Ed Gorman - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

“Twenty bucks?”

“Whatever happened to charity toward your fellow man?”

“I don’t make enough money to be charitable.” The smile again. I paid him.

He came back in twelve minutes by my watch.

“He says call him at the office, he’s playing golf.”

“Figured that might happen.”

“Tell you what. Since I wasn’t able to bring him back, give me a tenner and call it even.” He handed me back the twenty I’d given him and took the ten I was holding out.

“Fair enough. Thanks.”

On the drive back to my office, I started thinking those tricky, Agatha Christie thoughts that always come up when more sensible ones don’t.

There’s this furniture truck, see. And the driver and his assistant stop for coffee, see. And there’s this guy following them in his car, see. And he’s got this body in this box, see. Well, what he does, while they’re having coffee—they parked near the back, see, where nobody can see him do this—so he takes his box and slides it up in the back of the truck and he hops up there himself. Then he rides out to the Murdoch place and before the driver comes to a complete stop, he jumps down. Then he takes his box and hurry-fast takes it down to the bomb shelter. All the while looking like just one more workman. Then he speeds off into the nearby woods and nobody ever sees him again.

A ten-year-old can pick the flaws out in that plan. So much depends on sheer good luck, exquisite timing and coincidence that it could only work in an old-fashioned mystery novel.

Gavin Wheeler was nice enough to open my office door for me. “You should get a better lock.”

“Thanks for the advice. You should get a better lawyer. Maybe he could get breaking and entering dropped to criminal mischief.”

Wheeler smirked. “I would’ve taken something, McCain, but there isn’t nothing worth taking in this shithole.”

I went in and sat behind the desk—it was my office, after all—checked with the phone service who said that nobody had called. While I was doing this, Wheeler, looking like a Texas oil man in a good brown suit and a white shirt with a strong tie and a white Stetson, worked on emptying a silver flask of its contents. I had reason to suspect there wasn’t Kool-Aid in there. He kept making this irritating sound “Ah!” after every hit. Apparently the flask, of modest size, was of a magical nature. It never seemed to reach empty.

He said, “I didn’t kill her. Or him. And this whole idea I was opposed to from the start. The broad, I mean.”

“I see. They forced you into it.”

“In a way they did. I’m not like the other three, McCain. I believe in God and I go to church. And I don’t go to church just because it looks good. It’s because I feel it. In here.” He tapped his chest as if he had indigestion. “And in a way, they did force me into it.”

“I see.”

“You can sit there and smirk at me all you want. But it’s the truth. Those three, they grew up with money. Hell, Murdoch, he even went to Dartmouth. Me, I never finished high school.”

“I’m not sure what this has to do with the two murders, Mr. Wheeler.”

“Gavin, please.”

It’s kind of strange. People who ordinarily wouldn’t even speak to you want you to call them by their first names when they get into trouble.

“You want to know what my background has to do with those two murders? I’ll tell you. When you come from where I come from—those shanties where the Southerners lit during the Depression, them tin shacks and you know what I’m talking about—you never feel quite right about yourself. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about, McCain, because you’re from the Hills and you know how that affects you. Deep down, you never feel as good as other people. Deep down, you’re ashamed of yourself and you can’t ever kick that feeling. No matter how much money you have; no matter how many people tell you how great you are; no matter how many civic awards they give you—inside here you know you could lose it all at any minute. The money, the prestige, the rich friends—all gone like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I walk around with that feeling in the pit of my stomach every day of my life. That’s where I envy you so much.”

“You envy me?”

“Hell, yes, I do. Look at you. You don’t have jack shit. Your law practice is a joke and all you do most of the time is play gumshoe for some old wino judge who has to tell you ten times a day that she knows Leonard Bernstein. You’re about the most unsuccessful professional man in this whole state and you should be damned happy about it.”

“God, I never realized how lucky I was. Every time I have to prowl through garbage cans to get my dinner, I should realize that I’ve got it made. Something like that?”

“Now you’re being sarcastic again. And you know what? That’s about the only thing you’re good at. That sarcasm of yours.”

I sat up with my elbows on the desk, leaning forward the way those TV actors do when they’re selling you a product of some kind. “First of all, Gavin, you forgot about the Hills as soon as you left. All those years you were on the city council you didn’t do squat for the Hills. Hell, you even blocked all the sewage bills so your country club friends could get the council to build that sports park we didn’t need. And second of all, you’re here to rat out somebody else to throw suspicion off yourself. You’re going to give me a name and some little morsel of a lead and I’m supposed to get excited.”

He took his flask out again and set it on the desk. “Take a drink of that, McCain. And while you’re doin’ that, I’ll tell you who killed those two people.”

“Sure you will.”

“Two weeks ago somebody beat up Karen.”

“And you know that for a fact?”

“Hell, yes I know it for a fact. It was my night to be with her. Two of us a week. That was the setup. More than that she would’ve felt like a whore. This way she could pretend she just had two dates a week.”

“She say that?”

“Many times. Anyway, I saw the bruises all over her body. First hand.”

“Who did it?”

“Peter Carlson.”

“C’mon. Carlson?”

“Why’s that so hard to believe?”

“He’s sort of a priss. Hard to imagine him working up that kind of passion for anything except putting people down.”

“Well, whatever he is, that didn’t stop him from falling in love with her.”

“Are you serious?”

“He offered to buy out our shares. He even tried to get her to move back to Chicago, where he’d set her up by himself.”

“When did all this happen?”

“Over the last couple months. He had a hard time controlling himself when one of us went up there. Sometimes he’d drive around her block. I know it’s hard to believe but that’s how bad he got. He even picked a fight with Hardin one night when they were both drinking. Hardin made some crack about her starting to show her age a little bit. And speaking of cracks, I didn’t forget about the Hills. I give three Christmas baskets to the nuns every year. For the poor.”

“Be still my heart.”

“It’d be real easy not to like you, McCain.”

“Ditto. Why don’t you just take this to Cliffie?”

“That dumb ass? Are you kidding? He’s already got Murdoch good for it. You know Cliffie. Case closed. He won’t even consider anybody else now.”

I leaned back in my chair. Watched him tilt his flask up again. Watched him set it back down on the desk. Watched him watching me.

“You going to help me clear Ross? Ross said you were working for him.”

“What if I find out you killed her?”

His jowls got red before the rest of his face did. An interesting visual display. “Why would I kill her?”