Dead Letter (25 page)

"I guess so." I got to my feet. "Thanks,
Felicia. You’ve been a help."

"I feel like a stinker," she said dismally.
"In spite of the rancor, I still love what this goddamn place
ought to be." She looked mournfully about the room. "Ten
years," she said. "And do you know why?"

I shook my head.

"For love. So he could stay a little boy. So he
wouldn’t have to grow up like the rest of them."

"Your husband?"

She didn’t say anything. But the suffering look in
her black eyes did.
 

22

Across campus and up one flight of stairs I found the
Gargoyle Record Shop. Two naked rooms with record bins on every wall.
Leo Earle, or the guy I took to be Leo Earle, was sitting behind a
register by the door. He was a tall young man, in his early thirties,
husky, sloppy, and obviously bored with his work. Although he was
sitting with his back facing the open room, I could tell that one
flap of his shirt was out in back. He was the type. His pants would
be falling down periodically, too. He had a broad, boyish face. Wore
a light moustache, shaped like a flier’s wings. Horn-rimmed
glasses. Brown hair that spilled off his scalp, down his neck and
curled on his forehead in a love lock. He didn’t know me and he
figured I wasn’t
going to buy anything, so
he didn’t waste any energy on hellos.

I told him who I was and what I wanted and he gawked
at me in disbelief.

"You say you talked to Fell this morning? How do
I know that?"

"Give her a call."

"I will," he said.

He eyed me cagily, as if he thought I were going to
bolt and run when he put my lie to the test. When I didn’t budge,
he looked disappointed.

He made the call anyway, cupping his hand over the
mouthpiece so I couldn’t yell any advice. All I could hear was
"some guy," "Char1ey," and "O.K." When
he hung up, he turned to me with a boyish, chastened grin. It was
probably the same look he’d been giving Felicia for the last ten
years.

"I’m sorry about the confusion," he said,
jabbing ineffectually at his loose shirt tail. "How often do you
meet a private eye?" He held out his hand, like a real man. And
I shook it.

"I did some security work myself one summer,"
he said avidly.

And I could just see him in his Wells Fargo uniform
with an empty gun on his Sam Browne, defending the honor of the
all-night grocery the company had stuck him in. It’s frightening to
think about all the college kids, unemployed salesmen, and
self-styled gunsels who are hired for security duty in groceries and
five-and-dimes.

The general theory is that anybody wearing a badge
and a pistol can serve as an intimidating prop—like those decals
that security firms hand out with their burglar alarms: "This
house is protected by X " But, believe me, a tough with a
shotgun under his coat isn’t going to fall for a pretty uniform.
Which is why the mortality rate in U-Totems is so damn high. Until
some real standards of training are established, yokels like Leo
Earle are going to continue to get paid minimum wage to be killed and
are going to continue to think it’s fun.

"You know where the term ‘private eye’ came
from?" he asked.

"Pinkerton."

His face fell. "Yeah. That’s right. That was
their trademark. An open eye and the motto, 'We ever sleep.' "

"Do you think we could get out of here for a
while, Leo. I could use some coffee."

"I guess so. There isn’t much doing here this
morning anyway. I guess it would be all right."

Leo locked up the shop and we went next door to the
Hidden Corner—an unprepossessing restaurant that serves some of the
best food in the city. I boosted him to a cup of coffee and let him
talk for five minutes about his dissertation on the founding of the
Royal Society. Then I steered him back to Charley McPhail. It was
clearly not a subject he wanted to be steered toward. When I asked
him why, he said, "I was there when they found his body."

"I see."

"There are eight pints of blood in the human
circulatory system," he said grimly. "And poor Charley had
spilled every drop on that damn bed."

Earle shivered in his chair and rubbed the coffee cup
as if he were warming his hands over a fire.

"I know it was ugly, Leo. I know he was your
friend. But I’ve got to ask you to do some remembering. A girl’s
life may depend on it."

