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Nan Hudson Tremain proved to be as inconsiderate of my girlish hopes as Daisy had been. No one answered the door at her nice stone and mortar bungalow. Her daughter, the girl in the photo on Gil Tremain’s desk, must still be in school. A look at my watch caused me to revise that assessment. School had been out for at least half an hour. Maybe the kid took piano lessons or went to Girl Scouts or something. After waiting in my car for twenty minutes, I went back to deal with odds and ends at the office.
Since I planned another trip to Daisy’s apartment to see if she returned around six the way her neighbor had said she sometimes did, I hunted a parking spot on the street. The gravel lot where I usually parked was only a few blocks away, but maybe because of the roughing up I’d gotten yesterday or the time of month, I wasn’t feeling as perky as usual. As I came up Patterson, my grip on the steering wheel tightened. Just ahead of me, across from my building and half a block down, a scruffy brown sedan sat at the curb. The last number on the license plate was a six.
Careful to keep my speed up, I continued past. I was no believer in coincidence. It took discipline not to look to see if anyone was sitting in the car. I waited until I was past, then used my rearview mirror. Yep. He was taller than Clem Stark, though. Broader through the shoulders, too. He wasn’t even pretending to read a paper, just sitting behind the wheel. One of Clem’s boys?
Adrenalin raised my heart rate. Half was wariness, but the other half was optimism as I thought of another possibility: Could this have something to do with Gil Tremain’s disappearance? Had I managed to stir up something I didn’t yet recognize?
Circling the block to see if the car would pull out and follow, I tried to decide whether, if it stayed parked, I should mosey up to the driver and say hello or just play dumb. If this was the car that had nearly rear-ended me, there could be an innocent explanation. Maybe the driver had come to apologize. No, because how would he have known where to find me?
By the time I came back around, the brown car was gone. I pulled into the vacated space and sat to see if he’d show up. When there was no sign of him after plenty of time had elapsed for him to go half a dozen blocks and return, I went across the street to my office.
For the next hour I wasted half my time padding across to the window to look down at the street. If the brown car was out there, I didn’t see it. I’d kicked off my shoes and was sitting with my feet on the desk trying to figure out what, if anything, the car might have to do with Gil Tremain when I heard the snick of my door latch.
“It’s too nice a night to be working late,” Connelly said strolling in.
My hand, which had gone beneath my chair to the Smith & Wesson, eased back. Connelly’s eyes caught the movement.
“Expecting someone?”
“Just a vigilant gal.” I smiled.
He grunted. He knew I was lying.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I wondered if you’d settle for a sandwich instead of an olive branch.” He made himself at home resting a hip against one corner of my desk as I swung my legs down. His uniform collar was unbuttoned. He’d just gotten off duty.
“An olive branch for what?”
“Giving you grief about the knot on your head this morning. It tears me apart when I see you bruised or hurt, and the worst part is always knowing it could have been worse. But I also know it’s not my place to scold. So there. I’ve said my piece. Seal the truce with a sandwich?”
“A truce implies hostilities can resume.”
Crossing his arms, he grinned.
“Ah, Maggie. As long as we’re both breathing we’ll keep having skirmishes. Don’t you know that?”
“I’d like to, Connelly, but I can’t. I need to talk to a woman at six. She may be able to help me quit playing Blind Man’s Bluff with what I’m working on. And you’ve got music to play tonight, so we can’t go after I finish.”
Thursday nights Connelly and half a dozen others played Irish tunes at Finn’s pub. Fiddle and concertina and whistle and him on the pipes. It connected him, however briefly, to the life he’d left on the other side of the ocean.
“What about tomorrow?” I wanted to let him know I wasn’t sore.
“I can’t. You know Brooks? When you didn’t show up last night, I sat with him at the prizefight. He won a bet with somebody and got two tickets to the one tomorrow. He invited me. What about Saturday?”
“As long as we go Dutch.”
He snagged a strand of my hair and twirled it around his fingertip, a move he knew I hated. He didn’t know it also turned me to liquid inside.
