Ticket to Ride

by Ed Gorman

  “Like Harrison Doran, political activist?”

  “Yeah, it’s like a drug. Pretending you’re somebody else. You don’t have to be you, you know what I mean? People give you places to live and feed you and you can pretty much have any girl you want. But I never had this happen before.”

  “There’s a warrant out for your arrest in the East. What’s that about?”

  “I got a gig as a disk jockey in this real small station. I started banging the owner’s mistress. He tried to hit me with a whiskey bottle one night. I beat the shit out of him. But he was a big man in town, so the cops put it all on me. And I ran.”

  A knock on the door. “Five minutes, McCain. The chief talked to the DA, and the DA said he didn’t say anything about you having a half hour.”

  Elmer Dodd smiled. “So you like to make up stuff, too?”

  Winslow went away, footsteps slapping down the hallway.

  “What were you doing at Bennett’s at three in the morning?”

  He shook his head. “Molly’d gone home. I don’t remember much; I mean I was really shit-faced, man. I took her car. I’d seen Bennett’s place before. I remember being so mad I wanted to tell him off. That’s another thing I have a problem with. My temper. I’ve got a bad one. But then I always get depressed, too. I guess I might as well tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “There was this girl I was in love with, and she left me after she found out I was just making up my past. And I went kind of crazy. They put me in a mental hospital for three weeks. I still have a lot of trouble with depression, I guess.”

  I tried not to think about how the DA would characterize Elmer Fudd here: a bunco artist with a bad temper who’d spent time in a mental hospital and was seen at the murder victim’s home at three in the morning. Not to mention two violent confrontations with Bennett. A lawyer’s dream.

  “Do you remember seeing Bennett?”

  “I didn’t make it that far. I remember tripping over something when I was walking up the driveway. That’s how I got this gash on my arm. I must have passed out. It was about four o’clock when I woke up. I was in the same place. I obviously didn’t make it up to the house.”

  “So you’re saying you didn’t kill him?”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m really in trouble, aren’t I?”

  This time I heard Winslow before he got to the door. The knock was louder this time. “Your five minutes is up.”

  “I timed it. I’ve got two minutes left.”

  “Not according to my watch.” He opened the door. “C’mon, McCain. You’re lucky you got to see him at all.”

  Elmer Dodd rose up out of his seat and reached out for me, his handcuffs clacking. “You’re not going to leave me like this, are you, man?”

  “I’ll be back.” There wasn’t anything more to say. I saw the kid in him now. Scared and desperate. The tears were back.

  “Get out of here, McCain.” Winslow put his hand on my shoulder and I brushed it away.

  “I’ll bet you don’t wash your hands after you go to the bathroom, do you?”

  Believe it or not, some people don’t find me amusing.

  11

  SUE HAD STRUNG A CLOTHESLINE FROM KENNY’S TRAILER TO A utility shed he’d bought prefab at Monkey Ward’s. There was something timeless about her hanging clothes in the Midwestern sunlight, her fine figure in a simple blue housedress, a wooden clothespin between her teeth and their small Border collie running around and around the hanging sheets and shirts. Trixie Easley had recently collected photographs from the last century and put them in a display in the library to show the eternal work of women. She also created a section of books that disabused the John Wayne myth-seekers about who put in the most hours on the frontier. It was women, not men. When men’s work was done for the day, the women worked long into the night, this after getting up earlier than the menfolk to get breakfast ready and start the day. The book I read was about women on the plains of Kansas. There were a lot of suicides.

  When she heard me coming down the dirt road that led to the big shade trees and the trailer, she stopped her work and waved at me. Pepper came out to run around my car and lead me the rest of the way. Sue and Pepper and the clothes on the line … how much Kenny’s life had changed for the better.

  Sue always had a hug for me. “Shush, Pepper,” as the dog raced around and around me. Pepper was in bad need of more visitors, it seemed. All her attention focused on a single person was pretty much overwhelming. “He’s inside working. He got up at dawn and started in. Fortunately I’ve learned how to sleep through the typing. Any special plans for Labor Day?”

