Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair (25 page)

 
          
Her
flattery, if that is what it was, had a quality of sardonic mockery. Her most
affirmative statements seemed to be expressions of dreadful doubt. I was
conscious of
a darkness
in her, a hidden self
operating her smiles and gestures like a puppeteer. But the strings were
tangled.

 
          
“ ‘Harry
,’ I said to him, he was Harry then: ‘Your mother
loves you as no one else will ever. Promise me on your bended knee you will
never see her again.’ I told him about the awful things that can happen to a
boy, the disasters and the diseases. He was very meek and mild. He cried in my
lap, and he promised that he would be a good boy forever. But he betrayed me,
betrayed my confidence in him.”

 
          
The
cat stood still, like a cat in a frieze, transfixed by her high, thin voice.
Its moaning changed to a snarling, and its long tail erected itself.

 
          
“Be
quiet, Harry. I had the same trouble with you until I had you fixed. Didn’t I,
boy?” she asked liltingly. “But you still love your mother, don’t you, boy? Eh,
Harry?”

 
          
She
crooked her finger. The cat jumped into her lap and rolled itself into a ball,
perfectly still. She stroked it, talking to it in infantile language.

 
          
I
broke in on their conversation. “You mentioned some trouble Henry had, Mrs.
Haines. What sort of trouble?”

 
          
“Yes.
They blamed things on him, incredible things, things he didn’t do and would
never have done. Those nights they said he broke into the houses, he was safe
at home with me. Or else he was down at the library, or going to the movies to
study acting techniques. He never drank or anything. The one night he came home
with something on his breath, it was because some men forced him. They waylaid
him in an alley and forced a bottle of whisky to his mouth. He spat it out and
told them what he thought of them. And those things they found in the little
room in the basement which I fixed up for him, he bought them fair and square
from a boy he knew at school.”

 
          
Her
hands were stroking the cat rapidly.

 
          
“I
know why they blamed him. I understand it only too well. It was his running
around with that Dotery girl. Bad associations make bad reputations. The rumors
were flying around about
him,
and what could I do with
a fatherless boy and a living to make in this godforsaken hole? Could I go out
on the streets and argue with them? Or stand up in court to defend him?

 
          
“His
lawyer said he might as well confess, or they wouldn’t admit him to Juvenile
Court. They’d judge him as a man and send him off to the penitentiary. So he
naturally confessed. He told me that very night it was all lies. He wasn’t the
cat
burglar,
he swore to me that he wasn’t. But how could
he prove it? A man is guilty until he’s
proved
innocent. You’re a lawyer, you know that. And there was the stuff in the
basement which he’d bought from that nasty boy who ran away from school.

 
          
“I
went to the principal and I told him the facts in the case. He flatly refused
to have the boy tracked down, the boy who really was the
burglarizer
.
He flatly refused, and I began to see that the principal and the chief of
police were covering up the real villains for reasons of their own. I could
guess their reasons from what I learned of the white-slave traffic when I was a
young girl.
The chloroformed handkerchiefs, the
whited
sepulchers.
I wrote a letter to the governor,
and when he didn’t answer, I telephoned him personally. I told him who I
was,
my father was one of the founders of the Mountain Grove
Water District, a wealthy man in his time, and a good party worker all his
life. But in the modern world there’s no loyalty up or down.

 
          
“All
I got for my pains, they sent a man to threaten me. He threatened to lock me up
in an asylum if I brought pressure on the governor. That’s how high the
conspiracy went, as high as the State Capitol. I saw that it was no use. They
sent my son to reform school, and he was gone for years. Nothing was done to
the actual criminals. It’s the same old story—after all, they crucified
Christ.”

 
          
Her
fingers were tight on the cat, and tightening. It exploded out of her lap,
crossed the room like long brown vapor, and settled in the corner behind my
chair. She got down on her knees beside the chair, reaching for it, calling
seductively: “Come to Mother. Come on now, Harry. Mother didn’t mean to hurt
you, boy.”

 
          
It
stayed out of her reach. Looking down at her nape, I could see the gray
tendrils that the dye had missed. Her perfume rose to my nostrils like the odor
of funeral flowers over the scent of corruption.

 
          
“Is
the Dotery family still in town?”

 
          
“How
would I know?” She sat back on her haunches and looked up at me angrily. “I
assure you that I have nothing to do with people like that. My father was a
respectable man, a
monied
man in his day. He was a
member of an old Ohio family. Where do the
Doterys
come from? Nobody knows. They’re people without a history.”

