The Day the Music Died

by Ed Gorman

  Still staring out the window, he said, “She was my life. She was all I cared about.”

  The judge gave me another one of her skeptical looks but let him go on.

  He turned back to look at her. “I don’t have to tell you that I was opposed to this marriage.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Bob. I remember how much you were against it.”

  “Kenny was a jackass.”

  “That he was.”

  “And the idea that he’d run around on a young woman as beautiful and gentle as my daughter—” He shook his white-maned head and for the first time I felt sorry for him. I wondered now if he was reliving everything his mother had put his father through. Her affairs were the stuff of local legend. She’d been the artsy-type, involved in theater productions and arts festivals and outdoor musicales, as they are called. She’d spent a good deal of her time at a downtown store called Leopold Bloom’s, after the James Joyce character. She was his first wife and no one could blame him for finally divorcing her. But then he pretty much married the same woman three times over.

  Frazier came back to his chair. He looked old and weak now. The sunlight had apparently put him in a better mood. He said, “You’re right, Esme. I want to punish somebody. It’s just like Kenny to kill himself. The bastard couldn’t face what he’d done so he took the easy way out.”

  “I don’t think he killed her,” I said.

  They both looked at me.

  “What the hell’re you talking about?” Frazier said.

  I glanced at the judge. “I don’t think he killed her. I don’t know why I say that—it’s just an instinct, I guess. He was so drunk, he thought he might have killed her. But I think somebody else was there with them right before I came.”

  “And of course you don’t have any idea who?” he said.

  “Not yet, I don’t.”

  “I can’t think straight,” he said to the judge. “I don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about.”

  “Neither do I, Bob,” she said, sounding peeved as only the judge can sound peeved. “But believe me, I’m going to find out.”

  He gathered up his camel hair coat from the coatrack. “There’s a lot of things I need to do this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be here or at home if you need me,” the judge said.

  “You’re a true friend, Esme. And I appreciate it.”

  He slipped into his coat. I still didn’t like him and I probably never would. It was pretty obvious the feeling was mutual. “As for you, McCain, I’d keep your mouth shut unless you have some evidence in hand.”

  The hell of it was, he was right. I shouldn’t have said anything about my theory unless I had something to support it.

  He walked to the door. He looked lost again suddenly. “Thanks, Esme.”

  “You’re most welcome, Bob.”

  When he was gone, she lit up a Gauloise and said, “So tell me, McCain, how’re you going to save that prick’s reputation?”

  “What?”

  “Kenny,” she said impatiently. “I don’t mind that he killed himself. Given the way that he’d screwed up his life, that was almost a noble act. But to kill poor Susan—tell me why you don’t think he did it.”

  I shook my head. “Frazier was right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Frazier’s a windbag,” she said. “He’s just worried that by the time Sykes gets done rummaging through Susan’s life, the whole Frazier family will have another scandal on their hands. You know, the way he did with his first wife. Susan was definitely a tramp.”

  “She was actually a decent kid,” I said.

  “Here we go,” she said, blowing smoke aimed at me. “McCain riding to the defense of the poor damsel.”

  “She ran around,” I said. “But she had good reason to. Kenny lost interest in her a long time ago.”

  “Don’t put me in a position of having to defend Kenny,” she said, “because that’s impossible. But she could have always left him, broken it off clean.”

  “She loved him.”

  “So she slept around on him?”

  “People do strange things when they’re hurt,” I said. “I think we have to keep that in mind. I knew her for a long time. She was sweet and very decent.”

  The judge smiled coldly. “Does that mean you slept with her?”

  “We went out a few times before she married Kenny.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I know. I don’t intend to answer your question.”

  She laughed. “Ah. Stand up to me. I like that. Sometimes.”

  “I just don’t want to hear her run down. She doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Spare me, McCain,” she said, pouring more coffee into her brandy. After taking a sip, she said, “Fifteen minutes ago I thought I’d have to call my father in New York and tell him that someone in our family had committed murder. Believe me, I wasn’t looking forward to it. That would look very bad on the family resume, as it were. But you, you McCain, have given me new hope. Maybe Kenny didn’t kill her at all.”

  She looked happy. Two people were dead and she looked happy. This was one of those moments I resented being her minion. This had all become an elitist game to her. One could abide a suicide in one’s family if one had to. But murder was another matter. No matter how far back it was stuffed into the family closet, somebody was always dragging it out of the cold, damp shadows.

  “Now what you need to do, McCain,” she said, “is prove it. Because you know what’s going to happen here. Sykes is going to say it was a murder-suicide and close the books on it.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Probably? Probably? My God, McCain, you’ve known that moron as long as I have. He’ll have this whole thing wrapped up by sundown. If he hasn’t already. So get busy.”

  I stood up. I’d been thinking about going to the tribute skating party for Buddy Holly tonight. Didn’t sound as if I was going to have time.

  “It was probably one of her lovers,” the judge said. “He probably snuck in there and shot her and Kenny was so drunk he couldn’t remember it.”

  I got into my topcoat. “I have to warn you about something.”

  “What?”

  “I could be wrong.”