  The smell of the fresh wet wash was sweet on the dusty heat of the early afternoon. “Nothing planned. I’m working for Harrison Doran.”

  She nodded, her pretty Italian face breaking into a smile. “All last night Kenny was telling me how much you hated Doran. He called your office a while ago and talked to Jamie. She said you’d agreed to help him. Molly must have changed your mind.”

  “Yeah, Molly did—and Cliffie. He’s already convicted Doran. And there’s no other lawyer in town who’ll help him.”

  “I have to say Doran’s pretty hard to take. I sat in Burger-Quik one afternoon and listened to him tell anybody who’d listen what a cool guy he was.”

  “Yeah, but still—”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “But you’re doing the right thing. Go in and tell Kenny to rest for a while. He needs a break.”

  Sue had turned the small silver trailer into a home. The floor was carpeted, the furniture was new, as was the gas range and washerdryer. And gone from the walls were the framed covers of a few of the soft-core novels Kenny had written. All that remained was the framed photograph of Jack Kerouac. Most people had Jesus on their walls, Kenny had Jack.

  Kenny worked at a small oak desk pushed against the west wall. Sometimes he worked with music in the background. His taste ran to Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Hank Williams. He could type ninety words a minute perfectly. I never mentioned that to Jamie.

  He usually worked nonstop. He wasn’t aware of me until I was two feet from his desk and said, “I don’t think there’s enough sex in that scene.”

  He looked up, smiling. “Hey, I hear you’re working for Doran. Good, because the radio makes it sound like he’s already convicted. He’s an asshole, but he deserves somebody helping him.”

  I pointed to the paper in his typewriter. “What’s this one?”

  “‘Twisted Twilight.’”

  “Lesbians?”

  “You can’t go wrong with lesbians.”

  “Guy comes along and rescues one of them from decadence?”

  “Rance Haggarty’s his name. Pro football player and world-class lover. Got a schlong that spoils women for life.” He laughed. “There’s some very cold Pepsi in the fridge. Why don’t you get both of us one?”

  “Rance as in ‘rancid’?”

  “I keep wanting to write a book where the lesbians end up happily together. You know I correspond with gay women who write soft-core. They’re very bright nice women. Fortunately for me, they understand the market and what you have to do, so they don’t hate me. But then, hell, their own books have to have the endings when one of the women goes off with a guy. Or gets hit by a train.” His laugh hadn’t changed in twenty-two years.

  I got our Pepsis. I sat on the couch. Kenny turned his chair around so he could face me. “Time for me to pull out my deerstalker cap?”

  “I really need some help. Linda Raines isn’t going to help me and neither is William Hughes. I need to know who really had it in for Bennett.”

  “Plenty of people, from what I’ve always heard.”

  “But I need to narrow the list down.”

  “I can probably do that for you.”

  Kenny knew as much about our little town as anybody in it. He started a novel set here when he was still in high school. In doing research, he learned not only our history but also who was who and
why in our own time. Despite the books he writes, most people like Kenny. They’ll talk to him because his boyishness puts them at ease.

  “Who’re you going to talk to next?”

  “Lynn Shanlon. She knows a lot about the Bennett family. I know they never accepted Karen.”

  “No surprise there, Sam. She came from the Hills and she had a limp. You sure wouldn’t want either of those things in the blood line.”

  “Choate. West Point. Hyannis Port. Lou did all right for himself coming from here.”

  “Yeah, but only because his old man inherited a fortune when Lou was eight years old.”

  That was what I meant about Kenny knowing the town. “I’d forgotten that. Where’d the money come from?”

  “Oil. The father’s brother was a wildcatter. He was also a convicted felon. Nearly killed a man in a bar fight in Waco. Served three years. But all was forgiven when his gushers came in. Full pardon from the governor.” He smiled. “You know how fast money can make you respectable. Surprised the Pope didn’t make him a saint.”

  “What about Bennett’s business partner Roy Davenport?”

