Ed Gorman: Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool

I sat down in her chair and put her on my lap and said, “We’re going to figure out how to handle Cliffie tomorrow morning when I take you in. And then we’re going to get you the best criminal lawyer in the state, all right?”

And when she raised her ancient face, she was no longer monster or ghoul, but a young Irish girl again-for just that moment I saw the girl she’d been, Easter hat and Christmas dress and first-date hair ribbon-and when I held her this time, I was holding all those years, an entire life, in my arms and I felt her heartbeat slow and the nervous spasm in her left arm cease and heard her crying become little more than sniffles.

She said, “Will you go talk to Amy for me, Sam? I’d really appreciate it.”

I drove around and then I didn’t drive around, sitting in a tavern where the gents along the bar were arguing Kennedy-nixon, coming up in two weeks, and then I drove around again but not for long because I just kept thinking of Amy sobbing, “If our father ever knew what his daughter did-I’m so glad my folks are dead and don’t have to see this.

And killing poor David.” And finally, realizing for the first time the practical implications of this terrible night: “Who’ll I live with now, Sam? Emma’s my whole life, my whole life.”

The lights shouldn’t have been turned on. Neither should the Tv. My first thought was a burglar of some kind, but who’d burgle my little apartment?

Or maybe a dissatisfied client or his emissary. You lose a trial, sometimes they have kin gunning for you. Hell, if a plotline like that is good enough for Gunsmoke, it’s good enough for Black River Falls.

I saw her through the window in the door. All comfy-cozy on the couch. Tasha, Crystal, and Tess all pushed tight against her at various points in her body.

She looked like she belonged there.

When she heard my key in the door, she jumped up and rushed toward me.

“I’ve really been worried about you. Mrs.

Goldman let me in again. She’s sure a nice woman.”

“She sure is.”

I came in. Took off my suitcoat, balled it, and tossed it for two points on the chair. “Needs to be dry-cleaned, anyway.”

“Oh.”

“I thought maybe you were a burglar.”

“I don’t think I could ever be anything as exciting as a burglar. And besides, I’m very happy being a nurse.”

“You sure are pretty.”

“I’ve missed you, Sam. I’m just confused about everything.”

“Me, too.”

We still weren’t touching in any way. We were maybe half a foot apart. The cats were on the couch, watching us. They wanted some action.

“Sam, have you ever just slept with a woman? No going all the way, I mean?”

“Honest?”

“Honest.”

“I’ve tried.”

“It didn’t work?”

“I don’t think she really wanted it to work and I know I didn’t want it to work.”

“Oh.”

“But if I really made my mind up-”

“It’d be putting a lot of pressure on you-”

“I’ve got the shower standing close by.”

She grinned. “That’d be a help. You have any handcuffs?”

“Sorry, all out. Just leg irons.”

“Well, that could be interesting.”

“I could loan you my gun. You could pistol whip me.”

Half seriously, she said, “Well, it was a stupid idea, I guess.”

“Aw, let’s give it a try.”

“You won’t try-”

“We’ll do whatever you want. Or don’t want.”

“We have to have strict rules, though.”

“How strict? Is kissing allowed?”

“I suppose kissing would be all right.”

“Sort of pressing against each other. Would that be all right?”

“I suppose sort of pressing against each other would be all right, too, if it was just sort of.”

“Saying that I’ve missed you and I don’t know where this is going but I sure do like you? Would that be all right?”

“That’d be best of all, Sam.”

“Well, how about if we start the kissing part just standing right here in the middle of the floor?”

“Sometimes that’s the best place of all, Sam.

Right here in the middle of the floor.”

“The good old middle of the floor,” I said.

“The good old middle of the floor.”

Twenty-six

The call came at 3cccg A.M. according to the glowing face of my nightstand clock.

Judge Whitney. Not only sober.

Alarmed.

“Did Cliffie just call you?”

“No.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. The phone had rung. I just decided not to answer it. I didn’t want to go down and bail somebody out. But this time the phone woke Linda first and she said, ever the responsible nurse, “You’d better get it, Sam. It could be important this hour of the night.”

So I’d lifted the receiver and put it to my ear and listened to the judge and said, “So what did Cliffie want?”

“Then you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

And then she said it: “Emma Kelly killed her sister tonight. And then killed herself. I imagine she didn’t have a hard time finding a weapon. Her father was a gunsmith, you know.”

I must have made some kind of startled sound, because Linda sat up in bed and turned on the reading lamp.

All I could think of was sad, lost Amy in the doorway of their kitchen saying, I want to go where you go. I wondered if she’d begged Emma to kill her, too. A mortal sin, to be sure, but Amy would likely commit it to be with her sister.

“Did you hear what I said, McCain?”

“Yeah,” I said, “yeah, I heard all right.”

I sat silent on the edge of the bed for a long, long time, smoking one cigarette after another.

Linda knew not to ask me about it.

After a while she came over and sat down on the bed next to me and put an arm around my shoulder. “Maybe I’d better go, Sam.”

I came out of my silence and looked at her and said, “I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll stay.”

She smiled. “How about two dollars?”

She was kind enough and smart enough to take me in her arms and just hold me for a long and silent time.