by Ed Gorman
Cliff Sr. knew that Cliff Jr.'s police work would never stand up to any scrutiny. The press would love to get details of Cliffie's incompetence. It was one of those moments when I almost felt sorry for him.
"The Judge is on my ass, too."
"Oh, yeah? How come?"
We stood at the two-foot wooden fence that ran around the back of the drive-in. The night was colder now. You could see your breath. A plane roared overhead. A train hooted in the distance. It was a busy night on the prairie, and I couldn't get over how the movie crime scene compared to the real one in the back row.
"She's got some of her friends from back East here. She thinks all this red scare stuff makes us look ridiculous. Which it does."
He sighed. "Between us, the wife thinks Cronin got carried away. She lived next door to Helen Toricelli when she was growin' up. Helen used to baby-sit her. So when Jeff'd stop by and start talkin' about what a commie Helen was" - he paused - "he was a prick."
"Who was?"
"Jeff."
"I thought he was your friend."
"I probably shouldn't say this, with him still in the trunk and all, but he was a jerk. He had a nice little wife and he couldn't leave the other broads alone. He got around, that boy did. And he always had to let you know you weren't as smart as he was, either. He was drunk one night and he told me I didn't know shit from Shinola about police work. You believe that? After I took that correspondence course and everything?"
I tried to commiserate but I couldn't quite get the words out. Shit from Shinola might not have been eloquent, but it stated the truth.
"Hell, he was sniffin' around Tomlin's wife one night out at the softball park."
"Chris Tomlin? Why would she have anything to do with him?"
He shrugged. "You know how lover boys are. They just get the broads. Broads that shouldn't want to have nothin' to do with them."
A PhD from Yale. A contributing editor to Atlantic Monthly. A woman who'd written three or four well-received books. And she was spending time with Jeff Cronin?
"I ain't sayin' anything actually happened."
"I can't believe it."
"But she was definitely interested in him. Up by the pavilion above the river there? Roger Weed had this bowling tourney over to Williamsburg that night, so I had to cover for him. That's when I seen 'em, Jeff and the Tomlin gal. Sittin' on a bench in that pavilion all by their lonesome."
One of his men started toward him. "Need you over here, Chief."
He said, "I don't want no inspector comin' in here tryin' to second-guess me, McCain. Make the whole town look bad."
And not only the town.
"So if you find out anything - "
"I'll tell you right away."
He clapped me on the shoulder. He'd never been friendly before. I wasn't sure I liked it. "I'll get the old man off my back and you'll get the judge off yours."
Then he walked away to play cop. Just the way his correspondence course had taught him to.
***
"Sometimes I hate to go inside," Mary said. We were parked in front of her house in the Knolls. There was the darkness and the wind, enough wind to rock the ragtop.
"How come?"
"All the memories. You know, first Dad dying, then Mom."
"I'm sorry, Mary."
"I probably should sell it."
"Maybe you should."
"But I wouldn't get much."
"Maybe enough to pay down on a house somewhere else."
"That always looks so strange, though. A woman living alone in a house."
"Times are changing."
Then she said, "I don't suppose this is going to go anywhere, is it?" She looked straight out the window at the night, at the way the light pole swayed in the wind on the corner.
"You mean tonight?"
"Yes."
"I just don't know."
"God, I wish I could keep my mouth shut. Here a man dies and all I can think about is myself."
Moonlight didn't redeem the houses in the Knolls. If they looked bad in the daylight, they still looked bad in the moonlight. Busted windows, tarpaper patches on the exterior, front door ajar, a junk car or two on the front lawn. Every once in a while you'd see an obstinately neat little house where everything was kept up. Mary's house was like that. My folks' house in the Knolls had been like that too. We'd lived there physically but not spiritually.
"I wonder if his wife knows yet."
"Cronin's?"
"Yes. She's nice."
"That's what Cliffie said. He also said that Cronin ran around a lot."
"That's what I heard."
"You did?"
