He sighed. The handsome face looked a little fleshy and old. It was a strange feeling. He seemed older now than he had a few minutes ago. He was Jay Gatsby at fifty-five, and that’s no Jay Gatsby at all.
He said, “There’s a dead girl in the trunk.”
Three Edsels were lined along the rear wall, their trunk ends out. The colors of these three were as silly as the colors of those on the lot: exotic fruity colors that no self-respecting automobile should ever be.
“I was just getting these ready for delivery,” he said. “That’s why they’re in here.” He looked paler, grimmer even than before.
I wasn’t sure which trunk held the girl until we got close. A bloody handprint was on the fender of the center car, the peach-and-kiwi-colored one.
“That’s my handprint, by the way.”
Great. The Sykes clan that ran the town and thus the police department didn’t need any help being incompetent. But Dick was going to see they got it. I wondered what other parts of the crime scene he’d violated. He saw my expression. “I panicked, McCain. I reached in and touched her to make sure she was dead-”
“That’s all right.” What the hell. He was having a bad enough day as it was. “The trunk open?”
He nodded.
I got down on my haunches and took my ballpoint out of my white button-down shirt.
That style of shirt, chinos, and desert boots are my customary uniform. They give my baby face and diminutive stature at least a semblance of age.
The tip of my ballpoint slid in nicely beneath the trunk catch. I delicately raised the lid. Then I stood up, my knees cracking, and looked inside.
Next to me, Dick said, “She’s-”
He didn’t finish his sentence. He hiccuped.
“She certainly is.”
I recognized her immediately: Susan Squires. Mary Travers had worked for her a couple of years. Susan was married to the then District Attorney, so they did a lot of entertaining and needed help around the house. Hence, a high school girl like Mary. Inexpensive and tirelessly hardworking. Even more, they were friends, confidantes. You’d see them downtown together, shopping and giggling like girlfriends. Susan told Mary virtually everything about her life.
“She was a pretty gal.” Hiccup.
“She sure was.”
“And nice. She used to work for me. That’s why she was here yesterday, decorating for Edsel Day.
A lot of old employees pitched in. This just makes me sick.”
“Me too, Mr. Keys.”
“And I don’t mean just ‘cause it’ll hurt my business.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good man, Mr. Keys.”
He hiccuped.
“Here. Thought you might want this.”
He handed me a flashlight.
I played the beam inside the shadowy trunk.
She smelled of death. Unclean. This odor fought against the strong smell of the brand-new spare rubber tire. She’d been wearing a blue knee-length skirt and black flats and a white blouse. She had dark hair worn short and was curled up into a kitten ball. The side of her head had been smashed in so brutally you got a few glimpses of clean white bone.
“You’re going to have to call the Sykes boys.”
Hiccup. “I know I am. But I hate to.
They don’t have any idea what they’re doing.”
He leaned forward and hiccuped in my face.
“That’s between you and me.”
With all the power the Sykes clan had in this town, a wise man made a point of keeping such opinions to himself.
“Why don’t you go call them and I’ll look around?”
“I guess I better, huh?”
“Yeah, Dick, you better.”
He hiccuped and walked over to a wall phone by a rack of old tires.
I started playing detective.
Cliff Sykes, Jr., had seen one too many Glenn Ford pictures.
You know how Glenn always wears a khaki uniform whenever he plays a lawman? And keeps his gun slung low? And wears tight tan leather gloves? Well, imagine a 250-pound six-foot bullyboy in the same getup, and you’ve got yourself a picture of Cliff Sykes, Jr. The rest of the force wears standard blue uniforms. But Sykes, being the chief, and his daddy being the richest man in town, gets to play Glenn Ford.
The music stopped as soon as he arrived.
First the live band quit playing. Then the calliope went dead, and then the Ferris wheel music went silent.
And you started to see people at the windows, peering in.
I’d told Keys to lock the doors, just the way I’d learned in the criminology courses I’d taken at the University of Iowa while studying for my private investigator’s license. An unadulterated crime scene is the most important part of any murder investigation-short of a confession.
While we were waiting for Cliffie, I walked around the garage. Found nothing interesting. Went outside in back. Found nothing interesting.
Walked around the side of the building. And found something. There’d been some kind of accident here last night. A car had backed into the concrete-block edge of the building. Bits of red plastic taillight littered the ground. I got down and picked up a piece. I’d driven over this earlier today. I checked my tires and found the rear left with a sharp angle of glass stuck in it. The tire was quickly going flat.
I walked back to where the taillight pieces lay. Two little kids watched me. One had a Flash Gordon ray gun that made this really irritating noise every time the trigger was pulled.
I tried to avoid them as I sat on my haunches and examined the pieces again.
The kid pulled it thirty or forty times.
“How come you’re doing that?” his pacifist pal asked.
“I lost a dime,” I said. I didn’t want to explain myself.
“If I find it can I have it?” he asked.
I also didn’t want to get in a conversation with him.
“You find it, you keep it, how’s that?” I asked.
The ray gun shot me several more times, and then they started looking for the dime I hadn’t lost.
The taillight pieces belonged to a recent model car. There were two chunks large enough so I recognized the shape. There was also glass, and pieces of chrome trim, on the ground.
Flat-tire material. I knew how fussy Dick was about maintaining his lot. If one of his mechanics or customers had lost a taillight this way, it would’ve been swept up immediately.
Meaning they didn’t know about it. Meaning it happened last night and they hadn’t found it yet.
“Hey, Bobby, look what I found!” I heard one of the kids say, the one without the gun.
He held up a V8 insignia. It was about the size of a fifty-cent piece.
I was just about to ask him for it when a gray suede lady’s pump stepped into my view. I followed it up a length of hose, a length of skirt, and a length of matching jacket to the handsome if imperious face of Judge Whitney.
“I assume you’re sober, McCain.”
“He lost a dime,” Bobby said helpfully.
“Pitiful,” she said.
I stood up. “I may have found something.”
“Something more interesting than a dime, I hope.”
The boys started looking for the money again. “How about I give you a dime for what you found?” I
