by Ed Gorman
Who were they dating? were they as lonely as the songs they sang? Would they ever consider dating a girl from a place like, say, Black River Falls, Iowa? What was their favorite color? What was their favorite dessert? Did they want to have kids of their own someday? Had they ever met James Dean? were they ever going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show?
Bandstand hadn’t been on the air long but it had gripped the teenage imagination like a scandal.
Small-town kids got to see how big-city Philadelphia kids dressed and danced. They became celebrities in their own right, the kids who danced on the show every afternoon. Justine and Benny and Arlene and Carmen and Pat and Bob were just some of the more prominent names. And the girls at home liked to match them up. Decide who should go out with whom. It was a kind of soap opera, because one day Bob and Michelle would be a couple and the next day here was Michelle, that slattern, in the slow spotlight dance practically dry-humping Biff right on camera.
Every once in a while it was all right to miss mass on Sunday (as long as your folks didn’t find out), but you could never (repeat) never miss American Bandstand.
The Great White Fisherman was just coming in from the back porch as I reached the kitchen. Dad had taken a week’s vacation to spend every afternoon up on a leg of the Iowa River with his rod and reel. This afternoon, still in his waders, his fishing hat jangling with a variety of hooks and lures, he stood in the back porch doorway and held out two pretty pathetic walleyes to my mom. “Here you go, hon, we freeze these for dinner Saturday night.”
Mom winked at me and said, “Your dad must be going on a diet if this is all he’s going to eat.”
“I’m surrounded by wiseasses,” Dad said, in his best Job-like voice. Then he grinned and said, “And I love it.”
Different types of men came back from the big war. There were the sad ones, often mentally disturbed, who spent their time in mental hospitals or seeing psychologists. There were the thrill seekers, who kept trying to duplicate, usually in illegal ways, the excitement that danger had given them. There were the petulant ones, who felt that Uncle Sam should forever be in their debt for what they’d done for the Stars and Stripes.
And then there were the men like Dad-the majority-who were just happy to be alive and exultant about being back in the arms of their loved ones. Sure, Dad had almost been killed, and sure, he’d seen a lot of terrible things happen, but most of the time he just thanked the Lord he’d gotten home safely.
He got us a couple of Falstaffs from the refrigerator and plunked them down on the kitchen table, a little quick-moving guy like me. He sat down and said, “Those Ford boys should be shot.”
“The Edsel?” I said.
“Damned right the Edsel.”
“It’s all he can talk about,” Mom said.
“He hates it almost as much as he hates Nixon.”
“Don’t get me started on Nixon.”
“And here I was gonna buy you a pink-and-puce one,” I said.
He laughed at me. “Give it to Liberace.
He’d probably go for it.”
“Now there’s nothing wrong with Liberace,”
Mom said from the sink, where she was putting the dishes in the dishwasher.
Dad had eventually gotten a good job after a spate of low-paying ones, so Mom now not only had the status symbol of the new tract house, she also had the status symbol of the new dishwasher. She was cute about it. She’d have a guest in and instead of seating them in the living room she’d lead them directly to the kitchen and say, “This is our new dishwasher.” I told her she should dress up like a tour guide and sell tickets.
“Liberace’s a cultured man,” Mom said now.
“That’s what you call him, huh? Cultured?”
Dad sighed. “Aw, hell, I don’t mean to make fun of him. I feel sorry for him. You know, how people pick on him and all. He just makes me nervous. I can’t help it.”
That’s a trait I inherited from Dad: feeling sorry for so many people. I guess because Dad was always so little and poor and awkward around people, he identifies with outsiders. I felt the same way about Liberace. I couldn’t sit down and watch him-he drove me nuts-but I didn’t like people making fun of him either.
“Don’t forget it’s a Tv night, sweetheart,” Dad said to Mom.
Mom laughed. “You and Tv night.”
And it. was kind of funny. Bishop Sheen was always warning about how the family Tv set was actually pulling the family apart. Instead of eating dinner at the table the way they used to, families now sat in front of their Tv sets and ate. So Dad had made a deal with Mom.
Two nights a week he got to eat in the living room and watch Douglas Edwards with the News on Cbs. He got to use the Tv tray he’d bought for himself and he got to eat a Swanson Tv Dinner. Personally, I thought Tv dinners tasted like cardboard a dog had left damp. But Dad was never so happy as when he was in his Tv mode.
“Oh, Lord, I forgot,” Mom said. She smiled at me. “I was going to make him a pot roast stewed in vegetables and potatoes. But he’d rather have a Tv dinner. If you can believe that.”
“Why don’t we have the pot roast tomorrow night?”
Dad said.
“All right,” Mom said, “if you’ll take me to that new Debbie Reynolds picture this weekend.”
“You got yourself a deal,” Dad said. Then, to me: “The one I’d be lookin’ into is that young doctor she worked for.”
“Todd Jensen?”
“Yeah. I was fishing out at the park one day and I saw the two of them arguing. I couldn’t hear them but I saw him push her.”
“When was this?”
“Three weeks ago or so.”
