by C. R. Corwin
According to what Gordon told Penelope fifteen years later, the gift had been “purely a materialistic one.” Gordon had given Kerouac several bottles of cold Schlitz beer for the bus trip and he simply had to make room in his duffel bag. “Why don’t you hold onto these for me, good daddy?” he said to Gordon.
I’m sure Gordon fantasized about Kerouac coming back for his can of pine cones some day. I’m sure he fantasized how Kerouac, overcome with gratitude, would invite him to join his inner circle. To wander America’s back roads with him, hobnobbing with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Larry Ferlinghetti and Lucien Carr. I bet he even fantasized how Kerouac would make him a character in one of his novels.
Jack Kerouac never came back for his pine cones. But that apparently did not diminish their value to Gordon. I can only imagine how precious they became when Kerouac published Desolation Angels in 1965. In that novel, Kerouac described his 63 days on Desolation Peak as a fire watcher. He described how his alter ego, Jack Dulouz, each night dropped a new little pine cone into an old cocoa can, to mark the end of another excruciating day. When Gordon read that, I’d venture to say he pretty much figured he had the beatnik version of the Holy Grail in his possession.
***
When Penelope told me about the pine cones that morning at Speckley’s, I simply could not believe that Gordon could have had such a treasure in his possession and not told anyone. Only after a long afternoon at Ike’s, rattling his patient eardrums with my cockamamie theories, did Gordon’s secretiveness begin to make sense to me: Jack Kerouac had given those pine cones to him. And the fact he didn’t tell anybody underscored just how deeply it had touched his young bohemian soul. So much that he created a secret shrine to Kerouac’s gift on his window sill—a shrine that included beer bottles that just maybe touched Kerouac’s lips, and pots of violets that, despite his good intentions, he forgot to water.
“Now wait a minute,” Ike objected when I explained all this to him. “I can understand why the professor didn’t tell you about those pine cones. And maybe some of those other crazy folks. But I can’t believe he wouldn’t have been tempted to rub Chick Glass’ nose in them. Considering how those two carried on over that cheeseburger all those years.”
I was nodding, watching the dribble of traffic outside his coffee shop. “I think maybe it just comes down to the kind of guy Gordon was,” I said. “He knew those pine cones would trump what the great Jack Kerouac had or didn’t have for lunch. He knew it would make him Kerouac’s undisputed apostle at Hemphill College, and not Chick. He also knew it would destroy their friendship.” It was six o’clock. Ike got up with a long, Saturday afternoon groan. He flipped the sign on the door over to CLOSED. I kept talking. “And so for fifteen years Sweet Gordon kept that cocoa can of pine cones to himself. A literary artifact of immeasurable value. Until his new girlfriend in a fit of love-induced tidiness threw them out.”
Ike returned to the table with a handful of Ghirardelli chocolates from the counter. “So how does all that help you find Gordon’s murderer?”
I popped one of the balls of chocolate into my mouth and attempted to answer. “Who the hell knows? But I am certain about one thing, Ike. Gordon was not out there digging for drums of toluene, or the weapon used to kill David Delarosa, or even a restaurant receipt from Mopey’s. He was digging for that cocoa can of pine cones.”
Ike had a ball of chocolate in his mouth, too. “Sounds reasonable. Crazy as shit—but reasonable.”
Ike was right on both counts.
According to Penelope, she and Gordon spent several nights in a row out at the Wooster Pike dump, on their hands and knees, looking for that cocoa can in a week’s worth of God’s snow and Hannawa’s garbage. Only when the city bulldozed a fresh layer of trash over the top did Gordon give up. Penelope, of course, was quickly out of the picture. When Gordon tossed her out, she traded her crappy job in Hannawa for a good one in Toledo. She eventually met her Lebanese dentist and put her bohemian years behind her. Until one Dolly Madison Sprowls gave her a jingle.
Ike and I said goodnight on the sidewalk and I drove home to James. I knew I had nothing more to fear from Kenneth Kingzette, but I left my booby traps in place. I curled up in bed with a notepad and my television remote. Hannawa’s local PBS station was doing a fund drive featuring the pop songs of the fifties. Patty Paige. Mel Torme. Perry Como. The McGuire Sisters. Half of the singers they were remembering were dead. The other half were older than Methuselah’s mother.
