The Chick and the Dead (22 page)

"Well, it's kind of awkward. You see, it's about Deborah Bowman."

"Didi?" The name was the magic open sesame. Susan loosened her grip on the front door and stepped back to let me inside. "Nobody's mentioned Didi's name to me in a long time. Come on in, honey. Have a seat."

She led me into a living room that was twice as big as my apartment, with windows that overlooked a garden where red and white tulips bobbed in the spring breeze. The last of the daffodils brightened up the spaces between lilacs that looked like they were ready to pop.

"It's beautiful," I told her, and I wasn't lying. What I could see of the garden was breathtaking. The house itself…

I tried not to stare, but let's face it, I'd never been known for my self-control. Susan's living room was a cross between a Pier I store and a cheap bordello. There was purple gauzy fabric draped across the windows and mosquito netting over the bloodred fainting couch where I sat down. There were sequined pillows on the matching couch across from me, candles everywhere, and incense burning on a nearby table.

It smelled like pine needles.

I sneezed.

"This place is amazing," I told Susan, because I figured
amazing
pretty much covered the gamut. I touched a tissue to my nose. "You must have done really well for yourself in the steno pool." Until then she had been giving me the kind of hollow smile that said she really didn't understand why I was there. The smile never wavered, but there was suddenly a spark of something more than just curiosity in Susan's dark eyes. "Wise investing," she said, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that it was the last we'd talk about it. She dropped down onto the couch across from mine, and her perfectly plucked and shaped brows dipped into a vee. "You said something about Didi. You're not—"

"Related?" For the second time, I denied any familial connection to the Bowmans. "Not me. But you know, she did have a daughter."

"Judy." Susan reached for a pack of cigarettes and the gold lighter within easy reach. She lit a cigarette, took a drag, and sat back. "I know her, all right. I ought to. I raised the little bitch." This was news to me, and I could have kicked myself for not thinking about it sooner. Any private investigator worth his (or her) weight in salt would have thought to ask what had happened to Judy after Didi's death. "I just assumed that Merilee had—"

"You're kidding me, right?" Susan blew out a stream of smoke along with the words. "When Didi got knocked up, her family just about disowned her. They didn't want anything to do with Judy. What's she up to these days?"

I wasn't sure if she was talking about Didi or Judy. Then I realized it didn't matter. My answer applied to both. "She's dead," I said.

"Is she?" Susan didn't look particularly upset by the news. "Haven't heard a word from Judy since the day she turned eighteen. Do the math. That was a hell of a long time ago. She up and walked out of here and that was that." She stabbed her cigarette into an ashtray shaped like a camel. "And after all I did for that girl."

"Then you don't know she had a daughter."

Susan lifted one shoulder. "Don't know. Don't care. Hey… You didn't show up here because you expect me to be responsible for her or anything, do you? Why don't you ask Merilee for help?" On the coffee table draped with a paisley shawl was a copy of the morning's
Plain Dealer
, and Susan sneered at it and at the story on the front page. I craned my neck to see the headline. So Far theDawnMuseum Set to Open.

"With all her money, you think she could have done something for the kid. But no. Didi dumped Judy with me the night she… Well, you must know the story if you know about Didi. That was that. Never talked to any of the Bowmans again. I applied for legal guardianship of Judy and nobody opposed me. Nobody ever sent me a red cent to pay for her care or her education, either. And what did it get me?

Nothing but grief. That girl was just like her mother. A liar and a tramp."

"But I thought you were Didi's friend?"

"Did you?" Susan studied me through the haze of cigarette smoke that hung in the air between us. "Who told you that?"

"I talked to Thomas Ross Howell." Not a lie, even if it wasn't exactly an answer to Susan's question.

"Was he Judy's father?"

She barked out a laugh. "I worked for Tom Howell for nearly forty years, and if there's one thing I know about the son of a bitch it's that he'd never bare his soul. Not to friends. Not to family. And certainly not to a stranger. Not even a pretty one like you. No way did he admit he was Judy's father."

