A Few Minutes Past Midnight (7 page)

None of us answered.

“More than 233,400 miles,” Bidwell supplied. “And they say the man is sick. Ba-loney.”

“No,” said Mrs. Plaut, entering with a heavy platter. “Cabbage leaves stuffed with meat-and-vegetable hash.”

She placed the platter of fat, rolled-up cabbage leaves in the center of the table and tucked her pink pot holders under her arms.

“I’ll get the potato surprise,” she said and departed.

Bidwell had leaned over to say something to Emma Simcox.

“I will get back to the phone after dinner,” Gunther offered softly.

“I don’t think we’re going to find her in the phone book,” I said.

“But we are not certain,” Gunther said.

The cabbage leaves and hash smelled good, and the huge platter of potato surprise was steaming as Mrs. Plaut carried it in. It had little chunks of something dark in the mountain of mashed potatoes.

“What are those?” Bidwell asked, pointing at the potatoes.

“The surprise,” Mrs. Plaut said with a smile. “Dig in and remember the starving Armenians.”

Mrs. Plaut sat at her regular spot at the end of the table and handed Emma a large serving spoon.

“Our search for Fiona Sullivan is not over,” Gunther said, boldly reaching for the potato surprise.

“I hear she is getting married,” said Mrs. Plaut, watching the platter of cabbage rolls go round the table and Gunther spoon a modest serving of potato surprise onto his plate.

“Who?” asked Emma.

“Fiona Sullivan,” said Mrs. Plaut.

I was holding the platter of cabbage leaves in my hand. Gunther had his first forkful of potato surprise almost to his lips. We looked at each other and then at Mrs. Plaut.

“The surprise is Spam,” she said, opening her napkin and putting it in her lap. “Sugar-browned Spam.”

CHAPTER

4

“F
IONA
S
ULLIVAN
?” I
repeated.

“Getting married is what I heard,” Mrs. Plaut said, holding out two hands to take the platter of cabbage leaves.

“You know her?”

“Who?” asked Bidwell.

“Fiona Sullivan,” Mrs. Plaut repeated. “Takes in boarders, too. Used to be in the RKO makeup department, and other places too. Not friendly, but decent enough in appearance.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Her face, her posture. Some say she’s attractive.”

“No, where’s her boardinghouse?”

“Fourteenth,” she said. “Fourteenth Place, not Street.”

“You have her address?” Gunther asked.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Plaut. “You like the surprise?”

“What?”

“Potato surprise,” she said.

“Delicious,” said Bidwell, who managed amazingly well with one arm.

“Very satisfying,” I said.

Mrs. Plaut looked pleased, got up while we ate, disappeared into the other room where Westinghouse went crazy, and returned with a pile of papers, which she plopped next to my plate.

I knew what it was.

“Just leave it in my room. I’ll read it tonight,” I said.

“Now, I’ll bring everyone a cup of cocoa and vitamin pie,” Mrs. Plaut answered, pointing to the top of the pile of papers. Written in a neat, penciled script was the name, “Fiona Sullivan,” and an address.

For dessert we had the vitamin pie. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good either, but Gunther and I ate it.

“I’ll make Cousin Cassie’s oatmeal prune cake tomorrow,” Mrs. Plaut said. “Your favorite, Mr. Gunther.”

Gunther nodded and smiled.

When we were finished, Gunther and I thanked Mrs. Plaut, said good night to Simcox and Bidwell, and hurried off. The manuscript pages and Fiona Sullivan’s address and phone number were tucked under my arm.

“Cousin Cassie’s oatmeal prune cake?” I whispered to Gunther as we climbed the stairs. “Your favorite.”

“I have never heard of this cake before,” he said.

Emma Simcox followed right behind us and started past us up the stairs.

“Miss Simcox,” I said, “is Mrs. Plaut really your aunt?”

Miss Simcox paused and looked at me.

“Yes,” she said. “By marriage. Aunt Irene has told me that she plans to write about our side of the family in her memoirs.”

She looked pointedly at the papers under my arm.

“I await that part of her history with great interest,” I said.

She moved ahead of us.

