The Goodbye Look

Author:Ross Macdonald [Macdonald, Ross]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

XXI

The main street was quiet and bright when we walked back to the car. The stars were all in order, and quite near. I don't remember seeing any other people until I went into the restaurant to phone George Trask.

He answered right away, in a moist, overused voice: "This is the Trask residence."

I said I was a detective and would like to talk to him about his wife.

"My wife is dead."

"I'm sorry. May I come over and ask you a few questions?"

"I guess so." He sounded like a man who had no use for time.

Moira was waiting for me in the car, like a silver-blue cat in a cave.

"Do you want to be dropped at the hospital? I have an errand to do."

'Take me along."

"It's a fairly unpleasant errand."

"I don't care."

"You would if you lost your marriage and ended up with me. I spend a lot of my nights doing this kind of thing."

Her hand pressed my knee. "I know that I could be hurt. I've already made myself vulnerable. But I'm sick of always doing the professional thing for prudential reasons."

I took her along to Bayview Avenue. The police car was gone. The black Volkswagen with the crumpled fender was still in George Trask's driveway. I remembered now where I had seen it before; under Mrs. Swain's rusty carport in Pasadena.

I knocked on the front door and George Trask let us in. His gangling body was carefully dressed in a dark suit and black tie. He had an air of having made himself the servant of the situation, like a mortician. His grief showed only in his reddened eyes, and in the fact that he didn't remember me.

"This is Mrs. Smitheram, Mr. Trask. She's a psychiatric social worker."

"It's nice of you to come," he said to her. "But I don't need that kind of help. Everything's under control. Come into the living room and sit down, won't you? I'd offer to make you some coffee but I'm not allowed to go into the kitchen. And anyway," he went on, as if his voice was being piped in from someplace beyond his control, "the coffeemaker got broken this morning when my wife was murdered."

"I'm sorry," Moira said.

We followed George Trask into the living room and sat down beside each other, facing him. The window drapes were partly open, and I could see the lights of the city wavering on the water. The beauty of the scene and the woman beside me made me more aware of the pain George Trask was suffering, like solitary confinement in the world.

"The company is being very understanding," he said conversationally. "They're giving me a leave of absence, open-ended, with full pay. That will give me a chance to get everything squared away, eh?"

"Do you know who murdered your wife?"

"We have a pretty good suspect - man with a criminal record as long as your arm - he's known Jean all her life. The police asked me not to mention his name."

It had to be Randy Shepherd.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.