The location of Lagarde Jewelry, more than its bright blue awning, told me it catered to the carriage trade. It was in easy walking distance of the Hotel Miami and Rike’s Department Store. Four years of working at the latter place before I set up shop as a gumshoe meant I had an ace or two up my sleeve.
I found a parking place, steering clear of the new meters on Main and Ludlow that had caused such a tizzy. Then I went into Rike’s and caught up with Abner Simms, head of security. He immediately whisked me to lunch.
“Sure you won’t come back to work for me?” Ab raised bristling brows and gave a tiny smile. “No getting punched in the nose, no sitting in the cold playing Peeping Tom, fancy sandwiches whenever you wanted them.”
We were in one of the store’s several restaurants. This one’s offerings included pecan chicken salad on raisin bread. It was overly fussy for Ab’s taste. Nevertheless, he rotated through them all for his daily lunch, chewing and keeping an eye peeled for trouble or staff laxness.
“I usually do the nose punching,” I assured him. “I miss the sandwiches though. I should remember to come here more often.”
Ab and I got along better now than when I’d worked with him. I’d started part-time at Rike’s when I was sixteen, emptying trash and running errands, then working full time as a floorwalker and eventually in loss prevention. That was at the bottom of the Depression. Ab hadn’t been the only one who thought it was wrong to give work to a woman when so many men with families couldn’t get a job. Now he hired me on a retainer to run background checks on potential employees.
“What have you heard about the trouble up the street?” I indicated with my head.
“Trouble?”
His eyes snapped to full attention.
“At Lagarde Jewelry. I saw police cars in front. One belongs to the homicide boys.”
“Homicide! Maybe there was a robbery and something went wrong.” He fingered a bushy mustache. “Word would have filtered up by now, though, don’t you think?”
“You’d think.”
When an accident or a fire occurred nearby, customers came in chattering. The news rose from street level through all seven floors faster than the store’s escalator.
“You wouldn’t happen to be working on something involving the place, would you?” Ab crumpled his napkin on the table.
“I’m hoping Lagarde can give me some help with something I’m working on. I understand he’s an expert at spotting copies.”
“That he is. We even had him take a look at something we got in once. It might have been while you were still here.”
We left the restaurant. I knew by his direction we were headed back to his office.
“Let’s ask Vivian if she’s heard anything.”
She was his secretary, and in our absence she’d heard there were police cars in front of Lagarde Jewelry. That was all.
“If I get wind of anything, want me to give you a call?” Ab asked as he walked with me to the stairs.
“I’d appreciate it. I’ll be out a lot, though, so I may stop in to see you.”
I took my leave and stopped on the way downstairs to chat with a clerk or two I’d worked with. I spent some time in the book department, then in hats. My hope was that the cop cars down the street would have disappeared by the time I left, allowing me to mosey down the street and stick my nose in.
When I went out the Ludlow Street exit and glanced that way, Freeze’s unmarked car was gone but two patrol cars were still in evidence. Pretending to study a window display of ladies fashions, I debated my next move. Did I dare stroll down and shoot the breeze with the uniforms? I took a peep and got my answer. A blocky figure had appeared and now stood talking to a pair of beat cops.
Boike.
I swung my gaze back to the fashion display just as the detective glanced around. And possibly saw me.
For the next several minutes I studied the clothing on the mannequins before me avidly. Especially the hats. I mulled over the shoes. I looked up at the hats. I shifted position and pursed my lips thoughtfully. All the while, I watched the glass. When I was starting to hope the coast might be clear, I caught sight of Boike’s reflection.
“You never struck me as the type to drool over dresses,” he greeted.
“Are you kidding? If I was rolling in dough, I’d have a closet full. Is Freeze letting you off to go shopping these days?” I looked in the direction of the patrol cars. “Oh, jeez. Were you at that jewelry store? Did somebody try to rob the place?”
His manner switched from curiosity to alertness.
“What do you know about it?”
“Just that there’s a fancy one down there. Some Frenchie name.”
“I don’t suppose anyone there’s ever been a client of yours.”
“No. I worked here before I hung out my shingle. Used to walk past... was there a robbery?”
Boike relaxed some.
“Nah. A stiff in the alley.”
“Somebody who worked there?”
He clamped his mouth shut.
“Come on, Boike. Can you at least tell me if it was the same as the girl who got strangled behind The Canterbury?”
Boike considered. He was more reasonable than his boss. A sense of fair play was probably telling him I had a right to know that much.
“Only in that they’re both dead,” he said. “Anyway, it’s starting to look like that girl behind the hotel got killed by her boyfriend. He hopped a freight out of town around then. We’ll probably never know if he meant to kill her or they had a fight.”
Did his answer mean the new body in the alley belonged to a man? That the victim hadn’t been strangled? That the victim hadn’t been an employee of the jewelry store?
Maybe it only meant two people were dead.
* * *
Having worked at Rike’s meant I knew exactly where every pay phone was located. As soon as Boike left I bolted inside to the nearest one. With luck I could talk to the jewelry store before he got back and told anyone he’d seen me. If Freeze was down there, he was likely to put the kibosh on anyone except cops answering phone calls.
“Lagarde Jewelry,” a subdued voice answered. A female voice. Good.
“Oh, hello,” I fluttered. “I talked to Mr. Lagarde last week about a bracelet that’s been in our family for ages, and he said I should bring it by so he could look at it. If I stop by in half an hour or so, will he be available?”
“I’m... afraid not.”
The strain in the voice made me ninety percent certain.
“Tomorrow, then?” I asked brightly.
Silence.
Maybe this was the first time she’d had to break the news. Maybe she’d had to break it so often it was taking its toll.
“Mr. Lagarde...” She cleared her throat. “Mr. Lagarde passed away over the weekend.”