Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Why would Shelly join them if …?”

  “Ask him,” he said. “I think the idea of making and handling weapons, being part of such a group intrigued him. He was looking for something to belong to. I was the unfortunate bearer of the tale that drew him in. Had he talked to a defrocked priest, he might have converted to Catholicism. You want to try this?”

  He gently touched an upright rod with his left hand. The machine hummed in a wave of sound.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “My biggest problem is that people keep comparing my creation to the theremin. They are nothing alike. The Aeolian requires putting one’s hands on the tonal bars and, unlike the theremin, a skilled performer can imitate any instrument that exists and many which do not. It is a hands-on instrument, not a hands-off instrument.

  “My rates are reasonable,” Geiger said. “And for low payments over an agreed-upon period of time you could own your own Aeolian trafingle with individual lessons provided. It’s the musical instrument of the future.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “What do you know about Timerjack?”

  “Know about him? He’s cuckoo. He’s nuts. He’s dangerous. If you ever meet him …”

  “I have,” I said.

  “That eye? Got hit in the head with a baseball when he was a kid. They wouldn’t let him in the army in the first war.”

  “Because of the eye?”

  “Because he was nuts. And maybe because of the eye a little, too. Who knows? He tells everyone he recruits that he’s a master of the ancient and reliable weapons, but I never saw him actually use one. He carries them around, tells other people what to do. I made it to Pathfinder the day before I almost choked on that goddamn dart.”

  “That camp he runs by the lake,” I said. “What does he charge members?”

  “Not enough to keep the place going.” Geiger touched a small rod on the Aeolian trafingle. “Want to hear me play ‘Trees’? Sounds just like a mandolin.”

  “Another time,” I said. “Where does he get his money?”

  “Father owned Waldecker’s Fishing Lures,” said Geiger. “You know, ‘the lures even the smartest trout can’t resist.’ Dad’s dead, but they’re still selling lures, and half the money goes to Timerjack.”

  “The other half?”

  “His sister, Martha Helter. Even between them, I don’t think we’re talking about more than four or five thousand dollars a year.”

  “Helter? The ex-nun?”

  “Ha,” said Geiger. “And ‘ha’ again. She was a nun in another crackpot religion. The family is loaded with crackpots. I’ve got a copy of their pamphlet here somewhere if you want to read it.”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got one.”

  “If it makes any sense to you,” he said, “please don’t come back here and try to explain it.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Lots, but not about Timerjack and his pack of lunatics and misfits.”

  “Did you learn to fire a crossbow?”

  “Yes,” he said with pride. “And I was pretty good with it. It’s not that hard.”

  I thanked him, moved toward the door and heard the start of a version of something that might have been “Avalon” creep up my spine.

  When I got back to the office, Violet said, “You had a phone call, a woman. She said to call her back right away. Her name is Billie Cassin. She left this number. And your brother called. And Mrs. Plaut called and told me to tell you not to forget to stop for the groceries. And Martin Leib called. It’s been a busy fifteen minutes.”

  I took the sheet of paper Violet had written all the names and numbers on and headed for my office.

  CHAPTER 5

  JOAN CRAWFORD WANTED me to know that she would have to go the next morning to an eight in the morning lineup to identify Shelly.

  “Someone’s bound to recognize me,” she said.

  “I’ll make a call and see if I can keep it confidential,” I told her. “After the lineup we’ll go to Lincoln Park. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

  She agreed, but she didn’t sound happy about the whole thing.

  Marty Leib was on another line when I called his office. I opened my window and waited for him and listened to the traffic going up and down Main and Hoover. I considered opening a few bills, but decided to doodle instead. I doodle a terrible Bugs Bunny. His teeth are too big and his ears droop.

  “Peters.” Leib’s slow deep voice now came on. He spoke slowly because he billed by the hour, and Shelly was definitely going to pay for an hour for this call. “We have a good case, primarily because I think we can demonstrate that Sheldon Minck is incapable of seeing much of anything fifteen feet ahead of him, let alone delivering an arrow to the heart.”

