by Ed Gorman
“‘ationight, Sam.” Then, “You ever wish we were kids again?”
“All the time.”
Now that I knew my way, the walk back to my car was pleasant. Even the owls, grouchiest of all forest creatures, sounded friendly, and the tiny, bright earnest eyes observing me from the undergrowth seemed merry as Disney eyes.
I hoped to see Linda tonight. Or talk to her on the phone. At least for me, one sign of a good relationship is the ability to find yourself satisfied just to hear her voice. And the ability to spend an hour on the phone and have it go by like five minutes.
The door of my ragtop was open and it shouldn’t have been open. Open maybe a quarter of an inch.
Just enough to tell me that somebody had been here.
The back seat confirmed it. My briefcase was turned upside down and its contents dumped out.
Somebody looking for something. I wondered if they’d found it.
Then I noticed the glove compartment door had been left open, too, everything it held spread out on the passenger’s side of the front seat.
This could be random, of course. The tracks weren’t that far away. A wandering hobo might have searched my car for money or anything he could hock. If that was the case, there was one disappointed hobo somewhere out there.
Just as I finished putting everything away in my briefcase, I heard the cry. I glanced around, not sure where it came from. Male, that was about all I knew for sure. And not too far away.
Urgency, fear in the voice.
A second shout clarified his position. Within thirty seconds, I was back on the Comanche Trail, batting aside pine branches, shouting, “Where are you?” Already sweaty despite the chill, already anxious about this being some kind of trap. I just kept thinking about somebody tossing my car.
Maybe he thought he could get more satisfaction out of dealing with me directly. I’d definitely eliminated the notion of a wandering hobo.
The oppressive smell of loam, the tripping-stumbling-scraping of trying to move through man-tall undergrowth. Tall as my five-five, anyway. He’d cried out again and this time I had a good sense of where he was.
I came into a tiny clearing, no bigger than a prison cell, and saw in the broken moonlight through the pines the six-foot rocky ravine below.
At first I didn’t recognize him. He was just some shadow lying back against the far side of the narrow ravine, pulling up the right leg of his jeans.
“Oh, shit, McCain, thank God.”
It could only be Donny Hughes, teenage dipshit.
“You broke into my car, didn’t you,
Donny?”
“Exactly how do you break into a convertible when the top’s already down, McCain? Now c’mon, help me. I think I broke my leg.”
“What the hell were you looking for?”
“God, are you going to help me or not?”
“Not until you tell me what you were looking for?”
This sound of pain was dramatic as all hell.
“C’mon, McCain. I can’t stand up by myself.
Didn’t you have to take some kind of oath?”
“You’re thinking of doctors and plumbers.
Private investigators don’t take oaths.”
“Do you want to be responsible for my catching pneumonia and dying out here?”
“That’d make me popular with a lot of people in this town, Donny. Now why the hell were you rummaging around in my car?”
“I wanted to see what you had on her. She thinks you’re trying to blame her for Sara and Egan.”
“You mean Rita?”
The forest animals were enjoying this. It was Tv for them. I could hear them scurrying, sliding, slithering to get closer. Two human beings talking. Life didn’t get much better than that.
“I love her, McCain. I don’t want to see her go to the gas chamber.”
“That’s one you don’t have to worry about, Donny. In Iowa, we hang people. There isn’t any gas chamber.”
“Really? Hang people?”
“I don’t like it, either. But that’s what we do.
No liquor by the drink because that’s against God’s law. But hang as many people as you want. That’s just fine.”
“Please, McCain. Please help me. I think gangrene’s setting in.”
“Listen, Donny, I’ve got a saw in my car. I’ll go get it and we’ll have that gangrene cut away in no time.”
“McCain, I’m not kidding. I saw this Western once where the guy died of gangrene.
He was foaming at the mouth and everything.”
“That’s rabies, Donny. Not gangrene.”
“He had rabies? I didn’t think cowboys could get rabies.”
God only knew what that meant.
So I went down there, of course. And helped him, of course. And all the time I was doing my best to examine his leg he was bitching, of course. He was going to tell his dad how long I’d taken getting down here to help him. And his dad was going to sue me. And possibly give me rabies.
His leg was broken. I tried to feel sorry for Donny but you just can’t. Maybe if he really did have rabies you could. But short of rabies, it was real, real hard to feel sorry for Donny under any circumstances.
The shin bone of his right leg was now snapped in two, the ragged upper part of it having torn through the flesh.
I said, “I have to say something, Donny. If my leg were busted like that, I’d do a lot more yelling than you have.”
“Really?”
“Really. Let’s get you to my car and get you to the hospital.”
“Do you have a comb?”
That was Donny. A comb. Sure he was ugly, sure he was short, sure he was mouthy, but dammit he had great hair. Just like Elvis’s.
Just ask him.
His hot rod, he told me, was parked over near the ranger cabin.
“You know what he’ll do, don’t you, McCain?” he said.
“Who?”
“The park ranger.”
“What’ll he do?”
“Take my car for a spin.”
