Death of a Rainmaker

by Laurie Loewenstein

  Now, balancing the broken stick, Temple said, “Let me correct myself. Not a hoe. A shovel handle. Bet the house on that.” He stretched, relieving the stiffness in his spine. Ed, he thought, looked puny. “Buck up, boy, we’ve got a heap of work. You can take a snapshot of this at the office and then I’ll drop it off at Hinchie’s. See if he can tell us if that’s blood at the break. If you ask me, the killer used this to bash Coombs’s head in and then tossed it into the crawl space with a good riddance.”

  Seeing that handle left Ed gut-punched. They needed to solve this case fast, before the primary. No way, Ed thought, is Doll going to hire me if he steps into office. But Ed couldn’t stomach having to choose between keeping his job and sullying the CCC’s reputation. And it seemed to be going that way.

  * * *

  Usually Etha looked forward to Sunday afternoons, when she and Lottie Klein, the head clerk and buyer at her father’s clothing store, sat at the upright piano in the Kleins’ house for Lottie’s weekly piano lesson. Etha critiqued Lottie’s technique, Lottie raced through the scales, and both of them gossiped and laughed.

  Lottie favored blue or red frocks designed for much younger women. Her berets, always cocked to one side, and ornamented with a pheasant feather or rosette of ribbon, were the bright spots in Etha’s dusty landscape. How Etha missed the varied hues of Illinois! The jade of tender corn husks, the violet shadows of distant trees, the furry scarlet spears of sumac.

  In Oklahoma, the palette was nothing but brown. Brown bridal trains of dust billowed behind tractors. Curtains turned from white to strong coffee. Folks spit river mud after a duster. Washes of beige, cinnamon, and umber bled into the blue sky, depending on which direction the wind blew. The people, the land, the buildings absorbed the dust. All other colors leached away, while brown and its infinite variations remained.

  On this Sunday, Etha raised her hand to knock on the Kleins’ door without her usual verve. Last night’s trip to the hobo jungle weighed on her. She had lied to Temple. She had sought out an isolated camp full of strange men. She had drunk whiskey. And, most troubling, somehow young Jack’s image had been supplanted with an older, unrecognizable version of the child she’d lost. When she had awakened and his visage appeared as it did every morning, unbidden and often too painful to bear, it had been of a young man. His features had meshed with Carmine’s adolescent form. It was all wrong but she couldn’t shake it.

  Mrs. Klein’s was voice booming from the kitchen when Etha knocked. “Gib zikh a shuk!” This being a frequent command in the Klein household, Etha knew it meant, Give yourself a shake, and understood it was directed at Mr. Klein. The family’s lapdog yapped in support of his mistress.

  Abruptly Mr. Klein, with his kind round face, appeared in the doorway. He held the screen door open for Etha. “Come in, young lady. You’re a breath of fresh air.”

  “You know from nothing! Isn’t that what I was just saying?” His wife waddled over busily from the kitchen, the dog wriggling and yipping from his podium on her jutting bosom. Etha smiled. Part of the weekly drama in the Klein household was Mrs. Klein’s insistence on a Sunday drive and her beleaguered husband’s lack of enthusiasm.

  Lottie, already seated at the piano, turned and waved Etha over. She wore a red striped seersucker playsuit and her hair was up in curlers—a getup too youthful for someone pushing forty, but she got away with it.

  “Ignore them and come sit.” She patted the chair beside the piano bench. Etha settled herself and dropped her handbag on the floor. On cue, the screen door slapped and then a car engine rumbled to life just beyond the window. As usual, Mr. Klein’s determination had wilted under the onslaught. Mrs. Klein, radiating victory, asked Etha if she wouldn’t appreciate a cup of tea and rushed to fetch it before Etha could answer.

  Lottie shrugged. “Nothing changes around here. That was the duster of all dusters, wasn’t it? Where were you?”

