by Ed Gorman
From what I could hear, the murder wasn’t nearly as interesting to the downtown folks as the idea that they’d hired the woman to share sex. The double homicides would play in later. But for now the whole idea of having your own kept woman—this was the stuff of legend. It was good for at least three generations and maybe more. Who cared about dead people when you had a beautiful lady putting out for the four men who kept her in relative luxury?
I was at the counter, paying my bill, when Deirdre came in. The morning was chilly enough to rouge her cheeks with wholesome red spots and to draw silver dragon-breath from her perfect little nostrils. “I went to your office. Decided I’d just start walking up and down the street. I really need to talk to you.” She wore movie star sunglasses, very dark and provocative.
A lot of the patrons knew who she was. It became a bad cowboy movie suddenly. The gunfighter everybody’s afraid of walks in and conversation goes silent. Everybody watching. Staring.
She kept her eyes averted. If she looked at them, it would just reconfirm the hell her life had become. There was a fifteen-year-old boy whose father had shotgunned and raped a waitress. The mother was too ashamed—and angry—to attend the trial. I was hired as the public defender. The father was the kind of bully who probably should have been drowned when he was a couple months old. Definitely mentally deformed. But the boy was there. Every day. Sat right up in the first pew, too. Just wanted his old man—abominable as he was—to know that there was still blood between them and that he was there to offer the man his support. All the smirks and name-calling and even threats the kid had to endure—but by God he was there every day the court was in session. When the Amish drive someone from their community, they do so by “shunning” them. The kid had been shunned but he stood up to it.
I wondered how Deirdre was going to fare. She was definitely going to be shunned. And for a long, long time.
“Let’s go back to my office,” I said.
As we walked she said, “I look like hell.”
“You’re right about that. You’re one of the ugliest women I’ve ever known.”
She laughed. “My father’s life is crumbling down around him and I’m worried about my looks. God, am I vain.”
“You have reason to be vain.”
“Keep talking like that.”
“How’re your folks holding up?”
“Dad’s angry. Last night he was depressed. Now he’s angry. I’ll take angry any day. My mom’s always depressed. She’s been seeing a shrink in Iowa City for years. That I’m used to. But Dad’s almost never depressed. He takes action. I think men do that—busy themselves, even if what they’re doing doesn’t amount to much.”
We were at my office. Went inside. It was cold. I turned on the heat. I sat in my Philip Marlowe chair and she sat across from me.
“So what’s going on?”
She bowed her head for a time. Said nothing. I thought maybe she was praying silently. “Dad has an alibi for the night before last. The night the coroner says the Hastings woman was murdered. He also has an alibi for last night, when her brother was murdered.”
“Then he’s in the clear. With criminal charges, I mean. His political career—”
“He doesn’t even mention that any more. He’s calling a press conference for this afternoon. He’ll pull out of the race.”
“But you sound like there’s a problem.”
“It’s Mom. She stayed in bed this morning and started doubling up on her tranquilizer. This might go on for weeks. She may even end up back in the nuthouse again.”
“She was in a mental hospital?”
“She takes ‘trips.’ She always says she’s going to California to visit one of her sisters that lives there. But she and this sister haven’t spoken in years. She’s really going to this hospital in Chicago. The last time, she was so far down she rode the lightning, as they call it.”
“Shock treatments?”
“A dozen of them. God, I felt so sorry for her.”
“Isn’t that a pretty radical step, electroshock?”
“Not as radical as you’d think. My minor was psych. They do shock treatments on all kinds of people now. And this time—” She paused. “Well, it was a special circumstance that time. She took a couple of shots at Dad. Well, sort of.”
“Are you serious?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Another one of his dalliances. Some woman he’d spent some time with in Chicago a few years back sent him a birthday card. He must be sleeping with mental defectives. Who’d send a birthday card to a married man? Anyway, Mom just flipped out. Grabbed the gun he keeps in his desk drawer, went into the den and fired twice at him. I don’t think she meant to actually hurt him. He always gets dramatic it about it and says ‘that time she tried to kill me.’ But my grandfather taught all three of his girls how to shoot and mom’s pretty good at it. If she’d wanted to kill Dad, she could have.”
“So you’re worried—”
“She could be a suspect. She’s—fragile. You wouldn’t know it. She’s usually very good at keeping up a front. But—I just had to get your opinion.”
“We’re all just sitting here waiting to see how this plays out. I’m going on with my investigation. Right now I really don’t have any opinion. I need more facts.”
“I know. I was just hoping you had some idea.” She shook her head. “Check that. It’s a lie. I needed to get out of that house. God, you can’t believe what it’s like in there. And I just keep picturing the Hastings woman down in the bomb shelter—I just needed to get out of there. So I came looking for you.” She stood up. “I saw you keep looking at the notes on your desk. Which means that you’re very busy and that I’m in the way. But I feel better just talking to you.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said. “I just wish I could come up with something helpful.”
“I’m half-tempted to see if I could get Mom back in the hospital again. Away from all this.”
“Would she go?”
