Trouble in Rooster Paradise (27 page)

There was only a handful of people in Holger’s,
but Verna and I might as well have been alone given, the absolute
noiselessness at our booth. As each second passed the quiet
intensified. We gradually sensed our mutual understanding and I
realized just how powerful my physical attraction was for this
gorgeous virago—despite my Dutch headache.

Gunnar the Insatiable.

“
I’ve always liked you too, Verna.”
It wasn’t original, but for the moment it allowed my throbbing head
and dulled mind to come to terms with what exactly she was
after.

She put her cup down and leaned her head
forward, which gave me a sightseer’s view of her Grand Canyon. I
quickly looked up to dreamy brown eyes and a pert smile that told
me she approved of my sightseeing.

Glossy red lips moved unhurriedly as she said,
“You talk real nice, but mainly you’re a good listener. You make a
girl feel … well … worth something.” She took another sip
of coffee before adding, “I was thinkin’ how we really oughta get
to know each other better. Better than we do now, I
mean.”

Her luscious mouth closed and she waited for me
to take the next step.

I suspected what she had in mind. Either she
wanted to strike back at Hank through me, or she just needed help
to cut the umbilical cord once and for all. Believe you me, I was
sorely tempted to help her do the cutting, but I could think of
several good reasons not to. The trick was explaining things
delicately. When you pass on a sumptuous three-course dinner, then
you’d best word things just right if the cook knows you’re
suffering from hunger pangs.

I wasn’t about to tell her I thought she was
still in love with Hank. Too explosive a topic. And it wouldn’t do
to tell her my rule against getting involved with married women.
She’d have dismissed it as a minor technicality. And there was no
sense in telling her that I didn’t want to risk ruining our
friendship if things didn’t work out between us. She’d have seen it
as the lame dodge it would have been. So I decided to tell her a
truth that would allow her to leave the field with dignity and make
it so I’d still be welcome at Holger’s.

Sounding as plaintive as I could, I said, “If
this had only happened last week …. You see, Verna, I’ve met
this girl, and well … things are really going good between
us.” I gave her a grimace that turned into a weak smile and added,
“You understand, don’t you?”

There was always the chance she’d still be hurt
and angry, despite my tact. Instead, the smile never left her
pretty face. Her eyes became a little blank as she laughed and
said, “Well, Gunnar, you’re sure not givin’ this girl much to write
about in her diary tonight. I was hopin’ for at least two
paragraphs.”

We made small talk awhile and then she stood up
with graceful ease and snatched tablet and pencil from her apron
pocket. She scratched something on a corner of a page, tore it off
and handed it to me.

“
My new telephone number. You know,
in case things go bust with your new girl.”

She picked up her empty cup and went back on
duty. Somehow she’d managed to refasten that second button when I
wasn’t looking.

As I got under the wheel of my Chevy, I
applauded myself for my restraint. Another guy would have gone
after Verna like a gin-fiend cut loose in a distillery. Still, my
self-congratulations didn’t stop a few erotic flights of fancy
about what might have been. I even started to kick myself a little.
But these thoughts were quickly swept away by something I
remembered Verna had said. It gave me the idea I needed as to where
to go next.

I got there at about 5:15. It proved to be a
windfall.

Christine had been the navigator the night I
drove her home. When you consider that my attention had been
divided between the road and Christine’s figure, eyes, and pouting
lips, it was surprising I still remembered the street. Luckily Aunt
Emelia’s was the only two-story Victorian in sight.

The sky had cleared and it was a perfect day
for combat. At least the local kids thought so. Boys wearing
oversized sailor caps and army helmets had turned Aunt Emelia’s
street into a battleground while a cluster of noncombatant young
girls hopscotched on a neutral sidewalk. I drove slowly to allow
the pretend soldiers to fan out as they machine-gunned me and my
make-believe Chevy-tank. Conveniently, Aunt Emelia lived a ways
from the carnage.

The lines of the structure were familiar. Its
daylight look was that of a smart gray house with a neatly
manicured lawn. I turned into the driveway and parked. An elderly
woman with carefully plaited gray hair sat on the verandah. She had
the high cheekbones and almond eyes of her niece. But she was old
and no longer beautiful. She knew it and she didn’t like it. She
was knitting, her hands moving violently. As I stepped out of the
car our eyes locked, and to my amusement, neither one of us broke
off our gazes as I made my approach. Hers was a withering look that
made me feel like
idiot du jour
.

As she and I continued our stare-down, Aunt
Emelia feverishly worked her needles. She picked up her rhythm as I
came in her direction and made me feel more and more like a scab
crossing a picket line. I made out the closing refrains of “Don’t
Get Around Much Anymore,” as I reached the bottom stair of her
porch.

I wanted to search Christine’s room. How to get
past Aunt Emelia’s formidable-looking defenses was the
question.

“
Good afternoon,” I said, hat in
hand. I was striving for a boyish grin to meet her stern
expression, but a grimace was about all my sore face and aching
head could muster.

She abruptly stopped her knitting and turned
off her portable radio. She said, “Good afternoon,” in a way that
seemed anything but. Hers was the strong Scandinavian accent of my
grandparents.

“
Ja
,
ja
, but I already
talk to the police.”

“
I’m not the police,” I said. I told
her that I’d been hired by one of Christine’s employers to look
into her murder.

“
Ja
, I know nothing more to
tell.” A Scandinavian’s “
ja
” can mean yes or no depending on
the tone. Her “
ja
” was drawn out to two syllables. It was
definitely a negative.

She looked down at the knitting she quickly
resumed. I started climbing the porch steps. Nearby, three cats
circled like buzzards the soured residue of a toppled milk
bottle.