  “Bolt,” I said.

  “Yes, right. I’ve got to remember that. Let me write that down. You need to find out two things. First, what was Mildred Minck doing in Lincoln Park at that spot at that time? Sheldon claims he didn’t expect her there, was sure she had no way of knowing where he was.”

  He paused.

  “Second thing?” I prompted.

  “Second thing is to find out who might want Mildred dead. Besides Sheldon Minck.”

  “That it?” I asked.

  “That’s it. Oh, if you can find out who did kill Mildred Minck and how they managed it, prior to my entering a plea on Monday—providing it wasn’t Sheldon Minck—it would be very helpful.”

  He hung up.

  My last call was to my brother Phil. I had his direct number at the Wilshire Station. He answered after one ring.

  “Pevsner,” he said.

  “Peters,” I answered.

  “Doctor called,” he said. “Doesn’t look like Ruth will make it through the weekend.”

  “I’m sorry, Phil.”

  “Yeah. I’m taking off for the hospital now. Ruth’s sister Becky is taking care of the boys and Lucy.”

  “What do you want me to do, Phil?”

  “The right thing,” he said. “Yeah, and I’ve been suspended without pay for a week. The commissioner reviewed my file, had the chief in full uniform in his office, and strongly suggested that I seriously consider retirement.”

  “What are going to do?” I asked.

  “Give it serious consideration.” He hung up.

  It was close to five o’clock. I’d had a busy day, but it wasn’t over. I told Violet she should go home and went out the door.

  Juanita was just getting out of the elevator, blue dress with a white sash billowing, long dangling earrings jingling, makeup doing little to cover her seventy years, but a lot for the cosmetics industry.

  There was no way to escape.

  “Toby,” she said. “You’ve got one hell of an aura today. I’m telling you.”

  “It’s been one of those days.” I moved toward the stairs.

  “It’s been flowing out of your office,” she said. “More like puking, if you know.”

  Juanita had left Brooklyn five years earlier, but Brooklyn had never left her. She dressed like a gypsy and had the accent of a Chock Full o’ Nuts waitress. Most of her clients were Mexicans, young and old. There were a few Anglos in there, too, but not many. A sprinkling of Greek, Italian and Creoles rounded out her clientele, people who believed in her powers but probably didn’t understand her any more than I did.

  Juanita had found her gift long before she became Juanita, when she was still a middle-aged Jewish housewife who had just lost her third husband.

  “I tried to ignore it,” she once told me with a shrug, “but when you’ve got the gift, what can you do?”

  “You’re going to warn me again, aren’t you?” I asked, trapped.

  “I’m gonna tell you what I saw or sort of saw, you know what I mean?”

  I didn’t, but I just stood there waiting.

  “You’re looking for someone who carries a … I don’t know, something dangerous. You’re looking for someone who hurt someone. No, killed someone
. I see lots of dark green and purple. Death. You talked to that person you’re looking for today.”

  “I don’t suppose you could give me a name.”

  She put her hands on her hips. The fingers were covered with large rings. She shook her head.

  “You know it doesn’t work like that, for chrissake.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Be careful,” she said. “Someone is going to spit at you.”

  “How can I be careful about someone spitting at me?”

  “I don’t know. I figure if someone is going to try to spit on me I want to know it,” she said.

  “Anything else?”

  “I see you in a big room, like a ballroom, something. You’ve got a gun in your hand, a funny-looking gun with a long barrel. Someone gets shot, killed.”

  “Me?”

  She shrugged and said, “Who knows? I tell you what I see, not what it means. I’m a seer, not a philosopher.”

  “Is that it?”

  Juanita stood silently for a couple of beats, sighed deeply and said, “Someone’s aura is dimming. Someone you’re worrying about. Someone who’s dying I think. A woman.”

  “And what do I do about it?”

  “Veis ich?” she said with another shrug. “How do I know?”

