Fools Rush In (The Sam McCain Mysteries Book 7) (22 page)

“Haven’t you done enough already? Why don’t you give it a rest? He’s enjoying this. He’ll tell everybody what a trashy family we are.”

“Then he’ll be telling the truth, won’t he?” Ellen snapped.

The senatorial mask faded momentarily, replaced by a glimpse of weariness and dread. “Everything I’ve worked so hard to build, you two have tried to destroy. But by God, I’m not going to let you.”

He knew what was in the envelope. That explained his unease. He’d lied to me about having an affair to cover up the real nature of the photos—his wife in bed with her business partner Karen. These were the photos he’d been desperate to keep from circulation. I really hadn’t wanted to peek inside, but I hadn’t had any choice. Unlike the other envelopes, this one had a bearing on a murder case.

“Maybe he’s here to arrest one of us,” Ellen said tartly. “That would be the final scandal, wouldn’t it? Seeing your wife or your daughter in prison?”

“That was a consideration for a long time,” I said. “You each had reasons for killing Leeds and Neville.”

“Please don’t talk about them in the same breath,” Lucy said. “David was only trying to help us get”—she glanced at her mother—“get certain photos back from Neville. He was just trying to help us.”

“A beautiful young white girl—
that’s
why he was hanging around you, Lucy,” her father said. “Goddammit, I wish you could understand that. He wanted a trophy. You’ve idealized him to the point where he—”

“He paid attention to her, he was proud of her, he genuinely loved her.” Ellen’s voice was hard, unforgiving. “Things you wouldn’t know anything about, Senator.”

“Knock off that ‘Senator’ bullshit. You know I hate that. I’m your husband.”

“In name only.”

“Maybe in name only to you. But not to me.”

“Welcome to our little home, Mr. McCain,” Lucy said. “And this is one of our
better
moments.”

I tapped the manila envelope. I’d had enough of their family troubles. “So you told David about these photos?”

“Yes, and he kept our secret about Mom, too. I’m sure of it. He didn’t tell anybody. David thought maybe he could reason with Richie. That’s why he was there. Whoever killed Neville had to kill David so there wouldn’t be any witnesses.”

“That’s what I was beginning to think, too,” I said. Then, to the senator I said: “You never did have an affair, did you?”

“No.”

“You only told me that so I wouldn’t know what the photos were really about.”

“I—didn’t want the real truth to get out.” He scowled at his wife. “The public might understand that I couldn’t control my daughter if she wanted to go out with a Negro. But my wife being a sexual deviate—”

“Oh, God, Senator,” Ellen snapped. ‘“A sexual deviate.’ It happened twice.”

I said, “Richie Neville had been trailing the senator. Trying to get something on him. A big payday if he could. But that wasn’t going anywhere, so he decided to trail you for a while. That’s how he found out about you and Karen. He did his Peeping Tom routine and got some photos of you in a bedroom together.”

I shoved the envelope to her. “It’s all yours. The negatives are in there, too.”

“I sure as hell don’t want them, McCain,” Ellen said. “I’m not ashamed of what I did. Karen is my best friend. It was an act of affection more than anything. But these photos—they just make the whole thing dirty.”

The senator stood up. “The whole thing was dirty. Is dirty. It’s perverted and it’s sickening.”

“Do you feel the same way about all your girlfriends in Washington, Daddy?” Lucy said. “You’re always in the gossip columns there. They never use your name but we know who they mean.”

“That’s completely different. At least it’s—normal.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Ellen said. And without warning fled to the door and vanished. Lucy was close behind her.

The senator sighed, ran a hand through his Hollywood hair. “At least it’s over. I can deal with them privately. This won’t affect the campaign.”

I wanted to be astonished by his words, but I wasn’t. I supposed that was another sign of growing up—albeit a bad one—that you moved beyond shock when you saw something truly ugly. You just accepted that it was there and then decided what to do about it.

“It isn’t over, Senator.”

He was the one who was astonished. He looked at me in disbelief. In the moments after his wife and daughter had left the room he’d managed to convince himself that everything was fine again.

“It isn’t?”

