Росс Макдональд - The Doomsters

My feet were loud on the veranda boards. I got my hands on Grantland before he could turn, circled his neck with my arm and bent him over backwards. He was slippery and strong. He bucked and twisted and broke my hold with the hammering butt of the gun.

Grantland moved away crabwise along the wall. His face was bare as bone, a wet yellow skull from which the flesh had been dissolved away. His eyes were dark and empty like the eye of the empty gun that he was still clutching.

A door opened behind me. The hallway reverberated with the roar of another gun. A bullet creased the plaster close above Grantland’s head and sprinkled it with dust. It was Ostervelt, in the half-shadow under the stairs: “Out of the way, Archer. You, Doctor, stand still, and drop it. I’ll shoot to kill you this time.”

Perhaps in his central darkness Grantland yearned for death. He threw the useless gun at Ostervelt, jumped across Carl’s body, took off from the veranda and seemed to run in air.

Ostervelt moved to the doorway and sent three bullets after him in rapid fire, faster than any man runs. They must have been very heavy. Grantland was pushed and hustled along by their blows, until his legs were no longer under him. I think he was dead before he struck the road.

“He oughtn’t to have ran,” Ostervelt said. “I’m a sharpshooter. I still don’t like to kill a man. It’s too damn easy to wipe one out and too damn hard to grow one.” He looked down at his Colt .45 with a kind of shamed awe, and replaced it in its holster.

I liked the sheriff better for saying that, though I didn’t let it run away with me. He was looking out toward the street where Grantland’s body lay. People from the other houses had already begun to converge on him. Carmichael appeared from somewhere and kept them off.

Ostervelt turned to me. “How in hell did you get here? You look like you swam through a swamp.”

“I followed Grantland from his house. He just got finished setting fire to it.”

“Was he off his rocker, too?” Ostervelt sounded ready to believe anything.

“Maybe he was in a way. His girlfriend was murdered.”

“I know that. What’s the rest of the story? Hallman knocked off his girl, so Grantland knocked Hallman off?”

“Something like that.”

“You got another theory?”

“I’m working on one. How long have you been here?”

“Couple of hours, off and on.”

“In the house?”

“Out back, mostly. I came in through the kitchen when I heard the gunfire. I just relieved Carmichael at the back. He’s been keeping guard on the house for more than four hours. According to him nobody came in or went out.”

“Does that mean Hallman’s been in the house all this time?”

“It sure looks like it. Why?”

“Zinnie’s body was warm when I found her.”

“What time was that?”

“Shortly before eleven. It’s a cold night for September. If she was killed before eight, you’d expect her to lose some heat.”

“That’s pretty thin reasoning. Anyway, she’s refrigerated now. Why in hell didn’t you report what you found when you found it?”

I didn’t answer him. It was no time for argument. To myself, I had to admit that I was still committed to Carl Hallman. Mental case or not, I couldn’t imagine a man of his courage shooting his brother in the back or cutting a defenseless woman.

Carl was still alive. His breathing was audible. Mildred was kneeling beside him in a white slip. She’d turned his head to one side and supported it on one of his limp arms. His breath bubbled and sighed.

“Better not move him any more. I’ll radio for an ambulance.” Ostervelt went out.

Mildred didn’t seem to have heard him. I had to speak twice before she paid any attention. She looked up through the veil of hair that had fallen over her face: “Don’t look at me.”

She pushed her hair back and covered the upper parts of her breasts with her hands. Her arms and shoulders were rough with gooseflesh.

“How long has Carl been here in the house?”

“I don’t know. Hours. He’s been asleep in my room.”

“You knew he was here?”

“Of course. I’ve been with him.” She touched his shoulder, very lightly, like a child fingering a forbidden object. “He came to the house when you and Miss Parish were here. While I was changing my clothes. He threw a stick at my window and came up the back stairs. That’s why I had to get rid of you.”

“You should have taken us into your confidence.”

“Not her. That Parish woman hates me. She’s been trying to take Carl away from me.”

“Nonsense,” though I suspected it wasn’t entirely nonsense. “You should have told us. You might have saved his life.”

“He isn’t going to die. They won’t let him die.”

She hid her face against his inert shoulder. Her mother was watching us from the curtained doorway below the stairs. Mrs. Gley looked like the wreck of dreams. She turned away, and disappeared into the back recesses of the house.

I went outside, looking for Carmichael. The street was filling up with people now. Rifles glinted among them, but there was no real menace in the crowd. Carmichael was having no trouble keeping them away from the house.

I talked to him for a minute. He confirmed the fact that he had been watching the house from various positions since eight o’clock. He couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he was reasonably sure, that no one had entered or left it in that time. Our conversation was broken up by the ambulance’s arrival.

I watched two orderlies roll Carl Hallman into a wire basket. He had a leg wound, at least one chest wound, and one wound in the abdomen. That was bad, but not so finally bad as it would have been in the days before antibiotics. Carl was a durable boy; he was still breathing when they carried him out.

I looked around for the knife that had dropped from his hand. It wasn’t there any longer. Perhaps the sheriff had picked it up. From what I had seen of it at a distance, it was a medium-sized kitchen knife, the kind that women use for paring or chopping. It could also have been used for stabbing Zinnie, though I still didn’t see how.

I FOUND Mrs. Gley in the dim, old mildew-smelling kitchen. She was barricaded behind an enamel-topped table under a hanging bulb, making a last stand against sobriety. I smelled vanilla extract when I approached her. She clutched a small brown bottle to her breast, like an only child which I was threatening to kidnap.

“Vanilla will make you sick.”

“It never has yet. Do you expect a woman to face these tragedies without a drink?”

“As a matter of fact, I could use a drink myself.”

“There isn’t enough for me!” She remembered her manners then: “I’m sorry, I ran out of liquor way back when. You look as if you could use a drink.”

“Forget it.” I noticed a bowl of apples on the worn woodstone sink behind her. “Mind if I peel myself an apple?”

“Please do,” she said very politely. “I’ll get you my paring knife.”

She got up and rummaged in a drawer beside the sink. “Dunno what happened to my paring knife,” she muttered, and turned around with a butcher knife in her hand. “Will this do?”

“I’ll just eat it in the skin.”

“They say you get more vitamins.”

She resumed her seat at the table. I sat across from her on a straight-backed chair, and bit into my apple. “Has Carl been in the kitchen tonight?”

“I guess he must have been. He always used to come through here and up the back stairs.” She pointed toward a half-open door in the corner of the room. Behind it, bare wooden risers mounted steeply.

“Has he come in this way before?”