Web of Deceit, page 7
part #1 of Dewey Webb Series
I slipped down the hall to Sonny’s door and listened. The dull hum of voices emanated through the cracks around the door, but I couldn’t make out anything. I thought I heard footsteps approach the door, so I hurried back to the stairs and quietly tiptoed down to the ground floor and out the front door. I jogged back to the Plymouth and watched the building for a while, but Sonny never came out. I wanted to talk to Edith again before Sandalwood came home from work, so at three, I decided to leave. I knew where to find Sonny again. I remembered seeing a Conoco gas station on Colfax, so I headed there and called Edith from a pay phone.
“Oh, Mr. Webb!” she said breathlessly when I identified myself. “That man asked for more money!”
“How much more?” I asked.
“Ten thousand dollars. I told him I can’t get that kind of money, and he said that wasn’t his problem, that I’d better come up with it.”
“How long did he give you to get the money?”
“A week.”
“Then I have that long to find out who’s behind this,” I said. “Can you meet me at the Rexall in twenty minutes?”
“Yes, but why?”
“We need to talk, and you don’t want your neighbors to see me at your house.”
“Yes, that’s good thinking. I’ll leave right now.”
“Good.” I hung up and drove to the Rexall.
CHAPTER TWELVE
When I walked into the Rexall, Edith was sitting at the end of the lunch counter. She hadn’t taken off her overcoat, and her purse was still slung over her shoulder. I sat on a stool next to her. She had both hands wrapped around a white coffee cup. I signaled the same baldheaded guy for coffee, then turned to her.
“I’m in trouble,” she whispered. Her hand shook as she took a sip of coffee.
I tipped the brim of my hat up. “Tell me exactly what that man said to you when you gave him the money.”
She thought for a second. “He asked if it was all there, and I said it was. Then he said I needed to come up with more. I started to argue with him and he said…” She closed her eyes as if picturing the scene. “ ‘Listen, doll, you gotta get the money or we’ll tell your husband about the baby. You got a week.’ I asked how he knew about the baby and he laughed. Then I said how in the world could I get that kind of money and he laughed again and said that it was my problem. Then he walked away.” Her lower lip trembled and she dug into her purse for a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes, then drew in a breath and composed herself. “How am I going to come up with that kind of money?”
“This man obviously thinks you can, or he wouldn’t be putting the screws to you like this,” I said. The guy behind the counter returned with my coffee. I sipped some and waited for him to move down the counter and out of earshot. “Does the name Sonny O’Hara mean anything to you?”
“No,” she said. “Should it?”
“He’s the guy who’s hustling you.”
She stared at me. “How’d you find that out?”
I told her about my conversation with O’Hara’s landlady.
“But how does he know about me and,” she lowered her voice, “the baby? I don’t know him.”
“He must know someone who does know about you,” I said. “O’Hara’s been seen lately with another guy, stocky and slicked-back dark hair. Does he sound like anyone you know?”
She started to drink her coffee, then set her cup down with a loud clink. Coffee spilled on her hand, but she didn’t notice. “No, I don’t know him, either. Oh, this is so infuriating!”
I handed her a napkin, and then she noticed the spilled coffee. “You need to tell me about the man you had the affair with.” I didn’t mince any words. She started to protest, but I held up a hand to stop her. “If you want my help, it’s time to name him. He might be behind this, or he might’ve told someone.”
“No, he wouldn’t have.” She finally wiped off her hand and tossed the napkin in the cup.
“Mrs. Sandalwood,” I scolded her.
She looked all around evasively and fiddled with the handkerchief. I looked, too. The drugstore was busy, with people rushing in, others leaving with bags. Outside the window, it was growing dark. A woman in red got out of a brand-new white Cadillac. On the other side of the parking lot, a man in a dark fedora sat in a Mercury with a bent bumper. I saw an orange glow through the windshield. He was smoking a cigarette. Behind him, on Otis Street, two boys kicked a can down the sidewalk. I looked back at Edith. Her eyes finally alighted on me.
“The man’s name was Fred Cooper,” she said. “He was an officer in the Army Air Force. He was stationed at Lowry Air Force Base when I met him, and he lived near the base, but I don’t know where he is now. He didn’t want anything to do with me, and I was so hurt and devastated, I never wanted to see him again.”
“What can you tell me about him?” I asked. “Is he still in the military?”
“Probably. He was looking to get promoted. But would he still be out at Lowry?”
“He could’ve transferred somewhere else and then back to Lowry.” I thought about that, then said, “Where was he from, how old was he, that kind of thing?”
“He was from California, and he was in his late twenties when I met him. He has blond hair and dark eyes.” She smiled faintly, and then it was gone. “Oh, he was handsome in his uniform, and he seemed so kind. He wasn’t afraid to spend money on me.” Hope sprang into her face. “He didn’t need money then, so why would he be trying to get it from me now?”
The man had gotten her pregnant and then dumped her, and she still wanted to protect him.
“Things can change,” I said. “Maybe he’s in trouble now and needs money.”
“He wouldn’t blackmail me.” The hope had faded just as quickly, and she said it without conviction.
