Scenarios - A Collection of Nameless Detective Stories

by Bill Pronzini

When I slowed and eased the car off the road behind a parked Land Rover, Kerry asked, "Who lives here?"

  "Man named Hugh Penrose," I said. "He's a writer, so I was told."

  "What does he write?"

  "Articles and books on natural history. He used to be a professor at Chico State. Treacle says he's an eccentric, to put it mildly."

  "He sounds interesting," she said. "How about letting me come with you this time? You don't seem to be doing too well one-on-one."

  "I don't think that's a good idea—"

  "Phooey," she said, and got out and headed for the cabin.

  I caught up with her and we climbed a set of curving limb and-plank stairs to a platform deck. From inside, I could hear the sound of a typewriter rattling away. I knocked on the door. The typewriter kept on going for half a minute; then it stopped, and there were footsteps, and pretty soon the door opened.

  The guy who looked out at us was one of the ugliest men I had ever seen. He was about five and a half feet tall, he was fat, he had a bulbous nose and misshapen ears and cheeks pitted with acne scars, and he was as bald as an egg. His eyes were small and mean, but there was more pain in them than anything else. He was a man who had lived more than fifty years, I thought, and who had suffered through every one of them.

  He looked at Kerry, looked away from her as if embarrassed, and fixed his gaze on me. "Yes? What is it?"

  "Mr. Penrose?"

  "Yes?"

  Before I could open my mouth again, Kerry said cheerfully, "We're the Wades, Bill and Kerry. From San Francisco. We're thinking of moving up here—you know, homesteading. I hope you don't mind us calling on you like this."

  "How did you know my name?" Penrose asked. He was still looking at me.

  "The fellow at the store in town gave it to us," Kerry said. "He told us you were a homesteader and we thought we'd come by and look at your place and see how you liked living here."

  I could have kicked her. It was one of those flimsy, spontaneous stories that sound as phony as they are; there were a half dozen ways Penrose could have caught her out on the lie.

  But she got away with it, by God, at least for the time being. All Penrose said was, "Which fellow at the store?" and he said it without suspicion.

  "Mr. Coleclaw."

  "Which Mr. Coleclaw?"

  "I didn't know there was more than one. He was in his twenties, I guess, and the only one there." Kerry glanced at me. "Did he give you his first name, dear?"

  "Gary," I said. "Dear."

  "What else did he tell you?" Penrose asked. "Did he say anything about the Munroe Corporation?"

  Kerry simulated a blank look that would have got her thrown out of any acting school in the country. But again,

  Penrose didn't notice; he still wasn't looking at her, except in brief sidelong eye-flicks whenever she spoke. "No," she said, "he didn't. What's the Munroe Corporation?"

  "Poor young fool," Penrose said. "Poor lost lad."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "He has rocks in his head," Penrose said, and burst out laughing. The laugh went on for maybe three seconds, like the barking of a sea lion, exposing yellowed and badly fitting dentures; then it cut off as if somebody had smacked a hand over his mouth. He looked embarrassed again.

  Another fruitcake, I thought. Cooperville was full of them. But Penrose, at least, had my sympathy; the strain of coping with physical deformities like his was enough to unhinge anybody.

  "That was a dreadful pun," he said. "Gary can't help it if he's retarded; I don't know what makes me so cruel sometimes. I apologize. No one should make fun of others."

  I said, "You mentioned the Munroe Corporation, Mr. Penrose. Is that something we should know about?"

  "Yes, definitely. If they have their way, you won't want to move here." He paused. "But I'm forgetting my manners. I haven't many visitors, you see. Would you like to come in?"

  "Yes, thanks," Kerry said. "That would be nice."

  So Penrose stepped aside and we went in. The interior of the cabin was a spacious single room, furnished sparsely with mismatched secondhand items. Against the back wall was a big table with a typewriter, a bunch of papers, and an unlit candle on it. The candle caught and held my attention. It was fat, it was stuck inside a wooden bowl, and it was purple—the same color purple as the wax I'd found at the burned-out buildings in town.

