Chapter V - The Heavens Open

Before I could call it a night, I had to swing by the office. I had a couple housekeeping duties to attend to, for one thing. For another thing, I needed to make sure that Nora really wasn’t there, waiting for me to put in an appearance. It would be typically Nora of her to sit up all night, just so she could give me the grand “gotcha” in the morning.

I was relieved to find that she was not sitting alone in a darkened office. But she had left my desk lamp on, sitting on the floor so as not to beam out through the window. That meant there was something for me to see.

Lifting the lamp, I saw what I was meant to find. There, on my desk, was a grease-stained cardboard box, some paper napkins, a bottle of schnapps, and two shot glasses, one used. I lifted up the lid of the box and – wouldn’t you know it? Two pieces of fried chicken. Beneath the bottle was a note, written in big block letters, and sporting a pair of small spots which I took to be chicken grease.

“I STARTED THE CELEBRATION WITHOUT YOU,” it read.

That was fair. We usually commemorated the closing of a case right away, and without the traditional festivities, the matter of Mr. And Mrs. Luther Malone and Luther’s Good Friend Candy remained officially unresolved. On the other hand, we didn’t usually open a brand new case on the same day. Up until the moment Frances Carroll found her way into my office, the usual plan was in effect. I couldn’t feel too badly, though. With the Carroll case humming along, we’d be breaking out the schnapps again real soon. In fact, with a few more of those Presidential portraits from Mrs. Carroll’s bag, maybe we could clink glasses in style, with some decent swill for a change. Besides, Nora couldn’t be too mad at me, since she saved me some of lunch. And bless her heart, because I was famished.

Setting myself down at the desk, I took a long look at the chicken. But first things first. I slid over the clean glass and ceremoniously poured myself a shot.

“Another one in the books, Eddie.” And with that benediction, I tossed it back. It was a dry schnapps, leeched of any flavor, and when the bitter, alkaline taste hit the back of my throat, my face contorted into bizarre, twisted expressions. That always happened. Which is odd, because I can down whiskey with the best of them. I slammed the glass on the desk and gasped. Awful stuff, schnapps. Lord knows why he drank it.

Eddie Staub. A stand-up guy, even if he had rotten taste in booze. A pretty decent detective, too. I served him faithfully for three years, the perfect secretary. Over time, I learned what he did and how he did it. And the him-doing-it part was just fine by me. He had the lousy hours, the moral quandaries, the occasional lump on the skull. Me, I got a regular paycheck and the occasional two a.m. wake-up call to help him out when he was in a bigger bind than usual. What more could a girl want?

Then Emperor Hirohito came along and changed everything. It hadn’t occurred to me that Hawaii was actually part of America, but from the way everyone got up in arms, there might as well have been a squadron of Zeros over Trenton. And ol’ Eddie Staub, well, he did what any decent American man would. On December 8, he read the paper with the appropriate shock and disgust, and on December 9, he marched down to the recruiting office, saying he’d served his time in this man’s Navy, and if it meant the chance to kill him some Nips, he was ready for more. As it happened, “private detective” was preceded on his résumé by “Naval officer”, so they took his kind offer most gratefully. Even gave him a commission. Which is how, barely a year later, a private eye from Camden, New Jersey found himself at some godforsaken place in the South Pacific called Tassafaronga Point. And it was there that Lieutenant Commander Edgar Allan Staub met his untimely demise at the hands of a torpedo, delivered courtesy of the Japanese Imperial Navy. His ship, a heavy cruiser called the U. S. S. Northampton, would find a home on the ocean floor a few hours later, but it was Staub who left me holding the bag. I’m not bitter about it. It just threw a giant wrench into my long-term plans.

They buried him in San Diego, in what I’m told is a beautiful cemetery, which was both a nice gesture for him and a real time-saver for me. After all, I was busy serving as caretaker for the business, the way I had been for the past year. I kept the regular clients happy, and when the finances got a little tight, I’d even take a case, under the pretense that “Mr. Staub is far too busy to meet you personally, but I’d be happy to fill him in on the details.” Yeah, getting ready to meet your maker in the Solomon Islands will keep you occupied. But people were fooled, or they were willing to play dumb in order to get our services. And the offices of Eddie Staub, Private Investigator soldiered on, despite the absence of the titular hero.

