Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery)

by Bill Pronzini

  She wished now that she been able to say something like that to him, something hard and wounding—gotten in the last word. Instead, her mind a blank, all she’d done was hang up. End of conversation, end of five-year relationship. End of love. With a click, not a bang, from three thousand miles away.

  Not that the Dear Tamara call had come as any big surprise. No word from him in nearly three weeks, two messages she’d left on his answering machine that he hadn’t returned. Oh, yeah, she’d seen it coming even with her eyes wide shut. All those months apart, seven long months of no contact except by phone, too busy in her case, too hooked up with somebody else in his, to follow through on plans to spend a few days together in Philly or here.

  Saw it coming, sure. But she didn’t expect it to come cold like that, him calling her at the agency instead of at the apartment—it had thrown her off balance. Thought he had more class, more courage, than that. Thought she knew him so well . . . how stupid was that? She didn’t know him at all. Consider herself lucky she wasn’t the one marrying him after all, Mary from Rochester could have him and good riddance. Didn’t want it to happen, neither of us did. What a load of crap. Back there screwing the second violinist for God knew how long, months probably, while she sat around pining away for him and being Ms. Faithful, putting her own needs on hold, keeping herself pure at heart for her big lovin’ man—

  The hell with it.

  The hell with him.

  Fuck men!

  . . . Well, now, there’s an idea.

  More than seven months since she’d done the nasty New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day farewell marathon with Horace. Seven months of denying herself, keeping the faith, living the lie. Well, not anymore. Cruise the clubs tonight, pick up the first good-looking guy who showed an interest in her—black, white, Asian, Martian, didn’t make any difference—and go to his place or bring him back here and let him hump her brains out. Why not? Horny, wasn’t she? Sauce for the goose, right?

  She showered, changed into the sexiest outfit she owned, put on her makeup, brushed her hair and dabbed on a little perfume, and went out to the car. Horace’s Toyota. Her Toyota now . . . Keep it, Tamara, I want you to have it.

  She was two blocks from the apartment before she realized, dammit, dammit, that she was crying.

  4

  Emily was home alone when I walked into our Diamond Heights condo a little past six. Some kind of godawful teen-shriek music poured out of her room, so I knew even before I went in there that she was by herself; one strict rule in the household is that she wears a headset when Kerry and I are on the premises. She was at her desk, working on her computer—which was also the source of the noise being perpetrated by a young female vocalist and a percussive band—and wiggling around the way kids do in time to the assault on her ears and mine. And to think that when I’d first met her, not so long ago, she’d been such a shy, introspective, quiet little girl.

  I had to yell at her twice before she knew I was home. She popped the CD out of her laptop, but even in the sudden quiet I could still hear and feel the afterechoes. If she kept listening to that kind of stuff at such a volume, she’d be wearing a hearing aid before she was fifty.

  “It’s after six,” she said in an amazed voice. “Sorry, Dad. I should’ve put on my headset, but I was surfing the Net and I guess I lost track of the time.”

  “How can you concentrate with that racket going on?”

  “Racket? That’s Shannon Stark’s new CD.”

  “Who?”

  “Shannon Stark. She plays Holly Grimes on TV.”

  “Sure she does.”

  “All my friends think she’s major cool.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well . . . I like others better.”

  “So you’re not going to start singing the way Holly does?”

  “Shannon. No,” she said seriously, “I don’t think so.”

  So there was still hope for the kid yet. Emily has a fine, sweet voice and singing is one of her favorite pastimes. The thought of her emulating Shannon Stark or any other noisy teenage idol was not a happy one.

  “The CD’s not mine anyway,” Emily said. “Carla’s brother downloaded it off the Internet.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Well, technically, but everybody does it.”

  “You’d better be the exception. Where’s Kerry?”

  “She has to work late tonight.”

  “First I’ve heard of it. How late?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to her.”

  “She didn’t pick you up? How’d you get home from Carla’s?”