  I went over to the table for a closer look. When Kerry finished declining Penrose's offer of a cup of coffee I said to him, "That's a nice candle you've got there, Mr. Penrose."

  "Candle?" he said blankly.

  "I wouldn't mind having one like it." I gave Kerry a look. "We collect candles, don't we, dear?"

  "Yes, that's right. We do."

  I asked Penrose where he'd bought it.

  "From a widow lady who lives in town. Ella Bloom. She makes them; it's her hobby."

  "Does she just make purple ones?"

  "Yes. Purple is her favorite color."

  "Does she also sell them to other residents?"

  "I don't know. Why don't you ask her? Gary Coleclaw will tell you which house is hers."

  "We'll do that," I said. But I was thinking that with that shotgun of hers and her hostile attitude, it would have to be somebody else in Cooperville that I asked. If she sold her purple candles to others, the arsonist could be anybody who lived here. But if it was only herself and Penrose who used them...

  I steered Penrose back to the topic of the Munroe Corporation, and this time he managed to stay on it without getting sidetracked. He launched into a two-minute diatribe against the developers and what he called "the warped values of modern society." He didn't seem quite as militant as Thatcher and Mrs. Bloom, but then he didn't know I was a detective.

  I said, "Isn't there anything that can be done to stop them, Mr. Penrose?"

  "Well, we've hired attorneys, you know—those of us who live here—and they've filed suit to block the sale of the land. But there isn't much hope a judge will rule in our favor once the suit comes to trial."

  "Have you tried appealing to the corporation? To get them to modify their development plans?"

  "Oh yes. They wouldn't listen to us. Awful people. The head of Munroe was an insensitive swine."

  "He died last week," Penrose said, with a hint of relish in his voice. "In a tragic accident."

  "What sort of accident?"

  "He went to blazes," Penrose said, and did his barking sea-lion number again. This time he did not look quite so embarrassed when the noise stopped. "One shouldn't speak lightly of the dead, should one?" he said.

  "You mean he died in a fire?"

  "Yes. In Redding."

  "That's a coincidence, isn't it."

  "Coincidence?"

  "You had a fire here recently," I said. "We noticed the burned-out buildings in town."

  "Oh, that. It was only four of the ghosts."

  "An accident too?"

  He didn't answer the question. Instead he said, "I told the others they should have let the fire spread, let it purge the rest of the ghosts as well, but they wouldn't listen. A pity."

  Kerry said, "You wanted the whole town to burn up?"

  "No. Just the ghosts."

  "But why?"

  "Ashes to ashes," he said. "They are long dead; they would be better off cremated."

  "Why do you say that?" I asked. "Cooperville was once a Gold Rush camp; shouldn't they be preserved for historical reasons?"

  "Definitely not. The past is dead; it should be allowed to rest in peace. Resurrection breeds tourists." He smiled, rubbed his bulbous nose, and repeated the phrase as if he liked the sound of it: "Resurrection breeds tourists."

  "Does everybody in Cooperville feel the same way?"

  "Yes. Leave the ghosts alone, they say. Leave us alone. Let us live and let us die, all in good time."

  "So that's why nobody here ever tried to restore any of the buildings," Kerry said.

  "Just so," Penrose agreed. "Natural history is relevant; the history of m
an is often irrelevant. You see?"

  I said, "How do you suppose the fire got started? The one here in Cooperville, I mean."

  "Does it matter, Mr. Wade?"

  "I'm just curious."

  "It was a burning curiosity that laid the ghosts," he said, and cut loose with his laugh again. Listening to it, and to him, was making me a little uncomfortable. I get just as edgy around unarmed oddballs as I do around those with weapons.

  "Is it possible somebody set the fire deliberately?" I asked him. "Somebody who feels as you do about cremating the ghosts?"

  It was the wrong thing to say. Penrose's mean little eyes narrowed, and when he spoke again his voice had lost its friendliness. "I think you'd better leave now. I have a great deal of work to do."

  Kerry said, "Couldn't we talk a while longer, Mr. Penrose? I really would like to know more about—"

  "No," he said. "No. Come back and visit me again if you decide to move here. But I don't think you should; it's probably too late. Goodbye, now."