  “Another felon. Lou liked to walk right up to the line legally. He had a number of businesses that probably involved outright crime, including cheap cigarettes in from Canada. He needed a fixer. Davenport was his fixer for the side businesses, but he was impressive enough to meet people at the country club.”

  “Why’d Davenport leave Bennett?”

  “A woman named Sally Crane. She was one of their secretaries. Lou hired good-looking married women who were willing to stay a little late if there were bonuses in their paychecks. Davenport started sleeping with the Crane woman on the side. Except Bennett didn’t want to share her and couldn’t believe that Davenport actually had feelings for her. They got into a fistfight one night and Davenport beat him up pretty badly. And that was that.”

  “If you hear anything more about Davenport, let me know, huh? I already owe you a good meal for what you just told me.”

  “I’ll keep calling people, seeing what I can find out.”

  By the time I reached the door, Kenny had already turned back to his typewriter. By the time I reached the ground and was greeted by a hand-slurping Pepper, Kenny was punishing his typewriter at a rate poor Jamie could only dream of.

  Lynn Shanlon wore a white T-shirt and red shorts. She probably caused more than one man to gawk at her as he passed by in his car. She was comely and cute as she shoved the hand mower across the sloping front yard of her small white clapboard house. If she noticed me pulling into her driveway, she didn’t let on. She thrust that mower with serious intent. A buccaneer of the blades.

  I stood on the edge of her lawn and waited until she’d turned back in my direction. I waved when she saw me. She didn’t wave back. She mowed her way to me and then stopped, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. The displeasure in the brown eyes told me that she knew who I was and didn’t like me at all.

  “Wondered if I could talk to you.”

  Despite the wrinkles around eyes and mouth, her perfect little features would always keep an air of youth about her.

  “I guess you’re forgetting what you did to me, Mr. McCain.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My neighbor down the block—Mrs. Hearne?—you represented her against me. She claimed that my boyfriend’s dog always tore up her garden?”

  “She filed the complaint against him, right? Pekins or something like that?”

  “Perkins. And it was one of the reasons we broke up. I got too good a deal on this house to move, and he wouldn’t live here with me without his dog.”

  “But the dog was tearing up her garden. She had a pretty reasonable complaint.”

  She sighed. Her thin arms were covered with blades of grass. She dug into the pocket of her shorts and brought out a pack of Chesterfields. She got one lighted and said, “Oh, hell, who am I kidding? We were going to break up anyway, I guess. Every time I’d bring up marriage, he’d change the subject. But that doesn’t make Mrs. Hearne any less of a bitch. She would have been right at home in Salem, burning witches.”

  That made me laugh. “Other than that, you like her, huh?”

  She had a quick girly smile. “Other than that, I’m crazy about her.”

  A green DeSoto convertible drove past, the male driver downright enchanted by the sight of Lynn Shanlon in her shorts. “My exhusband was like that. Everywhere we’d go, I’d have to watch him watch every girl in the place. I thought Perkins might be different. But no. You men are all lechers.” She dragged on her cigarette. “So why’re you here?”

  “I’d like to ask you some questions about your sister and when she was seeing Bryce Bennett.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Lou being killed?”

  “Could have. I’m representing Harrison Doran.”

  She dropped her smoke to the grass, twisted it out with the sole of one of her red Keds. “You’ve got your hands full then. I heard Chief Sykes on the radio this morning. I’ll admit he’s an idiot sometimes, but Doran being out there at three in the morning—”

  “Did your sister ever tell you about any of Lou Bennett’s enemies? She must have spent some time out there.”

  “Not unless she had to. She was insecure enough with her leg, the way the poor kid limped. Her foot was run over by a car when she was four and it wasn’t fixed correctly. The way the Bennetts treated her didn’t exactly make her feel any better about herself.” Then: “Hey, good afternoon, Dave.” She trotted down the driveway to meet the mailman. “Are you ready for the weekend?” she said as he handed her the mail.

  “Probably go to the parade.”

