A Cry of Shadows

by Ed Gorman

  And I knew I couldn't do it, be unfaithful. Donna and I had drifted apart lately, for reasons we either failed to understand or didn't wish to understand, but warm arms in the night would mean cold guilt in the morning. Donna was the only woman I'd ever been faithful to, and glum as I was about us, I didn't want to change that now.

  I kept watching for a car—a silver Subaru she'd said—but none came.

  Finally, a gorgeous woman bundled inside real mink trundled up and nudged me. Jackie looked up and smiled. "Feeling better?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Sober?"

  "Yup."

  "Good." She grinned her wan grin again. "Because I'm having second thoughts."

  "So am I."

  "I really did love him." There in the spilled light of the restaurant, light the color of gold touching filthy city snow, she began to cry.

  She leaned into me all perfume and alcohol vapors and kissed me wetly on the cheek. "You're really involved with somebody, aren't you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "I admire you. Most men would have just come up to my apartment."

  "Don't admire me too quickly. You don't know anything about me."

  She huddled into her mink. "Are you walking to the parking lot?"

  "Thought I would."

  She offered me her arm. "It's slippery and a lady needs an escort."

  We walked ten yards into the darkness—it was like being banished from Eden, the rich warm restaurant light receding, receding—and in the gloom I began seeing them, the ragged gray forms of the homeless staring at us, filthy faces and mad eyes.

  "Oh, God," whispered Jackie, shuddering and holding me closer. "They scare me." Then, "I know that's superficial and I should be more sympathetic but they scare me."

  Liberal guilt. I suffered from it, too. Despite all the public pronouncements to the contrary, there were probably some very sound reasons to fear certain homeless people. Many of them suffered terrible fits of depression and rage and disorientation—the gamut of mental illness—and consequently could become dangerous on occasion. Much as I felt sorry for them, I wasn't planning on taking any of them home with me for a meal.

  The parking lot was vast and snowbound. Two black youths in parkas ran around getting cars and wheeling them around to the front of the restaurant. We were being midwestern and getting our own.

  We found her car first. She got in, fired it up. Meanwhile, I took her scraper and cleared off her front and back windows. By now the cold was numbing. I didn't know how the homeless nearby stood it, or why they weren't in shelters.

  When I finished with the scraper, I tossed it on the backseat of her Subaru. As I leaned over, she kissed me gently on the mouth. It was a wonderful kiss and I really appreciated it.

  "I think we could have had a really nice time," she said. She was not in any way coy or teasing. Indeed there was regret in her voice now. "Nice warm bodies on a cold lonely night."

  "But we had to go and be mature about it all," I said.

  She dropped the Subaru in gear. "Yes," she said. "Isn't it the shits?"

  I stood back to let her fishtail her way out of the parking lot.

  I went down two rows and got the scraper off the seat of my Toyota and did the front and back windows and dropped into the driver's seat and closed the door and turned on the ignition and got some rock on the radio and went home, hoping all the time there would be a message from Donna waiting.

  But no red light on the answering machine shone in the darkness of my apartment and I sat by the frost-rimmed window for a long time watching the snowflakes fall past the streetlight on the corner and wondering what she was doing now and if she was alone and if she was thinking of me. Perhaps she wasn't alone and was thinking of me anyway. We're like that sometimes, we humans.

