Chapter Eleven: Hugh Dunnits
Within twenty-five minutes, a detective was on the scene and Trixie was sitting up and rubbing her head. “Oooh,” she moaned. “Owwwie.”
A small crowd had formed around the dazed woman, and Mrs. Noodle made an effort to conceal Trixie’s legs with an overcoat, seeing as her skirt was rather disheveled from the fall, which had left Trixie compromising more of her virtue than usual. Mrs. Noodle dabbed at Trixie’s bloody forehead with tissues from her purse while the detective walked in circles around them, scribbling things on a notepad and taking bites out of the powdered sugar donut he was nursing in his other hand.
“Uh huh,” the detective grunted importantly. “I see,” he said even more importantly.
“See what?” asked Mrs. Noodle.
“Very interesting,” he mused.
“What’s interesting?” Mrs. Noodle asked again.
“Hmmm,” he groaned, still not having made a stitch of eye contact with Mrs. Noodle.
“Mr. Dunnits!” Mrs. Noodle exclaimed. “I’m sitting here holding a half-conscious woman covered in blood who suddenly believes herself to be Dolly Parton. Could you please give me a hand? Has anyone called for a doctor?”
The man known as Detective Hugh Dunnits jumped as Mrs. Noodle shouted at him, and he grabbed for his fedora as it slipped from his head. He was wearing a tan trench coat overtop a suit that appeared several sizes too large for his slim frame, and he looked to be swimming in a pair of oversized loafers. It was either that or his feet were abnormally large.
“Well,” he began. He brushed powdered sugar from his coat. “It appears,” he continued, sounding revelatory, “that Ms. Trollop was doing a bit of Christmas shopping.” He nodded his head firmly and took another bite from his donut.
“Yes, we’d figured that much out for ourselves, thank you,” Mrs. Noodle huffed, but Detective Dunnits wasn’t listening and was instead picking through the gift boxes lying strewn on the pavement.
“Ah ha!” he said, powdered sugar spraying from his lips, “This is an American made wrist-watch ... very expensive!” He eyed it carefully and placed it back in its box.
Before Mrs. Noodle could react, Trixie began to stir in her arms. She mumbled a few words and then sighed and closed her eyes again.
“Trixie,” Mrs. Noodle urged, tapping the side of the woman’s face, “say something again.”
Trixie’s eyes opened a crack and she whispered something, but the only word they could remotely distinguish sounded like “taken”.
“What’s been taken?” said Mrs. Noodle and Hugh Dunnits both.
Trixie grabbed at the scarf around Mrs. Noodle’s neck.
This time she screamed, swearing that some man was out to get her.
“WHO?” shouted everyone standing within a ten feet radius of the bloodied woman.
Trixie sighed dramatically. It was enough to drive her crazy, she told them.
“What is?!” several people shouted again.
Trixie shook her head from side to side and blinked. When she began to speak again, it was a bit tunefully, and then suddenly she broke into song. This particular song just so happened to contain every word she’d spoken in the last minute and was not about her current predicament as they’d hoped, but instead about the trials of working “nine to five”.
Mrs. Noodle practically shrieked in frustration, and several spectators sighed angrily. “Trixie, you’re not Dolly Parton! Now, for the love of foosap, what’s happened to you?!”
Trixie closed her eyes and slumped back into Mrs. Noodle’s arms, clearly in no condition to answer that question.
Eliza nudged Elliot in the side. “What was all that about?” she asked.
“Those were lyrics,” Elliot explained. Like everyone else, he’d been hoping Trixie was trying to tell them how she’d ended up sprawled across the pavement.
“From a Dolly Parton song?” asked Eliza.
“Mm hm,” Elliot grunted.
Detective Dunnits strolled around Trixie once more. “I wonder who was out to get her?” he said, stroking his face where a beard would have been if he’d had one.
“I think we’re all wondering the same thing, Detective,” spat Mrs. Noodle. “Hence why you were called.”
