The Doomsters

9

THE PRIVATE ROAD ran ruler-straight through the geometric maze of the orange trees. Midway between the highway and the house, it widened in front of several barnlike packing-sheds. The fruit on the trees was unripe, and the red-painted sheds were empty and deserted-looking. In a clearing behind them, a row of tumbledown hutches, equally empty, provided shelter of a sort for migrant pickers.

Nearly a mile further on, the main house stood back from the road, half-shadowed by overarching oaks. Its brown adobe walls looked as indigenous as the oaks. The red Ford station wagon and the sheriffs patrol car on the curving gravel driveway seemed out of place, or rather out of time. The thing that struck me most as I parked in the driveway was a child’s swing suspended by new rope from a branch of one of the trees. No one had mentioned a child.

When I switched off the Buick’s engine, the silence was almost absolute. The house and its grounds were tranquil. Shadows lay soft as peace in the deep veranda. It was hard to believe the other side of the postcard.

The silence was broken by a screen door’s percussion. A blonde woman wearing black satin slacks and a white shirt came out on the front veranda. She folded her arms over her breasts and stood as still as a cat, watching us come up the walk.

“Zinnie,” Mildred said under her breath. She raised her voice: “Zinnie? Is everything all right?”

“Oh fine. Just lovely. I’m still waiting for Jerry to come home. You didn’t see him in town, did you?”

“I never see Jerry. You know that.”

Mildred halted at the foot of the steps. There was a barrier of hostility, like a charged fence, between the two women. Zinnie, who was at least ten years older, held her body in a compact defensive posture against the pressure of Mildred’s eyes. Then she dropped her arms in a rather dramatic gesture which may have been meant for me.

“I hardly ever see him myself.”

She laughed nervously. Her laugh was harsh and unpleasant, like her voice. It was easy for me to overlook the unpleasantness. She was a beautiful woman, and her green eyes were interested in me. The waist above her snug hips was the kind you can span with your two hands, and would probably like to.

“Who’s your friend?” she purred.

Mildred introduced me.

“A private detective yet,” Zinnie said. “The place is crawling with policemen already. But come on in. That sun is misery.”

She held the door for us. Her other hand went to her face where the sun had parched the skin, then to her sleek hair. Her right breast rose elastically under the white silk shirt. A nice machine, I thought: pseudo-Hollywood, probably empty, certainly expensive, and not new; but a nice machine. She caught my look and didn’t seem to mind. She switch-hipped along the hallway, to a large, cool living-room.

“I’ve been waiting for an excuse to have a drink. Mildred, you’ll have ginger ale, I know. How’s your mother, by the way?”

“Mother is fine. Thank you.” Mildred’s formality broke down suddenly. “Zinnie? Where is Carl now?”

Zinnie lifted her shoulders. “I wish I knew. He hasn’t been heard from since Sam Yogan saw him. Ostervelt has several deputies out looking for him. The trouble is, Carl knows the ranch better than any of them.”

“You said they promised not to shoot.”

“Don’t worry about that. They’ll take him without any fireworks. That’s where you come in, if and when he shows up.”

“Yes.” Mildred stood like a stranger in the middle of the floor. “Is there anything I can do now?”

“Not a thing. Relax. I need a drink if you don’t. What about you, Mr. Archer?”

“Gibson, if it’s available.”

“That’s handy, I’m a Gibson girl myself.” She smiled brilliantly, too brilliantly for the circumstances. Zinnie seemed to be a trier, though, whatever else she was.

Her living-room bore the earmarks of a trier with a restless urge to be up to the minute in everything. Its bright new furniture was sectional, scattered around in cubes and oblongs and arcs. It sorted oddly with the dark oak floor and the heavily beamed ceiling. The adobe walls were hung with modern reproductions in limed oak frames. A row of book-club books occupied the mantel above the ancient stone fireplace. A free-form marble coffee table held Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and a beautiful old silver handbell. It was a room in which an uneasy present struggled to overcome the persistent past.

