Fools Rush In (The Sam McCain Mysteries Book 7)

by Ed Gorman

  Nurses, a pair of doctors, and a janitor were being interviewed by one of Jane’s young assistants. She’d increased her staff by three.

  The hospital boss stood off by himself. This was Public Relations Nightmare numbers 1—20. A murder in your hospital while a police officer was ostensibly standing guard. The hospital would recover, of course, but not before there was a trial in the press and an endless number of local jokes. His soft, round face gave the impression that he had been shunned by the entire human race.

  Jane wore a pair of walking shorts and a white blouse. Her hair was done in a chignon, which provided an interesting contrast with the informality of her attire. She was talking with Cliffie and it was pretty clear, even though she was doing her best to make it appear that she was just having a conversation, that she was helping him set up the crime scene properly. She had walked all his cops through three nights of evidence-gathering. I’m told they weren’t happy that they hadn’t gotten overtime pay for sitting in the borrowed public school classroom. She’d even brought in two experts from the State Bureau of Investigation. For joy for joy.

  But her diligence looked to be working. I’d never seen Cliffie’s men working a crime scene so efficiently.

  Jane came over. “The man standing guard went to the bathroom. If he’s telling the truth, he was gone no more than five minutes.”

  “So somebody was watching him, waiting to make a move.”

  “It appears that way.”

  “Anybody see anybody else going into or out of the room?”

  “The only people working this wing are the two docs, the nurse, and the janitor my people are interviewing now. And they didn’t see anybody.”

  “How’d he die?”

  “Throat cut. The nurse on duty said that Neville had been given a heavy sedative about half an hour ago. He’d had trouble sleeping. So he probably wasn’t in any shape to resist, especially with a broken arm.”

  “Anybody call his brother Will?”

  “Busy signal. I should check it again.”

  “Let me do it.”

  She watched my face as if it was going to reveal something to her.

  “You wouldn’t forget our little bargain, would you? About being partners?”

  I hadn’t thought about it since getting caught up in all the confusion up here. “Maybe I should tell you about Senator Williams dropping by.”

  “Yeah, Sam, maybe you should.” The tone was impish; the eyes were remorseless.

  So I told her, finishing up with, “I have no idea what the negatives are.”

  “But he was really upset.”

  “Very upset. Like he was dazed or something. He seems to think that his whole career is on the line here.”

  “That’s strange. He got the negatives you said he’d wanted in the first place—”

  Just then one of her assistants waved her over.

  “I’d better check on this. Are you going to try Neville’s phone again?”

  “Yeah. And if it’s still busy, I may wander over there.”

  “You sure you’re telling me everything?”

  “You want me to swear on my ragtop that I’m telling you the truth?”

  The imp again. “Sometime when we’re just relaxing I want to talk to you about that car of yours. You ever think it’s a little bit ‘youthful’ for a grown-up attorney?”

  “‘Youthful.’ People generally aren’t that kind.”

  “I need to go.” And she was gone.

  I walked down to the lobby, got a cup of coffee from the snack bar, headed over to the pay phone.

  I had to look up his number. I got a busy signal for my trouble. I decided to make sure he hadn’t just taken it off the hook, the way I had.

  When I gave the operator my request, she said, “Is this an emergency, sir?”

  “It could be. Does it matter?”

  “We generally don’t like to try the line this way unless it’s an emergency. The teenagers ruined it for all of us. The girls, especially. They talk to each other for hours and their boyfriends can’t get through. So the boyfriends start calling us to check on the line.”

  “I’d really appreciate it if you’d do this for me. It really could be an emergency.”

  “Well, I appreciate you being so courteous with me. You should hear some of those teenage boys.”

  There was a busy signal and then she said, “Please give me a minute. I have to check this now another way.”

  A busy signal for ten, fifteen seconds, then no sound at all.

  “I can report this if you want me to.”

  “So the phone is off the hook?”

  “That’s what it appears. Would you like me to report it?”

  “No, thanks. I appreciate your help.”

  The traffic was heavy tonight on the route I took to Will Neville’s place. When I got there, I parked halfway down the block. A red ragtop is pretty easy to spot.

  I walked between a sandwich shop and a vacuum cleaner repair shop to reach the alley. I wanted to come up the back way. If Will Neville had anything to hide, he’d hide it the moment he saw me coming up his sidewalk.

  His car was there but the windows were dark on the second floor of the stucco house. Not even the moonlight could cast any magic on the debris that littered the backyard, including a tricycle without a front wheel, torn clothes, and pages of newspapers and magazines. Home sweet home.

  I reached the stairs and started climbing. With each step, I knew I was drawing closer to something I didn’t want to see.

  TWENTY-SIX

  WILL NEVILLE LAY FACEDOWN in the middle of his living room. There was enough moonlight through the nearest window to see that he was bleeding badly from a wound on the back of his head and I could see his back expand ever so subtly with each breath.

  The place wasn’t much messier than it had been when I’d visited here the other day. But still I could see, here and there, where it had been ransacked in a desperate search for something. And of course I knew what that something was.

