Death Was the Other Woman Read online

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  KNOWING THAT MUSTARD would be bringing me to the club in his car, Dex hadn’t bothered to get a ride of his own. He’d taken a taxicab to the hotel. I was feeling happy enough that, for once, I quelled any remark I might have made about him taking the streetcar instead of the more expensive hack.

  Mustard had parked on Wilshire across from the hotel and down the block a piece. Brucie and I were both in heels, and Mustard offered to go on ahead and bring the car back, but we argued that the heels weren’t that high and the evening was lovely. It was a nice night for a short stroll after the dense smoke and thick noise of the club.

  There was a sweetness to the air that night. I’ll never forget it. The clarity of the night was heightened by my own sense of well-being. For the first time since my father had died, I felt careless. That is to say, I felt without cares.

  Here I was, out on the town. I was wearing a beautiful dress, and my hair had never looked prettier; Brucie had seen to that. I was in the company of two handsome men who cared about me, and a sweet woman who I thought would become a friend. I had just come from the swankest hotel in the city and not been made to feel as though I didn’t belong, not even for a second. All of this made me feel on the verge of something fine and good and right. And as I laughed at a joke Mustard had made and as I let Dex take my elbow as I stepped off the curb, I thought, Here, finally, is adulthood. Not so scary as I’d feared.

  There was a small park across from the hotel. Nothing more, really, than a handful of palm trees and some benches. As we moved into it, Dex stopped to clip a cigar, and the rest of us paused to wait for him. Just as our little group hesitated, we heard the sound of a car coming around the side of the hotel too fast, which was not in itself unusual, but the sound of squealing tires brought our heads up.

  The next thing I was aware of was Dex on top of me. “Get down” he ordered. And then came the sound of a car backfiring, not once but several times. I didn’t see sky again until after I’d heard the car squeal away; then Dex was helping me up.

  “You OK?” he asked.

  “I’m OK. But I’m not sure about this dress Brucie let me wear,” I said, smoothing down the shimmery ivory while looking around for Brucie.

  We all became aware of Brucie’s injury in the same instant. Even Brucie herself.

  “My god,” she said, more wonder in her voice than pain. “I’m bleeding.” A bullet had pierced her shoulder and the gold lame, which she had just a moment to bemoan before the pain started in earnest.

  “I’ll go get an ambulance,” Dex said, but Mustard stopped him.

  “Whoever did the shooting was probably gunning for you, Dex.” Mustard in action was a soothing presence. There was a sort of unhurried speed about him. The hint of an efficiency I’d yet to see in full force. “Whatever questions you were asking back there must have caused some concern. You three stay here; stay low if you can. I’ll run ahead and get the car and bring it back. It’s a shoulder wound; we’ll be OK. And I’ll be faster than an ambulance anyway.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but sprinted away, moving his blocky form more quickly than I would have credited.

  While we waited, Dex and I did what we could to stanch the blood that leaked from Brucie’s shoulder. Dex ripped a sleeve off his white shirt, and we pushed the cloth into the wound. I knelt on the ground beside Brucie, stroking her head with my hand. I didn’t know what else to do. I could smell the grass crushed under my knees. It smelled like spring and renewal and promise. It smelled like a lie. It could only have been a few minutes before Mustard screeched up with the car, but it felt like so much longer.

  I jumped in the back, and Mustard and Dex carefully placed the injured girl across the seat with her head in my lap. Then we beat it up Wilshire toward the Good Samaritan Hospital, only a short distance away.

  Once there, it’s possible we might have gotten the usual hospital runaround about paperwork and next of kin, but Mustard and Dex weren’t having it. And the admitting nurse seemed to know better than to delay the admittance of a well-dressed girl with a gunshot wound brought in by a couple of mooks who looked as though they may well have a roscoe or two between them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hospital staff move more quickly, and I know I’d never seen Dex and Mustard acting mookier.