  There was nothing for us to do but to leave. We went out onto the platform deck, and Kerry thanked him for his hospitality, and he said, "Not at all," and banged the door shut behind us.

  On the way down the stairs she said to me, "Why do you always have to be so blunt?"

  "He was getting on my nerves."

  "We could have found out more if you'd been a little more tactful."

  "We? Bill and Kerry Wade, from San Francisco. Christ!"

  "It got him to talk to us, didn't it?"

  "All right, so it got him to talk to us."

  "Which is more than you accomplished with your direct approach to Mrs. Bloom," she said. "You probably blurted out that you were a detective to Gary Coleclaw and that artist, Thatcher, too. No wonder they wouldn't tell you anything."

  "Listen, don't tell me how to do my job."

  "I'm not. I'm only suggesting—"

  "Don't suggest. I didn't bring you along to do any suggesting."

  "No, I know why you brought me along. Women are only good for one thing, right?"

  "Oh, for God's sake—"

  "You can be a macho jerk sometimes, you know that? You think you know everything. Well, why don't you go screw yourself? You've been doing it all day."

  She slid into the car and sat there with her arms folded, staring straight ahead. I wanted to say something else to her, but I didn't seem to have any words. The thing was, she was right. I had handled things badly with Penrose, and with Gary Coleclaw and Thatcher and Mrs. Bloom. And with Kerry, too. It was just one of those days when I couldn't seem to get the proper handle on how to deal with anybody. But it galled me to have to admit it. Kerry wasn't the detective here, damn it; I was.

  A half-mile farther along there was another homesteader's cabin, this one owned by a family named Butterfield, but I was in no frame of mind for another interview. I drove back into town. When we came to the Coleclaw place I looked it over for some indication that Jack Coleclaw and his wife had returned from Weaverville. There wasn't any—no automobiles, no people, not even any sign of the fat yapping brown and-white dog. So there was no point in stopping there either; I kept on going up the road and out of town.

  Kerry didn't say one word to me all the way back to Weaverville.

  5.

  Thirty seconds after I pulled into the lot of the Pinecrest Motel, Raymond Treacle showed up.

  I had forgotten all about him. He lived in Redding, and I had talked to him on the phone last night and arranged to meet him here at five o'clock. It was now two minutes past five. My first thought when I saw him drive in was that it was a good thing I had decided not to stop anywhere else in Cooperville. Failing to show up for a meeting with a man who was willing to pay you five thousand dollars was very poor business. I could not seem to do anything right today, except by accident. Maybe I needed a vacation more than I thought I did.

  Kerry and I were already out of the car, and she had finally spoken to me, saying that she was going to go in and take a shower, when Treacle appeared. He was driving a brand new Lincoln Continental, and in spite of the heat—it was a good ten degrees hotter in Weaverville than it had been higher up in the mountains—he was wearing a three-piece suit. But he was one of these people who manage to look cool and comfortable no matter what the temperature might be.

  He was a handsome guy in his forties, lean and fit, with close-cropped black hair and a fashionable mustache. Throughout our first meeting in San Francisco, which had lasted about an hour, I had kept trying to dislike him. He was glib, he was materialistic and status-oriented, he didn't seem to care much about the feelings of others—he was everything I wasn't and considered distasteful about the modern businessman. And yet he was also so damned earnest, and tried so hard to be friendly, that I couldn't seem to work up much of an antipathy toward him.

  He came over and shook my hand in his earnest way. When I introduced him to Kerry he took her hand, too, and smiled at her approvingly. She seemed to like that; the smile she gave him in return was warmer than any she'd let me have in the past couple of days.

  Treacle said to me, "How did it go in Cooperville today?"

  "I didn't find out much from the people I talked to," I told him, "but I did find evidence that the fire there was deliberately set."

  "Oh?"

  "Whoever did it used a candle," I said. I went back and opened up the trunk and showed him the cup-shaped piece of stone with the wax residue inside. "I found this among the debris."

  He used one of the rags in the trunk to pick it up, and peered at it. "Travertine," he said.

  "Pardon?"