Dad never kibitzes on legal stuff but he has no hesitation about kibitzing on matters of investigation. It was from him that I got my habit of reading Gold Medal original paperbacks.
The way he figures it, he’s read enough whodunits to qualify as a detective himself.
He shook his head. “Life is like that sometimes, though.”
“Come again?”
“You know. Couples. She’s going with this doc and everything seems to be fine and then all of a sudden she starts running around on the side with Squires. I don’t know any of them personally, but she sure looked to be better off with that doc. The way Squires treats the little people, he’s a hard one to stomach.”
The little people. That’s what he always called the working class. And that was how he always saw himself. Because I’m an attorney, I get invited to some of the more high-toned events around town. I invite my family whenever possible. Most of the time they don’t go-they always have a graceful excuse-but when they do I see how deep their sense of inferiority runs. Mom with her J. C.
Penney dress and sweet goofy flowered hat and Dad with his blue suit from Sears looking ill-at-ease with all the local gods, the mayor and his cronies and the country club crowd.
I guess that’s why I like John O’Hara.
He’s one of the few American writers to understand our caste system in Iowa. It’s heartbreaking to see how uncomfortable Mom and Dad are around people they consider their betters.
I took out my Captain Video notebook and wrote in a line about Todd Jensen shoving Susan Squires.
“That’s some notebook,” Mom said, laughing.
“Aren’t you a little old for it?”
“Got a deal on a bunch of them.”
“Long as it’s not Mickey Mouse, you’ll be Ok,” Dad said.
Ruthie came in and took two bottles of Pepsi from the refrigerator. “Gee, I wish Bandstand was on for three hours,” she said dreamily, and floated out.
“Hurry up!” Debbie called from the living room. “The spotlight dance is on!”
I probably should have laughed about this in a superior older-brother way, but the truth was, the more I was out in the world, the better my high school days looked to me. I hadn’t been especially popular but I had my ‘ch Ford and my collection of science-fiction magazines with Ray Bradbur
y stories in them. And I had that greatest luxury of all, time to call my own. I could hang around garages and watch mechanics work on cars; I could take in a double feature, a Randolph Scott and a Robert Ryan if I were lucky; and I could sit in a booth at Rexall’s and feast on a burger and fries while I read all the magazines I didn’t plan on buying. When they make you grow up-or at least make you pretend to grow up-all that changes. Take my word for it.
“Kids today,” Dad said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Kids today.”
“That Dick Clark is a con man if
I’ve ever seen one.”
My dad has a bullshit meter that is impeccable. I’d been thinking the same thing myself about Clark. Alan Freed goes to prison and his life is destroyed for a pittance in payola money. But somehow Clark remains untainted by the whole thing. It didn’t make a lot of sense.
Mom said, “He looks like a very decent man to me. I was reading about him in Tv Guide and they said he’s a real family man.”
That was all my mom needed to hear.
I spent another half hour at my parents’ house. Mom cut me a big slice of pineapple upside-down cake, and while Ruthie was in the bathroom Debbie peeked her head in the kitchen and asked who I thought was a better singer, Tab Hunter or Sal Mineo, and then Dad said he was going to take a nap, and Mom joked that he’d need all his strength to chew through that Tv dinner, and then I gave them both a kiss and left. I give Dad a kiss because I like to see him blush.
Family members.
Those are generally your first suspects in a homicide.
I learned that in my criminology courses, and it’s stood me in good stead as an investigator.
Family members frequently kill other family members, as the guys who wrote the Bible will tell you.
I’d already questioned David Squires, sort of, so now I needed to question his ex-wife, Amy.
I called and she told me to come out only if I brought her a bottle of Chablis. She was having a small dinner party tonight and didn’t feel like running into town and standing in line at the state liquor store.
I guess we’re lucky. Some states are still dry. Iowa at least has liquor stores. Every time you buy a bottle of booze, they write your purchase down in a book. This serves two purposes: it allows the state to keep track of how much you’re drinking, and it forces you to face your alcohol problem, if you’ve got one. Cotton Mather, I think, came up with this particular system.
The liquor store is usually busy, especially when a holiday’s coming up.
I got the Chablis in record time and drove out to the east edge of town.
You had to give Squires credit. He’d dumped his ex-wife, true, but he left her in good financial shape. The house was a split-level, a part stone, part wood, Southern California-style place with large stretches of sunlight-sparkling windows. Hard to sit around the living room in your underwear in this house, with or without your frosty can of Falstaff for company.
There were two cars in the sweeping driveway, a little red brand-new T-Bird and a dowdy green Chevrolet sedan.
The chimes were lengthy and pretentious, sounding vaguely like Gershwin. Bob Gershwin.
Amy’d put on a few pounds since I’d seen her last but they were not at all unbecoming.
She’d been three years ahead of me in school.
She’d always been beautiful, stylish. She had the sensuous mouth, the erotic overbite, the perfect classical nose, the brown-alm-ebon eyes that could be merry and sad at the same time. If her body was slightly overmuch, it was slightly overmuch in all the right ways. Dressed in a man’s white shirt worn outside and a pair of jeans, she displayed two surprisingly small and very naked feet. She looked like the heroine of every Harry Whittington Adults Only paperback I’d ever read.
