Free The Chill by Ross MacDonald Page A

Bradshaw went after her. There were pullings and haulings and cajolings and a final goodnight embrace, from which I averted my eyes, before she climbed heavily up the stairs, with his assistance.
    “You mustn’t judge Mother too harshly,” he said when he came down. “She’s getting old, and it makes it hard for her to adjust to crises. She’s really a generous-hearted soul, as I have good reason to know.”
    I didn’t argue with him. He knew her better than I did.
    “Well, Mr. Archer, shall we go into my study?”
    “We can save time if we talk on the road.”
    “On the road?”
    “I want you to take me to Helen Haggerty’s place if you know where it is. I’m not sure I can find it in the dark.”
    “Why on earth? Surely you’re not taking Mother seriously? She was simply talking to hear herself talk.”
    “I know. But Dolly’s been doing some talking, too. She says that Helen Haggerty is dead. She has blood on her hands, by way of supporting evidence. I think we’d better go up there and see where the blood came from.”
    He gulped. “Yes. Of course. It isn’t far from here. In fact it’s only a few minutes by the bridle path. But at night we’ll probably get there faster in my car.”
    We went out to his car. I asked him to stop at the gatehouse, and glanced in. Dolly was lying on the studio bed with herface turned to the wall. Alex had covered her with a blanket. He was standing by the bed with his hands loose.
    “Dr. Godwin is on his way,” I said in a low voice. “Keep him here till I get back, will you?”
    He nodded, but he hardly appeared to see me. His look was still inward, peering into depths he hadn’t begun to imagine until tonight.

chapter
9
    B RADSHAW’S COMPACT CAB was equipped with seat-belts, and he made me fasten mine before we set out. Between his house and Helen’s I told him as much as I thought he needed to know about Dolly’s outpourings. His response was sympathetic. At my suggestion, he left his car by the mailbox at the foot of Helen’s lane. When we got out I could hear a foghorn moaning from the low sea.
    Another car, a dark convertible whose shape I could barely make out through the thickening air, was parked without lights down the road. I ought to have shaken it down. But I was pressed by my own private guilt, and eager to see if Helen was alive.
    Her house was a faint blur of light high among the trees. We started up the hairpinning gravel driveway. An owl flew low over our heads, silent as a traveling piece of fog. It lit somewhere in the gray darkness, called to its mate, and was answered. The two invisible birds seemed to be mocking us with their sad distant foghorn voices.
    I heard a repeated crunching up ahead. It resolved itself into footsteps approaching in the gravel. I touched Bradshaw’s sleeve, and we stood still. A man loomed up above us. Hehad on a topcoat and a snap-brim hat I couldn’t quite see his face.
    “Hello.”
    He didn’t answer me. He must have been young and bold. He ran straight at us, shouldering me, spinning Bradshaw into the bushes. I tried to hold him but his downhill momentum carried him away.
    I chased his running footfalls down to the road, and got there in time to see him climbing into the convertible. Its engine roared and its parking lights came on as I ran toward it. Before it leaped away, I caught a glimpse of a Nevada license and the first four figures of the license number. I went back to Bradshaw’s car and wrote them down in my notebook: FT37 .
    I climbed up the driveway a second time. Bradshaw had reached the house. He was sitting on the doorstep with a sick look on his face. Light poured over him from the open door and cast his bowed shadow brokenly on the flagstones.
    “She
is
dead, Mr. Archer.”
    I looked in. Helen was lying on her side behind the door. Blood had run from a round bullet hole in her forehead and formed a pool on the tiles. It was coagulating at the edges, like frost on a dark puddle. I touched