Jonathan Craig - The Case of the Petticoat Murder

“It was Susan's.”

“My information is that it was yours.”

“It was, originally. A friend of mine gave it to me, and I gave it to Susan.”

I didn't say anything for a moment, trying to think of all the implications of what she had just told me.

“Well!” she said again. “No wonder!” She was, it seemed to me, beginning to be very gay about something.

“You pretty fond of Mrs. Campbell, are you?” I asked.

“I detest her.”

“Then why give her such an expensive bag?”

“Because, for one thing, I don't care for alligator. And second, she was my employer's wife. I didn't think she liked me any more than I did her.”

“Is that the reason women give other women expensive handbags?”

“It's the reason I did.”

“You have a better opinion of Dr. Campbell, do you?”

“I respect him as a doctor.”

“That isn't what I meant, Miss Hardesty”

“I know very well what you meant. And my answer was that I respected him as a doctor.”

“Pretty bitter about his firing you?”

“He didn't. It was Susan.”

“You mean, indirectly?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Campbell tell you so?”

“He didn't have to. I know she was behind it.”

“Why should she want you fired?”

“I don't know. I think it must have been because of something that happened last week.” She paused. “Actually, I'm not too sure just what did happen.”

“Maybe I can help you figure it out.”

“It was such an odd thing, really. I happened to run into her on my lunch hour, and we decided to stop in this little place and have a quick sandwich and a coke. I was in a hurry, and so was she. But, just as we sat down at the counter, Susan got the strangest look on her face. I didn't know what to think; and then I saw that the waitress behind the counter was staring at her. Susan actually turned white. Then the waitress smiled at her and said, 'What's the matter, Suzy? Don't you remember me?' And then Susan — why, you'd think the woman had slapped her! She just whirled around and practically ran out of there.” She paused. “That was the beginning of the end, Mr. Selby. After that, Susan would scarcely speak to me.”

“No explanation whatever?”

“No. When I caught up with her outside, I asked her what in the world had happened. She just shook her head and walked off without even saying good-by.”

“Where's this place located?”

“Just West of Third on Fiftieth, McConnery's, I think it's called.”

“What'd the waitress look like?”

“She was very heavy. About thirty, I think. Kind of brassy hair.”

“Pretty weird occurrence, Miss Hardesty.”

“I was completely baffled by it. I still am.”

I stood up and walked to the door. “If there's anything else you'd like to say to me, Miss Hardesty,” I, said, “now's the time.”

She rose and crossed to the door to open it.

“I suppose you'll be talking to Susan now?” she said, smiling.

“Does that please you?”

“You must have forgotten she cost me my job.”

“I'm not forgetting,” I said.

“She'll be in the city today. If anyone should happen to want her for anything, they just might find her at the Verlaine Drapery Shop.” Her face was a little flushed, her eyes very bright. “It's at Forty-seventh and Fifth.”

“You're sure?”

“I made all the arrangements myself, Mr. Selby. Her appointment with the salesman is at eleven o'clock.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'll keep it in mind.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “I'm sure you will.”

MCCONNERY's was a very small, very clean lunchroom with a chrome-and-red counter across a narrow aisle from a single row of chrome-and-blue booths. There was an elderly lady in the cashier's chair, a brunette waitress behind the counter, a heavy-set blonde woman drinking coffee in the last booth at the rear, and no customers at all.

The woman in the rear booth was wearing a waitress' uniform and, in a place the size of this one, the chances of her being the woman Edna Hardesty had told me about were pretty good.

She glanced at me, pursed her lips for a moment, and then smiled without really meaning it.

“Friendly cuss, aren't you?” she said.

“Most of the time,” I said.

“Cop?”

“Yes.”

“And no free coffee on the house? You're slipping.”

“Are you the only blonde waitress working here?”

She nodded. “Thanks for not saying fat blonde waitress. What's your problem?”

“A girl named Suzy.”

“Oh?”

“She came in here last week. She and another girl. You asked her if she didn't remember you, and she ran out on you.”

Her smile went away. “What about her?”

“Suzy acted very strangely. Why?”

“Are you backing into something else? Is that it?”

“I'm interested in why she acted that way. If that leads to something else, all right.”

“This straight?”

“All the way.”

“I sure don't want any trouble with cops.”

“The sight of you had quite an effect on her. How come?”

“You've got me. Why she should snoot me that way is something I can't understand.” She paused, her face hardening a little. “Of course, she's got it made now. Anybody could see that from her clothes.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“If you mean in the last four or five years, I can't tell you anything. That's how long it's been since I saw her. That time last week was the only time I've even thought about her.”

“Something happened, Miss—?”

“Josie,” she said. “Josie Daniels.”

“Something happened to send her out of here that way,” I said. “It was a lot more than a matter of snooting someone, Miss Daniels.”

“Sure. But what? I tell you, you could have knocked me over with a napkin.”

“Could it have been something that happened four or five years ago?”

“I don't know what.”

“Where did you know her?”

“Down home. In Mississippi.”

“She's been away from there that long? Four or five years?”

“Call it four. Yes, she cleared out of there when she was about fourteen. Me, I've been on the go ever since I was about the same age. But I always made it home couple of times a year, no matter what.”

“What town is this, Miss Daniels?”

“Little wide spot in the road called Kirkman.”

“Suzy from the same town?”

“No. She lived right out in the cotton.”

“Plantation?”

“You Yankees! No. It was just a little old shack right out in the middle of nothing — just like all the other 'croppers' shacks.” She shook her head. “A lot she's got to snoot people about! Why, I knew her when she didn't have but one dress to her name.”

“Tell me what you can about her.”

“Don't think I won't. The way she snooted me? I should care!” She took a long swallow of her coffee, leaned a little nearer to me across the table, and rested her weight on her arms. “That girl's family was the laughingstock of the whole county. Why, that family would have starved if it hadn't been for Suzy's mother being friendly with the landlord and the storekeeper and so on. There wasn't any two of her brothers and sisters that looked alike; and she had eight of them. In fact, Suzy's the only one that looked any more like her old man than you do.

“They all lived out there like a bunch of damn hogs, and if that girl ever had a clean face before she was ten years old, I never saw it. When the old man would come to town, everybody would make fun of him. He couldn't read or write, and so they'd spell out words in front of him, just like you would with a little kid when you don't want him. to know what you're saying about him. You know what I mean?”