Fools Rush In (The Sam McCain Mysteries Book 7)

by Ed Gorman

  I shoved the envelope to her. “It’s all yours. The negatives are in there, too.”

  “I sure as hell don’t want them, McCain,” Ellen said. “I’m not ashamed of what I did. Karen is my best friend. It was an act of affection more than anything. But these photos—they just make the whole thing dirty.”

  The senator stood up. “The whole thing was dirty. Is dirty. It’s perverted and it’s sickening.”

  “Do you feel the same way about all your girlfriends in Washington, Daddy?” Lucy said. “You’re always in the gossip columns there. They never use your name but we know who they mean.”

  “That’s completely different. At least it’s—normal.”

  “I’ve had enough of this,” Ellen said. And without warning fled to the door and vanished. Lucy was close behind her.

  The senator sighed, ran a hand through his Hollywood hair. “At least it’s over. I can deal with them privately. This won’t affect the campaign.”

  I wanted to be astonished by his words, but I wasn’t. I supposed that was another sign of growing up—albeit a bad one—that you moved beyond shock when you saw something truly ugly. You just accepted that it was there and then decided what to do about it.

  “It isn’t over, Senator.”

  He was the one who was astonished. He looked at me in disbelief. In the moments after his wife and daughter had left the room he’d managed to convince himself that everything was fine again.

  “It isn’t?”

  “You beat up Will Neville pretty bad tonight.”

  “He didn’t have it coming?”

  “He’s in police custody right now.”

  The dark eyes narrowed. He was beginning to understand what I was about to say. A part of it, anyway.

  “Will is going to tell them everything he can to stay out of prison. You need to get to him before that happens.”

  “He’s a blackmailer.”

  “He’s a blackmailer who can take you down with him.”

  “Why are you trying to help me? You hate my politics and I’m sure you hate me.”

  “Because if you lose—and I hope you do—I want it to be because you’re a shill for every crooked big businessman in the country. But I don’t want to see you lose because of blackmail.” Then: “Call your favorite local lawyer and get him to the hospital fast. I asked that he be looked at. He was in bad shape. Get him before Cliffie starts asking him any serious questions. Then you can bribe him or whatever it takes to keep him quiet about the blackmail photos. I scared him. I told him he was going to prison. You can tell him he isn’t— if he’ll do what you tell him. He’ll be so relieved, he’ll go along with anything you say.”

  “I trust everything that was said here tonight—”

  “I like Lucy too much to say anything to anybody. And for the first time in my life, I like your wife. I think this experience gave her some humility, even if you’ll never understand it that way.”

  He smiled. “And me—”

  “You’re just another whore for the robber barons. They’re training your replacement now. If you win this time, it’ll be your last term.”

  Anger filled the dark eyes. “I never realized until right this minute how much I detest you, McCain.”

  I tapped my chest. “Badge of honor, Senator. Badge of honor.”

  And that was where I left him.

  I walked out to the ragtop and turned the key in the ignition. A blast of Chuck Berry. A cleansing blast of Chuck Berry. One I needed badly.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I SAW STAN GREEN’ S Studebaker parked at the A&W on my way back to my office so I wheeled in, ordered myself a tenderloin and fries, and then walked over to Stan’s car while I waited for my food to be deposited on the window ledge of my own car.

  There was a time when the Studebaker with its futuristic grill and futuristic taillights looked downright … futuristic. Now it just looked sort of weird, like a sad mutant version of a real car.

  “Still headed for outer space, I see.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Stan said. “Headed for Mercury tonight. All those blue-skinned Mercurian babes.”

  Stan and I used to buy a magazine called Planet Stories. Sure, the half-naked women were green and mauve and blue sometimes, but they had breasts and hips that appealed to every boy who’d ever locked himself in his room with a magazine. The stories themselves were as ridiculously splendid as the sexy blue babes on the covers.

  “Anything new for an intrepid reporter?”

  “Not at the moment. Sorry.”

  “I still like Anderson and Hannity for it, don’t you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He ate the last piece of his cheeseburger. I knew it was a cheeseburger because he had dollops of melted cheese on his tie. The blue-skinned people who lived on Mercury had a strict dress code. Those cheese stains might get him barred.

  At this time of night, just after nine-thirty, the testosterone parade was at its peak. There were the tough guys who walked around with the sleeves of their T-shirts rolled up so you could see their muscles. There were the boys in the cars with the glass-pack mufflers that could shake an entire building when the boys floored the gas pedals. And there were the lover boys, the ones all the carhops smiled at and sort of aimed their cute little bottoms at, the lover boys being too cool to acknowledge this in any way but all the other boys knowing that these bastards could have their pick of any carhop they wanted. And there were some sweet sweet carhops.

  “I talked to Marie Denham tonight,” Stan said.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s getting discouraged. Wonders if the police are working as hard as they would if David had been white.”

  “Well, I admit everything’s pretty confusing right now. Especially since somebody killed James Neville.”

