by Ed Gorman
“I guess not.”
“The first thing he did was get an extension phone. They have two phones now.”
“Gosh.”
“Their house is even smaller than ours and they got two phones. That’s what I mean, they walk around actin’ like they’re some sort of big deal. The wife said something about that new discount store out on the highway. This was when they got into it at the bowling alley. And you know what Joanie says?”
“What?”
“She says “I wouldn’t be seen goin’ into a place like that.” Like she’s too high and mighty to save a little money on stuff.”
This sounded like a matter for the United Nations if I’d ever heard one.
“Slim, you think we could get back to Mrs.
Courtney?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
“So does she come in here and buy liquor?”
“Now she does.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, startin’ about four months ago. It was funny. Never saw her in here before. And then all of a sudden she starts comin’ two, three times a week.”
“Two or three times a week.
Isn’t that a lot?”
“It’s a lot for what she was buyin’.
Half-gallon of gin at a time.”
“Was she ever drunk when she came in?”
“Not drunk but drinkin’. Slurring her words, stuff like that.”
“Hey, Slim,” the man running the first register said, “I could use some help over here.”
The place had filled up suddenly.
“I appreciate it, Slim. Thanks.”
“I’ll bet at the reunion Joanie goes around tellin’ everybody about their new extension phone. Whaddaya bet?”
He went over and greeted his customer.
I drove out to the Judge’s place, something I don’t often do. The house is a huge Tudor set upon three acres of perfectly kempt grounds that are safe behind a black iron fence. When her Eastern friends visit-I met Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. there one day; Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits another-the west lawn is covered with a vast tent, a six-piece classical ensemble, and enough booze to get Moscow drunk on a Saturday night.
The props were just now being set up as I aimed my ragtop up the curving drive to the manse.
I saw Lettie and Max and Maria, the regular staff, carrying armloads of serving bowls, glasses, cups from the house to the tent.
The florist was there, as was the caterer, as were the musicians. Jay Gatsby would envy what was being set in motion here.
The Judge herself was in her study, Gauloise and brandy in hand. You rarely saw her in jeans, but jeans she wore and a white silk blouse. She was a little bit Rosalind Russell and a little bit Barbara Stanwyck. She was also a little bit drunk.
“So nice of you to keep me informed, McCain.”
The study had one of those floor-mounted globes that was about half the size of the actual planet and walls and walls of paintings and photos of her Whitney forebears, all of whom looked constipated and skunk-mean. There was also a lot of leather furniture that smelled of a recent oiling.
She also smelled, as usual, of a recent oiling.
I wasn’t up for her sarcasm. “You want to hear about how I almost got my head shoved into a cage of rattlesnakes or not?”
That shut her up. Who could resist hearing a story like that? She was giddy as a girl listening to my tale of bravery and grace under pressure and which, I have to admit, I did embellish a tad here and there, especially the part about how I tied two rattlers together.
“You tied them together?”
“You bet I did. Otherwise they would’ve jumped on me.”
“No offense, McCain, but I’ve just never thought of you as being that smart.”
“Thank you.”
“Or that brave, for that matter.”
“Thank you again.”
“Let me toast you.”
She toasted me. You’ll notice she didn’t offer me a drink so that I could toast me.
“Ah,” she said, downing the brandy. “And you learned what, exactly, for all your travail with those damnable snakes?”
“I learned that I’m much smarter and braver than you thought I was.”
“You shouldn’t brag, McCain. It’s unbecoming.”
“And I learned that Bill Oates seems to be on exceptionally good terms with Viola Muldaur.” I told her about how early he’d been there this morning.
She said, delicately, “Dierdre keeps telling me that Sara isn’t home and will call me back.”
“Avoiding you?”
“What else?”
“I thought you were friends.”
“Best of,” she said.
“And she won’t talk to you?”
“Afraid not.”
“So she knows something.”
“Afraid so,” she said.
“And could be in trouble?”
“Maybe.”
I told her about the mother-daughter visit to my office and about how they went home on friendly terms. And then I said, “Dierdre’s pregnant. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you and I probably shouldn’t have. But you need to know.”
“She’s pregnant? But she’s just a little girl.”
She nearly choked inhaling the smoke from her Gauloise.
“Knocked up.”
“Please, McCain. You’re vulgar enough just standing there. You don’t need to enhance it.”
“With child. In a maternal way. Preggers, as our British friends say.” She was something of an Anglophile. I thought maybe she’d go for it.
“Poor Sara,” she said.
“Poor Dierdre.”
“And no idea who the father is?”
“Not so far.”
“Probably some greasy-haired high-school boy who drives around with his car radio turned all the way up. Like you, in fact, McCain.”
“Thank you for the third time today.”
“No wonder she doesn’t want to talk to me.” Then: “Are you any closer to figuring this thing out than you were before?”
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
“Then what do I pay you for, McCain?
You’re my investigator-investigate, for God’s sake. Don’t sit here soaking up my brandy and wasting my time.”
