The Doomsters

14

I WAITED for Mildred on the front veranda. There were several more cars in the driveway. One of them was my Ford convertible, gray with dust but looking none the worse for wear. It was parked behind a black panel truck with county markings.

A deputy I hadn’t seen before was in the front seat of another county car, monitoring a turned-up radio. The rest of the sheriff’s men were still in the greenhouse. Their shadows moved on its translucent walls.

“Attention all units,” the huge voice of the radio said. “Be on the lookout for following subject wanted as suspect in murder which occurred at Hallman ranch in Buena Vista Valley approximately one hour ago: Carl Hallman, white, male, twenty-four, six-foot-three, two hundred pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, pale complexion, wearing blue cotton workshirt and trousers. Suspect may be armed and is considered dangerous. When last seen he was traveling across country on foot.”

Mildred came out, freshly groomed and looking fairly brisk in spite of her wilted-violet eyes. Her head moved in a small gesture of relief as the screen door slammed behind her.

“Where do you plan to go?” I asked her.

“Home. It’s too late to think of going back to work. I have to see to Mother, anyway.”

“Your husband may turn up there. Have you thought of that possibility?”

“Naturally. I hope he does.”

“If he does, will you let me know?”

She gave me a clear cold look. “That depends.”

“I know what you mean. Maybe I better make it plain that I’m in your husband’s corner. I’d like to get to him before the sheriff does. Ostervelt seems to have his mind made up about this case. I haven’t. I think there should be further investigation.”

“You want me to pay you, is that it?”

“Forget about that for now. Let’s say I like the old-fashioned idea of presumption of innocence.”

She took a step toward me, her eyes brightening. Her hand rested lightly on my arm. “You don’t believe he shot Jerry, either.”

“I don’t want to build up your hopes with nothing much to go on. I’m keeping an open mind until we have more information. You heard the shots that killed Jerry?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you at the time? And where were the others?”

“I don’t know about the others. I was with Martha on the other side of the house. The child seemed to sense what had happened, and I had a hard time calming her. I didn’t notice what other people were doing.”

“Was Ostervelt anywhere around the house?”

“I didn’t see him if he was.”

“Was Carl?”

“The last I saw of Carl was in the grove there.”

“Which way did he go when he left you?”

“Toward town, at least in that general direction.”

“What was his attitude when you talked to him?”

“He was upset. I begged him to turn himself in, but he seemed frightened.”

“Emotionally disturbed?”

“It’s hard to say. I’ve seen him much worse.”

“Did he show any signs of being dangerous?”

“Certainly not to me. He never has. He was a little rough when I tried to hold him, that’s all.”

“Has he often been violent?”

“No. I didn’t say he was violent. He simply didn’t want to be held. He pushed me away from him.”

“Did he say why?”

“He said something about following his own road. I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant.”

“Do you have any idea what he meant?”

“No.” But her eyes were wide and dark with possibility. “I’m certain, though, he didn’t mean anything like shooting his brother.”

“There’s another question that needs answering,” I said. “I hate to throw it at you now.”

She squared her slender shoulders. “Go ahead. I’ll answer it if I can.”

“I’ve been told your husband killed his father. Deliberately drowned him in the bathtub. Have you heard that?”

“Yes. I’ve heard that.”

“From Carl?”

“Not from him, no.”

“Do you believe it?”

She took a long time to answer. “I don’t know. It was just after Carl was hospitalized – the same day. When a tragedy cuts across your life like that, you don’t know what to believe. The world actually seemed to fly apart. I could recognize the pieces, but all the patterns were unfamiliar, the meanings were different. They still are. It’s an awful thing for a human being to admit, but I don’t know what I believe. I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting for six months to find out where I stand in the world, what sort of a life I can count on.”

“You haven’t really answered my question.”

“I would if I could. I’ve been trying to explain why I can’t. The circumstances were so queer, and awful.” The thought of them, whatever they were, pinched her face like cold.

“Who told you about this alleged confession?”

“Sheriff Ostervelt did. I thought at the time he was lying, for reasons of his own. Perhaps I was rationalizing, simply because I couldn’t face the truth – I don’t know.”

Before she trailed off into further self-doubts, I said: “What reasons would he have for lying to you?”