 
          
She
went back to calling the cat. “Come now, Harry. Don’t be silly, lover. Mother
knows you’re just being coy. She didn’t mean to hurt
hims
.”

 
          
She
crawled into the corner. The cat walked away from her clutching hands
disdainfully, and went behind the piano. It was a game, perhaps a nightly one.
But the knowing cat and the crawling woman with the twisted stockings were
getting me down.

 
          
“Where
do the
Doterys
live?”

 
          
She
must have heard the impatience in my voice. She got to her feet and returned to
the piano stool, sitting down with prim politeness as if I’d interrupted her
housekeeping.

 
          
“The
Doterys
,” I said. “Where do they live?”

 
          
“You’re
angry. Don’t be angry. Everyone gets angry with me and then I want them to die,
another sin on my conscience. You’re a lawyer, you should understand. They used
to live over a store on the other side of town. They used the store as a front
for their activities. I don’t know if they still do, I haven’t ventured out
that way for years. Sometimes I see a woman in the market who resembles Mrs.
Dotery in appearance. She may be someone sent to trap me into admissions. So I
never speak to her, of course, but I watch her to see if she steals anything.
If I could catch her, just once, it would reveal the whole conspiracy.”

 
          
“There
is no conspiracy.” I didn’t know if it was the right thing to say, but I had to
say it, before the entire room was fogged by
spiderwebs
.

 
          
She
was shocked into silence for a long moment. “I must have misunderstood what you
said. I understood you to say there was no conspiracy.”

 
          
“There
isn’t, in the sense you’re talking about.”

 
          
She
nodded. “I see. I see what you are. I took you for an intelligent man of good
will. But you’re another false one, another enemy of my son.”

 
          
I
got to my feet. “Mrs. Haines, have you ever discussed these matters with a
doctor?”

 
          
“What
would a doctor know about it?”

 
          
“He
might be able to give you some good advice.”

 
          
She
knew what I meant, I think, and even considered it for a little. But she
couldn’t contain her anguished rage in the face of reality. “Are you casting
aspersions on my sanity?”

 
          
“That
wasn’t what I meant.”

 
          
“Don’t
lie to me.” She struck her thigh with her fist. “I was talking to you in good
faith, while you’ve been sitting there thinking false thoughts about me. Henry
knows the truth of what I’ve been saying. They sent him to reform school on a
trumped-up charge. They’ve been hounding him and harrying him for over seven
years now. Ask him if you don’t believe me. Ask him.”

 
          
“I
would if I knew where he is.”

 
          
“Henry
said he was coming—” She clapped her hand over her mouth.

 
          
“Coming
here?
When?”

 
          
“Next
week. Next month. You’re not going to worm and wangle anything more out of me.
I don’t know what you’re doing coming here denying facts as plain as the nose
on your face.”

 
          
“I
may be mistaken, Mrs. Haines.” There was no point in arguing with her. I moved
toward the door. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

 
          
She
rose and stood between me and the door. From the awkward fierceness of her
movement, she might have been on the point of attacking me. But there was no
harm in her. The harm she was capable of had long since been done. The rage
that lived in her vitals had died down, and left her eyes empty and her mouth
slack. The lipstick which her hand had smeared was like blood on a wound.

 
          
She
showed herself to me for the first and only time. The woman who lived in her
central desolation, obscured by sleight of mind and shadow play, said: “Is it
bad trouble he’s in?”

 
          
“I’m
afraid so. Do you want to talk about it, Mrs. Haines?”

 
          
“No.
No.
My head.”

 
          
She
clutched her dark head as if it were an animal that had to be subdued. The cat
came out from behind the piano, and rubbed its flank on her leg. She got down
on her knees to speak to it: “There you are, Harry. He’s a great comfort to his
old mother, isn’t he? He loves his
muzzers
, doesn’t
he?”

 
          
The
cat permitted itself to be stroked again.

 
          
I
BOUGHT A CUP OF COFFEE and a piece of pie, for energy, in a restaurant on the
main street. It was crowded with young people. The jukebox was playing
rock—music for civilizations to decline by, man. The waitress who served me
said yes, they had a business directory somewhere. She found it for me.

 
          
James
Dotery was listed as the proprietor of the North End Variety Store. His
residence was at the same address. I got directions from the waitress, tipped
her fifty cents, which seemed to surprise her, and drove out that way.

 
          
The
store was in one of those badly zoned areas which clog the approaches to so
many cities and towns. Grocery and liquor stores and taverns were intermingled
with motels and private houses. The buildings had an improvised air, though
most of them were old enough to be dilapidated.

