The Legend of Joe Moran
Chapter 10The first order of business was to call down to the front desk and see if he had any messages. "Yes, sir, two calls from Mr. Jeff Spencer in Hollywood, California. Would you like the number he can be reached at?"
Stu looked at his watch, which he hadn't even bothered to remove before he laid down. It was eight a.m., which meant it was six in Los Angeles. "No thank you, I know the number. I'll return the calls later, thank you. Is there a restaurant or coffee shop in the hotel?"
"No sir, but there's an excellent restaurant right next door. It's called The Egg and I."
"Thank you." Breakfast would have to wait. He opened the door and found his shirts, clean and pressed, hanging on the outside as promised. He smiled; at least the laundry was first class, even if the motel wasn't. He closed the door and removed his watch, then stripped and got into the shower. When he was done shaving he got dressed and went downstairs, picking up a Hattiesburg paper and walking to the restaurant. The waitress brought coffee and filled his cup, then she handed him a menu. "Do you have any specials today?"
"Yes, sir. We have a fresh spinach omelet with grits and cinnamon toast, then we have . . . "
"That's alright. Can I get the omelet made with egg whites only?"
"Yes, sir."
"Skip the grits and bring the cinnamon toast dry with butter on the side." After the waitress left he opened the paper. It wasn't very big and it didn't have a Sports or Entertainment section. He scanned the paper for any advertisement but all he found were ads for grocery stores and auto repair shops. By the time he'd finished with the newspaper his breakfast had arrived.
The front desk clerk at the Inn was right – the food was excellent. As was the coffee. Stu had another cup before asking for his check. He paid for his breakfast, got a receipt for same, and left the waitress a nice tip. He went back to the motel and upstairs to his room, checking the time on his watch as he walked inside. It was 7:30 Los Angeles time. Stu picked up the phone. "Operator, I need to place a long-distance call to Olympia 61116. Yes, I'll hold."
It only took the Operator two or three minutes before she came back on the line. "I have your Los Angeles number, sir."
"Thank you. Jeff?"
"Stu. Thank God. I was worried when I couldn't reach you last night."
"How did you find me?"
"I put a tracker on your suitcase. How many hotels do you think are in Hattiesburg?"
"I don't know. I could only locate one." Stu had to chuckle . . . trust Jeff to find him. God help him if he ever wanted to disappear. He had no doubt that, unless he left the planet, his partner would track him down.
"For your information, there are only four. You were registered at the second. No calls last night?" Jeff needed to make sure there was nothing sinister going on.
"Remember I told you how exhausted I was? Once I got checked in I went straight to my room. I didn't even stop for food. Hung up my suits and collapsed on the bed, even left my watch on. And I didn't think you'd want me to call you at 6 a.m. your time. I'd have heard you hollering all the way from California to Mississippi."
Jeff snorted. "With what we heard about the thunderstorms in your area I'd have welcomed a call at that time of the morning."
"I've flown through worse."
"Since the end of the war?"
"Well . . . it was all behind us, or should I say above us, once we began the descent. By the time I drove to Hattiesburg I could have fallen asleep on a bed of nails." That wasn't much of an exaggeration. Stu was exhausted when he arrived and went to bed within twenty minutes of checking in.
There was a trace of anxiety in Jeff's voice. "Got any leads there?"
"Haven't even gotten to check the phone book yet. I'll let you know if I find what I'm looking for."
It was almost a minute before Jeff said anything. "Do you even know what you're looking for?"
Stu had to admit, it was a good question. "In a way. At least I've got an idea, which is more than I started out with. You have to trust me on this one, Jeff. I'm following a hunch."
"I'm just worried about how far you're going to follow it, Stu. Work is starting to pile up around here again. I'm afraid we'll get so far behind we'll have to turn business away. And, as Kookie would say, that don't pay the rent, dad."
"I can't see this taking me beyond the end of the week, Jeff." Very rarely did Jeff worry about work piling up, so Stu suspected things were getting serious.
He heard relief in his partner's voice. "Alright, I can keep us from insolvency that long. Just let me know if something happens to delay you."
"I promise to stay in touch. Talk to you later."
"Bye, dad."
Stu got out the Hattiesburg phone book. It was even smaller than the Terre Haute book had been. There were only five dry cleaners listed, and the names didn't give him any clue about who the owners were or had been. There were no Moran's in the White Pages, either. Well, there was nothing to do but go down the list one at a time and see what he could find.
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Stu had started out the morning oddly hopeful, but by the late afternoon most of that feeling had dissipated. He'd been all over town, visiting four of the five dry cleaners and turning up nothing. No one knew Moran; no one even remembered him. He was on his way to the last one and was doing his best not to be discouraged.
One-hour Dry Cleaning the sign outside Mr. Cleans Laundry and Dry Cleaners proclaimed. Stu pulled his rental car onto the street in front of the establishment and pulled out his cigarette case. Five minutes later he stubbed out what was left of the smoke and got out of the car. When he opened the front door he knew there was something different about this place; the building felt new somehow. "Good afternoon," he greeted the young woman who came to the counter. "My name is Stuart Bailey. May I speak to the owner, please?"
"Yes sir." Without another word she disappeared back through the clothing racks. There was silence, except for the sound of the machines, and he wondered if it was her polite way of saying "Go away."
Almost five minutes later a man made his appearance. He was gray-haired and round and he walked slowly up to the counter. Stu would have put him at sixty or sixty-five. "I'm the owner. Can I help you?"
