Road to Rouen

By Jack Waddell

It's 1958 and the little county seat of Rouen is a long way from the gritty Los Angeles beat newspaper reporter Roy Cutter was working before he was fired. But he's forced to return to his hometown and all its bad memories when his wife is found dead there in a car half submerged in the Illinois River. A huge life insurance policy appears that makes him the leading suspect. A young local attorney becomes his ally against the bullying tactics of the local police chief. Then he connects with Judy, an old high school classmate who, with her 12-year-old daughter Margie, gives him a taste of the normal family life he never had. As he works to clear himself and learn the circumstances of his wife's death, he's drawn back into contact with his wife's powerful family and a conspiracy that pervades the town and reaches all the way to France and a secret society with a sinister purpose. A string of seemingly unrelated deaths become a trail of murder he follows only to discover he could be the next. In the end he must take drastic action to save Judy and her daughter. Haunted by his childhood in Rouen and his experiences as a Marine in the Pacific Theater of World War II, Cutter battles doubts and demons as his search for the truth forces him to confront the horror of his wife's abuse and death.
Road to Rouen is author Jack Waddell's second novel. The first, Tuesday's Caddie, also available here, is a bittersweet love story spanning decades from the 1930's to 1960's that has received solid reviews as well as high praise in the Writer's Digest Self-Published e-Book Awards with the judge saying "The story is one of great sweetness and sadness and lots of fun along the way. The back-story of a competition and the description of the thirties set the book up to be an exceptional read." In contrast Road to Rouen is a classic noir thriller that rachets up the suspense in every chapter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Waddell
• Release date: Apr 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311296436

Jack Waddell

The recently released Road to Rouen is author Jack Waddell's second novel and marks a decided turn in genre from his first offering. Tuesday's Caddie is a bittersweet love story set in the 1930's while Road definitely explores 1950's crime noir. At the same time, both draw from his experience as child in California and his youth in rural Illinois. A life-long reporter, writer and producer whose adult life was spent working in the New York Metropolitan area, he currently is much happier living on a golf course in Central Florida with his loving wife Jean Cormier. The author welcomes comments and queries. His website includes notes on developing the books and their inspiration.

Book preview

Chapter One

You know it was a worse day than usual when the best thing about it was you got canned.

I was sitting at the bar having my usual kielbasa sandwich with my usual afternoon scotch when I got the call. Johnny brought the phone over stretching out the cord to reach me at my usual seat at the far end and handed me the receiver and said, He sounds more pissed off than usual. He was right.

Norm was never cordial, most editors aren’t. But the funny thing was this time he managed not to curse so much. Listen, Roy, he said, his voice kind of higher and tighter than normal. Enough already. We’ve had it here. I’ve had it. Consider yourself fired. Get your drunken ass back here and pick up your crap. I got a check for you. And you got a telegram and a pile of messages that came in for you this morning. Be here in twenty minutes or I’m ripping up the check. Click. That was it. Click.

I’d been looking at Johnny and Johnny had been looking at me. He must have sensed what happened. He took the receiver back and put it in the cradle and kinda smirked. Gotcha this time, didn’t he?

Maybe so. Maybe not. He’s got a tendency to overstate his case.

Yeah, but you don’t look so good.

I’m all right. I’m always all right. I just gotta go. I slid off the stool and took a last pull on the scotch. I fished some singles out of my pocket and tossed them on the bar. I’ll see ya, I said except I had a funny feeling I might not.

I’ll be here, said Johnny.

Johnny’s was only a couple blocks from the paper so I knew I didn’t have to run. Which was good because once I got out onto the sidewalk the afternoon LA heat made me stop for a second and sort of gather myself up. I buttoned my collar and drew up my tie. I straightened my hat to shade my eyes, which I knew were more bloodshot than the occasion called for. If he really was going to fire me, I wanted to remind him he was firing a pro. I lit a cigarette and set off for the office. I didn’t like that my heart was beating a little too hard on top of a stomach that didn’t feel too good. Maybe that’s why the sidewalk seemed to be moving just a little.

