Beyond Blame

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

  Compared to his usual disposition, Kinn’s enjoyment knew no bounds. “You say you think the Maniac did it, right? Well, just before your call came in we got word the Maniac’s as dead as yesterday’s cigar.”

  I suppressed a curse. “Where?”

  “His sister’s place. At least twenty minutes from here. I’m on my way to check it out. Want to come?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just let me go see Usser for a minute. Don’t want to give him any less law enforcement than the average citizen, just because he’s a fucking wife-killer. Plus I better take the girl in case Gable still wants her.”

  “I still think that part of it’s wrong, Kinn.”

  “Yeah, well, you thought it was the Maniac down in those bushes, didn’t you? Hell, you probably think Mondale’s gonna win the election.”

  Kinn chuckled heavily, then walked over to my car. I trailed behind, trying to sort it out. I wasn’t even close to anything that worked when I got to where Kinn and Usser were standing.

  They were arguing heatedly. “The girl took off,” Kinn said to me. “He let her get away.”

  “I didn’t let her get away,” Usser protested. “I just wasn’t prepared to use force to restrain her. She’s angry enough at me as it is.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Usser fidgeted, glanced across the street and back at Kinn, then looked at me. “I think that should remain our secret.”

  Kinn was about to say something castigating when I spoke. “I think you’re making a mistake, Usser. Your secret may get someone else killed. Kinn says the person who shot at us wasn’t the Maniac after all.”

  “How does he know?”

  “The Maniac’s dead.”

  Usser’s eyes widened. “Nifton? You mean Ronald Nifton?”

  “The same. That’s three deaths,” I said. “You’d better take a long, hard look at the little game you’re playing. You’d better think about telling someone what you know.”

  It was the same lecture I’d given his daughter only minutes before, but his response was slightly different. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “I don’t know anything at all.” The fact seemed to both puzzle and frighten him. He leaned against my car and wiped his eyes.

  Kinn put his finger on Usser’s chest. “I’ll be back later to talk to you about the shooting. Stay out here till the officers take your statement, then stay home till I get back. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you want your lawyer, you better go call him.”

  “Okay.”

  “You see your daughter around you give me a call. Gable’s got a bench warrant out for her.”

  This time Usser didn’t say anything. Kinn inspected him for a moment, then turned away as though Usser were unworthy of his time. “You coming, Tanner?”

  I told him I was.

  Kinn looked at my car. “Can you see anything through that windshield?”

  “I think so.”

  “It might cave in on you.”

  “I’ll go slow,” I said. “Where is it?”

  “Chestnut Street. That’s north of University, just west of Sacramento.” He gave me the number.

  “That’s Laura’s house,” Usser blurted when he heard it. “Why are you going there?”

  “That’s where the body is,” Kinn said, and strolled off toward his car.

  “Did she kill him?” Usser asked, but Kinn was too far off to hear. Usser sank slowly to the curb and lowered his head to his hands, as though he despaired that everyone in his world had become an executioner.

  I started to open my car door, then turned away and trotted over to the far cantina and rang the doorbell. When the little old lady answered, I thanked her for calling the police.

  “I know my duty, young man. And I do it.”

  “You might have saved a life.”

  “It’s nice of you to say that, even if it’s untrue.”

  “It’s truer than you think,” I said. “Your neighbor, Mrs. Misteen, got some bad news tonight. Her daughter has been found dead.”

  “How awful.”

  “She might like some company.”

  “Of course. I’ll go right over. Is there anyone else I should call?”

  I thought about it, then shook my head, then thought suddenly of Needles. “I think everyone she knows is dead.”

  I started down the steps. “I doubt that you’re a librarian, young man,” she called after me. “I doubt that very much indeed.”

  My battered Buick took me out of Hillside Lane, and I got to Laura Nifton’s house without being lacerated by my windshield.

