Riders on the Storm Read online

  Cathy Vance was the college sweetheart he’d been engaged to, but he’d thrown her over when he met Karen.

  Then we were in the Emergency Room.

  Tart smells of medicine, hospital sounds including whispery calls over the intercom now that most of the patients would be sleeping or trying to, and the whoosh of the double ER doors as people passed in and out. I’d dated an ER nurse for a time and learned some things about the department. It was the Wild West. You never knew who or what you were going to get. One night a man with a gun had confronted her, demanding to see his estranged wife whom he’d just beaten half to death. Fortunately, in his rage and rush he hadn’t noticed the police officer behind him. The officer had just brought in a drunk who’d fallen and cut his head. The officer now walked up behind the crazed husband and managed to take away the man’s gun without incident.

  “He used that word ‘shunned’ more than a few times in the past few days,” Karen said. “You know he can be pretty dramatic sometimes but I know that’s how he was feeling. Being in the army made him feel accepted as a man. He was afraid to go but I always sensed he thought he could prove something to himself over there. I don’t think he ever felt adequate about being tough. God, I love him so much. I tried to warn him that this would happen if he signed that petition. Look what’s going on in Washington.”

  A small faction of the anti-war vets (whose large numbers were being disputed by some in the press) had clashed at a demonstration with regular vets near the White House the other day. All the expected name-calling and bitterness. A particularly sad day for the country, I thought. A feast for the blowhards in Congress who loved to pout over alleged heresy.

  “Then when he left tonight for the party—”

  “He just said that he needed to buy oil, so—”

  I smiled. “Oh, right. He learned how to change oil when he was over in Nam—”

  “So he worked on his car whenever he could. It was another thing that made him feel good about himself.”

  A heavyset middle-aged Negro came in with his wife. She pointed to a chair and said, “Sit there, Bob. I’ll get you all checked in.” He wore a Cubs T-shirt and jeans. The way he gritted his teeth and held his right arm as if it was an infant suggested that he had broken it.

  “He’s in this softball league at work and he tried to slide into second base earlier tonight,” she told the woman at the desk. She glanced back at him. “He thinks he’s still sixteen, I guess. Anyway, we went home after the game but the pain’s getting worse and worse.”

  The man had smiled at her when she’d said he thought he was still sixteen. He knew she’d been telling him that she loved him.

  Our doc came along just as the woman was taking a seat next to her husband.

  Will looked stronger and more purposeful than I’d expected he would. He’d been in the examination room for nearly an hour.

  The intern was short, wiry, and balding. He had an O’Shay smile. He was going to send Will and Karen home happy. Maybe he’d give Will a sucker.

  “The beating looked a lot worse than it actually was, Mrs. Cullen. There’s no concussion, no fractures, just a whole lot of bruising. Warm baths will help that.” He spoke to her as if Will was her child and not her husband.

  She didn’t wait.

  She stepped over to Will and stood on tiptoe so she could kiss him. Will threw his arms around her and drew her in.

  “He’ll be much better in a few days,” the intern said to me.

  Karen wasn’t about to let go of him.

  “I’m writing two prescriptions for him, Mrs. Cullen. They’ll help with the pain. They may make him a little groggy so I’d keep an eye on him.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.” Karen beamed in relief.

  Then we were outside in the steamy night. The mosquitoes were doing their version of the Normandy invasion. The three of us were the Germans. An ambulance about a quarter block from the ER external entrance had just cut its siren and emergency lights and speed so it could slot in right next to the ER double doors.

  “This is actually kind of embarrassing,” Will said. “I had a couple drinks and then I got this bright idea that I’d go out to the party and explain myself to all my friends and they’d all see that I wasn’t this terrible guy after all and then we’d all be buddies again. You know, like it is on TV when everybody is hugging each other after some big misunderstanding. I could write that crap myself.” Grinning. He’d always been self-deprecating. One of the reasons we’d been friends is that we knew we hadn’t been blessed with most of the gifts All-American Boys had been. Better to put yourself down than have somebody else do it for you.

  Karen had a kiss for me. I tried not to notice how warm and soft her breasts felt against my chest. Or the scent of her hair. Or the simple pleasure of her affection for me. It would be so easy to call Mary.

