FOURTEEN

Elijah Murphy was in Indian River when he fell off the wagon.

He awoke that fateful morning clean, sober and hungry. He fixed a little something to eat, waved at the widow Wilfred when she swept her porch, and hummed pleasantly to himself as he swept out his shack. His woodpile was huge, the junk was gone from his yard, he had some groceries laid in, and his new bathroom was coming right along. This would be a good day, he decided, to go to the hardware store in Indian River. He made a mental note of the bathroom fittings he needed and did some measuring. Then he pulled on his coat and set off.

He walked to the hard road and hitched a ride to town. The farmer who gave him a ride dropped him right in front of the hardware store. After he purchased his fittings, he stood on the sidewalk looking the town over.

Elijah Murphy hadn’t taken a really good look at this town in years, probably because he was always drunk or suffering from DTs when he was there. This morning he strolled the sidewalk looking in store windows and examining facades, marveling at changes both large and subtle that had occurred over the years without his notice.

Somehow he found himself in front of the Paris Saloon, a lowlife dive about as far as one could get from Gay Paree on this side of the Atlantic. Why he found himself staring through the dirty windows of this beer joint at the drunks inside holding up the bar is one of life’s great mysteries, one that was certainly beyond the ability of Elijah Murphy to wrestle with at that moment. All he knew was that he was thirsty and there was beer right through that door.

He had been doing very well sober, but he didn’t think about that now. He had also been making excellent progress with the widow Wilfred, which was a bright spot in his life. He liked her immensely and she seemed to like him. Alas, he wasn’t thinking about that good lady when he pushed open the door to the Paris Saloon and strolled through.

She popped into his thoughts for a fleeting moment as he stepped up to the bar, however. Murphy knew precisely what she would say if she saw him in here.

“Just one beer won’t matter,” he told his conscience, and meant it.

“Murphy, where have you been?” the bar slattern said. “Our profits went off the cliff when you stopped coming. We thought you had died.”

“I’m healthy and thirsty, honey,” replied Elijah Murphy, man of the world. “Gimme a cold one.”

“We don’t serve ’em warm, Murphy,” the girl said. As the barflies tittered, she added, “This is a high-class joint.”

“A draft.”

“You got it.”

That first sip was the high point in Elijah Murphy’s life. Never had anything tasted so good. It was as if he had emerged from a desert after an eternity without water, and into his parched, burning mouth flowed the tangy, bubbling, foaming essence of all that was good and desirable in life.

Fortunately more than one sip was available; he held a cold, dripping, brimming glass of this marvelous elixir right in his hand. So he had another sip. And another.

When the glass was empty, he called for more.

Junior Grimes was in the garage working on Harley Martel’s ’57 Chevy Bel Air when Sam Neely came storming in. The scene yesterday with Diamond at Richard Hudson’s house had been festering for almost twenty-four hours and he was looking for someone to shout at. For reasons he thought excellent, he had settled on Junior as that someone.

“How come,” Neely demanded, “you didn’t tell me that Crystal and Diamond Ice are identical twins?”

Junior extracted his head from under Martel’s hood and turned in amazement. The state trooper standing there in a towering fury irritated Junior somewhat. “Say what?”

Neely belligerently repeated his question.

“Everybody knows they’re identical twins,” Junior said.

“I didn’t.”

“They’re not exactly identical; pretty close, though. Once you get to know them, you can tell them apart, no problem.”

“I didn’t know that!” Neely howled.

“Do I look like an encyclopedia? How am I supposed to know what you don’t know?”

“You—of all people—you should have told me.”

“What else don’t you know? Quality folks use toilet paper. Women shave their legs. Brassieres come in sizes, and the hooks are in the back. Don’t eat yellow snow or pick your nose in church. Okra tastes like—”

“Of all people, you should have told me.”

Junior threw his wrench. It made a clang as it hit the floor. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why should I have told you?”

“Because I was interested in Crystal.”

“So?”

“You dummy!” Neely roared. “You big, blind jackass. I wound up in bed with Diamond!”

After that statement, the garage was profoundly quiet as Junior Grimes stared at the trooper in stupefied amazement.

Neely recovered first and broke the silence. “It wasn’t bed, actually. It was a pile of leaves on a ridge. Gorgeous evening. I thought—”

What he thought had to remain unsaid, because just then Billy Joe Elkins came rushing into the garage from the store.

“Junior, I have got to talk to you.” He glanced at the uniformed trooper, who turned and faced a girlie calendar advertising socket wrenches.

“It’s urgent, Junior,” Billy Joe whispered.

