Night of the Ice Storm

by Stout, David;

  Marlee fished in her purse for Jean Gilman’s home number, found it, went back inside, punched the digits, and counted the rings. One, two, three.

  “Hello?”

  “Jean, thank goodness. It’s Marlee and my car won’t start. If I call a cab, I’m bound to be late. Could you pick me up?”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Ed Delaney lives closer to you. If he’s left already, I’ll get in touch with him by radio. If you don’t hear back from me in five minutes, he’s your ride.”

  Marlee hung up, sat down, caught herself smiling.

  A car honked outside.

  “I’m really leaving now, Nigel. Be a good boy.”

  Ed Delaney got out and opened the car door for her.

  “Oh, thank you. I feel like such a jerk. I knew the damn car was overdue for the garage. Was this out of your way?”

  “Not at all. Glad you decided to come along tonight.”

  “And I’m glad for the ride.”

  Good, Marlee thought. She could tell from the smell of the car that Ed Delaney wasn’t a smoker.

  “Do you have a good mechanic?” Delaney said.

  “No. I mean, I did, but he sold out. I got through the winter okay, but you know.” Marlee thought she was babbling like a high school freshman on a day.

  “If you’d like, I can call my former brother-in-law. Runs a garage over on Forest. Topflight mechanic.”

  “Really? It’s no trouble?”

  “Of course not. He’s busy, but I can get you in fast.”

  “That’s, that’s very nice. Thank you.”

  “I’ll call him tomorrow and get back to you. Name’s Rick. Very nice guy, easy to talk to. And he’s honest.”

  Marlee thought about that. The feminist in her was bothered that Ed Delaney should be on such good terms with his former brother-in-law. How did Delaney’s ex-wife feel about that?

  “So,” Marlee said, “you’ve managed to stay in touch with her family?”

  “Oh, yes. We get along just fine.”

  Yes, Marlee felt a feminist resentment. But she had accepted a ride from Delaney, after all, and had to be pleasant. “How’s the sick ten-year-old?”

  “A lot better, thanks. A little rest in bed, a little TLC.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Laura. She’s a super kid, really. It’s a tough load for a ten-year-old, not having a mom around.”

  “I imagine.” Now she was curious as well as resentful. Did she dare ask him personal questions? Maybe he would dislike her for it. Or would it be worse if she disliked him for his answers?

  They rode mostly in silence for the next twenty minutes. When they were a block from the YWCA building, Marlee said, “Is she alone tonight? Your daughter, I mean?”

  “Baby-sitter from down the block.”

  Delaney expertly parallel-parked across the street from the Y building.

  “Does Laura see her mother regularly?”

  Delaney looked startled, then he smiled softly. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I’m not divorced. My wife died a few years ago.”

  “Oh, dear. I deserve to feel really stupid, and I do.”

  “Not at all. I shouldn’t have taken for granted that you knew.”

  “No. No. I’m the one who took something for granted. I really …” Marlee had to stop; her voice was about to break, and she could feel her upper lip catching on her teeth. This was going to be a terrible evening.

  When she emerged from the YWCA three and a half hours later, Marlee was exhausted. She had listened to three women who had been raped, then had listened to the three husbands. The women had been in a small room with Jean Gilman, the men in a small room with Ed Delaney.

  That’s the way these women wanted the evening to be, Gilman said. They would talk to a female detective, but not to a male detective, and they would only talk at all if their husbands were separate. That way, the women could say what they truly felt.

  Fine, Gilman had said. That’s how the women want it, that’s how it will be.

  “I don’t mind telling you, the arrangement made things tough for me,” Marlee told Delaney in the car afterward. “Having to dash from room to room, afraid to miss something in one place and feeling the need to be in the other place.”

  “I thought you were terrific. You managed to act like a reporter and be compassionate at the same time. A neat trick.”

  “Well, thank’s very much.”

  “I mean it. I heard that the women liked the way you listened to them, to their feelings. And the men respected you, too.”

