The Barefoot Stiff
(a Maggie Sullivan short story)
by M. Ruth Myers
Copyright 2014 Mary Ruth Myers
Smashwords Edition
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THE BAREFOOT STIFF
M. Ruth Myers
I was having some oatmeal at my usual dime store lunch counter and reading about fresh attempts to scuttle FDR’s New Deal when the blonde who started it all slid onto the stool next to mine. She ordered and lighted up, jutting her chin to blow some smoke before she looked at me.
“You the dame detective?”
I eyed her, wondering if we’d met somewhere.
“That’s right. Maggie Sullivan.”
She took another drag on her cigarette. She was taller than me, maybe five-four. The blonde part of her wasn’t real but a couple of moles as tiny as toast crumbs by her bottom lip looked like they might be. Her suit was too fine for a lunch counter, and the cheap neck chain she wore tucked inside it suggested she wasn’t used to money.
“Gentleman wants to hire you.” She slid me a sawbuck with an address scribbled across it. “He’ll give you some real money once he meets you. Here’s the particulars. Half past six.”
“That’s a swell hat,” I said. I’d never met a hat I didn’t want. The royal blue number she was wearing had set her back plenty.
She tossed her hair, preening. “Chapeaux Jeanette. Friday afternoon I pick up one they’re making for me special.”
I whistled softly, as impressed as she intended me to be. Only top tier socialites, and maybe a girl or two from Mrs. Salmon’s upscale cat house, could afford to shop there. The blonde remembered why she was talking to me.
“So — we got a deal?”
Ten bucks would put gas in my car for a year and then some. I slid it back to her with one of my business cards on top.
“People who want to hire me need to come to my office.”
She stared at me a minute. Then she shrugged and left and that was that.
Almost.
I was curious, so instead of taking the usual route to my office, I cut over a block to find the ragged newsboy who sold me my papers. He spotted me and broke into a grin.
“Hey, sis. Back for another paper? They’re first-rate for stuffing in leaky windows.”
“I’m back for information, Heebs.” I paused while a customer stopped to make a purchase. As soon as he’d moved on, I got to the point. “You happen to notice a good-looking blonde in a blue hat come by about five minutes ago?”
“Yeah. Legs weren’t near as terrific as yours. She saw a Peoples coming and hustled to catch it.”
Trolleys operated by Peoples Railway Company went east along Fifth. It didn’t tell me much, except that the blonde wasn’t spending money on taxis, or staying at a fancy hotel. Given her furtive approach, whoever had sent her probably wanted help with something that wasn’t on the up-and-up.
I tossed Heebs a quarter. He caught it expertly.
“Hey, sis, when we going out on a date?” he called after me.
“When you’re old enough to shave.”
My office was on the third floor of a building near some railroad tracks and the downtown produce market. When I’d hung up my hat, I switched my Smith & Wesson from the holster under my jacket to a pocket beneath the seat of my chair. I finished some small jobs for regular clients, work that paid for the basics, but not much more. By noon I found myself thinking about the ten bucks I’d turned down.
Growing up in Dayton had taught me its streets like the back of my emery board. Work as a floorwalker in a department store had given me an instinct for crooks and liars. Yet many people shied away from hiring a woman for my kind of work. My DeSoto was close to needing new tires. I still had bills from getting my lip stitched up a few months back. Temptation kept whispering in my ear. By late afternoon a dead plant in the corner of my office and the bottle of gin in my bottom drawer both saw things my way: What could it hurt to listen to whoever had sent the blonde?
The address I’d seen on the ten spot was only a few blocks away. Dusk was thickening by the time I set out. Sales girls heading home waited at trolley stops. Newsboys hawked the late edition. I found the number before the one I was hunting and trotted up the next set of steps.
That number was too high.
Frowning, I retraced my steps. The place I’d passed was still one number too low. As I stood staring at gold letters advertising clock and watch repair, a round little man with a fringe of white hair beneath his cap backed out and locked the door. He jumped at sight of me.
“Oh, dear,” he said. I’m afraid I’ve just closed for the day.”
“Actually, I’m hunting an address.”
I reeled it off. The clockmaker nodded.
“Confusing, isn’t it? It’s in the alley.” The passage was so narrow that I’d passed it without noticing. “Nothing there now, though,” he continued. “It used to be —”
A wavering scream interrupted his sentence. It came from the alley. By the time it ended, I’d started around the corner with the clockmaker at my heels.
The passageway was too narrow for a car, and dim. A street light at the far end gave just enough illumination to show the shape of a woman racing out the other end. The next instant she was gone, vanished onto the distant sidewalk.
Slowing my pace, I saw it wasn’t an attacker that had caused her scream, but something bulky lying near the middle of the alley. Judging by its shape, it wasn’t anything pleasant. Gun out, alert for the stirring of shadows, I approached. A man lay sprawled on his back. Good-sized, fair haired — I couldn’t tell much else about him. His face had been pounded until the features were lost. I knelt and felt for a pulse, but he was dead. Not long, though. His flesh was still warm.