Zinnie picked up the bell and shook it. Mildred jumped at the sound. She was sitting very tense on the edge of a sectional sofa. I sat down beside her, but she paid no attention to my presence. She turned to look out the window, toward the groves.

A tiny girl came into the room, pausing near the door at the sight of strangers. With light blond hair and delicate porcelain features, she was obviously Zinnie’s daughter. The child was fussily dressed in a pale blue frock with a sash, and a matching blue ribbon in her hair. Her hand crept toward her mouth. The tiny fingernails were painted red.

“I was ringing for Juan, dear,” Zinnie said.

“I want to ring for him, Mummy. Let me ring for Juan.”

Though the child wasn’t much more than three, she spoke very clearly and purely. She darted forward, reaching for the handbell. Zinnie let her ring it. Above its din, a white-jacketed Filipino said from the doorway: “Missus?”

“A shaker of Gibsons, Juan. Oh, and ginger ale for Mildred.”

“I want a Gibson, too,” the little girl said.

“All right, darling.” Zinnie turned to the houseboy: “A special cocktail for Martha.”

He smiled comprehendingly, and disappeared.

“Say hello to your Aunt Mildred, Martha.”

“Hello, Aunt Mildred.”

“Hello, Martha. How are you?”

“I’m fine. How is Uncle Carl?”

“Uncle Carl is ill,” Mildred said in a monotone.

“Isn’t Uncle Carl coming? Mummy said he was coming. She said so on the telephone.”

“No,” her mother cut in. “You didn’t understand what I said, dear. I was talking about somebody else. Uncle Carl is far away. He’s living far away.”

“Who is coming, Mummy?”

“Lots of people are coming. Daddy will be here soon. And Dr. Grantland. And Aunt Mildred is here.”

The child looked up at her, her eyes clear and untroubled. She said: “I don’t want Daddy to come. I don’t like Daddy. I want Dr. Grantland to come. He will come and take us to a nice place.”

“Not us, dear. You and Mrs. Hutchinson. Dr. Grantland will take you for a ride in his car, and you’ll spend the day with Mrs. Hutchinson. Maybe all night, too. Won’t that be fun?”

“Yes,” the child answered gravely. “That will be fun.”

“Now go and ask Mrs. Hutchinson to give you your lunch.”

“I ate my lunch. I ate it all up. You said I could have a special cocktail.”

“In the kitchen, dear. Juan will give you your cocktail in the kitchen.”

“I don’t want to go in the kitchen. I want to stay here, with people.”

“No, you can’t.” Zinnie was getting edgy. “Now be a nice girl and do what you’re told, or I’ll tell Daddy about you. He won’t like it.”

“I don’t care. I want to stay here and talk to the people.”

“Some other time, Martha.” She rose and hustled the little girl out of the room. A long wail ended with the closing of a door.

“She’s a beautiful child.”

Mildred turned to me. “Which one of them do you mean? Yes, Martha is pretty. And she’s bright. But the way Zinnie is handling her – she treats her as if she were a doll.”

Mildred was going to say more, but Zinnie returned, closely followed by the houseboy with the drinks. I drank mine in a hurry, and ate the onion by way of lunch.

“Have another, Mr. Archer.” One drink had converted Zinnie’s tension into vivacity, of a sort. “We’ve got the rest of the shaker to knock back between us. Unless we can persuade Mildred to climb down off her high wagon.”

“You know where I stand on the subject.” Mildred gripped her glass of ginger ale defensively. “I see you’ve had the room redone.”

I said: “One’s enough for me, thanks. What I’d like to do, if you don’t object, is talk to the man who saw your brother-in-law. Sam something?”

“Sam Yogan. Of course, talk to Sam if you like.”

“Is he around now?”

“I think so. Come on, I’ll help you find him. Coming, Mildred?”

“I’d better stay here,” Mildred said. “If Carl comes to the house, I want to be here to meet him.”

