Dames Fight Harder Read online

“Rachel isn’t in, I’m afraid,” Cecilia said.

  They didn’t know yet.

  “I saw her just awhile ago. She’s going to be late. She asked me to do a couple of things in her office.” I dropped my voice and leaned across the counter. “She has me working on something minor.”

  Cecilia’s lips formed a small ‘O’ of understanding.

  “I’ll show you back.”

  “That’s okay. I know the way.”

  I hesitated. Cecilia was an excellent secretary. She was also sharp. She’d be less likely to pop in to check on me and offer help if I gave her an inkling of what was happening.

  “The truth is, I’d feel better if you stayed out here to answer the phone. You may get a call from the newspaper. Rachel’s in a spot of trouble. With the police. With luck no one’s going to get wind of it, but you never know.”

  She’d defend the woman she worked for like a tiger. She’d probably do the same for me. She crisped to attention.

  “I’ll man the gate. If you need help finding anything, buzz.”

  “Thanks. I shouldn’t be long.”

  Reasonably certain Cecilia wouldn’t abandon her post unless I called her, I went around the counter and followed a familiar hallway walled with rough-cut plywood to Rachel’s office. Its decor was just a cut above the hallway. Apart from a mid-sized cherry-wood desk and the leather swivel chair behind it, wall maps of the Dayton area, one showing the water table, were its only decoration. An open cabinet held blueprints. On the desk, tidy stacks of paperwork and an ashtray attested to Rachel’s habits.

  I went to work on the chair.

  Precisely as Rachel had described, at the back of the seat cushion where the leather lapped down to meet the wooden frame, half a dozen tacks were looser than the others. Not loose enough to yield to my tugging or to the only prying tool I happened to have in my purse — my nail file. I swore at my lack of foresight.

  I couldn’t exactly waltz out and ask if anyone had a tack puller handy, or even a hammer or screwdriver, without stirring curiosity. I looked through Rachel’s desk. The flat drawer held a nice brass letter opener that looked as if it might be strong enough. I’d try not to damage the leather with the sharp edge, but as much importance as Rachel attached to what was hidden in the chair, it was worth the risk. If the leather got cut or scraped, she could replace the upholstery. Or the chair. In case the letter opener wasn’t as strong as I thought, I hoped it wasn’t some sort of antique.

  Holding the blade of the letter opener in two places, I wiggled one edge under the outermost of the brass upholstery tacks. Then I seesawed it up and down. The tack rose enough for me to grip it with my fingertips. It pulled right out. A bit more work and I had all six.

  Even trickier than getting the tacks out was getting my fingers far enough into the access created to feel anything. I could just touch paper. Not sufficiently to pull it toward me, however. I sat back on my heels.

  The metal tip of the letter opener was just as likely to make the edge of the envelope pop a fraction farther away as it was toward me when I applied pressure. My nail file and the crochet hook I carried for picking locks wouldn’t even reach it, not with me retaining enough of a grip on them to do any good.

  The human fingertip made contact with things far better than a hard surface did, though you might have to moisten it with your tongue when skin was dry. What could I find in an office, and a bare-bones construction office at that, which came anywhere close to making contact enough to keep the envelope inside the chair from slipping free?

  A pencil.

  Of course.

  Specifically, the eraser end of a pencil.

  Still kneeling, I straightened enough to peek over the top of Rachel’s desk. If Cecilia or anyone else happened in, it was going to be hard coming up with a reason why I was crawling around on the floor. My eyes swept the desktop. The only writing implement in sight was the pen in a desk set.

  I opened the flat drawer where I’d found the letter opener. Sure enough, one of the compartments at the front held pencils. Several were brand new. Choosing one of those, I rubbed the side of the eraser vigorously against the linoleum floor where I knelt. It came away dirty, but roughened now.

  I eased my left index finger back inside the seat to pinpoint the envelope. Then I slid the pencil I was holding in beside it. The surface of the pencil’s eraser nabbed the surface of the envelope.

