Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery)

by Bill Pronzini

  Casement came out from behind the bar with a half-filled glass, Scotch or bourbon. He’d seen me looking around; he said, “Some decorating job, eh? My ex-wife. She had shitty taste in everything except me.”

  He laughed at his own wit, took a long pull of his drink. I stood there watching him.

  “Ahh,” he said, “that’s better. How about we sit down, put our feet up?”

  “You go ahead. I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself.” He flopped into a chair at an angle to the fireplace. I moved around in front of him. “What’re we talking about?”

  “Tell you a little story first,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”

  “Story? What kind of story?”

  “About a friend and partner I had once. His name was Eberhardt, a former cop like me. Good man, basically, but he made mistakes and he had more demons than most of us. When our partnership and friendship busted up, he opened his own detective agency. But he couldn’t make a go of it. He started drinking heavily, made more mistakes and slid into a deep hole he couldn’t get out of. Things got so bad for him he lost his will to live, decided to take the coward’s way out. He sat in his car one night in an alley off Third Street and tried to make himself eat his gun. Only he didn’t have the guts to do it on his own. He called the one person left in his life who cared about him, and she came down, and he begged her until she gave in. He pulled the trigger but it was her hand that helped him do it.”

  Casement’s expression was blank; I might have been telling him about the weather. He said without meaning it, “That’s too bad. But why tell me?”

  “You could say,” I went on, “that Eberhardt committed suicide. He wanted to die, it was his finger on the trigger, he just needed a little assist. But you could also say that the person who gave him that assist was guilty of murder. By law in this state, that’s what assisted suicide is—a willful act of murder.”

  He was getting it now. His thick eyebrows drew together; he shifted position on the chair and slugged more whiskey. “That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “I think it does.”

  “Yeah? Well, spit it out then.”

  “Troxell also had help committing suicide. Your help, your assist.”

  “You’re crazy, man! I wasn’t anywhere near Ocean Beach last night.”

  “You didn’t have to be. But your hand was on that gun just the same. And that makes you guilty of murder.”

  “Jim was my friend, for Chrissake. Why would I want him dead?”

  “Because he was in the way.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what it means. You’re in love with his wife.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s plain enough,” I said. “The way you look at her, act around her. You love her and you want her and you knew the only way you could have her was if Troxell was dead.”

  Casement threw down the last of the whiskey, shoved onto his feet. I set myself, but he wasn’t coming my way. He swung across to the bar to slop more liquor into his glass. Stayed there with it instead of returning to the chair, cocking a hip onto one of the leather stools, as if he wanted distance between us while he regrouped. I didn’t let him have it. I walked over there, slow, and stood even closer than before, just a few paces separating us.

  Up went his glass. When it came down again, he said, “Maybe I do love Lynn in my own way. I never made any secret that I care about her. That doesn’t mean I wanted my best friend dead so I could move in on her.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “What put that goddamn crazy notion in your head, anyway?”

  “Little slips you made, little things she and Kayabalian and Troxell himself told me. Bits and pieces that add up to the same conclusion.”

  “Wrong conclusion.”

  I grinned at him. Wolf grin, just the baring of teeth. “Here’s the way I see it. Sometime after Troxell witnessed what happened in the park, he came to you and told you about it. Or you dragged it out of him. Doesn’t matter which. He couldn’t make himself go to the police and he couldn’t confide in his wife, he wasn’t made that way. But he was full of guilt and starting to unravel and he needed to talk to somebody. Who else but you, his best buddy since high school.”

  “Blowing smoke, man, that’s all you’re doing.”

  “He confided his obsession with death and suicide, too. And not in an offhand way, like you made it seem—straight from the gut. He was serious about putting himself out of his misery, he’d been building to it even before the Erin Dumont trigger. But some men, men like Eberhardt, men like Troxell, just can’t do it on their own, no matter how much they want to die. You saw that. Saw your opportunity, hatched your little scheme, and went to work on him.”

  “How am I supposed to’ve done that, smart guy?”

  “Couldn’t have been too hard. You knew how to manipulate him—you as much as told me so yourself, all that stuff about getting him to tutor you in school, arranging for him to lose his virginity. Strong, confident jock, weak and emotionally screwed-up nerd. Not much of a contest at all. Reinforce his low self-esteem, lead him to believe his situation is hopeless and he’d be doing it for his wife as much as for himself, shore up his resolve and courage, finally offer to help him do the job.”

  That must have been pretty close to the way it happened. Casement fidgeted again, slugged more whiskey—about as much reaction as I was going to get out of him.

