Gordon was like a brother to me. Which sort of makes Mickey my nephew, too. And I would never screw a relative.” She threw back her head and ha-ha’d like Bette Davis. “Although he is kind of cute.”
It was two in the morning before Effie was finished evaluating the books. She offered Mickey a rather impressive sum and he quickly accepted it. We headed for the cabin and our beds.
When I got to my room I put on my travel pajamas, a baggy blue-flannel pair that covers every inch of me. I bought them during the Nixon presidency when I was still foolishly filled with the notion of being a world traveler. I figured if I ever had to flee a motel because of a fire or hurricane, I could run out into a crowd of people without worrying about hypothermia or embarrassment.
I locked the door. I pulled a small braided rug in front of the door for James to sleep on. I positioned my new Indian moccasin slippers on the floor. I peeked out the window hoping to spot Detective Grant leaning against a tree. If he was out there I didn’t see him. I turned the stuffed owl around so I wouldn’t have its bulging glass eyes staring at me all night. I knelt by James and gave him a final good-night ear-scratch. “Just in case you haven’t read your watch dog manual lately,” I whispered to him, “you’re supposed to sleep with one ear cocked.” I bent his ear to show him. When I let go it flopped like a dish rag. I clicked off the light and felt my way to the bed.
There is nothing more comforting in the world than sinking your head into a big, cool, fluffy pillow. And there’s nothing more disconcerting than a loud crackle. I popped up like a slice of toast. There was a note on the pillow. I fumbled for the lamp. I read:
Mrs. Sprowls,
I need to see you without Effie.
Meet me on the back porch when you think she’s asleep.
Mickey.
Good gravy! What possibly did Mickey want? Did he want to threaten me? Strangle me? Did he have some important information about Effie? And how did I know that the note was really from Mickey? I considered my meager options: I could stay put. “I didn’t see your note until this morning,” I could whisper to Mickey, when Effie was taking her turn in the bathroom. I could open the window and scream at the top of my lungs for Detective Grant. Or I could stop being such a melodramatic old fool and meet Mickey on the back porch.
As usual, my curiosity outweighed my better judgment. I swung out of bed and put on my slippers. I folded the note into a small square and wedged it under my left heel. Detective Grant would need it for evidence if I ended up dead. I started to snap the leash on James’ collar but thought better of dragging him along. His obstinacy would surely wake up Effie. I gave him a rawhide instead.
I unlocked the door and slipped into the hallway. I padded down the stairs. Crossed the dark kitchen. Opened the screen door. Peeked outside. Mickey was comfortably wedged in a wicker chair. His bare feet were propped on the porch post. His hands were cradled around a beer bottle, standing straight up in his lap. I heard myself say what only someone with Effie’s deviant mind would say. “That is a beer bottle, isn’t it?”
He grinned. Toasted me with it.
I sat in the chair next to his.
“I hope the note didn’t scare you,” he began.
“I’m here,” I answered.
He offered me a swig from his beer. To my surprise, I took him up on it. “I know you’ve got your suspicions about me,” he said.
“Don’t take it personally,” I said, handing the bottle back. “These days I’ve got suspicions about everybody.”
“That’s why I wanted to see you without Effie.”
He pulled an envelope from his shirt pocket. “That stuff Effie said about ephemera tonight? About it sometimes being more valuable than the book? I already knew that.” He watched me open the envelope. “I found it in an old archeology book, by Heinrich Schliemann, on his excavation of the lost city of Troy. It’s from David Delarosa. To my uncle. It’s dated December 26, 1956.”
I unfolded the letter but I didn’t read it. “Who told you I’m interested in David Delarosa?”
“Effie,” he said. “During one of her calls I told her I’d met you. I may have said something about you being nice but nosy.”
“You were half right,” I said.
Mickey took a swig of his own. Handed the bottle back to me. “She said you were running all over Hannawa investigating my uncle’s murder. Suspecting everybody. Even trying to link it to a murder fifty years ago. A young wrestler named David Delarosa. I’d already gone through his books looking for money and personal stuff. So the name rang a bell.”
I was not surprised that Effie knew I was investigating Gordon’s murder. My visit to her bookstore in March made that fairly obvious. “So it was your idea that I come down here with Effie? So you could give the letter to me?”
Mickey pushed himself out of the chair and pressed his face against the kitchen window, to make sure Effie hadn’t tip-toed after me. He sat on the edge of the porch in front of me, six inches from my moccasins. “I want to know who killed my uncle, too,” he said. “I thought maybe you could tell me something.”
I handed him the beer bottle. It was time for me to read the letter:
Gordon,
Christmas was just as wretched as I expected. My mother insisted on having her asshole boyfriend here. Christmas Eve right though this morning. This isn’t that truck driver I told you about before. This new goof works at the washing machine plant down the road in Clyde. Given all the ugly sounds at night, this one looks like true love. It might even last until Easter.
I’ll be glad to get back to the college. Thanks to your most-excellent tutoring, my grades were just good enough to keep the scholarship jack jingling in.
I know you don’t exactly dig the idea, but be warned my friend! I fully intend to resume my biological quest for Miss Forty Below. A little wine and Charlie Parker mixed and shaken with my ample animal charm, and that tiny chip of ice will just be a nightlight showing me the way.
See you after the ball drops!
David
I put the letter back in the envelope. I flashed an apologetic smile at Mickey. “There’s a lot to decipher here,” I said.
“Just tell me what you can when you can,” he said.
I promised I would. I went upstairs to bed. James was happily gnawing away. I took the rawhide from him. I clicked on the lamp by the bed. I crawled in with my moccasins on and started deciphering.
The first thing that struck me was the letter’s style. It was written in Beatnik. Or at least in what passed for Beatnik to a kid from Sandusky on a wrestling scholarship. Clearly he was trying to impress Gordon.
The next thing was David’s obvious hatred for his mother. Or more accurately, his hatred for the way his mother behaved with men. I know Sigmund Freud isn’t as popular as he was when I was taking college psychology, but I think that ugly sounds at night comment spoke volumes about his own sexual aggression.
David also made sure to show his appreciation for Gordon’s help with his grades. Thanks to your most- excellent tutoring, he wrote. I had no reason to doubt he was sincere about that.
But the real point of the letter, or so it seemed to me, was that last part about his intention to pursue Miss Forty Below. I know you don’t exactly dig the idea, David began. Now what exactly did that mean? Did it imply some kind of jealousy on Gordon’s part? Or was Gordon merely concerned about David’s pursuit of a particular woman? A woman he shouldn’t be pursuing? Whichever is was, it was clearly an issue between them. And David was telling him in no uncertain terms that he was going after Miss Forty Below whether Gordon approved or not.
And just who was this Miss Forty Below?
I’d overheard enough man-talk in the newsroom over the years to know that women unwilling to jump into bed after the first howdy-do are quickly labeled as frigid. I’d never heard the phrase before, but forty below was clearly shorthand for forty below zero. Based on everything I’d heard from Effie and Shaka, and especially from Howard Shay, the handsome David Delarosa was accustomed to bedding young women without much effort. Apparently Miss Forty Below was not thawing out as quickly as he wished.
The other intriguing line in that paragraph was the last one: A little wine and Charlie Parker mixed and
