Ticket to Ride (8 page)

“I didn't mean to insult you.”

“Sure you did.” Then I just said it. “Look, I think you're a showboat bullshit artiste and you think I'm a hayseed lawyer. Right now neither of those things matter.”

He manipulated his hands around the cuffs to get a cigarette in his mouth. It was like one of those tricks contestants on game shows have to perform to win a refrigerator. I gave him a light.

“Man, you really tell it straight. ‘Showboat bullshit artiste.' Wow.” He was blinking at seventy miles an hour.

“Anybody hit you while you've been in here?”

“No.”

“How many times did they talk to you?”

“Three times. Always with that moron Sykes. He yelled at me so much, I was surprised he had a voice left.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing, man. You kidding? I'm a smart guy.”

“Yeah, Yale, wasn't it?” Then: “Sorry.” Then: “Harrison Doran probably isn't your real name, is it?”

“No. It's Elmer Dodd.”

“You're kidding me. Elmer Fudd?”

“Gee, I never heard that one before.”

He exhaled smoke in a long wavering stream. “I grew up on a farm in Ohio and ran away and joined the Navy when I was sixteen. When I got out, I tried working in a grocery store, but I couldn't cut it. I just saw my whole life in front of me, you know? I couldn't deal with it.” He still snuffled up tears once in a while. “So this chick I knew got me interested in this theater group—this was in New York—and I really got caught up in acting. I mean I'm good looking. That helped. But I also had a little talent.” A quick smile. “That didn't help. Hundreds of people have a little acting talent. So I started inventing roles for myself to play in real life.”

“Like Harrison Doran, political activist?”

“Yeah, it's like a drug. Pretending you're somebody else. You don't have to be you, you know what I mean? People give you places to live and feed you and you can pretty much have any girl you want. But I never had this happen before.”

“There's a warrant out for your arrest in the East. What's that about?”

“I got a gig as a disk jockey in this real small station. I started banging the owner's mistress. He tried to hit me with a whiskey bottle one night. I beat the shit out of him. But he was a big man in town, so the cops put it all on me. And I ran.”

A knock on the door. “Five minutes, McCain. The chief talked to the DA, and the DA said he didn't say anything about you having a half hour.”

Elmer Dodd smiled. “So you like to make up stuff, too?”

Winslow went away, footsteps slapping down the hallway.

“What were you doing at Bennett's at three in the morning?”

He shook his head. “Molly'd gone home. I don't remember much; I mean I was really shit-faced, man. I took her car. I'd seen Bennett's place before. I remember being so mad I wanted to tell him off. That's another thing I have a problem with. My temper. I've got a bad one. But then I always get depressed, too. I guess I might as well tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“There was this girl I was in love with, and she left me after she found out I was just making up my past. And I went kind of crazy. They put me in a mental hospital for three weeks. I still have a lot of trouble with depression, I guess.”

I tried not to think about how the DA would characterize Elmer Fudd here: a bunco artist with a bad temper who'd spent time in a mental hospital and was seen at the murder victim's home at three in the morning. Not to mention two violent confrontations with Bennett. A lawyer's dream.

“Do you remember seeing Bennett?”

“I didn't make it that far. I remember tripping over something when I was walking up the driveway. That's how I got this gash on my arm. I must have passed out. It was about four o'clock when I woke up. I was in the same place. I obviously didn't make it up to the house.”

“So you're saying you didn't kill him?”

He took a deep breath. “I'm really in trouble, aren't I?”

This time I heard Winslow before he got to the door. The knock was louder this time. “Your five minutes is up.”

“I timed it. I've got two minutes left.”

“Not according to my watch.” He opened the door. “C'mon, McCain. You're lucky you got to see him at all.”

Elmer Dodd rose up out of his seat and reached out for me, his handcuffs clacking. “You're not going to leave me like this, are you, man?”

“I'll be back.” There wasn't anything more to say. I saw the kid in him now. Scared and desperate. The tears were back.

“Get out of here, McCain.” Winslow put his hand on my shoulder and I brushed it away.

“I'll bet you don't wash your hands after you go to the bathroom, do you?”

Believe it or not, some people don't find me amusing.

11

S
UE HAD STRUNG A CLOTHESLINE FROM
K
ENNY
'
S TRAILER TO A
utility shed he'd bought prefab at Monkey Ward's. There was something timeless about her hanging clothes in the Midwestern sunlight, her fine figure in a simple blue housedress, a wooden clothespin between her teeth and their small Border collie running around and around the hanging sheets and shirts. Trixie Easley had recently collected photographs from the last century and put them in a display in the library to show the eternal work of women. She also created a section of books that disabused the John Wayne myth-seekers about who put in the most hours on the frontier. It was women, not men. When men's work was done for the day, the women worked long into the night, this after getting up earlier than the menfolk to get breakfast ready and start the day. The book I read was about women on the plains of Kansas. There were a lot of suicides.

When she heard me coming down the dirt road that led to the big shade trees and the trailer, she stopped her work and waved at me. Pepper came out to run around my car and lead me the rest of the way. Sue and Pepper and the clothes on the line … how much Kenny's life had changed for the better.

Sue always had a hug for me. “Shush, Pepper,” as the dog raced around and around me. Pepper was in bad need of more visitors, it seemed. All her attention focused on a single person was pretty much overwhelming. “He's inside working. He got up at dawn and started in. Fortunately I've learned how to sleep through the typing. Any special plans for Labor Day?”

