“Don’t rush me,” he rumbled, frowning. “Why didn’t you drop this on Sylvia instead of me?”
“Sylvia’s not equipped to handle it, you know that. Twinkie’s got Sylvia wrapped around her little finger. Sylvia could catch Twink red-handed, and she still wouldn’t believe it.”
“You could be right about that . . .”
“Besides,” I added, “the ladies are pissed off at me right now. They’re buying into Charlie’s theory that I’ve got a girlfriend stashed away somewhere. I don’t see where it’s any of their business one way or the other, but they seem to think it is.”
“Women can be very possessive, Mark. Sometimes it doesn’t make too much sense, but that’s the nature of the beast.”
“Beast?”
“Poor choice of words, maybe. Let me brood about this theory of yours. It might take a while for me to get used to. There could be a remote possibility that it’s valid, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.”
I didn’t quite have the nerve to admit that I was already keeping Twink under surveillance. It was sort of silly, after all.
I left the boardinghouse at the usual time that evening, but I didn’t bother to get all gussied up. I figured I’d established my cover by now, so I didn’t have to beat it into the ground anymore. James gave me an odd look, though.
The fog was really thick that evening, and when I got to my usual stakeout spot, I couldn’t even see Mary’s house. I took a chance and eased up a little closer.
Mary left for work at the usual time, and I settled in to watch. I’d noticed that Twink was as punctual as her aunt about certain things, so if she had any plans for a hunting expedition on a given night, she’d probably hit the bricks on the stroke of eleven.
Eleven came and went, and the lights in Mary’s house didn’t go on and off in the sequence that’d preceded Twinkie’s previous outings. Evidently, she’d scratched any plans she might have had for that particular night. I think the fog might have had a lot to do with that. You’ve got to be able to see what you’re doing when you’re hunting.
I decided to hang it up at eleven-thirty. It was fairly obvious by then that Twink was going to sit tight.
I attended my seminars on Friday, and Sylvia and Twink had already left for Lake Stevens when I got back to the boardinghouse.
I spent the afternoon reading For Whom the Bell Tolls. Sometimes we tend to shrug Hemingway off. His interest in bullfights and big-game hunting puts him in the macho crowd, and that’s generally considered politically incorrect these days. But the old boy could really write up a storm when he set his mind to it.
Mary called me about four-thirty, and she seemed a little grouchy. “You just had to run your mouth, didn’t you, Mark?” she demanded.
“What’d I do now?”
“Ren’s been hanging out with a bunch of sorority girls, and I guess one of them’s developed a lech for some guy who drives a beat-up old pickup truck. She told Ren what the license plate number was, and then you pop up and tell Ren that I could find out who owned that junker.”
“Well, you can, can’t you?”
“Of course I can, but now every time one of those fluffheads wants that kind of information, she’ll sic Ren on me to get it.”
“Sorry, Mary. I didn’t think of that,” I admitted. “To be honest, I was surprised that Twink hadn’t figured it out for herself.”
“She probably would have eventually, kid,” Mary conceded. “I just needed to put the blame on somebody.”
“If it makes you feel better, what the hell.”
Then she laughed. “Don’t worry, I think the Sigma-whatever girl got the number scrambled. The name that came up when I ran it through the computer was Walter Fergusson. He’s pushing forty, and he’s some kind of construction worker. I don’t think he’d be the sort that’d make a college girl get all gaga.”
“Maybe he bought the truck from some handsome young dude.”
“No. He’s owned that pickup for at least ten years. He lives over near Green Lake, so he’s probably puttering around in this part of Seattle on his days off. I still think the girl misread the license plate, though.”
“Maybe his kid brother borrowed the truck.”
“It’s possible, I suppose.”
“Does this Fergusson guy have a police record? If he does, maybe Twink should warn her friend about it.”
“He seems clean—hell, if he was dealing dope on the side, he could afford something fancier than an ’82 Jimmy pickup. I’m sorry I jumped on you about this, kid. I’ve got the grumpies. The other dispatcher’s down with the flu, so my work schedule’s all screwed up. It looks like I won’t be getting any days off for a while.”
“Has Twink made it back from Lake Stevens yet?”
“No. She and Sylvia usually have dinner with Les and Inga on these Fridays. She’ll probably make it back before I have to go to work. I’d better whip up some supper—I’m starving.”
“Enjoy,” I told her.
“Sure, kid.”
I set the phone back in the cradle and sat staring at the floor for a while. The story Twink had foisted off on Mary could have been legitimate. Twinkie did buddy up to quite a few sorority girls, and one of them might have asked her to track down that license plate number . . . But a guy who drives a fifteen-year-old pickup truck would have to look like Mr. America to get a sorority girl’s attention. It just didn’t ring true.
By eight-thirty that evening, the fog was thick enough to walk on. I probably could have scratched the stakeout that night, but I didn’t want to take any chances. My main goal now was to prove to myself that Twinkie didn’t have anything to do with all the killings, and that meant that I’d have to camp out near Mary’s house pretty regularly. I was sure missing a lot of sleep, but I didn’t have any real choice.
