The Underground Man
Page 24
I answered slowly, with some reluctance: “The gardener, Fritz Snow, who buried Leo’s body with his tractor. I wouldn’t have said he’s capable of murder, but Leo did give him provocation. So did Albert Sweetner, for that matter.”
“How old is Snow?”
“About thirty-five or -six.”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s five-ten, maybe one-sixty. Brown hair, moon face, green eyes which cry a lot. He seems to have emotional problems. Also genetic ones.”
“What kind of genetic problems?”
“Harelip, for one thing.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
Arnie’s voice had risen. I held the receiver away from my ear. Jean was leaning with her hands on the door frame, watching me. Her face was pale, and her eyes were darker than I had ever seen them.
“Where is this Fritz Snow?” Arnie said.
“About a mile and a half from where I’m sitting. Do you want me to pick him up?”
“I better do it through channels.”
“Let me talk to him first, Arnie. I can’t believe he killed three people, or even one of them.”
“I can,” Arnie said. “That wig and mustache and beard that Albert Sweetner was wearing didn’t belong to Sweetner. They didn’t fit him. It’s my hypothesis they belonged to the killer, who put them on Sweetner to confuse the issue. We’ve been canvassing the wig shops and supply houses. To make a long story short, your suspect bought the wig and beard at a mark-down store on Vine Street called Wigs Galore.”
I didn’t want to believe it. “He could have bought them for Al Sweetner.”
“He could have, but he didn’t. He bought them a month ago, when Sweetner was still in Folsom. And we know he bought them for his own use. He asked the salesman for a mustache that would cover the bad scar on his upper lip.”
Jean spoke when I set the receiver down. “Fritz?”
“It looks that way.” I told her about the wig and beard he had bought.
She bit her lip. “I should have listened to Ronny.”
“Did he recognize Fritz on the mountain Saturday?”
“I don’t know about Saturday. He told me several weeks ago that he saw Fritz with long black hair and a mustache. But when I questioned him further, he said that he was telling me a story.”
We went into the bedroom where the boy was sleeping. He woke with a start when his mother touched him and sat up hugging his pillow, wide-eyed and shaking. It was my first naked glimpse of his hurt and fear.
He spoke with an effort: “I was afraid the bogy man would get me.”
“I won’t let him get you.”
“He got Daddy.”
“He won’t get you,” I said.
His mother took him in her arms, and for a little while he seemed content. Then he grew impatient of purely female comfort. He freed himself and stood up on the high bed, his eyes close to the level of mine. He bounced, and was temporarily taller than I was.
“Is Fritz the bogy man?” I said.
He looked at me in confusion. “I don’t know.”
“Did you ever see him wearing a long black wig?”
He nodded. “And whiskers, too,” he said a little breathlessly. “And a whatchamacallit.” He touched his upper lip.
“When was this, Ronny?”
“The last time that I visited Grandma Nell. I went into the barn and Fritz was there with long black hair and whiskers. He was looking at a picture of a lady.”
“Did you know the lady?”
“No. She had no clothes on.” He looked embarrassed, and scared. “Don’t tell him I told you. He said if I told anybody that something bad would happen.”
“Nothing bad will happen.” Not to him. “Did you see Fritz on Saturday wearing his wig?”
“When?”
“Up on the mountain.”
He looked at me in confusion. “I saw a bogy man with long black hair. He was away far off. I couldn’t tell if it was Fritz or not.”
“But you thought it was, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
His voice sounded strained, as if his clear childish memory had registered more than he was able to cope with. He turned to his mother and said that he was hungry.
chapter 35
I dropped them off at a downtown restaurant and drove back through the ghetto to Mrs. Snow’s house. Brown water was running in the road in front of it. I parked on the blacktop driveway behind her old white Rambler and locked my car.
Mrs. Snow opened the front door before I could knock. She looked past me into rain as if there might be other men behind me.
“Where’s Fritz?” I said.
“He’s in his room. But I can do any talking that needs to be done. I always have—I guess I always will.”
“He’ll have to do his own talking, Mrs. Snow.”
I went past her into the kitchen and opened the door of her son’s room. He was crouched on the iron bed, hiding part of his face with his hands.
He was a helpless foolish man, and I hated what I had to do. A trial would make a public show of him. In prison he would be the bottom man, as his mother feared. I could feel her anxious presence close behind me.
I said to him: “Did you buy a wig a month or so ago? A wig and a beard and a mustache?”
He dropped his hands away from his face. “Maybe I did.”
“I happen to know you did.”
“Then what are you asking me for?”
“I want to know why you bought those things.”
“To make my hair look long. And to cover this.” He lifted his right forefinger to his scarred upper lip. “The girls won’t let me kiss them. I only kissed a girl once in my life.”
“Martha?”
“Yeah. She let me do it to her. But that was a long time ago, about sixteen or eighteen years. I read about these wigs and stuff in a movie magazine, so I went down to Hollywood and bought an outfit. I wanted to chase the chicks on Sunset Strip. And be a swinger.”
“Did you catch any?”
