“Did she come back to him on her own?”
“She must have. There wasn’t anybody with her.”
“How did she get here from Sacramento?”
“I didn’t know she was in Sacramento. She wouldn’t tell me anything about the last two months.”
“When did she come back to the Peninsula?”
“Yesterday morning. Dr. Sherrill said she turned up at his place about eight o’clock.”
“When did she leave the sanitarium?”
“Some time yesterday afternoon. It doesn’t matter now. She’s safe now.”
He stopped for a red fight, and made a right turn off Bayshore. I was thinking of Stanley Quillan listening to happy music in the back room of his shop, not many miles from where we were.
“Did Phoebe have a gun with her last night?”
“Of course not. She doesn’t have a gun.”
“Can you be sure?”
“She had nothing with her at all. Just the clothes that she was wearing, and they weren’t hers.”
“How do you know that?”
“They didn’t fit her. She’s put on a lot of weight, but even so her dress was too big for her. It didn’t suit her, either. It made her look old. It made her look like her mother when–”
The car swerved under the pressure of his hands. We were on a quiet, tree-lined street named after the poet Cowper. He pulled the car into the curb and braked abruptly. I left handprints on the windshield.
“I saw her mother when she was dead,” he went on in a hushed voice. “She had no clothes on. She was big and white. We wrapped her in a blanket and put her in the back of Phoebe’s car. I had to bend up her legs.” He bowed until his forehead touched the steering-wheel. Both of his hands were gripping the curved steel. His knuckles gleamed white. “It was a terrible thing to do.”
“Why did you do it?”
“They said – Phoebe said that it was the only way. We had to get rid of the body. I couldn’t leave her to it by herself.”
“She wasn’t by herself.”
He turned his head, his cheek pressed hard against his straining knuckles. “I was with her. Is that what you mean?”
“Who else was?”
“Nobody. We were alone in the house.”
“You said ‘they.’ The dead woman didn’t tell you to put her in the water.”
“It was a slip of the tongue.”
“It was a slip, all right. Who else are you trying to cover up for, Bobby?”
“I’m not trying to cover up for him.”
“It was a man, then. Name him.”
The glaze of stubbornness came down over his face again.
“I think I can name him for you,” I said. “Did Ben Merriman walk in on the festivities?”
“He didn’t say who he was.”
From the magpie nest of my inner pocket, I produced the blotter with Merriman’s picture on it. It was getting dog-eared.
“Is this the man?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you mention him before?”
“Phoebe said last night I wasn’t to.”
“Did she give you a reason?”
“No.”
“But without a reason of any kind, you let a disturbed girl make your decision for you?”
“I had a reason, Mr. Archer. I saw his picture in yesterday’s paper. He was beaten to death in that same house. Now Phoebe will be blamed for that, too.”
Chapter 25
The sanitarium was in a neighborhood of large old frame houses and new apartment buildings. A massive one-story structure that looked like an overgrown ranchhouse, it stood far back from the street behind a wire net fence masked with a cypress hedge. The driveway curved around a broad lawn where outdoor furniture was set out, chaises and gaily colored umbrellas. A solitary white-haired woman sat on one of the chaises in the middle of the intensely green grass. She was looking at the sky as if it had just been created.
A concrete ramp for wheel chairs sloped up from the driveway to the door. There was a judas window set into the door, and a bell push in the bare wall beside it. I got out of the car. Bobby stayed where he was.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m all right, but I better stay out here. Dr. Sherrill doesn’t like me.”
“I want you along.”
Reluctantly, he followed me up the ramp. I rang the bell and waited. The little window in the door snapped open. A nurse in a cap peered out at us:
“What is it, sir?”
“I have to see Dr. Sherrill.”
“Is it about a patient?”
“Yes. Her name is Phoebe Wycherly. I represent her father. My name is Archer.” I added, though the words felt strange on my tongue: “This is Mr. Doncaster, her fiance.”
She left us standing in a drab green corridor which ran the length of the building. Twelve or fifteen doors opened on to it. At the far end a young man in a bathrobe was walking towards us very slowly like a diver with weights on his feet. We were there for several minutes, but he didn’t seem to get any nearer.
A man in a white smock opened one of the doors and said, “Come in here, gentlemen.”
He stood with careful formality beside the door as we entered. I wasn’t impressed by my first look at Sherrill. His thin moustache had a touch of vanity. Magnified by thick glasses, his dark brown eyes seemed womanish.
His office was small and unimposing. A bare oak desk with a swivel chair behind it, a leather armchair, a leather couch, took up most of the floor space. A wall of shelves spilled books onto the floor: everything from Gray’s Anatomy to Mad magazine.
Bobby started to sit on the couch, then flinched away. He balanced himself tentatively on one arm of the armchair. I sat on the couch. I had to resist an impulse to put my feet up. Sherrill watched us over the desk with eyes like mirrors:
“Well, gentlemen?”
Bobby leaned forward, hugging one high knee. “How is Phoebe?”
“You left her only two hours ago. I told you she should be sequestered for at least two days, possibly much longer. You certainly can’t see her again today, Mr. Doncaster.” Sherrill spoke without much emphasis, but there was a steady force behind his words.
“I brought him here,” I said. “He told me a story which has legal repercussions, to put it mildly. You may know parts of it.”
“Are you a lawyer?”
“I’m a private detective. Homer Wycherly, the girl’s father, hired me several days ago to look for her. Until this afternoon, when I talked to Bobby here, I thought she was dead. Murdered. It turns out she was a fugitive from justice.”
“Justice,” the doctor repeated softy. “Do you represent justice, Mr. Archer?”
“No.” I did, in a sense. It would take too long to figure out what sense. “I simply want you to understand the situation.”
“It’s good of you to share your understanding with me.”
“I haven’t, doctor. That’s going to take some time.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t much time. As a matter of fact, I have a patient scheduled now. Perhaps we can arrange to discuss this later on tonight, if you feel we have to.”
“It won’t wait,” I said bluntly. “Have you had a chance to talk to Phoebe at all?”
“Not really. I plan to see her after dinner. You must realize I’m a busy man, I had an hour set aside for her last night, but that was washed out when she ran away. Fortunately, she came back today, more or less of her own free will.”
“Did she come here of her own accord in the first place?”
“Yes. I’d seen her twice last year, and when she felt troubled again she had the good sense to come back. She seems considerably more troubled now than she was last year. But she did come back on her own, and that’s an excellent sign. It means she recognizes the need for help.”