Midnight Rain: A Detective Jack Dunning Novel (7 page)

“No.”

“If they do, leave a message for me at the Rexford and notify Platt. He brought a dead boy in off the highway, but we haven’t I.D.ed him yet.”

“Hit and run?”

“Probably.”

“Between Sparkey’s and the Kingsolvers?”

“Yes, why?”

“It’s odd, that’s all.”

“How so?”

“When you and Angel were vacationing back in September, another boy was found on the road. When you get more dead kids than dead dogs on the same stretch of road it makes you wonder, don’t it?”

CHAPTER 10

Joe is not himself for the rest of the day. He bumbles through his routine dropping change, spilling a cup of coffee, burning a chocolate cake. He wanted to apologize for the mean things he said yesterday, but his opinion about the dangers of the devil juice haven’t changed.

Cookie watches Joe pull into traffic at the end of the day, then goes down to the bakery for the newspaper. Dr. Albright’s visit had been a waste of time. All he recommended were the things that hadn’t been effective in the past. He told her to keep the ice bag on her head and charged her an extra quarter for the house call.

She sits at the bistro table and flips through the pages of the Morning Sun. If there’s something about a murder or assault, it might explain her strange dream. There’s news of foreclosures, livestock sales, a church rummage sale and a .22 slug in the gas station window. No violence, mayhem or murder. As she’s folding the paper, she sees what appears to be a business card on the floor near the door. Curious, she walks over and picks it up.

CONCHITA MONTOYA

Dance Instructor

TOP HAT SCHOOL OF DANCE

Rumba, Samba, Tango Classes

Saturday Evening 8:00 O’clock

Cookie turns the card over and sees a penciled message on the back. “Cho, is complimentary lesson, 11213 Railroad Spur Rd. XOX Chita”

Cho? Chita?

So, this is what Joe is up to, stealing her elixir, starting an argument…a sneaky way to justify making time with another woman. Her miserable days with Skipper come back in a sickening rush. The lies. The late nights at the office. The weekends with “the boys.” Shards of light slice through the neural pathways of her brain, distorting her vision to the point of partial blindness. By the time she feels her way up to the apartment, one eye is swollen shut and her head is exploding with pain.

* * * *

Frances has had a bad day and when Frances has a bad day, so does everyone around her. When Mittie, her twenty year old house maid, broke a Tiffany lamp, she blew her stack and banished her for the weekend. Now, she’s alone with no one to talk with and coughing up more blood than usual. She’s always considered herself indestructible, but just lately she has to admit to not being entirely well.

Frances lights a cigarette and pours a whiskey straight. It burns her throat going down. Like father, like daughter. If Red O’Hara smoked and drank, she smoked and drank. In her eyes, he could do no wrong, nor she in his.

Tonight she sits in the living room in one of her darker moods, missing her father more than ever. She’s never been the same since he took a bullet in the back, nor has she been able to establish with any certainty, Leland’s movements on the night he died.

Now that she knows that Leland isn’t even Leland, her suspicions have deepened. Red wouldn’t let down his guard with a stranger, but he might with his son-in-law. With their marriage unraveling, Frances is worth more dead than alive and a bullet in the back is one tradition she doesn’t intend to share with her father.

The phone rings and a vein jumps in her temple. She snatches up the receiver. “What?” she says. A flurry of dry leaves shoot past the windowpane and a branch scraping against the house sounds like fingernails on a blackboard.

“It’s Darrell Singleton, Mrs. Dietrich.”

“Yes, yes, what is it?”

“There’s been a new development. I’ll give it to you now and send you a written report in the morning. I’m calling from a phone booth across from the auction barn. I followed Mr. Dietrich to the German Social Club.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Tonight’s their first meeting. Before the doors opened I mingled with the crowd out front.

“So?”

“Your husband met up with a young woman, but I had the feeling they weren’t meeting for the first time.”

“Singleton, this is redundant. I already know he’s a dog.”

“Hear me out. I didn’t sense any romantic undertones this time. Of the fifty or so men in attendance, she was the only woman, so she must be someone with status. In the lot were license plates from all over the state…San Francisco…Fresno…Los Angeles…like this meeting was a big deal. They’d come to hear a lecture by…you want to take a guess?”

