Ross Macdonald - The Way Some People Die

The Dark Tunnel
Trouble Follows Me
Blue City
The Three Roads
The Moving Target
The Drowning Pool
The Ivory Grin
Meet Me at the Morgue
Find a Victim
The Name Is Archer
The Barbarous Coast
The Doomsters
The Galton Case
The Ferguson Affair
The Wycherly Woman
The Zebra-Striped Hearse
The Chill
Black Money
The Far Side of the Dollar
The Goodbye Look
The Underground Man
Sleeping Beauty
The Blue Hammer

FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, JULY 2007

Copyright 1951 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
copyright renewed 1979 by Ross Macdonald

All rights reserved. Published in the United States
by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada
Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover
in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
New York, in 1951.

Vintage is a registered trademark and
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon
are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition
as follows:
Macdonald, Ross.
The way some people die [by] John Ross Macdonald [pseud]
New York, Knopf, 1951.
p. cm.
P23. M59943
51011053

eISBN: 978-0-307-77286-2

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

To Roddy and Zella

CHAPTER : The house was in Santa Monica on a cross street between the boulevards, within earshot of the coast highway and rifleshot of the sea. The street was the kind that people had once been proud to live on, but in the last few years it had lost its claim to pride. The houses had too many stories, too few windows, not enough paint. Their history was easy to guess: they were one-family residences broken up into apartments and light-housekeeping rooms, or converted into tourist homes. Even the palms that lined the street looked as if they had seen their best days and were starting to lose their hair.

I parked in front of the number I had been given and leaned sideways in the seat to have a look at the house. The numerals, 1348, were made of rusted metal and tacked diagonally across one of the round porch pillars. A showcard above, printed black on white, offered ROOMS FOR TOURISTS . There were several rattan chairs and a faded green glider on the porch, which covered the width of the house. A second-story porch, with more rattan, was surrounded by a wooden railing that looked unsafe. The third story had Gothic-looking towers at each corner, fake battlements that time had taken and made ridiculous. The roller blinds were low over the windows on all three levels, so they stared at me sleepy-eyed.

The house didnt look as if it had money in it, or ever would have again. I went in anyway, because Id liked the womans voice on the telephone.

She came to the door in a hurry when I knocked. A tall woman in her fifties with worried vague dark eyes in a worried long face, a black crepe dress over a thick corseted body. A detective was an occasion in her life. Her iron-gray hair was set in a sharp new wave that smelt of the curling-iron, her nose and cheeks and chin were stark with powder. The light fell through the purple glass in the fanlight over the door and made her complexion livid.

The womans voice was her best feature, gentle and carefully modulated, in a low register: Im Mrs. Samuel Lawrence. Youre Mr. Archer, of course? You got here in no time at all.

The traffics not so bad between nine and ten.

Come in, Mr. Archer. Let me make you a cup of tea. Im just having a midmorning snack myself. Since Ive been doing all my own work, I find I need a bite between meals to sustain me.

I stepped inside, and the screen door swung to languidly behind me. The hall was still and cool and smelt of wax. The floor was old parquetry, and its polished patterns glowed like jewels. A carpeted stairway climbed to the high dim ceiling. An ancient oak hatstand with polished brass hangers stood at the foot of the stairs. The contrast with the traffic Id been fighting gave me a queer feeling, as if Id stepped backward in time, or out of it entirely.

She led me to an open door at the rear. This is my own little sitting-room, if you please. I reserve the front parlor for guests, though I must say they havent been using it lately. Of course its the off-season, I only have the three just now, my regular, and a lovely young couple from Oregon, honeymooners! If only Galley had married a man like thatbut sit down, Mr. Archer.

She pulled out a chair from the heavy refectory table in the middle of the room. It was a small room, and it was as crowded with coffee- and end-tables, chairs and hassocks and bookcases, as a second-hand furniture store. The horizontal surfaces were littered with gewgaws, shells and framed photographs, vases and pincushions and doilies. If the lady had come down in the world, shed brought a lot down with her. My sensation of stepping into the past was getting too strong for comfort. The half-armed chair closed on me like a hand.

I took the present by the tail and dragged it into the room: Galley, I said. Is she the daughter you mentioned?

The question struck her like an accusation, disorganizing her charm. She didnt like the look of the present at all. She faced it when she had to, with a face clouded by bewilderment and shame. Yes. My daughter Galatea. Its why I phoned you, as I said. Her gaze wandered, and lighted on the teapot that stood on the table. You must let me pour you some tea before we get down to business. Its freshly made.

Her hand on the teapot was cracked and grained by dirty work, but she poured with an air. I said I took mine straight. The tea tasted like a clear dark dripping from the past. My grandmother came back with it, in crisp black funeral silks, and I looked out of the window to dispel her. I could see the Santa Monica pier from where I sat, and beyond it the sea and the sky like the two curved halves of a blue Easter egg.

Nice view you have from here.

She smiled over her teacup. Yes. I bought it for the view. I shouldnt really say Ive bought it. Its mortgaged, after all.

I finished my tea and set the thin white cup in the thin white saucer. Well, Mrs. Lawrence, lets have it. What happened to your daughter?

I dont know, she said. Thats what upsets me so. She simply disappeared a couple of months ago

From here?

No, not from here. Galley hasnt lived at home in recent years, though she always came to visit me at least once a month. She was working in Pacific Point, a special-duty nurse in the hospital there. I always hoped for something better for Galleymy husband Dr. Lawrence was a medical man, and a very well respected one, toobut she wanted to be a nurse and she seemed to be very happy in the work