“Yeah, I can see that. He’s in his late forties, he lives in that small cabin with his wife and three kids, he’s probably already in bed and asleep. And he’s gonna get up and take your car for a spin.”
“People resent the fact that my old man has all that money.”
“No, they don’t, Donny. They resent the fact that you’re an asshole.”
I hadn’t meant to say it. Not consciously, anyway. It was like I was on automatic pilot except this was automatic insult.
“I’m sorry I said that, Donny.”
“It’s all right, McCain.”
“No, it isn’t, Donny. I apologize.”
“I know what people think of me. The only one who really gets me is Rita. I bought her those boots, she wore them once, and now she says they hurt her feet and she can’t wear them. That’s the one that hurts, McCain.
Rita.”
“Gifts aren’t going to get you anywhere with a girl like Rita, Donny.”
“Then what the hell is, McCain? I’ve tried everything.”
I helped him stand on his good leg. “If I had the answer, Donny, I’d be happily married and have three or four kids.”
Getting up the side of the ravine was no fun.
He wanted to do it on his own. I didn’t blame him. Men should always try and look manly even if it means damn near killing themselves in the process.
Trip to the car, trip to the hospital, uneventful. He just talked about how much he loved Rita. It got tiresome. But then I remembered how tiresome I must have been back in the days when I still held out hope for me and the beautiful Pamela Forrest. Sometime, somewhere, everybody in his or her lifetime gets tiresome over somebody. That’s as certain as death and taxes.
“I tried to make her jealous once,” he said as we approached the hospital.
“What happened?”
“She told me she thought this other girl and I made a cute couple.”
“I could see where that would piss you off.”
“Then I tried not paying any attention to her.”
“How’d that one go?”
“Well, after three weeks and four days, I went up to her said, “Haven’t you noticed that I haven’t been paying any attention to you?” And she said, “Oh, Donny, I’m sorry. I’ve just been so busy. So you really haven’t been paying any attention to me?””
“That mst’ve hurt.”
“That’s when I started buying her stuff, McCain. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
As we were wheeling into the emergency end of the hospital, he said, “My folks think I’m a fool.”
“You are a fool, Donny. And so am I and so is everybody else.”
I took him inside and they got to work fixing up his broken leg. He was a lot more concerned about Rita than he was his broken bone.
Linda said, “I guess I’m pretty tired, Sam.”
“So maybe I’d better not pop in, huh?”
A hesitation. “Sam.”
There are a lot of ways you can say “Sam,” but when it’s said the way she had just said it, it’s never good news.
“Yes.”
“Sam, I-”
“You’re not ready for this.”
Another hesitation. “It’s so confusing, Sam.
And I feel I sort of-used you, you know.”
“I like being used that way.”
I was in a phone booth outside a noisy bar. The red neon of the place lent the night a gaudy humanity. People getting together to get drunk. Some staggering their way in, some staggering their way out. The happy ones were the ones who had girls to stagger out with him. If they had a girl, their grins made them look like kids, no matter how old they were.
“I just need some more time alone, I guess.”
“I probably rushed things, Linda. I’m sorry.”
“No, Sam. I rushed things. I had to find out how a man would react to- So I wouldn’t think all men were like my ex-husband.”
“I had a good time, Linda. I hope I can see you again.”
“There’s this shrink I see in Iowa City. I think I need to start seeing her again. I guess she’s an expert at dealing with women who’ve had -y know, the kind of operation I’ve had. And I’m not going to drink, either. Liquor just confuses me.” Then, “I’m really sorry, Sam. If it were some other time in my life-” Then, “G’night, Sam.”
I drove around. I couldn’t tell you where. I wasn’t in love with her. That wasn’t it. But it had felt good to be with her. Dating around had turned me into a pretty superficial guy. You said what you were expected to say on dates. There wasn’t much genuine contact. But with Linda-Easy for me to say, I finally realized as I slipped into bed that night. She’s the one with the mastectomy. She’s the one who has to beat the cancer odds. All I have to do is show up on dates wearing clean underwear.
Twenty-two
I slept. It was escape sleep. Sometimes you sleep because you’re tired, sometimes you sleep because you’re bored. I slept because I didn’t want to think anymore. Not about three murders, not about Linda.
In the morning I got up and burned myself a decent breakfast, showered, got into a fresh suit and tie, and got to the office half an hour earlier than usual.
Molly came along soon after.
God had sent her from on high. She’d brought two cardboard containers of steaming hot coffee from the caf@e down the street.
“I just thought you might like some coffee.”
She waited patiently while I took a couple of calls from the courthouse about two of my trials being postponed. She looked wan and worn but somehow that only enhanced her kind of coltish beauty.
When I was done, she said, “I just wanted to see how things were going.”
“Not well. Mostly running into walls.”
“God, that was terrible about Brenda.”
“She saw something or she knew something.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
I took some coffee. “There’s a possibility that one of her boyfriends killed her.
Jealousy, something like that.”
“She coached our softball team one summer.
She was a nice woman. I didn’t like to think of her sleeping around like that.”