But when the nice man in the black uniform came to tell me that having Eddie’s name in the office window was now a posthumous honor, it all went to hell. With no detective, it wasn’t much of a detective agency, and I was out of a job. So I started trying to tie up loose ends, and prepare for the unenviable task of competing for a job at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Turns out there’s a lot of women wanting to be riveters. Stopping to make funeral arrangements was the furthest thing from my mind.

The funny thing about the detective business, though, is how hard it is to get out of it. Here I was, trying to get rid of clients, and new ones kept showing up. And, sucker that I am, I took them on. Nora was no help. Within six months of her taking over my old desk, we were back to being a full-blown agency. It was only last month that she pulled the trick with the names on the window. Evidently, she was counting on me to stay a detective, just like I had for Eddie. Let’s hope I do better than he did.

I took a bite off a drumstick. It tasted good. Really good. Probably better than it actually was, I’m sure. I suppose I need to start eating food on a semi-regular basis. Unfortunately, at the time I’m supposed to be having breakfast or lunch, food seems like the most appalling thing in the world. It’s only at the end of the day that it occurs to me that food fuels the body, and then I’ll end up eating anything. Like the drumstick.

Which was stripped clean by the time I finished that thought. Boy, I was really hungry.

I finished up my evening feast in a hurry. Wiping off as much grease as I could, I spun in my chair to take in the nighttime view of the city. It was a lousy view. The war had brought about the advent of blackouts, presumably to prevent enemy planes from finding their intended targets. From the Navy Yard to the New York Ship foundry to the RCA plant, there were a lot of good bulls-eyes. But to be honest, I didn’t see how turning out all the lights was going to help much. I don’t think London got hammered because the Luftwaffe followed the streetlights. Besides, they attacked Pearl Harbor in broad daylight. Not that you need to be able to see to find Camden anyway. The pilot could probably just stick his head out of the cockpit and follow the smell of soup.

From the desk drawer, I pulled a clean envelope. I retrieved my notes on the case from my coat pocket and slid them into the envelope. With a pencil, I wrote a tiny “63” in the corner. It was a simple code: Frances Carroll’s initials, translated into numbers from their positions in the alphabet. I always used it while a case was open; Lauren Malone had been 1213 until Nora took her to the bank. The number told me about the contents, and meant nothing to a snoop. Tidy. And fortunately, I’ve never had two clients with the same initials at the same time. If that happens, I’m in real trouble.

I dropped the envelope back into the drawer, tossing a couple extra napkins on top in an effort to make things look supremely casual. Then I cleaned up. The final touch was to put the schnapps on Nora’s desk. I added a new note for her to find.

“WE’LL DO THIS AGAIN SOON.”

Zelda and I rolled past the Rialto, which was still showcasing a new movie called Redhead from Manhattan. I was tempted for about five seconds to pull over and catch a show, before I decided that I wasn’t up to seeing Lupe Velez play twins, and continued on home.

I pulled into the drive of a modest looking two-story house on the edge of Pennsauken. I lived upstairs from the garage. Nobody lived in the house. It used to host the Scarlattis, a raucous Italian clan with voices to rival trumpeting elephants. It was an ongoing cataclysm at the Scarlattis. Sometimes they were yelling at each other so loud as to bring down chandeliers across the state. But more often, they were celebrating something. Didn’t matter what. As far as they were concerned, anything was a good excuse for a celebration. The first time I went to knock on their door to complain about the racket, I got dragged into a huge dinner being held in honor of little Dom Scarlatti finally getting a B in spelling. When I finally staggered back up the stairs five hours later, I was soaked in chianti, suffering from a horrible case of heartburn thanks to the delicious-but-deadly stuffed peppers, and convinced that this was the best party I had ever attended.

