Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair (21 page)

 
          
“You’re
a great woman.”

 
          
“I’m
an extremely ordinary woman. You just don’t know too much about women yet,
Bill. I’m not a Victorian female given to fainting spells at the slightest
provocation. I have your service revolver in the bedroom, and if anybody tries
anything on Bill C., Jr., I’ll fight like a lady tiger.”

 
          
She
spoke calmly enough, but her eyes were blazing, and her cheeks were flushed.

 
          
“Don’t
get
het
up, Sally. Nothing is going to happen.”

 
          
I
went around the table and held her head against me. It was precious, like
golden fleece
in my hands. Death had peered at her through
the membrane like a thug in a rubber mask. But I realized obscurely that I
couldn’t have and hold her by sitting at home. In order to keep what you had,
you had to risk it.

 
          
“You
know,” she said between my hands, “I am getting hungry. Never send to ask for
whom the casserole cooks. It cooks for me.”

 
          
I
FOUND DR. SIMEON in the cold room. He was laying out cutting tools on a
stainless-steel table. Light from a ceiling lamp splashed on his clean white
smock like luminous paint. The chrome instruments, knives and saws, gleamed
under his rubber-gloved fingers. Almost hidden by his shadow, a body lay under
a sheet on a second table against the back wall.

 
          
“Come
in,” he said hospitably. “I’m afraid I gave you a rough moment this morning. We
all contain the same organs, the same old blood and guts, but we don’t like to
be reminded of it. We like to imagine that we’re simply inflated skins, full of
helium or some other ethereal substance.”

 
          
“I
was taken by surprise.”

 
          
“I
know.
The shock of mortality.
Don’t feel too badly
about it. I had a horrible week in medical school, when we started dissecting
cadavers.”

 
          
My
gaze strayed, against my will, to the body on the table behind him. One of the
feet protruded from under the sheet. There was blood on the toenails.

 
          
“I
promised to get in touch with you,” Simeon was saying, “after I’d done a
thorough job on Broadman. I finished him up this afternoon, but you’re a hard
man to reach.”

 
          
“I
had to go into Beverly Hills. I appreciate your going to all this trouble.”

 
          
“No
trouble. In fact, I owe you something. You saved me from making a mistake. I
don’t say I wouldn’t have caught it in the normal course. In fact, I would
have, when I got around to making a chemical analysis of the blood. But I
wouldn’t have caught it so soon.”

 
          
“What
did Broadman die of?”

 
          
“Asphyxia.”

 
          
“He
was strangled?”

 
          
Simeon
shook his head. “I’ve found no evidence of strangulation. The neck structures
are intact. There’s no sign of external violence at all, apart from the
injuries to the back of the head. But the internal evidence points conclusively
to asphyxia: edema of the lungs, some dilation of the right side of the heart,
some
petechial
hemorrhaging of the pleura. There’s no
doubt at all that Broadman died from lack of oxygen.”

 
          
“How
did it happen?”

 
          
“That’s
a difficult question. There’s a possibility that it was an accident, if
Broadman lapsed into unconsciousness and swallowed his tongue, as they say. The
possibility of accident is remote. The tongue was in a normal position when I
examined him. I’d say that he was smothered in some way.”

 
          
“In what way?”

 
          
“I
wish I knew, Mr. Gunnarson. Since he was in a weakened state, it’s possible
that someone simply placed a hand over his mouth and nostrils, and cut off his
air. I’ve seen infants that were smothered in that way.
Never
a grown man.”

 
          
“Wouldn’t
the marks show on his face?”

 
          
“They
usually do, yes. But as I said, he was in a weakened condition, perhaps
unconscious. Not too much pressure would be required.”

 
          
“Have
you passed on your findings to the police?”

 
          
“Naturally.
Lieutenant Wills was very much interested. So
was Sergeant Granada.” His eyes were bland. “Granada was in here just before
dinner.”

 
          
“Inquiring
about Broadman?”

 
          
“Incidentally
he was inquiring about Broadman. But his main interest was in the other
cadaver.”

 
          
“Donato?”

 
          
“
Donato’s
wife.
I can understand
Granada’s interest. He was the one who found her.”

 
          
I
did a moral double-take that rocked me on my heels.
“
Donato’s
wife?”

 
          
“That’s
correct. She took an overdose of sleeping pills. At least that’s what Granada
thinks.”

 
          
“What
do you think, Doctor?”

 
          
“I’ll
let the condition of the organs tell me what to think. I do know this. I didn’t
give her enough sleeping pills to make a fatal dose. It’s possible she had some
already, though, or got hold of some more.”

 
          
He
uncovered the body. It glistened like a fish thrown up on an iron shore. The
red on the tips of the feet was toenail polish.
Secundina’s
face was very deep in sleep.

 
          
“And
now I give you fair warning.” Simeon picked up a curved knife with a sharp
point. “You’d better get out of here, unless you want to see me make a
butterfly incision. To an untrained eye, it ain’t pretty.”

 
          
I
turned away as he raised the knife. Tony Padilla was standing in the doorway.

 
          
“My
God, is he going to cut her?” His voice was incredulous. His eyes had a fixed
stare.

