Hunting Sweetie Rose : A Mystery (9781429950879) (29 page)

“Alta's been dead over forty years. No one's left who knew her, except Darlene, and Rosemary.”

“A doctor, then, or a dentist. Someone had to know her.”

“They're all dead. Her mother kept her home. Alta died unknown, save to her mother and the girls.”

“You'll never find Alta's death certificate, will you?”

“You'll be leaving now, Mr. Elstrom,” Ellie Ball said.

“There is still the matter of my getting shot, Sheriff. How is your investigation of that coming?”

“We're on the lookout.”

“Like Roy Lishkin was on the lookout?”

“We're looking for anything that might suggest your wounds were not self-inflicted.”

“You know I didn't shoot myself.” I turned to leave, slowly, so as not to excite the holes in my side, but one last fury had to get out. “What happened to the gun?”

Her eyes looked past me, at the purple that was Leo, but I had the feeling she wasn't seeing him, either. Something had changed on her face.

“The gun?” she asked, in a flat voice. “Plinnit took test fires back to Chicago, to compare with what they extracted from Georgie Korozakis. We've kept the gun here.”

“I meant the gun that killed the gas station attendant.”

“I don't know,” she said.

“It was never found?”

“I just told you: I don't know what happened to that gun.”

“There's no mention of it in Sheriff Lishkin's notes. That's odd.”

She tried a smile. “Take care, Mr. Elstrom.”

*   *   *

“What just happened?” Leo said, checking the rearview mirror for perhaps the tenth time. He'd not said a word until we were a solid mile from Ellie Ball's office.

“Which part?”

“For openers, beating on her about the gun used in the gas station robbery. That it was never recovered is understandable. The killer would have taken it with him.”

“I think it's resurfaced.”

“Where?”

“In my hand.”

He hit the brakes, skidding to a stop, and turned to look at me. “You think that was the same gun that killed that gas station guy?”

“Just a hunch. That little bag in the evidence envelope contained two spent rounds. They looked like the one Plinnit said was dug out of my side.”

“How many times have you examined a bullet?”

“None.”

“How many times have you even held a bullet?”

“You mean other than the two in the plastic bag, just a few minutes ago?”

“Don't obfuscate.”

“That would be none, as well.”

“So much for your ballistic expertise.”

“It's an intriguing possibility.”

“That the same gun did the gas station attendant, Koros, and you? Darlene Taylor was the shooter, all three times?”

“Why not?”

“Again I ask: She's the one who shot you and then beat you up? That sixty-year-old woman?”

“Maybe she hired someone to shoot me.”

“Please, don't tell me it could have been the handyman who occasionally came around to help with chores. Like, ‘Joe, today I want you to do some weeding, mend the screen door, shoot Dek Elstrom, and then beat him half to death'?”

“What's the bigger question, Leo?”

He paused, thinking. It always drove him nuts when I saw something he missed.

“Is it real big?” he asked, watching my face carefully.

“Huge.”

“Damn it. I know it has to do with Alta Taylor,” he said, “because you pressed the sheriff so hard about her.” Finally, he scratched his cheek, a sure sign of surrender. “Shit, I don't know.”

“One of the Taylor girls, either Darlene or Rosemary, always made sure to be home with Alta.”

“Ellie Ball made a point of that.”

“Alta couldn't be left home alone.”

Leo's pale face darkened with what I hoped was embarrassment. “Roy Lishkin interviewed three people who saw both Darlene and Rosemary out driving with Georgie Korozakis that day. Both girls shouldn't have been out driving. One of them was supposed to be home with Alta.”

“Bingo.”

“Unless Alta was in the car that day,” he said fast, so I couldn't.

“Bingo.”

“But nobody saw Alta. And why was that, the uncharacteristically slowed but inevitably brilliant Brumsky asks? Because they kept her down, in the backseat of that car. And why was that, the brilliant Brumsky considers, at warp speed? Because she was the shooter,” he yelled, “and the two girls figured that if no one could place her at the scene, she'd never get charged.”

