by Ed Gorman
“Let me see the soles of your sandals.”
“Why?”
“I want to check footprints. I need to eliminate yours and mine.”
He wore tire-tread sandals, easy to identify. I checked my own, then began dragging the lantern low over the immediate area. There were numerous fresh imprints. “You said ‘just about everybody’ was in here looking. How many people would that be?”
“Well, not everybody’s here tonight. I suppose fifteen or twenty.”
“You should’ve sold tickets.”
“Hey man, you’d be interested, too, a dead girl in your barn. It’s natural to be curious.”
“Let’s go find Sarah.”
He put his fingers against my chest as if he didn’t want me to move. He shook his head as if I’d said something he didn’t agree with. “Look, I might as well tell you.”
I shoved him away. “Tell me what?”
“About Neil.” He sighed. “And Vanessa. They—she came out here the other night and he started screaming at her. We were all afraid he’d hurt her or something. Finally Sarah broke it up. She didn’t want to see Neil hurt Vanessa. She and Van were good friends.”
“So you think Neil killed her?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did.” I wondered why it had come so easily from him. He’d been protective of everybody in the commune and then he set Neil Cameron up with a motive and a possible foreshadowing of the murder.
“I feel like hell telling you about Neil.”
I almost smiled. He was a terrible actor. “Yeah, I can tell.”
His eyes narrowed in the dusty gold of lantern light. He was probably trying to figure out if there was any sarcasm in my response.
I walked to the rear of the barn. The doors hung askew and there was a wide gap separating them. An average-sized person could walk between them with no problem. I went out and stood in the back. At this point the woods were close. A person who’d climbed up the hill from the road below wouldn’t have had any trouble sneaking into the barn without being seen.
I went back inside.
“Let’s go find Sarah.”
I was glad to leave the barn, to enjoy the healing effects of the stars and the breezes of the night. I could see that at least six or seven people stood on the porch watching us. The music was off. Pot odor got stronger the closer we got to them. One of them was Sarah Powers, hands on hips, glaring at me. Before we even got there she snapped, “What’s he doing here, Richard?”
“He’s going to help us.”
“You’re such a child, Richard. He’s here to get us in trouble and for no other reason.” She had a tomboy rage that made her as formidable as a boy, forty pounds overweight, an unattractive round face and dark eyes that seemed to have only two expressions: contempt and rage. She tried to hide her own misery by taking it out on others.
“I want him off our land,” she said as we walked up to her.
“’Fraid you can’t do that, Sarah. I’m an investigator for Judge Whitney. That gives me the right to arrest people, and if you try obstructing justice, I’ll arrest you.”
“Thanks for inviting him here, Richard. You did exactly the wrong thing as usual.”
“I need to talk to your brother.”
“He isn’t here.”
“Where is he?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“He could be in serious trouble, Sarah. Believe it or not, I’m trying to help him.”
“I’m the only one who can help him. If he did what I tell him, he’d never get in trouble.”
“The police’ll be looking for him as soon as they hear about this.”
“A lot of people had reason to kill her. Don’t try to shit me, McCain.”
“A lot of people may have had reason to kill her, but not a lot of people had the opportunity to kill her in your barn. That’s the first thing the police’ll jump on.”
“C’mon, Sarah, help him.”
“All you care about is this stupid commune, Richard. You don’t care about Neil.”
“He’s my friend, Sarah. You’re forgetting that.”
“If he’s your friend, what’s McCain doing here?”
As she spoke, and for the third time, I saw her eyes glance at the small rusted Airstream west of the house. If he hadn’t run away, that might be the place he’d choose to gather himself and plan what he was going to do next.
“Donovan, I want you to come with me. I want to check out the trailer.”
“No!” There was pain rather than anger in her voice. She was protecting her brother.
“C’mon, Donovan.”
She grabbed my arm. “You can’t do this, McCain. He didn’t kill her.”
“Then he needs to tell the police that.” I removed her hand from my arm. I nodded to Donovan and we started walking to the trailer. The group on the porch was still watching us. By now sweat was streaming down my chest and back. Despite our words I felt sorry for Sarah. She was right. Cliffie and the local paper would convict Cameron without a trial. The people who hated the commune would use the murder as a pretext for getting rid of it entirely.
The trailer had been left here by the farmer and his wife who’d tried leasing it the second time. They couldn’t afford to fix up either of the houses to live in so they’d bought this old tin trailer. They’d left it behind with their dreams.
As we walked I said, “When we get done here, I want you to go to your house and call the police. Tell the woman on duty there what happened and tell her we need the chief to come out here with an ambulance. I’m going to guard the barn so nobody else gets in there.”
I could hear her coming behind me. The ground was covered with rocks and pieces of wood, probably blown here in one of the many tornadoes the area had endured over the years. She was running. I shifted to the left, in case she’d already launched herself at me. But all she wanted, breathless, was to talk.
“He’s in there, McCain. In the trailer, I mean.”