He shook his doleful head. “I only got to go the once. She doesn’t want me to have a girlfriend.”
His gaze moved past me to his mother.
“I’m your girlfriend,” she said brightly. “And you’re my boyfriend.” She smiled and winked. There were tears in her eyes.
I said: “What happened to your wig, Fritz?”
“I don’t know. I hid it under my mattress. But somebody took it.”
His mother said: “Albert Sweetner must have taken it. He was in the house last week.”
“It was gone long before last week. It was gone about a month ago. I only got to chase the chicks the once.”
“Are you sure about that?” I said.
“Yessir.”
“You didn’t drive down to Northridge Saturday night and put it on Albert’s head?”
“No sir.”
“Or wear it up the mountain Saturday morning—when you knifed Stanley Broadhurst?”
“I liked Stanley. Why would I knife him?”
“Because he was digging up his father’s body. Didn’t you kill his father, too?”
He shook his head violently, like a mop. His mother said: “Don’t, Fritz. You’ll do yourself an injury.”
He stayed with his head hanging, as if he had broken his neck. After a time he spoke again: “I buried Mr. Broadhurst—I told you that. But I never killed him. I never killed none of them.”
“Any of them,” Mrs. Snow said. “You never killed any of them.”
“I never killed any of them,” he repeated. “I didn’t kill Mr. Broadhurst, or Stanley, or—” He lifted his head. “Who was the other one?”
“Albert Sweetner.”
“I didn’t kill him, neither.”
“Either,” his mother said.
I turned to her. “Let him do his own talking, please.”
The sharpness in my voice seemed to encourage her son: “Yeah. Let me do my own talking.”
“Yeah. Sure.” But there was a dubious questioning note in his voice. It issued in speech, though he kept his hangdog posture on the bed: “What happened to my wig and stuff?”
“Somebody must have taken it,” she said.
“Albert Sweetner?”
“It may have been Albert.”
“I don’t believe that. I think you took it,” he said.
“That’s crazy talk.”
His eyes came up to her face, slowly, like snails ascending a wall. “You swiped it from under the mattress.” He struck the bed under him with his hand to emphasize the point. “And I’m not crazy.”
“You’re talking that way,” she said. “What reason would I have to take your wig?”
“Because you didn’t want me to chase the chicks. You were jealous.”
She let out a high little titter, with no amusement in it. I looked at her face. It was stiff and gray, as if it had frozen.
“My son’s upset. He’s talking foolishly.”
I said to Fritz: “What makes you think your mother took your wig?”
“Nobody else comes in here. There’s just the two of us. As soon as it was gone, I knew who took it.”
“Did you ask her if she took it?”
“I was afraid to.”
“My son has never been afraid of his mother,” she said. “And he knows I didn’t take his blessed wig. Albert Sweetner must have. I remember now, he was here a month ago.”
“He was in prison a month ago, Mrs. Snow. You’ve been blaming Albert for quite a number of things.” In the ensuing silence I could hear all three of us breathing. I turned to Fritz. “You told me earlier that Albert put you up to burying Leo Broadhurst. Is that still true?”
“Albert was there,” he answered haltingly. “He was sleeping in the stable near the Mountain House. He said the shot woke him up, and he hung around to see what would come of it. When I brought the tractor down from the compound, he helped me with the digging.”
Mrs. Snow moved past me and stood over him. “Albert told you to do it, didn’t he?”
“No,” he said. “It was you. You said that Martha wanted me to do it.”
“Did Martha kill Mr. Broadhurst?” I said.
“I dunno. I wasn’t there when it happened. Mother got me up in the middle of the night and said I had to bury him deep, or Martha would go to the gas chamber.” He looked around the narrow walls of the room as if he was in that chamber now, with the pellet about to drop. “She told me I should blame it all on Albert, if anybody asked me.”
“You’re a crazy fool,” his mother said. “If you go on telling lies like this, I’ll have to leave you and you’ll be all alone. They’ll put you in jail, or in the mental hospital.”
Both of them could end up there, I was thinking. I said: “Don’t let her scare you, Fritz. You won’t be put in jail for anything you did because she made you.”
“I won’t stand for this!” she cried. “You’re turning him against me.”
“Maybe it’s time, Mrs. Snow. You’ve been using your son as a scapegoat, telling yourself that you’ve been looking after him.”
“Who else would look after him?” Her voice was rough and rueful.
“He could get better treatment from a stranger.” I turned back to him: “What happened Saturday morning, when Stanley Broadhurst borrowed the pick and shovel?”
“He borrowed the pick and shovel,” Fritz repeated, “and after a while I got nervous. I went up the trail to see what they were doing up there. Stanley was digging right where his father was buried.”
“What did you do?”
“I went back down to the ranch and phoned her.”
His wet green gaze rested on his mother. She made a shushing noise which narrowed into a hiss. I said over it:
“What about Saturday night, Fritz? Did you drive down to Northridge?”
“No sir. I was here in bed all night.”
“Where was your mother?”
“I don’t know. She gave me sleeping pills right after Albert phoned. She always gives me sleeping pills when she leaves me by myself at night.”