  After the doctors had gotten Brucie sorted out, they decided to keep her in for a day or two. They told us that she’d lost a lot of blood and, in the early stages, would need constant monitoring.

  Probably sensing she’d have a fight on her hands if she didn’t comply, the nurse let us in to see her. By that time, it was two in the morning. Brucie looked so tiny and vulnerable in the hospital bed, her skin almost paler than the crisp white sheets.

  I shot a glance at Mustard and then looked quickly away. There was thunder in his face, and something else. Something so personal it just didn’t seem right to look straight at it.

  The nurse didn’t let us stay long. “All right, you three, out of here now,” she said, once we’d seen Brucie. “She needs to rest and that’s all she needs. You can come back tomorrow during normal visiting hours. But now let her sleep.”

  We left reluctantly, but we left. The nurse wasn’t taking no for an answer, and in any case, we could see she was right. Brucie needed to rest and recover, and she looked to be in very good hands.

  “You take care of her,” Mustard admonished the nurse, once we were out of Brucie’s room. There was something stern in his face, something that didn’t invite conversation. I saw it, but if the nurse did, she gave no sign. She’d probably dealt with tougher nuts in her time.

  “Like I said, come back tomorrow. We’ll look after her.”

  There was nothing else we could do, so reluctantly we took our leave, though I, for one, felt confident that Brucie was getting the best care possible. After all, I told myself, I’d come by the hospital the following day and see with my own eyes that she was fine.

  As things turned out, I was wrong.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ON THE WAY HOME in the car, Dex was unusually hard on himself. I’d never seen him take himself to task for anything. Not really. But he did so now and it was frightening.

  “What was I thinkin’?” he said very seriously. “I’m investigating something and I make a party of it? I know better than that.”

  Mustard and Dex were in the front seat. I sat in the back alone, for the moment forgotten. I was staring out the window hard and trying not to think about poor Brucie, something that was made all the more difficult by the bloody spot on the backseat I avoided looking at.

  The heat had burned off the day, and all that was left was the warm sweetness I’d noticed earlier. Only now the promise I’d felt had fled. The sweetness felt cloying, and sour on my tongue. Funny how a shooting could change your whole perspective.

  “Hell, Dex, you don’t even know that’s what it was about,” Mustard said. “You don’t know anything.”

  “Yeah, well, I got an idea, don’t I? I go into the club asking questions, and we get shot up on the way out. That doesn’t happen every day.”

  “Is that what you were doing?” Mustard said. “Asking questions? Of Lucid Wilson?”

  Dex stared straight ahead and grunted.

  “Ker-riste,” Mustard said with some heat. “Well, I guess you must have asked the right questions.”

  “Or the wrong ones,” Dex said quietly.

  Mustard took his eyes off the road for a moment and looked at Dex closely. It was a while before he spoke again.

  “That too,” he said finally.

  By the time they dropped me off on Bunker Hill, it was almost three o’clock in the morning, and I knew it was possible that Marjorie would already be up. Wednesday was her baking day. She had to get up practically in the middle of the night so that the bread we’d enjoy over the coming week would be ready for table by breakfast.

  As much as I loved Marjorie, I hoped not to run into her now. And never mind the fa
ct that I didn’t feel like giving explanations. I needed to be in the office in a few hours. I needed to sleep.

  I had barely gotten into my room, thankful that I’d managed to come home without alerting anyone, when I heard a soft knock on my door.

  “Come in,” I called quietly, not surprised when Marjorie popped her head in. She looked half embarrassed to be checking on me and half just plain relieved. And maybe there was another half—though that would be too many—that looked disappointed or angry or some other parental emotion I didn’t have a name for.

  “Good to see you,” she said, the fear and relief in her eyes contradicting her calm tone. The worn cotton housedress told me that my fear had been correct: Marjorie was dressed for baking day. No matter what I would have done, those sharp ears would have heard me if she was already awake.

  I didn’t stop her as I usually do when she started straightening things here and there in my room. I knew it was a hard habit for her to break. Maybe too hard. And I could see it was a way of working off the excess energy she’d built up worrying about me.

