by Ed Gorman
I called Linda at the hospital in Iowa City.
“So you just called? Just to say hi? That’s very nice of you. In fact, I was thinking that maybe you’d like to get a pizza tonight. My treat, Sam.”
“That sounds great. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Just remember—”
“I remember. We’re going easy. And that’s fine with me.”
“This will get to be a real drag for you someday, Sam. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not sorry at all. I like being with you and that’s all we need to say.”
“Thanks, Sam. See you at seven.”
The librarian gave me a curious look when I asked her where I might find a book on cancer. Having been a librarian here since I was a kid, she was naturally concerned that my reading wasn’t for my mom or dad.
“Everything all right at home, Sam?”
“Everything’s fine, Mrs. Anderson.”
She was the only librarian who’d bought both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Heinlien for the library in those long-ago days after the war when the country was on one of its sporadic improve-your-mind campaigns, which always
meant promoting the sort of books kids didn’t want to read. A few libraries were forced to give away all their Burroughs books.
She’d shown up at the graduation ceremony for the law school and given me a nice auntly kiss on the cheek as I passed down the aisle clutching my diploma. You don’t forget people like that.
I was pretty self-conscious about it. When I found the book she suggested, I took it to a corner table and kind of hunched over the book.
I wasn’t shocked. I sort of knew what I was going to see. It made me mad looking at the woman whose torso they’d
color-photographed. The healthy breast next to the flat line of scar next to it. I thought of Linda and then of my mom and then of my kid sister. I wanted to hold somebody responsible for this. But mad became sad and I thought of my aunt Barb, who’d died of it, and the lady down the street who was fighting it and all of a sudden it seemed overwhelming, like every woman in the world was going to get it eventually. I closed the book. I wanted a cigarette, speaking of cancer. I sat there and thought of Linda and what this must mean to her.
And how she had to live in daily fear that it would come back. Some little routine test, some little sign, and then your doctor was talking about surgery again; or worse, not talking about surgery because it was too late even for that. I still wanted somebody to blame for all this. Random cosmic bad luck wasn’t good enough. I needed to see a Wanted poster with some bastard’s face and name on it.
The cigarette tasted so good, I had two of them, just sitting in my ragtop in the warm, glowing autumn afternoon watching the old guys play checkers on the bird-bombed green park benches.
I wanted Linda with me. A healthy,
long-lived Linda. Hard to imagine the darkness of death when I thought of her on so fetching a day.
The judge would be wanting to hear from me, and since I had nothing much to report I thought that maybe it was time I visit Brenda Carlyle, which I’d been putting off. Her husband, Mike, had gotten all the way to Chicago in the Golden Gloves just before he left for Korea. He worked at his old man’s lumberyard and spent his idle hours beating the crap out of any guy who so much as glanced at his wife, which wasn’t easy not to do, believe me, her being one of the most
quietly erotic women ever born in our little valley here. She is not innocent of her charms.
In high school, I’m told, she used
to pursue various boys and, when done with them, turn them over to Mike for summary punishment.
Mike either didn’t know that she’d approached the boys, rather than the other way around, or he chose not to know.
Certain legends were passed among the panting young men in our town. Many of them concerned Brenda.
Most of the stories were variations on the stuff the panting young men had read in the sort of books Kenny Chesmore writes. You know, that she liked to stand on certain husband-gone nights draped only in the gauziest of teddy-bear nighties and try to lure foolish boys inside in the way a sea siren would. That she rewarded the best high school football player of the year with a special night all their own. And that at Christmastime she gave herself to the young man who struck her as the most exciting.
But remember, folks, this is Black River Falls, after all, and there isn’t much else to do but think up stories like these.
I decided to stop by the lumberyard and make sure that Mike was at work. Didn’t want him to surprise me by opening the door of his home.
The lumberyard always unmanned me. I come from a long line of handymen. If a tornado knocks your house down tonight, my dad and a couple of his brothers will have it standing, good as new, twenty-four hours later. I have trouble pounding nails in straight. Or getting screws to stay in. And anything I painted always came out striped, as if I’d used several subtly different colors. When I was in tenth grade my dad asked me to help him install a new window over the kitchen sink. We got the window in all right, but when I was putting the shutter back on, my hammer accidentally slammed a corner of it and shattered glass all over my mom, who was innocently washing dishes. My dad never asked me to help him again and I couldn’t blame him.
But the lumberyard dazzled me with all its manly secrets and rites of passage: whine of electric saw, smell of fresh cut lumber, stacks of wood in the yard, men in big overalls, their pipes tucked into the corners of their mouths as they loaded lumber into the backs of their trucks, their tool belts packed
with all sorts of arcane instruments that would be lost on me. I had a pair of bib overalls but the legs were too long. And I had some tools but Mrs. Goldman kept them because she used them—and used them well—mch better than I did.
I saw him and he saw me. He didn’t like me. One night in a bar his wife had grabbed me and swung me out onto the dance floor. It was fast dancing but he still hadn’t liked it. He had a good memory. He’d been glowering at me ever since that night. And that had been at least four years ago.
