The Barefoot Stiff Read online

Even at high noon the skinny alley where I’d been last night wouldn’t be bright. At least all its details were visible now. A couple of dark patches decorated the bricks approximately where the stiff had lain, but I couldn’t tell if they’d been left by his blood or a tipped over trash can some time in the past. Five feet away I saw the entry to what once had been a reweaving place. Its door sat back in a shallow alcove that gave enough cover to catch a victim unaware and beat him without being seen.

  I made a big deal out of acting furtive, looking around, pretending to be in a hurry. Then I knelt and felt around on the ground. Standing up, I planed my fists on my hips and stared at the door in the alcove. One thing interested me: the lintel over the door. It was just wide enough for hiding a key. Even on tiptoe, my fingertips wouldn’t quite reach the top to check.

  Cussing at the splinter I got for my efforts, I thought a minute. I had an emery board in my purse. Stretching and standing on one foot I was able to level it and scrape it across in stages. Stop and rest on two feet. Stretch up and drag it further. Repeat. Until the emery board reached the end of the lintel and connected with air.

  Nevertheless, I jumped back and dropped to my knees as if I’d dislodged something. Clasping the non-existent key to my breast, I drew my shoulders up and twirled once in pretended rapture. If anyone was watching, they’d think I’d found something. Plus, Heebs would have some details to relate. He’d drifted to the mouth of the alley and peeked in curiously.

  “You find something?” he asked when I came out.

  “Yep.” I winked. “Pay phone in the cigar store works. I checked it.”

  I took the paper he’d been holding out to me, handed him a nickel, and hurried off toward my office.

  ***

  The owner of a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop across from my building let me carry a mug of Joe out now and then. He liked me and knew I’d return the mug. I added a pair of cake donuts to my order to compensate for not having oatmeal. I was at my desk with my feet up, eyeing the second donut, when Heebs called.

  “He’s on his way, sis. Big blonde fellow. He looked plenty mad when I told him about you.”

  “Thanks, Heebs. You stay put. See if anybody else shows up.” In case things got rough, I put the donut on the window sill where it would stay safe.

  The man who was coming to visit had used a knife as well as his fists in the alley. I didn’t intend to let him get close enough to use either on me. Settling into my chair again, I dangled one hand comfortably down. To pass the time, I recited some Shakespeare and a couple of Hail Marys.

  The door flew open. It closed with quiet menace behind a man who lived up to Heebs’ description of big and blonde. He looked large enough for a prize-fighter through the shoulders. His eyes burned.

  “You have something that belongs to me. I want it.”

  I frowned.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Don’t get cute. Give me the key you found in the alley.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He took a step toward me.

  “Keep lying and I’ll make you sorry, toots. A kid selling papers saw you.”

  I ran my tongue around my lips the way I’d seen girls do when they were nervous.

  “Hey, you got it wrong. Some blonde said if I’d meet her there this morning and go to the bank for her—”

  “Lulu,” he snarled. “Thieving little — Where is she?”

  “She never showed. I looked around, but I never found any key—”

  “What bank?”

  “I don’t know! She didn’t tell me!”

  He took a step forward. His clenched fists were the size of sledgehammers. The knuckles were bruised.

  “What bank?”

  I shook my head.

  “Listen, girly, she and her boyfriend thought they could cheat me, skip out without giving me my half of something they owed me. He learned different. She will too. You want your face to stay pretty? You better talk now.”

  As he started toward me, I shrank back in my chair. His hand slid under his jacket. It came out with a knife. I brought the .38 up from under my seat and fired.

  By his howl and the way his arm jerked as he dropped the knife, I thought I might have hit bone. Rounding my desk, I kicked the knife away from where he could grab for it.

  “Move and I’ll put the next one where it hurts more,” I promised, planting my feet so every muscle in my body was loose but steady.

  Men take a woman with a gun more seriously when it’s aimed between their legs. He stood still, cursing. On the desk beside me, my phone began to ring.

  “Yes, everything’s fine,” I assured a worried voice in the neighboring office. “Just trying to hang a picture.”

