Ross MacDonald - The Ferguson Affair

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 post-mortem?”

“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.”

I thought it was Gus Donato’s mother. Then she turned up her face, with her eyes like black blisters. It was Donato’s widow, Secundina.

“I hope I catch double ammonia and die,” she said.

“That doesn’t make sense. Go home now and get some rest, and you’ll feel better.”

“I can’t sleep. My head goes round in circles.”

“I’ll give you a sleeping prescription. You can fill it at the hospital pharmacy.”

“No. I wanna stay here. I got a right. I wanna stay here with Gus.”

“I can’t permit you to. It isn’t healthy. Come into my office now,” Simeon said firmly. “I’ll give you that prescription.”

“I got no money.”

“I’ll make it no charge.”

He grasped her upper arm and half lifted her from the stool. She went along with him on dragging feet.

I WAS WAITING OUTSIDE the hospital pharmacy when she emerged, blinking her eyes against the noon sun.

“Mrs. Donato?”

She didn’t know me immediately, just as I hadn’t known her. Close up, in the sunlight, I saw what the night and the morning had done to her. Her generation had changed. The looks and gestures of youth had dropped away. What remained was the heavy stolidity of middle age. Gravity pulled at her flesh, and the sun was cruel.

“I’m Gunnarson the lawyer, Mrs. Donato. I was with Tony Padilla last night. Tony and I had a little talk this morning. He said you had some important information.”

She let her face fall inert. Her whole body went stupid. “Tony must of been dreaming. I don’t know nothing.”

“It had to do with your husband’s death,” I said. “And other matters. He said Gus didn’t kill Broadman.”

“Don’t you say that.”

Her fingers closed like pincers on my arm.

She looked around her at the sunlit street corner. Some student nurses were waiting by the bus stop, twittering like white-breasted birds. Secundina’s circling glance seemed to press reality away. It formed a zone of strangeness, empty and cold, a vacuum in the sunlight into which darkness surged from the darkness in her head.

I took her elbow and set her in motion. Her body moved slowly and reluctantly. We crossed the street to the bus stop on the diagonally opposite corner. An unoccupied concrete bench stood under a pepper tree. I persuaded her to sit down. The shadow of the pepper tree fell like cool lace on our faces.

“Tony said that your husband didn’t kill Broadman.”

“Did he?”

“I gather that you think Granada did.”

She stirred in her trance of sorrow. “What does it matter what I think? I can’t prove nothing.”

“Maybe not, but other people can.”

“Who, for instance?”

“Dr. Simeon. The police.”

“Don’t make me laugh. They like it the way it is. It’s all finished and done with.”

“Not in my book it isn’t.”

She regarded me with dull-eyed suspicion. “You’re a lawyer, ain’t you?”

“That’s correct.”

“I got no money, no way of getting none. My brother-in-law Manuel has money, but he is not interested. So there’s nothing in it for you, not a thing.”

“I realize that. I’m simply trying to get at the truth.”

“You running for something?”

“I might at that, someday.”

“Then go and run on somebody else’s time. I’m tired and sick. I wanna go home.”

“I’ll take you home.”

“No, thank you.”

But she couldn’t maintain her aloofness. She began to speak in Spanish, and in a different voice which buzzed and crackled like fire. It was like the voice of another personality, in which her youth and her sex and her anger survived. Her body came alive, and her face changed its shape.

I couldn’t understand a word. “Say it in English, Secundina.”

“So you can run down to the courthouse and get me locked up?”

“Why would I do that?”

She was silent for a minute, though her lips continued to move. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Information about the Broadman killing.”

“I told it all to Tony. Get it from him.”

“Is it true?”

She flared up darkly. “You calling me a liar?”

“No. But would you swear to it in court?”

“I’d never get to court, you know that. He’d do it to me, too.”

“Who would?”

“Pike Granada. He always used to be hot for me. And when I wouldn’t let him, he got a down on me. He tried to force me one night out at the icehouse. Gus nicked him good with a knife. So he turned Gus in to the cops for stealing a car. They picked me up, too. When I got out of Juvie, Pike took it out on me.”

“That was a long time ago, I thought.”

“It started a long time ago. He’s been taking it out on me and Gus ever since. Last night the bastard had to go and shoot him.”

“He was doing his duty, wasn’t he?”

“He didn’t have to shoot him. Gus never carried no gun. He didn’t have the guts to carry a gun. He let Granada shoot him down like a dog.”

“Why do you hate Granada so much?”

“He’s a crooked cop. A cop is bad enough. A crooked cop is the worst animal there is.”

“You still claim he murdered Broadman?”

“Sure he did.”