“You beat up Will Neville pretty bad tonight.”

“He didn’t have it coming?”

“He’s in police custody right now.”

The dark eyes narrowed. He was beginning to understand what I was about to say. A part of it, anyway.

“Will is going to tell them everything he can to stay out of prison. You need to get to him before that happens.”

“He’s a blackmailer.”

“He’s a blackmailer who can take you down with him.”

“Why are you trying to help me? You hate my politics and I’m sure you hate me.”

“Because if you lose—and I hope you do—I want it to be because you’re a shill for every crooked big businessman in the country. But I don’t want to see you lose because of blackmail.” Then: “Call your favorite local lawyer and get him to the hospital fast. I asked that he be looked at. He was in bad shape. Get him before Cliffie starts asking him any serious questions. Then you can bribe him or whatever it takes to keep him quiet about the blackmail photos. I scared him. I told him he was going to prison. You can tell him he isn’t— if he’ll do what you tell him. He’ll be so relieved, he’ll go along with anything you say.”

“I trust everything that was said here tonight—”

“I like Lucy too much to say anything to anybody. And for the first time in my life, I like your wife. I think this experience gave her some humility, even if you’ll never understand it that way.”

He smiled. “And me—”

“You’re just another whore for the robber barons. They’re training your replacement now. If you win this time, it’ll be your last term.”

Anger filled the dark eyes. “I never realized until right this minute how much I detest you, McCain.”

I tapped my chest. “Badge of honor, Senator. Badge of honor.”

And that was where I left him.

I walked out to the ragtop and turned the key in the ignition. A blast of Chuck Berry. A cleansing blast of Chuck Berry. One I needed badly.

I
SAW STAN GREEN’ S
Studebaker parked at the A&W on my way back to my office so I wheeled in, ordered myself a tenderloin and fries, and then walked over to Stan’s car while I waited for my food to be deposited on the window ledge of my own car.

There was a time when the Studebaker with its futuristic grill and futuristic taillights looked downright … futuristic. Now it just looked sort of weird, like a sad mutant version of a real car.

“Still headed for outer space, I see.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stan said. “Headed for Mercury tonight. All those blue-skinned Mercurian babes.”

Stan and I used to buy a magazine called
Planet Stories.
Sure, the half-naked women were green and mauve and blue sometimes, but they had breasts and hips that appealed to every boy who’d ever locked himself in his room with a magazine. The stories themselves were as ridiculously splendid as the sexy blue babes on the covers.

“Anything new for an intrepid reporter?”

“Not at the moment. Sorry.”

“I still like Anderson and Hannity for it, don’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

He ate the last piece of his cheeseburger. I knew it was a cheeseburger because he had dollops of melted cheese on his tie. The blue-skinned people who lived on Mercury had a strict dress code. Those cheese stains might get him barred.

At this time of night, just after nine-thirty, the testosterone parade was at its peak. There were the tough guys who walked around with the sleeves of their T-shirts rolled up so you could see their muscles. There were the boys in the cars with the glass-pack mufflers that could shake an entire building when the boys floored the gas pedals. And there were the lover boys, the ones all the carhops smiled at and sort of aimed their cute little bottoms at, the lover boys being too cool to acknowledge this in any way but all the other boys knowing that these bastards could have their pick of any carhop they wanted. And there were some sweet sweet carhops.

“I talked to Marie Denham tonight,” Stan said.

“What about her?”

“She’s getting discouraged. Wonders if the police are working as hard as they would if David had been white.”

“Well, I admit everything’s pretty confusing right now. Especially since somebody killed James Neville.”

“Yeah, she said she’s surprised nobody’s arrested Will Neville. She said he’s already violated his probation.”

I saw the carhop bringing my food. “Well, just tell her we’re doing our best. I don’t blame her for being frustrated. We all are.”

I finished my meal listening to Miles Davis on the Iowa City jazz station. The bleakness of his horn probably wasn’t what I needed right then but it was too cool and too perfect to turn off.

I was thinking of something Stan had just said—or trying to remember what Stan had just said, something that had bothered me afterward—when I saw him back out of his slot and exit the root beer stand.

