brought out a pack of Chesterfields. She got one lighted and said, “Oh, hell, who am I kidding? We were going to break up anyway, I guess. Every time I’d bring up marriage, he’d change the subject. But that doesn’t make Mrs. Hearne any less of a bitch. She would have been right at home in Salem, burning witches.”
That made me laugh. “Other than that, you like her, huh?”
She had a quick girly smile. “Other than that, I’m crazy about her.”
A green DeSoto convertible drove past, the male driver downright enchanted by the sight of Lynn Shanlon in her shorts. “My exhusband was like that. Everywhere we’d go, I’d have to watch him watch every girl in the place. I thought Perkins might be different. But no. You men are all lechers.” She dragged on her cigarette. “So why’re you here?”
“I’d like to ask you some questions about your sister and when she was seeing Bryce Bennett.”
“Does this have anything to do with Lou being killed?”
“Could have. I’m representing Harrison Doran.”
She dropped her smoke to the grass, twisted it out with the sole of one of her red Keds. “You’ve got your hands full then. I heard Chief Sykes on the radio this morning. I’ll admit he’s an idiot sometimes, but Doran being out there at three in the morning-”
“Did your sister ever tell you about any of Lou Bennett’s enemies? She must have spent some time out there.”
“Not unless she had to. She was insecure enough with her leg, the way the poor kid limped. Her foot was run over by a car when she was four and it wasn’t fixed correctly. The way the Bennetts treated her didn’t exactly make her feel any better about herself.” Then: “Hey, good afternoon, Dave.” She trotted down the driveway to meet the mailman. “Are you ready for the weekend?” she said as he handed her the mail.
“Probably go to the parade.”
“You’re not going to burn any Beatles records?”
Dave laughed. “If I did, my daughters would burn me.”
It was an afternoon of heat and lawn work and little kids cooling off with moms aiming hoses at them and teenage girls in bikinis sunning themselves on towels and hoping to put a fair number of men in mental hospitals.
When she returned, she waved a handful of envelopes at me. “Bills. Between my job at the courthouse and my big alimony check, I can almost pay these.” Then: “My sister loved Bryce and Bryce loved her. His father forced him to break it off. Karen never got over it, and I don’t think Bryce did either.”
“Did he ever try to contact her after he was married?”
“I don’t know. I was living in Chicago with my ex-husband the banker. I came back here one week before the fire in her little bungalow. I think about that all the time. I was so upset over my husband divorcing me, I didn’t spend much time with her because I didn’t want to bring her down with all my whining. We’d planned on spending the whole day together sometime; drive into Cedar Rapids or Iowa City. But then she died.” The voice became despondent. “I loved her as much as she loved Bryce.”
“I’m trying to remember the fire. Was there anything strange about it?”
“Are you kidding? Everything about it was strange. First of all, she rarely smoked. Once in a while when she was really depressed or something, she’d puff on a few cigarettes. So that bothered me. And the fact that she didn’t wake up in time to get out. My sister was a very light sleeper. Very light.”
“Did you talk about this to anybody?”
“To anybody who’d listen, including the mayor and the fire chief. They thought I was just distraught because my sister died. You know, that I was making things up.”
“Did the Bennetts give you any kind of support?”
“You must be nuts. Why would they?”
“Well, your sister and Bryce had gone out for quite a while.”
“The only one who paid any attention to Karen was Linda’s husband David. He was quite taken with her, especially after he’d had a few drinks.”
“She told you that?”
“She didn’t have to. I got invited to the mansion a few times. I saw it for myself. He’s like my ex. The grass always looks greener and everything. Linda’s a bitch, but you can’t take her beauty from her. And I can’t blame her for hating my sister a little. Raines got serious about her. Because he couldn’t have her. He has quite the ego. Wrote her a few letters even.”
“Did she ever tell Bryce?”
She devastated a mosquito by slamming her palm against her forearm. “No. She was afraid what it would do to the whole family if they found out. She was afraid Lou and Linda would blame her.”
She made a face. “I don’t know why the hell I’m talking to you, anyway. I really am pissed about you being that old bitch’s lawyer.”
“One more question.”
She turned a sigh into Hamlet. “Yeah? One more?”
“Did Lou have any enemies that your sister heard him talk about?”
The smile was bitter. “Lou considered everybody an enemy. People were a nuisance to him.” Then: “His business partner. Or ex-business partner. Roy Davenport. They really ended up hating each other. Somebody told me they heard that Davenport beat Lou up pretty badly one time. I hope that’s true.” She put her hand over her eyes and squinted at me. “So you really think this Doran is innocent?”
“I do, yes. Or I wouldn’t be trying to help him.”
“Well, I guess you can try.”
She turned the mower around and went back to work. I watched her for several long moments. Those red shorts immortalized her bottom.
12
If you have the devil’ s music in your home bring it here labor day for our righteous fire!
– Reverend H. Dobson Cartwright
The sign was in black and white and strung between two small oak trees that sat on church property. If you were headed west through town, as I was, you couldn’t miss it.
The Church of the Sacred Realm was a one-story concrete building that had previously been a warehouse for an auto-parts supplier. A thirty-foot steel cross had been set in place on the roof. For special holy events, Cartwright rented a spotlight to shine on it. At least two people claimed to have been healed by the gleaming cross. I was surprised that athlete’s foot could be vanquished that easily.
Cartwright was a tent-show preacher no matter how hard he tried to disguise it. He dressed like a banker, spoke perfect English, and never harped about money at Sunday services. The harping he left to a cadre of “Visitors,” as they were called, who worked the homes of the flock. They were holy variations on Mob muscle.
Five or six times a year, he created a spectacle that got him on local and sometimes (much to the embarrassment of the Chamber of Commerce) national TV. He had burned sexy paperbacks (he never mentioned Kenny by name, but I was worried that one of his more zealous Visitors might try to burn Kenny out), chopped up Barbie dolls (scandalous attire), smashed in a brand-new 21” Admiral TV console to demonstrate how little he cared for sinful TV, sponsored a “Good Girl” modeling contest in which the winners looked as if they were in training to become Amish, and had one of his parishioners paint a fifteen-foot-tall portrait of Elvis as the anti-Christ. Elvis’s guitar was in flames, and a forked snake tongue sprang from his mouth.
Burning the Beatles was a good idea by Cartwright’s standards. Some parents were leery of the group, just as many parents had been of Elvis. They’d heard the news about Carnaby Street with all its promiscuity-my God, fashion models with their breasts exposed-and suspected the end was near. These were the parents who helped get Cartwright on TV for all his stunts. Most parents rightly considered him a joke. Grandma had had Sinatra, the parents had had Bill Haley and then Elvis, and now their kids had the British Invasion. There were plenty of other things more deserving of parental attention.
