Trouble in Rooster Paradise (3 page)

“
Yeah, I guess it’s not a word
that’s used much anymore,” I said wistfully. “At least not in the
way I used it. A masher in those days was a man who made unwanted
advances to a woman he didn’t know.”

Kirsti thought that over and nodded.

“
But, Blue Eyes, maybe save up your
questions as best you can for when we take a break. Otherwise you
might derail my already fragile concentration.”

Anyway, I asked Christine if the guy following
her was a masher. It was easy to imagine a lustful barfly chasing
after this girl—whether in or out of his cups.

She shrugged, her brown curls flouncing on her
shoulders. “Perhaps. I’m not sure. I think so. I had just parted
with a friend and started walking down Market Street when I noticed
him. He hasn’t gotten close enough to talk to me. I’ve managed to
keep distance between us. It’s as if he’s … hunting
me.”

She seemed genuinely distressed. And I’d seen
how she’d looked entering the Ballard Theatre. But, like Sam
Goldwyn said, once an actor can fake being honest he’s got it
made.

“
Do you think you lost the guy when
you ducked into the movie house?”

“
Perhaps … I don’t know.
Frankly, I’m still a little shook up by it.”

Her moment of uneasiness when she thought I was
the law got me curious. Normally, a cop would be a welcome sight
for a gal in her kind of difficulty.

“
Would you like me to drive you to
the police station?” the scamp in me asked.

But her earlier alarm must have been a rare
lapse. No reaction this time. She just shook her head and touched
my arm. Christine’s voice had a seductive rumble to it as she said,
“Would you mind dropping me off at home?” Hers was a siren’s
glance—half dare, half coy. The sparkle in her eyes hinted that
she’d be a very grateful passenger.

I watched as she minced over to a nearby phone
booth, green skirt flailing. “I’ll phone my aunt to let her know
I’m on my way. She’s such a worrier.”

After she’d made her call she gave me an
address I placed about ten blocks up from us—west, over from
Ballard High School. I headed us east on Market Street for
Fifteenth Avenue. It was soon apparent we were being
tailed.

“
Looks like your friend might be
behind us,” I said, fighting an urge to put more pressure on the
gas.

Christine didn’t spin her head around as I
thought she would. Instead, she scooted over to where she was
practically in my lap and peeked discreetly in the rearview
mirror.

“
What makes you think he’s behind
us?” she asked, not bothering to move once her look in the mirror
was over.

“
Educated hunch.” But that was an
understatement. Cruising down Market Street, I’d noticed a newer
model Packard slipping smoothly into traffic a car length or so
behind us. The driver maintained a consistent distance. What
cinched it for me was his obvious attempt to keep pace as we moved
north on Fifteenth—a four-lane main drag that runs through part of
Ballard’s business district. Even when I casually changed lanes, my
pursuer dogged me. Whoever he was, he was either bad at tailing—or
wanted the girl to know he was after her. My money was on the
latter.

“
Do you want me to stop and confront
him? Scare him off?”

“
No … um … he’s probably
just some drunk.”

“
He doesn’t drive like a
drunk.”

“
Can’t you just lose him?” Christine
asked, a plea in her eyes.

Not bothering to answer, I continued driving
several blocks until a car finally nosed in front of our pursuer. I
eased up on the gas a bit as we approached a traffic signal, hoping
that the light would turn red by the time we reached it.

We came to the light and I braked at the first
glint of yellow, causing the driver behind me to lay on his
horn—the Packard snuggling up tight behind him.

“
Brace yourself against the dash,” I
barked. When the light turned red I stepped on the gas, making a
screeching left turn in front of an oncoming motorist that forced
him to slam on his brakes. In my mirror I could see the Packard
frozen in place. Christine was looking at the same scene—one hand
gripping the dashboard, the other one squeezing my right
thigh.

