by Ed Gorman
I was a couple of miles out of town—racing along under several Air Force jets whose direction indicated that they’d probably come from Norfolk, Nebraska, where there was a base, which I was personally thankful for, given the fact that I just assumed someday Mother Russia would drop the atomic bomb—when the word came on the radio news.
Plane crash. Buddy Holly. Richie Valens. Big Bopper. Taking off from the town where we’d seen them at the Surf Ballroom last night. It’s odd how we are about celebrities. We invent them to suit ourselves and they stay that way until the press gives us a good reason to think otherwise. I liked Buddy Holly because he was kind of gawky and I liked Richie Valens because he was Mexican. They didn’t fit in and I’ve never fit in either. So they were more than really great rock and rollers. They were guys I identified with. I was tired and then I was sad for two guys I’d never really known, and I thought of how my aunt had been that day in 1944 when she learned that my uncle had been killed in Italy, her just sitting at my folks’ kitchen table with a bottle of Pabst and a pack of Chesterfields and the Andrews Sisters on the record player in the living room, a woman who never drank or smoked, just sitting there and staring out the warm open April window, staring and saying nothing, nothing at all even when the day cooled and became dusk, even when the dusk darkened and became night, saying nothing at all.
3
SIX YEARS AGO, KENNY Whitney had married one of the most beautiful girls in the valley, and set her up inside the huge Tudor-style home he’d built for her, and expected her to stay happy while he went right on with his single style of life. Lots of whiskey. Lots of poker. Lots of fights. Lots of girls.
The house was eight miles southeast of town. Some of the rural mailboxes still wore their Christmas decorations. The cows in the barnyards exhaled steamy breath that joined with the vapor that rose from their cow pies. The chimneys of the farmhouses all had snakes of gray smoke uncoiling into the blue sky, and here and there yellow school buses were picking up shivering little kids hugging books and lunch pails. My own personal pride and joy had been a Roy Rogers lunch pail, with Roy’s arm slung around Trigger’s neck and a six-gun dangling from his fingers. That was until Hopalong Cassidy appeared on the TV screen in 1948. Kids are fickle. I went all out for Hoppy. Hat, shirt, jeans, socks, boots, six-shooters and, if I’m not mistaken, underwear. Who’d be crazy enough to go anywhere without his Hoppy underwear?
Nothing remarkable about the Tudor. No cars visible on the long drive or on the apron of the three-stall garage. No tire tracks in the light snow that had dusted the town last night, nobody in or out for some time. Then I noticed the chimney, the only chimney I’d seen this morning without smoke.
I swung into the drive. Nothing moved. I sat in the rag-top scouting out this side of the house. I didn’t notice the frost at first. I did notice the downstairs window that was missing a pane, jagged edges of glass rimming the interior of the frame, the kind of damage caused by something hurled through the window.
A sweet-faced border collie came around the far side of the garage. She looked hungry and scared and lost, sniffing the ground. She came over to the car and I opened the door. Even in the cold, she smelled sweetly canine. I got out of the ragtop and rubbed the collie’s face lightly, trying to get her warm. The temperature was somewhere around ten degrees above zero.
My new friend stayed right with me all the way across the back drive, right up until somebody poked a rifle out of an upstairs window and fired at me.
The collie jerked away to the right and I threw myself on the snow and started rolling to the left.
Then the second shot exploded.
The criminology and police courses I took at the University of Iowa weren’t all held in the classrooms. We’d spent a week at the police academy in Des Moines and had learned a number of things about facing down an armed opponent. I even did pretty well in boxing, which was an elective you could take at night.
I had my .45 out and had rolled flat against the house, over some prickly bushes. He’d have a hard time getting me in range from the upstairs window now.
In town, the rifle shots would attract instant attention. Out here they’d simply be attributed to a hunter.
“Get the hell off my land,” he shouted. No mistaking the voice. Kenny Whitney. King of the World. Just ask him.
“Your aunt sent me.”