“All right.”
“But he’s got a gun and I don’t want him to do anything crazy. The mood he’s in—he might try to kill himself.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Look, Sarah, I’m not trying to be a hard-ass here. I just want Neil to talk to the police. We both know they’re going to say he did it. If I was a cop I’d be inclined to say that, too. They had an argument. Neil couldn’t deal with losing her. She was found in the barn. But the only alternative right now is that he runs away and if he does that he’s in real trouble. He might be someplace where a trigger-happy cop spots him and kills him. Fugitive on the run. Happens all the time, Sarah.”
Grief replaced anger. I took my hand away. I saw the youngster in her. Hers hadn’t been a happy life, not looking the way she did. School kids could hurt you worse than bullets, with wounds that never healed.
“You don’t give a damn about him.”
“I’d like to see him clear himself if he can.”
“You already think he’s guilty and he isn’t.” Tears gleamed in her eyes.
“Good. That’s what I want to hear him tell me. Now let’s you and I go talk to him.”
She glanced back at the people on the porch as if for reassurance. A shadowy male shouted, “Don’t trust him, Sarah.”
“He’s wrong, Sarah. Right now Neil needs me more than ever. I’m the only legal friend he’s got.”
Donovan spoke quietly. “He’s right, Sarah. You need to listen to him.”
Grief became anger. “You want him to be guilty, Richard.”
I had no idea what she was hinting at. “Let’s find him, Sarah. Right away, before things get any worse.”
“How could they get any worse?”
“By not calling the police as soon as possible. If there’s a long lag between the time I saw the body and calling them, it’ll look very bad for everybody. Now c’mon.”
“You better be telling me the truth about helping Neil.”
“I am.”
<
br /> I turned toward the trailer. After half a minute she joined me and we set off. My shirt and trousers had sweated to me like a second skin. The alcohol kick from the party was long gone. The ground here was rough and rocky. I almost stumbled twice.
We were now ten yards away.
“I’ll go ahead and talk to him. He’s my brother.”
“All right.”
“You stay back here until I tell you to come in.”
She was in a hurry now. I saw a silhouette of him, backlit by the sudden lantern light inside, watching her rush to him. Then the door squeaked open and she disappeared into the dim doorway.
I smoked. I smoked three cigarettes in the next twenty minutes. I could hear their voices but not their words. Sometimes there was the sharp noise of anger, sometimes there were sobs. There were even lengthy silences. I thought of all the things they were probably saying to each other. From what I knew of him, Neil probably wasn’t about to turn himself in. But she would be pleading. I’d raised the prospect of him being killed by some overeager cop. I had the feeling that these were the words that had scared her into helping me.
A stray brown mutt came up and looked me over with big sweet eyes. Apparently she didn’t like what she saw. She trundled away. I looked back at the houses. They were all in the front yard now, waiting to see what would happen. “In a White Room” was being played, but at a much lower volume than the earlier records. The heat and plain exhaustion were making standing difficult. I’d had a long day and now I was facing an even longer night.
The trailer swayed. Heavy footsteps. The door swung open. Sarah appeared. She half shouted: “Neil says you can come to the door and talk to him but you can’t go inside.”
“He’s giving the orders now?”
“He’s scared. You can’t understand that?”
“He’ll have to come out eventually.”
“That’s your problem. Right now you just get to stand in the doorway, all right?”
I had my .45. I’d talk to him in the doorway and then I’d go inside and get him. Apparently desperation had confused her. She assumed that I’d really put up with this and not make my move.
“All right, Sarah.”
She stepped away from the trailer. She had her hands on her hips as I walked toward her. When I got closer she said, “Don’t hassle him. He doesn’t need to be hassled.”
“Right.”
“And keep your sarcasm to yourself. He’s my brother.” I wondered how many times tonight she was going to remind me of that.
I approached the door and she stepped aside.
“Remember what you agreed to.”
“I remember.”
Smells coming from the open trailer door almost gagged me. Several decades of filth combined to become a weapon. I started to stick my head inside but she got me before I was able to finish the move.
At the time I had no idea what she hit me with. Nor did I have time to think about it. My skull felt as if it had been cleaved in half. A headache that seemed to instantly shut down my entire body left me unable to defend myself when she yanked me backward and struck me with even more force a second time. I have no idea what happened next.
3
In high school Alan Nevins was inevitably called “Four Eyes” because of his thick glasses. We were friends because we read science fiction. I doubled up on Gold Medal novels of course, but since all the books and magazines we wanted could be found at the same drugstore—specialists in cherry Cokes—we always ran into each other. He was a relentless smart-ass. He was also now my doctor. He’d taken care, good care, of my father in his last two years. He was Wendy’s doctor as well. I was sitting on a bed in a large room filled with three gurneys and cabinets on every wall filled with various drugs and implements. Alan was sewing nine stitches into the back of my head and obviously enjoying the hell out of me wincing.
