Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair (15 page)

 
          
I
thought it was Gus
Donato’s
mother. Then she turned
up her face, with her eyes like black blisters. It was
Donato’s
widow, Secundina.

 
          
“I
hope I catch double ammonia and die,” she said.

 
          
“That
doesn’t make sense. Go home now and get some rest, and you’ll feel better.”

 
          
“I
can’t sleep. My head goes round in circles.”

 
          
“I’ll
give you a sleeping prescription. You can fill it at the hospital pharmacy.”

 
          
“No.
I
wanna
stay here. I got a right. I
wanna
stay here with Gus.”

 
          
“I
can’t permit you to. It isn’t healthy. Come into my office now,” Simeon said
firmly. “I’ll give you that prescription.”

 
          
“I
got no money.”

 
          
“I’ll
make it no charge.”

 
          
He
grasped her upper arm and half lifted her from the stool. She went along with
him on dragging feet.

 
          
I
WAS WAITING OUTSIDE the hospital pharmacy when she emerged, blinking her eyes
against the noon sun.

 
          
“Mrs.
Donato?”

 
          
She
didn’t know me immediately, just as I hadn’t known her. Close up, in the
sunlight, I saw what the night and the morning had done to her. Her generation
had changed. The looks and gestures of youth had dropped away. What remained
was the heavy stolidity of middle age. Gravity pulled at her flesh, and the sun
was cruel.

 
          
“I’m
Gunnarson the lawyer, Mrs. Donato. I was with Tony Padilla last night. Tony and
I had a little talk this morning. He said you had some important information.”

 
          
She
let her face fall inert. Her whole body went stupid. “Tony must
of
been dreaming. I don’t know
nothing
.”

 
          
“It
had to do with your husband’s death,” I said. “And other matters. He said Gus
didn’t kill Broadman.”

 
          
“Don’t
you say
that.
”

 
          
Her
fingers closed like pincers on my arm.

 
          
She
looked around her at the sunlit street corner. Some student nurses were waiting
by the bus stop, twittering like white-breasted birds.
Secundina’s
circling glance seemed to press reality away. It formed a zone of strangeness,
empty and cold, a vacuum in the sunlight into which darkness surged from the
darkness in her head.

 
          
I
took her elbow and set her in motion. Her body moved slowly and reluctantly. We
crossed the street to the bus stop on the diagonally opposite corner. An
unoccupied concrete bench stood under a pepper tree. I persuaded her to sit
down. The shadow of the pepper tree fell like cool lace on our faces.

 
          
“Tony
said that your husband didn’t kill Broadman.”

 
          
“Did
he?”

 
          
“I
gather that you think Granada did.”

 
          
She
stirred in her trance of sorrow. “What does it matter what I think? I can’t
prove
nothing
.”

 
          
“Maybe
not, but other people can.”

 
          
“Who, for instance?”

 
          
“Dr.
Simeon.
The police.”

 
          
“Don’t
make me laugh. They like it the way it is. It’s all finished and done with.”

 
          
“Not
in my book it isn’t.”

 
          
She
regarded me with dull-eyed suspicion. “You’re a lawyer, ain’t you?”

 
          
“That’s
correct.”

 
          
“I
got no money, no way of getting none. My brother-in-law Manuel has money, but
he is not interested. So there’s nothing in it for you, not a thing.”

 
          
“I
realize that. I’m simply trying to get at the truth.”

 
          
“
You running
for something?”

 
          
“I
might at that, someday.”

 
          
“Then
go and run on somebody else’s time. I’m tired and sick. I
wanna
go home.”

 
          
“I’ll
take you home.”

 
          
“No,
thank you.”

 
          
But
she couldn’t maintain her aloofness. She began to speak in Spanish, and in a
different voice which buzzed and crackled like fire. It was like the voice of
another personality, in which her youth and her sex and her anger survived. Her
body came alive, and her face changed its shape.

 
          
I
couldn’t understand a word. “Say it in English, Secundina.”

 
          
“So
you can run down to the courthouse and get me locked up?”

 
          
“Why
would I do that?”

 
          
She
was silent for a minute, though her lips continued to move. “I don’t know what
you want from me.”

 
          
“Information about the Broadman killing.”

 
          
“I
told it all to Tony. Get it from him.”

 
          
“Is
it true?”

 
          
She
flared up darkly. “
You calling
me a liar?”

 
          
“No.
But would you swear to it in court?”

 
          
“I’d
never get to court, you know that. He’d do it to me, too.”

 
          
“Who
would?”

 
          
“Pike Granada.
He always used to be hot for me. And when I
wouldn’t let him, he got a down on me. He tried to force me one night out at
the icehouse. Gus nicked him good with a knife. So he turned Gus in to the cops
for stealing a car. They picked me up, too. When I got out of
Juvie
, Pike took it out on me.”