Junior Grimes took three or four deep breaths and shifted gears. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now?”

“I cut French class. I had to talk to you.”

“Well, what is it?”

The young man’s eyes flicked toward the trooper. “Couldn’t we go someplace and—”

“Whisper.”

“Okay.” Billy Joe dropped his voice and moved closer. “Delmar Clay stopped Melanie last night. Pulled her over. Told her he had some interesting pictures.”

“He’s lying. I told you that Arch and I went to Benny Modesso’s drugstore and took Delmar’s roll out of the bag.”

“I know, Junior, I know. But he says he has pictures and he wants Melanie to meet him on Saturday night or he’ll mail the pictures to her dad.”

“She should tell him to go screw himself.”

“Hey, Junior! Look at the position she is in. If he just talks to Frank Naroditsky, she’s dead. She can’t tell Delmar anything.”

Junior Grimes used his shirttail to wipe his forehead. “Okay, okay.”

“We have got to do something about Delmar Clay.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Like quick, Junior. This jerk could ruin Melanie’s life.”

“Go back to French class. Let me work some more on it.”

With a last glance at Sam Neely’s back, the boy bustled out. Junior retrieved his wrench from the floor and arranged himself under the Chevy’s hood.

After a bit he heard Neely say, “I didn’t know it was Diamond, of course.”

“Are you still here?”

“Didn’t know then. I found out yesterday when I talked to her at Richard Hudson’s house. Hudson’s a writer, you know.”

“Oh.”

“She’s fallen for Hudson. In fact, both the Ice sisters have. Crystal and Diamond.”

This was too much for Junior. He gave up on the Chevy’s plugs and backed out so that he could see Neely. “Are you crazy? That little bald fat guy?”

“Yep. Hudson. That little bald fat guy. Both the Ice girls are nuts over him.”

Junior tossed the wrench again, then sat heavily on a box of something or other that he had propped against a wall. He put his head in his hands.

 

“Mr. Elkins, your senior wife called and wants you to call her back when you have a few minutes.” Hayden Elkins’ secretary delivered this message in a cool tone, with one eyebrow raised.

“For two cents I’d fire you, Harriet,” the prosecuting attorney said to his loyal government employee. He had been putting up with her sarcasm for weeks.

“You can’t fire me, Mr. Elkins,” she replied with simple dignity, “without a majority vote of the county commissioners. Our civil service system is designed to protect government employees from the arbitrary, capricious whims of elected officials. Remember?”

His life was completely, totally out of control. Everyone in the county snickered at the sight of him, the courthouse crowd guffawed, the judge laughed uproariously in his face…his secretary made his life miserable, his wife—make that wives—took malicious delight in drawing blood drop by painful drop…

There were moments when he just wanted to cry.

It wasn’t fair. That was the galling thing. Of course he made a pass at Anne Harris. He didn’t rape her, for heaven’s sake. She welcomed his advances. They had sex. Once. Was that so terrible? And now people regarded her as a tragic figure, sympathized, took pity upon her.

Even his wife, Matilda, did. That was the unbelievable part, the part Hayden Elkins found impossible to understand.

He picked up the telephone and dialed. Matilda answered.

“It’s me,” he said.

“Dear, I want you to stop by the store on your way home. Pick up some artichoke hearts for the dinner salad.”

“You don’t like artichoke hearts.”

“Oh, I don’t, but Anne does. She dotes on them. Be a dear and bring some home.”

He put the instrument back on the receiver and sat staring at it with distaste, unwilling to believe what his ears had just heard.

Amazingly, it was true. Matilda and Anne were becoming best friends.

They sat and chatted by the hour, did the housework together, compared recipes and cooked up gourmet delights shoulder to shoulder, attended social events together; they were becoming inseparable. “After all,” Matilda told him last night, “we have so much in common.”

Hayden ignored that remark. He was getting in the habit of ignoring remarks. “We’ve got to send her home, Matilda. She must leave our house.”

“But where will she go? She can’t go home. Ed won’t let her. And she doesn’t want to. We can’t just put her out”—here Matilda gestured vaguely at the trackless wilderness that lay beyond the door—“with winter coming on. Surely you see that?”

“Are you off your nut? That woman owns half the bank! She has more money than we do! She’s probably one of the two or three richest people in the county. She could buy any house in this state that’s for sale.”

“She doesn’t want to live alone.”

“She could live in a hotel. A hotel in New York. Or Paris. She could tour Europe until that idiot husband of hers recovers his senses or she decides to divorce him.”

“She doesn’t want to divorce him, dear.”