  “You went to work on her, too,” I said. “Kept telling her how worried you were about her husband and his mental state. Suggested she hire detectives to follow him. You wanted her to know just how bad off he was.”

  Between his teeth: “Why would I hurt her like that if I’m so much in love with her?”

  “To make her need you, lean on you. It was also a way to set Troxell up for the final push over the line. You must’ve been happy as hell with my report, the suggestions I made, the weekend grace period. After I left you talked her out of notifying the family doctor; Kayabalian told me that. You didn’t want any medical interference that might keep Troxell from listening to anybody but you after the confrontation. You spent a long time alone with him Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday—working on his hopelessness and death obsession, maneuvering him into a state where he could blow himself away.

  “Mrs. Troxell hid his car keys Saturday, in a place he’d never think to look. But Kayabalian told me you were with her when she did it. Troxell didn’t find those keys on his own; he’d’ve had to tear the place apart and he didn’t, he slipped out of the house almost immediately after he got out of bed. He got the keys from you. You took them from the hiding place and handed them over before you left that afternoon.”

  I watched Casement’s face closely as I spoke. No expression except for tight lips and a faintly throbbing vein in one temple. No sign of guilt or remorse. Incapable of either emotion; I had him pegged that way. Cold bastard. Self-involved, borderline sociopath.

  “Why would a man like Troxell use a gun on himself?” I said. “That bothered me almost from the first. Wouldn’t be his choice if he were doing it on his own—the idea had to’ve been planted in his head, nurtured. ‘A small caliber handgun is quick and painless, Jim, you do it somewhere outside the home, out on the beach, say, and there’s not much mess for anybody to clean up.’ When he says he doesn’t think he can shoot himself, you keep telling him he can, and show him just how to do it, and eventually you’ve got him convinced. ‘With help you can find the necessary courage to go through with it. And I have all the help I need now.’ Troxell’s words to me on the phone Saturday night. I thought he was talking about going to the police, but what he was really talking about was putting that bullet in his brain.”

  “Bullshit,” Casement said again.

  “Then there’s the clincher,” I said, “the weapon itself. Brand-new twenty-two-caliber automatic. Where did he get it?”

  “How should I know? Bought it someplace.”

 
“Where?”

  “A gun shop, where else.”

  “That’s what you said this morning. But you know and I know nobody can buy a handgun in this state without a valid permit. Troxell never applied for one. I checked.”

  “So what? So some sleazeball dealer sold it to him under the counter. Or he bought it on the street.”

  “There aren’t that many sleazeball dealers who’d risk a stiff fine and a jail sentence on such a small illegal sale. How would a man like Troxell, an advocate of gun control, go about finding one in the first place? Same thing for a street buy—how would he know where to go and who to approach? No, he had to’ve gotten the piece from somebody he knew.”

  “Not me.”

  “Closed-off type like him, no close friends except you—it couldn’t be anybody else. You sell sporting goods, you have easy access to target weapons like the twenty-two he used.”

  “You can’t tie that pistol to me,” Casement said. “No way.”

  “Pistol. Right. That’s another thing you said this morning. I told you and Mrs. Troxell that he’d shot himself, she said why did he do it that way. And you said, ‘A pistol . . . that’s as quick as it gets.’ ”

  “Gun, pistol, what’s the difference?”

  “Pistol refers to a semiautomatic handgun. You damn well know that in your business. But I didn’t say what kind of weapon Troxell used. It could’ve been a revolver, or a even a shotgun or rifle.”

  “I just assumed it was a pistol. You can’t prove any different.”

  “No?”

  “No. Can’t prove a goddamn thing you’ve said.”

  “I could try.”

  “Go ahead. You won’t find anything.”

  “The police might,” I said.

  “Take this crap of yours to the cops? You do, you’ll be one sorry son of a bitch.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Damn right it’s a threat. Any hassle, and I’ll sue you for slander and defamation. I’ll take everything you’ve got.”

  “You’d have to prove malicious intent. The malice here is all on your side.”

  “I’m warning you. Back off.”

  “No. I may or may not talk to the police. I am going to talk to the widow.”

  Blood-rush darkened his face even more. He said savagely, “You stay the hell away from Lynn.”

  “She has to know what you did.”

  “She wouldn’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth. She’ll believe it eventually.”

  “Goddamn you, I won’t let that happen!”

  “You don’t have a tenth of the influence with her you did with her husband. If you did, you wouldn’t’ve had to help him die to get your hands on her.”

