Edward Gorman - The Autumn Dead

"And you didn't find out anything at all?"

"I found out only one thing for sure." He hesitated.

"Yes?"

"The odd thing is, I still feel very protective of her. Even after all she put me through."

I poured more whiskey.

"Go ahead," I said.

"She may have killed somebody."

I did a double take Jackie Gleason would have been proud of.

He nodded. "The boy's name was Sonny Howard."

"Christ."

"Something happened the summer of her senior year. She had repressed it to the point that she couldn't talk about it even under the influence of the drugs. But she did begin talking about this Sonny Howard, and then she just broke down, sobbing and saying 'I killed Sonny, I killed Sonny' over and over again. I had to use a different drug to calm her down."

"You mind if I open this?" '

"What's wrong?"

"I'm getting claustrophobic."

So I leaned over and opened the window and smelled the fresh pine and listened to birds and crickets and dogs. Evans started to say something, but I waved off his words.

"It getting to you?" he said after a time.

"You really think she could have killed somebody?"

He did not hesitate. "Yes."

"And you think she really might have killed Sonny Howard?"

"Yes."

"It would explain a lot, wouldn't it?"

"It would indeed, Mr. Dwyer. Her inability to make a commitment of any kind, her living in a sort of soap-opera fantasy world half the time, the sense she always gave you of somehow being afraid of virtually everything."

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. I was beginning to realize there was one person I needed to talk to. The woman on the black Honda motorcycle.

"You're leaving?"

I was on my feet. I put out my hand.

"Are you going to report this?" he asked.

"Don't see any reason to."

"I'm a good doctor, Mr. Dwyer. Despite the way I behaved."

"I guess I'm going to have to take your word for that, aren't I?"

He tried to smile. It wasn't especially convincing. "Yes," he said, "yes, I guess you are."

The aerobics class was going on — women in expensive exercise suits doing boot-camp jumping jacks now-but the Honda was not in the parking lot to the left of the shopper.

The disco music was overpowering when I walked inside. I moved along the right-hand corridor, trying to keep my eyes from all the breasts and thighs and buttocks my gaze gravitated to so naturally. The women were as curious about me as I was about them. A few even smiled in my direction, not in the inviting way women do at private investigators in books, but just because this was a female domain and there was something vaguely naughty about my being there and that made them curious.

The west wall was all mirrors to make the place look bigger; the carpet was cheap indoor-outdoor stuff hopelessly worn; the stereo speakers could have sufficed at Yankee stadium. (At least the owners had great taste in music, the Crusaders working their asses off on a killer number called "Sometimes You Can Take It or Leave It," the pure unremitting jazz of it as exhilarating as any exercise you could do.) The place smelled of perfume and sweat. Lined up along the back were a rowing machine, a ballet bar, a stationary bicycle, and a Coke machine where, with two quarters, you could put back all the calories you'd worked off.

On the other side of a glass wall, a chunky woman with a bad red dye job and arms as thick as a fullback's sat working over books. Occasionally she poked a fat finger at a calculator so hard you wondered if she had something against it.

I knocked on the window. When she glanced up and saw me, she did not look happy.

I pantomimed Can I Come In, the music too loud for me to be heard otherwise.

She didn't pantomime. She just made a face.

I went over to the door and opened it up and went inside.

She said, "We don't get a lot of men here."

"So I see."

She picked up a package of Winston Lights, tamped one out, got it going, exhaled a long blue stream of smoke, and said, "So how can I help you?" She looked like Ethel Merman with a bad hangover. Her nametag said HI, I'M IRENE.

"There's a woman who works here."

The flesh around her eyes grew tight and her mouth got unpleasant again. "Yeah. So?"

"So she drives a black Honda motorcycle and so I'd like to know who she is."

"Why?"

"Is that really any of your business?"

"As a matter of fact, it is."

"Now why would that be?"

"Because she happens to be my best friend."

"I see."

"And I protect her."

"'From my few experiences with her, I'd say she doesn't need a hell of a lot of protection."

She had some more cigarette. "She's high-strung."

"At least."

She glared at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I think she's probably clinical."

She sighed. "She's had some problems, I'll admit. But now that her aunt's in the nursing home-" She allowed herself several cigarette hacks, then said, "Evelyn has spent some time in mental hospitals."

"I see."

"That doesn't mean she's crazy."

"No," I said and meant it. "No, it doesn't."

"Her aunt raised her; Evelyn's own mother died when she was six. And then there's what happened with Sonny. That's when all the trouble started. "

"What trouble?"

She jammed out one cigarette in a round red metal ashtray and promptly lit another. "You want a Coke?"

"Sure. I'll get it for us. You want regular or Diet?"

Given her weight problem, I figured she'd say Diet Coke.

For the first time she smiled. "You want to learn something today?"

"What?"

"There are reports that show that people who drink diet pop actually gain weight instead of lose it."

"So you want regular Coke."

"Right," she said, "regular."

So I went and got her a regular and me a Diet and could not help but look at least briefly at the wondrous backside of the little black woman conducting the class, and then I went back into the tiny office gray with smoke.

"So what's with her aunt?"

"Sonny dies," she said, slipping into present tense. "Her aunt doesn't believe anything the police say. She starts becoming obsessed."

"What did the police say?"

"Suicide."

"They said he jumped off Pierce Point?"

She looked surprised that I knew about Pierce Point.

"Right."

"Was there a note found?"

"Suicide note?" Irene said.

"Right."

"No.''

"Then why did the police assume it was suicide?"

She shrugged. "They said he was despondent."

"Did they say about what?"

"No. But they said they checked with his teachers and the teachers all said he was despondent. Even the aunt had to admit that. He was usually an A student. He went to summer school between his junior and senior year so he could graduate early. But then he screwed it up."

"Screwed up his grades?"

"Yeah. He got Ds. In summer school you have to get at least Cs."

"So how does Evelyn fit into all this?" Now I was talking in the present tense, too.

"Evelyn is five years younger, right, a very pretty but very high-strung kid. Always had problems. Manic depression, actually. Well, when Sonny buys it, the aunt puts everything on Evelyn. She expects Evelyn not only to share the grief but to spend the rest of her life with her, too. The aunt has money, right, so the aunt builds Evelyn her own wing on the house and Evelyn is expected to stay there the rest of her life, right, and to get caught up in all her obsessions-her hypochondria (this woman has sent a dozen doctors screaming into the sunset), her paranoia about her investments (I mean most of the stockbrokers in this town would rather have gasoline enemas than deal with her), and with proving that Sonny was actually pushed off Pierce Point by persons unknown. So Evelyn, being none too stable herself, does in fact get caught up in all this. Very caught up. And in the process becomes sort of a half-ass detective, really going into Sonny's life and particularly into Sonny's life the summer between his junior and senior year." She stopped.