Ross MACDONALD - The Archer Files

The flesh of her face was no more than a stretched membrane.

“I swear, I had no intention – All I intended to do was talk to her. But when I saw that she realized, that she knew –”

“Knew what, Mrs. Harvey?”

“That I was the one who killed Ruth. I must have given myself away, by what I said to her. She looked at me, and I saw that she knew. I saw it in her eyes.”

“So you shot her?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” She didn’t seem to be fearful or ashamed. The face she turned on her husband looked starved, and her mouth moved over her words as if they were giving her bitter nourishment. “But I’m not sorry for the other one, for Ruth. You shouldn’t have done it to me, Rod. I warned you, remember? I warned you when I caught you with Anne that if you ever did it to me again – I would kill the woman. You should have taken me seriously.”

“Yes,” he said drearily. “I guess I should have.”

“I warned Ruth, too, when I learned about the two of you.”

“How did you find out about it, Mrs. Harvey?”

“The usual way – an anonymous telephone call. Some friend of mine, I suppose.”

“Or your worst enemy. Do you know who it was?”

“No. I didn’t recognize the voice. I was still in bed, and the telephone call woke me up. He said – it was a man – he said that Rod was going to divorce me, and he told me why. I went to Ruth that very morning – Rod was out of town – and I asked her if it was true. She admitted it was. I told her flatly I’d kill her unless she gave you up, Rod. She laughed at me. She called me a crazy woman.”

“She was right.”

“Was she? If I’m insane, I know what’s driven me to it. I could bear the thought of the other ones. But not her! What made you take up with her , Rod – what made you want to marry that gray-haired old woman? She wasn’t even attractive, she wasn’t nearly as attractive as I am.”

“She was well-heeled,” I said.

Harvey said nothing.

Rhea Harvey dictated and signed a full confession that night. Her husband wasn’t in court the following morning. The D.A. himself moved for a directed acquittal, and Cave was free by noon. He took a taxi directly from the courthouse to the home of his late wife. I followed him in a second taxi. I still wasn’t satisfied.

The lawns around the big country house had grown knee-high and had withered in the summer sun. The gardens were overgrown with rank flowers and ranker weeds. Cave stood in the drive for a while after he dismissed his taxi, looking around the estate he had inherited. Finally he mounted the front steps.

I called him from the gate. “Wait a minute, Cave.”

He descended the steps reluctantly and waited for me, a black scowl twisting his eyebrows and disfiguring his mouth. But they were smooth and straight before I reached him.

“What do you want?”

“I was just wondering how it feels.”

He smiled with boyish charm. “To be a free man? It feels wonderful. I guess I owe you my gratitude, at that. As a matter of fact, I was planning to send you a check.”

“Save yourself the trouble. I’d send it back.”

“Whatever you say, old man.” He spread his hands disarmingly. “Is there something else I can do for you?”

“Yes. You can satisfy my curiosity. All I want from you is a yes or no.” The words set up an echo in my head, an echo of Janet Kilpatrick’s voice. “Two women have died and a third is on her way to prison or the state hospital. I want to hear you admit your responsibility.”

“Responsibility? I don’t understand.”

“I’ll spell it out for you. The quarrel you had with your wife didn’t occur on the nineteenth, the night she was murdered. It came earlier, maybe the night before. And she told you who the man was.”

“She didn’t have to tell me. I’ve known Rod Harvey for years, and all about him.”

“Then you must have known that Rhea Harvey was insanely jealous of her husband. You thought of a way to put her jealousy to work for you. It was you who telephoned her that morning. You disguised your voice, and told her what her husband and your wife were planning to do. She came to this house and threatened your wife. No doubt you overheard the conversation. Seeing that your plan was working, you left your loaded shotgun where Rhea Harvey could easily find it and went down to the beach club to establish an alibi. You had a long wait at the club, and later at Janet Kilpatrick’s house, but you finally got what you were waiting for.”

“They also serve who only stand and wait.”

“Does it seem so funny to you, Cave? You’re guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.”

“I’m not guilty of anything, old man. Even if I were, there’s nothing you could possibly do about it. You heard the court acquit me this morning, and there’s a little rule of law involving double jeopardy.”

“You were taking quite a risk, weren’t you?”

“Not so much of a risk. Rhea’s a very unstable woman, and she had to break down eventually, one way or the other.”

“Is that why you asked Harvey to defend you, to keep the pressure on Rhea?”

“That was part of it.” A sudden fury of hatred went through him, transfiguring his face. “Mostly I wanted to see him suffer.”

“What are you going to do now, Cave?”

“Nothing. I plan to take it easy. I’ve earned a rest. Why?”

“A pretty good woman was killed yesterday on account of you. For all I know you planned that killing the same way you planned the other. In any case, you could have prevented it.”

He saw the mayhem in my eyes and backed away. “Take it easy, Archer. Janet was no great loss to the world, after all.”

My fist smashed his nervous smile and drove the words down his throat. He crawled away from me, scrambled to his feet and ran, jumping over flowerbeds and disappearing around the corner of the house. I let him go.

A short time later I heard that Cave had been killed in a highway accident near Palm Springs. He was driving a new Ferrari at the time.

Published in Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries (Crippen & Landru, 2001).

I thought at first sheer terror was his trouble. He shut the door of my office behind him and stood against it, panting like a dog. He was a gaunt man in blue jeans almost black with sweat and dirt. Short rust-colored hair grew like stubble on his hatless scalp. His face was still young, but it had been furrowed by pain and clawed by anger.

“They’re after me. I need help.” The words came from deep in his laboring chest. “You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“A sort of one. Sit down and take a little time to get your breath. You shouldn’t run up those stairs.”

He laughed. It was an ugly strangled sound, like water running down a drain. “I’ve been running all night. All night.”

Warily, he circled the chair in front of my desk. He lifted the chair in a sudden movement and set it back to front against the wall and straddled it. His shoulders were wide enough to yoke a pair of oxen. His hands gripped the back of the chair and his chin came down and rested between them while he watched me. His eyes were narrow and blue, brilliant with suspicion.

“Running from what?” I said.

“From them.” He looked at the closed door, then over his shoulder at the blank wall. “They’re after me, I tell you.”

“That makes twice you’ve told me. It isn’t what I’d call a detailed story.”

“It’s no story.” He leaned forward, tilting the chair. “It’s true. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do, or haven’t done.”

“Who are they?”

“The same ones. It’s always the same ones. The cheats. The liars. The people who run things.” He went into singsong: “The ones that locked me up and threw the key away. They’ll do it again if they can. You’ve got to help me.”