The Doomsters Read online

  Mildred turned and looked out across the green country as if it were a wasteland. She said, with her face averted:

  “I didn’t give in to him. But I was afraid to reject him as flatly as he deserved. I put him off with some sort of a vague promise, that we might get together sometime in the future. I haven’t kept the promise, needless to say, and I never will.” She said it calmly enough, but her shoulders were trembling. I could see the rim of one of her ears, between silky strands of hair. It was red with shame or anger. “The horrible old man hasn’t forgiven me for that. I’ve lived in fear for the last six months, that he’d take action against Carl—drag him back to stand trial.”

  “He didn’t, though,” I said, “which means that the confession was probably a phony. Tell me one thing, could it have happened the way Ostervelt claimed? I mean, did your husband have the opportunity?”

  “I’m afraid the answer is yes. He was roaming around the house most of the night, after the quarrel with his father. I couldn’t keep him in bed.”

  “Did you ask him about it afterwards?”

  “At the hospital? No, I didn’t. They warned me not to bring up disturbing subjects. And I was glad enough to let sleeping dogs lie. If it was true, I felt better not knowing than knowing. There’s a limit to what a person can bear to know.”

  She shuddered, in the chill of memory.

  The front door of the greenhouse was flung open suddenly. Carmichael backed out, bent over the handles of a covered stretcher. Under the cover, the dead man huddled lumpily. The other end of the stretcher was supported by the deputy coroner. They moved awkwardly along the flagstone path toward the black panel truck. Against the sweep of the valley and the mountains standing like monuments in the sunlight, the two upright men and the prostrate man seemed equally small and transitory. The living men hoisted the dead man into the back of the truck and slammed the double doors. Mildred jumped at the noise.

  “I’m terribly edgy, I’d better get out of here. I shouldn’t have gone into—all that. You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”

  “It’s safe with me.”

  “Thank you. For everything, I mean. You’re the only one who’s given me a ray of hope.”

  She raised her hand in good-by and went down the steps into sunlight which gilded her head. Ostervelt’s senescent passion for her was easy to understand. It wasn’t just that she was young and pretty, and round in the right places. She had something more provocative than sex: the intense grave innocence of a serious child, and a loneliness that made her seem vulnerable.

  I watched the old Buick out of sight and caught myself on the edge of a sudden hot dream. Mildred’s husband might not live forever. His chances of surviving the day were not much better than even. If her husband failed to survive, Mildred would need a man to look after her.

  I gave myself a mental kick in the teeth. That kind of thinking put me on Ostervelt’s level. Which for some reason made me angrier at Ostervelt.

  chapter 15

  THE deputy coroner had lit a cigar and was leaning against the side of the panel truck, smoking it. I strolled over and took a look at my car. Nothing seemed to be missing. Even the key was in the ignition. The additional mileage added up, so far as I could estimate, to the distance from the hospital to Purissima to the ranch.

  “Nice day,” the deputy coroner said.

  “Nice enough.”

  “Too bad Mr. Hallman isn’t alive to enjoy it. He was in pretty good shape, too, judging from a superficial examination. I’ll be interested in what his organs have to say.”

  “You’re not suggesting he died of natural causes.”

  “Oh, no. It’s merely a little game I play with myself to keep the interest up.” He grinned, and the sunlight glinted on his spectacles in cold mirth. “Not every doctor gets a chance to know his patients inside and out.”

  “You’re the coroner, aren’t you?”

  “Deputy coroner. Ostervelt’s the coroner—he wears two hats. Actually I do, too. I’m pathologist at the Purissima Hospital. Name’s Lawson.”

  “Archer.” We shook hands.

  “You from one of the L.A. papers? I just got finished talking to the local man.”

  “I’m a private investigator, employed by a member of the family. I was wondering about your findings.”

