The End of the Pier (11 page)

Sam thought for a second. “Angela—something?”

“That ain't ‘Dynasty,' ” she said, spitting it out.

“ ‘Falcon Crest,' ” said Butts, scratching at his belly. “That's Jane Wyman you're talking about. This one don't look like her, does she, Ma Gris?”

Hell, thought Sam. Well, given in his whole life he'd clocked up maybe one full hour of the soaps, he thought he was doing pretty damned well. Nothing lost; let them chew over Jane.

“I got no use for that woman, none,” Ma Gris said in deadly level tones. “Do you know she
divorced
our
President.”
A sort of hissing whisper emphasized the devilish nature of Jane Wyman's treacherous deed. “And let me tell you something.” She leaned forward and tapped Sam on the knee with a ridged fingernail. “The Betty Kelleys of this world, they ought to be drawn and quartered, drawn and
quartered,
think they can sling dirt against our President's wife.” Ma Gris rocked furiously, arms locked forth-rightly across her skinny chest, nodding to Sam as if in approbation of his, not her, judgment.

“What the hell you going on about, Ma Gris? Who's Betty—?”

“Do
not
swear at me, Carl Butts. It's that blond-headed floozie of which I speak.”

Sam quickly got out his pack of gum and shoved a stick into his mouth, clearing his throat and also biting the tender flesh of the inside of his upper lip. A week's pay,
step right up to the bat and give a week's pay,
he thought, to have Maud listening to this. When he could trust himself to speak, he said, “I most certainly agree. Gossips like her deserve to be horse-whipped.” His mind was clicking, clicking over any way to introduce the topic of murder. The attempt on Reagan's life might do, but any venturing near the Reagan household, with Ma Gris in the party, could have him here until the snows came to cover him up. And no closer would he be to Loreen Grizzell Butts.

The charge of “floozie” came this time from Carl Butts, who hadn't forgotten they'd been talking about the soap-opera life of the hapless Jane Wyman. “You got the wrong gal, mister. You're thinking of Krystle.” He took a long swallow of beer and looked at Sam with an air of superiority.

Who was Crystal? he thought. Ma Gris leaned forward. “With a
K
,” she said.

Sam thought for one insane moment she could read minds. And then he realized it was just her passion for justice in name-spelling. “Dynasty,” that must be it. He smiled broadly and said, “Listen, I got to tell you this story about ‘Dynasty.'
You'll
appreciate it,” he added, as if no one else had the intelligence to do so. “I was watching”—meaning Florence was—“one afternoon and saw”—oh, shit, what was the apparent hero's name?—“saw Mr. Handsome Gray-Hair go backwards straight down that long flight of stairs. Shot to death—”

“Blake,” she said, rocking frantically, and all ears.

“That's right. Blake. Well, he was just lying there, and there was Miss Platinum”—it had to be Krystle—“Krystle with a smoking gun.”

Both Butts and his mother-in-law clearly wanted to leap into the account, but Sam held up his hand and smilingly shook his head. “But let me just finish. That
night
I was watching”—in other words, Florence had been—“and there's Blake walking around as healthy as could be. Hale and hearty, no damage done. But that afternoon he was dead as a doornail. Looked it, I mean. And there was Krystle just loving him up as if that afternoon had never happened.”

Neither Butts nor Ma Gris laughed. It was far too serious a subject for ribaldry. Sam chewed his gum ferociously, remembering telling Maud about all this, how it was the quintessence of the soaps: get shot in the afternoon and resurrected at night. The whole of soap opera. The two of them had laughed so hard she'd nearly knocked the lamp off the end of the pier.

He didn't expect the Butts contingent to laugh, and they didn't. Carl explained to Sam he was seeing a rerun in the afternoon. “That's a real popular show—been going for, oh—how long, Ma Gris? Seven, eight years, maybe?”

She didn't answer her son-in-law, but instead addressed Sam. “It should be disallowed.” When Sam's puzzlement showed, she went on, rocking the harder as if to firm up her argument. “See, the reruns spoils things—like it did for you, to see Blake killed and then a few hours later, walking around bold as brass.” Unmindful of the inanity of her comment, she smacked her dry lips in satisfaction.

Sam felt nearly sucked into the vortex of this total illogic; he almost felt he should convince her that any “Dynasty” freak would already have seen Krystle trying to stiff Blake.