It was a little after six. After I dropped the manuscript pages on the table in my room and put the sugar bowl on top of them so Dash wouldn’t knock them over, Gunther and I headed for Fourteenth Place. I turned on the radio. It crackled to music and settled into “There’s a Small Hotel.” When it finished, a baritone voice announced that we were listening to “Claude Thornhill’s All Navy Show.” Before we reached Fiona Sullivan’s we heard Thornhill’s renditions of “Portrait of a Guinea Farm” and a jazzy “Buster’s Last Stand.”

Fiona Sullivan’s house was not as old as Mrs. Plaut’s and not as big. It was a boxy two-story on a small lot with almost identical houses on either side. There were a few cars on the street, but the houses had small driveways and separate wooden garages that didn’t look big enough for anything much larger than my Crosley. We parked and got out.

It had turned dark and cloudy. There were lights on in Fiona Sullivan’s. When we stepped closer, I could see that the place needed more than a little work. Dirty white paint was flaking. Beneath the white was a darker color that could have been green.

Some windows were open and I could hear something classical playing inside.

“Schubert,” Gunther said. “A bit too melodic for my tastes.”

I knocked. The door opened.

The woman who stood there under the porch light was tall, stoop-shouldered, flat-chested, and pale. Her dark hair was tied in a tight bun and she wore round, rimless glasses over narrowed eyes. Her only makeup was a touch of pink in her cheeks that did not become her, and her only touch of near color was a large locket engraved with two silver birds with spread wings that hung from a silver chain around her neck.

“Mrs. Sullivan?” I asked.

“Miss,” she corrected, looking down at Gunther, her hand reaching up to touch her silver birds.

“Miss Sullivan, can I ask you a few questions?”

“Why?”

“That is Schubert’s
Unfinished
,” Gunther said.

She looked down at Gunther.

“Yes.”

“A lovely piece,” Gunther said. “Schubert himself did not particularly care for it.”

“Do you know Charlie Chaplin?” I asked.

“Charlie Chaplin? How the hell would I know Charlie Chaplin?” she asked with a snort.

“Do you know a man about five foot eight, thin hair, maybe wearing glasses, around forty?” I tried.

“Probably no more than fifteen or twenty,” she said. “Half the men I know probably look like that.”

“We understand you are contemplating marriage,” Gunther said. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Fiona Sullivan answered, but she didn’t look particularly happy.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Not your business,” she said.

“I’m a private investigator,” I said, taking out my wallet and fumbling for my frayed license.

She took the wallet, lifted her glasses, and squinted at the license. Then she handed it back.

“How much you charge?”

“Depends on what I’m asked to do.”

“Howard’s missing,” she said. “My fiancé. Come in.” We stepped past her and she continued. “You believe in cards, astrology, the like?”

Thinking of Juanita, I said, “There’s something to it.”

“I don’t believe in that stuff. But I believe in fate and your coming to my door when I was thinking about what to do to find Howard, that’s fate.”

She stepped ahead of us into a living room with dark wooden floors, a faded Navajo carpet, and gray mismatched chairs facing a sofa that strived for gray and came up sun bleached. The walls were lined with black-and-white photographs of women, studio head shots. I looked at them as Fiona Sullivan pointed toward the two chairs.

“I worked on all those ladies,” she said proudly as I scanned the wall. “Adele Mara, Mary Beth Hughes, Janis Carter, Ann Dvorak, Helen Walker. And over there. That’s Joan Leslie.”

“Impressive,” I said. “You stopped working.”

“Arthritis,” she said. “Lost the touch.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Your fiancé …”

“Howard Sawyer,” she said. “You didn’t tell me what you charge.”

“Twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses,” I said.

She sat, knees together, squinting at me.

“How many days to find him?” she asked.

“I may do this one for nothing,” I said. “You made a face when I described a man a few minutes ago. That fit your Mr. Sawyer. Right?”

“What’s he done?” she asked. “You want some peanuts and Pepsi?”

“I don’t know what he’s done,” I said. “And peanuts and Pepsi would be fine for me.”

She looked at Gunther.

“For me, nothing. Thank you.”

Schubert had stopped. Fiona Sullivan got up, moved to a record player in the corner, lifted the playing arm, and turned off the machine. Then she clumped out of the room.

“Charming,” Gunther said.

