Do No Harm

by Max Allan Collins

  “Marilyn was a lovely woman,” she said, in a warm, mid-range voice. “I was a shy kid, confused about what was happening to me, to my … well, physicality. She always looked so fresh and sweet. I could always depend on her for advice, or a shoulder to cry on.”

  The ninety-five-degree day seemed almost cool in the lake breeze. “You would visit her just about every morning, I understand.”

  Jane nodded. “Before school. She was always up bright and early.”

  Her face was turned toward the glimmering expanse of blue beyond the bluff. Girls giggled and yelped in the background, animals in their natural habitat.

  “Then,” she said, “about six months before … before what happened to her, Marshall Dodge—the mayor? He started dropping by to see Marilyn. She said I should always call her that, not ‘Mrs. Sheppard.’ Anyway, whenever the mayor showed up, that was my cue … you know, to make tracks.”

  “How did you take that?”

  The green lenses swung toward me, staring at me with their big round blankness. “Well, in an immature way, of course. I was kind of jealous. I would have liked Marilyn’s attention, all of her attention. I really loved her. Not in a … not in that way.”

  “I know. Big sister.”

  “Well … more like a mom. I had a rocky time of it with my folks. We don’t need to get into that. But later I got a little suspicious. Mayor Dodge seemed to get … kind of familiar with her.”

  Familiar—the same word Ronald Draper had used.

  “And,” she went on, “about a month before … before it happened, Marilyn told me, next time he dropped by? To stick around. Not to ever leave her alone with that man again. She put it like that: ‘that man.’”

  The sound of purring motorboats rode the breeze. “How did Dodge react when you didn’t ‘take your cue’ as usual?”

  She turned her gaze back to the lake. “Well, he didn’t like it, that’s for sure. Sometimes he’d just sit and have a cup of coffee and the talk would be … strained, I guess. From the start, he would bring special cuts of meat from his butcher shop. He would walk right over to the refrigerator and just put them in. Like he owned the place. When things got tense, or strained, if he saw me sitting there? He’d come in with one of those white-wrapped packages, with the red coming through, and put them in the fridge and nod and go out, without hardly a word.”

  “Did you ever see anything?”

  The green lenses swung my way again; they had an oddly science-fiction look. “You mean … did they kiss or hug each other or do anything … sexual? Not in front of me, they didn’t. But one of the last times I talked to Marilyn, she told me Mr. Dodge said he loved her. That he’d been arguing about it with Mrs. Dodge. Marilyn asked me whether I thought she should tell Dr. Sam about it. Imagine, her asking me for advice?”

  “What advice did you give her?”

  “I said she should tell him.”

  “Do you know if she did?”

  She nodded, lowering her head to look at me over the glasses. “Yes, and she said Sam took it well. It kind of … shook him, though. They’d been real close, the two couples, going on vacation together, co-owning a boat, and right then Marilyn and Dr. Sam stopped seeing them so much. What she told me was, ‘We decided to branch out into other social circles, and put a little distance between us and the Dodges.’”

  Laughter drifted up from the beach. It had a hollow sound.

  I asked, “Did that subject ever come up again?”

  “No, but I wasn’t seeing her quite so often. Chip got old enough that he didn’t need a sitter. I was in high school now, and it became more a once-in-a-while thing, me stopping over. But there was always a closeness, y’know?”

  Giggling, yelping, pale flesh, tanned flesh, young female flesh, capered and squealed. Innocent.

  For now.

  “Jane,” I said (we’d agreed on first names). “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”

  “You’re trying to come up with things that might have been missed, the first time?”

  “Right.”

  “I can think of one.”

  “Please.”

  “I knew Mrs. Dodge, Mildred, pretty well. The Dodges had a daughter, still do, who was a classmate of mine. Name is Lisa. Jerry Dodge was a year ahead of us. So Lisa and I were friendly enough that I was there some, at the Dodges. One time Mildred, Mrs. Dodge, asked me for a … kind of funny favor.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t exactly remember when it was. I think maybe it was after Marilyn and Dr. Sam had it out about Mr. Dodge. Anyway, Mrs. Dodge … Mildred … knew I was close to Mrs. Sheppard. And she asked me to sort of … keep my eyes and ears open around the Sheppards. Report anything I heard or saw that had to do with them.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Didn’t mean any offense.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t think you did, Mr. Heller.”

