Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(40)

They heard footsteps in the hall and stopped talking. The woman who Boxer Shorts led into the room was as angry and puffed up as a wet hen.

“I’m Frances Margaret,” she said. “What do you want?”

Boxer Shorts flared up. “You ain’t a Margaret! You was Francine Myrtle when I married you, and you’re still Francine Myrtle!”

“Blockhead!” she yelled back. “Forty-seven times I told you I changed it. You ain’t never gonna learn, are you?”

Before things could get any worse, Griffin pulled Boxer Shorts aside and gave Mahoney room to talk to Frances-whoever-she was.

“I believe you spoke with Missus Doyle last week,” he began.

“You mean Olivia? Yeah, I talked to her. She said something about a reunion party for telephone company people.”

“You ain’t going to no party!” Boxer Shorts yelled from across the room.

“Try and stop me!” she yelled back.

“Can we step outside for a moment?” Mahoney asked.

She nodded and followed him out the door.

Standing on the front stoop, Mahoney said, “I’m looking for a woman named Anita Walker or possibly Jones. I understand you know someone who’s related.”

“Knew,” Frances-whatever corrected. “Not know. I knew Bartholomew Jones and his missus twenty years ago. They used to rent the upstairs flat in my sister’s house.”

“Where was that?”

“Norfolk. But, like I told you, that was twenty years ago. I ain’t spoken to Bertha for more than ten, and it was way before we quit talking.”

“Bertha’s your sister?”

Frances gave a disgusted nod. “Yeah, I guess you could call her that.”

“This Bartholomew. Was his wife’s name Anita?”

Frances laughed. “Shoot, no. Bartholomew’s missus was Ruthie. She was a sweetie, but this other one that used to come visit, she had a temper on her, woo-wee!”

“The one who came to visit, was her name Anita?”

“I’m thinking it was but can’t swear to it.”

“You think Bertha might know?”

“You’re asking me what’s in Bertha’s head?” Frances gave a cynical snort. “If I knew what was in that woman’s head, I’d’ve quit talking to her long before I did. She’s pure ugly, so I gotta guess there ain’t nothing but ugly in her head!”

Seeing that this was going nowhere, Mahoney asked, “Can you give me an address or telephone number where I can get hold of Bertha?”

“Men!” Frances muttered and rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you hear me say I ain’t talked to her in ten years? I ain’t even got a guess as to where she is now.”

“Can you give me the last address you had for her?”

“I suppose,” Frances said and pulled a piece of wadded paper from her pocket. “Here. If you talk to Bertha, tell her I said holding grudges ain’t gonna do nobody no good.”

Mahoney thanked her, then called Griffin and said it was time to get going.





It was nearly six o’clock in the morning when Hector Gomez got home from the hospital. For three hours he’d stood there chatting with Nancy waiting for her to drop some little tidbit she’d gotten from the kid but got nothing. She’d gone in and out of his room a half-dozen times and each time Hector waited, thinking she’d come back with a name. Nothing. Now he had a serious case of indigestion from all the coffee he’d consumed and needed a cold glass of milk. He pulled the car into the garage and came through the kitchen door.

Hector knew it was going to be a bad day when he opened the refrigerator door and saw an empty shelf where the milk was supposed to be.

“Gloria!” he screamed. “Where’s the damn milk?” Although he phrased it as a question, he knew the answer.

“We’re all out!” his wife hollered back. She snapped on the hairdryer so any further conversation was impossible.

Hector Gomez was a man who needed seven hours sleep. Six hours at a minimum. He’d gotten two, and it was already wearing on him. He eyed the clock. Ten minutes past six—plenty of time for a short nap. A half-hour maybe. A quick shower, and he’d be ready to go by seven. Hector stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes.

The next thing he knew the clock was striking twelve. He sat up in a panic.

“Damn!” he shouted and hurtled himself off the sofa. His right knee came down hard on the wrought iron coffee table, and before he could scramble to his feet an egg-sized lump swelled up on his leg.

When Gomez walked into the station house, he thought he was smack in the middle of the worst day a man can have. Then he spotted Detective Mahoney across the room.

“What the hell?”

If there was one thing Hector Gomez didn’t need, it was a smart-mouth detective from Northampton sticking his nose in on a sure thing. If it hadn’t been for Mahoney, he would have had a conviction on the Doyle case. To this day, he believed one of them guilty of murder—either the grandmother or the kid—but once Mahoney got involved it became a bleeding heart issue.

“Not this time,” Hector grumbled as he crossed the room.

When he stopped at the Wyattsville station Mahoney planned to ask about the kid involved in the Klaussner shooting. He didn’t feel there was a solid connection between the kid and the missing aunt, but there was enough to warrant a few questions. He barely had a foot through the door when he saw a pissed-off Gomez coming toward him. Remembering the outcome of the Doyle case, Mahoney knew this was going to be a confrontational situation unless he did something. He stuck his hand out