“The night is young,” I said.

She was back in the room quickly, holding a glass of Pepsi and a small, half-filled yellow dish of shelled peanuts. She looked around as if she expected something to be missing. Satisfied, she handed me the drink and put the bowl on the small table in front of me next to a pile of
Life
magazines.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip. The Pepsi was room temperature.

She sat across from me.

“You have many boarders?” I asked.

“At the moment, none. I was renovating. Howard was my only boarder for the past two months.”

“No income then?”

“I saved my studio money and came into a tidy enough amount when my mother passed on. What’s this got to do with the price of tea in China?”

“Nothing,” I said, sipping again.

“So?”

“Mr. Sawyer’s room. Did he take his things?”

“I don’t believe he has run away,” she said. “It’s your job to find out what happened to him should I decide to employ you. His room is as it was. His clothes are in the closet and drawers. His desk is untouched. I have changed the linens. Something must have happened to him.”

I reached for some peanuts and popped them into my mouth. They were too salty. I crunched and nodded.

“Can we take a look at his room?” I asked.

She scratched her neck, turned her head, and looked at Gunther.

“You’re a German,” she said.

“Swiss,” Gunther corrected.

She shook her head in disbelief. “All right,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “Upstairs. First door. Right in front of you. Let’s go. I move slow but I’m coming. I climb the stairs as little as I can. Arthritis.”

Gunther and I crossed the room with Fiona Sullivan behind us. The stairs were steep, but there weren’t many of them. The second-floor landing was narrow, with three doors. I flipped on the lights and moved to the door in front of us. Inside the door I felt for a switch and found it. Two lamps came on.

The room wasn’t impressive. It looked a lot like mine at Mrs. Plaut’s, only smaller.

“Cozy,” I said, looking at the only painting in the room, a large picture of a girl looking down a cliff at the white waves hitting the rocks below her. The tips of the waves seemed to be reaching up for her.

Without a word Gunther moved to the desk. I moved to the drawers. Fiona Sullivan stood watching us, arms folded. I found clothes, period.

Gunther found much more. He stood before the desk, carefully going through papers on top of it and in the drawers.

“Toby,” he said, turning to me with a black-and-white composition book in his small hands. The book was open. “At the bottom of the drawer, under stationery and a box of pencils.

“What is it?” Fiona Sullivan asked, moving toward me as Gunther handed me the book.

In neat, black-inked script was a list of names, all women. There were eight names. The first five were crossed out.

“You recognize any of these names?” I asked her.

She squinted over my shoulder.

“Mine,” she said.

Her name was number six on the list. The name after hers was Elsie Pultman.

“Any others?”

“No,” she said.

“You have friends, relatives you can stay with for a few days?” I asked.

“In Topeka and Abilene,” she said. “I’m not leaving my home. Why should I? And come to think of it, why did you come to my door and why are you so interested in Howard Sawyer?”

“Gunther, can you …?”

He knew what I was going to say and answered, “Yes.”

“What are you two talking about?” Fiona Sullivan asked.

“Until we find out why there are lines through the names of these five women, I don’t think you should be alone,” I said.

“You think Howard …? That’s ridiculous.”

“I shall need some things,” Gunther said.

“No,” the woman said firmly. “Howard would not hurt me. You have no reason to think he might. You have an active imagination and a wish for my twenty-five dollars a day.”

“No charge,” I said. “I’ve got a client.”

“You are both confidence men,” she said. “A homely confidence man and a tiny confidence man. And I have no confidence in you.”

“I’ve got a contact in the police department,” I said. “Let Gunther stay for one night.”

She looked at Gunther and said cautiously, “You like Brahms?”

“Passionately,” he said, though I was pretty sure he had told me that he didn’t like Brahms any more than he liked Schubert. He was strictly a Mozart, Verdi, Bach, and Beethoven fan.

“You want to take a ride with us to Mrs. Plaut’s?” I asked.

“Irene Plaut?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “She said she knows you.”

“Conversation with Irene Plaut would drive me mad tonight,” she said.

“She had kind words for you too,” I said. “I’ll wait here while you get some things,” I said to Gunther, handing him my car keys.

He had his own car with built-up pedals and cushion, but I knew he could handle the Crosley.