I was wrong, of course. There would be other parties in the Scarlatti house that far outdid the Great Spelling Extravaganza. And there was never an invitation or a knock on the door beckoning me to come on over. It just got really loud, and I could either go about my business, or take a stroll and get caught in the unruly undertow.

That had all ended back in March, when I stopped by to drop off the rent and found an empty house. I realized that I hadn’t heard a peep out of my neighbors in a few days. It turned out they all packed up one morning and left. I asked around, but the neighbors either didn’t know where the Scarlattis had gone, or they weren’t inclined to tell me. It was strange, and it’s precisely the kind of thing that a detective ought to be investigating. But I decided I didn’t want to know. Maybe my motives were selfish; it still says “Scarlatti” on the mailbox, so no one has come by to move in and possibly kick me to the curb. And my rent has never been lower. Don’t make waves, and you won’t get wet. So I resigned myself to their sudden departure, and braced myself for the potential arrival of someone who couldn’t possibly be as much fun. It hasn’t happened yet.

I had to get out to lift up the garage door. A gust of wind caught me, and my hat tugged at the bobby pins holding it in place. I rushed to get Zelda tucked in, and then scampered up the stairs.

I slammed the door shut on an increasingly angry wind. Evidently, the wrath of Thor was coming to wash away the scent of condensed soup from the city. I slid the chain into the lock. With weather like this, I was in for the evening.

I filled a teapot with water and put it on the stove. While the heat rose, I turned on the radio. The tail end of Time Marches On filled me in on the latest war news. While accounts of front lines and rear guards filled the air, I began tossing my clothes to the floor. Very sloppy of me. I’d pick up in the morning.

The apartment was, shall we say, spartan in decor. The bed, a small table and a couple chairs, a sideboard, all second-hand. I never seemed to have the time to stop by Wanamaker’s and pick up some new furnishings. What can I say? It was never my top priority. It’s not as though I spent a lot of time at home.

I filled a strainer with tea leaves and dropped it in the pot. The Lux Radio Hour had come on. Awful show. They were always taking great movies, removing the pictures, along with everything else that was good about the story in the first place, and condensing it into an hour. Their powers of destruction were uncanny. This particular installment was The Phantom of the Opera, starring Nelson Eddy and Basil Rathbone. I immediately decided to pass. This wasn’t even scary as a movie. Sure, you’ve got Basil Rathbone as your Phantom, so he has this deep, velvety British voice, which is nice and creepy. But then along comes your hero, and it’s Nelson Eddy. I can’t listen to his voice. I keep picturing him dressed as a Mountie. Never put Nelson Eddy in your horror movie. Just sucks the terror right out of the room.

As I started some water in the tub, a lightning flash brightened up the sky enough to delight the most myopic German pilot, followed closely by a thunderclap that rocked the walls. The downpour would follow shortly. That settled it. I flicked off the radio and pulled on a nightgown. Filling a cup with tea, I went into the bathroom, dragging a chair behind me.

The water was just shy of scalding. Perfect. I sat back in the chair and draped my legs over the side of the tub, letting my feat soak up the wonderful warm moisture. Right as I shut off the tap, I heard pellets of rain start to rattle the roof. More than perfect. I took at deep breath filled with the scent of tea – an Earl Grey – and closed my eyes. For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine I was in Bermuda, and that a brisk summer rain was coming down, while I was securely in my hut, enjoying the tropical waters and a fine exotic brew. For about five seconds, I had myself convinced.

Giving up on my little vacation, I instead thought about what I was going to tell my new client. I’d probably set up an appointment in the next day or two. Then I’d lay out the known whereabouts of her brother-in-law. That’s the carrot. If they take the bait, you can milk them for as long as a couple weeks. If not, you seal that envelope, take the cash, and count yourself lucky that you got a quick windfall.

I did wonder just what Danny Carroll was up to. His strange path had taken him from North Carolina to here. And not directly, either. He showed up for a week, then was gone for a fortnight before settling in for a two month run irritating Leon Ruskow. Why did he come here? And where did he go?