Now, before I get too far along, there are a couple things you should know about me. First off, I have an emotional dead spot that doesn't feel a whole lot in situations you'd think I would – feel something, that is. Anything maybe. Tragedies and episodes of pathos elicit not a whole lot of reaction. Now it's not like I'm some sort of sociopath. I am quite capable of a deep and abiding love. Or abiding as long as the object of my affection lives. Or wants to stay with me. So you could say I've proven that point a number of times. But the dead spot had proven troubling on occasion when people noticed I wasn't sobbing or shouting or carrying on like I cared. Otherwise, I'm a pretty likable guy. I am quite cordial and polite and even charming. Or so I've been told by the people who eventually come to dislike me because of the dead spot thing. I really don't know if it's just my nature or whether I picked it up at an early age when I was sucking on a nipple, probably rubber, or later when I was stabbing an inflatable pony my grandmother gave me with a pencil. I need to say all this so that so you take in what I’m going to tell you in some sort of context. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair of me to tell you about all this if you didn’t have some perspective. So when I get to the parts about Connie you’ll understand if they aren’t fraught with the emotion they maybe deserve.

As a result, and the second thing you should know, is that the former thing has made me a pretty dispassionate observer of the world. That worked to my advantage in the war. It also helped since I wound up a newspaper reporter and worked the cops and had to write about all kinds of gruesome things. I don't know what it is about Southern California that seems to draw a disproportionate number of people who live lives on the wrong side of crazy, but there were some pretty disgusting cases I had to cover. Like the nut job out in Compton who would take in homeless guys and, after he was done with them, use their body parts to fertilize the grape vines he had out back of his house. I always regretted I couldn’t work a description of the stench into my story the day they dug everything up. The point I’m making is that I usually stay pretty cool in almost every situation. Even when it’s hot as hell in Compton and the whole world stinks so bad you want to vomit.

The walk back to the office did me some good. It got my heart rate down to some sort of normal even though the stomach was still a little jumpy. I decided not to slip into Bertha’s place for one last shot and that sort of steeled my resolve. Not that resolve would be needed. The die was cast. I just had to take it.

When I walked into the city room, I knew for sure what that was. Nobody’s eyes rose to mine. The clacking of the typewriters and the underlying drone of phone conversations didn’t change. Nobody called out, Hey Cutter, where you been? or Jeez, Roy, nice of you to grace our presence. Nothing like usual. I was for sure dead.

Norm’s back was to me as he sat behind his desk at the far end of the room. He was hunched over re-editing some unlucky copy editor’s work, stabbing at it with that thick blue pencil of his as he imposed his version of American English on the dross in front of him. I walked up to his desk and waited for him to turn around. I didn’t take off my hat.

Norm was a big guy a couple inches taller than me, maybe six two, but you never really got a sense of his height since he was always kind of bent over which made the growing bald spot in the back of his crew cut all the more noticeable. I just focused on the bald spot and kept quiet while he slashed and cut and marked up the story he was working on. It occurred to me he probably never had to work that hard on one of my stories. Finally, he crossed out the headline and scrawled a new one across the top, punched the paper with his pencil as he counted the characters and spun his chair around. The instant he saw me standing there he scowled. You! he said looking up over the top of his glasses.

Yeah, me. What’s up?

I told you. You’re done.

That’s what I heard. So how come? Somehow I didn’t want to make this easy.

He blinked and I could see his ears turning red at the top. You know damn well why.

Humor me. There must be some protocol you have to follow when you can somebody. I think I deserve the whole nine yards.

You deserve what you’re getting. Here… here’s your pay to date plus two weeks. He held out an envelope. Clean off your desk and get outta here.

I took the envelope and stuck it in my jacket pocket. You still owe me why.

Look, Roy, we’ve been over and over this. I don’t know what happened to you when your wife took off, but it’s not working. You’re not working. You’re damaged goods. Like how come you’re sitting in a gin mill this afternoon instead of the press conference at city hall like you were assigned? Like how come every story I get from you looks like a rewrite of a press release?

Hey, I never missed a deadline. Even as the words came out of my mouth they sounded lame. I couldn’t tell him the plan had been to swing by city hall later, pick up the press release and pump my buddy Larry for the high points. Like usual.

Norm scrunched his face and shook his head. You were good. That’s why we let you hang on this long. But it’s time. Everybody knows that. So do you.

He was right, of course. And in the twenty minutes it had been since I got the call at Johnny’s I’d made peace with the possibility. I didn’t like it, but I’d live.

Okay. Fair enough, I conceded. It was good working for you.

Yeah, once upon a time maybe. Take care of yourself. Take some time and get right.

Yeah, maybe I will. See ya then.

Sure.

So that was it. I turned and made my way past the rows of desks and the reporters with jobs to my own desk in the middle of the back row. George was at his desk next to mine typing in that curiously fast hunt and peck method of his. He looked up at me and gave me the woeful look that’s supposed to convey sympathy but only makes me feel worse. Hey, pal, he said. I heard. Sorry.