I sped along for three blocks in a residential
area before making a hard right onto a side street with cars parked
on both sides. I drove about thirty yards and pulled the Chevy in
front of an older Willys I hoped would provide cover.

When I killed the motor, Christine scooted over
to her side of the car. She was no modest damsel prying free from
an hysterical clinch. More like a boxer returning to his corner at
the end of a round.

“
Do you think you lost him?”
Christine asked, not bothering to look back.

“
We’ll see.”

She started fumbling with the contents of her
purse and asked, “Do you have a cigarette, Gunnar?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. Don’t smoke. Quit.” I
reached into my shirt pocket.

“
Care for a clove?”

She screwed up her face and shook her head
slowly. I popped one of the dried flower buds into my mouth and
began to casually crush it with my tongue against my teeth,
releasing its numbing oil. Christine watched me.

“
It’s an old home remedy for
toothache,” I explained.

“
Do you have a toothache?” she
asked.

I shook my head and said, “Life’s a
toothache.”

Her need for a smoke made her
talkative.

“
A girl I work with—her name’s
Meredith—she’s always saying that a girl has to look out for
herself because no one else will.”

“
She sounds hardboiled.”

“
Mere
? Oh no. She’s just very
matter-of-fact. She’s sensible. I really appreciate that about her.
Meredith’s a great friend.”

Christine told me she was raised in Spokane,
but had moved to Ballard to live with her aunt. She divided her
time between classes at the University of Washington and part-time
work at a boutique; but she eventually dropped the schooling and
started selling fancy gifts and toilet water full-time.

After a polite listen, I gave her my business
card and intended to ask her for her phone number. She anticipated
me. I knew a discouraging remark when I heard one.

“
Seattle’s still such a hick town.
I’m not setting down any roots. I won’t be staying here much
longer. I’m putting away some money. My dream is to live in a
penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, in New York. It’s good to have
dreams, don’t you think?”

“
Yeah, sure. Dreams are
good.”

“
Of course the best dreams cost lots
of money,” she said.

I didn’t agree or disagree. At the time my
dreams consisted of cutting a rug to music with a heartbeat at the
Palladium, at least until I saw that hoped-for sparkle in the eyes
of my date of the week. Or sometimes I just looked forward to
quaffing a bottle of Pabst with my feet up and listening to
pleasant mood music on KOL or KOMO—which at the time tended to be
Hawaiian tunes.

We saw no Packard during our ten-minute
palaver. At Christine’s insistence I drove a zigzagging route south
about ten blocks. Aunt Emelia’s Victorian looked to have been built
when Teddy Roosevelt was whacking away with his big stick. It was
liberally decorated with fancy moldings, turrets, and bay windows,
which gave it a false appearance of affluence.

I pulled in the driveway and Christine
smothered a visit-ending yawn with a delicate fist—that universal
way of saying, “Is it that time already?” I knew I wouldn’t be
meeting Aunt Emelia.

We faced each other and she took my right hand
in hers. She squeezed my palm and playfully ran the index finger of
her other hand up the front of my shirt—starting at my chest and
ending at my chin. With a tug on my lapel, she pulled my face close
to her pursed lips and gave me a full-mouthed kiss. She quickly
pulled away and whispered, “Thank you,” as she hopped out of the
car.

I didn’t surprise easy, but she shut the car
door before I could even say, “You’re welcome.”

The stone footpath sloped upward. Christine
walked in long climbing strides but with no urgency. Her faille
skirt sculpted the back of each round and solid thigh as one leg
shot in front of the other.

She disappeared inside the house. She didn’t
wave or look back. I didn’t expect her to.

I’d struck out on getting her phone number, and
though she had mine, I was certain she’d not be dialing it anytime
soon. I wasn’t the stuff her dreams were made of.

But it wasn’t the last time I saw the girl. No,
not hardly.