  “I’m scared, Sam, I’m really scared.”

  Karen stares at the empty stall normally filled with Will’s cherry 1957 red Thunderbird. They’d joked that this would be both his Christmas and birthday gift until 2198. T-Birds in this kind of condition are not easy to find no matter what kind of coin you have.

  The time according to my three-dollar-and-ninety-five-cent Timex is now two thirty.

  “Did he come to bed last night?”

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t. The covers weren’t thrown back or anything. He didn’t give you any hint he was going somewhere?”

  “Our whole conversation was about a minute. He just pleaded with me to come over and see him. Help him.”

  She puts long, thin hands over her face and inhales deeply. Then exhales. Then takes her hands away. “A drink and a cigarette. C’mon.”

  The kitchen is modern with gleaming white appliances, a parquet floor and a butcher block set up in the middle of the room.

  We sit there for the next half hour waiting for the phone to ring or the noise of a motor to stir the silence of the driveway. He will be home. He will be safe. He’s had another panic attack. He is such a fuck-up, will we please forgive him this one last time.

  He doesn’t call and he doesn’t come home.

  We decide, being medical experts, that the fight had concussed him after all. Doctors make mistakes and this intern—whom we’d never actually liked or thought much of when you came right down to it—this young doc is as full of shit as the machines they’d used on poor Will. The whole hospital is full of shit. And now here he is brain-damaged and wandering around and where is the intern right now? Probably having one of the night nurses give him a blow job in one of the storage rooms.

  You know how you get when you desperately need to blame somebody.

  Karen gets so riled she is going to call her lawyer right now and institute a lawsuit for at least two hundred million dollars. Or more, dammit—more even.

  Peggy Ann comes out in her little blue nightie to break our hearts. She stands there rubbing her eyes and asking how come Mommy and Daddy aren’t in bed. She’s had a bad dream and ran into their room for comfort but neither one of them was there.

  “How come Uncle Sam is here?”

  “He was working late and stopped by to say hello.”

  “It’s dark out. How come he works when it’s dark?” Way too smart for us.

  “I had to help a friend of mine find his dog.”

  “We had a dog once. He ran away to be with his brothers and sisters.” Woofer had been hit by a truck. The saving lie parents become experts at.

  Karen goes over and picks her up and says, “I’m going to put her back to bed, Sam.”

  The temptation is to call the police. Our laughable chief of police, due to popular demand, had been summarily retired six months ago. His family owns and runs this town. But even they had to concede that he’d botched one too many cases. They’d imported a homicide detective from Peoria to take over the chief’s job. He was reported to be quiet and competent, quite the contrast to Cliffie Sykes, Jr., who’d dressed like Glenn Ford in
Ford’s Western movies—khaki with a campaign hat, don’t you know—and who at his worst made even little children laugh.

  I can call the station and ask for the three night cars to keep a cop eye out for Will in his red T-Bird. They’ll be happy to do it and they’ll likely find him without much problem. The trouble is, I don’t know where Will is or what he’s up to. Given everything that has happened tonight I have the feeling that much worse is possible. I’d been an H. P. Lovecraft fan in high school. I knew all about the dark gods and the enjoyment they take from destroying our lives.

  “I took a trank,” Karen says when she comes back. “I probably shouldn’t have with the two drinks I had but right now I don’t give a damn.”

  “I thought about calling the police.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “He could be just driving around. He might not like being stopped by the cops.”

  “Please, Sam. We need to find him. And right away.”

  The call doesn’t take long. A helpful officer—the new Chief Foster has replaced all of Cliffie’s kin and buddies with officers who’d gone through the police academy and who didn’t think that forensics was for sissies—knows of Will and has seen the T-Bird around and will let all three cars know that they should be watching for him.

  “That makes me feel better, Sam.”

  “I should’ve done it earlier. I guess I’m just punchy.”

  “You look exhausted.”

  “I was in court at nine this morning, meaning I had to be in my office by seven doing paperwork. Same thing tomorrow.”

  She is up and pecking me on the cheek. “I really appreciate you being here. You’re the best friend either of us has ever had.”

  “You hear anything, call me.”

  “Even if I wake you up?”