  As Etha relayed her experience in Lucille’s cellar, Mrs. Klein reappeared with a cup and saucer—a cookie and two sugar cubes snugged alongside the cup. Mrs. Klein, too, was vain about her appearance, but that was to be expected. The Kleins operated Vermillion’s only clothing shop, Model Apparel. In addition to her fashionable attire, Mrs. Klein wore rouge and lipstick and her hair was meticulously dressed. Etha suspected that it was also dyed. If Etha had encountered Mrs. Klein as a stranger on the street, she might have guessed her to be fifty. Ah, but her hands, Etha thought, as she thanked her hostess and took the cup. The hands always gave away one’s age and Mrs. Klein’s hands said she was approaching seventy. As a piano teacher, Etha was intimate with the anatomy of knuckles, veins, tendons, palms, and wrinkles that, similar to rings on a tree, revealed a person’s true years no matter how much care was taken with face and figure. And it worked the other way around too. More than once she’d bought eggs from a farm wife whose weathered face and faded hair belonged on a sixty-year-old. But as the woman nestled the eggs in a straw-filled box, Etha would be shocked to see the firm hands of a young person.

  Etha dropped in a sugar cube, crushing it with a spoon. Mrs. Klein snatched up the dog again and swooped out to the waiting car. The two women at the piano grinned.

  “That’s a relief,” Lottie said.

  Etha sipped. “Was the store full when it came through?”

  Lottie’s shoulders slumped. “Never is, these days. Just Mrs. Hodge. She was there for a fitting but her husband was late. A very smart print with side tiers starting at the . . . well, never mind. Anyway, she tried it on and it fit like a dream. Spectacular, even with that God-awful scarf around her neck that she refused to take off. But Mrs. Hodge won’t make a decision without the mister so we were waiting maybe ten minutes when the sky went black. I’ve never seen one come up so fast. Papa herded us into the back office where we huddled on the floor as if we were a bunch of sheep. If those weren’t the longest two hours I’ve ever spent. Mama and Papa bickering, Nudnik howling, and Mrs. Hodge quivering.”

  Etha put the teacup down. “Wait a minute. Her husband was coming to the fitting? Temple wouldn’t do that in a million years. And doesn’t John keep Saturday hours at the law office?”

  Lottie yanked out and rerolled a rubber curler that had come loose. “Go figure. Yesterday was the first time she’d ever set foot in the store without him. I think she’s poorly. Even our smallest size has to be taken in. He’s playing nursemaid, I’d say.”

  “I never knew. Maybe I’ll stop by this week,” Etha said. Then she drew a page of sheet music from a stack on top of the piano. “Ready for some scales?”

  For the next twenty minutes, Lottie labored through the drills and then plowed into a Haydn sonata. Half of Etha’s mind was tuned to Lottie’s efforts—correcting clumsy finger work and uneven pacing—but the other half dwelled on her trip to the jungle. What had she been thinking?

  After plunking out the final fortissimo chords in the rondo, Lottie announced, “I need a cigarette.”

  They retired to the back steps. Lottie lit a Lucky for herself and one for Etha and passed it over. They smoked in silence, the only sound being the tutting of chickens from a coop two yards over.

  “I have a confession,” Etha said, as she stubbed out the cigarette under the ball of her shoe. “I drove out to the shacks by the rails yesterday. I got it in my head to take the tramps some food and, well, it was a mistake.”

  Lottie jumped in quickly: “Did something happen? Did they try to take liberties?”

  “No, no. But I didn’t tell Temple anything about it and . . . it got sort of out of hand.” She told Lottie about the hooch, the off-color stories, the dancing.

  Lottie gave a low whistle. “Close call. Here, you need another.” She handed Etha a cigarette and puffed. “What about Temple?”

  “I don’t think I’m going to tell him for a while. Not with the primary and the murder investigation. It’s the last thing he needs.” Etha lit the cigarette, watching the smoke dissolve in the dun-colored air. “But I will tell h
im at the right time. I’ve never kept anything from him and I’m sick about it.”

  “He’s a good man,” Lottie said. They both stared abstractly across the scorched yard. Then Lottie slapped her thighs. “So, what about that Coombs? Chester is beside himself. He’s afraid the murder will affect business, which is already at rock bottom. I think he’s all wrong. I told him last night that he’ll sell more tickets. It’s a Charlie Chan movie come to life!”

