Don't Dare a Dame (18 page)

   
“Ah, it’s nothing,” he scowled as I took his arm and tried to get a better view. “Saw a couple of punks breaking into the back of a house. While Mick was scrappin’ with his, the one I grabbed got his arm free and clobbered me. Couldn’t get to my club without losing him, so I unsnapped my holster and gave the pipsqueak a tap with the butt of my gun.”

   
“Pipsqueak was going on six feet,” Connelly said dryly. “Hasn’t been an hour since it happened, and Billy’s making a stink over me wanting to see that he gets to the trolley okay.” He raised an eyebrow.

   
“You’re not taking the trolley,” I said firmly. “You’re riding with me.”

   
“I don’t need fussing over, or like it either!” Billy complained as I steered him.

   
“Gee, you get plenty of practice handing it out when other people don’t want it.”

   
Connelly quickened his pace for a few steps and opened the passenger door of the DeSoto for Billy.

   
“You coming to Finn’s? I’ve learned something,” Connelly said in my ear as Billy got in, his litany of objections flowing without interruption.

Twenty-two

   
Connelly caught my faint shake of the head in response to his question. I needed to freshen up and get something to eat before I saw Chief Wurstner. Running Billy home was going to make my schedule tighter. I wanted to hear whatever Connelly had to tell me, though, and he picked up my cue when I offered to drop him somewhere after we’d delivered Billy. He climbed into the back.

   
“Guess it turned out kind of handy having your gun in that holster,” he said solemnly to the white head seated in front of him.

   
“One time. Never going to happen again,” Billy blustered.

   
I caught Connelly’s eye in the rearview mirror and saw his mouth twitch.

   
Like most of the older cops, Billy had grumbled when new department regulations called for service revolvers to be worn in a holster on a Sam Browne belt. The sidearms previously had been carried in a policeman’s jacket pocket. Loudly, freely and frequently Billy had shared his opinion that ‘flaunting’ a gun would only make people fear the police.

   
We turned Billy over to Kate, who sighed like she’d dealt with Billy’s injuries and tantrums more than a few times.

   
“You take care of that shiner, Billy,” I urged, giving him a soft little peck on the cheek as I said good-by. It always flustered him when I kissed him, but this was this first time I’d seen him injured. Minor as it was, it worried me some.

   
“He get hurt anywhere else?” I asked Connelly as we went down Billy’s front walk to my car.

   
“Just his pride. Did I guess right that you wanted to hear what I knew while we drove?”

   
“Yeah. I’ve got an appointment with somebody who may have useful background for me, but I’ve got things that need doing first. I talked to the concertina player, by the way. She claims her fingers have gotten too old to keep up, but she talks like she’ll bring a student of hers who’s a whiz.”

   
“Thanks.” Connelly shifted, resting his back on the door and facing me as he spoke. “In addition to a note, the cops found a nearly empty bottle of whiskey on Maguire’s kitchen table. He was on the floor next to the table. Looks like he passed out — from the booze or the gas — and fell out of his chair. It had scooted some.

   
“There was a broken glass with whiskey residue not far from his head. Could have been knocked off when he fell, or dropped when he hit the linoleum.”

   
“Tidy.”

   
“It is that.”

   
“Innocent?”

   
“Homicide has concluded it is. They’re calling it suicide.”

   
“Ten bucks says they’re wrong.”

   
Connelly was silent.

   
“Anything in what you’ve heard that would make you question the suicide verdict?” I asked.

   
He rubbed his thumb across his chin and I could hear the rasp of stubble along his jaw. It made the confines of my car feel uncomfortably intimate.

   
“Nasty bump on the side of his head,” Connelly ventured.

   
“Enough to knock him out while somebody turned on the gas?”

   
“Hard to say without seeing the scene. And he could equally have gotten it when he fell.”

   
“Not much reason to question it when all the other trappings fit so nicely,” I said.

   
“‘Tidy’ I believe is the word.”

   
We were at Finn’s. I pulled to the curb and he got out.

   
“If I pick up anything else I’ll let you know,” he said through the door. “What’s the concertina player’s name?”

   
“Brennan.”

   
“First name?”

   
I thought for a minute.

   
“Mrs.”

***

   
I set out for Chief Wurstner’s house driving the same car I’d borrowed when I went to talk to Theda. The neighbors kept the car in a shed at the back and I went out the back door at Mrs. Z’s to collect it. This time around the precaution was more for the chief than it was for me. No sense letting anyone know he’d done a private snoop a favor.

   
The house was handsome without being fussy. It was three stories tall, dressed in awnings, with a small balcony over the front door. A peppy middle-aged woman with spectacles on her nose answered the doorbell.

   
“Miss Sullivan?”

   
“Yes.”

   
“How nice to meet you. I’ve read about you. My husband’s in his study. Let me show you the way.”