“Matilda, that isn’t our problem. And providing housing for her isn’t our problem.”

“Anne is a friend,” Matilda explained patiently. “She’s a friend of yours and a friend of mine. In addition to friendship, there is the obligation of Christian charity. Remember the good Samaritan. She may stay here as long as she wishes, as long as she needs to.”

“That is precisely my point, Matilda. Dear! The woman doesn’t need to stay here.”

“But she wants to. And I want her to. So I don’t want to talk any more about it.”

That was the conversation last night.

What were his options?

Divorce. He could divorce Matilda. File the action in Lester Storm’s court and listen to that judicial monstrosity laugh, chuckle, wheeze and snort through hearing after endless hearing.

Chuck the whole scene and run away. Change his name. Get a job dealing cards in Vegas; move in with an exotic dancer with artificial boobs. Forget the past. Start life over.

That option certainly seemed to have its attractions, but it also had a rather obvious downside. Matilda would find him, would hire private detectives to ferret him out if it took every cent she could lay hands on. Ferret him out to punish him. A month ago she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that to a wayward husband, but now she would. He sensed it, knew it to a certainty.

Suicide. He could shoot himself. Actually that option was not all that ridiculous. His life was becoming a living hell and there looked to be no end to the torture.

Gun, rope or gas?

He would have to think about it.

Oh, my God, look at me. Contemplating suicide. After one very short adulterous incident.

And it was the last sex he had had. Maybe the last sexual encounter he would ever have. In his whole life. Things were certainly shaping up that way. He had tried making advances to Matilda and had been unequivocally rebuffed every time. “I’m not emotionally ready,” she told him gently but firmly. He could sense the cold steel in her voice under that ladylike demeanor, and it made him shiver.

He had gotten so frustrated that he even made another pass at Anne, who looked at him as if he were a dung-eating beetle in search of a meal.

“I take it you aren’t romantically interested just now,” he said, trying to keep it light.

“Touch me and I’ll cut it off.”

“If you change your mind…”

“If I took up streetwalking I still wouldn’t let you touch me.”

“You did once.”

“Don’t ever mention that incident in my presence again for the rest of your life.”

“Perhaps some other time.”

You couldn’t let them know they were getting to you. Or shouldn’t.

Lord knows they were getting to him. All of them. It was as if everyone he knew had written him out of the human race. He was a pariah. Even his own son didn’t want to be seen with him.

“It’s not that I’m not proud of you, Dad,” Billy Joe had explained. “But people get this funny look and point and whisper. I’m not up to dealing with it.”

“And I am?”

“You’re tough, Dad. I know you can take it. But I’m still young, just a kid, really. It’s not fair for the sins of the father to be visited upon the son.”

“Sins?”

“Give me a break, Dad. Cut me some slack. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Somehow he managed to get his mind off his personal problems long enough to read the police report on his desk. It was signed by that half-wit deputy, Delmar Clay. Claimed that the Barrow boys had torched Junior Grimes’ junkyard tire pile. The only basis for this accusation, as far as Hayden Elkins could determine, was Delmar’s personal statement that he had witnessed the Barrow boys fleeing the scene of the crime. There was no evidence tying them to the purchase of arson material, no hint of a motive, not a single, solitary additional witness, not even a whiff of a suggestion that any fire official would get on the stand and swear the blaze was arson. The entire case for the prosecution would consist of putting Delmar Clay on the stand, eliciting his testimony, then resting.

Lester Storm would have a conniption fit if Elkins wasted his time with a farce like that. Who would blame him?

No wonder the Barrow boys rarely got convicted of anything. With Delmar Clay hot on their trail, the state was hopelessly handicapped. Of course, Arleigh Tate could have taken a hand in this investigation to see that it was developed properly or buried. Apparently he hadn’t, which was curious.

Elkins reached for the telephone to call Arleigh, then slowly withdrew his hand. Better leave well enough alone. He sighed and threw the file carelessly onto the large pile in the corner behind his desk.

 

The Ice girls arrived at Richard Hudson’s house in midmorning. They began by cleaning the kitchen and preparing a sumptuous lunch. Hudson ate alone, trying to decide what to do. As he ate, he listened to the washing machine and clothes dryer, both located in a nook just off the kitchen. The machines were running full tilt. The women had decided to wash and iron every stitch he owned and were now hard at it. He could hear them upstairs in the bedroom, where they were sorting the clothes in his closet.

As Hudson ate, Goofy watched him through the kitchen window.

Hudson got up, fixed a big sandwich for Goofy, opened the window and handed it out. He also passed Goofy a cup of hot coffee because it was downright chilly outside. “Sure you don’t want to come in?”

