Ed Gorman - The Day The Music Died

An inquest like this would generally fall under Judge Whitney’s jurisdiction, but Cliffie was way ahead of us. He’d gotten his crony judge Hardy and his cousin the county attorney to preside over the inquest. Being beneficiaries of the Sykeses’ largesse, they’d say whatever Cliffie told them to.

I got in the car. He held the door open.

He kept looking at Ruthie. He probably imagined that she found him sexy. His gun hand rode on the bone handle of his holstered weapon.

“You’re the smart one in the family, Ruthie.

You tell this brother of yours to stay out of trouble.

All right?”

She just glared at him.

Cliffie grinned. “Well, good night. And be sure to give my best to your folks.”

“Are you all right?” Ruthie said as soon as I closed the door.

“I’ll live.”

“But that’s illegal, what he did.”

“I’m all right, Ruthie.” I reached over and patted her hand. “Really.”

“That’s the kind of person I’m going after when I’m a lawyer. The man who hides behind the law. They’re the worst kind of law.”

“Right now, I’m more worried about your situation than I am about Cliffie.”

I started my car. It trembled to life. I gave it a quarter-inch of choke. After a few seconds in which nothing seemed to happen, in which the motor continued to tremble, the choke kicked in and the gas flow evened out and the motor ran smoothly.

Sykes was gone by now. I drove back to town. The windows in the houses gleamed silver with flickering Tv images. Every once in a while you’d see teenagers walking with skates slung over their shoulders, headed for the rink. I had Koma on the radio. They were playing nothing but Buddy Holly and Richie Valens and rock stars were calling in and saying how great those guys had been and how much they’d be missed.

I looked over at Ruthie. “So what’re you going to do?”

“Try the potassium.”

“When?”

“Probably tomorrow.”

“You let me know right away.”

“Just don’t tell anybody.”

“God, are you crazy? Who would I tell?”

“Does that mean you’re ashamed of me?”

She wasn’t as cool inside as she was trying to pretend. “Of course I’m not ashamed of you.

You’re my sister. I love you.”

“You don’t think I’m a whore?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m not.”

“You slept with one boy. That’s hardly being a whore.”

“One-and-a-half.”

“Huh?”

“Remember Roger?”

“The kid with the stutter?”

“Yeah.”

“I let him get to somewhere between second and third base.”

“Oh.”

“But only once. At a New Year’s

Eve party when we were sophomores. And I’d had some wine.”

“That still doesn’t make you a whore.”

“Sometimes I just worry that Father Gillis is right.”

“You mean about how most girls who go all the way in high school end up in Chicago as prostitutes?” I said.

“‘Prosties.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what Father Gillis calls them.”

“Oh.”

“So he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. You know, like Frank Sinatra or somebody.

He gave the girls this lecture about a year ago. After mass one Sunday.”

“If every girl in this town who went all the way in high school ended up in Chicago on the streets, there wouldn’t be room for anybody else to walk.”

She giggled. Then, “I’m not a whore.”

“I know you’re not.”

“But that’s what people’d say if they found out.”

I pulled up in the driveway of our folks’ place. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “This’ll all work out.”

“Maybe the potassium’ll really work.”

She kissed me back on the cheek then slid out of the car. “I’ll call you tomorrow. And thanks for being such a nice brother.”

“My pleasure.”

“And Cliffie is still an asshole.”

On the way over to my place, I played the radio real loud. I tried to drive all thought of Ruthie from my mind. The potassium wasn’t going to work. I didn’t know if anything would work.

This was going to devastate my whole family.

Mrs. Goldman’s house had once been what she laughingly called “a starter mansion,” meaning that it was a lot more house than she and her husband could afford at the time, but not enough of a house to qualify as one of the true mansions you saw on the other side of town. Mr. Goldman, who was in the real estate business, didn’t live long enough to make his final fortune. He left his wife, Sandra, enough term insurance to pay off the house and support herself by taking in boarders. The place was a two-story gingerbread Victorian. I had half of the huge upstairs as my apartment. I also had a stall in the garage and my own back entrance for when I came in late. Two meals, breakfast and dinner, were included in the price of the rent. Mrs. Goldman was a great cook. She was also a frustrated writer and photographer.

She was always working on her history of the town. She was doing a great job. We’d spent a lot of long nights together watching her Tv set and talking about her book and the plans I have for when my law practice gets rolling.

When I came into the vestibule tonight, I peeked through the French doors on the first floor.

She was sitting in a chair reading a novel. The Tv was on but the sound was turned down. She’d explained once that it was like having company you didn’t have to pay any attention to. She was a tall, slender, striking woman in her early fifties. She’d been dating a dentist from Cedar Rapids for several years but I didn’t have the sense that marriage was imminent.

She waved me in.

“You missed a nice meal.”

“Sorry.”

“Meat loaf.” Then she smiled. “There’s enough left for a sandwich later if you get hungry.

I’ll make it for you if you want.”

“Well, I’m going to that skating party.”

“Oh, those poor singers. The rock and roll ones.”

“Yes.”

She shook her elegant head. She wore a white blouse, a dramatic black belt, gray slacks and black flats. When Lauren Bacall gets older, she’ll probably look something like Mrs. Goldman. If she’s lucky.

“And poor Susan Whitney.”

“I didn’t know you knew her.”

“Oh, you know, from Leopold Bloom’s. As you know, I don’t care for the couple that run it, but it is a pleasant place to spend an hour or two occasionally. Especially if they’re not there and it’s just a clerk.”

I thought of Steve Renauld and his relationship with Susan Whitney and of her remark that she could only sleep with men she felt sorry for.

“The kind of man her husband was, I guess I’m not surprised,” she said.

Maybe at breakfast I’d tell her my theory that Kenny hadn’t killed her. For now, I wanted to get my skates and head for the rink. I was hoping to see Pamela there.

“Well, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“How come you’re limping?”

Maybe I’d tell her about Cliffie, too, in the morning. “Oh, I slipped on the ice.”

She put her novel on her lap and leaned forward in the chair. “Say, did you come home about three-thirty this afternoon?”

“No, why?”

“I thought I heard somebody up in your room.

I can’t be sure. But I thought I heard footsteps up there and then something scraping the floor.”

“It wasn’t Andrea?” Andrea being the English teacher who rents the other half of the upstairs.

She teaches at the state-run school for the deaf.

She’s one of those secretive women who always look vaguely frightened. She lugs home armloads of mystery novels from the library, Mignon Eberhardt seeming to be her favorite, and rarely says a word.