“I’m sorry I had to be in Iowa City last night, Sam. Otherwise I would’ve been with you at that rally.”
“How’d it go for your night out?”
“I met a man at the synagogue. A very nice man.” The warmth of her voice told me that she was smiling. She was a sixtyish widow, bright, beautiful, and great company. Many eligible widowers had courted her, but as yet none had won her. She was worth the effort.
“Remember, I get to sing at your wedding.”
She laughed. “I’ve heard you sing. How much would you need to not sing at my wedding?”
As soon as we finished, I dialed home. I heard a TV Western going strong in the background. My mother, after I asked if she’d tried to get in touch with me, said, “No, everything’s fine, honey. There are three Westerns on tonight and your dad’s enjoying every one of them.”
By eight thirty, I was in bed with the cats sleeping all around me. I dreamed of sleeping with Wendy Bennett. I’m not sure what the cats dreamed about.
14
Twelve hours later, following another shower and wearing a fresh short-sleeved white shirt and blue trousers, I pushed into the chambers of Her Most Sacred Excellency Esme Anne Whitney and stared in disbelief as she raised a glass of whiskey to her lips. All her struggles with sobriety, lost.
My impulse was to race across the long office, dive at her desk, and wrench the drink from her slender hand.
She had the newspaper spread out and was so taken with whatever she was reading, she apparently didn’t hear me come in.
“Morning, Judge.”
Her head came up slowly. She offered me her usual reluctant smile-be nice to the slaves, but not too nice-and then said, “What the hell are you gaping at, McCain?”
“Oh, nothing, I guess.”
“You’re giving me the creeps.”
“I’m giving you the creeps?”
“Will you please tell me what the hell you’re staring at?”
“What the hell am I staring at? Your drink. Your-whiskey.”
“Whiskey?” She raised her glass as if toasting me and then began laughing in a way that was almost bawdy and very much out of character for the pride of rich snobs everywhere. “My God, McCain. Are you really that stupid? This is ginger ale. I’m tired of Coke.”
I guess my skepticism was obvious.
“Here, you idiot. Come over here and smell it.”
“It’s really ginger ale?”
“No, McCain, it’s really bourbon and I’m about to jump up on my desk and start dancing. Would you be happy if I did that?”
“It just looked-”
“Oh, God, how did you get through law school?”
“I mowed the professor’s lawn every other Saturday.”
“I don’t doubt that. Now get over here and tell me more about this fool Cliffie’s got in jail.”
I had called her about seven thirty to make sure she’d be in. I had given her a few sketchy details about Doran. I told her I’d tell her the rest when we met in her chambers.
“He really thinks he won’t be prosecuted and convicted?” she asked as I sat down.
The linen suit today was mauve with a silk bone-colored blouse. She was a damned good-looking woman, as she well knew. She was even better-looking now that she’d given up alcohol.
“His girlfriend thinks I’ll solve the case and by then he’ll have enough material for his book.”
“I want to solve the case-God, imagine if Cliffie actually beats us, what that would do to my family honor, a Whitney being bested by a Sykes-but there’s always a first time.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“He hasn’t confessed, I hope?”
“No. But he told them he doesn’t remember everything. And there’s a witness who puts him out in front of the mansion.”
“You Reds are certainly dopes.”
“I’m not a Red and neither is he. I’m a Democrat and he’s a con artist who’s using the anti-war movement to get girls and mooch room and board.”
“Admirable. Trotsky would have loved him.” She took a long drink and then smiled coldly at me. “Bourbon is so refreshing at eight thirty in the morning.”
“Very funny.”
She leaned back. The posture and the cold gray eyes told me she was all judge now. “Poor Lou.”
“You feel sorry for him, but not for all the kids he wanted to send to Vietnam. He was a warmonger.”
“I’m not going to let you get away with that, McCain. Whatever else he might or might not have been, Lou Bennett was a patriot. We don’t have any choice. We have to fight this war. And you and your beatnik friends aren’t going to stop us with your childish demonstrations.”
I would have clicked my heels, but I wasn’t wearing the right kind of shoes.
There are two kinds of relationships that get the most attention in Black River Falls. Divorces and the dissolution of business partnerships. The first is always juicier, because most of the time there is an extra lover involved. You get to scorn somebody and feel morally superior. That’s hard to beat.
Business partner break-ups rarely involve sex, but they do sometimes involve extralegal activities such as fraud and embezzlement. Even without breasts and trysts being mentioned, such nefarious business practices can get pretty interesting. Three years ago, two men who owned the same bar got into a fight after hours, and one killed the other with a tire iron. That’s not as good as the high-school teacher who impregnated one of his students her senior year, but it’ll do on a slow night.
Roy Davenport had been partners with Lou Bennett in three businesses, all related to agriculture. A farm implement store, a dairy, and a trucking company that delivered cattle to slaughterhouses. Davenport and Bennett were distant relatives-I got all this information by calling Kenny as soon as I left the judge’s office-and the proper part of the business community was not happy that Bennett would choose to work with a man who had a criminal record. He’d served four years at the Fort Madison penitentiary for embezzling from the used-car lot where he’d worked over in Moline. Bennett defended his man by saying that he deserved a second chance, an odd comment coming from Bennett, given his belief that every citizen above age twelve should be tried as an adult.
I wanted to talk to Davenport about his relationship with Bennett. All I knew so far was that a woman named Sally Crane had come between them.
I thought of this as I pulled my ragtop up the slanting gravel drive that led to a green ranch-style house that spread all the way across the long hilltop. A man in jean cut-offs and a Cubs T-shirt was spraying water from a hose, obviously trying to raise the dead brown grass that covered the hill. The sun had scorched everything.
He had a cigar in his mouth, and when he glanced up from his watering, his eyes fixed on me with anger and malice. Roy Davenport was the scourge of Rotary and the scourge of city council meetings. He brooked no fools. The problem was that he considered everybody but himself to be a fool.
I parked and got out of the car. I started walking toward him. He aimed the hose at me. We played a little game. I’d jump aside just as he’d try to spray me. He could have splashed me any time he wanted to, but I guess this was more fun for him. He got the lower part of my trousers once. He laughed behind his cigar. Finally he threw the hose aside and said, “Hold it right there, McCain. What the hell’re you doing here?”
We were still ten yards apart. His legs were spread, and he was punching a fist into the palm of the opposite hand as if he was ready for a brawl.
“I want to talk to you about Lou Bennett.”
“Then you wasted your trip. I’ve got nothing to say.”
“Did you kill him?”
He had a good big theatrical laugh for me. “Sure. You got a confession I can sign?”
“From what I hear, you had a good reason. I think her name was Sally Crane.”
“You’ve been hanging around that little newspaper girl, Molly or whatever her name is. She wouldn’t let go of it either, when Lou and I parted company. Good thing she’s got some nice tits, or I would’ve been a whole lot rougher with her.”