Росс Макдональд - Meet Me at the Morgue

I crossed the room and stood over her. “Has the Johnson boy been kidnapped?”

She raised her wet black lashes. “Yes, and they’re accusing Fred. They claim he stole the boy and ran away with him. But it’s a lie.” Her voice broke in a storm of grief.

“Mrs. Miner says there’s a plot against him.” Ann leaned towards me and added in a whisper: “Do you think she’s having delusions of persecution?”

“Nonsense,” I said, more loudly than I intended.

Mrs. Miner jerked herself upright, dislodging Ann’s hand from her shoulder. “Don’t you believe me? It’s the truth I’m telling you. Jamie’s been stolen away, and Fred’s been framed to take the blame for it.” Under the thin flesh, her high cheekbones stood out as if grief had washed them bare.

“Take it easy,” I said. “I can’t believe you or disbelieve you until I’ve heard what happened. Bring her a drink of water, will you, Miss Devon?”

“Of course.” Ann filled a paper cup at the earthenware cooler and brought it to Mrs. Miner. “There you are, dear.”

With a shaking hand, she raised the cup to her pale unpainted lips. Some of the water spilled down the front of her dress. She gulped the rest of it and crushed the cup in her fist. Her knuckles were red and cracked from housework.

“Now tell Mr. Cross what you told me,” Ann prompted her.

“I’ll try.” She made an effort to be calm. Above the square-cut collar of her dress, the cords in her neck bulged taut like thin ropes. “You saw my husband this morning? He said he was coming here to talk to Mr. Linebarge.”

“He was here. Mr. Linebarge wasn’t, but I talked to him.”

“Did he look to you like he was planning a crime? Did he? Is that the way he looked?”

I felt a repetition of the qualms I had had that morning, talking to Fred. “Perhaps I’d better ask the questions, Mrs. Miner. You say your husband’s been accused of kidnapping Jamie Johnson. Who accused him?”

“Mr. Johnson.”

“On what grounds?”

“No grounds at all. It’s a plot.” The stiff movement of her jaws gave her speech an oddly ventriloquial effect.

“You’ve said that. Can’t you tell me anything more definite? I take it they’re both gone.”

“Both of them, vanished like smoke.” One of her hands flipped up in an involuntary gesture. She returned it, clenched, to her lap. “It doesn’t mean my Fred is guilty. It means the opposite. It means foul play.”

“Nobody knows where they are?”

“Somebody knows. I don’t, but somebody knows. Whoever it is behind all this, they know.” Her mouth was tight and hissing. Her eyes glared like brown glass.

“Who do you have in mind?”

“A conspiracy,” she said, “that’s what it is.”

Ann and I looked at each other. I was half inclined to agree with her that Mrs. Miner had been unbalanced by the shock of events.

“He’s got a big black mark against him,” she was saying, “and they know that. It’s a criminal conspiracy to put the blame on him, for stealing the child.”

“Has Jamie really been kidnapped?”

“I’m telling the truth,” she said fiercely. “What do you think?”

“I think you may be exaggerating a little.” I looked at my wrist-watch. “It’s twenty to twelve now. I saw the boy with Fred less than three hours ago. There was no trouble then.”

She leaned towards me, her thin face avid for any kind of hope. “I knew it. Fred loved the boy like his own son. I knew there couldn’t be trouble between them, only Mr. Johnson won’t take my word for it. He’s blaming Fred. They’re all down on him now, even Mr. Johnson. He said he made a terrible mistake when he saved Fred from going to prison.”

Ann said in surprise: “Does Mr. Johnson think his son has been kidnapped?”

“He knows it.”

“How can he know it?” I said. “The boy’s only been gone since nine o’clock. Fred told me he had orders to take him for a drive.”

“I don’t know about that.” The authority of special information had restored some of her self-control. “All I know is, I saw the ransom letter with my own eyes. It came in the mail this morning. I took it up to the main house myself. I was there when Mr. Johnson opened it.”

Ann and I looked at each other in silence. The first stroke of the three-quarter-hour fell from the courthouse tower like a bomb of sound, a giant exclamation-mark at the end of the woman’s statement. Between the first stroke and the third the situation changed palpably. Even the familiar room altered in appearance.

I echoed stupidly: “A ransom letter?”

“Yes. It came in the mail this morning.”

“Did it mention Fred?”

“Of course it didn’t. He’s got nothing to do with this, can’t you believe me? It gave instructions like for paying the money. It wasn’t even signed.”

“How much, Mrs. Miner?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

Ann whistled. Fifty thousand dollars would pay her salary for nearly twenty years, and mine for nearly ten.

“He called the police, I hope.”

“No. He didn’t. He was afraid to. The letter said if he did they’d kill the boy.”

“Where’s Johnson now?”

“He came into town to raise the money. I haven’t seen him since he left the house. He was in an awful rush. The letter only gave him till eleven o’clock.”

“You mean the money’s been paid already?”

“I guess so. He was going to pay it all right. He dotes on that boy.” She added defensively: “No more than Fred, though.”

“I know that. Tell me this. Have you any idea where Fred is?”

“I only wish I had. He didn’t tell me, except about Mr. Linebarge. He said he was coming here, and that’s all.”

“Did he say why?”

“Not him. He kept things to himself.”

“Do you know if he took the boy without permission?”

“That’s what Mrs. Johnson says. Fred never did it before. Fred always tried to do the right thing.”

Ann said: “Is Mrs. Johnson out there alone?”

“As far as I know she is. She’s taking it calm enough, or I wouldn’t have left her. When they started making these accusations, I had to come in and see–”

I interrupted her: “We’d better go out there. Do you have a car, Mrs. Miner?”

“We had. Fred had to sell it to pay his fine. I rode in on the bus.”

“I’ll drive you out.”

“Shouldn’t we call the Federal Bureau?” Ann said.

“Not without talking to Johnson first. It’s his boy.”

I knew Abel Johnson slightly. He had come into the office in February to discuss the Miner case, and Alex had introduced us. Johnson was an expansive middle-aged man who was supposed to have made a moderate fortune in San Diego real estate during the war. A year or so after the war ended he retired to Pacific Point and bought a country house a few miles out of town. There he settled down with his wife and baby son.

The courthouse gossips said that he had been seriously ill and had married his nurse. I had never met Mrs. Johnson. Johnson himself was regarded as a leading citizen. He was a heavy contributor to local charities and a member of the retired executives’ club. If his son had really been kidnapped, there was going to be a great deal of strong public feeling.

Mrs. Miner acted as if she knew that. She hung back at the foot of the Annex stairs, watching the Saturday noon crowd with a kind of terror. Ann Devon had to coax her across the sidewalk and into my car. She walked stumbling, with her head bowed, like someone carrying a heavy burden. Once in the car, she shrank into a corner of the back seat and covered her eyes with her hand as if the sunlight hurt them. As we drove out of town, I heard her crying quietly to herself.