Goodnight Irene Read online

  Goodnight Irene

  James Scott Byrnside

  Copyright © 2018 James Scott Byrnside

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-692-09816-5

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Mary Brennan, Alexandra Johns, Shelly Woods, Meredith Tennant, and Jaimie-Lee Wise for their invaluable assistance.

  A list of all the people who encouraged me would be quite long. Suffice it to say, you know who you are.

  Cover design and artwork by Matt Willis-Jones

  This book is a work of fiction and all characters, dialogue, and events are not to be construed as real.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, contact: [email protected]

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chicago 1907

  1

  Chapter 1

  Chicago 1927

  8

  Chapter 2

  How Very Peculiar

  28

  Chapter 3

  Digging Up the Dorothy Roberts Case

  43

  Chapter 4

  The Great Mississippi Flood

  61

  Chapter 5

  Guests

  70

  Chapter 6

  First Impressions

  83

  Chapter 7

  Robert Lasciva

  92

  Chapter 8

  Murder

  101

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  The Right Questions

  Suspects

  The River

  Robbery

  In the Dark

  Fire and Rain

  Voiced and Unvoiced Consonants

  Revelation

  Chicago 1928

  118

  135

  165

  181

  200

  210

  218

  240

  255

  This novel is dedicated to Christianna Brand. She was not the most prolific or celebrated mystery writer. She was the best.

  James Scott Byrnside

  prologue

  Chicago 1907

  Dorothy Roberts rang up Pop Morse’ Roadhouse. Pop Morse said that everyone had split; the place had gone dark.

  “Robert Lasciva? Tall, handsome, a real bimbo…”

  “Yeah, I know the guy. He left already. Everybody left already. I told you.” Pop’s asthmatic wheeze hissed over the silence.

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  Pop got tired of the whole business and ended the conversation with a click of the receiver.

  Dorothy tried the Brown Bear and Smalleys but everyone had finished for the night. She clawed through the gravelly debris at the bottom of her purse and scrounged a dull penny.

  One last coin but there’s nowhere left to call.

  She held it in front of the slot for a moment. Her fingers went limp and the coin fell back into a pile of lint and make-up.

  Where the hell is he? He might have gone back to my apartment. Irene is asleep, snug as a bug in a rug. He’ll wake her.

  She furrowed her brow at the thought and attempted to roll a cigarette in the booth. Snowflakes drifted through the splintered wood and suffused the tiny paper, turning the tobacco to mush. Dorothy let out an irked huff of breath and clenched her bony hand into a fist. She held this pose until her fingernails penetrated her palm, then dropped the mangled ball of tobacco onto the slush.

  The door frame jostled open and Dorothy gingerly heel-toed the sheet of ice covering the ground. As she shivered down Fullerton Avenue, a cacophony of stray dog barks punctured the silent Chicago night. Chimney smoke billowed out from countless rooftops and drifted toward the heavens before dissolving into the starless, stony sky.

  “Dorothy!” The voice bellowed from the second story of a familiar old brownstone. Alice Schmidt hung her upper torso out of the window and rested her swollen arms on the ledge. Her sharp, staccato voice emanated from her rosebud mouth, centered by perpetually flushed cheeks. “Dorothy, what are you doing?” Alice’s German accent rendered ‘Dorothy’ as ‘Dorozee’ and ‘what’ as ‘vaht.’

  “I needed to get out. I was going batty in the apartment, just needed to walk around.”

  “Is Irene home alone?” Alice had a way of turning her questions into accusations.

  “Irene is in bed. She’s fine, really. When I left, she was snoring. She snores just like her father did.”

  “I know.” Alice left her mouth open.

  The two women stared in silence. Dorothy waited for Alice to say something else. She would have continued waiting but her scalp began to freeze from all the snow piled into her hair. The warm vapor of her breath brushed against the insensate tip of her nose.

  “Irene is fine.”

  “Do you want to come in? You can have some tea and get warm.”

  Irritation crept into Dorothy’s voice. “No, I should get back and check on Irene. If she wakes up, she’ll start crying and she’ll be all alone. What kind of mother would I be? Who leaves their child home alone? Who does a thing like that?”

  Alice leaned her head out the window. “Be sure to tell the little mäuschen I will see her on Monday. Yes?”

  “Of course. It’s her favorite thing in the world.”

  “And if she’s awake when you get home, tell her Alice said, ‘Goodnight, Irene.’”

  “Goodnight, Alice.”

  “Auf wiedersehen.” She held her pudgy arms aloft and shut the window.

  She’s right. What are you doing? You got all dressed up. For what? It doesn’t matter. Don’t ask. Just move. One step, two steps down the street. No other thoughts now.

  The front door to the town home bulldozed the accumulated snow and Dorothy stepped into the vestibule. It reeked of the downtrodden and tobacco. She rolled a cigarette with her stubby fingers and finally inhaled the calming smoke. The numb slowly left her face as she looked through the dirt-stained window at her neighborhood, blanketed in white.

