[Maggie Sullivan 02.0] - Tough Cookie Read online

  “Bum who froze to death. Never had a real name, but a couple of fellows knew him from a soup kitchen. Kid hit by a train. Maybe fifteen or sixteen. Most likely riding the rails from some little town in Kansas or such place.”

  I looked away. Same age as my older brother when he disappeared. Maybe riding the rails. A long time ago.

  “Might help if I knew more about the man you’re hunting,” Connelly’s baritone said.

  “Businessman. Real estate investments. Had a good reputation until he put together a fake deal and took off with money from some pretty big wheels.”

  Connelly rubbed his chin.

  “I’d forgotten,” he said slowly. “Don’t know if it’s the same man. A month or two back a secretary called to say her boss hadn’t turned up for work. She was worried. Said she couldn’t raise him at home.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “We boys in the street weren’t brought into it, so I’d guess there was nothing suggesting foul play. Nor any complaints about being swindled.” His eyes traveled over me. They held the ghost of a smile. “If we picked at it over a bowl of stew, could be I’d remember something useful.”

  I glanced toward the bar.

  “I coaxed Seamus into letting me buy him ham croquettes at a joint he likes. I thought he could use a friendly ear.”

  “Those two old fools squabbling over a phonograph,” Connelly said, shaking his head. “Go on, then. I’ll poke around, see if I can learn anything else.”

  “Thanks.”

  I got into my jacket and coat. When I rose to leave, Connelly stood too. His voice softened. He touched my elbow.

  “Those bruises under your eyes that say you’re not sleeping – I figure it’s the shootout with Beale. The dreams go away, Maggie. It takes time, but they do go away.”

  Nine

  When I got to the office Monday morning my phone was ringing. Experience had taught me that usually wasn’t a good sign.

  “That man you were asking about? They fished him out of the river last night,” Connelly said, low and fast. “Freeze is on his way over.”

  He hung up before I could thank him. Freeze was a homicide detective. If Draper’s body had turned up, Connelly would have felt obligated to tell him I’d been making inquiries. That was okay by me. Connelly was a good cop, and good cops didn’t bend the rules.

  In any case, he’d cued me in about what was happening. I wasn’t sure how I’d play things just yet, but I knew I had to call Wildman.

  “This is Maggie Sullivan. Tell Mr. Wildman it’s urgent,” I said when the butler answered.

  I undid my coat while I waited. I was wearing a swell hat, plum colored with a curly pink feather. It looked nice with my gray flannel suit. I’d barely had time to toss the hat on my desk before Wildman came on.

  “Miss Sullivan–”

  “Draper’s dead,” I interrupted. “They found him in the river last night. The cops heard I was asking about him. They’re on their way to see me. I won’t tell them I’m working for you, but they may have names.”

  “Very good,” he said. “Thank you.”

  No need to draw a picture for Wildman. We hung up at the same time. He could send people scurrying to help him prepare. All I could do was put on my thinking cap. It didn’t come with a feather, pink or otherwise. I hung my things on the coatrack next to the window and stood with one eye on the street.

  Someone other than Connelly might have told Freeze I’d been looking for Draper, so I’d keep Connelly out of it unless he was mentioned. And as I’d assured Wildman, I didn’t intend to tell the cops who’d hired me. Apart from that, I’d share whatever information I had. That included the names of investors Draper might have duped. Including Wildman. He might deny it; I suspected some of the others might too.

  A few of the cops, Freeze included, didn’t much like me. Sometimes I’d been a thorn in their sides. But when I could, I tried to cooperate with them. This was a murder investigation. Moreover I didn’t much like the way it had popped up. Draper, by all accounts, had disappeared months ago. Now, one day after I started asking questions, he turned up dead.

  A nondescript black car came down the street and stopped. I guessed it was Freeze. The morning paper still lay on my desk where I’d dropped it to answer the phone. I moseyed over and propped my elbows over it and began to read. I was on page two when the cops came in.

