Marja McGraw - Bogey Man 01 - Bogey Nights (15 page)

“Over time I had a lot of boarders,” Chance said, tapping her temple as she spoke
. “Too many to remember all of their names at the moment. People moved in and out all the time, except for a few who stayed for some length of time. Charles had been there for about a year, if memory serves, when he ran off – or at least I thought he ran off.”

Chris’s cell phone rang and he excused himself to take the call outside.

Chance and I talked a little girl talk, although frankly, she didn’t seem that good at it.

She sighed
. “I never had any female friends,” she explained. “For some reason, women were always jealous of me. I was a knockout when I was young, you know.” I suddenly realized why I’d felt annoyed when we first started talking. She’d been flirting with Chris. She hadn’t been merely staring at him because of his resemblance to the real Bogey. I reminded myself that she was ninety and stifled a giggle.

“I’m sure you were
. I can see it even now.”

“Would you like some tea, dear?”

“I’d love some, thank you.”

Chance stood up, appearing fairly agile
, and headed for her kitchen. Actually it was more of a kitchenette; small but functional.

Chris returned and said
the call had been from Big D. “He asked if we could come by the house in the morning. He says he’s found something that we might be interested in.”

“Well, if he’s found anything of mine, let me know.”
Apparently there wasn’t much wrong with Chance’s hearing.

Chapter
Seventeen

“D
id Big D say what he found?” I asked. “I’m assuming it must have to do with Blakely or I don’t think he would have made a special call.”

“No,
he didn’t say, but he had a lot going on, if the background noise was any indication.”

Chance
brought the tea and cups out on a tray, serving us as though she had tea parties on a regular basis. “I’ve always preferred a good cup of tea to coffee,” she said. “I love the smell of coffee, but I never could develop a taste for it.”

There was no coffee table, so she set the tray on an end table and poured, passing us each a cup and saucer.

“How about telling us some of your stories?” Chris suggested, sticking out his pinkie and sipping from the small cup. “You said you had all kinds of wild tales.”

Chance studied
him for a moment before sighing. “You look like Humphrey, but you sure don’t sound like him.”

That’s all it took
. After curling his upper lip under and pulling on his ear lobe, Chris was off and running. “Okay, doll, here’s the deal. We found a stiff at your old flophouse, and now we’re gonna do some fancy footwork to figure out who sent this guy home feet first. See? We’re gonna be eyeballin’ anyone who was on the scene, and we’ll be playin’ hardball. See? The stiff could’a been a good Joe, or he might have been a gensel. Either way, it doesn’t matter. See? My gun moll and me, we’re gonna put the heat on, and someone – ”

Chance watched Chris closely while he
spoke, a look of longing on her face. I felt uncomfortable again. My heart was telling me that she was just an old woman, but my mind was telling me that she was used to men responding to her. At the very least that was probably what it was like at one time. Old habits die hard.

“Uh, Bogey Man, maybe you’re coming on a bit strong,” I interrupted
. “I’m not a gun moll and I don’t know that we’ll be playing hardball. See?”

“Oh, yeah
. Guess I got carried away.” He turned to Chance. “Sorry.”

She was
leaning forward in her chair and grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Oh, I loved it. Do it some more, would you?”

“No, I don’t think so
. How’s about you tell us a couple of your stories.”

“Well, I was going to wait for my nephew, but I guess we can go ahead
. I wonder what’s taking him so long.”

“One of
my
questions would be, how did you get away with running a boarding house at so young an age?” I would think that could have been a problem for her. “If I were your mother, I would have worried about the men trying to take advantage of you.”

“I told everyone who rented from me that I was married and my husband had been sent overseas
. They thought I was running the boarding house to support myself until my hubby came home. It kept the men at a distance because I told them what a big bruiser my husband was, and they’d better be nice to me or they’d catch it when he came back.”

“And that worked?” I asked
. “Nowadays no one would care since the husband wasn’t in the next room.

