Fadeaway Girl (27 page)

My mother had turned to take a plate down from the shelf over the stove. “Well, now that you're here—finally—you can take your great-aunt's tea up to her.”

Lucky me.

A
urora raised the little lid and looked in the teapot as if looking for more than tea leaves, set it back down and looked at the milk in the pitcher, raised the lid of the sugar bowl and frowned into it. She reminded me of a squirrel looking for a hidden acorn.

Then she picked up one of my mother's lace cookies and studied the holes and tiny slits made by its stretched thinness.

I slouched against the wall and asked a useless question. “What are you doing?”

“Checkin' out my tea. What's it look like?”

“Why are you having tea? You never have tea.”

She shrugged and bit the cookie. She plunked four cubes of sugar into her cup. “Milk's cold. Must of come straight out of the icebox.”

“I'm so sorry. Next time I'll milk a cow. Now: Raphael Slade.” I guessed she was thinking with that blind stare.

She actually rose up out of her chair a few inches, then fell back. The exertion had her munching another lace cookie. Through the crumbs, she said, “Why?”

“That's what I've been asking myself.”

“Well . . . All right, the Slade baby gets kidnapped the night of the ball at the Belle Ruin. I was there, did I tell you?”

“A lot of times.”

“The belle of the ball, that was me.”

Aurora was ninety-one. She would have been around seventy. I guess if you're not dead by then you're the belle of the ball. I didn't want her to get caught up in that. “You told me before that you were there when Sheriff Mooma came.”

“Indeed I was.”

“Okay: so Gloria Spiker told him she'd just stepped out to make that phone call and was gone for twenty minutes.”

She nodded and bit off another piece of cookie and studied the rest.

“She was lying and so was Prunella Rice. They were both paid to set up that phone call, so when Mr. Woodruff told Sheriff Mooma he just needed some time to work out whether Morris Slade had something to do with the kidnapping, he was lying too. Obviously, Mr. Woodruff knew what was going on and who was responsible, because he knew the phone call was bogus.”

Aurora was rocking now with both hands on the arms of her chair and a glint like splinters in her eyes. “That old Lucien Woodruff paid somebody to take the baby away.”

“Robby Stone. He was the bellboy that had the car accident.”

“You said they found his body, but not the baby's.”

I nodded. “So I'm guessing Robby had already delivered the baby to someone.”

“Could've killed and buried it.”

I did not want the notion of a baby being murdered to hang around in my head too long. “Hardly. As the baby turned out to be Ralph Diggs.”

Now she stopped rocking. “Delivered, but nobody knows where.” She clucked her tongue. “Ain't that the limit?” She took her deck of cards out of the pocket of her dark blue cotton dress. It was sprigged all over with tiny flower bouquets. She started slapping the cards down, probably more to help her think than from a desire for solitaire. “Why don't you ask him?”

“Ask him? As if he'd tell me. Anyway, I don't want him to know I know. I think Morris Slade was meant to be the guilty party in that so-called kidnapping.”

“Framed? God, I think maybe you're gettin' ahead of yourself. You haven't got one speck of hard evidence. Did you get hold of that Oates fellow?”

I think Aurora was getting addled. “Get
hold
of him? How? That was back in your day. I told you I can't pay a private detective.” I saw no reason to add that the Wood boys and Mr. Root were on the case.

 

After serving Aurora's tea, I had a couple of hours until her drink serving. I decided to make a quick trip to Britten's, to see if Mr. Root and the Woods were back.

They were. The three of them were standing together, smoking, or at least Mr. Root and Ubub were. Ulub and Ubub had their old suit jackets on, collars turned up. The collar of Mr. Root's jungle plaid shirt was turned up too. They probably all thought they were searching for the Maltese Falcon. At least it was an improvement over poor Ulub reciting Emily Dickinson. The way they were huddled you'd think there was a dead body at their feet, or else a pile of money.

When they saw me, they made furious motions with their hands, waving me over to the conference.

“Hi. Did you find—?”

They all started talking at once, but Mr. Root was the only one I could understand.

