The Pink Flamingo Murders (27 page)

“I can provide for myself,” I said.

“Not a respectable home!” she said. “He would make you an honest married woman. Francesca, what would your grandmother say?”

I could imagine. My grandmother married at sixteen and stayed married to the same man for fifty-two years, for better or worse, until death parted them. But
I was saved from answering when a crush of customers poured through the door. I grabbed my cake and ran. Then I sat and brooded for the rest of the day. Lyle was a fine man, except that he insisted on marriage. Things were different from my grandparents’ day. They would understand, if they were alive. . .. This had to stop. It was over. Period. Time to get a life. Time to catch a murderer. I’d love to prove that smug Mayhew wrong. He was another man who thought he knew everything. I was convinced Sally could help unravel Caroline’s murder. I had to talk to her. I went to Sally’s house twice more that day, but she wasn’t at home.

At seven that night I met Marlene at the entrance to a hotel parking garage off Market Street. Marlene had her daughter and about six friends and their kids. It was a noisy, funny crowd. We all paid to park and drove to the top level. The garage was an open concrete area on a hill, a full twenty blocks from the worst of the Fair St. Louis crowds. It was our own private viewing stand for the Fourth of July fireworks. Marlene and her friends brought coolers of beer and soda, fried chicken, ham sandwiches, and more salads, chips, and snacks than I could count. The kids ran around and played, and the adults pulled out folding chairs or sat on car bumpers and talked. After dark, we watched the fireworks. Then the conversation never got much past “Oooh” and “Aaaah.” That was fine with me.

It was the Arch that made fireworks so gorgeous in St. Louis. The six-hundred-thirty-foot silver structure was a huge mirror, reflecting the bursts of color, dramatically doubling the spectacle. I lingered until the grand finale turned the night sky into showers of pure color: red, white, green, gold. Then I thanked Marlene for insisting that I see the fireworks and headed for my car to try to beat the traffic home.

I could see small fireworks celebrations going on in backyards along the route home. Kids were playing with sparklers while their parents watched. Cherry bombs and other illegal fireworks were exploding with loud pops and crackles. There was not a city dog or cat in sight—they must be hiding from the incessant noise.

I didn’t want to go home to my empty apartment. Instead, I made a slight detour to North Dakota Place. For years I’d hardly noticed the street, and now I couldn’t get away from it. There were no celebrations, large or small, on this street. It had a forlorn look. Caroline’s and Otto’s houses were dark. There were lights on at Margie’s and Dina’s houses, but no people were visible. Ditto for Patricia, and Dale and Kathy. Mrs. Meyer was up late, too. It even looked like someone was home at Sally’s, but it was too late for me to knock on her door. I could hear overtaxed window air conditioners rattling up and down the block. I turned down the alley behind Dina’s house to see what—if anything—was going on at the trouble house. Trouble, of course. The inmates were playing booming music and setting off loud, illegal explosions. It sounded like a small war in that backyard.

My car Ralph and I rolled down the alley past the trouble house, but no one took any notice of us. A few houses down, I saw a small chest of drawers sitting next to the battered city Dumpster. It looked in good condition. Alley scavenging was a citywide habit, and I had it. I once found a perfectly good vacuum cleaner in an alley. The only thing wrong was the suction tube was blocked with paper. I got out of the car to examine the chest more closely. It had a few scratches, but those could be hidden by Old English Scratch Cover, the rehabber’s friend. The chest looked like it even had the original carved wood handles. Were the drawers broken? The top drawer looked fine, but the bottom
drawer was suspiciously crooked. I heard some pops but ignored them. More firecrackers from the trouble house, probably. As I bent down to examine the bottom drawer, there was another pop close to my ear. Actually, it was more like a hammer hitting concrete—an odd sound for a firecracker. What were those kids shooting off? These firecrackers were dangerously close. One hit the concrete wall by the Dumpster and missed my head by inches. I went over to look at what hit the alley bricks.