  Five minutes later, the upholstery tacks were back in place, maybe not as flush to the surface as they had been, but enough that only someone hunting evidence of tampering would notice they’d been loosened. I wiped the back of the chair with my hanky to make sure I didn’t leave fingerprints. With the five-by-seven envelope I’d removed tucked in my purse, I exchanged a few parting words with Cecilia and walked out the front door of Minsky Construction.

  Now to find a pay phone and check in with Pearlie.

  * * *

  Whoever answered at the number Pearlie had given me didn’t identify himself or the establishment.

  “I talked to Rachel,” I said when Pearlie came on. “She didn’t tell me much. They only gave us five minutes. They found the stiff at one of her building sites.”

  “Yeah. On Drinkwater.”

  “She knew him.”

  “Yeah. Guy named Gabriel Foster.”

  “You know him? Know anything about him?”

  “No.”

  “Rachel says he was an s.o.b. and had it coming but she didn’t do it.”

  Silence.

  He hadn’t known that part.

  “You have anything else that might be pertinent?”

  “Only the Who and Where part. That’s all she had time to say over the phone before the cops caught on she had one in her bedroom. Is she okay?”

  “Complaining she doesn’t have cigarettes.” Pearlie wasn’t the sort to chuckle, but I hoped it eased his mind at least. “They woke her up and hauled her downtown without letting her primp. Other than that, she seems okay. She wanted me to go and talk to her lawyer brother as soon as I left, so I did.”

  “And?”

  “He was plenty shaken about the jam she’s in. I offered my services. He declined — said they had their own investigator. He seems smart as they come and plenty successful. He took off barking at his secretary to cancel his appointments for the rest of the morning. Rachel’s in good hands.”

  “No she ain’t. Not without you involved.”

  “Oh, I intend to be involved. Rachel asked me to be.”

  “What can I do? Find out about this Gabriel Foster character?”

  Wow. Pearlie was taking marching orders from me now?

  “That would be great, Pearlie. Frees me up to tackle the cops. I need to find out how they found the body and that.”

  “You got some magic spell that makes Freeze share information with you now, do you?”

  “Just my sunny personality.”

  Lt. Freeze was head of homicide. He didn’t like me much.

  FOUR

  The skeletal structure rising from bare ground on Drinkwater Street made me think it was a fitting place to find a body. Not a fresh one, though. There wasn’t so much as a scrap of wood with the street number on it, let alone a mailbox, but two patrol cars and an unmarked one with a strong resemblance to one I’d seen Lt. Freeze drive assured me I’d found the right place.

  Freeze was lean with salt-and-pepper hair. I was pretty sure he smoked in his sleep since I’d never seen him without a cigarette in his fingers or between his lips.

  “Stop right there,” he said catching sight of me. “This is a crime scene.”

  “I kind of figured it was. I didn’t think you went to many meetings of the Ladies Aid Society.” I kept on sauntering, my hands in my pockets.

  His eyes, which had a hint of squint from the smoke curling up from the stub in his mouth, narrowed further.

  “Unless you’ve got some authorization to be here—”

  “I do, as a matter of fact. I had a nice c
hat with Joel Minsky this morning.” The absolute truth, although it perhaps wiggled around his implied question. The nuns who had sent me to the office so frequently in my youth had been more adept at spotting how I embellished answers than Freeze was.

  “I know the stiff was named Gabriel Foster. I’m assuming you found him somewhere over there.”

  I’d been observing the slow steps of two uniforms and a plainclothesman as they moved methodically around an upright girder at one corner of what looked as though it would eventually be a two-story building. Their eyes were glued to the ground as they moved.

  Freeze was silent. He didn’t like to admit I was every bit as good at my job as he was at his. He was a good cop in his way, but limited in imagination. It rubbed him the wrong way that several times in our acquaintance I’d come up with leads that he refused to follow only to have them pan out. No matter how many times I proved myself, he clung to the stubborn idea it was pure luck, or results from batting my eyes at susceptible men, when I beat him to a solution.

