Death Was the Other Woman (15 page)

BY THE TIME I GOT HOME
, I was so tired I could >barely see straight, despite the extended nap I'd had in the car. There's sleep, I guess, and then there's sleep. The kind you get in a car can't compare to the good quality stuff you get in your own bed.

But before I got anywhere near that peace and quiet, there was Marjorie to deal with. Nor had I gotten very far either. She accosted me on the first-floor landing, the day's dying light moving playfully through the stained-glass window, casting odd shadows on both our faces and our hands. She had a broom in hand, and it looked as though she'd been carefully sweeping the polished wood stairs and the carpet that covered them. She wasn't fooling me any, though. I had a hunch she'd been doing busywork at the front of the house all day, in order to be certain not to miss me on my return. I chided myself for being paranoid, but her first words made me realize I hadn't been.

Marjorie told me in no uncertain terms that she'd been having kittens about my absence. Those were the words she used.

“But, dear Marjorie, I
told
you I was going. I'm sure I did.”

“Hmph!” she sniffed, sweeping a perfectly clean riser absently, as though a lack of activity at this moment was unthinkable. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? You off in that city of vice with that employer of yours?”

I hid my smile as well as I could behind my hand. I should have spared myself the effort. Marjorie saw it, of course.

“And don't you smile that way, miss! I know what youngsters get up to in these crazy times.”

“Well, Marjorie, city of vice? You'll have to admit that's somewhat melodramatic. It's just a city like any other.”

“Don't you read the newspaper?”

I gave up that angle. I knew what a losing battle looked like when I saw it.

“I told you before I left that Dex was going anyway. I thought tagging along would give me an opportunity to catch up with my friends.”

“And did it?” she demanded.

“It did. Though not as much as I might have liked because here I am, back already. And all in one piece too.” I was dog tired, but I gave her the most winning smile I could muster.

“And Mr. Theroux. He was . . . that is, was he ...” I waited for it. I didn't know where she was going, so I couldn't offer any help. “Was he a gentleman?” she said finally.

“Dex? Of course, Marjorie. He doesn't think of me that way at all.” The words earned me another grunt, but I could see she was somewhat mollified. As she could see for herself, I was back safe and sound, even if I was almost asleep on my feet. “I'm just that tired,” I said, taking a step up. “And I have to go to the office tomorrow. Maybe we can talk in the morning over breakfast.”Marjorie seemed instantly contrite. “Of course, Miss Katherine. I'm sorry. I forgot myself this time. I was just so worried.”

We said good-night and I started to head up the stairs, but just as I got to my room, she caught up with me again. “One thing, Miss Katherine. It's about your friend, Mrs. Jergens.”

“Brucie?” I asked somewhat guiltily. I hadn't given her a thought in what felt like days. “How is she?”

“Well, that's just it, miss. She's not been back at all.”

The words so caught me by surprise, I took a moment to filter them. “She's not here?”

“No, miss. In fact, I've not seen her since that first evening, when you all went out.”

I checked Brucie's room. It wasn't that I didn't believe Marjorie, but I wanted to see for myself.

Sure enough, everything was just as it had been when I'd last seen it. The disarray we'd left when we prepared to go out. The note I'd written for Brucie before I left for San Francisco. The flowers in a vase on the bureau, not dead but certainly beginning to look rather tired.

Marjorie had followed me up the stairs and was framed in the doorway. “You see?” she said. “She's not been back at all.”

“I
do
see, Marjorie. And it's very worrisome. I'll call Mustard from the office tomorrow. It's possible he knows where she is.”

I said it lightly. I meant it that way too. Probably, I told myself, she was holed up someplace comfortable, recovering from her injuries, while some besotted someone—and it wasn't hard to paint Mustard into that picture—peeled grapes for her.

I told myself these things, and I tried to sound convincing. But I couldn't convince myself, and even to me the words felt quite hollow. At some level I feared the very worst.

