Dead Guy's Stuff (17 page)

"So what happened?" Jane asked.

"Gus had set up a lot of people, given them good deals on places. Some made it; some didn't. We made it," Don said.

"Most of them drank themselves into early graves," Nellie said, "thought the tavern business meant that they could drink all day for free. Nothing free about it."

"We did okay, and so did Duff. The ones who could add two and two and could hang back on the bottle. Larry, Jack, and old Pink. They all held on and built up their businesses. During the war, everybody made money. Nick did great with that little fried chicken place on the river," Don said.

"Duff," Jane said aloud, thinking to herself,
They don't know about Lilly. I'm going to have to tell them.

"Bill Duff had the place down the road from us. You know the one. Lilly and her brother are running it," Don said. "Anyway, Gus just kept his eyes and ears open all the time until he got something on you."

"Got something?" Jane asked.

"Got something, made up something," Nellie said.

"Let me tell it, Nellie."

The phone rang and he patted Nellie's arm to keep her still and got up to answer it.

Jane could tell by the look on Don's face and the one-syllable expressions that he let escape that she wouldn't have to tell him about Lilly. Someone was filling him in right now. When he hung up, he came over and stood behind Nellie and put his hands on her shoulders. It was more physical contact between them than Jane had seen in thirty years.

"Lilly Duff is dead," Jane said.

Nellie stared at Jane for a moment, then stood up, pushing away Don's hands.

"The old bastard kills people from the grave," she said, clearing away the coffee things and doughnut crumbs.

"Son-of-a-bitch won't stay dead," Don said. Jane saw tears in his eyes. "That Lilly was shaping up into a fine saloon keeper, too."

"Who called?" Jane asked.

It was Benny, an old pal of her dad's who tended bar for Lilly part-time. Benny had served a drink at almost every bar in town at one time or another. He had a terrible stutter and preferred not to talk at all, which made him the perfect bartender. He was a born listener. Don told Nellie and Jane that he'd been crying when he called. Hadn't been able to find Bobby and was afraid of what he'd do when he found out.

Jane told her parents that she had seen Bobby leave Pinks with the police last night.

"Poor kid," said Don. "He was one step out of trouble anyway, and now with Lilly gone…"

"Did Benny say anything about how it happened?"

"I suppose he thought you'd fill me in," Don said.

"What? Why should she…? Oh, shit," said Nellie, "you weren't the one who found her, were you?" Nellie went to the sink and washed her hands. "What's wrong with you anyway, getting mixed up with dead people all the time?"

"Don't look at me that way. I didn't kill Gus, did I?" Jane stood up, too. She wanted to keep asking about Duncan, about what had made everything turn out so badly, so wrong for everyone. What did he have on everybody? What did he have on Don and Nellie?

Her dad, though, couldn't finish his story now. Jane would have to wait until later. He had promised Benny he'd make some calls, and her mother was already planning on the food she'd bring over to Lilly's brother. "Somebody's going to have to help that one. He isn't worth a damn as a worker, and Lilly was the only thing that stood between him and jail most of the time," Nellie said. "I'll make him a ham."

Jane had a million questions and had to start finding answers. Bruce Oh had never even gotten to why he had come to Kankakee last night, not the details. He had told her they'd talk about it today. Maybe if she started with him, she could follow some kind of Bateman to Duncan to Lilly trail. Jane dialed the cell phone number that Oh had given her last night. It wasn't quite 8:00 A.M., but she was sure he'd be awake.

Oh was ready to meet with Jane, but the last thing she wanted was to bring Oh and Nellie into the same room. She gave him directions from his motel to the McFlea house. She had planned to finish the kitchen this morning so she would be able to work with Tim over on Linnet Street. That was probably out of the question now. She figured the shanties would be off-limits for a while.

