Rose's Last Summer

by Margaret Millar

  “Why did she phone me?”

  “Your office has a habit of following cases through. If Rose had suddenly left town without notifying you, you might have started a search for her.”

  “But there was no attempt to hide the body. She was found in somebody’s backyard where she couldn’t pos­sibly be missed.”

  “I know that,” Greer said heavily. “It’s a damn funny case. If there was money involved, maybe I could find a reason for all the shenanigans. But there’s no money, not that I know of. Rose had one dollar in a savings account, checking account overdrawn as of last Saturday, and the only jewelry she hadn’t pawned or sold was the wedding ring she was wearing when she was found, a plain gold band initialed RF, HD.”

  “I know the ring. It was from her first marriage when she was sixteen.”

  Greer was silent a moment, tracing letters on the blot­ter in front of him with the mouthpiece of his pipe. From where Frank sat they looked like initials, RF, HD.

  Frank said, “Who did the autopsy?”

  “Severn.”

  “He’s competent.”

  “Of course he’s competent,” Greer said irritably. “The woman died of a heart attack yesterday around noon. The heart was badly damaged and half again normal size.”

  “There’s no question of murder then?”

  “There wouldn’t be if she’d been found dead in bed. As things are—” he spread his hands—“as things are, I don’t know. It would be easy enough to kill someone with a bad heart condition—a shock, a soft pillow over the face —there are lots of ways it could have been done. But was it, that’s the question.”

  “As far as I’m aware, Rose had no intimates during recent years, friends or enemies.”

  “And before that?”

  “She must have had hundreds of both. She was aggres­sive; it was easy for Rose to make friends, and just as easy to drop them. Lately she’d made a fetish of inde­pendence. I think probably Miriam and I were the closest thing to a friend she had in this town, except perhaps her landlady, Blanche Cushman.”

  “Mrs. Cushman identified the body this afternoon. She did quite a bit of weeping and wailing, but I got the impression she wasn’t too sorry.”

  “Rose caused her some trouble now and then. When Rose was drinking she could get pretty noisy.”

  “Was she a drunk?”

  “I don’t think so. I may be a little prejudiced, though. I liked Rose. She didn’t like me in return very much. She frequently accused me of prying and so on.”

  “How much did she confide in you?”

  “Just what she wanted to. I had no idea, for instance, that she had a heart condition. She never mentioned her health, her age, or her family. She talked freely about three of her five husbands, but I didn’t even know about the other two until I read tonight’s paper.”

  “There were five, all right. I had one of the boys check with the publicity department of her old studio. She di­vorced three of them, one was killed in a sailing accident and one

  of them committed suicide.”

  “Poor Rose.”

  “That depends on your viewpoint,” Greer said sharply. The telephone on his desk buzzed and he leaned forward with a grunt of annoyance and picked it up. “Greer speak­ing.”

  “Greer?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is Malgradi. I’m down at the F.P.”

  “Did you get her fixed up again?”

  “Sure. That’s what I called about. There’s a man in my office that wants to see her.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Claims to be her husband. I got her looking pretty nice, but I thought I better check with you first before letting anybody see her.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Dalloway. Haley Dalloway. Think I should let him in?”

  “Keep him around until I get there. I’ll be right down.”

  “I haven’t had any dinner yet.”

  “I’ll bring you a bag of popcorn.” Greer put down the phone and turned to Frank. “Dalloway’s showed up, her first husband. Want to come along and meet him?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Come anyway. I’d like you to take a look at Rose.”

  Frank shifted his weight and the chair squeaked in pro­test. The noise sounded almost human. “That’s not my line of work.”

  “Once they’re dead you’re finished with them, eh? What’s the matter, Frank, you afraid of nice, harmless, old dead people?”

  “I haven’t had any experience.”

  “There’s always a first time.”

  “Anyway, I promised Miriam I’d take her to a movie.”

  “I’ll call her and tell her you’ll be late,” Greer said. “What’s the number?”

  “You don’t have to bother.”

  “What’s the number?”

  “23664.”

  Greer called Miriam while Frank went over to the win­dow and looked out through its iron grill work at the city lights. Even from there he could hear Miriam’s clear, firm voice coming all too distinctly over the phone. It was the first she’d heard of any movie date, Miriam said, and besides she was washing her hair.

  Greer hung up, looking very pleased with himself. “You could have done better than that, Frank.”

  “Miriam’s only fault is a habit of pushing the truth out in front of her like a wheelbarrow.”

  “It’s a nice way of taking people for a ride. Are you ready?”

  “I guess I am.”

  Greer laughed. “You’ll be okay. If you get to feeling queasy, Malgradi will give you a couple of slugs of em­balming fluid.”

  4

  Malgradi’s Funeral Parlor was in the east end, a new white stucco building with rows of fluted columns like a Greek temple and a flashing neon sign like a thea­tre. This incongruity was carried on inside. Malgradi was a showman, but he also possessed a deeply religious feeling about death, and the biggest collection of organ records in town. All of Malgradi’s clients got a fine send-off, and always (since Malgradi was a confirmed op­timist) in the right direction. He felt that when he had made each of them as pleasing to the eye as possible and bade them farewell with the finest organ music available, he had done his duty. His conscience was clear, he was devoted to his family and they to him, and he was, in spite of his rather lugubrious profession, a happy man with excellent digestion.

