“Really.”
“Well...”
“I’ll be out in front of your office in twenty minutes.”
I hung up before she could say no.
28
“I don’t want to lose your friendship, no matter what happens,” Donna Harris said when we were on the interstate and about ten miles from the exit that would take us to Tanrow.
A low sky filled with fat black clouds. Snow. Or rain. Or both. Lonely cows on frozen hills. Perfect complement to my mood.
During the drive she’d explained what had happened. How Chad had had some kind of “vision,” it seemed. One that “proved” they were destined to be together. He was already in the process of dumping his stenographer. She was already seeing a Japanese shrink (the significance of his nationality eluded me, but I didn’t say anything).
And so here was Donna, not knowing what to do. On the one hand she loved him (“I have to be honest with you, Dwyer”), but on the other hand she wasn’t exactly certain about the quality of that love (“I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life with him, maybe it’s just a habit”), but then again there was me (“God, I really like you, Dwyer, I mean in all respects. You’re really tender and you’re really funny and you’re really cute”) and couldn’t I see what a mess things were?
“But no matter what happens,” she repeated, “I don’t want to lose your friendship, all right?”
“Sure. We can always exchange recipes.”
“I’m serious.”
I went back to staring at the frozen farmland that cleaved the line of gray horizon.
I leaned forward and found a jazz station on the radio. Miles came on. Bleak as the day itself, but beautifully so.
“God, Dwyer, I hate to ask you, but could we change stations?”
“Why?”
“Jazz really bums me out.”
“Jazz does?”
“That’s why I listen to Top 40.”
“Why?”
“It’s just like Muzak.”
She found a Top 40 station.
Despite her tear-threatening eyes and the sullen angle of her otherwise lovely mouth, her foot started tapping. I had to smile. She was crazy and I loved her.
Maybe precisely because she was crazy.
“Maybe we should talk about the case,” she said, seeing the Tanrow exit sign ahead.
“Yeah,” I said, though obviously I didn’t feel much like it.
“You think there’s something funny about the flowers being delivered from here?”
“Sure.” I explained about florists wiring or phoning orders to one another.
“So why didn’t you just call the florist yourself?”
I decided to just admit it. “I wanted to be alone with you. Plead my case.” I looked over at her. Held out my hand. She put hers in it. I felt wonderful and terrible at the same time — filled equally with hope and despair. “I don’t want you to go back to your husband.”
“I know you don’t, Dwyer, and I’m sorry things are so screwed up.”
I let her cry.
She leaned over and snapped off the Top 40. “That stuff’s such shit,” she sobbed.
Tanrow was one of those movie-set little towns you see less and less often in the Midwest these days. A town square complete with Civil War memorial and bandstand. Neat little businesses with striped tarp awnings built around the square. A church steeple like a rocket against the sky. Big-eyed children marking the progress of our car, our out-of-county license plates making us curiosities of a sort. A theater with a marquee at least forty years old sat on the corner where we pulled into a parking place. I could imagine the marquee resplendent with such names as Alan Ladd and Randolph Scott and Rory Calhoun.
The truck I’d seen the other day was parked in an alley next to the florist shop.
We sat staring at the place, the people going in and out. One of my bucolic moments overcame me. I’d always had this fantasy of moving to a small town such as this. Start another family. Learn how to talk to birds and plant tomatoes. It’s never going to happen.
“Gee, this is the first time I’ve really felt like a detective,” Donna said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just sitting here. Watching. Kind of a stakeout, right?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“I’m sorry things are so crazy, Dwyer.”
“I know.”
She touched my hand again. “You know I like you.”
I nodded.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The various flower scents combined to create an almost narcotic odor, like a room where marijuana is smoked too much and too often. My stomach curdled.
“Boy, doesn’t it smell beautiful in here?” Donna said.
On either side of the place were big refrigerated glass panels behind which lay jungles of flowers. A neat little man with horn-rimmed glasses in a white doctor’s smock was making up a colorful arrangement. “Hi,” he said in a booster-club voice, “may I help you?”
I put out my hand. He shook it with a hard, quick grip, like a snakebite. “Ab Windom,” he introduced himself. Then I showed him my license.
He looked at me with a smile on his face. “I think we should give you some sort of plaque or something.”
“How’s that?”
“I’ll bet you’re the first private investigator who ever set foot in Tanrow. You’re about as unlikely as an astronaut coming through here.”
“Well,” I laughed, “it’s nice to be a pioneer, I guess.”
“How may I help you?”
“Your truck was in the city the other day.” I gave him the Dodson woman’s address.
“Sure,” he said confidently. “We’re there every week.”
“Every week?”
“Yes, and have been for the past six years.”
“Mind if I ask why?”
He smiled. “The customer wants it, that’s why. Two dozen roses. Once a week.”
“Why don’t you just wire the flowers?”
“Like I said, that isn’t what the customer wants.”
“Would you tell me who the customer is?”
He shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Afraid I don’t.”
Donna looked at me and said. “Well, how does he get paid?”
“Ask him,” I said.
She turned to Windom. She was nervous. “How do you get paid?”
“You must be his assistant, right?”
“I’m a reporter,” she said. There was pride in her voice. Even confidence. It was fetching.
“Reporter? Hey, what’s going on here?” He adjusted his glasses as if to get a better look at us.
“A murder investigation,” I said, hoping the ominousness of my remark would ensure his cooperation.
“You’re kidding!”
“Afraid not.”
“God. A murder investigation.”
“So how do you get paid?”
“Well, every month I get a money order.”
“Return address?”
“Your hometown. Just the postmark.”
“You say this has been going on for six years?”
“Yes. A man called me back there. Placed a standing order. I haven’t heard from him since.”
From my wallet I took a clip of the newspaper story concerning Stephen Elliot’s death. “You ever see this man before?”
He stared at it and started to shake his head no, and then he said, “Why, my God, that’s Gil.”
“Gil?”
“Gil Powell. I wouldn’t have recognized him.”
“You know him?”
“Knew him. He grew up in Tanrow. Then he— Well, something happened.” Windom seemed reluctant to talk. “Lot of painful memories for this town.”
Donna said, “Like what?” She was getting better at it.
The door opened behind us. An elderly couple came in. Windom excused himself. The couple wanted an anniversary corsage. They were in their seventies and holding hands. I admired and envied them.