  * * *

  Freeze was lean and gray at the temples with a nose too pretty for a man. He wore cheap suits and usually had two men at his heels. Today there was just one.

  “Good morning, Miss Sullivan. I apologize for the intrusion,” he said. He didn’t sound particularly sorry.

  “Hey, at least you knocked,” I said. “Some don’t. One guy walked in and caught me tightening my garter.”

  “Uh–”

  Freeze didn’t know how to respond. He and I weren’t exactly the best of pals. Behind him his sidekick looked from Freeze to me and shifted his feet.

  “Sit down.” I gestured breezily. “What can I do for you?”

  Freeze didn’t sit. He took a half-done cigarette from his lips and looked around for an ashtray. I pointed to the dimestore special on top of my four-drawer file cabinet.

  “I understand you’ve been making inquiries about a man named Harold Draper.” He tapped ash from his glowing tobacco into green glass.

  “That I have. He owes a client of mine some money.”

  “I wouldn’t count on collecting,” Freeze said. “We pulled him out of the Great Miami.”

  I leaned back a smidgen. “Dead or alive?”

  “Dead.”

  “Drowned?”

  Freeze just looked at me.

  “I don’t suppose you’d tell me if it was suicide?”

  He didn’t answer. He did sit down, though, hitching my client chair close enough to rest one arm on my desk.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know about him?” he said evenly.

  His toady, following his lead, eased into a chair against the wall and took out a notepad. He was younger than Freeze with a broad face which might have been pleasant if it ever relaxed, which seemed unlikely working for Freeze. I was pretty sure his name was Boike, or something similar.

  “Businessman,” I began, reciting what was starting to feel like a litany. “Commercial real estate, mostly. Well thought of enough that people with big money to invest coughed it up for a deal he was putting together six months ago. The way I heard it, he waltzed off with the money. One of the men he bilked hung himself not too long ago. There’s some speculation he did it because Draper ruined him.”

  Freeze regarded me steadily.

  “Nothing that we don’t already know. What else?”

  I gritted my teeth. If he, in fact, knew all that, I’d be willing to bet it was only because he’d talked to Connelly. I’d bet more that some of it was new to him. If the body had been found last night, Freeze and his boys hadn’t had time to turn up diddly.

  “Yeah, you probably got all that when he first went missing,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who pulled strings to keep that out of the papers?”

  I’d pressed the right sore spot. Freeze sat up indignantly.

  “Nobody pulled strings. There were no complaints against him. We had no indication a crime was committed.”

  “In other words, you weren’t looking for him. Then how’d you identify the body?”

  “He had identification.”

  My poke had jarred loose a couple of nuggets. Freeze, as if catching on, clamped his mouth shut. Boike was watching us, head cocked. His eyes moved tactfully to the corner, halting as he noticed the dead plant.

  Freeze stubbed out the end of his cigarette, which had gotten dangerously short.

  “What else do you know?” he repeated tightly.

  I thought for a minute. I could flip through my notes but that was likely to make Freeze demand them.

  “He was a widower, possibly for some time. No children. Som
eone said he played tennis.”

  “You don’t seem to have learned very much.” He nailed me with a look he probably used to break suspects.

  I smiled.

  “You’re absolutely right, I’m afraid,” I said sweetly. “But then I only started asking questions Friday.”

  Freeze blinked and his steely look slipped. Toes together, I swiveled my chair back and forth a couple of times while he digested it.

  “Curious, the timing of his body turning up, don’t you think?”

  His grunt suggested agreement, and that he no longer thought I was holding back. Freeze was smart. We just got in each other’s way too much. Right now I could practically see the gears in his head turning.

  “I’ll need the names of the people you’ve talked to about this,” he said. “Particularly any who fell victim to Draper’s scheme.”

  I gave him the five names I’d been given, plus Ferris Wildman and Rachel Minsky. At the last name Boike looked up from his scribbling. I couldn’t tell whether it was because the name belonged to a female, or because he recognized it.

