Росс Макдональд - The Chill

“Yes. We did. Not Germany, but most of the others.”

“Then it wouldn’t have been hard for him to fake the letters. As for the postcards, his accomplice must have bought them in Europe and mailed them to him.”

“I dislike your use of the word ‘accomplice’ in connection with my son. There is, after all, nothing criminal about this – this deception. It’s a purely personal matter.”

“I hope so, Mrs. Bradshaw.”

She must have known what I meant. Her face went through the motions of swallowing pain. She turned her back on me and went to the window. Several white-eyed blackbirds were walking around on the tiles of the patio. I don’t suppose she saw them. One of her hands combed roughly at her hair, over and over, until it stuck up like molting thistles. When she turned around at last, her eyes were half-closed, and her face seemed tormented by the light.

“I’m going to ask you to keep all this in confidence, Mr. Archer.”

Roy Bradshaw had used very similar language last night, about his marriage to Laura.

“I can try,” I said.

“Please do. It would be tragic if Roy’s career were to be ruined by a youthful indiscretion. That’s all it was, you know – a youthful indiscretion. It would never have happened if his father had lived to give him a father’s guidance.” She gestured toward the portrait over the fireplace.

“By ‘it’ you mean the Macready woman?”

“Yes.”

“You know her then?”

“I know her.”

As if the admission had exhausted her, she collapsed in the platform rocker, leaning her head on the high cushioned back. Her loose throat seemed very vulnerable.

“Miss Macready came to see me once,” she said. “It was before we left Boston, during the war. She wanted money.”

“Blackmail money?”

“That’s what it amounted to. She asked me to finance a Nevada divorce for her. She’d picked Roy up on Scollay Square and tricked the boy into marrying her. She was in a position to wreck his future. I gave her two thousand dollars. Apparently she spent it on herself and never bothered getting a divorce.” She sighed. “Poor Roy.”

“Did he know that you knew about her?”

“I never told him. I thought I had ended the threat by paying her money. I wanted it over with and forgotten, with no recriminations between my son and me. But apparently she’s been haunting him all these years.”

“Haunting him in the flesh?”

“Who knows? I thought I understood my son, and all the details of his life. It turns out that I don’t.”

“What sort of a woman is she?”

“I saw her only once, when she came to my house in Belmont. I formed a most unfavorable impression. She claimed to be an actress, unemployed, but she dressed and talked like a member of an older profession than that.” Her voice rasped with irony. “I suppose I have to admit that the redheaded hussy was handsome, in a crude way. But she was utterly unsuitable for Roy, and of course she knew it. He was an innocent lad, hardly out of his teens. She was obviously an experienced woman.”

“How old was she?”

“Much older than Roy, thirty at least.”

“So she’d be pushing fifty now.”

“At least,” she said.

“Have you ever seen her in California?”

She shook her head so hard that her face went loose and wobbly.

“Has Roy?”

“He’s never mentioned her to me. We’ve lived together on the assumption that the Macready woman never existed. And I beg you not to tell him what I’ve told you. It would destroy all confidence between us.”

“There may be more important considerations, Mrs. Bradshaw.”

“What could be more important?”

“His neck.”

She sat with her thick ankles crossed, more stunned than impassive. Her broad sexless body made her resemble a dilapidated Buddha. She said in a hushed voice:

“Surely you can’t suspect my son of murder?”

I said something vague and soothing. The eyes of the man in the portrait followed me out. I was glad the father wasn’t alive, in view of what I might have to do to Roy.

I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and on my way into town I stopped at a drive-in. While I was waiting for my sandwich, I made another call to Arnie Walters from an outside booth.

Arnie had made his deal with Judson Foley. It was Helen Haggerty who had wanted the word on Bradshaw’s financial status. Foley couldn’t or wouldn’t swear that she had blackmail in mind. But shortly after he sold her the information she came into sudden wealth, by Foley’s standards.

“How much did she pay Foley?”

“Fifty dollars, he says. Now he feels cheated.”

“He always will,” I said. “Did she tell Foley what she had on Bradshaw?”

“No. She was very careful not to, apparently. But there’s a piece of negative evidence: She didn’t mention to Foley that Bradshaw had been married, or was getting a divorce. Which probably means that that information was worth money to her.”

“It probably does.”

“One other fact came out, Lew. The Haggerty woman knew Bradshaw long before they met in Reno.”

“Where and how?”

“Foley says he doesn’t know, and I believe him. I offered to pay him for any information that checked out. It broke his heart when he couldn’t do business with me.”

I found Jerry Marks in the law library on the second floor of the courthouse. Several bound volumes of typescript were piled on the table in front of him. There was dust on his hands, and a smudge on the side of his nose.

“Have you turned up anything, Jerry?”

“I’ve come to one conclusion. The case against McGee was weak. It consisted of two things, mainly: prior abuse of his wife, and the little girl’s testimony, which some judges would have thrown out of court. I’ve been concentrating on her testimony, because I’m going to have a chance to question her under pentothal.”

“When?”

“Tonight at eight, at the nursing home. Dr. Godwin isn’t free till then.”

“I want to be there.”

“That suits me, if Godwin can be persuaded. It was all I could do to get myself invited, and I’m her lawyer.”

“I think Godwin is sitting on something. There’s a job that needs doing between now and eight. It’s properly my job but this is your town and you can do it faster. Find out if Roy Bradshaw’s alibi for Helen Haggerty’s murder is waterproof and dustproof and antimagnetic.”

Jerry sat up straight and used his forefinger to smudge his nose some more. “How should I go about it?”

“Bradshaw addressed an alumni banquet Friday evening. I want to know if he could have slipped out during one of the other speeches, or left in time to kill her. You have a right to any facts the sheriff’s men and the pathologist can provide about time of death.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said, pushing his chair back.

“One other thing, Jerry. Is there any word on the ballistics tests?”

“The rumor says they’re still going on. The rumor doesn’t say why. Do you suppose they’re trying to fake something?”

“No, I don’t. Ballistics experts don’t go in for fakery.”

I left him gathering up his transcripts and walked downtown to the Pacific Hotel. My bellhop had contacted Mrs. Deloney’s cab-driver, and told me in return for a second five that the two elderly ladies had checked in at the Surf House. I bought a drip-dry shirt and some underwear and socks and went back to my motel to shower and change. I needed that before I tackled Mrs. Deloney again.

Someone was knocking as I stepped out of the shower, tapping ever so gently as if the door was fragile.

“Who’s there?”

“Madge Gerhardi. Let me in.”