Росс Макдональд - The Goodbye Look

Forgetful of me, and of himself, Truttwell put his hands on her. He stroked her head very gently, and then her long tapering back. His caresses weren’t sexual in any ordinary sense. Perhaps, I thought, his main feeling was an abstract legal passion which satisfied itself by having her as a client. Or a widower’s underground desire held in check by the undead past.

Mrs. Chalmers recovered after a while, and asked for water. Truttwell went to another room to fetch it. She spoke to me in an urgent whisper:

“Why did my mother call the police on Randy? She must have had a reason.”

“She had. He stole her picture of Nick.”

“The graduation picture I sent her?”

“Yes.”

“I shouldn’t have sent it. But I thought for once in my life I could act like a normal human being.”

“You couldn’t, though. Your father took it to Jean Trask and talked her into hiring Sidney Harrow. That’s how the whole thing started.”

“What did the old man want?”

“Your husband’s money, just like everyone else.”

“But not you, eh?” Her voice was sardonic.

“Not me,” I said. “Money costs too much.”

Truttwell brought her a paper cup of water and watched her drink it. “Are you feeling up to a little drive?”

Her body jerked in alarm. “Where to?”

“The Smitheram Clinic. It’s time we had a chat with Nick.”

She looked profoundly unwilling. “Dr. Smitheram won’t let you in.”

“I think he will. You’re Nick’s mother. I’m his attorney. If Dr. Smitheram won’t cooperate, I’ll slap a writ of habeas corpus on him.”

Truttwell wasn’t entirely serious, but her mood of alarm persisted. “No. Please, don’t do anything like that I’ll talk to Dr. Smitheram.”

On the way out I asked the switchboard girl if Betty had come back with the lab report. She hadn’t. I left word for her that I’d be at the clinic.

Irene Chalmers dismissed Emilio. She rode between Truttwell and me in the front seat of his Cadillac. When she got out of the car in the parking lot of the clinic she moved like a drugged woman. Truttwell gave her his arm and guided her into the reception room.

Moira Smitheram was behind the desk, as she had been the day I met her. It seemed like a long time ago. Her face had aged and deepened, or maybe I could see more deeply into her. She looked from Truttwell to me.

“You didn’t give me much time.”

“We’re running out of time.”

Truttwell said: “It’s very important that we talk to Nick Chalmers. Mrs. Chalmers agrees.”

“You’ll have to take that up with Dr. Smitheram.”

Moira went and got her husband. He came through the inner door, striding angrily in his white smock.

“You don’t give up easily, do you?” he said to Truttwell.

“I don’t give up at all, old man. We’re here to see Nick, and I’m very much afraid that you can’t stop us.”

Smitheram turned his back on Truttwell and said to Mrs. Chalmers: “How do you feel about this?”

“You better let us in, doctor,” she said without raising her eyes.

“Have you re-engaged Mr. Truttwell as your attorney?”

“Yes I have.”

“And has Mr. Chalmers concurred?”

“He will.”

Dr. Smitheram gave her a probing look. “What sort of pressure are you under, anyway?”

Truttwell said: “You’re wasting time, doctor. We’re here to talk to your patient, not to you.”

Smitheram swallowed his anger. “Very well.”

He and his wife conducted us through the inner door, along a corridor to a second door which had to be unlocked and relocked. The wing beyond it contained eight or ten rooms beginning with a suicide room in which a woman sat on the padded floor looking out at us through thick glass.

Nick had a bed-sitting room with an open door. He sat in an armchair holding an open textbook. In his light wool robe he looked almost like any other young man interrupted at his studies. He stood up when he saw his mother, his black eyes large and bright in his pale face. His dark glasses were on the desk beside him.

“Hello, Mother, Mr. Truttwell.” His glance traveled across our faces without pausing. “Where’s Dad? Where’s Betty?”

“This isn’t a social occasion,” Truttwell said, “though it’s good to see you. We have some questions to ask you.”

“Keep them as brief as possible,” Smitheram said. “Sit down, Nick.”

Moira took his book and put a marker in it; then stood beside her husband in the doorway. Irene Chalmers sat in the other chair, Truttwell and I on the single bed facing Nick.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Truttwell said. “About fifteen years ago, when you were a small boy, you shot a man in the railroad yards.”

Nick raised his eyes to Smitheram’s and said in a flat disappointed tone: “You told him.”

“No, I did not,” Smitheram said.

Truttwell said to the doctor: “You took on quite a responsibility when you kept that shooting quiet.”

“I know that. I acted in the best interests of an eight-year-old who was threatened with autism. The law isn’t the only guide to the conduct of human affairs. Even if it were, the homicide was justifiable or accidental.”

Truttwell said wearily: “I didn’t come here to argue law or ethics with you, doctor.”

“Then don’t attack my motives.”

“Which are, of course, as pure as the driven snow.”

The doctor’s large body made a small threatening move in Truttwell’s direction. It was inhibited by Moira’s hand on his elbow.

Truttwell turned back to Nick. “Tell me about that shooting down by the tracks. Was it an accident?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then just tell me how it happened. How did you get to the railroad yards in the first place?”

Nick answered haltingly as if his memory operated by fits and starts like a teletype ticker. “I was on my way home from school when the man picked me up in his car. I know I shouldn’t have got in. But he seemed terribly serious. And I felt sorry for him. He was sick and old.

“He asked me a lot of questions about who my mother was, and who my father was, and when and where I was born. Then he said that he was my father. I didn’t exactly believe him, but I was interested enough to go along to the hobo jungle with him.

“He took me to a place behind the old roundhouse. Someone had left a fire burning and we added some wood and sat beside it. He got out a pint of whisky and took a pull and gave me a taste of it. It burned my mouth. But he drank it down like water, and finished the bottle.

“It made him foolish. He sang some old songs, and then he got sentimental. He said I was his darling boy and when he came into his rights he’d assume his true position and look after me. He started to paw me and kiss me, and that was when I shot him. He had a gun in the waistband of his trousers. I pulled it out and shot him, and he died.”

Nick’s pale face was still composed. But I could hear his rapid breathing.

“What did you do with the gun?” I said.

“I didn’t do anything with it. I left it lying there and walked home. Later I told my parents what I’d done. They didn’t believe me at first. Then it came out in the paper, about the dead man, and they believed me. They brought me to Dr. Smitheram. And,” he added with wry bitterness, “I’ve been with him ever since. I wish I’d gone to the police in the first place.” His eyes were on his mother’s half-averted face.

“It wasn’t your decision,” I said. “Now let’s get on to the Sidney Harrow killing.”

“Good Lord, do you think I killed him, too?”

“You thought so, remember?”