The Underground Man

by Ross Macdonald

  “What happened to the others?”

  “Marty Nickerson got married. She married the man she stole the car from, and they never even took her into court.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t really know. The man had a business in the northern part of the county, and for all I know she’s still living with him there.”

  “What’s her married name?”

  She considered the question. “I don’t remember. I can find out if it’s important. She sent Frederick a Christmas greeting the first year, which took some nerve on her part. I think he still has it in his keepsake drawer.”

  “What about Al?”

  “Al is another story. It wasn’t his first offense. He was already on probation, and they sent him to Preston until he was of age. I remember when he got out. It was fifteen years ago this past summer, and the jacarandas were starting to bloom. He came here to pick up his things. I’d kept them for him in a carton—some schoolbooks and a blue suit that the county had bought for him to go to church in. But the blue suit didn’t fit him any more, and he wasn’t interested in the books. I gave him a good meal and a little money.”

  She shook her head as if I had spoken. “It wasn’t generosity on my part. I wanted to get rid of him before Frederick got mixed up with him again. Frederick was working for the Forest Service at that time, and I didn’t want Albert interfering with his job. But it happened anyway.”

  “What happened?”

  “Albert lost him his job and gave him a nervous breakdown into the bargain. I don’t want to go into the gory details. What’s past is past, and Albert didn’t set foot on my doorstep again until he showed up last week. Now you tell me he’s dead.”

  “He was murdered in Northridge last night. We don’t know who did it, or why. But it might help if you tell me what happened fifteen years ago. How did Albert give Fritz a nervous breakdown?”

  “By getting him in trouble. It’s always the same old story.”

  “What was the trouble?”

  “He took Frederick’s tractor and went joyriding in the hills. But of course it wasn’t Frederick’s, and that was the point. The tractor was U.S. Government property, and Frederick could have been sent to federal prison along with Albert. As it was, they threw him out of his job, and it was all Albert’s fault.”

  I was getting restless. “May I talk to Frederick, Mrs. Snow?”

  “I don’t see any point in it. I’ve told you everything you asked. And I can tell you anything he can tell you.”

  “But there may be things that you don’t know and he does.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand,” she said with a faintly superior look. “Frederick and I are very close.” But after a moment she said: “What sort of things do you mean?”

  “I’d prefer to talk to him about it. You’re his mother, and you’re naturally defensive.”

  “I have to be. Frederick doesn’t stand up for himself. Ever since he had his breakdown and lost his job with the Forest Service, he blames himself for everything. You should have heard him crying in his room after you cross-questioned him yesterday.”

  “He didn’t say anything incriminating to me.”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “What did he say?”

  “I don’t think I should tell you. He’s a grown man.”

  “You’re wrong. He’s a boy in a man’s body. He’s never been the same since he had his nervous breakdown.”

  “Which happened fifteen years ago, is that correct?”

  “That’s correct. It was the summer Captain Broadhurst went away.”

  “Was Frederick fond of the captain?”

  “He worshiped the ground he walked on. Captain Broadhurst was like a father to him. He idolized the whole Broadhurst family. And it broke his heart when the captain ran off. It was like his own father dying on him all over again. I’m not making that up. Dr. Jerome said it himself.”

  “Is he the doctor who’s coming to see Frederick?”

  She nodded. “He should be here any time now.”

  “Is he a psychiatrist?”

  “We don’t believe in psychiatrists,” she said flatly. “Dr. Jerome is a good doctor. He’s Mrs. Broadhurst’s doctor, which means he has to be good. When Frederick had his breakdown she got him Dr. Jerome and paid the bills, including the nursing home. And when he got out of that place she gave him a job herself, in her own garden.” Mrs. Snow smiled dimly, sifting what cheer she could from the memory. “But now I’m afraid he’s going to lose that job, too.”

  “I don’t see why he should, if he’s done nothing wrong. As a matter of fact, I don’t understand why he lost his job with the Forest Service.”

  “Neither do I. Albert took the key to his ’dozer without his permission. But the district ranger didn’t believe my son. It all goes back to what happened in Juvenile Court three years before. Once a boy gets into trouble, he’s lost his good name for all future time.”

  chapter 22

  Mrs. Snow got up and moved toward the door, as if she was expecting to let me out. Though the atmosphere of her home depressed me, I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I stayed in my chair, and after a silent struggle she came back to the platform rocker and sat down again.

  “Is there something else?” she said.

  “You may be able to help me. This has nothing directly to do with you or Frederick. But I gather you were working for Mr. and Mrs. Broadhurst when Mr. Broadhurst took off.”

  “Yes I was.”

  “Did you happen to know the woman?”

  “Ellen Kilpatrick? I certainly did. She taught art at the high school and was married to Kilpatrick the real estate man. That was before he struck it rich with Canyon Estates. He was still living from hand to mouth like the rest of us.

