by C. R. Corwin
I took the goblet from Gwen’s hand. Swished it in the rinse water. “When you found out I was snooping into Gordon’s murder, you got worried. You knew I was the one person in Hannawa with enough history in her noggin to link his murder with David’s. So you invited me to lunch. You made sure I knew how heated the argument between Chick and Gordon had been at the Kerouac Thing.”
Chick bleated at me like an angry goat. “It was not that heated!”
I shushed him with my finger and went on. “And then there was that horrible trip to Pettibones. It went right over my head at the time. But your invitation to tag along with you and Rollie had nothing to do with dog toys. It was about your guilt for trying to blame Chick for Gordon’s murder. You cleverly tried to put a bug in my ear about Gordon’s graduate assistant, Andrew Holloway. Remember what you said? ‘If Chick was going to shoot anybody, wouldn’t he shoot Andrew?’ Better for your conscience that I pin Gordon’s murder on a kid you never met than an old friend, I guess.”
Chick bleated at me like ten angry goats now. “Gordon and I were just friends!”
I handed him the goblet. “Take a pill, Chick. This is not about you and Gordon.”
I twisted back toward Gwen. “And then you called me out of the blue the other day to chat about your horrible summer. Your trouble finding the right tiles for your guest bathroom. The right therapist for your dogs. Good gravy, Gwen! You knew damn well I’d pointed the police in Rollie’s direction. You tried to make me have second thoughts. You put a bug in my ear about Sidney and Effie.”
Gwen didn’t say a thing. She just kept washing goblets.
“You’ve tried to put me on the wrong track from the start,” I said. “But there was one interesting fact you knew you couldn’t keep from me. And so you told me yourself. That you drove Gordon home from the Kerouac Thing. You wanted to make it sound as innocent as you could. Of course it was anything but innocent. You used that opportunity to seduce him. Not sexually. Not exactly. You soothed his battered ego. You showed interest in his dig. You asked him to show it to you sometime. Whether it was his idea or yours, the two of you agreed to drive out there the very next evening.
“Gordon was eager to show off his dig to anyone who showed even the slightest interest. He was especially eager to show it to you, Gwen. Gordon always had—what’s a good beatnik word for it? A thing for you? Remember that Halloween party at the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house? When you both came as scarecrows? And did a lot of things scarecrows usually don’t do? I’m sure Gordon was remembering that night when you suggested that you meet at the ball fields and drive out from there.”
I was finally ready to describe the murder. “So you drove out to the landfill with Gordon. In his old station wagon. You followed Gordon up the hill. You shot him. Just once. In the back of the head. You stayed just long enough to make sure he was dead. Then you drove back to Hannawa.”
Gwen handed me the last goblet. She started washing the spoons. “Can you actually prove that’s what happened, Maddy?” she asked.
I had to admit that I couldn’t. “Have I found a witness or uncovered some physical evidence that the police haven’t? No, I haven’t done that. But I have managed to catch you in a big lie. Of sorts.”
She handed me the dripping spoons as if they were a bouquet of flowers. “Of sorts?”
“It was in the transcript of that second statement you gave the police,” I said. “You told them you didn’t know that Rollie had a gun. Which made me wonder why Rollie didn’t shoot himself in the head the way he shot Gordon. Why he took himself out of the picture in such a messy, uncertain way. With that bottle of your antidepressants.”
“Because he threw his gun away after shooting the professor?” Chick offered.
I handed him the bouquet of spoons. “Why didn’t he just buy another gun?” I asked.
“Because he knew he was under surveillance?” Chick asked back.
I did not want to get in a verbal Ping-Pong game with Chick. I moved on before he could serve another impossible-to-answer question. “I was quite ready to believe that Rollie committed both murders. Then I got to thinking. About the murders. About human nature. Gordon’s murder was very tidy. A well-planned execution. In the middle of nowhere. David Delarosa’s was messy as the dickens. In the hallway of an apartment building. It’s a miracle no one else saw it or heard it. Whoever killed Gordon was exercising a boatload of self-control. Whoever killed David Delarosa was acting out raw spontaneous rage.”
