by Rick Polad
“She’s fine, at least on the outside. Her uncle is taking good care of her.”
She nodded. I felt sorry. Not for her, but with her. She obviously had cared a lot about Elizabeth and Marty.
Trying my best to sound wise, I said, “Sometimes people are driven by forces that the rest of us can’t understand.”
She shook her head. “Well, I’ll never understand, that’s for sure. She was a good person and good people just don’t end up like that. Or, if they do, life really stinks.”
“Her brother also assured me she was a good person.”
Fire burst out in her eyes. “Don’t get me started on him. As far as I’m concerned, this was all his fault.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Beef? How could it be his fault?”
She touched her sandwich and then pushed it away. “He could have given her money. He has to have plenty, he owns a business. If he had helped her she wouldn’t have moved.”
I was amazed at how quickly her face could change from sadness to anger. She looked like a different person.
“Did Elizabeth ask him for money?”
“No. She said she couldn’t. He was always singing ‘poor me’ so she felt bad about asking. That’s how people with money are—tell you how tough they have it so you won’t ask for money.”
“Do you know why she wanted money?”
Shaking her head, she answered softly. “I wish I did. I couldn’t have helped her with money, but maybe I could have helped with the problem. I asked but she refused to talk about it. Just all of a sudden she didn’t have enough money to live on. Once-in-a-while she’d get a baby-sitter and we’d go to a show and she never had any trouble paying her bills.” She looked up at me. “She had enough to live nicely. Then all of a sudden she didn’t.” She looked away and stared into the distance. “I know I could have helped if only I could have gotten through to her. But she stopped listening to me and started listening to that damn Maxine.”
I wanted to help Rita but I didn’t know what to do. She obviously felt some responsibility for Elizabeth’s death and still had a lot of anger left. So far I could use my psychiatry degree more than my P.I. license.
“Maxine?” I asked.
“Yeah. Maxine Brewer, her partner in crime, or rather the ringleader. Maxine’s the one who talked her into moving and starting her new business. Maxine worked here too but was evidently doing so well on her back that she quit the bakery. We were all three talking one day and Beth started talking about her money trouble. I had to go to the ladies room and when I got back Beth was talking about the advantages of making money on her back. I knew Maxine had told her to move in with her and do that. I just couldn’t believe it. I was so angry I couldn’t even talk. Next thing I knew, Beth was moving. Didn’t even tell me.” Her eyes welled up with tears.
“You can never tell what’s in somebody else’s head Rita, or what they’re willing to do when things get tough.”
“But Beth just wasn’t that kind of girl.”
I guess we were dealing with two people here. A before and after Beth. But before and after what? If she wasn’t that kind of girl, what would make a girl who wasn’t that kind of girl do that kind of thing? Seemed like something worth learning.
“Do you know if she had any friends besides you at her old apartment?”
She was staring at something way outside of the room.
“Rita?”
Her eyes snapped back to me and I repeated the question.
“No,” she sighed. “I was the only one there she talked to. We were real close, kind of like sisters, you know?”
I nodded.
“There was something I always wondered about though. I was working two jobs to pay the rent. I could have lived somewhere cheaper but it was worth it for the safety and the clean place. But Beth just worked here at the bakery, and she had Marty to take care of.” Her brow furrowed and she shook her head. “I still wonder how she paid the rent. She made about the same as me and she sure didn’t get any help from that no good brother of hers.”
I ignored the slap at Beef. “There was no one else in her life? No men?”
“No. She went out by herself sometimes and I’d watch Marty, but usually she stayed home or the three of us would do something.” Her eyes welled up again. “She really loved that little girl. That’s why I can’t understand...” Tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away and apologized. “I’m sorry, I...”
I touched her arm. “No apology necessary. I’m sorry to have to bring this out.”
“That’s okay. If it helps Marty. You said you were working for her interests. How is that?”
“Well, I was hired to find her father. Maybe he can help somehow. Do you have any idea who it might be?”
Another sigh. “No. I asked several times but Beth didn’t want to talk about it. I had the feeling either he was dead or he didn’t know.”
As Rita took a bite of tuna, I asked if she ever heard Elizabeth mention the name Ronny Press. She finished chewing and said she hadn’t. I described him. Nothing.
“Can you stand one more question?”
“Sure,” she said with a little smile. “But then I have to get back to work.”
“Sure. Did you and Elizabeth meet here at the bakery?”
“No. We were both volunteer workers for Mayor Grey’s election campaign. We met during a coffee break and then started stuffing envelopes together. All we talked about was how wonderful he was. We were so happy when he was elected. He’s done a great job for the people. I didn’t like my job and she said they needed someone here and here I am. And she...” She just shook her head. The tears were back.
After again squeezing her arm, I thanked her for her help and gave her my card. She said to say hi to Marty. I said I would.
I sat at the table for a few more minutes and let the name Jeffrey Grey bounce around in my head to see if it would come out somewhere with an explanation I liked. It didn’t. I left with it still bouncing around.
