Bad Moon Rising by Ed Gorman

Been closed down for a couple years?”
    â€œSure. Why?”
    â€œWell, somebody spotted Cameron there and I jumped in the car and found him.”
    â€œYou bringing him in?”
    â€œYeah, Sam. But there isn’t any hurry. He put a .45 to his head and killed himself.”

P ART T WO

10
    T he station had been abandoned in the late ’40s, the reason being that the ones in town were new and bright and easy to get to. This was a holdover from the early ’30s, a two-pump station that sold only gas and oil, no car repairs. Kids had smashed out the windows and animals had used the drive as a bathroom. The front door had been chained shut. If you looked through one of the dust-coated front windows you could see a large movie poster advertising a Betty Grable film circa 1945 when Betty was already slipping in popularity.
    Three squad cars and an ambulance were parked on the east side of the station. I pulled up behind them and walked to the back of the place where a green wooden storage shed was tucked into a stand of hardwoods. Potter was explaining to two uniforms how he wanted them to gather evidence, who would start where, and so on. The ambulance boys leaned against the open rear doors of their big white box, looking slightly bored and taking it out on their cigarettes. As usual, the joyous birdsong reminded me that the so-called lower orders could give a shit about the travails of the plodding creatures that lumbered across their land. Nature presented them with their own travails.
    Potter set his men to work and then walked over to me. “I’d let you have a look at him but we’re still gathering evidence. I wanted you out here so I could tell you firsthand what I saw when I got out here. He’s in the back of the shed. He had a blanket and some sandwiches in a brown paper bag. Obviously somebody helped him. From what I could see, he didn’t have any marks on his arms or hands or face. No signs of a struggle, in other words, in case you’re thinking somebody killed him and then planted the gun in his hand. He fired a .45 above his right ear. The exit wound is a big bastard, bigger than usual. The doc is on his way. He’ll be able to guesstimate when Cameron did the deed. Now, I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so if you want to wait around for a couple of hours—there’s a pretty good burger joint about a mile from here—we’ll probably have a lot more information for you.”
    â€œI’m sure your boss will take this as an admission of guilt.”
    â€œRight now I do, Sam. And if you can step back and be a little objective, you should, too. You’ll say everything’s circumstantial and it probably is, but he was obsessed with the girl, she broke it off with him, and he killed her. That’s not exactly a new story. He hides out, he’s afraid and probably sorry for what he’d done, and he kills himself.”
    â€œWhere did he get the gun?”
    â€œWhere did he get the sandwiches and the blanket? Probably the same place.”
    â€œI’ll get to see the blanket and gun?”
    â€œAs long as the chief isn’t here. He’s still pissed off about your John Wayne crack. Being a draft dodger and all.”
    â€œGood thing I didn’t tell him that Superman can’t actually fly.”
    He shook his head and smiled. “You two really hate each other, don’t you?”
    â€œI don’t hate him as much as he hates me.”
    â€œYeah, I kind of figured that was the case.” He waved to a squad car that had just pulled up. “Now I gotta get back to work.”
    I drove back to town. When I saw a phone booth outside a Howard Johnson’s I pulled over. I had Paul Mainwaring’s phone number scribbled in the small notepad I carry in my left back pocket. Marsha the maid answered.
    â€œI’m afraid he’s at the funeral home, Mr. McCain. The burial will be tomorrow. Mr. Mainwaring