Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair (14 page)

 
          
I
opened the back compartment of the wallet and found a tired old clipping, which
was beginning to come apart at the folds. As Ella had said, it seemed to be a
review of a high-school play. Part of it, including the headline and byline,
was missing. The rest of it said:

 
          
Dorothy
Drennan was her usual charming self in the role of
ingenue
.
Claire
Zanella
and Marguerite Wood were charming as
the bride’s-maids. Stephen Roche and Hilda Dotery performed excellently as the
comic servant couple and had the large audience of friends and parents in
stitches, as did Frank
Treco
and Walter Van Horn with
their usual live-wire
antics.The
surprise of the
evening was Harry Haines in the demanding role of Jack
Treloar
.
Harry is a newcomer to local high-school theatrics, and impressed us all with
his talent. Also to be commended are Sheila Wood and Mesa McNab, who performed
well in supporting roles, as did Jimmie Spence. The play itself left something
to be desired in the writing department, but our young Thespians made it an
enjoyable evening for all concerned. The sentences about Harry Haines had been
underlined in pencil. For a boy of that name, I thought, Larry Gaines would be
a natural alias. I turned the clipping over. The other side carried a
news-service story about Dwight Eisenhower’s election to the Presidency, late
in the fall of 1952. I folded the clipping carefully, replaced it in the
wallet, and dropped the wallet in my jacket pocket.

 
          
Mrs.
Cline had picked up the Valentine, and was studying it. “Ella is a nice
girl—one of the best I ever had in my apartment building. It’s a pity she had
to get into trouble.”

 
          
“Her
only crime was lack of judgment. They don’t keep people in jail for showing
poor judgment.”

 
          
“You
mean she really isn’t guilty?”

 
          
“I’m
convinced she isn’t.”

 
          
“The
police are convinced she is.”

 
          
“They
always are, when they arrest people. It takes more than that to make them guilty.”

 
          
“But
Lieutenant Wills showed me the watch that was stolen.”

 
          
“Ella
didn’t know it was stolen.”

 
          
“I’m
glad to hear you say so. Stolen property doesn’t fit in with my idea of Ella.”

 
          
“What’s
your idea of Ella?”

 
          
“I’ve
always considered her a good, sound country girl—no saint, of course, but a
girl that you can count on. She nursed me through a bad spell last summer, when
my blood pressure was acting up, and she’d never take a cent for it. There
aren’t many like that
any more
. I tried to make it up
to her when she was sick in the winter, but then I’m not a nurse. I was worried
about her the way she lay around, with those big brown eyes of hers.”

 
          
“When
was this?”

 
          
“In January.
She cried through most of that month. The
doctor said there was nothing the matter with her physically, but she couldn’t
seem to summon up the energy to go to work. That was when she got so far
behind. I lent her the money to go up north for a few days, the beginning of
February—that seemed to snap her out of it.”

 
          
“Does
she owe you any money?”

 
          
“Not
a cent. She’s always been honest in our financial transactions. When she was
behind for a while then, it really bothered her.”

 
          
“If
this case comes to trial—I don’t think it will, but if it should—would you be
willing to testify to Ella’s good character?”

 
          
“Yes,
I would. And I’m not the only one. Her friends have been phoning her from the
hospital—nurses and head nurses and even a doctor. They want to know if they
can visit her in—jail.” She wrinkled her nose at the word. “I’ve been wondering
the same thing myself.”

 
          
“Wait
a day or two, Mrs. Cline. I’m trying to get her out. The trouble is
,
it’s going to cost money.”

 
          
Something
descended over her face, like a hard transparent glaze. “How much do you plan
to charge?”

 
          
“It
isn’t money for me. It’s the bail. I haven’t been able to get it reduced.”

 
          
“It’s
five thousand dollars, isn’t it?” She made a clicking noise between tongue and
teeth, which had the effect of dissolving the hard glaze. “I don’t possess
anything like that kind of money.”

 
          
“Five
hundred dollars would do it, if we used a bail bondsman. But you wouldn’t get
the five hundred back.”

 
          
She
narrowed her eyes and imagined her bank balance with five hundred dollars
lopped off. “They charge, don’t they?”

 
          
“Ten per cent.”

 
          
“Isn’t
there any other way?”

 
          
“You
could put up property, but that doubles the amount. Ten thousand dollars’ worth
of property covers five thousand dollars cash bail.”

 
          
“Ten thousand dollars’ equity?”

 
          
“That’s
right. I have to warn you, though, if Ella skipped, you’d lose your property.”

 
          
“I
realize that.” She narrowed her eyes again and imagined herself without her
property. “It’s quite a thing to think about, but I’ll think about it. Don’t
tell Ella we discussed this, will you? I wouldn’t want her to build up any
false hopes.”

 
          
“I
won’t say a word on the subject. I take it there’s nobody else. No
wellheeled
friends or relatives?”

