“You don’t have any doubts about Chalmers’s story?”
“Not really.”
“Now don’t take offense, McCain, but I know how you people from the Knolls stick together.”
“Not any more than you country-club people do.”
“I don’t know what you’ve got against country clubs. It’s a good thing I know you like money.
Otherwise I might start suspecting you were a Red.”
“I think he’s telling the truth.”
“Once Cliffie arrests him, you may have a hard time convincing anybody about Squires’s part in all this.” A pause. I could hear her sipping, then taking a deep drag on her Gauloise.
“Have you considered the possibility that Squires is more than an opportunist?” I asked.
“Meaning what?”
“Well, one way we could look at this is that he’s simply taking advantage of a situation he didn’t have anything to do with. Somebody murdered his wife; on the spur of the moment, Squires decides to frame your friend Chalmers.”
“On the other hand-”
“On the other hand, of course, Squires is behind the whole thing. He killed his wife and had Chalmers all ready to go as chief suspect.”
“That’s how you see it?”
“Maybe he was tired of Susan. Maybe she wouldn’t let him out of the marriage-or threatened a scandal if she left him. He’d beaten her up pretty badly several times. A guy with political ambitions sure wouldn’t want that kind of thing out and about.”
“But Squires seems so unlikely-”
“Now you’re going country-club on me. Just because he gets a manicure doesn’t mean he’s not a killer.”
“By the way, I noticed that Lenny Bernstein doesn’t have manicured nails. Isn’t that strange?”
“V. Isn’t that the eleventh commandment: Thou shalt have manicured nails?”
“On the other hand, he’s most courtly and devastatingly handsome.”
“How nice for the two of you. Can we get back to the murder now?”
“I thought you just might be interested when somebody of Lenny’s stature pays a visit to this cow pie of a state.”
“Why don’t you share that metaphor with the Chamber of Commerce? I’m sure they’d love it.”
Another gulp of brandy. “So, before you get any more tiresome, McCain, what do you propose to do next?”
“I propose to find Mary.”
I told her about Mary’s strange absence.
“She’s a beautiful and intelligent girl.
I’m sure she’s fine.”
God only knew what that meant, but it was getting late and the brandy was flowing freely.
“I’m going to try and find Squires too.”
“Why?”
“So I can resign. I don’t want to be part of his charade anymore.”
“That seems like a sensible idea. Good night, McCain. Just as long as we catch the real murderer before Cliffie does, that’s all that matters.”
I started to say good night but she’d already hung up.
Twelve
The next two days were frantic. There was no word about Mary. And I kept calling the Illinois number about the ‘ee Chevy. No answer.
One of Cliffie’s third cousins had run into a manure wagon and had twice failed to appear for his scheduled court appearance before Judge Whitney. She found this intolerable. I spent most of the following forty-eight hours hunting down Bud “Pug” Sykes. He worked as a county assessor and had long displayed an affection for the bottle. I’m sure he was hiding out. This was between Cliffie and the Judge. Pug was incidental.
I found him the next county over. He was sitting through a western double feature with Also “Lash” La Rue and Monte Hale. I’d never cared for these gentlemen. “Lash” was a little too ornate for me; Monte, I’m sorry to say, always looked a little dense. Pug had been kind enough to park out in front of the theater, making it easy for me to see his license plate.
On the drive back, he said, “I got t’get me one of them whips. Like that Lash La Rue.” He was holding up family tradition: food stains on his work jacket, shirt, and trousers, and a dab of mustard on one cheek.
“I can see where that’d come in handy. A bullwhip like that.”
“Bet cousin Cliff’d like one too.”
I was so used to people calling him Cliffie, Cliff sounded strange.
“Cliff told me I didn’t have to go to that there hearing unless I wanted to,” he said. “And I didn’t want to.”
“You’re in violation of the law, Pug. You have to show up. You be nice to the Judge, and she’ll be nice to you.”
Pug snorted. “Cliff always says, “I wouldn’t screw that old bitch with your dick, Pug.”” He giggled. “That Cliff.”
“Yeah,” I said. “A million laughs.”
He was still giggling. “Hell, who needs Jackie Gleason when you got Cliff around?”
As soon as I dropped Pug off at
Judge Whitney’s office, I went straight to Mary’s house. The street was sunny and lazy in another Indian summer afternoon. A small girl in pigtails rode a rusty old tricycle furiously up the cracked sidewalk. Then she stopped. She wanted to watch me walk up to the Traverses’ door.
She could have been Mary or Pamela fifteen years earlier, that smart little face, that clean but mended dress. The good ones in the Knoll never gave in to the temptation to go around dirty. Maybe they had little money and even less hope, but by God they were clean.
Miriam Travers had gotten old before her time. Life hadn’t been easy. She’d lost a brother in the big war and a son in Korea, and now her husband had serious heart problems and her daughter was missing. The face was still pretty, the body still slender, but there was a defeated air about her, like a village that has been sacked by a particularly brutal army.
“Did you find her?” For just that moment, with hope in her lovely gray eyes, the hair was girlishly dark once more and the faded housedress a stylish frock. Miriam Travers was a young woman again, and life ahead looking happy.
“I’m afraid not, Miriam.”
She hadn’t said hello or invited me in.
She’d just burst out with her hopeful question before I could speak or move. And now there was a death in her, one of those deaths you experience every time a phone rings and you plead with God that the news will be good.
She collapsed into my arms. There’s no other way to express it. She didn’t put her arms around me, she just fell forward. I held her. I didn’t try to move her back into the house. I simply held her. She smelled of coffee and a faint perfume. She didn’t cry or tremble or even move much. She was trying to hide. She needed to put her face deep into a darkness where she could not be reached by any more bad news.
Then Bill Travers was behind her, a wraith in a robe. He’d been a ruddy and robust man just a few months ago. The heart attack had taken both qualities from him. He’d lost at least forty pounds and moved uncertainly, like a bad actor playing a withered old man. His loose slippers slapped the floor and a bronchial-sounding cough filled his throat.
