by Ed Gorman
Then: “I want to help you on this, McCain.
Susan was my friend.”
“I’ll call my buddy when we get back to my place.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“If it’s all right with you.”
“It’s fine by me.”
We were silent on the drive back, listening to the Saturday Night Top Ten countdown on the radio. I think we both knew it was going to happen tonight. Though I still felt as if I were taking advantage of her, I decided she was right. I wasn’t coercing her in any way. She knew I was in love with Pamela. I’d been honest with her, and that’s all I could do. She sat very close to me and it felt good, felt right somehow. I was relaxed with her in a way I could never be with Pamela.
The lights were off downstairs. Mrs.
Goldman was still out on her date. I would get a full report later. I’d become her father in all this. From now on I’d be shaking hands and approving her dates before I let her go out with them. Or was that being too strict in this modern age?
We went upstairs. I got the lights on and the heat turned up. Frost was on the grass.
She used the bathroom first. Did some more fixing up. Was lovelier than ever.
The buddy I’d referred to was a Chicago police commander who’d picked up his law degree at Iowa. He spent three years working for a Chicago law firm and found himself bored. He became a cop. We kept in vague touch.
I’d never asked him for a favor before. He was married with two kids. I assumed he’d be home. Most married couples don’t go out much, even on Saturday nights.
While I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and slapping on more Old Spice, the phone rang.
Mary answered it and started talking. Asking questions. I couldn’t get a lot of the exact words but I sure got the exact tone. Urgent. Scared.
She knocked on the door. “McCain?”
I opened the door. “What’s up?”
“That was my mom. My dad’s taken a turn for the worse. I really need to get home.”
“Sure. Are they taking him to the hospital?”
“The doctor’s coming to the house.”
Even at night the houses in the Knoll look pretty rough. The Travers house was one of the best kept, thanks to Mary.
As I pulled up to the drive, I said, “I’ll say prayers for him.”
She looked surprised. “You still say prayers?”
“Sure.”
“You still go to mass?”
“Sometimes.”
“What’s that mean?”
I shrugged. “Rarely.”
She smiled sadly. “That’s what I figured.” She looked anxiously at the lighted living room window. “I need to get in there.”
“I know.”
She turned back to me. Lovely.
Terrified of what might be going on with her father.
“I would’ve done it tonight, McCain.”
“Me too.”
“I want it to happen.” She leaned forward and gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
The drive back home was kind of melancholy. The suddenly cold weather gave all the houses an air of being battened down.
Snug and cozy. Leaves tore from branches in the wind and crawled like small colorful monsters across the grass and street. Spindly Tv antennas swayed dangerously.
I parked in back and went up the private entrance stairs to my apartment. The door wasn’t open more than an inch before something told me somebody was in there: the scent of expensive pipe tobacco.
I stood in the doorway.
“Don’t turn on the light,” he said.
“I don’t usually take orders from burglars.”
He sighed. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t turn on the light.”
“And why would that be?”
“I don’t want Cliffie to know I’m here.”
“You call him Cliffie too?”
“Yeah. Behind his back I do.”
I went in. Kitchenette, as it’s called, bathroom, and bedroom on the right. The rest of the apartment is living room. He sat in the overstuffed chair across the room. I banged my knee on the coffee table.
“One good thing,” he said, “you don’t have to worry about hurting this furniture. It’s been hurt all it can be.”
“Part-time lawyer, part-time interior decorator. What an odd combination of jobs,”
I said.
“How do you know who I am?”
I took my coat off and draped it across the rocking chair I’d inherited from Grandfather.
“Number one, there aren’t that many major assholes in town. And, two, I recognized your voice from court.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“No,” I said, lighting a Lucky in the gloom. “What you’re supposed to be is afraid I may call Cliffie and have him book you for B and E.”
“I came to talk.”
“In the dark.”
“Yes. In the dark. Cliffie would never understand.”
I took a drag of my Lucky. “You want a beer?”
“I’m not much of a beer drinker. I work with my brains, not my hands.”
“Good. That just means more for me.”
When I opened the refrigerator door, the interior light shone on him. He was a dashing devil, David Squires, quite the country gentleman in his British tweeds and London riding boots. His expensive pipe tobacco smelled good.
“Please close that door. I told you I don’t want Cliffie to know I’m here.”
I closed the door. “Where’d you park?”
“Several blocks away. I took the alleys over here.” I sat down and tapped the top of the Falstaff can with the church key. The beer opened with a whoosh, spattering foam on my hand.
“You that scared of him?”
“He and his father run this town. I know you and the Judge think she still has some power. But she doesn’t. Not the kind of power the Sykeses have, anyway.”
“You came over here for what reason?”
“To hire you.”
“Hire me? What the hell’re you talking about?”
“I want you to find out who killed my wife.”
“Cliffie’s the law in this town.”
“Cliffie’s an idiot.”
“That’s not a very nice thing for his lawyer to say.”
