The Pink Flamingo Murders (5 page)

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Kathy sighed.

“Uh. It has great potential,” I said. For disaster. For bankruptcy.

“That’s what everyone says,” Kathy said, looking
pleased. “Just look at that fireplace.” I did. The wood had about sixty coats of white enamel. The mantel was covered with coffee rings, foam cups, and soda cans.

“It’s mahogany,” she said. “The other owners covered it with deck enamel. All we have to do is clean it off.”

All? She’d blithely dismissed months of painstaking work. “We’re doing the woodwork now,” she said, pointing to a four-foot section of stripped wood. There were miles of ugly, brown-painted woodwork, coated with dirt. The main rooms had three pieces of furniture: a dusty black Naugahyde couch decorated with white paint drips, a television on a listing stand, and a pressed-wood coffee table covered with cans of spackle, paint brushes, and paint samples.

“We’ll get good furniture when we finish everything,” she said. “Right now we’re working upstairs. We just love this staircase.” The wood looked dingy under its coat of gray dust. My fingers were gritty and gray with dust. But then the shifting sunlight touched the wood, and just for a minute, I saw what Kathy and Dale did: The mellow honey-gold wood glowed in the summer sun. Then the light shifted, and the staircase was once again dingy and depressing. I followed Kathy upstairs, past dark, closed doors, stacks of wallboard, tools, and paint cans. One door was open. It was obviously their bedroom, and the room had been finished. I caught a glimpse of sheer, gauzy curtains, soft yellow candles that had burned low, and a fullblown yellow rose on a bedside table. The bed was scrolled ironwork and the sheets looked rumpled from love. The sight pierced my heart. That could have been my morning, but I’d canceled my time with Lyle and chased ambulances instead. Kathy blushed and pulled the door shut. “Let me show you the bathroom,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out what to do with it.”

The bathroom walls were covered with bright,
blinding blue cabbage roses the size of dinner plates. They looked like some awful tropical fungus. “We think it’s wallpaper,” she said. “It may be vinyl. It sure is stuck on there.”

It was stuck on the clawfoot bathtub, too. The previous owners had covered the outside of the tub with the rank blue cabbage roses and painted the toenails on the clawfeet blue.

“First bathtub I’ve ever seen with a manicure,” I said.

“I was wondering,” Kathy said. “Do you know how to get wallpaper off a bathtub?”

I was still laughing when I walked to my flat. Dale’s fresh cinnamon decaf sweetened a morning that had started sour. I changed into one of my spiffiest Donna Karan suits. Before I went into the office, I decided to drive by Ratley Street to see the alleged crack house. It was only four blocks—all downhill—from North Dakota Place to Ratley Street. Ratley looked like a handsome man invaded by cancer. The street was deathly silent. Not even birds sang. Caroline said the drug house was the first rowhouse. It was a nasty place, with a weedy front yard fenced with rusty chain link. A little alley ran alongside the building, making it easier for the dealer to do business. The unpainted plywood front door had burglar bars, and there were more bars on all the first-floor windows. Evidently the owner had never heard the term “second-story man.” He didn’t believe burglars could climb to the second floor. The basement windows were boarded. A rusty
FOR SALE
sign dangled by one hook from a post. I looked at the sign and saw the real estate agent’s name. I knew that woman. Poor Tracy McCreery. She was new to the company and got the worst listings. No one in their right mind would ever buy this place.

The rooming house next door was just as bad.
Dingy curtains flapped out of the open, unscreened windows. The yard was a depressing mess of uncut crabgrass and chickweed. The only lawn decoration was a seatless toilet, with a tire leaning on it. On the front porch was a beige couch with ripped upholstery. The farther away the houses were from these two eyesores, the better they looked. By the other end of the street, there were little pots of geraniums and concrete birdbaths in the yards, and I could see how Ratley Street used to look. I shook my head at the sorry sight and left.

I had half a mind to skip breakfast at Uncle Bob’s Pancake House, since I’d already had coffee, but I didn’t go there for the food, anyway. I didn’t like to admit, even to myself, that Uncle Bob’s was my refuge. It was my office away from the
Gazette
, and readers knew they could find me there most mornings. The waitresses even took messages for me, and they were more efficient than our department secretary. Uncle Bob’s was a good source for juicy city scandals. The police, the city workers, the city attorneys, and the people they plea bargained all ate there. By the time I sat down in a booth, Marlene the waitress was waiting with my usual. About eight years ago I’d ordered one egg scrambled and wheat toast. That became my permanent breakfast, for better or worse. But along with the skimpy food came a generous serving of gossip.