Chapter 17
A half hour later I pulled up in front of Elizabeth’s apartment on Hunter. The neighborhood was struggling to keep some respectability but was losing the battle. Ten doors to the north there was a freshly painted picket fence with a bed of petunias on the inside. Several houses to the south started a row of dirt front yards, some with fences that were missing pickets and looking like a fighter’s smile. The building had some new windows and some that were boarded up. The front doors were plywood. The sparse grass was being choked out by weeds which had completely taken over the vacant lot next door and ran all the way back to the el tracks behind the building.
There was a silent battle going on here between the north and the south with the decay of apathy slowly moving up the street. I had the feeling this was a war the south would win.
I pulled a u-turn and parked in front. After shutting off the air and the radio I got out and ran into a crowd of kids standing at the curb eyeing my Mustang. Feeling a bit nervous, I started across the walk.
“Hey, mister.”
Turning toward the voice, I raised my eyebrows in response. I couldn’t tell who had heyed me.
The tallest one nodded toward my car. “Nice wheels.”
I guessed him somewhere between ten and fourteen. The youngest in the group may have been eight. It was hard to tell ages with kids. I wasn’t around them enough. I knew one in junior-high who was six-foot-eight who Bobby Knight would drool over. I answered, “Thanks,” and started to turn away.
“Ten bucks to watch it.”
“No thanks, I just had it washed yesterday.” Again, I started to turn.
“Not wash. Do you see any of us holdin’ buckets?”
That got a group laugh. I played along.
“Not wash?”
He slowly shook his head. “Watch. Ten bucks and we make sure nobody does nothin’ to it while you’re inside.”
An entrepreneur. We used to wash cars for two bucks. This kid just sits on the curb and looks
at it and wants ten. Or I guess that’s gets ten. I had no doubt that I was talking to the same guy who would “do somethin’ to it” if I didn’t pay.
Catching the drift of the situation, I bargained. I hate to be played for a complete sucker. I reached in my pocket and offered the kid a five. “Five now, five when I get back if you do a good job.”
He looked at the five like it was an insult. “What? You don’t think we’d do a good job? Ain’t this an honest face?”
I kept my comments about his face to myself and stuck to my offer. I was perfectly willing to drive away and buy a junker for fifty bucks and come back and let him “do somethin’ to it”.
“I’m sure you’d do a fine job, but I just don’t pay up front for anything. It’s a policy.”
He pursed his lips, squinted, and accepted my offer. Shaking his head slightly, he said, “Okay, you don’t look like you’re going to be too long anyway.”
Another group laugh.
I handed him the five.
Shaking his head as I walked away, he said, “Sure is hard bein’ in business these days.”
I made my way up the sidewalk kicking at the weeds growing in the cracks. I wanted to check my car over my shoulder but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by thinking I didn’t trust him. He’d probably get just as much satisfaction out of putting a few dents in the fenders as getting the other five. I was halfway up the stairs when I realized what he thought I was there for. I didn’t especially like him thinking that but then I realized he was a businessman and business was business. Now I understood the comment about not being there too long. Kids sure can be cruel.
The front door creaked open and, after stepping inside, I gave my eyes a few minutes to adjust. I stood in a small entryway with stairs in front of me and doors marked 1A, B, and C on each of the three walls. Narrow, vertical windows framed each side of the door. On my left was a beat-up, brass-fronted mailbox unit recessed into the wall, the kind with little doors that open to get the mail. There were five slots on the top and four on the bottom. The extra spot on the bottom used to hold the doorbells. Now ten empty holes, a few with wires hanging out, gave the impression that there was no one here who wanted visitors. I squinted at the names below the mailboxes and found Brewer under 3A.
There was no carpet in the hallway or on the stairs, but there were tacks around the edges at the walls. The carpet had probably been stolen along with the doorbells, and no one here cared enough to replace it.
The stairs were worn and beat up, but they were solid oak and were trying to resist the decay which was eating away at the hundred-year-old craftsmanship. They reminded me of an old locomotive, standing on a siding somewhere, long ago stripped of its shiny brass parts, but still giving off an aura of strength and determination. I listened to the creak of the treads as I made my way up into the disparity of the building.
I stopped on the second floor landing, listening for some sign of humanity and barely picked up a faint TV set. From the outside came kids’ scratchy voices. They sounded like we must have when the gang would get together and hang around. But I knew it was different. Gang meant something else to these kids.
A small window above my head let in a hopeful square of sunshine which lit up a graffiti-covered patch of green, flowered wallpaper. I sighed and continued up the stairs. My stomach turned as I climbed the last set, not because someone had been killed here but because this lonely, dead, apathetic building had once been Marty’s home. This wasn’t a place to live. It was a place to spend time while you waited to die.
The third floor was a twin of the second, without the patch of wallpaper. I assumed “A” would be the first apartment I came to. Putting my ear to the door, all I heard was the chugging of the air conditioner. I knocked tentatively and waited. Nothing. My next knock was a little louder and longer. Still no response. The third try was my best “I really mean business” knock and it did the trick.