“She might.” I walked her to the door. She kissed me on the mouth. Her lipstick tasted good and her mouth was wonderful. She never had taken her shades off. “Thanks, Sam.”
“Good luck to both of us.”
ELEVEN
I SPENT NEARLY EIGHTY MINUTES on the phone. I contacted the companies Ross Murdoch had given me. And from the companies I got the names of the men who’d worked on building the bomb shelter. I also got the addresses of where they were working today.
I spent two hours driving around town talking to them, much to the displeasure of their bosses. I kept my visits as short as possible. Most of the men said the same thing. That people came and went all day long during the construction process and they really didn’t pay much attention. Same thing about the day of the murder. Hadn’t paid much attention.
One man said he’d noticed a red-haired sheet metal guy with a blue eagle tattoo on the top of his right hand. That was the guy from Palmer Sheet Metal I’d interview later. Another guy told me he’d seen a Negro man late in the day carry a big box to the back door. I wrote down what he told me and then called the Murdoch house. Deirdre was there. She said the man was from a furniture store and that she had signed for the chair he carried herself. A third possibility evaporated even faster. An electrician told me that he’d seen a green truck pull up just before quitting time. The Murdochs had requested that all the workers be out of there promptly at six every evening. I called Deirdre back. She said that the long cardboard container from that particular truck was a floor lamp. They’d hired a decorator and all the items she’d selected for the revamp were just being delivered in the past few days. A lot of other people in and out, too.
“It must be frustrating,” she said.
“It is. But it’s usually the only way to learn things.” Then: “How’s your mom?”
“Sleeping. I’ve checked on her twice. I just hope she stays asleep.”
“How’s your dad?”
“Nervous. He’s giving a press conference on the
steps of the court house in another hour. He’s in the den going over and over his prepared statement. He’s going to get everything out in the open. I know he made this mess all by himself—and that he’s a grown-up and so on and so forth—but I still feel sorry for him. He’s a very proud man. And some of the people in this town’ll eat him alive.”
“Unfortunately, I think you’re right. I’m sorry for your family.”
“Dad says that he deserves it. He was really morose a while ago. He said it would be better for everybody if he just dropped dead. His side of the family has a history of heart trouble. That’s one of the reasons he stays in such good shape.”
“Tell him I’ll be checking in with him tonight by phone.”
“I was hoping to see you.”
“I have a feeling I’m going to be working straight through the night.”
“So what will you do now?”
“Start talking to the other three men, one by one.”
“I don’t envy you that. They’re not easy to deal with. I’ve been around them all my life. They can really give you a hard time.”
“Gosh, I find that hard to believe.”
“Poor Sam,” she said. “Poor, poor Sam.”
I tried Mike Hardin, office and home. Not in. I tried Gavin Wheeler, office and home. Not in. I tried Peter Carlson. The country club golf course.
In big cities, country clubs are usually formidable places. A lot of them are designed to intimidate. I’ve seen some as big and excessive as Rhineland castles. The Cedar View Country Club isn’t quite there yet. It’s a large, one-story, flat-roofed building made out of native stone. The members built it with an eye to expansion so there’s a lot more parking space than they need currently. The golf course, I’m told, is pretty decent for a town this size. The hot summer had scorched most of the grass brown. The leaves were just starting to turn autumnal. You could see geese and pheasants and hawks against the hard blue sky.
I found a caddy and said, “Five bucks if you’ll do me a favor.”
He was in his forties, stooped slightly from his occupation, and was not as subservient as some of the members probably expected. I’m one of those people who can kiss ass for fifty-eight minutes if I really have to. But make it fifty-nine and I get surly. All the groveling backs up in my throat and starts to burn.
I think the fortyish caddie with the frayed yellow cotton cap and the checkered brown-and-yellow pants had just reached his own fifty-nine minutes. He said, with great weariness, “I sure hope I don’t have to walk far. I got a scratchy throat—my oldest daughter came home from school yesterday throwin’ up and sayin’ it hurt to swallow. I think I’m comin’ down with it myself.”
“You know where Peter Carlson is?”
His mouth twisted into a frown when I mentioned the name. Carlson treated lessers without mercy. And every person on the planet was his lesser. Then he grinned with two neat rows of dentures. “Between us, tell you where I’d like him to be.”
“Guess a lot of people feel that way.”
“Most everybody out here does. Even the big shots.”
“You go get him for me? I don’t have a membership here and I don’t know the course well enough to find him.”
“Twenty bucks?”
“Whatever happened to charity toward your fellow man?”
“I don’t make enough money to be charitable.” The smile again. I paid him.
He came back in twelve minutes by my watch.
“He says call him at the office, he’s playing golf.”
“Figured that might happen.”
“Tell you what. Since I wasn’t able to bring him back, give me a tenner and call it even.” He handed me back the twenty I’d given him and took the ten I was holding out.
“Fair enough. Thanks.”
On the drive back to my office, I started thinking those tricky, Agatha Christie thoughts that always come up when more sensible ones don’t.
