Ed Gorman - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

“Yes,” Stu said, “that’s it exactly, honey. It’s like that Bogie movie we love. ‘High Sahara.’”

I said, “I think that’s ‘Sierra.’”

“Pardon?” said Stu the Master Chef.

“I think it’s ‘High Sierra.’ Not ‘High Sahara.’ It’s set in the Sierra mountains.”

He had a mouthful of steak. He jabbed his fork in my direction, “You know what, honey? You never told me that this guy knows movie titles the way he does. He’s great.”

The phone rang. I damned near leaped over the couch to get it. Whoever it was, I was visiting them. Or at least saying I was.

Deirdre said, “Could you come out to the house, Sam? Dad’s lawyer would like to talk with you. He’s pretty sure Cliffie’s getting ready to arrest Dad. God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Are you sure I’m not interrupting anything?”

“Nothing I’d care to talk about.”

I went back to the table. “I need to get out of here. I’ll throw some stuff in my gym bag. Take my clothes along for tomorrow. You folks have any idea when you might be leaving?”

“Well, as I said, Sam,” the Master Chef said, “we’re really starting to relax finally. We thought we’d talk to our respective parents tomorrow and then see how a few of our respective old friends felt about getting together for a few drinks. You know, sort of ease ourselves back into society, if you will.”

“So we’re talking what here?”

They looked at each other and then at me.

The master chefette said, “Well, we’ll try to find a place to stay but if we can’t—I don’t think we’re talking more than four or five days to stay here. I mean, even after we see everybody, we can still hide out. Nobody would ever expect us to be in a place like this.”

Nuclear holocaust was sounding better all the time.

FIFTEEN

HE WAS FLESHY BUT imposing, a hint of revered Roman senator in the stark outsize features and coiled white hair. The extra weight added some years to him but the added years helped. Spellman, his name was. Richard Spellman. He had one brother who was a senator and another brother who was a Catholic bishop. Not to be confused with the cardinal.

He perched on the edge of Ross Murdoch’s desk. He wore a black crewneck sweater, blue jeans, white socks, shiny black loafers with tassels. Tassels on men’s shoes have always irritated me. This is one of the possible reasons they keep me up here on the violent ward. Ritz crackers have been known to send me into seizures. Then there was the day I jumped up on the table and denounced waxed paper. Other than that I can keep myself under control. Pretty much.

He had a cigarette in one hand, a social glass of sherry in the other. I’d declined the sherry. I’d spent twenty minutes bringing him up to date. “You going to be threatened when I bring in my own detective?”

“Not at all,” I said. Which was what I was supposed to say. Nobody likes to be second-guessed. But everybody has to pretend they don’t mind it. Your man exposing me as a complete bumbling incompetent fool? Now why would I mind that, Mr. Spellman?

“As I see it,” he went on, “we have two problems. One, we need to find out how she was brought in here. A body isn’t all that easy to disguise. And two, we need to find out who had the strongest motive to kill her. Of the four men involved, I mean.”

“So you’re assuming that it was one of the four who were paying her rent?” I said.

“I don’t eliminate anything, McCain. But I’ll tell you, to me this is like a husband finding a wife dead. The automatic suspect to the coppers is the husband. Big city or small town doesn’t make any difference. That’s who the coppers look at initially and you have a hell of a time moving away from that position.”

“Have you eliminated me, Dick?” Murdoch said, trying to sound droll.

“Of course not, Ross. Don’t take it personally. But I’ve only been working with you for the past five hours. I haven’t had time to form any opinions about anything yet except that your chief-of-police is a baboon.”

“You talked to Cliffie?” I said.

“Courtesy call,” Spellman said, draining his sherry glass and setting it down. “Sonofabitch is sitting in his office reading a comic book. Donald Duck. I still read Batman once in a while, you know, kind’ve for old times sake. But Donald Duck? At our age? Anyway, so I introduce myself, being very courteous and all, knowing I’ll have to work with this dipshit for the foreseeable future, and you know what? He won’t shake my hand. I put my hand out there. And he won’t shake it. You know what he says to me? ‘I don’t shake hands with men who work for killers.’ I’m still polite, of course, and I say, ‘If you mean Ross Murdoch, do you have any solid evidence?’ And he says what I expect him to say, ‘lady is found in his bomb shelter, what more evidence do you want?’ And so on. Then he tells me he’s busy and he needs get back to work. And then you know what? I’m walking down the hall away from his office, heading for the front door, right? And I hear him laughing. And he says ‘Oh, that Gyro Gearloose.’ Gyro Gearloose? And this chief of yours is supposed to be a grown-up?”

“I still like Gyro Gearloose,” I said. “Carl Barks is the great guy who writes and draws him.”

He gave me an odd look. “I wouldn’t spread that around if I were you.” He wasn’t kidding. Then: “You’ll be happy to know, Ross, that I’m actually going on the assumption that you didn’t kill her.”

“I appreciate that.”

“But your man McCain here has given me some pretty good motives to work with, I mean.”

Your Man McCain? A possible TV series?—

“I haven’t seen those,” Murdoch said, nodding at the notebook in Spellman’s hand.

“This Carlson—he was jealous of her? Having to share her?”

“Yes.”

“This Mike Hardin—he loses all his money. He could have been forced into killing her because he was broke and didn’t want you people to know.”

“How about Gavin Wheeler?”

“He doesn’t have anything written down here.”

I sat up straighter in my chair. The way you do when the nun calls on you for the answer to the question she just asked that you in your daydreaming didn’t hear.

“He’s just an all-around jerk,” I said. To Murdoch, I said, “Did Carlson really try and buy up all your shares?”

“Yes,” Murdoch said. “He wanted her for himself.”

“Did she want him?”

“He’s the only one who can answer that,” Murdoch said.

“So there’s nothing with Gavin Wheeler?” Spellman said. He was not a patient man.

“Nothing specific,” I said. “But I guess I could see him killing somebody.”

“Maybe he could kill Gyro Gearloose for me.”

I’m glad Ross-about-to-be-arrested-for-murder found Spellman so funny.

I decided to trump him. “I may have figured out how her body got in here.”

“You’re kidding,” Spellman said.

“There’s a new rug in the bomb shelter. I don’t know if anybody gave it any thought, any law enforcement people. Ross, do you happen to know when it was delivered?”

“I’d have to check to be sure. But I guess it would have been the afternoon before I found Karen in the bomb shelter.”

“It’s a long shot,” Spellman said.

“True,” I said, “but right now we have to consider it a possibility. Who’d you buy it from?”

“Home Furnishings. I always try to buy everything I can in town here. You know, support the town. Our merchants are getting massacred by the shopping center and with Cedar Rapids and Iowa City so near. I gave my ladies strict orders to buy whatever they could right here.”