  “Nate.”

  “Nate. You want to know the thing, the one thing, that really haunts me?”

  “If you’d care to share it.”

  The green lenses stared blankly at me. “I … I stayed in that bedroom where Marilyn, Mrs. Sheppard, was killed. I slept in that same bed on three occasions.”

  “Why were you there overnight?”

  “Trouble with my parents. Marilyn would take me under her wing when things got rough. That room she was in, that was their guest room. I guess she and Dr. Sam moved into it later, because that gave them a window on the lake.”

  The breeze ruffled her hair, as if to confirm that.

  I said, “Mr. Bailey may want you to testify.”

  She shrugged. “All right, but I don’t live here anymore, you know. So he’ll have to fly me. I’m in Connecticut now. You caught me at home, visiting my folks.”

  “Getting along better with them now?”

  “Twice a year, I do.”

  * * *

  Mather Auto Sales & Used Cars, on Lorain Avenue, was a corner lot with signs on poles bragging of HIGH APPRAISALS and CLEVELAND’S CLEANEST, and flags flapping with various slogans—SAVINGS, LOW PRICES, WE FINANCE! I parked on the street and walked into the well-stocked lot past a sandwich-board sign saying IF THE HORN BLOWS, WE’LL BUY IT, down an aisle past Pontiacs and Chevies and more, big price tags written in white shoe polish on windshields—’60 Chevrolet $898, ’65 Ford $1348, ’62 Dodge Dart $2195.

  He came at me like he’d been shot out of a cannon, limping slightly, his hand extended like a blade. Marshall Dodge was dumpy but his suit was a nice off-the-rack number, his tie snugged, the picture of middle-class prosperity. So his schlub quality came from the droopy face, black-circled eyes, saggy body and various competing double chins. His hair was fully gray now.

  He slowed as I came into focus, his politician’s smile continuing but his eyes narrowing; then the hand dropped and by the time he had planted himself in front of me, he had recognized me.

  “I don’t remember your name,” he said, his voice soft, almost frightened. His face had fallen, the flesh hanging loose on the bones beneath.

  “Nathan Heller,” I said.

  He looked like he might cry. “Is this about the Sheppard thing again?”

  “It is. I’m working for F. Lee Bailey now, and going back to talk to the principal players.”

  He flinched, swallowed. “Is that what I am?”

  “Why, don’t you think you are?”

  He gestured around him at the dog pound of unwanted cars. “Can’t you see I’m working here?”

  No customers were in sight.

  “It’s hot and the world is at work,” I said. “All I want is a few minutes.”

  “Get it over with. But if a customer stops by—”

  “I’ll get out of the way,” I said, raising a palm. “Do you have an office we can sit in?”

  He frowned, squinted, as if the sun weren’t at his back. “Let’s do this out here. But I don’t know what I can tell you that you didn’t hear from
me the first time around.”

  I smiled a little. “That’s nine years ago, Mr. Dodge. We have catching up to do, and my memory can use refreshing. So you’re in the used car business now? You own the lot?”

  “No. I’m the manager, but not the owner.”

  “I thought you had a successful business going with that meat market of yours.”

  He sighed deep, let it out slow. “Mr. Heller, you don’t know what that Sheppard mess cost me. I’ve spent years fighting rumors and fending off accusations. There are people who think I had something to do with that murder!”

  “No. Really?”

  Shaking his head, pawing at the air, he said, “Crank calls at home, at all hours—‘Hey Dodge, I wanna kill my wife—can you help me?’ Go over to the market and try to work there, and people would say, ‘I heard this and I heard that,’ blah blah blah blah. You have any idea how often I’ve wished we weren’t even in Bay Village that night? Rather I was in goddamn Timbuktu or something.”