  “Mrs. Kilpatrick saw a chance to better herself, I guess, and she set her net for Captain Broadhurst. I saw the whole thing happen. When Mrs. Broadhurst was away, the two of them used to leave Stanley with me and go up to the Mountain House. Mrs. Kilpatrick was supposed to be teaching the captain to paint pictures. But she was teaching him other things as well. They thought they were fooling everyone, but they weren’t. I used to catch the looks between them sometimes, like they were off in a secret world by themselves and nobody else existed.”

  “Did Mrs. Broadhurst know about the affair?”

  “She must have. I could see that she was suffering. But she never said a word, at least not within my hearing. I think she wanted to avoid a break. Her family stands for something in this town—at least they used to. And then there was poor little Stanley to consider. Sometimes when I think back, I think an open break would have been better for Stanley in the long run. He used to ask me what his father and the woman were doing up there in the Mountain House. And I had to make up a story for him, but he was never entirely taken in. Children never are.”

  “This went on for some time, I gather.”

  “At least a year. It was a strange year, even for me. I was keeping house for Mrs. Broadhurst, and I was in it but not of it. After a while the two of them got careless in front of me. You’d think I was part of the furniture or something. Toward the end they didn’t always bother to go to the Mountain House. One reason for that, Frederick was working on a Forest Service trail at the head of the canyon. So the two of them stayed around the house when Mrs. Broadhurst was out. They’d lock themselves in the den and come out fiery red in the face, and I’d have to make up stories for Stanley about why the couch was squeaking.” Her face blushed faintly mauve under the powder. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I intended to go to my grave without telling anyone.”

  “Do you know what made them leave?”

  “I guess the strain got to be too much for them. It was almost too much for me. I was just about ready to quit my job when they finally did take off.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “They went to San Francisco, so I’ve heard, and neither one of them ever did come back here. I
don’t know what they lived on. He had no profession, and no money of his own. Knowing both of them, my guess would be that she got a job in the Bay area, and she’s probably supporting him to this day. He isn’t what you call a practical man.”

  “What kind of a woman is she?”

  “The arty type, but a lot more practical than she ever let on. She pretended to have her head in the clouds, but her feet were made of clay. Sometimes I really felt sorry for her. She used to follow him with her eyes as if she was a dog and he was her master. I’ve often thought about it since—how a woman with a husband of her own and a little boy could feel like that for another woman’s husband.”

  “I gather from his picture that he was a good-looking man.”

  “That’s true. Where did you see his picture?”

  I got out Stanley’s advertisement and showed it to her. She gave it a look of recognition:

  “This is the clipping Albert Sweetner had the other day. He wanted to make sure that the man was Captain Broadhurst. I told him it was.”

  “Did he ask about the woman?”

  “He didn’t have to. Albert knew Mrs. Kilpatrick from away back. She was his home-room teacher at the high school when Albert was living in our home.” She wiped her glasses and bent over the clipping again. “Who put this ad in the paper?”

  “Stanley Broadhurst.”

  “Where would he get the cash for a thousand-dollar reward? He doesn’t have one nickel to rub against another.”

  “From his mother. At least that was the idea.”

  “I see.” Her eyes came up from the clipping, full of the past. “Poor little Stanley. He was still trying to find out what went on in the Mountain House.”

  The woman’s insight continued to surprise me. Her mind had been sharpened by trouble, and exercised by years of defensive tactics on behalf of Fritz. I realized she’d been talking to me for a purpose, fending me off with stories like an aging Scheherazade, laying down a barrage of words between me and her son.

  I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to one.

  “Do you have to go?” Mrs. Snow said eagerly.

  “If I could have a few minutes with Frederick first—”

  “You can’t. I won’t permit it. He’s always blaming himself for things he didn’t do.”

  “I can make allowances for that.”

  She shook her head. “It’s unfair of you to ask. I’ve told you a lot more than Frederick ever could.” She added with a kind of angry bravado: “If there’s anything more you want to know, ask me.”

  “There is one thing. You mentioned a Christmas card that Marty Nickerson sent Frederick.”

  “It wasn’t a Christmas card, exactly—just a greeting on a postcard.” She got up. “I think I can find it if you want to see it.”

  She went through the doorway into the kitchen. I heard a second door open and close, and then a mumble of talk through the thin walls. I could hear Frederick’s voice rising hysterically, his mother’s voice quieting him down.

  She came out with a postcard which she handed me. The colored picture on the face of the card showed the front of a two-story motel whose sign said: “Yucca Tree Motor Inn.” It had been postmarked in Petroleum City on December 22, 1952. The message was handwritten in faded green ink:

  Dear Fritz,

  Long time no see. How are things in good old Santa Teresa? I have a little girl, born December 15, just in time to be my Christmas baby. She weighs seven lbs., six oz., and she’s a dolly. We decided to call her Susan. I am very happy. Hoping you are the same. Christmas greetings to you and your mother.

  Martha (Nickerson) Crandall

  The phone rang in the kitchen. Mrs. Snow jumped as if an alarm had sounded. But she pulled the kitchen door shut behind her before she answered it.

  A moment later she opened the door again. “It’s Mr. Kelsey,” she said, holding her mouth as if the name tasted bitter. “He wants to talk to you.”

