Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(54)

“Good morning,” Tom said cheerfully, “I hate to be a bother, but I’m looking to find the mama of a boy named Jack Mahoney—”

“How dare you!” the woman angrily screamed into the receiver, “how dare you wake a sound asleep person and make them think somebody’s died!”

“I’m real sorry,” Tom mumbled, “I surely had no intention—”

“No intention? No intention?” Eugenia, it seemed, had a tendency to repeat herself with the second go around being considerably louder than the first. “What else,” she screamed, “is a person supposed to think when the telephone starts jangling off the hook in the middle of the night?”

“Actually, it’s six-fifteen.”

“Are you some sort of a wise guy? Is that it? Well,” she snapped, “you’re barking up the wrong tree, because I’ll get the law down on you, that’s what—”

Tom quietly slid the telephone receiver back into its cradle and ended the conversation. He’d be better off, he decided, waiting till eight or nine o’clock to resume his search. He walked back inside the station and set a pot of coffee to brew.

When Clifford Pence stopped by to fill his truck with gasoline, Tom asked if he knew anything of a boy, “Nine or ten, maybe,” he said, “got himself a wiry-haired brown dog, you know anybody like that?”

Clifford fingered his chin for a moment then shook his head. “Can’t recall that I’ve seen such a lad,” he said, “You checked the orphanage?”

Tom asked the same question of everyone who drove in and even of two people who were simply passing by on the sidewalk. Margaret Walters claimed she had a nephew in New Jersey who pretty much fit that description, but everyone else simply shook their head and went on about their business. At eight-forty-five, Tom started making telephone calls again.

By four o’clock he’d moved on to the ninth name in the sixth directory. He dropped a dime into the slot, dialed the number and waited as the phone rang four, five, then six times. Just as he was ready to hang up, a man answered, “Hold on a second,” he said, “let me close the door.”

As soon as the voice came back on the line, Tom swung into his apology for interrupting the man’s day, and went to his questioning. “I’m looking to locate a woman who’s bad sick, as I understand it, she’s the mama of a Jack Mahoney—”

“I’m Jack Mahoney, but…”

“Oh, I’m sure you ain’t the same Jack Mahoney. The one I’m referring to is just a boy—a bit over four foot tall, blond hair, got a wiry-haired brown dog. You know anybody fits a description such as that?”

“I can think of one such boy,” Jack replied, remembering Ethan Allen, who was still among the missing, “…but, his name isn’t Jack Mahoney.”

“I doubt it’s him. The boy I came across said his name was Jack Mahoney; I remember that for certain.”

“When was it you met this boy?”

“Let’s see now,” Tom mumbled, counting back the number of days, “Nine days ago,” he finally answered, “Yep, a week back from last Sunday; that was it.”

“He wearing a brown and yellow stripe shirt, green pants?”

“Now that you make mention of it, I do believe he was.”

“You remember the name of that animal he was traveling with?”

“Can’t say I do,” Tom replied, “I believe the lad just called him dog.”

Mahoney, who for a solid week had been looking for Ethan Allen, said, “I know the boy you’re looking for.”

“Well, actually, I wasn’t so much looking for the boy, he should be pretty well off with his grandpa; I’m looking to find his sick mama. I figured maybe I could offer up some help.” Tom was on the verge of telling how his own mama’s death had taken place under similar circumstances but before he got the chance, Mahoney interrupted.

“That boy was just playing on your sympathies. His name ain’t Jack Mahoney; it’s Ethan Allen Doyle and his mama’s already dead.”

“Shitfire!”

“He knew she was dead when he ran off. We had a place for the boy to live but—”

“Run off?”

“Yes indeed. I personally dropped him off at the Cobb’s place and turned him over to Emma—she’s one of the nicest people you could hope to meet. Emma’s the mama of a patrolman in my station house, so we figured it would be a good place for the boy to stay. She fixed him a bite to eat and tucked him into bed; next morning he was gone. There was nothing but a rolled-up mound of clothes under the blanket.”

“Damnation!” Tom grumbled. “I been took for the fool I am! Listening to that boy, I would of sworn he was on the up and up.”

They talked on and on for almost twenty minutes, Mahoney explained how he and Patrolman Cobb were the law officers called in when the boy’s mama and daddy were murdered. “It happened right there in their own house,” he said, “the boy’s mama apparently died from a single blow to the head, but his daddy… that poor bastard looked like he’d gone through a meat grinder.”

“Sweet Jesus.”

“It’s bad enough for a boy to lose both his parents,” Mahoney said, his voice weighted with concern, “…but, we’ve also got a suspicion that Ethan Allen knows who did the killing. If that is the case; he could be in a considerable amount of danger.”