The Mortal Groove (15 page)

“Not a problem.”

“I am so excited. You
promise
me that nothing will come up at work, right?”

“I've already got it handled.” Jane had disappointed Kenzie on more than one occasion over the last couple of years, always because of her work schedule. She'd had to cancel a few long weekends in Chadwick, and once she'd even had to back out of a planned vacation. Kenzie was still smarting over that one.

“Hey, look at the time,” said Kenzie. “I've got a class in half an hour and I'm not even dressed.”

“Call me later,” said Jane.

“Love you, babe. Bye.”

Jane sat for a moment and tried to rub the tiredness out of her shoulders. On her way to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich, she looked up and saw Cordelia slumping down the stairs from the second floor.

“Melanie's mother just called.” She held up her cell phone, then let her hand flop to her side.

“And?”

“Mel's officially in a coma. Her vitals are getting stronger, but
they think she may've hit her head when she fell. They're doing tests.”

“And that's why she's still unconscious?”

“The doctors aren't being terribly specific.”

“Do they have a prognosis?”

“Not according to Tammy. That's Melanie's mother. She seems like a nice enough woman, but she has a voice like a frog with a bad head cold.” Cordelia sank down on one of the dining-room chairs.

“Where will she stay while she's here?” asked Jane.

“At Melanie's place. She's renting a duplex over on 34th Avenue. Her mom was asking about a key.”

“Do you have one?”

“As it happens, I do.”

Jane moved over behind Cordelia and began to rub the back of her neck.

“I told Tammy that I'd put a key under a flower pot by the back door. You'll have to drive me back to the Unicorn so I can get my car.”

Cordelia had been too upset to drive herself to the hospital last night. Normally, she refused to ride in Jane's Mini because, as a plus-sized person, she found it Lilliputian.

Jane sat down next to her. “I could drive you over to Melanie's first.”

“Fine,” said Cordelia, her voice a dull monotone. “I got to thinking after I told her about the key. Melanie's mom doesn't know she's gay.”

“That's awkward.”

“Yeah. But this might not be the best time to drop it on her. I think we should go over and de-dyke the place. Melanie would thank us, believe me. What do you say? You wanna help me get rid of her ten copies of
Curious Wine
—or whatever?”

“I'm there,” said Jane, covering Cordelia's hand with her own. “Whatever you need.”

 

Half an hour later, they pulled up in front of a cocoa brown stucco building with white trim. There wasn't much of a yard because the house was so big.

“She rents the first floor,” said Cordelia, struggling to get out of the Mini. “The couple who own it live in the top half. Two gay guys.”

“You don't think her mother is going to get the message?”

“Nope,” said Cordelia. “You know the way it is. Most straight people only see what they want to see. That's why they can live in the world and never think they've met a gay person.”

Jane agreed that it was a strange kind of blindness.

When Cordelia opened the front door, an odd little white critter slithered past. Jane caught it as it darted between her legs.

“What is it?” she asked, holding it up to get a better look. “Oh, Bones! I forgot about him. He's Melanie's cat. She's had him forever.”

“What kind is he?” Jane had never seen anything like him before. He had batlike large brownish ears that stuck out at an upright angle, big round gray eyes, and a tight, white, wavy coat. His paws almost looked like fingers.

“He's a Cornish Rex,” said Cordelia. “Poor thing. I wonder if he has any food or water.”

While Cordelia busied herself in the kitchen, making sure the cat was cared for, Jane drifted through the house. “She likes antiques. And books.”

“Two of her finer qualities.”

Jane scooped up several copies of
Lavender,
the local GLBT paper, off the coffee table in the living room. On top of an old
upright piano she found a bunch of back issues of Lambda Book Report. On the piano bench was a stack of books. Most were current affairs.
American Theocracy,
by Kevin Phillips.
The Battle for God
—
A History of Fundamentalism,
by Karen Armstrong.
The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron,
by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. And two novels:
One Hundred Years of Solitude,
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And
The Remains of the Day,
by Kazuo Ishiguro.