“You drive a hard bargain.” Eyes twinkling, he straightened and turned toward the door before I could tell him to keep his hands to himself. “Oh, one other thing, mavourneen. A wee bell this side of your door would give warning if you’re going to sit wool-gathering.”
Winking at my indignation, he walked out.
I reconsidered his Christmas present.
***
Even before Connelly made his appearance, daylight had dwindled. Now I couldn’t tell the color of cars in the street below except for flashes as they passed under a streetlight. By the time I set out for Daisy’s place, things hadn’t improved. I left early since her chatty neighbor’s talk about variations in Daisy’s child-minding job suggested she could as easily come home half an hour early as not at all. Also it allowed me time to meander a little in case anyone followed me.
Someone did.
A block and a half from my office, a new pair of headlights edged into place behind me, three places back. When I turned right, the first two cars behind me continued straight. The third one didn’t. It hung back now, allowing another car to pull in between us. It was too far back for me to make out the color, but our dance through evening traffic made me glad I’d humored my instinct.
Whoever it was, I didn’t want to lead them to Daisy. If it turned out to be only Clem Stark or one of his lackeys trying to show me how clever he was or muck up my case, I wanted to rub his nose in it, too. I bobbled over a couple of blocks and looked for a place I’d noticed a few times, a hat shop. I pulled into a spot a customer leaving another small shop vacated. The car that had been playing shadow passed me.
It was brown. With a license plate ending in six.
Time to let the pursuer become the pursued.
***
“Oh, I know it’s almost time for you to close, but I’ve been eyeing a hat in your window for two weeks,” I chirped as I entered the hat shop. “I just had to have a closer peek. I’ll leave when it’s time for you to lock up. Scout’s honor.” I raised my fingers.
The middle-aged clerk who had started around the counter to offer some pleasantry forced a smile.
“Look all you want, dear. I have some items to check off on my inventory. Did you have any questions?”
“Well, I did wonder what the price was.” I giggled. “When you can’t see the tag, that usually means it costs more than I can afford.”
I wanted to see if the brown car came past again. The shop’s small display window gave me a dandy view of the street. If I could get the woman running the place to join me, my stop here would look all the more innocent to anyone outside.
“Oh, you mustn’t fret about that. We have lay away....”
I kept my ears on the conversation enough to hold up my end and my eyes on the street. Across the way, a car vacated a place at the curb. A moment later, another one left. A moment after that, a shape I was starting to recognize pulled into one of them. I couldn’t tell the color, but the last two digits were twenty-six.
“Oh no!” I gasped. “Do you have a back way out?”
“Why?” The woman helping me followed my gaze to the street. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s following me. A - a man who won’t take no for an answer. He keeps turning up everywhere. It’s starting to scare me.”
“We need to call the police.” The clerk marched purposely toward the counter and the phone behind it.
“No!” I leaned earnestly over the counter. “I can’t.” Glancing over my shoulder as if someone might overhear, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “The trouble is, it’s – it’s my brother-in-law!”
At the cluck of her tongue I knew I was halfway to her back exit.
“Well! Do men get any lower than that?”
“I do want this hat, though. Can I pay now and come back to get it?”
I waved the pretty pink cloche in my hand.
“Oh, of course. And yes, there’s a back door. Lights here and there, too, so the alley’s not as dark as some.”
The merchandise in her shop wasn’t up to the quality I generally bought, even though that meant saving up or buying on sale. I’d met a girl who worked in a dime store who was crazy for hats, though. She’d helped me out on a case. I knew she’d be thrilled with the pink hat. Buying it would put me on good terms with the shopkeeper. If anything interesting happened after I left, she’d tell me when I picked up the hat.
She’d already started writing the sale up when she stopped and frowned.
“Didn’t I see you get out of a car, though?”
I nodded.
“That DeSoto out there. I’ll send my kid brother to get it.”
“How will you get home?”
“Oh, I’ll take a trolley. I know where the stops are.”
Once I’d slipped out her back door, though, I beat it to the nearest pay phone I could find. My fingers were crossed that Calvin, the skinny, bashful eighteen year old who was junior mechanic at Weaver’s Garage would still be there working.