Just then, someone nearby shouted “The doctor’s here!” and a woman carrying a black medical bag slipped through the crowd to kneel down beside Trixie and Mrs. Noodle.
“What do we have here?” asked the woman Elliot recognized as Patricia Gabby while she took Trixie’s pulse. She had a pleasant, soothing sort of voice when she wasn’t yelling at her daughters, Dawn and Dora, he thought.
“We’re still trying to figure that one out,” said Mrs. Noodle with a look of disgust in Detective Dunnits’s direction.
Dr. Gabby gave a nod as she flashed a light in each of Trixie’s eyes. “Yep –– looks like a mild concussion,” she said. “I’ll get her cleaned up and bandaged.”
Trixie, who was now starting to wake up, stroked Patricia Gabby’s golden-brown hair with the tips of her hot-pink nails, which Elliot noticed had spots of blood all over them. “You have such pretty hair,” Trixie told her emphatically. “Do you play guitar?”
Dr. Gabby laughed as she wrapped Trixie’s forehead in gauze. “No –– I’m afraid I have no musical talents of any kind,” she said.
“What a shame ... I have another costume for my concert tonight, and I suspect it’s just your size.” Trixie hummed absentmindedly and inspected her fingernails. “You will come, won’t you?” she implored.
Dr. Gabby looked to Mrs. Noodle, who rolled her eyes. “She thinks she’s Dolly Parton.”
“Ah yes,” Dr. Gabby nodded as she and Mrs. Noodle helped Trixie to her feet. “Quite common, really. Not the country and western singer part, mind you, but the disorientation. She’ll come round sooner or later.”
Trixie glanced down the front of her blouse and eyed her chest suspiciously as Dr. Gabby and Mrs. Noodle steadied her. She was obviously thinking certain portions of her body were not as big as she’d thought they’d been. “Ugh,” she moaned. “What’s happened to them?”
“It’s alright, Trixie,” Mrs. Noodle assured her. “You’ll be feeling better in no time. Come on, let’s get you home.”
Elliot and Eliza thought they’d help by gathering up all of Trixie’s gift boxes, but Detective Dunnits nearly jumped down their throats before they had the chance. “Ah ah! I’m going to have to confiscate those,” he said.
“Why?” both Elliot and Eliza questioned.
“Ermm,” he paused, “evidence. That’s right, evidence.”
Neither of them believed this for one minute, but before they could protest, Ellebasi Nostaw came running down the street with Stan the cameraman following closely at her heels.
“Wait ... wait!” Ellebasi shouted breathlessly. “Can we have a word with Ms. Trollop?”
Mrs. Noodle and Dr. Gabby turned around, and Elliot heard Mrs. Noodle grumble, “Never misses anything, that one,” under her breath.
“I don’t think that would be very wise at the moment,” Dr. Gabby said tactfully. “Trixie has suffered a concussion and will need to rest.”
Ellebasi looked excited. “Stan! The camera,” she said with a snap of her fingers, and he propped the machinery on his shoulder and flicked it on so that the red recording light signaled for Ellebasi to begin.
Ellebasi stood straight as a rod and held the microphone to her ruby red lips. “We’re here on Amity Drive where Offices of Tranquility secretary, Trixie Trollop, has suffered a massive concussion.” She turned back around to address Patricia Gabby.
“As Ms. Trollop’s physician, what are her prospects for a recovery?” asked Ellebasi before shoving the microphone beneath Dr. Gabby’s chin. Trixie remained limp and unconscious under the support of Dr. Gabby and Mrs. Noodle’s arms, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth.
“Trixie is not in serious condition ... a few hours of rest and she’ll be good as new.”
Ellebasi turned back to the camera with a look of intense worry. “Looks like Trixie’s in for the long haul, folks. We’ll keep you posted with any further developments.”
The red light went off, and without another word, Ellebasi went scampering over to Hugh Dunnits, who was still busy examining the contents of Trixie’s gift boxes.