  “You mean that Kenny might actually have killed her?

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you sure as hell’d better not be wrong.”

  “I figured you would probably say something like that.”

  “Listen, McCain. You were the one who brought this up. Now hustle your ass out there and get to work.”

  I nodded.

  Then she raised her right hand and shot me.

  Just once I didn’t want to jerk when the rubber band came at me. But for some reason, I always did.

  “You flinched!” she said. She sounded like a kid, albeit a kid with a brandy-and-Gauloise-ravaged voice. She strung another rubber band across her thumb and forefinger. “Care to try for two out of three?”

  “Why don’t you let me try that once on you?” I said.

  “Well, of course not. I’m a lady.”

  “Ah.”

  “And I’m also your boss. Now get going, McCain. My family’s honor is at stake here.”

  Yes, I thought, I certainly wouldn’t want to besmirch the good name of a family that included Kenny and the judge’s great-grandfather, the land swindler.

  I left the office.

  Pamela was typing. “Poor Mr. Frazier.”

  “I hate to say this. But he’s a jerk. She deserved a lot better father and a lot better husband.” I leaned to her desk. “If I can get free tonight, how about going to the skating party with me?”

  “I’m hoping to see Stu there, actually.”

  “You have a date with him?”

  “Not a date exactly but—”

  I couldn’t help it. I had to say it. At this moment, I just plain felt sorry for her and needed to give her brotherly advice. “You’re just going to show up, huh
, and hope he shows up, too, huh?”

  She blushed. “Well …”

  “How long are you going to chase after him, anyway?”

  But she was ready for that one. “How long are you going to chase after me, McCain? If we were sensible, I’d be in love with you and you’d be in love with Mary. But here we are.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Here, we are.”

  10

  OUR WEST SIDE A&W Root Beer stand is what you might call indomitable. It stays open year-round. In the summer you’re served by cute girls in black short-shorts and white blouses and great tanned legs. Some of them even skate your cheeseburger and fries out to you. There are a few mishaps, of course, not all the girls being championship roller skaters. My sister, Ruthie, was a carhop for two summers and set the record for falling in love, her two-month summer gig resulting in 4,321 infatuations and 3,964 Real Things. And there’s always rock and roll on the speakers, much to the dismay of some of the older citizens, though you have to wonder what they’re doing here in the first place. Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran, Ricky Nelson, the Platters, Frankie Avalon, all the greats and sort-of greats help you digest the wonderfully greasy food. And day or night, there’s summer promise in the air, swimming and beer at the sandpits, drag racing and beer out on the highways, making out and beer in a myriad of backseats.

  Winter is a different matter. The girls come out all bundled up in parkas and gloves and there’s no flirting, either. It’s too cold to flirt. They just hand you your order through the window and disappear back inside, their breath silver on the prairie winter air.

  Today was no different.

  The last food I’d had was a doughnut on my way back from Kenny Whitney’s. Now I sat at the A&W listening to Paul Anka sob “Lonely Boy.” Even the music was more subdued in the winter, Paul Anka being a long way from Fats Domino.

  I was just finishing up when I saw Debbie Lundigan walking on the sidewalk past the A&W. She’d been a good friend of Susan Whitney. I stuffed the remains of my early dinner into the paper bag, backed up until I reached the large wire wastebasket, put it straight in the basket for two points and then backed up and wheeled around so I could reach the exit drive just as Debbie was about to cross it.

  I rolled down my window and said, “Hi, Debbie. You like a ride?”

  “Oh, hi, McCain. I’m just walking over to Randy’s.” Randy’s was the supermarket used by most people on this side of town, which was mostly a working-class neighborhood.

  “Get in. I’m going right by there.”

  When she got inside, I could see she’d been crying. She was a tall and somewhat awkward woman. We’d gone to school together since kindergarten. She had one of those wan faces that is pretty in an almost oppressive way. She always looks as if she might break into tears at any moment. She’d gotten married three weeks after we graduated from high school. It had always been a rocky marriage made even rockier by Susan Whitney. They’d gone to school together for years, but had never paid much attention to each other. Suddenly, they were fast friends, two married women with bad marriages. Debbie’s husband had taken to hitting her; Susan’s to ignoring her. There was a lot of town talk about them being easy lays after a few drinks but you couldn’t prove it by me. I’ve never had any luck at all with women who are called easy. In fact, once I hear a woman described that way, I know I’ll never score, not even with a submachine gun and a bag of cash. Life is like that sometimes.

  Debbie wore a pair of festive red earmuffs and a winter jacket with a fake-fur collar, jeans and loafers with bobby sox. Her nose was red from the cold and looked little-girl sweet. She took a pack of Winstons from her pocket and tamped one out on her gloved hand. She pushed in my car lighter and when it popped out, got her weed going.

  She said, after exhaling, “I just hope this town is sorry now for the way they treated her. You know, like she was some whore or something.”

  I didn’t have to ask who she was talking about.

  “She was the nicest girlfriend I ever had. You know how many clothes she bought me? Like this jacket for instance. You know how much she paid for it? Thirty-nine dollars. And you know why? Because she said she was tired of seeing me freeze all the time. She knew I couldn’t afford one like this. Thirty-nine dollars. So I hope all those bastards are happy now that she’s finally dead.”

