Эд Горман - Fools Rush In

I stood up and walked over to the phone and dialed the police station.

“Police station. Patrolman Emmett Billings.”

Jane had improved the phone etiquette, too.

“Emmett, this is Sam McCain. I’m going to give you an address. I need a car here as fast as possible. I have a prisoner for you. Jane Sykes will explain this later.”

He wouldn’t have done it for me. But for the new district attorney, you bet.

I gave him the address. “Right away, Emmett. Please.”

After I hung up, I walked back to Will Neville.

He was quiet now. He didn’t smell any better. There was a dumb animal sorrow about him I couldn’t enjoy anymore.

“I’m sorry I got so rough, Will.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“If I tell the DA that you cooperated with me, I think I can get her to go easy on a few of the charges.”

“She’s Sykes’s kin. She won’t listen to you.”

“She will in this case. We’ve been working together on it.”

He raised his head two inches. Apparently, the pain was too much to bring it any higher.

“I done time in juvie. I don’t want to go to no prison.”

“You’re not listening, Will. You’ll probably have to do some time. But maybe I can cut some for you. That’s what I’m talking about here.”

“He could get me out of it entire.”

“If you mean Williams, no, he couldn’t. That’s a pipe dream, Will. I’m offering you the only real kind of help that’s available to you. Now tell me where those photos are.”

And I’ll be damned, right then and right there, if he didn’t.

The maid said, “They’re all in the library.” She looked unhappily at the manila envelope in my right hand. “I hope that’s not bad news. I don’t think they could handle much more of it.”

“Who’s here?”

“The senator and his wife and daughter. Were you expecting somebody else?”

“No, I was just wondering.”

The expression on her prim face now became suspicion. “I take it it is more bad news, then.”

“I can’t really talk about it.”

“This whole house is coming apart.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. I like it here, at least when the senator’s out of town.” Then: “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I’m ready for the library anytime you are.”

I followed her through the house. The living room was so brightly lit, it seemed a party was about to begin as soon as the guests swept up the drive in their cars — a night of pleasure for sure.

The maid knocked curtly. The conversation stopped. The senator said: “Yes, Marjorie?”

“Mr. McCain is here to see you.”

“McCain—” He sounded confused.

“Excuse me,” I said, as I covered the doorknob with my hand and pushed inward where the entire Williams family sat around a small table staring at me like the interloper I was. I had interrupted the most sacred business of all, private family business.

I walked in. The maid did me the favor of closing the door behind me.

“You weren’t invited,” Senator Williams said. “And I don’t want you here.”

“God, Dad,” Lucy said. “That’s so embarrassing, treating him like that.”

“Lucy, why don’t you pour him some coffee?” Ellen said.

“That sounds good about now.”

The senator didn’t try to hide his disgust with me. In fact, he made sure I’d see it by making faces and sighing deeply and shaking his head as I sat down. He seemed to think that I’d brought some kind of plague with me. As, perhaps, I had.

Lucy, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, poured me a cup of coffee from a carafe. “Sugar or cream?”

“Just plain is fine.”

Each of them took turns staring at the manila envelope I’d set on the mahogany table in front of me.

The coffee was good. I took several sips of it in the uneasy silence. Then I finally said, “Any particular reason for this particular meeting?”

Lucy smirked. “We’re each confessing our sins here, asking each other for forgiveness. And take my word for it, Mr. McCain, there’s a lot to forgive.”

“Haven’t you done enough already? Why don’t you give it a rest? He’s enjoying this. He’ll tell everybody what a trashy family we are.”

“Then he’ll be telling the truth, won’t he?” Ellen snapped.

The senatorial mask faded momentarily, replaced by a glimpse of weariness and dread. “Everything I’ve worked so hard to build, you two have tried to destroy. But by God, I’m not going to let you.”

He knew what was in the envelope. That explained his unease. He’d lied to me about having an affair to cover up the real nature of the photos — his wife in bed with her business partner Karen. These were the photos he’d been desperate to keep from circulation. I really hadn’t wanted to peek inside, but I hadn’t had any choice. Unlike the other envelopes, this one had a bearing on a murder case.

“Maybe he’s here to arrest one of us,” Ellen said tartly. “That would be the final scandal, wouldn’t it? Seeing your wife or your daughter in prison?”

“That was a consideration for a long time,” I said. “You each had reasons for killing Leeds and Neville.”

“Please don’t talk about them in the same breath,” Lucy said. “David was only trying to help us get” — she glanced at her mother — “get certain photos back from Neville. He was just trying to help us.”

“A beautiful young white girl — that’s why he was hanging around you, Lucy,” her father said. “Goddammit, I wish you could understand that. He wanted a trophy. You’ve idealized him to the point where he—”

“He paid attention to her, he was proud of her, he genuinely loved her.” Ellen’s voice was hard, unforgiving. “Things you wouldn’t know anything about, Senator.”

“Knock off that ‘Senator’ bullshit. You know I hate that. I’m your husband.”

“In name only.”

“Maybe in name only to you. But not to me.”

“Welcome to our little home, Mr. McCain,” Lucy said. “And this is one of our better moments.”

I tapped the manila envelope. I’d had enough of their family troubles. “So you told David about these photos?”

“Yes, and he kept our secret about Mom, too. I’m sure of it. He didn’t tell anybody. David thought maybe he could reason with Richie. That’s why he was there. Whoever killed Neville had to kill David so there wouldn’t be any witnesses.”

“That’s what I was beginning to think, too,” I said. Then, to the senator I said: “You never did have an affair, did you?”

“No.”

“You only told me that so I wouldn’t know what the photos were really about.”

“I... didn’t want the real truth to get out.” He scowled at his wife. “The public might understand that I couldn’t control my daughter if she wanted to go out with a Negro. But my wife being a sexual deviate—”

“Oh, God, Senator,” Ellen snapped. “‘A sexual deviate.’ It happened twice.”

I said, “Richie Neville had been trailing the senator. Trying to get something on him. A big payday if he could. But that wasn’t going anywhere, so he decided to trail you for a while. That’s how he found out about you and Karen. He did his Peeping Tom routine and got some photos of you in a bedroom together.”

I shoved the envelope to her. “It’s all yours. The negatives are in there, too.”

“I sure as hell don’t want them, McCain,” Ellen said. “I’m not ashamed of what I did. Karen is my best friend. It was an act of affection more than anything. But these photos — they just make the whole thing dirty.”

The senator stood up. “The whole thing was dirty. Is dirty. It’s perverted and it’s sickening.”