It didn’t. After peering through the peephole, I opened the door, faintly astonished. Oh, very well; I was flabbergasted.
“Johnny! Flossie! What are you guys doing here?” Believing the question to have been rude, I hastened to add, “Not that you aren’t welcome. I just hadn’t expected you to…uh…”
Laughing, Johnny Buckingham took his lovely wife by the elbow and guided her into the house. In his other hand, he carried the handle of a covered pot.
“Sam called us, Daisy,” said Flossie, giving me a big hug and a peck on the cheek. “He told us about your poor aunt. I’m so sorry. He asked us to come over tonight for what he called a council of war. Guess he thinks if anybody knows where the crooks in Pasadena hide out, it’ll be us chickens in the Salvation Army.” Her tinkling laugh made me almost happy for the first time that day.
“And Flossie fixed you a big pot of chicken soup, because she knows…” Johnny’s words petered out.
“She knows I’m a lousy cook,” I said. Then I bethought me of Harold, who was at that very minute speaking to someone in the Castleton’s kitchen. Or wherever it was in the Castleton you called in order to get stuff catered. “But go on in and make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.” And I took off like a jackrabbit to the kitchen.
I realized Johnny had followed me with the pot of soup only after I’d tapped Harold, because he turned around and smiled at Johnny over my shoulder. He spoke into the receiver, “Wait one minute, Raul. We might need more food delivered to the Marengo address.”
“We will,” I said, panting slightly. Maybe I did need to join that stinking exercise class. “Johnny and Flossie just arrived. Flossie made some chicken soup for us, because she knows…well, she knows we’ll probably starve to death if either Ma or I had to cook for the family.”
“Nonsense,” said Johnny. “You did an admirable job teaching the cooking class at the Army, Daisy.”
“Maybe, but I’ll still never forgive you for forcing me to teach the class, Johnny Buckingham.”
“Be quiet, Daisy,” commanded Harold. So I shut up, Johnny put the pot of soup on the stove, and Harold told Raul at the Castleton to add another couple of platefuls to the order he’d just called in. “When do you think you can deliver it to the Marengo address?” Evidently Raul told him, because Harold then said, “Perfect. And to Orange Grove?” Pause. “That will be fine. Thanks, Raul. Just bill me. Right. Thank you.” And he hung up.
“Harold, you’re a prince among men,” I told him, because he was.
“True, true,” said Harold. “Good evening, Captain Buckingham. Have you seen my evil sister recently?” Harold stuck out his hand for Johnny to shake.
Laughing, Johnny shook Harold’s hand and said, “She doesn’t want to see me, although I still visit the jail a couple of times a week.”
“Aha,” I said, a candle having just been lit in my head—hoped it wouldn’t burn my hair off. “That’s probably why Sam wanted you here tonight. You might be in the best position of all of us to figure out where Vi is.”
“Could be. The good Lord knows, I see plenty of villains in my ministry.” Johnny laughed again.
Honestly, I don’t know how he did it, but Johnny Buckingham was probably the kindest, most level-headed, good-humored and overall useful individual I’d ever met in my life. And this, in spite of having ended up drunk in a gutter after the war. Several times, according to him. He credited the Salvation Army for lifting him out of the gutter and showing him how to live a happy and fulfilling life. Then he married Flossie! The former Flossie Mosser, whom I’d more or less flung at him when I was attempting to wrest her from the arms of a brutal gangster. Boy, you just never know what life will do to a person, do you?
Look at what it had just done to Vi, for pity’s sake.
My Voodoo juju shot another burning pain to my chest just then. Blast the thing! When I wanted it to work, it didn’t. When I didn’t want it to work, it did. What’s the use of a Voodoo juju if a body can’t rely on it?
Never mind.
“But you and Harold come on into the living room now. We’re all gathering for this so-called council of war Sam’s heading up.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I call my mother and tell her when to expect dinner.”
“Thanks, Harold,” I said.
“Sounds good to me,” said Johnny.
So Johnny and I walked back toward the living room.
As soon as we hit the archway between the dining room and living room, yet another knock sounded at the door. Spike raced to it, I hot on his heels. This time I really hoped the knock came from Sam.
It did.
“Sam!” I squealed, throwing myself at him. Luckily for me, he didn’t fall over backwards, but wrapped his arms around me. He also probably braced himself against the front door, although I didn’t see him do it. Still, it had been thoughtless of me to hurl myself upon him, because he had a chancy left leg. It had been chancy ever since he’d been shot in his left thigh a year or so earlier. I pulled away from him. “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to pounce on you so hard.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it,” said Sam in a “God give me strength” tone of voice.
I resented his tone. However, I didn’t let on.
“Johnny and Flossie just arrived,” I said.
“Good. Is Lou here?”
“Yes,” I said with less enthusiasm.
“Great.”
If he said so.
“And Harold just got some information he thinks might be useful in finding Vi.”
In the process of hanging his own coat and hat on the rack, Sam turned to face me and lifted a bushy eyebrow. “He did? How’d he come by it?”
“Mrs. Barrow,” I said. “She was snooping on the party line when Harold answered the telephone.”
“Harold answered the telephone?”