I sat back on my heels and gave the dead man the once over. Blood soaked the front of his shirt from a tidy stab wound. His suit had the fine fit only custom tailoring gives, and his watch and cufflinks looked like real gold. His pockets had been turned out. One side of his jacket was flipped back, its lining slashed. Not torn or worn through. Slashed.
What caught my eye, though, was the fact his feet were bare.
A balled up sock lay nearby. There was no sign of shoes.
“Oh! Oh, my!” The clockmaker had caught up with me. “Is he – is he —?”
The nice old gent was leaning over and pale, like he might lose his lunch.
“Yeah.” I rose and gave him a nudge to turn him away from the sight. “I’ll wait here. You call the cops.”
***
“You’re sure you’d never seen the blonde before?” asked a homicide lieutenant named Freeze. He was going gray at the temples and as thin as the cigarettes he smoked non-stop. We’d met a few times and we didn’t like each other much.
“Answer’s the same as last time — no.” He’d had me tell the same story so many times I knew what he’d ask next, so I spared him the effort. “And no, I can’t say if the woman running out was the blonde. No, I didn’t see anyone else in the alley.”
Freeze narrowed his eyes. I was slouched in a wooden chair in front of his desk with my legs stretched out and my arms crossed. It was after ten. Two assistants who trailed Freeze everywhere leaned against the wall. One was taking notes while his pal memorized my legs.<
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“I suggest you take this more seriously, Miss Sullivan. I’m finding it hard to swallow you turning up at a murder scene while the body’s still warm, spinning some yarn about a blonde at a lunch counter, and claiming to have no idea what any of it’s about.”
“Hey, it’s not making me too happy either.”
Rumor had it the detective division kept a coffee pot on a hotplate somewhere, but I hadn’t seen any evidence. My stomach whimpered for food.
“Look, Freeze, we both know I’m not a suspect. The old man from the clock shop already told you we heard the scream and found the body together. What I am...” Scooting upright I gave him my sunniest smile. “...is your only witness.”
“Apart from the woman who ran.”
“Who you don’t have.”
“Who played you for a chump. Either that, or you know more about this than you’re telling.” Freeze leaned on his forearms. “The thing is, every so often I hear somebody say you’re smart. Who knows? You can choose your cases, bat your eyes to get information. Seems to me somebody smart wouldn’t sail off to a meeting in an alley just because some stranger dangled money.”
Hard to say which part of it angered me most.
“The thing is,” I echoed, “if you’d share some things — like the stiff’s name — you could test the smart part.”
Our eyes locked. Several seconds passed. Peripherally I saw the two other detectives exchange an uneasy look. Freeze worked his jaw a couple of times, creating a ripple in the column of smoke in front of him.
“We don’t know who he is. His wallet’s missing. Looks like a robbery.”
“Except they left an expensive watch. And cufflinks.”
“Could have been interrupted. Maybe by the dame who screamed.”
“Then I’d have seen somebody else besides her in the alley.”
“Maybe it was her who killed him.”
“And screamed for the heck of it? And beat him beyond recognition? Come on, Freeze. Erasing his face and taking his wallet — that says to me somebody didn’t want him identified.”
Freeze rubbed out a stub of cigarette that would have burned a fat man’s fingers. His grunt might have meant approval. Or maybe I’d inadvertently batted my eyes.
“We’re thinking he knew something and the killer tried to beat it out of him,” he said. “Or was carrying something he didn’t want to give up.” He jerked his head at his assistants.
“A bank got robbed in Indiana Saturday,” said the one who’d been taking notes.
“The day before that, a pair of stick-up men down in Cincinnati snatched some diamonds,” his pal added.
I nodded absently. Bank robberies had become a dime a dozen once the end of Prohibition left unemployed bootleggers seeking other sources of income.
“I read about the diamonds,” I said. “A shipment of some kind.”
I’d also read that a nice reward was being offered for information leading to their recovery.
“It would explain his jacket lining being cut,” said Freeze. “A pouch of diamonds wouldn’t even make a bulge,. Part of a bank haul, especially big bills, could fit okay too.”
But something about that didn’t seem right. The blonde hadn’t made a chump of me. I had only myself to blame for this lousy night. And Freeze’s innuendos about my lack of competence were making it had to think.
“Did you find a gun?” I asked. “Any sign the dead man had one?”
The two assistants looked at their boss for a cue. He struck a match and lighted up again.
“Doesn’t look like it,” he said at last. “His hands were scraped, so he threw some punches fighting whoever jumped him.”
“It doesn’t make sense that someone with something valuable on them wouldn’t carry a weapon. Even if — let’s say it was the diamonds — were hidden.”
The lieutenant scowled. Apparently I’d punched a hole in his favorite theory.
“Did you find his shoes?” I asked suddenly.
