Archer - The Chill Part 18

"Not seriously, I don't mean that. I doubt if they ever said two words to each other. But you know how young girls are, dreaming about older men. He was the most successful man around, and Helen was always very ambitious. It's funny, she blamed her father for being a failure, which he isn't. But when she finally got around to marrying she had to pick Bert Haggerty, and he's a failure if there ever was one."

She was talking much more freely, but her loquacity tended to fly off in all directions. It was natural enough. Her daughter's murder had dropped a depth charge into her life.

"a.s.sume there is a connection," I said, "between Helen's death and the Deloney shooting--do you have any notion what it could be?"

"No, she must have been imagining things. She was always a great one for that."

"But she said she knew a witness who saw Deloney shot by someone else?"

"She was talking foolishness."

"Why?"

"You mean why would she say such things to her father? To get under his skin. There was always bad blood between them, from the time that Hoffman first raised his hand to her. Once they got arguing, there wasn't anything she wouldn't say."

"Did she name the witness?"

"How could she? There was no such person. Her father challenged her to mention a name. She admitted that she couldn't, that she was just talking."

"She admitted it?"

"She had to. Hoffman made her. But she never took back the hard words she spoke to him."

"Is it possible that Helen herself was the witness?"

"That's crazy and you know it. How could she be a witness to something that never happened?" But there was a shrill edge on her cert.i.tude.

"Deloney's dead, remember. So is she. It tends to confirm the things she told her friends before she died."

"About Bridgeton, you mean?"

"Yes."

She lapsed into silence again. Below the harbor cities we entered the fog zone. I was afraid of running into a pileup and I slowed down. Mrs. Hoffman kept looking back as if she could feel Bridgeton catching up.

"I hope Hoffman isn't drinking," she said after a while. "It isn't good for his blood pressure. I'll blame myself if anything happens to him."

"One of you had to come out here."

"I suppose so. Anyway Bert is with him and whatever else he may be Bert is no drunk."

"Helen's ex-husband is staying with her father?"

"Yes. He came over from Maple Park this morning and drove me to the airport. Bert's a good boy. I shouldn't call him a boy, he's a grown man in his forties, but he always seems younger than he is."

"Does he teach at Maple Park?"

"That's right, only he hasn't got his degree. He's been working on it for years. He teaches journalism and English, and he helps put out the school paper. He used to be a newspaperman, that was how Helen met him."

"When she was nineteen?"

"You have a good memory. You and Hoffman would get along. Hoffman's middle name is memory. There was a time before we got our wartime expansion when he knew every building in Bridgeton. Every factory, every warehouse, every residence. Pick any house on any street and he could tell you who built it and who owned it. He could tell you who lived there and who used to live there and how many children they had and how much income and anything else you wanted to know about them. I'm not exaggerating, ask any of his fellow officers. They used to predict great things for him, but he never made it higher than Lieutenant."

I wondered why the great things hadn't materialized. She gave me a kind of answer, which I suspected was more of a legend than a fact: "Helen got her memory from him. They were more alike than either of them admitted. And they were crazy about each other, under all the trouble there was between them. It broke his heart when Helen left home and never wrote. He never asked about her, either, but he did a lot of brooding. He was never the same man again."

"Did she marry Bert Haggerty right away?"

"No, she kept him dangling for five or six years. He was away in the army part of that time. Bert did well in the war-- a lot of men did well in the war that never did so well before or since--and he was full of confidence for a while. He was going to write a book, start his own newspaper, take her to Europe on their honeymoon. They did get to Europe, on the G. I. Bill--I gave them part of the money to make the trip--but that was all that ever came of his plans. He never could settle down to any one thing, and when he finally did it was too late. Last spring they came to the parting of the ways. I didn't like it, but I can hardly blame her. She always did better than he did, from the time that they were married. And one thing I'll say for Helen, she always had cla.s.s."

"I agree."

"But maybe she should have stuck with Bert. Who knows? Maybe this wouldn't have happened. I sometimes think that any man is better than no man at all."

Later, as we were entering Pacific Point, she said: "Why couldn't Helen marry an upstanding husband? It's funny. She had brains and looks _and_ cla.s.s, but she never could attract an upstanding man."

I could feel her eyes on my profile, trying to chart the lost continent of her daughter's life.

chapter 17.

The Pacific Hotel stood on a corner just above the economic equator that divided the main street into a prosperous section and a not so prosperous one. The lobby was almost empty on this Sat.u.r.day night. Four old men were playing bridge in the light of a standing lamp. The only other human being in sight was Dr. Geisman, if he qualified.

He got up Out of a shabby green plastic armchair and shook hands formally with Mrs. Hoffman.

"I see that you've arrived safely. How are you?"

"I'm all right, thanks."

"Your daughter's unexpected demise came as quite a blow to us."

"To me, too."

"In fact I've been endeavoring all day to find a replacement for her. I still haven't succeeded. This is the worst possible time of year to try to recruit teaching personnel."

"That's too bad."

I left them trying to breathe life into their stillborn conversation and went into the bar for a drink. A single customer sat trading sorrows with the fat lugubrious bartender. Her hair was dyed black, with a greenish sheen on it like certain ducks.

I recognized the woman--I could have spotted Mrs. Perrine at a thousand yards--and I started to back out of the room. She turned and saw me.

"Fancy meeting you here." She made a large gesture which almost upset the empty gla.s.s in front of her, and said to the bartender: "This is my friend Mr. Archer. Pour my friend a drink."

