The Chill

Chapter 10

An hour later I was sitting on one of the twin beds in my motel room. There was nothing more I could do right now, except possibly stir up trouble if I went for information to the local authorities. But my mind kept projecting on the plaster wall rapid movies of actions I could be performing. Run down Begley-McGee. Capture the man from Nevada.

I shut off the violent images with an effort of will and forced myself to think about Zeno, who said that Achilles could never traverse the space between him and the tortoise. It was a soothing thought, if you were a tortoise, or maybe even if you were Achilles.

I had a pint of whisky in my bag. I was getting it out of its sock when I thought of Arnie Walters, a Reno colleague of mine who had split more than one pint with me. I put in a long-distance call to his office, which happened to be the front room of his house. Arnie was at home.

“Walters Detective Agency,” he said in a reluctant midnight voice.

“This is Lew Archer.”

“Oh. Good. I didn’t really want to go to bed. I was only modeling my pajamas.”

“Irony isn’t your forte, so drop it. All I’m asking for is a small service which I will repay in kind at the earliest opportunity. Are you recording?”

I heard the click of the machine, and told it and Arnie about Helen’s death. “A couple of hours after the shooting, the man I’m interested in came out of the murder house and drove away in a black or dark blue convertible, I think a late-model Ford, with a Nevada license. I think I got the first four figures–”

“You think?”

“It’s foggy here, and it was dark. First four figures are probably FT37. The subject is young and athletic, height about five-eleven, wearing a dark topcoat and dark snap-brim fedora. I couldn’t make out his face.”

“Have you seen your oculist lately?”

“You can do better than that, Arnie. Try.”

“I hear senior citizens can get free glaucoma tests nowadays.”

Arnie was older than I was, but he didn’t like to have this pointed out. “What’s bugging you? Trouble with the wife?”

“No trouble,” he said cheerfully. “She’s waiting for me in bed.”

“Give Phyllis my love.”

“I’ll give her my own. In case I come up with anything, which seems unlikely in view of the fragmentary information, where do I contact you?”

“I’m staying at the Mariner’s Rest Motel in Pacific Point. But you better call my answering service in Hollywood.”

He said he would. As I hung up, I heard a gentle tapping on my door. It turned out to be Alex. He had pulled on his trousers over his pajamas.

“I heard you talking in here.”

“I was on the phone.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“I’m through phoning. Come in and have a drink.”

He entered the room cautiously, as if it might be booby trapped. In the last few hours his movements had become very tentative. His bare feet made no sound on the carpet.

The bathroom cupboard contained two glasses wrapped in wax paper. I unwrapped and filled them. We sat on the twin beds, drinking to nothing in particular. We faced each other like mirror images separated by an invisible wall of glass.

I was conscious of the differences between us, particularly of Alex’s youth and lack of experience. He was at the age when everything hurts.

“I was thinking of calling Dad,” he said. “Now I don’t know whether I should or not.”

There was another silence.

“He won’t say ‘I told you so,’ in so many words. But that will be the general idea. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and all that jazz.”

“I think it makes just as much sense if you reverse it. Angels rush in where fools are afraid to tread. Not that I know any angels.”

He got the message. “You don’t think I’m a fool?”

“You’ve handled yourself very well.”

“Thank you,” he said formally. “Even if it isn’t actually true.”

“It is, though. It must have taken some doing.”

Whisky and the beginnings of human warmth had dissolved the glass wall between us. “The worst of it,” he said, “was when I put her in the nursing home just now. I felt as if I was – you know, consigning her to oblivion. The place is like something out of Dante, with people crying and groaning. Dolly’s a sensitive girl. I don’t see how she’ll be able to take it.”

“She can take it better than some other things, such as wandering around loose in her condition.”

“You think she’s insane, don’t you?”

“What I think doesn’t matter. We’ll get an expert opinion tomorrow. There’s no doubt she’s temporarily off base. I’ve seen people further off, and I’ve seen them come back.”

“You think she’ll be all right then?”

He’d grabbed at what I said like a flying trapeze and swung up into hopefulness. Which I didn’t think ought to be encouraged:

“I’m more concerned about the legal situation than the psychiatric one.”

