Midnight Rain: A Detective Jack Dunning Novel (13 page)

CHAPTER 24

For the first time, Joe walks alone into senior night at St. Finnbar’s. The charred smell from the synagogue fire next door lingers in the night air. It’s an awkward moment, standing alone without Cookie at his side. If he smoked he’d light a cigarette to calm his nerves.

Like most men, Joe is not a big talker. That was Cookie’s job, a natural born chit-chatter. She could break the ice in a room of mortal adversaries by reading their horoscopes and palms. She’d make everyone laugh by studying a life line and telling someone they’d passed away three years before.

Tonight the high school gym is a ballroom, festooned with red and green crepe paper and bouquets of shiny balloons. The air smells vaguely of Old Spice and Evening in Paris, ladies wearing their prettiest dresses, the men sports coats and dress shoes. Father Doyle circuits the room with his hands joined behind his back, nodding greetings and making sure no Protestant infidels from the Baptist Church have crashed the festivities. Nuns smile and serve punch and oatmeal cookies at a folding table along the wall.

People ask where Cookie is and Joe is hard up for an answer. Until tonight it’s been Joe and Cookie, Cookie and Joe. How can he tell them he stole her pain medication and she’s dumped him? He mingles, he dances, he pretends to have fun, but all he wants is to go home to Pumpkin and feel sorry for himself.

He decides to have a glass of punch then slip out the door. Bing Crosby sings, ‘Pennies From Heaven,’ on a scratchy record, followed by a big band number. He finishes his drink and tosses the paper cup in the waste basket. From the corner of his eye he sees Ginger Everly weaving toward him through the crowd. Once he’s made eye contact, he can’t pretend he didn’t see her. Tonight she wears a sunny yellow party dress, matching high heeled shoes and an eager smile too big for her face.

“Rescue me, Joe,” she says, touching his arm. “One more toe-crusher with Hughie from the feed store and I’ll be crippled for life.”

“I don’t dance very well,” he says.

‘It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie,’ spins on the turn table.

“Come on, it’s a slow one.” She pulls him to the center of the floor. He moves his weight listlessly from one foot to the other. “So, where’s Cookie?”

“She’s at home.” This time he’s prepared…sort of. “I only drove down to look at the burned out synagogue. I really need to get back and let the cat out.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” she says. “You two are on the rocks. Everybody knows it. She cancelled Effie Mosely’s reading twice this week. Effie says Cookie is so depressed she can’t get out of bed. You’re better off without her, you know. You’re a successful businessman and she reads fortunes for ten cents a pop, for god’s sake!”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Oh come on, Joe. Let’s go to my place for a nightcap. I’ve got some great Benny Goodman records.”

Joe doesn’t answer. He’s staring over her shoulder at the door.

“Joe, did you hear what I said? You’re Italian, right? I have a nice bottle of Dago red chilling in the fridge.” She turns to see what he’s looking at. Cookie stands across the room in her matching red coat and hat, looking every bit as lost as Joe feels. “Oh my god, I can’t believe it!” says Ginger. “The woman’s come in pink bunny-ear bedroom slippers.”

“She has arthritis,” says Joe. “At the end of the day shoes hurt her feet.”

Cookie scans the crowd and their eyes meet.

“How embarrassing,” says Ginger. “Just ignore her and maybe she’ll go away. We can sneak out the back.”

“Ginger, please stop talking.”

Cookie covers half the distance between them, then stops like she might turn and run back out the door. Joe turns to Ginger. “Please excuse me,” he says and releases her. He looks back at Cookie and closes the gap between them.

“Well!” says Ginger and walks off.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” say Cookie. “I’m sorry I took you for granted and kept you hanging all these years. It wasn’t right.”

“No,
I’m
sorry, dear. I had no business stealing your devil juice. You can have it back. I didn’t have the heart to throw it out. And I’ll never pressure you about marriage again.” He gives her a big warm hug. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, Joe. Ask me again.”

“What?”

“Please, ask me again.”

There’s a flash of recognition on his face.

“Will you?” he says, his face brightening.

“Yes, I will.”

* * * *

Cantor Nemschoff lies awake late into the night listening to wind rattle the window. The strange conversation he heard on the recording plays over and over in his head. He wishes Raisel were still alive so they could discuss it over a glass of schnapps. He hates being old and alone, and now that the synagogue is gone, the gravity that tethers him to earth grows weaker.

He can’t help speculating about the men on the recording, what they’re up to and how it involves a rich lady like Frances Dietrich. The one called von Stroheim speaks like a native German, probably a Berliner like himself. The one called Ludwig? He’s not so sure. He sounds more like an Englishman, fluent in the German language. They talked money. A very large sum of money. Transactions of that size are generally handled at the bank or a lawyer’s office.

