Sam McCain - 01 - The Day the Music Died

by Ed Gorman

  “Is Frazier still in there?”

  She made a face. She was speaking sotto voce. “He’s very upset.”

  “His daughter’s dead. I don’t blame him.”

  “He seems to be holding the poor judge responsible for everything Kenny ever did.”

  Over the years, the Eastern Whitneys shipped most of their ne’er-d-wells out here to Iowa.

  Kenny’s father had been a womanizer. He went through three wives and numerous affairs before he finally cracked his car up on Hopkins Road one night. Needless to say, he’d also been a drinker. The Eastern branch of the family had sent him out here originally because he’d plundered a trust fund that was to be used for philanthropy.

  He ended up routing a lot of the money to some of his European cronies, who sported such dubious titles as prince, duke and viceroy. When the trust fund was nearly depleted, the family put Kenny’s father and Kenny on a plane and dispatched them out here, where the father was to oversee the family’s rather large cattle holdings. He was smart enough to hire a good manager, a former rodeo star whose baptismal name was Tex (presumably after the well-known Saint Tex), and

  spend the rest of his time chasing ladies. Without a mother—Mom having run off with one of those titled fellows of dubious cachet—Kenny had only his father to raise him, which went a long way to explaining why Kenny had turned out as he had. Kenny’s father had been the drunken twit who’d tossed my dad out of the family manse.

  I followed Pamela into the judge’s chambers.

  Before I’d even crossed the threshold, two familiar scents obliterated Pamela’s perfume, the odors of Gauloise cigarettes —yes, the ones in the blue packages French people always smoke while they’re talking in subtitles after having sex—and Eiffel Tower brandy.

  Except for when she’s in court, you seldom see the judge without a Gauloise and a snifter of brandy on her desk.

  Esme Anne Whitney was born in New

  York City a decade or so before the turn of the century. She’d been schooled abroad for the most part—London, Paris, Rome—all before she was fifteen, when her parents died in a train accident. She was then sent out here to live with her oldest brother, a fairly decent guy as Whitneys go, an honest politician and a man who seemed to have some genuine concern for those less lucky than himself. He ended up as a judge and influenced Esme to attend law school at the University of Iowa. She would have preferred Yale or Harvard but her brother had taken sick and she wanted to be around him. Three years out of law school, she used her influence with then President Coolidge to get herself appointed to her ailing brother’s seat on the bench. She has been there ever since.

  She’s an elegant woman. She buys all her clothes in New York and it shows. She’s slender to the point of emaciation, Romanesque in the brazen jut of nose and the impudence of eyes and upper lip. Her head would look great in profile stamped on a silver coin. She wears her graying hair cropped close and only enough makeup to lend drama to her already dramatic features. Her speech is as eccentric as her Gauloises, a touch of Kate Hepburn, a dollop of Ayn Rand, whose books fill the glass bookcase behind her massive leather executive chair.

  This afternoon, she wore a gray fitted

  suit, gray hose and black pumps. She had nice legs. She was propped on the edge of her vast desk, the smoke in one hand, the brandy in the other.

  She was speaking to an austere man with white hair and a bad complexion. He wore a blue blazer, white shirt, regimental striped tie, gray slacks. On his blazer pocket, was a fancy crest. Bob Frazier was the only man in the county Judge Whitney would even consider a social peer. Though he was local money—his father having owned outright as many as four short-line railroads at one time—he’d spent most of his school years in London, ending up at Oxford.

  I probably would have felt sorrier for him if he hadn’t left his daughter alone for months at a time when she was a young girl. She’d always been a nice kid, but she had a desperate edge. You get that way when you don’t have a parent in your life.

  “Bob, for God’s sake,” the judge was saying, “if you want me to say that my nephew, Kenny, was a shit, of course he was a shit.

  You don’t really expect me to sit here and deny that, do you? But beyond admitting it, what else can I do about it? I’m sorry; I’m very, very sorry it happened.”

  “Excuse me,” Pamela said before Frazier could respond. “I brought some more coffee.

  Fresh.”

  “Thank you, dear,” the judge said. “So pour us some fresh and get the hell out of here.”

  “Yes, Judge.”

  To me, she said, “You’re late.”

  I didn’t have time to say anything. I just sat down in the leather chair next to Frazier’s. He briefly scowled in my direction. I’d never liked him but now that his daughter was dead, I felt vaguely guilty about not liking him. While Pamela poured everybody coffee, I sat there and tried hard to work up some good feelings for him.

  I didn’t have much luck.

  “Now, you have some brandy in this one, Bob,” the judge said. Pamela had handed her a cup and saucer. The judge picked up the brandy bottle and poured in a good shot and handed the cup to Bob.

  The judge dispensed brandy-and-coffee the way priests dispensed communion.

  “It’s too early,” Frazier said.

  “The hell if it is,” the judge said.

  “Now hold your cup out and quit being a baby.”

  “Damn it, Esme, there’s never any arguing with you, is there?” Frazier said, but he held his cup out. The judge gave him a bracing shot. No matter how strong your resolve, was, the judge would triumph.

  “What you need to do,” the judge said, “as soon as the funeral is over is get the hell out of here. And I mean far away. Have you ever been to Bermuda?”

  “Once. They were having some kind of political trouble there. And some kind of big bug bit my girlfriend on the ass. Pardon my French.”

  “Which girlfriend?”

  “Darla.”

  “Did the bug get poisoned?” the judge asked sweetly.

  “She never liked you any better than you liked her,” Frazier said. Then he made a fist. And his eyes shone with tears. “My daughter was a good, sweet girl and that son of a bitch completely corrupted her. Completely.”

  On the words “good, sweet girl,” the judge looked at me and rolled her eyes. His daughter, Susan, whom I’d liked,

  probably hadn’t been an ideal girl. She slept around a lot and had a few minor fracases with Sykes’ hillbilly gestapo.

  But she was a sweet and tender and honest girl, giving a lot of free hours to the hospital and to one of the local vets. She was like a lot of local people, she saw helping out as part of the price you paid for the privilege of living here.

  Frazier suddenly set his cup down and half-leaped to his feet. He walked over to the regal red drapes keeping out the afternoon sun. He parted the drapes and looked out. The sun exposed the rough acne of his face. Mid-fifties, and his complexion had never cleared up. But somehow, with the white hair and the sharply pointed nose, the affliction only enhanced his predatory air.

  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, blew 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 rundown. 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 r@esum@e, 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 h. 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.”

  Ten

  Our west side AandWill 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 tann
ed 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 4eacba infatuations and 3eaifd 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 AandWill listening to the 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 AandW. 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.