“Did you talk about this to anybody?”
“To anybody who’d listen, including the mayor and the fire chief. They thought I was just distraught because my sister died. You know, that I was making things up.”
“Did the Bennetts give you any kind of support?”
“You must be nuts. Why would they?”
“Well, your sister and Bryce had gone out for quite a while.”
“The only one who paid any attention to Karen was Linda’s husband David. He was quite taken with her, especially after he’d had a few drinks.”
“She told you that?”
“She didn’t have to. I got invited to the mansion a few times. I saw it for myself. He’s like my ex. The grass always looks greener and everything. Linda’s a bitch, but you can’t take her beauty from her. And I can’t blame her for hating my sister a little. Raines got serious about her. Because he couldn’t have her. He has quite the ego. Wrote her a few letters even.”
“Did she ever tell Bryce?”
She devastated a mosquito by slamming her palm against her forearm. “No. She was afraid what it would do to the whole family if they found out. She was afraid Lou and Linda would blame her.”
She made a face. “I don’t know why the hell I’m talking to you, anyway. I really am pissed about you being that old bitch’s lawyer.”
“One more question.”
She turned a sigh into Hamlet. “Yeah? One more?”
“Did Lou have any enemies that your sister heard him talk about?”
The smile was bitter. “Lou considered everybody an enemy. People were a nuisance to him.” Then: “His business partner. Or ex-business partner. Roy Davenport. They really ended up hating each other. Somebody told me they heard that Davenport beat Lou up pretty badly one time. I hope that’s true.” She put her hand over her eyes and squinted at me. “So you really think this Doran is innocent?”
“I do, yes. Or I wouldn’t be trying to help him.”
“Well, I guess you can try.”
She turned the mower around and went back to work. I watched her for several long moments. Those red shorts immortalized her bottom.
12
If you have the devil’ s music in your home bring it here labor day for our righteous fire!
– Reverend H. Dobson Cartwright
The sign was in black and white and strung between two small oak trees that sat on church property. If you were headed west through town, as I was, you couldn’t miss it.
The Church of the Sacred Realm was a one-story concrete building that had previously been a warehouse for an auto-parts supplier. A thirty-foot steel cross had been set in place on the roof. For special holy events, Cartwright rented a spotlight to shine on it. At least two people claimed to have been healed by the gleaming cross. I was surprised that athlete’s foot could be vanquished that easily.
Cartwright was a tent-show preacher no matter how hard he tried to disguise it. He dressed like a banker, spoke perfect English, and never harped about money at Sunday services. The harping he left to a cadre of “Visitors,” as they were called, who worked the homes of the flock. They were holy variations on Mob muscle.
Five or six times a year, he created a spectacle that got him on local and sometimes (much to the embarrassment of the Chamber of Commerce) national TV. He had burned sexy paperbacks (he never mentioned Kenny by name, but I was worried that one of his more zealous Visitors might try to burn Kenny out), chopped up Barbie dolls (scandalous attire), smashed in a brand-new 21” Admiral TV console to demonstrate how little he cared for sinful TV, sponsored a “Good Girl” modeling contest in which the winners looked as if they were in training to become Amish, and had one of his parishioners paint a fifteen-foot-tall portrait of Elvis as the anti-Christ. Elvis’s guitar was in flames, and a forked snake tongue sprang from his mouth.
Burning the Beatles was a good idea by Cartwright’s standards. Some parents were leery of the group, just as many parents had been of Elvis. They’d heard the news about Carnaby Street with all its promiscuity-my God, fashion models with their breasts exposed-and suspected the end was near. These were the parents who helped get Cartwright on TV for all his stunts. Most parents rightly considered him a joke. Grandma had had Sinatra, the parents had had Bill Haley and then Elvis, and now their kids had the British Invasion. There were plenty of other things more deserving of parental attention.
Thinking about Cartwright always made me smile. I got two or three minutes of amusement as a reward for passing by that giant steel cross.
The main drag was just now lighting up for the night. Most people had some time off to be with their friends and families. The Dairy Queen’s chill white luminescence showed lines that stretched down the block. The same for the two downtown movie theaters where The Ipcress File with Michael Caine was up against Help with the Beatles, the latter probably sending the good Reverend Cartwright into suicidal depression. Little kids held strings to the red and blue and yellow and pink balloons their parents had bought them from the vendor in front of the A amp;P.
Elderly couples sat on bus benches, the buses having stopped running at six o’clock. I wondered what they made of it all. Some of them had seen Saturday nights when horses and buggies had plied our Main Street. Now it was the predatory crawl of teenage boys in their cars searching for girls, me having been one of them for several years myself. I always watched for the black chopped and channeled ’49 Merc, the one even cooler than James Dean’s in Rebel Without a Cause. It was as brazen and sure of itself as only a classic car can be-it spoke of power and lust and longing; and now when I saw it pull into place with the parade of cars cruising the street, I felt better. Or maybe I just felt rational.
A breeze cooled me as I walked the final steps to the police station. I was calm now, and I wouldn’t shout at Cliffie as I’d planned. I’d methodically point out to him that by not giving me adequate time with my client, he might well jeopardize the trial and give me grounds for appeal. This was unlikely as hell, but Cliffie knew even less about law than he did about police work.
The lobby area was empty. The drunks and the fistfighters would fill up the eight cells starting in a few hours, and their loved ones would be out here in the lobby pleading for them to be released. Some would be embarrassed, some would be angry, a few-especially the women whose husbands pounded on them-would be secretly happy.
Mary Fanelli was behind the desk. Since we’d gone to grade school together, she was another one who disregarded Cliffie’s Hate McCain policy.
“How’s your dad, Sam?”
“Not any better. Maybe a little worse.”
“We did a novena for him at the early Mass yesterday.”
“Thanks, Mary. Is the chief around?”
“Softball game.” She brought forth a can of 7UP and sipped it. She was a slight woman with a sharp face redeemed by sweet brown eyes. “Bill Tomlin’s here. Want me to buzz him?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
She got on the intercom and told Tomlin I was here. She clicked off a second too late. I heard his “Shit” loud and clear. She smiled. “He knows you’re going to ask him to make a decision, and he hates making decisions. You know how the chief is. We all hate decisions because no matter what we do, it’s wrong according to him.”
Tomlin walked toward me as if he was expecting to be executed. “Chief’s not here.”
“That’s what Mary said. I’d like to see Harrison Doran.”
“Aw, shit, McCain, c’mon. You really want to put my tit in a wringer like that? No offense, Mary.” Mary grinned.
“I’m going to make it easy for you, Bill. I got permission from the DA to see Doran for half an hour. Your boss kicked me out after fifteen minutes. That means I’m owed another fifteen minutes.”