“I can tell you one. It isn’t very modest to say it, but he’s been interested in me for quite a long time. He was always hanging around the ranch, theoretically to see the Senator, but looking for excuses to talk to me. I knew what he wanted; he was about as subtle as an old boar. The day we took Carl to the hospital, Ostervelt made it very clear, and very ugly.” She shut her eyes for a second. A faint dew had gathered on her eyelids, and at her temples. “So ugly that I’m afraid I can’t talk about it.”

“I get the general idea.”

But she went on, in a chilly trance of memory which seemed to negate the place and time: “He was to drive Carl to the hospital that morning, and naturally I wanted to go along. I wanted to be with Carl until the last possible minute before the doors closed on him. You don’t know how a woman feels when her husband’s being taken away like that, perhaps forever. I was afraid it was forever. Carl didn’t say a word on the way. For days before he’d been talking constantly, about everything under the sun – the plans he had for the ranch, our life together, philosophy, social justice, and the brotherhood of man. Suddenly it was all over. Everything was over. He sat in the car, between me and the sheriff, as still as a dead man.

“He didn’t even kiss me good-by at the admissions door. I’ll never forget what he did do. There was a little tree growing beside the steps. Carl picked one of the leaves and folded it in his hand and carried it into the hospital with him.

“I didn’t go in. I couldn’t bear to, that day, though I’ve been there often enough since. I waited outside in the sheriff’s car. I remember thinking that this was the end of the line, that nothing worse could ever happen to me. I was wrong.

“On the way back, Ostervelt began to act as if he owned me. I didn’t give him any encouragement; I never had. In fact, I told him what I thought of him.

“It was then he got really nasty. He told me I’d better be careful what I said. That Carl had confessed the murder of his father, and he was the only one who knew. He’d keep it quiet if I’d be nice to him. Otherwise there’d be a trial, he said. Even if Carl wasn’t convicted we’d be given the kind of publicity that people can’t live through.” Her voice sank despairingly. “The kind of publicity we’re going to have to live through now.”

Mildred turned and looked out across the green country as if it were a wasteland. She said, with her face averted: “I didn’t give in to him. But I was afraid to reject him as flatly as he deserved. I put him off with some sort of a vague promise, that we might get together sometime in the future. I haven’t kept the promise, needless to say, and I never will.” She said it calmly enough, but her shoulders were trembling. I could see the rim of one of her ears, between silky strands of hair. It was red with shame or anger. “The horrible old man hasn’t forgiven me for that. I’ve lived in fear for the last six months, that he’d take action against Carl – drag him back to stand trial.”

“He didn’t, though,” I said, “which means that the confession was probably a phony. Tell me one thing, could it have happened the way Ostervelt claimed? I mean, did your husband have the opportunity?”

“I’m afraid the answer is yes. He was roaming around the house most of the night, after the quarrel with his father. I couldn’t keep him in bed.”

“Did you ask him about it afterwards?”

“At the hospital? No, I didn’t. They warned me not to bring up disturbing subjects. And I was glad enough to let sleeping dogs lie. If it was true, I felt better not knowing than knowing. There’s a limit to what a person can bear to know.”

She shuddered, in the chill of memory.

The front door of the greenhouse was flung open suddenly. Carmichael backed out, bent over the handles of a covered stretcher. Under the cover, the dead man huddled lumpily. The other end of the stretcher was supported by the deputy coroner. They moved awkwardly along the flagstone path toward the black panel truck. Against the sweep of the valley and the mountains standing like monuments in the sunlight, the two upright men and the prostrate man seemed equally small and transitory. The living men hoisted the dead man into the back of the truck and slammed the double doors. Mildred jumped at the noise.

“I’m terribly edgy, I’d better get out of here. I shouldn’t have gone into – all that. You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”

“It’s safe with me.”

“Thank you. For everything, I mean. You’re the only one who’s given me a ray of hope.”

She raised her hand in good-by and went down the steps into sunlight which gilded her head. Ostervelt’s senescent passion for her was easy to understand. It wasn’t just that she was young and pretty, and round in the right places. She had something more provocative than sex: the intense grave innocence of a serious child, and a loneliness that made her seem vulnerable.

I watched the old Buick out of sight and caught myself on the edge of a sudden hot dream. Mildred’s husband might not live forever. His chances of surviving the day were not much better than even. If her husband failed to survive, Mildred would need a man to look after her.

I gave myself a mental kick in the teeth. That land of thinking put me on Ostervelt’s level. Which for some reason made me angrier at Ostervelt.