 
          
James
Dotery’s store was on the ground floor of a two-story stucco shoebox. Its
windows were sparsely furnished with warped hula hoops, packages of pins,
fluorescent socks, plastic ice cubes containing flies, and other unlikely
merchandise. A hand-lettered sign taped to the glass announced that everything
was reduced twenty-five per cent.

 
          
There
was a light on the second story. The door that led to it was standing partly
open. Climbing the dark stairs, I felt a lift of excitement. You would have
thought Holly May herself was waiting for me in an upstairs room.

 
          
The
aproned
woman who opened the apartment door came very
near to sustaining the illusion. I didn’t have to ask her if she was Holly’s
mother. She had the same facial structure and the same coloring except for her
graying brown hair. She was very
good-looking,
and
well-preserved for a woman of forty or more.

 
          
“Mrs.
Dotery?”

 
          
“That’s
me.”

 
          
I
handed her my card. “My name is William Gunnarson.”

 
          
“If
it’s
Dotery you want, he ain’t home. You’ll probably
find him down at the Bide-a-Wee.” She studied my card in a puzzled way. “I warn
you, though, he hates insurance salesmen. Dotery hates anything that reminds
him he ain’t
gonna
live forever like God Almighty.”

 
          
“I’m
not a salesman of any kind, Mrs. Dotery. I’m a lawyer.”

 
          
“Yeah.
I can see that for myself.” She held my card up to
the light and laboriously spelled out the word “attorney.”

 
          
“I
don’t read so
good
without my glasses.”

 
          
I
doubted that she read any better with them. “I would like to talk to you
husband later—”

 
          
“He’s
down in the Bide-a-Wee lapping up liquor. We get a dollar or two ahead, and he
goes off the wagon.”

 
          
“At
the moment there are some questions I’d like to ask you. Have you ever heard of
a Hilda Dotery?”

 
          
“You
kidding?
All she is
is
my
oldest daughter.”

 
          
“How
long is it since you’ve seen her?”

 
          
“Couple of weeks or three.”
Then she remembered something,
perhaps merely the fact that I was a lawyer. She seemed to be a simple-minded
woman, and her feelings showed on her face. Her expression was one of dubious
alertness, as if she was on an elevator going down to some unimaginable
basement. “Is there a beef out on her?”

 
          
“Not that I know of.
What kind of a beef do you have in
mind?”

 
          
“Nothing special.”
She retreated clumsily from her exposed
position. “I just thought, you being a lawyer and all—I mean, I thought maybe
there was a beef out on her.”

 
          
“No,
but she is being looked for.
Where did you see her two or
three weeks ago?”

 
          
“Here,
right here in the flat. She ran away, not that I blame her, five-six years ago.
Then all of a sudden she turns up all dressed up in expensive clothes, wearing
a ton of jewelry. You could have knocked me over with a sledge, like Dotery
says.

 
          
“He
jumped on her like a ton of bricks. He always hated her anyway, and he never
likes to see anyone get ahead. He started to cut and pick at her with that
sleering
way of his, asked her what racket she was in that
she could afford to dress like that.”

 
          
“What
did she say?”

 
          
“She
didn’t say. She put him off with some story about her being an actress, that
she hit it rich in the movies like. But she didn’t tell him where the money
come
from. So where did the money come from? What is it they
want her for?”

 
          
“Why
do you take it for granted that she’s wanted?”

 
          
“You
said you were looking for her, didn’t you?”

 
          
“That’s
because I don’t know where she is.”

 
          
Her
mind refused to be derailed from its track. “Besides, that wasn’t Woolworth
jewelry,
she didn’t get it out of cornflakes boxes. And I
know darn well she didn’t earn it acting in the movies.”

 
          
“Are
you sure of that?”

 
          
“I
know Hilda, and she didn’t change in those years she was away. She always was a
play actor and a liar, putting on airs, pretending to be something she wasn’t.
What chance would a girl like that have to get into the movies?”

 
          
“They
don’t hire people for their moral qualities, Mrs. Dotery. Prepare yourself for
a shock.”

 
          
“She’s
dead, eh?” the woman said dully.

 
          
“That
I doubt. Your daughter really was a movie actress, doing pretty well until she
retired to get married.”

 
          
“So
she was telling us. I suppose,” she said with heavy irony, “she married a
millionaire.”

 
          
“That’s
right, Mrs. Dotery.”

 
          
“My
God, you mean it’s true? She wasn’t lying?”

 
          
“Not
about that.”

