Free The Chill by Ross MacDonald

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-cushioned 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. Godwin 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.
    “You’re late,” Mrs. Bradshaw said in an accusing tone. “Yougo out wining and dining and leave me here to cope all by myself. Where were you, anyway?”
    “The Alumni banquet. You can’t have forgotten that. You know how those banquets drag on, and I’m afraid I made my own contribution to the general boredom.” He hesitated, becoming aware of something in the scene more serious than an old woman’s possessiveness. “What’s up, Mother?”
    “This man tells me the little girl in the gatehouse has gone out of her mind. Why did you have to send me a girl like that, a psychiatric patient?”
    “I didn’t send her.”
    “Who did?”
    I tried to break in on their foolishness, but neither of them heard me. They were intent on their game of emotional ping-pong, which had probably been going on since Roy Bradshaw was a boy.
    “It was either Laura Sutherland or Helen Haggerty,” he was saying. “Professor Haggerty is her counselor, and it was probably she.”
    “Whichever one it was, I want you to instruct her to be more careful next time. If you don’t care about my personal safety—”
    “I
do
care about your safety. I care very much about your safety.” His voice was strained thin between anger and submissiveness. “I had no idea there was anything the matter with the girl.”
    “There probably wasn’t,” I said. “She’s had a shock. I just called a doctor for her. Dr. Godwin.”
    Bradshaw turned slowly in my direction. His face was strangely soft and empty, like a sleeping boy’s.
    “I know Dr. Godwin,” he said. “What kind of a shock did she sustain?”
    “It isn’t clear. I’d like to talk to you in private.”
    Mrs. Bradshaw announced in a trembling voice: “This is my house, young man.”
    She was telling me, but she was also reminding Bradshaw, flicking the economic whip at him. He felt its sting:
    “I live here, too. I have my duties to you, and I try to perform them satisfactorily. I also have my duties to the students.”
    “You and your precious students.” Her bright black eyes were scornful. “Very well. You can have your privacy. I’ll go outside.”
    She actually started for the front door, drawing her bathrobe around her lumpy body as if she was being cast out into a blizzard.