“What?”
“Your stiff was barefoot.”
All three cops exchanged a look.
“So whoever killed him took his shoes. So what?”
“So why?”
“Plenty of people could’ve used new shoes these last few years.”
But I shook my head as an idea formed.
“What if the victim was carrying something he could use to get the loot from one of those robberies?” I said slowly. “Or somebody thought he was.”
“Like?”
“A key? To a locker? A safety deposit box? The killer checked the victim’s pockets, his jacket lining. Maybe what he was after wasn’t there, so he thought of the shoes. It was too risky sticking around to check them there, so he took them.”
“Yeah, and maybe the pixies took them to make a house.”
I clamped my teeth together to keep from saying something I’d regret. What I was suggesting made sense, but he wasn’t even considering it.
“Let’s get back to the blonde,” he said. “Chances are she knew the stiff. Sure you can’t remember anything about her except she took the Fifth Street trolley?”.
“I already told you — she’s got a custom-made hat on order at Chapeaux Jeanette.”
“That’s useless as tits on a boar hog. A broad mixed up in a robbery, who stumbles into a murder scene, isn’t going to hang around to get a hat.”
“Don’t you think it’s worth at least checking to see if the hat shop knows anything?”
“Gee, boys, maybe we should try places that sell fancy panties, too — just in case.”
His assistants snickered. Freeze knocked ashes into a cheap metal ashtray.
“We don’t have time to waste on harebrained ideas based on nothing but hunches. Let’s run through this again. Start at the lunch counter.”
Instead I stood up.
“Sorry, it’s time to consult my Ouija board. If it gives me any clues, I’ll give you a jingle.”
***
It irked me that Freeze had sloughed off my theory about the key. And the shoes. And the hat. Which was why I had no intention of telling him I’d remembered one more thing about the blonde.
The detail I’d remembered made me willing to bet a few bucks that not only was there a key, but that she had it. Or at least knew its location. So the next day I skipped my oatmeal and drove downtown before it was fully light. I parked, then walked half a block to the corner where Heebs hawked his papers. The morning rush was just beginning. He hadn’t sold many.
“I’ll buy all those and give you two bucks to help me this morning,” I said.
His eyes lighted up. It wasn’t the first time he’d helped me. Heebs was smart as they came and always glad for a chance to make real money instead of the pennies he got selling papers. The kid didn’t have any family. He slept in doorways.
“Sure, sis. What do I got to do?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
Harebrained ideas huh? Batting my eyes, huh? We’d just see.
I knew the cops would be scouring the alley first thing for any evidence they might have missed last night due to darkness and uncertain portable lights. As I’d expected, a cop car sat by the mouth of the alley. A couple of uniforms moved methodically around the area where the body had lain. Another one appeared to be working his way toward the far end.
“A guy got killed in there last night,” I said nodding as I drove past without slowing. “I don’t think the killer found what he wanted. I’m guessing he may want to have another look once the cops are gone. I want to meet him. The first thing you’ll do is talk that newsie there into letting you work his corner. Trade with him, buy his papers if you have to. Here’s a buck if you do. Think you can manage it?”
Heebs had turned in his seat to look.
“Piece of cake. That’s Wally. He’s just a kid. Hasn’t gotten the hang of things yet.”
Heebs was maybe all of twelve.
I drove up one side of the block across from the alley. When
I turned again and was out of view, I pulled to the curb.
“Don’t know if you noticed a cigar store,” I said. “It’s across the street from where the cops are and down some. I’m going to watch from in there. Soon as the cops leave, I’ll give it ten minutes, maybe more. Then I’ll sashay across and pretend to hunt for something. When I come out of the alley, you sell me a paper.”
“Then what?”
“Then I go to my office and you stick around until time for you to pick up your noon papers. If nobody who’s not a cop shows up to poke around, then you’ve made more money than I have this morning. If somebody does show up, you let him look some. Then you call to him.” I thought a moment. “Or her. Say I beat them to it.”
“That you already found it.”
“Right. Dribble it out who I am and where my office is. Think you can describe my building?”
“Sure.”
“There’s a pay phone in that cigar store. Call me as soon as he leaves. Here’s change. And Heebs,” I added as he opened the door to get out. “Don’t try any bright ideas of your own, and don’t set foot in that alley if anyone’s in it. If anyone does poke around in there, he’s a killer.”
The anticipation in the kid’s eyes turned to alertness. He gave a short nod. He hadn’t survived on the streets by taking too many chances.
***
When I’d parked my car in the gravel lot where I usually left it, I walked to the cigar store and flipped through an issue of Black Mask magazine. I got my copies second hand from a friend and passed them on to a waitress. Once the cops left the alley, I killed time chatting with the guy behind the cigar counter. I bought a Zagnut bar and flirted a little so he didn’t get miffed at my loitering. Finally, taking my leave, I marched purposefully across the street. Heebs watched from the corner vacated by the other newsboy.
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