Marja McGraw - Bogey Man 01 - Bogey Nights (23 page)

“Are we gonna play cards or not?” Shelly
asked, obviously annoyed.

We each pushed some pennies into the pot and Shelly dealt the
hands.

Jim looked at his cards and threw them down
. “I ain’t playin’ these cards. Can’t you deal me a good hand once in a while?”

“What else do you recall
, Jim?” I asked, also throwing in my hand.

“I remember one night when some guy came in and…
Now what was his name? I know it. It’ll come to me. But anyway, he was whisperin’ to her, probably sweet nothins’. She told him where to get off in no uncertain terms. That woman had a mouth on her. She might have sung like a canary, but she didn’t talk like no rich dame when she was mad.”

Jim continued to watch the ceiling, like it might open up and drop a name to him.

“Now what was his name? I know it’ll come to me. Anyways, he quit whisperin’ to her and started yellin’, and the bartender had to kick him out. Hmm. Something to do with boats. I remember his name had something to do with boats.”

My little heart did a tap dance
. “Shipley?” I asked. “Could it have been Sam Shipley?”

Jim slapped his knee
. “That was it, Sam Shipley. Funny thing is, I didn’t think he was interested in her until she started yellin’ at him. He was at her about something, that’s for sure, but the things she yelled had to do with him tryin’ to be, uh, too friendly.” The little old man looked down, appearing embarrassed.

“He wanted a romance with Chance,” Shelly sang out
. “What a dope.”

“We
were all dopes back then,” Stuart said.

“Speak for yourself.
” Jim gave Stuart a crooked smile. “I had a brain, and I wouldn’t have gone for a woman like her. Now, I might have gone for her friend, Alice. Alice Cook? No, that’s not right. Oh yeah, Alice Frye. I was thinkin’ of a fry cook.”

If Jim had said
I-30
, I’d have yelled BINGO! What a memory! It seemed that the boarders had interacted more than we’d thought, and Jim had witnessed a little of that interaction.

“Uh oh,” Stuart said
. “Shelly, you just dealt me the dead man’s hand. Would ya be more careful in the future?”

“I don’t control the cards,” she replied.

“What’s a dead man’s hand?” I asked.

“Aces and eights,” Shelly replied.

Somehow a dead man’s hand seemed appropriate since I was asking so many questions revolving around murder.

Chapter
Twenty-five

I
played cards with my new friends for about half an hour, hoping that Chance might return. She didn’t.

The only other information that I got from Jim was that Alice had hung around the bar once in a while, seemingly as Chance’s sidekick
. Jim thought she was cute, but the two women had suddenly quit coming in. Jim thought they might have had a falling out.

Glancing at my watch, I said, “Well, it’s been fun, but I’ve got a son and husband to get home to
. I hope I see you all again.”

“You’re okay,
Pamela,” Shelly said. “Come back and join us again sometime, and bring your nickels. We don’t always play penny ante.”

“Thanks
. I enjoyed myself.” Surprisingly, I really had. Although I hadn’t learned any more about Chance and her boarders, the seniors had shared other stories with me about their younger days, and they laughed at each other’s antics. They were nice people. And Shelly had invited me back. I felt much the same way I had back in school when I passed a dreaded test.

I drove home brimming with hope that we were on our way to solving crimes, and I couldn’t wait to tell Chris what I’d learned
. His car wasn’t there so I assumed he was meeting with Smokey Joe. I wondered what his real name was.

It was
four-thirty when Chris pulled up, and he had Mikey with him. They brought in a bag from a local rib shop, which included potato skins and cole slaw in addition to the barbequed ribs.

“As long as I was out, I thought I’d pick up
Ace and dinner.”

“Works for me,” I said, giving both of my boys a hug
. “Are you going to do the cleanup, too?”

“Don’t get carried away, Mom,” Mikey said.

Chris gently smacked the back of Mikey’s head. “Of course, we’ll clean up the dishes.”

He leaned down and whispered to Mikey, but I couldn’t hear what he said.

“Oh, yeah,” Mikey said. “I forgot we’ll be using paper plates tonight.”

Mikey grinned while Chris grimaced.

We sat down to dinner after I made a point of setting the table with my good china.

“See what you did,
Ace?” Chris asked. “Maybe next time you’ll keep your mouth shut.” The two waited for me to sit down before joining me.