  “And who hired you to find Draper?” Freeze asked.

  I smiled.

  Our truce was over. His pretty nose thinned in irritation.

  “Is there some reason why you choose to withhold information?”

  “Because the sign on the door says private investigations?”

  He let his breath out slowly, seeking control. Pushing the issue would get him nowhere and he knew it. He got up.

  “If you think of anything else, let us know.” Snapping his hat on, he went swiftly out.

  Boike lagged behind, closing his notebook.

  “That plant the same one that was dried up six months ago?” he asked, indicating the withered brown specimen.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They all end up like that. Figured I might as well quit throwing money away on replacements.”

  I’d dolled this one up in a green and black art deco pot from McCrory’s. Clients could see I had taste enough to decorate, but assume I got so involved helping people like them I forgot to water.

  Boike nodded as if the answer made perfect sense.

  Ten

  With Draper turning up dead, Wildman wouldn’t be writing me any more checks to trace his whereabouts. Thanks to his advance I still would come out with my bank account looking healthier than it had for a while. Nevertheless, I began to wish I hadn’t spent my share of the money to replace Genevieve’s jacket.

  “How ridiculous even to think of getting another one when a halfway decent seamstress could spend ten minutes on this one and make it good as new,” she’d laughed.

  That was Saturday morning. Examining the jacket’s underarm seams, I’d had to agree. The inch of seam where the sleeve had pulled away from the rest of the lining had been repaired so invisibly I no longer could determine where it had been.

  “Besides, brand new it didn’t cost half what your client coughed up,” Genevieve had insisted, tapping the money. “You and I could each buy a jacket for this amount, and that’s what I propose we do. Though it needn’t be a jacket, of course – as long as you don’t spend all yours on hats. If it will make you feel better, I’ll take an extra dollar to cover having my seam repaired.”

  So Saturday afternoon we’d had a shopping spree. Genevieve got a new skirt and I found a fine little evening jacket, black velvet brocade with lace cutwork. It looked perfect on me, and I didn’t have the willpower to take it back, but sitting in my office after Freeze and Boike left, I rued the extravagance.

  In twenty minutes I was scheduled to meet with Arthur Buckingham, the investor who hadn’t been able to see me on Friday. With my search for Draper at an unexpected end, I should call and cancel. Except I didn’t want to. The discovery of Draper’s body just as I started asking questions had my curiosity fizzing. Anything I learned talking to Buckingham would be irrelevant now, but it also would make my final – and only – report to Ferris Wildman more complete. If I couldn’t deliver anything spellbinding, he’d at least judge me thorough.

  The downside was the chance I’d run into Freeze, who wouldn’t be pleased that I was still snooping. With one of the men on my list out of town, that left one chance in five that I’d cross paths with Freeze. Not bad odds. I shrugged into my coat.

  * * *

  I didn’t run into Freeze, but I didn’t learn anything either. Buckingham was as bland as unseasoned potatoes. I didn’t tell him the cops would be calling, or even that Draper was dead. That way I hadn’t muddied the field for Freeze if he learned when I’d been there.

  “Hey, Sis, you look like your dog died,” called Heebs, my favorite newsboy, as I crossed Jefferson on the way back to my office.

  I lifted an arm, only half aware of him but smiling anyway. On impulse I did an about-face and trotted across to the corner where he spent most of every day.

  “Say, Heebs. They found a body in the river last night. A man named Draper. You hear anything about it?”

  Some of the newsboys live on the street, sleeping in alleys and doorways, moving in packs since they didn’t have families. Heebs was sharp as a tack. It was a damn waste.

  “Not yet,” he said with a grin. “What’s it worth if I do?”

  “Two bits.”

  “Make it four.”

  Cocky little devil.

  I nodded.

  Back at the office I thawed my toes on the radiator. Then I cranked a carbon set into my Remington. It didn’t feel right, typing a final report on a case I’d hardly started. I pecked a couple of words, then sat thinking about the visit from Freeze.

