The Way Some People Die

Chapter 13

I crossed to Pico Boulevard and drove to Mrs. Lawrence’s house in Santa Monica. Tiredness was catching up with me. The glittering late-morning traffic hurt my eyes and feelings. I had a notion at the back of my mind that at worst Mrs. Lawrence could rent me a room to sleep in, out of reach of policeman’s questions for a while. At best she might have heard from her daughter.

Mrs. Lawrence had done better, and worse, than that. The bronze Packard was parked at the curb in front of her house. The sight of it acted on me like benzedrine. I took the veranda steps in one stride, and leaned my weight on the doorbell. She came to the door immediately: “Mr. Archer! I’ve been trying to get you by phone.”

“Is Galley here?”

“She was. It’s why I called you. Where have you been?”

“Too far. I’d like to come in, if I may.”

“Excuse me. I’ve been so dreadfully upset I don’t know if I’m coming or going.” She looked distraught. Her gray hair, which had been so carefully done the previous morning, was unkempt, almost as if she’d been tearing at it with her hands. A single day had drawn deeper lines in her face.

Still she was very courteous as she stood back to let me enter and led me down the hall to her hoard of old furniture. “You look quite worn out, Mr. Archer. May I make you some tea?”

I said: “No thanks. Where’s Galley?”

“I don’t know where she went. A man came to get her about ten o’clock, when I was just giving her her breakfast. I was frying the bacon, crisp, as she’s always liked it, when this man came to the door. She went away with him, without a single word of explanation.” She sat down in a platform rocker just inside the door of the room, her clenched hands resting stiffly on her knees.

“Could he have been her husband? Did you see him?”

“Her husband?” Her voice sounded weary and bewildered. She had encountered too much life in too short a time. “Surely she isn’t married.”

“She seems to be, to a man called Tarantine. Didn’t she tell you?”

“We barely had a chance to talk. She came home late last night – I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Archer, for what you’ve done–”

“Galley mentioned me, then.”

“Oh, yes. She came straight home after you found her. It was very late, after dawn in fact, and she was too tired to want to talk very much. This morning I let her sleep in. It was so grand to have my girl back in her own bed. Now she’s gone away again.” She sat gazing at the fact, drearily blinking her eyes.

“This man,” I nudged her to attention. “Did you see the man she went with?”

“Certainly. I answered the door myself. I didn’t like his looks at all. He was a very thin man, a walking skeleton. I thought when I looked at him he must have tuberculosis. Galley wouldn’t marry a man like that.” But her statement curled at the edges into a question.

“That isn’t her husband. Did he threaten you, or her?”

“Heavens, no. He simply asked for Galley, very quietly. She came to the door and they talked together for a minute. I didn’t hear what was said. Galley closed the door and stepped outside. Then she came back in and put on her coat and left.”

“Without a word?”

“She said good-bye. She said she would be back soon. I tried to get her to eat her breakfast first, but she was in too great a hurry.”

“Was she frightened?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen my daughter show fear. She is a very courageous girl, Mr. Archer, she always has been. Her father and I tried to teach her to face the world with fortitude.”

I was standing above her, resting part of my weight on the edge of the refectory table. I noticed that she was looking at me with growing disapproval.

“Is something the matter?”

“Please sit down in a chair, Mr. Archer. That table was one of the doctor’s favorite pieces.”

“Sorry.” I sat down.

Her past-encumbered mind came back to the present again: “You’ve implied several times that Galley is in danger.”

“I got the idea from you.”

“Don’t you believe she will come back soon, as she promised? Has something happened to my girl, Mr. Archer?” One of her fists was steadily pounding one of her bony knees.

“I don’t know. All you can do is wait and see.”

“Can’t you do something? I’ll give you anything I have. If only nothing dreadful happens to Galley.”

“I’ll do what I can. I’m in this case to stay.”

“You’re a good man.” The fist stopped pounding.

“Hardly.” She lived in a world where people did this or that because they were good or evil. In my world people acted because they had to. I gave her a little bulletin from my world: “Last night your daughter’s husband knocked me out with a sandbag and left me lying. I make a point of paying back things like that.”

“Goodness gracious! What kind of a man is Galley married to?”

“Not a good man.” Perhaps our worlds were the same after all, depending on how you looked at them. The things you had to do in my world made you good or evil in hers. “You’ll probably be hearing from the police some time to-day.”

“The police? Is Galley in wrong with the police?” It was the final affront to Dr. Lawrence’s memory and the furniture. Her hands rose to her head and lifted her hair in two gray tangled wings.

“Not necessarily. They’ll want to ask some questions. Tell them the truth. Tell them I told you to tell them the truth.” I moved to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I think I know where Galley is. Did she go away in a car?”

“Yes, a big black car. There was a second man driving.”

“I’ll bring her back if I can.”

“Wait a minute.” She followed me down the dim hallway and detained me at the front door. “There’s something I must tell you.”

“About Galley? If it isn’t you’d better save it.”

Her roughened hand moved on my sleeve. “Yes, about Galley. I haven’t been entirely candid, Mr. Archer. Now you tell me the police are coming here–”

“Nothing to worry about. They’ll want to do some checking.”

“A policeman was here Sunday night,” she said. “He warned me not to divulge the fact to anyone, not even you.”

“How did I come into the conversation? I entered the case on Monday.”

“Lieutenant Dahl urged me to employ you. He’s a detective in the Vice Squad, he said, a very lovely young man. He said my girl was living with a criminal whom he was shortly going to have to arrest. But he knew that Galley was an innocent good girl, and he didn’t want to involve her if he could help it. So he gave me your name and telephone number. He said that you were honest and discreet, but even so I wasn’t to tell you about his conversation with me.” She bit her lip. “It’s terribly wrong of me to violate his confidence like this.”

“When did he come here?”

“Sunday night, after midnight. He got me up out of bed.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was in civilian clothes – an extremely handsome young fellow.”

“Tall, wavy reddish hair, purple eyes, movie-actor’s profile, radio-actor’s voice?”

“Do you know Lieutenant Dahl?”

“Very slightly,” I said. “Our friendship never had a chance to come to its full flower.”