  Malgradi had a working agreement with the police. He was not qualified to do autopsies himself, but his back room was used by the pathologist of the local hospital to perform autopsies on all people who died suddenly with­out apparent cause or under suspicious circumstances. Rose was no longer in the back room.

  “I’ve been getting quite a few calls,” Malgradi told Greer. “Seems like a lot of people are curious; they want to know about the funeral.”

  “Is that right?”

  “So, as a matter of fact, do I. Think it’ll be county?”

  “It’ll be county if nobody shows up who wants to foot the bill. Where’s Dalloway?”

  “In my office.”

  “By the way, this is Frank Clyde, a friend of mine.”

  Malgradi and Frank shook hands heartily and Malgradi said, as the three men went down the corridor, that any friend of Greer’s was a friend of his.

  Malgradi’s office at first glance seemed like a somber room dedicated to sorrow. A more careful study revealed a camouflaged television set, a portable bar discreetly draped in grey velvet, and a large bowl of potato chips on Malgradi’s desk.

  The room smelled of cigar smoke. The man who was smoking the cigar rose and looked around nervously for an ashtray. Finding none, he transferred the cigar to his gloved left hand. He was tall and erect, a man in his six­ties, with clipped white hair and wide-spaced brown eyes that looked naïve and trusting as a boy’
s. He had trusted, perhaps, too often and too well. The rest of his face bore the marks of bitterness and pain.

  The hand holding the cigar remained motionless and Frank realized that it was artificial.

  Dalloway took a hesitating step forward. “You’re the police?”

  Greer nodded.

  “I’m Haley Dalloway. This is terrible, a terrible thing. Rose was always so full of life and energy. I can’t believe that she—that she—” He turned away for a moment, fight­ing for control.

  When he recovered his composure, Greer introduced Frank and himself. There was more handshaking and murmurs of condolence, and then Malgradi pressed a button behind his desk and organ music poured into the room, soft and thick as syrup.

  “For God’s sake, turn that thing off,” Greer said.

  Malgradi glanced at him reproachfully. “Well, I only thought it would be appropriate, under the circum­stances.”

  “Under the circumstances I’d rather listen to coyotes howling.”

  “Can I help it if some people are tone deaf?” But he turned the record off. He had a good deal of respect for Greer. Greer had gone to Princeton for two years and his opinion on what was appropriate was not to be taken lightly.

  “Thank you,” Dalloway said. No one could tell from his expression whether he was thanking Malgradi for the snatch of music or Greer for the silence.

  Greer was studying Dalloway, not subtly, the way Frank had to observe his cases, but openly and directly the way Miriam sized people up. “You live here, Mr. Dalloway?”

  “No. No, I don’t. I live in Belmont, that’s a suburb of Boston. I came out here for—for a vacation.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “At the Rancho del Mar. It’s a motel down near the beach, East Beach, I believe they call it. If there’s anything you want to discuss with me you can reach me there. Right now I—I’d like to see Rose.”

  “Certainly,” Greer said politely. “Do you mind if Mr. Clyde here goes along?”

  “Well, I—no.”

  “Mr. Clyde was a friend of Rose’s. He’s been trying to help her this past year.”

  “Help her?” Dalloway’s eyes focused on Frank. “In what way? Are you a doctor?”

  “I work for the mental hygiene clinic,” Frank said, wishing there was some simple way of describing his functions. “Rose was brought to my attention a year or so ago.”

  “You mean Rose was insane?”

  “No, indeed I don’t. The clinic does preventive work, not as much as we could do if we had enough money and trained help. But we do some. I gave Rose an appoint­ment whenever I felt that she was getting too depressed or too high.”

  “Rose was always like that,” Dalloway said quite brusquely. “It’s nothing new or serious. One day she’d be so low she hated everyone and the next day she was the life of the party.” He raised his chin in a gesture of pride. “I’m glad, I’m glad she didn’t change.”

  But she had changed, she’d changed so much that Dal­loway, when he saw her, backed away from the satin-lined casket and covered his eyes.

  Frank gazed stonily down at the dead woman. He was appalled. She didn’t look like Rose at all. In life Rose had been rather careless. No matter how often she combed her hair it always looked a little wild, her makeup was never quite straight, and her clothes gave the impression that she had just come in after a fuss with a high wind.

  Now Rose lay in her borrowed casket, meticulous, not a hair out of place. Her cotton-stuffed cheeks were sym­metrically rosy, her mouth rigid and straight as if she didn’t dare to move it for fear of disturbing the lipstick. There were no more high winds for Rose.

  “It is,” Dalloway said finally, “it is Rose?”

  “Yes,” Frank said.

  “I’d never have known her, she’s aged so much.” He spoke as if the years that had aged Rose had passed him without a glance. “She’s still wearing my ring.”

