Riders on the Storm (5 page)

I did my best not to look stunned by his claim about the tire iron. The back seat. Hair and blood. How could it get any worse?

“He was just in the ER last night.”

“Yes, they mentioned that.”

“I don't believe he killed Donovan.”

“Neither does his wife.”

“But you believe he did.”

“You have to admit the circumstances could lead to that conclusion.”

“Circumstances. Rather than evidence.”

When I didn't say anything more, he said, “Pretty damn convincing evidence.” Then, “You work for Judge Whitney as well as yourself?”

“Yes. You've met her?”

“She invited me to have dinner at her club the other night. She's quite the woman. Was she really married four times?”

I nodded.

“And she used to play golf with Dick Nixon and she knows Leonard Bernstein well enough to call him ‘Lenny'?”

I nodded again. He was changing the subject. I said, “Will didn't kill Donovan.”

“I guess the record's stuck. I say there's a more-than-even chance he did. And I have some evidence to back up what I say. You, on the other hand, just keep saying he's innocent, but you don't have any evidence at all.”

“I haven't had time to find any.”

His lips thinned. “His wife is waiting for you down the hall, McCain.”

Her package of Winstons had been ripped apart. I guessed she'd tried to open them but they wouldn't cooperate so instead she took all her anger out on the trim red package. Two cigarettes lay broken like snapped legs.

The room was twice the size of a cell. A wooden table and four wooden chairs comprised the furnishings. On a metal bookcase sat a tape recorder and a stack of Scotch recording tapes.

“I've never said the word ‘fuck' in my life but I've been saying it to myself ever since Paul called.” Then, “Listen to me. The man arrested my husband for a murder he didn't commit and I'm calling him Paul. I should be calling him a fucker or something like that.”

The relentlessly fastidious Karen was gone and in its place sat a disheveled woman whose loveliness had been robbed by lack of sleep, exasperation, and fear. There was a fresh stain on the right cuff of her sand-colored blouse. Probably from the coffee she was drinking now. She had affected a chignon but hairs sprang out like wings everywhere. She was without makeup. She'd probably been too upset to try an operation that delicate.

“At least they got rid of the death penalty in this state,” she whispered.

I reached out and hugged her to me. I put my hand on the side of her face to bring her in even closer. I kissed the top of her head. She needed to cry and she did.

It was several minutes before she was able to gather herself and separate from me. She nodded down at her sundered cigarette pack and laughed tearily. “I guess I showed
them
who's boss.”

“They had it coming.”

“If you ever have a pack that gives you trouble, let me handle them.” Then, “He really didn't do it, Sam.”

Our fervent mantra.

“And now,” she sighed, “they're going to put him back on a mental ward. The chief of staff at the hospital here says their ward is sufficient for him and Lindsey Shepard, that psychologist he's been seeing, agrees. They have some fancy terminology for it, but what it
comes down to is that he's in some kind of withdrawal and needs to be watched twenty-four hours a day.” Then, “I want to
do
something, Sam. But I don't know what.”

“I need to find out more about Steve Donovan.”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“If Will didn't kill him, who did?”

“He had enemies. I don't think he was ever faithful to his wife. A man named Thad Owens caught Donovan making out with Thad's wife and he dumped her because of it. I know of at least two times when his wife was going to leave him. And then his business partner and he had a big falling-out.”

“That's exactly what I'm talking about. I knew Donovan liked the ladies but I didn't know that his wife had threatened to leave him and I didn't know anything about his business partner.”

“But won't Paul be doing the same thing?”

“He's a policeman and he'll go at it his way. But I grew up here. And I have a source he doesn't. Kenny Thibodeau.”

“I know this sounds snobbish but I'm so glad he's not a beatnik anymore.”

Given the situation, I felt guilty about laughing. “I don't think anybody's been called a ‘beatnik' in several years.”

“Will always says I'm a square. But you know what I mean about Kenny. He dresses like a normal person and he's married and they have that sweet little girl. It doesn't even bother me that he writes those dirty books anymore. I even bought one at a used-book sale last year. I was embarrassed and the woman who sold it winked at me when I put it in my purse, but I enjoyed it. I thought it would just be filth but it was a really good story and it wasn't all that sexy anyway. Kenny's a good writer.”

“And because he writes that column for the newspaper, people tell him things all the time.”

“That's another thing I'm happy for him about. He really makes the history of this town interesting.”

“And people confide in him because of it. It's weird. They tell him what's going on now, too. So he's a good source.”

She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms out like a comely kitten taking a break. “Umm. This was nice.”

“What was?”

“Just now. Talking about what you're going to do. And talking about Kenny. For a little while there I forgot all about where we are and why we're here. I was so far gone I even started thinking about what I was going to make Peggy Ann for lunch. But she's at my sister's until further notice. Right now, for a few days at least, I'm afraid I won't be much of a mother. I'll just sit around and brood.”

I'd been distracted by all this, too. All too soon I would need to be in court. While I should have done more prep, I was confident I could handle it. The insurance company would likely settle before the judge appeared. They'd made two offers in the past two weeks but we'd declined them. I was pretty sure this would be an offer we could accept.

“I was just sitting here waiting for you, Sam. I guess I'll go back home now.”

As we left the station, she pecked me on the cheek again, squeezed my hand, and then set out for a home without child or husband. Or maybe even future.