The most likely explanation was that he was hunting for work. Perhaps he figured anywhere within a hundred miles of New York City was a good place to look. In that case, he may have come to Camden, then left to find greener pastures, and finally came back because nothing better came along. I tried that theory out, and it sounded good. Plus, it gave me something to do besides reading every hotel register in town. I could start on with some of the big businesses, see if Danny had left a trail in the hiring offices.

I drained the teacup. My toes were starting to wrinkle, so I moved my feet to a nice fresh towel. The rain had become more intense. This was going to be a wet one. Tomorrow would smell better, yes, but it would be humid. I’d be doing a lot of slogging.

I pinned my hair down close against my head, to give myself a lot less maintenance time in the morning. I could just smooth over the curls. The picture this created in the mirror, however, was far from alluring. “Bonnie, you sexpot,” I snarked. Thus humbled, I retreated to the bed. All in all, I thought, not a bad day’s work. One case closed, a new one opened. Nothing like a sense of contentment, plus the steady pelt of raindrops, to help you drift off.

Hell, I might even sleep late.

Chapter IV - Turkey with Trimmings

I was looking forward to meeting Danny Carroll. After all, I’ve chased a fair number of people, but he was the first person to make it interesting on day one.

I walked around to the other side of Leon’s desk to get a better view of the registry. There, right above Leon’s meaty index finger, was the name “Charles Carroll.” This was certainly unexpected, given his wife’s claim that he was in North Carolina, waiting for orders to ship out and meet his maker. To say nothing of the fact that, even if he had been at the Princeton Arms, he was sending himself letters in Durham. Behavior like that makes a girl wonder.

“When is this for?” I asked.

He scanned up the page. “This is dated August 31, 1942. That’s pretty typical. Leases are up at the end of the month, so people come looking for a place to stay.”

It fit. Based on Frances Carroll’s timeline, Danny would have blown out of town in June or July. And the letter to Charley came in September, right after he met his new bride, and right before he went to war. This could be our boy.

I adopted a confidential tone. “Leon, if I were to show you a picture of someone, would you be able to tell me if that person had been a guest here?”

“Hmm.” He stuck his finger in his ear, as though he was rooting around for the answer. “Like I said, I don’t get out front as much as I used to. But I do try to see as many as I can.” He flicked wax off his finger as he calculated a lifetime of customers.

I could have done without the ear excavation. But hey, it was either him or Constant Reader out at the desk. Thus emboldened, I produced the photograph from my purse. Leon took the picture and squinted at it. He moved it back and forth, trying to get focus. Apparently, he got it. “Ach!’ he yelled, throwing the picture onto the desk. I quickly snapped it up; I’ve seen this kind of reaction before, and it usually leads to ripping and tearing. If he noticed my desperate save, it did not distract him from his ire. “This rat, I remember.”

I took a step back, not out of fear as much as a prudent sense of caution. “He didn’t like the view?” I offered.

Leon didn’t exactly hear me, but he was in the mood to rant, and that would be just as informative. “That face,” he seethed, “him I remember. I’d almost forgotten his name. We liked to call him ‘Mr. Pleasant.’ Oh, but I remember that face. That’s the guy you’re looking for? He’s a bum. A no-good bum.”

As opposed to the worthwhile, big-contributor bums. “What did he do, Leon?”

“What didn’t he do? First it was the requests. Oh, it started small. Wake-up calls at weird times. Always asking to use the office telephone. Next he wanted new sheets. The old ones were always sopping wet. Which was strange, because he never stopped complaining about how cold he was, so how could he be sweating so much?”

I helpfully joined in the abuse. “Mr. Pleasant was a problem child.”

“I can handle difficult guests. He paid on time, so what’s another kook in the house? But then came more complaints. He didn’t get enough food. There wasn’t enough heat. Another boarder was eavesdropping on his room. And when I offered to move him, it only made him angrier. Nothing made him happy.”

