Росс Макдональд - The Doomsters

“You know about her and Dr. Grantland? Yes, of course, you must. She’s pretty obvious.”

“How long has it been going on?”

“Not long, I’m sure of that. Whatever there is between them started after I left the ranch. I heard rumors downtown. One of my best friends is a legal secretary. She told me two or three months ago that Zinnie wanted a divorce from Jerry. He wasn’t willing to give it to her, though. He threatened to fight her for Martha, and apparently she dropped the whole idea. Zinnie would never do anything that would lose her Martha.”

“Shooting Jerry wouldn’t lose her Martha,” I said, “unless she was caught.”

“You’re not suggesting that Zinnie did shoot him? I simply don’t believe it.”

I didn’t believe it, either. I didn’t disbelieve it. I held it in my mind and turned it around to see how it looked. It looked as ugly as sin.

“Where’s Zinnie now, do you know?”

“I haven’t seen her since I left the ranch.”

“What about Martha?”

“I suppose she’s with Mrs. Hutchinson. She spends a lot of her life with Mrs. Hutchinson.” Mildred added in a lower tone: “If I had a little girl like Martha, I’d stay with her and look after her myself. Only I haven’t.”

Her eyes brightened with tears. I realized for the first time what her barren broken marriage meant to her.

The telephone rang like an alarm clock in the hall. Mildred went to answer it.

“This is Mildred Hallman speaking.” Her voice went higher. “No! I don’t want to see you. You have no right to harass me. Of course he hasn’t. I don’t need anyone to protect me.”

I heard her hang up, but she didn’t come back to the sitting-room. Instead she went into the front of the house. I found her in a room off the hallway, standing in the dark by the window.

“What’s the trouble?”

She didn’t answer. I found the light switch by the door, and pressed it. A single bulb winked on in the old brass chandelier. Against the opposite wall, an ancient piano grinned at me with all its yellow keys. An empty gin bottle stood on top of it.

“Was that Sheriff Ostervelt on the telephone?”

“How did you know?”

“The way you react to him. The Ostervelt reaction.”

“I hate him,” she said. “I don’t like her, either. Ever since Carl’s been in the Hospital, she’s been acting more and more as if she owns him.”

“I seem to have lost the thread. Who are we talking about?”

“A woman called Rose Parish, a social worker at the State Hospital. She’s with Sheriff Ostervelt, and they both want to come here. I don’t want to see them. They’re people-eaters.”

“What does that mean?”

“They’re people who live on other people’s troubles. I hope I headed them off. I’ve had enough bites taken out of me.”

“I think you’re wrong about Miss Parish.”

“You know her?”

“I met her this morning, at the hospital. She seemed very sympathetic to your husband’s case.”

“Then what’s she doing with Sheriff Ostervelt?”

“Probably straightening him out, if I know Miss Parish.”

“He can use some straightening out. If he comes here, I won’t let him in.”

“Are you afraid of him?”

“I suppose I am. No. I hate him too much to be afraid of him. He did a dreadful thing to me.”

“You mean the day you took Carl to the hospital?”

Mildred nodded. Pale and heavy-eyed, she looked as if her youth had run out through the unstopped wound of that day.

“I’d better tell you what actually happened. He tried to make me his – his whore. He tried to take me to Buenavista Inn.”

“That same day?”

“Yes, on the way back from the hospital. He’d already made three or four stops, and every time he came back to the car he was drunker and more obnoxious. Finally I asked him to let me off at the nearest bus station. We were in Buena Vista by then, just a little way from home, but I couldn’t put up with him any longer.

“I was forced to, however. Instead of taking me to the bus station, he drove out the highway to the Inn, and parked above it. The owner was a friend of his, he said – a wonderful woman, very broad-minded. If I wanted to stay there with her, she’d give me a suite to myself, and it wouldn’t cost me a cent. I could take a week’s vacation, or a month’s – as long as I liked – and he would come and keep me company at night.

“He said he’d had this in mind for a long time, ever since his wife passed away, before that. Now that Carl was out of the way, he and I could get together at last. You should have heard him, trying to be romantic. The great lover. Leaning across me with his bald head, sweating and breathing hard and smelling of liquor.”

Anger clenched in my stomach like a fist. “Did he try to use force on you?”

“He tried to kiss me. I was able to handle him, though, when he saw how I felt about him. He didn’t assault me, not physically, if that’s what you’re getting at. But he treated me as if I – as if a woman whose husband was sick was fair game for anybody.”

“What about Carl’s alleged confession? Did he try to use it to make you do what he wanted?”

“Yes, he did. Only please don’t do anything about it. The situation is bad enough already.”

“It could get worse for him. Abuse of office cuts two ways.”

“You mustn’t talk like that. It will only make things worse for Carl.”

A car purred somewhere out of sight. Then its headlights entered the street.

“Turn off the light,” Mildred whispered, “I have a feeling it’s them.”

I pressed the switch and crossed to the window where she stood. A black Mercury Special pulled in to the curb behind my convertible. Ostervelt and Miss Parish got out of the back seat. Mildred pulled down the blind and turned to me: “Will you talk to them? I don’t want to see them.”

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to see Ostervelt. You ought to talk to Miss Parish, though. She’s definitely on our side.”

“I’ll talk to her if I have to. But she’ll have to give me a chance to change my clothes.”

Their footsteps were on the porch. As I went to answer the door, I heard Mildred running up the stairs behind me.

MISS PARISH and the sheriff were standing in uncomfortable relation to each other. I guessed they’d had an argument. She looked official and rather imposing in a plain blue coat and hat. Ostervelt’s face was shadowed by his wide hat brim, but I got the impression that he was feeling subdued. If there had been an argument, he’d lost.

“What are you doing here?” He spoke without force, like an old actor who has lost faith in his part.

“I’ve been holding Mrs. Hallman’s hand. Hello, Miss Parish.”

“Hello.” Her smile was warm. “How is Mrs. Hallman?”

“Yeah,” Ostervelt said. “How is she? She sounded kind of upset on the telephone. Did something happen?”

“Mrs. Hallman doesn’t want to see you unless it’s necessary.”

“Hell, I’m just interested in her personal safety.” He looked sideways at Miss Parish and added for her benefit, in an injured-innocent tone: “What’s Mildred got against me?”

I stepped outside and shut the door behind me. “Are you sure you want an answer?”

I couldn’t keep the heat out of my voice. In reflex, Ostervelt put his hand on his gun-butt.

“Good heavens!” Miss Parish said with a forced little laugh. “Haven’t we got enough trouble, gentlemen?”

“I want to know what he means by that. He’s been needling me all day. I don’t have to take that stuff from any keyhole cop.” Ostervelt sounded almost querulous. “Not in my own county I don’t.”