Sam McCain - 02 - Wake Up Little Susie

by Ed Gorman

“Oh.”

  “How was he when you saw him?”

  “His parents didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “He was pretty zotzed. I drove him

  home from Elmer’s.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “He mst’ve gone out and started in again.”

  Silence. “I suppose he told you.”

  “He said he wasn’t sure you’d be getting married.”

  “That’s all he said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing about me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Honest?”

  “Honest.”

  “He may try and contact you, McCain.

  Please call me right away if you hear from him.”

  She said something else but it was lost in her tears.

  She broke the connection.

  It rained all day Sunday.

  I ate two bowls of Cheerios for breakfast and then read the funnies—I still like just about all of them, including Nancy and Slu)o, having, when I was a tot, a crazed crush on Aunt Fritzie—and then I listened to the local Top Ten while I did the exercises I’d learned in the National Guard.

  The Top Ten is a little different out here.

  Whenever I’m in Chicago on a Sunday morning, I listen to their Top Ten and the sponsors are products like gum and cigarettes and pop. Out here, the sponsors are cattle feed, farm implement stores, and—my favorite —an ointment for cattle warts.

  In the afternoon, I did some work. I tried to get Chalmers’s number from information. None was listed.

  I also called Mary a couple of times. I wanted to see if she could steer me to a few close friends of Susan Squires. But she sounded so distraught over the state of her father’s health—the family doc was there each time I called—t I didn’t feel good about asking her for information.

  I also kept trying the morgue. While the county coroner, Doc Novotny, has a

  somewhat suspicious diploma—?ally are a proud graduat of Thayer Medinomics College”

  declares his degree, and no, that’s not a typo; they really did leave off the Every in graduate-he’s a pretty helpful guy. (and just what the hell does “Medinomics” mean anyway?) He’s Cliffie’s first cousin. I think he secretly resents the power his kin have. Somehow his own family was not dealt a fair hand at the table.

  So he helps me on the sly.

  Except today. There was no answer until 4ccjj P.M., when the rain was slashing down and I was getting ready for my Sunday evening dose of Maverick, two hours away. And then he said, “I’m sort of busy right now.”

  “With the Squires autopsy?”

  “That seems like a hell of lot for car insurance.”

  I know code when I hear it. I don’t read Shell Scott for nothing.

  “Somebody’s there, right?”

  “Seems to be the case.”

  “Cliffie?”

  “Looks like it to me.”

  “I’ll try you later.”

  “See if you can do better on those rates, will you?”

  And he hung up.

  I managed to stay in my robe all day.

  Didn’t even shave. Watched Maverick.

  Laid down to read a detective paperback and woke up at 6cccj A.M. I turned on the radio to a commercial advertising a popular polka band, Six Fat Dutchmen. They’d be in our fair city next week. One night only.

  Six

  One of the largest group of Negro settlers came to Iowa in the late 1890’s.

  Representatives of a coal company that was having troubles with its white workers went south and made job-hungry blacks a lot of promises, a surprising number of which they actually kept.

  Come to Iowa and prosper was their message.

  By 1910, a couple of different areas of Iowa became Negro mining towns.

  I remembered this from my history lessons when, on Monday morning, I went over to Keys Ford-Lincoln to see if anybody had been working late on Friday night before the Edsel premiere. A still-nervous Dick sent me back to the noise and energy of the service garage, where a man named Frank Kelton was working on a 1955 Ford station wagon. Like most other men, he had a lot of family pictures thumbtacked to the wall of his personal bay. He also had a yellowing photo of a group of black miners just stepping out of a mine. One of the men, most prominent because of his height, looked a lot like Kelton.

  “Frank?”

  “Yeah?”

  I could see his coveralls but not his head or hands. They were lost somewhere up under the car he had on the hoist.

  “Wondered if I could talk to you. Dick said it’d be all right.”

  “You give me a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  All those great smells. Fresh coffee.

  Cigarette smoke. Cold concrete floor.

  Oil. Grease. New tires. Hot engines.

  Cool engines. Exhaust. And the sounds of glas-paks backing off. And rock-and-roll radio, a little Bill Haley if you

  please. And jabber jabber jabber. Mechanics with customers. Customers with customers. Mechanics with mechanics. And out the doors a beautiful autumn morning. Azure-blue sky.

  Temperature in the high 50’s. The scent of burning leaves. Hawks didn’t soar across the sky on a day like this, they tap-danced.

  “Dick said it would be all right,” I said again.

  He was about my size, my age. One

  difference. His left eye was glass and strayed a bit. He was also a Negro. “I’m pretty busy.”

  “I won’t take much of your time. It’s about Friday night.”

  “Oh. You a cop?”

  “No. I work for Judge Whitney.”

  He grinned. “I was in Korea, man. We coulda used her over there.”

  “She’s pretty nice most of the time.”

  “Yeah? Who says so, Stalin?”

  Car repairman today, The Ed Sullivan Show tomorrow.