Fortunately, Twink seemed to be a creature of habit. If she was going out, she’d be out that back door at eleven on the dot. If she didn’t leave by eleven-fifteen, I could go home and crash. God knows I needed the sleep.
Mary left at the usual time. I could barely make her out in that fog, though I wasn’t parked far from her front door.
I took a chance at that point. I was fairly sure that if Twink did decide to go hunting, she’d stash her bike behind that Dumpster in the alley off Sunnyside Avenue, the way she had on Wednesday night. I knew where the alley was, and I could drive there faster than she could bike it, so I got out of the car and went around to the alley behind Mary’s place. I couldn’t see diddly from the street because of the fog, so I had to get closer.
Eleven o’clock came and went, and Twink’s bike was still on Mary’s back porch, so I decided to hang it up for the night.
A thought came to me on my way back to where my car was parked. If I could pick up a pair of bolt cutters, I could slip back about three in the morning, cut that chain, and steal Twinkie’s bike. That’d keep her off the streets for a while at least.
I decided against it. If I started tinkering at this point, I’d probably blow my chances of proving that Twinkie couldn’t possibly be Joan the Ripper.
The fog hadn’t let up much on Saturday morning, and I woke up tired, dejected, and unpopular. But I was determined to make some progress, and on a hunch I looked up the name Walter Fergusson in the phone book to get an address. As it turned out, there were three of them, but one was way off at the south end of town, and another was in a fairly posh retirement home. That left the one who lived on East Green Lake Way, and it put him in the general vicinity.
The more I thought about it, the less convincing I found Twink’s story about some sorority girl’s burning interest in a guy in his late thirties who drove a beat-up fifteen-year-old pickup truck. I had some time, and this Fergusson guy lived not far from the boardinghouse, so I decided to drive on over and have a look.
As it turned out, Fergusson lived in an apartment house on the west side of Green Lake—and there was a beat-up grey ’82 Jimmy pickup parked out front. I pulled off onto a
side street and parked. I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to take this—I could make up some story and actually end up knocking on Fergusson’s door. Twinkie was interested in this guy, and that got my attention. I got out of my car and walked to the corner.
The fog had lifted a bit, and I looked out toward the lake. A park lined the lakeshore on the other side of the street, and the word “park” set off some bells for me. If Twink was the serial killer, she’d been taking out targets of opportunity up ’til now. If she was suddenly homing in on a specific guy, she must have a pretty good reason for it.
I walked on to the apartment house and went up to the front door to check the mailboxes. Fergusson’s name was on the box marked 2-A; that didn’t help all that much. The box marked MANAGER was 1-A, and the name was Sharon Walcott. That gave me an idea. I went back to my Dodge and drove around looking for a pay phone. I found one at a convenience store, leafed through the phonebook, and found a number for a Sharon Walcott at that Green Lake Drive address. I poked a couple of coins into the slot and punched in the number.
“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.
“I’m looking for a Walter Fergusson,” I told her. “There are three of them in the phone book, and I’m not sure which one is the fellow I’m supposed to contact.”
“Why didn’t you just dial his number?”
“I’ve been trying, but his line’s busy. It’s sort of important. The one I’m trying to find is a distant cousin of mine. There’s a family estate involved, and I need to get in touch with him. He’d be about thirty-five or forty, and the last we heard, he was a construction worker. If the Walter Fergusson who lives in your building is a lawyer or investment broker, I’m obviously barking up the wrong tree.”
“Walt might be the one you’re looking for,” she told me. “He is in his midthirties, and he works with drywall panels. Is there an inheritance involved in this?”
“I wouldn’t call it an inheritance,” I told her. “Our great-aunt passed away, and there are a few legal technicalities involved in freeing up her house so that her daughter can sell it. I need to get hold of Walt so I can get his signature on some papers. Is he likely to be around for the rest of the day? I’m sorry I had to pester you, but I can’t get through on his phone.”
“He almost never gets up before noon on weekends,” she replied, “and he probably mutes his telephone when he doesn’t want to be pestered. He might even have left it off the hook.”
“That would explain it.”
“I could push a note under his door if you’d like. If you give me a phone number where he can reach you, he’ll probably call you when he wakes up.”
“I don’t have a local phone number, ma’am; I’m just passing through town on business. I haven’t seen Walt since we were kids, so I doubt if I’d even recognize him. Could you describe him for me?”
“Midthirties, like you said. Sort of balding on top, a little overweight, and he wears work clothes all the time. He keeps pretty much to himself, but he does go out at night fairly often. If you’ll give me your name, I’ll tell him that you’re trying to get in touch with him.”
“Marlowe.” I picked another fictional private eye name. “Phillip Marlowe. Walt probably doesn’t even remember me. How many apartments are there in your building? I might have to come by and start knocking on doors.”
“There are only four apartments. Walt lives in the second floor front.”
“I appreciate your taking the time to fill me in,” I said. “I’ll get off the line now and quit pestering you.” I put the phone back on the hook.
A lot of things didn’t exactly fit, but if Twink was homing in on Fergusson, now I’d know where to go if she gave me the slip the next time she left Mary’s place to go hunting.
The fog came back full force that evening, and Twink stayed home again. I watched until eleven-thirty, then went back home.