  Chapter 8

  Once Earle Tomkins had formally been charged with murder, they'd moved him over from city lockup to county jail, which is a place at Christmastime that could turn Mother Teresa to despair. I suppose it's all the little kids the Sheriff lets visit in the days before Christmas. A lot of them haven't seen their daddies for a while and so they go a little crazy there in the big gray room where you visit prisoners while chunky guards in starchy blue uniforms walk around in leather-creaking shoes and leather-creaking holsters bearing big silver Magnums. Most of the daddies run to the sort of forlorn criminals who still fill most of our prisons—the car thieves, the dealers in hot merchandise, the generally harmless breaking-and-entering types, the tavern brawlers who got unlucky and had an opponent slip and give himself a concussion. When you talk to them you realize that they have one thing in common—they're not very smart. They'll do ninety days to a year for their various offenses and then they'll get out and things will go all right for a few months and then they'll be back again, not any smarter at all. But there's a new type in there with them now, the dope people, and while they may not be any smarter, they're meaner. There was a time, even back when I was a cop and before Donna started working me over with her liberalism, when I thought that maybe the death penalty should be put away after all, that it served no real purpose. But the Eighties and street drugs brought me back around again. Either we kill them or they'll kill us.

  Of course, all the little kids crying and clinging to their daddies now knew nothing of this on that snowy gray morning as I waited for sight of Earle Tomkins. The little kids always asked the same thing, over and over—why can't you come home, Daddy, why can't you come home?—and if you're an onlooker, you have to look away or the eyes and voices of the little ones will crush you.

  Tomkins turned out to be exactly who I thought he might, the young man Coburn had yelled at for tracking mud across the dance floor. Unlike ninety-nine percent of the other prisoners, Tomkins looked as if he didn't belong here. Even in his red prisoner jumpsuit, he kept an air of dignity and purpose and intelligence. The guard led him over to the table in the far corner where I sat idly leafing through an issue of Time magazine so old Jimmy Carter was on the cover.

  He sat down and stared at me.

  "Do you remember me, Earle?"

  "Sort of."

  "I was at the restaurant a few days ago, sitting with Richard Coburn."

  "That's right," he said, remembering. Then he said, in a quiet voice, "I didn't kill him."

  I put my hand out. He took it and we shook.

  When I brought my hand back, I said, "I'm a private investigator."

  "You are?"

  "Yes."

  He had a clean-shaven face and good features by which, I suppose, I meant white features. Like it or not, we all use our own respective race as the measure of animal attractiveness.

  "Did you work full-time at the Avanti?"

  "No, I'm in junior college. I'm going to transfer to the university next year as soon as I finish this year." He looked flustered and embarrassed. "I mean, I was until all this came up." For the first time, I heard panic and bitterness in his voice. "I really didn't kill him."

  "You were mad at him?"

  He smiled. "Everybody was mad at him. All the time. I hope he wasn't a friend of yours—I mean, the man was a prick. No two ways about it."

  "So I gather."

  "Then he wasn't a friend of yours?"

  "Nope. I was working for him the same as you."

  Behind us, there was some hassle as a prisoner and his wife got into a shouting match. You see that a lot. Prisoners get to thinking they're the isolated ones, locked up here in this three-story fortress with bars on the windows. But their faithful wives, home with three scruffy kids and not enough money to make the rent or decent meals, are every bit as isolated. And so once in a while they come up here in their poor faded dresses with their poor faded children and their poor faded hopes and they can't take it anymore, they were girls just a few years ago and now somehow they're bitter old women even if by the calendar they're only twenty-two or -three, and if their husbands have even an inkling of this, they're too macho or too plain stupid to ever let on. So the women
yell sometimes; it's all they have left to them.

  When I turned back to Earle Tomkins, he said, suspicious now, "How come you're here?"

  "I want to find out who murdered Coburn."

  "You don't think I did?" Hope shone in his eyes. I had to dash it.

  "Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. That's what I want to find out."

  "But you haven't ruled out that I'm innocent?"

  I decided to give the kid some hope back. "I'd say there's at least a fifty-fifty chance you are innocent."

  He grinned and I thought of my own son. "No shit, Mr. Dwyer, you really believe that? That I could be innocent?"

  "I really believe that."

  "Would you do me a favor?"

  "If I can."

  "Call my mom and tell her that, would you? I'm the only son still at home, and my dad's dead, and she's alone and this really devastated her."

  "Give me the number."

  He did and I wrote it down in my open notebook, which lay on the table before me.

