Part 8 (1/2)
”I could call Dad in Long Beach.”
”That might be a good idea, later.”
”Couldn't we take her to the hospital?”
”Not without a private doctor to protect her.”
”Protect her from what?”
”The police, or the psycho ward. I don't want her answering any official questions until I have a chance to check on Helen.”
The girl whimpered. ”I don't want to go to the psycho ward. I had a doctor in town here a long time ago.” She was sane enough to be frightened, and frightened enough to cooperate.
”What's his name?”
”Dr. G.o.dwin. Dr. James G.o.dwin. He's a psychiatrist. I used to come in and see him when I was a little girl.”
”Do you have a phone in the gatehouse?”
”Mrs. Bradshaw lets me use her phone.”
I left them and walked up the driveway to the main house. I could smell fog even at this level now. It was rolling down from the mountains, flooding out the moon, as well as rising from the sea.
The big white house was quiet, but there was light behind some of the windows. I pressed the bell push. Chimes tinkled faintly behind the heavy door. It was opened by a large dark woman in a cotton print dress. She was crudely handsome, in spite of the pitted acne scars on her cheekbones. Before I could say anything she volunteered that Dr. Bradshaw was out and Mrs. Bradshaw was on her way to bed.
”I just want to use the phone. I'm a friend of the young lady in the gatehouse.”
She looked me over doubtfully. I wondered if Dolly's contagion had given me a wild irrational look.
”It's important,” I said. ”She needs a doctor.”
”Is she sick?”
”Quite sick.”
”You shouldn't ought to leave her alone.”
”She isn't alone. Her husband's with her.”
”But she is not married.”
”We won't argue about it. Are you going to let me call a doctor?”
She stepped back reluctantly and ushered me past the foot of a curved staircase into a book-lined study where a lamp burned like a night light on the desk. She indicated the telephone beside it, and took up a watchful position by the door.
”Could I have a little privacy, please? You can search me on the way out”
She sniffed, and withdrew out of sight. I thought of calling Helen's house, but she wasn't in the telephone directory. Dr. James G.o.dwin fortunately was. I dialed his number. The voice that eventually answered was so quiet and neutral that I couldn't tell if it was male or female.
”May I speak to Dr. G.o.dwin?”
”This is Dr. G.o.dwin.” He sounded weary of his ident.i.ty.
”My name is Lew Archer. I've just been talking to a girl who says she used to be your patient. Her maiden name was Dolly or Dorothy McGee. She's not in a good way.”
”Dolly? I haven't seen her for ten or eleven years. What's troubling her?”
”You're the doctor, and I think you'd better see her. She's hysterical, to put it mildly, talking incoherently about murder.”
He groaned. With my other ear I could hear Mrs. Bradshaw call hoa.r.s.ely down the stairs: ”What's going on down there, Maria?”
”The girl Dolly is sick, he says.”
”Who says?”
”I dunno. Some man.”
”Why didn't you tell me she was sick?”
”I just did.”
Dr. G.o.dwin was talking in a small dead voice that sounded like the whispering ghost of the past: ”I'm not surprised this material should come up. There was a violent death in her family when she was a child, and she was violently exposed to it. She was in the immediate pre-pubic period, and already in a vulnerable state.”
I tried to cut through the medical jargon: ”Her father killed her mother, is that right?”
”Yes.” The word was like a sigh. ”The poor child found the body. Then they made her testify in court. We permit such barbarous things--” He broke off, and said in a sharply different tone: ”Where are you calling from?”
”Roy Bradshaw's house. Dolly is in the gatehouse with her husband. It's on Foothill Drive--”
”I know where it is. In fact I just got in from attending a dinner with Dean Bradshaw. I have another call to make, and then I'll be right with you.”
I hung up and sat quite still for a moment in Bradshaw's leather-cus.h.i.+oned swivel chair. The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters. I hated to get up.
Mrs. Bradshaw was waiting in the hallway. Maria had disappeared. The old woman was breathing audibly, as if the excitement was a strain on her heart. She clutched the front of her pink wool bathrobe against her loosely heaving bosom.
”What's the trouble with the girl?”
”She's emotionally upset.”
”Did she have a fight with her husband? He's a hothead, I could hardly blame her.”
”The trouble goes a little deeper than that. I just called Dr. G.o.dwin the psychiatrist. She's been his patient before.”
”You mean to tell me the girl is--?” She tapped her veined temple with a swollen knuckle.
A car had stopped in the driveway, and I didn't have to answer her question. Roy Bradshaw came in the front door. The fog had curled his hair tight, and his thin face was open. It closed up when he saw us standing together at the foot of the stairs.