“Maybe. He also could’ve told someone else.”
“Fred wouldn’t have said anything,” she said. “He was married, and he would’ve wanted to keep it quiet.”
“You haven’t had any contact with him since you told him about the baby?”
“Of course not.”
“Then how do you know that he’s still married, or that he hasn’t ended up with money trouble?” I asked. “Or that he didn’t tell someone else about you, and that person is blackmailing you.”
She sighed heavily. “I guess any of that’s possible.”
“And the same could be said about Lester,” I said. “So I need to find him, too.”
She snorted. “Good luck. He hasn’t been around in more than a year.”
“Did he come to see you?”
“I was over at Ruby’s one night, and he showed up. He’d cleaned himself up and had brought flowers. He told Ruby he wanted to get back together, that he’d changed, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Did Ruby?”
“No. She told him to leave and not come back. He got mad and threw the flowers at her, then walked off down the street, hollering that she was going to get what was coming to her.”
“Has he tried to hurt her?”
Her eyes watered and she dabbed at them again. “Sometimes.”
“Is she afraid he’ll come back now?”
“Probably.”
“But he hasn’t been back since then?”
“Ruby hasn’t mentioned it. You should be asking her about him.”
“I will,” I said, then gulped the last of my coffee and lit a cigarette. “But Ruby might try to sugarcoat things with me. I want your impression of him.”
“He was a bum. I don’t know what Ruby saw in him.”
Two women carrying large bags sat down near us. I turned my back to them, so they wouldn’t hear us talking.
“You said you never saw the Pattersons.”
“Right.”
‘How do you know that they don’t need the money?” I said. “From what I saw, any little bit would help.”
She shook her head. “Ruby said they could be trusted.”
“Maybe they told someone else about you.”
“Why would anyone want to do this to me?” she said.
“That’s the big question.” I tapped the counter. “I need to talk to Ruby about them, and about Lester.” I took out a nickel and slid it across the counter toward Edith. “Call your sister and tell her I’m coming over.”
Edith hesitated.
I narrowed my eyes. “You haven’t told her about me?”
She shook her head. “I thought maybe I could take care of this without her.”
I took a drag off my cigarette, blew smoke, and said, “It’s time to tell her now.”
She stared at the nickel, then finally picked it up, slid off her stool, and went to the pay phone near the front door. I watched as she fed the money into the phone, dialed a number and talked for a minute, one hand clutching her handkerchief tightly. She did not look happy as she walked back to the lunch counter.
“She’ll be home waiting for you,” she said. “She asked if we can trust you.”
I shrugged. “Do you have any other choice?”
She stared at her hands. “No.”
“Where does she live?” I asked. Edith gave me the address. It was within ten minutes of my house.
We sat in silence for a minute. I stared out the window again as I smoked. Shoppers came and went. The man in the fedora was still sitting in the Mercury. I squinted to get a better look at him.
“How are you going to find Fred?” she asked.
“I’ll figure it out.” I watched a woman cross the parking lot toward the Mercury, but she got into the car next to it. I studied the man in the fedora. “Turn around slowly,” I said to Edith.
“What?” She whirled around and looked down at her dress. “Is there something on me?”
“There’s a man who’s been sitting in his car while we’ve been talking. He’s in the Mercury. Don’t look right at him.”
Edith hesitated, then looked out the window.
“See him?” I asked. “In the fedora.”
“Yes, but I can barely see him.”
“Do you recognize the car?”
She shook her head, then turned back around. “What’s going on?”
“It’s probably nothing,” I said. I stood up and crushed out my cigarette in an ashtray. “Let me walk you to your car.”
She put her handkerchief back in her purse, and I paid for the coffee. Then we strolled outside. Darkness had settled in and I couldn’t see into the Mercury. We walked to Edith’s car, on the opposite side of the lot from the Mercury.
“I’ll be in touch,” I said, then waved her off.
As I walked back to my car, Edith drove out of the lot and headed east. The Mercury started up and went in the same direction. I fired up the Plymouth and screeched onto Colfax and followed the Mercury. It stayed on Colfax and kept pace with Edith’s Chrysler, but then it turned on Sheridan. I thought he’d been after Edith, but I was wrong. I turned around at the next block. It was time to pay Ruby a visit.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ruby Klassen lived on Fox Street in the Baker neighborhood, where the houses had gone up at the turn of the century. They varied in style from two-story Victorians to plain bungalows and duplexes. The houses on Fox were all tiny and single-story, some with siding, but most constructed of brick, and all built so close to each other that a man could barely walk between them. Maple and oak trees towered over the street, their barren branches skeletal at this time of the year. Ruby’s house was long and narrow, with brown siding and white trim, a small front porch, and a sliver of lawn. Dead leaves littered the gutters and street, but the area around Ruby’s house had been swept clean. I parked across the street and strolled up to the front door. Before I could knock, the door opened to reveal Ruby, with a frown on her face. She was in a flowered dress, but she’d traded heels for slippers.
“You’re Dewey Webb.” It was a pronouncement more than a question.
“Yes, ma’am.” I took off my hat at her.