  “I told the cops everything I know.”

  “Which was?”

  He shrugged. He was about to say something when another man in coveralls, this one carrying a clipboard, came over and said, “You handle a tune-up about three this afternoon?”

  “Should be able to.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You were saying,” I said.

  He shrugged again. “Dick said he’d pay me double for overtime to make sure everything was working right for Edsel Day. All the electrical stuff, I mean. I’m kind of a half-assed

  electrician. I guess he figured if there .was anything wrong I could fix it. So I put in four hours. Got done for the day here at four-thirty, drove home and had dinner with the wife and kids, and drove back. Punched in at six and punched out at ten. Everything was in good shape.”

  “You know the Edsel they found the body in?”

  “You ki.in’?”

  “You know where it was?”

  “Yup. Right over there in the corner. Along with two others. I put them there myself at the end of the day.”

  “While you were here, did you hear the sound of a car slamming into the edge of the building?”

  “No. But this is a big place and I was playing the radio pretty loud, or I might have been up front talking to Susan Squires.”

  “You tell Sykes all this?”

  “I tried. He didn’t seem much interested.

  He just wanted to know if I’d seen anybody dump the body in the Edsel. I wanted to say, Hey, man, I seen somebody do somethin’ like that, you don’t think I’d call you right on the spot?”

  That sounded like Sykes, all right. Don’t confuse me with the facts. Just let me use my Chief Suspects dartboard and I’ll have this case wrapped up in no time.

  “You take a look at something for me?”

  “I’m really in kind of a hurry.”

  He’d probably been wondering what I had in the lunch sack I carried. I spread the pieces out on his workbench.

  “Taillight,” he said.

  “Right. Make?”

  “Chevrol
et.”

  “Model?”

  “Could be one of three or four. But it’s a ‘fifty-five.”

  “Easy to replace?”

  “V. At least usually. But Gm’s union has been threatening a strike. They started a slowdown a while back.”

  “How long to get a replacement?”

  “Couple days.”

  “So the driver probably hasn’t replaced it yet.”

  “Could have. But probably not. Even if it’s in stock, it’ll probably take till tomorrow before he’d have his car.”

  “What if he’s a do-it-yourselfer?”

  “Buy his own kit, you mean? Install it himself?

  If that were the case, he could have it on by now.”

  “If he used a service garage, would it probably be you?”

  “Iowa City and Cedar Rapids aren’t very far away.”

  “So there’s nothing special about this taillight?”

  “Just that it’s broken.”

  I thanked him and started to walk out of the garage when I saw the Keyses. They were both nicely dressed, as usual, Keys in a tan

  two-piece, his wife in a russet-colored suit that hid some of her boxy shape.

  “Anything new on the murder?” Dick asked.

  “Afraid not.”

  “I just wish I hadn’t gone home so early,”

  Mrs. Keys said. “If I hadn’t left at seven-thirty, maybe I could have scared him away. You know, with both Susan and me working in the showroom together.”

  He slid a commiserative arm around her.

  “I’m the one who should have been here. But there was so much last-minute stuff—I don’t think I was here twenty minutes the whole night.” He frowned. “Well, if you hear anything—”

  “I’ll call. Don’t worry.” I nodded

  good-bye to Mrs. Keys.

  You can never be sure how Judge Whitney is going to react to a piece of news. One time I told her I’d misplaced a vital piece of evidence in one of her cases, and she poured me a drink of brandy and said we all made mistakes from time to time and why didn’t I just sit down and relax. Another time I told her I was three minutes late for our meeting because my ragtop had had a flat tire, and she threw her brandy glass at me and said it was time I got rid of that “embarrassing juvenile car.” You may get the impression that she likes to start meetings on time.

  “How’s her mood?” I asked Pamela

  Forrest when I walked into the office that fine fall Monday morning. Pamela was wearing a blue shift with a matching blue ribbon in her baby-blond hair.

  “How was Custer’s mood after the Little Big Horn?”

  “That bad?”

  “She said you didn’t call her.”

  “I didn’t have anything to tell her.”

  “She said that shouldn’t be any excuse.”

  “Just wait till I tell her what David Squires wants. You’ll be hearing her scream.” Then: “Why are you smiling? Do you like seeing me in trouble with her?”

  “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

  And I got jealous because the only time Pamela ever looked that radiantly happy was when there was good news on the Stu Grant front.

  “Something happened with Stu, didn’t it?”

  “Not with Stu exactly.”

  “Huh?”

  “With his wife.”

  “Oh.”

  “Been called away, poor thing. Needs to spend two months with her ailing gran, poor thing.”

  “Here’s your chance,” I said, unable to keep the sadness from my voice.

  Her smile got even bigger. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Her intercom buzzed angrily. “Is that who I think it is out there?”

  “Yes, Judge.”

  “Tell him to get in here right now!”

  “Yes, Judge.”

  I just kept thinking of how shocked she was going to be when I told her Squires wanted to hire me. I also just kept thinking about Pamela and Stu together for two months.

