Don hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks, in fact. In fact, he hadn’t seen me for a couple of weeks. What’s the matter? You don’t like my pizza anymore? (i noticed he’d picked up a modest Italian accent somewhere along the way.)
Still no Mary.
I went back home. A nice new red-and-blue Buick was parked at the curb.
Mrs. Goldman’s gentleman caller. I imagined she was dazzling him.
I pulled my car in back and went up the rear steps. Or tried to. Somebody was blocking them.
At first, in the soft moonlight, I wasn’t sure who it was. He wore a cotton-lined jacket, gray work pants, and heavy steel-toed work boots. With his collar up, and his eyes burning angrily out of the mask of shadows, he would have made a perfect cover villain on an old pulp magazine.
He said, “You talk to me a few minutes, McCain?”
“Sure, Mike. The steps here all right?”
“Fine.”
I sat on the bottom step. He sat up a few higher. We both lit up cigarettes. It was chilly but good chilly. The cigarette tasted great. I felt guilty. Nothing should give me pleasure when Mary was missing. And she was definitely missing.
“I think he’s gonna arrest me.”
“Cliffie?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t kill her?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t.”
“Squires said you were bugging them.”
“I was. It was stupid but I did it.
Two-three times I parked out by his house and just sat there.”
“Why?”
“Because the sonofabitch sent me up without givin’ my public defender information that woulda cleared me.”
“You couldn’t appeal?”
“He destroyed the evidence.”
A familiar story among ex-cons. Not only had they been framed, they’d been framed by a Da with an inexplicable hatred for them.
“Why would he do that?”
“I knocked up his sister.”
“What?”
“Back in high school. Before your time.
Forty-two. Me ‘n’ Helen used to sneak off.
Her folks hated me. I got her pregnant.
They tried to run me out of town but they couldn’t.
Soon as he got to be Da, he came after me. He waited till he had a good chance to get me. I wasn’t in on that armed robbery. I’d been trying to stay out of trouble. I’d been in a lot of little scrapes but nothing big. A friend of mine stuck up a gas station one night and got caught. Squires made him a deal. He wouldn’t serve much time if he swore I was driving the car. He served two years; I served nearly eight.”
“You can prove this?”
“My friend died in the can. Somebody cut his throat.”
I believed him. There were all sorts of reasons not to-y’d naturally resent the man who put you away for eight years-but the simple way he told it seemed authentic. No anger, no bitterness.
I also had another thought. Maybe Squires had hired me just so I’d keep him apprised of everything I learned. Cliffie would bumble around for weeks and not find the right man. But Squires might have figured I might uncover something.
He’d want to know everything if he was going to frame Chalmers. It was the only rational reason Squires would ever have come to me for help.
Nothing else made sense.
“What happened to Helen?”
“Married a doctor. Lives in downstate Illinois.”
“What happened to the baby?”
“Abortion. Her old man knew a doc in La.” He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “Funny. Couple of times she sent me a postcard in the can. On the date she had the baby cut out of her. Said she still thought about me sometimes. And the kid. She’s a nice gal.
Nothing like the rest of her family.”
“You think Squires knew about the cards she sent?”
“Probably not.”
“So he just wants to frame you for old times’ sake?”
“I smacked him around pretty hard one day.”
“When was this?”
“His office. When he was questioning me about the stickup. I lost my temper and went for him.
Took a couple of guys to pull me off him.”
Humiliation was something a man like Squires would never forget.
“What happens to Ellie if Cliffie arrests you?”
He shook his head. Looked up at the clear, starry night. In the distance you could hear the high school marching band practicing for homecoming weekend.
“That’s what I’m scared of.”
“You want a lawyer, right?”
“Right.”
“You’ve got one. Cliffie makes a move on you, call me.” I dug out one of the cards I always carry. “Day or night.”
“I’ll do my best to pay you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. Squires was using me and I resented it. Paying him back would be pay aplenty.
“I still have dreams about Helen.”
“Apparently she still has dreams about you too.”
“Two people who should be together, and somehow it never happens.”
I tried not to think of the beautiful Pamela.
Especially with Mary missing.
“Call me if you need me.”
“I really appreciate this, McCain.”
Upstairs, I phoned Squires at home.
No answer. I tried his office. No answer.
Then I decided to give Judge Whitney the satisfaction of telling her she was right.
Brahms was loud in the background when her man Andrew picked up. He has an accent. Some think it’s British. Some think it’s German.
I think it’s strictly Warner Brothers.
He’s from St. Louis, for God’s sake.
She said, in her brandied evening voice, “I hope you’re working hard.”
“Very hard.”
“Good. Then I can enjoy my loafing.”
“I just called to say you were right about Squires.”
I brought her up to date.
“Looks to me as if he wanted to learn everything a competent cop would find out about the murder. He didn’t want anything to get in the way of his framing Chalmers.”