Thanks, I said. But it was coming.

Still, hard luck.

Yeah, well, time to move on.

You’ll get something quick. You’re good.

We’ll see. May look for something else. This was getting old. I lied. Newspapers were all I really knew, all I really cared about doing. Once, anyway. What did Norm say? Once upon a time?

I dropped into my chair and pushed my hat back and loosened my tie. I lit up a smoke. Appearances no longer mattered. Next to my typewriter was a short stack of pink phone messages and on top a yellow Western Union envelope. I figured I’d start with the telegram. I tore open the envelope and unfolded the cable.

WXT584 CHICAGO ILL 25 APRIL 1958 09:58 CST=

CHARLES FOWLER ESQ=

MR ROY CUTTER

C / O LOS ANGELES STAR LOS ANGELES CALIF=

CONNIE DEAD = (STOP)= SO SORRY= (STOP)= NEED YOU HERE= (STOP)= CALL EARLIEST=

CHARLIE=

I’m not sure how long I held that piece of paper just staring at it. But it was long enough for the cigarette ash to fall into my lap and for George to finally ask, Everything all right?

Yeah, I said. Everything’s fine. Just some news from an old friend. The dead spot was there just like usual. I put the telegram in the pocket with the envelope that held my last paycheck. I started shuffling through the phone messages. Half of them were from Charlie, my brother-in-law, who looked like he’d been calling every fifteen minutes before he gave up. There was one from her sister Cathy and another from her mother Arlene. The rest were work related. I tossed those along with the ones from Cathy and Arlene. I never wanted much to do with those two and now maybe less than ever.

I got up from my desk and went to the supply closet to scrounge a box. Back at my desk I filled it up with my things: Chicago Manual of Style, AP Style Book, my Rolodex, my little black book, the Mont Blanc my old man gave me when I graduated from UCLA and a bottle of Johnnie Walker with about two shots left in it. Then there was the autographed baseball I’d gotten from Roy Campanella last year. That stupid baseball got to me. I thought about that poor bugger lying in a hospital paralyzed from the neck down after his car accident. Greatest Dodger catcher ever and just like that, boom, done. Some things just aren’t fair. I shook my head. I rooted around in the drawers for a few more things then stood up and surveyed the desk where I’d spent so many hours toiling, albeit not so many lately. Well, I guess that’s it, I said to nobody in particular.

One more thing. It was Norm who’d come up behind me. I turned around. Listen, he said. If you need a reference I’ll give you a good one. There’s no hard feelings. You just hit a rough spot.

Like I said, sympathy always makes me feel worse. So do goodbyes. Hey, thanks. I muttered with nothing much left to say. No hard feelings. I may take you up on that. Well, so long, I guess.

Norm put his hand on my shoulder. So long, he said.

I picked up the box and made my way down to the street. Before I called anybody I had to see Johnny.

***

It wasn’t until three scotches in that I had the guts to call Charlie. Johnny let me use the phone in the back room. By now it was almost six o’clock in Chicago, and I hoped I could still catch him in his office. He lived out in the western suburbs but had his office in the Loop, and it was his office number he’d left on his messages. I got lucky. Even late Friday the switchboard girl was still there to put me through.

Roy?

Hey, Charlie.

You got my wire.

Yeah. What happened?

We don’t know for sure. Somebody found her this morning south of town in a car with the motor running and the doors open. No sign of anybody else.

Rouen? It was our hometown and where she went after we weren’t we anymore.

Yeah. Down by the river. We won't know anything until an autopsy. Jim Rittberger said it could be strangulation, but he couldn’t say for sure. Jim was a high school classmate who’d politicked his way to chief of police too young.

She was strangled? Somebody murdered her? Death I could handle. Murder was something else.

We don’t really know anything yet. But could be. Could be a heart attack or stroke or something. Suicide even. We don’t know. It’s just terrible. I’m heading down there tonight. Mom and dad are beside themself and Cathy’s useless.

I’m sure. Where do they have her?

Hospital morgue there in town. They can’t do an autopsy until Monday. Listen, we’ve got a bit of a problem here.

More than Connie being dead?

Don’t be funny, Roy. It’s dad. He kind of went crazy when he got the news. He started blaming you and went a little nuts. Mom said she could hardly calm him down.

Me? I’m all the way out here in California for Christ’s sakes.

He blames you for everything. You know that… the booze, the cheating, the whole bit.