It was Butts who answered her. “Well, now, Ma Gris, why get mad at Blake? It was Krystle's doing. Right?” His head turned toward Sam.

Sam was afraid they'd all start getting involved in the “Dynasty” family squabble and opened his mouth to divert this. It was unnecessary, for she counterattacked.

“You men
always
side!”

She didn't need to add “against the women.”

Sam couldn't have written a better script himself to open up the Loreen Butts case. He laughed slightly. “Now, though, Mrs. Grizzell—in this case, she
did
shoot him.”

Ma Gris slapped her hands on the arms of the chair in the act of rocking forward and answered ferociously: “Drove her to it! That man
drove
that poor woman—”

“Hey! Now, just you hold on, Ma.” Butts nervously fingered a cigarette from a pack tight in the pocket of his fatigue-green T-shirt. “Just you hold on now.” He lit the cigarette and tossed the matches in the full ashtray angrily. “I'd say just hold on.” He puffed in quick little jabs and kept his eyes trained on the blue-green images on the silenced soap opera.

After a moment Sam said, “Well, Krystle
was
under a lot of pressure.”

Smack
went the knobbled hands down on the chair arms. It must have smarted, but Sam had given her her opportunity. “God
knows
the poor woman was—”

Butts was still feigning interest in the faces floating like ragged water, but now his face reddened as he said, “It ain't Krystle you're talking about, is it? It's
Loreen.
You think I
drove
Loreen to seek companionship elsewhere.”

His prim way of putting this rather astonished Sam.

Mrs. Grizzell said, “Why, no—that—”

“Don't tell me no. You been near to sayin' it straight out ever since it happened.” He stubbed out his cigarette furiously.

Equally surprising to Sam was the mother-in-law's equable answer. “Now, your job did take you away a lot, Carl. And Loreen left alone here to see after the boy.”

“That's
my
fault?” He punched his thumb into his chest. “And she never did much seeing to Raymond, anyway.”

“Raymond's my grandson. Looks the spit of the Grizzells, if I do say it.” Smoothing her skirt, she went on: “Never said it was your fault. Man has a job, he's got to do it. But look what the papers made of it, of my Loreen being . . . you know. Now, Loreen was
never
one to go about with other men—not like that Perry woman. Everyone knew she was a common whore. Went off and left them kids of hers with no one to take care of—”

Butts cracked his knuckles; his biceps rippled beneath the thin cotton. “Took up with Boy Chalmers, though, didn't she?”

“Never ‘took up' a
tall;
you know her and Boy was friends from grade school. That's what Boy Chalmers was, just a friend.”

“All he could be,” murmured Butts to the silent hospital corridors, where the nurses soundlessly belabored their patients.

Sam had moved not a muscle, had hardly blinked for fear of disturbing the current between the two. Now he brought down the front legs of the chair he'd been tilted back in. The tiny, sly smile on
Carl Butts's face vanished at Sam's movement; he looked at Sam furtively, and his jaw clenched like a vise. Sam said nothing.

Loreen's mother went on, unmindful of the implication of her son-in-law's comment. “To tell the truth—and I don't mean to pain you, son—but I always thought Loreen and Boy would . . . you know.” Her eyes widened, the cold blue of them covered with a glaze of rime. She brought out her handkerchief again, kneading it in her lap.

Butts said nothing, but Sam saw his mouth crimp. He looked at his shoes.

To Sam, Ma Gris said, “Let me tell you about Loreen. That girl was shy. Shy and quiet.” She swiveled to glare at her son-in-law. “And don't you go trying to paint a picture like the papers did—that my Loreen was a tart!” It was the even, deadly tone she'd used before, the last words brought down neat as a cleaver.

Carl Butts flinched. “I never said that. You know, I never.”

“But smart,” she went on. “Loreen was smart as a whip. Clever. She could've been an actress.” Here she looked at the TV, the doubled image of the toffee-haired girl. “Better than
her.
Could have acted rings around her. Could've been better than Jane Wy-man and Krystle put together.”

“Well, she could rile a man, Ma; you know that.” He sounded almost apologetic. “Tart as green apple pie, Loreen could be.”

The woman nearly screeched: “Don't you go calling Loreen a tart! Yes, she could rile a person, but only if pushed, Carl Butts. It is a
bald
-faced
lie
to make out anything else.”

