Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (24 page)

“You mean Olivia? Yeah, I talked to her. She said something about a reunion party for telephone company people.”

“You ain’t going to no party!” Boxer Shorts yelled from across the room.

“Try and stop me!” she yelled back.

“Can we step outside for a moment?” Mahoney asked.

She nodded and followed him out the door.

Standing on the front stoop, Mahoney said, “I’m looking for a woman named Anita Walker or possibly Jones. I understand you know someone who’s related.”

“Knew,” Frances-whatever corrected. “Not know. I knew Bartholomew Jones and his missus twenty years ago. They used to rent the upstairs flat in my sister’s house.”

“Where was that?”

“Norfolk. But, like I told you, that was twenty years ago. I ain’t spoken to Bertha for more than ten, and it was way before we quit talking.”

“Bertha’s your sister?”

Frances gave a disgusted nod. “Yeah, I guess you could call her that.”

“This Bartholomew. Was his wife’s name Anita?”

Frances laughed. “Shoot, no. Bartholomew’s missus was Ruthie. She was a sweetie, but this other one that used to come visit, she had a temper on her, woo-wee!”

“The one who came to visit, was her name Anita?”

“I’m thinking it was but can’t swear to it.”

“You think Bertha might know?”

“You’re asking me what’s in Bertha’s head?” Frances gave a cynical snort. “If I knew what was in that woman’s head, I’d’ve quit talking to her long before I did. She’s pure ugly, so I gotta guess there ain’t nothing but ugly in her head!”

Seeing that this was going nowhere, Mahoney asked, “Can you give me an address or telephone number where I can get hold of Bertha?”

“Men!” Frances muttered and rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you hear me say I ain’t talked to her in ten years? I ain’t even got a guess as to where she is now.”

“Can you give me the last address you had for her?”

“I suppose,” Frances said and pulled a piece of wadded paper from her pocket. “Here. If you talk to Bertha, tell her I said holding grudges ain’t gonna do nobody no good.”

Mahoney thanked her, then called Griffin and said it was time to get going.

It was nearly six o’clock in the morning when Hector Gomez got home from the hospital. For three hours he’d stood there chatting with Nancy waiting for her to drop some little tidbit she’d gotten from the kid but got nothing. She’d gone in and out of his room a half-dozen times and each time Hector waited, thinking she’d come back with a name. Nothing. Now he had a serious case of indigestion from all the coffee he’d consumed and needed a cold glass of milk. He pulled the car into the garage and came through the kitchen door.

Hector knew it was going to be a bad day when he opened the refrigerator door and saw an empty shelf where the milk was supposed to be.

“Gloria!” he screamed. “Where’s the damn milk?” Although he phrased it as a question, he knew the answer.

“We’re all out!” his wife hollered back. She snapped on the hairdryer so any further conversation was impossible.

Hector Gomez was a man who needed seven hours sleep. Six hours at a minimum. He’d gotten two, and it was already wearing on him. He eyed the clock. Ten minutes past six—plenty of time for a short nap. A half-hour maybe. A quick shower, and he’d be ready to go by seven. Hector stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes.

The next thing he knew the clock was striking twelve. He sat up in a panic.

“Damn!” he shouted and hurtled himself off the sofa. His right knee came down hard on the wrought iron coffee table, and before he could scramble to his feet an egg-sized lump swelled up on his leg.

When Gomez walked into the station house, he thought he was smack in the middle of the worst day a man can have. Then he spotted Detective Mahoney across the room.

“What the hell?”

If there was one thing Hector Gomez didn’t need, it was a smart-mouth detective from Northampton sticking his nose in on a sure thing. If it hadn’t been for Mahoney, he would have had a conviction on the Doyle case. To this day, he believed one of them guilty of murder—either the grandmother or the kid—but once Mahoney got involved it became a bleeding heart issue.

“Not this time,” Hector grumbled as he crossed the room.

When he stopped at the Wyattsville station Mahoney planned to ask about the kid involved in the Klaussner shooting. He didn’t feel there was a solid connection between the kid and the missing aunt, but there was enough to warrant a few questions.  He barely had a foot through the door when he saw a pissed-off Gomez coming toward him. Remembering the outcome of the Doyle case, Mahoney knew this was going to be a confrontational situation unless he did something. He stuck his hand out

“Hey, Gomez, how’s it going?”

Hector eyed him suspiciously. “Okay, I guess. And you?”

“Real good.” Mahoney nodded. “Real good.”

In no mood for small talk, Hector asked, “So what brings you over here?”

“Search for a missing person. Run-of-the-mill stuff, nothing exciting.”

“You’re not working the Klaussner robbery?”

“Nah, that’s one you’re gonna have to handle on your own.”

Still suspicious, Gomez asked, “This missing person you’re looking for wouldn’t be a teenage boy, would it?”

“Nope. A woman, probably mid-forties.”

Gomez breathed a sigh of relief. There was a sense of satisfaction in knowing he’d bested Mahoney on this one, and Hector couldn’t help but brag. “I’ve got the lead on the Klaussner job. Right now it’s attempted murder, but if Klaussner dies—”

“So you got the guy?”

“We got one, but it looks like it was a team. Klaussner shot one; the other one got away.” Gomez hesitated for a moment then added, “We’re running the prints now, so we’ll get him.”

“Sounds like you’ve got this pretty well wrapped up.”