“You bet it did
. Not a soul ever bothered me. Well, there was one young man, but a friend of mine came by and put the fear of God into him. He moved out the next day.”

“Did you have to tell them you had
a husband overseas?” Chris asked. “Couldn’t you have thought of something else?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be right for a single woman to rent out room
s in her home in those days. It would have been unseemly. So I made up a Mr. Murphy and everyone accepted that he was in the service. None of the neighbors knew any better. When I moved into that house I told them I was married so they’d leave me alone.” She chuckled. “It backfired on me until I started taking in boarders. All the women on the block kept checking on me and bringing me things. Oh, I knew they meant well, but I was a rather private person. I didn’t want to be bothered.”

“Didn’t the boarders bother you?”

“Oh, no. Those men treated me like a queen. I think it was because they liked my cooking. Well, that and my ‘big bruiser’ story. Besides, so many of them had a crush on me.”

This woman was full of herself, and had been since she was very young
. I wondered how many of those crushes were real and how many were her imagination.

“What about the guy who had a problem with Charles Blakely?” Chris asked
. “Do you recall what that was about?”

“I can’t remember his name, but I sure remember his attitude
. There was a third gal who lived in the house for a time, before the two women who didn’t get along. Both men were interested in her, and one thing led to another, and before long they were at each other like little boys. There was name-callin’ and once there was even a fist fight. I broke that up real quick though.”

“How’d you break up the fight?” I asked.

“I threw a bucket of water on them, just like they were dogs.” She sat up straighter and appeared to be quite proud of herself. “Those two lamebrains never lifted a finger against each other in my house again.”

“Oh.”
I had a feeling that when she was a young woman, Mildred Chance Murphy was probably a force to be reckoned with.

“What happened after their fight?” Chris asked.

“Nothing, really. The gal they were fighting over up and walked out without a how-do-ya-do, but at least her rent was paid up. The other guy started looking for somewhere else to live, although he took his time about it, and it wasn’t all that much later that Charles disappeared, still owing me money.” She clucked her tongue. “Had I known he was dead, I might have had less bitter feelings towards him.”

It was difficult to imagine Chance carrying anyone on the books
. She struck me as someone who would have her hand out at the beginning of every month.

“
Let’s see. I can tell you about Frederick. He was a real shy guy until he came home drunk one night. He fell in the front door and…”

Chance was in the middle of her story when John returned.

“Where have you been, young man?” Chance asked accusingly, as though he was a kid who’d missed his curfew.

He grinned at her
. “I stopped and made copies of some of the pages for Chris and Pamela. I know you, and I know you’re not about to give up your ledgers.”

“That was very smart of you, John
. Now give them the pages, because I feel a nap coming on. All this talk about the old days has just about worn me out.”

“I’m sorry, Chance
. We’ve overstayed our welcome,” I said, standing up. “We didn’t mean to tire you out like this.”

She turned her gaze on Chris and practically pinned him to the wall
. “Nonsense. I want you to come back to see me again. Soon. I’ll tell you more about what went on in that house. Like when one of the men snuck a stripteaser into his room one night.” She chuckled. “That was a good story, and not one I’ll soon forget. And there was the guy who gave me the heebie jeebies. He was one scary fella. He lived there at the same time Charles did. You might want to take a look at him, now that I think about it. If he’s still around.”

“We’ll definitely be back,” Chris said
. “I know we’ll have questions about some of the people on the pages from the ledger.”

John handed me the
short stack of papers and winked. “Auntie does tire out easier now than she used to, and I’m glad you came to see her on a good day. When you’re ready with your questions, give me a call and I’ll set it up.”

I glanced at the top page and scanned it
. “Thank you, John. We’ll call you as soon as we figure out what we’ve got here. It looks like she really kept detailed records.”