 
          
She
shook her head. “She has no one. That’s the lack in her life, somebody to look
after her. She’s all right at the hospital, taking orders. But when she’s out
in the world on her own, she needs someone to look after her—a good man. But
then who doesn’t?”

 
          
“Men,”
I said. “We need a good woman. I have one, incidentally.”

 
          
“I’m
delighted to hear it.”

 
          
She
followed me out of the frothy little bedroom, across the diminutive
rattan-furnished sitting room, to the door. “About this other thing, I’ll think
about it. Do you think she’d run out and lose my property for me?”

 
          
“Only if she were frightened.”

 
          
“Of going to prison?”

 
          
“Of
being killed,” I said. “Did you ever see this Larry Gaines—the young man who
fouled her up?”

 
          
“No,
he never came here, to my knowledge. I did meet Mr. Broadman on one occasion.
He seemed harmless enough. But you never can tell about people.”

 
          
“Sometimes
you can, Mrs. Cline.”

 
          
She
got the message, and her smile returned it.

 
          
I
DROVE THE SHORT two blocks from Mrs. Cline’s house to the hospital. It was a
five-story brick building which stood in a quiet middle-class neighborhood. The
quiet seemed oddly ominous to me. I couldn’t help wondering if Larry Gaines had
suborned other hospital employees after Ella Barker turned him down. There was
something chilling about the idea of criminals infiltrating a hospital.

 
          
Perhaps
the police had the same idea. There was a police car in the hospital parking
lot. On my way to the morgue in the basement, I ran into Wills and Granada,
almost literally.

 
          
They
were coming up the fire stairs with their heads thrust forward in identical
attitudes. Granada had always imitated Wills’s movements and gestures. Wills
stopped below me, with an impatient look, as if I was deliberately blocking his
way. “What brings you here?”

 
          
“The Broadman killing.
Do you have a minute?”

 
          
“No.
But what can I do for you?”

 
          
Granada
came up past me without a word. His bitten hand was hidden in his pocket. He
stood at the head of the iron stairs, lips and chin thrust out, like a
Janizary
waiting for orders.

 
          
“I’m
very much interested in the results of the autopsy on Broadman. Are they in?”

 
          
“Yeah,
I just got a report from Dr. Simeon. Why are you so interested?”

 
          
“You
know why I’m interested in Broadman. He seemed in fair shape at first. I can’t
understand why he died.”

 
          
“He
died of his injuries,” Wills said shortly. “What specific injuries did he
have?”

 
          
I
was watching Granada. If he heard what I said, or cared, he gave no sign. He
put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it with a match held in his left hand, and
flicked the match down the stairwell.

 
          
“Broadman
had head injuries,” Wills was saying. “You get a delayed reaction with them
sometimes.”

 
          
“I
see. Is it all right with you if I talk to the pathologist?”

 
          
“Go
ahead. Dr. Simeon will tell you the same thing.”

 
          
Wills’s
voice was coldly polite. “Joe Reach mentioned you were going to take another
crack at Barker.”

 
          
“Miss
Barker,” I corrected him. “I had another interview with her this morning.”

 
          
“Any
result?”

 
          
“I’d
prefer to discuss that in private.”

 
          
Wills
glanced down the empty stairs, then up to the landing where Granada was
waiting.

 
          
“This
is private, isn’t it?”

 
          
“Not
private enough.”

 
          
“Granada’s
my right-hand man.”

 
          
“He
isn’t mine.”

 
          
Wills
gave me a dour look, but he called up the stairs to Granada: “I’ll meet you
outside, Pike.” Granada left, and Wills turned to me. “What’s all the mystery
about?”

 
          
“No
mystery, Lieutenant, at least as far as I’m concerned. My client tells me
Gaines is mixed up with a blonde woman.”

 
          
“We
got that from other sources. She
know
who the blonde
woman is?”

 
          
“No.”
I was hyperconscious of the line of truth that I was trying to straddle. “She
doesn’t. She only saw her once.”

 
          
“And
that’s your special private information?”

 
          
“There’s
this.” I produced my lone piece of evidence, the sharkskin wallet, and handed
it to Wills.

 
          
He
looked at it glumly. “What is this supposed to signify?”

 
          
“It
belonged to Gaines. Ella Barker kept it as a memento.”

 
          
“How
touching.” Wills flipped it open, and sniffed at it disparagingly. “It stinks
of perfume. Did she give it to you?”

 
          
“I
found it in her apartment. She told me where it was. The girl is doing her best
to co-operate.”

 
          
“She
can do better than this. Did Joe Reach talk to you about a polygraph?”

 
          
“He
mentioned it.”

 
          
“Why
dillydally around? People are dying.”

 
          
“One
of them died of a policeman’s bullets. The other one died in a manner that’s
not yet established to my satisfaction.”

 
          
“To your satisfaction, for God’s sake.”
Wills seldom swore.
“Who do you think you are?”

 
          
“An attorney trying to protect a client from harassment.”

 
          
Wills
rounded his mouth and blew out a gust of air.
“Words.
Big empty words.
That’s all they are, and they make me sick
to my stomach. What the hell is this all about? Are you trying to stick a knife
in Granada’s back, or what?”

