Choke (22 page)

“Unca Clem was sad,” said Drew.

Immy threw a glance over her shoulder at her daughter. “Sad about what?”

“He was so sad. He cry-ed. He was sad Geemaw was in the jailhouse. He said he was gonna get her outta there.”

Immy laughed. “I wonder how he thought he was going to do that. I didn’t notice him posting any bail.”

“I helped him.”

“That was a good girl. I’m glad you helped.”

“Look, Mommy, the waterfall is going!”

Sure enough, the waterfall had been turned on. The pump usually stayed turned off until the spring rains.

“Tell me the waterfall story again, Mommy,” said Drew, ducking her head to get a better look at the cascade.

Immy slowed so Drew could see it longer.

“OK. Once upon a time there was a real waterfall, back when Indians roamed the high plains surrounding the narrow Wymee River.” The so-called river ranged from a trickle to a good-sized stream, depending on the time of year. “It must have been an awfully small waterfall, though, because it disappeared mysteriously when the settlers started to come. They had already called the place…”

“Wymee Falls,” chirped Drew, supplying this bit of the narrative by family tradition.

“So the town fathers and some mothers decided to build themselves a waterfall beside the river. Now we have a pump to carry the water to the top of the man-made rock hill right beside the river. The water goes down, into the pool, and back up with the pump.”

“Up and down, up and down.” Drew ended the story.

Once again, Immy thought the waterfall might be a metaphor for her life.

She snagged a parking spot next to the mall entrance and she, Drew, and the Barbies trooped into the overly air conditioned enclosure to look for a suit Immy could afford. She was pretty sure a female PI should wear a suit.

They emerged victorious two hours later, stuffed full of fries and shakes, Immy carrying the new suit on a hanger and toting a bag with new shoes, purse, and a pair of pantyhose. Drew proudly waved a new Ken to passersby on the way to the van. Immy’s purse was noticeably lighter, but that would be remedied soon.

They sat around the kitchen table to eat their Spaghetti-Os that night. Hortense had suggested it and turned the television off herself. This was how Immy had always imagined a real family eating supper, around a table, with no television.

“Imogene, there is a meeting of the librarians association tomorrow in Wymee Falls.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“No, no, I’m getting picked up, but Drew will need to be tended to.”

“I’ll drop her off at school on my way to work,” offered Immy.

Hortense gave Immy a doubtful look. “On the way to your job interview? You haven’t yet told me specifically what this job will entail.”

“Oh, it’s a little of this and a little of that, I think. I’ll know more later today.”

“I had a job,” said Drew. “I helped Unca Clem, Geemaw.” Immy beamed at her daughter, making dinner conversation along with the grownups.

“That’s nice, dear,” her grandmother answered.

“He juss about ran out of sugar.”

Sugar? Clem? Immy froze for a moment. “What do you mean?” asked Immy.

Drew pulled back at the sharpness in her tone. Immy softened it, paused a moment, and spoke sweetly.

“What exactly was Uncle Clem doing when you helped him?”

“It was so fun.” Drew put her spoon down so her hands could help her describe the experience. “We got alllll the sugar,” her arms made a big circle, “and it was late and dark outside, and I got to stay up really, really late.” She flapped her hands at the thought of the joyful experience. “And we put the sugar at the pleece station. That’s where the jailhouse is, Unca Clem said.”

Drew picked up her spoon and scooped little noodle Os into her mouth, then added to her tale before Immy could collect herself enough to comment.

“And then we went out early, early, and Unca Clem took my schoo’ glue and put some more clues because he said,” Drew paused to breathe, “he said the rain came and ruint the other sugars and now he was gonna put colored ones out and not put them onna ground so they wouldn’t melt.”

Her dissertation done, she returned her attention to her bowl.

Immy and Hortense stared at each other.

“Drew, dear,” said Hortense “what was Uncle Clem’s reason for these bizarre actions?”

“He said he was gonna save you.”

