by Ed Gorman
“Ready?”
“Ready, Mrs. Goldman.”
“And you’ll be honest?”
“Absolutely.”
Mrs. Goldman keeps the downstairs for herself. There are three apartments upstairs. She’d bought herself some new duds and wanted my opinion of them. I’d never seen her this nervous before. It was cute.
“Here I come, ready or not!”
She came down the hall from the bedroom into the living room and she was gorgeous. Really. She’d bought a black shift and black hose and black pumps and one of those little French-style hats that Audrey Hepburn wears whenever she wants to get William Holden all hot and bothered.
“Holy moly.”
“You think he’ll like it?”
“Are you kidding? He’ll break down in tears.”
She smiled. “You never overstate things, McCain. That’s one of your finest qualities.”
She leaned over and gave me a motherly kiss on the cheek. “I appreciate the compliment. I need it. I keep running to the bathroom every five minutes, just the way I used to when I started dating my husband. I have a bladder that’s very sensitive to romantic feelings.”
She smelled great too.
Then: “Oh. David Squires stopped by to see you.”
“David Squires? Are you sure it was him?”
She laughed. “Are you saying that I should have Dr. Kostik check my eyes tonight? I know David from the Fine Arts committee at the library.”
“God,” I said, stunned. “Why would he want to see me? He and the Judge despise each other.”
“That’s what I was thinking. But his wife was murdered, so maybe he needs to talk to you. The poor man.”
Five
Dillon’s Stables had a huge red barn for dances and three big hayracks for rides. I wore a T-shirt, a denim jacket, jeans, and desert boots. To get in the Western mood I wore a red kerchief around my neck.
Mary was dressed in a similar outfit. Her mahogany-colored hair was pulled back into a ponytail. A hundred male eyes did terrible things to her. She was a beauty. No doubt about that.
From inside the barn came music:
Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly. This was a young crowd tonight. If Dillon had his way he’d still be playing songs from the ‘dj’s. Fortunately, his twenty-year-old daughter chose the music. Just because you dressed Western didn’t mean you had to listen Western.
Especially when you had your hair swept back into a duck’s ass.
The hayracks filled up pretty fast.
Mary and I got on the third one. We sat high on the stack, about four feet up. A friendly old mare pulled the wagon, following an ancient Indian trail along a creek painted silver by moonlight. The night was chilly, the hay smelled fresh and clean, and the mare was sweetly scented of field dust and road apples.
“Did you ever try and count the stars?” Mary asked.
“Not after they let me out of the mental hospital.”
She nudged me. She had a cute way of doing that. She’d done it since grade school.
For some reason I’ve always taken great pleasure in being nudged by her.
“They made me do that at Girl Scout camp. Sit up all night and count the stars.”
“Nice girls.”
“Yeah, but I was dumb enough to do it.”
There were six other couples. One of the guys had a guitar. He played some Gene Autry and Roy Rogers songs, and then he played Vaughn Monroe’s “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” I still like to lie on my stomach and look out the window to see if I can spot any of the ghost riders he sings in that song. It isn’t hard to spot them. Not if you had an imagination like mine. Big silver ghost horses and cowpokes trailing across the midnight sky.
“She was a nice woman.”
“Susan Squires?”
“Ummm.”
“Why’d she marry him?”
“She was in love with him.”
“Poor girl.”
Some of the other couples were already making out. A Tribute to Gonads seemed to be the theme of the evening. I had my arm around Mary but that was it.
“She stopped in for lunch at Rexall,”
Mary said.
“About a week ago.”
“She say anything?”
“She just kept toying with an envelope. She was so nervous, she left it behind.”
“Anything on the outside?”
“Just the return address for a county courthouse. I’ve got it at home. She called later that afternoon. Sounded scared. Wanted to meet me for a Coke downtown. But Dad got very sick. They’re trying this new medication on him. I had to help Mom.”
“That was the last you heard from her?”
“Yes. Now I feel guilty. I mean,
I had to help Dad and Mom. But I feel as if I let Susan down.”
“You sure she sounded scared?”
“Positive. I knew her well enough to know that.”
“Know much about her marriage?”
Before she could answer, the wagon gave a sudden jerk and stopped. We had crested a hill. Below us spread the town of Black River Falls.
This should have been the makeout point of choice for all the town’s teenagers, but the mud-ribbed roads and brambled roadsides made it too hard to get to.
The sight was gorgeous. If you grew up in a city, a town of 25eajjj probably doesn’t look like much. But spread out this way, the lights vivid against the prairie night, it was a lovely spectacle. For all its flaws and shortcomings, I loved the old town. Back in the stables, they had a wall posted with photos of various generations who had gone on hayrack rides, all the way back to the 1880’s, when the men wore bowlers and the women wore huge picture hats. There were doughboys from World War One and dogfaces from World War Two. There were flappers and Frank Sinatra’s bobby-soxers and Johnnie Ray’s teary teens. And somehow I was a part of it, just like Mom and Dad and Sis and Grandad and Grandma were part of it, and that made at least a little sense of life for me, being part of a town and a tradition, and if that was all I ever got, it was enough.