From inside the unknown and unimaginable world behind the door came the gruff response, “Go away. I don’t know what time it is, but it sure as hell isn’t business hours.”
I stopped humming the Tony Orlando song inspired by my third knock and replied, “It’s not your business I’m interested in, it’s mine, and for me it is business hours.”
“Didn’t you see the sign that says ‘no peddlers’?”
I hadn’t and said so.
“Well, pretend you did and get lost. Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”
“I’m not selling anything. My name is Spencer Manning. I’m a private detective and I’d like to talk to you about Elizabeth Williams.”
A slight pause, just enough for her to lose the attitude.
A calmer and lower voice replied, “I told the police everything I know.”
“I’m sure you did, but I’m not looking into her death. I’m trying to get some information for her daughter, Marty.”
After a longer pause, the voice, much closer to the door, said, “If you’ve got some ID, slide it under the door.”
I did and, a few seconds later, the sound of chains and bolts moving was followed by the door opening. I don’t know what I expected but my surprise must have been obvious.
“Not a pretty sight, am I,” she said, running her hands through slept-on, shoulder-length, auburn hair. “What you see is the real thing. Come back tonight if you want the fancy edition.”
I politely declined. She wasn’t that hard to look at, but I knew what the fancy edition did for a living. My surprise wasn’t because of the “just-out-of-bed” look, but rather that Maxine Brewer was just a plain, kind of pretty, normal girl who, under different circumstances, I might have been happy to see. I guess I had expected a floozy with long, painted nails and dyed hair. Her clear complexion, naturally wavy hair, lack of make-up, and long white t-shirt made me wonder why a nice girl like her was in a situation like this. She could have been the girl next door. The only clue to her late hours were dark lines under her eyes.
She led me to a brown threadbare sofa and we sat. The room was sparsely furnished. There was one other chair and a card table covered with papers. A kitchen was built into one of the walls and a hallway led to what I assumed was a bed and a bathroom. Dirty dishes decorated the kitchen. One picture on the wall showed a mutt dog standing up on its hind legs in a field.
“So, Spencer Manning, what do you want to know?”
“I’d like to know who killed Elizabeth Williams and why the Cubs can’t win a pennant.”
She smiled. “The first I can’t help you with, but there is obviously at least one person who can. The second, I don’t think anyone can help you with. And I thought you said you weren’t looking into her death.”
“Technically, I’m not. I’m trying to find out who Marty’s father might be. Since I’m getting nowhere with that, I figure the two might be related. You don’t have any idea who may have killed her?”
A shrug of her shoulders and a shake of her head were followed by a soft no.
“Could it have been a client?”
“Could have been anybody, even you for all I know.”
I let that pass. “Could she have had money lying around?”
That brought a chuckle. “If you live here, you don’t have money lying around. But these days, five bucks is enough to kill for.” She covered a yawn.
I had been trying not to lean back on the couch but my back was starting to hurt so I figured I’d brave the germs and got comfy. “You two were friends?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t thrilled about the kid, but Beth and I were friends. Not bosom buddies, but close enough that she looked to me to help her with some problems.”
“And the solution to one of those problems was to move in here and start hooking?”
Her back straightened and the trusting look was replaced by an icy stare. “You want to judge me, you can get the hell out of here.”
“Sorry. I plead guilty and promise not to do it again.”
“Okay. Actually
, it’s kind of nice having someone in here who’s not paying for something. Almost like company.” Her body relaxed.
There was a whole lot of sadness hidden in that sentence that made me feel like charging in on my white horse and saving the fair maiden, but I resisted. You can’t save everybody and I’d already been pretty much told this was none of my business.
“Where did you meet Elizabeth?”
“We met at the bakery where we both worked. I had been there a couple of years when she came along.”
“Had you ever been to her old apartment?”
“Yeah, a couple of times.”
I leaned forward. “I’m wondering what happened to make her move.”
“Hey. I’m not stupid. I know this place isn’t the Ritz. And if I had an alternative, I sure wouldn’t be here. But it’s better than starving or begging for nickels. Beth moved here because she couldn’t make it anymore on her bakery salary. That guy is raking it in but he doesn’t pay crap. Beth couldn’t afford that apartment on her salary.”
I didn’t tell her I had heard that before. “But she was obviously doing okay for a while?”
“Yeah. She must have had money coming from somewhere else. The first time I was there I asked if she had a fund or something.”
“And?”
“And nothing.” She pulled her legs up under her and the shirt slid up her thigh. It was a very nice thigh. “She just laughed and said she wished she did. It was none of my business, so I dropped it.”
“So, what changed?”
Another shrug. “I have no idea. I asked, but she said she didn’t want to talk about it. She said it was something she had to deal with alone.”
“You’d think if a person had a problem they’d tell their friend.”
“You must have plenty of friends, Spencer. Anything you wouldn’t tell any of them?”