I smiled. “I hope you can always stay that forgiving and sweet, Molly. I really mean that, too.” More coffee. “I wasn’t running her down. I was just stating a fact. She did sleep around.”
“Yeah, I guess she did,” she said. “A little bit, anyway.”
I liked that “a little bit, anyway.” A last effort to save her friend’s reputation.
“So, one of the men she slept with could have killed her, in which case her murder doesn’t having any bearing on what I’m doing.”
“Do you really think it was one of her men friends?” she said.
“Maybe-but I’m going to assume it was because of the timing. Sara dies, David dies, she dies. All in a very short period of time.
There’s some connection. It sure feels that way, anyway.”
“David was in a pretty bad way the last time I saw him. He told me he was starting to steal money just so he could keep taking Sara out.
It was funny-I really hated him for telling me something like that. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, either.”
I’d been sitting back in my chair, the heel of my oxford on the edge of the desk. I sat up straight. “Stealing money? He told you that?”
“Yes. And I was scared for him. I told him he could go to jail. Maybe even prison if he kept doing it. But he said he couldn’t stop himself.”
“Did he say where he was stealing it from?”
“No. And I really didn’t want to know anyway, Sam. I didn’t want to get dragged into it.”
“He was getting wilder and wilder.”
“Yes, and drinking more and more. The last month or so, I rarely saw him sober.”
“Do you have any sense of where he might have been getting his money?”
“No, I’m sorry, Sam, I really don’t.” Then, “I shouldn’t say this but Sara wasn’t a very nice girl, Sam. I know she had her troubles. But she shouldn’t have led him on that way. She’d tell him she was still in love with this older man and could never love him, but then when he wouldn’t call her for a few days, she’d call him. She’d always draw him back in. And he’d come running every time.”
She daubed a tear with a fingertip. “I’ve got a whole day ahead of me? I didn’t run my eye makeup, did I?”
“Nope. Beautiful as always.”
“Oh, sure.”
“You don’t think you’re beautiful?”
“I’m too gawky to be beautiful. I don’t have any grace. But thanks for saying so.”
She gathered coat and purse and stood up and said, “I didn’t know if that would help you or not. About him stealing money.”
“It’s sure worth following up.”
I spent the rest of the morning working the telephone. I called the Dx station, several clothing stores, and a custom car shop in Cedar Rapids that David always talked about. The money angle was something new. Maybe it wouldn’t lead anywhere but it gave me a purpose and energy I hadn’t been able to tune into this morning.
He owed nearly $10 at the Dx station, nearly $250 at three different clothing shops, and had several small items on order from the custom car shop. The guy I spoke to said that David would have to pay cash before they’d give him the items. He said they’d given David credit once but that he’d been months overdue in paying it back.
Stolen money was my first surprise that morning.
The second surprise was on the way as I was checking out David Egan’s financial troubles.
I was on the phone with a client who’d been accused of stealing chickens from his neighbor. Though he wouldn’t admit he’d done it, he did say that he was sure his neighbor had been stealing chickens from him. I wondered if Oliver Wendell Holmes had ever ha
ndled a chicken-stealing case. I was just hanging up when my office door opened and Jean Coyle came in.
Tear-reddened eyes. A trembling left hand.
A cigarette in the right hand. A forlorn elegance as she sat in the chair and listened to me wind things up with my client. All of a sudden I didn’t have much interest in chicken rustling, not that I had all that much in the beginning.
She took many, many drags on her cigarette, not inhaling a one of them.
As soon as I hung up, she waved her cigarette in the air and said, “This is for dramatic effect. I don’t even know how to smoke these things.”
“The red eyes are all you need for dramatic effect. Why don’t you put it out?”
I pushed the ashtray across the desk. She was, as always, the compleat suburban house mistress. A long gray coat of suede and leather patches, a starched white collar on her blouse, and an impeccable hairstyle.
After punishing her cigarette several times over, she finally got every tiny piece of flame out.
“You want to know how much I hated her?” Her voice wavered, went weak, came back strong in the same short question. “He-what’s the phrase the kids use-knocked her up.”
“He being-” his-my husband, Jack.”
“And she being-”
“The recently deceased Sara Griffin.”
Then, “Is that bitchy enough for you? Talking about a poor dead girl like that?”
“Yeah. I heard.”
I reached into my bottom drawer and hauled out a pint of Old Grandad. I shoved it across to her. She knew just what to do. Uncapped it, wiped off the neck with her palm, and took a swig a farmhand would have a hard time getting down.
“Mind if I keep this for a while?” she said.
“Be my guest.”
“If I get drunk and try to seduce you, please say no.”
“It just so happens I’m wearing my chastity belt.” Then, “Could we go over this he-she business a little bit more?”
“He knocked her up.”
“And you know this for sure?”
She snorted. “Are you kidding? The sonofabitch told me himself. He said when they make the autopsy public today, they’ll announce she was pregnant.” Then, “Will you handle my divorce for me?”
“Of course. If you’re sure that’s what you want.”
“If I’m sure that’s what I want? My God, Sam, how could I live with a man like that?
