The Goodbye Look

chapter 29

I found myself in a blind street ending in a barricade. Beyond it a deep ravine opened. I turned off my engine and sat getting my bearings.

At just about my level, a red-tailed hawk was circling over the treetops in the ravine. There were scrub oak and sycamores along the hidden watercourse. I realized after a while that this was the same ravine that cut across Locust Street, where Rawlinson lived. But I was on the other side of it, facing west.

I drove the long way around to Locust Street. The first thing I saw when I entered it was an open black Mercury convertible standing at the curb half a block from Rawlinson’s house. The keys were in the ignition. I put them in my pocket.

I left my own car in front of Rawlinson’s house and mounted the veranda uneasily, tripping on the broken step. Mrs. Shepherd opened the door with her finger to her lips. Her eyes were deeply troubled.

“Be quiet,” she whispered. “Mr. Rawlinson is taking his nap.”

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Not right now. I’m busy.”

“I’ve come all the way from Pacific Point.”

This information seemed to fascinate her. Without removing her gaze from my face, she closed the front door quietly behind her and stepped out onto the veranda.

“What’s going on in Pacific Point?”

It sounded like a routine question, but it probably stood for questions she was afraid to ask in detail. She gave the impression that in her age she had stumbled back into all the desperate uncertainties of youth.

“More of the same,” I said. “Trouble for everybody. I think it all started with this.”

I showed her the copy of Nick’s graduation picture that I’d taken from Sidney Harrow. She shook her head over it:

“I don’t know who it would be.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” She added solemnly: “I never saw that young man in my life.”

I almost believed her. But she had neglected to ask me who he was.

“His name is Nick Chalmers. This was supposed to be his graduation picture. But Nick won’t be graduating.”

She didn’t say, “Why not?” But her eyes said it.

“Nick’s in the hospital recovering from a suicide attempt. The trouble started, as I said, when a man named Sidney Harrow came to town and began hounding Nick. He brought this picture with him.”

“Where did he get it?”

“From Randy Shepherd,” I said.

Her face had taken on an underlying pallor which made it almost gray. “Why are you telling me these things?”

“You’re obviously interested.” I went on in the same quiet tone: “Is Randy in the house now?”

Her uncontrolled upward glance probably meant that Shepherd was upstairs. She didn’t speak.

“I’m pretty sure he’s in there, Mrs. Shepherd. If I were you I wouldn’t try to hide him. The police are after him, and they’ll be arriving any time now.”

“What do they want him for this time?”

“Murder. The murder of Jean Trask.”

She moaned. “He didn’t tell me.”

“Is he armed?”

“He has a knife.”

“No gun?”

“I didn’t see one.” She reached out and touched my chest. “Are you certain Randy gave that picture to the other man – the man who went to the Point?”

“I’m sure now, Mrs. Shepherd.”

“Then he can burn in hell.” She started down the steps.

“Where are you going?”

“The neighbors’ to phone the police.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Mrs. Shepherd.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t. But I’ve suffered enough in my life on his account. I’m not going to jail for him.”

“Let me go in and talk to him.”

“No. It’s my neck. And I’m calling the police.” She turned away again.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. We have to get Mr. Rawlinson out of there first. Where is Randy?”

“In the attic. Mr. Rawlinson’s in the front parlor.”

She went in and helped the old man to walk out. He was limping and yawning, and blinking against the sun. I put him in the front seat of my car and drove him to the barricade at the end of the street. The police used a lot of firepower nowadays.

The old man turned to me impatiently. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what we’re doing here.”

“It would take a long time to explain. Briefly, we’re wrapping up the case that started in July 1945.”

“When Eldon Swain robbed me blind?”

“If it was Eldon.”

Rawlinson turned his head to look at me, the flesh of his neck twisting in stringy folds. “Is there some doubt that Eldon was responsible?”

“The question has been raised.”

“Nonsense. He was the cashier. Who else could have embezzled all that money?”

“You could have, Mr. Rawlinson.”

His eyes grew small and bright in their nests of wrinkles. “You must be joking.”

“No. I admit the question is partly hypothetical.”

“And pretty damn insulting,” he said without much real heat. “Do I look like the kind of man who would ruin his own bank?”

“Not unless you had a powerful reason.”

“What possible reason could I have?”

“A woman.”

“What woman?”

“Estelle Chalmers. She died rich.”

He manufactured a quick small rage. “You’re throwing dirt on the memory of a fine woman.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I do. If you persist in following this line, I refuse to talk with you.” He made a move to get out of my car.

“You better stay here, Mr. Rawlinson. Your house isn’t safe. Randy Shepherd’s in the attic, and the police will be here soon.”

“Is this Mrs. Shepherd’s doing? Did she let him in?”

“He probably didn’t give her any choice.” I brought out my picture of Nick again, and showed it to Rawlinson. “Do you know who this is?”

He took the picture in his swollen arthritic fingers. “I’m afraid I don’t know his name. I could guess who the boy is, but you don’t want that.”

“Go ahead and guess.”

“It’s someone near and dear to Mrs. Shepherd. I saw this in her room early last week. Then it disappeared, and she blamed me for it.”

“She should have blamed Randy Shepherd. He was the one who took it.” I lifted the picture out of his hands and replaced it in the inside pocket of my jacket.

“That’s what she gets for letting him into my house!” His eyes were moist, leaking away his old-man’s anger. “The police are coming, you say. What’s Randy been up to now?”

“He’s wanted for murder, Mr. Rawlinson. The murder of your granddaughter Jean.”

He made no response, except that he sank a little lower in the seat. I felt sorry for the man. He had had everything and bit by bit lost nearly all of it. Now he had outlived his own granddaughter.

I looked out over the ravine, hoping to lose my borrowed pain in its deep green spaces. The red-tailed hawk I had seen from the other side was visible from this side, too. He turned, and his ruddy wedge of tail flashed in the sun.

“You knew about Jean, Mr. Rawlinson?”

“Yes. My daughter Louise phoned me yesterday. But she didn’t say that Shepherd was responsible.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“Then what is this all about?”

“The police think he is.”

Almost as if he could hear us talking about him, Randy Shepherd appeared at the side of Rawlinson’s house and looked in our direction. He was wearing a wide-brimmed Panama hat with a striped band, and a moth-eaten tan polo coat.

“Hold on there, that’s my hat!” Rawlinson cried. “By God, that’s my coat, too!”

He started to get out of the car. I told him to stay where he was, in a tone which he obeyed.

Shepherd sauntered up the street like a gentleman out for a stroll. Then he scampered across to the black convertible, holding the loose hat on his head with one hand. He sat in the car for a frantic minute, looking for the keys, then got out and headed for the parkway.

By this time the sirens were rising in the distance, curdling the daylight at the edges. Shepherd stopped dead and stood perfectly still in a listening attitude. He turned and started back in our direction, pausing for an instant at the Rawlinson house as if he was thinking of going back in.

Mrs. Shepherd came out on the front porch. By this time two patrol cars were in the street and rolling toward Shepherd. He looked at them over his shoulder, and all around at the long Victorian faces of the houses. Then he ran in my direction. His Panama hat flew off. His coat billowed out behind.

I got out of the car to head him off. It was an unconsidered reflex. The patrol cars stopped abruptly, ejecting four policemen who began to fire their revolvers at Shepherd.

He went down flat on his face and slid a little. Then splashes on the back of his neck and down the back of his light coat were darker and realer than his slipping red wig.

A bullet ripped into my shoulder. I fell sideways against the open door of my car. Then I lay down and pretended to be as dead as Shepherd was.