“I don’t care who sent you. You don’t get off my land, I’ve got the right to shoot you.”
“I hate to tell you this, but that isn’t how the law works, Kenny.”
“Yeah, well, then maybe it’s how the law should work.”
I stood up and brushed myself off. Unless I stepped away from the house, I was safe. “I want to talk to you, Kenny.”
“You go to hell.”
Then something strange happened. There was a silence, a long one, and then I heard a man sobbing. Kenny was crying. Out here in the boonies, a beautiful if cold sunny day, the chink of tire chains in the distance, a big United plane coming in low, preparing to land in Cedar Rapids—and Kenny “Black-Eye” Whitney was crying. I probably should have enjoyed the sound, hearing him as vulnerable as the rest of us humans. But it cut into me, that sound, the grief and horror in it. And then the shot came and I didn’t have any doubt who the target was. The target was Kenny himself.
4
THE BACK DOOR WAS locked. I smashed one of the fractional windowpanes with the butt of my .45, then reached inside past the cotton curtains and found the doorknob. I pushed on the door and followed it inward.
I’d always been curious about the place—every year the local paper ran a photo spread on its most recent improvements—but now wasn’t the time to pause and gawk. I needed to get upstairs.
But I only got as far as the living room. Susan lay on her back on the floor. She wore a modest white terry-cloth robe. There was blood all over the front of it. There was blood on her face, too. The bottoms of her feet were dirty. I don’t know why I noticed that, but I did. It’s the kind of thing doctors record at autopsies. They’d made some pretty crude jokes, the times I’d sat in. I’d wanted to defend the dead people they were making fun of. Maybe it’s the lawyer in me.
My first impulse was to kneel down, check her out. But what was the point? By the looks of things, she was long dead. Her face was starting to discolor badly.
Silence from upstairs. Maybe he’d pulled it off. He’d been lucky at everything else. Why not lucky at his suicide attempt?
I went upstairs, moving carefully. If he wasn’t dead, he might want to start shooting at me again. The stairway was enclosed. I took the steps slowly, carefully, and then I reached the top. I smelled floor polish. And then the fresh smell of rifle fire. The floor creaked as I stepped on to the hallway. Two doors on one side, three on the other. I gripped my .45 harder, feeling self-conscious. You see so much gunplay on private eye TV shows that you think it feels natural to have a gun in your hand. But it doesn’t. You’re carrying such quick-and-easy death in your hand. There’s so much responsibility, and fear. At least for me.
A bathroom. Watery blood smeared all over the white porcelain sink. A bedroom that I sensed—given its neatness and slightly impersonal accouterments—was a guest room. Another bathroom, this one huge compared to the other one. And then another bedroom. Or a monument to bedrooms. This had everything, including a large TV, stereo speakers on the wall and yet another bathroom. Everything in this bedroom was sumptuous, from the carpeting to the silver-handled hairbrushes on the dressing table. This was how rich people lived, at least around here. Except for the two fresh bullet holes in the ceiling and the raw smell of cordite. He hadn’t done so well by his suicide attempt.
I was just turning around to leave the bedroom when I saw him in the doorway. I hadn’t seen him in some time and at first I hardly recognized him. The chiseled face was fleshy now, as was his waistline. The eyes were alarming, tinted red from sleeplessness and whiskey and grief, and underscored with deep dark half-moons of loose and
wrinkled flesh. His hair had started to thin. He was my age. This kind of aging didn’t just happen; you had to go out and earn it. The white oxford button-down shirt he wore had traces of blood on the sleeves and the cuffs. His chinos showed even more blood. His feet were bare.
He held a Remington hunting rifle on me. He said, “I’ve got some whiskey downstairs.”
Then he quietly laid the rifle against the door frame and led the way back down the hallway to the stairs.
5
HE LED ME THROUGH the dining room so we didn’t have to see the body of his wife in the living room.