Goofy shook his head no, accepted the sandwich and coffee and began eating, still standing on his cinder blocks. Hudson closed the window to keep the heat in and went back to his lunch on the kitchen table.

How was he ever going to get any writing done? Looking for arrowheads was one thing, but actually getting his head into a story and stringing words together in the midst of domestic bedlam was something else again.

Two women! How did the old Mormons manage?

He bolted the last of his food and went back to the mud. When he tired of walking and looking, he found a stump to sit in front of and lean against. Goofy sat on the other side of the stump. Hudson examined the points he had found that day and stared at the house and watched the shadows lengthen.

From where he sat he could see Goofy’s cinder blocks under the kitchen window. Of course he was wondering what the Ice sisters were doing in his house. Finally the thoughts coalesced—thoughts do that sometimes. He rose, dusted off his jeans and marched for the house with Goofy trailing along behind. He arranged the blocks just so, then climbed up on them and looked into the kitchen.

The sisters weren’t there. He carried the blocks around to the study. There they were, looking at his books. He could even hear what they were saying.

They were arguing about the literary merits of his various tales. He watched them for a minute or two, then sat on the cinder blocks under the window. He could still hear them plainly.

As he listened he became more and more irritated. According to Crystal and Diamond, he was an extraordinarily gifted writer who could see inside human hearts. Yet here he sat under his study window on a chilly evening listening to two dingbats who had taken over his house and refused to leave. Gifted? Hell, he was an idiot.

“What do you think we should do, Goofy?”

This was actually the first question he had addressed to Goofy in the course of their acquaintance that required a considered answer. Goofy was a little surprised, and he studied on it for several seconds before he answered. “Cold. Time them take me home.”

“Of course it is,” Richard Hudson agreed, and rose from his perch. He handed Goofy his cinder blocks, then headed for the front of the house, followed by Goofy. Up the stairs, through the door, into the study.

“Goofy is cold and tired and wants to go home. I suggest you two take him—now. I am also cold and tired. I want some peace and quiet in my own house.”

By God, it worked! The two women got in their respective cars—Goofy got in with Crystal—and away they went. Richard Hudson carefully locked the front door, then went to the kitchen to fix himself a drink.

 

It was close to 9:00 P.M. when a car pulled up in front of the open door to the garage bay at Doolin’s. Junior was sweeping the garage. Normally at this time of the evening he would be helping Mom close the store or watching television or hanging around Verlin Ice’s, but tonight he wanted to be alone.

A woman got out of the car, saw him, and walked in his direction. He recognized her when she came into the light. “Evening, Mrs. Carcano.”

“Good evening, Mr. Grimes. Are you alone?”

“Yes, ma’am. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been more alone in my whole life.”

Mrs. Carcano turned and gestured toward the car. “I picked up a man just outside of Indian River who said he wanted to come here. Unfortunately, he’s drunk.”

Junior strode for the car. No one was visible in the front seat, so he opened the rear passenger door. Elijah Murphy was lying on the backseat. The odor of vomit washed over Junior like a wave.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Carcano. I’ll clean this mess up.” He grasped the comatose man by the back of the shirt collar and his belt and lifted him from the car. Junior carried him across the asphalt and into the garage, where he stowed him under a tool bench. Then he bent down. “Hey, Murph! Murphy! It’s me, Junior. How you doin’?”

“You got any beer, Junior?”

“Are you going to be sick again?”

“I don’t think so.”

“If you are, say so. I’ll get you to the bathroom.”

“Okay.”

“Just stay there and keep quiet. I’ve got to clean out the preacher’s car.”

He put water in a bucket, added detergent, found a sponge, then went over to the car. Mrs. Carcano stood nearby and watched. As he was sponging up the mess, she said, “I appreciate this.”

“Nice of you to give ol’ Murph a ride. Going to get cold tonight. Too cold for a drunk to sleep outside.”

“Does he come here often?”

“Oh, he’s been here a few times. More than Mom knows about, that’s for sure. I put a blanket over him and he sleeps under the tool bench. If he’s sick it’s easy to hose away.”

Junior had about got the mess removed from Mrs. Carcano’s car when he said, “Don’t think Murph had a drop for about six weeks. It’s a real shame he lost it. He wasn’t going to drink anymore. Was courting the widow Wilfred. When she hears about this, that’ll be all over. She doesn’t hold with drinking.”

“A social drink is one thing, Mr. Grimes. Falling-down, puking drunk is something else.”