Then we were moving again, the wagon jostling left and right, bouncing up and down, the kid with the guitar singing a Frankie Laine song called “Moonlight Gambler.” He did a pretty good job of it too.
“She ever talk about her marriage?”
“Just kind of hinted about it from time to time.”
“Anything specific?”
“Well, that he spent a lot of time away from home. His legal practice and everything.”
“Ever mention divorce?”
“No.”
“His ex-wife ever get over it?”
“You think she might have killed him?”
“It’s a thought.”
“Gee, I hadn’t even considered her.”
“Susan ever mention the woman’s confronting her or anything?”
“Say,” she said, “you’re right! One day at Nicole’s.” Nicole’s On Main was the high-fashion emporium of the town. They have indoor plumbing and everything. “She came right up to Susan and slapped her.”
“See? There you go. You could be a detective.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Well, you just told me something very important.”
Right there we were headed into the white birches where the creek widens out. The Mesquakie Indians used to call the birches ghost trees, and that’s what they looked like, too, with their spectral moonlit glow.
Then I surprised both of us by leaning over and kissing her.
As I’ve told you, a couple of times we almost went all the way, Mary and I. One was the night of our high school graduation and the second time was just a regular night at the drive-in watching a couple of really bad Japanese science-fiction movies. Both times both of us pulled back. Our relationship was complicated enough. I’d wanted to sleep with her for many long years but I was worried that it would hurt her.
But within five minutes tonight I was on first base and rounding toward second. And in her sw
eet, somewhat tentative way I sensed she was as up for it as I was.
We sank into the hay and did some serious making out. A hoot owl and a coyote crooned to the moon to lend everything a note of prairie romance.
I always carried my emergency red Trojan, and I had reason to believe that my erection would soon start making overtures in that direction. Bad enough I wasn’t in love with Mary. But to make love to her and still not be in love with her would be awful.
“We’d better stop,” I whispered.
“Oh, God, why?”
“You know.”
“Oh, McCain, c’mon. I’m twenty-two years old. You want to see my driver’s license?”
“It’ll just make things worse.”
“For whom?”
“For you. And me.”
“For you, you mean. The guilt.”
But by then the point was moot. A private plane was buzzing the wagon and everybody on the loft was waving. Mary got embarrassed suddenly and eased me away.
By the time we got back to the barn, I was so charged up with lust I had lost the use of my eyes, ears, and nose. I was virtually insensate.
I went into the men’s room-a stall; standing at a trough with a hard-on was apt to get you some funny looks-and commanded my penis to cease and desist.
I threatened lawsuits; I hinted at solitary confinement. And it finally complied.
Mary had used the time to freshen up. We’d both had to de-hay ourselves the way you have to de-tick yourself after a walk in the woods.
She looked even better than before. And she loved me. And she was tender and smart and faithful and would make a great wife and great mother and-why had God saddled me with Pamela? Why? Oral Robbers could heal people, supposedly. Maybe he could cure me of Pamela. It was something to think about anyway.
The dance pavilion was built right onto the east side of the barn.
We danced fast to a Rick Nelson song and then slow to a Patti Page song and then we went over to the bar and ordered two Falstaffs in the bottle. A bartender with a big ragged straw hat and a piece of hay sticking out of his mouth served us.
From what I could hear around us, the conversation this evening was Susan Squires’s death.
“I hope this doesn’t make me sick.”
Mary wasn’t much of a drinker.
“Then don’t drink it.”
“Well, I like to feel like an adult every once in a while.” She slid her hand in mine. “That was a lot of fun. On the hayrack.”
“It sure was.”
“I just wish you didn’t worry about stuff so much.”
“So do I.”
“If you’re worried about breaking my heart, McCain, I’m the only one responsible. I could’ve walked away a long time ago.”
A Little Richard song came on. Most of the people were on the dance floor and I mean they were wailing and flailing. I wonder what our ancestors would have thought-y know, the ones who always look so prim in those 1880 photographs-if they could have seen my generation cavort. Probably put the lot of us in the public stocks.
I slid my arm around her. Pushed my face into her lustrous and sweet-smelling hair.
“I’m very seriously in like with you,” I said.
“Well.” She smiled. “That’s a start anyway.”
“Hi, Mary.”
The words came over my shoulder. I saw Mary’s face as they were spoken. She seemed less than happy to see the speaker.
“Hi, Todd.”
He walked around me where I could see him.
Our town was getting just big enough that it was impossible to know everybody’s name. I’d seen him around, a big towheaded guy who could’ve doubled for the hearty lumberjack on a cereal box. He even dressed that way. Plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, big studded belt, jeans. I was just happy he wasn’t carrying an ax. He looked to be about my age. He also looked to be drunk.
“You goin’ to the funeral?” he said to Mary.
“Of course.”
“I can’t decide. Her folks don’t like me much.”