Immy pictured the message she had seen: HOR OT GUILTY, with a pile of pink packets that had fallen off the wall. If Clem had used school glue, the morning dew may have loosened his handiwork soon after he’d done it. There were enough blue packets for an N. Had the message said HORTENSE NOT GUILTY? What on earth did Clem think that would accomplish? Maybe he’d taken heed of the anonymous note she had left him and decided anonymous messages were a good way of communicating. Immy was about to decide that maybe they weren’t. None of them seemed to have any effect, except the phone call she had left about Frankie’s cigarette butt in the diner. But Frankie had been questioned, released, and had now disappeared.

“Mother,” said Immy. “Do you think we should tell Chief Emersen, or maybe Ralph, that Clem is the one who left those packets glued to the station wall?”

Hortense sighed, thinking. “What would that accomplish? The dear man is merely trying in his misguided way to divert suspicion from me.”

“Well, maybe he knows something. Maybe he’s sitting on some clues. He’s acting strangely.”

“He is intoxicated, Imogene. The poor man is drunk on love, that’s all it is. I believe, with my greater accumulation of years, that I am a somewhat better judge of character than yourself.”

Immy closed her eyes, then opened them quickly. Thoughts of her mother and Clem sometimes produced pictures in her head that she would rather not see.

* * *

WEDNESDAY MORNING WAS OVERCAST, the air heavy with impending rain. Immy donned her new work clothes, a soft green suit over an old sleeveless shell that was only stained at the hem in the back. The new shoes, fake alligator, looked great. They weren’t exactly the right size, but they’d been on sale, and she was sure she could wear them for a few hours.

She dropped Drew off and headed out of Saltlick. On the drive into Wymee Falls for her ten o’clock interview, she tried to figure out what to do about Clem. He had the looks of a jolly Saint Nick, but all her life she had never gotten a warm feeling toward him, like her mother apparently did. Maybe that was because Immy had worked with him and knew what an explosive temper lurked behind his ruddy jowls. She had always partly attributed that to his profession. Didn’t all cooks have temper tantrums? They worked in a heated environment and were under pressure to get the food out quickly and fill the orders correctly. They never heard praise from the diners unless the wait staff decided to pass compliments on to them, which the wait staff was often too rushed and stressed to do. Cooks got plenty of negative feedback when they saw plates half full of their handiwork come back and get scraped into the trash. And Clem could not be convinced that most people wanted less to eat than he did, so he insisted on serving huge portions, guaranteeing that half of almost every meal was not consumed. Sometimes customers took the leftovers home, but most didn’t. Clem saw his golden chicken-fried steaks, now soggy, his creamy white gravy, now congealed, and his crisp sweet potato fries, now limp, all returned to the kitchen as trash. It must be disheartening, Immy thought.

Lightning bolts to the west startled her out of her thoughts.

Before she knew it, she was at the traffic light a block from Detective Mike Mallett’s office. It didn’t look like there were any parking spaces in front of his building. She had to park two blocks away, and her feet were beginning to ache from the stiff, too-short shoes by the time she reached the small wooden building crammed between two multi-story stone office buildings.

On her previous visit to the office, when she had pushed her resume under the door, she had thought the office cold and dark. Now, with storm clouds gathering overhead, the lighted window looked cheery and welcoming.

Immy paused at the door. His name was printed neatly: Mike Mallett, Private Investigations.

Did one knock? In PI novels people usually knocked on the door, but the office was usually in a rundown building, up several stories without a working elevator in a building with a dance studio or a couple of lawyers and a bail bondsman. Sometimes there was a bar on the ground floor. There wasn’t a bar within blocks of Detective Mallett’s office.

She decided just to open the door and walk in. After all, if he was advertising for help, he might not have a receptionist and could be in the back.

He wasn’t.

A small, weasely looking guy sat at a gray metal desk. The desk, some unpadded folding chairs, and one file cabinet were the complete furnishings of the bare-walled anteroom. He rose when she walked in but not very far. He couldn’t have been much taller than five feet. Immy wondered if his small size enabled him to blend in and be more invisible on surveillance projects.

“You must be Imogene Duckworthy.” His voice was as raspy in person as it had been on the phone. He didn’t look sick, so Immy thought it must be his normal voice. That rasp wouldn’t blend in at all.

“Very pleased to meet you, Detective Mallett.”