  Lottie and Chester had been dating for ten years, “with no end in sight,” as Lottie said. The theater owner was very stuck in his ways. It came from the blindness, Etha thought, and needing to have everything, including his clothes and desk, arranged in the same way.

  Etha and Lottie had been friends since Etha and Temple moved to town. Lottie had knocked on their apartment door and said she’d heard Etha taught piano. Their first lesson, that very day, hadn’t gone well. Lottie could hardly sit still, which irritated Etha. Finally she’d said, “Miss Klein, what seems to be the problem? You’re too old to be squirming.”

  “That jail cell is giving me the willies,” Lottie confessed.

  Etha had twisted to glance through the hallway into the kitchen. One corner was enclosed with iron bars—a small cell rarely used. Although this setup was not unusual in the homes of rural sheriffs, Etha, too, had been unsettled when they’d first moved in.

  Temple had said, “Doubt I’ll ever need it. These things are only used for overflow or if we get a lady prisoner.” It was, Etha found, handy for storing potatoes and canned goods.

  Since that day, the two women had gradually become friends despite their age difference. Now Etha’s throat swelled; thinking of all the times they had shared some laughs, some petty complaints about their men, some gossip. And how she had unburdened herself to Lottie, especially in those early days when Jack’s death was still fresh. Temple had uprooted Etha, moving her to Vermillion, barely two months after their little boy wandered off and drowned in the Illinois River. He had thought it best to make a fresh start in a place not weighted down with memories. But it had pained Etha to leave behind the house that Jack knew as home. And just as crushing was the thought that she would not be there to pull the weeds around his headstone or to lay the traditional Christmas blanket of evergreen boughs on his grave. The move away from the cemetery, from Peoria, had punctured Etha’s heart and she was grateful that Lottie listened patiently whenever the wound reopened. In all their years in Oklahoma, a day had never passed that Etha didn’t want to move back to Peoria to be by her son’s side.

  Lottie suddenly clapped her hands to illustrate a point and abruptly brought Etha back to the Kleins’ back steps. Her friend was recounting the plot of the latest Charlie Chan movie.

  “. . . and bang, just like that,” Lottie said, smacking her palms together again, “the case was solved.”

  Etha took the long way home from Lottie’s. Temple wouldn’t be back for hours. She paused at the plate-glass window of Quality Grocery. Recently she’d speculated on what might happen if Temple lost the primary. Would he give in and take her home? Beside a pyramid of canned peas was propped a Vince Doll For Sheriff poster. The candidate stared out confidently.

  Etha leaned toward the window, her breath fogging the glass. “I hope you win,” she whispered.

  Chapter ten

  After interviewing Ernie at the Maid-Rite, Ed hurried back to the office to set up the camera equipment. Temple stayed behind for a second cup of coffee, and then followed him to the courthouse.

  The sheriff’s office was austere. It was furnished with two desks, three straight-backed chairs, and a poster-sized calendar advertising insurance. Temple had dodged Etha’s suggestions of a rug and bookcase, but had finally given in to a potted rubber plant, now a denuded stalk, on the windowsill.

  When Temple walked in, Ed was shooting stills of the handle they had discovered under the diner. The click of the shutter, followed by the crackling concussion of the flashbulb and the rattle of the spent bulb hitting the floor, beat out a syncopated rhythm. Temple dropped into his desk chair. The message spindle was filled with notes from Viviane, the courthouse secretary. He thumbed through the slips of paper, each recorded in the young woman’s fluid script. T.S. Dibbert’s push mower had been swiped. Musgrove, the undertaker, expected a particularly rowdy funeral on Wednesday and requested that the deputy be on hand when the drinking started. Two reports of whiskey stills. A missing cow. A report about tramps bedding down in the cemetery. John Hodge with another Peeping Tom complaint.