  “Yeah, she said she’s surprised nobody’s arrested Will Neville. She said he’s already violated his probation.”

  I saw the carhop bringing my food. “Well, just tell her we’re doing our best. I don’t blame her for being frustrated. We all are.”

  I finished my meal listening to Miles Davis on the Iowa City jazz station. The bleakness of his horn probably wasn’t what I needed right then but it was too cool and too perfect to turn off.

  I was thinking of something Stan had just said—or trying to remember what Stan had just said, something that had bothered me afterward—when I saw him back out of his slot and exit the root beer stand.

  But the yawn that made me lay my head back against the seat put curiosity out of my mind. Not being a tough guy, and not being a guy who can get by on little sleep, the past few days of violence and quick naps were starting to sink me.

  I’d been planning on going to my office, but right now that six-block trip seemed far too long. There was a phone booth on the west corner of the A&W. I’d check my messages from there and then head on home.

  “Hi, it’s McCain. Any messages?”

  “One. Aaron Towne. He said you’d know the number.”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what it’s worth, he wasn’t very nice.”

  “He never is. I’m sorry, Julie.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry—for you.”

  Aaron answered and as soon as he realized who it was, he said, “You took your own sweet time.”

  “Aaron, now’s not a good time to push it. Believe me. Now what the hell’s going on?”

  “She’s decided she wants to go there tonight. She doesn’t want anybody to see us leave town.”

  “I’m just glad she’s going.”

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  “She’s been avoiding me.”

  “If I had my way, she’d still be avoiding you. I don’t see where this will help her at all. But I’ll go tell her. She’ll pick up from the den. She’s making lists of things for me to do.”

  “Poor baby.”

  He went away.

  I scanned the action at the root beer stand while I waited for her to pi
ck up. One scene involved a lover boy trying to steal the attention of a girl who was talking to a kid who looked even more insecure than I had at his age. To the tutored eye insecurity is as obvious as deformity. The other was a cute little girl sitting on the back bumper of a pickup track sobbing into a handkerchief while all around her girls laughed and talked. Some real friends she had there.

  No hello. “I’ll be there for a month. Or so they tell me.”

  “I’m glad you’re going.”

  “Of course you are. I won’t be there to make sure you earn your paycheck.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s why you hired me. Because I’m so lazy.”

  A hesitation. “There’re an awful lot of people who’ll get a good chuckle out of me going to a hospital for drunks.”

  “To hell with them. You’re doing what you need to do.”

  “I hope you’re not expecting any corny speeches from me about how I’ve finally realized that I need help. I’ll save all that for AA.”

  This time the hesitation was mine. “I hate to say this, but I’m going to miss you and I’m going to be praying for you.”

  “Now you’re the one getting corny.”

  “I figured you’d say that.”

  “I want to be nice and sober when my friend Dick Nixon visits me here in July. And I don’t want any remarks about Dick. He’s my good friend and one of these days he’s going to be president again.” Then: “I’m scared, McCain.”

  “I know you are. But you’ll make it. You’re too strong not to.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “I do, Your Honor. I do.”

  Hesitation. “They’re going to make fun of me.”

  “And you’ll make fun of them right back.”

  Hesitation. “You know that I like you more than I let on sometimes.”

  “You’d almost have to.”

  She laughed. “Yes, I would at that, wouldn’t I?” Pause. “Now I’m the one in danger of being corny. Good-bye, McCain.”

  “Good-bye, Judge.”

  I doubted that she had tears in her eyes, but I sure did.

  At home I stripped to boxers, fixed an egg-and-ketchup sandwich, and sat on the couch watching the news.

  The cats collected around me, ready for a good long sleep with, by default, their favorite human being.

  Something Stan had said still bothered me, but not until now did I understand why. How had Marie Denham known that Will Neville had violated his probation?

  I quickly called Stan. It took him a few minutes to find the name of the school administrator he’d talked to the other day while following up on the David Leeds story. He didn’t have the phone number. I had to call information for the home phone number of the guy.

  Deep, aggrieved sigh. “Yes, this is he.”

  “I’m sorry to be calling so late, Mr. Tooker.”

  “Then why are you? This is a school night.”

  “This concerns Marie Denham.”

  “Who?”

  “Marie Denham. A teacher at your school.”

  “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve been principal here for eleven years and I’ve never heard of any Marie Denham.”

  We spent four or five minutes longer on the phone. He gave me no more useful information.

  I next called the local hospital and got a report on Will Neville. He was listed in fair condition but was in the hospital overnight for observation. I asked if there was a phone in his room.

  “Yes, there is, but you can’t call him now.”

  I said, “May I have your name? I’m McClintock on the hospital board. In fact, my law firm takes care of all your legal matters.”

  I hated this particular game. Lying to an employee who could get in trouble if she let me have my way.

  “I’ll ring the number, sir.”

  When he picked up, he said, “I didn’t even notice the phone when they rolled me in here. Who is this?”

  “McCain.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “There isn’t time for that now. You can call me all the names you want after this is settled.”