  “How could you tell that?”

  “The way their shoulders were hunched up. They were paying attention.”

  “I thought modern cops were supposed to be scientific. What’s this stuff about their eyes and shoulders?”

  “My dad, he was a cop. God rest his soul. He always told me to trust my gut feeling. Intuition, whatever you want to call it.”

  Marlee liked Ed Delaney. She decided to try to erase totally any lingering damage from earlier. “If you can tell what people are feeling,” she said, “then you know how bad I feel for my mistake about your wife.”

  “Forget it. I thought you knew, that’s all.” Delaney let several seconds go by. “Actually, if you want to get on my good side, you can let me buy you a beer.”

  Marlee thought Ed Delaney was manly without being macho. She resolved to be careful with her emotions, but there was no denying she liked his company.

  “This is a good feeling,” Delaney said. “I don’t get a chance to stop at a tavern that often.”

  They had a corner table just big enough for a potted candle, an ashtray, a pitcher of beer, and a basket of peanuts. They used the ashtray for the peanut shells. Several men at the bar were watching a baseball game on television. With the attention focused elsewhere and the darkness of the corner, Delaney and Marlee had an oasis of privacy.

  “I only do this once in a while,” Marlee said. “Like a lot of people, I indulged more in my youth. Long ago.”

  “Hey, don’t say that. We’re about the same age. But it is hard for me to believe that Laura’s ten already.”

  “Was, was your wife sick long?”

  “A couple of years. Uterine cancer. For a long time, after she got sick and, and later, I had this ‘why me?’ feeling. Even though I knew Anne was the one who had the right to feel that way.”

  “So did you.”

  A sad smile lit his face for a moment and was gone.

  “It must have been very hard.”

  “Very hard, yes. I can’t tell you how hard. Thing is, she always had good health habits. Aw, hell.”

  “Sometimes I think we’re all sitting ducks.”

  “How about you? You look like you’re in shape. You swim? Jog?”

  “I jog a little. I watch my diet, don’t do peanuts and beer too often.”

  “Me neither. I used to put away a lot more beer than I do now.”

  “Really?”

  “My name’s Delaney and I’m a cop. Remember?”

  “I remember. That’s why I won’t admit that I used to do pot.”

  “Good. Don’t admit it. If you did, I’d have to bust you. Along with half the guys in my academy class.”

  “Really?”

  “Okay, probably not half. But more than a few. Things were different when I was in the academy. God, twenty years ago. Sometimes it seems like yesterday I was a patrolman.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. Jean Gilman said Ed Sperl was bugging you about an old case just before he died. Something you worked on years ago.”

  “He was a pain in the ass. A couple of older detectives liked him, but I never did.”

  “No?”

  “No. The guys who liked him were the kind of cops who used to crack the heads of students and talk about crime in the black neighborhood as ‘bongos and banjos.’”

  “Hmmm. Yes, Ed fit in with people like that. But what was he bugging you about?”

  “He said he needed
information on an old murder for a feature story.”

  “Really?” Marlee thought that odd. The Gazette normally didn’t like stories like that. “What was the case?”

  “Something that happened when I was a rookie. Remember that priest that got whacked in that house over near the Ambrose Parkway? It would have been in January of ’71, because I was just starting out.”

  “I remember. Ed made a couple of rotten jokes about it, including one at my party. Which didn’t go over so good with me because a couple of my guests were gay.”

  Ed Delaney jerked his head; his eyebrows shot up. “There were indications that that priest had engaged in homosexual activity. That wasn’t publicized.”

  “Well, Ed Sperl certainly had some good sources.”

  “Yeah, sure. But it was the kind of thing cops were supposed to keep quiet about if they didn’t want to get shitcanned.”

  “Was there some kind of directive to that effect?”

  A collective cheer went up from the bar as a baseball player in Boston hit a home run.

  Delaney snorted. “No. The way I got the message was like, oh, like getting spun around real fast in a revolving door. And when you’re done spinning, you’re supposed to forget what you’ve seen and heard. You know?”

