Prudy's Back!

by

Marja McGraw

I was going to tell her No. No is an easy word. No. No. No. My lips moved as I mouthed the word over and over again.

“Sandi? Are you still there? Will you do it?”

“Okay.” No. I meant to say no! How had okay slipped out of my mouth? “Maybe,” I added in a rush, running my hand through my long, dark brown hair in exasperation.

My name is Sandi Webster, and I’m a thirty-two-year-old private investigator working out of Los Angeles.

My mother, Livvie Brewster, lives in Bullhead City, Arizona, with her relatively new husband, Frank. So proximity isn’t an issue. I could have said no and hung up. Right. Like I’d hang up on my mother, and get away with it.

“I knew I could count on you, sweetie.”

“Tell me more, Mother. You have a friend who needs my help, but you say it’s not an emergency situation? And yet you want me to drive to Arizona right away?”

“Prudy Lewis is my neighbor. She worked as a private investigator back in the forties and fifties.”

“A female P.I.? That was unusual for those days.” I’d never heard of a woman doing investigations back then, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. “How old is this woman?”

“I’d guess she’s in her mid-eighties.”

“And she really was a private investigator?”

“Well, Prudy’s husband enlisted during World War II, and he was the private investigator. Prudy tried to clear up a few of his cases while he was gone, including the murder she wants you to solve. She couldn’t figure it out, and the killer was never caught.”

My mother made the idea of me solving the old case sound easy, in typical Livvie style. “Did Prudy’s husband pick it back up when he returned?” I asked.

Mother was quiet for a moment. “He never returned. He was listed as Missing in Action after a year in the Pacific Theatre. And Prudy didn’t remarry. She was nuts about Brian. That was her husband, Brian Lewis. She raised her son, Brian, Jr., by herself and ended up accepting new cases to help out financially.”

“So why does she want the case solved after all these years?” It didn’t make much sense to me.

“Brian and Prudy knew the people who were involved, and they had a personal stake in things. It’s always troubled her that she couldn’t find the killer. It might sound a little strange, but in a way I think she wants to solve the case for her husband, to finalize something he’d started. I told her about how you worked on that hundred-year-old murder for me.”

I sighed, trying not to think about that case. “If she’s in her mid-eighties, I have to ask. Are any of the people who were involved still alive? That was a long time ago.”

“I believe that at least some of them are. Prudy was in her late twenties at the time. Most of the people involved ranged in age from teenagers to early twenties. They all lived in the same neighborhood. And the murder took place in Southern California, so you really should have everything you need right at your fingertips.”

“How does she know that someone in the neighborhood committed the crime?”

“You’ll have to ask Prudy about that.” My mother sounded smug, and I didn’t like that.

She was playing a game, trying to entice me by not giving me all of the information. It was an old ploy of hers and it wasn’t working this time. “Mom, that was well over fifty years ago. People move, people die, and people change. I don’t have anything at my fingertips. What are you thinking?”

“Well, Sandra, why don’t you and Pete drive over here and meet Prudy? Talk to her before you make up your mind.” There was the dreaded use of my given name. She only called me Sandra when she was irked with me.

I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck, wishing my sudden headache would go away. “Can you tell me anything, anything at all, about the crime? At least give me something to go on. Please?”

She sighed back at me, managing to make hers deeper than mine. “I’ll tell you what little I know, but you really need to talk to Prudy.”

“First things first, Mom. Exactly when did the murder occur?”

“Just a sec while I find my notes. I wrote down some of what she told me.” She set the phone down and disappeared for a couple of seconds. I heard noises like paper rustling when she picked the receiver back up. “It happened in 1943. Brian worked on the case for a few months, but Prudy took over after he left for the war. The police had given up on it, but Prudy’s husband hadn’t.”

“Who was murdered?” That should have been my first question.

“Their neighborhood was typical of the time, except there were a few old houses mixed in with the newer ones. There was an old two-story house in the middle of the block that was owned by a recluse. That’s who was killed, and due to the circumstances, several kids on the block were suspects. Um, he was beaten to death, Sandi, and Prudy and her husband had become friends with the old man. From what Prudy says, it was brutal. Brian really wanted to solve that murder.”

“Tell me more.” Now my mother was trying to play on my sympathies, but I ignored that, needing information.

“That’s all I can tell you. You and Pete will simply have to drive over here and talk to Prudy.”

Simply? “Mother, I have cases here that need my attention. I can’t just drop everything while I drive to Arizona.”

“It’s not that long of a drive, Sandra. You and Pete could be here by eleven in the morning and home by late evening. Do you have any really pressing cases right now? Couldn’t Stanley take care of some of your work while you’re gone? You and Pete could stay here for a few days and visit, too. I haven’t seen you in quite awhile.” Ah, now the guilt trip.

Peter Goldberg is my partner both in business and my personal life. Don’t let the name fool you—he’s one hundred percent Italian, but that’s another story.

Stanley is our former client, friend, and now employee. He’s a great researcher, but I wasn’t too sure about having him cover our cases for us. He was new to the business and a fast learner, but his past experience had involved writing verses for greeting cards. The stretch from writing verses to handling cases was way too long.

“Mother—”

“Sandi, I’m going to fax you a picture of Prudy. If that doesn’t interest you, nothing will.”

“What about Bubba?” I asked. Now I was grasping at straws, looking for excuses to stay home. Bubba was my huge half-wolf/half-Golden Retriever dog.

“Leave him with your neighbor, Dolly. She adores that mangy mutt.” Mom wasn’t a big dog fan, meaning she didn’t care all that much for huge canines. Her preference would be a small ankle-biter. She just hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know Bubba yet.

So I wondered why on earth a picture of an old woman would prompt me to take on a case. My mother had some odd ideas sometimes. A photo of a poor little old lady wouldn’t sway me one way or the other—probably.

“Yeah, send the picture, not that it will do any good.”

My mother chuckled. “You might be in for a surprise. Anyway, call me back and let me know if you and Pete are coming over or not. Oh, and Frank thinks you’ll be interested in Prudy, too.”

“Frank’s involved in this?” My mother and Frank had pushed their way into a stalking case I was involved in during the time I worked on the hundred-year-old murder, and I believed it had gone to their heads. My mother was suddenly looking under bushes for mysteries with Frank apparently standing right behind her, encouraging her. And she had a yard full of hibiscus bushes.

“Frank thinks you should meet her. He feels this might be a cold case that you can sink your teeth into.”

“Cold case? Mother, you’ve been watching too much TV again.”

“Well, that’s what it is. Like it or not, that’s what they call old, unsolved cases.”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” I didn’t want to bring her down, but I didn’t want her to expect me to drop everything and drive to Arizona either. “I’ll look at the picture, and I’ll talk to Pete.”

“That’s all I’m asking, dear.” Mom was pushing it, but she can be so subtle that sometimes you don’t realize you’re being maneuvered. Fortunately, I’d caught on a long time ago.

We hung up. About fifteen minutes later her fax came through, in all its glory.

Pete was out of the office or he would have heard me laughing. It wasn’t a photo of Prudy as an old woman, but of Prudy as a young woman. She appeared to be rather tall and slim. I couldn’t tell for sure from the black and white fax, but I thought she might be a curly-haired redhead. Definitely curly hair, and it looked like she might have lots of freckles.

But that wasn’t what made me laugh. Prudy wore a housedress, cowgirl boots and a full-length fur coat. She was holding a very long, black holder with a smoking cigarette in it. I looked closer and saw she had a gun pulled partway out of her pocket.

The woman appeared to be holding back a laugh while trying to scowl and look menacing. Obviously the woman had a sense of humor. My kinda gal!