I nodded, because saying “Bingo” again would have been superfluous.

CHAPTER 51.

“Isn't it a little early for indigestion?” I said. Leo had slowed, approaching the Would You?

“It's almost eleven o'clock, it's the only restaurant in town, and we need sustenance for our journey back to Rivertown.”

By now we were creeping forward at five miles an hour.

“Look at that couple enjoying their chicken baskets,” he said. “They're in their late seventies, at least. Do they look indigested?”

They didn't, but they did look like something else: history.

“Turn in,” I said.

Leo swung a fast right into the parking lot, slammed on the brakes, and was scuttling to the order window before I could change my mind. I eased out and hobbled over to the couple.

“Arthritis?” the woman asked, noticing the gingerly way I'd walked up.

“Hunting,” I said. “You folks live here long?”

“Seventy-four years for me, seventy-five for Clarence.”

“Seventy-four for me, same as you,” Clarence corrected. “I'm only three months older.”

“I was rounding,” she said.

“Both of you would remember the Taylor girls, then,” I said.

“Darlene and Rosemary, real lookers,” Clarence said.

“Why would you want to know about them?” the wife asked.

“An insurance policy was taken out on the three of them, when they were children.”

“Three of them?” the husband asked, looking confused.

“Alta, Clarence. Remember, there was Alta.”

He nodded. “The one that never came to town.”

“Darlene's still around,” the wife said. “You can talk to her direct. Rosemary, though, took off when she was still in high school.”

“So I was told,” I said. “Following some trouble at a gas station, or something.”

“Nothing to do with those girls,” Clarence said.

“A killing,” his wife said to me. “Folks saw them nearby.”

“There was a boy with them,” Clarence said.

“Folks wondered if the sheriff thought the three were involved,” the woman said.

“Baloney,” said Clarence.

“Darlene and Rosemary were real nice girls,” said the wife.

“That boy left the summer after the incident,” Clarence said. “What the hell was his name?”

“He didn't wait until summer, Clarence. He left just a few days afterward.”

“What the hell was his name?” the old man repeated.

“Georgie Korozakis,” his wife said. “He was sweet on the older girl, Darlene.”

“Did you think the Taylor girls were involved?” I asked.

“Only busybodies thought that. Nobody with a brain,” Clarence said.

“How about Sheriff Lishkin?”

“He didn't, either,” Clarence said.

“You go ask Ellie about that,” his wife said to him. “You go ask her how he spent every day that summer.”

“Ellie Ball, the sheriff?” I asked.

“Ellie Bell, Roy Lishkin's granddaughter,” Clarence said. He looked at his wife. “I'll bet she'll say Roy never believed those girls had anything to do with that shooting. As for that boy…”

“Georgie Korozakis,” his wife said.

“Moonstuck on Darlene was all he was ever guilty of. She was a looker, that Darlene.”

“An attractive girl,” his wife agreed.

“Great body. Damned shame, the way those looks got washed away, living out on that farm,” Clarence said. “Even cutting it back, the way they had to after Herb took off, it's still too much ground to take care of for one woman.”

“Still, they were better off with him gone,” the wife said.

“Wasn't much of a farmer,” Clarence said. “Drinking, now, that Herb could do. And he got mean doing it, every time.”

“Obsessed, he was, for a time,” the woman said.

“Herb Taylor?” her husband asked.

“No; Roy Lishkin. Like I said, he was out to the Taylor place every day that summer,” the wife said.

“What about Alta?” I asked.

Clarence pursed his lips at the recollection. “No one ever did see much of her, after she grew some. Not that folks had cause to drive out that way. Only thing out there was the Taylor farm, and it had gone to hell even when Herb was around. No one ever went visiting there.”

“Except Roy Lishkin,” his wife said, “every day, the summer of the incident.”

“Baloney. You heard all that from people who knew nothing,” Clarence said.

“No one saw Alta that summer?” I asked.

“No one had seen Alta for any summer, in quite some time,” said the wife. “The girl had some sort of breakdown, and Martha kept her sheltered. Some said her condition was the last straw for Herb, chased him away.”