It was not a firecracker. It was a bullet casing lying on the ground. Someone was shooting at me.
Pop. Pop
. More shots. I heard echo-y running footsteps in the gangway between two houses, but which homes, I couldn’t tell for sure. Then I heard a car engine starting up. I ran for Ralph, yanked open his door, started him up, and floored him. One thing a Jag loves to do is go fast. Ralph got to the end of the block in no time. I saw a car with no headlights driving crazily the wrong way down the divided boulevard, but I couldn’t identify the make in the dark. I heard the honking blare of another car’s horn, as it encountered the crazy car. At the stop sign, the renegade car crossed over, so it was now driving in the correct lane. I knew what it was rushing to do: Cut me off at the end of the next block. I’d be trapped in the alley, unable to turn around. And the crazy driver had a gun.

But this was a long alley. Halfway down, it opened into another alley to form a T. Salvation was just around that corner. I made a quick left into the branch, driving through the alley at sixty miles an hour. I ran over a fallen mattress, squashed several trash bags in my path, and sides wiped an old couch. I didn’t slow down until I stopped right in front of a cop car—and a hated cop at that. We’d met before. He and his younger partner did nothing when Ralph was
beaten with a cinder block. But he was ready for action now.

“Well, well, well,” he said, getting out of his car and coming over to mine. “Look who we have speeding in an alley. Unlike some members of the force, I don’t believe in favoritism for certain reporters.” He was talking about Mayhew, who’d helped me out more than once. “I believe they should be treated like any irresponsible speeding citizen.”

“I was speeding for a good reason,” I started to say.

He interrupted with “Everyone has a good reason. I’m ticketing you for speeding, careless and reckless driving, exceeding the speed limit in an alleyway, flat speeding, driving across a sidewalk . . .”

“Driving across a sidewalk!” I yelped. “Where did you get that one?”

“You have to cross a sidewalk to get into any alley in the city,” he said. “And I just noticed you’re not wearing your seat belt.”

“I didn’t have time to put on my seat belt when someone was shooting at me.”

He didn’t look like he believed me. “Let’s go see the site of this famous shooting,” he said. I drove at a sedate pace back to the chest of drawers, and he followed. The alley was empty and quiet. There was a scar in the concrete, but the casings were gone. The tickets, however, were definitely there. He wrote out a separate one for each charge.

“Be grateful,” he said. “I could have charged you with careless and reckless driving. Then I’d have to book you.”

“You’re damned lucky, Francesca,” Charlie said. He sounded disappointed. Erwin had dropped the trespassing charges and threats of a lawsuit. The letter was on Charlie’s desk by ten o’clock, and it included a
handsome apology. I’d escaped. But, of course, it wasn’t that easy. Not at the
Gazette
.

Charlie fixed his little beady snake eyes on me. “I still believe you should sharpen your skills by doing some serious reporting,” he said. “I’ve received complaints that your columns are too frivolous.” I knew who those complaints were from. Nails was no doubt bending his ear nightly.

“In addition to your other duties, I expect you to write an article for our special recycling issue.” He could barely suppress a smile, the sawed-off slime. He knew what a thankless chore that section was. Every year we recycled the same old, obvious information. The
Gazette
wasn’t interested in printing anything that would really change anyone’s attitudes and habits. That might upset our major advertisers, who were often major polluters. We’d print the usual pablum: a list of recycling centers and some toothless articles. Or, in Charlie’s words, “We will be doing a pullout section that will offer a total recycling package.”

Including where to throw away that issue, I thought. But I said, “Charlie, I have columns to write. You won’t pay me overtime for the extra work. I don’t have time for this.”

“You had time to dig up people’s yards, Francesca,” he said. “You can find time to dig up a few recycling facts. I want thirty inches on recycling advances and opportunities. You have no choice. This is a direct order.”

If I refused, I could be fired under our union contract. It wasn’t worth the fight. But I felt like I was contributing to the problem. All those trees, dying in vain for our recycling section.

I was in a bad mood, anyway, and it didn’t improve when I picked up the
Gazette
. I’d been looking forward to seeing my story on Miriam Smithell, the unknown South St. Louis artist who was about to make it big in
New York. The
Gazette
arts reviewer had scornfully turned her down as a nut case when she called with her story, but Miriam wasn’t crazy. She was a sixty-one-year-old sculptor who used found objects—mostly car parts—to make sculptures of the female body. I’d particularly liked one called “Breastworks,” which used the front bumper of a 1956 Chevy. Miriam couldn’t get a St. Louis gallery to carry her work, but tonight her show was opening in Soho. My column would break the news in St. Louis. It had terrific pictures of her sculptures. I’d seen them. But I hadn’t seen the headline. It said, “Junkyard Granny Cleans Up with Old Cars.” Granny? The woman was a serious artist of sixty-one. Why did the copy editor use such a condescending term? I stormed over to the copy desk. “Who wrote this ridiculous headline?”

