The Ferguson Affair

by Ross Macdonald

  “He said they tried to rob him.”

  “Who tried to rob him?”

  “He didn’t say. He said that he was going to fix them himself. He didn’t want me to call the-call you, even.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Granada dismissed him with an angry gesture, then called him back from the door.

  “You want something else, Mr. Granada?”

  Granada said with a flashing grin which the rest of his heavy face failed to support: “I just wanted to be remembered to your brother.”

  “Gus remembers you already. My sister-in-law Secundina is reminding him all the time.”

  Without obvious alteration, Granada’s grin become a scowl. “That’s nice. Where is Gus right now?”

  “Gone fishing. I gave him the day off.”

  “He’s working for you now, eh?”

  “You know that, Mr. Granada.”

  “But he used to work for Broadman, isn’t that right?”

  “You know that, too. He quit. I needed help.”

  “That’s not the way I heard it. I heard Broadman fired him the other day.”

  “People say a lot of things that are not true, Mr. Granada.” Manuel put ironic emphasis on the “Mister.”

  “Just don’t you be one of them. And tell Gus I want to see him when he comes back from fishing.”

  Manuel went out balancing his heavy hat.

  “Pelly Street,” Granada said to himself. He stood up and said briskly to me: “This could be a grudge case, Mr. Gunnarson. Twenty per cent a week is pretty good motivation for somebody that hasn’t got it. I’ve heard before now that Broadman grinds the faces. He’s probably one of these unknown millionaires. You know, like the bums they vag with bankbooks sewn into their rags.”

  “I wish somebody would sew a nice fat bankbook into one of my suits.”

  “I thought all lawyers were wealthy.”

  We walked toward the rear of the store where Wills had disappeared. A rectangular area had been partitioned off and fenced and roofed with steel netting. The reinforced wire door was standing open, with its heavy padlock gaping, and we went into Broadman’s unusual office.

  An old-fashioned black iron safe squatted in one corner of the wire enclosure. An unmade cot, pillow end against the safe, was partly hidden by a huge old desk. A telephone with the receiver off lay on the desk among a drift of papers. Reaching to replace the receiver, I almost fell through a hole in the floor. Granada grasped my arm with fingers like steel hooks. “Watch it, Mr. Gunnarson.”

  I stepped back from an open trap door through which a flight of wooden steps descended into watery yellow gloom. Granada put the telephone together. It rang immediately. Wills came up the steps three at a time and lifted the receiver out of Granada’s hand. “I’ll take it, Pike.”

  Wills’s face was streaked with sweat. It grew pale as he listened to what was said, throwing the grimy streaks into relief.

  “Too bad. You better send over the identification squad. Got that?” Wills hung up and said to Granada: “Broadman died.”

  “Did those blows on the head kill him?”

  “We’ll go on that assumption unless the autopsy shows different. All we know for certain right now, he was D.O.A. See what you can turn up in the basement, Pike. There’s a lot of old rugs and mattresses down there, looks like somebody’s been heaving them around. I didn’t find anything significant, but maybe you’ll have better luck.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “A blunt instrument, with blood on it.” As Granada went down the steps, Wills turned to me. “I’m glad you stuck around, Counselor, I want to talk to you. This changes things for your client.”

  “For better or worse?”

  “That’s largely up to her, wouldn’t you say? And up to you. She’s been in jail the past twenty-four hours, which makes her the one member of the gang who has clean hands, as far as this killing is concerned. There’s no sensible reason why she shouldn’t talk to us, and maybe save herself a long trip.”

  “How could she know anything about this murder?”

  “I don’t claim she knows anything about it specifically. But she must be able to identify the other members of the gang. If she comes clean-” Wills raised his hands in a gesture which didn’t go with his personality: the freeing of an imaginary bird. “Understand me, I’m not suggesting a deal. But where would we be if the people of the world didn’t co-operate?”

  Just where we were, I thought, because they didn’t. Still, I was impressed by Wills’s attempt to talk my language.

  “You blame this murder on the burglary gang?”

