Backstab (23 page)

“Short. Beer gut. Bald spot he covered up by combing his hair sideways. What was his name? Gary? Terry?”

It had to be that little rat, Charlie. Only he would have the nerve to take credit for my column while he tried to kill it. “I think his name is Charlie,” I said mildly.

“I think you're right. That name sounds right, anyway,” said Dolores.

“When was Charlie in the bar?”

“A night or two before Burt was killed, I think. He'd been in a few times recently, once with a real classy-looking blonde. Was that his wife?”

“No. His wife looks like a homely sparrow. That happens when you live with a crumb like Charlie.”

“You don't like him, do you?” Dolores said.

I shook my head.

“Me, either. He tries to make himself bigger than he is, and I'm not talking about his height.” She patted my arm. “I'm glad you think enough of my husband to look into his death, but I doubt that you will find out anything more than the police did. Be careful, Francesca. Don't let the small things trip you up.”

“I haven't tripped over Charlie yet,” I said, and we both laughed. “Dolores, I want to find out who killed Burt, but I think there's more to his death. I also lost a good friend, Ralph, the same week. I believe he was murdered. I think the same person killed Ralph and Burt, but I don't know why yet. Ralph is the person who first introduced me to Burt's Bar.”

“I don't think I know him,” she said. “But I kept mostly in the kitchen during the busy times.”

“You'd know him if you saw him,” I said, and brought out a picture of Ralph and me at a holiday party. She put on a pair of glasses.

“Oh, sure. I've seen him. Used to come in covered with dust and paint when he was rehabbing in the area. Nice young man. If he was really dirty, he would get carry-out, which was very considerate. Where was Ralph the day he died?”

“Working at that house on Utah.”

“Did anybody see him, or notice if he had someone with him? Maybe that's a place to start, honey. Stay with your facts instead of your feelings.”

“You're right, Dolores,” I said, and gave her a good-bye hug.

She was right, too. Lyle and I had looked at Ralph's homemade appointment schedule when we picked up his truck. He was supposed to meet Ed at the Utah house. Who was Ed? Maybe Ralph's mother, Billie, would know. I called her and asked if I could see her again. Billie said she had a doctor's appointment and couldn't see me until later that afternoon.

I killed time by making a guest appearance at the
City Gazette
office. Naturally, the first person I ran into in the newsroom was Charlie. He was standing by the elevator. I noticed he was wearing a beige all-weather coat. Just like the person who tried to run me down. Just like thousands of men and women in St. Louis. He pulled out a pearl-and-silver pocket knife and began cleaning under his nails. Ugh. What a disgusting habit. I'd seen him do this at low-level staff meetings. I
took it as a gesture of contempt. I never saw him give himself a manicure around Hadley. It made me angry. So did his next statement.

“I see you added two charter members to your Get a Life Club,” Charlie said.

“I don't know what you mean,” I said.

I knew exactly what he meant. I loved the offbeat people I wrote about. Charlie made fun of them, calling them the Get a Life Club. “Those two drunks who got married, Elvis and Edna, was it?” he said. I hated the way he sneered at them.

“They weren't drunk at their wedding. You should be careful about making slanderous remarks. I've never seen the bride take a drink,” I said, truthfully. I'd seen the groom chug a few, but that was another story.

“Well, I found your column about the wedding a hoot, although I don't think that's what you intended,” he said.

“I guess you would find something funny about two people who promise to love, honor, and be faithful to each other.”

Ah! A direct hit. His face turned red. Even his ears were scarlet. Naturally, Charlie hit back. He went corporate. “That conversation you had concerning the management team in Uncle Bob's got back to us. Hadley was very upset that you were discussing company business with the little people.”

“I don't know any leprechauns, Charlie,” I said.

“That conversation you had with a…a waitperson.”

“It's okay, Charlie, it's not politically incorrect to call a woman a waitress. And I wasn't discussing company business. I was discussing your affairs—which are growing more and more public. Even the little people are noticing you hang around with women who aren't your wife. But if you and Babe hadn't gone running into Hadley's office, I doubt that he'd know what I said to the waitress.”

“You shouldn't have said anything. You're not a team player,” he said. Charlie thought that was an insult.

