by Gorman, Ed
"That is quite enough, Miss Tolan. Quite enough."
Without another word, he escorted her to the door and out into the bracing night air.
"Hi, Anna."
"Hi, Trace."
"May I come up and sit on the porch with you?"
"If you like."
"Wow. It's baking out tonight."
"It sure is."
"I suppose you want to know about my date with Marietta Evans last night?"
"Not really, Trace."
"Well, we had a darned good time."
"Good."
"What'd you do?"
"Last night?"
"Uh-huh."
"Played bridge with Mrs. Goldman and her friends."
"That sounds like fun."
"Are you being sarcastic?"
"No."
"Good. Because I like bridge and I like Mrs. Goldman and her friends."
"People said we made a very handsome couple."
"You and Marietta?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good."
"She's very pretty."
"Yes, she is."
"God, Anna, don't you know what I'm trying to do?"
"Sure, you idiot. You're trying to make me jealous and I'm trying to pretend not to be jealous."
"Actually, she has kind of an overbite and bad breath."
"You got close enough to smell her breath?"
"I didn't kiss her, if that's what you mean."
"Really?"
"C'mon, Anna, you know better than that. I just figured I'd make you jealous and you'd be so happy to see me that you'd—"
"I'd what?"
"You know."
"No, I don't know."
"Gosh, Anna, won't you just marry me, won't you please?"
"I'm not sure I want to, Trace. I mean, a part of me does, but—"
Soon after, Trace, his head low, left the porch and walked down the shadowy street until Anna could no longer see him.
Chapter 26
I peered through a screen door into an orderly apartment of recently waxed hardwood floors and very neatly arranged furniture. From a distant room came the sounds of an acoustic guitar playing something that sounded vaguely Spanish, and much nearer by was the smell of sweet furniture polish.
I knocked.
She came out less than a minute later and at first I didn't recognize her at all. The dark hair had been cut, for one thing, in a plucky boyish bob. And the chambray shirt and tan chinos showed off a slender body she'd previously buried beneath several layers of clothing.
This was Sandy Moore's daughter. Slightly less than five weeks ago her apartment had been a rat's nest of trash and grime. So had she. Only the dark sparkling eyes were recognizable.
"Hi."
"Hi, Patty."
She giggled. "I don't mind if you stare."
"God, what happened?"
"C'mon in and I'll tell you."
I went in. She got me a Diet Pepsi from the refrigerator, carried it to where I sat in a faded but spotless armchair, and then sat cross-legged on the newly waxed floor and said, "That night you were here asking me all those questions about my mom and David Rhodes?"
"Right."
"I went nuts. After you left, I mean. Started hitting bars and everything. Woke up in this guy's place — hadn't ever seen him before — and tried to kill him."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "Just because I was so sick of it all — of being me, I mean. You know, being a slave to the bottle and all." She laughed merrily. "Luckily, he woke up and saw me with the knife there and took it away from me."
"Then what?"
"Then I came home and took pills and turned on the gas and tried to kill myself. But a neighbor smelled it and got me to the Mercy Hospital. After they pumped my stomach, I decided I might as well go detox. They've got a clinic there. I stayed three weeks."
"You're dry?"
"Twenty-seven days' worth."
"Congratulations."
"Yeah. I'm proud of myself, I really am. I'm scared, too, of course. I could fall right back off."
"And speaking of falling off — you're not going to chase after the rodeo, I take it?"
Shook her head. There was an impishness new to the dark eyes. It was fun to see. "Nah. If all those hunky rodeo Indians want somebody of my quality, they can come chase me."
"Good idea."
"How's your Diet Pepsi?"
"Vintage."
A grin. Glance around the living room. "You ever think I could make it look this good?"
"Honest?"
"Honest."
"No. I figured this place was just about to be condemned."
"Got my old job back at the hotel. They're not crazy about Indians but as this black woman who works there says, "Honey, least they don't hate you as much as they hate us." This time there was sorrow in the laughter. I liked her a whole hell of a lot, and admired her, too.
"You're probably here about my mom, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Anything special?"
"I was wondering if you'd let me look through her effects."
"If you want to, I guess."
"I wouldn't take anything. I'd just look, I mean. You could stand right next to me."
"The clothes and stuff I already gave away to St Vincent de Paul's."
"Any other stuff?"
"Odds and ends in a couple of cardboard boxes. You know what you're looking for?"
"Not exactly."
The grin. "Didn't figure you did." Pause. "You still don't think David Rhodes killed her and my aunt?"
"I do."
"But Cindy doesn't?"
"Yeah. Something like that."
"She always could get pathetic about him. Even when she was a little girl, my mom said."
"She's a nice woman."
Impish glance. "I'll take your word for it. I told you before — she's one of those people who're ashamed of being Indian, I guess, and I never can bring myself to feel too sorry for them." She stood up, graceful as her legs disentangled. "You want to go see her stuff?"