  “After what is settled? What are you talking about? Ouch. My damned head. You made it worse, you son of a bitch.”

  “What I’m talking about is you not being considered a suspect in these murders.”

  “I wouldn’t kill my brother. Even the cops would know that.”

  “We’re talking Cliffie here, remember? He might decide to come after you for those killings. You know Cliffie.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know who you and your brothers have been hiding from.”

  “This colored bitch—we were shaking down her father, or tryin’ to. And he killed himself over it. She’s been stalking us ever since.”

  Then he told me all about it, her real name and what she’d been up to. Now the murders made sense.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I PARKED IN A No Parking zone and rushed into the Greyhound terminal. The man behind the ticket counter looked shocked when he saw me running toward him.

  Out of breath, I told him who I was looking for.

  “That bus is leaving in about five minutes. She’s probably already on it.”

  The loading area held only one bus. Most of the windows had passengers looking out them. At me.

  The door was open. I climbed aboard. At first I couldn’t see much. But after my eyes adjusted, it was easy enough to spot her. She sat in an aisle seat about halfway back. She sat with her head back. Her eyes seemed to be closed.

  It was a busload of corpses for the most part, longdistance travelers so fatigued they slept through most stops.

  I walked back to her, passing through sections of perfume, tobacco, unclean flesh, whiskey.

  I couldn’t tell if she was seeing me or not. Maybe she really was dozing.

  “Hi, Marie.”

  The eyelids parted instantly. “I figured my luck would run out.”

  The woman next to her said, “Is everything all right?”

  Marie said, “I killed some people. He’s going to take me in.”

  “I need your wrist, Marie.”

  I handcuffed her to me and then we left the bus. Whispers hissed behind us.

  A killer. Handcuffs. My God. A dull trip suddenly became an exciting one.

  When we reached the pavement again, she said, “How about we get a tenderloin and some fries?”

  “I won’t let you get away.”

  “You want to hear about it or not, McCain?”

  “And the price of hearing about it is—”

  “A tenderloin and fries. And a Coke. Be a long, long time before I ever have food like that again.”

  The bus depot diner hadn’t been redecorated in years.

  The place was a time trip. Framed newspaper pages of World War II vintage; framed photographs of Joe Louis and Harry Truman and of course FDR; the most recent movie stars were Clark Gable and Ava Gardner. There was a museum feel to it all.

  I’d taken the cuffs off outside. We sat at a wobbly Formica-covered table. An exhausted waitress dragged herself over and took our order.

  “You had us all fooled, Diane.”

  “Diane?”

  “You’ve used two other names since you got to town here. I don’t blame you for being confused.”

  She just watched me. She knew it was over. Her dark and lovely eyes sparkled with tears.

  “Diane Foster. The daughter of a Chicago alderman, the Reverend Thomas Foster. He was admired by black people and white people alike. Unique in Chicago politics in that he never took a bribe, never used his position to improve his own finances.”

  “Don’t tell me about my father. He was the most wonderful man who ever lived.”

  “But he fell in love with a woman in church and they had an affair. She had a baby out of wedlock.”

  She angrily tapped a cigarette from her pack and put it in her mouth. I held my lighter out for her. She slapped it away.

  “Yo
u keep your filthy thoughts about my father to yourself. You don’t have the right to even speak his name.”

  “I’m not judging him. I’m explaining why you’re here and why you murdered three people.”

  “Two people I murdered. Richie Neville and James Neville. David Leeds lunged at me after I shot that bastard Richie. I didn’t mean to kill him at all. It was completely accidental.”

  “The woman your father had the affair with, she worked in the same office James Neville did. That’s how those three found out about your father. They were already blackmailing several other people, so they just added him to the list.”

  She put her hand to her forehead. Tears gleamed on her cheeks now. “He didn’t have any money. He just had his salary from the city council. He never even took a stipend from the church. He had to clean out all his savings to keep paying them. And then when he couldn’t get any more money—”

  I reached over and touched her hand. She jerked it away.

  “You know the rest, McCain. He killed himself.”

  “And then you went looking for the Nevilles. One time you set their house on fire in the middle of the night but they got out all right. And two different times you shot at them. But they got away from that, too. They couldn’t go to the police because they were blackmailers. And you didn’t want to go to the police. You wanted your own vengeance.”

  She took the napkin from her side of the table and dabbed it against her eyes. “I didn’t get Will. That’s my only regret.” She was composed again. She scanned my face. “I’m glad it’s over.”

  “How’d you find them here in Black River Falls?”

  “I hired a private investigator to find them. He tracked them to Black River Falls. I came here to kill them. I found Richie first. Unfortunately, David Leeds tried to stop me and I accidentally killed him. But then I realized if I was going to stay here I needed a reason so people wouldn’t get suspicious—a Negro woman in this town sticks out—so I pretended to be David’s sister. There was plenty of information about him on the news the next morning here and from Chicago, so it wasn’t hard to fake.”

  “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “You didn’t even know him.”

  “I’m sure he was every bit the man you said he was.”