Ed Gorman - The Day The Music Died

He gathered up his camel hair coat from the coatrack. “There’s a lot of things I need to do this afternoon.”

“I’ll be here or at home if you need me,” the judge said.

“You’re a true friend, Esme. And I appreciate it.”

He slipped into his coat. I still didn’t like him and I probably never would. It was pretty obvious the feeling was mutual. “As for you, McCain, I’d keep your mouth shut unless you have some evidence in hand.”

The hell of it was, he was right. I shouldn’t have said anything about my theory unless I had something to support it.

He walked to the door. He looked lost again suddenly. “Thanks, Esme.”

“You’re most welcome, Bob.”

When he was gone, she lit up a Gauloise and said, “So tell me, McCain, how’re you going to save that prick’s reputation?”

“What?”

“Kenny,” she said impatiently. “I don’t mind that he killed himself. Given the way that he’d screwed up his life, that was almost a noble act.

But to kill poor Susan-tell me why you don’t think he did it.”

I shook my head. “Frazier was right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Frazier’s a windbag,” she said. “He’s just worried that by the time Sykes gets done rummaging through Susan’s life, the whole Frazier family will have another scandal on their hands. You know, the way he did with his first wife.

Susan was definitely a tramp.”

“She was actually a decent kid,” I said.

“Here we go,” she said, blew smoke aimed at me. “McCain riding to the defense of the poor damsel.”

“She ran around,” I said. “But she had good reason to. Kenny lost interest in her a long time ago.”

“Don’t put me in a position of having to defend Kenny,” she said, “because that’s impossible. But she could have always left him, broken it off clean.”

“She loved him.”

“So she slept around on him?”

“People do strange things when they’re hurt,” I said. “I think we have to keep that in mind. I knew her for a long time. She was sweet and very decent.”

The judge smiled coldly. “Does that mean you slept with her?”

“We went out a few times before she married Kenny.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I know. I don’t intend to answer your question.”

She laughed. “Ah. Stand up to me. I like that.

Sometimes.”

“I just don’t want to hear her rundown. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“Spare me, McCain,” she said, pouring more coffee into her brandy. After taking a sip, she said, “Fifteen minutes ago I thought I’d have to call my father in New York and tell him that someone in our family had committed murder.

Believe me, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

That would look very bad on the family r@esum@e, as it were. But you, you McCain, have given me new hope. Maybe Kenny didn’t kill her at all.”

She looked happy. Two people were dead and she looked happy. This was one of those moments I resented being her minion. This had all become an elitist game to her. One could abide a suicide in one’s family if one had to. But murder was another matter. No matter how far back it was stuffed into the family closet, somebody was always dragging it out of the cold, damp shadows.

“Now what you need to do, McCain,” she said, “is prove it. Because you know what’s going to happen here. Sykes is going to say it was a murder-suicide and close the books on it.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Probably? Probably? My God,

McCain, you’ve known that moron as long as I h. He’ll have this whole thing wrapped up by sundown. If he hasn’t already. So get busy.”

I stood up. I’d been thinking about going to the tribute skating party for Buddy Holly tonight.

Didn’t sound as if I was going to have time.

“It was probably one of her lovers,” the judge said. “He probably snuck in there and shot her and Kenny was so drunk he couldn’t remember it.”

I got into my topcoat. “I have to warn you about something.”

“What?”

“I could be wrong.”

“You mean that Kenny might actually have killed her?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you sure as hell’d better not be wrong.”

“I figured you would probably say something like that.”

“Listen, McCain. You were the one who brought this up. Now hustle your ass out there and get to work.”

I nodded.

Then she raised her right hand and shot me.

Just once I didn’t want to jerk when the rubber band came at me. But for some reason, I always did.

“You flinched!” she said. She sounded like a kid, albeit a kid with a brandy-and

Gauloise-ravaged voice. She strung another rubber band across her thumb and forefinger.

“Care to try for two out of three?”

“Why don’t you let me try that once on you?” I said.

“Well, of course not. I’m a lady.”

“Ah.”

“And I’m also your boss. Now get going, McCain. My family’s honor is at stake here.”

Yes, I thought, I certainly wouldn’t want to besmirch the good name of a family that included Kenny and the judge’s great-grandfather, the land swindler.

I left the office.

Pamela was typing. “Poor Mr.

Frazier.”

“I hate to say this. But he’s a jerk. She deserved a lot better father and a lot better husband.” I leaned to her desk. “If I can get free tonight, how about going to the skating party with me?”

“I’m hoping to see Stu there, actually.”

“You have a date with him?”

“Not a date exactly but-”

I couldn’t help it. I had to say it. At this moment, I just plain felt sorry for her and needed to give her brotherly advice. “You’re just going to show up, huh, and hope he shows up, too, huh?”

She blushed. “Well…”

“How long are you going to chase after him, anyway?”

But she was ready for that one. “How long are you going to chase after me, McCain? If we were sensible, I’d be in love with you and you’d be in love with Mary. But here we are.”

“Yes,” I said. “Here we are.”

Our west side A and Will Root Beer stand is what you might call indomitable. It stays open year-round. In the summer you’re served by cute girls in black short-shorts and white blouses and great tanned legs. Some of them even skate your cheeseburger and fries out to you. There are a few mishaps, of course, not all the girls being championship roller skaters. My sister, Ruthie, was a carhop for two summers and set the record for falling in love, her two-month summer gig resulting in 4eacba infatuations and 3eaifd Real Things. And there’s always rock and roll on the speakers, much to the dismay of some of the older citizens, though you have to wonder what they’re doing here in the first place. Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran, Ricky Nelson, the Platters, Frankie Avalon, all the greats and sort-of greats help you digest the wonderfully greasy food. And day or night, there’s summer promise in the air, swimming and beer at the sandpits, drag racing and beer out on the highways, making out and beer in a myriad of backseats.

Winter is a different matter. The girls come out all bundled up in parkas and gloves and there’s no flirting, either. It’s too cold to flirt. They just hand you your order through the window and disappear back inside, their breath silver on the prairie winter air.

Today was no different.

The last food I’d had was a doughnut on my way back from Kenny Whitney’s. Now I sat at the AandWill listening to the Paul Anka sob “Lonely Boy.” Even the music was more subdued in the winter, Paul Anka being a long way from Fats Domino.

I was just finishing up when I saw Debbie Lundigan walking on the sidewalk past the AandW. She’d been a good friend of Susan Whitney. I stuffed the remains of my early dinner into the paper bag, backed up until I reached the large wire wastebasket, put it straight in the basket for two points and then backed up and wheeled around so I could reach the exit drive just as Debbie was about to cross it.