Ticket to Ride (13 page)

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?”

“Who else would have, Mr. McCain? It's obvious, isn't it?”

“Not to me.”

“Of course not. You're his lawyer. You have to say that.”

“Technically, I'm not his lawyer. I've resigned.”

For the first time the wise brown eyes studied me. I'd surprised him, and he didn't care for surprises. He seemed to be one of those men whose life was laid out like a map. He knew the land and he knew what to expect. “Now, that I haven't heard. Do you mind if I ask why?”

I smiled. “I never talk about my cases. Never. Sound familiar?”

He waved to somebody, then leaned toward me. “You're making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be, McCain. We know who killed Mr. Bennett. There's no need to go into Mr. Bennett's life looking for trash. He lived as an honorable man. Let him die that way, too.”

“What're you afraid of?”

He eased himself out of his chair. He picked his hat up, took one more swipe across his face with his handkerchief, and said, “What am I afraid of? I'm afraid that if I don't get up to the second floor right now, I'll be late for my appointment. That's what I'm afraid of, McCain.”

“You could've been killed,” Jamie was saying to the man in the chair. From behind, I didn't recognize him at first. It was the blond hair. Turk's hair had been dark. I hadn't realized that he'd bleached it.

He sat in one of the two client chairs in front of my desk. There was a mean-looking black-red circle about the size of a dime on the back of his head. Bright blood had coursed down from there, leaking into the edge of his white T-shirt.

I walked around for a look at him, and that was when I saw the mess on the floor in front of the filing cabinets. Somebody had been in a hurry. Piles of manila folders lay on the floor.

“Turk could've been killed, Mr. C.”

“What happened?” I asked Turk, looking at the
SURF BUMS
logo on his T-shirt. I was pretty sure he'd drawn it on. It seemed to be a surfboard with a beard.

He was too much of a punk to answer me without trying to sound tough. “I ever catch that guy, he'll wish he'd never been born.”

“Just tell me what happened, Turk.”

He winced as Jamie dabbed at his wound with a wet cloth I suspected was her handkerchief.

Turk had the looks and sneer of most teen idols. What he didn't have was the talent. So he tried to compensate for it by mixing James Dean and Marlon Brando. We weren't having a conversation. We were in Acting Class 101.

“Jamie wasn't here when I got here—”

“I was out getting supplies like you told me to, Mr. C—”

“So I decided to wait outside and have a smoke. That way I could hear the car radio if I turned it up. Brian has a new song out.”

“He means Brian Wilson, Mr. C. You know, the Beach Boys?”

“Ah.”

“But it's a funny thing, man. There I am sitting on the steps out there just groovin' with the new Animals song—they'd be a lot bigger if Eric Burdon wasn't so ugly—and then I hear it.” He meant to touch his ear to illustrate his point, but when he got his hand about halfway to his head he winced and said, “Shit, man.” He'd really been hit. “I got what you call 20/20 hearing, you know?”

“Sure, 20/20 hearing. Got it. So what did you hear?”

“Whaddya think I heard? I heard somebody in here. You know, your office. And then I put it together.”

“Put what together?”

“The scene, man. The scene and what was happening. He'd been tossing your office before I got there, but when he heard me coming he disappeared. He hid, is what I mean. So I go in and look for Jamie, and when she's not there I leave. And then guess what he does?”

“He goes back to my office and starts going through the file cabinets again.”

“See, Turk,” Jamie said, “I told you Mr. C wasn't stupid.”

“So you come back into my office—”

“Correction. I sneak back into your office.”

“Ah, the old sneakeroosky. Then what?”

“He faked me out.”

“I'm not following you.”

“He hid again. Before I got into the office. He must've been hiding in the hall.”

“He must have heard you coming.”

“Yeah, it was probably when I tripped on the steps outside. I probably cussed or something.”

“You tripped?”

The insolent smile. “Me and Mary Jane got together a little while ago.”

“Mary Jane is marijuana, Mr. C.”

“So you're smoking dope and trying to sneak in. But you're stoned and you trip. You gave him plenty of warning.”

“That's your version, man. My version is I scared him off. He doesn't want to tangle with me. He's had a chance to see me, so he knows he's dead if I ever get my hands on him. So he splits.” Not only was Turk's bravado irritating, it was foolish. His arms had no definition, he had tiny wrists, and he was getting a small potbelly from all the beer Jamie's money was buying. “You dig?”

“He doesn't split, he hides. And he lets you go into my office again and then he slugs you across the back of the head, and while you're unconscious he goes back to trashing my office.”

“You bet your ass he hits me from the back. He ever tried it from the front, I'd rip him apart.”

“Turk is very strong, Mr. C.”

“Uh-huh.” I pointed at his eyes. “Open them as wide as you can.”

“No way, man. You're not no doctor.”

“Very perceptive of you to recognize that, Turk. Must be your 20/20 hearing.” To Jamie I said: “Doc Mayburn is just down the street. Take Turk down there and have him checked. He'll probably need a few stitches in that wound anyway.”

“Stitches? No way, man. I had to have eight of them one time when I was six. I fell out of a tree and landed headfirst.”

It would be too easy to point out that landing on his head might explain a lot of things about the latter-day Turk, but I liked Jamie too much to say it. Besides, I wanted to try and figure out what the asshole burglar had been looking for.

“Go on now. Tell Doc Mayburn to put it on my account.”

“You think he has a concussion, Mr. C?”

“Well, he's got something, that's for sure.”

“Here, honey, let me help you up.”

“I ain't no invalid.”

Jamie looked as if her new puppy had just been run over by the train.

Turk got up. He jerked in pain and grabbed his head. At least I was getting a little pleasure out of this. “We've got band practice tonight.”

“Oh, no, Turk. You're in no condition to practice.”

“Have to. Next week we send our tape to Dick Clark.”

She beamed at me. “Isn't that cool, Mr. C? He'll be on Bandstand in no time.”

“If the conditions are right. Don't forget that. I don't want no crummy background the way the rest of those bands get. I want somethin' really sharp.”

“He's got a good business head, too, Mr. C.”

“I can see that. Dick Clark doesn't know what he's in for.”

By then, thankfully, they were in the hall and edging toward the door.

“No stitches, remember.”

After they were gone, I started picking up file folders and putting them back in their proper places. I gave each one a minute or so of consideration. I was trying to figure out if one of them was the reason the thief had been in here. But most of them were old and pedestrian. Mortgages, divorces, wills—nothing that would be worth stealing.

When I was finishing up, I realized that this was a ruse, dumping everything out this way. He was searching for something else, and the piles of folders were nothing more than a distraction for my sake. Like many attorneys, I was file-rich and money-poor. But I'd never worked on a case that would prompt somebody to toss my office. Until now, the murder of Lou Bennett and the aftermath.

Since there was only one possible explanation, I went to my desk and opened the manila folder on it. I'd made copies of the material about Karen Shanlon's death in the fire. There were six sheets in all. I had put them in order of the date on which the newspaper story had been published. When I went through them now, they were out of sequence.