  I pushed one of the buttons to hang up, eyes on my visitor. Then I stuck an unsharpened pencil into the dial and called Freeze.

  ***

  “Claims he used the knife in self defense,” Freeze told me the following day when he stopped by my office. He’d come alone, so I thought maybe he was going to apologize for implying I wasn’t good at my work.

  “Claims he didn’t know the man he killed and he’s never heard of a woman named Lulu,” he continued instead. He sounded almost pleased. Maybe being stymied let him pretend I hadn’t contributed anything useful to his investigation.

  “I don’t suppose you looked for the missing shoes,” I said.

  Freeze avoided my eyes, hunting around for an ashtray. He spotted the cheap green glass number I kept on the file cabinets in case a potential client needed one.

  “We put the word out. One of the uniforms spotted a hobo on Keowee wearing brand new shoes with the soles flapping. Hobo claimed he’d found them in a trash can. Insides had been pulled out, heels cut off, seam between the soles and the tops slashed open enough to look inside. So yeah, I guess you made a lucky guess there.”

  “I treasure the accolade, Freeze.”

  “Don’t go holding your breath for the blonde to turn up, though. My men checked rooming houses and finally found one where a woman that matched your description was staying. She took off in a big rush the night of the murder. Like I told you, no broad mixed up in a heist would stick around to pick up a hat. Not after her boyfriend’s been murdered.”

  “She’s got the key, Freeze. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The killer couldn’t find it. Maybe somebody else had agreed to meet like they wanted me to. Lulu was taking the key to her boyfriend—”

  “Nice theory. Too bad in police work we need more.”

  I eyed the clock on my wall.

  “Look. This is the afternoon she was supposed to pick up the hat. Why not station a man near Chapeaux Jeanette and see if she shows?”

  “We already asked at the place. They didn’t remember anyone who matched her description. Didn’t have a hat on order for anyone named Lulu.”

  Flicking some ash off into the ashtray, he turned and left.

  Reward money would put some spring in my step. Mostly, though, it was the need to prove I was right that nudged me ahead. Reputation is bread and butter in my business. My pride still stung from Freeze’s innuendos about my abilities I wanted him to chew on some crow.

  By a quarter past one, I was seated in a coffee shop where I could watch the entrance to Chapeaux Jeanette. I’d worked some lipstick into my cheeks to look like rouge and put on a pair of gaudy glasses to make me look smart. By a quarter past two, I’d lingered as long as I dared and was getting bored.

  I crossed the street half a block up from the hat shop so I wouldn’t be seen, then picked up my pace and burst into Chapeaux Jeanette. I looked around wildly.

  “Is she here?” I demanded. “Oh, God! Don’t tell me I’ve missed her!”

  Behind a fussy gilded table that served as a counter, a woman whose penciled eyebrows arched halfway to her unnaturally black hair pinched her mouth together and drew herself up.

  “May I help you?” Her chilly tone suggested I was not the sort who should freque
nt such an establishment.

  “Rita Meadows,” I squeaked, resting my palms on her table and leaning toward her. “Sam Goldwyn’s latest starlet? That’s her professional name, of course. No telling what name she’s using—”

  “I do not know what you’re talking about.”

  The woman, dressed to the nines with an accent that might be genuine, rose indignantly. A young assistant lugging an armload of hat boxes toward a velvet curtain that hid a back room turned to stare wide-eyed.

  “Good-looking blonde,” I said. “Freckles right here.” I jabbed a spot below my mouth. “They’re promoting her new picture, see, before it’s released. Someplace after Chicago she sneaked off the train. Not used the pressure, poor kid. My boss is assistant to Mr. Goldwyn’s second assistant, so he sent me to look for her, and I’ve spent days. Yesterday I got here and started checking hotels. The last place told me she’d just checked out. The bellboy remembered she’d said something about picking up a hat.”

  I had to stop for breath. The woman with the prissy mouth looked uncertain. It told me all I needed to know.

  I pressed a hand to my cheek.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed making a beeline to a wall where hats were displayed on pedestals of varying heights. “Oh, these are just what wardrobe’s been hunting for the last scene in The Unlucky Heiress! ‘Elegant and artistic,’ that’s what they’ve been saying. You ship, don’t you?”