I didn’t make a lot of notes that night, but what I did write guided me through the rest of my investigation, inspiration-wise at least:
You can be almost certain that Gordon was only digging for his can of pine cones out there. For years he’d given up any hope of ever recovering them. Every week they were somewhere under another week’s worth of trash. And then when the city built the new adjoining landfill, they covered the entire old dump with three feet of dirt. But those pine cones certainly stayed in Gordon’s brain, and in his heart, and years later when Dr. William Rathje of the University of Arizona started the whole garbology movement, Gordon saw an opportunity to reclaim his secret treasure.
Gordon’s dig wasn’t completely selfish. Above all, Gordon was a teacher. A dedicated teacher. Yes, he was looking for a can of pine cones. But he was also doing important academic work. His students were learning how to be good archeologists. How to patiently pursue the truth.
Gordon also subliminally instructed his students to be on the lookout for cocoa cans: “Anything interesting today, boys and girls?” he’d regularly ask. “Old soda pop bottles? Betsy Wetsy dolls? Perhaps an old cocoa can or two?” Over the years he’d collected a whole shelf full of cocoa cans. But apparently not the one he was looking for. All of the cans I’d bought from his nephew were as empty as the feeling I’m sure Gordon felt when he opened them.
So, if Gordon was murdered because of what he was looking for, then what he was looking for was not what the murderer thought he was looking for! And Gordon was murdered for nothing!
Chapter 21
Tuesday, June 5
Effie called me. Bright and early Tuesday morning while I was reading the obits. She told me she’d bought all of Gordon’s old books from his nephew. She was driving down to Harper’s Ferry to pick them up. On Thursday. In a U-Haul van she’d rented. She begged me to come along. “It’ll be like old times,” she said. “Two old beatnik broads killing the road.”
Killing the road. Now there was a phrase I hadn’t heard in a while. When we Baked Beaners were flitting around in Gwen’s pink Buick, we didn’t take the road, or travel the road, or even hit the road. We killed the road. We gave the road, and ourselves, all we had.
I hemmed and hawed. I was way too old to kill the road. Especially with someone who may have had something to do with killing Sweet Gordon. On the other hand, who knows what I might wheedle out of Effie on that long drive to the eastern tip of West Virginia? Or from Mickey Gitlin when we got there? “I’m not a wealthy tycoon who can come and go as she pleases, like you can, Effie,” I joked. “I’ll have to see if I can get a couple days off.”
As soon as Effie hung up I called Detective Grant, while the receiver was still tucked under my chin. I told him about Effie’s offer. My fingers were crossed that he’d say no. But he said, “Sure—knock your socks off.”
“But didn’t you tell me to stay away from Gordon’s nephew?” I protested.
“Two months ago I did.”
“And what’s changed in two months?”
“Unfortunately not that much,” he admitted.
“In other words, nothing at all?”
“Now, now,” he growled. “Would I be giving you the green light if I thought you were in any real danger?”
I growled right back. “So you’re saying I’ll be in un-real danger?”
I expected him to backtrack a bit. But he didn’t. “We’ve talked to both Mickey Gitlin and Miss Fredmansky several time
s now,” he said. “There is nothing to believe that either is involved in Professor Sweet’s murder.”
“Then why should I bother going?”
“You tell me,” he said.
So I told him. About the pine cones. About Effie’s copy of The Harbinger ending up on Shaka Bop’s desk. About Howard Shay and Penelope Yarrow. About Gordon’s ambiguous relationship with Chick, Andrew J. Holloway III and David Delarosa.
“Then by all means go,” he said.
“You’re sure you’re not just dangling me out there as bait?” I asked.
“The Hannawa police don’t dangle,” he said. “As much as we’d sometimes like to.”
Then I called Suzie and made an appointment to see Managing Editor Alec Tinker. He was so happy that I’d kept them in the loop that he gave me Thursday and Friday off without counting it against my vacation time.
Finally, I called Effie back. I told her I’d love to kill the road with her. “But there is just one small complication,” I said.