“The kid is still wet behind the ears,” Chris said, patting my hand
. “He’s got a lot to learn between now and when he marries.”

Mikey thumped himself on the forehead
. “Yup. I guess I do.”

While we ate, Mikey told us about his day, but the further he got into rib eating, the quieter things were around the table.

“Have you had a chance to meet with… ” I glanced at my son who was concentrating on his ribs. “…anyone yet?”

Chris glanced at Mikey, too, before answering me
. “Turns out Smokey Joe’s real name is Tim Collins, and he lives in Florida. I’m going to call him after dinner.”

“I’ll tell you about my trip to Chance’s place later,” I said
. “I met some interesting seniors who live there and one of them knew Chance when she was young.”

“
Hmm.” I’d lost Chris to the ribs, as well as Mikey.

“So where were you if you didn’t meet with Smokey Joe?” I asked.

“I drove over and talked to a couple of our waitresses. They both said they’d be ready to come back to us when we open the new restaurant.”

“Do they know what’s been going on?”

“Yeah, and they don’t care. They said we’re their goombahs and that’s all that matters.”

“Oh, they said we’re their friends
.” I could have cried. Loyalty was high on my list of things I like about a person. “Who did you talk to?”

“Phyllis and Gloria, our resident Marilyn Monroe and Myrna Loy
. They love playing those roles.”

“Who knew?
Well, bless their hearts, I like them, too. However, Bogey Man, I think they’ve spent too much time around you if they’re using words like
goombah
.”

“Smokey Joe?”
Mikey’s head popped up. “What kind of name is that?”

“Oh, he’s just a guy,” Chris said casually.

“A little slow on the uptake, isn’t he?” I said.

“Good ribs,” Mikey said, grinning again.

After we finished eating, true to their word, Chris and Mikey cleaned up the dishes while I sat in the living room and looked through a magazine. Even when I heard the sound of breaking glass, I retained my composure. Mostly.

Mikey went upstairs to do his homework and Chris picked up the phone to call Florida.

“Isn’t it a little late?” I asked.

He looked at his watch
. “I guess it is. I’ll call him first thing in the morning – after Ace leaves for school.”

***

The next morning I asked Chris to wait until I took Mikey to school before he called Smokey Joe. He agreed and told me to get back as soon as I could.

Half an hour later I pulled into the dri
veway and hurried into the house, bearing a bag of donuts. We’d been in a rush and only had a light breakfast.

I set them on the table
. “Call Smokey Joe first,” I said. “I can’t wait to find out what he has to tell us.”

Chris dialed the number and when the phone began to ring he put
it in speaker mode.

“Hello?” said a younger sounding voice, not at all what I expected.

“Is Tim Collins in?” Chris asked.

“Hold on a minute,” the man replied.

We could hear him calling, “Hey, Smokey! It’s for you.”

He came back to the phone and told us it would take a couple of minutes for Smokey to get to the phone, and would we hold on?

While we waited, Chris and I looked at each other.

“What are we going to say?” I asked.

“We’re going to ask about the boarding house. He told Janet that he had some information, so I’m going to ask him what he knows.”

“At least we know they still call him Smokey
. I wonder if he knew any of the others. Blakely would have already gone missing, but he could have known Sam Shipley or Dudley Long. He might have known Alice Frye, too.”

After what seemed like a very long time, Smokey finally picked up the receiver.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“My name is Chris Cross
. I understand that you spoke to Janet Riley yesterday about the time you lived in a boarding house in Los Angeles. You rented a room from Chance Murphy, or you might have known her as Mildred.”

“Oh, yeah,
Detective Riley told me you’d be calling. What do you need to know?” Smokey’s voice sounded strong, even though he was soft-spoken. And he sounded alert, which was a huge plus. He was probably around Chance’s age, I would think.

“The body of a man who lived there before your time has been found and we’re investigating
. We’re trying to figure out what happened to him. Do you remember Sam Shipley, Dudley Long or Alice Frye?”

“Can’t say as any of those names ring a bell, but I didn’t live there very long.”

“What do you remember about Chance Murphy? Anything you tell me could help,” Chris said.

“Well, she was a headstrong young woman, but…
She changed my life. Simple as that, although I guess it wasn’t really simple. Let me tell you what happened.” He was quiet for a moment and we could hear the other man talking in the background. “Hold on a second.”

