Don't Dare a Dame (37 page)

   
“I don’t suppose he would. He has political ambitions. I’ve never been able to fathom why he married her, given the way—”

   
She broke off.

   
“The way what?”

   
She shook her head.

   
“Mrs. Mosley. Your sister claims now that what she told about seeing — the mannequin carried out — was just a bad dream. I think her husband has pushed her into believing that. Half believing it anyway. Is that possible?”

   
“I ... don’t know. Look, she’s my sister. I don’t want to tell tales out of school. I’d only sound jealous. I suppose I am — not of her house or her husband’s importance. My husband’s a principal. He cares about people because that’s how he is, not because of what they can do for him. But I
am
jealous because they have a wonderful little girl. Hannah. And they don’t even
care
. We’d give anything to have a child, but I haven’t been able to....”

   
She fished out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

   
“The missing man’s daughters have wondered about him for years,” I said softly. “Learning what happened would give them some kind of peace.”

   
The handkerchief pressed her mouth. After a moment she sighed.

   
“Yes. I see how awful it would be, not knowing. Still....”

   
“Did your sister really see what she told that policeman she’d seen? What she told your family?”

   
“I - I’m not sure. I think she might have. I’d stepped away from the window just then.”

   
Ice water thrown on me couldn’t have felt any worse. I’d been counting on Jane to substantiate things.

   
“Things were awfully chaotic by then,” she was saying. “Most of our neighbors had already evacuated. Mama called for me to come to our bedroom door. She said we had to go, and not to alarm Tessa. She never understood that Tessa didn’t
get
scared, only excited.

   
“I went back to take Tessa’s arm — we had to do that sometimes, just steer her away from something she was interested in, or she’d pitch a fit. Tessa was pointing and chattering about men putting out a big dolly.”

   
She took a breath. She drank some lemonade. Her hand was shaking.

   
“I wasn’t paying attention. I knew we had to get out — not miss the next boats that were coming around to rescue people. Tessa wouldn’t budge. She was pointing, screaming that she wanted to go get the dolly so she could play with it.”

   
The account was so gripping I was afraid to stem the flow by asking a question. She paused, though, and by the look in her eyes, I knew she was reliving the incident.

   
“Did you look?” I prompted.

   
She blinked.

   
“Yes. I was so frustrated ... Yes.”

   
“What did you see?”

   
“Behind a garbage can — wedged up tight against the drugstore — I saw a leg sticking out. Trousers and a shoe. It could have been a mannequin that washed up there and got stuck. All kinds of things were bobbling past. But I was old enough to know people drowned in floods. I thought that’s what we were seeing. Some poor soul....”

   
Her voice trailed off.

   
“And the part about two men?”

   
Jane chose her words carefully.

   
“Tessa finds ordinary things quite tedious. She might watch the same thing you and I did, but if it didn’t suit her, she’d see it differently. It’s not lying, really. I think she convinces herself that’s how it is. Only....”

   
When she didn’t say any more, I nudged things a little.

   
“You saw something too?”

   
“A rowboat. A small one. A man dragged it out of a lean-to behind the drugstore. He yelled back into the store and another man came running out — of the drugstore, that is. He knelt and reached back inside as if he was doing something. Then he jumped in the boat and the two of them took off, paddling like mad, whooping and laughing as if they were having the time of their lives.

   
“I had to smack Tessa to make her let go of the window. We’d barely gotten out of our room when there was an explosion. Across at the buildings we’d been watching. It shook things so we stumbled. I knew we had to get out, and I dragged Tessa, and we got downstairs just as a boat already full of other people was pulling up. We all got in and I heard somebody yell ‘Fire!’ and all I remember after that is Tessa and me and our parents hanging onto each other for dear life, and getting soaked by the rain, and people crying.”

   
Jane looked drained. I felt bad about putting her through it.

   
“How did your sister meet her husband?” I asked.

   
The change of direction surprised her.

   
“She went to work for his realty firm. It stunned us, actually, her taking a job. Some girls did of course, until they married. But we didn’t need to support ourselves, and Tessa was hardly a suffragist. Still, she’s always gloried in things that set her apart.”

   
“But you knew Cy from the neighborhood where you lived before the flood. You both did.”

   
“Well, yes, but he was a good deal older than us. Already grown.”

   
“You both knew him by sight, though.”

   
“Yes, of course. His father had the menswear store. He’d be out and about sometimes when we went for groceries, or to get shoes repaired. Why?”

   
“Could Cy have been one of the men you saw in the rowboat?”

   
Jane grew very still. She got up and went to the window, her back toward me. Her finger traced the curtain ruffle as if for reassurance.

   
“It — looked enough like him that it occurred to me a time or two before they were married. But it can’t have been. It’s - it’s too outlandish.” She turned suddenly to face me again. “If that’s what you came here for, to make trouble, I think you should leave.”

Forty-five

   
When I got back to my office I called the Ford Street station, and thanked my lucky stars that Seamus was working the desk.