  The intercom clicked off.

  I turned and started for the Judge’s chambers.

  But before I could take a step, Pamela grabbed my hand. “I say prayers for you and Mary all the time. That you’ll—y know—get together. Would you do that for me? Say prayers that Stu and I get together?

  I’m so scared, McCain, I really am. This may be the only real chance I ever have at him.

  Two months.”

  “I’ll try.”

  I didn’t know which I felt more miserable about at that particular moment, Pamela or facing the Judge.

  She had her tall executive leather chair turned away from me. All I could see was the thick blue smoke from her Gauloise

  cigarette curling up toward the vaulted ceiling.

  With its mahogany wainscoting, small fireplace, leather furniture, and elegant framed Vermeer prints, the office was seminally intimidating. The Supreme Court couldn’t look a whole lot plusher than this.

  She didn’t say anything for a few moments.

  Making me anxious was her second favorite sport. The first was tennis.

  Finally: “Is the door closed?” Still facing away from me.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you afraid I’m going

  to explode and really tear into you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Still facing away from me. More smoke from her Gauloise. More silence.

  Then: “And have you found the murderer yet?”

  The only reason I put up with this was because of the shock I was about to give her. It would be like dropping a bomb on her desk when I told her what David Squires had proposed.

  “No.”

  “And what did you do all day yesterday?”

  “Stayed home.”

  “And did what?”

  “Thought about the case.”

  “All day you thought about the case?”

  “Well, except for when I was reading the funnies.”

  “And what else?”

  “Watching Maverick.”

  “And what else?”

  “Reading that paperback.”

  “Are you ashamed of yourself?”

  “Sort of.”

  She whirled around and glared at me. “Sort of?” Her cigarette in her right hand, her cut-glass brandy snifter in the other. “Sort of?”

  As I’ve said many times before, she’s a good-looking woman, the Judge. Handsome.

  Imposing. She had on a fashionably styled fawn wool suit and white blouse this morning.

  Her short hair framed her face perfectly.

  She was the kind of woman you saw in high-toned magazines, pushing a poodle down Park Avenue.

  “Well, I did actually do some work.” I told her what I’d done.

  “And I’m supposed to be impressed?”

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  “Oh, there’s a slashing self-justification.

  Better than nothing. Inspiring, McCain.

  Downright inspiring.”

  I wanted to slide this one right across the plate.

  Startle her with it. Make her wonder if she’d heard me right. I wanted to rattle her like she’d never been rattled before.

  I said, fast, “David Squires wants

  to hire me.”

  She said, “I know. He called me

  last night.”

  She slid it right back. Startled me with it.

  Made me wonder if I’d heard her right.

  “What?”

  “He said he decided it’d probably be better to speak to me directly.”

  “Great. Just great.”

  “You were hoping to surprise me with it, weren’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “And here I was the one who surprised you.

  That’s funny.”

  “Real funny.”

  “I told him you’d do it, McCain.”


  “What?”

  “He and Cliffie are up to something, and I want to find out what.”

  “You think Cliffie’s involved in this?”

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  That’s when she got me with the first rubber band. She keeps a stash of them in her drawer. She makes a pistol of her hand, thumb and finger, and then lets me have it. She’s good. Annoyingly good. The rubber band hit my nose and fell into my lap.

  “Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch.”

  “Yeah. I’m thrilled.”

  “Try and be a little faster next time. It’s no fun if I always win.”

  She exhaled a great deal of French blue smoke. “Find out what they’re up to, McCain, and fast.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  This time, even though I ducked, her rubber band got me on the forehead.

  A sip of brandy. A glance at the

  two-hundred-year-old Swiss clock. “I need to get ready for court, McCain. And you need to get ready to do what you should’ve done yesterday.” She shook her head. “And I certainly wouldn’t go around admitting that you still read the funny papers. My Lord, McCain.

  Presumably, you’d like to be a grown-up someday.”

  I made it all the way to the door. Then she did some showing off. Just as I started to open her door, one of her rubber bands landed on my shoulder.

  “It’s a good thing you’re short, McCain. I don’t think I could’ve pulled that off if you were normal-sized.”

  All the time I was reading Nancy and Slu)o yesterday morning, I should have figured that Judge Whitney would pay me back for it, comments about my size being her specialty.

  The beautiful Pamela was on the phone when I went out. She didn’t get to ask me to pray for her and Stu again.

  Seven

  Try to keep the covers folded back so you can’t see the illustration of Captain Video, the boldest man in outer space and the most popular science-fiction show on Tv. Friend of mine at Woolworth’s was closing out merchandise that didn’t sell. Among those items was a box of forty-eight small spiral notebooks that fit nicely in my back pocket. Great for keeping notes during an investigation—z long as nobody saw the illustration with the Captain and his zap gun.

  Before I left the courthouse parking lot, I wrote three names on the first page of my fresh notebook:

  Mike Chalmers

  Todd Jensen

  Amy Squires