My dad has a trick. It doesn’t always work. And it only works after you’ve tried to open the jar a few times by conventional means.
I raised my knee. I banged the jar once against my kneecap, then kept turning it so that I hit it on different sides, just the way my old man does. I did this very quickly. And just as quickly, I clamped the jar into one hand and started wrestling with the lid. It popped open.
She started to smile but realized what that would get her. It would get her Roy. She swiped the jar from me and said, “You shouldn’t ought to have done that.” Then she stomped away. She wanted to make sure that Roy understood how much she hated me.
Roy picked the hose up again. He held his thumb over the tip so it wouldn’t spray.
“She’s right, asshole. You shouldn’t ought to have done that.”
“Bad for your image, huh?”
“Nah, bad for your health.”
“I think I heard that one on Dragnet last night.”
“Lou and me had our problems. I hated him, but I didn’t hate him enough to kill him. And that’s all you need to know. And if you think I’m shittin’ you about it bein’ bad for your health, just keep pushing and you’ll find out.”
I smiled at him. I couldn’t beat him in a fight, but I sure could have the pleasure of irritating the hell out of him. “First you choke me and now I bet you’re going to spray me when I walk back to my car. I don’t think a real tough guy would do that-it’s kind of a sissy thing if you ask me-but it’s your call. Roy. You want to be a sissy and spray me, it’s up to you.”
And with that I started the trip back to my ragtop, congratulating myself on my use of reverse psychology. By telling him it was a sissy thing to do, I’d ensured he wouldn’t spray me. Who wants to get wet?
When I was about ten feet from the ragtop, he started spraying the hell out of me.
15
After getting into dry clothes, I walked over to the library.
Trixie Easley was explaining the Dewy Decimal System to an impatient-looking high-school girl wearing a Stones T-shirt. I was hoping Trixie would explain it to me when she finished with the girl. I waved to her and walked to the back of the library where the newspaper files are kept in outsize bound books.
Lynn Shanlon’s words about the fire that had taken her sister’s life had stayed with me, at least enough to make me want to read up on it.
I had no trouble finding the story. Coverage spread over four days, ending with a photo of the funeral service. Each piece included a reference to smoking in bed. There was no mention of the fact that she rarely smoked.
There was a sidebar with a photo of the man who had the final say on the origins of the blaze, Fire Chief Ralph DePaul. Sight of him made my stomach clench and my jaw tighten. I’d had many run-ins with this self- appointed protector of All That Was Right and Good in our community. He was always hinting that there were Communists teaching our children and pornography being sold under the counter in two different stores. A few times, he came close to naming Kenny as a Commie pornographer, but backed off. He was smart enough to know that Kenny would sue him.
His conclusion was that the fire had been accidental due to smoking. He then started into his stump speech about American values. He made it sound as if we were the only country that tried to do anything about fires. Apparently, foreigners just let their homes burn down without trying to stop the flames in any way. DePaul was always announcing that he was planning to announce that he was running for mayor, but somehow he never got around to it.
There was very little about Karen Marie Shanlon. She lived and died without making much of an impression on the town; that was the sense of the biographical material. Born, graduated high school, worked as a secretary, never married, died. The cold statistics that define most of us. No mention of her gracious beauty, the limp that had always kept her an outsider, the love her sister felt for her.
I closed the big book and sat there for a time. I should have been thinking about poor Karen. Instead, I was thinking about how much I despised Fire Chief DePaul.
The temperature was July, but the slant and quality of sunlight was autumn, the golden color thinner and not as burnished. I used to hike in the woods, and I became aware of how different the sunlight is season to season. I once tried explaining this on a first date. Can you guess why there wasn’t a second date?
I took note of this as I stood on the courthouse steps watching the black Lincoln four-door sedan pull into the parking lot on the east side of the building. This was the official Lou Bennett mobile. There was a new one every year. The driver was William Hughes. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Bennett drive it.
Hughes wore a tan summer suit and a crisp Panama hat. He had always been smooth and quick in indulging his employer, but now his age seemed to have slowed him. Or maybe it was just the heat. He didn’t see me until he was halfway up the broad staircase. He peered at me from under the brim of his Panama. A frown formed on his lips, and his eyes showed a sudden irritation. I had the sense that of all the people in town, I was the one he least wanted to see.
I walked three steps down to meet him. “I’d really like to talk to you, William.”
He had a manila folder in one large hand. He held it up as if he was going to demonstrate it, like a product on TV. “I have business with the county clerk inside here, McCain, and that’s the only business I intend to do today. I’m supposed to file some papers since Mr. Bennett was killed. Linda said she needs me back home as soon as possible. She’s not holding together real well.”
“Linda and David are two of the people I want to talk to you about.”
“I don’t have to talk to you and I don’t intend to.”
I followed his gaze. He was trying to figure out what it would take to get around me and hurry up the stairs. But his dark face was sheened with sweat and the way he’d come up the steps told me he wasn’t capable of hurrying. He was no longer a young man.
“You won’t make it, William. I’ll follow you inside and then I’ll wait outside the county clerk’s office and I’ll walk you to your car and be a real pain in the ass. That doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?”
This time he glanced all the way up the stairs to the three glass doors leading into the shadowy interior that was cooled by air conditioning. He sighed. “Let’s get some iced tea at that stand in there.”
The stand inside served hamburgers and potato salad and drinks. I had coffee and he had iced tea. There were four small tables where visitors and courthouse employees could sit and talk. People of every kind passed our table-fancy lawyers reassuring clients that everything would be fine, working-class men obtaining different kinds of permits, frightened mothers guiding their sullen boys into juvenile court-the footsteps of all of them melding and echoing off the high marble walls of the courthouse that dated back to FDR’s Depression money.
Hughes took off his Panama, wiped his forehead with a folded brown handkerchief. “So what is it you want, McCain?”
“I want to know who killed your boss.”
“According to Chief Sykes, we already know.”
“Chief Sykes is usually wrong.”
“Not in this case. This Doran was out at the house at three A.M. We don’t usually get visitors that late.”
“And that’s about all Sykes has got as evidence.”
“If you say so.”
I offered him a smoke. He shook his head.
“How did Linda and David Raines get along with Bennett?”
“I never talk about the family. Never.”
“If I was a cynic, that would make me think you’re hiding something.”
“I can’t help what you think, McCain.”
He paused to wave at somebody who passed by. He was good at what he did. He had the voice and manner of a good physician. He put you at ease. He reassured. But he was lying. I was sure of it.
“So you pretty much think Doran killed Bennett?”
