The Ferguson Affair

chapter 20

I FOUND DR. SIMEON in the cold room. He was laying out cutting tools on a stainless-steel table. Light from a ceiling lamp splashed on his clean white smock like luminous paint. The chrome instruments, knives and saws, gleamed under his rubber-gloved fingers. Almost hidden by his shadow, a body lay under a sheet on a second table against the back wall.

“Come in,” he said hospitably. “I’m afraid I gave you a rough moment this morning. We all contain the same organs, the same old blood and guts, but we don’t like to be reminded of it. We like to imagine that we’re simply inflated skins, full of helium or some other ethereal substance.”

“I was taken by surprise.”

“I know. The shock of mortality. Don’t feel too badly about it. I had a horrible week in medical school, when we started dissecting cadavers.”

My gaze strayed, against my will, to the body on the table behind him. One of the feet protruded from under the sheet. There was blood on the toenails.

“I promised to get in touch with you,” Simeon was saying, “after I’d done a thorough job on Broadman. I finished him up this afternoon, but you’re a hard man to reach.”

“I had to go into Beverly Hills. I appreciate your going to all this trouble.”

“No trouble. In fact, I owe you something. You saved me from making a mistake. I don’t say I wouldn’t have caught it in the normal course. In fact, I would have, when I got around to making a chemical analysis of the blood. But I wouldn’t have caught it so soon.”

“What did Broadman die of?”

“Asphyxia.”

“He was strangled?”

Simeon shook his head. “I’ve found no evidence of strangulation. The neck structures are intact. There’s no sign of external violence at all, apart from the injuries to the back of the head. But the internal evidence points conclusively to asphyxia: edema of the lungs, some dilation of the right side of the heart, some petechial hemorrhaging of the pleura. There’s no doubt at all that Broadman died from lack of oxygen.”

“How did it happen?”

“That’s a difficult question. There’s a possibility that it was an accident, if Broadman lapsed into unconsciousness and swallowed his tongue, as they say. The possibility of accident is remote. The tongue was in a normal position when I examined him. I’d say that he was smothered in some way.”

“In what way?”

“I wish I knew, Mr. Gunnarson. Since he was in a weakened state, it’s possible that someone simply placed a hand over his mouth and nostrils, and cut off his air. I’ve seen infants that were smothered in that way. Never a grown man.”

“Wouldn’t the marks show on his face?”

“They usually do, yes. But as I said, he was in a weakened condition, perhaps unconscious. Not too much pressure would be required.”

“Have you passed on your findings to the police?”

“Naturally. Lieutenant Wills was very much interested. So was Sergeant Granada.” His eyes were bland. “Granada was in here just before dinner.”

“Inquiring about Broadman?”

“Incidentally he was inquiring about Broadman. But his main interest was in the other cadaver.”

“Donato?”

“Donato’s wife. I can understand Granada’s interest. He was the one who found her.”

I did a moral double-take that rocked me on my heels. “Donato’s wife?”

“That’s correct. She took an overdose of sleeping pills. At least that’s what Granada thinks.”

“What do you think, Doctor?”

“I’ll let the condition of the organs tell me what to think. I do know this. I didn’t give her enough sleeping pills to make a fatal dose. It’s possible she had some already, though, or got hold of some more.”

He uncovered the body. It glistened like a fish thrown up on an iron shore. The red on the tips of the feet was toenail polish. Secundina’s face was very deep in sleep.

“And now I give you fair warning.” Simeon picked up a curved knife with a sharp point. “You’d better get out of here, unless you want to see me make a butterfly incision. To an untrained eye, it ain’t pretty.”

I turned away as he raised the knife. Tony Padilla was standing in the doorway.

“My God, is he going to cut her?” His voice was incredulous. His eyes had a fixed stare.

“It won’t hurt her, Tony. She’s dead.”

“I know that. Frankie heard it on the radio.”

He brushed past me and looked down at the dead woman. Through half-closed eyelids she regarded him without fear or favor.

He touched her naked shoulder. “You don’t want to cut her, Doc.”

