Ed Gorman - The Day the Music Died

The Day The Music Died

by Ed Gorman

Volume I of Two Volumes

Pages i-Xiii and 1-168

Published by: Carroll and Graf

Publishers, Inc., New York. Further reproduction or distribution in other than a specialized format is prohibited.

Produced in braille for the Library of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, by Clovernook Printing House for the Blind, 2003.

This braille edition contains the entire text of the print edition.

Copyright 1999 by Ed Gorman

Book Jacket Information iii

This first volume in Ed Gormans new mystery series featuring rock-and-roll, murder, and American cool in the 1950s.

The Day the Music Died

Its 1958 in Black River Falls,

Iowa (pop. 26eagej), and at Bill

Malleys barber shop and the lunch counter in the local Rexall, theres a lot of talk, a lot of it negative, about communism, fluoride, civil rights marches, a guy named Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. A new Mercury costs three thousand dollars.

Teenagers are into pink, and Elvis, Tab, Natalie; they go to hops. And even at twenty-six, with a law degree and a private investigators license, Sam McCain thinks nothing of driving four hours of two-lane blacktop (with the radio forecasting major snowfalls) in his ea red Ford ragtop for a performance, on February 3, by his personal favorite rock-and-roll idol, Buddy Holly.

The next morning brings McCain more than the bad news of Buddy Hollys fatal plane crash. The dawns barely cracked when McCain finds the dead body of Susan Whitney in the living room of her huge Tudor-style mansion outside of town, and upstairs, within the same hour, her bully of a husband, Richie, remorsefully confesses to murder and kills himself with his rifle. But all of McCains instincts tell him that Richie didnt also shoot his wife. What he lacks are suspects and facts. Then, before the day ends, in a canoe on a frozen pond, McCain uncovers another corpse, this time a pregnant teenage girl, that only seems to be unrelated to the Whitney case.

Social and racial tensions in Black River Falls are meanwhile rising as suspicions begin to fall on a failed black football star, not to mention the pressure thats building on McCain himself, whose sometime employer the imperious Judge Esme Anne Whitney and the deceased Richies auntexpects him to prove his instincts right, and fast.

Very

Ed Gorman, winner of numerous awards, including the Shamus, the Spur, and the International Fiction Writers Award, is the author of many novels, including Cold Blue

Midnight. He has also been nominated for the Edgar, the Anthony, the Golden Dagger, and the Bram Stoker awards. He lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Advance Praise For

The Day The Music Died:

The hero is a wonderful narrator, and the Fifties material seems so true. The Day the Music Died is completely charming and sweet and funny. I loved this book.

ationancy Pickard, author of the Jenny Cain Mystery series

The Day the Music Died is Happy

Days with an edge.

Joan Hess, author of the Arly

Hanks Mystery series

Praise For Ed Gorman:

Tobin reminds me of Lawrence Blocks Bernie Rhoendbarr seriesv, very funny.

.Crime Time

Gorman successfully blends screwball comedy with film noir.

.Publishers Weekly

Gormans novels and stories provide fresh ideas, characters, and approaches.

..The Oxford Book of American

Crime Stories

One of the most original crime writers around.

.Kirkus Reviews

One of our best and most under-appreciated writers.

.Booklist

Gorman has a wonderful style that allows him to say things of substance in an entertaining way. Vii .San Francisco Examiner

Special Symbols Used

In This Volume

@ (4) Accent sign. Placed immediately before the print letter marked with an accent.

Books by Ed Gorman ix

The Jack Dwyer Series

New, Improved Murder; Murder

Straight Up; Murder in the Wings;

The Autumn Dead; A Cry of

Shadows

The Tobin Series

Murder on the Aisle; Several Deaths Later

The Robert Payne Series

Blood Moon; Hawk Moon;

Harlots Moon

Suspense Novels

The Night Remembers; Night Kills;

Black River Falls

Thrillers

The Marilyn Tapes; The First Lady; Runner in the Dark; Senatorial

Privilege

Short Story Collections

Prisoners; Cages; Dark Whispers;

Moonchasers

Id like to thank the staff at the Emma Xi Goldman Clinic for answering all my interminable questions.

To Roz, Madeline and Martythe

Greenbergs of Green Baywith fondness, gratitude and love

He wasnt really happy; he was Xiii only watching happiness from close to instead of from far away.

Graham Greene, The Basement

Room

The Day The Music Died

She didnt say much after we left the Surf Ballroom that night, Pamela Forrest.

Which meant one of three things. (1) She didnt like Buddy Holly nearly as much as I did. (2) She was worried bout the long trip back to Black River Falls on the wintry roads of February 3, 1958. (3) She was thinking about Stu Grant, the wealthy young man shed been in love with since ninth grade, the only problem being that Id been in love with her since fourth grade.

Or maybe it was my ragtop that made her silent. She knew how much I prized my 1951 red Ford convertible with the custom skirts, the louvered hood and the special weave top. The trouble was, despite the custom convertible top, the Ford could get pretty cold when the night winds blew across the dead Iowa cornfields, and the head-winds were enough to push the car into the next lane every once in a while. There was a bad snowstorm around the area of the ballroom. It took us forty-five minutes to drive out of it.

I had the noisy heater on full tilt and as a consequence I had to turn the radio way up to be heard over the heater. I was playing the rock and roll station out of Oklahoma City, Koma: 100eajjj clear-channel watts of pure pleasure. Gene Vincent was on now, and there was the promise of Little Richards new song within the half hour. We had a three-and-a-half hour drive ahead of us, so I was going to need all the rock and roll I could get.

You think we could change the station? the lovely Pamela Forrest finally said.

The station?

Please. That stuffs giving me a

headache.

Gee, then tonight must have been terrible for you. You shouldve said something.

I knew how much it meant to you, McCain, seeing Buddy Holly and those other people. I didnt want to spoil it for you.

Then you didnt even like Holly?

She sighed. Dont take this the wrong way, McCain, but I still like Perry Como

better. Then, And Stus teaching me about opera. Thats what he listens to all the time. That, and classical music.

Good ole Stu.

I told you, didnt I, that he was nominated for Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year, didnt I?

Yeah, I dimly recall you mentioning it six or seven thousand times.

That doesnt mean youre not a good lawyer, McCain.

Ill try and remember that.

Or that you wont be a judge someday yourself.

Who said he was going to be a judge?

Well, hows he ever going to get on the Supreme Court if he isnt a judge

first?

Good old Stu. Modesty had never been a problem for him.

I couldnt take talking about Stus plan to become the Supreme Ruler of the Known Universe anymore, so I changed the station. I couldnt find Perry Como for her. But I did find Jerry Vale and some other crooners. This seemed to satisfy her. She snuggled up on her side of the car, her astonishingly lovely legs up on the seat and covered with her long, brown coat. She stared out the window.

Despite a full moon, there wasnt much to see. After a snowfall like the one wed had the past two days, rural Iowa in the moonlight looks like the surface of an alien worldlong, white, empty stretches of land where the wind stirs up dust devils of chill snow every once in a while. The only signs of life are the distant lights of snug little farmhouses tucked in windbreaks of oak trees or jack pine. Every once in a while, thered be what they call a hamlet, a block or so of darkened buildings, usually a co-op and a general store and a gas station. There might be a tavern open, Johnny Cash brooding and lonely and dangerous in the prairie night. Then darkness again as you hit the highway, the hamlet suddenly vanished, like a dream on waking.