I could hear the suspicion in her voice. “How small?”
“Actually, not so small,” I said. “A rather rotund water spaniel named James.”
***
Thursday, June 7
Effie pulled into my driveway at five o’clock—in the morning. It was still dark. Very dark. And drizzly. I dragged James across the slippery grass to the van. Effie helped me lift him inside.
To be honest with you, I could have pawned James off on Eric for a couple of days. Or even put him in a kennel. But I just felt more comfortable bringing James along. I knew he’d be worthless if I got into trouble. But Effie wouldn’t know that. And neither would Mickey Gitlin. So James was just a big, happy, tail-wagging St. Christopher’s statue.
We took Route 21 south. Right past the entrance ramp for the interstate. “Did we miss that on purpose?” I asked Effie as we flew by in the dark.
“You bet we did,” she said. “As Sweet Gordon used to say, ‘If it ain’t a back road, it ain’t a road worth taking.’”
“He said that, did he?”
Effie laughed. “Well, somebody said it.”
I poured Effie a cup of coffee from her Thermos. I poured a cup of Darjeeling tea from mine. I gave James a big shrimp-flavored fire hydrant from the Ziploc bag of doggie treats I’d brought. Effie started singing that awful Willie Nelson song: “On the road again, da-da-da-da, I’m on the road again….”
“Is it necessary to be cheery this early in the morning?” I snarled.
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I’m a morning person.”
“I thought you were a night person?”
She knew I was alluding to the romantic excesses of her youth. “I’m that, too,” she said. She kept on singing.
A few miles south of Massillon we picked up U.S. 250 and headed east. At six-thirty we stopped at a roadside park so James could pee. And frankly, so we could pee, too. I’ve never understood it, but there’s something about a long drive that puts a woman’s bladder in a tizzy. Men can bounce along all day and not have to pee once. Which wouldn’t be fair if it wasn’t the only biological advantage their gender has. Anyway, the sun was coming up now and I could finally see how Effie’s traveling outfit stacked up against mine. She was wearing a baggy pair of khakis and a bright blue denim shirt with a big Tweetie Bird embroidered on the back. Her shirttails were down to her knees. She was also wearing a pink baseball hat and those big yellow glasses. Suffice it to say, I didn’t look much better.
We took U.S. 250 all the way to the Ohio River. We crossed into Wheeling. We looked for a cozy mom and pop diner for breakfast. We settled for a Burger King. Disappointed, but full, we continued our journey southward through West Virginia’s knobby hills. In the bustling metropolis of Pruntytown, we picked up U.S. 50. It would take us all the way to Harper’s Ferry.
We’d been on the road for four hours already and neither of us had said boo about Gordon’s murder. We just rattled on about our families, the television shows we watched, or refused to watch, and of course the beautiful green mountains. Which was fine with me. Even though I had my suspicions, Effie was an old friend. Someone whose company I’d always enjoyed. There would be plenty of time for me to wheedle.
***
Harper’s Ferry! Of all places, why did Mickey Gitlin have to live in Harper’s Ferry? Harper’s Ferry was that historic old town on the Potomac where the abolitionist John Brown tried to start a slave revolt by raiding the union arsenal there. You all know what happened. The revolt fizzled and John Brown was hanged. So chugging along U.S. 50 in that U-Haul with Effie, I couldn’t help but wonder whether my visit to Harper’s Ferry would go as badly as his.
***
U.S. 50 is one of America’s great old highways. It runs from Ocean City, Maryland, to Sacramento, California, some 3,000 miles, straight across the middle of the country. Except that here in West Virginia U.S. 50 isn’t quite so straight. It’s as wiggly as a worm. Between the harrowing mountain curves, and the pee breaks, and lunch at a roadside drive-in in the ominously named town of Mount Storm, it took us five more hours to reach Harper’s Ferry. Another hour after that to find Mickey Gitlin’s kayak livery.