  He nodded. “We’ve suspected for some time that Broadman was fencing for them-acting as one of their outlets, anyway. We got our first tangible evidence last week. An ormolu clock turned up in one of the L.A. auction rooms. A member of their robbery detail happened to spot it because it was unique, and checked with our circular. The clock was taken in the Hampshire burglary, out in the Foothill district, and it was part of a shipment from Broadman’s store.

  “Broadman had a story ready, of course. He bought the ormolu clock from a little old lady in reduced circumstances that he’d never seen before. How did he know it was stolen? He had our pawn-shop list, sure, but his eyes were bad. If he spent all his time reading police lists, what would happen to business?”

  Wills leaned on the desk and looked out thoughtfully through the wire netting. The jumbled contents of the store were evidence piled on evidence that you couldn’t take it with you.

  “Broadman would have been better off in jail,” he said, “but the clock wasn’t enough to arrest him for. We couldn’t prove he had guilty knowledge. He knew we were on to him, though. And he wanted out. When Ella Barker sold him that hot diamond yesterday, he was on the phone practically before she was out of the store.”

  “You think he knew that diamond ring was stolen?”

  “I’m sure of it. He also knew who she was.”

  “Can you prove that, Lieutenant?”

  “I can. I’m telling you this to give you a chance to climb in off that limb. Broadman was a patient in the hospital five-six months ago. Ella was one of his nurses. They got to be quite good friends. Ask her, when you ask her about the watch. And make sure you get an answer, you’ll be doing her a favor. Honest to God, I’d hate to see that little client of yours get herself run over by a steam roller.”

  “You think of yourself as a steam roller, do you?”

  “The law,” Wills said.

  More law arrived, with cameras and fingerprint kits. I went out into the street. The sunlight hurt my eyes. It was reflected like glancing knives from the chrome of the two police cars at the curb.

  They drew attention on the poor street, a kind of reverse attention. Passers-by averted their heads from the cars, as if they hoped to escape their black influence. I guessed that the rumor of Broadman’s death had spread across town like a prophecy of disaster to Pelly Street.

  Jerry Winkler leaned on his cane in front of the hotel, an unstable tripod supporting a heavy gray head. Carefully redistributing his weight, he raised his cane and flourished it. I went over to him.

  “I heard that Broadman died, son.”

  “Yes, he died.”

  He clucked, red tongue vibrating between his bearded lips. “That makes it murder, don’t it?”

  “It would seem to.”

  “And you’re a lawyer, ain’t you?” He touched my arm with a veined, knobbed hand. “I’m Jerry Winkler, everybody knows me. I never been a witness in a trial. Friend of mine was once. He told me they pay the witnesses.”

  “It doesn’t amount to more than a few dollars. The court simply pays you for lost time.”

  “I got lots of time to lose.” He rubbed his furred chin and peered up at my face like a hungry old dog hoping for a bone. “And mighty few dollars.”

  “Do you have information about Broadman’s death?”

  “Maybe I
do, if it’s worth my while. You want to come up to my room and chin a little?”

  “I have a little time to lose, Mr. Winkler. My name is Gunnarson.”

  He led me through the musty lobby, up narrow, foot-worn steps, along a narrow hallway to his cubbyhole at the rear. It contained an iron bed, a washstand, a bureau with a clouded mirror, an old-fashioned rocking chair, and the atmosphere of lonely waiting time.

  He made me sit in the rocker beside the single window, which looked out on an alley. Slowly and painfully, he lowered himself onto the bed and sat hunched forward, still leaning on his cane.

  “I want to do what’s right. On the other hand, I don’t want to end up worse than I was before.”

  “How would you do that?”

  “Ramifications. Everything has its ramifications. Try living on a sixty-dollar pension if you think it’s so easy. I get my clothes at the Starvation Army, but I still run out before the end of the month. Sometimes Manuel give me free dinners along at the end of the month.”

  “Did Manuel kill Broadman?”

  “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say nothing yet. I want to do my duty, sure, but there’s no harm trying to get a little money out of it, is there?”