“Yes, because we both thought it might be his mother in a tizzy wanting me to help her, but I can’t help her. Not with Vi missing.”
“True enough.”
“And Flossie made a big pot of chicken soup for us.”
“Kind of her,” said Sam absently. “So who ’phoned?”
“First Mr. Prophet and then Mrs. Pinkerton, whom Harold put off in a masterful manner. In fact, he convinced her that she and Mr. Pinkerton should visit Santa Barbara for a week or two.”
“Well done!” said Sam, actually smiling a little.
I went on, “He also told her not to tell anyone about Vi’s disappearance. I fear Harold hinted she might be arrested for obstructing the police in carrying out their duty if she blabbed.”
“As long as it worked, I won’t contradict him,” said Sam. “At least she’ll be out of our hair.”
“True. Oh, and Harold just called the Castleton to get some dinner sent up here. And to his mother’s place. Only his mother doesn’t get any of Flossie’s soup.”
“Huh,” said Sam. It was his favorite word. Or expression. Grunt? Whatever you call it. “He can’t keep ordering food for us from the Castleton. We’ll have to struggle by the best we can until we find Vi.”
“I know,” I said, feeling miserable about my pathetic cooking skills. “Maybe you can teach me how to make that Italian tomato sauce.”
Turning and peering down at me with a degree of misgiving I didn’t appreciate, even though I deserved it, he said, “Let’s see how it goes. If we can’t find Vi by tomorrow, I’ll call in Mrs. Rattle for a week or so.”
“Brilliant idea! Thanks, Sam. I want to find Vi today.”
“So do I. Come on. Let’s have a council of war.” Gazing around the living room, he added, “As soon as Kincaid gets back here. It was nice of him to order us a meal from the Castleton.”
“Harold is an extremely nice man,” I told Sam, who had in years past disapproved of Harold because of Harold’s sexual orientation. As far as I’m concerned, a person’s sexual orientation should be nobody’s business but that of the person involved. I think perhaps—maybe—Sam had finally—sort of—come to the same conclusion. Mr. Prophet, when told of Harold’s inclinations, didn’t blink an eye. He plainly didn’t give a rap.
“Sam. I’m glad you made it,” said Pa, rising and walking up to Sam with his hand outstretched.
Shaking Pa’s hand, Sam said, “Sorry it’s necessary, Joe. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kidnap Vi. Well, unless they were really hard up for a cook or something.”
Sam’s weak sally provoked a smattering of laughter from everyone except Mr. Prophet, who sat like a lump on a living room chair, his peg leg crossed over his remaining knee at a right angle. Not sure how he managed to do that.
“This household will be hard up for a cook if we can’t find her fast,” said Mr. Prophet.
“You’re right.” Sam released a deep sigh. “And now my idiot nephew has escaped, and I have a feeling…But let’s wait until Kincaid joins us. Daisy said he has some information for us.”
“I do indeed,” said Harold, walking briskly through the dining room and into the living room, dusting his hands together. “This evening you’ll be dining on French onion soup, pot roast, mashed potatoes and vanilla pudding. With lady fingers.”
“What the devil are lady fingers?” asked Lou Prophet.
“Soft cookies. Sort of finger-shaped,” said Harold, not wincing at Mr. Prophet’s profanity. He didn’t wince at much of anything, actually.
“Sounds filling,” said Pa.
“Daisy and I can cook tomorrow,” said Ma in a smallish voice.
“Don’t worry about cooking,” said Sam—a trifle too hastily, if you ask me. “I’ll call and ask Mrs. Rattle if she can help out for a few days.”
“You’re too good to us, Sam,” said Ma. I’m sure everyone in the room heard the almost overwhelming gratitude in her voice.
Sam had hired Mrs. Rattle to do some cooking and housekeeping while I was laid up earlier in the year. A kind and competent woman, she was also the mother of Pasadena Police Officer Stephen Doan, who often worked with Sam on his cases.
“Will Officer Doan be helping you find Vi?” I asked.
“Probably. Let’s hear what Kincaid has to say first,” said Sam, seating himself beside me on the piano bench. He took my left hand in his right, which I thought was sweet of him. Sam wasn’t often overtly affectionate. “Everyone comfortable?”
Nods came from all the people seated. Harold stood next to Mr. Prophet’s chair, and he nodded too.
“So, Kincaid, what did Mrs. Barrow tell you?”
Standing straight, if not awfully tall, before the assemblage, Harold cleared his throat. “Mrs. Barrow—who has the most God-awful accent I’ve ever heard. I’m glad you don’t talk like that, Detective.”
“We’re from different boroughs of New York City,” growled Sam. “She’s from Brooklyn.”
“Ah,” said Harold. “Yes. Anyhow, Mrs. Barrow told me her husband works with a fellow named Brian O’Hara—”
“O’Hara!” said Mr. Prophet. “Hot da— er, dang!”
The man was hopeless.
Flossie giggled. As strange as it may seem—it seemed extremely strange to me—Mr. Prophet had made a huge hit with Flossie and Johnny’s little boy, Billy. They’d named him after my late husband, the dear things. Anyway, I guess Flossie didn’t flinch at much, either. She’d had as rough as life as Mr. Prophet, only in entirely different ways.
