Read Online A Purple Place for Dying by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John D. MacDonald
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minute? If he was…"
"Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it look as if they'd run away."
"Then why was she killed where you could see it happen?"
"I don't know. Maybe they didn't have any choice. Maybe they had it planned another way, and it didn't work out and they had to improvise."
"But if my brother was abducted…"
"Prove it."
"He left his kit here."
"An oversight. He picked up another drugstore in El Paso."
"But…"
"Livingston is in Esmerelda County. Sheriff Fred Buckelberry is conducting the investigation."
"He and a deputy were here last evening. At about eight o'clock. They told me about the car and the flight they took. Mostly it was to tell me to get in touch with him right away if I got any word from John. They were… lazy and ironic and sarcastic about the whole situation." She tilted her head to the side, frowning. "It does seem more logical."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't really think he would… ever actually run off with her. I thought he had too much balance for that. I was just trying to make him see that he had to stop seeing that woman. There was too much gossip about it. I couldn't imagine his arbitrarily destroying himself. But if people came here and… took him away… He hated violence. He… wasn't a strong man. He never wanted to… to hurt anyone…"
Past tense. I think she suddenly realized she was using the past tense. Her eyes filled and she made a small yowl of heartsick pain and hitched forward in the chair, and slumped against me in the helpless awkward abandon of pain and sorrow. I held her. She rolled her head back and forth against my chest, gulping and whimpering, automatically seeking that small comfort to be had from a physical closeness, even with a stranger.
But suddenly when I patted her shoulder, she tensed and jumped back away from me as if I had been a basket of snakes.
"Excuse me," she said in a narrow little voice. She seemed to make herself small in the chair. I saw then that her eyes were a very very dark blue, the darkest blue I have ever seen in eyes of man or woman. Lifeless hair, pliant white body, smell of vanilla, and sexual fear. Noble refuge for the unrealized woman-caring for the adored brother.
I realized that she had been uncommonly bitter about the Mona-brother relationship, alluding to the sexual basis of it the way she might discuss a suppurating wound. No wonder she had thought these were two fine years. Her twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth? A good place to wait away the nubile years, hasten the drying of juices, all in the honorable name of dedication. A Mona Yeoman would be repulsive to her, inevitably. Mona walked with too much awareness of her body and its uses.
"You met Mona?" I asked.
"He thought we should get along. That was one of his worst ideas. She patronized me, as if I were some backward child. I just… I just can't imagine her dead. She was so… blatantly alive, Mr. McGee."
"Travis. Or Trav."
"I am not very good at first names. It takes me a long time."
"It's a gimmick I don't particularly care for. I thought it might make you feel more at ease with me, Isobel."
"I'm almost never at ease with people. I… I guess it was the way we were brought up."
"How was that?"
"Both my parents were artists. My father was successful and my mother had an inherited income. We lived miles from anyone. The school lessons came by mail. They took turns teaching us. Canada in the summer. A little island in the Bahamas in the winter. John was the one who was always ill. We all fretted about him. I was always so healthy. You learn to… invent games you can play by yourself. They died three years ago. Just two months apart. They were very close. We always felt like outsiders, John and I. And that made us close. And now… What am I going to do! What in God's name am I going to do!"
She got out of the chair and edged past me and walked to the table. She picked a book up and dropped it and turned, leaning against the table.
"Why would
"Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it look as if they'd run away."
"Then why was she killed where you could see it happen?"
"I don't know. Maybe they didn't have any choice. Maybe they had it planned another way, and it didn't work out and they had to improvise."
"But if my brother was abducted…"
"Prove it."
"He left his kit here."
"An oversight. He picked up another drugstore in El Paso."
"But…"
"Livingston is in Esmerelda County. Sheriff Fred Buckelberry is conducting the investigation."
"He and a deputy were here last evening. At about eight o'clock. They told me about the car and the flight they took. Mostly it was to tell me to get in touch with him right away if I got any word from John. They were… lazy and ironic and sarcastic about the whole situation." She tilted her head to the side, frowning. "It does seem more logical."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't really think he would… ever actually run off with her. I thought he had too much balance for that. I was just trying to make him see that he had to stop seeing that woman. There was too much gossip about it. I couldn't imagine his arbitrarily destroying himself. But if people came here and… took him away… He hated violence. He… wasn't a strong man. He never wanted to… to hurt anyone…"
Past tense. I think she suddenly realized she was using the past tense. Her eyes filled and she made a small yowl of heartsick pain and hitched forward in the chair, and slumped against me in the helpless awkward abandon of pain and sorrow. I held her. She rolled her head back and forth against my chest, gulping and whimpering, automatically seeking that small comfort to be had from a physical closeness, even with a stranger.
But suddenly when I patted her shoulder, she tensed and jumped back away from me as if I had been a basket of snakes.
"Excuse me," she said in a narrow little voice. She seemed to make herself small in the chair. I saw then that her eyes were a very very dark blue, the darkest blue I have ever seen in eyes of man or woman. Lifeless hair, pliant white body, smell of vanilla, and sexual fear. Noble refuge for the unrealized woman-caring for the adored brother.
I realized that she had been uncommonly bitter about the Mona-brother relationship, alluding to the sexual basis of it the way she might discuss a suppurating wound. No wonder she had thought these were two fine years. Her twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth? A good place to wait away the nubile years, hasten the drying of juices, all in the honorable name of dedication. A Mona Yeoman would be repulsive to her, inevitably. Mona walked with too much awareness of her body and its uses.
"You met Mona?" I asked.
"He thought we should get along. That was one of his worst ideas. She patronized me, as if I were some backward child. I just… I just can't imagine her dead. She was so… blatantly alive, Mr. McGee."
"Travis. Or Trav."
"I am not very good at first names. It takes me a long time."
"It's a gimmick I don't particularly care for. I thought it might make you feel more at ease with me, Isobel."
"I'm almost never at ease with people. I… I guess it was the way we were brought up."
"How was that?"
"Both my parents were artists. My father was successful and my mother had an inherited income. We lived miles from anyone. The school lessons came by mail. They took turns teaching us. Canada in the summer. A little island in the Bahamas in the winter. John was the one who was always ill. We all fretted about him. I was always so healthy. You learn to… invent games you can play by yourself. They died three years ago. Just two months apart. They were very close. We always felt like outsiders, John and I. And that made us close. And now… What am I going to do! What in God's name am I going to do!"
She got out of the chair and edged past me and walked to the table. She picked a book up and dropped it and turned, leaning against the table.
"Why would
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