  I righted a floor lamp that had been knocked over, clipped on the light. In the bathroom I ran water into a grimy glass, grabbed a dirty bath towel, and went out to see what I could do for Neville.

  I didn’t try to get him to his feet. I just eased him up enough so that his back would rest against the front of the couch. I asked him a few questions. He answered only in moans. I put the glass to his lips. He didn’t seem to understand the implications of it all. I said “Drink” and he said “Huh?”

  As he drank, I dragged the floor lamp over for a closer look at his wound. The size of it startled me. Probably about that of a silver dollar.

  I poured a slug of water onto the towel and started to dab the wound. He let go with an uninterrupted thirty seconds of dirty words.

  He spoke coherently for the first time: “Son of a bitch thinks he can get away with it because he’s some big shot in Washington.”

  “Senator Williams?”

  “You damn right Senator Williams. Big-shot asshole.”

  “He wanted those negatives?”

  “Yeah.” He grimaced and grabbed the towel from me. He was his old shitty self again. “But he didn’t get ’em.

  “How do you know? He knocked you out.”

  “Because I hid ’em where he’ll never find ’em. Where nobody ever will. And they ain’t just negatives. I got a set of photos of them too.”

  I stood up.

  “Somebody killed your brother James about an hour ago.”

  He brought his head up too fast. He grabbed his head, the pain was so bad.

  “In his hospital room. Somebody snuck in there and killed him.”

  “They couldn’t have. Cliffie put a guard on that room. I seen them guards for myself. They rotated them around the clock.”

  “This guard went to the john and somebody got inside long enough to do the job. They cut his throat.”

  “Williams. That son of a bitch Williams. I bet it was him.”

  �
�Why would he kill James?”

  “Because he musta thought James would tell him where them negatives were. He probably thought I was too dumb to be in on it with Richie and James. But I been workin’ with ’em three years.”

  “Three years? You three haven’t been here three years.”

  “Different places.”

  I said, carefully, “I need to know where those photos are.”

  He looked like a giant baby sitting on the floor that way. He smiled up at me with that malicious homely face and said, “Well, I ain’t telling ya.”

  “It’s all over, Will. For all of you. You’ve got two brothers dead and you’re headed for prison.”

  “Not with what I got, I ain’t headin’ to no prison.” He smirked then grimaced again. “Senator Williams is gonna keep me out of prison.”

  “He can’t. Not even a senator has that kind of power.”

  “Yeah, well, you ain’t seen these pictures.”

  I suppose I could have given him a few more minutes. But I was tired of him and tired of the kind of game he and his brothers ran and so, almost without realizing what I was doing, I slipped my .45 from the pocket of my windbreaker.

  He started to say something, but I brought my hand down so quickly that he didn’t have time to get three words out.

  I made sure that the barrel of the gun struck him right on the wound. And for good measure, I kicked him in the chest. And when he reared up, looking capable suddenly of pushing on through his pain, I kicked him in the chest again.

  He fell back against the couch and started crying. I think it was more frustration and hurt pride than pain. All his life he had been able to deal with problems by a force few could equal. But he’d been injured tonight and now I’d only made that injury worse. And for a humiliating moment here, a much smaller man was able to contain his wrath and his power.

  His massive hand reached out to grab my leg and spill me, but his hand came in low and so I was able to stomp it to the floor with my heel. Bone cracked. This time his cry was more pain than wounded pride.

  “I need to know where the photos are, Will. You might get lucky and grab me, but before that happens I’m going to keep on breaking your bones.”

  I whipped the gun barrel into his head wound again. For a time there he sounded inconsolable, just moaning, sobbing, moaning. Then he vomited all over his lap.

  The smell didn’t make his hovel any pleasanter.

  I went over and sat on the edge of a chair across from him and said, “If you try to get up, I’ll shoot you. I won’t kill you but I’ll put a bullet in your knee so you’ll never walk right again. You understand me, Will?”

  His head came up. His eyes and nose were gleaming messes and he had a chunk of vomit hanging from his chin.

  I stood up and walked over to the phone and dialed the police station.

  “Police station. Patrolman Emmett Billings.”

  Jane had improved the phone etiquette, too.

  “Emmett, this is Sam McCain. I’m going to give you an address. I need a car here as fast as possible. I have a prisoner for you. Jane Sykes will explain this later.”

  He wouldn’t have done it for me. But for the new district attorney, you bet.

  I gave him the address. “Right away, Emmett. Please.”

  After I hung up, I walked back to Will Neville.

  He was quiet now. He didn’t smell any better. There was a dumb animal sorrow about him I couldn’t enjoy anymore.

  “I’m sorry I got so rough, Will.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  “If I tell the DA that you cooperated with me, I think I can get her to go easy on a few of the charges.”

  “She’s Sykes’s kin. She won’t listen to you.”

  “She will in this case. We’ve been working together on it.”

  He raised his head two inches. Apparently, the pain was too much to bring it any higher.

  “I done time in juvie. I don’t want to go to no prison.”

  “You’re not listening, Will. You’ll probably have to do some time. But maybe I can cut some for you. That’s what I’m talking about here.”

  “He could get me out of it entire.”