Mrs. Carroll had hinted at a touchy side to her brother-in-law. I just nodded at Leon as he continued to make his case that “touchy” was an understatement.

“Finally, I got complaints about him. Strange noises. Late-night visitors. One man claimed he threatened him at breakfast. But finally, he accosts me one morning, gets downright ugly. Starts making personal comments, insulting my business and my family. That was enough for me. I don’t need trouble. Isn’t there enough in the world? So I told him that I was getting comments. And he called me some of the worst things you could imagine! Do you know what he called me?”

I didn’t care to learn. There were more pressing items on my mind. “How long did he stay here?”

“I’m a good host, you know? I take care of people. I give them good food. But I have my limitations. And I won’t be talked to like that. I looked him straight in the eye and told him he was welcome to leave at anytime.”

Leon was a man who got carried away with his passions. “Mr. Ruskow, how long did he stay here?”

“It’s Leon!” He caught his breath. I bowed my head slightly, a token of acknowledgement that maybe I had interrupted him. People pick up on body language, although they almost never know it. Sure enough, he calmed down. “A couple months, I think.” He returned to the register. “Seemed like years. Yeah, okay, here.” He gestured to the book. “First, he stayed a week. Then he left. No problems. I think everything is great.” He turned a few pages, doing an Evelyn Wood on the list of names. “Ah, but here. Then he comes back. And he stays for two months. And it gets worse each day.”

“When was it that he came back?”

He put his finger on the very date. “September 25.”

“And you kicked him out two months later.”

“Oh, if only I’d gotten the chance. Like I said, I told him that if he didn’t like my place, he was welcome to go somewhere else. I wouldn’t stand in his way. He left for a couple hours, and then came back, got his things and left that day.”

I did the math in my head. Two months. Starting on the twenty-fifth. So he left these walls behind on…

“Mr. Ruskow!” I said, in mock astonishment. “Did you throw a tenant out on Thanksgiving?”

“I already told you,” he said defensively, “he left on his own!” He slammed the book shut. “Of all days, he wants to give me grief. We were about to have a family dinner. I gave plenty of thanks that night, I tell you.”

“And he never came back?”

“That’s right,” he said with enormous satisfaction. “Not even to pick up the remainder of his deposit. No, I never saw him again. And if I ever do, it’ll be a day too soon.”

“Did you recommend someplace else he could stay?”

“Ha!” Leon bellowed, without a trace of amusement. “I don’t wish him on my worst competitor.”

No forwarding address. That figured. A girl can only get so lucky in the course of one day.

There remained one element to be cleared up, my next step depended on just how clear it got. “Now, I have to ask you a very important question.” I held up the picture, taking care to put a little distance between the image and Leon’s angry hands. “Which of these men is your rat?”

He squinted again, I assume to confirm what was already in his mind. Then he pointed. “That’s him. That’s the bastard.”

Danny. Well, that was a relief. As least I was chasing the right brother. It was a curious choice, though, assuming his brother’s name. I guess it was easy to remember. But it did tell me one thing: at least for a while, Danny Carroll did not want to be Danny Carroll. He wasn’t just running away from his family. He was running away from himself.

If he had stayed in town, logic dictates that he wouldn’t want to go far from where he was. The neighborhood would have become familiar, and to an out-of-towner, familiarity breeds contentment. Of course, that was a big if. Danny Carroll could be in Walla Walla, for all anybody knew. Fortunately, that wasn’t my concern. I just had to make sure he wasn’t in Camden anymore.

I bade adieu to Leon and the Princeton Arms. Around the corner was a Rexall, so I stopped in to use the pay phone. The soda jerk leered at me as I walked past. It made me smile. Not because I enjoy being leered at, of course. But because I’d read something once about this thing Buddhists believe in called karma, which basically means that the stupid and nasty things you do come back to bite you in the end. Believe me, every soda jerk on the planet is on the being-bitten end of karma. Leer away, you little twerp.