The smell of the fresh wet wash was sweet on the dusty heat of the early afternoon. “Nothing planned. I'm working for Harrison Doran.”

She nodded, her pretty Italian face breaking into a smile. “All last night Kenny was telling me how much you hated Doran. He called your office a while ago and talked to Jamie. She said you'd agreed to help him. Molly must have changed your mind.”

“Yeah, Molly did—and Cliffie. He's already convicted Doran. And there's no other lawyer in town who'll help him.”

“I have to say Doran's pretty hard to take. I sat in Burger-Quik one afternoon and listened to him tell anybody who'd listen what a cool guy he was.”

“Yeah, but still—”

She kissed me on the cheek. “But you're doing the right thing. Go in and tell Kenny to rest for a while. He needs a break.”

Sue had turned the small silver trailer into a home. The floor was carpeted, the furniture was new, as was the gas range and washerdryer. And gone from the walls were the framed covers of a few of the soft-core novels Kenny had written. All that remained was the framed photograph of Jack Kerouac. Most people had Jesus on their walls, Kenny had Jack.

Kenny worked at a small oak desk pushed against the west wall. Sometimes he worked with music in the background. His taste ran to Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Hank Williams. He could type ninety words a minute perfectly. I never mentioned that to Jamie.

He usually worked nonstop. He wasn't aware of me until I was two feet from his desk and said, “I don't think there's enough sex in that scene.”

He looked up, smiling. “Hey, I hear you're working for Doran. Good, because the radio makes it sound like he's already convicted. He's an asshole, but he deserves somebody helping him.”

I pointed to the paper in his typewriter. “What's this one?”

“‘Twisted Twilight.'”

“Lesbians?”

“You can't go wrong with lesbians.”

“Guy comes along and rescues one of them from decadence?”

“Rance Haggarty's his name. Pro football player and world-class lover. Got a schlong that spoils women for life.” He laughed. “There's some very cold Pepsi in the fridge. Why don't you get both of us one?”

“Rance as in ‘rancid'?”

“I keep wanting to write a book where the lesbians end up happily together. You know I correspond with gay women who write soft-core. They're very bright nice women. Fortunately for me, they understand the market and what you have to do, so they don't hate me. But then, hell, their own books have to have the endings when one of the women goes off with a guy. Or gets hit by a train.” His laugh hadn't changed in twenty-two years.

I got our Pepsis. I sat on the couch. Kenny turned his chair around so he could face me. “Time for me to pull out my deerstalker cap?”

“I really need some help. Linda Raines isn't going to help me and neither is William Hughes. I need to know who really had it in for Bennett.”

“Plenty of people, from what I've always heard.”

“But I need to narrow the list down.”

“I can probably do that for you.”

Kenny knew as much about our little town as anybody in it. He started a novel set here when he was still in high school. In doing research, he learned not only our history but also who was who and why in our own time. Despite the books he writes, most people like Kenny. They'll talk to him because his boyishness puts them at ease.

“Who're you going to talk to next?”

“Lynn Shanlon. She knows a lot about the Bennett family. I know they never accepted Karen.”

“No surprise there, Sam. She came from the Hills and she had a limp. You sure wouldn't want either of those things in the blood line.”

“Choate. West Point. Hyannis Port. Lou did all right for himself coming from here.”

“Yeah, but only because his old man inherited a fortune when Lou was eight years old.”

That was what I meant about Kenny knowing the town. “I'd forgotten that. Where'd the money come from?”

“Oil. The father's brother was a wildcatter. He was also a convicted felon. Nearly killed a man in a bar fight in Waco. Served three years. But all was forgiven when his gushers came in. Full pardon from the governor.” He smiled. “You know how fast money can make you respectable. Surprised the Pope didn't make him a saint.”

“What about Bennett's business partner Roy Davenport?”

“Another felon. Lou liked to walk right up to the line legally. He had a number of businesses that probably involved outright crime, including cheap cigarettes in from Canada. He needed a fixer. Davenport was his fixer for the side businesses, but he was impressive enough to meet people at the country club.”

“Why'd Davenport leave Bennett?”

“A woman named Sally Crane. She was one of their secretaries. Lou hired good-looking married women who were willing to stay a little late if there were bonuses in their paychecks. Davenport started sleeping with the Crane woman on the side. Except Bennett didn't want to share her and couldn't believe that Davenport actually had feelings for her. They got into a fistfight one night and Davenport beat him up pretty badly. And that was that.”

“If you hear anything more about Davenport, let me know, huh? I already owe you a good meal for what you just told me.”

“I'll keep calling people, seeing what I can find out.”

By the time I reached the door, Kenny had already turned back to his typewriter. By the time I reached the ground and was greeted by a hand-slurping Pepper, Kenny was punishing his typewriter at a rate poor Jamie could only dream of.

Lynn Shanlon wore a white T-shirt and red shorts. She probably caused more than one man to gawk at her as he passed by in his car. She was comely and cute as she shoved the hand mower across the sloping front yard of her small white clapboard house. If she noticed me pulling into her driveway, she didn't let on. She thrust that mower with serious intent. A buccaneer of the blades.

I stood on the edge of her lawn and waited until she'd turned back in my direction. I waved when she saw me. She didn't wave back. She mowed her way to me and then stopped, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. The displeasure in the brown eyes told me that she knew who I was and didn't like me at all.

“Wondered if I could talk to you.”

Despite the wrinkles around eyes and mouth, her perfect little features would always keep an air of youth about her.