But the yawn that made me lay my head back against the seat put curiosity out of my mind. Not being a tough guy, and not being a guy who can get by on little sleep, the past few days of violence and quick naps were starting to sink me.

I’d been planning on going to my office, but right now that six-block trip seemed far too long. There was a phone booth on the west corner of the A&W. I’d check my messages from there and then head on home.

“Hi, it’s McCain. Any messages?”

“One. Aaron Towne. He said you’d know the number.”

“Thanks.”

“For what it’s worth, he wasn’t very nice.”

“He never is. I’m sorry, Julie.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry—for you.”

Aaron answered and as soon as he realized who it was, he said, “You took your own sweet time.”

“Aaron, now’s not a good time to push it. Believe me. Now what the hell’s going on?”

“She’s decided she wants to go there tonight. She doesn’t want anybody to see us leave town.”

“I’m just glad she’s going.”

“She wants to talk to you.”

“She’s been avoiding me.”

“If I had my way, she’d still be avoiding you. I don’t see where this will help her at all. But I’ll go tell her. She’ll pick up from the den. She’s making lists of things for me to do.”

“Poor baby.”

He went away.

I scanned the action at the root beer stand while I waited for her to pick up. One scene involved a lover boy trying to steal the attention of a girl who was talking to a kid who looked even more insecure than I had at his age. To the tutored eye insecurity is as obvious as deformity. The other was a cute little girl sitting on the back bumper of a pickup track sobbing into a handkerchief while all around her girls laughed and talked. Some real friends she had there.

No hello. “I’ll be there for a month. Or so they tell me.”

“I’m glad you’re going.”

“Of course you are. I won’t be there to make sure you earn your paycheck.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s why you hired me. Because I’m so lazy.”

A hesitation. “There’re an awful lot of people who’ll get a good chuckle out of me going to a hospital for drunks.”

“To hell with them. You’re doing what you need to do.”

“I hope you’re not expecting any corny speeches from me about how I’ve finally realized that I need help. I’ll save all that for AA.”

This time the hesitation was mine. “I hate to say this, but I’m going to miss you and I’m going to be praying for you.”

“Now you’re the one getting corny.”

“I figured you’d say that.”

“I want to be nice and sober when my friend Dick Nixon visits me here in July. And I don’t want any remarks about Dick. He’s my good friend and one of these days he’s going to be president again.” Then: “I’m scared, McCain.”

“I know you are. But you’ll make it. You’re too strong not to.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do, Your Honor. I do.”

Hesitation. “They’re going to make fun of me.”

“And you’ll make fun of them right back.”

Hesitation. “You know that I like you more than I let on sometimes.”

“You’d almost have to.”

She laughed. “Yes, I would at that, wouldn’t I?” Pause. “Now I’m the one in danger of being corny. Good-bye, McCain.”

“Good-bye, Judge.”

I doubted that she had tears in her eyes, but I sure did.

At home I stripped to boxers, fixed an egg-and-ketchup sandwich, and sat on the couch watching the news.

The cats collected around me, ready for a good long sleep with, by default, their favorite human being.

Something Stan had said still bothered me, but not until now did I understand why. How had Marie Denham known that Will Neville had violated his probation?

I quickly called Stan. It took him a few minutes to find the name of the school administrator he’d talked to the other day while following up on the David Leeds story. He didn’t have the phone number. I had to call information for the home phone number of the guy.

Deep, aggrieved sigh. “Yes, this is he.”

“I’m sorry to be calling so late, Mr. Tooker.”

“Then why are you? This is a school night.”

“This concerns Marie Denham.”

“Who?”

“Marie Denham. A teacher at your school.”

“I don’t know who you are, but I’ve been principal here for eleven years and I’ve never heard of any Marie Denham.”

We spent four or five minutes longer on the phone. He gave me no more useful information.

I next called the local hospital and got a report on Will Neville. He was listed in fair condition but was in the hospital overnight for observation. I asked if there was a phone in his room.

“Yes, there is, but you can’t call him now.”

I said, “May I have your name? I’m McClintock on the hospital board. In fact, my law firm takes care of all your legal matters.”