  “Haven’t got any yet. I know there’re two bullets in him because they went in and didn’t come out. I’ll get ’em when I do the autopsy.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Tonight. Ostervelt wants it quick. I ought to have it wrapped up by midnight, sooner maybe.”

  “What happens to the slugs after you remove them?”

  “I turn ’em over to the sheriff’s ballistics man.”

  “Is he any good?”

  “Oh, yeah, Durkin’s a pretty fair technician. If it gets too tough, we send the work up to the L.A. Police Lab, or to Sacramento. But this isn’t a case where the physical evidence counts for much. We pretty well know who did it. Once they catch him, he shouldn’t be hard to get a story out of. Ostervelt may not bother doing anything with the slugs. He’s a pretty easy-going guy. You get that way after twenty-five or thirty years in office.”

  “Worked for him long?”

  “Four-five years. Five.” He added, a little defensively: “Purissima’s a nice place to live. The wife won’t leave it. Who can blame her?”

  “Not me. I wouldn’t mind settling here myself.”

  “Talk to Ostervelt, why don’t you? He’s understaffed—always looking for men. You have any police experience?”

  “A few years back. I got tired of living on a cop’s salary. Among other things.”

  “There are always ways of padding it out.”

  Not knowing how he meant me to take that, I looked into his face. He was sizing me up, too. I said:

  “That was one of the other things I got tired of. But you wouldn’t think there’d be much of that in this county.”

  “More than you think, brother, more than you think. We won’t go into that, though.” He took a bite out of the tip of his cigar and spat it into the gravel. “You say you’ve working for the Hallman family?”

  I nodded.

  “Ever been in Purissima before?”

  “Over the years, I have.”

  He looked at me with curiosity. “Are you one of the detectives the Senator brought in when his wife drowned?”

  “No.”

  “I just wondered. I spent several hours with one of them—a smart old bulldog named Scott. You wouldn’t happen to know him? He’s from L.A. Glenn Scott?”

  “I know Scott. He’s one of the old masters in the field. Or he was until he retired.”

  “My impression exactly. He knew more about pathology than most medical students. I never had a more interesting conversation.”

  “What about?”

  “Causes of death,” he said brightly. “Drowning and asphyxiation and so on. Fortunately I’d done a thorough post-mortem. I was able to establish that she died by drowning; she had sand and fragments of kelp in her bronchial tubes, and the indicated saline solution in her lungs.”

  “There wasn’t any doubt of it, was there?”

  “Not after I got through. Scott was completely satisfied. Of course I couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility of murder, but there were no positive indications. It’s almost certain that the contusions were inflicted after death.”

  “Contusions?” I prompted softly.

  “Yeah, the contusions on the back and head. You often get them in drownings along this coast, with the rocks and the heavy surf. I’ve seen some cadavers that were absolutely macerated, poor things. At least they got Mrs. Hallman before that happened to her. But she was bad enough. They ought to print a few of my pictures in the papers. There wouldn’t be so many suicides walking into the water. Not so many women, anyway, and most of them are women.”

  “Is that what Mrs. Hallman did, walk into the water?”

  “Probably.
Or else she jumped from the pier. Of course there’s always an outside chance that she fell, and that’s how she got the contusions. The Coroner’s Jury called it an accident, but that was mainly to spare the family’s feelings. Elderly women don’t normally go down to the ocean at night and accidentally fall in.”

  “They don’t normally commit suicide, either.”

  “True enough, only Mrs. Hallman wasn’t what you’d call exactly normal. Scott talked to her doctor after it happened and he said she’d been having emotional trouble. It’s not fashionable these days to talk about hereditary insanity, but you can’t help noticing certain family tie-ups. This one in the Hallman family, for instance. It isn’t pure chance when a woman subject to depression has a son with a manic-depressive psychosis.”

  “Mother had blue genes, eh?”

  “Ouch.”

  “Who was her doctor?”

  “G.P. in town named Grantland.”

  “I know him slightly,” I said. “He was out here today. He seems like a good man.”