“Better call me Junior. Everyone else does.”

“What’s his name? Murphy?”

“Elijah Murphy.”

“Mr. Murphy is a drunk.”

Junior finished cleaning and closed the car door. He checked the window of the store to see if his mother was watching. Apparently not. “Yes, ma’am. He’s surely that. Been one for a lot of years. Spent most of his life drunk and I suspect he’s gonna die that way. Not that he really wants to. He really wants to sober up. You don’t get everything you want in life, though.”

He carried the bucket back into the garage. Mrs. Carcano followed, so he kept talking. “Funny thing. When he’s drinking, Murph doesn’t get mean like a lot of fellas do. Never gets nasty or says hateful things, would never hurt anyone. When a man gets stinking drunk, he forgets all his manners and inhibitions, and you can see what kind of a man he is all the way through to the backbone. Way down inside Murphy is a good man. Now that won’t get him into the widow Wilfred’s bed or into your church, but I suspect it’s good enough for the Lord. He’ll probably be standing out there at the Pearly Gates with Saint Pete to welcome ol’ Murph when the time comes.”

“And you, Mr. Grimes? Are you a good man?”

That stumped Junior. Never in his life had he wondered if he was good or bad. So he chewed on the question a moment before he said, “I just hope Murphy puts in a word for me, ma’am. So I do.”

“Junior,” Elijah Murphy croaked from under the tool bench, “I think I’m gonna be sick again.”

Junior lifted the drunken man with ease—the back of the collar in his left hand and the belt in his right—and draped him over the restroom commode as if he were a sack of grain.

He was holding Murphy when Lula Grimes came into the garage. She went by Mrs. Carcano without nodding and looked to see what was going on in the restroom. The sound of retching was quite plain.

“Junior, is that Murphy?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

“Did you give him beer?”

“No, Mom.”

“Where’d he get it?” Lula Grimes demanded suspiciously.

“Indian River, I believe,” Mrs. Carcano said. “I picked him up on the edge of town. He was hitchhiking.”

“Junior collects things,” Lula told the preacher. “Birds with broken wings, orphan fawns, heartsick boys, brokenhearted girls…and drunks.”

“I brought Mr. Murphy by a few minutes ago, Mrs. Grimes. I’m sorry. I asked for Junior’s help. If he would bring Mr. Murphy over to my house in the morning, I would appreciate it.” With that Mrs. Carcano walked out of the garage, got into her car and drove away.

Lula Grimes shook her head in frustration, then went back through the side door of the garage into the store.

 

Elijah Murphy spent the night in his shack. He slept on the floor and Junior Grimes sacked out on the bed. Murphy didn’t care a whit. He was too drunk.

Junior fully intended to let Murphy sleep it off under his tool bench in the garage—Murphy had slept there on several winter nights in the past—but his mother returned to the garage and put her foot down. “I own half this place. You are not going to turn it into a shelter for wandering drunks. Not while I’m alive, anyway.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“That preacher wants to see Murphy in the morning.”

“I’ll get him there,” Junior said.

“A total waste of time. The man is hopeless.”

“It’s her time.”

“No, Junior. It’s your time. You have to clean up after him, you have to look after him tonight, you have to get him to the preacher’s tomorrow. Preachers get paid to wrestle with the sins of weak men—you don’t. You get paid to fix cars. The next time Murphy staggers in here blind drunk, I hope you remember this evening.”

Junior nodded. He had learned years ago that arguing with his mother wasn’t worth the air it cost.

“You can’t make pets of people, Junior. Aren’t you ever going to learn that?”

Junior loaded Elijah Murphy into the cab of his roll-back and took him to his cabin. Junior didn’t think like his mother. He knew that but never mused about why she felt as she did. He accepted a great many things in life without trying to figure them out; his mother was one of them.

He built a fire in the stove, cleaned Murphy up a little bit, then got the already sleeping man arranged in a corner with a blanket over him and a pillow under his head. As the fire in the stove made popping noises and heat seeped into the room, Junior took off his boots and stretched out on Murphy’s bed.

His mind turned to Diamond Ice. Like his mother, Diamond was one of the phenomena in his world that Junior didn’t normally ponder about. But Diamond and Sam Neely—now that was galling.

Hard to blame Neely, of course. Claimed he didn’t know Crystal from Diamond, and Junior could see how a newcomer to Eden could make that mistake. The girls bore a startling physical resemblance. Diamond, on the other hand, didn’t have an excuse: Sam Neely didn’t look a bit like Junior.

All that talk of marriage, then she takes Neely up on a ridge…in the leaves…