He didn’t wear overalls. He wore a
shirt and tie and trousers. He was huge but quick and deft for his size. He picked up a pile of two-by-fours and dropped them in the bed of a truck.
No reason to stay there. I turned and walked away, inhaling the perfume of fresh sawn lumber.
I got in my ragtop and drove maybe three blocks to the narrow road that would take me to the Carlyle house when I decided I’d better check in at my office.
“Uh, just a minute, okay?” Jamie
answered.
This is one I hadn’t heard before. I’d heard “It’s your nickel,” I’d heard “Uh, Mr.
C’s office.”
Now she said: “Damn, I just spilled my nail polish all over the desk.”
There was no sense being angry. God was punishing me for all my sins.
“Okay, I’m back,” she said.
“It’s me.”
“Oh, gosh Mr. C, I’ve been trying
to find you.”
“You have?”
“Well, I was about to try and find you I guess I should say. Turk brought me a sandwich and we’re just sort of eating it.”
A lurid picture of them humping on my desk filled the drive-in screen of my mind.
“Ah, lunch.”
“She tried to kill herself, Mr. C.”
“Who did?”
“Molly.”
“Molly Blessing?”
“Yeah. Molly Blessing. Her mom called and said Molly wants to talk to you.”
“Where is she now?”
“The hospital. Not the Catholic one.”
That was how she always referred to things. The Catholic one or not the Catholic one. The dime store that’s not Woolworth’s. The pizza joint that’s not out on Highway 6.
“I’m going over there now. were there any other messages?”
She cupped the phone. “Didn’t somebody else call, Turk?”<
br />
A muffled male voice.
“Turk says no other calls. I was in the ladies room for a while, Mr. C. He was watching the phone.”
Watching I wouldn’t mind. Talking into it I would. If her phone mannerisms were bad, imagine Turk’s. He’s Irish by the way.
God only knows where the name Turk came from.
I drove straight to the hospital. Not the Catholic one.
I wasn’t surprised by a suicide
attempt, not after the way she’d acted the other night.
When I got to her room, the nurse said, “Her parents are downstairs talking to the doctor. You can have five minutes or so. She’s weak.” Betty Byrnes read her name tag.
“What happened?”
“She got into her mother’s tranquilizers.
Took a dozen or so. Fortunately, they’re not especially strong dosage-wise. She’ll be fine.”
She didn’t look fine. The only vibrant color in the room was her coppery hair.
Everything else was white, including her face.
She looked like a dying angel. She seemed to be sleeping. I didn’t want to wake her up. I started to turn and walk away.
“Hi, Sam.”
I turned back to her. “Hi, Molly.”
“Pretty stupid thing to do, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, walking over to her.
“Pretty stupid.”
Deep sigh. There was a table on wheels next to her bed. A silver metal water pitcher was beaded with sweat. An abridged version of the King James Bible. A movie magazine with Rock Hudson on it.
She said, “I just couldn’t deal with it.
It really hit me. You know, that he was dead and not coming back. I had a couple of drinks from my father’s bar in the basement and then I found my mom’s tranquilizers. I don’t remember much after that.”
“You in any pain?”
“Not really. Just kind of groggy. This was so dumb. It’s embarrassing.”
“Anything I can get you?”
She tried to smile. “A phone call from David would be nice.” Then, “I wish I were as strong as Rita.”
“She’s pretty tough.”
“She wouldn’t pull a stunt like this one.” She laid her head back. Closed her eyes. “You think I’ll ever get over it, Sam?”
“I don’t know about getting over it. But you’ll be able to deal with it.”
“I wish I were an adult.”
“We all wish we were adults.”
She opened one eye and smiled at me.
“You’ve got a great sense of humor.” Then, “David did, too. He was never boring to be with. Never. You could just sit somewhere and he could keep you entertained for hours. I’d never known anybody like that before.” Then, “My folks told me Cliffie’s mad at you because you’ve been asking people a lot of questions.”
“Just trying to make sure that Egan’s death was accidental.”
“You didn’t like him much, did you, Sam?”
“Sometimes I did. Sometimes he was pretty hard to take. The way he felt sorry for himself and everything.”
“He had good reasons to feel sorry for himself, Sam.”
This wasn’t the time for a debate. “His aunts will see to it that he gets a nice funeral.”
“I may still be in here.”
The nurse came in. “Her folks’ll be back in a few minutes.” She had a kind, middle-aged face. She gazed down at Molly. “She conned me into phoning your office and inviting you up here. But I’d just as soon the doctor doesn’t know I did it.”
“I really appreciate you coming here, Sam.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
The nurse beamed. “She’ll be fine. All her vitals are good and she’s in much
better spirits this morning than she was last night.”
“What I am mostly is embarrassed,” said Molly. ““Poor, pathetic Molly crying out for help again.” I can just hear people saying that now.”
I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
She took my hand and squeezed it.
In the hall, Betty said, “She’s a nice kid. But unlucky.”
“Unlucky how?”