  “I’ve never seen her without it.”

  “That’s funny, isn’t it, after all that’s happened to her. So much, so much happened to Rose. I used to read about her in the papers from time to time, after she left me.” Except for his breathing which was labored and irregular, Dalloway seemed under control. “Did she ever tell you how she left me?”

  “Once. She ran away with a circus.”

  “That’s right. The circus was in town—we were living in Boulder Junction then—and when it moved out Rose moved with it. After the divorce I married again. I had to give Lora a home.”

  “Lora?”

  “Rose’s child and mine.”

  “She never mentioned a child.”

  Dalloway was not surprised. “How like Rose, to for­get the inconvenient things. I—well, there’s no point in staying here, is there?”

  “No.”

  “I’d like to hear more about Rose, how she’s been liv­ing the last while. I hate to impose on anyone, but per­haps you might consider coming down to my motel for a drink or two? Would you?”

  “I might.”

  “The fact is, I’m alone in town. It’s rather depressing.”

  “Your family didn’t come with you?”

  “I no longer have a family. My wife died several years ago. And Lora—” Dalloway’s face tightened like a fist, and for the first time Frank saw, behind the innocent trusting eyes, a shrewd, hard, obstinate man. “My daugh­ter, Lora, disappeared two months ago.”

  The Rancho del Mar was one of a dozen luxurious motels that edged the beach. Thirty-foot palms rustled frantically in the offshore wind while the ivy clung mo­tionless to their bone-grey trunks. The patio was strung with colored lights and crammed with garden furniture, chaises and gliders and canvas chairs. None of them was occupied. The nights were too cold, even now, toward the end of May. When the sun vanished so did the people, and the sea fog took over the patio and hung in wisps under the big umbrellas and the redwood tables.

  Dalloway had a corner room that overlooked the sea. He had left the windows open and the air in the room was damp and cold.

  He turned on the panel heater and stood in front of it, warming his right hand until the bellboy appeared with a pitcher of ice and a bottle of Scotch. The bellboy acted with

  the extreme deference of someone who has been well-tipped in the past, and Frank wondered how much money Dalloway had and how he’d made it. Rose had always claimed that she had supported him.

  Dalloway mixed the drinks. It was obvious, from the deft way he managed with one hand, that the loss of his other was not recent.

  “You’re a restful young man,” Dalloway said suddenly. “You don’t talk much.”

  “My job is to listen.”

  “And observe.”

  “And observe, of course.”

  “What are you observing about me?”

  “Do you want the truth?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I was wondering how you lost your hand.”

  “Oh, that.” Dalloway laughed. “I lost it in the most un-heroic way possible. Caught it in a buzz saw, very careless of me. Is your drink too weak, too strong?”

  “Just right.”

  “I’m not a drinking man, but there are times.” He paused. “I suppose Rose died penniless?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was a fool about money.”

  “She didn’t think or care much about it,” Frank said. “There’s a difference.”

  “The results are the same.”

  “Rose wasn’t bitter about lack of money. The only thing she wanted was something like a job to get inter­ested in.”

  “She had a job once, looking after her own child. But that wasn’t quite good enough. She preferred the circus.” Dalloway stared grimly into his glass. “Like mother, like daughter. It’s a peculiar thing: though they were sepa­rated all these year
s, the resemblances were strong, right down to the final one. They both ran away from me with­out any reason at all.”

  Frank wasn’t so sure about the lack of reason. “You’ve heard nothing from Lora?”

  “Not a word, in two months. There’s not much I can do about it. Lora’s a grown woman of thirty. At least she’s grown in years. Actually she’s quite immature like most of her friends, though they call it being ‘creative.’ She fooled around with painting and sculpture and little thea­tres, things like that. She talked a lot about expressing herself, but as far as I could see the only thing she really expressed was an antipathy to good honest work.”

  It was a familiar cry to Frank—the too-strict and un­imaginative parent and the child who escapes into dreams or illness. “She wanted to be an actress like her mother?”

  “Yes. She had the lead in a few experimental plays that were put on back home and it went to her head. Possibly she has talent—I wouldn’t know, the plays seemed ex­tremely silly to me—but she’s over thirty. She’s too old to begin a career like that. I tried to explain this to her last March, the twenty-fifth I believe it was. When I returned home for dinner that night she was gone. I telephoned some of her sorry crew of friends, but they professed to know nothing about it. After two days I reported her as a missing person. The police were unconcerned, even a little amused, I thought. Their assumption was that Lora had eloped with a man, and they advised me to go home and wait for a letter. I did. I’m not a waiting man, but I waited a whole month. Then one day in the subway sta­tion at Cambridge I happened to pick up a New York paper. There was an article in it about a proposed television program that was to feature some old-time movie stars. Rose’s name was among the ones mentioned as pos­sible. The article said she was retired and living on a big estate here in La Mesa.”

  Frank thought of Rose’s room in the boarding house and wondered whether Rose herself had given out this misinformation.

  “I came here,” Dalloway said, “to see her. Not for old time’s sake, but to find out if she knew anything about Lora.”