  This city is gorgeous if you don’t have to live in it.

  Her thoughts, like the flakes in the air, drifted waywardly. Eventually they found their way to memories of the past. The images were awash with a serene luminosity that contrasted painfully with the present tense of her life.

  The visions of her old apartment came easily. The sunlight shone through the window and covered the living room like honey. Dust particles flitted visibly in the brilliant beams of light. Dorothy carried Irene around the room and told her about every face in every photograph on the wall. Harold leaned back in the chair, his pipe firmly held in the corner of his mouth. He adjusted it and the stem clicked against his teeth. The sound brought with it the other senses.

  In September of 1903, the roof caved in. Harold’s nose began to bleed several times a day. It frightened Dorothy but Harold ignored it. One night, she noticed bumps on his chest. They resembled rotten cherries and felt knotty to the touch. Something was wrong. She pleaded with him to go to the hospital but he refused. One morning he defecated green liquid and Dorothy called a doctor. By then it was too late. The only solace was that Irene had not contracted typhoid as well.

  And now…

  Snap out of it. Where are you? You’re at home and… Irene. If Robert came, he probably knocked a few times and left. I hope she didn’t answer the door. She’s all alone up ther
e. She’s so little.

  She flicked the half-smoked cigarette into the dark corner. As Dorothy watched its smoldering tip dissipate, a panic grew in her gut. She paced the tiny corridor and the images in her mind coalesced into grotesque montages.

  Move.

  Heels in hand, she bounded up the stairs toward the seventh floor. During one manic leap, the slippery silk of her stocking threw her off balance and her knees landed on the top of a riser. Her scream echoed up and down the stairwell. No one answered it. With wobbling legs and heaving breath, she picked herself up and limped to her floor.

  A thin shaft of light poured out of Dorothy’s apartment, piercing the blackness of the hall. She stood across from it, rubbing her aching knees.

  Oh, no.

  As Dorothy hobbled along the hallway, the darkened walls seemed to be collapsing on her. She stopped in front of her door and ran her hand along the splintered wood. The smell of alcohol wafted through the crack. Her trembling index finger pushed the door open.

  Jack Tellum sat at the kitchen table holding a cloth to his thumb and looking gruff. The white fabric was spotted with red. A revolver sat perched in his shoulder holster. Robert’s nickname for Jack was ‘Toad’ because his head and neck moved as a solitary unit with only a double chin to show any separation.

  He regarded her without expression.

  “Where’s Robert?” Dorothy asked.

  The toad’s lack of expression remained and he said nothing.

  “Robert. Robert!” Her voice cracked under the strain of the volume.

  Jack finally spoke. “Easy now, don’t lose your lovely head over this.”

  Dorothy inched to the bedroom door, keeping her eyes on the man at the table. “My daughter, Irene… She was here all alone. I need to make sure she’s safe.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s reasonable. Just don’t lose it. Not now.” Tellum offered the barest hint of a smile.

  An ache started at the back of Dorothy’s eyes and her mouth moved without saying anything. Her hand blindly twisted the knob. She turned toward the bed and the tension left her body. What little color there was, drained away from her brittle cheeks. Her eyes slewed toward the full-length mirror in the corner of the room and she saw herself cracked by the glass. Then, as if in a trance, Dorothy Roberts walked out of the bedroom window into mid-air and landed on the ice, seven floors below.

  Chapter 1

  Chicago 1927

  “The time is almost upon us.”

  Rowan Manory put away his pocket watch and rolled a cigarette under an elm tree. The detective was a stocky box of a man with a black suit featuring wide notch lapels that nearly covered his shoulders. He pushed the cigarette into the corner of his mouth.

  His assistant, Walter Williams, opted to stand under the sun. Walter was a tall, lanky man, with a thin jazz suit, tinged the slightest possible shade of grey. He inhaled the sublime scent of spring as it breezed through Chicago’s affluent South Shore neighborhood. “Isn’t it grand, Manory?”

  “You are referring to this neighborhood?” Rowan looked over the row of houses.

  “No, I mean the season. Hope springing eternal, the butterflies, the squirrels, and the rejuvenation of life—that sort of thing.”

  Rowan struck a match and puffed the cigarette to life. “For every one homicide during the fall and winter, there are three in spring and summer. It is not only the flora and fauna that flourish with the thaw. There is also the rebirth of the sisters, animus and avarice. They seem to be fanatical about warm weather.”

  Walter nodded. “You must admit the squirrels are adorable. Look at them, chasing each other up the tree.”

  Rowan could not suppress his smile. “Are you mocking me, Williams?”

  Walter held out his thumb and index finger a few inches apart. “Just a little bit. I think one can enjoy a picturesque day without dwelling on humanity’s moral turpitude.”

  “That is completely dependent on one’s point of view. Now, Williams, before we enter the house, let us go over everything we know thus far.”