She glanced up and down the street. “You’d better come in,” she finally said.
I followed her into a minuscule living room that had a small loveseat and an overstuffed chair, both covered in green fabric. A radio sat on a table in the corner, but it wasn’t on. She gestured at the loveseat without offering me anything to drink, then settled down into the chair with a sigh.
“By the end of the day, I just want to sit for a bit,” she said.
“You’re a teacher?” I asked as I sat down and put my hat beside me.
“That’s right.” She might be tired, but not so much so that she couldn’t glare at me. “You think you’re going to help my sister,” she said skeptically. Her hand went to her mouth as she talked.
I returned the glare. “As I told Edith, I’m the best shot you have.”
“And you think it’s the Pattersons or Lester doing this.”
I nodded. “Or the man who got her pregnant.”
“It wasn’t them.”
“Do you have any other ideas?”
She stared at me long and hard, then gave me a slight shrug. “Edith said you wanted to talk to me, so talk.”
“Tell me about the Pattersons.”
“If you think they’re involved, you’re crazy.” I waited. She finally continued. “They had a small farm outside of Burlington, but they were barely able to make it profitable. God bless Ralph, but he just isn’t much of a farmer. I was friends with Gladys’s sister, who lived in Limon, and I taught her kids. That’s how I found out about Gladys and Ralph and how they wanted kids, but couldn’t have any. The sister used to talk about how hard it was on Gladys. So when Edith got herself into trouble and didn’t want to tell Gordon, I thought about the Pattersons.”
“What made you think you could trust them?”
“In here.” She jabbed her stomach. “My gut told me they were all right. They’re good people, and they wouldn’t want to do anything that would mess this up for them, or for the boy. They gave up the farm in Burlington, and I helped them find the place outside of Vernon. It was far enough away so folks wouldn’t know that they had the baby right away, but close enough to Gladys’s sister.”
“Did you pay the Pattersons to take the baby?”
She looked away, a finger tapping her lips.
“How much did you pay them?” I asked.
“Two hundred dollars,” she finally whispered. “It was all I had in savings. It was only to help them out.”
“Did they think you would help them in the future?”
“They asked for money one more time, but I didn’t have any to give them.” She sniffled. “It wasn’t about the money for them.”
We’d see about that, I thought. “What about Gladys’s sister? She knew that Gladys couldn’t have kids.”
“She swore to Gladys and me that she would keep it quiet. She never even told her husband.”
“And you believe her?”
She nodded emphatically. “Yes, I do.”
I wished I felt the same way. There were too many people who knew about Edith and the baby.
“Where’s the sister now?”
“She’s here in Denver. Her husband died – a bad heart – so she moved here and got a job during the war. She’s living with a friend.”
“What’s her name?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
I suddenly leaned forward. “You better, if you want me to get to the bottom of this.” She sat back, startled. “Any of these people could be blackmailing Edith, or they could’ve told someone else. And now we have someone who wants a lot of money from her.”
“Edith doesn’t have any money.”
I pointed a finger at her. “But you do.” She looked at me funny. “Your father had a coin collection, right?” I went on. “Who has it now?”
“I do. My father wanted me to have it, I suppose because I helped out so much. I’ve just held onto it for now. I figured if Edith or I ever got into money trouble, we could sell it.”
“It sounds like she needs it now,” I said dryly.
Her lips formed a hard line. “That’s the problem. We can’t keep paying whoever this is.”
I held up my hands. “And yet you don’t seem to want me to help you.”
“You can’t bother the Pattersons,” she insisted. “It would scare them to death, and they were good to us, taking the boy for us.”
“Have you seen Gerry?”
“I was out there a time or two, when he was still a baby. But we decided it was best if I didn’t visit anymore, or someone might get suspicious. But I promised them we would leave them alone until Gerry grew up, and if he wanted to know about his mama then, we’d talk about it. So you can’t tell them you know.”
“I need the sister’s name,” I said.
She didn’t answer. I waited. She waited. The silence stretched between us like a chasm. A car passed on the street, its headlights momentarily flashing past the window. I’d been to war. I’d waited long hours, motionless and quiet, to evade an enemy. I could deal with silence. She couldn’t.
“Fine. It’s Thelma Blanchard,” she finally said. “She used to live in north Denver. But you can’t let her think Edith and I are going to bother her or her sister.”
I put my hands on my knees. “I’ll do what I can, but we’ve got a real problem here. Now it’s not just the Pattersons, but Gladys’s sister, Thelma, and your husband, Lester.”
“Ex-husband,” she said harshly.
“Tell me about him.”
“What’s to tell? He wasn’t a good man. He was looking for someone to take care of him, and I was dumb enough to do it.” She stared off into space. “He wasn’t a hard worker, and every time we got a little money, he’d spend it drinking or gambling.”
“Why’d you marry him?”
She wagged her head in disgust. “I ask myself that.” She took a long minute to form her words. “I was tired, I think. I’d spent my teen years raising Edith, and then I had to help my father when his heart started to fail. I think I was looking for a way out.” She put her hands in her lap. “But I’m doing okay now.”