 
          
“Well,
what do you know?” she said with a kind of awe. Her daughter had enacted the
American dream: become a movie actress and married a millionaire.

 
          
Mrs.
Dotery looked down at her body, the source of all these marvels, and rubbed her
aproned
hip in a congratulatory way. “She always was
attractive to
men,
I’ll say that much for her. Dotery
didn’t like it, but he was mainly jealous. He was jealous of all the girls when
they got bigger—drove them all out of the house, one way or another. Just wait
until I tell him this!”

 
          
There
was an edge of malice in her joy, and
a certain
hollowness, too. She seemed to be trying to make the most of her good news
before it turned out, as her news usually did, to be not so good after all.

 
          
“What
brings you here, may I ask?” she said formally, as if a genteel question would
force a lucky answer. “I mean you say she’s well-fixed and
all,
and she didn’t steal those jewels she was wearing. So how does the law come
into it?”

 
          
“It’s
a long story.” Not so very long, but I was tired of standing in the hallway,
and I wanted a more intimate impression of Holly May’s background. “May I come
in?”

 
          
“I
guess you can come in. I warn you, the place is a mess. I’m always getting
behind, trying to run the store in the daytime and do my housework at night.”

 
          
She
backed into the apartment removing her apron, as if this might work a
transformation in her or in the room. The room needed some drastic change. It
was a pink wallboard box jammed with cheap furniture and cluttered with the
detritus of hard living: torn newspapers, overflowing ash trays, clouded
glasses. The central feature of the room was a television set. On top of it was
a lamp with a porcelain base in the shape of a nude woman. Through broken
Venetian blinds the neon sign of a bar across the street winked like a red
peeping eye.

 
          
“Sit
down.”

 
          
She
cleared a chair which was covered with dirty laundry. Carrying it out of the
room, she paused beside the television set and dusted the porcelain figure with
her apron. I wondered what dream of beauty and freedom its red-tipped breasts
represented to her mind.

 
          
The
chair growled under my weight, and its springs tried to bite me. I heard water
run in the next room, then the clink of a bottle. Mrs. Dotery came back
carrying two glasses full of brown liquid.

 
          
“This
calls for a drink. I hope you don’t mind cola. I never serve
no
hard stuff when I can help it. I never did. With young people growing up, I tried
to set them a decent example, even if Dotery didn’t. At least one of the kids
turned out okay, which is more than you can say for some families.”

 
          
She
handed me my glass. I sensed that she was trying to postpone the inevitable
moment when the good news turned bad. And I went along with her. “How many
children do you have?”

 
          
She
thought about this. “Five all told, four living. I hope they’re living.” She
ticked them off on her fingers.
“Hilda, June, Frank, Renee,
Jack.
Frank was the middle one, the one that got
himself
killed in the accident. Hilda was fond of Frank, the same way she hated June.
You know how the first one is with the second one. She almost broke down the
other week when I told her Frank was dead in a wreck. He wasn’t even driving. I
told her that’s what happens when a girl turns her back on her family the way
she did. You try to come back, and they’re not there
any
more
. The same thing happened with me and my family, when I—when I
married Dotery, and we came out here to California to live.” She added without
changing her tone: “It’s some life he led me, with his Chinchilla rabbits and
his doughnut spas and his variety stores.
And all the time
lapping up the liquor.”

 
          
“What
happened to your other children?”

 
          
“Renee
and June took off, the same as Hilda did. June picked up with a salesman
staying at the Star Motel. A nylon-stocking salesman, he came to the door, a
man old enough to be her father. When Dotery found out about it, he beat her
with a hammer handle, but that didn’t seem to stop her. The last I heard of
her, she was selling stockings from door to door in Compton. That grieved me.
June was the one I thought would turn out best, I always favored her. But if it
had to be Hilda, it’s the will of Providence.”

 
          
“What
about Renee?”

 
          
“Renee
went away and got a job, soon as she was legal age. She’s working someplace
around San Francisco.
Waitress.
I heard from her at
Christmas, only she forgot to put the address on the envelope.”

 
          
“And Jack?”

 
          
“He’s
my youngest, just sixteen. I guess his age is a blessing, considering he’s in
Juvenile. The policeman told me if he was a little older they’d of sent him up
to the pen for stealing that car he stole.”

 
          
It
was a depressing rundown. Coming on top of Mrs. Haines and her immense
evasions, it left me undecided whether to laugh in Mrs. Dotery’s face or weep
into her cola. I asked myself what I was doing sixty miles from home probing
among the ruins of lives that meant nothing to me. I amended the thought: lives
that had meant nothing to me until now.