Ed Gorman - Ticket to Ride

She frowned. Those freckles and that pert little nose made me want to kiss her. “Well, I suppose Harrison’s right. All this will just make his book that much more dramatic.”

I was able to restrain myself. I said nothing.

“He has such a beautiful soul, McCain. A Russian soul.”

“Ummm.”

“You’re making fun of him.”

“‘Ummm’ isn’t making fun.”

“The way you say ‘ummm’ it is.”

Trixie joined us. “Looks like somebody doesn’t agree with us.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Sure it does, Molly. It bothers me that they did it here instead of my house. When I signed that letter in the paper, I was signing as a private citizen, not as a representative of the library. Remember, I wrote a follow-up saying that exactly, and you people published it.”

“We’re probably not dealing with anybody here who’s real rational,” I said.

“Yes,” Trixie said. In an aqua-colored blouse and dark skirt, she looked trim and competent. Which is how she kept the library-trim and competent. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She glanced from me to Molly and back to me. “You two really do make a cute couple.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing myself,” I said.

“Well, time to open the doors. Bye.”

“You didn’t have to agree with her, McCain. You just did that to embarrass me.”

“Yeah, that’s probably right.”

Then she leaned her pretty head back and gave me a stricken look. She had at last identified the monster. “My God, you’re still jealous of him, aren’t you?”

“Not really. I just think you’re rushing into something and you may be disappointed. Believe it or not, I’m trying to be your friend.”

“Some friend. There he is rotting in a dungeon, and you’re out here enjoying your freedom and libeling his name to anybody who’ll listen.”

“Slandering.”

“What?”

“You said libeling. That’s written word. Slander is spoken word. You majored in journalism, remember?”

“I just can’t believe you sometimes,” she said, her bright blue gaze furious now. “You’re just pathetic.”

I started to say something, but she held up a halting hand. “Don’t bother. Don’t bother at all.”

“I’m trying to clear him, aren’t I? Not for his sake, but the sake of the cause, as he calls it. Soldiers in the anti-war movement or whatever that bullshit was.”

“It wasn’t bullshit. It was poetry.”

I gave her an unwanted peck on the cheek and sauntered back to my ragtop.

Cliffie could have taken Doran in the back door of the police department, of course, but that would have disappointed the reporters

he’d obviously tipped in advance. He’d even managed to snag a TV crew from one of the Cedar Rapids channels. Warning: mad dog killer brought to justice at 11:35 A.M.Don’t miss it.

And where there were reporters, there were passersby, twenty or so of them gathered in a semicircle around the squad car from which Harrison Doran, in handcuffs, was just now emerging. I’d pushed my way to the front of the crowd, my elbows making a lot of friends in the process. Cliffie took off his campaign hat and wiped his brow with his sleeve. The temperature was ninety-two. Eight or nine cameras snapped his face, and the TV reporter said, “Did he resist arrest, Chief?”

“Oh, he tried all right.” And then Cliffie slapped his holster. “But I guess he just plain didn’t know what he was up against.”

At least a few of the onlookers had the grace to laugh. Most of us quit playing cowboys about age seven or so. Somebody really should point that out to Cliffie sometime. But then if he was secretly Glenn Ford, I had to admit that I was still secretly Robert Ryan. Though Ryan was taller, better looking, tougher, and smarter than me, I could definitely see a similarity between us even if nobody else could.

Doran was gray. His blue eyes were frantic. I could see that he’d been crying. Then I remembered Molly saying that he’d been drunk. Maybe what I was seeing was a combination of terror and hangover. His jeans had grass stains all over the knees, and his T-shirt was smudged in three different places with what was obviously blood. The shirt should have been taken off him and put into an evidence bag. But after all, it was Cliffie in charge, wasn’t it?

Doran moved at an angle to me. I saw a long gash on the inside of his left arm. That could explain the blood on his T-shirt.

“Did you get a confession, Chief Sykes?” a reporter called out.

“Not yet. But we will.”

I watched Doran’s face. He didn’t react in any way. He was hiding, cowering inside himself.

“So you’ve got evidence against him?” another reporter asked.

“Take a look at this shirt.” Cliffie turned and grabbed a handful of the T-shirt so cameras could get a clear shot of it. This was the kind of evidence you kept to yourself in an arrest. Somewhere in town, the district attorney, another member of the Sykes clan, had just fainted.

He put his campaign hat on and raised his hands. “That’s it for now, everybody. We can’t have the front of the police station cluttered up this way. We’ll be having a press conference later this afternoon, but for now everybody should get back to what they were doing.”

The new station is two-storied red brick with wide concrete steps leading to double glass doors. Cliffie likes to stand on top of the steps for his press conferences. I’m sure it makes him feel like a big-city cop.

“Now, c’mon, everybody, let’s break it up.”

I stood where I was as everybody else broke for their cars or back to the sidewalks.

I stepped forward. “Sykes.”

I’d been speaking to his back. But when he heard my voice, he spun around so fast I thought he might draw on me. He had a sneer all ready. “Well, well, well. It’s my old friend McCain. I guess I must have missed seeing you in the crowd. Being’s you’re so short and all.”

“I’m going to be his attorney.”

“Did you hear that, Doran? Sam McCain’s going to be your attorney. Now you’ve really got trouble.” His deputy thought this was hilarious. Doran’s stunned look didn’t change.

“I need to talk to him.”

“Well, isn’t that nice? I’ll tell you what, McCain. You come back here around the same time tomorrow and I’ll see what I can do for you. How’s that?”

“Even you know better than that, Sykes. I don’t want him questioned unless I’m present.” I looked at Doran. “Do you hear that? You don’t say a word unless I’m with you, all right?”

“Well now, if he should just break down and tell me about how he killed poor Lou Bennett, you sure wouldn’t expect me not to listen to him, would you?”

He took Doran’s arm hard enough to make him wince. Then he shoved him forward. He started walking him up the steps, then turned back to me. “You’ll see him when I tell you you can see him, McCain, and not until then.”

He dragged Doran up the stairs and disappeared inside.

The barbershop was open. I stood at the window looking in. I knew all five of the customers as well as I knew the two barbers. They were looking right back at me. Usually one or two of them would have waved and smiled. There was none of that today. I was a pariah. There was another shop a block down. I thought about going there, and then I thought the hell with it. I’d been coming here since my boyhood, but the original barbers had retired.

By the time I crossed the threshold, the men in the customer chairs had made a point of reading. The two men under the striped covers got busy talking to Mike and Earle, their respective barbers. The Amish up the highway called it shunning, after someone went against the will of the tribe.