“You're right, boss. I'm not a team player. Not your team, anyway. I'll stick with the little people—instead of giants like you.” I patted him on his head. Charlie hated that, because I towered over him by almost a foot. A bell dinged, but it wasn't the end of the round. The elevator arrived to take Charlie away.

I figured he'd find some way to get me later, but it was worth it. We'd done more than trade insults. I'd proved one important point: Babe had reported everything to the
CG.
Charlie knew about the conversation I'd had with Marlene. He knew we knew about the pretty Princess Di blonde he'd been dating. But I didn't know why he cared.

I knew “Princess Di” was the nickname Marlene gave the woman who came into Uncle Bob's with Charlie. Because she was small and blond and looked like the real princess.

Burt had said Charlie was in the bar with a classy blonde. Dolores, Burt's wife, had seen them, too, and wanted to know if she was Charlie's wife.

Ralph had thought there was a connection between Maria and the mutilated man dressed in women's clothing in the Dumpster. The police called the victim a prostitute. Maria did some light hooking and had one arrest. Maria had breasts like a woman but genitals like a man. Until her killer stabbed them seventy-eight times. With a pocket knife. Like the one Charlie carried.

Maria had dropped out of the Gender Bender Pageant. Except she didn't drop out. She'd been murdered and dropped in a vacant lot.

It was starting to make sense. I knew now why Ralph had sent me those clippings. And I was almost sure that Maria Callous was the mysterious blonde Marlene called Princess Di. The woman who came from nowhere. The woman that Marlene had never seen before until she showed up with Charlie. And never saw again. Because she was dead. Because Charlie killed this dead ringer for Princess Di with her own scarf and then stabbed her with his pocket knife.

I opened my mail and I returned some calls and then I got out of there. Half an hour was all I could take at the
Gazette.
It was time to see Ralph's mother.

Billie looked a little better today. She still didn't look like beautiful Billie, but maybe her older sister instead of her mother.

“Billie, I'm sorry to bother you,” I said. “But Ralph had an appointment with someone called Ed at the Utah Place house the morning he died. Do you know what it was about?”

“A little,” she said. “Ralph was excited because some
City Gazette
editor wanted to look at his rehab work there, but he didn't mention that was his name.”

There were no
City Gazette
editors named Ed. But Ralph used other abbreviations in that appointment book. Ed wasn't a name. It was short for “Editor.”

“Ralph told me if the editor liked what he saw, he wanted Ralph to give him an estimate on rehabbing his own house—the whole thing. Ralph was thrilled. He thought it would be enough work to keep him going for the rest of the summer and fall.”

“You don't know the editor's name?”

“No,” she said. “I don't think Ralph ever mentioned it. He never told me where the editor's house was, either. He'd talked to the man briefly on the phone and seemed vague on those details. I think he was going to ask you about him.”

Of course he was. He called me, but I let my answering machine take it, because I was too lazy to pick up. Suddenly, his rambling message made perfect sense.
Francesca, it's me, Ralph
, he'd said.
Listen, I forgot to ask you something tonight…I know for sure you know this guy 'cause you work with him, except work doesn't really describe what he does, does it? At least that's what you always say, ha-ha. Anyway, I'm
pretty sure you can tell me if I should do this. Come on, Francesca, pick up. I know you're there.

Yeah, Ralph, I was there. And if I'd picked up the phone, you might still be here, too. At the very least, I'd know who your killer was.
Work doesn't really describe what he does, does it? At least that's what you always say, ha-ha.
That's what I always said about several top
CG
editors. Mostly Charlie. That's who called you, wasn't it? That's how he found out where you were working and took your inhalers. Did he use the same pen knife he'd cleaned his nails with at the elevator to cut your “insurance” off your ladder? But why? Why did he want to kill you? That's what I didn't know.

I was going to need proof, and I couldn't get it from Billie. That was all Billie could tell me, though I kept rephrasing the same questions until she was tired of them and so was I.