Aunt Emelia sat in a high-backed wicker chair,
its white sheen worn away from use where her head and hands rested.
“Do you mind if I sit with you as we talk?” I asked and pointed to
the chair beside her—the twin of hers except its finish was still
glossy. Visitors weren’t exactly lining up for porch visits with
Emelia—not
human
visitors anyway. I brushed a few hair balls
off the chair’s cushion and plopped down. She put her needles and
yarn in a straw-colored basket at her feet.

I took it as a good sign.

Emelia Larson was a widow of ten years. She
told me she had lived in Ballard for twenty-five years. Meanwhile
the tabby cat crept closer to us.

“
Christine should never have come to
live with me.”

“
Why’s that?”

She crinkled up her nose and eyes at me. “She
was to go to school and work a little. Instead she work a lot and
do no schooling.” She shook her head. The basket at her feet was
loaded with balls of yarn. The tabby made its way to it.

“
What happened to school?” I
asked.

“
Fool business is what.
Ja
,
that’s what happened.”

Aunt Emelia’s right foot shot out as swiftly as
a placekicker’s. A blur of fur and a feline screech signaled the
failure of the tabby’s invasion of the yarn basket. It landed in a
bush alongside the steps and scurried off as the old woman mumbled
something in Swedish that I couldn’t make out. The other cats were
gone.

Aunt Emelia was definitely a rugged old bird. I
saw no need to tread lightly. “I’ve seen photos of Christine. A
pretty girl like her probably had a lot of suitors,” I
prompted.

“
Ja
,” she said sighing.
“Christine don’t think I know what she be doing. I tell her more
than once to stop acting like some
flyg skökan
.”

It wasn’t standard Swedish, but I knew enough
Svensk jargon to recognize “flying whore” when I heard
it.

“
The night before she was killed,
she come home late again. We have a fight. I tell her quit her fool
business or she have to leave.”

“
What did she say?”

“
She laugh and tell me she be
leaving soon anyway. She expect
big
money
,” Aunt
Emelia said as she slapped her left palm with the back of her right
hand for emphasis. “She say she plan to move to New York City, and
so
there
.
Ja
, that’s what she say.” Aunt
Emelia’s face showed the angry disgust that masks hurt.

“
The police say robbery. But I think
Christine come to no good. I think she be killed for something bad
she done.”

“
What makes you say
that?”

Worn shoulders heaved. “A feeling. Just a
feeling.”

“
Did you tell the police about this
feeling?”

“
Ja
, but why should I? They
can’t bring her back. Who knows what
skräp
the police dig
up?”

I got the drift.

“
Why break my brother’s heart? He
think his Christine was robbed. Let him think that. That’s sorrow
enough.
Ja
, let him be at peace with little
sorrow.”

I told her she was wise. I asked if the police
had gone through Christine’s things.

She shook her head. “What for? They were going
to. But then one of them get a call that say they get the fella
what killed her.”

“
Mrs. Larson, I believe the man
they’re holding is innocent. I think Christine was killed by
someone else.”

She considered that a moment. “
Ja
, and
so what do
you
want?”

“
I’d like to look through
Christine’s things. Maybe I’ll find something that will help me
find her murderer.”

She gave me what my grandpa Sven used to call a
scrootinizing
skvint
. “You won’t make Christine look
bad? You won’t hurt her folks?” They were more commands than
questions.

I told her I wouldn’t. I said I just wanted to
bring the murderer to justice.

“
Ja
,
dynga
justice,”
she said, spitting the words out through her once soft lips. She
got up and indicated for me to follow her into the house. She was
agile for her years but thumped when she walked. She led me
upstairs and pointed to a closed door.

“
That was
her
room. Do what
you do,” she said as she turned and thumped back
downstairs.

Christine had adopted her aunt’s sewing room.
It had become the room of a girl in the intense wrench and stretch
of life’s sinews and muscles. A fluffy, stuffed kitten rested on
her pillow. The pillowcase and bedspread were speckled with prints
of Raggedy Ann. Had she brought these from home or had Aunt Emelia
furnished them? Whatever the case, these were tokens of residual
girlhood that had given way to another world and its symbols: the
glut of lotions, rouge, jars, and perfumes piled in heaps on her
dresser top, and the provocative finery in the closet. It was the
burgeoning and prevailing domain of the demimonde.

It took me two minutes to find what I was
looking for. It was in her dresser drawer, carefully wrapped in a
pair of scented underwear in the middle of a stack of
others.

I stuffed the item in my coat pocket. I
rummaged around awhile longer for show. Then I bounced downstairs
to where Aunt Emelia sat in her front room. She showed no signs of
curiosity. She merely nodded as I bid her a solemn
farväl
and a sincere
tack sä mycket
.

After driving two blocks, I parked and started
thumbing through Christine’s diary.

It was more a daily log than a personal memoir.
Any hints of self-analysis were absent. Lacking too were any
Aesopian morals to her boring little stories. Most of it was
tidbits of tedium: the stockings she’d purchased, the meals she’d
eaten, the friends she’d met and what they wore.

But it wasn’t all dull reading. She’d spelled
my name as “Guner” and wrote only that I’d helped her out of a
“tight spot.” She described me as “a nice enough guy who was a
little on the make.”

But what really caught my eye were the periodic
marginal entries. These were terse and written in a very small
hand. She used no names—just nicknames and initials.

Armed with one of the names I’d learned from
Walter, I studied a few of Christine’s glosses until I thought I’d
made sense of a couple from some months back.

G
.
called
.
H.R. in can
. I
interpreted this to mean that Guy had called to tell her his photos
of Hugh Rundquist were good to go. Or maybe that he’d succeeded in
shaking him down. Two weeks later I found an entry that read:
First payment from H.R.: $500.
De Carter was probably
paymaster, but she had her own silly brand of
bookkeeping.