“You can’t really believe she killed this friend of hers – Helen? I know she said so, but it isn’t possible. You see, I know Dolly. She isn’t aggressive at all. She’s one of the really pro-life people. She doesn’t even like to kill a spider.”

“It is possible, Alex, and that was all I said. I wanted Godwin to be aware of the possibility from the start. He’s in a position to do a lot for your wife.”

Alex said, “My wife,” with a kind of wonder.

“She is your wife, legally. But nobody would consider that you owe her much. You have an out, if you want to use it.”

The whisky slopped in his glass. I think he barely restrained himself from throwing it in my face.

“I’m not going to ditch her,” he said. “If you think I ought to, you can go to hell.”

I hadn’t liked him thoroughly until now. “Somebody had to mention the fact that you have an out. A lot of people would take it.”

“I’m not a lot of people.”

“So I gather.”

“Dad would probably call me a fool, but I don’t care if she’s guilty of murder. I’m staying.”

“It’s going to cost money.”

“You want more money, is that it?”

“I can wait. So can Godwin. I was thinking about the future. Also there’s the strong possibility that you’ll need a lawyer tomorrow.”

“What for?” He was a good boy, but a little slow on the uptake.

“Judging by tonight, your main problem is going to be to prevent Dolly from talking herself into deep trouble. That means keeping her out of the hands of the authorities, in a place where she can be properly looked after. A good lawyer can be a help in that. Lawyers generally don’t wait for their money in criminal cases.”

“Do you really think she’s in such danger – such legal jeopardy? Or are you just trying to put the iron in my soul?”

“I talked to the local sheriff tonight, and I didn’t like the gleam in his eye when we got on the subject of Dolly. Sheriff Crane isn’t stupid. He knew that I was holding back on him. He’s going to bear down on her when he catches on to the family connection.”

“The family connection?”

“The fact that her father murdered her mother.” It was cruel to hit him with it again, on top of everything else. Still it was better for him to hear it from me than from the dreary voice that talks from under the twisted pillow at three o’clock in the morning. “Apparently he was tried and convicted in the local courts. Sheriff Crane probably gathered the evidence for the prosecution.”

“It’s almost as though history is repeating itself.” There was something approaching awe in Alex’s voice. “Did I hear you say that this Chuck Begley character, the man with the beard, is actually her father?”

“He seems to be.”

“He was the one who started the whole thing off,” he said, as much to himself as to me. “It was after he visited her that Sunday that she walked out on me. What do you think happened between them, to make her do that?”

“I don’t know, Alex. Maybe he bawled her out for testifying against him. In any case he brought back the past. She couldn’t handle the old mess and her new marriage together, so she left you.”

“I still don’t get it,” he said. “How could Dolly have a father like that?”

“I’m not a geneticist. But I do know most non-professional killers aren’t criminal types. I intend to find out more about Begley-McGee and his murder. I suppose it’s no use asking if Dolly ever talked about it to you?”

“She never said a word about either of her parents, except that they were dead. Now I can understand why. I don’t blame her for lying–” He cut the sentence short, and amended it: “I mean, for not telling me certain things.”

“She made up for it tonight.”

“Yeah. It’s been quite a night.” He nodded several times, as though he was still absorbing its repercussions. “Tell me the honest truth, Mr. Archer. Do you believe the things she said about being responsible for this woman’s death? And her mother?”

“I can’t even remember half of them.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Maybe we’ll get some better answers tomorrow. It’s a complex world. The human mind is the most complex thing in it.”

“You don’t give me much comfort.”

“It’s not my job to.”

Making a bitter face over this and the last of his whisky, he rose slowly. “Well, you need your sleep, and I have a phone call to make. Thanks for the drink.” He turned with his hand on the doorknob. “And thanks for the conversation.”

“Any time. Are you going to call your father?”

“No. I’ve decided not to.”

I felt vaguely gratified. I was old enough to be his father, with no son of my own, and that may have had something to do with my feeling.

“Who are you going to call, or is that a private matter?”