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “I think so.” She moved in front of me and put her hand on my shoulder. “No, there’s a big change coming in your life, very soon, a new direction, a move.”

  “I don’t want a new direction,” I said.

  “You don’t want. Like you’ve got a choice here. You know Joan Blondell filed for divorce from Dick Powell today. She read a little poem she wrote to the reporters.”

  Juanita fished into her pocket and came out with a newspaper clipping. “Listen to this. Here’s what Blondell wrote:

  “Life is phony with baloney

  From the start till it’s done;

  Gold or tatters, neither matters,

  For the strife of Life is fun!”

  “Thanks, Juanita,” I said, starting down the metal stairs. “Jeremy might appreciate hearing it.”

  “Hey,” she said. “Joan Blondell’s right.”

  I could sense her on the sixth-floor landing, leaning over, watching me, listening to my footsteps rattle downward.

  “The spit is sharp and purple,” she called and her voice echoed through the six floors to the skylight. “It’s coming soon.”

  I headed for the grocery with Mrs. Plaut’s list. Back in October, a woman named Fannie Rager in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, tried to fill out a ration-application blank. She tried, failed, and hanged herself. I knew how she felt, but I protected myself by turning over all my rationing paperwork to Mrs. Plaut. She loved filling out the forms and adding comments to the Ration Board in the margins. Sometimes she wrote in family recipes or advice on nutrition.

  I had the ration stamps in my pocket and the list in my hand as I went down the aisles with a bag. I was reaching for a can of peaches when the can spat at me. A hole suddenly appeared in the can and syrup shot out of the hole. I jumped right and just missed getting syruped.

  I looked around to see if someone had witnessed this miracle, but I was the only one in the aisle. I found myself looking at a sign for Campbell’s Vegetable Soup. A cartoon balloon was next to the picture of a round rosy-cheeked Campbell Kid wearing ice skates. The balloon announced, “I’m pretty spry as you can see ’cause there’s good soup inside of me!”

  There was also peach syrup on the Campbell Kid’s face.

  When the spray stopped, I reached for the punctured can and looked at the hole. It looked like a purple tuft of cotton was plugging the hole, trying to keep back the flow of syrup. The can was sticky. The hole was narrow, but something just barely protruded from it. I grasped the tuft of whatever it was with two fingers and tugged at it. It came out easily, attached to a sharp pointed sliver of wood about five inches long.

  “What happened here?” a voice said behind me.

  I turned to face a skinny teenager with freckles wearing an apron. He was looking at the puddle of syrup on the floor and at the can in my hand.

  “I think someone just tried to kill me with a blowgun,” I said, holding up the needle-shaped piece of wood.

  “Like so much Wheatena!” the boy said angrily. “You were sucking out the juice, and you were gonna put the can back on the shelf turned around.”

  “Does that happen?” I asked.

  “Even crazier things, and I have to clean it up. You’re paying for those peaches, mister. I hope you’ve got the cash and the stamps.”

  I dropped the little dart in my shopping basket and started toward the front of the store, being careful not to slip in the pool of syrup.

  “I plan to tell Mr. Jerinetta about this,” the kid said behind me.

  At the front of the store, I looked around hoping to see someone suspicious, particularly a Pathfinder with a blowgun. I moved along looking down each aisle. There were about a dozen customers, none of whom seemed to fit the bill.

  “Did a kid just run out of here?” I asked the cashier, a string-bean of a woman with a red ribbon in her dyed blond hair.

  “Someone ran out,” she said. “Might have been a kid. I wasn’t really looking. Gladys, you see someone run out of here a few minutes ago?”

  Gladys, dark, chubby and a kid herself, was the cashier on the other aisle.

  “No,” Gladys said.

  I put my groceries on the counter in front of the woman and looked out the store window. I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  “This stuff is sticky,” she said, touching the container of Old Dutch Cleanser.

  “Peach syrup,” I explained. “Someone tried to kill me with a dart, probably poisoned. Hit the peach can, instead.”