“Just tell me.”

“Ludwig Gerhard von Buchholz.”

It takes a moment for her to associate the name with her husband.

“You’re a man of many surprises, Singleton.”

“So is your husband.”

Frances coughs a husky laugh.

“There’s something else. Although Mr. Dietrich was the guest speaker, the head honcho is a man named Hansel Von Stroheim, and his license plate is out of L.A. When he arrived, his name was on everyone’s lips. He looks like an Aryan god. Six foot five. Sandy blond hair. Carries himself like an Olympic athlete.”

“What, no dueling scar?”

“Left cheek. Two inches long. Either that or he doesn’t know how to use a straight razor. When he arrived the crowd was mesmerized. After he went inside security bolted the door. What I’d give to be a fly on
that
wall.”

“I don’t know where all this is leading, but stay on it and see what develops.”

At midnight, Frances walks to the stable, her .38 in hand. She wears jodhpurs, riding boots and a white blouse speckled with blood from all that coughing. The horses are bedded down for the night, but when Sahara Princess hears her enter, she’s greeted with an excited whinny.

Princess was this year’s anniversary present to Leland, but clearly, he no longer deserves such a magnificent animal. She’d take everything back if she could…the Auburn…the fancy clothes…the box at the San Francisco Opera House. He shows his horse off to friends, but never gives her the amount of exercise a spirited animal requires. The black Arabian is a desert horse whose ancient pedigree is rooted in the sands of time. At a gallop her long mane and tail ripple on the wind like liquid silk.

Frances paid more for the horse than your average man makes in five years. She strokes the animal’s neck and whispers into her mane. Princess nudges her right hand, but instead of a sugar cube, it holds a gun.

Frances picks up the telephone on the far wall and dials Will Bernside’s home phone. He’s the owner of Consolidated Rendering Plant in Manteca, an unusual name for a town, meaning ‘lard’ when translated into English. Like most people at this hour, Will is sleeping.

“Do you know what time it is?” he says.

“This is Frances Dietrich, Will. I have to put down an injured horse. How soon can you pick up the carcass?”

Will is grumbly with sleep. “Call me tomorrow at the plant. I don’t take the schedule to bed with me.” He hangs up with a sharp click.

“Some people!” she says.

Princess prances and circles, impatient for her treat. Frances leans against the half-door of the stall. The mare nibbles playfully at her ear. Another whinny. Big brown eyes, bright with curiosity and intelligence. Fran’s anger dissipates. She pockets the gun and gives Princess her sugar as she presses her cheek against the mare’s warm neck. She fights back a tear. When she fires a bullet, it’s not going to be into something as noble as a horse.

Frances brings the pickup around, puts the gun under the front seat and hooks the horse trailer to the hitch. She loads the mare for transport to another of her properties where Leland won’t find her.

When her husband took it upon himself to fire their groom last year…a former jockey, who’d been ten years with the family…she’d been furious, especially when he marched away from her without explanation. Now, she knows why.

The groom was Benny Silverstein. A Jew.

* * * *

Joe has a date…well, sort of a date. He’s filled with both trepidation and excitement as he puts on the dark suit he reserves for weddings, funerals and jury duty. It’s dated, but nicely tailored to his tall, slender physique.

He fastens silver cufflinks at the wrists of his spotless white shirt, holds up a dozen ties and selects the blue one with the narrow, silver stripe to match the silver at his temples. He tilts his fedora at a rakish angle, takes a deep breath and blows it out. Gloves and a top coat and he’s as ready as he’s ever going to be.

On the drive to town, he reflects on Chita’s parting words. “Be honest, Cho. I know when a man is die to play with fire. Eight o’clock. You no come, I cry like baby.” He hasn’t had an invitation like this since he was on the high school basketball team. If he waits for another, he’ll be too old to strike a match, let alone fan the flames.

He checks his map. Railroad Spur Road branches off to the packing house and various factories in the industrial area east of town. A quarter mile down the road and the last streetlight vanishes in his rear view mirror. The road is deeply rutted, his car rocking and bouncing over the pot holes. A spray of tarred gravel strikes the undercarriage. He needn’t have bothered polishing the car and scrubbing the whitewalls. He drives slowly, scanning the darkness for the Dance School, but all he sees are buildings locked down for the night and the green fluorescent glow from the packing plant.