   
A sense of unreality made me unaware of details for a moment. I was in the home of the chief of police. The trance ended as I stepped into his wood-paneled study. There was a large desk in one corner, but he rose from a wing-back chair in the opposite one, putting aside what looked like a thick report of some kind.

   
“Miss Sullivan. Won’t you sit down?”

   
“Thank you. And thank you for seeing me.”

   
He had traded his uniform jacket for a cardigan over his white shirt and tie, the closest he got to informal, perhaps. I perched on the edge of a chair that faced his.

   
“I generally have a whiskey this time of evening,” he said. “Will you join me?”

   
I hesitated. This was chummier than I’d expected. I wondered if he had some unseen agenda; if he was assessing me in some way.

   
“If you’ll put a good deal of water with it,” I said.

   
A small chest against one wall held an ice bucket and the various accouterments one could take with whiskey. He didn’t speak again until he’d brought me mine.

   
“I reconsidered your request,” he said, resuming the seat he’d occupied. He brought his glass of whiskey, which he drank neat, level with his eyes. He studied it without drinking. “I see no harm in speaking about things that happened in 1913. You appear to have ruffled feathers by your attempts to learn something about that time. I believe in your position I would be curious. I believe if someone appeared to be pulling strings to silence me, it would make me dig all the harder.”

   
He took a sip of whiskey, watching for my reaction.

   
“Funny,” I said. “That’s just the effect it had on me.”

   
His stern mouth smiled ever so slightly.

   
“May I ask what you’ve learned?”

   
“I’ve learned the man who disappeared was headed for a place called Dillon’s Drugs on Percy Street. I’ve learned the man found dead last Friday — Alf Maguire — was part owner of that business. There was a gas explosion, nothing like the one downtown, but several businesses along there burned down, including the drugstore. The other owner of the drugstore died in the fire, his remains pinned down by an overturned cabinet. Maguire and a man who’s now a politician were pals at the time, though they may have gone their separate ways since.”

   
I wasn’t sure it was wise to mention their property dealings. For one thing I hadn’t seen evidence of anything crooked. For another, I had no idea how cozy Chief Wurstner was with various politicians. I drank some whiskey and water.

   
“That’s about it.”

   
Wurstner nodded. His eyes focused on distant thoughts.

   
“I don’t suppose you’d care to name the politician,” he said after a minute.

   
“I’d rather not.”

   
He took a pipe from the stand beside him, filled it, and when it was ready, puffed.

   
“And what were the questions you wanted to ask?”

   
“I was hoping you might be able to tell me who was patrolling Percy Street at the time of the flood. If they’re still around, I thought I might....”

   
He was shaking his head.

   
“I knew the man who walked Percy Street very well. We were friends. He died, oh, six years ago.”

   
“What about records?”

   
“Record keeping, even of a rudimentary nature, wasn’t high on the list of priorities for some time after, I’m afraid. The cleanup alone was.... My God, I can still smell the stench of dead horses. Fourteen hundred carcasses. That was my job. Heading a detail to cart them out of the city to a disposal site. I’d just made corporal.”

   
He chuckled, but he was rubbing his forehead. His eyes were dark.

   
A tap at the study door interrupted.

   
“Rudy, I’m sorry to intrude, but you apparently promised to look at some homework.”

   
Wurstner knocked back the rest of his whiskey and got to his feet. I stood too.

   
“I knew your father,” he said. “He was a very fine man. Tenacious. You remind me of him.” He opened the study door for me. “If I recall anything that might be useful, I’ll give you a call. Charlie and I — the man who patrolled Percy — talked about the flood sometimes. When we were alone.”

   
“Thank you.” We shook hands.

   
“I’ll see Miss Sullivan out,” said his wife.

   
He nodded and started upstairs. Mrs. Wurstner walked beside me to the front door.

   
“I do needlepoint,” she said. “If anyone asks. I’m working on a chair.”

   
She was making sure I had a leg to stand on in case anyone learned that I’d been here.

   
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you,” I said.

   
They were a gracious couple, the Wurstners. Probably kind. Yet as I pulled away in my borrowed car, I couldn’t help thinking the chief of police had gotten plenty of information from me, while I’d gotten nothing useful from him.

Twenty-three

   
I’d had high hopes when I received Chief Wurstner’s invitation. The next morning I rattled around my office feeling sorry for myself. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t any closer to discovering what the Vanhorn case had stirred up than I had been before Corrine’s abduction. I walked back and forth to the window. I kicked the metal wastebasket next to my desk. The wastebasket was acquiring a swell brocade pattern as a result of similar assaults.

   
Maybe talking to Franklin Maguire would shed some light on things. According to his landlady, he got home from work around half-past five.

   
Meanwhile, I wanted to see what I could learn about Swallowtail Properties, the outfit that had bought up lots on Percy Street, including the ones owned by Alf Maguire and Cy Warren.

   
There was something faintly familiar about the name. Did it only seem that way because of the property records I’d pored over yesterday? Or had I come across it somewhere before that?