  “Uh-huh.” In the light of the medical code that inhibits doctors from criticizing each other, his grunt was eloquent.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Hell, it’s not for me to second-guess another doctor. I’m not one of these medical hotshots with the big income and the bedside manner. I’m purely and simply a lab man. I did think at the time he should have referred Mrs. Hallman to a psychiatrist. Might have saved her life. After all, he knew she was suicidal.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told Scott. Until he did, Scott thought it could be murder, in spite of the physical evidence. But when he found out she’d tried to shoot herself—well, it all fitted into a pattern.”

  “When did she try to shoot herself?”

  “A week or two before she drowned, I think.” Lawson stiffened perceptibly, as if he realized that he’d been talking very freely. “Understand me, I’m not accusing Grantland of negligence or anything like that. A doctor has to use his own judgment. Personally I’d be helpless if I had to handle one of these—”

  He noticed that I wasn’t listening, and peered into my face with professional solicitude. “What’s the trouble, fellow? You got a cramp?”

  “No trouble.” At least no trouble I wanted to put into words. It was the Hallman family that really had trouble: father and mother dead under dubious circumstances, one son shot, the second being hunted. And at each high point of trouble, Grantland cropped up. I said:

  “Do you know what happened to the gun?”

  “What gun?”

  “The one she tried to shoot herself with.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know. Maybe Grantland would.”

  “Maybe he would.”

  Lawson tapped the lengthening ash from his cigar. It splattered silently on the gravel between us. He drew on the cigar, its glowing end pale salmon in the sun, and blew out a cloud of smoke. The smoke ascended lazily, almost straight up in the still air, and drifted over my head toward the house.

  “Or Ostervelt,” he said. “I wonder what’s keeping Ostervelt. I suppose he’s trying to make an impression on Slovekin.”

  “Slovekin?”

  “The police reporter from the Purissima paper. He’s talking to Ostervelt in the greenhouse. Ostervelt loves to talk.”

  Ostervelt wasn’t the only one, I thought. In fifteen or twenty minutes, a third of a cigar length, Lawson had given me more information than I knew what to do with.

  “Speaking of causes of death,” I said, “did you do the autopsy on Senator Hallman?”

  “There wasn’t any,” he said.

  “You mean no autopsy was ordered?”

  “That’s right, there was no question about cause of death. The old man had a heart history. He’d been under a doctor’s care practically from day to day.”

  “Grantland again?”

  “Yes. It was his opinion the Senator died of heart failure, and I saw no reason to question it. Neither did Ostervelt.”

  “Then there was no indication of drowning?”

  “Drowning?” He looked at me sharply. “You’re thinking about his wife, aren’t you?”

  His surprise seemed real, and I had no reason to doubt his honesty. He wore the glazed suit and frayed shirt of a man who lived on his salary.

  “I must have got my signals switched,” I said.

  “It’s understandable. He did die in the bathtub. But not of drowning.”

  “Did you examine the body?”

  “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “Who said it wasn’t necessary?”

  “The family, the family doctor, Sheriff Ostervelt, everybody concerned. I’m saying it now,” he added with some spirit.

  “What happened to the body?”

  “The family had it cremated.” He thought about this for a moment, behind his glasses. “Listen, if you’re thinking that there was foul play involved, you’re absolutely wrong. He died of heart failure, in a locked bathroom. They had to break in to get to him.” Then, perhaps to put his own doubts to rest: “I’ll show you where it happened, if you like.”

  “I would like.”

  Lawson pressed out his cigar against the sole of his shoe, and dropped the smelly butt in his side pocket. He led me through the house to a large rear bedroom. With blinds drawn, dust covers on the bed and the other furniture, the room had a ghostly air.

  We went into the adjoining bathroom. It contained a six-foot tub supported on cast-iron feet. Lawson switched on the lofty ceiling fixture above it.