  My initial thought on learning of Draper’s death had been that its occurrence, just when I was starting to dig, was too convenient. That reaction had been nothing but instinct. What I’d pried out of Freeze spritzed some proof on that, or the smell of proof anyway. The police had identified the dead man from papers in his wallet. That meant the paper was still intact enough and the ink unblurred enough to read. That meant the body couldn’t have been in the water too long.

  I began hunting Draper. Not long after, he ended up in the river. There might not be proof one led to the other, but it seemed to me the condition of the paper he carried pointed in that direction.

  Shoving aside the thoughts I wrote my report for Wildman and typed up invoices for several small, routine clients who kept me almost solvent. I was licking an envelope when the telephone rang.

  “Miss Sullivan?” said James C. Hill. “Mr. Wildman wants to see you at half-past four.”

  He didn’t give me a chance to r.s.v.p.

  * * *

  I presented myself at half-past four. The butler ushered me to a small office where a fire blazed merrily in a fireplace whose mantel held photos of Wildman shaking hands with various dignitaries. One of them was Herbert Hoover.

  Wildman and his assistant sat in leather chairs by the fire. They were drinking sherry.

  “Thank you for alerting me about the police,” Wildman said rising to greet me. “They don’t appear to know a great deal.”

  “No, they don’t,” I agreed.

  “Will you have sherry? Mr. Hill and I usually confer at the end of the day. I asked him to stay. He oversees the day-to-day running of things, and I rely on his input. I thought his ideas might be useful as we plan our next steps.”

  Hill’s pale head snapped up. My disbelief just about matched it. I sat down without intending to.

  “I don’t follow you. You hired me to find Draper, who’s turned up dead. That’s about as found as anyone can be.”

  Wildman’s hands lay motionless on the arms of his chair. He leaned forward slightly.

  “I want to know who killed him, or held something over him that caused him to take his own life. You’re no fool. You know as well as I that’s what happened. No sooner did you start asking questions than the man you were asking about, a man who vanished months ago, reappeared dead. To suppose it’s any sort of coincidence is – preposterous.”


  Hill, with his love of neatness and order, looked fit to be tied. It took several seconds before his features smoothed. I chose words carefully.

  “I agree with all you’ve said, but now it’s become a matter for the police–”

  “At best they’ll call it a suicide, not a matter for further investigation.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Can’t I?” Wildman raised an eyebrow. “Someone brought about Draper’s death to prevent me from talking to him. I want to know who. And why.”

  It might fit with what Rachel Minsky had said about Draper having a partner. If she’d told the truth, which given that I’d caught her in one lie, I had absolutely no reason to think. It was just as likely Wildman simply had a bee up his bonnet, and that this was merely a tycoon’s tantrum over not getting the desired lollipop.

  Hill’s eyes veered back and forth as he followed the conversation. He started to speak, then appeared to have second thoughts. In his employer’s presence, he couldn’t play cock of the walk.

  “What do you think, Mr. Hill? Mr. Wildman said he wanted your input.”

  Hill hesitated.

  “Yes, James. By all means.”

  His assistant avoided his gaze, and fortified himself with a sip of sherry. He blotted his lips methodically. He sat erect.

  “Very well, then. I think it’s madness, sir. Worse still, it appears capricious. Once people hear of it – which they will if Miss Sullivan continues asking questions – I’m afraid ... I think some might start to speculate you’re becoming ... dotty.”

  He sank back as though the reply had drained all his courage. He kept his eyes on the rug. I felt a mite of sympathy for the man.

  Wildman didn’t look pleased.

  “And do you think I’m dotty, James?”

  “No, sir. Of course not.” The vigor with which Hill knocked back the rest of his sherry suggested his meek tone took some effort.

  “No one knows who hired Miss Sullivan to make her inquiries,” his employer reminded.

  “It’s far-fetched, thinking anyone would care if you found Draper,” Hill said with surprising stubbornness.