Darlene Scalera - Straight Silver

“How about the other girls? Anyone she hung out with outside of work?”

“This is a strip club. Not a sorority house.” Lucy got up, went over to the lockers. “Listen, I wish I had something to give ya, but I don’t. There’s a lot of freaks out there. It happens every day.”

She opened a locker door, took out a fresh pack of cigarettes.

“So last night just happened to be Della’s turn?”

The girl glanced at me over her shoulder. No one had thought of me as naive for a long time…until now. “You got a better explanation?”

“Not yet.”

The girl gave a crooked smile, slammed the locker door. “I gotta get to work.” She opened the fresh pack of cigarettes, tapped one out and lit it. She didn’t move.

“Della was always bumming cigarettes off everybody at Billie’s. She do that to you?”

The girl went to the couch, sat on its edge. She crossed her legs and eyed me through the smoke. “Yeah, she was a pain like that.”

“She was always trying to quit.” I went on, hoping I’d hit a nerve. “Thought if she didn’t buy ’em, she wouldn’t smoke ’em.” Della flashed too real in my memory.

“Yeah, she did that here, too. Never helped her none. Don’t matter much now, anyway, does it?”

I couldn’t hold my gaze anymore on the girl with the swinging foot and the slack robe. I turned to leave.

“She used to let a lot of the girls borrow money though. She do that at Billie’s?”

I stopped, nodded.

“She’d never harass them about paying her back. She was good like that.” The girl tapped the ash off her cigarette and looked at me. “It was as if she didn’t care about the money.”

“You know anything she did care about?”

Lucy leaned forward and set the cigarette in the ashtray. She picked up a cosmetic bag, took out a lip pencil. “She was meeting someone last night. After her shift.” She lined her lips as she talked.

“You know who?”

She smacked her lips together twice. I snapped my rubber band.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything like that. I came into the dressing room and heard her talking on the phone. Whoever it was, she was telling them she’d meet them after work.”

I schooled my features, concealing any excitement. Lucy could be playing me, after all. Some girls have a natural mean streak.

“Did you tell this to the police?”

“I’m telling you.”

“Why?”

“You go to college. You’re a smart woman.” Lucy picked up her cigarette. She took a long draw, stubbed it out and stood.

I found a pen, ripped a blank page out of my pocket planner which was easy since all the pages were blank. I scribbled numbers down. “This is my cell, this is my house.” I heard the hope in my voice and didn’t even care. I held out the paper to Lucy. “Just in case you or maybe one of the other girls wants to get in touch with me.”

She folded the paper, slipped it inside the cigarette pack’s cellophane wrapper. Ten chances to one it’d be thrown away with the empty pack, but those odds were all I had. I’d take them.

On my way home, I called the number Serras had given me.

“Serras.”

“LeGrande.” I answered as an equal. “What’s the current status on the Devine case?” Lesson I learned long ago—fake it and most people will follow your lead.

“We’re about to crack it wide open, doll face.”

Serras wasn’t most people. He was police.

“You find any family?”

The pause told me Serras was deciding exactly where I fit in. Not easy to waylay a cop. They’re paid to see right through you.

“How ’bout you?” He came back at me.

“What about me?”

“You got something for me? You learn anything at the Oyster you’d like to share?”

So they were cruising the Oyster. Good for them, although the manpower and case’s stature wouldn’t let it go on for more than a day or two.

“Yeah, I got a lecture on ‘life is a bitch’ from a chicken-legged number named Lucy.”

He chuckled. “You’re one up on us.”

“Trying to make me feel better?”

“No.”

I hadn’t thought so. I debated telling him about the phone call Della had made. Only because he’d tucked Della in as if wishing her sweet dreams.

“I did learn one thing.” Or maybe because I remembered his backside rumba and appreciated the effort. Still I was going to make him bite. A girl had to have standards.

Two seconds of silence passed until I heard “I’m here.”

I’d take it. “Della was heard making plans to meet someone after work.”

Another silence. “And?”

“That’s it.”

Serras wasn’t the type to sigh. He was the type to swear. Professionalism prevented him from doing either. Maybe Billie was wrong. Maybe Serras had decided to play by the rules. Damn waste of man if that was the case.

“I appreciate the vital information, Ms. LeGrande.”

He had a right to sound sarcastic. The tip had lost something in the translation. Still it was something for an ex-stripper, dyslexic, college coed on her first murder case.

“What do you got for me?”

He chuckled. He was warming up.

“There was a brother—”

“I knew that by lunch.” I took a turn at the sarcasm.

“Then you know he was recently killed.”

“A train hit him.”

“Investigation ruled it an accident.”

“This one won’t be so neat and tidy, though, will it, Detective?

“We’re trying to locate the grandmother through Social Services. If the adoption was never formal, there’ll be no formal record of it. We did find the victim’s birth record. No history found yet on the name listed under father.”

“What about the mother?”

“Last-known address showed nothing. No other listing has come up yet. She might have remarried, moved away. We’re still looking.”

“So far, a dead end, then?”

He shouldn’t have hesitated.

“C’mon, Serras, I gave you something.” I said it as if I believed that would work.

“You gave me nothing, LeGrande.”

“Okay, if I do find out something more, you get it first. Deal?”

“What exactly is your interest here?”

“Emergency contact.”

I liked his laugh.

“All right. One of the neighbors saw a guy leaving the victim’s apartment this morning. We ran the description of the man and the make of the car. We’re talking to him now.”

“Who is he?”

Serras didn’t answer.

“I could know him. Might know something about him that you guys could use.”

I was thinking up another lure to get Serras to give up the information when he said, “Name is Paul Chumsky.”

It was my turn to pause.

“You know him?”

“Sort of.”

Serras waited. I was becoming impressed by the man’s patience.

“I was married to him.”

I figure everyone is entitled to one major mistake per lifetime. Mine was Paul Chumsky.

I got to the station and found Serras. He was looking as if he should have one of those warning stickers on him: Caution: Extremely Flammable Contents. May Spontaneously Ignite. Obviously Serras didn’t like surprises.

“You were married to Paul Chumsky?”

“I kept my own name.” Nobody queues up for strippers named Silver Chumsky. “You think Paul had something to do with Della’s death?”

“We’re asking him a few questions.”

Della may have been on a downward spiral, and Paul could have been riding shotgun, but murder? It wasn’t Paul’s style. Too messy. The final residue of the matrimonial sacrament kicked in. “Paul’s not a murderer.”

A drunk, yes. An unfaithful husband, definitely.

“That’s what he says. Says the victim and he had dinner at her place before her shift. She suggested he hang out. If it was a slow night, she’d get off early and they could get together back at the apartment. She’d give him a call from the club.”