“Your boss Charlie was in last night with another of his cookies,” Marlene said, holding two pots of hot coffee and pouring the decaf into my cup. She has wrists a tennis player would envy.

“Short? Red-haired? Has a pussycat bow?” I said.

“And a snippy attitude,” Marlene said. “Charlie’s brought in some doozies before, but this one was the limit. That woman expected to be waited on like the Queen of Sheba. Sat on her fat ass—I should talk, but at least mine is in proportion to the rest of me—and
pointed at me and then at her cup when she wanted more coffee. Didn’t even deign to say ‘Waitress.’”

“That’s Nails. This is bad news. I think he’s serious about this one, Marlene.”

“I think he is, too. He’s got that look. People in my profession always know when someone is cheating,” she said.

“No offense, but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out Charlie was up to something,” I said, waving a piece of wheat toast at her.

“Yeah, but a lot of folks fooling around think they’re clever. We always know. Even if a cheating couple is just having lunch, I can tell.”

“You don’t believe in a business lunch?” I asked.

“Of course. But monkey business looks different from business. People at business lunches bring briefcases. At the very least, they have a notebook or an agenda. But it’s more than that. There’s a pattern of behavior. Cheating couples always arrive in two cars. Married couples sometimes use separate cars, because they’ve been working or running errands. Cheating couples never arrive or leave together.”

She was warming up to her subject now. She set the coffeepot on my table and began ticking other points off on her fingers. I took notes. This was a column. “Cheating couples sit side by side in a booth. Married couples sit across from each other. Some dating couples sit side by side. But two weeks after they marry, they’ll be sitting across from each other.

“Cheating couples hold hands under the table. There’s lots of whispering. It’s obvious they are sneaking around. Charlie and Nails were doing that.”

“Smooching, too, I bet.”

“You bet wrong,” Marlene said. “Cheating couples never kiss in a restaurant. They can explain away lots of things, but not that. The parking lot is another matter.
They were going at it hot and heavy in his minivan.”

“Again?” I said. If Charlie put that energy into his work, the
Gazette
would be
The New York Times
.

“The busboy saw them fooling around in the front seat. She had his . . .” Marlene looked up and saw two gray-haired members of the St. Philomena Ladies’ Sodality staring at her in horror and fascination.

“Coffee, ladies?” Marlene asked. She poured for both and came back to my table. This time, her voice was much lower. “Anyway, they walked into the restaurant, and butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. But the busboy had told everyone what he saw. The staff was sneaking looks at them out the kitchen door.”

“Charlie probably thought it was because he was such a famous newspaper editor.”

“He sure didn’t act ashamed. Oh, well. Sooner or later, Charlie will get his.”

“He’s getting hers. Now,” I said, as Marlene walked away chuckling. I figured deserts, just or otherwise, would be a long time coming for Cupcake and Dimpletoes. Charlie had made Nails queen of the newsroom, and her life was a banquet. She was surrounded by courtiers who laughed at her jokes and brought her juicy tidbits of information. Her chief courtier was Babe, the
Gazette
gossip columnist who had a face like a deceased mackerel, white and haggard from too many late nights at too many unimportant parties. He was skeleton thin and always wore a tux after six, so he looked like Bela Lugosi after the blood banks closed. It was clear from the way Babe was hanging around Nails’s desk that she was definitely on his A-list. I guess Babe forgot that only two months ago he always referred to Nails as the Bitch. So I reminded him when I saw him in the
Gazette
offices that morning.

“Oh, Babe,” he said, in his mournful lost-calf
voice—that’s how he got his nickname, he called everyone Babe—“Nails has changed. She’s so much more . . . more . . .” Sometimes words failed even Babe.

“Powerful?” I said. “Obnoxious?”

“Don’t be a bitch,” he said. “She could do you some good.”

“She’s never done any woman any good,” I said. Babe sidled away, afraid my rebellious thoughts might contaminate him. Rebellion was in the air. This morning the newsroom was more restless than usual. People were gathered into little whispering groups that stopped talking when anyone approached. I went over to Tina’s desk. Imagine Whitney Houston at a computer, and you had Tina, our City Hall reporter. The woman had class and brains. Also, information. “What’s going on?” I asked her.