  “You’re obliged to give information to the authorities, Mr. Winkler. You’re in hot water now for holding out on them.”

  “I didn’t hold out. I just remembered, is all. My memory ain’t so good.”

  “What did you remember?”

  “What I seen.” He hesitated. “I thought it would be worth something.”

  The little room and the sly, sad old man cramped me and oppressed me. I made a gesture I couldn’t afford, took a five-dollar bill out of my rather flat wallet, and held it out to him. “This will buy a few dinners, anyway.”

  He took it with a beaming smile. “Sure will. You’re a good boy, and Jerry Winkler will remember you in his prayers.” Without any change in tone, he said: “It was Gus Donato that smashed up Broadman. Manuel’s young brother Gus.”

  “Did you see it happen, Mr. Winkler?”

  “No, but I seen him go in, and I seen him come out. I was sitting here at the window, thinking about the old days, when Gus drives this pickup into the alley. He gets this tire iron out of the back of the pickup and shoves it down his pant leg and sneaks in the back entrance of Broadman’s store. A few minutes later he comes out carrying a burlap bag on his back. He chucks it into the pickup and goes back for more.”

  “Could you tell what was in the bag?”

  “No. It was all chunky with stuff, though. So were the others. He made four or five trips, bringing out those bags, put them all in the pickup and drove away.”

  I gazed into his washed-out eyes. “Are you certain of your identification?”

  “Dead certain.” He thumped the bare board floor with his cane. “I see Gus Donato all the time. And this time I paid him special mind because he ain’t allowed to drive a car.”

  “Is he too young?”

  “Naw, he’s plenty old enough. But they don’t let them drive when they’re on parole. He had a lot of trouble with cars, that’s how he got arrested in the first place.”

  “Is Gus a friend of yours?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. His brother Manuel is a good friend.”

  “You mentioned that you see Gus all the time.”

  “Sure, in Manuel’s place. He’s been washing dishes for Manuel since Broadman fired him last week.”

  “Why did Broadman fire him?”

  “I never did get it straight. It was something about a clock, a little gold clock. Gus shipped it off someplace that he wasn’t supposed to. I heard Manuel and Broadman arguing about it in the alley.”

  I opened the window. Two men in plain clothes were confering at the back door of Broadman’s establishment. They looked up at me suspiciously. I pulled my head in and closed the window.

  “You don’t miss much, Mr. Winkler.”

  “Try not to.”

  chapter 3

  I LEFT HIM TALKING to Wills in Broadman’s office cage, and took a cab back to the courthouse. I was eager to question Ella Barker again. But she wasn’t so eager to be questioned.

  The girl didn’t raise her head when the matron let me into the visitors’ room. She sat with her thin arms resting on the edge of the table-a hunched and drooping figure like a bird which despaired of liberation. The afternoon sun fell through the bars behind her and striped her back with shadows.

  “Snap out of it, Barker, the first day is always the hardest.” The matron touched the girl’s shoulder. Perhaps she meant to be kind, but she sounded patronizing, almost threatening. “Here’s your Mr. Gunnarson again. You don’t want him to see you moping.”

  Ella pulled her shoulder away from the matron’s hand. “If he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t have to come here, now or ever.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” the matron said. “In the spot you’re in, you need a lawyer, whether you know it or not.”

  “Leave me alone with her, will you, Mrs. Clement?”

  “Whatever you say.” The matron went out, shaking her keys like melancholy castanets.

  I sat down across the table from Ella Barker. “Hector Broadman is dead. Murdered.”

  Her dark lashes curtained her eyes, and she wouldn’t look up. I thought I could smell her fear, like a faint sour fermentation in the air. Perhaps it was the odor of the jail.

  “You knew Broadman, didn’t you?”

  “I had him for a patient. I’ve looked after lots of patients in my life.”

  “What was the matter with him?”

  “He had a growth removed-a benign growth. That was way last summer.”

  “But you’ve seen him since?”

  “I went out with him, once,” she said in her steady monotone. “He took a liking to me, I guess, and I wasn’t exactly swamped with invitations.”