THE NEXT DAY I
was happy to take Angels Flight down Bunker Hill and then walk the few blocks to the office in bright sunshine. The funny thing about a routine is you don't miss it until it's gone. Parts of the trip to San Francisco had been really enjoyable, but it was good to be back and doing the things that made up my everyday life.

Stopping for Dex's ice before I remembered he'd be in San Francisco and wouldn't need it. Nodding hello to the shoeshine boy who always hung about the front doors of our building during business hours. Greeting the elevator operator and inquiring about his wife, because I knew she'd been ill.

I got a sense that something wasn't quite right even before I tried the office door. Call it a sixth sense or even intuition, but I
knew
the door would be unlocked when I tried it. And I knew it had no reason to be. Dex had planned to leave in the morning without stopping by the office. No one else had a key. I looked at the lock. It was clear a key hadn't been used, in any case. The lock was broken.

I poked my head inside, heart pounding, trying to decide what to do. Times were hard. If someone was inside trying to find valuables, they wouldn't have much luck. But I didn't want to surprise them either. Better to leave and go and get help. Even the elevator operator or the shoeshine boy could provide some sort of backup. And by the time I returned, maybe whoever had been in the office would have cleared out with whatever pitiful plunder Dex's office was likely to turn up.

I started to back up the way I'd come, but a voice stopped me. A young man emerged from behind the door, a gun clutched tightly in his fist. Though he looked like he might know how to use it, his simple country clothes put a lie to possible expertise with a handgun. He aimed the gun squarely at my chest and motioned for me to enter the office and close the door behind me. I didn't feel like I had a lot of choice.

“You're Kitty Pangborn,” he said. It wasn't a question, so I didn't say anything. I wasn't even sure I
could
have said anything at that point; my voice seemed trapped somewhere in my chest. But the fact that he knew my name—and that he knew me as Kitty—gave me pause. He wasn't just here for the typewriter then. Or Dex's Chicago World's Fair highball glass. He knew who I was.

He waved the gun around some, indicating I should take a seat in one of the waiting room chairs. “And no funny stuff,” he warned. He needn't have worried on that account. All of my funny bones were suppressed at that moment. I didn't feel humorous at all.

I took a seat gingerly, careful not to do anything he might construe as funny. The man wasn't dressed like a killer, but since he was armed with a handgun and he didn't seem shy with it, I judged him to be very dangerous indeed.

I sat primly on the hard-backed chair—my hands on my purse, my purse on my lap—and looked up at him expectantly. I didn't say a word.

With his free hand, he lit a cigarette, dropping the spent match on the floor. I looked at it with distaste but didn't say anything.

“I'm looking for my sister,” he said.

“Well, you've come to the right place,” I said, mustering all of the confidence I could into my voice. Instinctively trying not to show my fear. “But generally in this business, clients come with money to get us to find someone, not guns.”

“Listen to me, twist,” he said. I was surprised to find myself faintly hurt by the term. I'd heard it before, of course, but never applied to me. A twist was generally the kind of girl I'd never been. “I didn't come here to hire a shamus. I told you, I'm looking for my sister, and I know you know where she is.” He waved the gun in a menacing way.

“She sent me a letter a few days ago telling me a friend of hers had made arrangements for her to stay with you,” he continued. “So I come down from Bakersfield yesterday, just like she told me, and go to the place where she said we should meet—and nothing.”

“Brucie?” I asked, the light suddenly dawning as I made the Bakersfield connection. “You're Brucie's brother?” I searched his face for a familiar stamp, but didn't see anything. He was a lot taller than Brucie, for one thing, which I knew meant nothing because men generally are. But the coloring was different as well. Though his hair was pale, he had an olive complexion, just about the opposite of Brucie's dark hair and pale skin. His features weren't at all like hers either. Where Brucie's face was delicate, gamine, there was a coarseness to the cut of this man's chin and nose. I realized that if he weren't scowling at me and waving a gun in my direction, he would probably have been handsome. It was difficult for me to see it at that moment, though. It's funny how handsome isn't the first thing you notice when someone is brandishing a gun in a menacing way.