I’
d driven Christine home
Tuesday night. A police summons rousted me from my bed in the
middle of the night Wednesday. And now, in the wee hours of
Thursday morning, I was seeing Christine once again. She was
definitely slumming it. She wore her hair up this time. She didn’t
look so good. A summer dress of rayon crepe enshrouded the lumpy
pile she’d become in the alley off Ballard Avenue. I was of no
further use to her. The cops hoped otherwise.

A white-haired medical examiner squatted over
her body. He shut his black bag, looked up, and said, “She died
before she hit the ground.”

“
Dragged to this spot after she was
shot,” said Detective Sergeant Milland. “Killer wanted her back a
ways. Out of sight.” He was looking at Christine’s foot as he
pointed to the blood trail. One of her platform-soled sandals had
fallen off, and the toe of her nylon was roughed up and torn. Her
skirt was hiked up so that one of her thighs and the fringe of her
underwear showed.

“
Gal had a nice set of legs,”
Milland said. “A real shame to go and break a dish like that.” He
didn’t mean it to be funny, and nobody laughed.

Cops in Seattle ran a gamut that included the
crooked, slightly bent, and those who mixed virtue with their
dishonesty. Frank Milland was not-so-crooked with honest leanings.
Under his fedora he wore short-cropped hair that was prematurely
gray and made him look well over forty. But I knew he was no more
than thirty-five, since he was only a couple years older than me.
He’d tried to enlist during the war despite a wife and kid, but a
severe case of hammertoes barred him from the army. He became an
embittered civilian and an even meaner cop who waged his war on the
many Seattle criminals unlucky enough to get in his way before the
defeat of the Axis powers. We’d first met in the late ’30s, when I
was a neophyte detective working for the Bristol Agency under the
tutelage of Lou Boyd. Frank and Lou didn’t exactly get along. Lou’s
wit didn’t meld well with Frank’s boorishness. But I respected
Milland’s expertise and ignored his bad manners. We didn’t really
become anything resembling friends until after the war.

Milland pointed to purse spillings near where
Christine’s body had dropped.

“
Your business card was bent double
and crammed in her compact. Looks to me like she wasn’t too excited
about remembering you. Was she one of your
dissatisfied
clients?” Milland asked me. “Something she tell you that might tie
in with this massacre?”

“
No,” I said, shaking my head. “No,
to both questions.”

“
We didn’t find no money or
identification on the girl,” said a big-toothed uniformed cop
standing off to the side. “Looks to have been a robbery.” He then
added a “maybe,” with a nervous glance at the
detectives.

Milland shook his head as he looked at the
body. “A messy robbery,” he said. “If that’s what it really
was.”

“
Girl’s name and address?” This
question came at me from Milland’s partner, Bernie Hanson, a
middle-aged man with a weather-beaten face and a vacant stare.
Hanson had the voice of a radio newscaster doing an ad for a
funeral parlor. He held a pencil in one hand, a notepad in the
other.

“
Christine Johanson,” I said. I
could only remember the street number. “She lived with an Aunt
Emelia. I didn’t meet the aunt.”

“
So, how’d you happen to meet up
with this gal?” Milland asked, pointing to the body.

I told them the story.

When I’d finished, Hanson asked, “Get a look at
the driver of that Packard?”

“
No. I just shook the guy for
her.”

“
It seems he didn’t stay shook,”
Milland murmured, giving me a level stare.

Walter and I rode in mortuary silence back to
Mrs. Berger’s. We walked through the kitchen side door at one a.m.
At least that was what the kitty-cat wall clock read—though it
tended to run slow. The cat’s moving eyes signaled each tick; its
pendulum tail wagged like an inverted metronome. That and the
refrigerator’s hum were the only sounds to hail us. I shut and
locked the door as quietly as I could.

A plate of inky black blobs sat on the drain
board. Waxed paper sheltered them. It was Mrs. Berger’s latest
cookie experiment. She’d decided to call them Nightmare Drops. As
volunteer guinea pigs, Walter and I each grabbed one.