Mickey’s place was actually located two miles north of Harper’s Ferry, in a thick woods right on the banks of the Potomac. I’d been expecting some dark, seedy looking place, with rusty pickups and pot-smoking mountain men. Instead we found a freshly paved parking lot filled with expensive SUVs. On the hillside to the left stood a modern two-story cabin, made of beautiful butterscotch-colored logs. On the right stood a long, sturdy barn, painted a happy green. The mural above the barn door featured a toothsome black bear skillfully paddling his tiny kayak through the rapids. Below the paddling bear it read:
MICKEY’S KAYAKS
Rentals, Lessons, Sales
Effie and I slid out of the van and stomped some life back into our wobbly legs. There was no one around, but in the distance we could hear splashing water and people having way too much fun. We helped James out. I snapped on his leash. We headed off to find Mickey.
First we went to the cabin. Then to the barn. We finally found him on the riverbank, scrunched down in an huge Adirondack chair, bare-chested, in baggy shorts and sneakers, hair in a ponytail, clipboard in his lap, cell phone pushed into his ear, can of beer balancing atop his raised naked knee. A serious businessman at work. In the fast water just below him were a half-dozen frolicking kayakers.
Mickey spotted us right away but he made us wait for ten minutes while he finished his call. “Sorry about that,” he said. He was not the sourpuss I’d encountered the day of Gordon’s burial. A wide, friendly smile was hooked over his sunburned ears.
Mickey took a minute to scratch James’ ears then walked back to the van with us. He carried our suitcases to the cabin. Showed us our rooms. They were spotless. The beds were covered with colorful country quilts. Effie’s room was decorated with the head of a huge buck deer. Mine with a stuffed owl. When we came downstairs Mickey was waiting with two tall tumblers of iced tea. “There’s enough daylight left for a quick kayak lesson,” he said. “If you ladies are game.”
Effie was. I wasn’t. But she skillfully teased me into it anyway. “Oh, come on, Maddy,” she said, squeezing Mickey’s elbow. “Do you think this beautiful specimen of a man is going to let anything happen to us?” Ten minutes later Effie and I were outfitted in baggy men’s swimming trunks and tee shirts that said “Capsizing Is Fun.”
Well, you can imagine all the crazy thoughts going through my head as we walked back down the trail toward the river: Effie and Mickey were in cahoots, and they planned to drown me in the Potomac. My death would look like an accident. Mickey and Effie would get away with another murder. They’d divide Gordon’s estate. Carry on some sick May-December romance. Or maybe it was just Mickey who wanted me dead. Maybe it was his idea that Effie bring me along. Effie never said it wasn’t. Maybe Mickey said, “Say, why don’t you bring Maddy Sprowls along with you?” Or maybe it
was just Effie. Or Effie and some other cohort. Somebody hiding in the trees. Chick or Shaka or God knows who. With a rifle. Or a crossbow. Or a big feather pillow to smother me in my sleep. Oh, my synapses were snapping with all sorts of crazy scenarios.
When we reached the river I froze, wrapping the end of James’ leash around my hands like it was the ripcord on an inflatable lifeboat. I’d seen the river before, of course, but now I had a stake in its ferocity. Good gravy! The slate-blue water was flying past us at a million miles an hour, exploding over sharp half-submerged rocks, swirling into whirlpools. The kayakers dumb enough to be out were all young and muscular. “We’re going to get lifejackets and helmets like those guys, aren’t we?” I asked Mickey.
“If I’ve got any left,” he said. I was too preoccupied with my impending death to know if he was kidding or not.
Mickey led us along the bank through a thicket of wild rhododendrons. We emerged on the rim of a small, square pond. Kayaks were stacked on the bank, along with a pile of helmets and lifejackets. “The practice pool,” he said.
I was embarrassed. But not enough to keep me from asking how deep it was.
“Three feet,” he said. “And all the alligators and piranha are vegetarians.”
I tied James to a tree. Gave him an hour’s worth of biscuits to gnaw on. Effie and I fought over the pile of lifejackets and helmets like it was a sale table at Wal-Mart.
Mickey dragged two small kayaks to the edge of the water. He helped us squeeze into the cockpits, those little round holes in the middle where the Eskimos stick out. He showed us where to put our feet and our knees. How to hold the paddles. How to use our hips to stay balanced.
He towed me into the water first. When we got to the center of the pond, he gently pulled his hands away. “Feeling steady?” he asked.
