Dead Guy's Stuff (24 page)

"Will this be auctioned, Tim?" Jane asked, feeling herself go weak in the knees as she touched the old typewriter keys and pushed the carriage return.

"We'll see," said Tim.

Jane returned the typewriter to its hidden spot and turned on the green metal desk lamp. She took out the ledgers and account books from Bateman's and placed them on the desk, opening the largest book to a center page. Jane took out a Bakelite mechanical pencil that advertised the SHANGRI-LA and, under that, OSCAR BATEMAN, PROPRIETOR. Jane set it next to the account book. Baited.

The hall was well lit, with brass sconces in each corner and next to each bedroom door that opened off of it. They turned on all the lights and hung some of the photographs they had brought along.

"I'll hang the rest in the basement," said Oh, "if you think that's where they fit?"

Tim nodded. "On the wall opposite the poker table," he said.

When he was finished setting the music for each room, lighting a candle here and there for scent and atmosphere, and scanning each room for anything out of place, Tim took Jane's hand and they walked together down into the kitchen.

"I'm not kidding about you as a partner, Jane. You could handle the Chicago sales— well, most of them," Tim said. "You have a great eye."

Jane smiled. She couldn't remember when she had felt so wanted and needed. Oh seemed serious about her becoming an investigator, now Tim wanted her as a partner, Miriam had loved every shipment she had "picked" and sent off to Ohio this summer. Three months ago she had been out of work and at ends as loose as they get. Now everybody wanted a piece of her.

"I'm so flattered," Jane said, "but I'm…"

"I'll get you a truck," said Tim.

"A truck? So tempting, but it's…"

"Your own flatbed with a ramp and dolly, babe."

"Tim, it's…"

"What?"

"Charley!" Jane said.

"Well, of course it is. And he'd rather have you be my partner than a detective, for god's sake."

"Would you, Charley?" Jane asked with a smile.

"Maybe. But it's going to be your choice that counts, isn't it?" said Charley.

Tim whirled around to find Charley at the top of the steps, nodding approvingly at the well-appointed hallway. Charley gave him a hug, watching Jane over Tim's shoulder. Her smile was one he hadn't seen in a while. Welcoming. Or had he been missing it?

When he hugged her, she rested her head on his shoulder, in no hurry to pull away.

"Thanks for taking care of business at the house, Charley. I think I know who our burglars were."

"Yeah, your dad told me Nellie duct taped a couple of guys who sounded like they might have been the ones who didn't appreciate your Bakelite buttons."

"Or your T. Rex teeth. Nick with you?"

"Downstairs with Oh. They made it to the semifinals. He played great," Charley said.

"You went? I thought…"

"I went to the early game this morning, which they lost. They were out of it, so we drove straight to Don and Nellie's. We couldn't miss the McFlea, could we?"

Jane didn't get much of a play-by-play from Nick, but he managed to provide just enough description of the soccer tournament and the motel he had stayed in last night to make her feel that he sort of cared that she had at least asked the questions.

They all spread out through the house, preparing for the earliest visitors. They had invited all of the new property owners in Kankakee who had recently done business with Gus Duncan. Pink Junior arrived first, then Bobby Duff, looking hungover and confused. It appeared to have sunk in that Lilly was gone. He looked lost, deserted, and a little angry that anyone expected him to do something as silly as walk though somebody else's house and look at furniture.

Crandall arrived, apologetic about leaving the EZ Way Inn via a window rather than a door. Don introduced three tavern owners to Jane. She remembered them from her childhood and wondered why they looked so much older until she realized that she must look like a giant to them. They had last seen her when she was six and seemed to think she was the one who had aged.

Tim was walking visitors through the rooms quickly, hurrying them down to the basement, where he could show off his party room. Nick planted himself on a bar stool and watched in disbelief as the parade of visitors nodded and smiled and snapped their fingers to Bobby Darin, another name from the past that his mother would lecture him on if he forgot himself and asked about him on the way home.

The tavern owners congregated in front of some of the group photographs and more than one finger pointed to Gus Duncan in front of the EZ Way Inn and called him a son-of-a-bitch.

"Oh he was all right," drawled a sultry voice behind the knot of saloon keepers. "I mean, he was all right for a son-of-bitch."

Pink Junior turned around.

"Mrs. Bateman?" he said. "You haven't changed a bit."

"Liar just like your father, Junior," said Mary. "And you
have
changed. Used to be a dashing young man, now you look just like Old Pink."

Mary had discarded the walker altogether and carried a cane. It appeared to be more prop than aid, and she used it to part the crowd, clearing a path to Don and Nellie who had drifted to their positions of comfort behind the small wet bar.

"Donald," Mary said, "has Nellie thrown you out yet so I could have you?"

"Take him," said Nellie, pouring out a Sprite for Nick and sticking some of Tim's prop marachino cherries on a toothpick and dropping them into the glass. "Dot and Ollie here?"

"Parking the car. They dropped me off in front. Nellie, being mean has kept you young and fit."

"You look all right, too, Mary," said Nellie.

"You sure do," said Don.

Jane watched her mother slice open her father with a look and nudged Tim.

"Are you Jane?"

A young woman with long blond hair clipped back with a barrette held out her hand. Jane knew by her blue eyes she had to be Susan, Oscar and Mary's granddaughter. When she shook Jane's hand, she held on tightly for that extra moment, the telling moment when someone wants to convey something without words. In this case she seemed genuinely grateful to be invited, and Jane was uncomfortable with that, not sure the spider was supposed to accept gratitude from any of the flies she'd invited for dinner. Jane avoided her blue eyes and looked instead at her hand. Clean and cool. Nails spotless, clipped short, straight across. A strong, capable hand. A nurse's hand. Jane looked up, startled. That was it. She had to find Oh and tell him.