But handsome or not, I didn't see a lot of physical similarity between Brucie and this young man. I knew that didn't necessarily mean anything. It happens that way in families sometimes. Sometimes siblings can be like peas in a pod. Other times there's little physical to connect them. In any case, he was worked up enough that I figured he was telling the truth.

He nodded. “Who'd you think I meant?”

“Oh, for heaven's sake.” I felt as though I'd suddenly had enough. “A gun? Brucie is my friend. You're not really planning on shooting me?”

“In her letter, Brucie told me she was in awful trouble. She said if she didn't show up at the market on Olvera that I was to know something terrible had happened and to be prepared for the worst. That's what she said: the worst. So I found a guy there in the market, and he sold me this gun.”

“And then you came here to shoot me.”

“No, ma'am.” That rankled. Ma'am. We were probably about the same age, and no one had ever called me ma'am before. “I went out to her house—her and Ned's—in Highland Park. She weren't there but the house was in an awful state.”

“What do you mean?” I said, fully alert now, the gun forgotten for the moment.

“A window was broke, in the back. So I went inside, and the place had been messed up bad.”

“Messed up,” I repeated. “Like what?”

“Ransacked, I guess you'd say. Drawers pulled out and dumped on the floor, pillows with the stuffing on the outside, blankets ripped up. It seemed to me someone was looking for something.”

It seemed that way to me too. “Then what did you do?”

“I tried to find her friend, Mustard. She sent me his address. But I couldn't find no sign of him. And
then
I came here.”

“Why here?”

“It was in the letter she sent. Brucie said you'd know where to find her.”

“Did she also tell you to wave a gun at me?” He just looked at me, the gun steady in his hand. But I was no longer afraid. “Never mind. So you came here this morning to try and scare me into helping you find Brucie?”

“No, ma'am.” There it was again. “Last night.”

“You spent the night here?” He just nodded. “But you were standing there when I came in. Like you were waiting.”

He looked sheepish now. “I rested in the big chair in that office over there.” He pointed at Dex's domain. “I don't think I slept much. When it got to be eight o'clock, I got myself up and ready. I knew someone would come in before long.”

“Brucie was shot a few days ago, outside a nightclub. I thought... I thought they were shooting at our friend. The man whose office you slept in. But now . . . well, if what you're saying is so, maybe it was Brucie they were aiming at all along.”

“Brucie was shot?” I could see the knuckles on the hand that held the gun whiten.

“Oh, for heaven's sake, put that gun away.” I was now confident he wouldn't use it. “Brucie was injured, she wasn't killed. We took her to the hospital and it was serious, but she was in no danger of dying from her injury.”

“So she's fine?”

I shrugged. “I think so. I
hope
so. I have no reason to think she's not,” I said, as reassuringly as possible. “It's just that. . . well, no one's seen her since the day after the shooting. So, yes . . . Brucie's missing. But I want to find her. You can help me. But I won't be able to try to find her if you kill me. Besides, you look like you could use some coffee.”

He reddened slightly and lowered the gun and tucked the weapon into the back of his pants. “Sorry,” he said, even more sheepishly. “I guess I'm not thinking quite straight.”

Once the gun was out of sight, I took a deep breath. As cool as I'd been when he was waving it around, a part of me had been deeply frightened. I don't care much for guns at the best of times, and this wasn't one of those.

“OK then, you need coffee,” I said, getting up to make it. “Come to think of it, I need some too. Then we'll try and figure out where to look for Brucie. What's your name, anyway?” I asked, while I fiddled with the percolator and the hot plate.

“Calvin, ma'am.”

“Calvin what?”

“Calvin Carlisle, ma'am.”

“Calvin Carlisle. All right then. You already know my name: Katherine Pangborn.”

“I thought it was Kitty.”

“It's not,” I said darkly. “You can call me Katherine or Miss Pangborn, take your pick. But stop calling me ma'am.”