  “It’s good to be home.”

  “Mrs. Jergens?”

  “In the hospital.”

  “Oh, dear.” Marjorie looked genuinely concerned. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “Not as serious as it could have been, I guess,” I sighed. Then I gave in. I knew she’d get it out of me eventually. Besides, who else would I have to tell? “A gunshot wound.”

  “A gunshot wound,” she repeated. As always, most of Marjorie’s thoughts remained unstated, but I could see her eyes run over me, checking my apparent safety as carefully as a mother’s hands would have done. “Oh, dear,” she said again. “How awful. Was there … was there an awful lot of blood?” I followed her glance and saw there was some blood on the dress I was wearing, the lovely ivory dress.

  “There was, yes. But we took her to the hospital, and they fixed her all up. I imagine she’ll be back here in a day or two.”

  “Do you think …” Marjorie ventured. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Miss Katherine? Perhaps she’s a dangerous sort.”

  I smiled through my tiredness. “She might be at that, Marjorie. This situation tonight though wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t being at all dangerous either. And she does seem very nice.”

  “I’ll give you that, miss,” Marjorie sniffed. “But I say she’ll bear watching.” By now my room was fully tidied, and Marjorie stood before me, rubbing her hands together gently. A nervous gesture, I knew. There was more she wanted to say. More she could have said, but I knew she wouldn’t. Nor was there anything I could say to make things entirely right. The fact was, there had been a few minutes there when I was actually in danger. And there was no sense trying to hide that from Marjorie. The blood on my dress told its own story. As much, I knew, as the fear in Marjorie’s eyes.

  Before she let me get to bed, Marjorie insisted I give her the dress so she could try to soak the bloodstains out of it. “It’s a lovely garment,” Marjorie sniffed primly. “It’d be a shame to see it ruined.” I knew that for Marjorie there was more at stake than the future of a single dress. Washing the blood away—saving the dress—was something she could actually do to make things right. Something, in a way, she could do to save me.

  I was too tired to argue, and she was right in any case. Doing the work now would probably save the garment. But with uncharacteristic darkness, I thought if all that had been ruined this evening was a single dress, we would be lucky indeed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IN THE MORNING, I was especially glad that Angels Flight is always free on the way down. I wouldn’t have liked to spend the nickel, but forced to go down all those stairs on foot, I would have been a danger to myself and others.

  There was no sign of Dex at the office. It wasn’t a surprise but it was a question. Dex was always late. It made me wonder what he did in the morning when he didn’t come in. Did he wander in the park? Do some secret charity work? Or was it possible that every morning he found the idea of another sunny day too difficult to face?

  I was having a hard time facing the day myself. I told myself that the single Kir Royale I’d consumed had not gotten me drunk and was not now causing a hangover. Still, I’d felt better, though it likely had more to do with the total four hours of sleep I’d managed to get than any champagne concoction I’d sipped at.

  When Dex breezed into the office at around eleven, he looked a lot better than I felt. His shirt was crisp and clean, he had on a new collar, he was shaved within an inch of his life, and his shoes were shined.

  “What’s with you?” I asked.

  “Whadjamean?” he asked, all innocent-like as he perched himself on the corner of my desk in his usual fashion.

  “You look …” I’d started to tell him he looked normal, then realized this might not be the most politic thing to say. “You look rested, I guess. Or something.”

  He laughed, a self-conscious sound. “I feel … I dunno … clearer today than I have for a while, Kitty. It’s awful that Mrs. Jergens was shot; don’t get me wrong. But I can’t help but think that bullet was intended for me. Not for my shoulder either. When I got home last night I got to thinking about… well, about a lot of things. About life and death and how very short it all can be. This morning when I woke up, it just felt good to be alive.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment. What was there really to say? My usually morose and sodden boss seemed oddly renewed. And I knew I should have been happy, but it was like the earth had shifted beneath my feet. There are certain things— and certain people—that are just meant to be the way they are. You count on them being thus. And I hadn’t counted on this new development. Rather than pursuing this line, I opted to retreat onto safer ground: the business at hand.