  This time I didn’t have time to play his games.

  “Come on, Freeze. The department’s losing men to the draft left and right. You’ve always been shorthanded and it’s going to get worse until we rid the world of Hitler and his chums. I can be as useful to you as you can to me. How about we scale back the arm wrestling?”

  In the nick of time to avoid burning his fingers, he flicked his cigarette nub onto bare earth packed down and marked by the tracks of construction vehicles and ground it out with his foot.

  “I guess you’ll get most of it from the lawyer anyway. He’s not going to take No for an answer. The body was lying next to that corner beam. Could have been leaning against it and toppled. Hard to tell.”

  “How long had he been there?”

  Freeze hesitated.

  “Couple of hours.”

  That explained the cops waking Rachel in the dead of night. It made me wonder why they’d promoted her from owner of the property where a body was found to suspect in the death of that body, though. And why they’d made that leap so quickly. In fact, it made me wonder a lot of things.

  “How’d you happen to find the body at what, one o’clock? One-thirty?”

  “Something like that.”

  “A construction project’s not exactly the place for a midnight stroll.”

  “A guy was out walking his dog. Fido found it. The man called it in.”

  I pulled my notebook out of my purse.

  “Name?”

  “Hung up before they could get one.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as awfully convenient?”

  Freeze shrugged. “Some people are funny that way. Don’t want their name connected with anything bad.”

  “Maybe so, but I find somebody walking their dog out here at that time of night hard to buy too.”

  “If a dog’s got to go, a dog’s got to go, I guess.”

  “Maybe, but wouldn’t you let them out in the yard? Or at least stick close to home on a sidewalk?”

  “Why ask me? Sounds like you have all the answers.”

  “I don’t, but Boike might.”

  “Boike?”

  His expression puzzled, he half turned to look at the blocky blond who was usually one of two detectives helping him. I was mostly sure the men were allowed to breathe without permission from Freeze. What they didn’t do was voice an opinion or volunteer information without being asked.

  “Boike’s spent a lot of time around dogs,” I said. “He knows things about them. Can we get his input?”

  My stab at diplomacy paid off. Or maybe Freeze felt more agreeable when he was lighting a cigarette.

  “What’s your two cents, Boike?”

  “Miss Sullivan’s right. If Fido wants out in the middle of the night, most dog owners let him go in the yard and come right back in. Or they go a little ways on the sidewalk, or down the lane. If they had trouble sleeping I guess they might walk farther.”

  “Across a construction site?” I prompted.

  “Well...” Boike stole a look at his boss, who was listening intently. “Wouldn’t be very smart. Not with debris and construction materials you could trip over. Not in the dark.”

  Freeze grunted. “Maybe he had a flashlight.”

  “Do any of the neighbors across the way have a dog?”

  Across the street from us were houses, simple wooden structures that were taller than they were wide. They’d been kept up and looked as though they dated from the turn of the century. Either Freeze’s men or cops in uniform would have questioned them by now to ask if any of them had seen anything or heard anything the night before.

  “Not the ones I talked to, except for a little old lady whose dachshund is so arthritic she probably has to carry him down the steps to do his business in the yard,” said Boike. He looked at his fellow underling. “You?”

  “Didn’t ask.”

  Freeze gave a grunt of displeasure at that answer and glared at me.

  “What about where the dog scratched?”

  “What?”

  Their moment of incomprehension gave me a chance to slip around them and trot closer to the spot where the body had lain.

  “Miss, you need to stay back,” cautioned one of the uniforms putting his hand out.

  I stopped obediently.

  “When dogs find something that gets them excited, they jump around and scratch at the ground. Right, Boike?”

  “Sometimes,” he said dubiously.

  Squatting isn’t exactly a modest pose in a skirt, so I settled for bending to peer at the ground while I chattered on.

  “I don’t see any sign of little paws digging the dirt up. In fact I don’t see any sign of little paws at all.”

  “Hasn’t rained in a while. There weren’t any footprints either, before you ask.”