“That’s my Aunt Mildred, she
– ”

Sounding irritable, Chance said, “Would you
please
start calling me Chance? Everyone else does and always has. What’s the matter with you, boy?”

John seemed very patient with his aunt
. He knelt down in front of her and spoke softly, reminding her that no one in the family had ever called her Chance.

“Well, they should have!
That’s what I wanted.”

Oh, yes, she was sounding crankier and crankier
. It was time for us to make a quick getaway. I waved the pages at Chris. “Time to go, Bogey Man.”

Thanking Chance for her time, we left as quickly as possible.

On the way to Constance’s house to pick up Mikey we talked about Chance.

“We didn’t really learn too much from her,” Chris said.

“We know that Charles fought with another man because of a woman,” I said. “We know a really scary guy lived there at the same time Charles was there. We know that Chance wasn’t a quiet little lady of the house who sat around demurely knitting and sewing. She lied about having a husband overseas. I understand her reasoning, but – ”

“Yeah, actually, that kind of ticked me off
. While our boys were overseas being killed because they were protecting our country, she was pretending she had a military husband who was serving. I have a feeling that she was really a piece of work in those days.”

“Oh, Chris, you
– ”

“No, I mean it
. She was taking advantage of the situation. She could have come up with a lot of other stories.”

“Okay
. I see your point, but it’s all in the past. She was young and probably not very mature from the sound of it. Let it go.”

He didn’t respond, but I saw him curl his upper lip under
. “I didn’t actually like her very much.”

“To be honest, I didn’t either
. Maybe if she’d been your typical little old lady we’d feel differently. He nephew seems quite fond of her, so maybe there’s a side of her we haven’t seen.”

“And speaking of sides,
” Chris said, “we do want to keep on her good side as long as we need information from her.”

I had to laugh
. “And you’re worried about
her
using people? We’re using her, for crying out loud.”

“Ye
ah,” Chris said, “but we’re trying to solve a murder. We have a good reason for using her.”

“I wonder what Big D found that might interest us
. It must have something to do with Blakely, or I doubt if he would have called.”

“We’ll find out in the morning
. Maybe I’ll try calling him at home tonight.” Chris was as impatient as I was.

We’d gotten off topic since we’d started out talking about what we’d learned from Chance, but it would have to wait
. We were turning onto Constance’s street and I could see Mikey waving to us from the front yard. Constance sat on the front porch watching our son and smiling.

She walked over to the car and hugged me after I climbed out, which was her usual greeting
. “Mikey’s already had dinner. It’s not that you’re late, but I was hungry and I didn’t want to eat in front of him.”

“Thanks, Constance
. I owe you one. Actually, I owe you a lot. Have I told you lately what a good friend you are?”

“All the time
. And I feel the same way about you. Would you and Chris like some dinner? There’s plenty left over.”

“Absolutely,” Chris said before I could open my mouth
. “You’re the best cook in this town, Constance.”

“Uh,” I said.

“With the exception of my wife, of course,” he added quickly.

“Of course
.” Constance was the diplomat in our little group.

She
’d prepared spaghetti, and with only her and Mikey eating it there really were a lot of leftovers. She quickly tossed a salad and warmed some garlic bread while talking to us over her shoulder. She set everything on the table and sat down with a glass of iced tea, joining us.

“Did you find out anything
from the old lady, or was she having a forgetful day?” she asked.

“Yeah,
we hit a good day and we learned a few things,” I said. “I learned that even at ninety some women can still flirt. I do believe she’ll be able to fill us in on her tenants though. She kept great records and, contrary to what her nephew said, I think she has a pretty good memory.”

Constance laughed
. “She was flirting with Chris? At least you know the woman has good taste.”

We both turned and looked at him
. He had spaghetti sauce on his upper lip, which made us laugh. He grabbed a napkin to wipe his face. Mikey pointed to his own upper lip, indicating to Chris where he should wipe.

“She really fell for the Bogey Man
. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him.”

“Do you have to see her again?”