Harlot's Moon

by Edward Gorman

  I reached her moments later.

  She kept her face down but I put my hand under her chin and forced her to look at me.

  Someone had hit her pretty hard. Her left eye was puffy and red. She was going to have a black eye by the morning.

  But her nose was my chief concern. It was bloody and possibly broken.

  What happened?" I said.

  She was sweaty and dusty and disheveled from running through the woods, her long-sleeved fuchsia blouse torn and dirty. Her wheat-colored jeans showed a number of blotchy grass stains.

  "You were going to leave him, weren't you?"

  She nodded, sniffling.

  "That's why you were liquidating all your holdings?" Another teary nod.

  "He found out about it?"

  "Yes," she said. She touched a hand to her bloody nose. "He found out about it and started drinking when he got home from jail. His lawyer made bail. When I came in tonight, he was waiting for me." She started crying again. "I've never seen him this scary. He beat me up and then dragged me out to the car. I think he was going to take me out into the country and kill me, I really do. But I managed to run away, down here. He's out driving around looking for me."

  The dead leaves lining the creek bed smelled sweetly of death. In the summer, the woods were a playground for all animals; in the fall and winter, they were a coffin.

  She said, "I think he killed Father Daly."

  "Yeah," I said. "I was thinking that myself." That he had. Or that she had.

  "I think he was the one who pushed me when I was leaving Father Daly's office the last time I was there."

  "Pushed you?"

  "Somebody was in the shadows at the top of the stairs. They pushed me. I suppose they thought I'd fall down the steps and hurt myself."

  "You couldn't see the person?"

  "No. He ran down the corridor in the darkness. But I've always thought it was Bob. It'd be like him to sneak up to Father Daly's office and listen at the door."

  "You remember when this was?"

  "The sixth of last month. He said he was at a poker game at Mike Timmins' place. I didn't believe him. Why?"

  "Just wanted to know. No special reason."

  I took my cell phone from my jacket pocket and called the police. I told them to send a car out to the Wilsons' immediately.

  "I'm afraid to see him again," she said. "I thought I had it planned so carefully, too. I didn't think he'd find out till it was too late."

  "Why'd you show up at the police station last night if you were planning to leave him?"

  She shook her head, then touched her hand again to her nose. "I felt sorry for him. None of this would've happened if I hadn't gotten involved with Father Daly. I didn't want to leave him and feel guilty about it. I wanted to walk away clean. So I hired Harry Solomon."

  She looked at me. "You have to understand, I don't hate my husband. I feel sorry for him. I don't want to see him spend the rest of his life in prison — but I don't want to spend the rest of my life with him, either. That would be my prison."

  "C'mon," I said, getting up off my haunches. "I'll walk you to the house."

  It took us fifteen minutes to get back to the house, with me half-carrying her. When we got there, three patrol cars were parked in a semi-circle, headlights all trained on the front door where Bob Wilson stood. His hair was mussed, some of his wife's blood showed on the front of his white shirt, and he was weaving back and forth, as if he were about to collapse.

  "Just come on out, Mr. Wilson," one of the uniformed men said. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

  "What for? I didn't do anything."

  Ellie looked at one of the cops and said, "He was trying to kill me."

  "Kill you?" Bob said. And laughed angrily. "Kill you? Babe, if that's what I had in mind, I would've done it a long time ago. Tonight I was just trying to make you come back to your senses. Leaving me may sound good now, but you wait a few months. You'll get lonely. You'll see. We belong together. We really do."

  He started weeping.

  There was no warning. His head dropped, he brought a big hand up to his face, and he began weeping.

  The sound was startling. Even the cops were intimidated by it. You could see them shrink a little, very uncomfortable. You don't often hear a man sob so openly. We haven't trained ourselves in the art of crying and consequently, we don't know how to do it. Even when we're alone, most of us don't cry very cathartically. Even alone we've got to be worried about violating the code of machismo.

  He fell against the frame of the house, hands clinging to the outline of the door for support. But his grasp wasn't strong enough to support him. He started to sink to his knees.

  Forgetting her ankle, she crossed the distance between them in moments, and then got her hands under his arms. She was much stronger than I'd expected. She helped him stand erect and then she slid her arm around his waist.

  "I'd like to take him inside and fix him a drink and talk to him a few minutes," she said to the cop who'd done the talking.

  "I don't know about that, ma'am."

  "I'll be fine. And he needs to calm down."

  "I'd like to send somebody in with you."

  "Then my husband won't talk. I know him, believe me." Then, "Tell them, Payne."

  "She'll be fine," I said.

  The uniformed cop walked over to me. He smelled sharply of after-shave. He was just starting to work on a pair of jowls. "You're the one who called in?"

  "Right."

  "This was supposed to be an emergency."

  "I don't think it is, anymore."

  "We're supposed to take him down to the station."

  "Right."

  He leaned in. "He's the killer, the way everybody figures."

  "He may be. I'm not sure yet."

  "I hate the hell to send her in there with him."

  "She'll be all right."