“Thanks,” she said, and plucked the brown paper bag from my grasp. “You want some coffee?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
As she led me through an impeccably modern and impeccably impersonal house, she said, “God, I think it’s great.”
“What’s great?”
“That you think I killed that bitch.”
“Yeah, there’s nothing more fun than being accused of murder.”
“Where that bitch is concerned, it’s an honor.”
We sat in a tiled kitchen, open and sunny, right out of a magazine. A huge island, shiny pots and pans suspended from above. White appliances-vast upright refrigerator-freezer, even vaster stove-andthe pleasant scent of floor wax.
The coffee was made. We sat in the breakfast nook.
“How’s the coffee?”
“Good.”
“You don’t have to lie, McCain. I know I make terrible coffee.”
“Ok, it stinks.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m sorry but it does.”
“You want some sugar?”
“No, thanks. I’ll just kind of sip at it.”
“He always bitched about that too.”
“Squires?”
“Uh-huh. Said I couldn’t cook, said I weighed too much, and said I always made a fool of myself after two drinks.”
“Sounds like a pretty good marriage to me.”
“She was a conniver.”
“That wasn’t my impression.”
“She took my husband, didn’t she?”
“From the way you described your marriage, maybe he just handed himself over.”
She sipped her coffee from a mug with a Republican Party cartoon elephant on it.
“Maybe it’s just because I’m used to it. But I think this stuff tastes pretty good.”
I looked at her. “Happen to remember where you were Friday night between eight and twelve?”
She cackled. “God, you’re serious, aren’t you, McCain?”
“I’m afraid I am.”
“I was right here. With my two little daughters, who never see their father because that bitch wouldn’t let him come over here.”
“How old’re your daughters?”
“Nine and six.”
“You talk to anybody on the phone?”
She thought a moment. “No.”
“Anybody drop by?”
“No.” Then: “I didn’t kill her,
McCain. Besides, they found her in a car trunk, right?”
“Right.”
“I couldn’t lift a person and throw her in a car trunk.”
“She probably didn’t weigh a hundred pounds.”
“Oh, I see. I’m such a moose I could’ve done it, huh?”
“Just about anybody could’ve done it, Amy.”
“You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I was the one who got her on the cheerleading squad. I mean, she was nobody. And I just thought it’d be neat if I, you know, sort of extended my hand. I was the captain of the squad so I figured I should set the example. The other girls didn’t want her. They called her “Jane” because she was always reading those Jane Austen novels. My mom said Jane Austen was a lesbian.”
“Well, if anybody would know about Jane Austen’s sex life, it’d be your mom.”
“But I felt sorry for her. So I insisted.
And seven years later, she steals my husband.
Small world, huh?”
I tried the coffee again.
“Any better?”
“I’d just as soon keep my opinion to myself.”
Then: “People tell me you got into it with her in public a few times.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t any big deal.
I’d had a couple of drinks a couple of times.
I mean she did after all steal my husband.
Thanks to her my two little girls have no father.”
“He left you pretty well provided for.”
“Guilt. You run off with some little flat-chested Jane Austen type, the only way you can live with yourself is to lavish a lot of money on your ex and your daughters.”
I waited a beat and then said,
“He ever hit you?”
She waited several beats. “How’d you find out about that? That was one of the things I agreed to keep quiet about. In return for the house and the cars and everything.”
“So he did hit you?”
“He wants to be governor, you know.”
“So I hear.”
“But first he needs to be state attorney general. The party fathers in Des Moines think he needs to be known better statewide before shooting for governor. So he’ll run for Ag first.”
“And it’d look bad if the Ag was an accused wife beater?”
She nodded. “The funny thing is, it was kind of sexy when it started out. I mean, he’d rough me up when we were making love, and at first I didn’t mind it. He didn’t really hurt me.
Then he started losing interest in the sex and went right to the hitting. He knew just where to do it so it didn’t show.”
“He ever get carried away?”
“You mean like lose control?”
“Yeah.”
“Once. Gave me a black eye and a split lip. I was really scared. I was going to talk to a shrink in Iowa City about it, but he begged me not to. Promised he’d never do it again. Right after that, he started seeing the slut-”my calculation, anyway.”
“You ever hear about him hitting Susan?”
“No.” She smiled impishly. “But I would’ve been happy to do it for him.”
I looked at my Timex and I thought about whipping out my notebook. But then I decided Amy wasn’t the sort of person you gave an edge to. She’d be gossiping about Captain Video for weeks. “I guess that’s about it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“You know the crazy part?”
“What?”
“To make him jealous I started sleeping with a lot of his lawyer friends from Iowa City. And I made sure the word got back to him.”
“And?”
She looked suddenly miserable, giving me a glimpse of the hard but fake exterior she’d constructed for herself. “I still love him, McCain.”
“I’m sorry, Amy.”
“This’ll be our fourth Christmas without him.”
She walked me to the front door. “I saw you at Rexall’s the other day. Talking to Mary.
When’re you going to come to your senses and marry that girl?”