  “What did you and Broadman talk about?”

  “Him, mostly. He was an older man, a widower. He did a lot of talking about the Depression. He had some kind of business in the East. Him and his first wife lost it in the Depression. They lost everything they had.”

  “He had more than one wife?”

  “I didn’t say that.” She looked up for the first time. Her eyes were startled. “If you think I’d marry a fat old baldheaded man like Mr. Broadman, you’ve got another think coming. Not that I couldn’t have.”

  “You mean he proposed? The first night?”

  She hesitated. “I saw him a couple of times after that. You might say I took pity on him.”

  “Where did he propose to you?”

  “In his car. He’d had a couple of drinks, over at-” Her lips froze in an opened position for an instant, then came together tightly.

  “Over where?”

  “All over,” she said. “He took me for a drive. Around town. Up in the hills.”

  “To meet his friends?”

  “He didn’t have any friends,” she answered, too quickly.

  “Where did he have those drinks the night he proposed? At his house?”

  “He didn’t have a house. He ate in restaurants and slept in his store. I told him he couldn’t expect a girl to share that kind of a life with him. So he offered to move into my flat, furnish it for me.”

  “That was generous of him.”

  “Yeah, wasn’t it?” A smile pinched her mouth. “He had it all figured out. I guess I wasn’t very nice to him, that last night. He took it hard.” Her smile had turned slightly cruel.

  “Where did you say he had those drinks?”

  “I didn’t say. As a matter of fact, I gave him the drinks myself. I don’t drink, but I keep a bottle on hand for my friends.”

  “Who are your friends, besides Broadman?”

  “Nobody special. The girls at the hospital. I didn’t say he was a friend of mine.”

  “He must have been a very good friend. He gave you a platinum watch.”

  She sat up straight, neck taut, as if I�
��d tied a noose there and sprung a trap. “He certainly did not.”

  “Who did?”

  “Nobody did. If you think I accept expensive gifts from men-”

  “The watch was found in your apartment today.”

  She bit her lower lip. Beyond her head, I could see the courthouse tower. The sun had slipped down behind it. The shadow of the tower leaned on the window like a tangible bulk of darkness. Somewhere in the iron bowels of the building, pots and pans were clashing. It was half past five by the tower clock.

  “It wasn’t Hector Broadman gave me the watch,” she said. “I didn’t know it was stolen. When a fellow gives a girl a watch or a ring, she doesn’t think of it being stolen.”

  “It was a dirty trick to play on you,” I said. “I’d think you’d be eager to get back at the man who played it.”

  She nodded, watching me over her fingers.

  “Do you want to tell me all about it, Ella? It’s nearly suppertime, and they’ll be inviting me out of here pretty soon. If you wait until tomorrow or the next day, it may be too late.”

  “Too late?” she said behind her hand.

  “Too late for you. You have a chance to help the police put their hands on Broadman’s killer. I strongly advise you to take it. If you don’t, and he’s caught without your help, it won’t be good for our side.”

  “What did he do to Hector Broadman?”

  “Bashed in his head. You don’t want to sit here and let him get away.”

  She fingered her own dark head. She was so preoccupied with the image in her mind that she rumpled her hair and failed to smooth it down.

  “You don’t want it to happen to you, I know. Doesn’t that go for other people, too? You are a nurse, after all, and I’ll bet a darn good one.”

  “You don’t have to flatter me, Mr. Gunnarson. I’m ready to tell you who gave me the watch and the ring.”

  “Gus Donato?”

  She didn’t react to the name. “No. His name is Larry Gaines.”

  “And he’s the man from San Francisco?”

  “He’s a lifeguard at the Foothill Club. There isn’t any man from San Francisco.”

  This admission cost her more effort than any of the others. She was so drained that she couldn’t speak for a minute. I was content to wait, light a cigarette, and collect my thoughts. Cross-questioning is hard work at the best of times. The worst kind goes on outside of court, in private, when you have to ram your clients’ lies down their throats until they choke on them.