There’s this furniture truck, see. And the driver and his assistant stop for coffee, see. And there’s this guy following them in his car, see. And he’s got this body in this box, see. Well, what he does, while they’re having coffee—they parked near the back, see, where nobody can see him do this—so he takes his box and slides it up in the back of the truck and he hops up there himself. Then he rides out to the Murdoch place and before the driver comes to a complete stop, he jumps down. Then he takes his box and hurry-fast takes it down to the bomb shelter. All the while looking like just one more workman. Then he speeds off into the nearby woods and nobody ever sees him again.
A ten-year-old can pick the flaws out in that plan. So much depends on sheer good luck, exquisite timing and coincidence that it could only work in an old-fashioned mystery novel.
Gavin Wheeler was nice enough to open my office door for me. “You should get a better lock.”
“Thanks for the advice. You should get a better lawyer. Maybe he could get breaking and entering dropped to criminal mischief.”
Wheeler smirked. “I would’ve taken something, McCain, but there isn’t nothing worth taking in this shithole.”
I went in and sat behind the desk—it was my office, after all—checked with the phone service who said that nobody had called. While I was doing this, Wheeler, looking like a Texas oil man in a good brown suit and a white shirt with a strong tie and a white Stetson, worked on emptying a silver flask of its contents. I had reason to suspect there wasn’t Kool-Aid in there. He kept making this irritating sound “Ah!” after every hit. Apparently the flask, of modest size, was of a magical nature. It never seemed to reach empty.
He said, “I didn’t kill her. Or him. And this whole idea I was opposed to from the start. The broad, I mean.”
“I see. They forced you into it.”
“In a way they did. I’m not like the other three, McCain. I believe in God and I go to church. And I don’t go to church just because it looks good. It’s because I feel it. In here.” He tapped his chest as if he had indigestion. “And in a way, they did force me into it.”
“I see.”
“You can sit there and smirk at me all you want. But it’s the truth. Those three, they grew up with money. Hell, Murdoch, he even went to Dartmouth. Me, I never finished high school.”
“I’m not sure what this has to do with the two murders, Mr. Wheeler.”
“Gavin, please.”
It’s kind of strange. People who ordinarily wouldn’t even speak to you want you to call them by their first names when they get into trouble.
“You want to know what my background has to do with those two murders? I’ll tell you. When you come from where I come from—those shanties where the Southerners lit during the Depression, them tin shacks and you know what I’m talking about—you never feel quite right about yourself. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about, McCain, because you’re from the Hills and you know how that affects you. Deep down, you never feel as good as other people. Deep down, you’re ashamed of yourself and you can’t ever kick that feeling. No matter how much money you have; no matter how many people tell you how great you are; no matter how many civic awards they give you—inside here you know you could lose it all at any minute. The money, the prestige, the rich friends—all gone like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I walk around with that feeling in the pit of my stomach every day of my life. That’s where I envy you so much.”
“You envy me?”
“Hell, yes, I do. Look at you. You don’t have jack shit. Your law practice is a joke and all you do most of the time is play gumshoe for some old wino judge who has to tell you ten times a day that she knows Leonard Bernstein. You’re about the most unsuccessful professional man in this whole state and you should be damned happy about it.”
“God, I never realized how lucky I was. Every time I have to prowl through garbage cans to get my dinner, I should realize that I’ve got it made. Something like that?”
“Now you’re being sarcastic again. And y
ou know what? That’s about the only thing you’re good at. That sarcasm of yours.”
I sat up with my elbows on the desk, leaning forward the way those TV actors do when they’re selling you a product of some kind. “First of all, Gavin, you forgot about the Hills as soon as you left. All those years you were on the city council you didn’t do squat for the Hills. Hell, you even blocked all the sewage bills so your country club friends could get the council to build that sports park we didn’t need. And second of all, you’re here to rat out somebody else to throw suspicion off yourself. You’re going to give me a name and some little morsel of a lead and I’m supposed to get excited.”
He took his flask out again and set it on the desk. “Take a drink of that, McCain. And while you’re doin’ that, I’ll tell you who killed those two people.”
“Sure you will.”
“Two weeks ago somebody beat up Karen.”
“And you know that for a fact?”
“Hell, yes I know it for a fact. It was my night to be with her. Two of us a week. That was the setup. More than that she would’ve felt like a whore. This way she could pretend she just had two dates a week.”
“She say that?”
“Many times. Anyway, I saw the bruises all over her body. First hand.”
“Who did it?”
“Peter Carlson.”
“C’mon. Carlson?”
“Why’s that so hard to believe?”
“He’s sort of a priss. Hard to imagine him working up that kind of passion for anything except putting people down.”
“Well, whatever he is, that didn’t stop him from falling in love with her.”
“Are you serious?”
“He offered to buy out our shares. He even tried to get her to move back to Chicago, where he’d set her up by himself.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Over the last couple months. He had a hard time controlling himself when one of us went up there. Sometimes he’d drive around her block. I know it’s hard to believe but that’s how bad he got. He even picked a fight with Hardin one night when they were both drinking. Hardin made some crack about her starting to show her age a little bit. And speaking of cracks, I didn’t forget about the Hills. I give three Christmas baskets to the nuns every year. For the poor.”