“It’s necessary, I’m afraid. In cases of violent death, or death from unknown causes, an autopsy is normal procedure. Under the present circumstances, it’s absolutely imperative.”

“How did she get herself killed?”

“If we knew that, I wouldn’t have to cut her. Sergeant Granada believes she took an overdose of sleeping pills.”

“What has Granada got to do with it?”

“He found her. He went to her house to ask her some questions-”

“What about?”

The abruptness of the question made Simeon raise his eyebrows, but he answered it civilly. “About her husband’s activities, I believe. He found her on the bed, with her children crying around her. Apparently she was dead, but he couldn’t be sure, so he rushed her here in an ambulance. Unfortunately she was dead.”

“Just like Broadman, eh?”

Simeon shrugged and looked up impatiently. “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to canvass all these issues with you. Lieutenant Wills and Sergeant Granada are in a hurry for my results.”

“Why? Don’t they know the answers already?” Padilla spoke from his whole jerking body, as a dog does when it barks.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” Simeon turned to me. “I gather this chap is a friend of yours. Explain to him that I’m a pathologist, will you-a scientist? I can’t discuss police matters-”

“You think I’m stupid?” Padilla cried.

“You’re acting stupidly,” I said. “If you have no respect for the living, show some for the dead.”

Padilla became silent. With an apologetic glance at the dead woman, he turned and trudged out of the room. I followed him out into the corridor. “I didn’t know you cared so much for her, Tony.”

“Me, either. I used to think I hated her for a long time. I used to see her on the streets, in the bars, with her husband, with Granada. I always got mad when I saw her. And then last night when Gus was knocked off, I thought, I can marry her now. It came to me all of a sudden: that I could marry her now. I would of, too.”

“Have you ever married?”

“No, and I never will.”

The metal door had closed behind us. He looked at it as if life was on the other side, and the automatic door had cut him off from life.

“This is a bad time to make decisions,” I said. “Why don’t you go back to work now? Forget about death and destruction.”

“Sure, and let Granada get away with it.”

“You sound pretty sure he’s guilty.”

“Aren’t you, Mr. Gunnarson?”

It wasn’t an easy question to answer. I was less sure than I had been. I knew that Granada had shot Donato. I could imagine him killing Broadman. The thought of him killing Secundina, a woman he was said to have loved, seemed impossible to me. And Tony’s very insistence on his guilt aroused my occupational reaction, which was doubt.

“I’m not at all sure of his guilt. I certainly don’t think you should go around making accusations.”

“I see.” His voice was wooden. He’d asked a question of a man and been answered by a profession. Which was the way I wanted it for the time being.

I offered Padilla a cigarette. He refused it. I sat down on a bench against the wall. Padilla remained standing. An uneasy silence set in, and continued for quite a long time.

“You could be right, Mr. Gunnarson,” he said at last. “It’s been a bad day for me. I go along calm and cool for months at a time, and then something happens, and I lose my head. You think I’m punchy, maybe? I took a lot of blows in the head when I was a kid fighting.”

“No. I think you’re human.”

After another long silence, he said: “I can use a cigarette, since you were so kind to offer. I left mine out at the club behind the bar.”

I gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Before it had burned up, Dr. Simeon opened the metal door and glanced out. “There you are. I didn’t know whether or not you were waiting. I have some preliminary findings. I’d say it’s practically certain she died in the same way Broadman did, of asphyxia.”

Padilla spoke up. “Does that mean she was gassed?”

“That’s one form of asphyxia. There are several. In the present case, as in Broadman’s, indications are that death resulted from simple lack of oxygen. There’s a similar edema-a waterlogged condition-in the pleural cavity. And again, there are no external marks of violence. I haven’t got to the neck structures yet, but I’ll venture the opinion that she was smothered.” Simeon stepped out into the corridor. “I’d better phone this in to Wills before I continue.”

I stood beside Simeon’s desk while he tried to reach Wills, and then Granada. After a baffling five minutes, he hung up. “Can’t reach either of them. Well, they’re the ones who were in the hurry.”

“Did she take the sleeping pills?” I asked him.

