Sam McCain - 02 - Wake Up Little Susie

by Ed Gorman

  I opened the back door and peeked in.

  Judge Whitney handed me a drink of some kind.

  “Get in.”

  I got in. Jeeves swept us away. The Lincoln was so cushy it was like floating.

  Beethoven was low on the radio. There was a heavy window between front and backseats. The

  Judge was dressed in a black suede car coat and slacks. Between us on the plump seat was a large thermos of whatever we were drinking.

  She said, as we sailed along, “I’ve done something nice for you.”

  “Thank you. It actually tastes pretty good.

  For alcohol.”

  “It’s called a Manhattan and that isn’t what I had reference to.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was referring to David Squires.”

  “Some dirt?”

  “A lot of dirt. He was broke.”

  “You’re kidding. What happened to that inheritance of his?”

  “Squandered on every kind of cockamamie idea you can think of. He had this business manager—an old family friend—in Chicago. The fellow basically figured out a way to embezzle a lot of money.”

  “When did Squires find this out?”

  “A couple of years ago. As he was a member of a prestigious family, the local bankers kept everything quiet. He was deeply in debt. The bank was almost ready to foreclose on his estate.”

  “I take it you’re getting this from a banker?”

  “Of course.”

  “Nice to know they keep their secrets.”

  She clucked, something she rarely does. She curses, she rolls her eyes, she shakes her head, but she rarely clucks. “Secrets are confided upward, McCain. Since my family is more prominent than the Squires family, I have a right to know.”

  “I believe the English called it the Divine Right of Kings.”

  “You’re perfectly happy being uncivilized, aren’t you?”

  “Downright delirious. Just give me a good Three Stooges movie and a box of popcorn and I’m in heaven.”

  She took a healthy swallow of her drink.

  “I just gave you some important information. Now do something with it.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “You’re the investigator, McCain, not me.”

  “So you think his being broke had something to do with his murder?”

  “Don’t you?”

  And with that, she got me. Her rubber band. Right on my little Irish nose.

  “Don’t people give you funny looks when they see you carrying rubber bands around?” I asked.

  “People never give me funny looks. They wouldn’t dare.”

  “I guess that’s a good point.”

  This time, I ducked.

  She lifted her phone. I heard it ring up front. Jeeves picked up. She said,

  “Take him back to his car” and hung up.

  “Cliffie could always get lucky, you know,” she said. “You’ve got to wrap this up.”

  I stared out the window at my little town. It looked so cozy with night here, the lights on in all the friendly windows, the gray images of Tv flashing through the air, so many contented people in those living rooms, old couples and middle-aged couples and young couples, babies waddling around in industrial-strength diapers and older brothers on the telephone nervously trying to impress the girl they just called. I loved the whole history of the town, way back to when the French explorers tried to take advantage of the Indians hereabouts, only to learn that the Indians were slyly taking advantage of them. I started thinking about Mary again, and I got scared. Two people were dead. Whoever had killed them probably wouldn’t mind killing a third.

  When we pulled up next to my Ford, the Judge said, “Time to get to work, McCain.

  Serious work.”

  Fifteen

  When she opened the door I handed her the plastic bag.

  “What’s this?”

  “What you left behind Friday night.”

  “It’s a little late for games, McCain.

  Plus which, I’m in a rotten mood. I’m out of Chablis and my monthly visitor just dropped in tonight.”

  Somebody somewhere has probably compiled a list of all the synonyms for menstruation. Amy Squires was sticking with the most common one.

  “So do I get invited inside?”

  She smiled with that big ripe mouth of hers.

  “I only have two kinds of gentlemen callers.

  Those who bring me booze and those I

  want to sleep with. You don’t have any booze and you look like you’re about fifteen.”

  She knew how to stroke a guy’s ego.

  “So we just stand here?”

  “So we just stand here.”

  She wore a black blouse and jeans. Bare feet. She looked sexy in the same sleepy, voluptuous way she usually did. Probably not a great wife but a hell of a mistress. She rattled ice cubes in her glass.

  “I thought you were out of Chablis.”

  “Chablis, yes. I didn’t say anything about Scotch.”

  “Ah.”

  “You and your ahs. And just what the hell is this anyway?” She held up the plastic bag I’d handed her.

  “You broke out a taillight Friday night at Keys’s around nine-thirty, when you were trying to get away.”

  You always hope they’ll break down in tears and confess, the way they do on those Tv courtroom dramas. She got defiant. “You prick.”

  “You hated her and were jealous of her and you killed her.”

  “I’d think it’d be the other way around.”

  “What?”

  “First, I’d be jealous of her and then I’d hate her and then I’d kill her.”

  “Thanks for the English lesson.”

  “I didn’t kill her, McCain.”

  “Then can you explain what you were doing there?”

  She sucked some ice into her mouth and talked around it.

  “Maybe I need a lawyer.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “Too bad David is dead. I could’ve

  called him.”

  “I can see you’re terribly bereaved.”

  “The bastard dumped me. Why should I be bereaved?”