“Look, you prick, my wife’s been murdered and I want to find out who killed her.
Do you think it was easy for me to come here?”
“I suppose not.”
“Then knock off the smart talk.”
I sighed. “The Judge’ll never go for this.”
“These are extraordinary circumstances.”
“So were all the times you gave your opinion of her in the newspaper.”
There’d been a couple of articles in the past few years about juris prudens
Black River Falls style. As the former District Attorney and now the town’s most prominent attorney, Squires had had a good deal to say about “incompetent judges.” He didn’t name names. He didn’t have to.
Everybody knew he meant Judge Whitney.
“Maybe you killed her, Squires.”
“Maybe I did. If you’re half as good as you seem to be, you’ll find that out and they’ll hang me.”
“There’re a lot of other private investigators in the state. Good ones.”
“None who know the town the way you do. You know Chalmers, too.”
“Chalmers?” He was the ex-con I’d seen at the dance tonight. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“I was the prosecutor who sent him up. His lawyer convinced him I held back evidence and had a grudge against him. He wrote me a few letters from prison.”
I lit one Lucky off another. Exhaled.
Sat back. “Why the hell’d you jump all over the Judge and me this afternoon?”
“How many times do I have to remind you, McCain? My wife is dead. I walked in, and I saw you two standing the
re talking to Cliffie-” He sighed. “I needed to take it out on somebody and you two were elected, I guess.”
I noticed he didn’t apologize.
Nelson Rockefeller had recently said his parents told him, “Never apologize, never explain.” Apparently my guest lived by the same code.
“God, I don’t know, Squires. This is pretty confusing. Maybe you should talk to the Judge yourself.”
“Oh, and she’d give me such a fair hearing, wouldn’t she? I wouldn’t get two words out before she kicked me out of her chambers.”
“I guess you’re right about that.”
“I need help, McCain. You know how hard it was for me to come over here and grovel.”
Grovel? If this guy thought he was groveling, I’d have to invite him to watch me in action with the steely-eyed snob who was Judge Esme Whitney.
“I’ll talk to her.”
He stood up. “I really appreciate it.”
“Since you seem to prefer the dark, how do I get ahold of you? You got a Bat signal you shine in the sky or anything?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind.”
Now I knew at least two things he didn’t go in for: apologizing when he was wrong and reading Batman. It wasn’t going to be easy working with this guy.
“Call me at my office. Say your name is Frank Daly.”
“Frank Daly.”
“I worked on his case when I was a prosecutor in Chicago.”
“Nail him?”
“He got the chair. I had the pleasure of watching.”
I almost asked if he knew Elmer the executioner at the tavern. They could compare notes on killing people. But I knew for a fact that Elmer was a Batman reader so I wasn’t sure how they’d get along.
He moved skillfully through the shadows to the back door. “I’ll wait for your call.”
“This is crazy.”
“So is my wife being dead.”
The priest said, “Even though this is highly irregular, I did get a call from the Pope ten minutes ago and he gave us permission to go ahead with the ceremony.”
I was beaming. All over. Head to toe, rosy glow.
“Now if you’ll step forward,” the priest said.
We stepped forward.
It was kind of crowded on the small altar.
The priest looked at his prayer book and then said, “Do you, Mary, take McCain to be your lawful wedded husband?”
“Oh, yes!” she said, looking lovely in her wedding finery.
“And do you Pamela take McCain to be your lawful wedded husband?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said, after the teeny-tiniest hesitation. She, too, looked beautiful in her wedding finery.
“Good, then, my children. I now pronounce you man and wives.”
I was just getting to the good part-the sleeping arrangements for our wedding night-when the phone rang.
“‘Lo.”
“McCain?”
“I think so.”
“This is no time to be a wise guy. I’m very, very nervous.”
“Who is this?”
“Linda. Linda Granger.”
“Oh, God, Linda, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a smart-ass.”
“It’s Ok, McCain, that’s how I expect you to be.”
Which wasn’t necessarily a compliment.
“I was wondering if you’d seen Jeff.”
“Yesterday afternoon at Elmer’s.”
“How was he doing?”
I sat up on the side of the bed. Found my Luckies. Had my cigarette hack and then thrust a butt, as Mike Hammer likes to call them, between my lips.
“Is something wrong, Linda?”
“They can’t find him.”
“Who can’t?”
“His parents. He didn’t come home last night.”
“Oh.”
“How was he when you saw him?”
“His parents didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“He was pretty zotzed. I drove him home from Elmer’s.”
“Oh, God.”
“He mst’ve gone out and started in again.”
Silence. “I suppose he told you.”
“He said he wasn’t sure you’d be getting married.”
“That’s all he said?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing about me?”
“Nothing.”
“Honest?”
“Honest.”
“He may try and contact you, McCain.
Please call me right away if you hear from him.”
She said something else but it was lost in her tears.
She broke the connection.
It rained all day Sunday.