  The proprietress was looking dazed. Grabbing her elbow, I steered her over and began asking questions about one hat after another. I took a notepad from my purse and scribbled down what she told me. The assistant, still goggle-eyed, scurried back to dump the hat boxes. When she returned, she tagged along.

  “Madame....” she interrupted suddenly. She nodded toward the shop’s bay window which gave a view of the street.

  A taxi had pulled up. The blonde I’d been looking for clambered out, only she was a redhead now. She was dressed for traveling.

  “I’ll just wait over here, pretend to look at these hats so I don’t spook her first thing,” I whispered.

  Madame hesitated. The lure of having her creations fawned over in Hollywood overcame her reservation. She nodded. I turned away and sauntered a few steps distant as the blonde-turned-redhead hurried in.

  “My hat ready?” she asked without preliminaries. “I got a train to catch.”

  “Hello, Lulu.”

  She whirled at the sound of her name. It took several seconds for her to recognize me with the gaudy glasses. When she did, she turned and tried to bolt.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked as I caught her wrist. Her other hand beat at my head with her purse. I punched her arm. “Oww!”

  “We are calling the police!” Madame screeched, realizing something was wrong.

  “Good idea,” I panted as Lulu’s flailing hand tried to claw my face. “Your customer’s wanted as a witness to a murder.”

  “You’re crazy! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  The assistant already had ducked through the velvet curtain to call.

  “Your boyfriend, remember? The one you were taking this key to?”

  I tapped Lulu’s windpipe so she’d concentrate on getting a breath instead of trying to slug me. It gave me a chance to hook a finger around the cheap chain disappearing into the neck of her blouse. The chain I’d noticed back at the lunch counter. The detail I’d remembered.

  As I pulled it out, I saw it held a key.

  “I don’t know what that’s to! I haven’t done anything wrong! Let me go!”

  Lulu’s fingers closed protectively around the key. I tightened my hold on the chain. She threw a punch. As I dodged, she broke free and ran. All she had to do was reach the waiting taxi and she’d get away. I tackled her.

  She called me unflattering names as we struggled and rolled on the floor. Finally I managed to flip her over and plant my knee in her back. Right about then a uniformed cop hurried in with Freeze and one of his choirboys hard on his heels.

  “Key’s around her neck,” I announced. My nose was bleeding.

  Freeze wasn’t so keen on locking eyes with me today. I pressed a handkerchief to my nose and got to my feet. Somebody hauled Lulu up. I heard handcuffs snap.

  “There’s a man at the station who claims half the diamonds your boyfriend stole ought to be his,” Freeze told her as the other detective maneuvered her toward the door.

  Lulu missed a step, then looked back. With her newly red hair and sly smile, she resembled a fox making off with a chicken.

  “Hey,” she said. “There’s a big reward for information about those diamonds, isn’t there? Ought to buy me a real good lawyer.”

  I should have been sore, but except for my snoot I wasn’t. Being right is a swell tonic.

  The End

  Thanks for reading this Maggie Sullivan short story. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a short review at your favorite ebook retailer. Just a few lines will be greatly appreciated.

  M. Ruth Myers

  About the author:

  Ruth is the author of more than a dozen books, in assorted genres, which have been translated, optioned for film and condensed for magazine publication. Her novel Don’t Dare a Dame (third book in the Maggie Sullivan mystery series) is a finalist for a 2014 Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

  She and her husband have one grown daughter. They live in Ohio where they serve as domestic staff to an overly empowered cat.

  Discover these full-length novels by M. Ruth Myers

  No Game for a Dame (Maggie Sullivan #1)

  Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan #2)

  Don’t Dare a Dame (Maggie Sullivan #3

  The Whiskey Tide

  A Touch of Magic

  Connect with the author:

  Website: http:www.MRuthMyers.com

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/@mruthmyers

  Facebook: http://facebook.com/M.RuthMyers.author

  Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/mruthmyers

  Blog: http://www.GalGumshoe.com

  Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Rumy