I did know all of this, of course. I’d let it go along with Connie. Whatever made them feel better just tickled me to death. Sort of.

Well, I can’t help that now, can I Charlie?

Thing is he wants the car back, and he wants it back now.

The car. I should tell you about the car. It was a 1957 Buick Special, four door hardtop, big V8, whitewalls. A real beauty. We went for the two-tone. It was blue on top and white on the bottom. The blue was real pretty. I always told Connie it was the color of her eyes. We got it right after we were married in September of ’56. Carl bought it for us as a wedding present. Carl’s her father. He thought a Buick was the right car for an up and coming couple… solid, not as showy as a Cadillac. Of course, with his bucks he could have gotten us a Rolls if he wanted to. Carl and I never hit it off so he insisted the title be in Connie’s name. That was never a problem for us. When she left Connie said she’d be getting a new car once she got back home and she’d sign it over to me then. So that’s why I didn’t understand.

He wants the car back? How can he want the car? It’s in Connie’s name for crying out loud. I was really lost.

Connie signed the title over to him a couple months ago. Seems she needed money and dad wasn’t going to give her any morel considering how she's been living. It’s his car, Roy. Sorry.

I sunk onto some cases of gin stacked along the wall. I grabbed my drink and took a pull. I looked around to see if there was any scotch in the room. I lit a cigarette. I had to think.

Roy…you still there?

Yeah.

Listen, I know it’s tough, but you should get back here anyway. You know, for the funeral and all. Connie would’ve wanted it.

I don’t know.

I don’t think you have much choice. It’s pretty expensive to ship a car this far. Getting off work shouldn’t be a problem, especially for a spouse, right? And you really should be here. You know, for Connie.

When he mentioned work all the air left my lungs. I coughed into the phone.

You all right? he asked.

Yeah, yeah, I croaked. I finished the scotch. Give me some time to sort this out. I’ll call you back.

Do it as soon as you can. You know he’s going to fixate on the car. If he doesn’t hear something from you or me soon, I wouldn’t put it past him to call the cops out there and report it stolen.

Yeah, no, you’re right. I’ll call tomorrow.

I’m sorry, Roy.

I’m sorry for all of us, I said.

All right… tomorrow. I’ll be at the folk’s house. Call me there.

Okay. Tomorrow.

I hung up the phone and put it back on Johnny’s desk. I slumped into his chair. It’s one thing to lose a job, or a wife even. That’s what the dead spot’s for. But your car? Now that’s low. I sat there quiet for a while and lit another cigarette. I tried to think of something. Maybe I could offer to buy it except with no job there was no chance of a loan. I always got along with Charlie, so maybe he could help me work something out except I never once saw him stand up to Carl. Maybe I could just stash it away in some garage someplace until her father could be reasonable, except the words reasonable and Carl can’t exist in the same sentence. And if I were hiding a stolen car where would I hide?

The more I tried to think the more I knew the most recent scotch was kicking in and I could tell thinking was not a good idea. All I knew was that I had no job, Connie was dead and my car wasn't my car. And the last place in the world I wanted to go was Rouen.

(back to top)

Chapter Two

Connie was the kind of woman who should not have been allowed to choose her men.

She and I first knew of each other in high school there in Rouen. We didn’t date or anything. We just knew each other. She was a year behind me and we ran in different crowds. Which is kind of odd to say since the school only had about three hundred kids. Still, there were rich kids, there were farm kids and then the rest of us. Connie was rich and hard not to notice. A tall blonde with the right kind of figure, she had the attention of pretty much all the guys. There were always rumors going around about her being loose with boys but you never heard any guy bragging about it, or at least I didn't.

After I'd graduated, I heard she was going out with Lionel Barnes, an all-conference basketball star whose dad ran the paper cup factory in town and whom everyone considered the biggest jerk in school. Whether it was because they ended up senior prom king and queen or because she wanted to piss off her father, the got married a year out of high school just before he shipped off to France and got himself killed at Bastogne.

After that, she moved to Chicago with a girlfriend and worked for Marshall Fields in the cosmetics department and did her part for the war effort by dating every sailor at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. Or so someone told me. The only thing she ever told me is that she'd made some mistakes that ultimately required a back alley abortion which ended up preventing her from having any children.