I
GOT
J
AMIE
N
EWTON IN TRADE.
W
HEN
I
EXPLAIN THIS TO PEOPLE
I frequently get a lewd smile, especially after they've seen her.

It happened this way. Her father is an argumentative freelance home repairman who got it in his head that his neighbor had illegally seized a portion of the Newton backyard. He came to me to set up a lawsuit because I have a deserved reputation for taking on cases that others won't, i.e., they don't pay enough. Or, all too often, not at all.

Cam Newton slapped down a hundred-dollar bill on my desk so I said I'd help him. I also said that our chance of winning was slim owing to the fact that the amount of land he wanted ceded back didn't amount to much more than a few yards. He naturally said that didn't matter, that it was the principle of the thing.

Then he told me the real truth, that his neighbor had insulted Cam's wife one night by smirking that she was a “hefty gal.”

We lost the case and Cam lost his money—“lost” as in he couldn't find the other five hundred dollars he owed me. I guess the dealer must have just given him that new Dodge.

He then proposed that his high school-aged daughter would “work off” his debt. I learned quickly not to use that phrase. The smirkers did everything but light up and ring bells the few times I said it.

The fact that Jamie couldn't type, answer phones, operate the Xerox, take dictation, or make tolerable coffee (hers was almost but not quite as bad as mine) didn't make her any less sweet. Though she dressed like the teenage girls on paperback crime novels—tight blouses and skirts, bobby socks and saddle shoes—her naïveté was both endearing and sometimes dangerous.

The latter applied to her choice of boyfriends. Turk was the leader of a local surf band much like the Beach Boys. Since Iowa was a landlocked state, the resemblance to the great Brian Wilson ensemble was strained at best. And as an artist he needed free time with his band for their inevitable—according to him—appearance on
American Bandstand
which would coincide with their album hitting numero uno which would coincide with the launching of their first world tour.

She believed all this and was willing to hand over half her paycheck to support Turk's absolute certain triumph around the world. I knew better than to suggest that she might reconsider Turk as a worthy mate. She got married and got pregnant. Turk was last heard from working in a car wash in Davenport. He'd left after he realized that being married to a sweet, wonderful young woman with a child just got in the way of running Iowa's only surf band.

Motherhood changed her. She managed to complete secretarial courses at a local business college and learned to be an excellent secretary. She even went through the filing cabinets she'd wildly misarranged years ago. Now I didn't have to look for Merle Hennings in F or K or Z. He was right there in H, God love 'im.

Her style in clothes had changed, too. With that freckled country-girl face, so open and pretty, and that body nothing short of a feed sack could hide, she now looked like the kind of secretary you saw in the skyscrapers of Chicago. Very uptown, right down to the newly affected blond pageboy. She can afford this look because one of my clients is the best department store in town. I'm their security adviser. I get a large discount on what I buy there, and so by agreement does Jamie. I also give her a “clothing allowance.” Despite the fact that she doesn't feel “ready” to date again, I want her to meet a decent guy who can convince her that not all males are like the vanishing Turk, whose name I never understood because he's black Irish.

She was typing as I walked into my one-room office that rests in the rear of a single-story building that houses in front a Laundromat. Not to worry. The longest any business has lasted up front is eleven months. The Laundromat has been here five months. Somewhere there is a moving van circling and circling and circling, waiting to descend on the Laundromat when it folds. Maybe that XXX bookstore will find a home yet.

“I know Will didn't kill anybody, Sam, even though everybody I talk to says he did. They keep talking about how he was in that mental hospital those times. I had a cousin who was in a mental hospital for about three months a few years ago and she's fine now.”

“That's all you have to say is ‘mental hospital' and he doesn't stand a chance.”

“Some people in this town are narrow-minded.”

“It isn't just this town. It's worldwide.”

“Really? Everywhere?”

“Just say ‘mental hospital' and it doesn't matter if you're speaking Chinese or Spanish, you've convicted the guy.”

She just frowned. “Anyway, I've laid everything out for you. For court.”

And so she had. About all that was left for me to do was walk to the county courthouse. Then the phone rang and it was for me.

Greg Egan had served in Nam in 1966. For only eight weeks. As a grunt he'd been in some terrible fighting. So terrible that today he was confined to a wheelchair due to the fact that his legs had been surgically removed just below the knees. In some respects he was the conscience of a small group of vets who'd had physical and mental problems in assimilating back home. The wife he'd left behind him when he'd gone to Nam was still behind him. She drove him to the VA three times a week. They were starting the prosthetic process.

“Hi, Sam. I figured you'd know what was going on. All I hear from the news is that Will is a cold-blooded murderer who spent two terms in the bughouse. The murder stuff, that's got to be bullshit, right?”

“I'm sure he's innocent, Greg, but there are some extenuating circumstances.” I explained the situation as quickly as I could.

“Because that asshole Donovan beat him up? Will is one of the nicest guys I've ever known.”

“I agree, but as much as I'd like to, I can't blame the police for making certain assumptions at this point.”

“Think if Cliffie was involved.” Then, “I know you gotta run. Five of the guys called me in the last fifteen minutes. I said I'd call you and see what was going on. Anything we can do, you know you got it, Sam. I don't have any legs but I've still got a pretty good mind.”

I wanted to say you didn't need to say that, Greg, but he was used to people pitying him without quite taking him seriously as a human being. I wondered if Senator O'Shay ever realized things like that.