Moments later, Nora was giving me the short version of her afternoon. “Your Daniel Carroll is a nonentity in the eyes of the Camden Police Department,” the tinny voice explained. “The Records Department sends its regards.”

“That’s great,” I shot back. “Then they won’t mind looking up Charles Carroll, too.”

“What?”

“Our Wizard of Oz borrowed his brother’s name at the boarding house. He might have gotten comfortable with it.”

“I asked you if he might have changed his name,” came the snippy reply.

“And your genius triumphs yet again. Maybe you’d like to change our name to Staub and LaFleur.”

“And have you work for me? Fine. When can I expect you to come in and finish all this paperwork?”

I looked at my watch. “It’s about 3:30 now. I figure I’ve got a few good hours of flophouses and cheap hotels left in me. Don’t wait up.”

“Do I ever?”

Most of the time, yes, she did. It was a habit I was trying hard to break her of.

The Thanksgiving eviction was actually quite a blessing. If he straggled into some other boarding house on a holiday like that, people were going to remember him. If he didn’t, then the trail was just as cold as it was when I started. So I either picked up his scent, or I quit the case, secure in the knowledge that I had done far better than anyone had a right to expect. Bonnie, Bonnie, she’s our gal.

The first three or four stops are the hardest. That’s when you’re still working through your routine, figuring out what will get you the most information. Maybe I’m a concerned relative, maybe I’m a legal secretary, bringing news of a great financial windfall, maybe I’m even a private detective looking for a missing person. No two visits are the same, and I still find myself needing a little time to get into the swing of things. My big score at the Princeton Arms didn’t help matters, because it got me thinking this was easy. Sad to say, but being a detective is a lot like being a baseball player: even a really good hitter only gets good wood 30 percent of the time. Not that anybody around here would know what a really good hitter looks like. The nice thing about cheering for Philadelphia is that it doesn’t matter what league you’re backing. A’s or Phillies, either way, you’re rooting for the worst team in the game for three years running. It’s almost enough to make you take up football. Oh, wait. The Eagles finished last, too. God, I hate sports.

The sun was starting to set by the time I walked back to Zelda. I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a small notebook, cataloging my travels for the day. I needed to get it all down on paper, while it was still fresh in my mind. That would initially prove to be difficult, as I had carefully concealed my pencil somewhere in the hidden recesses of my purse. After a minute or two of searching, I surrendered, and dumped the contents out on the seat. When you do that, what you’re looking for always appears immediately. Stuff mocks you. I clenched my teeth around the pencil in retaliation.

Another moment lost while I swept the contents back into my purse, saving the gun for last. With the weapon safely stored away, I opened the notebook to a blank page and jotted down what little knowledge I’d accumulated in the field. Danny Carroll. Identified as a guest at the Princeton Arms, although he signed in under the name of his brother. Arrived the last day in August, stayed for a week, then left. Sometime in that week, sent a letter to his brother. The next three weeks unaccounted for. Then back at the Princeton Arms, making a general nuisance of himself for two months, until finally pushing the proprietor too far. Nice work, Mr. Pleasant. Exiting on Thanksgiving Day. Seven hotels and boarding houses in the immediate vicinity report no Danny, no Charley, nobody. Six months later, the trail fades away.

I looked at my notes. According to the last census, Camden is home to well over a hundred thousand people. And that’s to say nothing of the two million people in Philadelphia and Camden County and all around the outskirts of town. How difficult would it be for a man to come to town and disappear without leaving breadcrumbs? I sighed. Not difficult at all.

I ripped the page out of the book and stuffed it into my coat pocket. Tossing the notebook back into the glove box, I closed the door. “Let’s go home, Zelda,” I said. Zelda responded enthusiastically, roaring to life with the turn of the key. My day was done. And so, I felt pretty sure, was my case. Oh, I’d be back at it tomorrow morning. The client pays for that kind of courtesy. But for all intents and purposes, Danny Carroll had lost himself in the wilds of Camden, and was long gone from these parts. Which just about wrapped it up for me.

And to think: Nora wasn’t sure I should take the case.