Chick was playing with the broken glass again. “Those murders were a half-century apart, Maddy. Couldn’t somebody who went loony in 1957, kill somebody cool as a cucumber now?”
“Oh, I suppose it’s possible,” I admitted. “But not likely. Sidney may call himself Shaka Bop these days, but he’s the same old Sidney. Effie’s the same Effie. You’re the same Chick. God help us, I’m the same Maddy. Sweet Gordon was Sweet Gordon until the day he died.”
Gwen’s quivering lips struggled into a melancholy smile. “Rollie the same Rollie? Me the same me?”
I turned my back to Chick. Spoke to Gwen as if she and I were the only two people in the room. “I went back over all the clippings I have on you. It’s quite a bundle. Then I went to City Hall and had a nice long lunch with my old friend Rosemary Hicks. She’s head clerk in the records department. Been there for years. Back in the eighties, when we had all those awful rapes, you organized those self-defense courses for women. Rosemary is just like me. Never throws anything out. You not only organized those courses. You took every one of them yourself. Including the gun safety course. It was held at the indoor shooting range at police headquarters. I found the sergeant who taught that course. He’s retired now. Dick Drake. He had some old records, too. And a good memory. You passed the course with flying colors. The gun you bought for the course was a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Like the one used to kill Gordon.”
Gwen wiped her hands on her expensive silk jacket. “I told Rollie to sell that gun years ago. I guess he didn’t.”
“The first and last time he didn’t do as you said, apparently.”
Gwen reached between Chick and me. Swept the broken glass into her hands. “I suppose you’ve discussed all this with Detective Grant?”
“Of course—and I wish you would, too.”
She motioned for me to open the cupboard under the sink. “I’ve already told him everything I can.”
I opened the cupboard. She deposited the glass in the wastebasket. It was a cheap plastic one. Just like the one under the sink in my little bungalow. “I guess that does it for the dishes,” she said.
“Except for Maddy’s crock pot,” Ike said. He started pulling the ceramic pot out of the metal liner.
Gwen quickly stood up. She reached into the dirty dishwater. Twisted the stopper. The suds began to swirl. “Maddy can wash it when she gets home—can’t you, dear?”
“Yes, I guess I can.” I let the rinse water out. Dried my hands on Chick’s damp towel. I took my crock pot from Ike. Tried to blink the tears out of my eyes. “I’m so sorry about all this, Gwen.”
There were tears in her eyes, too. “So am I.”
I tried to give her a good-bye hug but she pulled away.
As Ike and I were leaving, I saw Chick give her a kiss on the forehead. Heard Gwen beg him to stay a while longer. “Sorry babe,” he said. “Time for me to split, too.”
Chapter 26
Monday, August 6
It had been a long day. Mondays always are. Not only did I have to fend off requests for information from a dozen well-rested reporters, I had to mark up both the Saturday and Sunday papers. There was one front-page story from Sunday’s paper that I clipped for myself. It was a terrific piece. Dale Marabout had spent the whole week on it. The headline was terrific, too:
GWEN & ROLLIE
Sad, Secret Lives Shrouded By The Sweet Smell Of Success
Dale couldn’t report the whole story, of course—that it was Gwen, and not Rollie, who murdered Sweet
Gordon—but he could recount their long climb to wealth and prominence. He could explore the long-ago sins that eventually destroyed them. He could ponder Gwen’s future.
Anyway, right at five I scooped up my purse and the shopping bag I’d kept under my desk all day and headed for the parking deck. I drove down the hill and parked in front of Ike’s.
Ike sang out like he always does. “Morgue Mama!”
I sat where I always do, at the table by the cigarette machine. It has the best view of the street. Not that there’s ever anything on the street worth seeing.
Ike’s coffee shop is always empty at that time of day. He brought me my Darjeeling tea and a handful of those little Ghirardelli chocolates. He brought a mug of black coffee for himself. He said just the right thing. “What’s in the bag?”
I pulled it out. Put it on the table between us.
“So that’s what caused all the fuss?” he asked.