Elliot and Eliza remained outside while Dr. Gabby and Mrs. Noodle took Trixie home. Mrs. Bisby had gone along to help, taking charge of Bert in addition to all of their shopping bags, but Elliot and Eliza felt a strong desire to keep an eye on Hugh Dunnits.
The sky had turned gray, and the chilled wind whipped around their shivering bodies, leaving the heavy scent of chimney smoke lingering beneath their nostrils. They watched as the lights flicked on in Trixie’s front window, but then something next door caught Elliot’s attention. A curtain had just fallen back into place from where someone had undoubtedly been spying on the scene outside.
Elliot and Eliza seemed to have had the same exact thought. “Boots!” they exclaimed together.
“I bet she saw the whole thing!” said Eliza.
Elliot agreed. “I have a feeling you’re right.”
Not sparing a moment, they fled for Boots’s house, but before they reached the front door, Eliza yanked on Elliot’s arm.
“What?” he asked, catching his breath.
“Do you think we should have brought along Detective Dunnits?”
Elliot looked back into the street where the detective was being interviewed by Ellebasi Nostaw. He was holding up each of Trixie’s purchases for the camera, including the wrist-watch and several flower print blouses. “No. No, definitely not,” Elliot said firmly. “I think that would be counterproductive.”
By this point, Boots had probably spotted them on her doorstep, so there would be no more time for delay. With a deep breath, Elliot pressed a shaky finger into the doorbell.
They waited for what felt like minutes, hearing only the faint sounds of a TV coming from somewhere inside.
“Maybe we should just go,” said Eliza, chickening out.
It had gotten so cold that Elliot was about to agree with her when suddenly they heard a click as the front door unlocked and creaked slowly open.
Peering at them through her thick black eye-glasses was Boots. True to her name, a pair of chunky rain boots came all the way up to her knobby bare knees, which were beneath an old house dress and moth-eaten cardigan sweater. Her straggly gray hair was tied up with a bandanna, and she wore knit gloves on each of her hands with holes cut out for her fingers.
“Well?” she said. It was a question.
“Mrs. um ... Boots,” Elliot began, hoping the woman knew this was her nickname. “We were wondering if you um by chance saw what happened to Trixie a little bit ago,” he said, his voice shaking as he pointed across the street to where Detective Dunnits was now standing. “We thought maybe you might have seen something.”
She squinted at them for several uncomfortable seconds, sucked in a raspy breath, and then said, “Come in.”
Without a word she escorted them through a dining room occupied by antique furniture that looked as though it hadn’t been dusted since 1958, despite the can of lemon-polish sitting on top the table. There was a faint odor of moth balls, and the carpets were matted with what looked like some sort of gray animal hair, but so far there had been no pet in sight. That was until a long-haired gray cat was finally spotted in the living room atop a pudgy shirtless man who was sitting in a recliner and watching some sort of game show on TV. The man was wearing a pair of dress pants and a belt, which Elliot suspected he wore everyday.
“Put on your shirt, Merv. We’ve got company,” Boots growled at him, and he groaned as he felt down the side of the recliner and yanked out a yellowing undershirt which he squeezed over his round, balding head.
“A pleasure,” he said in their general direction, and then took a sip from a can before plopping it back on the aluminum food tray beside him.
“Well, have a seat,” said Boots, motioning toward a couch and arm chair, both of which were adorned with a hand-stitched doily and copious amounts of dust and cat hair. “Merv! Turn that blasted television down.”
Elliot and Eliza took seats on the side of the couch that wasn’t piled high with a year’s worth of newspapers. “Mrs. um ... Boots,” said Eliza this time. “You know what happened to Trixie, don’t you?”
Boots sighed. “First off, drop the Missus ... and second, I don’t know why you two should think I’d have seen anything,” she said with a scowl, though as she said this, Elliot spotted a pair of binoculars on her windowsill. She must have guessed what he was thinking. “They’re for bird watchin’,” she said.
