“Good morning, sunshine.” Connelly’s cheer spilled into my unwilling ear through the phone that had wakened me from a sound sleep. “I have an address for you if you’d like to come get it.”
“Are you nuts, Connelly? I’m still in bed.”
“Ah, I’d better come up then.”
I shot upright, fully awake.
“You’re in the lobby? Please tell me you’re not in uniform.”
“Pressed and shined with cudgel at the ready. Not in the lobby, though, more’s the pity. I’ll bet you’re a treat with your hair tangling over a pillow.”
My blood surged harder than it had when Bartoz yanked my car door open the previous night.
“What did you say about an address?”
“The one you mentioned you hadn’t been able to find.”
The flophouse with the unidentified body? It had to be. I hadn’t asked him to find it, though. Since Freeze had refused to give it to me, I’d avoided involving Connelly.
“Have you something to write it down with?” he asked patiently.
I reached for the pencil and paper on the nightstand.
“Thanks, Connelly. I didn’t expect this,” I said when I’d finished.
“I know. It worried me, you being so down in the dumps you didn’t try some trick to get me to help. Look, Billy let me out at a pay phone and I see him coming to pick me up. Keep safe.”
* * *
My first stop of the day was in a pleasant neighborhood at a cottage not much larger than a playhouse. One cheek of the moderately pretty young woman who opened the door looked flushed and sweaty. The other side of her face was fine. The infant whimpering on her hip as she opened the door possibly explained the dichotomy.
“Mrs. O’Neill?” I asked with a smile.
“Yes?” She shushed the baby on her hip, looking distracted.
“My name is Maggie Sullivan. I’m a private detective. I’d like to ask you some questions about your cousin. Nick Perry.”
Both sides of her face grew equally granite-like.
“I haven’t seen my cousin for twelve years or more. I don’t know where he is or anything else about him. Try our great-aunt, Mrs. Carlton Drake.”
She started to close the door. I leaned my shoulder against it.
“I know where he is. He’s right here in Dayton. And thick as he is with your aunt, I doubt she’d give me the sort of information I need.”
Part of the hostility in her eyes gave way to interest. Then her kid progressed from whimpering to full-blown fuss. Tears started to spill and he tugged at his ear.
“I don’t know anything that would help. Excuse me. I have a sick baby.”
“Then I better come in, hadn’t I? So he’s not in a draft.”
I knew she wouldn’t risk bumping the kid if we tussled over the door. A second passed, then she stepped aside.
“Really, I really don’t know what I could— There, there, baby, Mama knows it hurts.”
“It is a boy, right?” I’d made a stab in the dark.
She nodded wearily. “He has an earache. Shh, shh, there now.” The baby, who didn’t look quite big enough to walk, pressed his head to her cheek.
Inside and out, the house I’d entered was neat as a pin, with white walls and lace curtains. It was also tiny, probably just this front room plus a kitchen and bath and bedroom in back. Quite a change from her Aunt Clara’s big place and her cousin’s high living. The neighborhood was good, though.
“You didn’t seem surprised when I told you I was a detective.”
“Not when you mentioned Nick in the same sentence. Except for your being a woman, of course. Nick’s parents gave him everything. Our aunt and uncle – great-aunt and uncle, really – adored him. Yet ever since we were children he’s been a bad apple. Not just boyish pranks, bad.” She glanced briefly up from the baby. “You’re not here because you’re trying to help him, are you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She hadn’t asked me to sit. I didn’t, even as she settled herself in an armchair and eased what I knew by the shape was a hot water bottle wrapped in flannel between her cheek and the baby’s ear.
“I honestly don’t know much about him. He’s five years older. We saw each other at family gatherings, parties by our parents’ friends. That was the extent.
“They moved away, his family did, when I was nine or ten. They came back summers to visit. The last time they came, Nick... stole something.” She swallowed. “From a friend of Uncle Carlton’s....
“Please don’t ask my husband’s family about it. Aunt Clara is the only relative I have left, and she wants nothing to do with me since I married a Catholic. My in-laws know she disowned me, of course, but not about—”
“I didn’t intend to.”
“It never even occurred to me to mention Nick, let alone—”
“What did Nick steal?”
Sarah started to shake her head, but remembering the baby, turned one palm up instead.
“I don’t know. My parents whispered. I think Uncle Carlton made things right with the other man, but even young as I was I could see my uncle was heartbroken afterwards. The idea someone related to him would do such a thing, I suppose.”
“What was the other man’s name?”
“I’m not sure. Russell? But that could have been his first name. He had bad lungs. They moved to Arizona or one of those dry places. I think it might have been around the time that Uncle Carlton died.”
She eased herself to the edge of her chair, preparing to stand. The baby whimpered.
“He has a doctor’s appointment. If you’ll excuse me...”
“I’ll let myself out so you don’t have to jostle him more than necessary. And thanks.” I took a step, then paused. “It must be tough, being estranged from your aunt after all you did for her.”
“Actually, it’s a relief. She’s a very difficult person. I don’t believe she appreciated a thing I did for her.”
To reassure the frazzled young woman she’d be rid of me, I waited until I was at the door to speak again.
“What about Nick’s friends? Are any of them still around?”
“I don’t even know what school he attended. When we were at Aunt Clara’s he’d sneak off sometimes with the son of a chauffeur or gardener or something who worked in the neighborhood. But as far as actual friends, I’ve no idea.”