Ross MacDonald - Strangers in Town - Three Newly Discovered Mysteries

"You're kidding."

"I never kid about my people."

"Where would he get a million?"

"He didn't. That's the point. I can't help feeling he was cheated out of it, in a way. His father meant him to have half the estate. Of course Carl wasn't fit to handle it. Old Heller left the whole thing to his other son Jerry, with the understanding that he would provide for Carl. Then when the accident happened—"

"The old man's murder, you mean?"

"Accident," he said sharply. "Murder involves willful intention and knowledge of what you're doing. If Carl killed his father, he didn't know what he was doing. He was morally and legally not guilty."

"By reason of insanity."

"Of course. As it happened, the case never came to trial, and he was never convicted of anything worse than mental illness. But Jerry, his older brother—"

"I know Jerry. I went out to his ranch to offer him protection. He kicked me off the place. He had a wild idea that I was making advances to his wife. I hate to say this, but it was the other way around."

"Typical behavior from both of them. He's terribly jealous, and she gives him plenty of cause." He smiled with reminiscent grimness. "I was going to say, when I was interrupted, that Jerry took advantage of the tragic situation. As you probably know if you're a detective, there's a legal tradition which forbids a murderer to profit from his victim's death. Jerry shipped Carl off to Mendocino, and kept the whole estate for himself."

"And the estate is really worth a million dollars?"

"Double that. The old man bought up thousands of acres of lemon land during the depression. The family's much wealthier than you'd think from the way they live."

"You said an interesting thing a minute ago, Mr. Parish. You said if Carl killed his father. Is there any doubt that he did?"

"It was never proved. It was simply assumed."

"I thought he was caught in the act."

"That was his brother's statement to the coroner's jury. I tried to get the sheriff, who is also the coroner — I tried to get him to let me cross-examine Jerry Heller. He wouldn't permit it. I was new in my job, and that afternoon's work almost got me fired."

"You think Jerry was lying."

"Don't jump to conclusions. It's my job, as I see it, to keep people out of Mendocino, unless they're proven dangerous. If we sent away everyone with a paranoid streak, and locked them up for what amounts to life, the mental hospitals wouldn't begin to hold them."

"What about the cemeteries?" I said. "They'd soon be overflowing if we let all the Carl Hellers run around loose."

"I wonder. Carl was in pretty good shape when they let him out five years ago. Naturally the accident upset him again, threw him back into illness. It made him look very bad. He was tried in the court of public opinion and found guilty of homicidal mania. But I'm not completely convinced that he killed his father. He told me himself that the old man was lying dead when he entered the room. Then Jerry came in and caught him leaning over the bed, trying to untie the rope from his father's neck."

"Did Jerry frame him, in your opinion?"

"Please. I didn't say that. Carl may have killed him. Or Jerry may have believed that he did, sincerely. A million dollars can be a powerful motive for believing something. Myself, I've never known Carl to be really dangerous."

"He was this morning."

"Perhaps. After five years behind the walls. I'd like to see him for myself."

"You're a braver man than I am."

"I know him better than you. I like Carl."

"Evidently. But if he didn't kill his father, who did?"

"There were other people in the house. The servants had no reason to love old Heller. Neither had Jerry or Zinnia, for that matter. Sheriff Ostervelt was there, too, eating Thanksgiving dinner with the family. He's Heller's brother-in-law, and the old man owned him lock, stock and barrel." He caught himself up short, and his brown eyes veiled themselves behind the spectacles. "For heaven's sake, don't quote me to anyone. I'm a public employee, you know, and the Heller family has political pull."

"All this is off the record then?"

"I'm afraid it has to be, though I'd dearly like to do something for Carl and Mildred."

"The best thing we can do for him is find him before he hurts somebody."

"Yes. Of course. I agree."

The telephone on his desk rang jarringly. He picked it up and identified himself. I watched his brown eyes grow round and glassy.

"This is dreadful," he said. "Dreadful." He bit his lip. "Yes, I'll come right out. It happens that Mr. Archer is here with me. Of course, Sheriff. I'll bring him along."

He set the receiver down, fumblingly, and ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

"Somebody else has been killed," I said.

"Yes. Jerry Heller. Shot in his greenhouse. They have the gun."

I murdered scores of insects on the ten-mile stretch of road between the town and the ranch. Parish sat beside me, watching the speedometer and gripping the door-handle. "This is dreadful, dreadful," he kept repeating.

We found Jerry Heller lying peacefully in the center aisle of his greenhouse. Cymbidium sprays in most of the colors of the rainbow, and some others, made a fine funeral display. The light fell muted through the transparent roof onto his dead face. A round red hole in his forehead made him appear three-eyed.

A big man in a wide-brimmed hat got up from a bench in one of the side aisles. He had a pitted nose and little uneasy eyes. His belly moved ahead of him down the aisle.

"Looks like your boy has gone and done it again," he said to Parish.

"It appears so, Sheriff." Parish was still upset, his voice high and wavering. But he stuck to his guns: "This time I hope you'll conduct a decent investigation, anyway."

"Investigation, hell. We know who killed Jerry. We know the motive. We got the weapon, even. It was stuck down in the dirt under one of these plants." He stepped over the body, heavily, and pointed at a ragged hole in the peat-moss. "All we got to do now is find him. You know his habits, don't you?"

"I knew Carl five years ago."

"He hasn't changed much, has he? Where do you think he is?"

"I haven't any idea." Parish looked up into the filtered light. "Hiding on the ranch?"

"It's possible. I'm having a posse formed. I want you to go along with them. You can talk to him better than I can. He may have another gun, and we don't want any more killings."

"I'll be glad to," Parish said.

"Go and report to Deputy Santee, then. He's in the house telephoning." Parish went through an inner door which led through a covered passageway into the house. Before he closed it behind him, I caught a glimpse of Zinnia standing in the shadows of the passageway.

The sheriff turned a fish eye on me. "You Archer?"

"That's my name."

"I'm Ostervelt, the sheriff of this county. Remember that and we'll get along just fine. Mrs. Heller, Mildred that is, tells me you saw him this morning."

"He came to my office to try and hire me."

"What for?"

"Apparently he thought that he'd been framed—"

"He wasn't," Ostervelt said. "If you need any proof, look down at what's in front of you."

"I have."

"A nice piece of work, isn't it? Why in God's name didn't you grab him this morning and hold onto him?"

"I tried to. He got the drop on me."

"He wouldn't of got it on me. I'm older and fatter than you, but he wouldn't of got it on me." By way of illustration, he flung his suitcoat back and reached for his hip. A service forty-five hopped up in his hand. He thrust it back in its holster, smiling sleepily with rubbery lips. "You saw his gun?"

"Yes."

"Can you identify it?"

"I should be able to."

"Wait here, then. I'll go get it."