"My name is Stuart Bailey. I'm looking for someone who knew Joe Moran. He would have lived in Hattiesburg sometime prior to 1950. He owned or operated a dry cleaning business in town. Is that name familiar to you, sir?" Stu had taken his card case from his inside pocket and removed a business card, handing it to the gentleman. The man examined the card carefully before he spoke. And when he did so he offered his hand.
"Ollie Hedgepath, Mr. Bailey. What is a Private Investigator from California want with Joe Moran?"
They shook hands before Stu answered him. "One of Mr. Moran's friends is trying to find him. Someone that knew him a long time ago, which is what led me to Hattiesburg. Did you know him?"
The old man snorted. "Know him? I'd say so. I was partners with him." He looked around carefully. "Mr. Bailey, it's hard to talk at the counter. Would you mind coming in back with me?"
"Not at all, Mr. Hedgepath." Stu followed Ollie Hedgepath through the racks of clothes until they reached the far corner of the building, which held what appeared to be a small office. The business owner opened the door and took a seat behind the desk, offering a seat in front of the desk to Stu. "Now, Mr. Bailey, just what is it you need to know about Joe?"
"Anything you feel you can tell me, Mr. Hedgepath. For example, how long ago were you and Joe partners?"
"More than ten years ago, Mr. Bailey. Joe started working for me when he was just a young man, back after the war ended. He was my counter man, and you couldn't find a more dependable fellow. He'd do any job I asked him to do, worked any hours I needed him, even stayed extra so I could spend time with my wife. He'd been here about three years when he met a nice girl and got married."
"By any chance, was she a redhead, Mr. Hedgepath?"
The old man looked confused. "Why yes, she was. How did you know?"
"Educated guess." Stu had neither the time or the wherewithal to explain the long trail of redheads Joe Moran had married and deserted.
"Anyway, within a year after they were married I promoted him to manager. He took over the day-to-day operations, scheduling, hiring, things like that. One afternoon he came to me and told me he still had a chunk of money he'd gotten from his years in the army, and offered to buy into the business with me. Right then I was having a pretty rough time financially; I'd had a lot of medical bills when my wife got sick, and an influx of cash was welcome. So I sold him part of the business for five-thousand dollars. Five-thousand dollars was a lot of money after the war, and it got me back on my feet." Ollie Hedgepath got up and got a cup of coffee from the coffee pot in the corner. "Can I offer you some coffee, Mr. Bailey?"
"No thanks. Tell me more about Moran."
"I let Joe take over the financial end of the business; it was a great relief to me. I'd found out my wife had cancer, and I wanted to spend every minute I could with her, not handling the books. After Bernice died I was in no shape to come back to work. It was another six months before I put a foot in the front door. Once I came back Joe took off on vacation, and while he was gone I started getting strange phone calls. The electric bill was three months past due; same with the phone and my suppliers. Payroll taxes hadn't been paid, and neither had the employees. Joe told them I had to sign the payroll checks and I was still too distraught to be disturbed. I called a friend who was a CPA and asked him to look at the books. What he found made me mad as hell.
"Joe had been slowly siphoning money out of the business for quite some time. We never did find out exactly how much was missing, because one night the plant caught fire and burned to the ground. All the records were destroyed in the blaze. Thank God the one thing he'd paid was the insurance."
Ollie Hedgepath sat quietly drinking his coffee for four or five minutes before Stu asked another question. "Do you know if Joe started the fire?"
"That's a question I'd like an answer to. Joe didn't come back from his so-called vacation, and I never saw him again. The fire department listed the cause of the blaze as a loose wire in one of the machines. God only knows if that was the truth, but at least the insurance company paid off. Eventually, I rebuilt."
"And what happened to Mrs. Moran?"
"Well, that's a long story. Let's just say that we were two lonely people. After she divorced Joe, Doris and I become good friends, and after a while we were more than good friends. We've been married now for almost ten years."
"One last question, Mr. Hedgepath. Do you know what year Doris divorced Joe?"
"It was 1949, Mr. Bailey. That was the best thing she ever did." Ollie finished his coffee and set the cup on his desk. "That's all? Did you learn what you needed to know?"
Stu nodded. What a merry chase Joe Moran had led him on. He stood up and shook hands with Hedgepath, then turned to go. It was the question that stopped him. "Are you going to see Virginia?"
"Virginia? Virginia who?" That was a name he hadn't heard before.
"Joe's mother. She still lives in Glenwood. If you're doing what I think you're doing, you have to meet Virginia Moran. It might explain a lot of things."
Stu groaned. He was so tired of chasing around the country for a man that had become an enigma. Yet he couldn't come all this way to ignore the woman that started it all. Could he?
"I don't suppose you know if Glenwood has an airport, do you?" Stu asked, hopefully.
"Just a military base. But it's only about 30 miles from Hot Springs to Glenwood. A really nice drive, too. Take a puddle jumper out of Hattiesburg to Jackson, then you can get a direct flight to Hot Springs. Virginia's listed in the phone book." Pause. "If you want to know how Joe Moran got to be the way he is, you have to meet Virginia. Good luck, Mr. Bailey."
"Thank you."
Back to his hotel, and another call to the office. This time directly to Suzanne. "Good afternoon, Bailey and Spencer."
"Suzanne, it's Stuart. I need you to find out if you can get me on a direct flight from Jackson, Mississippi to Hot Springs, Arkansas. I need about three hours to get to the airport in Jackson. Call me back at The Hattiesburg Motor Inn, Zenith 48657, room 209. And tell Jeff I'm going to Glenwood, Arkansas and I'll call him when I get there."
"Oui, Stuart."
One last leg on this trip, Stu told himself. Dear God, please.