   
“A woman I met today may have some people come around looking to hurt her,” I said. “Next time the patrol in her area checks in, could you ask them to keep an eye out? I’ll fill you in later.” I could hear his pencil scraping as he took down the address.

   
“And say, Mick got told to stop and talk to Lieutenant Freeze on his way off shift. Could be they’re going to have a look at him after all.”

   
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” I said. It was the closest anything had come to good news all day.

   
Since I hadn’t finished my lemonade at Jane’s house, I made myself a gin and tonic and carried it over while I stood at the window. For the umpteenth time I wondered whether I should have warned her she could be in danger. I thought the chances were slim it would even occur to Cy that she’d seen anything. Even Tessa might never have realized it, self-absorbed as she appeared to be. Mostly, though, I’d concluded Jane wouldn’t believe what her sister had pulled or how ruthless Cy was.

   
By calling Seamus, I’d done all I could to ensure the safety of a nice woman content with her cozy home and her garden. I leaned my forehead against the window.

   
Too many decent people were at risk in this case. Jane and Tessa, and I’d even stretch the decent part to include Neal. I hoped the Vanhorn sisters and the nice old dime store clerk Theda were in the clear now that I’d unearthed the one witness Cy had to fear. I couldn’t be sure. I was starting to see that men like Cy and the albino had no more regard for those who stood in their way than for a wad of gum on their shoes. From now on I’d stick to cases I understood. Ones with crooks and killers and blackmailers. Not family matters that led in directions never anticipated by those who hired me.

   
Then I realized this whole case had begun with a killer. The Vanhorn sisters had hired me to look into what they believed was a murder. They’d been right. But between that crime and now, a quarter century of people living their lives had intruded.

   
“Hey, Sis, if you’re thinking of jumping, you need to open the window first.”

   
I chuckled and turned to see Heebs strolling in.

   
“Hey, why aren’t you selling papers?”

   
The clock on my wall said five till five. Prime time for peddling the evening edition.

   
“One of the guys lost a bet to me,” he said with a grin. “Has to sell all my papers before he sells his own.”

   
“What if he doesn’t cough up the money for yours?”

   
“Some of the guys heard him bet me. They’ll see he makes good. You’re looking a hundred percent again, Sis. Since I don’t have to work my corner, I thought maybe you’d need some errands run.”

   
I returned to my desk and put down the half-empty glass. Heebs was in my visitor’s chair, legs stretched out and hands clasped behind his head like Connelly did.

   
“Sorry, Heebs. I wish I could give you odd jobs on some kind of regular basis, but most months I do well to pay my expenses, and some months not even that.”

   
Guilt nipped me at the thought my expenses included meals and a nice place to sleep. Heebs’ bed was a doorway somewhere most nights.

   
“See, that’s why you need an assistant,” he said sitting eagerly forward. “You could get sheets of paper made up advertising your services. ‘Discreet, confidential, experienced’. Something like that. Then when things were slow, I’d take some around to places. Drum up business.”

   
I already was laughing and shaking my head. The devil of it was, it had some appeal.

   
“There’d be the cost of the printing for starters. That doesn’t come cheap.”

   
“Okay, then, I could type ’em up, get six or eight on a page.”

   
“Can you type?”

   
“I learn fast — and I spell real good.”

   
His pitch was interrupted by the ringing phone.

   
“You were right!” gasped a whispering voice. “I should have listened!”

   
“Tessa?”

   
“He’s - he’s after me! Help me. Help me please! I’ve got to hide—”

   
Her voice rose on the last, and there was the sound of a phone being dropped.

   
“Tessa!”

   
I couldn’t tell if she’d dropped the phone voluntarily or it had been knocked from her hand. I might already be too late to help, but I had to try. And getting anyone else but me there was going to be tricky.

   
My eye fell on my wastebasket, mostly unused today. I grabbed out the card the albino had tossed on my desk. I dialed the number on it while Heebs watched with quickening excitement.

   
“You want dirt on Cy Warren?” I said to whoever answered. “Get to his house — fast!”

   
With my left hand I banged down the phone. With my right, I scribbled Warren’s name and another number in big letters. I grabbed my .38 from the pocket under my chair, giving orders to Heebs as I made for the door.

   
“There’s the number for Market House. Tell them you’re calling from my office. Tell them to get to former councilman Cy Warren’s house. His wife is about to kill him.”

***

   
When I got back from Jane’s, I’d parked a few doors down from my building. I took off at record speed, hoping someone among us got there in time. Telling the cops the truth, that Tessa was the one at risk, might have caused them to waste time walking on egg shells because of Cy’s status. The albino or whoever he sent — if he acted at all — might be useless once he got there.

   
Second thoughts over my own audacity gnawed at me as I raced north over the river. If I was wrong about Tessa being in danger — if she’d been turning a molehill into a mountain in one of her little fantasies when she called — the police would put a black mark by my name that didn’t erase.