  I said, "According to the police reports I saw earlier this morning, you were seen running away from Coburn's car in the parking lot. A few seconds later several restaurant employees found Coburn dying."

  "Somebody was wearing my jacket and stocking cap."

  "Three of the employees made a positive identification."

  "Think about it, Mr. Dwyer."

  "You could always call me Jack. 'Mr.' always makes me feel like the kind of guy who forecloses mortgages on old ladies."

  He smiled. "Okay, Jack. But think about it. You see somebody in a bright red windbreaker with the collar turned all the way up and dark blue stocking cap pulled down over the face. That's all you really see—so it's pretty easy to imagine that it's me inside. But it could have been anybody, especially since it was night. Man or woman. Anybody."

  "How would somebody get your windbreaker?"

  "When I came up from the basement, where I usually stack liquor in the early evening, it was gone."

  "I thought you worked in the morning."

  "Three days a week, I work split shifts." He paused. "You write everything down?"

  "Just about. You can never tell when a piece of information will come in handy. That's a holdover from my days on the force, I guess."

  "You were a cop?"

  I looked at him. "Cops aren't in danger of being your favorite people, eh?"

  "I wouldn't go that far."

  "Well, believe it or not, most cops are decent guys." I'd resented his tone more than I'd realized.

  "Not in my neighborhood."

  I shrugged. "You know what, Earle? Maybe we better not talk about cops."

  He shook his head, turning back grimly to his own problem. "I didn't kill him."

  "I hope you're telling the truth, Earle." I smiled. "If you are, and we can prove it, your mother's going to have a damn nice Christmas."

  "I think it was that Daily woman."

  "What Daily woman?"

  "The woman who runs the homeless shelter—you know, St. Mark's—a few blocks from the restaurant."

  "Why would she kill him?"

  "I don't know why, Jack, but I sure know they had a lot of arguments."

  "How do you know that?" I was scribbling in my notebook again.

  "I told you I stack liquor at night?"

  "Right?"

  "Well, right over the storage area was where Coburn had his office. Anton's office is further down the hall. Anyway, sometimes they'd get to arguing so loud I couldn't help but hear. They were right above me."

  "And you don't know what they were arguing about?"

  "Not exactly. Something about the shelter. But I'm not sure what."

  "How many times did you hear them arguing?"

  "Uh, I don't know. Maybe a dozen or so."

  "Over how long a span of time?"

  He thought it over. "Couple months, maybe."

  "When was the last time they argued?"

  "Week or so before he was killed."

  "You're positive?"

  "Positive."

  "And you're also sure it was this Daily woman?"

  "Absolutely. After I heard them arguing a couple of times, I got curious about who it was so I went upstairs and kind of hung out near his office so I could get a look at her. It was her, all right."

  "And you don't have any idea why a woman from the homeless shelter would be arguing with a man like Coburn?"

  "Not unless it had something to do with those old dudes who're always bothering our customers."

  "A lot of problems?"

  "A lot."

  "Did Coburn ever say anything to you about the homeless who stayed around the restaurant entrance?"

  "He said something to everybody. He used to get so pissed his face would get red."

  "Maybe that's what Coburn and Daily were arguing about." I wanted him to give me his initial, visceral impression of what had been going on.

  But apparently he was finished. "Maybe."

  I closed my notebook. "Would your mother be at home now?"

  "Not till tonight. She wraps packages down at Barrengers." Barrengers was a department store.

  I stood up and shook his hand again. "I'll call her tonight, Earle."

  "I really appreciate this, Jack."

  Seeing me on my feet, the guard came over.

  "I sure hope you find something out, Jack," Earle said to me as I was leaving. "I sure hope you do."