Noah Solomon Nemschoff was not born yesterday. He knows that honest men transact business in the light of day, not down by the river at midnight. He should tell Jack Dunning what he knows and how he knows it. Then again, he promised Frances Dietrich to keep his mouth shut. It is a dilemma for which he could use the opinion of a Talmudic scholar. Tonight, he will sleep on it. He has one more day to decide what is right.

* * * *

A call from the desk wakes us around 9:00 A.M. Angel picks up. I groan and roll over in bed, my shoulders stiff from the long drive, my bad hip grinding nerve on bone.

“Hank needs you in the lobby,” says Angel. “He says, come as you are, but come quick.”

I throw on my robe and slippers and limp half asleep to the elevator. Albie and Bo are in the lobby. A stout woman in a hat decorated with cabbage roses, is trying to pull the dog out of his arms by its ears. She’s yelling, Albie is crying and the dog is squealing like a stuck pig.

I throw my hands up. “Hey, hey, hey! That’s enough. Let go of the dog, ma’am.””

The woman lets go and looks at me.

“Who do you think
you
are?” she says.

“Law enforecement.”

She looks me up and down, me with my morning bed-head, bristly face and road-weary eyes.

“You don’t look like a cop.”

“I forgot to pin the star to my pajamas. And you are?”

“Isabel Gross, LuLu’s sister from Carmel. Since Roland is stuck in that cast, we’re not bothering with a funeral. I’ve simply come for the interment and to retrieve my dog.”

“Roland Barker give me this dog, Mister Jack. You heard him with
your own ears. He’s mine fair and square,” says Albie, sniffling and brushing at his tears. Bo looks at me with his bat ears, jagged under bite and bulbous eyes. He’s the most pitifully unattractive animal I’ve ever seen.

I address Mrs. Gross. “I know you want the dog, but what’s your
legal
claim?”

“I paid $35.00 for Bo when he was a puppy. He was a birthday present for LuLu. Now that she’s gone, I’m taking him back.” She reaches once more for the dog. Bo cowers and nips her hand.

“That little monster!” she says. “I think he’s drawn blood.”

“Ma’am, the dog doesn’t want to go with you.”

“All he needs is a firm hand.”

“Once you gave LuLu the dog, you gave up possession. When she passed away, he became the property of Roland, her next of kin.”

She huffs a laugh. “That’s hogwash. That man can’t even take care of himself.”

“That’s why he gave the dog to Albie, and it was his right to do so. You can see they’ve bonded and Bo is well taken care of.”

“If he keeps my dog, I want the money back.” She crosses her arms over her ample bosom, a battleship at anchor.

“I have $17.00 in my coffee can and you can have it,” says Albie.

“A dog is not a car that depreciates when you drive it off the lot, young man,” she says.

I turn to Hank, who’s shaking his head and observing from behind the desk.

I’m still sitting on the proceeds from the sale of my Boston house. “Hank, would you please get $35.00 out of the safe?” He spins the dial, pulls the lever and counts the money out on the counter. The woman’s eyes light up when she sees the crisp bills. I hand them over and she can’t slip them in her purse fast enough.

“Satisfied?” I say.

“I suppose I’ll have to be.”

“When’s the interment?”

“This afternoon. Two o’clock. I’m leaving right after the service.”

“Good. Have a safe trip.”

CHAPTER 25

After a hectic week, Angel and I draw back into the center of our lives. We lounge around the hotel room in our night clothes, smoking, talking, making love. When I watch her brush her hair or smoke a cigarette or put on her earrings, I feel like I did on the night we met, a love so intense my chest aches. I want to touch her, taste her, bury my face in her hair. Call it obsession, I don’t care, but having Angel in my life is like finding a treasure I don’t deserve at the end of a long journey. She catches me watching her and smiles like she’s reading my mind.

Toward evening, Jake knocks on the door and tries to reimburse me for the cost of the dog. I won’t take it. It’s an early Christmas present for Albie, I tell him. We call Cookie to see if she’ll join us for dinner. Getting no answer we kidnap Hank and the five of us pile in the Caddy and go to the Memory Lights Café for fish and chips, leaving Bo snoring on the floor by the heater.

By 11:30 we’re back in the room feeling warm and contented. Angel and I are getting ready for bed when Cantor Nemschoff knocks on the door. He crooks his finger and asks me to step into the hall. After we talk, I come back in the room and Angel sees the change in my demeanor. I get dressed, check my gun and strap on my shoulder holster.

“Jack?” she says.

I pull on my boots and sheepskin jacket.

“Jack, what is it?” I see the alarm on her face.

“I don’t know yet.”

“You’re scaring me,” she says. “Call Jim. Whatever it is, please, don’t go alone.”