  “I don’t think he killed her.”

  She looked stunned. Or stricken. I wasn’t sure which. “What? Chief Sykes is telling everybody he killed her.” That was the nice thing about a small town. You didn’t have to worry about your pronouns. We hadn’t mentioned any names but we knew exactly whom we were talking about.

  “You really believe anything Chief Sykes has to say?”

  “Then who killed her, McCain?”

  “That’s what I need to find out. I thought maybe you could tell me who she was hanging around with lately. Guys, I mean.”

  “Nobody in particular.”

  The late-afternoon traffic was starting to pile up, our version of rush hour. The shadows were starting to kidnap the day, the sky layered salmon and gold and a kind of celestial puce. Kids were lobbing snowballs back and forth, yard to yard. Scarves were trailing behind the prone bodies of kids steering their sleds downhill to the sidewalks. In a lot of houses, small groups of kids would be gathered in front of the TV watching Hopalong Cassidy or Howdy Doody or the Three Stooges. And moms in kitchens would be starting supper, the smells rich and good on the chill melancholy of the fading winter day, spaghetti and pot roasts and cheese casseroles.

  “I really need you to think hard, Debbie.”

  “I knew that’s what you wanted.”

  “What I wanted?”

  “Yeah, when you pulled up back there. That you wanted to talk to me about Susan.”

  “You were her best friend.”

  She took another drag and looked out the window. “I really like this town.”

  “So do I.”

  “I just wish people didn’t gossip so much.”

  “It’s just the way people are. And most people here don’t gossip that much. Just a few of them. And it doesn’t matter where you move to because they’ll be that way there, too.”

  “I suppose.” Then, “She wasn’t screwing a lot of guys, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I didn’t say she was.”

  “She only slept with a couple of guys.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d tell me who they are.”

  “I wasn’t screwing a lot of guys, either.”

  “I’m sure you weren’t.” Then, “Would you tell me who she was sleeping with?”

  “Well, Tommy Fennelly for one. But he left for the service three months ago. Camp Pendleton.”

  “Wasn’t he a little young for her?”

  “He was nineteen. But he’s a real nice kid. A couple of times, he tried to get her off the booze. He sat up with her the whole night at his apartment, she told me. Let her cry and throw up and tear his place apart. She quit for a while, too. Couple of weeks, one time. Not one single drink that whole time.”

  Tommy Fennelly had always seemed to me nothing much more than a loafer—a little pool, a few card games, minor trouble with the law now and then. But Debbie had swept all that away. She’d just made him a damned nice kid.

  “Who else?”

  She sighed. “And Steve Renauld.”

  “At Leopold Bloom’s?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t believe it, either. He’s such a loser. Mr. High and Mighty.”

  “How the hell did she get hooked up with him?”

  “Well, you know, we used to go in there and look around. He and his wife have nice stuff in there. Or anyway, that’s what Susan told me. I couldn’t tell. I mean, Susan was educated. I’m just a bumpkin.”

  “Same here.”

  “You’re a lawyer, McCain.”

  “A lot of lawyers are bumpkins.”

  “Really?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Well, you’re not as much of a bu
mpkin as I am, anyway.”

  “So you started going to Renauld’s place.”

  “And he started asking Susan if he could paint her. Him and his painting. I used to call him ‘Vincent Van Phony.’ He heard me once and really got pissed off. But he kind of wore her down. And she started posing for him. You know, he’s got that so-called studio over on Jackson Street. That’s where they did the dirty deed, anyway.”

  “When was this?”

  “About a month ago. She said they were both pretty drunk the times it happened.”

  “She tell you anything else?”

  “Just that he wasn’t much in the sack and that she sort of felt sorry for him. She said that once and I’ve always remembered it.”

  “Said what?”

  “Said she couldn’t sleep with a man she didn’t feel sorry for. She didn’t like most men. Said they all reminded her of her father. You know, the swaggering type and everything. Renauld’s pretty pathetic so I guess that’s why she slept with him. But I think she got scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of Renauld. He was making a lot more of it than it was. She went to bed because she felt sorry for him, like I said. But he saw it as this big romance. He was going to leave his wife and daughter. He wanted them to move to Iowa City. You know, he was always talking like Iowa City was—what’s that place the Arabs always go to?”

  “Mecca?”

  “Yeah, he always talked like Iowa City was Mecca. Or something. She was going to run away from Kenny and he was going to run away from his wife and they were going to be this real cool artistic couple and live in Iowa City.”

  “And she didn’t see it that way?”

  “Are you kidding? She got to be as afraid of Renauld as she was of Kenny. He really started putting a lot of pressure on her.”

  We were at the supermarket. I swung into the drive. A lot of people left their cars running. You could see the exhaust putt-putting out of their mufflers. Folks trust one another out here, and that’s nice.

  “Maybe you should talk to Renauld,” she said, opening the door and flipping the butt of her Winston out the door.

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I just hope, if Kenny didn’t kill her, you find out who did.”