Howard Engel: Dead and Buried

I checked my city directory and found the name of a friend of Teddie’s. She put me on her trail and I had her on the other end of the phone in less time than it takes to smoke three Player’s cigarettes. I tried not to look at my stained ceiling. Teddie had been a dressage rider when I first met her, and she still haunted horse shows all over the country and down into the States. She told me that she was staying in town temporarily, getting ready to leave again for Flagstaff, Arizona, but she agreed to have a drink with me. I didn’t tell her what prompted the invitation, but it wouldn’t be hard for her to guess. The end of my nose twitched at even the thought of the man that pulled us together. Passion is a wonderful thing. It was enough for Teddie to cancel her plans for the evening or to postpone a quiet hour or two bringing her scrapbook up to date. Better to sit across from me discussing her old bête noire. That punch in the nose could almost make me forget that I was working for a woman I couldn’t trust. If I was in my right mind, I’d stop dieseling on about the past. The ignition had been turned off too long ago.

“It’s been sooo long, Benny. It’s years since we did our little number on poor Ross,” Teddie said, sending a broad smile across the table. “You’re lucky to catch me in, you know. I’m only here for the wedding. Then I’m off to Arizona for the winter.”

“It’s only the beginning of October.”

“Well, between you and me, Benny, I hate to stay cooped up in this town. I don’t know how you handle it. Really I don’t. I mean you’re not so old, you’ve got a portable profession. I don’t see the attraction, frankly.”

Teddie Forbes had pressed my hand with something of the ancient warmth when she’d arrived in The Snug. She was looking at me so intently that I had to let my eyes wander away to the velvet and leather decor of the room. It was full of overtones of Ireland, from the piped-in music to the foolish leprechauns on the coasters under the drinks. She’d been her usual ten minutes late, just for old times, and I’d had plenty of time to take in the throng of trendy business people unwinding or wheeling and dealing over martinis and imported beer. Teddie was reminding me that a decade ago I had let the PI/client relationship get a little sloppy.

“My parents are still here, Teddie. I’m the apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.” She sent an intimate look at me over the rim of her martini glass and I lifted my rye and ginger ale to meet it.

Teddie Forbes had got prettier in the decade she’d been out of my sight. The puffy, dissipated face I’d been holding onto over the years had been replaced by sharply sculpted features with cheekbones and everything. The crowsfeet in the corners of her eyes made them look wiser than her years. I figured that she must be crowding forty by now. She was in the pink and had all the confidence that comes from knowing it. Her figure was still full, but now seemed as though she’d grown into it. She’d also learned a thing or two about clothes since I saw her last. She used to dress like a medicine-show wagon. Across from me, she sat in a tidy grey tweed that brought out the blue in her enormous eyes.

“… Now a week after I get to Flagstaff, I’ll start getting homesick for this looney-bin of home and friends and memories. I know it. I’m a sucker for nostalgia, Benny.” She took a deep sip and then gave me a smile that said we had come to the business part of our meeting. I was glad of that. She’d had me worried for a minute. “Well?” she asked.

“Teddie, something is going on at Kinross Disposals. My client thinks a family member may have been killed because he stumbled on what’s going on up there.”

“Wow!” Teddie said, putting down her drink without taking her blue headlamps off my face. “Do you think Ross is behind it?”

“Teddie, I know what you’re hoping. No, I don’t know anything except that I can’t see how I can get into the Kinross yard without being spotted. I’m not Dick Tracy and I’m not Sherlock Holmes. I can’t drive a big truck. I don’t even speak their lingo. It could take me a couple of weeks before I could arrange phoney ID, and that can run into money. If I go as myself, the phonebook unmasks me as a private investigator. Besides, in a place this size, I’m bound to run into somebody-somebody, hell! I’m sure to meet a dozen people who know me the first day on the job. That’s assuming they’ll hire me. I’ve never been in a spot like this.”

“Poor bunny, she said, enjoying my discomfort.

“There’s no way I can go undercover. No way into this puzzle. I’m going to have to do a crabdance around it until my client runs out of money. It’s going to be two steps back, three steps sideways for every half-step forward.”

“What are you going to do then? I can’t help you get through the gate at Kinross, Benny. I’m on the board of the holding company, but that doesn’t mean much, I can tell you.”

“I thought that you could help me to get Kinross and Phidias straight in my head. Ross has nothing to do with Kinross any more, right?”

“Right. That’s Norman Caine’s responsibility now. Ross has been kicked upstairs to run the parent organization. That’s Phidias.”

“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s the human side I’m short on. I need the facts on what’s going on behind the scenes.”

“That’s a tall order. I haven’t seen those people in a long time.”

“I know that. I know that. But I’m just trying to get a handle on this thing. I’m looking for a place to begin, that’s all. I thought you could tell me something about Norman Caine and what’s been going on.”

“Caine’s new. He hasn’t been around more than a couple of years. I’ve seen him a few times with Sherry, of course. But that’s only natural, considering-”

“Sherry?”

“Ross’s daughter. I mean our daughter. Remember? She and Caine are engaged. They’re getting married-”

“Great, Teddie! This is terrific stuff. It’s just the sort of information I need!”

“You’re a great talker, Benny. You come on like a real womanizer.”

“Me?”

“Sure. I can always spot a womanizer.”

“How?”

“When you tell them that you come from Grantham, Ontario, they lean across at you and say, ‘So you come from Grantham! That’s very interesting!’”

“And am I like that?”

“Aw, Benny, I know you too well.” Teddie gave me one of those warm smiles that had Special Delivery written on it. She knows how to make a man feel totally alone with her and the sole focus of her interest. She probably didn’t even know she was doing it, but I intended to relax and enjoy it all the same.

“Norman Caine is marrying Sherry. Is that like Kinross marrying Phidias, or France marrying Portugal?”

“It’s a bit like that, but Caine isn’t quite up there with the Forbeses yet. He’s trying hard, but he hasn’t quite made it.”

“He has a free hand with Kinross, does he?”

“As far as I know, he has. But, Benny, they are both family companies. The Forbeses change the rules to suit themselves. I can’t swear that Ross hasn’t kept out of Kinross’s affairs, honest.”

“What’s happened to Ross since you left him? I he still with that travel agent?”

Teddie smiled and tilted her head at my ignorance. After scolding me for not holding my ear to the ground, she answered the question. “Ross left Marie Gladwell flat when he met Caroline Grier, back in 1982, I think. He and Marie had been keeping house without benefit of clergy for seven years. While he was still legally married to me, he kept up appearances, but that was it.”