“You haven’t offered me any brandy.”
“Oh.”
“And as far as wasting your time goes, I thought you’d appreciate being brought up to date.”
She went to the window and swept a graceful arm toward the grounds.
“You maybe have noticed all the activity out there.”
“I did indeed.”
“Dick will be here very soon.”
“I’m trying to hide my enthusiasm so as not to embarrass myself.”
“I want him to be comfortable here and to think well of us. I don’t want him to think that we’re a bunch of hill people who throw snakes around in our religious ceremonies. And murder each other.”
“You’ll have your killer.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
A knock at the door.
“Yes?”
Max, the butler. “There seems to be some trouble with the lilies, Judge.”
“The lilies?”
“They’re lagging.”
“The lilies are lagging?”
“That’s what the floral man says, Your Honor.”
“Florist, not floral man, Max.”
“The florist says the lilies are lagging, Judge. He’d like you to join him in the tent.”
After Max was gone, the Judge, obviously unhappy, said, “Did you hear that, McCain?”
“I certainly did. Your lilies are lagging.”
“I pay this kind of money and they lag.”
“I don’t want to live in a world like this anymore.”
“You’re more sarcastic than usual today, McCain. And since you don’t seem to have any sensitivity toward my lilies, I may
as well be honest with you.”
“Honest? About what?”
“That ridiculous story you made up about tying two rattlesnakes together.”
“You didn’t believe it?”
“Not for a second.”
“Well,” I said as I left, “it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than lagging lilies, I’ll tell you that much.”
Fourteen
On Main Street, sitting primly on a bench in front of the Dairy Queen, I saw Kylie Burke and I almost pulled in and talked to her. But she looked so happy just then and I imagined her head was filled with all sorts of hopes and blissful fantasies about her life ahead with Chad. It’s funny how love can do that to you like nothing else. You put your hand on fire just once and you know enough never to do it again. But you listen to the same person make the same empty promises again and again, and you still come back. And back. And back. And there’s always the friend who knows the couple (they always live in Des Moines or Cleveland or somewhere like that) that went through exactly the same thing you’re going through-all the bunco and pain and humiliation and degradation-and you know what?
It was worth it because today these two are The Happiest Couple In The World. They have seventy-three children and eighteen dogs and eleven cats and they live on love. They don’t need groceries, they don’t need cars, they don’t need baths. Who needs that stuff when you’ve got Love, and we’re talking capital-letter
Love here, of course. So maybe if you can just hang in there just a little longer you’ll be exactly like this couple-maybe just like Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher who look, I have to say, as if they’re living on Love for sure-and then all this suffering and shame and emotional sucker-punching will be well worth it. She was probably thinking stuff like that. Because that’s the sort of thing I used to think about the beautiful Pamela Forrest when she’d give me just enough hope to hang on for another couple weeks. But in the end it’s us, isn’t it?
We could walk away anytime if we had the pride or common sense we should have. And yet we cling and hope. And have those happy-scared moments like the one Kylie was probably having now when the object of our affection throws us another sunny bit of hoke and hope.
A visitor waited for me in my client’s chair.
When he turned around, I said, “Lesbo Lummoxes. About really lazy lesbians.”
“Not bad,” he said.
“I was kidding.”
“Gee, McCain, so was I. I suggest a title like Lesbo Lummoxes, the editor probably wouldn’t ever give me any more work.”
As I walked around the desk to my chair, I said, “How about Lesbo Laundromat?”
“Lesbo Laundromat?”
“It’s where all these lesbians go to wash their clothes.”
“See, McCain,” Kenny Thibodeau said patiently, “this stuff isn’t as easy as it looks.”
“I guess not.”
“Are you by any chance a frustrated writer, McCain?”
“Yeah. Sort of, anyway.”
“I thought so.” Then, quickly: “Not to change the subject but I have some info for you.”
“Info?”
Even on a boiling day like today Kenny was decked out in black. He wasn’t in mourning.
He was just honoring his place in the ranks of the Beat Generation. “I told you I’d play detective and I did. I’m going to write this private-eye novel.” Then: “Guess who was caught breaking into Courtney’s rectory last night?”
“Who?”
“Dierdre Hall.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“I have my ways.”
“C’mon, Kenny, how’d you find out?”
“My aunt is their cleaning woman.”
“Ah.”
“She stopped by my mom’s place and I was there.”
“Cliffie know this?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think. He didn’t know as of earlier this morning, anyway.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because my aunt hadn’t told him yet.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t like Cliffie. She goes to the Lutheran church and he stopped them from playing Bingo one day.”
“Didn’t Mrs. Courtney turn her in?”
“Mrs. Courtney doesn’t know.”
“Wasn’t she home last night?”
“Oh, she was home, all right. With her bottle. Aunt Am was in the basement.
Courtney’s lawyer had asked her to start taking an inventory of everything that belonged to the church and everything that belonged to the Courtneys. Mrs.