Jane's old room was just off the kitchen. She put on her overalls again. If she was going to work on the McFlea, she might as well start out dirty and paint spattered. She stuck her hands into the deep front pockets to straighten the pants and felt a thick wad of paper. Pulling out the packet of letters, she remembered. They were on the basement floor. Maybe that's what Lilly was trying to point to in Jane's dream. Maybe she wanted Jane to read them. Sitting on the edge of her bed, Jane pulled out the first in the packet and unfolded the yellow sheet covered in small flowery script.

Trying to decipher the handwriting in the low light of her bedroom, Jane heard her parents talking about the people in the photo. It sounded to Jane like a morbid listing of everyone who was dead, followed by how and when they had died. Were her parents the only ones left? She thought she heard them talking about Lilly's father and called in to ask them the how and when on him.

"Couldn't handle things after her mother died. Year or so later, must have been, he took the same way out," Don called in to her.

Jane came back in the kitchen. "Suicide?"

"Yep. Louella cut her wrists in the bathtub one night, and Duff came home and found her. Ruined the man," Don said. "One day he went out and started his car in the garage but forgot to go anywhere. That's why Benny's so upset. He found him and then had to go in the house and tell Bobby."

"Where was Lilly?" Jane asked.

"Last year of nursing school," Don said. "She came home and took care of everything, and Gus told her she could have the same deal if she wanted to run the business. She was doing okay, too."

"When was all this?"

"I'm not sure, maybe ten years ago? Fifteen? Lilly was always going back and forth to school. She'd work for a while, then go back to school, then be back here working some more. Thought she'd stick with nursing though; she seemed to like it, Duff told me. After he died though, she just decided to run the saloon. I figured she did it to give Bobby a home and something to do. He was always drifting from one thing to another."

"Lilly was a hard worker," Nellie said, bestowing her supreme compliment. "Who killed her?"

Nellie asked this question as if Jane, as the one who'd discovered the body, would have all the pertinent information. But before she could answer her mother, Don chimed in.

"Nobody. Did it herself. Must run deep in that family."

"What are you talking about?" Jane asked. She thought maybe her father had misheard or that she was dreaming again, so she pinched herself hard while she waited for her dad to set the record straight.

"Pills, she took something, but nobody knows why she was down there in that shanty basement."

"What about… I heard them say they thought she had been hit in the head," Jane said, beginning to get agitated. First Gus, now Lilly. Didn't anybody believe that people could get murdered on Linnet Street?

* * *

An hour later Jane was unpacking boxes at the McFlea. She had brought some of her favorite linens from home— dish towels embroidered with dancing silverware and hand-crocheted pot holders that were shaped like little dresses and hats. She decided to set the table. She chose Harlequin plates, not as pricey or popular as Fiestaware, but just as honest and strong on the table. She used some of her mismatched Bakelite-handled flatware and drew solid red napkins through thick, butterscotch, grooved napkin rings to tie it all together.

On an open shelf over the sink, she carefully set out ten clear juice glasses, none of them exactly the same. They were all Hazel Atlas with the cute little H and A mark on the bottom, each in a different pattern but just close enough to be sparkling variations on a theme. She jotted down a reminder to get flowers for Sunday, so she could put tiny bunches of fresh daisies, stems trimmed down to size, in each Hazel Atlas, so there would be a row of flower-filled glasses over the sink. She was picturing it and humming to herself when Oh tapped at the back door.

"How does someone commit suicide, then set herself up like that? Do you mean to tell me that she picked up that box and held it on her lap while she died?" Jane asked, not wasting anytime with small talk. She had put the shiny chrome kettle that she had just unpacked on to boil, hoping Oh didn't require tea more exotic than the Constant Comment that she had in her shopping bag.

"I spoke with one of my new friends at the police department this morning," Oh said, accepting the tea gratefully. "Lilly Duff took several doses of penicillin, as much as she could get down, before she went into anaphylactic shock. She was highly allergic and knew it. She had made a phone call on her cell phone. Probably just before taking the pills."

"But she was moved? I mean, someone set her up like that, with the box on her lap."

"No. She probably sat down on one box and put the other one on her lap to hold herself there. Maybe she wanted something to hold onto?"

"It seems odd, doesn't it?" Jane asked.

