The Doomsters by Ross MacDonald

he often been violent?”
    “No. I didn’t say he was violent. He simply didn’t want to be held. He pushed me away from him.”
    “Did he say why?”
    “He said something about following his own road. I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant.”
    “Do you have any idea what he meant?”
    “No.” But her eyes were wide and dark with possibility.“I’m certain, though, he didn’t mean anything like shooting his brother.”
    “There’s another question that needs answering,” I said. “I hate to throw it at you now.”
    She squared her slender shoulders. “Go ahead. I’ll answer it if I can.”
    “I’ve been told your husband killed his father. Deliberately drowned him in the bathtub. Have you heard that?”
    “Yes. I’ve heard that.”
    “From Carl?”
    “Not from him, no.”
    “Do you believe it?”
    She took a long time to answer. “I don’t know. It was just after Carl was hospitalized—the same day. When a tragedy cuts across your life like that, you don’t know what to believe. The world actually seemed to fly apart. I could recognize the pieces, but all the patterns were unfamiliar, the meanings were different. They still are. It’s an awful thing for a human being to admit, but I don’t know
what
I believe. I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting for six months to find out where I stand in the world, what sort of a life I can count on.”
    “You haven’t really answered my question.”
    “I would if I could. I’ve been trying to explain why I can’t. The circumstances were so queer, and awful.” The thought of them, whatever they were, pinched her face like cold.
    “Who told you about this alleged confession?”
    “Sheriff Ostervelt did. I thought at the time he was lying, for reasons of his own. Perhaps I was rationalizing, simply because I couldn’t face the truth—I don’t know.”
    Before she trailed off into further self-doubts, I said: “What reasons would he have for lying to you?”
    “I can tell you one. It isn’t very modest to say it, but he’s been interested in me for quite a long time. He wasalways hanging around the ranch, theoretically to see the Senator, but looking for excuses to talk to me. I knew what he wanted; he was about as subtle as an old boar. The day we took Carl to the hospital, Ostervelt made it very clear, and very ugly.” She shut her eyes for a second. A faint dew had gathered on her eyelids, and at her temples. “So ugly that I’m afraid I can’t talk about it.”
    “I get the general idea.”
    But she went on, in a chilly trance of memory which seemed to negate the place and time: “He was to drive Carl to the hospital that morning, and naturally I wanted to go along. I wanted to be with Carl until the last possible minute before the doors closed on him. You don’t know how a woman feels when her husband’s being taken away like that, perhaps forever. I was afraid it was forever. Carl didn’t say a word on the way. For days before he’d been talking constantly, about everything under the sun—the plans he had for the ranch, our life together, philosophy, social justice, and the brotherhood of man. Suddenly it was all over. Everything was over. He sat in the car, between me and the sheriff, as still as a dead man.
    “He didn’t even kiss me good-by at the admissions door. I’ll never forget what he did do. There was a little tree growing beside the steps. Carl picked one of the leaves and folded it in his hand and carried it into the hospital with him.
    “I didn’t go in. I couldn’t bear to, that day, though I’ve been there often enough since. I waited outside in the sheriff’s car. I remember thinking that this was the end of the line, that nothing worse could ever happen to me. I was wrong.
    “On the way back, Ostervelt began to act as if he owned me. I didn’t give him any encouragement; I never had. In fact, I told him what I thought of him.
    “It was then he got really nasty. He told me I’d better becareful what