Эд Горман - Fools Rush In

The last thing I heard from them was Noreen strumming and singing “Sam McCain was a law-abidin’ man till they pushed him too far.” I was glad I couldn’t hear anything more.

Back on the phone, Jane said, “I’m sorry if I interrupted anything.”

“Just a murder.”

“What?”

“A double murder, actually. Two people who woke me up and decided to have a party. So what’s going on?”

“Rachael Todd — the one we thought was killed because she was going to tell you something about Leeds and Neville?”

“Yeah.”

“A sixty-six-year-old woman walked into Cliff’s office tonight — of course Cliff wasn’t there — and confessed to being the hit-and-run driver. She was coming back from her sister’s and realized that she couldn’t see very well without her glasses but assumed she could make it home without any problem. Well, there was a problem. Rachael Todd sort of stumbled out in front of the woman’s car and that’s how the woman hit her. The woman’s name by the way is Dot Taylor, and the deputy who looked over her car said you can still see blood and a little bit of hair on the right front bumper and fender.”

“I don’t know if this is good news or bad news. You know, in mystery novels you’re never supposed to have a coincidence like this.”

“Well, I guess it gives us one less thing to worry about.”

“But we still don’t know what she was going to tell me.”

A pause. “I notice you said ‘me.’”

“Oh. Right.”

“I was under the assumption that we were still working together. I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Well, I’ve been—”

“Before you tell a lie, which will really piss me off, let me tell you what’s going on. She got to you, didn’t she?”

“She?”

“God, c’mon, Sam. Just admit it. The judge found out that we were together socially and got all uptight about it. Right?”

My turn to pause. “Yeah, right.”

“And so she just naturally extrapolated from there that we were probably working together, too.”

“Pretty much.”

“And you gave in to her.”

I took a long time to answer it. “The judge and I have a very complicated relationship. She helped me when I set up shop and nobody else would. She helped me get my private investigator’s license, which isn’t easy in this state. And she’s steered a lot of business my way.”

“You gave in to her.”

“And she’s... she’s in a kind of strange position now. She needs some help.”

“Her drinking.”

“Are you mocking me here?”

Extended sigh. “A little, I guess. I mean you’re making it sound more like a love affair than a business relationship. But I apologize, Sam. I guess it hurts my pride that you chose her over me. But that makes sense. You’ve been friends — or whatever you are — for a long time.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t see each other socially.”

Nervous laugh. “I probably screwed that up for us, Sam.”

“How?”

“I said a lot of awkward things the first night we met. I was trying not to flirt with you but it sort of came out that way, and I’m sorry it did. The truth is, Sam, I don’t know what I’m looking for — if I’m looking for anything. I like to work hard because then I don’t have to think about it. I like you very much, but you’re very different from the other men I’ve been with. There weren’t that many — three, really — but they ran to a type and you don’t fit that type at all. And you’re so different from them and—”

“What type are we talking about?”

“Oh, it’s not worth discussing. See, right there I said something I shouldn’t have.”

“Tall, dark, and handsome? Is that the type we’re talking about?”

Pause. “Believe it or not, yes. It just seemed to work out that way. And it was very flattering, I have to say.”

“But you’re beautiful.”

“Well, I’m attractive. I don’t know about beautiful.”

“So it’s logical handsome men would be attracted to you.” Pause. “Let me ask you something personal about them.”

“Well, if it’s not too personal.”

“Were any of them ever nicknamed ‘Yosemite Sam’?”

I thought she might not have understood the reference, but after a hesitation she broke into a full-throated laugh. “That’s just what I mean, Sam. You saved the moment because you’re so witty.”

“And short.”

“Well—”

“And not handsome—”

“In your way you are.”

“And not dark. Fish-belly white and freckled in places.”

“You really know how to sell yourself.”

But then it was done. I could sense it. I’d kidded it along so we could both save face, and much as we enjoyed that moment, we both realized that it was one of those fireflies that only glow for a minute or so.

“I just don’t want to hurt you, if we go out socially I mean.”

“I understand.”

“I think I’m pretty good company sometimes, but I don’t know if it can ever be more than that for us.”

“Well, let’s think on it.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t. You were honest is all.”

“Well, I probably should go. We both need our sleep. I just wanted to make sure you’d heard about Rachael Todd.”

“I appreciate the call, Jane.”

“We’ll talk soon, Sam.”

“’Night.”

For a long time I just sat in the chair. The cats came and sat on me. I was looking for a bride these days — now that I was trying to be an adult again, and at age twenty-six it was past time — but maybe in looking so earnestly I’d lost whatever charm I’d once held for women. Trying too hard, to make it simple.

I spent a few minutes working out with self-pity, spreading it throughout my body, saturating every cell of my being and mind with it, and then I stood up and turned off the lights and went to the back door to make sure it was locked.

And it was then I heard it. And for the first time there was a sweetness to Noreen’s voice. Maybe it was because this particular song was about a lost love and not shooting cops or burning nuns or building monuments to Stalin.

This was a young woman singing about a love affair she couldn’t rid herself of. And it had an old hill-country quality — a good many townspeople were from folks who’d migrated here from the Ozarks following the Civil War, the kin of whom still lived in the section where I’d grown up — that particular sadness of the poor and the uneducated and the trapped that the Irish and the Scotch had carried with them on their boats to the new country.

I’d never heard any of these qualities in her voice or manner before and so I grabbed the last six-pack and went down to the old rocker porch swing that Mrs. Goldman had put near the alley and joined them.

And limned by starlight and soothed by wind and startled by the beauty of her voice when she sang this type of song, I became in those moments a fan of Noreen’s, something that verged on the impossible.

“I’d like to see her.”

“She specifically asked that you not see her.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“That was what Dr. Berryman told us. In fact, there he is now. You can ask him yourself.”

Hospital. Six-thirty a.m. Sights and sounds and smells of the new day. Crisp nurses, preoccupied doctors studying notes and charts. Gurneys being pushed toward one of three operating rooms at the far end of this hall. A glimpse into the room where loved ones waited for word of how the surgery went. Tense faces. Tears. A young man hugging a frail elderly woman.

The nurse I’d been speaking to pointed to Berryman, who had just stepped off an elevator and was just starting down the hall in the opposite direction.