"Sure."
We sat in a sunny bedroom on a hook rug, looking through a cardboard box, the contents of which represented her mother's life. Patty had scrubbed and waxed up this room, too, and the double bedspread smelled pleasantly of fabric softener, and the shafts of sunlight on the bureau brought out the deep chestnut colors of the old but fine quality wood.
We went to work on the box, the one with the Campbell's soup can on the side.
It contained programs from several years' worth of Pow-Wows that the La Costa put on for tourists each summer; red ribbons and blue ribbons and yellow ribbons and green ribbons; a slender Bulova watch that no longer kept time; a half-dozen or so inexpensive rings; a well-read paperback of Love Story; a fragile crucifix with the Christ figure broken in half and glued back together; and photographs of Sandy at various ages and in various emotional states. Most of the photos showed her posing in front of rock concerts and other hippie gatherings. In the background you could see signs advertizing THE STONES and BOB DYLAN and PINK FLOYD, the mid-seventies mostly. In these photos, Sandy was thin and pretty in a beaten way, the quick feral way of a junkie, which I suspected she'd been.
"She looked so vulnerable."
"Yes, she did," I said.
"I wish we'd have gotten along better."
I nodded and she took my hand and said, "Could I just hold it for a minute?" She was trying not to cry.
"It's a dollar fifty for every three minutes."
"Sort of like one of those sex phone hot lines?"
"Something like that, yes."
She put her head back against the bed. "Our problem was we were both addicts and that makes for a pretty shitty relationship."
"It does indeed."
"What I said about Cindy in there, about her not being able to deal with being an Indian?"
"Uh-huh."
"I shouldn't have said that. I hate it when I get sanctimonious like that. S
omebody hurts you and you want to hurt them back. Cindy's always been a little high-handed with most of us and I guess I've always resented it." She sat up straight again. "I guess being dry doesn't automatically turn you into a nice person, does it?"
"I don't think so."
She smiled. "You want to look some more."
"Great."
We went back to the box.
More photos. A good dozen showed Sandy and Karen Moore with a variety of prosperous-looking white men. I imagined that these dated back to the days when they'd been hookers rather than procuresses. In the seventies they'd both worn a lot of tie-dye stuff as well as platform heels and those outsize poofy black hats favored by black pimps, at least in the black action films of the time.
Patty was the one who turned it up.
"I wonder who that is," she said.
"Who?"
"See in the background, back by the trees."
"Oh. Right. The little girl."
"I've never seen this before. She looks kind of familiar."
"Yes, she does."
"Really? To you, too?"
"Uh-huh. But I don't know why."
"And she's with both of them, Mom and Karen, I mean."
"Is that odd or something?"
"A little bit around the edges, anyway. I mean, Mom would occasionally babysit the neighbors' kids when she was around the apartment — but why would both Mom and Karen have a kid with them?"
"I don't know."
"And you know where I think this was taken?"
"Where?"
"Schaefer Park."
"You know, I think you're right." I stared at the photo some more. Schaefer Park is the one that is left in a reasonably natural state. No zoo. No rides for the kids. No ice-skating rinks. Just a park with a lot of paths angling through deep woods. Gays and junkies use it a lot at night for assignations.
But the photo was twenty years old, back when both Schaefer Park and the world were much more innocent.
"Turn it over," I said. "See if there's a date."
She turned it over. No date. No identification of any kind.
"But look at what they're wearing," Patty said.
"Seventies?"
"Definitely."
"Can you get any closer than that?"
"You mean like 1975 or 1978 or something like that?"
"Uh-huh."
"Let me just look at it a minute."
"All right."
"Wow."
"What?"
"I didn't realize what blouse that was at first."
"The one your mom's wearing?"
"Right. I bought it for her with my own money. My first job. I was a cashier out at this discount store and I bought it for her fortieth birthday."
"You're sure that's the blouse?"
"Positive."
"So what year would it have been?"
"Seventy-nine."
I stared at the girl in the photo some more. No older than nine or ten max. Dark pigtails. An Indian girl, obviously. She wore jeans and a white blouse and even in a somewhat fuzzy shot, even from her distant place in the frame, her body language suggested a certain sadness. The brown eyes appealed to a world that neither saw nor listened.
"Your mom ever mention your Aunt Karen keeping a little girl for somebody?"
"No."
"Maybe Karen was babysitting this little girl and they just took her to the park."
"Possible, I suppose."
"But you don't think so?"
"No," she said, "and I don't think you think so, either."
"No, I guess I don't."
She tapped the photo. "You can borrow that if you have copies made."
"I appreciate that."
"But I still think he did it."
"David?"
"Uh-huh."
She walked me to the front door. I was still impressed with what she'd done with herself and her apartment.
"You keep me posted?" she said.
"Sure."
"I hope you can find out who that little girl is." Then she looked at me. "You already know, don't you, Robert?"
