Breaking Point (4 page)

Chapter 5

              Keokuk is about a hundred miles south of Iowa City, on State Route 218. The drive would take me a little under two hours I figured. I'd been planning to drive down in January to see the bald eagles that are said to winter over in the area, so this would be a good chance to time the trip and check out the region. According to the tourist information, there are sometimes hundreds of bald eagles fishing near the dams and locks along the Mississippi River, which defines Iowa's eastern border. The river runs along both the east and south sides of Keokuk, which is situated right on the bend. The town has a festival in January, with special observation points and guides and some sort of activities. I was pretty sure that the eagles didn't leave when the celebration was over, so I could go looking any time this winter, but I was curious about the festivities.

             
Melanie had described the Eagle Bar and Grill as a rustic little place set back off Iowa's Route 61, a few miles outside of town. I was singing along to the car's radio and almost drove right by it, but saw the lights in time to swing into the gravel lot. I maneuvered the Grand Am over to a parking space along the left side of the building. They seemed to be doing a brisk business. The lot was pretty full.

             
From the outside, the place looked decent enough. The siding had the look of fresh paint and gleamed in the headlights. The gravel ended about a hundred feet beyond the back of the building, where a row of identical one room cottages stood like a fence at the far edge of the gravel. A barely illuminated sign leaned off to one side of a metal pole in front of them, with 'Eagle Motel' printed in red on the dirty glass. I walked around to the front of the restaurant and stepped through the front door and into a dim foyer.

             
The Eagle Bar and Grill was even more dimly lit inside, with dark wood everywhere I looked. A long bar started at the door and extended back along the right side of the room. The opposite wall held six wooden booths. The space between was filled with round tables and chairs, maybe twelve tables. Most of the seats were occupied. There seemed to be an older crowd here, at least older than the college kids who frequented such establishments up in Iowa City. I could vaguely make out a juke box and a small dance floor along the back wall.

             
A dark haired woman, seated at a table near the door, was sipping what looked like scotch and staring at me. A brown wool jacket was draped over the back of her chair. At her feet, partially in the aisle, was a red gym bag. I smiled and she waved me over.

             
"Miss Goodwin?"

             
"Yes." She motioned me to a seat. "You must be Rudy Murdock."

             
"Right. Have you eaten, because I am really hungry? Could we get some menus?"

             
She had a soft, velvety laugh. "No, I haven't and yes, let's get menus."

             
We ordered- salads and a sandwich for each of us. She had a Turkey Club and I opted for the Italian Hot Sausage. While we waited, I sipped a Miller Light and used my detecting skills to glean information from her.

             
"Do you always carry a gym bag to dinner?"

             
"No, not even usually," she smiled. "Tonight's one of my work-out nights. I just left the store a little early and stopped at the gym before I got here. I have a bunch of papers in there and my wallet and stuff, so I just dragged it on in. She swallowed a healthy gulp of her drink. "A girl's got to keep in shape, you know."

             
She was curious about my profession and asked why I decided to go into the "private dick" business, which was her term and not mine. I tried to explain a career choice in what some people considered a rather dubious profession, at least until they needed my services.

             
"Well," I began, wiping the back of one hand across my upper lip to remove the ridge of cold foam. "It's kind of tied into another story." I gave her the condensed version of my dad's murder, leaving out the parts about my own feelings of guilt and focusing instead on my attempt to find his killers.

             
"The police tried their best, I guess, given their limited manpower and the number of murder and manslaughter cases they have on their slate every year. After six months, the case was still unsolved and I was tired of waiting. So I used some of the insurance money from my dad's death and hired a local private investigator, a guy named Ira Grant. Ira was from New York City, originally and was a skinny little guy, as tenacious as a rat terrier. He hounded the local police and got copies of all their files. Ira talked to everyone who had been within shouting distance of Pittsburgh that night, I think, and he didn't stop until he'd found the two kids who had done it."

             
"What happened to them?"

             
"Prison," I replied. "Life sentences for both of them."

             
"How long did it take Ira to find them?" Melanie was a relaxed listener. She leaned one elbow back over the captain's style chair and sipped her Scotch.

             
"Several months. I spent a lot of time at Ira's office downtown and asked him a million questions." I smiled at the memory. "His place was on the second floor, over a wiener and kielbasa luncheonette, right on Liberty Avenue. Of course, you wouldn't know what that means, but it was in the middle of a lot of activity. I remember the smell of hot dogs and sauerkraut was always there in his office. I'd walk up those dark wooden stairs almost every day, either on my way to the garage or after work, just to bug poor old Ira and see what he'd found out."

             
"How old were you?"

             
I had to think for a minute. "Twenty-one or twenty-two I guess. Young enough to want revenge and old enough to realize I couldn't find the killers by myself. Ira became a mentor to me. He always conducted himself as a gentleman," I smiled at the memory, "but he wasn't above using whatever means..." I caught myself before I said more than I'd intended. "Well, let's just say that Ira Grant usually got his man." I gulped the last of my beer in one healthy slurp.

             
"So that's why you became a dick?"

             
I raised my eyebrows in her direction and she caught the implied rebuke.

             
"Sorry," she said. "That's what my father always calls them. Go ahead."