  “Um, by bus.”

  “Bus? You know we don’t like you riding buses alone.”

  “Carla’s mom couldn’t take me because she had an appointment, so she called Mom and she said it was okay.”

  I sorted that out. “Kerry said it was okay for you to take the bus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well . . . how long have you been home?”

  “Since around three thirty. I called Mom’s office to tell her I was here, but she was in a meeting. I left a message.”

  “And she didn’t call back?”

  “No.”

  None of this was making me happy. It wasn’t like Kerry to okay a solitary bus ride, or not to check up when Emily was home alone. Usually she worried about the kid as much as I did—one of the curses of becoming adoptive parents at our age. But she hadn’t been herself recently. Working long hours, but I had the feeling there was something preying on her mind as well. And I was afraid I knew what it was.

  Emily had noticed it, too. She said, “Mom’s been sort of preoccupied and forgetful lately.”

  I nodded. And broody and not much interested in making love.

  “But she’s okay, isn’t she?”

  “Sure she is. Just working too hard.”

  Emily shut down her computer, stood up and stretched—and when she did that, turning my way, I found myself staring at her. Really seeing her for the first time since I’d come into the room. You expect your loved ones, other people close to you, to look the way they always do, and you don’t always notice changes right away. Even normally observant detectives are guilty of that kind of temporary blindness on occasion.

  “You’re wearing lipstick,” I said.

  Sheepish look. “Oh, right, I forgot to take it off.”

  “And makeup. Is that eye shadow?”

  “Shadow, liner, and mascara. And a little rouge to highlight my cheekbones.”

  “You rode the bus alone like that? My God, Emily, what’s the idea?”

  “Carla and I thought it’d be cool to do makeovers on each other. You know, just to see how we’d look.” She gave me one of her big-dimpled smiles. “I think I look about sixteen, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  The smile faded. “You don’t think I look older?”

  “I think you’re too young to wear all that makeup, that’s what I think.”

  “Lots of girls my age wear makeup. More than this.”

  “You’re not lots of girls, you’re my little girl.”

  “I’m not a little girl anymore,” she said, and stretched again.

  “Eleven’s not exactly, uh . . . Christ!”

  “Now what’s the matter, Dad?”

  “That sweater. It’s not one of yours.”

  “No, Carla gave it to me. It’s too small for her.”

  “It’s too small for you.”

  “I like tight sweaters. They show off my boobs.”

  “Emily . . .”

  “Well, they do. Carla’s jealous. She doesn’t have breasts yet, she’s flat as a board.”

  I said, “Uh.” Then I said, “We shouldn’t be having this discussion. . . .”

  “Why not? There’s nothing wrong with breasts.”

  “Of course there’s nothing wrong with, uh . . .”

  “There’re nine-year-olds who have bigger ones than I do,” she said. “One girl in
my class, Tracy Hammer, wears a B-cup bra already. I’ll bet she needs a D-cup by the time she’s sixteen. And I’ll bet they start to sag by the time she’s twenty-one—”

  “Okay, that’s enough on the subject.”

  “Dad, it’s no big deal, really. All women have breasts.”

  “You’re not a woman yet.”

  “Yes, I am. Technically.”

  “What do you mean, technically?”

  “I’ve already had my first period.”

  “. . . You . . . what?”

  “Last month. It was kind of exciting.”

  “Exciting. Yeah.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, Dad.”

  “I’m not embarrassed,” I lied.

  “Well, anyway, Carla hasn’t had hers yet and that’s another thing she’s jealous about—”

  “Never mind Carla. Why didn’t you . . . uh, say something about it at the time?”

  “To you? Well, it’s not something you just rush right in and talk to your father about.”

  “No, I guess not. But you . . . Kerry . . . Mom . . .”

  “Oh, sure, we had a long talk. About all the other stuff, too.”

  “Other stuff?”

  “You know, sex.”