  The door to the green bungalow was open. Laura Nifton stood in the center of the living room, her housecoat pulled tight around her body, looking disconsolate and befuddled, frowning, trying to answer Bart Kinn’s questions. Her brother lay on the couch behind her, his blood blotting out the bright print flowers that had enlivened the upholstered cushions, his head buried beneath a brocade pillow. A man in a safari coat was leaning over Nifton’s body, measuring things.

  “He was exhausted,” Laura Nifton said in her feathery voice. “He told me he hadn’t slept for three days. He got like that, sometimes, his brain kept feeding things to him, forcing him to think, to remember, to scheme and plan. He heard voices a lot. He would bang his head on the wall to get them to stop taunting him. Once he hit himself with a shoe. Again and again. He only stopped when I started screaming. I always wished there was a switch on him, so I could turn him off.”

  A single tear slipped down her cheek. She glanced my way but didn’t seem to know me. I started to say something, but she wasn’t finished. “When it got real bad, he’d come here and let me calm him down. Sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn’t. When I could, he’d sleep for hours. Days. When I couldn’t, he’d hit me, or destroy things, and rant and rave about ‘death before life.’” She stopped and sniffed. “This time I got through to him. He was asleep when it happened.”

  “Tell me about it,” Kinn said.

  Laura Nifton nodded, her tone still an emotionless dirge. “This man rang the bell. I answered it. He asked if Ronald was here. I said he was, but he was sleeping. I guess he could see Ronald behind me. He pushed past me and went over to the couch. He reached down and shook Ronald till he woke up. I kept asking him what he thought he was doing, but he ignored me. At first I thought he was from the police, but he seemed awfully short for a policeman. Then I recognized who it was.”

  “Grunig,” I said.

  She nodded. “He started talking to Ronald, berating him, really, with that voice. He had such a powerful voice for a small man. It was like a dentist’s drill or something; Ronald seemed to feel every word. The professor just kept at him, telling him he was an animal, a wild beast who was a threat to everything good in the world, telling Ronald he had ruined a dozen lives, telling him he was going to be locked away for good this time, for what he was doing to someone named Lisa, that Grunig was going to petition to commit Ronald to Napa, that no one would help get him out, that even Professor Usser wouldn’t help him anymore. Then he started talking about the state hospital, and what would happen to Ronald when he was sent back there. The … perversions. I could see Ronald remembering. He was almost raped up there the last time. I could see from Ronald’s face that he remembered it vividly. I could see he was terrified. Everyone was afraid of Ronald, but really it was Ronald who was afraid. The little man went on and on, until Ronald turned away, reached back, and pulled out a gun and shoved it into his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

  Kinn looked at me. I spoke into the silent reverberations of a violent death. “Grunig’s a professor at the law school. He used to be Usser’s best friend. Grunig’s son was the boyfriend of the girl the Maniac killed a couple of years ago. The boy committed suicide himself about a year afterward, because he hadn’t been able to stop Nifton from knifing his girlfriend. Grunig was there when I was telling another pro
fessor about Nifton and Usser’s daughter, how she had started following him around, taking drugs and all that. Grunig used to be close to the Ussers. I guess he decided to put a stop to Nifton’s charm, once and for all.”

  “You think Grunig’s the same guy who killed Dianne Renzel? Or the Misteen girl?” Kinn asked.

  “No chance at all,” I said, and turned away.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” I said. “I’ve had enough of Berkeley for one day.” I looked back at Kinn. “Are you going to charge him?”

  “Grunig?”

  I nodded.

  “What with?”

  I shrugged. “Psychological homicide? Scaring Nifton to death?”

  “Shit,” Bart Kinn said. “This may be Berkeley but this ain’t Halloween.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The case would have to come to me; I could no longer go to it. That was both my consolation and my concern as I puttered through the evening, straightening my cobwebbed apartment while I tried to straighten my cobwebbed mind.