  “I’ve been thinking about those girls, Dex. The ones at the Zebra Room I told you about last night.”

  “When we were dancing?” he said, his eyes laughing. I looked away. A lighthearted Dex would take some getting used to.

  “Right. When we were dancing.”

  “It all sort of fits, doesn’t it? If what those girls said is right, Harrison Dempsey was a marked man,” Dex said. “And it doesn’t sound like much of a stretch that whoever he owed money to might have wanted to bump him off.”

  “It’s not good business though,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “Well, you don’t get paid if you go around icing everyone who owes you money. I mean, do that enough and you end up with no one at all to pay you back.”

  Dex stroked his chin and stretched out his legs in a way that told me he was thinking. Then he said, “OK, point taken. Still someone chilled him off—”

  “Maybe chilled him off,” I pointed out. “The police didn’t find a body, and his wife says he’s not missing.”

  “Well, someone was dead, that much we know. We saw that for ourselves.” He thought some more. “So what have we got? A body that may or may not have been Dempsey. A possible attempt on my life that got a friend of Mustard’s clipped. A client that doesn’t want her money back. What do you figure that adds up to, kiddo? What do you figure our next move should be?”

  I looked at him searchingly for a moment, trying to determine where he was going with all of this, because I knew he was drawing me to a path that led someplace.

  “We leave it alone?”

  He nodded slowly, his pale blue eyes bright.

  “Right. We leave it alone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON I ditched out to see Brucie. Dex said it was OK. It was another slow day and we even had a bit of cash, plus he felt kind of responsible for what had happened to her, so he said he didn’t mind if I went.

  “In fact,” he said, before I left, “take these four bits, and buy her a nice mittful of posies from me.”

  I took a Red Car to the hospital, which was about a forty-five-minute trip. It made me realize at least one of the reasons Dex was so resistant to taking
streetcars: with all those stops, it could be slow. Another reason was that you couldn’t control who you shared the ride with. At various times between downtown and the hospital, I had to sit next to or near a couple of squalling babies, an old man with the smell of a three-day drunk and seven days unwashed on him, and a woman who coughed so hard, I feared she’d dislodge something vital.

  I spent the time trying to read the paper, trying to drown out the coughing and the squalling and the smell of the drunk, and looking for some mention of either gunplay outside a Wilshire hotel or the discovery of an unidentified body with mysterious holes in it the night before. There was nothing about either one.

  I arrived at the hospital with an armload of floral material, only to be told that Mrs. Jergens had left the hospital just half an hour before. I was glad, because that meant Brucie had pulled through just fine. But I would have been gladder still if I didn’t have another forty-five minutes of streetcar to look forward to before I got back to the office. I thought about going straight home and seeing Brucie for myself, but decided against it. It had been nice of Dex to let me have part of the afternoon off, but, I reasoned, he might have need of me back at the office.

  I was right.

  It was after three when I got back. I saw that the door to Dex’s office was closed, and I heard the mumble of voices—one male, one female. Lila Dempsey. I’d hoped to make it back before she got there, but the streetcar had made that impossible. And I hoped like hell that she’d found Dex in good condition— which seemed like a good bet, all things considered.

  I found a dusty water pitcher in the back of one of the filing cabinets—it must have been used by the office’s previous occupant, we didn’t have a lot of use for water pitchers in our operation—and filled it in the bathroom, plunking the flowers into it unceremoniously and setting it on the edge of my desk. I poked at them a bit, trying to remember the floral arranging I’d learned at school. That felt like a lifetime ago though, and the faint skills I’d gained seemed to have fled. No matter what order I put them in, the flowers came out looking tired and wrong. I kept at it, knowing there was some formula that I’d seen others use. Some secret combination that would bring the whole thing to extravagant life. It eluded me.