  “. . . Uh . . .”

  “Safe sex, oral sex, AIDS, and all that.”

  “. . . Uh . . .”

  “I already knew some of it, but there was a lot I didn’t know. Mom’s so cool, she’s not afraid to talk about anything.”

  “Talk . . . yeah. Cool.”

  Tolerant look, the kind Kerry gives me sometimes. Eleven going on thirty-five. “You don’t have to worry. It’s not like now that I know, I’m going to run out and get naked with some boy.”

  Get naked with some boy. Gahh.

  “We talked about responsibility, too, and waiting until I’m older and I meet the right person and I’m ready for intimacy. I plan to stay a virgin for a long time.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that—”

  “At least until I’m fifteen,” she said.

  “Fifteen! Emily, for God’s sake—”

  She laughed. “Just kidding,” she said, and came over and put her arms around me and gave me a tight squeeze. “I love you and Mom, I’d never do anything to hurt you or make you ashamed of me. Honest. Don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry. What, me? Never, no way.

  Emily stepped back and let me have another big-dimpled smile. “I’ll go wash my face and then get supper started, okay?” And out she went, leaving me there feeling as if I’d just run uphill through a minefield. Why did she have to be so damn candid and matter-of-fact about everything? Why did I have to be so damn fumble-headed when it came to simple parenting skills?

  I looked around her room. Stuffed animals, music posters, Dr. Seuss books, dolls, old Disney toys, and other remnants of her former life in Woodside—still a little girl’s room. But there was no denying she’d been right: she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

  Makeup. Tight sweaters. Breasts. Bras. Periods. Safe sex, oral sex, just plain sex.

  And this was only the beginning.

  Ten past seven, and we were just about ready to put food on the table, when Kerry finally showed up. Except for “Sorry I’m late, there was a meeting that wouldn’t die,” she didn’t have much to say. Emily and I each got a quick peck on the cheek, nothing more.

  I made it a point to give her close scrutiny over dinner. Normally she looks fifteen years younger than she is—almost flawless skin to go with her dark-auburn hair, few wrinkles and only a scatter of laugh lines around her mouth. Now, though . . . showing her age a little, the skin not quite as creamy smooth, purplish shadows under her eyes and faint lines at their corners.

  Just working too hard? Or was something else bothering her? Cybil and Russ Dancer and Dancer’s goddamn legacy, for instance?

  When we were through eating she said she had some work to do and closed herself inside the home office we shared. I watched a movie with Emily, not paying much attention to it, and went to bed around ten and read until my eyes began to bother me. Then I lay there waiting with the light on. It was after eleven before Kerry finally came into the bedroom.

  “Oh,” she said, “still awake?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “I’m not in the mood tonight.”

  “Not for that reason. Talk a little.”

  “About what?”

  “When you’re ready for bed.”

  She stayed in the bathroom longer than usual. When she came out she was wearing her nonsexy pajamas, in case I harbored ideas in spite of my denial. She had a smile for me, but it didn’t have much candlepower.

  “Kerry,” I said, “I’m worried about you.”

  She was plumping up her pillows. The statement made her pause; then she finished with the pillows and got in on her side of the bed and lay back, her eyes on the ceiling. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Something’s troubling you.”

  “Such as what?”

  “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”

  “You don’t want to make any guesses, then.”

  “Why not just tell me?”

  “Good question. Why not?”

  I let that pass. “Let’s not fence, okay? Is everything all right with you?”

  “Why shouldn’t everything be all right?”

  “You look tired and you haven’t been sleeping well. And you’ve been distracted, moody—”

  “You’re no barrel of fun, either, when you’ve been working long hours.”

  Another pass. “Today, for instance. You didn’t let me know you weren’t able to pick up Emily. You let her take the bus home by herself, you didn’t call to make sure she was okay here alone—”

  “Emily’s a big girl now. She doesn’t need constant monitoring.”