  “I guess so. Things like that happen in newspaper offices sometimes.”

  “All I know is, the day I saw the body I was called to the captain’s office and told to erase my memory. Those weren’t the exact words, but that was the message.”

  “Wait! You actually saw the body?”

  “I was the first cop there. Never forget it. Some old Irish priest had come by to check on this young priest, who was supposed to have gone on vacation and was overdue to return. Turned out the young priest had never left. He’d been dead in the basement awhile.”

  “I remember. How horrible.”

  “Golf club sticking out of his head. You don’t want to hear the rest, believe me. But his pants were partly undone and there were definite signs of, you know.”

  “I can guess; But what about the hush order?”

  “Here, let me top off your glass. The detective captain, guy name of Ray McNulty, told me to keep my trap shut. ‘This is a Catholic town,’ he said. Now what’s that tell you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve covered the police beat, but it’s not my strong point.”

  “The diocese wanted it hushed up. The bishop had enough trouble back then with priests who were protesting Vietnam or running off to get married.”

  “The bishop?”

  “Sure. ‘This is a Catholic town.’ People at the diocese were probably just as glad the case was never solved, ’cause then it all would have come out.”

  Marlee sipped her beer, tossed a peanut shell at the ashtray, sifted her thoughts. “Something’s still not right. Just because part of the story was hushed up back then, that’s no reason for Ed to try to snoop around again all these years later. He wasn’t that dedicated as a journalist.”

  “You’d know that better than I, Marlee.”

  “And wouldn’t it still be tough to pry information loose, with a lid on?”

  “Maybe. But we’re talking twenty years here. The guys who were the department honchos then are long gone. For that matter, there’s been a lot of changes at the diocese.”

  Something’s still off, Marlee thought. “How much did you tell Ed Sperl about what you saw that day?”

  “Not a hell of a lot. I was pretty vague, in fact. I’ve told you more than I told him.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “I like you better. You’re a better person.”

  “Thanks. I think.” Marlee smiled, felt her face flush for a moment.

  Ed Delaney took a big gulp of beer. “I guess you could say I even lied a little to Sperl, in the sense that I held back on the homosexual angle.”

  “But in reality there was no doubt?”

  “None.”

  “So what was Ed Sperl looking for?”

  “Damned if I know. I told him if he wanted more info, he’d have to go to the old case files down in the basement.”

  “And did he?”

  “I don’t know. He’d have needed permission from someone in brass, someone with a key. Which I’d guess he could have gotten.”

  “Odd.”

  “One thing, he kept asking me about the golf club sticking out of the priest’s head. Some guys get off on that stuff, I guess.”

  “How awful. Who would care about such terrible stuff?”

  A roar went up from the bar at another home run.

  “Getting a little noisy in here,” Delaney said. “Actually, it’s time for me to get going.”

  Delaney walked Marlee to the door. They told each other how much they’d enjoyed each other’s company, shook hands, and said good-night.

  Nice, Marlee thought when she was inside. He’s nice.

  “Hello, Nigel. Hello, boy. Kiss, kiss.”

  The Airedale climbed off the sofa, greeted her with sleepy eyes and wagging tail.

  “Did you guard the house, boy? Good fella.”

  Marlee put on her pajamas, fetched some ice water, went to her bedroom.

  “Come on up, Nigel.”

  The dog climbed onto the bed with her. She had had the dog in her room at night since the prowler.

  Marlee was tired, but she felt good-tired. Tomorrow, she would arrange to get her car fixed, take a cab to work, maybe do a rough draft of a column.

  Marlee had been glad that Grant Siebert was coming to Bessemer, but she was thinking now about Ed Delaney. Ed Delaney, with a daughter in his life and a wife in his memory. One thing at a time, Marlee.

  She finished her ice water, set the alarm a half hour later than normal, turned out the light. She was drowsy almost at once, but while she could still think, she suddenly wondered if Ed Sperl had been doing a story for Grant Siebert’s magazine. Maybe that would explain things.

