Росс Макдональд - The Zebra-Striped Hearse

“What’s his name?”

“Dolly called him Jack, after her father. Dolly and her father were always close. What do you think of him?”

“He’s a fine healthy baby.”

“Oh, I do for him the best I can. It isn’t easy to go back to it, though, after twenty years. My only hope is that I can bring him up properly. I guess I didn’t do such a good job of bringing Dolly up.”

I murmured something encouraging as we started downstairs. Like other women I had known, she had the strength to accept the worst that could happen and go on from there. Moving like a dreamer into the living room, she went to the mantel and took down a framed photograph.

“Did you ever see a picture of my daughter?”

“Not a good one.”

The picture she showed me was an improvement on Mungan’s, but it wasn’t a good one, either. It looked like what it was, a small-town high-school graduation picture, crudely retouched in color. Dolly smiled and smiled like a painted angel.

“She’s – she was pretty, wasn’t she?”

“Very,” I said.

“You wouldn’t think she’d have to settle for a Bruce Campion. As a matter of fact, she didn’t have to. There were any number of boys around town interested. There used to be a regular caravan out here. Only Dolly wasn’t interested in the boys. She wanted to get out of Citrus for life. Besides, she always went for the older ones. I think sometimes,” she said quite innocently, “that came from being so fond of her father and all. She never felt at home with boys her own age. The truth is, in a town this size, the decent older ones are already married off.”

“Was Dolly friends with some of the other kind?”

“She most certainly was not. Dolly was always a good girl, and leery of bad company. Until that Campion got ahold of her.”

“What about her friends at Tahoe? Were there other men besides Campion in her life?”

“I don’t know what you mean by in her life.” Almost roughly, she took the picture of Dolly out of my hands and replaced it on the mantel. With her back still turned, she said across the width of the room: “What are you getting at, mister?”

“I’m trying to find out how Dolly lived before she married Campion. I understand she lost her job and got some help from friends, including Fawn King. You said she wrote you about Fawn. Do you have the letter?”

“No. I didn’t keep it.”

“Did she mention any other friends besides Fawn?”

She came back toward me shaking her head. Her heels made dents in the carpet. “I think I know what you’re getting at. It’s just another one of his dirty lies.”

“Whose lies?”

“Bruce Campion’s lies. He’s full of them. When they were here Christmas, he tried to let on to Jack that he wasn’t the father, that he married her out of the goodness of his heart.”

“Did he say who the father was?”

“Of course he didn’t, because there wasn’t anybody else. I asked Dolly myself, and she said he was the father. Then he turned around and admitted it then and there.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he wouldn’t argue, said he made his bargain and he would stick to it. He had his gall, talking about her like she was a piece of merchandise. I told him so, and that was when he marched her out of the house. He didn’t want her talking any more. He had too much to hide.”

“What are you referring to?”

“His lies, and all his other shenanigans. He was a drinker, and heaven knows what else. Dolly didn’t say much – she never complained – but I could read between the lines. He went through money like it was water–”

I interrupted her. “Did Dolly ever mention a man named Quincy Ralph Simpson?”

“Simpson? No, she never did. What was that name again?”

“Quincy Ralph Simpson.”

“Isn’t that the man they found across the street – the one that was buried in Jim Rowland’s yard?”

“Yes. He was a friend of your daughter’s.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“He was, though. Simpson was the one who introduced her to Campion. After they got married, Simpson gave them a good deal of help, including financial help.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“I’m not trying to make it prove anything. But I’m surprised that Dolly never mentioned Simpson to you.”

“We didn’t keep in close touch. She wasn’t much of a letter writer.”

“When did you see Dolly and Campion last?”

“Christmas. I told you about that.”

“You didn’t see Campion in May?”

“I did not. Jack drove me up there the day they found her, but I shunned him like a rattlesnake.”

“And he wasn’t here in Citrus Junction, after the police released him?”

“How would I know? He wouldn’t come to us.”

“He may have, in a sense. He may have been across the road burying Ralph Simpson. Whoever buried Simpson must have had a reason for picking the house across from yours.”

She squinted at me, as if the light had brightened painfully. “I see what you mean.”

“Are you sure Ralph Simpson never came here to your house?”

“There’s no reason he should. We didn’t even know him.” Mrs. Stone was getting restless, twining her hands in her lap.

“But he knew Dolly,” I reminded her. “After she was killed, and you brought the baby here, he may have been watching your house.”

“Why would he do that?”

“It’s been suggested that he was the baby’s father.”

“I don’t believe it.” But after a pause, she said: “What kind of a man was Ralph Simpson? All I know about him is what I read in the papers, that he was stabbed and buried in the Rowlands’ yard.”

“I never knew him in life, but I gather he wasn’t a bad man. He was loyal, and generous, and I think he had some courage. He spent his own last days trying to track down Dolly’s murderer.”

“Bruce Campion, you mean?”

“He wasn’t convinced that it was Campion.”

“And you aren’t, either,” she said with her mouth tight.

“No. I’m not.”

Her posture became angular and hostile. I was trying to rob her of her dearest enemy.

“All I can say is, you’re mistaken. I know he did it. I can feel it, here.” She laid her hand over her heart.

“We all make mistakes,” I said.

“Yes, and you made more than one. I know that Bruce Campion was the baby’s father. Dolly wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Daughters have been known to lie to their mothers.”

“Maybe so. But if this Simpson was the father, why didn’t he marry her? Answer me that.”

“He was already married.”

“Now I know you’re wrong. Dolly would never mess with a married man. The one time she did–” Her eyes widened as though she had frightened herself again. She clamped her mouth shut.

“Tell me about the one time Dolly messed with a married man.”

“There was no such time.”

“You said there was.”

“I’m saying there wasn’t. I was thinking about something entirely different. I wouldn’t sully her memory with it, so there.”

I tried to persuade her to tell me more, with no success. Finally I changed the subject.

“This house across the way where Simpson was found buried – I understand it wasn’t occupied at the time.”

“You understand right. The Rowlands moved out the first of the year, and the house was standing empty there for months. It was a crying shame what happened to it and the other condemned houses. Some of the wild kids around were using them to carry on in. Jack used to find the bottles and the beer cans all around. They smashed the windows and everything. I hated to see it, even if it didn’t matter in the long run. The State just tore the houses down anyway.” She seemed to be mourning obscurely over the changes and losses in her own life. “I hated to see them do it to the Jaimet house.”