“Yeah,” Gomez boasted. He was going to add something about not needing Mahoney’s help but was interrupted by Officer Cunningham.

“Hey, Gomez,” Cunningham called out, “the ID on those prints you’ve been waiting for is on your desk.”

When Gomez turned and walked back toward his desk, Mahoney trailed along. He knew men like Gomez had a hungry ego, one that needed to be fed. “Impressive work,” he said. “Us Northampton boys could learn a few things from you.”

Gomez smiled. “Yeah, you could.” He was tempted to remind Mahoney of the erroneous assumptions made on the Doyle case, but given this newfound-respect for his work Hector decided to let that dog stay dead.

With Mahoney looking over his shoulder, Gomez picked up the lab report. They had a positive match. The prints belonged to a small-time crook out of Pittsburgh. “Hurt McAdams, armed robbery,” Gomez said. “Spent seven years in Camp Hill, released five days ago.”

“Is this the guy Klaussner shot?”

Gomez shook his head. “No ID on that one yet. The kid is faking amnesia, but once he knows we’ve got his partner he’ll open up.”

“Impressive,” Mahoney repeated.

“Just good detective work.” Gomez gave a grin of satisfaction. When he turned to pull on his jacket he didn’t notice Mahoney eyeballing the open file on his desk.

Miami Beach

M
inutes after Hurt McAdams stepped off the bus wearing his leather jacket, a river of sweat rolled down his face and his shirt became plastered to his skin. He stuck his hand in the jacket pocket and rubbed his fingers across the cool metal of the gun. Knowing it was there made him feel good; it was comforting.

Inside the Union Street Terminal, Hurt pushed through the crowd until he found a telephone booth. He pulled the phone book from the rack and began searching. “McAdams, McAdams,” he mumbled as he traced his finger down the listings. Plenty of McAdams, but not one George. Hurt slammed the book shut. Daddy George was here, Hurt could feel it in his bones. He was here but didn’t want to be found.

Hurt pushed back through the crowd and into the street. The sun was hot, so hot he knew that if he stood there long enough it would burn a hole in his head. Miami was a city, and he’d expected it would be more like…well, like Pittsburgh. It wasn’t. In Pittsburgh the buildings were grey, the streets were grey, even the sky was grey most of the time. He could blend in, get lost, go unnoticed. Here people looked at him strangely. Everything was a glary white and pink, colors so bright it gave him a headache. He tried lifting his eyes, but the sky above wasn’t the sky he knew. It was a garish blue with a sun so fierce he had to look away. He ducked into a drugstore and approached the clerk.

“You got sunglasses?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said and waggled a finger toward the far side of the store. “There’s a whole rack, right behind the suntan lotion.”

Without bothering to thank her, Hurt turned and walked in that direction. He picked the darkest pair he could find and returned to the counter.

“Dollar forty-nine,” the clerk said.

Hurt pulled two dollar bills from his pocket and laid them on the counter.

The girl punched $1.49 into the register. “New in town?”

Hurt didn’t answer. Her words seemed little more than buzzing in his ear. He had one thought and one thought only: find Daddy George.

When the clerk handed Hurt his change, she smiled. “Ain’t that jacket kinda hot?” she asked laughingly.

Hurt slipped the change into his pocket, then looked at her with an icy cold glare.
Stupid girl
, he thought.
A stupid girl doesn’t deserve to live.
He felt for the gun, then turned and walked out of the store. He should have stolen the sunglasses; that’s what he should have done.
You steal something, you don’t have to talk to stupid girls.
He had no time now; maybe later.

Hurt stood outside the drugstore with sweat rolling down his face and splatting onto his jacket. He tried to think of where Daddy George might hide, but everything here was different; strange and unfamiliar. Where were the row-house neighborhoods? Where were the dark gin mills? He turned and walked south on Second Street. On the corner of Flagler he passed a newsstand and a headline grabbed hold of him.

THUNDERBAY WINS AGAIN AT TROPICAL PARK

Hurt looked at the front page photo of a racehorse and smiled. The track. For more years than he could remember, Daddy George took money that should have put food on the table and played the ponies. He’d skip work, spend the day at Heidelberg Raceway, then come home rip-roaring drunk and in the foul mood that came from never winning.

Hurt plunked down a dime and bought the paper, then asked for directions to Tropical Park Racetrack.

“Union Terminal,” the news dealer replied. “They got a bus that goes direct.”

Hurt gave a nod and turned back in the direction he’d come from.

When Hurt stepped off the bus at Tropical Park, he caught the smell of his father—the stink of cigars and sweat mingled with meanness. Then he heard the sounds, the all-too familiar sounds of angry words with hard Ks and an intolerance that slammed against his ears and rumbled through his head with a roar.

He paid his entrance fee and entered the track.

Inside there was a crush of people moving, shifting from one place to another. Hurt grabbed a program and moved through with the crowd. Twice someone shoved him in the back, and he slid his hand inside the jacket pocket just to feel the gun. As long as it was there, he’d be okay.  A gun was bigger than Daddy George.

A gun was more powerful too.

Daddy George could beat a boy into submission, but a gun could put an end to it.

Hurt’s eyes were open as he moved with the surge of people, but behind those wide open eyes he was picturing his daddy with a blown-out hole in the middle of his chest—a hole where a heart never was.