  I had thought I had the answer, and that the answer was Ronald Nifton—that he had killed both Dianne Renzel and Sherry Misteen, for reasons rational only to him. Now Nifton himself was dead, and someone else had shot at me or at the Ussers. Which meant my suspect might well have been what a jury had once declared him to be—innocent of all but madness.

  The case stretched before me like a trackless plain. If I was going to stay on it I would have to start from scratch, retrace my steps, resift everything I’d learned. I didn’t want to do it, but if the Renzels insisted I probably would. It was still unimaginable to say no to them. I finished off my novel and went to bed early, after a nightcap of Courvoisier and Nachtmusik.

  I thought sleep would be a problem, but the day had worn me down. As a result, the phone labored long and hard to awaken me at 4:04. As I struggled to find my ear with the receiver, I still thought I was dreaming, that if I just waited for a minute more the dream would end and I could slip back into the snug and bristly black of sleep.

  “Mr. Tanner? Are you there? Hello …? I think I got a wrong number. Let me see the card again.”

  The final words were faint, said to someone else. The silence let me gather my wits and wonder why she was calling at that hour. “Hello,” I managed finally. “Who is this?”

  “Mr. Tanner?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Lisa. Lisa Usser.”

  “Are you all right? Has something happened?”

  “No, nothing’s happened. It’s just—I been talking to Cal, you know? And …”

  “What?”

  “Could I … we … talk to you?”

  “Sure. Shoot.”

  “In person, I mean.”

  “Okay. When?”

  “Well, whenever.”

  I looked at the digital glow beside my bed. “I could be there by six. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. I guess.”

  “I’ll try to make it sooner. Where are you?”

  “Well … What street is this?”

  “Who’s with you, Lisa?”

  “Cal. I’m with Cal. We’re crashing in his van. It’s on Fifth Street, just off Virginia. They call it the Rainbow Village.”

  “I’ll find it,” I said. “What’s his van look like?”

  “It’s a black Econoline, but it’s fixed up, you know? Like, there’s this painting of a flag on the side, with a picture of a joint on it? And underneath it says PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF BERKELEY. And, oh yeah, it’s got two flat tires.”

  “I think I can find it, Lisa. I’ll see you at six, or a little earlier. And do me a favor.”

  “What?” Her voice took on that protective wariness I’d become accustomed to.

  “If you really want to talk, don’t take any more drugs.”

  “I …”

  “I’m not telling you how to live your life, Lisa. I’m just telling you that if you want my help then I’ve got to get the straight story from you, not PCP paranoia. Okay?”

  “Okay. I’m straight now. I guess I can stay that way for a while longer. Cal’s been on me to stay off the stuff anyway.”

  “Good. Keep listening to him. Is he still around?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I talk to him a second?”

  “Hi,” Cal said after a moment.

  “Is this on the level, Cal? Is she going to open up to me?”

  “I think so. Yeah.”

  “Is she scared?”

  “Yeah. A bunch. She doesn’t know what to do. She heard the Maniac got killed. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We heard the cops ambushed him.”

  “That’s wrong, Cal. Nifton shot himself after a confrontation with a man named Grunig. Grunig thought the Maniac had caused the death of his son, indirectly, a year ago. He threatened to have Nifton committed again. Nifton flipped and blew his brains out. That’s all there is to it. No cops; no conspiracy. Okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “See you in a while.”

  I hung up the phone and stumbled through the motions of getting dressed. On my way out of town I stopped for coffee and eggs at Zorba’s. Zorba opens early, to accommodate the guys who work the docks and the farmers’ market, and the girls who work the streets.

  He waved at me from behind the grill. I told him I’d have the usual. Then I read the latest excerpt from the Iliad that Zorba had printed up by hand and tacked above the coffee machine. Then I settled into a booth with the late edition of the Examiner and read about the Niners’ latest win. The columnists were talking Super Bowl already. I hoped it happened. In ’81 I’d gotten a lot of business tracking down witnesses against those people who had celebrated the victory by beating someone to a pulp.

