“One of my spies tells me that something’s going on near the Sixth Street elevator.”
“So I’m told by Cliffie.”
“He’s going to beat us, McCain.”
“No, Judge, he’s not.”
“He’d bloody better not, McCain.”
Whenever she used the word bloody, I knew she was mad. She’d seen The Bridge on the River Kwai and had been using it for emphasis ever since.
The Sixth Street elevator is an inclined cable car that rises to the top of a four-hundred-foot hill. Seems sixty-seventy years ago, the then mayor had a brother-in-law who’d rigged up a similar elevator in Dubuque. Why not in Black River Falls? reasoned the mayor. The elevator is operational about sixty days a year. That’s not because of the weather but because the damned thing doesn’t work any more often than that.
There were three police cars and an ambulance sitting at the base of the hill. The cable car was parked at the bottom end of the tracks.
Cliffie hooked his thumbs in his Sam Browne and swaggered over to me. “I’d sure like to listen in on that conversation when you call the Judge.”
“And why will I call the Judge?”
He just grinned. “C’mon, we’ll take a ride.”
The hill was thick forest except for the cable tracks. In the moonlight, the burnished autumn trees looked wan. A crowd was just now forming. I saw the town’s most famous radio newsman, E.K.W. Horner-and don’t ask me what E.K.W. stands for, nobody knows-with his bow tie and hand mike interviewing a young lawyer from the Da’s office. It was a warm night and there were a lot of hand-holding couples. I wanted to be one of them. And I wanted the hand I was holding to be Mary’s, sitting out at the AandWill root beer stand, eating hot dogs, and watching the carhops show off on their skates. Some of them were pretty damned good. The girls appreciated them as much as the boys.
Cliffie escorted me to the cable car. You could see the various layers of paint the car had received over the years to cover up the dirty words kids put on there. The words got progressively dirtier. Back in the 1930’s Hot
Damn! was a bold expression. We’d now worked our way up to Shove It! God only knew what the future would bring.
The tiny car smelled of oil (from the cable overhead), cigarettes, cigars, perfume, and simple age. The wooden sides had been rained on one-too-many times, and now there was a creeping odor of mortality about them.
Cliffie took a childish delight in operating the elevator. He closed the door, took off the brake, and slammed the car into motion.
I was knocked back against the wall.
“You know he didn’t finish high school,” Cliffie said, as we started crawling up the steep incline. All we could see, side to side, were the branches of fir trees that covered the hill.
“Who didn’t?”
“Your client.”
“I have a lot of clients.”
“But only one killer, I’ll bet.”
I sighed. “Aw, shit. Is this about Chalmers?”
“It sure is, counselor.”
“He didn’t kill anybody.”
“He didn’t, huh? You know what I said about him not finishing high school?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that don’t mean he’s dumb.”
“No, of course it doesn’t.”
“He managed to fool you.” The lazy, mean, hillbilly smirk. “And foolin’ a counselor like you-well, you’d have to be a mighty smart man.”
I still had no idea what he was talking about.
As long as it wasn’t about Mary. It terrified me that it was going to be about Mary.
The car continued to inch its way up the slope, slowly now that the incline was steep. I wanted to get out and push.
“I still don’t get a clue?”
“You just keep your britches on, counselor.”
He pulled out a flashlight and beamed it through the window. He was looking for something next to the cable tracks. “Should be comin’ up any time now.”
I started watching the hillside outside the car and saw nothing remarkable. Ground covered with needles of fir and spruce. An occasional beer can, empty red package of Pall Malls, potato-chip bag, all pitched out by cable car passengers.
Cliffie was getting excited. He started smirking to himself, which was always a bad sign, and then he brought the car to a jerky halt.
“We’re not there yet,” I said.
“Oh, yes, we are.”
“We’re only halfway to the top.”
“That’s where your man put it.”
“My man?”
“Chalmers.”
“Ah.”
“I hate that. That “Ah” thing you say.”
“I’ll have to try and say it more often.”
“Let’s see you play smart-ass now, counselor.”
He threw the doors open and stepped outside.
The pine scent was powerful. The silver half-moon was vivid. It was a beautiful night. Cliffie led the way around the front of the car. Then I saw why he’d stopped. A big white X had been made on the dark ground with some sort of flour or powder.
“Who put that there?” I said.
“Guy who found it.”
“Guy who found what?”
“You’ll see, counselor. Don’t worry.”
He led us into the trees then, but not far. We didn’t need to go far. The body of David Squires was waiting alongside the forest trail, sprawled on its back between two trees. The bark on one tree ran with a sickly looking sap.
Cliffie started to move forward but I grabbed him.
“What the hell you think you’re doin’, counselor? I’m the law around here.”
“The crime scene. We could destroy evidence.”
“That more of the stuff them Commies taught you at Iowa?”
A few years ago, a professor of economics had written a mildly left-wing book about the poverty of migrant workers. Ever since then, the local McCarthyites had accused everyone on the faculty of being a Commie.
“Crime scene. You’ve never heard that expression before?”
“I just wanted you to see and then apologize.”
“For what?”
“For accusing this fine man of being a murderer.”
“A, he wasn’t a fine man, and, B,
I still think he had something to do with the murder of his wife.”
I don’t know what kind of reaction Cliffie’d expected from me-probably some kind of swooning admission that I’d been wrong about Squires-but I wasn’t giving it to him.
I sighed. “I’m sorry he’s dead.”