“There are indications of it. I should be able to tell you more about that later. Now I’d better get back to the lady. She may have something more she wants me to know.”

Padilla glared at him from the doorway, outraged by his levity. Simeon appeared not to notice. He went out, and his rubber-soled shoes whispered away along the corridor.

I said to Padilla: “Let’s go down to Secundina’s place.”

Evening light ran in the alley like red-stained water. The berries on the Cotoneaster tree were the color of nail polish and blood. Secundina’s sister came to the door when we knocked. The baby was sleeping in her arm.

She looked at Padilla with hard eyes. “You again.”

“Me again.”

“What do you want this time?”

“Ask you some questions, Arcadia. Don’t be like that.”

“I answered all the questions. What’s the use? The old woman says they wanted her dead in the hospital, they gave her knockout pills. Maybe she’s right.”

“They don’t do things like that at the hospital,” I said.

“How do I know what they do there?” She held the child away from me, with her lifted hand between my eyes and his face.

“This is Mr. Gunnarson,” Padilla said. “He won’t give the little one mal ojo. He is a lawyer trying to find out what happened here today.” He turned to me. “This is Mrs. Torres, Secundina’s sister.”

Arcadia Torres failed to acknowledge the introduction. Her intense, dark gaze was focused on Padilla. “What happened today? Secundina died today. You know it.”

“Did she do it herself, with sleeping pills?”

“She took the sleeping pills from the hospital, the whole bottle. The copper-the policeman-he said when he came back here, there wasn’t enough pills to kill her. But she’s dead, ain’t she?”

“What would make her do such a thing?” Padilla said.

“She was crazy about that Gus of hers, I guess. And she was scared. When she got feeling like that, she’d drink down anything. Mrs. Donato said that she had susto.”

“What do you mean by anything, Mrs. Torres?”

“Anything she could get. Sleeping pills or GI gin, they call it, or the cough medicine. They had her name on a list at all the drugstores. Indian list, they call it.”

“Did she take other drugs when she could get them?”

Her beautiful drooping mouth set itself in stubborn lines. Her Madonna eyes took on the dusty glassiness that I had seen in her sister’s eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Did she have a habit?” Padilla asked her softly.

“Not any more she didn’t. She was off of it. Maybe she smoked a little marijuana, like on a party.”

“You mentioned that she was frightened,” I said. “What was she frightened of?”

“Getting killed.”

“So she tried to kill herself? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You didn’t know Secundina.”

“But you did, Mrs. Torres. Do you honestly believe she killed herself, or tried to?”

“That’s what the old woman says. She says that my sister is burning in hell for it now.”

“Is Mrs. Donato here?”

Arcadia shook her head. “She went to the albolaria. She says there is a curse on the family which only the albolaria can take off.”

“Were you here when they took her away in the ambulance?”

“I saw them.”

“Was she alive then?”

“I thought she was alive.”

“Who called the ambulance?”

“The policeman.”

“Sergeant Granada?”

She nodded.

“What was Granada doing here?”

“He wanted to talk to her about Gus.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me. He sent her a message by the corner grocery. But when he got here, she was out, lying on the bed. He went in and found her.”

“Did you see them together?”

“After he called the ambulance, I did.”

“And she was alive then?”

“She was breathing, I think. But she wouldn’t wake up.”

“Was she afraid of Granada?”

“I don’t know. She was afraid of a lot of things.”

Padilla spoke sharply to her. “Answer the question!”

She gave her head a violent shake which left it tilted on her neck away from me. She answered Padilla in Spanish.

“What does she say, Tony?”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you any more, I’m sorry. When a bad thing like this happens we-I mean they turn against people, you know, people from uptown. Maybe if you let me talk to her?”

“Go ahead. I’ll wait in the car.”

I smoked a couple of cigarettes and watched the daylight dying on Pelly Street. Dark boys in twos and threes were prowling the sidewalk. The neon signs of the bars and cafés hung like ignis fatuus on the twilight. Jukebox music reached my ears like distant battlecries and lamentations. In competition with it, a chorus of voices rose behind the painted windows of a storefront church. “Telephone to Jesus,” they were singing.