It was the cocoa can, of course. The one Jack Kerouac gave to Gordon for safekeeping. One of Andrew’s students had found it just that past Thursday. Andrew could have kept it for himself. He was close to Gordon, too. But he brought it to me. I pried off the lid and showed Ike the tiny pine cones. He took one out and studied it like it was a precious jewel plucked from the sarcophagus of an Egyptian pharaoh. “So how’s your disposition today?” he asked. “More endurable I hope?”
I took the pine cone from his fingers. I put it back in the cocoa can. Snapped on the lid.
“I know I’ve been a real B lately.”
He laughed. “Lately?”
I laughed. “More than usual, I mean.”
He unwrapped one of the chocolates and playfully slid it to me, as if he were feeding a rabid raccoon. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Maddy. You did what you had to do.”
***
That was true enough. I did do what I had to do. Two days before Rollie’s funeral I’d had lunch with Detective Grant at Speckley’s. Over meatloaf sandwiches I told him about the gun class Gwen took. About the gun she bought. About the motive she had for killing Gordon. Why Gordon was eager to take her to the landfill. Why Rollie would take the blame before taking those pills.
Of course Grant already knew all that stuff. “More than likely you’re right,” he said. “But evidence-wise it adds up to zip.”
I bristled like a porcupine. “Common sense-wise it adds up to murder.”
He calmly buttered another roll. Gave me half. “It’s all circumstantial, Mrs. Sprowls. No gun. No other physical evidence.”
“I thought you folks convicted people on circumstantial evidence all the time?”
For some reason he was amused by that. “That we do. But we’ve also got Rollie’s suicide note. No way in hell the prosecutor’s office goes after Gwendolyn Moffitt-Stumpf when her husband’s already confessed.”
“Have you tried to get her to confess?” I asked.
“Every which-a-way,” he said. “How about you?”
And so I made those beans, mustered up my courage, and after Rollie’s funeral confronted her. And she showed me the door. With nothing more to show for my effort than my dirty crock pot.
***
Ike unwrapped two more chocolates. “There’s still a chance her conscience will get the best of her, isn’t there? Call Detective Grant and admit she did it?”
I patted his hand. I liked it that he was trying to lift my spirits. “I suppose, Ike. But more than likely Gwen intends to live with her guilt. She’s good at that. And she still has Rollie’s money. Her big house and those awful wiener dogs. But at least she knows that I know. That has to be some kind of punishment.”
Ike kept trying. “What about the other murder? Maybe the police will charge her for her part in that. That would be some consolation, wouldn’t it?”
“For me or for the police?”
“Both maybe?”
I took a nibble out of my chocolate, as if it was a knotty little crab apple. “Detective Grant made it clear they have no plans to rattle Gwen’s cage. And in case you’re wondering, Ike, neither do I.”
Ike’s voice was softer now. His eyes were moist with concern. Probably something more. “I know this has been plenty rough on you,” he said.
I quickly saved us from an awkward moment. “I’ll live,” I said.
His cool eyes and smile were back. “You were right about things, weren’t you? The connection between the two murders? The trophy? Even this little can of pine cones?”
“Not everything, Ike.” I pried off the lid again. I carefully emptied the pine cones onto the tabletop. Among the pine cones was a small piece of paper, folded into a square. I unfolded it and showed Ike the words printed across the top in fifties-style script: Mopey’s Diner. I jerked it away from his eyes before he could read any more. Held it face down against my blouse.
“Now don’t play with me, Maddy. Was there cheese on that famous burger or not?”
I smiled wickedly. But I could not have been more melancholy. “Either way, Chick Glass wouldn’t be very happy with the answer, would he?”
“No,” said Ike, “I guess he wouldn’t.”
Ike’s is different than most other coffee shops these days. He doesn’t mind if people smoke. He has a cigarette machine. He has ashtrays and packs of matches on the tables.
“Ike,” I said, “strike a match for me.”
He did. I held the restaurant slip to it.
“Dolly Madison Sprowls,” he said as the slip curled and disappeared in the ashtray, “you are the cruelest woman alive.”
“But lovable, Ike?” I asked.
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