             
I cleared my throat and went on, anxious to finish my personal saga and get back to my own interrogation. "Ira told me more than once that I should become a private investigator. He said I had the mind and the heart for it. I certainly had the interest. I had a collection of detective novels that filled an entire bookcase in my room." I'd noticed that Melanie's glass was almost empty. I looked down at the foam clinging to the sides of my empty beer mug before waving the waitress over for refills. I flashed my charming boyish grin at Melanie. "I guess a lot of kids have that same kind of dream," I said. "Mine just happened to come true."

             
Changing the subject before she could make any more insulting remarks or think of any more inquiries, I turned the conversation to her life instead of mine. I took a modest sip of the fresh brew and asked Melanie Goodwin some direct questions.

             
In addition to learning that she was an ardent jogger and fitness freak, I found out that she'd been the manager of Frank's Outdoor Outlet for six years. She'd started out as a sales clerk and worked her way up to manager. The fact that Frank was her uncle probably hadn't slowed her ascent up the ladder of success. She'd attended the University of Iowa for two years off and on before that so I figured her age at about twenty-six. She liked both hunting and fishing and had had a short affair with Charlie Wilson. I didn't have to ask about that part. She told me.

             
"When you called and said you were investigating Charlie's death, I knew what you wanted to know. It sure wouldn't be about his sales job."

             
I smiled at her. "Why do you say that?"

             
"Well, Charlie was a good salesman, maybe because he was a good talker. Anyway, he was the type, if you know what I mean." She tasted her second Scotch. "But anybody who really knew Charlie knew that he was a lot of other things besides a guy who sold scopes.” She laughed. "He was a scoundrel, as my uncle Frank would say."

             
"Your uncle didn't like him?"

             
"He hated him. He told me I shouldn't even agree to talk to you about him." She chuckled. "Uncle Frank said if you tried to talk to him about Charlie, he'd kick your ass." Melanie seemed to be enjoying herself. Her manner suggested a certain glee in describing her uncle's animosity toward Charlie Wilson. "Once he even called Regis' main office," she continued, "to try to get them to send some other sales rep down here, but they didn't have anybody else. So Uncle Frank had to put up with Charlie or buy from some other company. I think he looked around and did finally drop some of their line, but Regis really has the best selection of anyone out here."

             
"Did he hate Charlie because of you and your involvement with him?"

             
"Probably, at least partly. He already didn't like him very much before that." I decided that Melanie may have beaten me here by several Scotches, which apparently didn't interfere with her particular fitness regimen. For my part, I was grateful for her pre-loosened lips.

             
She sipped some more and went on, "Uncle Frank said that Charlie was a fool. That he thought he deserved whatever he wanted and was always looking for an easy way to get it."

             
"Such as,” I prompted.

             
"Well, there was this hunting cabin that Charlie had seen. Uncle Frank has a cabin somewhere near it and he was the one who took Charlie up there to look at it, so he felt responsible for what happened. Charlie wanted to buy it but the old man who owned it wanted cash for it and Charlie couldn't come up with the money right away. They argued about it and Charlie got really mad at the old guy and kind of shoved him, right in front of Uncle Frank."

             
Our food arrived and I wiggled my fingers over both our glasses, the international sign for more refills. I might have to drive her home, but I didn't want Melanie to stop talking now. I set my third beer down beside the mostly full second one. Melanie dove right into her new Scotch. When the waitress was gone, I asked, "Was that the end of it?"

             
"Oh, no. My uncle was really pissed off at Charlie, though, and told him to stay out of the store. That was when he called the main office about him, I think.  About a month after that, the old man still hadn't sold the cabin and had closed it up for the winter. One night the place caught fire and burned to the ground. Uncle Frank said that Charlie had done it out of spite. I think it could have just been an accident. There was never any proof that anybody set the fire, but my uncle just believed what he believed. He really despised Charlie after that."

             
"Did the police investigate the fire?"

             
"Probably. I don't know how hard they looked. The cabins up there are pretty basic I think. Uncle Frank only took me once, when I was a lot younger. There wasn't even indoor plumbing. The guys just went up to hunt, so I don't think any of the cabins was worth much. They probably aren't even insured."

             
So Frank really despised Charlie Wilson. I made a mental note to find a way to determine if he hated Charlie Wilson enough to hurl him over a fence. Walking into his store wouldn't be advisable, unless I wanted my ass kicked, which he may or may not have been able to do. For now, I didn't see any reason to find out.

             
"What about your affair? How long did that last?"

             
"Less than a year, maybe ten months or so. It was two years ago, when I'd been at the store for a few years. One thing kind of led to another. He was always flirting and so was I and I guess we finally decided to see where it would go. We'd meet at different motels outside town and a couple of times I let him come to my place when my roommate was away, but we burned out kind of fast. I was never really serious about him." She laughed, a harsh, abbreviated sound and raised her glass to eye level, peering through the side at the small puddle of Scotch that remained.

             
"There just wasn't a whole lot to like about Charlie," Melanie continued. "He thought he was some California hot shot or something. He bragged a lot about how he was such a big deal when he was a kid in California, on the soccer team or some such stupid thing, and how he'd been Regis' salesman of the year, I don't know, four times or something. I mean, he dressed real nice and he worked out and he looked great, but really, I mean, you know...booorrr- ing," she stretched out the word for my benefit.

             
"Who ended it?"