"Thank you so much for inviting us to this opening. Grandma and Aunt Dot and Aunt Ollie were so excited. When they realized that the person who bought my grandparent's stuff was someone they knew, or rather whose parents they knew, they were thrilled to death," Susan said. "To tell the truth, I regretted rushing in and selling it all without, you know, going through things more carefully, but I had to do it when Grandma was still a little groggy from her accident because I didn't want her to talk me out of it. I just want to thank you so much for the pictures," she said.

That's why she was clinging to Jane's hand. She had gotten the packet of family pictures. Jane hoped she wouldn't notice the photocopies of the vintage shots that Jane had framed and hung all over the house. Might take the shine off the gift. Jane made an excuse and went off to find Oh to tell him what she had figured out.

"I smell pie," said Hunter Smith, new owner of the Brown Jug, a tavern he had run for thirty-five years. "Serving any food here?"

Nellie shook her head. "No food, Hunter, this is just to give you ideas about furniture." Nellie winked at Nick.

"Furniture? What the hell do I care about furniture?"

Jane found Oh and Tim following visitors around, answering questions when they could, explaining the premise of the fund-raiser when asked, but mostly just listening to people talk about what they recognized and what they saw that they remembered throwing away.

Everyone, it seemed, had thrown out old Bentwood chairs like the ones that sat around the oak pedestal table in the dining room. And everyone's mother had thrown out a table like that, too. The tabletop on this one had been completely ruined— warped and splintered by water damage— and one of the Grant boys had hauled it home from an alley. Their family had offered to decorate the McFlea dining room and, to salvage the table, they paid for a piece of glass to be fitted for the top. It was their only expense, since they scrounged old menus and illustrations from vintage cookbooks and shelter magazines, set them "under glass," and had a beautiful easy-care dining room table at an extraordinary price. It was changeable, too, they explained on their description card— you could put holiday pictures, family photos, Christmas cards, whatever, to fit whatever kind of gathering you were planning.

"So clever," Susan said. "I really shouldn't have been so quick to get Grandma to sell all her stuff. Is most of it here in the house?"

"Some," said Jane, reminding her that she had bought almost all tavern memorabilia.

Dot and Ollie were reminiscing with Nellie about basketball when Jane walked over to listen. Apparently, they had faced each other on the court in the thirties or forties, when women's basketball had been big entertainment.

"Yeah," Hunter said, "remember when some girl'd break her bra strap and have to call time out? That was worth the price of…"

"Quiet," said Don, nodding his head in his grandson's direction.

"Grandpa, I know what a bra is for Pete's sake," said Nick.

"No, you don't," said Jane, from behind him.

"You always fouled out, Nellie," said Dot. "Remember, Ollie, how Nellie always fouled out?"

"Remember? She yanked out a handful of my hair once," said Ollie. "You were dirty as heck, Nellie."

"I hustled," Nellie said. She looked at her grandson. "It's important to hustle."

Jane looked at her watch. People had been milling around a long time in the basement. Tim's party room was such a success, people didn't want to leave it. Saloon keepers, Jane figured, all comfortable at the bar.

She walked upstairs to the second floor and took a moment to turn on the lights in the girl's bedroom. Jane knew they would have their best effect at night, right after the reading light was dimmed, when the magic lights would illuminate dreams, but they were lovely in daytime, too. Jane curled up in the window seat to get the full effect and loosened some of the gauze so she could have the full tent-like experience.

When they peeked into the room, they didn't see Jane behind the fabric, but she saw them. She listened to them whispering, standing at the desk right outside the bedroom.

"There's nothing in these books. This is just the Shangri-La stuff, the day-to-day."

"You don't know what to look for."

"I suppose you do."

Jane came out of her lair and stood in the doorway and watched Dot and Ollie turn the pages of Bateman's ledger, shaking their heads and squinting over the figures.

"If you had known what to look for, you could have just gotten it at the sale or asked Susan not to sell it in the first place," said Ollie.

"Is that what happened?" asked Jane. "Did Susan arrange to have the sale without asking Mary?"

"Oh, lord," said Ollie, "don't sneak up on old ladies, dear."

"We're liable to shoot you," said Dot.

"I'm sorry," said Jane, coming out into the hall. "Can I help you find anything?"

"I doubt it. Mary's so distraught. She thinks Bateman left some message or something for her in the things you bought. That's why she was so keen on coming back to Kankakee. Thought we'd just find it."

"Any idea what it was?"

Jane had her back to the stairs, but she could tell by the sounds on the stairs that other people were coming. The step, step, click rhythm told her it was Mary Bateman. Someone was with her.

Bingo,
Jane thought when she turned around. It was Susan. She hoped Tim hadn't gotten so enmeshed in throwing his little basement party that he had forgotten to cordon off the steps after he saw them come up. Jane would need a few minutes alone with them if she was going to get any information.

"I'll tell you what I want," said Mary, "besides not needing this cane and not being an old lady, I would like to have anything written on Shangri-La paper before 1958."

Mary walked over to the desk and held up the advertising pencil Jane had placed in the ledger. "See this pencil? This was a little Christmas giveaway from Bateman. He always gave the customers some little thing at Christmas, a pen or a coin purse or maybe something for the ladies like those little plastic rain bonnets."

"I enjoyed those rain bonnets," said Ollie.

"But this pen is from after 1958. Know how I can tell?" asked Mary, not waiting for an answer. "Because it says that the proprietor of the Shangri-La is Oscar Bateman. It doesn't say Bateman and Duncan, like everything did before1958."

"They were partners," Jane said.

"And best friends until"— Mary stopped to think— "until they became worst enemies."