“That Slade fella? We sure did. He—”

“E en at ow fat union—”

“Now, just you wait, Ubub; I'm tellin' this.”

Ubub looked crushed. He had very large chocolate brown eyes, and looking crushed was one thing he did well.

Mr. Root backpedaled a bit. “I mean, just the beginning, you know, to put Emma here in the picture.”

“Ah en up er n a eur.”

We could stand here all day and all night at this rate. I said, “Let Mr. Root give me the facts, Ubub, and you two can interpret them.” Whatever that meant. But it seemed to mollify them. Sometimes I wondered at my able diplomacy. I think I was the only one who wondered at it.

“Right,” said Mr. Root. “You know where the son of a gun done went? Cold Flat Junction.”

That did surprise me. I don't know where I thought he was headed for, but that wasn't it. “Where?”

Mr. Root looked as if he'd invented the whole story, pleased as punch. “Queens' house.”

I frowned. Then I remembered, of course: Rose Devereau Queen.

“We sat in the truck—at a distance, mind; he never saw us—and waited. Whoever came to the door stood talking to him a minute. Then he went inside and never come out for over an hour.”

Ubub blurted, “E usta ha omin a alk out?”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Root, nodding. “They musta had somethin' to talk about, is right.”

Ubub looked pleased at his interpretation. Then he said, “En he c'm out, e ooked ad.”

“Mad? Bad?”

All three shook their heads. “Sad,” said Mr. Root. “Real sad.”

They would have talked about the death of Rose Queen. “Where'd he go then?”

It was Ulub's turn. He spoke a shade more clearly than his brother. “En he ent t' the iner.”

“What? Did you say the
diner
?”

“Sure did, and we was hot on his heels. Now, diners, that's a place I feel right at home, right, fellas?”

I thought for a moment Mr. Root was going to snap his suspenders like Walter Brennan. Morris Slade in the Windy Run Diner. Oh, how I wish I could have seen it.

“He was havin' coffee. Havin' coffee and smokin' a cigar. Tell you what: that was the best-smellin' cigar I ever encountered. Looked expensive too. He clipped off the end with a gold thingamabob and just smoked away. People in there, hell, you'd've thought he was some foreign official or some member of royalty or other.”

Mr. Root went on: “So we had ourselves some coffee and some coconut cream pie—”

“Ah ate appa'.” Ulub wanting to set the record straight.

“Good pie,” said Mr. Root.

By now we were all sitting down, crowded onto the bench that could comfortably hold only three, listening to this story, Ulub and Ubub listening right along with me, as if they hadn't actually been there and were hearing it for the first time.

“Now, the lady behind the counter that waited on us all, you could see she was all agog, seeing the likes of him in there. Well, you got to admit, Morris Slade looks pretty good.”

I had to admit Morris Slade looked pretty good.

 

Morris Slade and the Queens.

Added to the mystery of why he was here at all was what business he could have in Cold Flat Junction.

“Fey” Slade. It was a peculiar nickname to draw from “Raphael.” Why not “Ralph” or, even more likely, “Rafe,” as he was calling himself.

According to the police report, he was no more than four months old when he was taken. That's if Sheriff Mooma was to be believed, and I saw no reason to doubt him.

I had just delivered Aurora her before-dinner drink and pondered all of this as she pronounced the Hollow Leg the best one yet. I'll say this about her, she can be quite complimentary, but then I guess even Mrs. Davidow would be paying me compliments if her glass were three-fourths whiskey and one-fourth apple juice and, in this case, a tiny bit of crushed-up red chili, which gave it its kick. I mean, whatever kick the whiskey didn't provide.

I studied the posters on the walls. Aurora had been a big traveler in her youth, sailing off on the
Queen Mary
and “almost” on the
Titanic,
she said, “But I canceled that. I knew something bad was going to happen.” Like the captain knew, when he saw that iceberg, I didn't bother adding. The only second sight I can put up with is Mrs. Louderback's.