I ate two bowls of Cheerios for breakfast and then read the funnies-I still like just about all of them, including Nancy and Slu)o, having, when I was a tot, a crazed crush on Aunt Fritzie-and then I listened to the local Top Ten while I did the exercises I’d learned in the National Guard.
The Top Ten is a little different out here.
Whenever I’m in Chicago on a Sunday morning, I listen to their Top Ten and the sponsors are products like gum and cigarettes and pop. Out here, the sponsors are cattle feed, farm implement stores, and-my favorite -an ointment for cattle warts.
In the afternoon, I did some work. I tried to get Chalmers’s number from information. None was listed.
I also called Mary a couple of times. I wanted to see if she could steer me to a few close friends of Susan Squires. But she sounded so distraught over the state of her father’s health-the family doc was there each time I called-t I didn’t feel good about asking her for information.
I also kept trying the morgue. While the county coroner, Doc Novotny, has a somewhat suspicious diploma-? ally are a proud graduat of Thayer Medinomics College” declares his degree, and no, that’s not a typo; they really did leave off the Every in graduate-he’s a pretty helpful guy. (and just what the hell does “Medinomics” mean anyway?) He’s Cliffie’s first cousin. I think he secretly resents the power his kin have. Somehow his own family was not dealt a fair hand at the table.
So he helps me on the sly.
Except today. There was no answer until 4ccjj P.M., when the rain was slashing down and I was getting ready for my Sunday evening dose of Maverick, two hours away. And then he said, “I’m sort of busy right now.”
“With the Squires autopsy?”
“That seems like a hell of lot for car insurance.”
I know code when I hear it. I don’t read Shell Scott for nothing.
“Somebody’s there, right?”
“Seems to be the case.”
“Cliffie?”
“Looks like it to me.”
“I’ll try you later.”
“See if you can do better on those rates, will you?”
And he hung up.
I managed to stay in my robe all day.
Didn’t even shave. Watched Maverick.
Laid down to read a detective paperback and woke up at 6cccj A.M. I turned on the radio to a commercial advertising a popular polka band, Six Fat Dutchmen. They’d be in our fair city next week. One night only.
Six
One of the largest group of Negro settlers came to Iowa in the late 1890’s.
Representatives of a coal company that was having troubles with its white workers went south and made job-hungry blacks a lot of promises, a surprising number of which they actually kept.
Come to Iowa and prosper was their message.
By 1910, a couple of different areas of Iowa became Negro mining towns.
I remembered this from my history lessons when, on Monday morning, I went over to Keys Ford-Lincoln to see if anybody had been working late on Friday night before the Edsel premiere. A still-nervous Dick sent me back to the noise and energy of the service garage, where a man named Frank Kelton was working on a 1955 Ford station wagon. Like most other men, he had a lot of family pictures thumbtacked to th
e wall of his personal bay. He also had a yellowing photo of a group of black miners just stepping out of a mine. One of the men, most prominent because of his height, looked a lot like Kelton.
“Frank?”
“Yeah?”
I could see his coveralls but not his head or hands. They were lost somewhere up under the car he had on the hoist.
“Wondered if I could talk to you. Dick said it’d be all right.”
“You give me a minute?”
“Sure.”
All those great smells. Fresh coffee.
Cigarette smoke. Cold concrete floor.
Oil. Grease. New tires. Hot engines.
Cool engines. Exhaust. And the sounds of glas-paks backing off. And rock-and-roll radio, a little Bill Haley if you please. And jabber jabber jabber. Mechanics with customers. Customers with customers. Mechanics with mechanics. And out the doors a beautiful autumn morning. Azure-blue sky.
Temperature in the high 50’s. The scent of burning leaves. Hawks didn’t soar across the sky on a day like this, they tap-danced.
“Dick said it would be all right,” I said again.
He was about my size, my age. One difference. His left eye was glass and strayed a bit. He was also a Negro. “I’m pretty busy.”
“I won’t take much of your time. It’s about Friday night.”
“Oh. You a cop?”
“No. I work for Judge Whitney.”
He grinned. “I was in Korea, man. We coulda used her over there.”
“She’s pretty nice most of the time.”
“Yeah? Who says so, Stalin?”
Car repairman today, The Ed Sullivan Show tomorrow.
“I told the cops everything I know.”
“Which was?”
He shrugged. He was about to say something when another man in coveralls, this one carrying a clipboard, came over and said, “You handle a tune-up about three this afternoon?”
“Should be able to.”
“Thanks.”
“You were saying,” I said.
He shrugged again. “Dick said he’d pay me double for overtime to make sure everything was working right for Edsel Day. All the electrical stuff, I mean. I’m kind of a half-assed electrician. I guess he figured if there. was anything wrong I could fix it. So I put in four hours. Got done for the day here at four-thirty, drove home and had dinner with the wife and kids, and drove back. Punched in at six and punched out at ten. Everything was in good shape.”