"Pardon me?"
"You know who she is. A couple of minutes ago, I was watching your face when you looked at the photo and I saw your expression. I think you know who she is."
"You should be a detective."
"You going to tell me about her?"
"Not right now. Later, when I'm sure."
She indicated the photo. "I think maybe I know who she is, too." She smiled. "Thanks for letting me hold your hand."
"My pleasure."
Her smile was warm, teasing. "So how much do I owe you?"
"Huh?"
"You said you charged a dollar fifty for every three minutes. To hold your hand."
"Today was a free introductory offer."
"I appreciate that."
I took her hand again. "The pleasure's all mine, believe me."
I found a place that would make six black-and-white copies of the photo by the end of the working day. Then I drove out First Avenue to the new apartment house I'd visited.
I parked a quarter-block from the front of the place and prepared myself for a long wait. There was always the possibility that she wasn't home. That would make for an even longer wait.
Chapter 27
One hour and twenty-three minutes later, she emerged from the driveway in a silver Neon. She wore dark glasses, a red button-down shirt and looked fetching as always.
She turned right and I followed her.
The mall on this end of town was crowded with cars in from surrounding towns. On weekends the farmers arrive and the merchants are happy to see them. They come to buy, not gawk. Nobody would drive this far to gawk.
She parked her Neon up by Younkers and quickly vanished inside.
I did some more waiting. I could have followed her inside but there was always the chance that I'd lose her and she'd get away.
I spent most of the time leaning against my car and looking out at all the construction going on up and down Collins Road. The urban planners have decided that the north-east quadrant is the next major development area, and the chains are making all this come true. I once heard a somewhat paranoid theory that most urban planners are actually on the take from real-estate tycoons. The tycoons tell the planners which land to sell, and the planners then announce the site of the next boom. Self-fulfilling prophecy. The proud originator of this theory was Gilhooley, Cedar Rapids' only resident Maoist, so I don't necessarily take it seriously.
She came out one hour and four big packages later.
She must have been caught up in her thoughts because she didn't see me until I opened her car door for her and took the first paper-rattling package from her hand.
"I could always call a policeman."
"Yes, you could," I said. "But then I'd have to tell them how Heston and Cook are paying you to be their mistress, and Heston and Cook would get awfully upset."
"What you said isn't true."
"Right."
"Goddamn you, what do you want anyway?"
"Coffee."
"What?"
"I want you to have some coffee with me."
"You bastard."
There was a Denny's not far away and we sat next to a big window and watched the summer die. There was a real melancholy about it all now, the old folks in their bright merry summer clothes that looked wrong with the leaves turning, and the teenagers who'd just entered senior year loud with lust and hope and bone-deep terror about the world of adulthood awaiting them.
"Perry is going to be very, very pissed when I tell him about this."
"Is he now?"
"Apparently you aren't sure how important he is."
"If I didn't know, I'm sure he'd tell me."
She still had the dark glasses on.
I slid a dollar across the Formica table to her.
"What's this?"
"It's yours if you'll take those glasses off."
"Very funn
y."
"I want to show you something."
"I don't want to see it."
"And I want you to look at it with your glasses off."
"You seem to be under the impression that you have the fucking right to give me fucking orders."
"Would you like more coffee?" the waitress said, trying heroically to pretend that she hadn't heard the line that Linda Prine had just snapped at me.
"Yes, please," I said. "Darling, how about you?"
She didn't say anything.
"My wife has a sore throat. Resting her voice. She'll have another black coffee, too."
The waitress nodded, glancing once at Darling in her dark glasses, then went away.
"Very funny. Well — What is it you want to show me? I'll look at it and then I want you to drive me back to my car and then I'm going to tell Perry and you're going to be in very, very big trouble. Very big."
"You're taking your glasses off?"
She fairly tore them off.
She glared at me out of that sad but sexy waif face of hers, angel of the alley.
I took the photo from my pocket and put it down on the table between us.
She visibly started.
"That's you, isn't it, the little girl?"
Her voice had changed. The anger was gone. She sounded weary suddenly. "Where did you get this?"
"Sandra Moore's daughter gave it to me."
"That's what I figured."
"How long did you know Karen and Sandy?"
She raised her head slowly. Tears shone in her eyes. "Would you please take me back to my car?"
The waitress was back. The last time my Darling wife had been using the f-word. This time she was crying. We must have looked like an awfully happy couple. I took a five out and dropped it on the table. "That's for you."
"Thanks," the waitress said.
In the car, her glasses back on, Linda Prine said, "You have no right to do any of this."
"I'm not sure anymore that David Rhodes killed those two women."
"Then who did?"
"Perry or Bryce, maybe."
"Or me?"
"Possibly."
"Why would Perry or Bryce kill them?"
"They were paying both women blackmail."
"I really don't want to talk about this anymore."
And she didn't.
She got out of my car and into hers without a word.