  “But you weren’t. And you got the six A.M. phone call from Dr. Sam that put you in this thing forever.”

  His expression had something pleading in it. “Yes, and who has ever been second-guessed as much as Mildred and me? Why did we do this, why didn’t we do that. Look, we just reacted, made decisions on the fly, like anyone would. It’s easy to Sunday-morning quarterback this thing.”

  Of course, it hadn’t been a game, had it?

  “So you sold the business,” I said.

  “Yes. And I got this job in Cleveland, and I moved to Westlake—Bay Village can take a flying leap.”

  “Broke up your marriage, too.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s so bad. We had some good years, Mildred and me, but … I remarried, you know. Very happy now. All of that’s in the past.”

  I leaned back against a ’64 Chevelle, $1598. “Well, Sam Sheppard’s new trial is very much in the present, and you can’t duck that. The prosecution will call you, no question.”

  “Let ’em do what they have to.” He grimaced. “And I suppose that Bailey character will climb my ass.”

  “There are some things he’ll want to clear up, yes.”

  His eyes got wide. “What kind of things?”

  “Like whether you and Marilyn Sheppard were lovers, for one.”

  The eyes bulged in their dark baggy settings. “Ridiculous! That’s just … ridiculous! She was a fine young woman, and we were just friends. Neighbors.”

  “You would drop by for coffee.”

  “Right.”

  “And cash checks for her?”

  “Yes, to save her a trip to the bank.” He shrugged. “I was going, anyway.”

  “How many times a week would you drop by and have coffee in the kitchen with her?”

  Another shrug. “Not often.”

  “How often?”

  “… Three times a week, maybe.”

  “Do you remember the bakery deliveryman who brought bread and doughnuts around to Marilyn? And to your house, too, I believe?”

  His voice was even softer now. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “Do you remember him coming in on you and Marilyn when you were, let’s call it, comforting her about something?”

  His eyes popped again, like he was a rubber squeeze doll. “No! I never saw him in that kitchen.”

  “He says Marilyn handed you a key, and said not to tell Sam about it. A house key, was it?”

  Dodge shook his head; some sweat flew. “That never happened. I told you, I never saw him in that kitchen.”

  “What about the Carter girl?”

  “What about her?”

  “Did you and Marilyn and young Jane have an understanding that when you came around, she would go?”

  He leaned against a ’65 Oldsmobile, $1298. “Anything that kid tells you is suspect. You want to know why? She’s a neurotic little character. Always telling crazy stories about her parents. Just a nut. Forget anything she says!”

  “What about that deliveryman? Is he a nut, too?”

  Like an out-of-breath distance runner, he tried to keep going. “I don’t know what he is. Maybe he has an imagination. Maybe he wants notoriety or something. How should I know?”

  “I notice you still have a limp.”

  Another shrug. “I’ve had a limp since I was a kid. Bone infection. What about it?”

  “Slows you down, does it?”

  “Yes, some. Worse as I get older. Don’t you have any aches and pains? You’re about my age.”

  “Sure.” I grinned at him. “My bullet wounds talk to me about the weather.”

  I thanked him and went back to my rental Ford. He stood in the midst of all those other cars, and might have been trying to figure out whether I’d meant to scare him with that last remark.

  He kind of looked like a guy standing out in the middle of a traffic jam.

  * * *

  I arranged to meet Mildred Dodge at three o’clock at the Silver Grille on Higbee’s tenth floor. The art deco tearoom hadn’t changed much since my lunch with Flo, but this time of day the place had a cavernous feel, perhaps fifty patrons in a restaurant that held five-hundred-some at lunch or supper. I’d chosen this spot because Mildred Dodge worked at Higbee’s as a switchboard operator. We were meeting on her break.

  We were having iced tea, befitting the time of year, though air-conditioning made the scorcher outside a moot point. The petite woman wore a white cotton blouse with a ruffle down the front and a simple black skirt. She hadn’t changed much either—her hair was still short but all-over dark now, the gray apparently banished by a hairdresser. She was back out in the workforce, so looking a little younger made sense. I still thought she was very nearly pretty with those large wide-set dark eyes, but the long nose argued against it. And the drawn-on eyebrows didn’t help.