  “If you mean Williams, no, he couldn’t. That’s a pipe dream, Will. I’m offering you the only real kind of help that’s available to you. Now tell me where those photos are.”

  And I’ll be damned, right then and right there, if he didn’t.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE MAID SAID, “THEY’RE all in the library.” She looked unhappily at the manila envelope in my right hand. “I hope that’s not bad news. I don’t think they could handle much more of it.”

  “Who’s here?”

  “The senator and his wife and daughter. Were you expecting somebody else?”

  “No, I was just wondering.”

  The expression on her prim face now became suspicion. “I take it it is more bad news, then.”

  “I can’t really talk about it.”

  “This whole house is coming apart.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. I like it here, at least when the senator’s out of town.” Then: “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “I’m ready for the library anytime you are.”

  I followed her through the house. The living room was so brightly lit, it seemed a party was about to begin as soon as the guests swept up the drive in their cars—a night of pleasure for sure.

  The maid knocked curtly. The conversation stopped. The senator said: “Yes, Marjorie?”

  “Mr. McCain is here to see you.”

  “McCain—” He sounded confused.

  “Excuse me,” I said, as I covered the doorknob with my hand and pushed inward where the entire Williams family sat around a small table staring at me like the interloper I was. I had interrupted the most sacred business of all, private family business.

  I walked in. The maid did me the favor of closing the door behind me.

  “You weren’t invited,” Senator Williams said. “And I don’t want you here.”

  “God, Dad,” Lucy said. “That’s so embarrassing, treating him like that.”

  “Lucy, why don’t you pour him some coffee?” Ellen said.

  “That sounds good about now.”

  The senator didn’t try to hide his disgust with me. In fact, he made sure I’d see it by making faces and sighing deeply and shaking his head as I sat down. He seemed to think that I’d brought some kind of plague with me. As, perhaps, I had.

  Lucy, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, poured me a cup of coffee from a carafe. “Sugar or cream?”

  “Just plain is fine.”

  Each of them took turns staring at the manila envelope I’d set on the mahogany table in front of me.

  The coffee was good. I took several sips of it in the uneasy silence. Then I finally said, “Any particular reason for this particular meeting?”

  Lucy smirked. “We’re each confessing our sins here, asking each other for forgiveness. And take my word for it, Mr. McCain, there’s a lot to forgive.”

  “Haven’t you done enough already? Why don’t you give it a rest? He’s enjoying this. He’ll tell everybody what a trashy family we are.”

  “Then he’ll be telling the truth, won’t he?” Ellen snapped.

  The senatorial mask faded momentarily, replaced by a glimpse of weariness and dread. “Everything I’ve worked so hard to build, you two have tried to destroy. But by God, I’m not going to let you.”

  He knew what was in the envelope. That explained his unease. He’d lied to me about having an affair to cover up the real nature of the photos—his wife in bed with her business partner Karen. These were the photos he’d been desperate to keep from circulation. I really hadn’t wanted to peek inside, but I hadn’t had any choice. Unlike the other envelopes, this one had a bearing on a murder case.

  “Maybe he’s here to arrest one of us,” Ellen said tartly. “That would be the final scandal, wouldn’t it? Seeing you
r wife or your daughter in prison?”

  “That was a consideration for a long time,” I said. “You each had reasons for killing Leeds and Neville.”

  “Please don’t talk about them in the same breath,” Lucy said. “David was only trying to help us get”—she glanced at her mother—“get certain photos back from Neville. He was just trying to help us.”

  “A beautiful young white girl—that’s why he was hanging around you, Lucy,” her father said. “Goddammit, I wish you could understand that. He wanted a trophy. You’ve idealized him to the point where he—”

  “He paid attention to her, he was proud of her, he genuinely loved her.” Ellen’s voice was hard, unforgiving. “Things you wouldn’t know anything about, Senator.”

  “Knock off that ‘Senator’ bullshit. You know I hate that. I’m your husband.”

  “In name only.”

  “Maybe in name only to you. But not to me.”

  “Welcome to our little home, Mr. McCain,” Lucy said. “And this is one of our better moments.”

  I tapped the manila envelope. I’d had enough of their family troubles. “So you told David about these photos?”

  “Yes, and he kept our secret about Mom, too. I’m sure of it. He didn’t tell anybody. David thought maybe he could reason with Richie. That’s why he was there. Whoever killed Neville had to kill David so there wouldn’t be any witnesses.”

  “That’s what I was beginning to think, too,” I said. Then, to the senator I said: “You never did have an affair, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You only told me that so I wouldn’t know what the photos were really about.”

  “I—didn’t want the real truth to get out.” He scowled at his wife. “The public might understand that I couldn’t control my daughter if she wanted to go out with a Negro. But my wife being a sexual deviate—”

  “Oh, God, Senator,” Ellen snapped. ‘“A sexual deviate.’ It happened twice.”

  I said, “Richie Neville had been trailing the senator. Trying to get something on him. A big payday if he could. But that wasn’t going anywhere, so he decided to trail you for a while. That’s how he found out about you and Karen. He did his Peeping Tom routine and got some photos of you in a bedroom together.”