“There’s no time.” I put my hands on both sides of her face and kiss her on the forehead. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

* * * *

I position myself back in the trees where River Road intersects with the Highway, leaving my car on the town side of the bridge in front of the Blue Rose. Down the hill from where I stand the river is swollen and dark. I don’t have to wait long before a black Mercedes backs into River Road and stops. The headlights go off. I can’t make out who’s behind the wheel.

Almost simultaneously two more cars enter my field of vision, a black sedan driving in my direction from the Highway and Leland Dietrich’s yellow Auburn from across the bridge. Both pull off the road a few feet beyond the intersection. The man in the sedan switches off the headlights and gets out. Dietrich gets out and leaves his headlights on.

“Good evening, Hansel. It’s good to see you again so soon.”

“Turn off your lights, Ludvig,” says the man. Ludwig? Leland Dietrich is the illusive Ludwig von Buchholz? “Vee don’t need to advertise.” Hansel is a tall, imposing figure, with a thick-as-strudel German accent. I hear a soft click as the door of the Mercedes opens and a shadow moves closer to the intersection.

“I prefer a little light on the situation,” says Dietrich.

“Vat happened to your face? You valk into a freight train?”

“Very funny. Do you have the money?”

“Yeah, also I have passport. Is no vay to tell from real thing.” He reaches into the breast pocket of his overcoat as Dietrich approaches. Instead of money he withdraws a gun.

“What do you think you’re doing?” says Dietrich. “Do something foolish and you will answer to my father.”

“You are loose cannon, Ludvig. You have acted vithout higher authority, potentially drawing negative attention to our organization at a sensitive time. A murder? A fire? All for ego? Vee must now close down club for Deutschlanders. All money and energy on project vasted. You may think you are superior to everyvone, but you are not your father, Ludvig and I am acting on his instructions. Vord comes back to him you are corrupter of children and women. You are abuser. Is disgrace on family name.”

“Just wait a minute, Hansel. I’ll go home and speak to him. There’s no real damage done and we can make all this go away like it never happened.”

Gun drawn I make my way through the trees, about to intervene, when Frances Dietrich steps to the edge of the light in her jodhpurs and riding boots, and without a word, plugs the tall German in the head with one expert shot. The gun falls from his hand and he buckles to the ground without a sound. Astonished, Dietrich spins toward his wife, his face pale as chalk, his mouth agape.

“Frances! Where did you come from? My god, you just saved my life.”

“Not really,” she says. “Here’s one for Red,” and she sinks a bullet into his chest. He looks in disbelief at the red flower blossoming over his heart. He crumples to his knees, then onto his face. Frances Dietrich has just blown away two men as casually as most women cut a tea cake. I was a little slow to react, but what the heck? Looks like it was a one woman job.

“Okay, Mrs. Dietrich, hold it right there,” I say. “Drop the gun.”

She pivots and sprints back toward her car, coughing hoarsely, snapping off bullets in my direction. One hits the tree about three inches from my ear. As she peels out I pump three slugs into the trunk of her car. I don’t intend to shoot her. I just want to be able to prove she was here. I’d failed to identify myself as S.P.P.D. She probably thought I was just another anonymous threat.

I check both men for vitals. They’re dead. There’s no need to rush as I walk back over the bridge. I call Jim from the Blue Rose. I call Chief Garvey at home. He says he’ll be right down with the coroner. We seal off the perimeter. The press shows up. Flash bulbs explode. The Chief says we’ll make a formal statement in the morning after we sort things out.

After the scene has been processed and the bodies taken off in the bread truck, I go back to the station to type up my report. Frances Dietrich sits at my desk, having a smoke, her gun on the desktop in front of her. If she’d intended to shoot me, I’d have been dead when I walked through the door.

“Hey, Frances, what’s up?”

She laughs and coughs in the same breath and I see blood on her lips.

“Sorry, Dunning. I didn’t know it was you at first.” She sets a tape on my desk. “Get out your pencil,” she says. “I’m going to spill my guts.”

After taking a formal statement and scrutinizing the notebook belonging to the Pinkerton detective, everything falls into place…Dietrich shooting Singleton…Dietrich torching the synagogue…Dietrich’s affiliation with the German Bund. After three hours, I’m seeing double. I set my pen down, close my notebook and exhale.

“Just for the record,” she says, “I shot von Stroheim to protect my husband and I accidentally shot Leland in the process. You know how inept we women are with fire arms.” I try hard as hell not to smile. Her story could be hard to
disprove
and I’m not exactly going to go into mourning over a child rapist and a low-level Nazi. “If you have a problem with that,” she says, “book me so my lawyer can bail me out and I can go home and get some sleep.”

For all of thirty seconds, I’m engaged in a moral tug of war.

“I’ll hang onto the gun,” I say. “Go home, Mrs. Dietrich.”