“Oh, please call me Mike,” he said with a wave in her direction.

The room smelled of something, but Immy couldn’t place it. Walnuts?

He walked around the desk, reached out a hand, and they shook. “C’mon back,” he said, leading the way through a door to what was obviously his own office. It wasn’t much more furnished than the outer office, but the chairs were padded. It also held a small, round table with two straight-backed chairs. Detective Mallett gestured Immy into one of these and shoved a pile of paper to the side of the table as he sat across from her.

Immy was disappointed he didn’t wear a rumpled trench coat, but maybe he did when he went out. His white shirt looked rumpled, at least, and his gray tie was loosened and askew.

The walnut smell was a little stronger in this room. Immy spied a candle burning on the battered oak desk.

“What scent is that candle?” she asked, hoping to impress him with her powers of observation.

“I don’t know, just somethin’ to take out the nicotine reek. I quit the cancer stick habit again last week but fell off the wagon this morning.”

Was he going to smoke in the office? Immy wasn’t sure she would be able to work there if he did.

“Don’t worry.” He must have seen her thought in her face. “If I hire you, I won’t smoke in here no more.”

Immy gave him a half-smile. Should she believe him?

“Now, what makes you think you wanna work here?”

She told him that she had read
The Moron’s Compleat PI Guidebook
cover to cover several times (twice was several, right?) and was part way through
Criminal Pursuits
.

“Yeah, yeah, but what makes you think you wanna work here?”

Immy took a deep breath. She had to answer questions? Was it possible he was not going to hire her? She blinked back her tears. “I’ve wanted nothing else my whole life but to work with a real detective.” She stopped to breathe and try to take the tremor out of her voice. “My father was one, and it’s my life’s ambition.” Of course, her life’s ambition was to be a detective, not an assistant, but this was a first step. “Also, I’d like to buy my own car.”

“What kinda hours can you put in?”

“Since I share a car and have a daughter who gets dropped off and picked up at daycare, I guess I’ll have to work around her schedule.”

“Can you do ten to two at least?”

“Oh, yes!” Now it sounded like he was going to hire her.

“How are you at office work? Any experience?”

Immy froze. “Office work?”

“Yeah, how are you on the computer?”

“Really good. I’m really good on the computer.” Her family didn’t own one, but she had used them in high school. She knew PIs had to use the computer to track down felons and look up arrest records. She would buy a
Compleat Guidebook
on computers today.

“Yeah? I could use a computer whiz. My typing is for shit.”

Typing? “I can type.” Not very quickly, but it’s just pressing keys, right?

“Spreadsheets? You do spreadsheets? I need a better way to keep track of expenses and billing.”

“I’m not sure. I think I can do that.”

“I’m tempted to give you a try. The other gals that answered the ad, well one of ‘em wore a nose ring and a lip stud, made me hurt to look at that metal in her face. The other one came in flip flops. I’m tellin’ ya. At least you can dress for an interview.”

He stood up. “I’ll give you a call.”

“You mean, I can’t start today?”

“Hey, you wanna start today? Knock yourself out, kid. Imogene, right?”

“Just Immy, actually. That’s what everyone calls me except my mother. And…just call me Immy.” Damn, she was babbling. But she was hired!

“You wanna talk money?” He offered her a salary for a twenty-hour work week, four hours a day, five days a week, and she accepted it. It was a little less than she had hoped for, but maybe there would be a raise when he saw how eager she was.

He lifted the stack of papers on the table, carried them to the outer office, and plopped them onto the bare metal desk. “You can start here. These all need filing. Knock yourself out.”

She sat at her desk and surveyed her domain. Here she was, on her way to being a PI. At last!

With a clap that brought her halfway out of her secretary’s chair, lightning struck somewhere close, and the dark clouds opened up outside. The office lights flickered but stayed on. Immy reached for her stack of papers and started through them, thinking it was rather pleasant watching the rain course down the picture window in front of her while she sat snug and secure, not to mention being paid.

After two hours of going through half the stack of miscellaneous papers, she felt like knocking herself out. Unconscious. She had succeeded in filing about one-fourth of the papers she had gone through. She had put the rest into another stack to ask for clarification on them later.