  “We haven’t even talked to the client yet.”

  “Yes, but the story has dominated the newspapers for the last three weeks. We know some basic facts. Tell them to me.”

  Walter joined Rowan in the shade and pulled out his notepad. “The victim was Martin Brent, proprietor of Brent Real Estate and Loan. He was murdered on the second of March.”

  “Who were the last people to see Mr. Brent alive?”

  “His seven employees. According to their statements, Brent entered his office just before four o’clock p.m. and locked the door. At that point, they went home for the evening, leaving him alone in the building.”

  Rowan looked down the street in both directions. “The building is nearby?”

  Walter pointed to the left. “It’s on Langley and Phillips, about fifteen minutes on foot. It’s an isolated little cul-de-sac, but there are two separate alleys leading into it, making it easily accessible.”

  “Very good. Continue.”

  “At about a quarter past five, the cleaning service showed up. It was three men – two Poles and a Czech. The names are Marcin Woj…” Walter stared at the page for a moment. “I’m not going to try and pronounce the names. They discovered the body and notified the police.”

  “How did they discover the body?”

  “The door to Martin Brent’s office was still locked, but the inside of the room was visible through the window. The victim was hunched over his desk with piano wire around his neck. Nothing was stolen. His keys were found in a trash can around the corner.”

  “And what does this tell us?”

  Walter shrugged. “The killer may have been a pianist?”

  “Do your parents know how brilliant you are?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, they have a pretty good idea.”

  “This tells us that Mr. Brent probably knew his killer, at least enough to unlock the office door for him. It tells us that this was a crime of passion or long-term gain. Most importantly, it gives us a solid time frame for the murder. Barring some extraordinary case of collusion, Brent’s employees and those of the cleaning service have alibis and no apparent motive.”

  “That’s correct. The only people who stand to benefit from his death are the wife, Agatha, and the brother, Tommy. The brother was recently added to the will, but he won’t receive anything substantial. Agatha is the primary beneficiary. She gave birth three weeks before the murder and has been housebound since that time. At the time of the murder, she was at home taking care of the baby. According to her statement, Tommy Brent was with her from three forty-five until five o’clock.”

  “So, they have provided one another with an alibi.”

  “Well, there’s always the love triangle possibility. She could be covering for Tommy.”

  Rowan blew out a ring of smoke. “Agatha Brent hired us because she is discouraged at the lack of progress by the police. That does not strike me as particularly suspicious. If she had been involved in the murder of her husband, I doubt she would have hired a private detective.”

  “Tommy may have paid someone to kill his brother, but he’s a dewdropper.”

  Rowan gave Walter a look of disappointment. “Please use English when speaking to me.”

  “The man’s a leech. He hasn’t had a steady job since… well, since forever. He moved in to help with the baby and, presumably, to eat the food. That would make him a logical suspect.”

  Rowan faced the Brent house at the end of the street. “The police thought he was the best suspect.”

  “They had Tommy in for questioning. They held him as long as they could, but like I said, he’s covered for the duration of the time frame. There’s no evidence to link him to the crime.”

  “We shall see.” Rowan flicked the cigarette onto the grass and stomped it out. “The police have one other idea. During the last hour of his life, Martin Brent bought out a tractor company in Atlanta. The purchase was proposed and finalized at a qua
rter after four. The only people who knew about it were Martin and the owner of the company. The police believe the killer was in the office at the time of the sale and now plans to purchase the company after the case dies down. They are keeping this information under wraps.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Inspector Grady is one of my few remaining friends with the police. He worked with my mother when she was on the force. Occasionally, he tips me off.”

  “That’s awfully nice of him.”

  Rowan cast a sardonic glance. “The information is told when the information is sold. The police are looking into some competing firms and business rivals, but nothing has turned up as yet.”

  Rowan pulled out his pocket watch again and pulled the crown into the setting position. His thumb and forefinger twirled the dial back and forth, repositioning the hands.

  Past, present, and future.

  A smug smile appeared on his face. “It is time. Let us begin, Williams.”

  The detectives made their way up the front walkway of the Brent house. Rowan reached forward and took hold of a large doorknocker affixed to a gargoyle’s mouth. He brought it down lightly on the door in two precise knocks.

  After waiting a few seconds, Walter spun toward Rowan with wide eyes. He whispered, “Manory.”

  “What is it, Williams?”

  “Is it ‘Miss Brent’ or ‘Mrs. Brent’? Which honorific does one use for a widow?”

  Rowan whispered, “Mrs.”

  Walter narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure? Technically, the woman still has the man’s name. However, she’s not legally married to him.”

  “For us it is not a question of legality, but rather intent. ‘Mrs.’ is used when the widow is devastated at the death of her husband and mourns his loss. If the woman is happy to be rid of the man, the correct term is ‘Miss’. Do you recall Amanda Green?”