Elliot decided to take a chance. “We know you saw something, Boots, and for Trixie’s sake, we need you to tell us,” he said as boldly as he could muster.
She drew in another raspy breath and appeared to be contemplating the consequences of saying anything to them. “Alright, I’ll tell you,” she said finally, to both Elliot and Eliza’s surprise and relief. “I just happened to be passing by the window when I heard a scream.”
They pulled themselves to the edge of their seats.
“A figure in black –– I think a man, but I can’t be sure –– had Trixie round the neck. They were yellin’ som’n to her, but my hearin’s not what it used to be. Trixie screamed and clawed at them till they let go and threw her to the ground, and then I saw ‘em sort’n through them boxes she had in her arms. But in the end, alls they made off with was her purse.”
“Do you think they were after her money?” asked Elliot.
Boots thought about this for a second and then shook her head. “If you ask me, that mugger wasn’t after no Christmas presents,” she said. “Som’n much more important than that, I’d say.”
Elliot and Eliza exchanged nervous glances. Somehow they just knew. And now the mugger had Trixie’s purse, which likely meant they’d also have the keys to her house.
Someone was after the map.
* * *
As much as they didn’t want to admit it, Elliot and Eliza thought Boots’s story was probably something Detective Dunnits should hear, and after much arguing, they finally got her to agree to talk with him.
“We’ll send him over ... just tell him exactly what you told us,” Eliza said as they were shown out the door.
“Alright, alright. I got it, little missy,” Boots growled. “I guess this is what you get for trying to keep to yerself,” she huffed.
Elliot and Eliza both rolled their eyes and then made their way back into the darkening street, only to find that Detective Dunnits was not where they’d left him.
“Let’s try Trixie’s house,” Elliot suggested, though he regretted this once he saw Ellebasi and Stan stationed outside Trixie’s front door.
They tried to ignore Ellebasi as they passed her on the front porch, but that of course didn’t work. “Hey there, kids,” she called, beckoning them over with her index finger. “Five chuckles each if you can get your mommy to bring Trixie outside for an interview,” she said, feigning sweetness.
“Bug off,” Eliza sneered. She pressed open Trixie’s front door only to be pushed back outside as Killer swung it open and threw Detective Dunnits out onto the doorstep, calling him a “barm-pot” or something of the like and wielding his balled-up fists. He slammed the door shut behind him, leaving Elliot and Eliza alone on the porch with Detective Dunnits and Ellebasi.
“Oooh, Hugh, what’ve you heard?” Ellebasi practically squealed, grabbing her microphone and batting her eyelashes at him. “You will tell Ellebasi now, won’t you?” she said seductively, stroking his tie.
Eliza decided to interject. “Detective Dunnits, I think you need to speak with the woman next door –– she saw everything!”
“Hush, you silly girl, this is my interv––” Ellebasi stopped stroking the Detective’s tie. “Wait, what did you say?” She didn’t need an answer. “Stan! Come on,” she barked and made a mad dash for Boots’s house.
“Mrs. Nostaw –– wait!” Hugh Dunnits called after her, looking a tad mesmerized. “I haven’t gotten my interview yet.”
Elliot heard Eliza groan beside him as Detective Dunnits trailed off the porch, looking like talking to Boots was the last thing on his mind. “I wish Lew Williams were here to see this,” Eliza said.
“Why?” asked Elliot, who had no idea what good could come from the presence of another annoying newscaster.
“Because he’s Ellebasi’s boyfriend,” she said reproachfully.
But Elliot couldn’t have cared less about Ellebasi Nostaw’s sorted love life. Rather, he was dying to know who had wanted the map badly enough to mug Trixie for it. Or better yet, why they’d even thought Trixie would know where it was.
“Detective work is better in America, you know,” Elliot told Eliza.
“Hmm,” she said.