"But you always thought it was a possibility."

"Why do you care?" She lit another cigarette. "And what difference does any of it make now? Didi's been dead for fifty years. You say that Judy's dead, too. You trying to foist Didi's granddaughter off on Howell?"

"I'm not trying to foist anybody on anybody. I'm trying to find out more about the book." At the mention of the word
book
, Susan froze. One heartbeat. Two. I shifted uncomfortably against the hard-as-nails couch and wondered what I'd said to offend her. Before I could come up with the right words to apologize, she shook herself free of the reaction and aimed a laser look across the coffee table at me. "You are talking about
So Far the Dawn
, aren't you?"

"As far as I know, there is no other book." Not precisely true. There was the sequel (such as it was) that Merilee was working on. I didn't want to muddy the waters with all that, so I stuck to the subject.

"Yeah," I told her. "I'm talking about
So Far the Dawn
. I think maybe Didi wrote it." Susan paused as she was about to take a drag on her cigarette, the filter just barely touching her carmine lips. She tipped her head to one side. "Really? You think that? Than you're as stupid as I was. Because there was a time I thought she wrote it, too."

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

"I said
a time
. Believe me, it was a very short time. Didi used to show up at work every morning all excited about what she'd written the night before. We'd sit in the lunchroom together and she'd give me the play-by-play, you know, tell me what was happening in the story and what she planned to do next."

"So when the book came out and Merilee's name was on it…"

She took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled a long stream of smoke. "I used to hang out with Didi a lot back then. Even had dinner with her family a time or two. I met Merilee. I knew she was a librarian. I listened to her talk about the Civil War and, hell, I didn't know anything about it, but I could tell she sure knew what she was talking about. So tell me, who would you have believed. A scholar like Merilee? Or a tramp like Didi?"

"And she'd lied to you before."

"All day long and twice on Sundays." Susan laughed. "Not that I held it against her or anything. It was just Didi, you know? She had a heart of gold and an imagination that wouldn't quit."

"Is that why she thought Thomas Howell was in love with her?" Susan set her cigarette on the lip of the ashtray. Right near the camel's butt. "I'm not sure where you're getting your ideas," she said. "You keep coming back to Judge Howell, and what I don't think you understand is that he was—and is—a good and honorable man. His record is impeccable. His reputation is unassailable."

"I understand all that. But Judy had to come from somewhere." Susan grinned. "How about from anywhere?"

"Meaning… "

The phone rang, and Susan popped up to answer it, grumbling when she couldn't find it anywhere nearby. She headed out of the living room. "Come on now, honey. You're old enough to know what I'm talking about. Didi had plenty of lovers. Any one of them could have been Judy's father. Excuse me, will you."

She must have found the phone somewhere because the ringing stopped, and as I sat there and wondered what to ask her next, I heard the purr of her voice.

"Psst." The sound came from across the room. I looked that way and found Didi standing in the doorway.

"Where the hell have you been?" I asked her. I popped out of my chair and went to stand close to her so I could whisper. "And what are you doing over there? Get in here and help me out. Susan isn't giving me anything to go on."

"Wanna bet?" Didi crooked a finger at me. I could still hear Susan's voice from another room somewhere toward the back of the house. The coast was clear, and I followed Didi. I found myself in the library. There were windows along one wall and a desk in front of them. Didi looked that way.

"Take a gander at that," she said.

I hesitated. "I can't just go snooping through another person's things."

"Sure you can." She was in her social call gear, and she marched over to the desk and pointed at it with one gloved hand. "If there's something in that person's things that's a thing that doesn't belong to that person."

Rather than try and figure out the sense of the sentence, I went over to see what she was talking about. An address book sat in the center of Susan's desk next to a stack of unaddressed envelopes. Like she'd just been getting ready to use it.

The book was small, maybe eight inches tall and half as wide. The cover was black, and it was bent and worn. No doubt it was pretty old.

"This is what you wanted me to see?" I could still hear Susan on the phone, so I dared a closer look at the book. "It's junk."