In the kitchen, he pointed to the breakfast nook and then he opened a cupboard door and pulled down a fresh bottle of Canadian Club. He slit the seal with his thumbnail. He grabbed two glasses, opened the refrigerator and the freezer compartment and got out a small bowl of ice, and then carried everything over to the breakfast nook where I was sitting. I’d put my .45 away. It had started to feel awfully melodramatic.
As he poured and noisily dumped in some ice cubes, I looked out the window at a squirrel wrestling with an acorn it had found on the sunny snow. The border collie was back, too, sniffing my tires.
“Sweetest dog I’ve ever owned,” Kenny Whitney said. He smiled sadly. “Wish I had her personality.” His voice startled me. I associated Kenny with the quick, derisive jab, making you feel bad for being unpopular or ugly or fat or sissy, at least in his eyes. And for short, barked threats. He was a master at short, barked threats. But this was a slow and considered voice, and it was an adult voice. That’s what startled me most. He looked a lot older than he should have, but he’d turned into an adult in the process.
“Why the hell’d you shoot at me?”
He shook his head, “Sorry. I was just crazy is all I can say. I wasn’t really trying to hit you, though.”
“You came close enough.”
“I should never have called her. Gotten her involved.”
He leaned his head against the back of the nook. The kitchen sparkled. The appliances were brand-new and sat there basking in their own suburban glory. Then he sat up straight and wrapped a massive fullback’s hand around his glass. He drained the whole drink in a single swallow and then filled up again with the bottle he’d just opened. “You see her in there?”
“Yeah.”
“You call Sykes yet?”
“I wanted to make sure you were still alive.”
“Oh. I’m alive. Unfortunately.”
“You kill her, Kenny?”
He looked up at me. “Yeah.”
I let out a long sigh. “When?”
“Early last night. We were both pretty drunk.”
“What happened?”
“She wanted a divorce. I didn’t.”
“So you shot her?”
He stared at me for a long time. “Yeah.”
“Don’t tell me anything more.”
“Why not?”
“Because you need a lawyer.”
“I don’t suppose you’d want that honor?”
I smiled at him. “Kenny, I don’t like you. I’ve never liked you. Believe me, you don’t want me for a lawyer.”
“I guess I was kind of a jerk back in school, wasn’t I?”
“You remember my black eye?”
He shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I gave a lot of guys black eyes.”
“Well, you gave me mine right in front of Pamela Forrest.”
He looked at me and grinned. “Oh, yeah, now I remember. Not your black eye. But Pamela. Man, you really made a fool of yourself over her.”
“I guess I did.”
His face became dour and old again. “Well, join the club, my friend. That’s the problem Susan and I were having. And that’s one of the reasons I killed her. She was running around on me.”
“Running around on you? God, look how you ran around on her.”
He was pouring himself his third drink. His third drink since we’d sat down, anyway. He’d had many more during the night. “You need to keep up on the town gossip, McCain. I quit running around on her over two years ago. I even went on the wagon. She’d threatened to leave me and then I realized how much I loved her. Then she fell in love with somebody else.”
“Don’t tell me anything more. Save it for your lawyer.”
“All I was going to say was that when she asked me for a divorce last night, I couldn’t handle it. I took down a bottle of whiskey—I’d gotten used to having it around, you know, for when we had company and stuff—and then I really started knocking down the drinks. After two years of being dry, they really hit me hard.”
“So then you killed her?”
He shrugged again. “Then I killed her.”
The funny thing was, I didn’t believe him. “Why’re you telling me this?”
“That I killed her? Because it’s the truth. We may as well get it over with. With Sykes and all. Man, will that hillbilly be gloating. He’ll actually have a member of Judge Whitney’s family in his jail. He’ll probably play Webb Pierce records all day long.” Webb Pierce was the country-western favorite of the moment. A small Iowa town like this, people liked to show their sophistication by shunning country music. Badge of honor.
“I still want to know why you’re telling me this.”
“I told you. Because I just want to get it over with. It’s pretty obvious that I killed her, isn’t it?” Then he drained off his drink.