  Chapter 9

  On the way over to the homeless shelter, the sun came out yellow against a blue sky. Despite the fifteen-below temperature, it was like a preview of spring and along the old yet well-kept houses of Third Avenue, some of which still had livery stables in their backyards, you could see people smiling a little more often than they did on gray days. Tots in bulky snowsuits and pretty young mothers in the latest variations on greatcoats and stocking caps ambled along the sidewalk, glimpsing themselves in the trendy windows of the boutiques.

  I had to pass the Avanti to reach St. Mark's. In the restaurant parking lot, I saw Tom Anton get out of a new green XKE. Without quite knowing why, I pulled my Toyota into the slick lot and parked behind him.

  By the time I climbed out of my car, he had disappeared into a side door. He hadn't seen me.

  I was about to turn back when I saw Anton's daughter, Mignon, suddenly sit up in the seat. She had been bent over, not as if hiding, but occupied with something on the floor.

  I went over to her and knocked on the window.

  "Hello, Mr. Dwyer."

  "I'm impressed. We weren't even introduced the other night."

  "Oh, but I remember my father telling me about you."

  I laughed. "I can imagine how that went."

  She smiled softly. In the morning light, she looked both younger and older than her years, the bones of her face more delicate, the dark eyes more grave. In her blue ski jacket and startling white blouse, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, she was still out of Edgar Allan Poe via the country club. "I don't always agree with my father."

  "You don't, eh?"

  "No. He told me you were a very angry man and I should avoid you."

  "And what did you say?"

  "I said you didn't look angry to me. Just kind of sad."

  "I see."

  Her eyes scanned my face. "I embarrassed you, didn't I?"

  Here I'd been standing in a snow-white parking lot letting the yellow sun warm me and feeling like a lazy uncomplicated animal, and then she went and made it midnight and very adult.

  "I'm sorry I embarrassed you. You were really blushing."

  "That's all right. I just didn't expect to talk about sadness on such a beautiful morning."

  "I'm sad, too, Mr. Dwyer. When I saw you the other night, I sensed right away that you and I were very much alike."

  "Now why would a beautiful young girl like yourself be sad?"

  She shook her head. It was one of those gestures that made her look young—ponytail flying—as others made her lo
ok old. I tried not to notice the sensual fullness of her mouth.

  Instead of answering me seriously, however, she kidded me. "Well, for one thing, even beautiful young girls have trouble getting their boots on."

  "Boots?"

  She opened the door. The XKE had a lovely smell of new and genuine car leather.

  She had one mid-calf cowboy boot on. The mate sat on the floor. "I can't seem to get it on. It's unusually tough but not this tough. That's why I just wore some Capezios this morning when we left the house. I thought I'd pull this on while I was waiting for Tom."

  "Tom?"

  "I'm very sophisticated, Mr. Dwyer. I call my father Tom. He actually seems to like that. The other girls envy me. Their fathers are very old-fashioned." She was a kid again, nattering. Then, "Would you help me?"

  "If I can."

  "If I put my leg out the door, will you try and tug the boot on?"

  "Actually, I used to moonlight selling shoes back when I just got out of police school."

  "Tom said you used to be a policeman."

  "Tom seems to have taken an interest in me."

  For the first time, I sensed evasion in her. "It's just Richard's—death. Tom's usually very nice about things. But Richard's death upset him." She kept her eyes on the side door in the brick wall of the restaurant, as if her father might come charging out of there at any moment. "He couldn't sleep last night."

  "Oh?"

  "But then, I couldn't either. We were both thinking about Richard. Richard always got his way; he's certainly not somebody you could forget easily." I tried to understand her tone. There was a curious deadness in it. She was relating emotions, not feeling them.

  "What do you mean Richard always got his way?"

  She shrugged. "With Tom. With his wife. With everybody, really." She thought a moment. "He—pushed. Everybody and everything."

  "You didn't like him?"

  "I—felt sorry for him sometimes."

  "Is that anything close to liking him?"

  She shrugged. "He was like us, I guess, Mr. Dwyer."

  "Us?"

  "You and I."