Ross MACDONALD - The Moving Target

She picked up an envelope from the coffee table beside her and tossed it to me. I took out the empty envelope’d found in Mrs. Estabrook’s drawer and compared the two. They differed in size and quality and the handwriting of the address. The only similarity was in the Santa Maria postmark. Sampson’s letter was addressed to Mrs. Sampson and had been collected at four thirty the previous afternoon.

“What time did you get it?”

“About nine o’clock last night. It’s special delivery, as you can see. Read it.”

The letter was a single sheet of plain white typewriter paper covered on one side with a blue-ink scrawl:

Dear Elaine!

I am involved in a deal which came up suddenly, and I need some cash in a hurry. There are a number of bonds in our joint safety deposit box at the Bank of America. Albert Graves can identify those that are negotiable and arrange to have them cashed, I want you to cash bonds for me to the value of one hundred thousand dollars. I want no bills larger than fifties and hundreds. Do not permit the bank to mark them or record the numbers, since the deal I mentioned is confidential and highly important. Keep the money in my safe at home until you hear from me again, as you shortly will, or until I send a messenger bearing a letter of identification from me.

You will have to take Bert Graves into your confidence, of course, but it is of the outmost importance that you should not tell anyone else about this business. If you do, I stand to lose a very large profit and might even find myself on the wrong side of the law. It must be kept completely secret from everyone. That is why I am asking you to obtain the money for me, instead of going directly to my bank. I will be finished with this business within the week, and will see you soon.

My best love, and don’t worry.

Ralph Sampson

“It’s carefully done,” I said, “but not convincing. The reason he gives for not going to the bank himself sounds pretty weak. What does Graves think of it?”

“He pointed that out, too. He thinks it’s a put-up job. But, as he says, it’s my decision.”

“Are you absolutely certain this is your husband’s writing?”

“There’s no doubt about that. And did you notice the spelling of ‘utmost’? It’s one of his favorite words, and he always misspells it. He even pronounces it ‘outmost.’ Ralph isn’t a cultivated man.”

“The question is, is he a living one?”

Her level blue eyes turned to me with dislike. “Do you really think it’s as serious as that, Mr. Archer?”

“He doesn’t normally do business like this, does he?”

“I know nothing about his ways of doing business. Actually he retired from business when we were married. He bought and sold some ranches during the war, but he didn’t confide the details of the transactions to me.”

“Have any of his transactions been illegal?”

“I simply don’t know. He’s perfectly capable of it. It’s one of the things that ties my hands.”

“What are the others?”

“I don’t trust him,” she said thinly. “I have no way of knowing what he intends to do. With all that money he may be planning a trip around the world. Perhaps he intends to leave me. I don’t know.”

“I don’t either, but this is my guess. Your husband is being held for ransom. He wrote this letter from dictation with a gun at his head. If it was really a business deal, he’d have no reason to write to you. Graves has his power of attorney. But kidnappers prefer to deal with the victim’s wife. It makes things easier for them.”

“What am I going to do?” she said, in a strained voice.

“Follow instructions to the letter, except that you should bring in the police. Not in an obvious or public way, but so they’ll be standing by. You see, Mrs. Sampson, the easy way for kidnappers to dispose of a victim, after the money’s been collected, is to blow his brains out and leave him. He’s got to be found before that happens, and I can’t do it alone.”

“You seem very sure he’s been kidnapped. Have you found out anything you haven’t told me?”

“Quite a few things. They add up to the fact that your husband’s been keeping bad company.”

“I knew it.” Her face slipped out of control for an instant, sprang into curves of triumph. “He loves to pose as a family man and a good father, but he’s never fooled me.”

“Very bad company,” I said heavily. “As bad as there is in Los Angeles, and that’s as bad as there is.”

“He’s always had a taste for low companions–” She broke off suddenly, raising her eyes to the door behind me.

Miranda was standing there. Wearing a gray gabardine suit that emphasized her height, her copper hair swept up on top of her head, she looked like an older sister of the girl I’d met the day before. But her eyes were wide with fury, and her words came out in a rush.

“You dare to say that about my father! He may be dying, and all you care about is proving something against him.”

“Is that all I care about, dear?” The brown face was impassive again. Only the pale eyes moved, and the carefully painted mouth.

“Don’t ‘dear’ me.” Miranda strode toward us. Even in anger her body had the grace of a young cat. She showed her claws. “All you really care about is yourself. If I ever saw a narcissist, you’re one, Elaine. With your precious vanity, your primping, and your curling, and your special hairdresser, and your diet – it’s all for your own benefit, isn’t it? – so you can go on loving yourself. You surely don’t expect anyone else to love you.”

“Not you, certainly,” the older woman said coolly. “The thought repels me. But what do you care about, my dear? Alan Taggert, perhaps? I believe you spent last night with him, Miranda.”

“I didn’t. You lie.”

She was standing over her stepmother with her back to me. I was embarrassed, but I stayed where I was, balanced on the edge of my chair. I’d seen verbal cat fights end in violence more than once.

“Did Alan stand you up again? When is he going to marry you?”

“Never! I wouldn’t have him.” Miranda’s voice was breaking. She was too young and vulnerable to stand the quarrel for long. “It’s easy for you to make fun of me; you’ve never cared for anyone. You’re frigid, that’s what you are. My father wouldn’t be God knows where if you’d given him any love. You made him come out here to California, away from all his friends, and now you’ve driven him away from his own house.”

“Nonsense!” But Mrs. Sampson too was showing the strain. “I want you to think that over, Miranda. You’ve hated me from the beginning and sided against me whether I was right or wrong. Your brother was fairer to me–”

“You leave Bob out of this. I know you had him under your thumb, but it’s no credit to you. It pleased your vanity, didn’t it, to have your stepson dancing attendance?”

“That’s enough,” Mrs. Sampson said hoarsely. “Go away, you wretched girl.”

Miranda didn’t move, but she fell silent. I turned in my seat and looked out the window. Below the terraced lawn a stone walk led out to a pergola that stood on the edge of the bluff overlooking the sea. It was a small octagonal building with a conical roof, completely walled with glass. Through it and beyond it I could see the shifting colors of the ocean: green and white where the surf began, sage-honey-colored in the kelp zone further out, then deep-water blue to the deep-sky-blue horizon.

My eye was caught by an unexpected movement beyond the belt of white water where the waves began to break. A little black disk skimmed out along the surface, skipped from wave to wave, and sank out of sight. Another followed it a moment later. The source of the skimming objects was too near shore to be seen, hidden by the steep fall of the cliff. When six or seven had skipped along the water and disappeared, there were no more. Unwillingly I turned to the silent room.