“Yes, I will,” Smokey said to the other man
. “Say, son, would you bring me a glass of water. These old pipes get mighty dry these days.”

We waited for a moment longer.

Turning back to the phone, he said, “That’s my grandson, George. I live with him and his wife. They’re good people.

“So back to my story
. Did you kind of wonder why I’m called Smokey Joe?”

“I’ve been wondering,” I said.

“Well, now, who does that lovely voice belong to?” We’d forgotten to tell him I’d be listening in.

“I’m Chris’s wife
, Pamela. I’m listening in because we’re working on this together. So why do they call you Smokey Joe?”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs
. Cross. I signed up for the army at a very young age. Actually, I lied about my age so I could serve. In those days we were all about mom, apple pie and protecting our country. So I served. I spent time overseas, and I saw things that would curl your hair, but I won’t go into that. When I came home, I started drinking and smoking. I guess you’d call me a chain smoker – and Smokey Joe was born. But the drinking didn’t help me forget what I’d seen. So I drank more and smoked more.

“My family couldn’t take it and my father kicked me out of the house
. That’s how I ended up taking a room at Chance’s place. Actually, I lived in her garage. She’d turned it into a nice little apartment. Well, I made a mess out of things there, too. I drank too much one night and fell asleep while I was smoking. I burned Chance’s garage down.”

“How’d you get out?” Chris asked.

“Chance was just coming home from somewhere and saw the smoke. She ran in and woke me up. The two of us barely got out with our lives. Fires move a lot faster than people realize.”

“With a story like that, what made you keep the nickname, Smokey?” I asked.

“It’s a reminder of what could have happened. And let me tell you, Chance changed my life that night. She was quite a woman, but she didn’t know it.”

“How did she change your life?” Chris asked.

“She was so angry with me that she said the things that everyone else had been holding back. People felt sorry for me for being so young and having gone to war. No one was honest with me about what I’d become until Chance pulled me out of that fire and let me have it – with both barrels, I might add. I can still hear her calling me a no good bum.” Smokey chuckled. “She told me I was the sorriest excuse for a man she’d ever seen, and she said I’d better quit feeling sorry for myself before someone got hurt. Amongst other things, she said she didn’t care what happened to me, but she didn’t want to see anyone else get hurt
because
of me. That young woman made me look at myself that night like no one else had ever done.”

“You make her sound different than the woman we met a few days ago,” I said.

“Was the woman you met conceited and in love with herself?” Smokey asked.

“Pretty much,” I replied.

Smokey laughed at that. “Yes, indeed, you met Chance. She thought she was a gift that God gave the world. The fact that she changed my life doesn’t mean she was actually trying to help me. She was angry because I burned down her garage. That’s all she cared about, and she never knew that she changed me.”

Chris rolled his upper lip under and scrunched up his face before trying to bring Smokey back to the Blakely death
. “Smokey, Janet Riley said you had a story to tell about the boarding house that might help us. What was that story?”

“Well, she put me in mind of an incident that happened during one of my more sober days
. I’d only lived there a few weeks when a man showed up at the door looking for someone who used to live there. He said he needed to see this man because the man owed him some money, and he needed it.

“I recall Chance asking him to leave, and she was none too friendly with her request
. She told the man that the other man owed her money, too. She seemed quite upset that the fellow at the door would show his face around her place after what he’d done.”

“
Was anything said about what he did?” I asked.

“No, I couldn’t tell you that
. Although, he sounded indignant. I remember very clearly that he said, ‘What
I
did? You’re the one who should be hiding her face.’ I didn’t get the feeling that there was any romance lost between these two.”

“Do you know his name?” I asked.

“I know his name was mentioned, after he left, but I don’t recall what it was.”

“Could it have been Sam Shipley or Dudley Long?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t remember.”

“Do you remember who else was living at Chance’s when you were there?” Chris asked
. “We’re trying to talk to anyone we can find.”

“Well, to be honest, I really don’t recall
. Like I said, I only lived there a short time before my life turned around, and I was at least half drunk most of that time. I do know that something had happened and all of the previous tenants had left. Everyone living there when I moved in was new to the boarding house.”

“Just out of curiosity, Smokey, what did you do with your life after the big change took place?” I asked.