“He’s too cute to die, doctor. Is he going to make it?” Wendy said.
“Yes, he is pretty cute, now that you mention it. But it’s going to be touch and go,” the good doctor said as he finished his work.
“Very funny, you two.”
I hadn’t planned on coming back to the hospital in which my father died for a long time. Years, hopefully. But here I was, as much confused as hurt. I had a ghost memory of being put in the flower power van out at the commune and taken here. The memory extended to clutching a phone in my hand and telling Mike Potter about the Mainwaring girl and where he could find her.
“Do you think an injury like this could change his personality, doctor?”
“I’m afraid not. He’d have to be hit on the head a lot harder than he was tonight.”
“I think I could arrange that.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, and when I laughed my skull cracked right down the middle again. I pressed my hands to my temples, as if I could crush the pain.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Sam,” Wendy said, taking my hand. “You should’ve seen your face just then. No more jokes.”
Then there were three of them. Mike Potter, in his police tans, had joined them. He was a short, wide, fierce-looking man who needed to shave three times a day. The mild, reasonable voice emanating from that baleful face always surprised people and put them at their ease, sometimes at their peril.
“How you doing, Sam?”
“I guess Doc thinks I’ll live.”
“I know a lot of people who won’t want to hear that.”
“Another comedian.”
He smiled. Of all Cliffie’s gendarmes, Potter was the most streetable one. His years as a Kansas City homicide detective had given him a professional manner not usually seen on the streets of Black River Falls. He looked at Wendy and Alan. “I’d like five minutes alone with Sam here if you wouldn’t mind.”
“No problem,” Alan said.
“If you’re going to beat him, could we stay and watch?”
“I won’t beat him right away, Wendy. But when you hear him start screaming, feel free to come back and watch.”
“This is like comedy night on Ed Sullivan,” I said.
Wendy very carefully placed a tiny kiss on my forehead and then disappeared with Alan. Potter went over to a coffeepot I hadn’t noticed and poured himself a cup. He waggled an empty one at me. I started to shake my head but it hurt too much so I just said “No.”
He pulled up a chair next to my bed and sat down. His military-tan shirt was sweated through in many places. “I think those hippies set a record for contaminating a crime scene in that stall where the girl was.”
“You noticed that, huh?”
“They really that stupid?”
“Not stupid. Just—they were curious is all.”
He set his coffee cup on the floor, then yanked a package of Viceroys from his shirt pocket. I did the same with my own brand. His Zippo got both of us smoking.
“In case you’re interested, the Powers girl had a thick steel rod stuffed into the back of her jeans. That’s what she hit you with. She’s a tough little cookie. Sort of mannish.”
“I take it her brother escaped.”
“That’s what hitting you was all about. Give him time to get away.”
“And nobody at the commune went after him?”
“They’re not what you call upstanding citizens.”
Most times I would have defended them. Right now I wasn’t feeling gracious.
“You know this Neil Cameron?”
“Yeah. I defended him a few times in court.”
“The boys at the station tell me he’s a real bastard.”
“He can be.”
“Enough of a bastard to kill Vanessa Mainwaring?”
“I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t? He’s your client.”
“Can’t. I haven’t been asked to defend him in this case, anyway. And besides, I don’t think you’ve got enough to arrest him. All you can do is bring him in for questioning.”
“The chief thinks we’ve got our man.”
<
br /> “The chief always thinks that.”
“He wants to see you, by the way. Tomorrow morning at your convenience. Which means as early as possible.” He picked up his coffee. It was cooler now and he drank it down. He got up and carried the cup over to the sink. He came back and said, “You and Paul Mainwaring are friends, I’m told.”
“Not really friends, friendly I guess you’d say. We agree on a lot of things politically and so we wind up at meetings sitting together and talking.”
“Gee, the chief says you two are Communists.”
“Does he still carry that photo of Joe McCarthy in his billfold?”
Potter smiled. “I stay away from politics. I hate them all. Anyway, you go see the chief first thing tomorrow, all right?”
“Sure.”
“Sarah Powers is in our jail now and she’ll stay there until somebody bails her out. I doubt the hippies can raise the money but maybe they’ll surprise us.” He went to the door and said, “Glad you weren’t hurt, Sam. But those kids were bound to get in trouble. I suppose a lot of people have told you that.”
“Just a couple thousand.” To his back, I said, “Thanks, Mike.”
He opened the door and stood aside as Wendy and Alan came back in. She watched him out and then closed the door. “He’s so nice.”
“He’s so nice as long as he thinks you haven’t done anything wrong. Then he’s not so nice at all.”
They came over to my bed.
With his acne gone and his style of glasses more fashionable, Alan had grown well into his medical whites. He had a red Corvette and a number of girlfriends. The only thing he lacked was hair. Two years from a bald pate for sure. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to have your headache for at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer. I’ve given you some pills that will help. I’d say right now let’s have Wendy take you home and make you comfortable.”