  I guess she had a point, though with two children between them, I’d think she’d want to put on a show for the girls.

  “But you admit you went to Keys’s?”

  “Sure I admit it.”

  “Why?”

  “To tell that bitch to have David pay me the alimony he owes me. Nearly five thousand dollars now. I’m supposed to go

  to Mexico on vacation next month. I need the money. He’s also behind in child support. I never wanted kids anyway. We were young. I wanted to have fun. But he was always thinking of his political career. Election Pr photographs. You know, the candidate with his two darling little daughters?

  We’re both shitty parents. Neither of us actually wanted the girls. To be perfectly honest, I mean.”

  A house of love. The way kids pick up on things, I’m sure they’d long ago sensed the attitude she was describing.

  “She was alive when you got there?”

  “V. She was hanging balloons in the showroom.”

  “And you had words?”

  “She played the na@if as always. I guess men find that attractive. “Behind in his payments?

  My David? I don’t see how that could be.”

  That sort of bullshit. I started screaming at her.”

  “Did you strike her?”

  “No.”

  “How did it end?”

  “I just stormed out. That’s one of the things I do well, storm out. I’m told there are a couple of other things I do well too.”

  “Want me to guess what they are?”

  “I just wish you didn’t look so damned young, McCain. I’d get arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

  “You make them show Id’s at the door?”

  She smiled that slow, sexy smile. “There are different kinds of Id,
kiddo. If you catch my drift.”

  I wondered if she kept a photo of Mae West in her wallet.

  “He was broke.”

  This seemed to surprise her. “Nobody was supposed to know that. The bank was floating him for a while.”

  “When was the last time you talked to him?”

  “A few days ago. And I didn’t talk.

  I screamed.”

  “The money?”

  “Of course. I’m over him by now. All I want—want-.ed—f him was good old Yankee greenbacks.”

  “Be sure and mention that in your eulogy.”

  She laughed. She had a big bawdy

  laugh. I liked it. A Rubens body and a Rabelaisian laugh.

  “I’ll have to tell Cliffie about this.”

  “About me being at the dealership?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I won’t be alone with that creep.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? He was out here the other day and copped about a hundred and fifty cheap feels off me while he was “questioning” me. God, imagine if I’d actually cared that the little bitch was dead, and here’s some retard feeling me up. It was like being back in ninth grade. I was the first girl who had breasts and all the boys zoomed in on me.”

  Behind her, I saw a sleepy little girl in pajamas come into the living room, rubbing her eyes. “Mommy, I had another accident.”

  She leaned close and said, “Wets her bed all the time.”

  To her daughter: “Get in your sister’s bed, then, till I’m done talking with the man here.”

  “But I’m wet too, Mommy. Cindy

  won’t want me in her bed if I’m wet.”

  Again the whisper to me: “See what I mean about having kids? It’s always something.”

  A few moments later, I was back in my ragtop.

  I took the ten-mile blacktop back

  to town. Two-lane. Less than a year old.

  Smooth and wrinkle-free. Just made for an Indian summer night and a car like mine. Elvis way way up singing “Mystery Train” and me with a fresh Lucky in my mouth and a sudden crazed optimism about Mary. We .were going to find her and she .was going to be all right and-I saw her in the rearview.

  She first appeared as headlights. Coming fast.

  She was still some distance behind me, so I didn’t think about it much. Lots of cars went fast. The Lord and the county supervisors had blessed us with our own drag strip—perfectly flat, a

  moon-silvered river running along one side, shaggy pines on the other—one of the few safe places to drag in the entire state.

  Then she was less than three car lengths in back of me. Not slowing at all.

  The Ford propeller-style grille. Her beautifully shaped head framed inside the driver’s half of the window. Blond

  hair, black scarf, and dark Audrey

  Hepburn shades. Even at night.

  All I could do was floor it. Otherwise the mystery woman would run right into me.

  Then she stunned me.

  She pulled out around me going eighty or eighty-five miles an hour. And man it was scary and exhilarating and wonderful and terrible all at once.

  Member of the bar.

  Responsible investigator for Judge Esme Anne Whitney.

  Sober counselor to indigent Negroes and Indians and migrant Mexican field hands.

  Former altar boy. Eagle Scout, for

  God’s sake.

  My future all ahead of me.

  But right now, I didn’t give a damn. I was on some kind of autopilot. Badass.

  Black leather jacket and motorcycle boots.

  Brando Dean Bogart all rolled into one.

  When she pulled up alongside me and stared at me with those dark dark shades, I found myself losing control. Some force pressed my foot to the gas pedal, brought out my best Robert Ryan grin, made me resolve to give the mystery lady the run of her life.

  We raced.

  I could smell wind and river and hot car oil.

  I could see an empty black slab of road and bouncing headlight patterns and diamondlike eyes of cats and raccoons hiding in the grass on the piney side of the strip.

  I could hear wind and motor rev and dual exhausts and rush and roar of speed speed speed.