“I did, and I don’t appreciate your tone,” Cruella snipped. Her long black hair was pulled into a French roll. Her sausagelike figure was encased in a red silk dress that threatened to split its seams. Between the French roll and tight red dress, she looked like a hot-dog on a bun.

“Why did you call this woman artist ‘granny’?” I demanded. “I never used that word.”

“Because your story says she has two grandchildren,” she said.

“So does the mayor. But you don’t call him ‘Grandpa Politician.’ She’s an artist who happens to also be a grandmother. What you’ve done to her is sexist and ageist.”

“It’s accurate, Francesca,” Cruella said. “You’re just looking for excuses to complain.”

I had more reasons when I glanced through the paper. Nails had written another column on the Eichelberg sex discrimination case. “We deplore the fact that the company president promoted his lover over the woman originally groomed for the job,” Nails
wrote. “That candidate was qualified, and we believe the courts will find her suit has merit. Adam Eichelberg’s actions are a disgrace to the St. Louis business community. Our businesswomen have enough of a struggle advancing in corporations without this setback.”

Amazing. Nails could not see the parallels with her own situation. Did she really delude herself that she was promoted on merit? If Charlie hadn’t bedded her, she’d still be another anonymous assistant city desk editor, with a failed special project. Sadly, more stories about corporate sex discrimination needed to be written. Too many old, inbred companies got away with it. But our business editor had no business delivering that lecture—and too many people in St. Louis knew it.

I couldn’t take another moment in this hypocritical place. Work was the cure. I needed to get out and start pounding the pavement on Caroline’s murder. That was a real story. The recycling section could wait. I’d throw my story together at the last minute, like everyone else assigned to it. I slipped out of the office and headed for home. I needed someplace quiet to make sense of things. First, I had to find out who killed Caroline. Then maybe I could figure out who killed the others and why. Right now, I thought Caroline’s sleazy lawyer ex-husband had the best shot of winning the killer prize. James Graftan desperately wanted relief from his four-thousand-a-month maintenance payment and had a huge fight with Caroline right before her death. Was he in St. Louis the night of Caroline’s killing? I’d never get into his law offices again to ask him. His secretary, LaVyrle, wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone. But I had a way around it. I called his office. LaVyrle didn’t pick up until the tenth ring. “Yeah, Graftan law offices,” she said. Real professional.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m from Visa internal security. I have a report that charges were put on Mr. Graftan’s credit card that are inconsistent with his normal charging procedures. Was he in Tampa, Florida, in June?” I gave the date of Caroline’s death.

“No,” LaVyrle squawked. “He was right here in St. Louis that whole week with me. At the office, I mean.”

“Very good,” I said. “Well remove the charges from his card. Let me give you a special case number, and if those charges show up, you can call our billing office and recite that number. Ready: 2028667—3D. That’s D as in dog.” LaVyrle must have dutifully taken down the numbers. She repeated them back to me. Really, I was getting a mean streak in my old age.

I hung up, but my triumph was short-lived. I’d established that Caroline’s ex-husband was in St. Louis the night of the murder, but so what? Even if Graftan wasn’t in town, what did that prove? With his clientele, he knew dozens of independent contractors who could remove his ex-wife. Heck, maybe Darryl was even one of them. I had to talk to Sally. She might know something about the violent Darryl and his plans. I’d walk over there right now. On the way over I thought about the questions I’d ask her: Was she home the night Caroline died? Did she see anything unusual on her street? When was the last time she saw Darryl on North Dakota Place? Was Darryl planning some kind of revenge?

But Sally wasn’t home, or at least she wasn’t answering her doorbell and her car wasn’t parked out front. The street looked so peaceful with its sun-gilded leaves and mellow brick—and no Caroline to bedevil anyone with her demands. Did some beleaguered homeowner want release from Caroline’s harsh loan terms? Was that person Margie?