 
          
“It
won’t hurt her, Tony. She’s dead.”

 
          
“I
know that. Frankie heard it on the radio.”

 
          
He
brushed past me and looked down at the dead woman. Through half-closed eyelids
she regarded him without fear or favor.

 
          
He
touched her naked shoulder. “You don’t want to cut her, Doc.”

 
          
“It’s
necessary, I’m afraid. In cases of violent death, or death from unknown causes,
an autopsy is normal procedure. Under the present circumstances, it’s
absolutely imperative.”

 
          
“How
did she get herself killed?”

 
          
“If
we knew that, I wouldn’t have to cut her. Sergeant Granada believes she took an
overdose of sleeping pills.”

 
          
“What
has Granada got to do with it?”

 
          
“He
found her. He went to her house to ask her some questions—”

 
          
“What about?”

 
          
The
abruptness of the question made Simeon raise his eyebrows, but he answered it
civilly. “About her husband’s activities, I believe. He found her on the bed,
with her children crying around her. Apparently she was dead, but he couldn’t
be sure, so he rushed her here in an ambulance. Unfortunately she was dead.”

 
          
“Just
like Broadman, eh?”

 
          
Simeon
shrugged and looked up impatiently. “I’m
sorry,
I
don’t have time to canvass all these issues with you. Lieutenant Wills and
Sergeant Granada are in a hurry for my results.”

 
          
“Why?
Don’t they know the answers already?” Padilla spoke from his whole jerking
body, as a dog does when it barks.

 
          
“I
don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” Simeon turned to me. “I gather this
chap is a friend of yours. Explain to him that I’m a pathologist, will you—a
scientist? I can’t discuss police matters—”

 
          
“You
think I’m stupid?” Padilla cried.

 
          
“You’re
acting stupidly,” I said. “If you have no respect for the living, show some for
the dead.”

 
          
Padilla
became silent. With an apologetic glance at the dead woman, he turned and
trudged out of the room. I followed him out into the corridor. “I didn’t know
you cared so much for her, Tony.”

 
          
“Me, either.
I used to think I hated her for a long time. I
used to see her on the streets, in the bars, with her husband, with Granada. I
always got mad when I saw her. And then last night when Gus was knocked off, I
thought
,
I can marry her now. It came to me all of a
sudden: that I could marry her now. I would of, too.”

 
          
“Have
you ever married?”

 
          
“No,
and I never will.”

 
          
The
metal door had closed behind us. He looked at it as if life was on the other
side, and the automatic door had cut him off from life.

 
          
“This
is a bad time to make decisions,” I said. “Why don’t you go back to work now?
Forget about death and destruction.”

 
          
“
Sure,
and let Granada get away with it.”

 
          
“You
sound pretty sure he’s guilty.”

 
          
“Aren’t
you, Mr. Gunnarson?”

 
          
It
wasn’t an easy question to answer. I was less sure than I had been. I knew that
Granada had shot Donato. I could imagine him killing Broadman. The thought of
him killing Secundina, a woman he was said to have loved, seemed impossible to
me. And Tony’s very insistence on his guilt aroused my occupational reaction,
which was doubt.

 
          
“I’m
not at all sure of his guilt. I certainly don’t think you should go around
making accusations.”

 
          
“I
see.” His voice was wooden. He’d asked a question of a man and been answered by
a profession.
Which was the way I wanted it for the time
being.

 
          
I
offered Padilla a cigarette. He refused it. I sat down on a bench against the
wall. Padilla remained standing. An uneasy silence set in, and continued for
quite a long time.

 
          
“You
could be right, Mr. Gunnarson,” he said at last. “It’s been a bad day for me. I
go along calm and cool for months at a time, and then something happens, and I
lose my head. You think I’m punchy, maybe? I took a lot of blows in the head
when I was a kid fighting.”

 
          
“No.
I think you’re human.”

 
          
After
another long silence, he said: “I can use a cigarette, since you were so kind
to offer. I left mine out at the club behind the bar.”

 
          
I
gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Before it had burned up, Dr. Simeon
opened the metal door and glanced out. “There you are. I didn’t know whether or
not you were waiting. I have some preliminary findings. I’d say it’s
practically certain she died in the same way Broadman did, of asphyxia.”

 
          
Padilla
spoke up. “Does that mean she was gassed?”

 
          
“That’s
one form of asphyxia. There are several. In the present case, as in Broadman’s,
indications are that death resulted from simple lack of oxygen. There’s a
similar edema—a waterlogged condition—in the pleural cavity. And again, there
are no external marks of violence. I haven’t got to the neck structures yet,
but I’ll venture the opinion that she was smothered.” Simeon stepped out into
the corridor. “I’d better phone this in to Wills before I continue.”

 
          
I
stood beside Simeon’s desk while he tried to reach Wills, and then Granada.
After a baffling five minutes, he hung up.
“Can’t reach
either of them.
Well, they’re the ones who were in the hurry.”

 
          
“Did
she take the sleeping pills?” I asked him.

 
          
“There
are indications of it. I should be able to tell you more about that later. Now
I’d better get back to the lady. She may have something more she wants me to
know.”