“I wonder why.” Then: “Todd Jensen. This is Sam McCain.”
He didn’t acknowledge me in any way.
“Maybe if she’d married me instead of him, she wouldn’t be dead.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
“You figure it out.”
“That her husband killed her?”
“You figure it out. She treated me like shit.”
“And you were always such a prince.”
“Bitch lied to me.”
“Why don’t you just leave, Todd? She was my friend.”
“You always treated me like shit too.”
“Good-bye, Todd.”
And then he was gone, wobbling off down the bar, people just naturally making room for his hulking body.
“Friend of yours?”
“Oh, sure. Couldn’t you tell how happy I was to see him? He was Susan’s old boyfriend, believe it or not. She went out with him for six or seven months before she met David Squires. He was one of those insanely jealous guys. She had to account for every single minute she wasn’t with him. He used to follow her around until she caught him at it one night. When they broke up, he used to call her ten times a night. And when she started seeing David Squires, he started sending her threatening letters.
Squires had Cliffie pay him several visits, but he still wouldn’t lay off. Finally, Squires wrote a letter to the local medical association in Cedar Rapids.”
“Medical association?”
“Yes. Believe it or not, Todd’s a doctor.”
“No surgical tools for that guy. He just tears your liver out when he wants to examine it.”
“Anyway, he seemed finally to give up.
Then about four months ago, the threatening letters started again. Susan was sure it was Todd.”
Then: “How about a dance?”
“My feet are at your command.”
Then I saw him.
At first I wasn’t sure I was seeing right: Mike Chalmers? I used to play sandlot baseball with him until he stole my bike one day and tried to blame it on a kid who hung around the diamond. That’s how Mike’s life ran, one scrape after another. Stealing bikes.
Stealing money from cash registers. Stealing cars.
Breaking and entering. Finally, armed robbery. He’d gotten out of prison a couple of years back.
Chalmers, a slight man with a hard peasant handsomeness, smirked at me and then looked away.
“Friend of yours?” Mary asked.
“I helped send him up.”
“God, I’d hate to have your job.” Then: “He looks kind of sad, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, he does.”
We were slow-dancing to a Pat Boone song when I glanced out one of the barn windows and got the idea for the taillight check. There had to be a couple of hundred cars here this evening, maybe one of them with a broken taillight. I was going to get an early A.M. call from the Judge, demanding to know what I’d done on the case so far.
Maybe I could sell her on the idea that I’d come to the hayrack ride to check out the cars. We live by blind hope, don’t we?
I wasn’t sure how Mary would respond.
This was a date, not a stakeout.
But she said, “Good. I’ll help you.”
“You will?”
“Sure. I’ll take the cars on the far side of the barn. You take the cars on this side.”
“You really don’t have to do this.”
“God, McCain, please quit treating me like a little kid, all right?”
“All right.”
“When I don’t want to do something, I’ll tell you. And I won’t be subtle. I promise.”
I should have been working for the Kinsey Report.
I saw a lot of couples coupling in the backseats of their cars. High school kids, mostly. I moved quietly as possible. They were too enraptured to hear me. But I heard them: sighs, gasps, cries of pleasure, and a
symphony of car springs. What could be lovelier on a Indian-summer night with a full harvest moon?
I even stopped to admire a few of the street rods. Chopped, channeled, louvered. They looked like something out of hot-rod magazines.
Only in a small town like this could their owners feel safe leaving them and going inside. That was my dream. Have a wife and a couple of kids and pack them all in the front seat of a customized ‘ci Ford Phaeton and cruise up and down dusty Main Street on some fine June afternoon.
Maybe I’d even give Judge Whitney a ride someday.
I didn’t have much luck with taillights. The only one I found missing belonged to a ‘dh Buick, and I could see that the intact one didn’t resemble the pieces I had.
I was just walking back to the front of the barn when I saw Mary, breathless, running up to me. “I think I may’ve found the car. But it’s just pulling out.”
We ran around the side of the barn. It had been parked far to the west, out where a windbreak of oaks had been planted.
We finally got close enough to see the shape of the car: the unmistakable configuration of the ‘ee Chevy, which is, to me, one of the most elegant car designs ever built. From this angle, I couldn’t see the taillight. The Chevy was moving without headlights along the back row of cars. It could pick up the edge of the graveled drive there and angle right out onto the county road that ran past the stables. I couldn’t see the driver.
We kept pace with it by trotting to the county road.
Not until it got to the clearing between driveway and road did I see the taillight. It was raw yellow, two small naked bulbs. No red plastic covering.
I don’t think the driver saw us. All of a sudden the car fishtailed through the gravel and shot onto the county road. It was doing 30 by then and 50 by the time it disappeared behind the trees.
“You get the license number?”
“I did.” She gave it to me.
“Illinois.”
“Yeah. Good work.”
“Thanks. Now what?”
“Need to check out the number.”
“And how do we do that?”
“I noticed you said we.”
She laughed. “I thought I was being sneaky.”