After a five minute drive the road dead ends at an auto supply warehouse. For a moment he sits bewildered behind the wheel. He’s looking for 11213, but the numbers don’t run that high.

The ever-punctual Joe is running late and there’s no second chance to make a first impression. He resumes his search, growing more frustrated by the minute. At eight-forty he slams on the breaks and fishtails to a stop. With a sickening jolt he realizes there is no school of dance. There never was.

Cho has been duped!

Sweat pops in his arm pits and his face flushes with embarrassment. He slaps the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “You stupid old fool,” he says, making a three point turn and racing back toward home.

The front door is standing open when Joe pulls in the driveway. Two pair of muddy footprints crisscross the porch, one small and one belonging to Bigfoot.

A trace of perfume still lingers on the air when he takes the stairs to the second floor, anxiously calling for Pumpkin. He rushes to his bedroom, then the guest room and finally Mildred’s room where his traumatized cat crawls out from under the bed with his fur standing on end and his eyes as big as moons.

He sweeps the cat into his arms and holds him so close he can feel Pumpkin’s rapid heartbeat. After a few minutes Pumpkin begins to purr and Joe sets him on the bed. Mildred’s clothes are scattered across the floor. Her furs and expensive shoes are gone along with the silver brush and mirror set, M being for Montoya and all. In its place is a note:
Sorry Cho.
You nice man.
In future no be so trusting.
Scatter ashes.
No good for finding new wife.

Quite the felonious little philosopher!

Pumpkin follows Joe to his bedroom. His personal possessions are intact. Apparently, Big Foot couldn’t get into his size nine shoes. He recalls the items in Chita’s car: the guitar, the candlesticks, the gun case. Now, he wonders whose house she burglarized before sliding off the road.

Joe decides against reporting the burglary. He should, but he won’t. It would be in the newspaper and he doesn’t want Cookie to know what an old fool he’s been. Even if she never speaks to him again, it’s important she thinks well of him.

Joe locks his doors for the first time in forty years, although it’s a little late to do him any good. He hangs his suit in the closet until the next wedding or funeral and gets into his striped pajamas. Between his flap with Cookie, burning the cake and being scammed by a flirtatious young tart, it’s been a very trying day.

He crawls beneath the covers and Pumpkin hops on his chest. There’s a small snap of electricity as they touch noses. When the purring and treading begins, Joe gives him a firm hug and tucks him into the crook of his arm. For a long time he lies staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow after Mass, he’ll drive to the coast of Big Sur where he and Mildred spent their honeymoon. From the cliff tops, he’ll release her ashes into the wind above the sea.

* * * *

Hank motions me over as soon as I walk in the lobby. It’s dark outside and the wind is moaning between the buildings. He tells me Angel was seen by Dr. McBane that afternoon. He sedated her so she can rest.

“Did he say what’s wrong?”

“A winter bug of some kind. She’s to rest, drink water and take aspirin. He’ll check on her later in the week. Anything new on Lulu?” Hank asks.

I shake my head. “It’s not looking good.”

“That’s a damn shame.” He looks at me like he has something else to say, but the moment passes and I walk to the elevator.

CHAPTER 11

The meeting of the Deutschlander Social Club breaks up a couple hours after midnight, men pouring out the door, laughing and back-slapping, everyone in high spirits as they head to their cars. During the meeting Singleton had walked through the empty parking lot jotting down license numbers in his notebook.

After the others are gone, Dietrich and the mystery woman linger in the lot as Singleton watches from his vantage point near the phone booth. The couple talks for the length of time it takes to smoke two cigarettes, relaxed in one another’s company, no intimate touching or sexual overtures. His feet are numb with cold and he yearns for the comforts of his motel room…a long shower, a warm bed, a nightcap. He doubts that anything of further significance will happen tonight.

Finally, the two comrades flick their cigarette butts into the darkness. They salute and click their heels with a hearty, Heil Hitler, and leave in separate cars. If they only knew how ridiculous they looked.