  "That's the kind of mineral this is. Travertine—layered calcium carbonate. Geology is one of my interests."

  "An unusual stone?"

  "No, not for this part of the country." He rubbed at it with the rag, ridding it of some of the black from the fire. "It's fossilized," he said, and showed me the imprints in the stone.

  "Bryophytes."

  "What are bryophytes?"

  "Nonflowering plants. Mosses and liverworts."

  "Is that kind of fossil uncommon?"

  "Not really. They turn up fairly often around here."

  Treacle picked at the wax residue with his fingernail. "This is purple, isn't it?"

  I nodded. "One of the women in Cooperville makes purple candles as a hobby. Ella Bloom."

  "That one," Treacle said wryly. "She's crazy. Did you talk to her?"

  "I tried to. She threatened me with a shotgun."

  "I'm not surprised. Do you think she...?"

  "Maybe. I don't know yet."

  I closed the trunk. Kerry was fanning herself with one hand; even as late in the day as it was, the heat out there in the parking lot was intense. Treacle noticed her discomfort and waved a hand toward the motel's restaurant-and-bar. "Why don't we go in where it's cool and have a drink?"

  "I could use one," Kerry said.

  I said, "I thought you were going to go take a shower?"

  "I'd rather have a drink. Do you mind?"

  I sighed. I seemed to be doing a lot of sighing today. And the three of us went off together to the bar.

  Inside, the air-conditioner was going full-blast and it was nice and cool. We sat in a booth, away from the half-dozen other patrons, and ordered drinks—beer for Kerry and me, a Tom Collins for Treacle. While we were waiting for them I filled him in on how my interviews, or attempted interviews, had gone in Cooperville.

  "Didn't I tell you they were a bunch of loonies?" he said. "Yeah."

  Kerry said, "They're not such loonies. They only want to be left alone. And they're frustrated." I gave her a warning look, but she ignored it. "Mr. Treacle, may I ask you a frank question?"

  "Go right ahead."

  "Don't you or your partners give a damn what happens to those poor people?"

  I felt like kicking her under the table. You didn't talk that way to clients, especially not to clients who were willing to part with a nice fat chunk of money for services
rendered. At least, I didn't talk to clients that way; if I had I would have ended up unemployed. But she got away with it, just as she'd gotten away with fast-talking Hugh Penrose earlier.

  "Of course we care, Ms. Wade," Treacle said. He didn't sound ruffled or defensive, he didn't even sound surprised. Maybe it was a question he'd heard a number of times before. "None of us has a heart of stone, you know."

  "Then how can you just waltz into Cooperville and take their land away from them?"

  "We're not trying to take their land away from them," Treacle said patiently. He paused while the waitress set our drinks on the table and then moved off again. "They are perfectly welcome to continue living in Cooperville after we've restored it."

  "You mean turned it into some kind of tourist-trap Disneyland."

  "That's not true. Our plans call for careful, authentic restoration. The Munroe Corporation is a reputable development company, Ms. Wade; we're interested in improvement and preservation of historical landmarks…"

  I quit listening. Things were going on inside my head, things that had to do with rocks and stones. I picked up my beer and nibbled at it. When I put the bottle down again I had nibbled it dry. And I had an idea. A couple of ideas, maybe.

  Kerry was still picking away at Treacle, but there wasn't much heat in her voice; she was being controlled. So was Treacle.

  I cleared my throat, loudly, to get their attention. They both looked at me, and I said, "If you don't mind, Mr. Treacle, I'd like to cut this short. There are some things I have to do."

  "Oh?" he said.

  Kerry said, sounding annoyed, "What do you have to do?"

  "Drive back to Cooperville."

  "Now? What for?"

  "There's something I want to check on."

  "I don't feel like going all the way back there."

  "That's good, because I'm going alone."

  "Are you serious?"

  "I'm serious," I said, and to prove it I got out of the booth. "I'll be back in a couple of hours—three at the outside. Then we can have dinner."

  "I don't think so," she said, miffed again. She leaned across the table. "Mr. Treacle, do you have any plans for the next few hours?"

  "Why no, I don't."

  "Fine. How would you like to have dinner with me?"