She nodded. "At the lunch counter I heard people talking about Cronin and Chris Tomlin. I felt sorry for Mrs. Cronin. She's at mass every day and always delivering food baskets to the poor. I don't know why she ever married him." She shrugged. "His looks, I guess. He was a good-looking man, I have to give him that."
She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
"Don't worry, Sam, I'm not going to make anything of tonight. We'll just see what happens."
"I appreciate that."
" 'Night."
She started to open the door. I grabbed her and kissed her the way she deserved and needed to be kissed. "I had a good time tonight."
She smiled sadly. "Well, except for the murder."
"Yeah, I guess that part wasn't so good, was it?" I smiled sadly right back.
She got out of the car and went into the small dark house. I waited until a light went on inside and then pulled away.
***
Oh, they were a jolly pair, they were. I wondered how long they'd been drinking. I didn't have to wonder about how they'd gotten through my back door. That was their profession, getting through front, back, and side doors and taking whatever they wanted in pursuit of the truth - or the truth as they happened to see it, anyway, the truth of the far right versus the truth of the far left.
Margo Lane and Natalie Rivers. Or whatever the hell their real names were.
At least they brought their own booze.
They sat at my small dining table smoking their cigarettes and sipping their J&B scotch. The record player was on: Elvis.
"Well, look who's here," Margo said.
"Our friend the private eye," Natalie said.
"I'll bet he's got some information he'd just love to share with us."
"I don't know." Natalie giggled. "He looks pretty dumb to me."
They both giggled, Margo in a black blouse with the slender gold necklace fetching against her dark skin; Natalie in a forest green sweater and one of those matching bands in her hair that college girls wear these days.
"You're running low on toilet paper," Natalie said.
"They're having a sale on it at the A&P," Margo said.
"Consider the social implications of running out of TP, McCain," Natalie said.
I went over and got myself a beer and sat down at the table with them.
"They found Cronin," I said.
"We know," Natalie said.
"It was on the news," Margo said.
"In the trunk of his car," Natalie said.
"At the drive-in," Margo said.
"Dead," Natalie said.
"With the ignition running," Natalie said.
"So why don't you tell us something we don't know?" Margo said.
"Gee," I said, "a couple of whiz kids like you two, I wouldn't think there was anything I could tell you."
"We don't know everything, McCain," Margo said.
"But close to everything." Natalie smiled.
"Cliffie wants me to help him. Since this involves politics, Cliffie's old man is afraid the state attorney general'll send out his own investigators and expose Cliffie Junior for the dumb ass he really is."
"You going to help him?" Margo said.
"If it suits my purposes," I said. "What we're looking for is a tape. That's what this is all about."
"Maybe he isn't as dumb as
he looks," Natalie said to Margo.
"Cronin and Rivers kidnap Conners. They shoot him up with Pentothal and make a tape recording of what he tells them while he's drugged. Then somebody kills Conners - and, very soon after, Rivers and Cronin."
"So who has the tape?" Natalie said.
"The killer," I said.
"And that would be who, exactly?"
"I don't know," I said.
"See," Margo said, "I told you he was as dumb as he looks."
"I'm afraid I have to agree with her on that one, McCain."
More giggling. It was like a slumber party.
"So the question now is, Who would want the tape?" I said. I watched them both. "And you know who I come up with?"
"Who?" Natalie said.
"Whom is proper in this case," Margo said.
"One of you," I said.
"One of us?" Margo said. "If one of us had the tape, why would we be here? Why wouldn't we be back at headquarters with our people, deciding how to use it?"
"I'd make copies," Natalie said, "and send one to every influential broadcaster in the United States. Richard Conners exposed as a communist in his own words."
"And I'd destroy it," Margo said. "Just because he gave away a few secrets doesn't make him a bad man. And anyway, he's very useful to us as a hero. Just the way McCarthy was for you folks, Natalie. You knew he was a bum, but for a long time your side got to use him as a hero. We may know that Conners really was a communist - but if that never gets out, we can go right on portraying him as an innocent who was picked on by you lunatics on the far right."
"It's why I love political extremes so much," I said. "Neither of you cares about the truth."
"I care about the truth," Natalie said, sipping scotch. "The truth is, he was a communist spy and should've been tried for treason."