Padilla emerged from the alley. His movements were furtive, like a dog’s that has been kicked. He looked up and down the street, pretending for an instant that he couldn’t see me.

I got out of the car. “Did she do any more talking to you?”

“Yeah.” He moved uneasily, on his toes, his left shoulder slightly raised. “I don’t get it. She says it was Holly May that Secundina was scared of.”

“Did she name her?”

“She didn’t have to. It was her, all right. Secundina saw her with Gaines and Gus Donato the night before last, the night she disappeared. They had a reefer party up in the mountains.”

“Where in the mountains?”

“Arcadia doesn’t know that. She only knows what Secundina told her. Gus had marijuana contacts and he provided the weed. Secundina went along for the ride. It was quite a party, the way she told it to her sister. Holly was picking fights with people, yelling that she was the greatest actress in the world. Also, she had the most beautiful figure in the world. At one point she took off her clothes to prove it. Gus made a play for her, and Secundina stepped in, and Holly broke off the end of a bottle and went for her. I don’t get it. She never acted like that on liquor.”

Padilla dropped his protective left shoulder and stood back on his heels.

“Was Holly smoking marijuana?”

“She was certainly high on something.”

“It changes people sometimes, Tony. It acts like a trigger on unstable people.”

“Yeah. I know, I’ve tried it.” He caught himself. “I mean, away back when.” His eyes were shabby.

“Where?”

“When I was a kid.”

“In town here?”

“Yeah.” He looked up and down the street. “I didn’t mean to tell you that, Mr. Gunnarson. It’s something I’m not proud of. I ran with the ice-plant gang for a while, before I caught on to what it was all about. We used to smoke the stuff when we could get it.”

“Did you know Gus in those days?”

“Him and Secundina, too.”

“Granada?”

“Yeah. I was there the night that Gus and him had their big fight. I could have stopped them, I was boxing in those days. But, hell, I let them fight. I was hoping they’d knock each other off. No such luck.”

“What did you have against them?”

The color left his face. After an ivory interval, he said: “Now wait a minute, Mr. Gunnarson. You wouldn’t be trying to tie me in with all this.” He glanced over his shoulder into the shadowed alley. “That was all years ago. I was just a crazy kid out of high school, looking for kicks.”

“So was Granada, wasn’t he?”

“Him and Gus was different. I’ve always hated the bastards, both of them.”

“On account of Secundina?”

“Yeah.” The blood rushed back into his face and turned it cordovan. “I used to know her way back in Sacred Heart School. She was in the third grade, I was in the sixth. She was just a bright-eyed little kid, not a care in the world. Her mother sent her in clean dresses, ribbons in her hair. Christ, she played an angel in the Nativity. Look at her now.”

“You can’t blame the men in her life. People grow up.”

“Down,” he said. “They grow down.” He grimaced at the sidewalk as if he could see hell under it.

“I want you to think about it, Tony. Could you be mistaken about Granada?”

“Yeah,” he answered slowly, “I could be mistaken. I could be wrong about anybody, I guess. I’m sorry if I gave you a bum steer.”

I didn’t answer him. I was sorrier.

“I got carried away, maybe, too many things at once. I get these days when my whole damn life rears up on its hind legs and smacks me.”

He threw a short left hook at an invisible opponent. His fist completed its arc at the side of his own jaw. He half turned toward the alley.

“Where are you off to, Tony? Shouldn’t you be getting back to work?”

“Arcadia wants me to stay with her. She put Torres in the clink for nonsupport. Now she’s scared to be alone herself. She thinks maybe she’s getting susto, too.”

“What is susto?”

“Bad sickness. The doctor says it’s psychological, like. My mother says it’s from an evil spirit.”

“Which do you say?”

“I dunno. They taught in high school there was no such thing as evil spirits. But I dunno.” His eyes were like occulted lights.

He moved away into the mouth of the alley. I drove back to my office on automatic pilot. My thoughts remained with Tony and Arcadia, caught in the ambiguous darkness between two towns, two magics.