“Aren’t you afraid of him?”

“No, I’m not afraid of him. I love my husband. No doubt it’s hard for you to understand that.”

The hostility between the two women kept showing its sharp edges. Zinnie said: “Well, I’m afraid of him. Why do you think I’m sending Martha to town? And I’ve got half a mind to go myself.”

“With Dr. Grantland?”

Zinnie didn’t answer. She rose abruptly, with a glance at me. I followed her through a dining-room furnished in massive old mahogany, into a sunlit kitchen gleaming with formica and chrome and tile. The houseboy turned from the sink, where he was washing dishes: “Yes, Missus?”

“Is Sam around?”

“Before, he was talking to policeman.”

“I know that. Where is he now?”

“Bunkhouse, greenhouse, I dunno.” The houseboy shrugged. “I pay no attention to Sam Yogan.”

“I know that, too.”

Zinnie moved impatiently through a utility room to the back door. As soon as we stepped outside, a young man in a western hat raised his head from behind a pile of oak logs. He came around the woodpile, replacing his gun in its holster, swaggering slightly in his deputy’s suntans.

“I’d stay inside if I was you, Mrs. Hallman. That way we can look after you better.” He looked inquiringly at me.

“Mr. Archer is a private detective.”

A peevish look crossed the young deputy’s face, as though my presence threatened to spoil the game. I hoped it would. There were too many guns around.

“Any sign of Carl Hallman?” I asked him.

“You check in with the sheriff?”

“I checked in.” Ostensibly to Zinnie, I said: “Didn’t you say there wouldn’t be any shooting? That the sheriff’s men would take your brother-in-law without hurting him?”

“Yes. Sheriff Ostervelt promised to do his best.”

“We can’t guarantee nothing,” the young deputy said. Even as he spoke, he was scanning the tree-shaded recesses of the back yard, and the dense green of the trees that stretched beyond. “We got a dangerous man to deal with. He bust out of a security ward last night, stole a car for his getaway, probably stole the gun he’s carrying.”

“How do you know he stole a car?”

“We found it, stashed in a tractor turnaround between here and the main road. Right near where the old Jap ran into him.”

“Green Ford convertible?”

“Yeah. You seen it?”

“It’s my car.”

“No kidding? How’d he happen to steal your car?”

“He didn’t exactly steal it. I’m laying no charges. Take it easy with him if you see him.”

The deputy’s face hardened obtusely. “I got my orders.”

“What are they?”

“Fire if fired upon. And that’s leaning way over backwards. You don’t play footsie with a homicidal psycho, Mister.”

He had a point: I’d tried to, and got my lumps. But you didn’t shoot him, either.

“He isn’t considered homicidal.”

I glanced at Zinnie for confirmation. She didn’t speak, or look in my direction. Her pretty head was cocked sideways in a strained listening attitude. The deputy said: “You should talk to the sheriff about that.”

“He didn’t threaten Yogan, did he?”

“Maybe not. The Jap and him are old pals. Or maybe he did, and the Jap ain’t telling us. We do know he’s carrying a gun, and he knows how to use it.”

“I’d like to talk to Yogan.”

“If you think it’ll do you any good. Last I saw of him he was in the bunkhouse.”

He pointed between the oaks to an old adobe which stood on the edge of the groves. Behind us, the sound of an approaching car floated over the housetop.

“Excuse me, Mr. Carmichael,” Zinnie said. “That must be my husband.”

Walking quickly, she disappeared around the side of the house. Carmichael pulled his gun and trotted after her. I followed along, around the attached greenhouse which flanked the side of the house.

A silver-gray Jaguar stopped behind the Buick convertible in the driveway. Running across the lawn toward the sports car, under the towering sky, Zinnie looked like a little puppet, black and white and gold, jerked across green baize. The big man who got out of the car slowed her with a gesture of his hand. She looked back at me and the deputy, stumbling a little on her heels, and assumed an awkward noncommittal pose.