  She stepped to one side to let me pass and stayed in the doorway to listen.

  Kelsey’s voice was urgent: “The Ariadne’s been sighted by one of the volunteer pilots in the sheriff’s aero-squadron. She’s grounded in Dunes Bay.”

  “What happened to the kids aboard her?”

  “That isn’t clear. But it doesn’t sound too good. According to my information she’s breaking up in the surf.”

  “Exactly where?”

  “Just below the state park. Do you know the place?”

  “Yes. Where are you? I can pick you up.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t leave town right now. I have a lead in the Stanley Broadhurst killing. I shouldn’t leave the fire area, anyway.”

  “What’s the lead?”

  “Your man with the long black wig was seen in the area yesterday. He was driving an old white car along Rattlesnake Road. A coed from the college was taking a walk there, and she saw him shortly before the fire started.”

  “Is it a positive identification?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to talk to her now.”

  Kelsey hung up. Turning away from the phone, I noticed that the door of Fritz’s room was ajar. One of his moist eyes appeared at the crack like the eye of a fish in an underwater crevice. His mother, at the other door, was watching him like a shark.

  “How are you, Fritz?” I said.

  “I feel just terrible.”

  He opened the door wider. In his rumpled pajamas he looked less like a man than an ill-kept boy. His mother said:

  “Go back in your room and be quiet.”

  He shook his frowzy head. “I don’t like it in there. I keep seeing things in there.”

  “What do you keep seeing, Fritz?” I said.

  “I keep seeing Mr. Broadhurst in his grave.”

  “Did you bury him?” I said.

  He nodded, and began to cry, nodding and crying like a human pump. His mother moved between us. Leaning her slight weight against his amorphous body, she pushed him back into his room.

  She closed the door on him and locked it and turned on me, holding the key like a weapon. “Please get out of here now. You’ve got him all upset.”

  “If he buried Stanley Broadhurst yesterday, you can’t very well hush it up. You’re crazy to try.”

  She let out a kind of terrier noise which was meant to be a laugh. “I’m not the one that’s crazy. He no more buried Mr. Broadhurst than I did. You people have got him so confused and frightened that he doesn’t know what he did or what he saw. Except that I know for a fact he didn’t do anything wrong. I know my son.”

  She spoke with such assurance that I almost believed her. “I still think he knows more than he told us.”

  “He knows a good deal less, you mean. He doesn’t know what he knows. And I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself, badgering a widow and her only son. If the doctor finds him in this condition, he’ll want to commit him to the State Hospital.”

  “Has he been committed before?”

  “He nearly was, years ago. But Mrs. Broadhurst said she’d pay for the nursing home.”

  “This was in 1955?”

  “Yes. Now will you please get out of my kitchen? I didn’t invite you in here, but I’m inviting you out.”

  I thanked her, and left the house. At the curb in front of it, a middle-aged man in sports clothes was climbing out of a yellow sports car. He lifted a medical bag out of the boot and came toward me. His gray hair and light blue eyes were in contrast to his high color.

  “Dr. Jerome?”

  “Yes.” His look was inquiring.

  I told him who I was and what I was doing. “Mrs. Stanley Broadhurst hired me. How is Elizabeth Broadhurst, by the way?”

  “She’s suffering from exhaustion, which brought on a mild heart attack.”

  “Is she talkable?”

  “Not today. Possibly tomorrow. But I’d stay off the subject of her son—and her grandson.” The doctor took a deep breath and sighed with unexpected feeling. “I just had a look at Stanley’s body in
the morgue. I hate to see a young man die.”

  “Was it the stab wound that killed him?”

  “I would say so.”

  “Were you his doctor?”

  “I was for most of his life—as long as he lived at home. And I still saw him from time to time. He liked to check in with me when he had a problem.”

  “What sort of problems did he have?”

  “Emotional problems. Marital problems. I really can’t discuss them with a third party.”

  “You can’t hurt Stanley. He’s dead.”

  “I’m aware of that,” the doctor said with some asperity. “The problem I’m interested in is who stabbed him to death and buried him.”

  “Your patient Fritz Snow says he buried him.”

  I watched the doctor for his reaction. His bland eyes didn’t shift. His high hard color remained unchanged. He even smiled a little.

  “Don’t believe him. Fritz is always confessing something.”

  “How do you know it isn’t true?”

  “Because he’s been my patient for over twenty years.”

  “Is he insane?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way. He’s hypersensitive, and he tends to blame himself for everything. When he gets emotionally upset, he loses all sense of reality. Poor Fritz has been a frightened boy all his life.”

  “What’s he frightened of?”

  “His mother, among other things.”

  “So am I.”

  “So are we all,” the doctor said with a glint of amusement. “She’s a powerful little woman. But she probably got that way because she had to. Her late husband was very much like Fritz. He had a hard time holding any job. I suppose their basic trouble was genetic, and there’s still not much we can do about heredity.”

  We both glanced toward the house. Mrs. Snow was monitoring us from the front window. She let the curtain fall back into place.