  “Even if you wake me up.”

  Sleep-hungry as hell, I head for my car.

  4

  WHEN THE PHONE RANG ON THE SMALL TABLE NEXT TO MY BED I wasn’t sure I had the energy to reach for it. Sleep was such a wonderful mistress and now I was being wrenched from her arms by some interloper. Then I realized that it might be Karen and I shot straight up and grabbed the receiver.

  “Sam, this is Paul Foster down at the police station. I know this is one hell of a time to be calling anybody, but something’s come up I could use your help with.”

  The window was pink and gold, dawn. I had to pee real bad. And Tasha the cat had appeared to rub her cool nose against my arm. And I was eyeing my Luckies with great desire.

  But couldn’t these details be part of a dream?

  Since when did the police chief of Black River Falls call on me for some help?

  But dream or not, my presence was required.

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “I know you’re a good friend of Will Cullen’s and Will’s had a bit of trouble and I’d like to tell you about it.”

  “Uh, could you tell me a little bit more?”

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to know more but his wife Karen is here, too, and she needs a friend.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  I was.

  Chief Foster had redecorated Cliffie’s old office. Instead of the John Wayne poster and framed photos of Cliffie all got up as Glenn Ford in various poses, the wall featured posters highlighting what it takes to be a competent police officer. A slight man, he was dressed in a summer-weight blue suit straight off the rack at Sears. I knew that because I had one just like it in a lighter blue. The thinning hair was combed from the right and the narrow, thin face showed intelligence and even reflection.

  “I apologize for waking you up again, Sam, and please call me Paul.”

  Different strokes, as the song said. The laid-back style; hell, the apologies and the sensible clothes—Cliffie would have shot him on sight. I didn’t like it much either. I don’t hate cops, I don’t love cops. But I do distrust cops. “Paul” invited the kind of intimacy that can be dangerous unless you happen to be another cop.

  “Coffee?” He indicated a brewer on top of a gray metal bookshelf.

  “Please.”

  After I’d sat down and after he handed me my cup, he sat down, too, and said, “There’s a good possibility that Will Cullen murdered Steve Donovan last night.” Then, “And from everything I know about Cullen I’d say that it’s a pretty sad thing. I know he accidentally killed a little girl in Nam and has never really gotten over it. I was over there in ’68. One tour and back home. I had a couple of buddies who re-upped. They both got killed. I’m telling you this so you understand that I have some sympathy for your friend. But I’m also a law enforcement officer so I have to do my job.”

  I’d been right to distrust him. Talk about a rush to judgment.

  “Look, Chief, no offense, but you’re way down the road here. Way down. I’ve known Will most of my life. He did not kill anybody.”

  He dismissed me. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do my job.”

  He started doing his job by telling me what he knew so far. Donovan had been drinking most of the night at a place called “Cherie’s,” an upscale roadhouse near the county line. Foster had talked to the manager of the place already this morning. He’d been there all night and said that Donovan had been very drunk but not belligerent. He got even worse when Will went out there and tried to talk to him. That sure as hell hadn’t helped. They tried to talk Donovan into letting somebody drive him home but he got so pissed off the manager finally caved in.

  As yet there were no witnesses to what happened next, or to what Foster assumed happened next. The place was so crowded so early last night that Donovan had been forced to park in a poorly lighted spot near the forest that ran up to Cherie’s property line. When Foster looked over the scene this morning he found that both of Donovan’s rear tires had been slashed. Foster’s surmise was that when Donovan had drunkenly bent over to check on the tires somebody had smashed him over the head with a tire iron.

  “How do you know it was a tire iron?”

  “I’ll get to that. Anyway, a jogger found the body. He cuts through the parking lot every morning to get on a nature trail about a quarter mile from there.

  “Now the tire iron. About a block from the roadhouse there’s a small rest stop. Will pulled in there. One of our patrol cars saw this Thunderbird sitting there and remembered that you’d called about it last night. He checked on the driver who he guessed was sleeping one off. He found the tire iron on the back seat. Bloody, with hair on it. The tire iron is in the forensic lab right now. The driver wasn’t responsive in any way. The officer took him to the ER, where he’s being examined.”

  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.”