"What'll you have?"

"Bourbon. I'm paying. What is the lady drinking?"

"Planter's punch," she said, "and thanks for the 'lady.' Thanks for everything in fact. I'm celebrating, been celebrating all day."

I wished she hadn't been. The granite front she had kept up at her trial had eroded, and the inner ruin of her life showed through. While I didn't know all of Mrs. Perrine's secrets, I knew the record she had left on the police blotters of twenty cities. She had been innocent of this one particular crime, but she was a hustler who had worked the coasts from Acapulco to Seattle and from Montreal to Key West.

The bartender limped away to make our drinks. I sat on the stool beside her. "You should pick another town to celebrate in."

"I know. This town is a graveyard. I felt like the last living inhabitant, until you sashayed in."

"That isn't what I mean, Mrs. Perrine."

"h.e.l.l, call me Bridget, you're my pal, you've earned the right."

"Okay, Bridget. The police didn't like your acquittal, you couldn't expect them to. They'll pick you up for any little thing."

"I haven't stepped out of line. I have my own money."

"I'm thinking about what you might do if you go on celebrating. You can't afford to jaywalk in this town."

She considered this problem, and her twisting face mimicked the efforts of her mind. "You may be right at that. I been thinking of going to Vegas in the morning. I have a friend in Vegas."

The bartender brought our drinks. Mrs. Perrine sipped at hers, making a sour face, as if she'd suddenly lost her taste for it. Her gaze strayed to the mirror behind the bar.

"My gosh," she said, "is that me? I look like the wrath of G.o.d."

"Take a bath and get some sleep."

"It isn't so easy to sleep. I get lonely at night." She ogled me, more or less automatically.

She wasn't my baby. I finished my drink and put two dollar bills on the bar.

"Good night, Bridget. Take it easy. I have to make a phone call."

"Sure you do. See you at the Epworth League."

The bartender limped toward her as I walked out. Mrs. Hoffman and Dr. Geisman were no longer in the lobby. I found the telephone booths in a cul-de-sac behind the main desk and called the Bradshaw house.

Before the phone had rung more than once, the old lady's voice came quavering over the line. "Roy? Is that you, Roy?"

"This is Archer."

"I was so hoping it would be Roy. He always telephones by this time. You don't suppose something has happened to him?"

"No. I don't."

"Have you seen the paper?"

"No."

"There's an item to the effect that Laura Sutherland went to the Reno conference with him Roy didn't tell me that. Do you suppose he's interested in Laura?"

"I wouldn't know."

"She's a lovely young woman, don't you think?"

I wondered if she'd had some wine at dinner that made her silly. "I have no opinion on the subject, Mrs. Bradshaw. I called to see if you're willing to follow through on our conversation this afternoon."

"I'm afraid I couldn't possibly, not without Roy's consent. He handles the money in the family, you know. Now I'm going to ask you to cut this short, Mr. Archer. I'm expecting to hear from Roy at any moment."

She hung up on me. I seemed to be losing my touch with little old ladies. I went into the washroom and looked at my face in the mirror above the row of basins. Someone had written in pencil on the wall: Support Mental Health or I'll kill you.

A small brown newsboy came into the washroom and caught me grinning at my reflection. I pretended to be examining my teeth. He looked about ten years old, and conducted himself like a miniature adult.

"Read all about the murder," he suggested.

I bought a local paper from him. The lead story was headlined: "PPC Teacher Shot," with the subhead: "Mystery Student to be Questioned." In effect, it tried and convicted Dolly. She had "registered fradulently, using an alias." Her friends.h.i.+p with Helen was described as "a strange relations.h.i.+p." The S and W thirty-eight found in her bed was "the murder weapon." She had "a dark secret in her past"--the McGee killing--and was "avoiding questioning by the police."

No other possible suspect was mentioned. The man from Reno didn't appear in the story.

In lieu of doing something constructive I tore the paper to pieces and dropped the pieces in the trash basket. Then I went back to the telephone booths. Dr. G.o.dwin's answering service wanted to know if it was an emergency.

"Yes. It has to do with a patient of Dr. G.o.dwin's."

"Are you the patient, sir?"

"Yes," I lied, wondering if this meant I needed help.

The switchboard girl said in a gentler voice: "The last time the doctor called in he was at home."

She recited his number but I didn't use it. I wanted to talk to G.o.dwin face to face. I got his address out of the directory and drove across town to his house.

It was one of a number of large houses set on the edge of a mesa which normally overlooked the harbor and the city. Tonight it was islanded by the fog.

Behind the Arizona fieldstone front of the house a tenor and a soprano were singing a heartbreaking duet from La Bohe'me.

The door was answered by a handsome woman wearing a red silk brocade coat and the semi-professional smile that doctors' wives acquire. She seemed to recognize my name.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Archer. My husband was here until just a few minutes ago. We were actually listening to music for a change. Then a young man called--the husband of one of his patients--and he agreed to meet him at the nursing home."

"It wasn't Alex Kincaid who called?"

"I believe it was. Mr. Archer?" She stepped outside, a brilliant and very feminine figure in her red coat. "My husband has spoken of you. I understand you're working on this criminal case he's involved with."

"Yes."

Her hand touched my arm. "I'm worried about him. He's taking this thing so seriously. He seems to think that he let the girl down when she was his patient before, and that it makes him responsible for everything that's happened." Her fine long eyes looked up at me, asking for rea.s.surance.

"He isn't," I said.