  "It's my ass if she isn't." He smiled at me. He had a savvy, wise face. "And then it's gonna be your ass, Payne."

  "That's the part I'm not crazy about. When it gets around to being my ass."

  He nodded and walked off, over to where the Wilsons stood in the doorway.

  He reasoned with them like a referee before a prize fight. They could be inside only so many minutes. The front door was to be left open. And if Detective Holloway showed up and climbed all over this cop's ass, they were probably going to be forced back outside on the spot.

  Seven minutes, he gave them.

  Ellie and Bob Wilson disappeared through the doorway.

  I thanked the cop in charge again, and then walked over to my car. I looked up at a second-floor window and saw three children looking down at us in apprehension. Poor kids. As I was driving away, my cell phone beeped.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As I swept down the hill, I passed a number of people standing in the darkness, staring up the hill like religious pilgrims. The truth they sought was an explanation for all the flashing red emergency lights staining the night sky.

  I picked up the cell phone.

  "She's called again," Jean said. Jean was Brad Doucette's personal secretary. "This Bernice woman. Three times in an hour. I thought I'd better tell you."

  "She say what she wanted?"

  "No. Just that she had something very important to tell you."

  "She leave a number?"

  "Yes." She gave me the number.

  "Why're you at the office so late?"

  "Because I'm a salaried worker. If I was an hourly worker, Brad would never have me stay this late. You know how tight he is."

  "Brad tight? C'mon. I don't believe that." I laughed.

  I told Jean goodnight and then punched in the numbers she'd given me.

  The line was busy.

  A few minutes later, my cell phone buzzed.

  "I've been trying to get hold of you," Felice said, sounding happy to talk to me. "Guess what happened?"

  "What happened?"

  I felt ridiculously good about be
ing in her graces again, however temporary that might be.

  "You know that Beverly Wright woman you were having so much trouble getting to testify?"

  "Right."

  "Well, she called here. Vic answered the phone. He said you weren't here, but she just started talking anyway. She told everything and then just kept going back and forth. ‘Should I testify or shouldn't I testify?’ And guess what?"

  "What?"

  "Vic convinced her to do the right thing."

  "He did?"

  Then Vic was on the line. "You owe me an airplane ride, Robert. She said she'd be deposed any time you tell her."

  "That's fantastic, Vic. Thanks a lot."

  "He's picking up the tab at the hospice and he's thanking me? Can you believe this guy, Felice?"

  Then she was back on the line. "It'll be great to see you tonight, Robert. Get here as soon as you can."

  "As soon as I can," I said, thinking of all that was swirling around me. "As soon as I can."

  After hanging up, I decided to try Bernice again. Still busy as I sat at a stoplight, I felt a kind of lethargy settle in. A light rain had begun to fall.

  I wheeled into a convenience store and bought a giant paper cup of coffee and a large donut with a lot of food dye slathered across it.

  I sat in the parking lot eating it.

  Every minute or so, I tried Bernice's number.

  When I finished my donut, I decided to check the number I was dialing. I took a phone book from the back seat.

  The number was correct.

  I tried again.

  Busy.

  I looked at the address. It was only about two miles from here — a few minutes' trip. If what she had to say was so important, then it was probably worth me stopping by and hearing it in person.

  Bernice lived in a tidy white bungalow that looked homey and inviting in the fog and rain of this night.

  A light shone deep within the house. The kitchen, I suspected. Otherwise the place was dark.

  A new Chevrolet sedan was parked in the drive.

  I pulled in behind it and went up to the back door.

  I knocked.

  A neighborhood dog barked.

  A baby cried somewhere.

  I knocked again.

  At first, I heard the sound only faintly, and I did not recognize it for what it was.

  It was familiar in some respects, and yet not familiar at all in others.

  I knocked for a third time.

  The night smelled of cold rain and mud.

  The sound again. This time, I identified it immediately.

  Weeping.

  I reached down and tried the back door. Locked. Most likely with a latch inside.

  I could snap it if I tugged on it hard enough, but I decided to try the front door first.

  Walking along the edge of the drive, the only illumination a street-light lost to fog and rain, I stepped in a puddle deep enough to reach the top of my oxfords. Great.

  I went up the three small front steps and knocked on the door. No answer.

  I didn't expect to find the door unlocked — but it was.

  I nudged it open and went inside. House smells. Warmth.

  Cut flowers. Cooking. Air freshener.

  The room was junked up. Furniture had been overturned, the cushions on the couch pulled out and hurled on the floor.

  Somebody had been looking desperately for something.

  "Hello," I called out.

  No response.

  "Hello."

  I walked through the living room and the dining room toward the sound that still faintly erupted every few moments. The weeping.

  When I reached the kitchen, I found him, bent over Bernice's body, sobbing. Somebody had smashed in the side of her head. Blood stained the gray hair.

  She lay rigid, displayed much as she would be in her coffin, even to her hands lying across her chest.

  The man bent over her was slight and bald with freckles on his pate. He wore a white shirt and dark slacks. His shoes were Hush-Puppies.

  "Oh honey, oh honey," he sobbed, rocking back and forth on his heels, as if in rhythm to music that only he could hear.

