The Chill

by Ross Macdonald

  We seemed to have an unspoken agreement that Dolly existed only in the past. Perhaps because we were both avoiding the problem of Dolly’s present situation, some of the tension between us had evaporated. I took advantage of this to ask Miss Jenks if I could look over the house.

  “I don’t see what for.”

  “You’ve given me a very clear account of the murder. I want to try and relate it to the physical layout.”

  She said doubtfully: “I don’t have much more time, and frankly I don’t know how much more of this I can stand. My sister was very dear to me.”

  “I know.”

  “What are you trying to prove?”

  “Nothing. I just want to understand what happened. It’s my job.”

  A job and its imperatives meant something to her. She got up, opened the front door, and pointed out the place just inside it where her sister’s body had lain. There was of course no trace of the ten-year-old crime on the braided rag rug in the hall. No trace of it anywhere, except for the blind red smear it had left in Dolly’s mind, and possibly in her aunt’s.

  I was struck by the fact that Dolly’s mother and her friend Helen had both been shot at the front door of their homes by the same caliber gun, possibly held by the same person. I didn’t mention this to Miss Jenks. It would only bring on another outburst against her brother-in-law McGee.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” she said unexpectedly.

  “No thanks.”

  “Or coffee? I use instant. It won’t take long.”

  “All right. You’re very kind.”

  She left me in the living room. It was divided by sliding doors from the dining room, and furnished with stiff old dark pieces reminiscent of a nineteenth-century parlor. There were mottoes on the walls instead of pictures, and one of them brought back with a rush and a pang my grandmother’s house in Martinez. It said: “He is the Silent Listener at Every Conversation.” My grandmother had hand-embroidered the same motto and hung it in her bedroom. She always whispered.

  An upright grand piano with a closed keyboard stood in one corner of the room. I tried to open it, but it was locked. A photograph of two women and a child stood in the place of honor on the piano top. One of the women was Miss Jenks, younger but just as stout and overbearing. The other woman was still younger and much prettier. She held herself with the naïve sophistication of a small-town belle. The child between them, with one hand in each of theirs, was Dolly aged about ten.

  Miss Jenks had come through the sliding doors with a coffee tray. “That’s the three of us.” As if two women and a little girl made a complete family. “And that’s my sister’s piano. She played beautifully. I never could master the instrument myself.”

  She wiped her glasses. I didn’t know whether they were clouded by emotion or by the steam from the coffee. Over it she related some of Constance’s girlhood triumphs. She had won a prize for piano, another for voice. She did extremely well in high school, especially in French, and she was all set to go to college, as Alice had gone before her, when that smooth-talking devil of a Tom McGee—

  I left most of my coffee and went out into the hallway. It smelled of the mold that invades old houses. I caught a glimpse of myself in the clouded mirror beside the deer-horn hatrack. I looked like a ghost from the present haunting a bloody moment in the past. Even the woman behind me had an insubstantial quality, as if her large body was a husk or shell from which the essential being had departed. I found myself associating the smell of mold with her.

  A rubber-treaded staircase rose at the rear of the hall. I was moving toward it as I said:

  “Do you mind if I look at the room Dolly occupied?”

  She allowed my momentum to carry her along and up the stairs. “It’s my room now.”

  “I won’t disturb anything.”

  The blinds were drawn, and she turned on the overhead light for me. It had a pink shade which suffused the room with pinkness. The floor was thickly carpeted with a soft loose pink material. A pink decorator spread covered the queen-sized bed. The elaborate three-mirrored dressing-table was trimmed with pink silk flounces, and so was the upholstered chair in front of it.

  A quilted pink long chair stood by the window with an open magazine across its foot. Miss Jenks picked up the magazine and rolled it in her hands so that its cover wasn’t visible. But I knew a True Romance when I saw one.

