Free The Day the Music Died by Ed Gorman Page A

names but we knew exactly whom we were talking about.
    “You really believe anything Chief Sykes has to say?”
    “Then who killed her, McCain?”
    “That’s what I need to find out. I thought maybe you could tell me who she was hanging around with lately. Guys, I mean.”
    “Nobody in particular.”
    The late-afternoon traffic was starting to pile up, our version of rush hour. The shadows were starting to kidnap the day, the sky layered salmon and gold and a kind of celestial puce. Kids were lobbing snowballs back and forth, yard to yard. Scarves were trailing behind the prone bodies of kids steering their sleds downhill to the sidewalks. In a lot of houses, small groups of kids would be gathered in front of the TV watching Hopalong Cassidy or Howdy Doody or the Three Stooges. And moms in kitchens would be starting supper, the smells rich and good on the chill melancholy of the fading winter day, spaghetti and pot roasts and cheese casseroles.
    “I really need you to think hard, Debbie.”
    “I knew that’s what you wanted.”
    “What I wanted?”
    “Yeah, when you pulled up back there. That you wanted to talk to me about Susan.”
    “You were her best friend.”
    She took another drag and looked out the window. “I really like this town.”
    “So do I.”
    “I just wish people didn’t gossip so much.”
    “It’s just the way people are. And most people here don’t gossip that much. Just a few of them. And it doesn’t matter where you move to because they’ll be that way there, too.”
    “I suppose.” Then, “She wasn’t screwing a lot of guys, if that’s what you mean.”
    “I didn’t say she was.”
    “She only slept with a couple of guys.”
    “I don’t suppose you’d tell me who they are.”
    “I wasn’t screwing a lot of guys, either.”
    “I’m sure you weren’t.” Then, “Would you tell me who she was sleeping with?”
    “Well, Tommy Fennelly for one. But he left for the service three months ago. Camp Pendleton.”
    “Wasn’t he a little young for her?”
    “He was nineteen. But he’s a real nice kid. A couple of times, he tried to get her off the booze. He sat up with her the whole night at his apartment, she told me. Let her cry and throw up and tear his place apart. She quit for a while, too. Couple of weeks, one time. Not one single drink that whole time.”
    Tommy Fennelly had always seemed to me nothing much more than a loafer—a little pool, a few card games, minor trouble with the law now and then. But Debbie had swept all that away. She’d just made him a damned nice kid.
    “Who else?”
    She sighed. “And Steve Renauld.”
    “At Leopold Bloom’s?”
    “Yeah. I couldn’t believe it, either. He’s such a loser. Mr. High and Mighty.”
    “How the hell did she get hooked up with him?”
    “Well, you know, we used to go in there and look around. He and his wife have nice stuff in there. Or anyway, that’s what Susan told me. I couldn’t tell. I mean, Susan was educated. I’m just a bumpkin.”
    “Same here.”
    “You’re a lawyer, McCain.”
    “A lot of lawyers are bumpkins.”
    “Really?”
    “Hell, yes.”
    “Well, you’re not as much of a bumpkin as I am, anyway.”
    “So you started going to Renauld’s place.”
    “And he started asking Susan if he could paint her. Him and his painting. I used to call him ‘Vincent Van Phony.’ He heard me once and really got pissed off. But he kind of wore her down. And she started posing for him. You know, he’s got that so-called studio over on Jackson Street. That’s where they did the dirty deed, anyway.”
    “When was this?”
    “About a month ago. She said they were both pretty drunk the times it happened.”
    “She tell you anything else?”
    “Just that he wasn’t much in the sack and that she sort of felt sorry for him. She said that once and I’ve always remembered it.”
    “Said what?”
    “Said she couldn’t sleep with a man she didn’t feel sorry for. She didn’t like most men.