work could be tricky, but the first time I peeked out it was vacant. By the time I’d washed my face I was moving more nimbly. I got my mug and knocked on Genevieve’s door.

  “Oh, my. You look the worse for wear,” she said when she’d let me in.

  “Yeah, but if you play Nurse Nightengale and give me some tea I’ll be good as new.”

  Her eyebrow gave a cynical lift. Ginny didn’t ask about my work and I didn’t pry into her past. It was one of the reasons we got on. She went wordlessly to a small hotplate and filled my mug from the kettle it held. Mrs. Z had okayed the hotplate because Genevieve was older than the rest of us, and responsible. None of the other girls were to know she had it.

  After we’d chatted a minute I went back to dress. Besides ruining my coat, getting dragged through the alley had shredded my skirt and destroyed the backs of my shoes. That left me with a work wardrobe of two pairs of shoes, one suit, one skirt, a sweater and several blouses, plus a dress that might be warm enough today if I had a coat.

  I decided on the gray skirt, along with thick cotton stockings. They’d cover the bruises on both legs and a gauze pad on one that protected a weeping scrape. By the time I finished doing my hair and putting on lipstick, I was moving almost normally. For somebody twice my age.

  On the bright side, Freeze had also returned my .38 when he came to the hospital. I felt almost chipper as I tucked it into my purse. There’d been times in the past when Freeze had kept it for several days while he sorted out my role in something.

  Reluctantly I eased on the jacket from my remaining suit. It didn’t look great with the gray skirt, but it was the best I could manage for warmth. I’d also ruined a hat in the alley, so I put on a sky blue Peter Pan number trimmed with a couple of long gray feathers. That part of my ensemble looked terrific.

  * * *

  “Miss Sullivan.” The butler at Wildman’s place was startled to see me. It was barely eight in the morning.

  “Tell Mr. Wildman I need to see him,” I said stepping in around him. “I don’t care if he’s in his pajamas. I don’t care if he’s on a phone call to Timbuktu. I want to see him. Now.”

  His eyes wavered toward the edge of a gauze strip which my hair didn’t quite conceal. He gave a small bow.

  “May I take your....” He stopped, realizing I didn’t have a coat. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  In under a minute Wildman strode down the hall toward me.

  “Miss Sullivan?” The words were clipped, displeased by my uninvited intrusion.

  “Someone tried to kill me yesterday,” I said bluntly.

  His pupils flared. Only a couple of Tiffany lamps shed soft illumination in the oversized entry hall at this time of day, but I thought he lost color.

  “You were right to come. We’ll talk in the study.” He turned on his heel.

  By the time I’d followed him back to the room where we’d first met, the maid in the frilly apron was replenishing a silver coffee pot. The small side table held evidence I’d interrupted his breakfast. There were two cups, one of them unused.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “It would be very welcome.”

  He waited until the maid had departed, then walked tothe windows and stood looking out.

  “If you wish to quit, I’ll understand,” he said. “I’ll pay you in full. Whatever you deem fair.”

  I sipped coffee.

  “Do you want me to quit?”

  The fact he hadn’t asked about my injuries indicated how shaken he was. Had he been behind what had happened, he would have slathered on innocent concern. Had he stayed the invincible tycoon that he was accustomed to being, he would have asked by rote as a business pleasantry. He continued to look out the window, hands locked behind his back.

  “I don’t want anyone to die because of me,” he said at last. “Because of my – obsession, as James calls it.” He turned. The piercing look was gone from his eyes. They looked tired. “Do you think I’m a fool, Miss Sullivan? To keep pursuing this?”

  “In the beginning, yes. Now I think it involves someone with no conscience. Indifferent to how many innocent people they hurt. Someone who ought to be stopped.”

  His face relaxed. “Thank you. Do sit down. I haven’t even asked about your injuries—”

  “I’m okay. And I won’t stay. I’ve got a cab waiting.”

  “I’ll have Smith pay him. Rogers can take you–”

  I held up a hand.

  “Thanks, but no. I didn’t come because I want to quit, or want more money. I came because if someone tried to kill me, they might take it into their head to kill you too. You may not care, may think it looks tougher to shrug it off, but your kid’s scared to death of losing you. He stopped me on the way to his violin lesson the other day and asked would I keep you
safe. That should count for something.”

  Wildman looked wordlessly at his hands.

  “I started this for the wrong reasons. Vanity, I suppose. But now that I’ve stirred things up, I feel responsible. I’ll take your words to heart – about being cautious. When we finish here, I’ll arrange for Stuart and his governess to leave this afternoon. A vacation somewhere. So he’s not in danger. But if you’re willing, I would like you to see it through to the end.”