The next person on my must-see list was Todd. I didn't particularly want to talk to him, and after our last encounter, I didn't expect him to want to see me. That's why I didn't call ahead. I just rang the doorbell. I was relieved when he answered the door. There was no sign of the pretty boy today. He looked like a petulant, slightly pudgy man. He didn't invite me in. We stood on the chilly front porch. “Well, you accused me of murder last time,” he said. “What's my crime now? Kidnapping? Arson? Armed robbery?”

“Todd, I'm sorry,” I said. “You're right to be angry with me. But I really am trying to find Maria's
killer. You have no reason to want to help me, but I know you want to help her.”

I saw that stricken look in his eyes. He shivered, but I wasn't sure it was from the cold. I wasn't the only one carrying a load of guilt. “I know you had to get rid of Maria's address book to protect her reputation,” I said. I might as well let him have that. “Did she leave behind anything, even a phone number on a scrap of paper? I'd like to talk to her last boy friend, if I can find him.”

“I wish I could help you, but I can't,” Todd said. “I had to nag her to keep important numbers in that book. I put most of them in myself. If Maria had one fault as a roommate, it was that she never wrote phone numbers on the pad I kept by the phone. She wrote the numbers on the wall by the phone. It used to drive me crazy. I screamed and sulked and repainted that wall sixteen times. I told her she picked up that habit hanging around bars. But nothing broke her of it. If a man called, she wrote the number on the wall by the phone—‘So I won't lose it,' she said. The only progress I ever made with all my nagging was when she wrote the last phone number from the guy she was dating on the side of the icebox. She said it would wash off. She acted like this was a big advance. Maybe for her it was. Anyway, I left it there, thinking it was better than the wall. You couldn't see that side of the icebox from the door anyway. It's still there. I couldn't bring myself to clean away the last trace of her.”

I felt like I was in a dream. “May I come in and take a look at it?”

“Help yourself,” Todd said, finally holding the door open for me. “It's on the side by the phone.”

I sleepwalked into the kitchen. There was the number, written on the white refrigerator in blue ink. I didn't have to call the number to find out who it belonged to. I knew that number immediately. It was the main number to the
City Gazette.

Maria was the woman Marlene and I called Princess Di. I was sure of it. The blond woman who was dating Charlie. A few more questions, and I'd have the proof I needed to nail Charlie. I drove back to Dolores's house. She was finishing up in the living room, surrounded by a stack of boxes, a pile of packing paper, and three half-used rolls of tape.

“Can I show you a photo?” I asked Dolores.

“Sure, honey, but make it quick. I got all this to pack away and the movers will be here before you know it.”

I pulled out the Miss American Gender Bender Pageant program, and pointed to Maria Callous's photo. “Is that the woman who was in the bar with Charlie?”

“Let me put on my reading glasses. I can't see a darned thing up close,” said Dolores. “Now where did I put them in this mess?” The wait was maddening. I joined in the hunt. We checked the kitchen table, the bedside table, the back of the commode, the top of pile after pile of boxes, before Dolores finally yelled, “Found
them. Set them here on the fireplace mantel, next to my coffee cup. Can't find anything in this mess.”

She put on her glasses and held the picture to the light, then took it over to the window. I thought I was going to crawl the wall, using my nails like rock spikes.

“Now, finally, enough light where I can see,” she said. “Yep. That's her. No doubt about it. What is she, a model? What's it say? ‘Maria Callous, the Ass with Class?' Is that nice-looking young woman a stripper?”

“That nice-looking young woman is a nice-looking young man,” I said.

“You're shittin' me,” said Dolores. I knew she was surprised. She never talked like that. “I'd never guess that nice-looking person was a guy. Wore such a pretty little navy-blue suit, too. Had a bow on the back. Real feminine. He was better-looking than most of the women we saw in the bar. Dressed better, too. Boy, you sure can't tell these days, can you?”

You sure can't. I needed just a few more facts to make my case against Charlie. I didn't want another Aryan Avenger. I knew Charlie carried a pocket knife. I knew he'd been to Burt's Bar with Maria Callous in her little blue suit. Now I wanted to know what Maria was wearing when she was found dead in the Dumpster. Cutup Katie would know. I called and got her. I could hear an electric saw going in the background. I shouted into the phone so she could hear me better. “Are they remodeling your office?”