“There's a Fran Lebowitz Reader here,” called Jane. “Think I should bag it?”

“Nah,” said Cordelia, coming through the kitchen door cuddling Bones in her arms.

“She's not really into light reading,” said Jane.

“Actually, she loves a good mystery or romance, but she reads everything.”

Jane walked into the study. Sitting down at Melanie's desk, she picked up several old newspaper clippings and read through them while Cordelia searched the bookcase behind her.

“This is what I was afraid of,” said Cordelia with a groan. “Here's the cache. We'll need a semi to get all these books out of here. Karin Kallmaker. Andrew Holleran. Val McDermid. Armistead Maupin. J. M. Redmann. Michael Cunningham. Sarah Waters. Jim Grimsley. Lori L. Lake. Augusten Burroughs. Radclyffe. Ellen Hart. Hey, maybe I'll have to borrow that last one.”

“Listen to this,” said Jane. “It's from the
Fort Dodge Messenger.
May 21, 1971.”

“Local Woman Found Dead

On Wednesday morning, the body of Susan Bouchard, daughter of Rod and Grace Bouchard, longtime residents of Waldo, Iowa, was found along County Road 6. Mark
Trumble, another resident of Waldo, was on his wav to work in Fort Dodge when he spied two people slumped against a weeping willow along the County Rd. Being a good Samaritan, Mr. Trumble stopped his car to make sure everything was okay. It was later determined that the woman, Susan Bouchard, 20, had been strangled to death sometime during the night. The police were immediately summoned.

 

“The man with Miss Bouchard, Ethan Turk, 24, the son of Harold and Bernice Turk of Waldo, was suffering from a hangover, but was otherwise unharmed. Turk had been sleeping with his arm around Miss Bouchard's stomach and appeared to have no idea how he got there or what had happened.

 

“Mr. Turk has been taken into police custody for further questioning.”

 

“This is incredible,” said Jane. “I had no idea about any of this.”

“Are there more clippings?” asked Cordelia, moving over to a window overlooking the front yard.

“A bunch of them. All from the
Fort Dodge Messenger.”
She moved on to the next.

“May 22, 1971

Ethan Turk Arrested

Ethan Turk, 24, son of Harold and Bernice Turk of Waldo, Iowa, was arrested yesterday for the murder of Susan Bouchard, 20, daughter of Rod and Grace Bouchard, also residents of Waldo. Miss Bouchard's body was discovered in a field along County Road 6 the morning of May 20th.

“In a statement to the press, Mr. Turk's lawyer, Irwin Bernstadt of Des Moines, said that his client was entirely innocent of the murder charge and would plead not guilty at an arraignment later today. Bernstadt added that the police had no proof whatsoever that his client had strangled Miss Bouchard. He made no comment about the fact that Mr. Turk had been found with her the morning her body was discovered.

 

“Before her death, Sue Bouchard was in her second year of a prelaw program at Drake University in Des Moines. She was considered an outstanding student with a bright future. Miss Bouchard had been dating Randall Turk, Ethan Turk's brother, before he left to serve in Vietnam. Randall had returned home less than two weeks before her death. In a statement to this paper, Randall Turk said that he believed his brother to be entirely innocent and would be proved so at the trial.”

 

Jane skipped the next two articles because they were simply a rehash of the first two. “Here's the verdict,” she said.

 

“August 29, 1971

Jury Acquits Turk of Murder

Ethan Turk, resident of Waldo, Iowa, was acquitted yesterday of the murder of Susan Bouchard, daughter of Rod and Grace Bouchard, also of Waldo.

 

“A jury spokesperson gave a statement at the courthouse after the trial: ‘The bottom line was, the prosecution didn't prove its case. Simple as that. In my opinion, Ethan's biggest
error was being at the scene of the crime. He's slow, for sure, but he understands right from wrong. He's a responsible young man with a good future at Casin's Auto Shop. And he had no motive to kill Sue that I could discern. I think the police jumped the gun when they arrested him. I pray he can put this part of his life behind him and move on.'