  But Marlee hoped that wasn’t true; the whole business seemed sordid, even though that was the kind of thing Grant Siebert did for a living. Maybe she could call Grant and find out if Ed was doing something for him. Sure, she had an excuse: she would say something about the reunion.

  Then another half-formed thought about Ed Sperl crept unbidden into her consciousness. Something, something, something. A memory. But before she could bring it into focus, she fell into slumber, her snores blending with those of the dog lying next to her.

  Next morning at the Gazette, Marlee called Grant Siebert in New York. It took her a while to work up the courage, and she had to swallow butterflies when he answered. Trying to ease into the conversation, Marlee asked him if he was looking forward to coming back to Bessemer. Grant said he was.

  By the way, Marlee asked, was Ed Sperl doing some article for your magazine about an old crime in Bessemer? Grant paused, and Marlee thought his voice had a different tone when he replied that no, Ed Sperl hadn’t been doing anything for Sleuth.

  “What was the case?” Grant asked.

  “About twenty years ago a priest was beaten to death with a golf club. It was never solved.”

  “Then we wouldn’t have any use for it. We only do articles about cases in which there’s been a conviction or guilty plea.”

  “Oh, of course. I guess I should have known that.”

  “I’m curious why you thought he might have been doing something for us.”

  “Oh, well, I happened to find out he was rooting around in old files. Even talking to a cop who saw the body.”

  “I don’t know anything about that, Marlee. I remember the case, but only vaguely.”

  “I see.” A creepy feeling came over Marlee. “Grant, you heard about Ed, didn’t you? You know what happened?”

  “Yep. My folks saw a small item in the Albany paper. I guess he died not long after I talked to him.”

  “Probably, yes.”

  “I really wasn’t very friendly with him. I guess I should be sorry he’s dead.”

  Marlee
wondered if Grant was really as callous as he sounded. She hoped not. “He was at a party of mine recently, so I really felt … funny after he, you know.”

  “Yes, he mentioned your party.”

  Prom his voice, Marlee could almost see Grant stiffening up. All right, time to say good-bye. “I, uh, hope we get a chance to chat when you’re here, Grant.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Good. We’ll probably discover we’re not the same stupid jerks we were back then, you know.”

  “Could be. So long.”

  As she hung up, a memory light flickered in a corner of Marlee’s mind. Then it was gone.

  “Marlee, have you seen this?”

  Jenifer Hurley was standing by Marlee’s desk, holding a piece of pink paper.

  “It just went up on the bulletin board,” Jenifer said. “The publisher is springing for a party at his spread. For the reunion.”

  “Oh, great. Sit down a minute.” Marlee liked and respected Jenifer Hurley, envied her youth and gave her occasional advice on how to avoid the treacherous shoals of male chauvinism at the Gazette.

  Marlee read the pink paper: the publisher was hosting a brunch at his house on the Sunday morning of the reunion, the day after the golf tournament.

  “Have you been there?” Jenifer asked.

  “A few times. It’s quite a big house, I assure you. The publisher will have a big tent in the backyard with about six thousand dollars’ worth of food and booze, probably a band.”

  “Wow!”

  “And Lyle junior may jump in the pool. If he does, his father will laugh even though he’ll be embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?”

  “Oh, yes. The publisher is at heart, shall we say, a formal man. Stuffy, in other words. It embarrasses him that his son is divorced and bounced around a few schools.”

  “Silly.”

  “Silly is right. And he’s got to feel a little sad about the reunion turnout. I hear on the grapevine that there aren’t many out-of-towners coming back. So a lot of people who used to work here but didn’t leave Bessemer are having their arms twisted. Along with some public relations people and Chamber of Commerce types who never worked here at all.”

  “Their arms aren’t the only ones being twisted. I had to do a little puff piece for the reunion program. Lyle junior asked me in a nice way, but he wasn’t really asking, if you know what I mean.”