  I crossed the room, sinking to the ankles in the deep pink pile of her fantasy, and raised the blind over the front window. I could see the wide flat second-story porch, and through its railings the pepper tree, and my car in the street. The three Mexican boys came by on their bicycle, one on the handlebars, one on the seat, one on the carrier, trailed by a red mongrel which had joined the act.

  “They have no right to be riding like that,” Miss Jenks said at my shoulder. “I have a good mind to report them to the deputy. And that dog shouldn’t be running around loose.”

  “He’s doing no harm.”

  “Maybe not, but we had a case of hydrophobia two years ago.”

  “I’m more interested in ten years ago. How tall was your niece at that time?”

  “She was a good big girl for her age. About four feet and a half. Why?”

  I adjusted my height by getting down on my knees. From this position I could see the lacy branches of the pepper tree, and through them most of my car, but nothing nearer. A man leaving the house would scarcely be visible until he passed the pepper tree, at least forty feet away. A gun in his hand could not be seen until he reached the street. It was a hasty and haphazard experiment, but its result underlined the question in my mind.

  I got up off my knees. “Was it dark that night?”

  She knew which night I meant. “Yes. It was dark.”

  “I don’t see any street lights.”

  “No. We have none. This is a poor town, Mr. Archer.”

  “Was there a moon?”

  “No. I don’t believe so. But my niece has excellent eyesight. She can spot the markings on a bird—”

  “At night?”

  “There’s always some light. Anyway, she’d know her own father.” Miss Jenks corrected herself: “She knew her own father.”

  “Did she tell you this?”

  “Yes. I was the first one she told.”

  “Did you question her about it in any detail?”

  “I didn’t, no. She was quite broken up, naturally. I didn’t want to subject her to the strain.”

  “But you didn’t mind subjecting her to the strain of testifying to these things in court.”

  “It was necessary, necessary to the prosecution’s case. And it did her no harm.”

  “Dr. Godwin thinks it did her a lot of harm, that the strain she went through then is partly responsible for her breakdown.”

  “Dr. Godwin has his ideas and I have mine. If you want my opinion, he’s a dangerous man, a troublemaker. He has no respect for authority, and I have no respect for a man like that.”

  “You used to respect him. You sent your niece to him for treatment.”

  “I know more about him now than I did then.”

  “Do you mind telling me why she needed treatment?”

  “No. I don’t mind.” She was still trying to preserve a friendly surface, though we were both conscious of the disagreement simmering under it. “Dolly wasn’t doing well in school. She wasn’t happy or popular. Which was natural enough with her parents—I mean, her father, making a shambles of their home together.”

  “This isn’t the backwoods,” she said as if she suspected maybe it was, “and I thought the least I could do was see that she got a little help. Even the people on welfare get family counseling when they need it. So I persuaded my sister to take her into Pacific Point to see Dr. Godwin. He was the best we had at that time. Constance drove her in every Saturday morning for about a year. The child showed considerable improvement, I’ll say that much for Godwin. So did Constance. She seemed brighter and happier and surer of herself.”<
br />
  “Was she getting treatment, too?”

  “I guess she had a little, and of course it did her good to get into town every Saturday. She wanted to move into town but there was no money for it. She left McGee and moved in with me instead. That took some of the strain off her. He couldn’t stand to see that. He couldn’t stand to see her getting her dignity back. He killed her like a dog in the manger.”

  After ten years her mind was still buzzing like a fly around the bloody moment.

  “Why didn’t you continue Dolly’s therapy? She probably needed it more than ever afterward.”

  “It wasn’t possible. I work Saturday mornings. I have to get my paperwork done some time.” She fell silent, confused and tongue-tied as honest people can be by their own deviousness.

  “Also you had a disagreement with Godwin about your niece’s testimony at the trial.”

  “I’m not ashamed of it, no matter what he says. It did her no harm to speak out about her father. It probably did her good. She had to get it out of her system somehow.”