Singleton is about to call off surveillance when Dietrich pulls onto Cork Street and drives in the opposite direction of Hilliker Road. Another foray into Chinatown, he wonders? He closes the notebook containing the license numbers he collected while the meeting was in session. The nightcap and warm bed will have to wait. He keys his car. It coughs a couple times before the engine kicks over. He checks the gas gauge. It hovers near E but the stations are closed. He’s curious and decides to risk it. Besides, his vigilance might earn him a nice fat bonus from the rich Mrs. Dietrich.

The P.I. lets his subject get a head start before he pulls into the empty street. He prefers tailing subjects in moderate traffic, but sometimes you have to take it as it comes. The job that began as surveillance of an adulterous spouse has turned into something a little out of his line. Nevertheless, he’d like to wrap things up in another day or two and get back home to his wife and kids.

After a mile or so Dietrich pulls off Cork onto St. Finnbar Street. What the hell is on St. Finnbar Street that could possibly be of interest to Leland Dietrich? He passes the Catholic Church and adjacent parochial school with its empty playground and baseball diamond. With the exception of a dim light above the rectory door, the street is dark, leaves piling up in the gutters, wind rattling the chains on the swing set.

Dietrich pulls to the curb in front of the Jewish synagogue and a bad feeling creeps into Singleton’s bones. He passes him at a crawl, makes a u-turn and parks up the street. He kills the lights and turns off the engine. Dietrich exits his car and disappear behind the building. The unpainted structure is old and weathered, the architecture like something out of an Eastern European shtetl.

He waits for Dietrich to reappear, then waits some more, his back muscles aching, one foot gone slightly numb. What the hell is Dietrich doing back there? He catches movement in the rear view mirror, someone walking his dog or having a last smoke before turning in. It’s only when the shadowy figure gets closer that he realizes Dietrich has circled behind the buildings and come up behind him.

Singleton keys the ignition. Nothing. He tries again. His car lets out a mechanical groan but refuses to kick over. He tries again and again, rapidly pumping the gas pedal. What little gas is left in the tank floods the engine and the car fills with fumes. Another glance in the rear view mirror and Dietrich is coming toward him at a trot.

Singleton grabs his keys and notebook, jumps from the car and hits the ground running. He goes full out for a block, his lungs aching from the cold night air. In the deep shadow of a giant oak tree, he drops the notebook and keys into a curbside mailbox, barely breaking his stride. He bolts down the sidewalk without looking back. If he had, he’d see that Dietrich was holding a gun.

* * * *

Angel is asleep when I crawl into bed. I smooth the damp hair from her forehead and feel her soft breath on my shoulder. Her nightgown is inside out, the tag visible at the neckline. She shivers and fever-talks in her sleep and I wonder how much of her suffering is due to fever and how much to her encounter with Leland Dietrich.

I drift off. I’m not sure how long I’d been sleeping when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes and see Angel standing beside the bed.

“What is it?” I say, sitting up. “Are you alright?”

“Jack, something’s going on.” She takes my hand and pulls me to the window.

“Look,” she says. “Over there, above the rooftops.” The sky to the east blooms with a flickering orange glow. A fire truck, its sirens screaming, flies past the hotel. I hear footsteps in the hall, the murmur of voices, the elevator rattling up and down. “Let’s find out what’s going on,” she says. “Please, help me with my robe.”

The lobby is a-buzz with people in nightclothes. Jake, Albie and Cantor Nemschoff stand in a shivering crowd gathered on the sidewalk out front. Angel is weak and leans more havily on my arm.

“I think I’d better sit,” she says.

“You should be in bed. Let me take you back up?”

“Not yet, Jack. Go see what’s happening first.”

I get her settled in the lounge and join the people at the curb. Wind whips the distant flames hundreds of feet into the air, sirens pulsing in the distance.

“That’s one hell of a fire,” says Jake.

“That was going to be my school,” says Albie, as Bo snores softly in his arms. “St. Finney’s is burning down.”

Cantor Nemschoff, wrapped in his blue and white prayer shawl, is pale and shaken, his hand trembling on his cane. “No,” he says, “that’s the synagogue. It’s starting all over again, just like back in Germany.”