“I’m a shitty driver.”
She got it the first try. She made it around the corner and parked under the dark weight of a maple tree. I pulled in right behind her. When I’d first seen her today, she’d been careful to walk in what she apparently thought was a provocative way. She’d been doing a parody of Jayne Mansfield doing a parody of Marilyn Monroe. But now she took small, quick steps; nervous ones.
She got in the car and opened her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes and a half-pint silver flask. The half-pint is always referred to as “the lady’s model.” Yes, the delicate female who needs a snort every ten minutes to get through her day as a neurosurgeon. She took a gulp’s worth and then she lighted her cigarette. “I like that song.”
At the moment we were hearing “Help.”
“I think Paul’s cute.”
“Does Roy know you’re out tonight?”
“Are you kidding? He’d kill me if he found out. He’s got business somewhere. He said he wouldn’t be back until after midnight. He was real nervous after this phone call. I’m pretty sure it was Raines he was talking to.”
“David Raines? They work together?”
She snorted. “Work together? They’re like peas in a pod.”
“Since when?”
“Since I came to town a couple of years ago.”
Davenport and Raines again. An odd pairing. But a damned interesting one.
She took a second belt from the flask. She wasn’t drunk, but she would be soon if she kept up this way.
She swallowed. “If you were nicer, I’d offer you a drink.” She smiled. “And maybe something else, too. You weren’t at that Wendy woman’s house very long. It mustn’t have went too good, huh? She didn’t come through?”
I liked her. She was as blunt as my six-year-old niece. “It was our first date.”
“Oh. Still, you could’ve made out for a little while or something. There’re a lot of things you can do without getting down and screwing, you know.”
“I’ll mention that to her the next time I see her. Now let’s get back to Roy on the telephone. So, what did Roy say when he was on the phone?”
She was tamping another cigarette from her pack when she said: “Two times I heard him say something about a letter.”
“Did he say anything about the letter? What it might say? Or who had it? Or anything like that?”
“He just said they needed to find the letter. He sounded pretty pissed off about it. That’s all those two talk about. Everywhere we go. Roy is calling Raines or Raines is calling Roy.” She frowned. “The mood he’s in, he’s gonna hurt me when he comes back.”
“Are you really afraid he’ll hurt you?”
“He already hurts me plenty. But then he always comes around and apologizes. He even cried about it once.”
“You can always leave him.”
“And go where? And do what? I got it made with Roy. I just want him to go back to the way he was before Lou was killed. I know you’re workin’ on the case, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. I thought maybe I could help you.”
“You’ve helped me a lot.”
“I have?”
“You know how to get hold of me, Pauline. If you need any help, call me. All right? Night or day. I’m going to give you my card. My office number’s on the front and I’ll write my home number on the back.” I had the feeling she hadn’t told me everything she knew, but at the rate she was swilling booze she was going to be unconscious before long.
After I handed her the card and she started sliding out of the ragtop, she said, “I hope you have better luck with Wendy the next time.”
She took another belt on her way to her VW.
18
I wondered what a suitable time would be for visiting David Raines. I hadn’t slept well. Pauline’s stories kept waking me up. I studied them as if I was doing an autopsy. Raines and Davenport working together on something. And upset about a letter.
I ate breakfast at the cafe near the courthouse. The fans were already going. Ninety-four was the prediction for this afternoon. It was already seventy-eight.
All the tables and booths were taken. I sat at the counter between a slurper and a guy who kept talking to me with his mouth full of sausage. It was like looking at the innards of road kill. The slurper was eventually replaced by an enormous man who giggled as he read the funnies. “Boy, that Dagwood sure gets in some trouble, don’t he?” The other guy ordered more sausages. “That Beetle Bailey, he sure cracks me up.” I paid mesmerized attention to the newspaper, hoping he’d leave me alone.
Molly had written another story about Lou Bennett’s death. Between the lines, you could hear her throbbing heart beating out a romantic rhythm. Not many murder suspects were called “strikingly handsome” or “eloquent” or “courtly.” She twice implied that with Cliffie’s track record, there were “some unnamed sources” who were convinced of Doran’s innocence.
The general cafe conversations ran to how the Hawkeye football team was shaping up for the fall and whether the Cubs could come back. Standard stuff. I kept glancing at the clock with the cracked face above the three coffeepots. It was only seven thirty. I’d decided to wait until eight thirty to show up at the Bennett estate.
I was just coming back from the john when somebody shouted: “Rachel, turn on the radio!”
The jukebox had been playing an old Connie Francis song, “Where the Boys Are.” Somebody jerked the plug from its socketending Connie’s phrase half-sung.
Rachel dialed around until she found what everybody was waiting to hear. “To repeat: the body of Black River Falls resident Roy Davenport was found in his garage early this morning by a close female friend. Police Chief Sykes said that Davenport had been shot three times. Sykes also said that he’s reasonably sure foul play was involved.”
Laughter rattled all the glassware. That’s how you wanted your day to start-a good laugh at Cliffie’s incompetence. “Reasonably sure foul play was involved.” Poor dumb Cliffie.
But past the joke was the reality of Davenport’s murder. Lou Bennett and now his former business partner. And something about a letter. What the hell was going on?
I walked up to the cash register and paid my bill. Then I went outside and stood smoking a cigarette and watching the town come alive. The milkmen were finishing the last of their rounds in their white trucks, the mailmen in their summer shorts and short-sleeved shirts were just beginning theirs. The kids who played on baseball teams were headed out to Kilmead Park, where the city had recently taken some old bleachers from one of the high schools and set them down next to the ball diamond to give the parents a place to sit while watching their offspring play in T-shirts provided by the businesses that sponsored them. Then there were the young mothers pushing strollers, doing some light shopping before the heat got worse.
I was trying to decide where I’d learn more. I needed to talk to Pauline. The problem was that Cliffie would have her stuck in a room somewhere, shouting questions at her. He would be shocked that she and Davenport had been living in sin. It would be best to keep with my original plan. David Raines would no doubt be coming apart. Davenport’s murder likely had something to do with the mysterious letter and whatever the two men had been involved in.
On the drive out, I realized that the discovery of Davenport’s body would make a good case for Harrison Doran. Lou Bennett and now Roy Davenport, both murdered. Obviously there was a connection, and even Cliffie would have to see it. Much as Doran didn’t want to leave jail, he’d soon be walking free again.
A man in a gray uniform was working the lawn with a power mower. A truck with the words LAWN KINGS was parked off the asphalt drive. The mower sounded angry in the morning stillness.
I pulled up to the front steps and parked. Somebody had been watching me from a second-floor window. I saw a blur of flesh and then a curtain falling back in place. I went up to the door and used a brass knocker the size of a catcher’s mitt to announce my presence.