“Yes. Evidently, Mr. Brian O’Hara is unhappy because his brother, who may or may not be Cullen O’Hara—although Mrs. Barrow thought Cullen was the brother’s name—belongs to a club dedicated to raising money to send guns and ammunition to the Irish rebels. In Ireland. The club’s called…Well, she didn’t know its precise name. The Black and Tans or the Black Brimmers, or maybe the Black Tanners. She couldn’t quite remember, but it had the words black and tan in it somewhere.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Prophet, tilting his head. “What’s a black and tan? What’s a black brimmer, or a black tanner for that matter? Well, I knew me a black tanner back in the old days, but he sure as hel— heck wasn’t Irish. Black as the ace of spades, he was.”
I flung Mr. Prophet a scowl. He sent me a fraudulently innocent smile in return.
At any rate, as most of us didn’t know the answers to his questions, we remained mute until I hazarded, “Maybe the terms mean something to Irish rebels?”
We all looked at each other, most of us with blank expressions on our faces—well, I’m sure my expression was as blank as everyone else’s—except Sam’s. His own dark head bowed, and he frowned in thought.
“Do you know something, Sam?” I dared ask after several tense seconds had passed.
Lifting his head and still frowning, Sam said, “Not sure. But in New York City, there are a lot of anti-English Irishmen who called themselves either the Black and Tans or the Black Brimmers. No black tanners, however. The original Black and Tans were constables recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary, I think. They had a nasty reputation. Beat up on people and wore uniforms that were black and tan. Or dark green and tan. Not sure.”
“Spike’s a black-and-tan dachshund,” I said, just mentioning the coincidence.
From the look Sam shot me, I guess he didn’t appreciate my interruption. “Yeah, yeah. But the original Black and Tans were well known for violence and brutality. As for the Black Brimmers, there were a lot of so-called Irish patriots who called themselves that in New York, too. They were named for the type of hat they wore back in the old country, although I think the original hats were dark green.” He shook his head. “Probably black hats were cheaper than green ones. I hate to say it because I don’t like it when people think all Italians are vicious gangsters, but some of the Irish, at least in New York City, could be a disorderly bunch. Drank a lot. Fought a lot. Maybe they still felt oppressed or something. Several of their gangs caused trouble when I lived in New York City, and I understand they still do, according to some of my old police pals there.”
“Huh,” muttered Mr. Prophet. “Maybe I’m Irish.”
“And now Irish gangs are competing with the Jewish and Italian gangs back there, too.”
“Jewish gangs?” I asked, astounded.
“Yes. Jewish gangs.” Sam’s scowl deepened. “Hope like crazy they don’t start moving their people out here.”
Ma said, “My goodness.”
“If they’re so concerned about Ireland, why don’t they move to Ireland?” I asked, believing the question to be relevant.
“Probably because they can’t get work in Ireland,” said Sam. “A lot of them can’t get work here, either. Maybe that’s why they cause so much trouble. Of course, the Italian gangs are brutal, too. I hate that.”
I added my own “Huh” to the group of them going around the living room. “It’s probably the liquor making them troublesome. Now that Prohibition is the law, do they still drink? Maybe they’ve settled down?”
Everyone in the room squinted at me, including my mother and father and Flossie and Johnny. “Oh, very well. I know it was a stupid question. I think people drink more now than they ever did, probably because of Prohibition.”
“I suspect you’re right,” said Sam. “But I appreciate this information, Kincaid. I’ll check into the matter tomorrow. If Irishmen kidnapped Vi, I’m not sure how my numbskull nephew fits in, if he does. Maybe he had nothing to do with Vi’s disappearance, and his running away from the work crew was a coincidence.”
“The kid’s dumb as a sack of sticks, Sam,” said Mr. Prophet. “A lot of Irishmen are Catholics, aren’t they? Maybe he don’t care if they’re not Italian as long as they’re Catholic.”
“Good Lord, you may be right!” I said upon something of a gasp. “It would be just like Frank to join a group of violent men just because they’re Catholic.”
“Inspirational, Lou,” said Sam, grinning. “You might just have something there. I’ve got the force looking for the head of the work crew Frank was on. Oh, and the work-crew head man was named Donald Costello, which is an Irish name according to guys on the force. Apparently, he disappeared when Frank did.”
“Do you mean to say the head of the work crew ran off, too? Wasn’t he a policeman?” I asked, shocked.
“Yes, he was. If we catch him, and if he ran on purpose, he’ll never be one again,” said Sam.
“I should hope not.”
“Don’t worry. If he helped Frank escape or engineered Frank’s escape, he’ll never be a policeman again. If he survives, he’ll most likely be in prison for the rest of his days.”
“If he survives?” I repeated faintly.
“If he survives,” said Sam. He sounded as though he meant the words to be taken literally.
“Oh, he won’t,” said Mr. Prophet with an evil grin.
Merciful heavens. Perhaps my Sam had unplumbed depths I hadn’t thus far known about. Hoped I never learned about them first-hand. I knew Mr. Prophet had plenty of depths, although I’d wager most of them had been plumbed quite often.