  I held up the dart.

  She looked up at it and me and shook her head. She was used to angry customers. She merely rang me up, took my coupons, put my groceries in a brown sack.

  I headed for the door. Behind me I heard her say, loud enough to be sure I heard, “Hey, Glad, watch my checkout for a second. I gotta wash my hands and the counter. Some nut just syruped the place.”

  I went carefully to my car, opened the door and put the groceries inside. I placed the dart on the seat next to me on top of an old Popular Science magazine with the drawing of a monorail Train of the Future on the cover.

  Someone had either tried to scare the hell out of me, or kill me, or maybe just inflict a little warning pain. The question was “Why?”

  Best guess was that someone didn’t want me trying to help Shelly. Looked at one way, this was a good thing. It meant that someone else had probably killed Mildred.

  I pulled out into traffic with my windows closed and turned on the radio. A girl was singing something that sounded like opera.

  I had another thought. Why had whoever it was shot at me with a dart? Why not hit me on the head or blow a hole in me or cut my throat or … I didn’t want to follow this particular line of thought.

  The girl on the radio now stopped singing. The drowsy voice of Major Bowes came on after the applause, saying that The Original Amateur Hour was always pleased to discover such talent and reminding us that we had just heard “‘The Bell Song’ sung by little Miss Louise Hornerhoven of French Lick, Indiana.”

  Major Bowes also informed me that Miss Lily Pons, who had made “The Bell Song” famous, had an entry in the Madison Square Garden Poultry Show.

  “A silver-faced Cochin hen named Gilda Rosina,” the Major droned. “And I was informed just before we went on the air that another great opera star, tenor Lauritz Melchior, has won a prize at the show with his cock named Great Tristan.”

  The studio audience applauded wildly, Miss Louise Hornerhoven of French Lick now forgotten.

  I headed for the boardinghouse. At Mrs. Plaut’s was someone I had to talk to about crossbows and darts.

  CHAPTER 6

  GUNTHER WHERTHMAN TOLD me to come in when I kn
ocked at his door. Gunther was probably my closest friend. He was certainly my nearest neighbor, one door down from me at Mrs. Plaut’s.

  Gunther had lived in the boardinghouse before I got there, and when I helped him—he had been wrongly charged with murdering a Munchkin on the set of The Wizard of Oz—he convinced me to move into a room chez Plaut.

  Gunther worked out of his room, a tasteful den with a desk, full bookshelves lining the walls, two comfortable armchairs and a small bed in one corner near the window.

  The bed was small because Gunther doesn’t need a big one. He is three feet tall.

  When I entered, Gunther was at his desk, pencil in hand, pad of paper in front of him next to his typewriter. Gunther made a good living translating books and articles from or into any of several languages. He worked for government agencies, big businesses and publishers. He wore three-piece suits and Windsor-knotted ties even when he had no plans for leaving Mrs. Plaut’s.

  “News of Dr. Minck?” he asked with only a trace of his native accent.

  “Doesn’t look good,” I said, sitting in the armchair facing him.

  I had dropped off the groceries downstairs with Mrs. Plaut. She had told me that I had done a satisfactory job but that I was late.

  “Someone tried to kill me with a blowgun in the grocery store,” I had said, holding up the dart.

  She had peered at it over her glasses. “Don’t go to that store anymore,” she said.

  I told her I wouldn’t, and she handed me some sheets of lined paper filled with her distinctive handwriting, clear, clean, small, and invincible.

  “This is a singular adventure,” she said, nodding at the pages. “It marks a crucial moment on my father’s side of the equation, a moment which might well have resulted in my father not being born.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “How can you, Mr. Peelers?” she asked. “You haven’t read it yet.”

  I had long ago given up any attempt to convince Mrs. Plaut that I was neither an exterminator nor a book editor. I had some theories about how she had come to this conclusion, all of them connected to being almost deaf, unswervingly determined, and able to reconcile almost any contradiction that came her way.