Росс Макдональд - The Goodbye Look

“What makes it so important, Mrs. Swain?”

She thought for a moment. “I guess it stands for everything that has happened to my family. Our whole life went to pieces. Other people ended up with our money and our furniture and even our little objects of art.” She added after another thinking moment: “I remember when Jean was just a small child, my mother used to let her play with the box. She told her the story of Pandora’s box – you know? – and Jean and her friends pretended that was what it was. When you lifted the lid you released all the troubles of the world.” The image seemed to frighten her into silence.

“May I see the box and the pictures?”

“No you don’t! This is my last chance to get a little capital together. Without capital you’re nobody, you don’t exist. You’re not going to cheat me out of my last chance.”

She seemed to be full of anger, but it was probably sorrow she was feeling. She’d stepped on a rotten place and fallen through the floor and knew she was trapped in poverty forever. The dream she was defending wasn’t a dream for the future. It was a dreaming memory of the past, when she had lived in San Marino with a successful husband and a forty-foot pool.

I told her I would discuss the matter with Truttwell, and advised her to take good care of the box and the pictures. Then Moira and I said good night to George Trask, and went out to my car.

“Poor people.”

“You were a help.”

“I wish I could have been.” Moira paused. “I know that certain questions are out of bounds. But I’m going to ask one anyway. You don’t have to answer.”

“Go ahead.”

“When you found Nick today, was he in this neighborhood?”

I hesitated, but not for long. She was married to another man, and in a profession with different rules from mine. I gave her a flat no.

“Why?”

“Mr. Trask told me his wife was involved with Nick. He didn’t know Nick’s name, but his description was accurate. Apparently he saw them together in Pacific Point.”

“They spent some time together,” I said shortly.

“Were they lovers?”

“I have no reason to think so. The Trasks and Nick make a very unlikely triangle.”

“I’ve seen unlikelier,” she said.

“Are you trying to tell me Nick may have killed the woman?”

“No, I’m not. If I thought so I wouldn’t be talking about it. Nick has been our patient for fifteen years.”

“Since 1954?”

“Yes.”

“What happened in 1954?”

“Nick became ill,” she said levelly. “I can’t discuss the nature of his illness. I’ve already said too much.”

We were almost back where we started. Not quite. Driving back to the hospital I could feel her leaning close to me, tentatively, lightly.

Moira left me at the hospital entrance to fix her face, as she said. I took the elevator to the second floor and found Nick’s parents in the visitors’ room. Chalmers was snoring in an armchair with his head thrown back. His wife sat near him, dressed in elegant black.

“Mrs. Chalmers?”

She rose with her finger to her lips, moving toward the door. “This is the first rest Larry’s had.” She followed me into the corridor. “We’re both deeply grateful to you, for finding Nick.”

“I hope it wasn’t too late.”

“It wasn’t.” She managed a pale smile. “Dr. Smitheram and the other doctors are most encouraging. Apparently Nick regurg–” She stumbled over the word. “He vomited some of the pills before they could take effect.”

“What about his concussion?”

“I don’t think it’s too serious. Do you have any idea how he got it?”

“He fell or was hit,” I said.

“Who hit him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did you find him, Mr. Archer?”

“Here in San Diego.”

“But where?”

“I’d rather report the details through Mr. Truttwell.”

“But he’s not here. He refused to come. He said he had other clients to attend to.” Her feelings had risen close to the surface, and anger broke through. “If he thinks he can give us the brush-off, he’ll be sorry.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean that.” I changed the subject. “Since Truttwell isn’t available, I should probably tell you I’ve been talking to a Mrs. Swain. She’s Jean Trask’s mother and she has some family pictures that I’d like to have a look at. But Mrs. Swain wants money for them.”

“How much money?”

“Quite a lot. I may be able to get them for a thousand or so.”

“That’s ridiculous! The woman must be crazy.”

I didn’t press the point. Nurses were coming and going in the corridor. They already knew Mrs. Chalmers, and they smiled and nodded and looked inquiringly at her hot black eyes. Breathing deeply, she got herself under some control.

“I insist that you tell me where you found Nick. If he was the victim of foul play–”

I cut her short: “I wouldn’t get off on that kick, Mrs. Chalmers.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s take a little walk.”

We turned a corner and loitered along a hallway past offices that had been closed for the night. I told her in detail where I had found her son, in the garage next to the kitchen where Jean Trask had been murdered. She leaned on the white wall, her head hanging sideways as if I had struck her violently in the face. Without her coloring, her foreshortened shadow looked like that of a hunched old woman.

“You think he killed her, don’t you?”

“There are other possibilities. But I haven’t reported any of this to the police, for obvious reasons.”

“Am I the only one you’ve told?”

“So far.”

She straightened up, using her hands to push herself away from the wall. “Let’s keep it that way. Don’t tell John Truttwell – he’s turned against Nick on account of that girl of his. Don’t even tell my husband. His nerves are exhausted as it is, and he can’t take it.”

“But you can?”

“I have to.” She was quiet for a moment, getting her thoughts in order. “You said there were other possibilities.”

“One is that your son was framed. Say the murderer found him drugged and put him in the Trask garage as a patsy. It would be hard to convince the police of that one.”

“Do they have to be brought in?”

“They’re in. The question is how much we have to tell them. We’ll need legal advice on that. My neck is out a mile as it is.”

She wasn’t much interested in the state of my neck. “What are the other possibilities?”

“I can think of one other. We’ll get to that in a minute.” I took out my wallet and produced the suicide note which had fallen from Nick’s pocket. “Is this Nick’s writing?”

She held it up to the light. “Yes, it is. It means he’s guilty, doesn’t it?”

I took it back. “It means he feels guilty of something. He may have stumbled across Mrs. Trask’s body and had an overwhelming guilt reaction. That’s the other possibility that occurred to me. I’m no psychiatrist, and I’d like your permission to talk this over with Dr. Smitheram.”

“No! Not even Dr. Smitheram.”

“Don’t you trust him?”

“He knows too much about my son already.” She leaned toward me urgently. “You can’t trust anybody, don’t you know that?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t know that. I was hoping we’d reached a point where the people responsible for Nick could do some candid talking with each other. The hush-hush policy hasn’t been working too well.”

She looked at me with a kind of wary surprise. “Do you like Nick?”

“I’ve had no chance to like him, or get to know him. I feel responsible for him. I hope you do, too.”