  She sipped her iced tea. She was having the lemon chiffon pie with whipped cream, which I’d encouraged, to get on her good side. Skinny as she was, and as pinched as her expression could get, her having a sweet tooth seemed doubtful, but she was digging in. I had the mocha torte, if you’re interested.

  After several bites, she started right in. “I do remember you, Mr. Heller. Frankly, it’s not that you’re so memorable, but after all, you dropped by the house with a TV star, didn’t you? Rest her soul.”

  “I did. Flo and I ate here on that trip.”

  She glanced around with a wistful smile on her thin red lipsticked lips. “It’s an elegant place. In the ‘30s, an orchestra provided background music, and you would see celebrities here—Lillian Gish was almost a regular. Often it was writers doing events in the book department—Anita Loos, Irving Stone, even Dr. Seuss.”

  Or maybe Flo Kilgore, another ghost now.

  The dark eyes looked at me unblinkingly. “Whatever could there still be to talk about, Mr. Heller, where that tragedy is concerned?”

  “Quite a lot, actually, with the new trial coming up. You’re bound to be a prosecution witness. I represent Mr. Bailey, but he won’t be calling you.”

  She huffed, “He’s quite the show-off, isn’t he? You know, he’s used the Sheppard case to take advantage of its fame, and ride its coattails—riding on his own jet plane, I understand! Well, I won’t hold it against you, Mr. Heller. You’re just trying to make a living like the rest of us.”

  I sipped iced tea. “Well, there are a few things that Mr. Bailey’s investigators have discovered, which he shared with me. Things that didn’t make it into the first trial.”

  She swallowed a bite of lemon chiffon. “Such as?”

  “Odds and ends, really. I may jump around a bit…”

  “I can keep up with you. Begin.”

  I took some air in and let it out. “Let’s start with the fact that you had your fireplace going on July third, 1954. It’s been speculated that the reason for that was to burn up evidence. And it does seem odd you’d have a fire going in July.”

  She looked down the long nose at me. “That’s because mo
st people don’t know what it’s like to live on a lake. It was windy and quite cool. Not unusual for us to have a fire that time of year, on that kind of night. We used cannel coal.”

  “A reporter said she saw the burned ends of logs.”

  Mildred didn’t bother to frown. This was just a fly to flick off. “She was wrong. Anyway, what difference does that make? The things these people seize upon!”

  “There seems to be some confusion about who was home and who wasn’t, on the night of the third.”

  She shook her head. “Not in my mind, there isn’t. Marsh and I walked down to the beach about ten that night and watched the fireworks. And it was cool, the lake really untamed. Back at home, I watched a movie on TV, with my daughter—Strange Holiday—then read a magazine, till around two-thirty in the morning. Marsh went to bed earlier—we had separate bedrooms, but don’t read anything into that. Marsh was just a snorer, that’s all.”

  I nodded. “What about your son?”

  “Jerry was out on a date, but came back early enough to listen to the ball game on the radio with his father.”

  “Wasn’t he planning to stay out all night with the girl, by pretending to be on a sleepover with one of his pals? But you and your husband caught on and refused to allow it?”

  Now she frowned. “Who told you that?”

  “Just something one of Bailey’s investigators came up with.”

  “Out of whole cloth! Nothing like that happened.”

  I sat forward a little. “But when Jerry was questioned by police, he couldn’t remember what movie he and his date had seen. Or even what theater they’d gone to. Doesn’t that make you think maybe they weren’t at the movie at all?”

  Her smile tried to be cute; it failed. “Weren’t you ever in the back row of a movie theater, Mr. Heller, with a date, and didn’t watch the screen?”

  Ignoring that as rhetorical, I said, “Could you put me in touch with Jerry? Does he live in the area? He’s a doctor now, I understand. An osteopath?”

  Some pride came into her expression. “Yes. And also a captain in the Army Medical Corps. Serving in Vietnam. You have my blessing to look him up there.”