Oh nodded. "But the police don't question the suicide. The phone call she made was to her brother. It was still on his machine when the police brought him home last night. She sounded distraught, said that she had found out something terrible. She said she couldn't live knowing it was true." Oh stopped to sip his tea and take a breath. "She told her brother she was so sorry to have to leave him alone."

"But I heard the police talking about her head— trauma?"

"Speculation at the scene. She had hit her head against the wall, sitting there, a kind of choking spasm, but it had nothing to do with the cause of death."

"Are you satisfied with their explanation?" Jane asked. She found she needed to keep busy while she discussed this or she would keep seeing Lilly sitting up on that box, trying to tell her something, and she wouldn't be able to listen to what Oh was telling her.

Earlier she had strung a small piece of clothesline across the top of the small window in the pantry and the matching window on the same wall outside of the pantry, opposite the kitchen table. She took out a shirt box and opened it, revealing colorful handkerchiefs, some trimmed in hand crochet, some embroidered, all relics of a day when every lady carried a hanky or two in her pocket book. Jane selected handkerchiefs seemingly at random and, folding a small triangle of cloth at the corner over the line, she attached them one by one with time-worn wooden clothes-pins. They made a triangle valence across the top of the window, adding color and movement to that side of the room.

"Charming," Oh said, shaking his head in a kind of wonderment.

Jane faced Oh, and he remembered that she had asked him a question. Was he satisfied with the police explanation? The first answer that came to mind was
no
since he was never satisfied with anyone's explanation except his own, and he hadn't been allowed to get close enough here to reach the explanation stage. However, he reminded himself, he was no longer a police officer. He was a consultant, a private investigator of sorts, and with the information he had gotten this morning, he was satisfied with the facts of Lilly Duff's death.

"I believe she died as a result of an allergic reaction. I believe she took the penicillin voluntarily. Yes, I believe she committed suicide."

"It's the way she was sitting that bothers me. Like she was using that box for a table. Or a lap desk…" Jane touched the letters still unread in her pocket. "Like a lap desk so she could read…"

"Hey, Lucy, I'm home," Tim called out, as he entered the house through the front door. Jane had made him promise not to come in through the kitchen so the room would be a surprise. Other McFlea workers would be coming in and out all day putting the finishing touches on their rooms, readying the house for the opening. Jane wanted to hold onto the kitchen for as long as she could.

"Don't come in; we'll come out," Jane said.

"Lucy, what are you and Ethel up to in there?"

Jane looked at Oh, who looked thoroughly puzzled.

"It's from a television show," Jane explained, "Lucy and Ethel…"

"Yes,
I Love Lucy.
I know. I was thinking about Lilly Duff's message to her brother. What evidence might she have found in the basement? Did Mr. Duncan have any files or records, anything in which she might have discovered… anything? Accounting books, records, old ledgers?"

"Yes, there were boxes of that stuff. Duncan had records from old buildings he took over. Came from all over town."

"Is that Detective Oh I hear in there?"

"Yes, Timmy, we'll be out there in a minute," Jane said. She picked up the last of her empty boxes and stuck them on the back porch.

Jane and Oh went into the living room. Two wing chairs had been placed by the fireplace, and Tim had piled one of them with slipcovers and hand-knit throws. Jane eyed a beautiful green chenille that was just one of the pieces Tim had told her Karen Hack, the woman in charge of the living room, had gotten at a rummage sale for end-of the-day prices. She had filled a plastic garbage bag during the last hour at Saint Stan's and paid two dollars for the entire stack on the chair. She had laundered them and ironed the slipcovers and now was ready to remake the ten-dollar chairs. Jane was mightily impressed. The room wasn't necessarily her taste— a little too symmetrical and traditional— but it was clean and comfortable and fairly chic. The oak-framed mirror over the old sofa was a great touch. Karen had also found some great vases that she was planning to fill with flowers, and Jane knew the room would look like it had cost a fortune. The flowers, purchased from Tim's store, would be the most expensive accessories in the whole space.