Mary had to work on Sunday night, so I watched the house again, but I drew another blank. The fog seemed to be settling in permanently, and until it lifted, Twinkie wasn’t likely to suit up for another hunting trip.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A wind came up early on the morning of Monday, the ninth of February, and it cleared away the fog in fairly short order. I was happy to see it gone when I got up, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to worry. That dense, freezing fog had kept Twinkie more or less housebound. Now that it’d cleared off, she’d be able to go hunting again.
I didn’t say much at breakfast that morning. I had a lot on my mind, and I was half-afraid that if I started talking, things might start popping out that I really should keep to myself. When you get right down to it, all I had to go on were several unconfirmed suspicions. I wasn’t about to go galloping down the Burpee path. It’d be best if I kept my mouth shut until I had something concrete to work with. All right, Twinkie went out on the town at night every so often. Big deal. Lots of people go out after dark. It’s not as if there was a curfew in Seattle. What’s more, she’d gone out for bike rides after Mary’d left for work, and nobody had turned up dead the following morning. That didn’t exactly prove a negative, but we were still well within “innocent until proven guilty” territory.
I hit my seminars that morning, but I wasn’t paying very close attention. Then I holed up in the library for the afternoon, mostly to avoid my housemates. I was wound pretty tight, and I didn’t feel like answering questions. This was most definitely not spill-your-guts time.
I got home just in time for supper. I wolfed it down without even noticing what I was eating, curtly excused myself, and got the hell out of there. I could apologize later; right now I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
I went back to the library, but that was really a waste of time. I couldn’t even begin to concentrate. I gave up and went back out to where I’d parked my car.
The wind that’d cleared away the fog had died down, and the fog was starting to seep back. It wasn’t as thick as over the weekend, but it still made anything more than a block away look pretty damn fuzzy.
I drove to Wallingford and parked about a block away from Mary’s front door. If this went on too much longer, I probably would have to get my hands on an alternative vehicle.
After Mary left for work, I drove around to the alley behind her house. It was a bit chancy, but I had a hunch that Twink wouldn’t notice me if she went out hunting.
Her bedroom light came on at quarter to eleven, and then it went out. Then the kitchen light came on briefly, and Twink came out onto the back porch.
I sat tight until she reached the end of the alley, then I drove directly to Sunnyside. I parked near that alley and waited. I’ll admit that I was wound up pretty tight. After what seemed like a long, long time, Twinkie came out of the alley on foot. She was wearing that black plastic raincoat again, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she kept stashing her bike behind that Dumpster.
She walked down to the corner and got into a tan Honda that was parked there. Boy, did that explain a lot of things! Of course she stashed her bike every time she went out. She had an alternate means of transportation. That gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d been clinging to the notion that some of the Ripper murders had been way out of bicycle range. Twink had a car, though—a car that none of us knew about—and that put everything within a fifty-mile radius close enough for her to reach while Mary was at work.
The car didn’t move for quite a while, but the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe told me that the motor was running. I couldn’t quite figure that out, but then it dawned on me that she had to run the motor for a while to get warm air coming out of the defroster. It was foggy enough and cold enough to ice up her windshield.
After about five minutes, she turned on her lights and drove off. I let her get a block or so ahead of me, and then I turned on my lights and followed her. I was almost positive that I knew where she was going, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
She drove nor
th on Sunnyside, took a left at Fiftieth, and went on to the south end of Woodland Park. Then she turned right on Green Lake Way and drove straight to the neighborhood where Fergusson lived. If I was reading this correctly, Twink wasn’t out looking for targets of opportunity—not this time. She was after one specific guy, and his name was Fergusson. I didn’t know exactly why yet, but an awful lot of things were coming together. I could worry about that later, though. For right now, all I could do was stay close enough behind her that she couldn’t slip off into the fog.
She drove past Fergusson’s apartment house and parked about two blocks away. I took a quick left onto a side street, parked, and ran back to that main road. I could see that tan Honda, and it looked to me as if the motor was still running. I stepped back out of the light and watched.
The dome light in Twink’s car came on when she opened the door and got out. She wasn’t wearing that raincoat, but it looked as if she had it slung over her arm.
I’d brought my binoculars with me, and I scoped her out. I almost choked when I got her in focus. She was wearing a very short skirt and a blouse that didn’t leave much to the imagination. The term “bait” pretty much covers what she had on. She was definitely displaying the merchandise.
She crossed the street and sauntered along the sidewalk in front of Fergusson’s apartment house. She didn’t even look like the Twinkie I knew. After she’d graduated from Fallon’s bughouse, she’d seemed in many ways to be gender neutral. She’d always worn nice clothes and makeup, but there’d never been any element of sexual provocation in her behavior. I guess I’d assumed that Regina’s rape and murder had suppressed those instincts. Evidently the fugue state unleashed them, and now they were coming through loud and clear. If she’d been walking through the various parks and construction sites in the Seattle area in the way she was parading past Fergusson’s place, she wouldn’t have had much trouble getting lots of attention from exactly the kind of guys she was trying to attract. “Asking for it” comes pretty close.
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