“Ma Gris, I only meant—”

But what he only meant cut no ice with her. To Sam, she said, “They got it
all
wrong—the papers, the police.” And she suddenly sat back as hard as if Butts had shoved a fist in her chest. Ma Gris must have remembered it was police she was sitting here jawing at. “Just what do you want to come bothering us for, Mr. Du-
Geen
?” Spite stung the syllables.

“Sorry, Mrs. Grizzell. You see, I kind of agree with you, that we got it all wrong. See, I talked with Boy Chalmers, and he didn't seem the type to do this.”

“Goddamn right he wasn't!” Butts all but shouted. His jealousy, his questioned manliness finally overcame his better judgment. “That man's a fag!”

Ma Gris paled. “Carl Butts!”

With as mean a look as Sam had seen, he leaned toward her. “Queer as they come. Mr. Handsome-Boy. Has everyone fooled.”

“Including Loreen, do you think?” asked Sam.

The mother-in-law kept opening and closing her mouth like the wide-eyed nurse on the TV screen. She was speechless.

Butts waved a deprecating hand at Sam. “Oh, hell, man. Women can hardly ever tell. A real man can, that's all.” And he looked Sam up and down as if calling his manliness into question, since apparently Sam hadn't figured out Boy Chalmers.

But the look changed when Sam said, “So neither one of you thought he was guilty.”

In the silence, only the creak of the rocking chair was audible; and even it stopped, finally. Neither one of them would meet Sam's eyes.

They knew what he was thinking: that the two of them had kept silent because the other main suspect was Carl Butts.

Butts began defending himself against Sam's silence. “Well, the jury thought so. And maybe they're smarter.”

Ma Gris leaned towards the TV set, switched it off, sat back. She said nothing, nor would she look at Sam.

Sam stood up. “I guess I'll be going. Thanks for the beer. Mr. Butts . . . Mrs. Grizzell.” He nodded toward each of them, though the eyes of each were now fastened to the dark screen.

Sam let the door swing quietly behind him and walked down the rubbishy pavement. In the gathering dusk he saw the faint gleam of a firefly, ready for the dark.

•  •  •

Nearly a year ago, that screen door had shut.

He'd gone through half a pack of cigarillos sitting out here in the dark watching Bunny Caruso's house.

He hadn't expected that any talk with Carl Butts would have turned up new evidence, and it hadn't. Even if Butts and Loreen's mother had agreed to testify to the characters of both the victim and the alleged murderer, it wouldn't have been enough to turn the case around. A mother is obviously going to say her little girl wasn't “that type”; and though the husband was as sure as Sam himself that Boy Chalmers was a homosexual, it was a supposition on their parts. The kid wasn't a
practicing
homosexual; Sam had spent plenty of time with his friends and family, obliquely asking that question. A few of the men who knew him were inclined to wonder about Boy's sexual leanings, but, again, he was so well liked no one wanted to come right out and voice their suspicions.

Anyway, wondered Sam, starting in on a fresh cigarillo, what the hell would it have proved? Even if the kid were a rampaging fag and everyone knew it, who's to say a gay might not in a moment of gross and perverse behavior try to rape a woman? Sam didn't believe it, not about Boy Chalmers, but it wasn't something anyone could
prove.

So Boy Chalmers had by now lived out a year of a life sentence.

When Tony Perry and then Loreen Butts had been murdered, Sam had remembered the Hayden crime—not that he'd ever really forgotten it—and walked into the mayor's office and told him he thought the Eunice Hayden case should be reopened, that he, Sam should be given access to the files on it, and that Sheriff Sedgewick should cooperate in every way possible.

This was before the murder of Nancy Alonzo, and Mayor Sims was in the fourth year of the throes of his re-election campaign. He could never stop campaigning, because he must have realized how tenuous was his hold on the job and seen an opponent behind every tree. Unfortunately, there weren't that many who wanted the position—a young attorney here, a chairman of
the board of education there, but no one seemed to be taking it seriously. You get into the habit, Sam supposed, of seeing the same man turn up in the Rainbow on the same stool talking about the same town business. For Sam to walk in with something so politically inflammatory as wanting to drag out an old murder and tie it to a fresh one made the mayor wave away his curtain of cigar smoke (he honestly thought that his cigars and seersucker suits would put people in mind of Spencer Tracy) and look at Sam as if he'd gone crazy.