"We don't know that for sure," I said. "Anyway, you want power, not truth. And so does Margo."
"Why would somebody want the tape if his confession isn't on it?" Margo said.
"That's what we need to find out," I said.
Natalie yawned. "I don't suppose you'd let me sleep here tonight, would you, McCain?"
"Probably not."
"God, are you still mad because I lied to you?"
"Gee, what kind of intemperate fool would I be if I got mad at everybody who lied to me?"
"It wasn't a big lie."
"Well, it sure as hell wasn't a small lie."
"Let's just say it was a medium-sized lie, all right? Don't be so hostile."
Margo said, "You want to get a pizza?"
Natalie looked at me. "Maybe McCain here'll change his mind and let me stay overnight."
"You'd be better off with a pizza. And so would I."
"He likes these small-town girls," Natalie said. She was starting to get belligerent.
Margo stood up and took her by the arm. "C'mon, you're drunk."
"Small-town girls for a small-time private eye."
Margo somehow got her to the back door. "She needs food."
Natalie got one last good glare off in my direction. "Small-town girls," she said. "Big fucking deal."
FOURTEEN
I spent the first working hour of my morning walking up and down the three long sunny blocks of retail shops on the west side of Main. I'd gone back to basics. Had anyone heard the gunshot? Had anyone seen or heard anything or anybody suspicious?
On my walk, watching some of the merchants sweeping the sidewalks in front of their stores, I had occasion to catch up on various items much on the minds of Americans these days. Mr. Potato Head seemed to be popular, as did Tiny Tears dolls; Spam claimed it tasted even better served with hot baked beans; the S&H redemption store had huge color photos of the molded plastic chairs and pole lamps and cloverleaf tables you could get when you collected enough of their trading stamps; and Fran's Fashion Frocks was running a special on tube dresses, sack dresses, and crinolines.
I saw the Princess Anne blouse on a mannequin as soon as I walked in and pictured how good it would look on Mary. I still felt uncertain about last night. If I'd taken advantage of her. If I hadn't simply - selfishly - made both of us more miserable.
"You know Mary Travers, don't you?" I asked Marge Downes, the owner (there had actually been a Fran of Fran's Fashion Frocks but she had shocked everybody and run away with the Lutheran minister).
"Sure, McCain. She shops here all the time." Marge is a Rosalind Russell kind of woman, trim and tall and given to severe business suits and ankle-strap shoes year round and large fashion hats that risked self-parody.
I pointed to the mannequin. "Would you have that in her size?"
"Let's step over here and look."
While she was looking through the blouses, I said, "Were you here the day Richard Conners was shot?"
She looked up at me. "I certainly was. I even heard the shot. It was loud enough that it had the women running out of the dressing rooms. Dana Conners - she was here with Dorothy Conners - was one of them. Of course, none of us knew what had happened. But my dad was a hunter. I know a gunshot when I hear one."
"You didn't see anybody on the street acting suspicious?"
"No. But then I wasn't looking on the street. A couple of the customers knew it was a gunshot, too, so they were very concerned." She held up a blouse. "Here we go. This is her size. She'd look very pretty in this." She peered at me from around the left shoulder. "When're you going to marry her, anyway? She's the prettiest girl in town. And neither of you is getting any younger."
There you had it. They talked like twenty-five was peering over the edge. That you had better by God get on with it. The trouble was, I didn't feel old. I wasn't a grown-up yet. I wanted to be, I tried to be, I apparently even occasionally gave the impression that I was. But I knew the truth: I wasn't. And as much as I wanted a wife and kids, the prospect scared me.
I smiled. "Maybe sooner than you think."
It took her five minutes to gift-wrap it. I walked down to the Rexall store. The soda counter was filled. You could get a good breakfast here for sixty cents, couple eggs, couple strips of bacon, couple pieces of toast. Mary looked at me and for just a moment - before the sweet, vulnerable smile - I saw the hesitation and confusion she was feeling. The same hesitation and confusion I was feeling. Had last night changed everything? Was it the beginning of a new relationship or merely the end of the old one? What was the best move - or on her part or mine?
