Росс Макдональд - The Chill

In the remaining minutes before we reached the nursing home, I told him briefly what I’d learned from McGee, and from the Sheriff. Jerry whistled, but made no other comment.

Dr. Codwin opened the door for us. He wore a clean white smock and an aggrieved expression.

“You’re late, Mr. Marks. I was just about ready to call the whole thing off.”

“We had a little emergency. Thomas McGee was arrested about seven o’clock tonight. Mr. Archer happened to be with him, and he was arrested, also.”

Godwin turned to me. “You were with McGee?”

“He sent for me, and he talked. I’m looking forward to comparing his story with his daughter’s.”

“I’m afraid you aren’t – ah – co-opted to this session,” Godwin said with some embarrassment. “As I pointed out to you before, you don’t have professional immunity.”

“I do if I’m acting on Mr. Marks’s instructions. Which I am.”

“Mr. Archer is correct, on both counts,” Jerry said.

Godwin let us in reluctantly. We were outsiders, interlopers in his shadowy kingdom. I had lost some of my confidence in his benevolent despotism, but I kept it to myself for the present.

He took us to the examination room where Dolly was waiting. She was sitting on the end of a padded table, wearing a sleeveless white hospital gown. Alex stood in front of her, holding both her hands. His eyes stayed on her face, hungry and worshipping, as if she was the priestess or the goddess of a strange one-member cult.

Her hair was shining and smooth. Her face was composed. Only her eyes had a sullen restlessness and inwardness. They moved across me and failed to give any sign of recognition.

Godwin touched her shoulder. “Are you ready, Dolly?”

“I suppose I am.”

She lay back on the padded table. Alex held on to one of her hands.

“You can stay if you like, Mr. Kincaid. It might be easier if you didn’t.”

“Not for me,” the girl said. “I feel safer when he’s with me. I want Alex to know all about – everything.”

“Yes. I want to stay.”

Codwin filled a hypodermic needle, inserted it in her arm, and taped it to the white skin. He told her to count backward from one hundred. At ninety-six the tension left her body and an inner light left her face. It flowed back in a diffused form when the doctor spoke to her:

“Do you hear me, Dolly?”

“I hear you,” she murmured.

“Speak louder. I can’t hear you.”

“I hear you,” she repeated. Her voice was faintly slurred.

“Who am I?”

“Dr. Godwin.”

“Do you remember when you were a little girl you used to come and visit me in my office?”

“I remember.”

“Who used to bring you to see me?”

“Mommy did. She used to bring me in in Aunt Alice’s car.”

“Where were you living then?”

“In Indian Springs, in Aunt Alice’s house.”

“And Mommy was living there, too?”

“Mommy was living there, too. She lived there, too.”

She was flushed, and talking like a drunken child. The doctor turned to Jerry Marks with a handing-over gesture. Jerry’s dark eyes were mournful.

“Do you remember a certain night,” he said, “when your Mommy was killed?”

“I remember. Who are you?”

“I’m Jerry Marks, your lawyer. It’s all right to talk to me.”

“It’s all right,” Alex said.

The girl looked up at Jerry sleepily. “What do you want me to tell you?”

“Just the truth. It doesn’t matter what I want, or anybody else. Just tell me what you remember.”

“I’ll try.”

“Did you hear the gun go off?”

“I heard it.” She screwed up her face as if she was hearing it now. “I am – it frightened me.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“I didn’t go downstairs right away. I was scared.”

“Did you see anyone out the window?”

“No. I heard a car drive away. Before that I heard her running.”

“You heard who running?” Jerry said.

“I thought it was Aunt Alice at first, when she was talking to Mommy at the door. But it couldn’t have been Aunt Alice. She wouldn’t shoot Mommy. Besides, her gun was missing.”

“How do you know?”

“She said I took it from her room. She spanked me with a hairbrush for stealing it.”

“When did she spank you?”

“Sunday night, when she came home from church. Mommy said she had no right to spank me. Aunt Alice asked Mommy if she took the gun.”

“Did she?”

“She didn’t say – not while I was there. They sent me to bed.”

“ Did you take the gun?”

“No. I never touched it. I was afraid of it.”

“Why?”

“I was afraid of Aunt Alice.”

She was rosy and sweating. She tried to struggle up onto her elbows. The doctor eased her back into her supine position, and made an adjustment to the needle. The girl relaxed again, and Jerry said:

“Was it Aunt Alice talking to your Mommy at the door?”

“I thought it was at first. It sounded like her. She had a big scary voice. But it couldn’t have been Aunt Alice.”

“Why couldn’t it?”

“It just couldn’t.”

She turned her head in a listening attitude. A lock of hair fell over her half-closed eyes. Alex pushed it back with a gentle hand. She said:

“The lady at the door said it had to be true, about Mommy and Mr. Bradshaw. She said she got it from Daddy’s own lips, and Daddy got it from me. And then she shot my Mommy and ran away.”

There was silence in the room, except for the girl’s heavy breathing. A tear as slow as honey was exuded from the corner of one eye. It fell down her temple. Alex wiped the blueveined hollow with his handkerchief. Jerry leaned across her from the other side of the table:

“Why did you say your Daddy shot your Mommy?”

“Aunt Alice wanted me to. She didn’t say so, but I could tell. And I was afraid she’d think that I did it. She spanked me for taking the gun, and I didn’t take it. I said it was Daddy. She made me say it over and over and over.”

There were more tears than one now. Tears for the child she had been, frightened and lying, and tears for the woman she was painfully becoming. Alex wiped her eyes. He looked close to tears himself.

“Why,” I said, “did you try to tell us that you killed your mother?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Alex’s friend Lew Archer.”

“That’s right,” Alex said.

She lifted her head and let it fall back. “I forget what you asked me.”

“Why did you say you killed your mother?”

“Because it was all my fault. I told my Daddy about her and Mr. Bradshaw, and that’s what started everything.”

“How do you know?”

“The lady at the door said so. She came to shoot Mommy because of what Daddy told her.”

“Do you know who she was?”

“No.”

“Was it your Aunt Alice?”

“No.”

“Was it anyone you knew?”

“No.”

“Did your mother know her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she did.”

“Did she talk as if she knew her?”

“She called her by name.”

“What name?”

“Tish. She called her Tish. I could tell Mommy didn’t like her, though. She was afraid of her, too.”

“Why haven’t you ever told anyone this before?”

“Because it was all my fault.”

“It wasn’t,” Alex said. “You were only a child. You weren’t responsible for what the adults did.”

Godwin shushed him with his finger to his lips. Dolly rolled her head from side to side:

“It was all my fault.”

“This has gone on long enough,” Godwin whispered to Jerry. “She’s made some gains. I want to have a chance to consolidate them.”