  Ed finished up and all was quiet. Being it was Sunday, the rest of the courthouse slumbered. There were no jangling file drawers, brisk footfalls, or the snap of suspenders underlining a point from down the hall. A good day for thinking. Temple tipped back and stretched his legs across the desktop. He admired his boots. They held their rich mahogany shine darn near all day. Well-polished boots, he believed, let folks know he took his job seriously.

  “Pull up a chair. I want to talk out what we’ve got so far.”

  Ed scooched his desk chair over and pulled out his notebook. “Shoot.”

  “This Roland Coombs shows up Friday. He tells Myra that he’s driven down from Coldwater. We’ll need to check on that. We can call the sheriff up there. Somehow Coombs makes contact with our Commercial Club. Make a note about finding out who he spoke with. The club agrees to hire him and pays the initial fee. According to Ernie, some in the club then treat Coombs to dinner at the Crystal. That evening, a crowd gathers outside town and Coombs sets off the first round of explosives. After the show he’s drinking at the Idle Hour in the company of three CCC boys. A couple of beers later, he and one of them get into a scrap. I need to know who those three were, especially the one who popped him.” Temple paused. “You were up to the camp last night, right?”

  Ed, who had been scribbling industriously, stopped abruptly. A flush washed up his cheeks. “Uh . . . I thought . . .”

  Temple waved him off. “I understand. I’m assuming you were going to tell me.”

  Ed studied his lap. “I absolutely apologize. That was out of line.”

  “Did you find out anything?”

  “Just that a fellow named Carmine cracked Coombs in the nose. I don’t know the guy. Didn’t get a last name. I was sneaking in to talk to him but got chased away by the senior leader before I got two steps inside the bunkhouse.”

  Temple pointed at Ed. “We all make mistakes. You get one pass and now you’ve used it. Understood?”

  Ed nodded.

  “Okay. So Coombs and this kid get in a scrap. Coombs goes back to Mayo’s where he cleans up his bloody nose, maybe spends a few minutes with Miss Peep Show and then falls asleep, we presume. We’ll need to find out where the kid slunk off to after the brush-up. I’m assuming it was back to the camp.”

  The phone rang. “Sheriff’s office,” Temple said into the receiver. He listened, issued a few affirmative grunts, and ended with, “I certainly will.”

  Ed raised his brows.

  “Hodge again. Anyway, late the next morning Coombs turns up at the Maid-Rite where he talks to the Johnson boys, the banker, and asks about the movie times. For now, we’ll assume he went to the matinee because you found the ticket stub in his pants. We’ll need to confirm that with Maxine. We have a lot of questions for her, in fact. Given what we know so far, I have a gut feeling that Coombs steamed up a fellow enough—either at the fireworks, the Idle Hour, or even Mayo’s—to want to hurt him bad, if not kill him. The murderer maybe was in the movie theater with Coombs and followed him out or came on him by chance in the alley right as the duster rolled through. Either way, he took the opportunity to whack Coombs but good. Then tossed the handle in the crawl space. Remember that Ernie said the lattice started flapping around that time.”

  Ed had stopped writing and was staring abstractly out the window. “That duster seems mighty convenient.”

  Temple lit a cigarette. “Agreed. Maybe the killer was willing to wait it out for the right m
oment to come along. Somebody with time on his hands. And when the storm rolled in, he jumped on the chance.”

  Ed snorted. “That doesn’t narrow things down a bunch.”

  Temple grinned. “True.” He dropped his legs to the floor and slapped his thighs. “That sums it up for now, I’d say.”

  “Now what?”

  “We need to interview Maxine. Was Coombs at the matinee? Who else bought tickets? Did she notice if anyone left right before the storm? Or even during it? You know what to ask.”

  “Me?”

  “I’m thinking a good-looking guy might make more headway than this old dog.”

  Ed flushed and Temple was reminded of the day he’d offered the young man his job. The kid was humble. When you were hoping to teach someone the tricks of the trade, as Temple intended to do, that was a good trait.

  “Meanwhile,” the sheriff said, “I’ll call on the CCC boys. Track down this Carmine.”

  “Don’t you think it’d—a—it’d be a good idea for me to go with you? After all . . .”