It sounded silly, but it was the sort of silliness
that impressed Leo Earle. He really was the little boy his wife had
said he was. Full of enthusiasms and blank spaces. "A girl’s
life?" he said, rolling it on his tongue. "Really?"

"Really," I said with dead earnestness.
"I’m not being coy. This is literally a matter of life and
death."

Hot dog! Leo said to himself and rubbed his hands on
the coffee cup.

"What do you want to know‘?"

"I want to know why he committed suicide."

Earle sighed painfully. "That’s not an easy
question to answer."

"I’d like to hear what you think."

"Well, Lovingwell, of course. He was the
efficient cause. He and the razor blades Charley used."

"And the final cause?"

Leo looked at me sadly. "You know that Charley
was a homosexua1?"

I nodded.

"He’d been having an affair with someone on
campus. A long-standing thing. When Lovingwell made such a fuss about
O’Hara’s article and Charley got caught in between, this friend
of his dropped him."

"Why?" I said.

"I don’t know. Charley would never talk about
it. He was a very private man. Very defensive about his personal
life. The only reason I know about his lover at all is that Charley
got very drunk one night at a faculty party—Lovingwell had been
tormenting him with snide remarks—and when I took him home, he
started to cry."

Leo squinted at the memory. "It wasn’t a
pleasant thing to see. He’d always been so much in control, so
self-contained. To see him break down like that . . ."

"Did he ever mention his lover’s name?" I
said.

Earle shook his head. "It wasn’t like a
confession. It was more of a lament. He just couldn’t believe what
had happened to his life. After that night he went home for a week or
so. His folks live in Batesville, Indiana, I think. When he came
back, he seemed to have himself under control. I figured something
had happened while he was away. Some sort of reconciliation with his
lover. Charley seemed quite ashamed of his outburst when I saw him.
He asked me never to mention it again." Earle’s boyish face
turned red. "I said that I wouldn’t. A week later he slashed
his wrists in Daniels."

Leo looked up from his coffee cup and frowned
savagely. "When I read that Lovingwell had been murdered, do you
know what I did?"

"What!"

"I said a prayer that whoever killed him would
never be found."

If it hadn’t been for Sarah, I think I might have
agreed.
 

23

It was an hour’s drive to Batesville. Out through
the sulfur-yellow gorges and huge, forested hills of southern Ohio
and then into that flat, pallid Indiana countryside where high power
stations and occasional farm houses are the only scenery amid
treeless fields of snow. Lurman had come along because it was his
job. I could see from the distraction on his face that most of him
was looking ahead to nightfall, when the real business of killing or
being killed might take place.

Most of me was looking back. Seven years. To two
suicides and one vicious man, if he’d been a man—he seemed to me
now like an illusion, a trick done with infernal mirrors. I was
looking back and thinking about that greed, that Sarah and Meg O’Hara
had said was his only motive. And not simply a greed for money. But
apparently for whatever people held dear. O’Hara’s reputation.
McPhail’s self-esteem. Claire Lovingwell’s inheritance. Sarah’s
damaged love for her dead mother. He’d had a true bully’s
instinct for the weaknesses of his victims, for the tender spots
where their courage failed. Mercilessly, he’d reduced them to death
or to impotence; and all the while he’d prospered.

Whatever I found at the McPhail home, it would lead
me back to that greedy ghost. How he’d intended to profit, what
driving the McPhail boy to suicide had gained him, I wasn’t sure. I
only knew that there had to have been some profit. That humiliating
McPhail, using him against O’Hara, and then forcing him to recant,
had gotten Lovingwell something he’d wanted. Some trinket,
somebody’s soul on a chain. Perhaps his rival’s, O’Hara’s.
Perhaps McPhail’s unknown lover. At best, Charley McPhail’s
parents could tell me precisely why Lovingwell had ruined their son.
At worst, they could tell me more about his lover, who might have
nursed an old hurt for seven years before salving it in Lovingwell’s
blood.