  “Big girl, right. Pretty, mature for her age. This damn city . . .”

  “You worry too much. You’re a worrywart.”

  “Probably. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “What question?”

  “Come on, don’t play dumb.”

  “Yes, I’m all right,” she said, “I’m just on overload. The Hailey account, office politics.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “You want to talk about the office stuff?”

  “Not really. Not right now. It’ll all work out, don’t worry.”

  There was a little silence before I said, “This seems to be my night for being told not to worry.”

  “Who else told you that?”

  “Emily.” I gave her a synopsis of our little chat. “Took me by surprise, finding out all that stuff so long after the fact.”

  “A girl’s first period isn’t a general topic of discussion.”

  “I know that—”

  “And I didn’t give her a sex lecture,” Kerry said, “we had a commonsense, mother-daughter talk. Women’s issues.”

  “I understand why you didn’t include me. Just as well you didn’t. But why not tell me about it afterward?”

  “For what reason? It would only have upset you.”

  “No, it wouldn’t have.”

  “Yes, it would. You’re upset now.”

  “I’m not upset. I’m just saying—”

  “Have it your way.”

  “I’m just saying that I think I have a right to know what’s going on with people I care about—”

  “Do you tell me everything?”

  “What? Of course I do, if it’s important.”

  “Of course you do. If it’s important.”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Implying that I don’t.”

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Guilty conscience?”

  Uh-oh, I thought. “Why would I have a guilty conscience?”

  “Yes, why would you?”

  “I don’t.”

  “All right,
then. Can we go to sleep now?”

  “Kerry . . .”

  She reached up and switched off the lamp and rolled onto her side. In the dark silence she muttered something into her pillow. It sounded like, “Secrets.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Go to sleep.”

  I didn’t go to sleep. Neither did she. I lay there in the dark, listening to her thrash around on her side of the bed. Guilty conscience. Secrets. One big secret, more than half a century old and three thousand miles removed.

  New York City at the end of World War II. A group of pulp writers, one of the best of them Kerry’s mother, who called themselves the Fictioneers and kept the home fires burning with words and booze and pranks. Russ Dancer, hack writer, alcoholic, lecher, and worse, carrying a huge torch for Cybil. And a drunken party to celebrate D-day. One night out of thousands of nights, the wrong set of circumstances—a secret shame buried for fifty-plus years that should have stayed buried and died with the two people who had lived it. Except that Dancer hadn’t let it die with him, when he’d finally given up the ghost three months ago. So bitter and corrupt at the end of his life that he’d found it necessary to spew his own brand of venom from the grave.

  Kerry must suspect what was behind Dancer’s legacy to Cybil, or at least that there was something her mother was withholding from her and that I’d found out about and was also withholding. A small relief, but odd that she hadn’t come right out and asked me about it; she’d never been one to avoid an issue, particularly one as large as this one. Sooner or later, she would ask me. And then what was I going to do? Her mother might be able to flat-out lie to her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her the truth, either; I’d given Cybil my solemn promise, and I still agreed with her that Kerry was better off not knowing.

  Rock and a hard place, for all three of us.

  Damn Dancer’s miserable soul.

  5

  JAKE RUNYON

  He’d been in place, parked in the shadow of a eucalpytus just down the block from the Troxell home, for twenty-five minutes when the subject appeared in the driveway. Right on schedule; the Ford’s dashboard clock and Runyon’s Timex both read 6:45. He felt a faint stirring, a kind of awakening. When he wasn’t working, just waiting, he had the ability to shut himself down—no wasted motion, no intrusive thoughts. Like a machine on idle, waiting to be put to its purpose. He’d learned that little trick during the long months of Colleen’s illness, the only way he’d been able to get through the bitter hopelessness of her deathwatch. And he’d continued doing it since, spending a substantial part of his off-time in that twilight mode. It helped keep him sane and allowed him to function; it made his empty life more tolerable.