I stood up. “I’m going to walk over to the phone and call Sykes.”
“Fine. That’s what I want you to do.”
“I’m also going to call Bob Tompkins for you. He’s the best criminal attorney in this part of the state. Your aunt has a lot of respect for him.”
He looked at me abruptly. “I don’t want to have to see her again.”
I wasn’t sure who he meant. “Who?”
“You know. Susan.”
“Okay.” Then, “It’s freezing in here.”
“Yeah, after I shot her, I guess I went a little nuts. I smashed out some windows and stuff.”
I still didn’t believe he’d killed her and I still didn’t know why. I went to the phone and called Cliff Sykes, Jr., and listened to him try to hide his glee. Then I called Judge Whitney and repeated what I’d told Sykes. I also told her I’d like to invite Bob Tompkins in. She said she thought that was a good idea.
I had just hung up when the shot sounded. I glanced at the empty breakfast nook behind me. I had a feeling he’d been better at it this time. A kind of sorrow came over me, one I hadn’t counted on driving out here. I’d always hated him and with good reason. But he’d been sad this morning, human-animal sad, a creature frenzied and forlorn and crazed, and he wouldn’t let me hate him anymore, the son of a bitch, no matter how much I might have wanted to.
I went upstairs and found him on the bed. He looked even older now, a lot older.
6
TWO HOURS LATER, I got to play celebrity. I’d needed a haircut for two weeks so I walked from my tiny law office to Bill and Phil’s. The walk helped; the cold air woke me up, the golden sunlight lent me an air of hope. Sometimes, I’d think about Pamela, sometimes I’d think about Kenny, and sometimes I’d think about Buddy Holly and Richie Valens.
Bill Malley gave me my first haircut when I was two or three. My folks have a photo of me sitting on a board stretched across the arms of his barber chair with his barber sheet drawn up to my neck. He always gave little kids suckers, the way dentists do. Adults, he just gives speeches. Bill’s favorite topics are communism (he’s against it), fluoride (he’s against it), civil rights marches (he’s against them), Senator McCarthy (he was for him) and Sammy Davis, Jr. (he’s against him).
By rights, I should go to Phil, who’s a Democrat like myself. But Phil has a halitosis problem that could melt a metal wall.
Both chairs were filled, one of them by Jim Truman. He was a handyman who worked out of his house on the edge of town, along a scenic leg of the Cedar River. The joke was that he wanted to b
e buried in an Osh-Kosh coffin because everything else he wore—cap, shirt, bib overalls—carried the Osh-Kosh label. He’d come here a few years ago after the Korean War, in which he’d lost his leg below the knee. Now he wore an artificial one. The Fix-It Man was what he had painted on the front of his trailer. He was a marvel of arcane knowledge and physical dexterity. He could fix everything from a blender to a car engine. He always said he couldn’t fix TVs but folks knew that was because he didn’t want to hurt Benny Welsh’s business, Benny being the guy who first started selling and repairing TVs here in the late forties.
My celebrity was a result of my being at the Whitney place when Kenny took his life. I’d waited around for Sykes and his incompetents to show up, told them what I knew, then headed back for town.
When I got done repeating my account for the boys in the barbershop, Bill said, “Probably fluoride.”
“Huh?” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “It rots your brain just the way the commies want it to.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Well, figure it out for yourself, Counselor,” he said. A lot of people called me “counselor” as a joke, mostly because I’ve still got a baby face and freckles. “Guy brushes his teeth as much as Kenny did, and the water’s got fluoride in it, how long before the guy goes psycho and kills somebody?”
Phil rolled his eyes. “There go those commies workin’ overtime again.”
“Well, you laugh now, my friend, but someday when you see the mayor turned into a zombie and walkin’ down the street with an ax in his hand—”
“Hell, the mayor’s already a zombie,” Phil said. “He don’t need no fluoride to help him.”
The men in the chair laughed. Bill and Phil had their mutual excoriation polished smooth as a vaudeville routine.
