Free Don't Dare a Dame by M Ruth Myers

“If it was that girlfriend of his going back to Oregon or wherever it was last month that led him to do such a thing, then the poor man should have been counting his lucky stars instead,” she concluded. “She was a cheeky thing. And between you and me, I think the police should be showing more interest in who came to see him that night.”
     
        That wrenched my attention away from her little dog, who was sniffing my ankle and some nearby bushes with equal enthusiasm.
     
        “Mr. Maguire had guests?”
     
        She nodded wisely.
     
        “Not that I stick my nose into people’s business, but Patches needs a tinkle or two in the night, so I bring him out. He won’t use the back yard. A cat scared him once.”
     
        Right now I was hoping he didn’t decide to use my leg.
     
        “... so of course I know the cars that park along here. That night there were two that I didn’t recognize. Just as I was thinking that was odd — it was after one — I realized there was someone sitting in one of them.”
     
        My heart began to beat faster.
     
        “Well, I just walked on by, as fast as I could. I didn’t want to attract attention. He tried to duck down, but I’d already seen him, and — oh, it was awful!” She pressed a hand to her throat, glancing over her shoulder as if fearful she’d be overheard. She leaned toward me. “He was an Eskimo!”
     
        I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.
     
        “An Eskimo?”
     
        “I tell you, it scared me to death.” She shuddered dramatically.
     
        “Uh, what does an Eskimo look like?”
     
        The woman frowned as though I were feeble minded.
     
        “You know. Scary. Not like other people. Oh — Patches did his duty. Good doggie. We have to go.”
     
        Too stumped to ask anything else, I watched them traipse back to a nearby house. Maybe she used the word Eskimo to indicate a foreigner. Maybe she’d seen a Chinaman. I’d read a book once where a woman used the word to mean anything forbidden, like cussing.
     
        Then again, maybe she was loony. It was interesting, though, that she’d seen two strange cars.
     
        
     
    ***
     
        
     
        “Why on earth are you interested in the flood? That was back before you were born.” Kate Leary wore a puzzled expression as she handed me a bowl of mashed potatoes. An unspoiled lake of butter cratered the white peaks.
     
        I had a standing invitation to Sunday dinner at Kate and Billy’s. Once every couple of months I took them up on it. Sometimes it was because I’d spent too much time wading through muck and needed to reassure myself the world had a good side. Other times it was to keep from hurting Kate, whom I liked and who was the only cop’s wife who didn’t grab her matchmaking bonnet each time we met.
     
        Today there were five of us at the table: Kate and Billy; Seamus Hanlon, a gaunt, tall cop with wavy white hair; Mick Connelly and me. Despite Connelly’s presence, I didn’t suspect Kate of an ulterior motive. He probably sat at their table more often than I did. He was here because he was Billy’s partner, just as Seamus was here because he’d filled that same role for so many years that he and Billy were almost inseparable. I explained about being hired to look into the long-ago disappearance. It drew the now familiar exclamations of disbelief.
     
        “Well, I’ll tell you about the flood — it was awful,” Kate said, startling all of us by taking the lead. “Every policeman in the city called out, and not knowing what happened to any of them for days and days.”
     
        “What happened was all of us got trapped downtown — right in the flood plain!” Billy bristled.
     
        He and the usually taciturn Seamus tripped over each other explaining.
     
        Previous floods had always hit the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods hardest, sometimes bringing