"It's mine."

Maybe the sneer I aimed Didi's way told her I wasn't exactly buying the story.

"Go ahead," she said. "Open it. You'll see. Check the inside cover. My name and address are written there along with the words
This book belongs to Didi
."

I did.

It did.

"If you need more proof than that," Didi added, "I bet I can recite every name in the book, too. Look for Anderson, James. Antonucci, Tony. Barkwill, David."

Rather than listen to her go through the whole list, I flipped through the pages. There were James and Tony and David, just like she said.

"So why would Susan have your address book?" I asked Didi. "Why did she ever have it? And why would she still have it? What is she doing with—"

"What difference does it make?" With the wave of one hand, Didi urged me to get moving. "Just take it!

Quick! Before Susan gets back."

My eyes widened with horror. My stomach clenched. Being a private investigator was one thing. But burglary…

"Oh come on, Pepper," Didi hissed. "I'd take it myself if I could, but you know I can't. You're the only one who can do this for me. Somewhere along the line, Susan must have lifted it out of my desk drawer at work because that's where I kept it. It's not like you're stealing anything."

"But she'll know I took it."

"So?" We heard what sounded like Susan getting ready to wind up her conversation, and both Didi and I looked at the door. "It's mine," Didi said. "I want it back."

"But—"

"But think about it. There must be a reason she has the address book. A reason she
still
has it. It doesn't look like she's kept it as a memento. If she did, it would be on a shelf or packed away in a box or something. It's out on her desk. She's using it. That's not just coincidence. You know that and I know that. There has to be a reason, and the reason has to have something to do with me. I have every right to find out what that reason is, and that means you have every right to take the book so we can look through it later and figure out what Susan's up to."

I may have mentioned that I hate it when ghosts are right. I hate it even more when them being right results in me being a felon.

Was it any wonder I hesitated?

"I dunno," I said, and I probably would have gone right on hemming and hawing if not for the fact that I heard Susan say goodbye to the person on the other end of the phone.

"Sorry!" Her cheery voice echoed through the hallway. "Had to take that call. I'll be right with you." I'd just run out of shilly-shally time.

When I took the book and tucked it into my purse, my hands shook. When I hurried back to the living room, my legs were rubbery. By the time Susan showed up, I was right back where she'd seen me last, sitting on the couch. The moment she was in the door, I jumped to my feet.

"I've taken up enough of your time," I said, and when I realized I was clutching my purse with both hands and looking as guilty as hell because of it, I slung the purse over my shoulder and headed for the door. "You really have been a great deal of help."

"But I really haven't." Susan followed me, and when we got to the front door, she opened it and stepped aside. "Something tells me you wanted to hear me say that I think Didi wrote
So Far the Dawn
. I'm sorry. I wish I could. Heck, back when Judy was living with me, I used to dream that I'd find something that proved Didi hadn't been lying, that she really was the author. That way, Judy could have gotten all the royalties and she would have had enough money to get the hell out of here." As sentiments went, hers had all the warmth of a January day on the shores ofLake Erie . I shook off the bad vibes and stepped into the afternoon sunshine. "I understand," I said, even though all I really understood was that Susan was selfish. "But, really, you've helped more than you can imagine." Before she realized that
more than you can imagine
really meant that I had swiped the address book and that I was deceptive, a fibber, and a burglar to boot, I hightailed it out of there. I was halfway back toOhioCity before my heartbeat slowed to a rate that was almost normal, and that's when it hit me:

The trip to Susan's wasn't completely wasted. I had something I hadn't had before. I mean, aside from a guilty conscience.

I had a sample of Didi's handwriting.

What's that saying about all work and no play?

In my case, it was more like all work and all work. I'd spent the day working at solving Didi's case, and as much as I would have liked to hunker down with the purloined address book and figure out what it meant and if it had anything to do with
So Far the Dawn
, I didn't have the luxury. I walked into the house and straight into Merilee's

why-aren't-you-done-doing-what-you're-supposed-to-be-doing wrath.