“David Egan. My oldest daughter went out with him a few times. I know you were his lawyer, Mr. McCain. And maybe he was your friend. But mothers aren’t thrilled when their daughter takes up with somebody like him. They’re like professional heartbreakers, boys like him. They want to wound the girl in some way and walk away. Fortunately for my daughter, she recognized this in him pretty early. She made sure he didn’t hurt her. She finally met a nice kid and told David good-bye. I was on my knees a whole lot of nights praying that Doris wouldn’t fall in love with him.” She nodded to the room.
“Poor little Molly wasn’t so lucky.”
The elevator doors started to open.
“I think I’ll take the stairs,” I said.
“I don’t blame you,” Betty said. “Her parents are in a mood to tear into somebody. And I’d hate to see it be you.”
Seventeen
I had to pass the Kelly house on my way out of town so I decided to see if they were home and if they would let me spend a little time in David’s room. I doubted if Cliffie had even bothered checking it out. Since he was convinced he knew what had happened, why would he? I’d have to check the lumberyard again to make sure Mike was there. Might as well get this done first.
I parked in the drive and heard them talking in the backyard. They were hanging white sheets on the clothesline. A wind was filling the dried sheets at the far end of the line and flapping them in the wind like the sails of pirate ships. Newly mown grass smelled fresh and crisp; and on a small stone cookout grill—one I suspected that David had made—a couple of burgers were cooking. On the edge of a picnic table you could see catsup, mustard, relish, and a stack of paper plates.
Amy had just stuck a wooden clothespin in her mouth when I approached. I heard Emma but I couldn’t see her. “I’m washing our special tablecloth. Emma’s birthday’s coming up.”
“She’s a year and a half older than I am, Sam,” Emma said, working her way out from behind a sheet.
“Year and a quarter,” Amy said.
It was the easy jocularity of two women who had literally spent their entire lives together.
I’d read an article about how close companions could virtually become one person after so many years. I believed it.
“I wondered if I could look around
David’s room.”
The look that passed between them surprised me.
Good old Sam suddenly became good old Sam the intruder.
“Now why on earth would you want to do that, Sam?” Amy said.
Now I was more than surprised. I was suspicious myself. Pretty harmless request.
“Well, you hired me to find out what happened to him. I just thought that maybe I’d turn up something in his room.”
The look again.
“Well,” Emma said. “Wish you would’ve given us a little warning is all.”
“Yes,” Amy said, “we did the best we could but it wasn’t easy to keep things picked up.”
“We just don’t want you thinking we’re bad housekeepers, Sam.”
I wondered what they didn’t want me to find. What was there to be so secretive about?
Especially in light of the fact that I was working for them. Supposedly, anyway.
“Maybe you could stop back later this afternoon, Sam,” Emma said. “Give us a chance to pick things up first.”
I glanced from one to the other. Such sweet old ladies. Such a sweet old day. Scent of laundry and fresh cut grass. And even a monarch butterfly perched on one end of the clothesline.
And yet there was something a little sinister about these two old ladies now. Norman Rockwell’s first drive-in movie poster—two sweet-faced little old ladies who were actually in the vanguard of an alien race about to take over planet earth. I half expected to see killer
rays shooting from their eyes.
“You know,” I said, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you two had something to hide.”
Amy was the blusher of the two. Her cheeks hued crimson at my words and her gaze fell to the grass.
Emma burst out with a rich but fake laugh.
“Well, he’s found us out, Amy. About our criminal past.”
Amy wasn’t as good at faking. She managed to stammer through, “Uh, oh yes, our past-criminal—past.”
“How about around suppertime?” I said.
“Now that would be fine, Sam,” Emma said, keeping her fake enthusiasm up. We really aren’t trying to hide anything. We just want to pick things up a little.”
They stood there smiling at me. Amy had her hands behind her back. Maybe she was holding a blood-dripping ax-Another drive-in movie poster.
I decided to try the office again. This time Jamie answered right away and in English.
“Law office.”
“Any calls?”
All this came out in a gush: “Gosh, you know who called you, Mr. C? Andrea Prescott.
Just about the most stuck-up girl who ever went to our high school. She was a good friend of Sara Griffin’s. She said she has to talk to you right away. She called from Iowa City. She’s going to school there. She said she’ll be back here in about half an hour and wants you to meet her at the Indian mounds.”
“She say why she wants to talk to me?”
“No. She was her usual snotty self.”
Jamie was never sweeter than when she felt snubbed. She was little-kid hurt, right up front, all naked pain. She didn’t try to hide it for the sake of saving face.
“I’m sorry, Jamie.”
“Oh, it’s all right, Mr. C. I
didn’t cry or nothin’.”
“Good. I’ll talk to you in a while, all right?”
Once again, I had to postpone my trip to see Brenda Carlyle.
In ninth grade I had to write a
paper on the mound builders. These Indians were descended in some way we still don’t understand from tribes that thousands of years earlier killed huge bison by running them over cliffs or running them into bogs, where they were trapped. The Indians then speared them to death. Bows and arrows hadn’t been invented yet. Spears alone wouldn’t kill the animals but cunning would. And the forbears of the mound builders seemed to have plenty of that. Running twelve-hundred-pound animals off a cliff is a pretty bright idea.
