Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 51.

“Isn’t it a little early for indigestion?” I said. Leo had slowed, approaching the Would You?

“It’s almost eleven o’clock, it’s the only restaurant in town, and we need sustenance for our journey back to Rivertown.”

By now we were creeping forward at five miles an hour.

“Look at that couple enjoying their chicken baskets,” he said. “They’re in their late seventies, at least. Do they look indigested?”

They didn’t, but they did look like something else: history.

“Turn in,” I said.

Leo swung a fast right into the parking lot, slammed on the brakes, and was scuttling to the order window before I could change my mind. I eased out and hobbled over to the couple.

“Arthritis?” the woman asked, noticing the gingerly way I’d walked up.

“Hunting,” I said. “You folks live here long?”

“Seventy-four years for me, seventy-five for Clarence.”

“Seventy-four for me, same as you,” Clarence corrected. “I’m only three months older.”

“I was rounding,” she said.

“Both of you would remember the Taylor girls, then,” I said.

“Darlene and Rosemary, real lookers,” Clarence said.

“Why would you want to know about them?” the wife asked.

“An insurance policy was taken out on the three of them, when they were children.”

“Three of them?” the husband asked, looking confused.

“Alta, Clarence. Remember, there was Alta.”

He nodded. “The one that never came to town.”

“Darlene’s still around,” the wife said. “You can talk to her direct. Rosemary, though, took off when she was still in high school.”

“So I was told,” I said. “Following some trouble at a gas station, or something.”

“Nothing to do with those girls,” Clarence said.

“A killing,” his wife said to me. “Folks saw them nearby.”

“There was a boy with them,” Clarence said.

“Folks wondered if the sheriff thought the three were involved,” the woman said.

“Baloney,” said Clarence.

“Darlene and Rosemary were real nice girls,” said the wife.

“That boy left the summer after the incident,” Clarence said. “What the hell was his name?”

“He didn’t wait until summer, Clarence. He left just a few days afterward.”

“What the hell was his name?” the old man repeated.

“Georgie Korozakis,” his wife said. “He was sweet on the older girl, Darlene.”

“Did you think the Taylor girls were involved?” I asked.

“Only busybodies thought that. Nobody with a brain,” Clarence said.

“How about Sheriff Lishkin?”

“He didn’t, either,” Clarence said.

“You go ask Ellie about that,” his wife said to him. “You go ask her how he spent every day that summer.”

“Ellie Ball, the sheriff?” I asked.

“Ellie Bell, Roy Lishkin’s granddaughter,” Clarence said. He looked at his wife. “I’ll bet she’ll say Roy never believed those girls had anything to do with that shooting. As for that boy…”

“Georgie Korozakis,” his wife said.

“Moonstuck on Darlene was all he was ever guilty of. She was a looker, that Darlene.”

“An attractive girl,” his wife agreed.

“Great body. Damned shame, the way those looks got washed away, living out on that farm,” Clarence said. “Even cutting it back, the way they had to after Herb took off, it’s still too much ground to take care of for one woman.”

“Still, they were better off with him gone,” the wife said.

“Wasn’t much of a farmer,” Clarence said. “Drinking, now, that Herb could do. And he got mean doing it, every time.”

“Obsessed, he was, for a time,” the woman said.

“Herb Taylor?” her husband asked.

“No; Roy Lishkin. Like I said, he was out to the Taylor place every day that summer,” the wife said.

“What about Alta?” I asked.

Clarence pursed his lips at the recollection. “No one ever did see much of her, after she grew some. Not that folks had cause to drive out that way. Only thing out there was the Taylor farm, and it had gone to hell even when Herb was around. No one ever went visiting there.”

“Except Roy Lishkin,” his wife said, “every day, the summer of the incident.”

“Baloney. You heard all that from people who knew nothing,” Clarence said.

“No one saw Alta that summer?” I asked.

“No one had seen Alta for any summer, in quite some time,” said the wife. “The girl had some sort of breakdown, and Martha kept her sheltered. Some said her condition was the last straw for Herb, chased him away.”

“Martha had a condition?” her husband asked.

“Alta,” his wife corrected.

“Alta died, that same summer,” I said.

“Scarlet fever,” said Clarence.

“Pneumonia,” said his wife.

“Scarlet fever,” the old man said again.

“Best I can say: Go see Darlene,” the old woman said.

“Baloney business, all of that,” Clarence said.

I left them to their facts and went to where Leo was sitting.

“What are those?” I pointed to the breaded clumps lying next to the chicken in the baskets he’d bought.

“Fried jalapeño cheese broccoli florets. Healthy.”

“Healthy how?”

“Broccoli’s good for you.”

“Deep fried?”

“Broccoli’s broccoli.”

“What about the jalapeño part?”

“For the sinuses.”

“Baloney,” I said, because the word was still ringing in my head.