  He seemed startled to see me. He was so lost in his grief, he hadn't heard me knocking.

  I helped him up. He rose in reluctant sections, up off his knees to his haunches, and then off his haunches to his legs. He looked utterly baffled, even a bit insane.

  "She isn't really dead, is she?"

  Then he started crying again.

  There wasn't anything I could say.

  I helped him gently across the room to a kitchen table and sat Kim down. When he started to get up, I eased him back into his chair.

  I began to search through the cupboards, opening and slamming doors until I found what I was looking for. At another time, I'd probably stop to admire all the handiwork. The appliances were all shiny new, there was a huge butcher block island in the center of the kitchen, and the cabinets showed the skill of real carpentry.

  I grabbed a couple of glasses and carried everything to the table. I sat down across from him and poured each of us a good portion of his Black & White scotch.

  "Did you call the police?"

  "What?"

  The baffled look again, as if he'd never heard the language

  I was speaking.

  "Did you call the police?"

  "Oh," he said. "No."

  "Drink your scotch."

  "What?"

  "Your scotch." I nodded to the glass in front of him. "Drink it."

  "Oh."

  He drank. His hand was shaking so badly, I thought he was going to drop his glass. Some of the shaking was probably due to Parkinson's, but not much.

  "When was the last time you talked to your wife?"

  This time, he didn't say “What?" he just stared at me.

  "Listen to me. You need to help me so I can help you."

  "She's dead, isn't she?"

  "Yes, I'm afraid she is."

  He broke again. There was no helping him for some time. I got up and fetched him several squares of Bounty paper towels so he could blow his nose.

  "This doesn't make any sense," he said, sounding sane for the first time.

  "Maybe it does. Bernice was on to something. I'm not sure what it was — not yet."

  "You're the private investigator she told me about."

  "Right."

  "I've been out of town the last two days. I'm a salesman. I sell pizza ovens. But I call Bernice every night from the road, of course. And she told me about you."

  "Where would Bernice hide things?"

  "Things?"

  "Valuables."

  "Oh."

  He had slipped back into withdrawal. Every half minute or so he'd explode with a sob. And then he'd stop himself. Just sit there and stare at the table.

  "Take another drink."

  "I'm not much of a drinker."

  "Take one, anyway."

  "Maybe I should."

  He choked on it and spent the next two minutes coughing.

  I didn't like pushing him this hard in these circumstances but I didn't have much choice.

  "Where would Bernice hide something valuable?"

  The withdrawn look again.

  "I need you to listen to me."

  "Listen to you?"

  "I'm asking a question. Do your best to answer it, all right?"

  "Question."

  I sighed.

  "Please look at me."

  After a long moment, he raised his gaze to my face.

  "Are you listening now?"

  "Yes."

  "Where would Bernice hide something valuable?"

  "The safe."

  "The safe?"

  "Sure. The wall safe in our TV room."

  Then he noticed what I was afraid he'd notice. When he'd bent over her, some of her blood came off on his white shirt. He looked at it now in horror.

  "Oh, my Lord," he said. And immediately got out of his chair and s
tarted to walk back to her body.

  I grabbed him and pushed him back down in the chair. I took one of the squares of paper towels and handed it out to him. But then he slapped his hand over his mouth and I could see that he was going to vomit all over himself if I didn't move quickly.

  I got him to the sink. Barely. He was throwing up before his stomach even pressed against the cabinet that held the double sinks of stainless steel.

  I held him the way you'd hold a little kid vomiting and when he was done, I washed his face with a paper towel soaked in dish soap and then I took him back to his seat at the kitchen table.

  "Drink up."

  "That's what made me throw up."

  "No, it isn't. The drink'll help you."

  He looked skeptical but he drank anyway.

  I said, "I need to get into that safe as soon as possible. Do you know the combination?"

  "Sure."

  I could see that the vomiting had returned him to reality. Permanently, I hoped.

  "I inherited this house from my father. He came through the Depression so he always saved something out of every paycheck and put it in the safe here at home. Didn't trust banks much."

  "I need you to open the safe."

  "I'm not handling this very well, Mr. Payne. I'm sorry."

  "You're handling it a hell of a lot better than I would," I said.

  "Really?"

  "Absolutely." I'd stayed in bed for whole days following the death of my wife. Body and soul alike had shut down. "We need to hurry."

  He nodded and stood up. I noticed how he carefully avoided looking down at his wife's body. He was a little stronger now but not that much stronger.

  He led me out of the kitchen and down a hall. There were two bedrooms facing each other across the hall. At the rear of the bungalow was a long narrow room.

  A large-screen TV dominated the west wall. Two three-shelf bookcases were pushed together, filled with what looked to be Book Club bestsellers. There were two leather recliners facing the TV.

  The dainty patterns of the wallpaper and the nice sheer white curtains lent the room a cozy old-fashioned feel. "We spent most of our nights in here," he said.

  He walked over to a print of a forest scene. It was a sentimental, idealized forest, the sort we daydream about escaping to.