  We wouldn’t make a decent can of dog food if we crashed now. She looked straight ahead.

  Both hands on the wheel. Roaring into the night.

  Pulling ahead. Eighth of a car length.

  Quarter of a car length. She was going to leave me behind.

  I was standing on the sonofabitch. I was yelling at the sonofabitch. I was foaming and frothing at the sonofabitch. Faster faster.

  Crazy was what I was.

  I regained some of my momentum. My hood pulled even with her rear fender. Then my hood was even with her passenger door.

  I raised my ass from my seat, pushing myself against the wheel, hoping that this position would

  somehow add to the velocity.

  I pulled up to her front fender.

  Wind taste. My Lucky butt so tiny it was burning my lips. I spat it out, the flame exploding into a million minor meteorites, burning my cheek and hair. Not that I cared. I just kept pushing, willing.

  For the first time, she looked over at me. And then she somehow put even more power into her car.

  And then I saw her. Not the mystery woman but the woman running down the piney hill to the blacktop.

  She came up out of the small gully, looking crazed. She was waving her arms. Her face was smudgy with dirt and what appeared to be blood.

  Her blouse had been ripped so you could see her white bra and the blood smeared on her shoulder and chest. Her jeans were ripped out at the knees.

  She looked like an animal who has just survived a cruel ordeal.

  The funny thing was, I didn’t recognize her at first. I had to cut back my speed so I wouldn’t run over her if she suddenly lunged onto the blacktop. That took most of my attention. The black Ford raced on ahead me, a shadow among shadows, vanishing.

  My Ford bucked, swerved, screeched, whined, and bucked some more before I could fight it to a stop on the wrong side of the road. By now, the woman’s image had finally registered. Mary! It was Mary!

  I jumped out of the car and ran back to where she’d been.

  But she wasn’t there any longer.

  I was alone on the blacktop. Prairie moon. Bay of coyote. Distant odor of skunk. Alone.

  I ran up and down the shoulder, frantically calling her name. My legs wanted me to sit down. Bringing the ragtop from 100 mph to zero so quickly hadn’t been good for me or the car.

  I ran way past where she’d been. No sign of her.

  I looked up at the pines. Had she gone back into the forest? This particular patch went on for miles. Finding her, if she had set her mind on hiding, would be impossible.

  Something moved on the edge of my vision, something to the right. But when I turned to look all I saw, about three hundred feet away,

  was a large culvert. I could hear water trickling from it. There’d been a lot of rain recently.

  She peeked out again. That’s what I’d seen moments ago. She might have been a frightened deer, scared of the nearby human, uncertain of his motives.

  She saw me. Our eyes met for a second.

  She still looked wild, bestial. And then she retreated back inside the culvert. I imagined her racing through the culvert and out the other side to the riverbank.

  I had to grab her quickly.

  I hurried down the gully, through the knee-high grasses, to the culvert itself. The interior smell was terrible. Rancid water, weeds, animal feces.

  She crouched in the center. I could barely see her.

  “I want to help you, Mary. Please don’t run away.”

  It really .was like talking to a frightened animal.

  I was afraid she’d bolt at any moment.

  “Please, Mary.”

  I started into the culvert on hands and knees.

  I could feel the
sodden waste soak my trousers and coat my palms. I moved inch by inch.

  She starting moving too. Every time I moved, she moved. Back.

  “Mary. You need help.”

  Our game continued. I’d move forward; she’d move backward. The stench kept getting worse.

  She made her move without any warning whatsoever. She had room to turn around, and turn around she did. And immediately started scrambling from the culvert.

  She was gone before I could get moving. When I crawled out to the riverbank, I saw her stumbling away far downstream. After the darkness of the culvert, the stars seemed especially low and bright and numerous. Dark water gently lapped the bank.

  I ran after her. She helped me by looking over her shoulder every few yards and by stumbling several times.

  The river’s edge was sand and hard mud. On a warm night like this, you’d usually find a fisherman or two. The rutted mud explained her stumbling. I stumbled a few times myself.

  And then I closed on her. By this time,

  we were both out of breath and had slowed down measurably. I came dragging up behind her and took her shoulder and pulled her to a stop.

  She screamed.

  I pulled her to me and clamped my hand over her mouth.

  She started kicking me in the shins. It hurt like hell.

  “Mary, what’s wrong with you?” I said. “It’s me, McCain. McCain, Mary.”

  Then I saw something awful. Something impossible. Those eyes of hers. There was no recognition in them.

  Exhausted, she’d quit kicking me. Quit wrestling inside my grasp. I let go of her, took my hand from her mouth.

  “Mary,” I said, “don’t you know who I am?”

  She looked at me with the frank,

  uncomprehending gaze of a child. In a very quiet voice, no melodrama whatsoever, she said, “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  Part Iii

  Sixteen

  “You’re saying she has amnesia?” Miriam Travers said.

  Dr. Watkins pawed at his jowly face.

  He still wore a black rinse on his once-gray hair and still filled his showerhead with aftershave lotion.