 
          
“That
was a long time ago, I thought.”

 
          
“It
started a long time ago. He’s been taking it out on me and Gus ever since. Last
night the bastard had to go and shoot him.”

 
          
“He
was doing his duty, wasn’t he?”

 
          
“He
didn’t have to shoot him. Gus never carried
no
gun. He
didn’t have the guts to carry a gun. He let Granada shoot him down like a dog.”

 
          
“Why
do you hate Granada so much?”

 
          
“He’s
a crooked cop. A cop is bad enough. A crooked cop is the worst animal there
is.”

 
          
“You
still claim he murdered Broadman?”

 
          
“Sure
he did.”

 
          
“How
do you know?”

 
          
“I
hear things.”

 
          
“Voices?”

 
          
“I’m
not nuts, if that’s what you think. I got a friend, a nurse’s aide in
emergency. She’s been working in the hospital twenty years. She knows things
the doctors never hear of. She said that Broadman was dead when they brought
him in. She said he looked to her like he was strangulated. And Manuel saw
Granada crawl into the ambulance with him. Granada was in there talking to
Broadman, but Broadman wasn’t saying anything.” She gave me a sideways glance
that was dark and heavy. It was like the knowledge of evil itself peering out
between her eyelids. “You were there, weren’t you? You saw it happen.”

 
          
My
mind picked its way back through the obstacle course of the night’s events, to
the previous afternoon. Broadman had cried out in fear and rage. Granada had
been in the ambulance alone with him, ostensibly soothing him. He had soothed
him very effectively, perhaps.

 
          
“I
couldn’t see what happened,” I said. “What is your friend’s name—the nurse’s
aide?”

 
          
“I
promised her I wouldn’t pass it on. That promise I keep.”

 
          
“Why
would Granada kill Broadman?”

 
          
“To keep him quiet.
Broadman knew Granada is a crook.”

 
          
“A member of the burglary gang?”

 
          
“Maybe.”

 
          
“But
if Granada was in on the burglaries, Gus would know.”

 
          
“They
didn’t tell Gus everything.”

 
          
“So
you can’t say for sure that Granada was involved?”

 
          
“No,
but I think he was. When Gus bust into a house or a store he always knew where
the cops were, and he didn’t do it by
X
ray. He had a
pipeline to them.”

 
          
“He
told you that?”

 
          
She
nodded emphatically. The shawl slipped down from her head. Her hair was
uncombed and matted, like torn black felt. She covered it, with a quick and
angry gesture.

 
          
“But
he didn’t say it was Granada?”

 
          
“No.
He didn’t say that. Maybe he didn’t know. There wasn’t much I couldn’t get out
of him, if he had it in him.”

 
          
Her
refusal to make a blanket accusation against Granada was the most convincing
element in her story so far. After stating my suspicions to Wills, I was having
a reaction. I had to be very sure of Granada’s guilt before I spoke out again.

 
          
“Who
else was in the gang, Secundina?”

 
          
“Nobody else that I know of.”

 
          
“No
women?”

 
          
Her
eyes shrank to bright dark points turned on me from the ambush of her shawl.
“You got no call to point a finger at me. I did my best to talk Gus out of
doing what he was doing.”

 
          
“I
don’t mean you. You’re not the only woman in the world. Didn’t Gaines have any
girl-friends?”

 
          
Her
heavy black lashes came down and veiled her eyes completely. “No. I mean, how
would I know?”

 
          
“I
heard he was running with a blonde.”

 
          
Her
eyelids quivered, but her mouth was stubborn. “Then you heard more than I did.”

 
          
“Who
is she, Secundina?”

 
          
“I
told you I didn’t know about any blonde. I never ever see the guy.
Maybe twice in the last two months.”

 
          
“Under what circumstances?”

 
          
“I
don’t know what you mean.”

 
          
“I
mean where did you see Gaines? What was he doing?”

 
          
“I
don’t remember,” she said stolidly.

 
          
“Have
you known Gaines long?”

 
          
“Gus
did. He knew him for six-seven years. He met him in Preston, and after they got
out, they drove around the country for a while, living off of the country. Then
Gus came back and married me, but he used to talk about this Harry. Gaines
called himself Harry in those days. He was kind of a hero to Gus, he did such
wild things.”

 
          
“Like
what?”

 
          
“Like
conning people and stealing cars and driving faster than anybody and all like
that.
Crazy stuff.
I warned Gus when he took up with
Gaines again, last fall. I warned him that Gaines was trouble. He didn’t listen
to me. He never had the brains to listen to me.”

 
          
She
gazed across the street at the hospital. A local bus stopped at the opposite
corner, and the student nurses got on. Secundina became aware of the bus as it
roared away. “Now I missed my bus.”