 
          
“You
reamed him out last night after the Donato shooting. Why?”

 
          
“That’s
between him and
I
. Not,” he added, “that it’s any big
secret. It would have helped if Donato had lived to talk. He didn’t, so that’s
that. Granada did his duty as he saw it.”

 
          
“Do
you always let him interpret his duties as he sees them?”

 
          
Wills
said stubbornly: “Pike Granada is a good officer. I’d rather have a hood like
Donato dead, ten times over, than him.”

 
          
“Are
you aware of his prior relations with Donato?”

 
          
“Yes,
I’m aware of it,” Wills said on a rising note. “Pike’s lived here all his life,
he knows everybody in town, it’s one of his values to us.”

 
          
“How
well did he know Broadman?”

 
          
“Pretty
well, he worked the pawnshop detail—”

 
          
The
sentence dwindled off. Wills’s face took on the appearance of pitted silver.
Then it darkened like silver tarnishing all in a moment. He said in his chest:
“What is this?”

 
          
“Granada
had his hands on Broadman yesterday. Broadman was in fair shape before that.
After that he died, very suddenly.”

 
          
“Donato
killed Broadman, you know that.”

 
          
“Donato
will never be able to deny it.”

 
          
Wills
looked at me in silence. The silence was stitched and woven through by the
noises of the hospital, the quiet footsteps of nurses, wisps of voices, the
closing of a door.

 
          
“I
don’t like this, Mr. Gunnarson. You’re running loose at the mouth, and I don’t
like it. Granada’s one of my best men. What you’re saying is libel.”

 
          
“You’re
his superior. Who else would I communicate my suspicions to?”

 
          
“You
better not take ’
em
anywhere else, that’s for sure.”

 
          
“Is
that a threat?”

 
          
“I
don’t mean it that way. You want my
opinion,
you’ve
gone off the deep end. You ought to be more careful what you say.”

 
          
“Can’t
you control Granada?”

 
          
I
spoke the words in anger, and regretted them as soon as they were out. The pain
in my eyes was intense, and jabbing deeper into my head. The worst of it was
,
I couldn’t tell if it was the pain of knowledge or
ignorance.

 
          
Wills
let out an inarticulate sound, and made a reflex motion, striking the wall with
the back of his hand. He became aware of the wallet he was holding.

 
          
“
Here.
This is worthless.”

 
          
Perhaps
he meant to hand it to me, but it flew from his hand and slid down the iron
stairs. I went down after it, and he went up after Granada. The fire door
closed behind him.

 
          
Dr.
Simeon was a middle-aging man with traces of a dedicated look. His office was a
corner room with small windows set high in the wall, and fluorescent lighting
which was probably never turned off. Under it, the doctor was as pale as one of
his own cadavers.

 
          
“The
results of a head injury can be surprising,” he said. “There’s often a delayed
reaction, as I’ve just been telling Lieutenant Wills. It results from
hemorrhaging, and the formation of a blood clot.”

 
          
“Did
you find a blood clot?”

 
          
“No,
I didn’t. And there was no actual fracture of the skull.” He raised a finicky,
nicotine-stained hand and drummed a few dull bars on the front of his own
skull. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking of taking another whack at
him.”

 
          
“You
mean you haven’t done a complete postmortem?”

 
          
“It
was as complete as seemed called for. I found some cerebral hemorrhaging,
probably enough to account for death.” He was hedging.

 
          
“You’re
not satisfied that he died of his head injuries, are you?”

 
          
“Not
entirely. I’ve seen people walking around with equally serious injuries. Not,”
he added dryly, “that I recommend walking around regardless as therapy for head
injuries.”

 
          
“What
killed him if they didn’t? Was he strangled?”

 
          
“I’ve
seen no indications to that effect. There are nearly always external marks,
broken veins under the skin. I’ve found no such marks
outside,
and nothing in the internal neck structures.”

 
          
“Are
you sure?”

 
          
It
was a poor question. The pathologist gave me a quick bright look. I had injured
him in his professional pride.

 
          
“You
can have a look at the body yourself if you like.”

 
          
It
lay open on a table in the next room. I tried, but I couldn’t go near it. I’d
softened up considerably since Korea. A chill seemed to emanate from the body.
I realized that the impression was fantastic: the room was simply cold. But I
couldn’t go near Broadman.

 
          
Simeon
regarded me with satisfaction. “I’m going to go into the thoracic cavity. I’ll
let you know if I discover anything, Mr. Gunnarson.”

 
          
I
hardly heard him. Through an archway half obscured by rubberized curtains, I
could see the wall of drawers in the adjoining room. One of the drawers was
partly open. An old woman in black sat on a stool beside it, her head bowed and
hooded by a shawl.

 
          
Simeon
passed through the archway and touched her shoulder gently. “You mustn’t stay
here in this chill, Mrs. Donato. You’ll catch cold.”