Росс Макдональд - The Zebra-Striped Hearse

“Ralph might of had his faults,” she said from her corner, “but I never knew him to steal anything in his life. Anyway, there’s no sense trying to pin something on a dead man.”

“I’m not, Vicky. I’m trying to pin murder on whoever killed him. You loved him, didn’t you?”

She looked as though she would have liked to deny it and the pain that went with it. “I couldn’t help it. I tried to help it, but I couldn’t stop myself. He was such a crazy guy,” she murmured, so softly that it sounded like an endearment. “Sometimes when he was asleep, when he was asleep and out of trouble, I used to think he was beautiful.”

“He’s asleep and out of trouble now,” I said. “What about the bundle of clothes he brought back from Tahoe?”

“There was no bundle of clothes, there was just the coat. He had this brown topcoat with him. But I know he didn’t steal it. He never stole in his life.”

“I don’t care whether he stole it or not. The question is where did he get it?”

“He said somebody gave it to him. But people don’t give away that kind of a coat for free. It was real good tweed, imported like. Harris tweed, I think they call it. It must of cost a hundred dollars new, and it was still in new condition. The only thing the matter with it, one of the buttons was missing.”

“Can you describe the buttons?”

“They were brown leather. I wanted to try and match the missing one so he could wear it. But he said leave it as it was, he wasn’t going to wear it.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “He said he wasn’t going to wear it and he was right.”

“Did he bring it with him when he came down south?”

“Yeah. He was carrying it over his arm when he got on the bus. I don’t know why he bothered dragging it along with him. It was warm weather, and anyway it had that button missing.”

“Which button on the coat was missing, Vicky?”

“The top one.” She pointed with her thumb between her breasts.

I wished I had Mungan’s button with me. I remembered now where I had seen other buttons like it, attached to a coat that answered Vicky’s description. One of the girls in the zebra-striped hearse had been wearing it.

I DROVE BACK to the coast and hit the surfing beaches southward from the fork of 101 and 101 Alternate. Some of the surfers recalled the black-and-white hearse, but they didn’t know the names of any of the occupants. Anyway they claimed they didn’t – they’re a closemouthed tribe.

I had better luck with the Highway Patrol in Malibu. The owner of the hearse had been cited the previous weekend for driving with only one headlight. His name was Ray Buzzell, and he lived in one of the canyons above the town.

“Mrs. Sloan Buzzell” was stenciled on the side of the rustic mailbox. An asphalt driveway zigzagged down the canyon side to her house. It was a redwood and glass structure with a white gravel roof, cantilevered over a steep drop. A small Fiat stood in the double carport, but there was no hearse beside it.

A violently redheaded woman opened the front door before I got to it, and stepped outside. Her hard, handsome face was carefully made up, as though she’d been expecting a visitor. I wondered what kind of visitor. Her black Capri pants adhered like oil to her thighs and hips. The plunging neckline of her shirt exhibited large areas of chest and stomach. She was carrying a half-full martini glass in her hand and, to judge by her speech, a number of previous martinis inside of her.

“Hello-hello,” she said. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“I’m just a type. How are you, Mrs. Buzzell?”

“Fine. Feen. Fane.” She flexed her free arm to prove it, and inflated her chest, which almost broke from its moorings. “You look sort of beat. Come in and I’ll pour you a drink. I hope you drink.”

“Quantities, but not at the moment, thanks. I’m looking for Ray.”

She frowned muzzily. “People are always looking for Ray. Has he done something?”

“I hope not. Where can I find him?”

She flung out her arm in a gesture which included the whole coast. From the height we stood on, we could see a good many miles of it. The sun was low in the west, and it glared like a searchlight through barred clouds.

“I can’t keep track of my son any more,” she said in a soberer voice. “I haven’t seen him since breakfast. He’s off with his crowd somewhere. All they care about is surfing. Some weeks I don’t set eyes on him for days at a time.” She consoled herself with the rest of her martini. “Sure you won’t come in for a drink? I just made a fresh shaker, and if I have to drink it all by myself I’ll be smasherooed.”

“Pour it out.”

“The man is mad.” She studied my face with exaggerated interest. “You must be a wandering evangelist or something.”

“I’m a wandering detective investigating a murder. Your son may be able to help me.”

She moved closer to me and whispered through her teeth: “Is Ray involved in a murder?”

“That I doubt. He may have some information that will help me. Are you expecting him home for dinner?”

“I never know. Sometimes he’s out all night with his crowd. They have bedrolls in the hearse.” She burst out angrily: “I could kill myself for letting him buy that thing. He practically lives in it.” Her mind veered back to the point. “Who do you mean, he has information?”

“I said he may have.”

“Who was murdered?”

“A man named Simpson, Quincy Ralph Simpson.”

“I never heard of any such man. Neither did Ray, I’m sure.”

I said: “When Simpson was last seen alive by his wife, he was carrying a brown Harris tweed topcoat with brown leather buttons; the top button was missing. That was two months ago. The other day I saw one of the girls in Ray’s crowd wearing that topcoat, or one exactly like it.”

“Mona?”

“She was a big chesty blonde.”

“That’s Ray’s girl, Mona Sutherland. And the coat is his, too. I know it well. His father gave it to him the last time Ray visited him, so you see you’ve made a mistake. It’s a different coat entirely.”

“Now tell me where Ray really got it, Mrs. Buzzell.”

The manifestations of mother love are unpredictable. She threw her empty glass at my head. It missed me and smashed on the flagstones. Then she retreated into the house, slamming the door behind her.

I got into my car and sat. The sun was almost down, a narrowing red lozenge on the cloud-streaked horizon. It slipped out of sight. The whole western sky became smoky red, as if the sun had touched off fires on the far side of the world.

After a while the front door opened. The lady appeared with a fresh glass in her hand.

“I’ve just been talking to my ex on the long-distance telephone. He’ll back me up about the coat.”

“Bully for him.”

She looked at the glass in her hand as if she was considering throwing it, too. But it had liquor in it.

“What right have you got sitting on my property? Get off my property!”

I turned the car and drove up past her mailbox and parked at the roadside and watched the horizontal fires die out and the dark come on. The sky was crowded with stars when the woman came out again. She plodded up the slope and balanced her teetering weight against the mailbox.

“I’m smasherooed.”

I got out and approached her. “I told you to pour it out.”

“I couldn’t do that to good gin. It’s been my dearest friend and beloved companion for lo these many yea-hears.” She reached for me like a blind woman. “I’m frightened.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten you, and I don’t believe your son is involved in this murder. But I have to know where he got the tweed topcoat. His father had nothing to do with it, did he?”