She was busy pouring coffee and picking up orders from the grill. There wasn't time to talk. I held up the gift box and pointed from myself to her - from me to you, Mary - and then gave her a smile and left.
The next forty-five minutes, I spent working in and around the garage where Richard Conners had been murdered. It was a great morning to be outside. An aging gray tomcat accompanied me on my appointed rounds. He'd brush up against my leg and meow every once in a while. Other than that he seemed happy to be the first member of my feline private-eye club.
I talked to men who spent time in the alley, mostly warehouse guys who off-loaded merchandise trucks. None of them had heard the shot; none of them had seen anything or anyone untoward. They said the drunks who just might have seen something didn't start to appear until after dark, like vampires.
The Jag had been taken away. The garage was empty. I was walking it off, examining the floor for anything Cliffie might have missed, when Mr. Touchberry came up to me. "Couple boys in the back told me you were asking questions about the other day." In the early fifties, there was a popular TV show called Mr. Peepers, about a small four-eyed Milquetoast teacher who looked fussy and fey but turned out to be a pretty good guy after all. That was Mr. Touchberry, Mr. Ralph Touchberry. He was the manager and bookkeeper of Touchberry TV & Radio. His brother the salesman, Mr. Tom Touchberry, was a different type altogether. He squeezed your hand into pulp when he shook it. He shouted when he spoke. And he slapped your back so hard after one of his jokes, you had to see a chiropractor.
"Yes," I said. "Did y
ou hear the shot, Mr. Touchberry?"
Maybe he wouldn't have looked quite so much like Mr. Peepers if he didn't wear those mix-and-max combo deals you buy at J. C. Penney. You buy two sport jackets, one dark, one light; and two pairs of trousers, one dark, one light - and then you just keep mixing and matching. He had a couple of shirts he rotated and maybe three bow ties. Even though he was well into his forties, he always looked like a kid all dressed up for his First Communion.
"No. But I was coming back from the Rexall - I always take my morning break over there, that pretty Mary Travers is just so darned nice - and I saw somebody coming out of the garage."
"This garage?"
"This very garage."
"Did you recognize him?"
"Of course. He bought a nice twenty-one-inch Admiral home console from us just last month. Bill Tomlin."
I tried not to act excited. "You're sure it was him?"
"Of course. I mean, he kind of ducked back into the garage so I wouldn't see him. But I saw him all right."
"Do you have any sense of what time this was?"
"My break is always from ten-thirty to ten-forty-five. It never varies."
"That would make it around the time of the shot."
"The shot, I didn't hear. So there I can't help you. But I definitely saw Bill Tomlin in and around the garage that morning."
"Did you tell this to Cliffie?"
His little face made a little face. "I try not to talk to Cliffie unless it's absolutely necessary."
"I see."
"Have you ever heard of the Lawman's Discount?"
"No. I can't say as I have."
"Neither had I. But the day we got our very first color TV in - this really beautiful RCA nineteen-inch table model, and the color was just gorgeous, no green faces like the early ones - Cliffie comes in and says he'll take it. Well, naturally my brother Tom is all excited. We weren't sure how color TV would go over in Black River Falls, being so expensive and all. But we'd barely put the darn thing on the floor and Tom already sold it. Then Cliffie tells Tom that he - Cliffie - is entitled to the Lawman's Discount and Tom said he'd never heard of no Lawman's Discount and Cliffie said, Oh, yes, it was some kind of unwritten law, when a peace officer - that's what he likes to call himself, a peace officer, you know the way Matt Dillon does on Gunsmoke - he said that when a peace officer above the rank of captain goes to buy something, there's an unwritten law that he's entitled to a thirty percent discount. And Tom - well, I don't have to tell you about Tom and his temper - Tom just exploded and told Cliffie to get out. Which is when Tom started getting all these parking tickets. Old Cliffie paying him back." He smiled. "But at least we didn't give him any so-called Lawman's Discount." He shook his head. "So now I don't tell Cliffie anything I don't have to."