  “The poor old man was lying in here,” he said. “They had to force the window to get to him.” He indicated the single window high above the basin.

  “Who had to force the window?”

  “The family. His two sons, I believe. The body was in the bathtub most of the night.”

  I examined the door. It was thick and made of oak. The lock was the old-fashioned kind that has to be turned with a key. The key was in the keyhole.

  I turned it back and forth several times, then pulled it out and looked at it. The heavy, tarnished key told me nothing in particular. Either Lawson was misinformed, or the Senator had died alone. Or I had a locked-room mystery to go with the other mysteries in the house.

  I tried a skeleton key on the door, and after a little jiggling around, it worked. I turned to Lawson. “Was the key in the lock when they found him?”

  “I couldn’t say, really. I wasn’t here. Maybe Ostervelt could tell you.”

  chapter 16

  WE ran into Ostervelt in the front hallway, ran into him almost literally as he came out of the living-room. He pushed between us, his belly projecting like a football concealed in his clothes. His jowls became convulsive:

  “What goes on?”

  “Mr. Archer wanted to see the Senator’s bathroom,” Lawson said. “You remember the morning they found him, Chief. Was the key in the lock?”

  “What lock, for Christ sake?”

  “The lock on the bathroom door.”

  “I don’t know.” Ostervelt’s head jerked as he hammered out the words: “I’ll tell you what I do know, Lawson. You don’t talk official business to strangers. How many times do we have to go into that?”

  Lawson removed his glasses and wiped them with the inside of his tie. Without them, his face looked unformed and vulnerable. But he had guts and some professional poise:

  “Mr. Archer isn’t a stranger, exactly. He’s employed by the Hallman family.”

  “To do what? Pick your brains, if you have any?”

  “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do about it? Resign?”

  Lawson turned on his heel, stiffly, and walked out. Ostervelt called after him:

  “Go ahead and resign. I accept your resignation.”

  Feeling some compunction, since I had been picking Lawson’s brains, I said to Ostervelt:

  “Lay off him. What’s the beef?”

  �
�The beef is you. Mrs. Hallman said you asked her for money, made a pass at her.”

  “Did she rip her dress open at the neck? They usually rip their dresses open at the neck.”

  “It’s no joke. I could put you in jail.”

  “What are you waiting for? The suit for false arrest will make my fortune.”

  “Don’t get flip with me.” Under his anger, Ostervelt seemed to be badly shaken. His little eyes were dirty with dismay. He took out his gun to make himself feel better.

  “Put it away,” I said. “It takes more than a Colt revolver to change a Keystone cop into an officer.”

  Ostervelt raised the Colt and laid it raking and burning across the side of my head. The ceiling slanted, then rose away from me as I went down. As I got up, a thin young man in a brown corduroy jacket appeared in the doorway. Ostervelt started to raise the gun for another blow. The thin young man took hold of his arm and almost ascended with it.

  Ostervelt said: “I’ll cut him to pieces. Get away from me, Slovekin.”

  Slovekin held onto his arm. I held onto my impulse to hit an old man. Slovekin said:

  “Wait a minute, Sheriff. Who is this man, anyway?”

  “A crooked private dick from Hollywood.”

  “Are you arresting him?”

  “You’re damn right I’m arresting him.”

  “What for? Is he connected with this case?”

  Ostervelt shook him off. “That’s between him and I. You stay out of it, Slovekin.”

  “How can I, when I’m assigned to it? I’m just doing my job, the same as you are, Sheriff.” The black eyes in Slovekin’s sharp young face glittered with irony. “I can’t do my job if you give me no information. I have to fall back on reporting what I see. I see a public official beating a man with a gun, naturally I’m interested.”

  “Don’t try to blackmail me, you little twerp.”

  Slovekin stayed cool and smiling. “You want me to deliver that message to Mr. Spaulding? Mr. Spaulding’s always looking for a good local topic for an editorial. This could be just what he needs.”