  “It isn’t out of her system, though. She’s still hung up on it.” Just as you are, Miss Jenks. “But now she’s changed her story.”

  “Changed her story?”

  “She says now that she didn’t see her father the night of the murder. She denies that he had anything to do with it.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Godwin. He’d just been talking to her. She told him she lied in court to please the adults.” I was tempted to say more, but remembered in time that it would almost certainly be relayed to her friend the Sheriff.

  She was looking at me as if I had questioned a basic faith of her life. “He’s twisting what she said, I’m sure. He’s using her to prove that he was right when he was wrong.”

  “I doubt that, Miss Jenks. Godwin doesn’t believe her new story himself.”

  “You see! She’s either crazy or she’s lying! Don’t forget she’s got McGee blood in her!” She was appalled by her own outburst. She turned her eyes away, glancing around the pink room as though it might somehow vouch for the girlish innocence of her intentions. “I didn’t really mean that,” she said. “I love my niece. It’s just—it’s harder than I thought to rake over the past like this.”

  “I’m sorry, and I’m sure you love your niece. Feeling about her the way you do, and did, you couldn’t have fed her a false story to tell in court.”

  “Who says I did?”

  “No one. I’m saying you couldn’t have. You’re not the sort of woman who could bring herself to corrupt the mind of a twelve-year-old child.”

  “No,” she said. “I had nothing to do with Dolly’s accusation against her father. She came to me with it, the night it happened, within half-an-hour of the time it happened. I never questioned it for a minute. It had all the accents of truth.”

  But she had not. I didn’t think she was lying, exactly. More likely she was suppressing something. She spoke carefully and in a low voice, so that the motto in the living room wouldn’t hear her. She still wasn’t meeting my eyes. A slow dull flush rose from her heavy neck to her face. I said:

  “I doubt that it was physically possible for her to identify anyone, even her own father, at this distance on a dark night—let alone pick out a smoking gun in his hand.”

  “But the police accepted it. Sheriff Crane and the D.A. both believed her.”

  “Policemen and prosecutors are usually glad to accept the facts, or the pseudo-facts, that fit their case.”

  “But Tom McGee was guilty. He was guilty.”

  “He may have been.”

  “Then why are you trying to convince me that he wasn’t?” The flush of shame in her face was going through the usual conversion into a flush of anger. “I won’t listen.”

  “You might as well listen. What can you lose? I’m trying to open up that old case because it’s connected, through Dolly, with the Haggerty case.”

  “Do you believe she killed Miss Haggerty?” she said.

  “No. Do you?”

  “Sheriff Crane seems to regard her as the main suspect.”

  “Did he say so to you, Miss Jenks?”

  “He as much as said so. He was feeling me out on what my reaction would be if he took her in for questioning.”

  “And what was your reaction?”

  “I hardly know, I was so upset. I haven’t seen Dolly for some time. She went and married behind my back. She was always a good girl, but she may have changed.”

  I had the feeling that Miss Jenks was talking out of her deepest sense of herself: She had always been a good girl, but she might have changed.

  “Why don’t you call Crane up and tell him to lay off? Your niece needs delicate handling.”

  “You don’t believe she’s guilty of this murder?”

  “I said I didn’t. Tell him to lay off or hell lose the next election.”

  “I couldn’t do that. He’s my senior in county work.” But she was thinking about it. She shook the thought off. “Speaking of which, I’ve given you all the time I possibly can. It must be past twelve.”

  I was ready to leave. It had been a long hour. She followed me downstairs and out onto the veranda. I had the impression as we said goodbye that she wanted to say something more. Her face was expectant. But nothing came.

  chapter 13

  THE FOG HAD THINNED OUT a little along the coastline, but you still couldn’t see the sun, only a source-less white glare that hurt the eyes. The keyboy at the Mariner’s Rest told me that Alex had driven away with an older man in a new Chrysler. His own red sports car was still in the parking enclosure, and he hadn’t checked out.