 

“The parents of Susan Bouchard were asked to make a statement, but left the courthouse without comment.”

 

Jane picked up the last article. “This final one's from the op-ed section.” She read out loud:

 

“September 11, 1971

Getting Away with Patriotic Murder

“As a resident of Waldo, I've had my doubts all along that Ethan Turk murdered Sue Bouchard in cold blood—mainly because I've known Ethan since he was a little boy. He's a decent kid, slow but kindhearted. What bothers me isn't that he was acquitted. I believe that in the last few months, we have witnessed a travesty of justice being perpetrated against Sue and her family—and against the good citizens of Waldo. I refer to the way in which this murder investigation was handled from the outset.

 

“The police saw Ethan as an easy target, so with little else to go on, they accused him of the crime. But let me tell you, the story goes a lot deeper than that. People have been reticent to tell what they saw or heard, some of us may even be afraid, but there's much more to the story than ever came out at the trial.

 

“This is a deeply patriotic community. We abhor the war protesters we see every night on the evening news. We aren't like that. We choose to honor the men and women who have served this country—even in unpopular wars. But in the last couple of days, I've come to the unhappy conclusion that it is
that
desire to honor and protect our heroes which has blinded us in our pursuit of justice.

 

“Now that Ethan has been declared innocent, we feel we can go back to our normal lives, content in the notion that justice has been done. But in doing so we forget that there is still a murderer loose in our midst—a murderer that may have come home to us wearing the uniform we revere so deeply.

 

“If we refuse to look past our own patriotic needs, if we are afraid to scratch beneath the surface of that uniform we honor so passionately, if we let our patriotic reverence blind us to the kind of ugliness that exists in the human soul—even a hero's soul—then we are guilty of just what the so-called hippies accuse us of: My country, right or wrong. That is a banner that should never fly over any home in this nation. It is our own patriotic cowardice that has led us to this refusal to dig deeper into this horrific homicide. But nothing less than the truth should ever satisfy any of us.

Signed,

Alf Trotter

A Proud World War II Vet”

 

“Boy,” said Jane, sitting back and letting the clipping fall to the desk, “I wonder what happened to him. If he's still alive, I'll bet
he'd give us an earful about what really went down all those years ago.” She turned to get Cordelia's reaction, but Cordelia's attention seemed to be focused on something outside the house. “What are you looking at?”

“A truck.”

“What's so interesting about a truck?”

“I wish I had a pair of binoculars. I think the person sitting inside is watching the house. He looks a lot like the guy I saw in the bar last night, black cap and thin face.”

“You never said he had a thin face.”

Cordelia bent closer to the window. “I didn't remember it until right now. I'm positive that's him.”

“Can you see the license plate?”

Cordelia squinted. “Too far away.”

“Maybe I can see it,” said Jane, edging in next to her. “It's a Minnesota plate. CKB—”

“169.”

“No, GKE 789,” said Jane. “Or—”

“Hell, we need to get a closer look.”

“Wait,” said Jane.

Before she could stop her, Cordelia had dashed back through the house and burst out the front door. “Damn,” she said, watching the truck speed off down the street. She stood in the middle of the sidewalk, hands stuffed into the pockets of her new black-and-white football referee's jacket. “Who the hell
is
that guy?”

“Well, if he's the man Melanie met last night, we know one thing for sure. He's dangerous.” Jane stood on the front steps, one hand shading her eyes from the sun. “Rushing out here wasn't exactly smart. Now he's seen you twice.”

Cordelia hugged herself and shivered. “Lord, someone should have my head examined!”

“I'd be happy to make the appointment. Look, I think we better call the cops. Let them know about the truck, and that you think it was the same guy.”

“Absolutely not,” said Cordelia, stomping back up the front steps. “Let me say this once more—slowly—so you get it. If Randy Turk and Delavon Green are pulled into this, it could wreck your father's chance at becoming our next governor. Use your little gray cells, Janey. This is an old murder case—a
cold
case.”