Find a Victim by Ross MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

sour apples. Hell, she was scared of him. She came around here one night last year, she wanted—” He paused, and looked at me warily.
    “Wanted what?”
    “Something to protect herself with. The guy was bothering her, making a nuisance out of himself, and it was getting her down. I told her I’d fire him and run him out of town, only she couldn’t see that. She’s a pretty soft-hearted kid in her way. So I gave her what she asked for.”
    “A gun?”
    “Yeah, an old .38 revolver that I had.” He caught and answered my silent question: “Anne didn’t shoot him with it, if that’s what you’re thinking. All she wanted was something to protect herself from him. It just goes to show that Tony was a big nothing to her.”
    “Is Kerrigan?”
    “I wouldn’t know about that.” But his eyes clouded with embarrassment.
    “Have they been living together?”
    “I guess so.” The words came hard, forced from the bitter mouth. “I heard last year that he was paying the rent on her apartment.”
    “Who are you talking about?” Hilda said from the doorway.
    He looked at her sideways, swinging his head like a bull. “Kerrigan. Annie and Kerrigan.”
    “It’s a lie.” She came toward us, pale and stiff with emotion. “You should be ashamed of yourself, passing on that rotten lie. The people in this town will say anything about each other. Anything.”
    “I was ashamed all right. Not for myself. What could I do about it? There was no way I could stop her.”
    “There was nothing to stop,” she said to me. “It was all a lot of gossip. Anne wouldn’t have anything to do with a married man.”
    “That’s not the way I heard it,” the old man said.
    “Hold your dirty tongue.” She turned on him like a hissing cat. “Anne is a good girl, in spite of everything that you could do. I know you tried to corrupt her—”
    He took a step toward her, the back of his neck creased and reddening.
“You
hold your tongue, hear.”
    An electric arc of hatred flared between them. He hunched his shoulders threateningly. Hilda raised one arm to defend her face, which was radiant with fear. She was holding a rectangle of shiny paper in her upflung hand.
    Meyer snatched it from her. “Where did you get this?”
    “It was stuck in your bureau mirror.”
    “You stay out of my room.”
    “With pleasure. It smells like a bear-cage.”
    He shrugged her off and looked down at the snapshot,shielding it like a match-flame with his hands. I asked him to let me see it. He passed it to me unwillingly, handling it like money.
    The girl in the snapshot was sitting against a white boulder on a sun-drenched beach, holding her legs as if she loved their shape. Her curly dark hair was windblown, and she was laughing. She bore some resemblance to her sister, though she was prettier. She bore no resemblance at all to the girl I had seen with Kerrigan.
    “What color is her hair, Mrs. Church?”
    “Brown, reddish brown, a little lighter than mine.”
    “And how old is she?”
    “Let me see. Anne’s seven years younger than I am. Twenty-five.”
    “Is this a recent picture?”
    “Fairly recent. Brandon took it last summer at Pismo Beach.” She looked at her father with cold curiosity. “I didn’t know you had a print of it.”
    “There’s a lot of things you don’t know.”
    “I wonder.”
    Her ice-green eyes stared him down. He crossed the room to the desk in the corner and started to fill a pipe from a half-pound tin. Somewhere outside, a car engine purred.
    Hilda lifted her head and went to the window. “That must be Brandon now.” Headlights slid along the street and vanished. “No, it wasn’t Brandon. Didn’t you say he was going to call for me?” she asked her father.
    “If he could make it. He’s pretty busy tonight.”
    “I think I’ll take a taxi. It’s getting late.”
    “It’s a two-dollar fare,” he said dubiously. “I’d drive you myself, only I can’t leave the telephone. Why don’t you take the