She moved back in with her parents in Rouen and eventually married a fellow named Frank Haskell who ran one of the two banks in town. He'd managed to avoid the war thanks to a heart murmur or something like that. At first they became part of the town's social elite holding court out at the nine hole country club just outside of town that represented Rouen's bastion of high class chic even with its neon Hamms Beer signs and all. It wasn't long though before they disappeared from society circles. Maybe it was because he didn't serve in the war and had no chance to get rid of any of his aggressions, but for whatever reason he took to beating her as regularly as he drank, which I guess was pretty much all the time. This is when Connie herself turned into an accomplished drinker, a pastime she went on to enjoy even after she divorced his sorry ass.

After that is when I'd run into her again. It was my mother's funeral, and she showed up at the wake. My mother had been a favorite hair dresser of hers and paying one's respects in such circumstances is what one does in a small town like Rouen. We spoke a little at the wake, but I was surprised when she showed up the next day at the cemetery. On the way back to the cars, she approached me and asked if she could come to the repast. She did, we sat together and we ended up having a bite to eat late that night at the Flying A truck stop north of town.

One thing led to another and I ended up calling the paper so I could stay the rest of the week. When it came time to leave, she asked to come back to California with me. I should have said no. I could tell she was trouble. You should never fall in love with a woman you can't match drink for drink. But I said yes.

We set up residence in a nice little apartment in Culver City. I worked the paper, and she wound up a hostess at Lawry's over in Beverly Hills. I suppose she could have found something better, but she said she liked dressing up and being with people and that it was a nice crowd. She worked mostly lunches in the beginning. It was after we were married she started working dinners almost all the time. She said the tips were better.

I have to stop here and say that what follows is going to make me seem pretty stupid, but it all goes back to that dead spot. See, if you don't feel things so much you're not so apt to let things bother you. You can look, but you don't necessarily have to see, if you know what I mean.

So it was that when she started coming home later and later from the restaurant, I didn't say anything. I should have, of course. At least it would have let her know I still cared about her. But that I didn't I suppose gave her some sort of license to go on with it. Eventually, she didn't come home at all.

What I didn't know and what I should have taken the trouble to find out is that the Don Juan she was seeing had introduced her to cocaine. For a gal like Connie, the combination of booze and blow was just too good to pass up. I came to find out later that she lost her job at the restaurant in a scene of public screaming and cursing the likes of which Beverly Hills rarely has a chance to witness.

Our marriage ended, ironically enough, when Don Juan dumped her. I came home one night to find her trashed and sobbing inconsolably on the couch, mascara streaming down her cheeks, shivering with what I can only assume were the D T’s. I undressed her, showered her, wrapped her in blankets and put her in bed. She either passed out or went to sleep, I wasn't sure which. I sat there on the edge of the bed watching her for half the night. I thought about her, about me and about how insane this whole thing had gotten. I was no good for her, we'd both proven that. It was time to ship her home to mommy and daddy.

Two days later I put her on the Santa Fe Super Chief bound for Joliet. She was in no shape to fly. We kissed and hugged and said goodbyes and promised to stay in touch. Except we didn't.

That was six months ago. Now she was dead. And now I had to go pay my respects to the biggest mistake of my life.

***

I woke up late Saturday morning and decided I wasn't going anywhere. If the old man wanted the car, he could come and get it. I'd leave it in the driveway with the doors unlocked and the keys under the mat and whatever goons he chose to hire could come and get it whenever they wanted. There was no way I was going back to Rouen and putting up with her family much less serving as some sort of cross country chauffeur for Carl's Buick.

I was shuffling into the kitchen to make some eggs and toast when the phone started ringing. I guessed it was Charlie, but I wasn't ready to talk to him or anybody else for that matter. It was already after one in the afternoon back there, and I thought he must be getting antsy. The phone rang a long time before it stopped. Just as I was about to start eating, it started up again. I thought to myself, What's the matter with him? I told him I'd call. There's no emergency. Nobody's dying. They're already dead.

It was when I got out of the shower and the phone rang again I decided to finally answer. I wanted to get it over with and have some peace, some time to think. I wrapped a towel around myself and picked up the phone. Hello? I said.

Is this Roy Cutter? It was a voice I didn't recognize.

Yeah. Who's calling?

This is Detective Kenneth Larsen with the Rouen Police Department. We've been trying to reach you.

Sorry, I said. What can I do for you?

"I think you're aware your wife Constance was found dead yesterday morning? We spoke to your

Reviews for Road to Rouen

[Erika Grobb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked the vintage of the cars running throughout. I liked the venue to venue of the settings. I liked the badness of the bad guys and the goodness peeking past the black hole in our good guy.