Эд Горман - Riders on the Storm

But dream or not, my presence was required.

“Yes, Chief.”

“I know you’re a good friend of Will Cullen’s and Will’s had a bit of trouble and I’d like to tell you about it.”

“Uh, could you tell me a little bit more?”

“I don’t blame you for wanting to know more but his wife Karen is here, too, and she needs a friend.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

I was.

Chief Foster had redecorated Cliffie’s old office. Instead of the John Wayne poster and framed photos of Cliffie all got up as Glenn Ford in various poses, the wall featured posters highlighting what it takes to be a competent police officer. A slight man, he was dressed in a summer-weight blue suit straight off the rack at Sears. I knew that because I had one just like it in a lighter blue. The thinning hair was combed from the right and the narrow, thin face showed intelligence and even reflection.

“I apologize for waking you up again, Sam, and please call me Paul.”

Different strokes, as the song said. The laid-back style; hell, the apologies and the sensible clothes — Cliffie would have shot him on sight. I didn’t like it much either. I don’t hate cops, I don’t love cops. But I do distrust cops. “Paul” invited the kind of intimacy that can be dangerous unless you happen to be another cop.

“Coffee?” He indicated a brewer on top of a gray metal bookshelf.

“Please.”

After I’d sat down and after he handed me my cup, he sat down, too, and said, “There’s a good possibility that Will Cullen murdered Steve Donovan last night.” Then, “And from everything I know about Cullen I’d say that it’s a pretty sad thing. I know he accidentally killed a little girl in Nam and has never really gotten over it. I was over there in ’68. One tour and back home. I had a couple of buddies who re-upped. They both got killed. I’m telling you this so you understand that I have some sympathy for your friend. But I’m also a law enforcement officer so I have to do my job.”

I’d been right to distrust him. Talk about a rush to judgment.

“Look, Chief, no offense, but you’re way down the road here. Way down. I’ve known Will most of my life. He did not kill anybody.”

He dismissed me. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do my job.”

He started doing his job by telling me what he knew so far. Donovan had been drinking most of the night at a place called “Cherie’s,” an upscale roadhouse near the county line. Foster had talked to the manager of the place already this morning. He’d been there all night and said that Donovan had been very drunk but not belligerent. He got even worse when Will went out there and tried to talk to him. That sure as hell hadn’t helped. They tried to talk Donovan into letting somebody drive him home but he got so pissed off the manager finally caved in.

As yet there were no witnesses to what happened next, or to what Foster assumed happened next. The place was so crowded so early last night that Donovan had been forced to park in a poorly lighted spot near the forest that ran up to Cherie’s property line. When Foster looked over the scene this morning he found that both of Donovan’s rear tires had been slashed. Foster’s surmise was that when Donovan had drunkenly bent over to check on the tires somebody had smashed him over the head with a tire iron.

“How do you know it was a tire iron?”

“I’ll get to that. Anyway, a jogger found the body. He cuts through the parking lot every morning to get on a nature trail about a quarter mile from there.

“Now the tire iron. About a block from the roadhouse there’s a small rest stop. Will pulled in there. One of our patrol cars saw this Thunderbird sitting there and remembered that you’d called about it last night. He checked on the driver who he guessed was sleeping one off. He found the tire iron on the back seat. Bloody, with hair on it. The tire iron is in the forensic lab right now. The driver wasn’t responsive in any way. The officer took him to the ER, where he’s being examined.”

I did my best not to look stunned by his claim about the tire iron. The back seat. Hair and blood. How could it get any worse?

“He was just in the ER last night.”

“Yes, they mentioned that.”

“I don’t believe he killed Donovan.”

“Neither does his wife.”

“But you believe he did.”

“You have to admit the circumstances could lead to that conclusion.”

“Circumstances. Rather than evidence.”

When I didn’t say anything more, he said, “Pretty damn convincing evidence.” Then, “You work for Judge Whitney as well as yourself?”

“Yes. You’ve met her?”

“She invited me to have dinner at her club the other night. She’s quite the woman. Was she really married four times?”

I nodded.

“And she used to play golf with Dick Nixon and she knows Leonard Bernstein well enough to call him ‘Lenny’?”

I nodded again. He was changing the subject. I said, “Will didn’t kill Donovan.”

“I guess the record’s stuck. I say there’s a more-than-even chance he did. And I have some evidence to back up what I say. You, on the other hand, just keep saying he’s innocent, but you don’t have any evidence at all.”

“I haven’t had time to find any.”

His lips thinned. “His wife is waiting for you down the hall, McCain.”

Her package of Winstons had been ripped apart. I guessed she’d tried to open them but they wouldn’t cooperate so instead she took all her anger out on the trim red package. Two cigarettes lay broken like snapped legs.

The room was twice the size of a cell. A wooden table and four wooden chairs comprised the furnishings. On a metal bookcase sat a tape recorder and a stack of Scotch recording tapes.

“I’ve never said the word ‘fuck’ in my life but I’ve been saying it to myself ever since Paul called.” Then, “Listen to me. The man arrested my husband for a murder he didn’t commit and I’m calling him Paul. I should be calling him a fucker or something like that.”

The relentlessly fastidious Karen was gone and in its place sat a disheveled woman whose loveliness had been robbed by lack of sleep, exasperation, and fear. There was a fresh stain on the right cuff of her sand-colored blouse. Probably from the coffee she was drinking now. She had affected a chignon but hairs sprang out like wings everywhere. She was without makeup. She’d probably been too upset to try an operation that delicate.

“At least they got rid of the death penalty in this state,” she whispered.

I reached out and hugged her to me. I put my hand on the side of her face to bring her in even closer. I kissed the top of her head. She needed to cry and she did.

It was several minutes before she was able to gather herself and separate from me. She nodded down at her sundered cigarette pack and laughed tearily. “I guess I showed them who’s boss.”

“They had it coming.”

“If you ever have a pack that gives you trouble, let me handle them.” Then, “He really didn’t do it, Sam.”

Our fervent mantra.

“And now,” she sighed, “they’re going to put him back on a mental ward. The chief of staff at the hospital here says their ward is sufficient for him and Lindsey Shepard, that psychologist he’s been seeing, agrees. They have some fancy terminology for it, but what it comes down to is that he’s in some kind of withdrawal and needs to be watched twenty-four hours a day.” Then, “I want to do something, Sam. But I don’t know what.”

“I need to find out more about Steve Donovan.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“If Will didn’t kill him, who did?”

“He had enemies. I don’t think he was ever faithful to his wife. A man named Thad Owens caught Donovan making out with Thad’s wife and he dumped her because of it. I know of at least two times when his wife was going to leave him. And then his business partner and he had a big falling-out.”