Gwen didn’t say a thing. She just kept washing goblets.
“You’ve tried to put me on the wrong track from the start,” I said. “But there was one interesting fact you knew you couldn’t keep from me. And so you told me yourself. That you drove Gordon home from the Kerouac Thing. You wanted to make it sound as innocent as you could. Of course it was anything but innocent. You used that opportunity to seduce him. Not sexually. Not exactly. You soothed his battered ego. You showed interest in his dig. You asked him to show it to you sometime. Whether it was his idea or yours, the two of you agreed to drive out there the very next evening.
“Gordon was eager to show off his dig to anyone who showed even the slightest interest. He was especially eager to show it to you, Gwen. Gordon always had-what’s a good beatnik word for it? A thing for you? Remember that Halloween party at the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house? When you both came as scarecrows? And did a lot of things scarecrows usually don’t do? I’m sure Gordon was remembering that night when you suggested that you meet at the ball fields and drive out from there.”
I was finally ready to describe the murder. “So you drove out to the landfill with Gordon. In his old station wagon. You followed Gordon up the hill. You shot him. Just once. In the back of the head. You stayed just long enough to make sure he was dead. Then you drove back to Hannawa.”
Gwen handed me the last goblet. She started washing the spoons. “Can you actually prove that’s what happened, Maddy?” she asked.
I had to admit that I couldn’t. “Have I found a witness or uncovered some physical evidence that the police haven’t? No, I haven’t done that. But I have managed to catch you in a big lie. Of sorts.”
She handed me the dripping spoons as if they were a bouquet of flowers. “Of sorts?”
“It was in the transcript of that second statement you gave the police,” I said. “You told them you didn’t know that Rollie had a gun. Which made me wonder why Rollie didn’t shoot himself in the head the way he shot Gordon. Why he took himself out of the picture in such a messy, uncertain way. With that bottle of your antidepressants.”
“Because he threw his gun away after shooting the professor?” Chick offered.
I handed him the bouquet of spoons. “Why didn’t he just buy another gun?” I asked.
“Because he knew he was under surveillance?” Chick asked back.
I did not want to get in a verbal Ping-Pong game with Chick. I moved on before he could serve another impossible-to-answer question. “I was quite ready to believe that Rollie committed both murders. Then I got to thinking. About the murders. About human nature. Gordon’s murder was very tidy. A well-planned execution. In the middle of nowhere. David Delarosa’s was messy as the dickens. In the hallway of an apartment building. It’s a miracle no one else saw it or heard it. Whoever killed Gordon was exercising a boatload of self-control. Whoever killed David Delarosa was acting out raw spontaneous rage.”
Chick was playing with the broken glass again. “Those murders were a half-century apart, Maddy. Couldn’t somebody who went loony in 1957, kill somebody cool as a cucumber now?”
“Oh, I suppose it’s possible,” I admitted. “But not likely. Sidney may call himself Shaka Bop these days, but he’s the same old Sidney. Effie’s the same Effie. You’re the same Chick. God help us, I’m the same Maddy. Sweet Gordon was Sweet Gordon until the day he died.”
Gwen’s quivering lips struggled into a melancholy smile. “Rollie the same Rollie? Me the same me?”
I turned my back to Chick. Spoke to Gwen as if she and I were the only two people in the room. “I went back over all the clippings I have on you. It’s quite a bundle. Then I went to City Hall and had a nice long lunch with my old friend Rosemary Hicks. She’s head clerk in the records department. Been there for years. Back in the eighties, when we had all those awful rapes, you organized those self-defense courses for women. Rosemary is just like me. Never throws anything out. You not only organized those courses. You took every one of them yourself. Including the gun safety course. It was held at the indoor shooting range at police headquarters. I found the sergeant who taught that course. He’s retired now. Dick Drake. He had some old records, too. And a good memory. You passed the course with flying colors. The gun you bought for the course was a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Like the one used to kill Gordon.”
Gwen wiped her hands on her expensive silk jacket. “I told Rollie to sell that gun years ago. I guess he didn’t.”
“The first and last time he didn’t do as you said, apparently.”
Gwen reached between Chick and me. Swept the broken glass into her hands. “I suppose you’ve discussed all this with Detective Grant?”
“Of course-and I wish you would, too.”
She motioned for me to open the cupboard under the sink. “I’ve already told him everything I can.”
I opened the cupboard. She deposited the glass in the wastebasket. It was a cheap plastic one. Just like the one under the sink in my little bungalow. “I guess that does it for the dishes,” she said.
“Except for Maddy’s crock pot,” Ike said. He started pulling the ceramic pot out of the metal liner.
Gwen quickly stood up. She reached into the dirty dishwater. Twisted the stopper. The suds began to swirl. “Maddy can wash it when she gets home-can’t you, dear?”
“Yes, I guess I can.” I let the rinse water out. Dried my hands on Chick’s damp towel. I took my crock pot from Ike. Tried to blink the tears out of my eyes. “I’m so sorry about all this, Gwen.”
There were tears in her eyes, too. “So am I.”
I tried to give her a good-bye hug but she pulled away.
As Ike and I were leaving, I saw Chick give her a kiss on the forehead. Heard Gwen beg him to stay a while longer. “Sorry babe,” he said. “Time for me to split, too.”
Chapter 26
Monday, August 6
It had been a long day. Mondays always are. Not only did I have to fend off requests for information from a dozen well-rested reporters, I had to mark up both the Saturday and Sunday papers. There was one front-page story from Sunday’s paper that I clipped for myself. It was a terrific piece. Dale Marabout had spent the whole week on it. The headline was terrific, too:
GWEN amp; ROLLIE
Sad, Secret Lives Shrouded By The Sweet Smell Of Success
Dale couldn’t report the whole story, of course-that it was Gwen, and not Rollie, who murdered Sweet Gordon-but he could recount their long climb to wealth and prominence. He could explore the long-ago sins that eventually destroyed them. He could ponder Gwen’s future.
Anyway, right at five I scooped up my purse and the shopping bag I’d kept under my desk all day and headed for the parking deck. I drove down the hill and parked in front of Ike’s.
Ike sang out like he always does. “Morgue Mama!”
I sat where I always do, at the table by the cigarette machine. It has the best view of the street. Not that there’s ever anything on the street worth seeing.
Ike’s coffee shop is always empty at that time of day. He brought me my Darjeeling tea and a handful of those little Ghirardelli chocolates. He brought a mug of black coffee for himself. He said just the right thing. “What’s in the bag?”
I pulled it out. Put it on the table between us.
“So that’s what caused all the fuss?” he asked.
It was the cocoa can, of course. The one Jack Kerouac gave to Gordon for safekeeping. One of Andrew’s students had found it just that past Thursday. Andrew could have kept it for himself. He was close to Gordon, too. But he brought it to me. I pried off the lid and showed Ike the tiny pine cones. He took one out and studied it like it was a precious jewel plucked from the sarcophagus of an Egyptian pharaoh. “So how’s your disposition today?” he asked. “More endurable I hope?”
I took the pine cone from his fingers. I put it back in the cocoa can. Snapped on the lid.
“I know I’ve been a real B lately.”
He laughed. “Lately?”