  “You’re not going to burn any Beatles records?”

  Dave laughed. “If I did, my daughters would burn me.”

  It was an afternoon of heat and lawn work and little kids cooling off with moms aiming hoses at them and teenage girls in bikinis sunning themselves on towels and hoping to put a fair number of men in mental hospitals.

  When she returned, she waved a handful of envelopes at me. “Bills. Between my job at the courthouse and my big alimony check, I can almost pay these.” Then: “My sister loved Bryce and Bryce loved her. His father forced him to break it off. Karen never got over it, and I don’t think Bryce did either.”

  “Did he ever try to contact her after he was married?”

  “I don’t know. I was living in Chicago with my ex-husband the banker. I came back here one week before the fire in her little bungalow. I think about that all the time. I was so upset over my husband divorcing me, I didn’t spend much time with her because I didn’t want to bring her down with all my whining. We’d planned on spending the whole day together sometime; drive into Cedar Rapids or Iowa City. But then she died.” The voice became despondent. “I loved her as much as she loved Bryce.”

  “I’m trying to remember the fire. Was there anything strange about it?”

  “Are you kidding? Everything about it was strange. First of all, she rarely smoked. Once in a while when she was really depressed or something, she’d puff on a few cigarettes. So that bothered me. And the fact that she didn’t wake up in time to get out. My sister was a very light sleeper. Very light.”

  “Did you talk about this to anybody?”

  “To anybody who’d listen, including the mayor and the fire chief. They thought I was just distraught because my sister died. You know, that I was making things up.”

  “Did the Bennetts give you any kind of support?”

  “You must be nuts. Why would they?”

  “Well, your sister and Bryce had gone out for quite a while.”

  “The only one who paid any attention to Karen was Linda’s husband David. He was quite taken with her, especially after he’d had a few drinks.”

  “She told you that?”

  “She didn’t have to. I got invited to the mansion a few times. I saw it for myself. He’s like my ex. The grass always look
s greener and everything. Linda’s a bitch, but you can’t take her beauty from her. And I can’t blame her for hating my sister a little. Raines got serious about her. Because he couldn’t have her. He has quite the ego. Wrote her a few letters even.”

  “Did she ever tell Bryce?”

  She devastated a mosquito by slamming her palm against her forearm. “No. She was afraid what it would do to the whole family if they found out. She was afraid Lou and Linda would blame her.”

  She made a face. “I don’t know why the hell I’m talking to you, anyway. I really am pissed about you being that old bitch’s lawyer.”

  “One more question.”

  She turned a sigh into Hamlet. “Yeah? One more?”

  “Did Lou have any enemies that your sister heard him talk about?”

  The smile was bitter. “Lou considered everybody an enemy. People were a nuisance to him.” Then: “His business partner. Or ex-business partner. Roy Davenport. They really ended up hating each other. Somebody told me they heard that Davenport beat Lou up pretty badly one time. I hope that’s true.” She put her hand over her eyes and squinted at me. “So you really think this Doran is innocent?”

  “I do, yes. Or I wouldn’t be trying to help him.”

  “Well, I guess you can try.”

  She turned the mower around and went back to work. I watched her for several long moments. Those red shorts immortalized her bottom.

  12

  IF YOU HAVE THE DEVIL’S MUSIC IN YOUR

  HOME BRING IT HERE LABOR DAY FOR OUR

  RIGHTEOUS FIRE!

  —REVEREND H. DOBSON CARTWRIGHT

  THE SIGN WAS IN BLACK AND WHITE AND STRUNG BETWEEN TWO small oak trees that sat on church property. If you were headed west through town, as I was, you couldn’t miss it.

  The Church of the Sacred Realm was a one-story concrete building that had previously been a warehouse for an auto-parts supplier. A thirty-foot steel cross had been set in place on the roof. For special holy events, Cartwright rented a spotlight to shine on it. At least two people claimed to have been healed by the gleaming cross. I was surprised that athlete’s foot could be vanquished that easily.