“This,” she said, and shoved a computer printout under my nose. “Milton found this little memo to Charlie from Nails. Those two are so busy doing the wild thing you wonder how she has time to put down us poor fools who are dumb enough to do the work here.” Tina knew about Charlie and Nails, too? Was I the last one to find out anything?

“Oooh. Another bitter Gazetteer,” I said.

“With reason,” Tina said, her tip-tilted eyes brimming with anger. “It’s bad enough this place has more clowns than Ringling Bros. Now we have to know their opinions.”

“Wow. This must be some memo,” I said, grinning.

“Wait till you get to the part about
you
,” she said. My smile slipped sideways. I tried to pretend I didn’t care. Like most aging newspapers, the
Gazette
was top-heavy with management. It had five editors for every reporter. Instead of actually putting out the paper, the editors met to talk about problems, such as staff morale, which to my way of thinking were caused by too many editors holding meetings—but no one ever asked
me what I thought. Morale had taken another dip a few weeks ago when the Boston publisher came into town and let everyone know there was “too much crime news” in the
Gazette
. He said it was “unnerving the business community,” and he wanted crime reporting “deemphasized.” The editors read that as “don’t give me no bad news.” Murders, carjackings, and especially muggings, burglaries, and robberies at major malls went unreported. This led to rumors of cover-ups in the community. On the upside, the publisher wanted increased arts reporting, so St. Louis seemed a lot more gracious and crime-free, if you read the
Gazette
.

The reporters were outraged. Their reporting was dictated by a bunch of accountants. The reporters may have been lazy and demoralized, but they did feel a duty to report any story they stumbled over. Bitter signs were plastered all over the newsroom: “Floggings will continue until morale improves.” “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil—read the
Gazette.”
Now Nails was writing memos and sending them to Charlie’s secret computer desk. Didn’t she know we’d cracked the code to it months ago?

I leaned against Tina’s desk while she fiddled on a story and started reading through Nails’s memo. My, my. Nails thought our sports columnist, Big Buck Bailey, “spent too much time working for other media.” Nails must be jealous of his popular radio show and TV commentaries. She cited the religion writer for six typos in a story, then whacked two cityside reporters for convoluted sentences they probably didn’t write—the copy desk was notorious for combining several short, concise sentences into one long, tangled one. Nails complained the education writer missed a story and the feature department did too many PR-generated stories, which was true, but since the Family section only had one reporter, the guy couldn’t be everywhere.
Nails didn’t have a good word for anyone, particularly the women. But she saved her worst venom for me.

“I rated three paragraphs,” I said to Tina, pretending to be pleased.

“She had a lot to say about you, girl. Your column is ‘silly, frivolous, it offends people, it serves no useful purpose.’ “

“Here’s a good line,” I said. “‘I see no reason for this column to exist.’”

Jasper, the surliest cityside reporter, came over and patted my shoulder. “Don’t let her get you down,” he said, and stumbled off to snarl at someone else.

“What got into him?” I said. Jasper never said anything nice to anyone.

“The staff hates Nails so much, they may actually start liking one another,” Tina said, digging around on her desk for a current phone book.

“Nah, Charlie would never permit that,” I said. “He’d feel threatened if we all got along. Charlie believes if we’re fighting each other, we won’t be after his job.”

“Worked so far,” Tina said, shoveling a stack of newspapers aside and diving for the Yellow Pages.

“How long do you think Charlie and Nails have been fooling around?” I asked.

“Long enough for it to get serious,” she said. “Charlie’s had more one-night stands than a Motel 6, but I don’t think this is one of them. I’ve heard an ugly rumor at the courthouse I want to check out. I think our court reporter’s been asleep at the wheel.”

“What ugly rumor?” I said.

“It’s too frightening to spread unless it’s true. Call me this afternoon.” Tina’s phone rang, and she turned back to her work. I took the printout and headed straight for Georgia’s office on Rotten Row. Georgia was my mentor and the only senior editor I’ve ever
trusted. She was short, smart, funny, and foul-mouthed. A newswoman of the old school, Georgia had had to show she could drink and cuss like a man—and report like one, too. Usually I didn’t hang around her office, but now I was too upset to care. I needed some comfort. I pushed some papers off her old leather club chair and sat down. She was wearing another of her ugly expensive gray suits. This one had lapels sharp enough to saw redwoods. The silk blouse was the color of dirty teeth.