“Martha had a condition?” her husband asked.

“Alta,” his wife corrected.

“Alta died, that same summer,” I said.

“Scarlet fever,” said Clarence.

“Pneumonia,” said his wife.

“Scarlet fever,” the old man said again.

“Best I can say: Go see Darlene,” the old woman said.

“Baloney business, all of that,” Clarence said.

I left them to their facts and went to where Leo was sitting.

“What are those?” I pointed to the breaded clumps lying next to the chicken in the baskets he'd bought.

“Fried jalapeño cheese broccoli florets. Healthy.”

“Healthy how?”

“Broccoli's good for you.”

“Deep fried?”

“Broccoli's broccoli.”

“What about the jalapeño part?”

“For the sinuses.”

“Baloney,” I said, because the word was still ringing in my head.

CHAPTER 52.

Five minutes away from the Would You? Leo cracked wise in what he regarded as a great Humphrey Bogart voice, “We've picked up a tail.” His Bogart was nervous.

I checked the outside mirror, saw the cruiser. “One of Ellie Ball's deputies again, and not too subtle this time. He's staying close.”

“
Por qué
?” he asked, slipping his Bogart into Spanish for no appropriate reason.

“Intimidation. We're not being tailed; we're being nudged, out of town.”

“
Por qué
?”

“Because she's afraid we'll stumble into something she does not want stumbled into.”

“What could that be?” he asked, blessedly back in English.

“The incident. I think it figures into everything I'm looking at.”

“What are you looking at?”

“I have no idea. I want to see if any of the people who saw the kids out by the gas station are still around.”

“Then we're out of here?”

“Anxious to get home, are you?”

“Ambivalent. Ma will be dancing the night away with her friends. On the other hand, if I stay up here with you, I might get shot.”

“It's a toss-up,” I agreed.

*   *   *

At the motel, I gave Leo the names I'd written down at the sheriff's office, and he headed off to question the desk clerk. I went into my room, to the phone book and directory assistance.

It was short work. Only one of the three names had a working phone number.

Before I could call, Leo came back with the news that the desk clerk didn't recognize any of the names. He also brought back three Cokes. He gave one to me, went out to pass another in through the deputy's car window, and leaned against the cruiser's door. Leo is like that; he makes people comfortable with him in seconds. In no time at all, he'd have the cop talking about something that might be useful.

The only active name answered her phone on the third ring. I played it straight up, introducing myself and saying I was interested in the gas station killing forty years before.

“My word, I thought that was talked out years ago,” she said.

“I'm particularly interested in your conversation with Sheriff Lishkin.”

“You mean when I said I'd have no part trying to railroad the poor Taylor girls and that Georgie Korozakis?”

“Actually, his notes didn't mention that.”

“Good thing, but he wasn't going to do that, anyway. He was just looking for the truth.”

“You're sure you saw both Darlene and Rosemary in the car?”

“They were good kids, the Taylor girls. You'd see Darlene everywhere with that boy, Georgie, racing around in his convertible, laughing, sucking up life. Big car, it was. A Chevy Impala, white, I think. My husband always wanted one just like it.”

“There were three of them, out that afternoon?”

“That's what made it memorable, that and their faces. Every other time, it was just Georgie and Darlene, all the time laughing, stuck on each other.”

“Their faces?”

“They looked scared to death. Georgie's hands were tight on the wheel; I could see his knuckles popping, white as the color of his car. Darlene was up front, riding shotgun like always, but there was no giggling for her, not that day. She was staring straight ahead like she was willing the road to swallow her up. Rosemary was in back, hunching down toward one side, like she was holding at her stomach. Sick, maybe.”

“You told Lishkin they were driving away from the gas station?”

“All I said was they were out this way, and they were not exhibiting their normal demeanors.” She breathed heavily into the phone. “No way those kids did any killing. I didn't know Georgie—he'd only been in town for a short time—but everyone said he was real mild-mannered, no burden to his teachers or to his parents.”