Ed Gorman - The Day The Music Died

“I take it you know why he was being blackmailed.”

“You may not believe this, McCain, but I don’t.”

“He asked you for money?”

“Yes.”

“And you gave it to him?”

“Yes.”

“But he didn’t tell you anything more?”

He looked at me some more. “He didn’t ask for money. Susan did.”

“And she didn’t say why?”

“All she said was that it was something that would devastate our family.”

“Did you ask her if she had any idea who was blackmailing them?”

“I did. But she said she didn’t have any idea at all.”

“Do you know how the blackmailer got the money, by mail, or was it dropped off somewhere?” The private investigator’s license I kept up to date was finally getting some real use. It had cost $45 and I was using the hell out of it this morning.

“I don’t know any of the details. Not any more than I told you.”

“When was the last time she asked you for money?”

“Three days ago.”

“And you gave it to her?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

He hesitated. “Do you really need to know that?”

“I may not need to know it but Cliffie will want to know it after I tell him how you broke into my apartment.”

He sighed. “You don’t have much respect for people’s feelings, do you?”

That line, coming from the last remaining robber baron in the valley, seemed more than a little unctuous.

But I let it pass.

“How much?”

“Three thousand dollars.”

“Making a grand total of what?”

“Eighteen thousand.”

“In how long?”

“Fourteen months.”

I whistled. “That’s serious business,” I said.

“I’m wondering if that’s what drove Kenny to it. To killing Susan and himself.”

“If he did it.”

“You don’t really think otherwise, do you?

Esme is just trying to save her family’s name.

But, hell yes, Kenny killed her. Who else would have killed her?”

“Maybe the blackmailer,” I said. “Or somebody else.”

“Like who, for instance?”

I knew I was about to jump into waters far more dangerous than the ones I’d slipped into last night. “A lover.”

“You bastard. We’re talking about my daughter.”

“I realize that, Mr. Frazier. But we’re all vulnerable and susceptible to all sorts of things. Especially when we’re in the kind of position Susan was in.”

“She loved him. Don’t ask me why.”

“She loved him, true. But she was also miserable.” I paused. “If anybody would have been justified in looking for solace somewhere else-“

“I raised her better than that.”

No point in continuing on with my questions about Susan. In his mind, she was the eternal virgin.

He looked at his watch. “I have to get over to the funeral home.”

“I appreciate the time, Mr. Frazier.”

He signed his breakfast tab with a flourish and then glanced at me. “I still don’t like you, McCain.”

“Well, I’m not thinking of asking you to go dancing either.”

“And if I catch you trying to sully my daughter’s name in any way, you’ll be finished in this town. I absolutely guarantee it.”

He moved very well for a big man, getting up fast and angry from the booth without even nudging the table, sweeping his coat and homburg along with him. And then he was gone.

I sat there and listened to some more restaurant noises and smoked my Pall Mall.

Juanita came over. “He looked mad.”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you say to him, McCain?”

“Just asked him a couple of questions was all.”

“Gee, his daughter just died, McCain. You got to learn to go easier on people. Like that time you accused Bobby of siphoning gas from Tom Potter’s tractor. You were really mean to him.”

“He was guilty, Juanita.”

“I know he was. But he’s my boyfriend, McCain, and I love him. And he wasn’t necessarily responsible for goin’ to prison those two times, either.”

“He wasn’t?”

“No, it was them punks he was hangin’ out with.

Now he just hangs out with Merle Wylie.”

“Merle Wylie? He served five years for attempted murder.”

“It was the same with Merle, McCain. He just got in with the wrong crowd, too.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that mst’ve been it.”

She watched me carefully. “I can’t always tell when you’re bein’ sarcastic, but I think you are now. About Merle, I mean. He’s a lot nicer’n you think, McCain. When my cousin Dodi got-well, you know-knocked up, Merle knew just what to do. And it was the same when my brother got his motorcycle stolen. Bobby was up in prison then so Merle took over and he found it that night and he gave the guy who stole it two broken ribs.”

She was about to do some more extolling when one of the customers called her. “You should be nicer to people, McCain.” And then walked away.

There was: the phone bill, the light bill, the water bill, the car repair bill, the grocery bill, and a letter from a guy I’d represented last year on a stolen merchandise charge. He was writing from prison. He said that he couldn’t wait to see me when he got out. I wasn’t sure how to take that. As I recalled, he’d blamed me for pleading him down to accepting stolen goods. He could’ve gotten six-to-eight. He’d been caught with more than $12eajjj worth of hot appliances in his basement, along with an assortment of firearms that were definitely a no-no for a felon like himself. I got him two-to-four, but he hadn’t been happy with me.

He said a really good lawyer would have been able to convince the jury that the stolen merchandise in his basement had belonged to somebody else. About three weeks after he hit prison, his sporadic letters started coming in. Superficially, they seemed to be very happy, chatty letters from grateful felon to happy lawyer. But the way he kept repeating how he was going to look me up when he got out made me extremely nervous, even though he had entrusted the fate of all three of his teenage daughters to me. They had been charged, variously, with armed robbery, armed mayhem, destruction of government property, auto theft and reckless driving. This had been their response to Daddy’s parole application being turned down. Abc-tv was going to do a sitcom with them to run right after Ozzie and Harriet.

My office was one room with carpeting, a tribute to my failed attempt to make a living as a lawyer in a small Iowa town that already had far more lawyers than it needed. I never stayed any longer than I had to. After reading my mail, all of which went into the waste can, I promptly left.

“Mambo,” the lovely Pamela Forrest said when I walked into the office outside Judge Whitney’s chambers.

“Mambo?”

“She’s going to New York on vacation and wants to brush up on her dancing. She’s got that dance step thing you see on Tv all over the floor.”

Along with powder for jock itch, gum for your bad breath and salve for your pig’s hemorrhoids (you have to live in Iowa to get commercials like that), Mother Tv had lately been offering us these big plastic things you put on the floor with dance steps all over them. Just follow the steps and you’re the next Fred Astaire.

“She’s not in a very good mood, McCain,”

Pamela said.

“Boy, there’s a shock.”

“I mean worse than usual.”

“Impossible.”

“I’m not kidding, McCain. She’s really on the warpath.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Didn’t you see the paper this morning?”

“Uh-uh.”

She held it up: Millionaire Kills

Wife, Self. The deck below read:

Prominent Whitney Family Stunned.

Next to a photo of Kenny was a photo not of Susan but of Judge Whitney. The paper is pretty much Democratic and the judge is the polar opposite. She has written them scathing letters for some of their editorial stands. They love to publish them because, despite her obvious intelligence and genuine erudition, she does sound slightly crazed, especially when she defends the John Birch Society.