“Dolly asked me to try and get in touch with her Aunt Alice. I guess I’ve been putting it off. I don’t know what to say to her aunt. I didn’t even know she had an Aunt Alice until tonight.”

“I remember she mentioned her. When did Dolly ask you to make the call?”

“In the nursing home, the last thing. She wants her aunt to come and see her. I didn’t know if that was a good idea or not.”

“It would depend on the aunt. Does she live here in town?”

“She lives in the Valley, in Indian Springs. Dolly said she’s in the county directory. Miss Alice Jenks.”

“Let’s try her.”

I found her name and number in the phone book, placed the toll call, and handed the receiver to Alex. He sat on the bed, looking at the instrument as if he had never seen one before.

“What am I going to say to her?”

“You’ll know what to say. I want to talk to her when you’re finished.”

A voice rasped from the receiver: “Yes? Who is this?”

“I’m Alex Kincaid. Is that Miss Jenks? . . . We don’t know each other, Miss Jenks, but I married your niece a few weeks ago . . . Your niece, Dolly McGee. We were married a few weeks ago, and she’s come down with a rather serious illness . . . No, it’s more emotional. She’s emotionally disturbed, and she wants to see you. She’s in the Whitmore Nursing Home here in Pacific Point. Dr. Godwin is looking after her.”

He paused again. There was sweat on his forehead. The voice at the other end went on for some time.

“She says she can’t come tomorrow,” he said to me; and into the receiver: “Perhaps Sunday would be possible? . . . Yes, fine. You can contact me at the Mariner’s Rest Motel, or . . . Alex Kincaid. I’ll look forward to meeting you.”

“Let me talk to her,” I said.

“Just a minute, Miss Jenks. The gentleman here with me, Mr. Archer, has something to say to you.” He handed over the receiver.

“Hello, Miss Jenks.”

“Hello, Mr. Archer. And who are you, may I ask, at one o’clock in the morning?” It wasn’t a light question. The woman sounded anxious and irritated, but she had both feelings under reasonable control.

“I’m a private detective. I’m sorry to disrupt your sleep with this, but there’s more to the situation than simple emotional illness. A woman has been murdered here.”

She gasped, but made no other comment.

“Your niece is a material witness to the murder. She may be more deeply involved than that, and in any case she’s going to need support. So far as I know you’re her only relative, apart from her father–”

“You can leave him out. He doesn’t count. He never has, except in a negative way.” Her voice was flat and harsh. “Who was killed?”

“A friend and counselor of your niece’s, Professor Helen Haggerty.”

“I never heard of the woman,” she said with combined impatience and relief.

“You’ll be hearing a great deal about her, if you’re at all interested in your niece. Are you close to her?”

“I was, before she grew away from me. I brought her up after her mother’s death.” Her voice became flat again: “Does Tom McGee have anything to do with this new killing?”

“He may have. He’s in town here, or he was.”

“I knew it!” she cried in bleak triumph. “They had no business letting him out. They should have put him in the gas chamber for what he did to my little sister.”

She was choked with sudden emotion. I waited for her to go on. When she didn’t, I said:

“I’m anxious to go into the details of that case with you, but I don’t think we should do it over the phone. It really would be helpful if you could come here tomorrow.”

“I simply can’t. There’s no use badgering me. I have a terribly important meeting tomorrow afternoon. Several state officials will be here from Sacramento, and it will probably go on into the evening.”

“What about the morning?”

“I have to prepare for them in the morning. We’re shifting over to a new state-county welfare program.” Latent hysteria buzzed in her voice, the hysteria of a middle-aged spinster who has to make a change. “If I walked out on this project, I could lose my position.”

“We don’t want that to happen, Miss Jenks. How far is it from there to Pacific Point?”

“Seventy miles, but I tell you I can’t make it.”

“I can. Will you give me an hour in the morning, say around eleven?”

She hesitated. “Yes, if it’s important. I’ll get up an hour earlier and do my paperwork. I’ll be at home at eleven. You have my address? It’s just off the main street of Indian Springs.”

I thanked her and got rid of Alex and went to bed, setting my mental alarm for six-thirty.