It was high noon when we got to the Harrison exit. I
dropped down through a stand of leafless oak trees onto a two-lane
state road. And about four miles south we hit the first cluster of
tract homes, nondescript bungalows and single-story ranch houses that
looked as desperately lifeless as trailer parks. We passed through
the city proper, four or five blocks of two-story frame buildings,
dotted incongruously with the red tile roofs and teepee-tops of
fast-food joints. And then into a maple-lined grid of brick houses
and snow-covered lawns. I pulled into a gas station and, while a
pasty-faced boy in a parka tried to fill the tank and keep warm at
the same time, I found a phonebook and looked up McPhail. There was
only one listing. On Kearney Street. Number 153.

It was a tiny, two-story bungalow, sided in aluminum
and badly in need of repairs. Rust seemed to be everywhere about the
house. The cyclone fencing in the front yard was full of it. It came
off on my glove when I opened the gate at the foot of the short,
snowy walk that lead to the front door. It coated the mailbox and the
screens on the square, shaded windows.

Lurman, not a man of delicate sensibility, began to
fidget. "I can’t take this, Harry," he said. "They’re
going to be old, and you’re going to bring back the reason for all
of this." He looked forlornly about the small, untended yard.
"It’s all too damn familiar. I’m going back to the car."

He walked down the snowy walk and left me standing on
the porch. I knocked again.

"Who’s there?" a timid voice asked. It
could have been a man or a woman. It was that old and out of
register. I looked back at the car and thought, you can still call
this off, Harry. But she was at the storm door by then. Loose print
dress with the frill of her slip trailing at the hemline. Hair white
and thin on top. Rouge spots on her cheeks. Lustrous brown eyes that
had lost their focus.

"What is it?" she said. "Who do you
want?"

"Mrs. McPhail?"

"That’s me." She pulled at her dress.
"I’m Clovis McPhail."

"Could I come in, Mrs. McPhail? My name is
Stoner. I want to talk to you about your son."

"Charley?" she said. "You a friend of
Charley’s?"

"Not exactly a friend," I said with half a
heart.

"What is it you want, mister? Charley’s dead.
There isn’t anything else to say. He’s dead, his pop’s dead,
and I’m still here." She looked past me toward the tired
street. "You explain it."

"I can’t. I can’t explain why your son is
dead. Can you help me?"

"Why?" she said flatly. "Why bother?
It won’t do him any good to explain. It won’t do me any good
either."

"It might," I said.

She shook her head. "I’ve been through it too
many times. It’s been too many years."

"All right, Mrs. McPhail," I said. "I’m
sorry I bothered you."

I started down the walk when she called me back.

"You could come in if you want. I don’t see
that many folks I can afford to scare ’em off. You could come in.
For awhile."

The parlor was neat and sweet-smelling. The old
mahogany furniture, the sideboards and end tables, were covered with
linen doilies. She showed me to a wood rocker with a little quilted
cushion on the seat.

"I try to keep it clean," she said, sitting
across from me on an old armchair. "Gan’t do much about the
outside. Not since Lou died. But I try to keep it clean in here."
She looked at me with naked suspicion, as if she thought I were about
to sell her something she didn’t want to buy. "Why do you want
to talk about Charley? What’s this about? Are you with a newspaper
or something?"

"I’m a private detective."

That tickled her. "You’re joshing me?"

"Nope. It’s a poor trade, but mine own."

"Who are you investigating? Charley?"

"No. The death of a man named Lovingwell."

"I know him," she said. "He’s the
son-of-a-bitch that gave Charley such a hard time. I told Charley to
stick up for himself. To tell that bastard he wouldn’t do his dirty
work for him. But . . ." She waved her hand, as if she were
bidding the idea goodbye once and for all. "He never had
anything in here, my boy, Charley." She pressed her stomach and
made a sour, disappointed face.