  I finished breakfast in a hurry, fended off a bawdy invitation from a woman wearing fishnet stockings and red vinyl shorts, and stepped outside. The morning chill was slap enough to get me sufficiently awake to keep my car on the bridge. My shattered windshield made the world seem broken, in need of glue. When I took the University Avenue exit it was five-thirty in the morning.

  Fifth Street was less than a half mile from the bayfront, which in Berkeley was a neglected mud flat that had remained in limbo for years while the city and the landowner engaged in a waltz of inverse condemnation litigation. Near the Virginia cross street the neighborhood was a mix of industrial buildings, renovated apartment clusters and a peculiar collection of Victorian houses that had been bleached by the sea breeze, abandoned, herded behind a Cyclone fence, posted as the property of the Berkeley Redevelopment Agency, and raised onto jacks and support timbers as though someone was about to haul the whole horde of them away. I looped across University and around to Fifth, then followed it to the Rainbow Village.

  There were fifteen of them, maybe, a colorful gaggle of homes on wheels that had gathered along a single block of a mostly residential neighborhood and claimed it for their own. A few were old schoolbuses, their Blue Bird bodies a faded, crumpled yellow, their windows painted in psychedelic swaths or masked by heavy curtains. One was the pickup truck with the camper unit I’d seen behind the Hell House, its chimney still spewing a straw of smoke. There was even an ancient Trailways, a full-sized cruiser that had doubtless roamed from coast to coast and now sported hand-painted slogans such as SPEED KILLS and THINGS GO BETTER WITH COKE.

  I drove through the block and turned around. All the residents of the mobile village seemed to be asleep. No light came through windows, no music masked the hum of the freeway that sliced through the night only a few blocks away.

  Some trash barrels had been overturned by a marauding dog. A VW bug had been similarly overturned, for reasons more obscure, as helpless as a similarly situated turtle. I pulled up behind Cal’s van and got out of the car.

  Across the street, a man was sitting on the front stoop of a board-and batten bungalow, shirtless, something that might have been a shotgun lying across his knees. We looked at each other for a time, t
hen I went to the back of the van and knocked. The metal panel hurt my knuckles. The sounds I made seemed distant, echoing, reminding me of the submarine movies of my youth, the enemy overhead, the sub maneuvering desperately to evade its sonar.

  Cal finally pushed the door open. “Come on in. Thanks for coming.”

  He was wearing pinstripe denims and a Harvard sweatshirt. Behind him, the van radiated the rich hues and heavy scents of a desert caravansary. The floor and the walls were lined with oriental rugs. The pillows were wrapped in batik cottons; the blankets were multicolored afghans and sheepskin robes. The music was slippery and sensual. Incense thickened the air, made it almost nauseating. Cal backed away and allowed me to climb in.

  There was no room to stand, but there was room to sit like Buddha on one of the pillows, which is what I did. Cal lowered himself to the one beside me, and we both looked at Lisa Usser.

  She was reclining like an odalisque on a sheepskin rug, leaning against a pillow propped against the wall, nibbling on a stick of stiff brown jerky. She had changed back to the baggy slacks and workman’s shirt. In her reluctant agitation she seemed a victim of white slavery, compelled to audition for the sultan’s harem.

  I wriggled my way to comfort and waited for someone to say something. Cal kept looking at Lisa, urging her to begin. “I’m cold, Cal,” she said.

  Cal dug though a heap of clothing on the floor behind him and came up with a cardigan sweater which he tossed Lisa’s way. She struggled into it. The warmth seemed to thaw her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry I woke you up,” she said, timid, bashful, not at all the drug-brave hussy I’d catered to the previous evening. “It’s just when I came off my high I got real scared, you know? And with the Maniac dead, and someone shooting at us and everything, well, I just …” She shrugged her way to silence.

  “I know,” I said. “I was scared too. Don’t worry about it. You haven’t seen anyone following you around, have you?”