I didn’t say anything. He circled me.
When he got square with my back, he gave me a wedge of rattlesnake boot in the kidney.
I cried out.
“That’s the first thing that pissed me off today, McCain. The second thing was you starting the story that Kenny Whitney didn’t kill his wife.”
At which point, I got another boot toe driven deep into my kidney.
Ruthie suddenly lurched from the car and said, “You leave my brother alone, you asshole. And I don’t care if you’re the chief of police or not.” I guess she really had believed he was just going to talk to me.
“Nice talk for a young lady,” Sykes said.
“Get back in the car, Ruthie. Please.”
“He doesn’t have any right to hit you.”
“We’ll talk about it later, Ruthie.
Please just get back in the car now.”
“You asshole,” she said to Sykes.
“I could run you in,” Sykes said. “Talking to a lawman like that.”
“Too bad I don’t have a necktie, then you could tie me to the jail cell and beat me.” A few years back, Sykes, Sr., had arrested Lem Tompkins, a hardware store clerk who was a rival for Sykes, Jr.’s girlfriend.
Sykes, Sr., accused Tompkins of driving while intoxicated then took him back to the cell where he tied him to the bars and beat him pretty badly. Lem ended up in the hospital for a week. Sykes, Sr., somehow managed to convince the town that Lem, who’d been in trouble for breaking and entering a few years back, had attacked Sykes, Sr. Judge Whitney demanded
Sykes’ resignation. But the town was in a bind-their choice being the cold, imperious arrogance of the old money Whitneys versus the cold, imperious arrogance of the new-money barbarians at the gate as represented by the Sykes family. It isn’t much of a choice but I guess I’d lean toward the upper-crust intelligence of the Whitneys. The town leaned toward the Sykeses. Sykes, Sr., kept his job.
Ruthie finally got back in the car. I just kept thinking of her pregnant. Little Ruthie.
My kid sister. Knocked up.
“Now, this is a nice simple case of murder and suicide,” Sykes was saying. “And anybody who says anything different is full of shit. Including that bitch you work for. She’s just trying to salvage what she can of her family’s reputation. Well, Counselor, I could give a shit about her family’s reputation. There’s going to be an inquest in the morning and I want this whole thing wrapped up by noon and I don’t want any interference from you or your boss. She was shot four times with the thirty-two we found four feet from her body. The county doc tells me that death was probably instantaneous. Then you got there and talked to Whitney and he went upstairs and shot himself. We understand each other, Counselor?”
I was cold, I had to pee, my ribs felt broken and my kidney felt on fire. My nose was running from the wind. I felt humiliated, and angry. Someday, I was going to have the pleasure of smacking Cliffie in the face, and to hell with the consequences.
“We understand each other, Counselor? I hear any more stories about Kenny not being the one who killed Susan, I’m running you in. Got that?”
He stood in front of me now, over me.
He looked like he was enjoying my cigarette pretty well. “Now, get on your feet so I can walk you back to your car.”
Pain had silenced me. Getting to my feet was difficult. At one point, I thought I might pitch over backward, but I kept pushing my legs to stand straight up. Finally, I was able to stand up without wobbling.
We walked back to my car, our footsteps loud as they crunched gravel. We moved much more slowly than before.
“She’s not going to do it to me again, Counselor.
And neither are you. This is one murder case that I’ve got in the bag.”
Cliffie and Judge Whitney have this game: he arrests somebody for murder and she hires me to prove that the person is innocent.
She doesn’t care about justice any more than Cliffie does. He just wants an arrest so he can close the case and prove to the town that he’s a detection wizard; she just wants to humiliate him. If somebody innocent gets hurt in the cross fire, so be it. Neither cares. Their war has been going on for a long time now and is likely to continue.
At the car, he said, “Tell Judge Whitney she doesn’t have to be at the inquest tomorrow. Everything is laid out. I’ll be there and so will the county attorney.” He smiled. “My cousin Phil.” Then, “Oh, and Judge Hardy. He’ll be there, too. I kept trying to get to Judge Whitney but seems she was in meetings all day.”
An inquest like this would generally fall under Judge Whitney’s jurisdiction, but Cliffie was way ahead of us. He’d gotten his crony judge Hardy and his cousin the county attorney to preside over the inquest. Being beneficiaries of the Sykeses’ largesse, they’d say whatever Cliffie told them to.
I got in the car. He held the door open.
He kept looking at Ruthie. He probably imagined that she found him sexy. His gun hand rode on the bone handle of his holstered weapon.
“You’re the smart one in the family, Ruthie.
You tell this brother of yours to stay out of trouble.
All right?”
She just glared at him.
Cliffie grinned. “Well, good night. And be sure to give my best to your folks.”
“Are you all right?” Ruthie said as soon as I closed the door.
“I’ll live.”
“But that’s illegal, what he did.”
“I’m all right, Ruthie.” I reached over and patted her hand. “Really.”
“That’s the kind of person I’m going after when I’m a lawyer. The man who hides behind the law. They’re the worst kind of law.”
“Right now, I’m more worried about your situation than I am about Cliffie.”
I started my car. It trembled to life. I gave it a quarter-inch of choke. After a few seconds in which nothing seemed to happen, in which the motor continued to tremble, the choke kicked in and the gas flow evened out and the motor ran smoothly.
Sykes was gone by now. I drove back to town. The windows in the houses gleamed silver with flickering Tv images. Every once in a while you’d see teenagers walking with skates slung over their shoulders, headed for the rink. I had Koma on the radio. They were playing nothing but Buddy Holly and Richie Valens and rock stars were calling in and saying how great those guys had been and how much they’d be missed.
I looked over at Ruthie. “So what’re you going to do?”
“Try the potassium.”
“When?”
“Probably tomorrow.”
“You let me know right away.”
“Just don’t tell anybody.”
“God, are you crazy? Who would I tell?”
“Does that mean you’re ashamed of me?”
She wasn’t as cool inside as she was trying to pretend. “Of course I’m not ashamed of you.
You’re my sister. I love you.”
“You don’t think I’m a whore?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m not.”
“You slept with one boy. That’s hardly being a whore.”
“One-and-a-half.”
“Huh?”
“Remember Roger?”
“The kid with the stutter?”
“Yeah.”
“I let him get to somewhere between second and third base.”
“Oh.”
“But only once. At a New Year’s
Eve party when we were sophomores. And I’d had some wine.”
“That still doesn’t make you a whore.”
“Sometimes I just worry that Father Gillis is right.”
“You mean about how most girls who go all the way in high school end up in Chicago as prostitutes?” I said.
“‘Prosties.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what Father Gillis calls them.”
“Oh.”
“So he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. You know, like Frank Sinatra or somebody.
He gave the girls this lecture about a year ago. After mass one Sunday.”
“If every girl in this town who went all the way in high school ended up in Chicago on the streets, there wouldn’t be room for anybody else to walk.”