  Or signs of a struggle. Or blood. Or... I wasn’t sure what else I was hoping to see or not see.

  “Not much blood,” I observed.

  If the homicide squad had been summoned, the late Mr. Foster hadn’t fallen and broken his neck after getting drunk and having a midnight climb on the beams above us. The obvious choices left were shot, stabbed or beaten.

  “Small caliber,” Freeze said. “Twenty-two. Dead aim, too. One shot in the back of the head.”

  Not Rachel’s style, I thought again.

  She was innocent.

  “Boss.” The taut voice of one of the uniforms combing the area made us all turn. “Look.”

  Coming toward us he held aloft something he’d picked up with tweezers. The sun hit it sending shafts of color out like a prism.

  It was an earring, the kind with a pear-shaped dangle. A diamond earring.

  I’d seen Rachel wear a pair like it.

  FIVE

  Joel Minsky was unlikely to be back from straightening things out for Rachel yet, or to be up to the pleasure of my company twice in one day if he was. My best course was to give him a call from my office to alert him about the earring, so I did. Sure enough, he was still out. At least that’s what his receptionist or secretary or whatever her function was said.

  “Tell her they found Truffle’s earring,” I said when she offered to take a message.

  She repeated it, her tone suggesting it was odder than the messages she normally took.

  I hung up and swiveled from side to side. My inability to act, to do anything I saw as productive, frustrated me. The forced inactivity started me wondering how committed Joel Minsky was to helping his sister. More than once Rachel had said Joel was the one member of the family who believed her capable of intelligent thought and with whom she could have an actual conversation. His initial reaction at news of her predicament had been one of anger, though. Was the bond she felt with him reciprocated?

  What if Rachel’s family considered her such an embarrassment they’d be glad to see her out of their lives? What if they thought it would serve her right to pay the price of not toeing the line? No, surely not. Even if they did, surel
y brother-sister ties went deeper than that.

  Then again, what did I know about brothers?

  I’d had a brother who was four years older than me. Still did, if he was alive somewhere. When I was ten he’d hopped a freight to escape the cauldron of silent bitterness that was our mother, a brew whose stink permeated every room in the house. Even before that he hadn’t had much to do with me, in part because he was seldom around. He roved with a pack of neighborhood boys. I could count on one hand the times he’d shown any brotherly interest in me. He had stepped in to drag me away so I wasn’t beaten to a pulp by older girls when they’d made a snide comment about my mother and I’d thrown a punch.

  More bothered than I wanted to be by my tangle of thoughts, I went to the windows and glared at the elevated railroad tracks running past them. I’d wasted enough time thinking about the past. It didn’t matter whether or not some fancy lawyer cared about helping Rachel. I did. I wasn’t going to sit around on my thumbs doing nothing.

  * * *

  Before taking action that seemed smart to me, however, I needed to do the other thing Rachel had asked me to do — burn the envelope I’d retrieved from her office. That wasn’t as easy to pull off this time of year as it might have been in January. Chances of finding a fire burning merrily on a hearth during the day and in weather this nice were slim. One or two possibilities sprang to mind, but they were in public places. I couldn’t toss something into the flames without somebody noticing.

  After thinking about it awhile, I drove to the two-story white house where I rented a room and let the tulips and daffodils blooming along its front give their best shot at lifting my spirits. What had begun as a pretty spring day had lost its enchantment with Pearlie’s first words about Rachel.

  Jolene, a cute blonde who worked as a cigarette girl and was home in the day, bounced down the stairs as I entered.

  “Has the mail come yet?”

  “Got a mushy note you’re eager to get to somebody?” I teased eyeing the envelope in her hand.

  She waved it grandly.

  “Applying for war work. I’d kind of been thinking I’d go home and help on the farm when my brother got called up, but Daddy said Mother can drive a tractor almost as well as I can even if she doesn’t know a wrench from a bolt when it comes to fixing them, and Jenny’s old enough to take over part of Mother’s kitchen chores and Lois had to learn to milk and show the pigs who’s boss sooner or later...”