  I bought a sandwich at a drive-in down the street and ate it in my room. Then I made a couple of frustrating phone calls. The switchboard operator at the courthouse said there wasn’t a chance of getting hold of a trial transcript this afternoon: everything was locked up tight for the weekend. I called the office of Gil Stevens, the lawyer who had unsuccessfully defended Tom McGee. His answering service said he was in Balboa. No, I couldn’t reach him there. Mr. Stevens was racing his yacht today and tomorrow.

  I decided to drop in on Jerry Marks, the young lawyer who had acted as Mrs. Perrine’s defense counsel. His office was in a new shopping center not too far from the motel strip. Jerry was unmarried and ambitious, and he might be in it, even on a Saturday afternoon.

  The front door was open and I walked into the waiting room, which was furnished with maple and chintz. The secretary’s cubicle behind the glass half-wall on the left was deserted for the weekend, but Jerry Marks was in the inner office.

  “How are you, Jerry?”

  “I’m all right.”

  He looked at me guardedly over the book he was reading, an enormous tome entitled Rules of Evidence. He wasn’t very experienced in criminal practice, but he was competent and honest. His homely Middle-European face was warmed and lit by intelligent brown eyes.

  “How’s Mrs. Perrine?” I said.

  “I haven’t seen her since she was released, and I don’t expect to. I seldom see much of my ex-clients. I smell of the courtroom to them.”

  “I have the same experience. Are you free?”

  “Yeah, and I’m going to stay that way. I promised myself a clear weekend of study, murder or no murder.”

  “You know about the Haggerty murder then.”

  “Naturally, it’s all over town.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “Really not very much. Somebody at the courthouse told my secretary that this lady professor was shot by a girl student at the college. I forget her name.”

  “Dolly Kincaid. Her husband is my client. She’s in a nursing home, under a doctor’s care.”

  “Psycho?”

  “It depends on your definition of psycho. It’s a complex situation, Jerry. I doubt that she’s legally insane under the McNaghten rule. On the other hand I very much doubt that she did the shooting at all.”

  “You’re trying
to get me interested in the case,” he said suspiciously.

  “I’m not trying to do anything to you. Actually I came to you for information. What’s your opinion of Gil Stevens?”

  “He’s the local old master. Get him.”

  “He’s out of town. Seriously, is he a good lawyer?”

  “Stevens is the most successful criminal lawyer in the county. He has to be good. He knows law, and he knows juries. He does pull some old-fashioned courtroom shenanigans that I wouldn’t use myself. He’s quite an actor, heavy with the emotion. It works, though. I can’t remember when he’s lost an important case.”

  “I can. About ten years ago he defended a man named Tom McGee who was convicted of shooting his wife.”

  “That was before my time.”

  “Dolly Kincaid is McGee’s daughter. Also, she was the key witness for the prosecution at her father’s trial.”

  Jerry whistled. “I see what you mean by complex.” After a pause, he said: “Who’s her doctor?”

  “Godwin.”

  He pushed out his heavy lips. “I’d go easy with him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sure he’s a good psychiatrist, but maybe not so much in the forensic department. He’s a very bright man and he doesn’t hide his light under a bushel, in fact he sometimes acts like a mastermind. Which puts people’s backs up, especially if their name is Gahagan and they’re sitting on the Superior Court bench. So I’d use him sparingly.”

  “I can’t control the use that’s made of him.”

  “No, but you can warn her attorney—”

  “It would be a lot simpler if you were her attorney. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her husband today, but I think hell go along with my recommendation. His family isn’t poverty-stricken, by the way.”

  “It wasn’t the money I was thinking about,” Jerry said coldly. “I promised myself that I’d spend this weekend with my books.”

  “Helen Haggerty should have picked another weekend to get herself shot.”

  It came out harsher than I intended. My own failure to do anything for Helen was eating me.

  Jerry regarded me quizzically. “This case is a personal matter with you?”