“Albert phoned here Saturday night?”
“Yessir. I answered the phone, but it was her he wanted to talk to.”
“What about?”
“They were talking about money. She said she had no money—”
“Shut up!”
Mrs. Snow raised her fist in a threat to her son. Though he was bigger and younger and probably stronger, he crawled away from her on the bed and huddled crying in the corner.
I took hold of Mrs. Snow’s arm. She was taut and trembling. I drew her into the kitchen and shut the door on the dissolving man. She leaned on the counter beside the kitchen sink, shivering as though the house was chilly.
“You killed Leo Broadhurst, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Snow didn’t answer me. She seemed to have been overcome by a terrible embarrassment that tied her tongue.
“You didn’t stay in the ranch house that night when Elizabeth Broadhurst and Stanley went up the mountain. You went up there after them and found Leo lying unconscious and stabbed him to death. Then you came back here and told your son to bury him and his car.
“Unfortunately Albert Sweetner knew where the body was buried, and eventually he came back here hoping to turn his knowledge into money. When Stanley failed to show up with the money Saturday night, Albert phoned here and tried to get some more out of you. You drove down to Northridge and killed him.”
“How could I kill him—a big strong man like Albert?”
“He was probably dead drunk when you got to him. And it never occurred to him that he was in danger from you. It never occurred to Stanley, either, did it?”
She remained silent, though her mouth was working.
“I can understand why you killed Albert and Stanley,” I said. “You were trying to cover up what you’d done in the past. But why did Leo Broadhurst have to die?”
Her eyes met mine and blurred like cold windows. “He was half dead already, lying there in his blood. All I did was put him out of his misery.” Her clenched right hand jerked downward convulsively, reenacting the stabbing. “I’d do the same for a dying animal.”
“It wasn’t compassion that made you murder him.”
“You can’t call it murder. He deserved to die. He was a wicked man, a cheat and a fornicator. He got Marty Nickerson pregnant and let my boy take the blame. Frederick has never been the same since then.”
There was no use arguing with her. She was one of those paranoid souls who kept her conscience clear by blaming everything on other people. Her violence and malice appeared to her as emanations from the external world.
I crossed the room to the phone and called the police. While the receiver was still in my hand, Mrs. Snow opened a drawer and took out a butcher knife. She came at me in a quick little dance, moving to jangled music I couldn’t hear.
I caught her by the wrist. She had the kind of exploding strength that insane anger releases. But her strength soon ran out. The knife clattered on the floor. I pinned her arms and held her until the police arrived.
“You’ll shame me in front of the neighbors,” she said desperately.
I was the only one watching as the patrol car moved away through the brown water with Fritz and his mother sitting behind a screen in the back seat. I followed them downtown, thinking that quite often nowadays the low-life subplots were taking over the tragedies. I gave a more prosaic explanation to a team of police detectives and a stenotypist.
My statement was interrupted by a phone call from Brian Kilpatrick’s fiancee. Kilpatrick had walked into his game room and shot himself.
The briefcase I took from him, containing Elizabeth Broadhurst’s guns and records, was in the trunk of my car. I let it stay there unreported for the present, though I knew all the facts of Leo Broadhurst’s death would have to come out at Edna Snow’s trial.
&nb
sp; Before night fell, Jean and I and Ronny drove out of town.
“It’s over,” I said.
Ronny said, “That’s good.” His mother sighed.
I hoped it was over. I hoped that Ronny’s life wouldn’t turn back toward his father’s death as his father’s life had turned, in a narrowing circle. I wished the boy a benign failure of memory.
As though she sensed my thoughts, Jean reached behind him and touched the back of my neck with her cold fingers. We passed the steaming remnants of the fire and drove on south through the rain.
ROSS MACDONALD
Ross Macdonald’s real name was Kenneth Millar. Born near San Francisco in 1915 and raised in Ontario, Millar returned to the United States as a young man and published his first novel in 1944. He served as the president of the Mystery Writers of America and was awarded their Grand Master Award as well as the Mystery Writers of Great Britain’s Gold Dagger Award. He died in 1983.
Books by Ross Macdonald
Blue City
The Dark Tunnel
Trouble Follows Me
The Three Roads
The Moving Target
The Drowning Pool
The Way Some People Die
The Ivory Grin
Meet Me at the Morgue
Find a Victim
The Name is Archer
The Barbarous Coast
The Doomsters
The Galton Case
The Ferguson Affair
The Wycherly Woman
The Zebra-Striped Hearse
The Chill Black Money
The Far Side of the Dollar
The Goodbye Look
The Underground Man
Sleeping Beauty
The Blue Hammer
BOOKS BY ROSS MACDONALD
THE BARBAROUS COAST
The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. Hired by her hotheaded husband and her rummy “uncle,” Lew Archer sniffs around Malibu and finds the stink of blackmail, blood money, and murder on every pricey silk shirt. Beset by dirty cops, a bumptious boxer turned silver-screen pretty boy, and a Hollywood mogul with a dark past, Archer discovers the secret of a grisly murder that just won’t stay hidden.