Courtney says she plans to move back east very soon.”
“What’d your aunt do with Dierdre?”
“Just told her to go back home. She said the kid was pretty bad off. Crying and stuff.”
“She didn’t say why she was breaking in?”
“Just said she was looking for something. But wouldn’t say what.”
A sad, not-unfamiliar scenario was starting to take shape. B-movie, maybe. Or one of Kenny’s paperbacks.
“You told anybody this?”
“Only you, counselor. I’m working for you, remember. I figure it’s a trade-off.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll need to ask you a lot of questions about law while I’m writing. I try to make my books as authentic as possible.”
“Authentic? I thought you’d never met a lesbian?”
“Well, authentic except for the lesbian parts, I guess.”
“But aren’t most of the parts about lesbian stuff?”
“What are you, a critic? You want me to keep working or not?”
“You’re right, Kenny. Sorry. And this is very useful information. Thanks.” Then I said, “Lost Lesbians.”
“Lost? Where’re they lost?”
“Africa? Some desert somewhere?”
“It just doesn’t ring right, McCain.
Sorry.”
“Lesbian Locksmiths?”
He shook his head in pity. “Sorry, McCain.”
There was no answer at the Halls’. I tried front and back doors, I peeked in windows.
I checked backyard, garage, nearby alley.
Why would Dierdre have broken into the rectory last night? Looking for what, exactly?
Kenny Thibodeau’s aunt was a nice-looking sixty-year-old woman who lived in a friendly-looking little white house on a nice shady corner of a dead-end street. She was on her haunches gardening when I pulled up. Her graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her white U of Iowa T-shirt and jean cutoffs made her seem much younger than she was.
Her son had gotten into some speeding trouble several times during the past few years and I’d represented him in court. She greeted me with a raised trowel. “Morning, McCain.”
“Morning, Am.”
“Plug your ears.”
“My ears?”
“These old bones make a lot of noise when I have to stand up.”
“You’re a doll and you know it.”
“I used to be a doll. A long, long time ago I was a doll. Here we go.”
Her bones did sort of crackle arthritically.
She wiped the back of a hand across her forehead.
“I bet Kenny told you about Dierdre.”
“Yeah.”
“If you want to know what she was looking for, I don’t know.”
“You’ve seen her there before?”
“Oh, sure. She was one of the Reverend’s regulars.”
“Regulars?”
“He counseled people. I know you didn’t care for him but he did a lot of good.
I mean, he was sort of stuck-up and a snob and everything. But he saved half a dozen marriages I know of and he got four or five men to quit drinking. Got them into Aa.”
Every time you try to hate somebody, they go and do something honorable. The inconsiderate bastards.
“And he counseled young people, too, huh?”
“Five or six of them on a regular basis. The Be
aumont boy? All the trouble he used to get in? He’s been walking the straight and narrow for the past eleven months. Every time I see his mom, she breaks into tears over the Reverend. Says he walks on water and can do no wrong.”
“You ever hear any scuttlebutt about his counseling sessions?”
“What kind of scuttlebutt?”
She was about to answer when the mailman appeared in his pith helmet and blue uniform walking shorts and shirt. “There’s a nice cold glass of lemonade in the refrigerator for you, Deke.
I guess you know where to find it.”
“Thanks, Am,” Deke said. “You’re a lifesaver. As usual.” He nodded and left.
“They’ve got a lot tougher job than most people think. When my husband got laid off at the plant back in ‘ec, he started being a substitute carrier. You never saw so much leg trouble and back trouble and arm trouble. It looks a lot easier than it is. So when it gets real hot, I leave lemonade for Deke in the fridge. He just goes inside and gets it.
Even if I’m not here. And I have hot cocoa for him in the winter months.”
“You’re the one who walks on water.”
“Oh, yes,” she laughed. “I’m one holy person. That’s why Fred and I sit up in bed some nights reading Playboy and giggling over the cartoons.”
Deke had just set a record for lemonade-guzzling. He was back outside, waving good-bye, going on to the next house.
“What were we talking about?” she said. “Oh, yes, scuttlebutt. No, not really.”
“Anybody ever get mad at him about his counseling?”
“A couple of husbands who thought he was taking their wives’ side.” She smiled. “You know how men are, McCain. You have the misfortune of being one yourself. Here they were happily running around on their wives, and getting stinko in the process, and they deeply resented this minister telling them that they were at fault for their unhappy marriages. Why, the nerve of that man!”
“Were they mad enough to kill him?”
“Of the two I’m thinking of, one got a divorce and moved up to the Twin Cities. And the other one finally saw the error of his ways. He’s one of the ones who went to Aa. And he still goes, too. Things’ve worked out pretty well for him, in fact.”
“You ever hear any scuttlebutt about Dierdre Hall?”
“Well, I don’t know if this is scuttlebutt or not but there was a pretty angry argument there one night.”