a call to Lou Sapperstein, who made a call to the motor vehicle bureau, and phoned back with the scoop: the Plymouth was licensed to Rosalie Rizzo, but the address was different-2848 South Cuyler Avenue, in Berwyn.
The bungalow was typical for Berwyn-a tidy little frame house on a small perfect lawn. My guess was this was her folks’ place. In back was a small matching, but unattached garage, on the alley. Peeking in the garage windows, I saw the maroon coupe and smiled.
“Is Rosalie in trouble again?”
The voice was female, sweet, young.
I turned and saw a slender, almost beautiful teenage girl with dark eyes and bouncy, dark shoulder-length hair. She wore a navy-blue sailor-ish playsuit. Her pretty white legs were bare.
“Are you Rosalie’s sister?”
“Yes. Is she in trouble?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I just know Rosalie, that’s all. That man isn’t really her husband, is he? That Mr. Riggs.”
“No.”
“Are you here about her accident?”
“No. Where is she?”
“Are you a police officer?”
“I’m a detective. Where did she go?”
“Papa’s inside. He’s afraid he’s going to be in trouble.”
“Why’s that?”
“Rosalie put her car in our garage yesterday. She said she was in an accident and it was damaged and not to use it. She’s going to have it repaired when she gets back from vacation.”
“What does that have to do with your papa being scared?”
“Rosalie’s going to be mad as H at him, that he used her car.” She shrugged. “He said he looked at it and it didn’t look damaged to him, and if mama was going to have to look after Rosalie’s g.d. canary, well he’d sure as H use
“I can see his point. Where did your sister go on vacation?”
“She didn’t say. Up north someplace. Someplace she and Mr. Riggs like to go to, to…you know. To get away?”
I called Sgt. Pribyl from a gas station where I was getting Barney’s Hupmobile tank re-filled. I suggested he have another talk with bartender Alex Davidson, gave him the address of “Mr. and Mrs. Riggs,” and told him where he could find the maroon Plymouth.
He was grateful but a little miffed about all I had done on my own.
“So much for not showboating,” he said, almost huffily. “You’ve found everything but the damn suspects.”
“They’ve gone up north somewhere,” I said.
“Where up north?”
“They don’t seem to’ve told anybody. Look, I have a piece of evidence you may need.”
“What?”
“When you talk to Davidson, he’ll tell you about a matchbook Rooney wrote the girl’s number on. I got the matchbook.”
It was still in my pocket. I took it out, idly, and shut the girl’s number away, revealing the picture on the matchbook cover: a blue moon hovered surrealistically over a white lake on which two blue lovers paddled in a blue canoe-Eagle River Lodge, Wisconsin.
“I suppose we’ll need that,” Pribyl’s voice over the phone said, “when the time comes.”
“I suppose,” I said, and hung up.
Eagle River was a town of 1,386 (so said the sign) just inside the Vilas County line at the junction of US 45 and Wisconsin State Highway 70. The country was beyond beautiful-green pines towering higher than Chicago skyscrapers, glittering blue lakes nestling in woodland pockets.
The lodge I was looking for was on Silver Lake, a gas station attendant told me. A beautiful dusk was settling on the woods as I drew into the parking of the large resort sporting a red city-style neon saying, DINING AND DANCE. Log-cabin cottages were flung here and there around the periphery like Paul Bunyan’s tinker-toys. Each one was just secluded enough-ideal for couples, married or un-.
Even if Rooney and his dark-haired honey weren’t staying here, it was time to find a room: I’d been driving all day. When Barney loaned me his Hupmobile, he’d had no idea the kind of miles I’d put on it. Dead tired, I went to the desk and paid for a cabin.
The guy behind the counter had a plaid shirt on, but he was small and squinty and Hitler-mustached, smoking a stogie, and looked more like a bookie than a lumberjack.
I told him some friends of mine were supposed to be staying here.
“We don’t have anybody named Riggs registered.”
“How ’bout Mr. and Mrs. Rooney?”
“Them either. How many friends you got, anyway?”
“Why, did I already catch the limit?”
Before I headed to my cabin, I grabbed some supper in the rustic restaurant. I placed my order with a friendly brunette girl of about nineteen with plenty of personality, and make-up. A road-company Paul Whiteman outfit was playing “Sophisticated Lady” in the adjacent dance hall, and I went over and peeked in, to look for familiar faces. A number of couples were cutting a rug, but not Rooney and Rosalie. Or Henry Berry or Herbert Arnold, either. I went back and had my green salad and fried trout and well-buttered baked potato; I was full and sleepy when I stumbled toward my guest cottage under the light of a moon that bathed the woods ivory.
Walking along the path, I spotted something: snuggled next to one of the secluded cabins was a blue LaSalle coupe with Cook County plates.
Suddenly I wasn’t sleepy. I walked briskly back to the lodge check-in desk and batted the bell to summon the stogie-chewing clerk.
“Cabin seven,” I said. “I think that blue LaSalle is my friends’ car.”
His smirk turned his Hitler mustache Chaplinesque. “You want I should break out the champagne?”
“I just want to make sure it’s them. Dark-haired doll and an older guy, good-looking, kinda sleepy-eyed, just starting to go bald?”
“That’s them.” He checked his register. “That’s the Ridges.” He frowned. “Are they usin’ a phony name?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
He squinted. “You sure they’re friends of yours?”
“Positive. Don’t call their room and tell ’em I’m here, though-I want to surprise them….”
I knocked with my left hand; my right was filled with the nine millimeter. Nothing. I knocked again.
“Who is it?” a male voice said gruffly. “
“Complimentary fruit basket from the management.”
“Go away!”
I kicked the door open.
The lights were off in the little cabin, but enough moonlight came in with me through the doorway to reveal the pair in bed, naked. She was sitting up, her mouth and eyes open in a silent scream, gathering the sheets up protectively over white skin, her dark hair blending with the darkness of the room, making a cameo of her face. He was diving off the bed for the sawed-off shotgun, but I was there to kick it away, wishing I hadn’t, wishing I’d let him grab it so I could have had an excuse to put one in his forehead, right where he’d put one in Stanley’s.
Boss Rooney wasn’t boss of anything, now: he was just a naked, balding, forty-four year-old scam artist, sprawled on the floor. Kicking him would have been easy.
So I did; in the stomach.
He clutched himself and puked. Apparently he’d had the trout, too.
I went over and slammed the door shut, or as shut as it could be, half-off its hinges. Pointing the gun at her