The posters were not framed, but just put up with a sticky gum-like material behind each corner. They showed slim men and women looking rich and being gay in Brittany, the Côte d'Azur, Deauville, Capri, and places such as that. Above the beach in Deauville, where brilliant umbrellas fluttered in what must have been a warm breeze and a golden sun, a woman in a bathing suit waved to her friends farther down on the beach. Rich and happy people waved to other rich and happy people in the distance. Did women really dress like that in those airy-looking gowns, so thin and flat they looked like ocean waves themselves? And men in boaters and striped jackets happily handing these women down to patios covered with plum trees. Hanging around a chauffeur-driven car, a woman wrapped in white fur waved at someone else out there, dancing under the stars.

They all looked so fortunate that I had to wonder if it was really this life they were living, or if they were waving to me from latitudes I probably would never be lucky enough to share.

I was snatched back from Deauville by ice rattling in Aurora's glass as she held out her hand and demanded another Hollow Leg. I didn't protest; I couldn't be bothered. I was making plans for tomorrow.

I
was glad I was wearing a sweater because there really was a wind coming down Windy Run Road and it just about blew the metal-framed door of the diner back out of my hand. I knew the first comment would be of the just-blew-in variety.

“Well, look what that wind out there just blowed in!”

This was Evren, sitting on his usual counter stool between Don Joe and Billy.

For several boring minutes, while I studied the pies in their glass case, they all talked about the weather. Then Mervin came in without his wife. (I was glad to see) and said hello to everyone and slid into his usual booth.

Louise Snell smiled and asked, “You want lunch, Mervin, or just coffee?”

“Coffee, thanks. Too early for lunch.” Then he thought better of it and said, “Maybe a waffle, Louise, to hold me over.” He kind of laughed, then smiled at me, tipping his head in greeting, as if it were a hat. “How are you, Emma?”

Evren answered for me: “She nearly got blowed to Alaska.”

Don Joe put in, “One of our fifty states. The other bein' Hawa-ya, if I remember correctly.” He stared at me.

I crimped my mouth shut. He was never going to let it rest that I'd corrected him about the forty-eight states. I let “Hawa-ya” be, though I was sorely tempted. When Louise Snell asked me if I'd like a piece of pie I said no, I'd like a doughnut. I'd taken to heart what Mervin had said; it was a little early for lunch. It had better be, if I was to get back to serve it.

I tried to come up with some easy way of getting talk around to the stranger in the tan suit with a cigar.

“So what you up to this mornin', girl? You finished writin' that story yet?”

This came from Don Joe, to Billy's obvious displeasure, for he always wanted to be the one to ask first. It was the perfect subject, one that I'd almost forgotten about because I'd hardly worked on it for nearly two weeks. “No, I haven't finished. That's one reason why I came. I need to talk to the Queens again. And I'd like to talk to their cousin. I hope he's still around.” I munched my doughnut.

Interest sparked. Here was a fresh topic. Billy waded right in. “Now he wouldn't be a tall blond fella, kinda citified type?”

“Citified? He probably is, as he's from New York.”

Mervin said, “I'd not call him blond, Billy. No, his hair's more tawny, you know.” He was looking at me. “All shades of blond and light brown.”

Billy had swung around on his stool to face Mervin. “Mervin, is them specs you got on in need of cleanin'? 'Cause you don't see very well in 'em. That hair was blond hair if I ever did see blond hair.” He swung back to face the counter.

Then Evren dared to say, “Well, now, I think Mervin's got a point there—”

Billy glared at Evren, and Evren drank his Coke. “Pretty soon you'll be sayin' the man was drivin' a Ford.”

Don Joe got a swallow of coffee spewed out of his nose when he laughed. He said to me, “He was drivin' a Porch.”

I wanted to say he drove a Porch all over Hawa-ya, but I held my tongue.

Louise Snell, who, like Mervin, had good sense, said, “Yeah, and all of you looked like you was six years old, gawking out of the window as he drove off.”

“You got to admit, Louise, we don't get many of them kinda cars around here.”

“Good thing too, the effect it had. And it's ‘Porsche,' Don Joe.”