  He slammed the glass down on the bar top, lunged off the stool and up close to me. I set myself again, arms out away from my body, but all he did was get into my face. “Stay away from her,” he said, spitting the words, spraying saliva.

  “All for nothing, Casement. She’ll hate your guts, she won’t have anything to do with you.”

  “She will, she’s mine now! You’re not gonna take her away from me, not now, not you or anybody else.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He grabbed handfuls of my shirt and jacket, yanked me up on my toes. “I’ll kill you, you hear me? I’ll kill you!”

  I drove the heel of my left hand up hard against the tendons in one wrist, at the same time chopping down with my right on the other wristbone. The force of the moves made him yell, broke his hold and exposed the upper part of his body. I gave him a hard shove, two-handed against his chest. He went staggering backward, would have gone down if he hadn’t collided with the bar stool; he caught it and used it to steady himself. If he’d charged me then, we’d’ve been into it hot and heavy and the advantage would have been his. But he didn’t. He hung there, breathing hard, his face congested, glaring hate and rage at me.

  “I’m half your age, old man,” he said thickly. “I could break you in half.”

  “You could try.”

  “Beat the shit out of you and claim you attacked me.”

  “You wouldn’t get away with that either. I go back a long way in this city—I was a cop before I went into private practice. Lies about me and my methods don’t get believed.”

  He didn’t say anything to that. Heavy silence for a few seconds, broken only by the ragged rhythm of his breathing. Then he scraped his beard crust again, straightened, pushed the stool away from him. In a choked voice he said, “Get out of here. Get the fuck out of my house.”

  “Gladly.”

  I moved away from him sideways, keeping him in sight, in case he had any ideas about mixing it up again. No ideas, but more vicious words as I reached the hallway. “I meant what I said. You take Lynn away from me, I’ll kill you.”

  For an answer I showed him the wolf grin one more time.

  Outside the wind chilled me, brought the realization that I was sweating. I took a couple of long breaths, calming down, as I climbed to the street. In the car I took the voice-activated recorder from my coat pocket and ran the tape back far enough to be sure it was all on there. The recorder, one of Tamara’s recent purchases for the agency, was state-of-the-art; both our voices were clear and distinct. Okay. I hadn’t been able to maneuver Casement into a direct admission of guilt, so I probably still didn’t have enough to go to the law. Kayabalian could tell me when I played the tape for him.

  One thing for sure: Casement had said more than enough to convince Lynn Troxell when she heard it.

  29

  JAKE RUNYON

  When he pulled up in front of the multiunit apartment building on Twenty-seventh Avenue, he unlocked the glove compartment and slid his .357 Magnum from inside. He checked the action and the loads, fastened the holstered weapon to his belt above the right hip so the tail of his jacket would cover it. Then he went to ring the bell to Sean Ostrow’s apartment.

  No response.

  Back in the car, he drove out Twenty-ninth Avenue to Risa Niland’s block. He scanned the parked cars on both sides as he rolled along; none was familiar. The only free curb space on the block was too short for the Ford, but he jockeyed it in there anyway. The overhang into one of the driveways was enough to piss off the owner or tenant but not enough to block access.

  No response to her bell either.

  He didn’t like that; she should be home by now. Unless she had a date, and if she did, what if it was with Ostrow? No easy way of finding out one way or another, nothing much he could do except wait it out. Maintain a revolving surveillance between here and Ostrow’s building until one of them showed up.

  On the sidewalk again, he paused and then went to the corner to eye-check the cars parked on the uphill and downhill sides of Anza Street. An older brown model midway up on this side caught his attention. Ford Taurus? He climbed to it. Taurus, all right. And the license number was 2UGK697.

  He liked that a hell of a lot less.

  When he got back to the corner, a young Chinese woman with a dog on a leash was just turning in under the canopy above the entrance to Risa’s building. Runyon hurried after her. She was at the door, with her key out, when he came into the foyer. The dog heard him and made a friendly rumbling sound, and that brought her around. He wasn’t anybody she knew and his sudden appearance put her, if not her animal, on guard. He saw her shift the keys in her hand, one of them protruding between the index and middle finger, the way women were taught in self-defense classes. Good for her.

  She said warily, “Are you looking for someone?”

  “Risa Niland.”

  “Oh. Well, she’s home.”

  “I just rang her bell. No answer.”

  “No? I saw her a little while ago, in the lobby.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know, about half an hour. They must’ve gone out.”

  “They?”

  “She was with somebody.”

  “Guy in his twenties, big, sandy h
air?”

  “That’s right . . .”

  Runyon said, keeping his voice calm, “Open the door, please, miss.”

  “What?”

  He slid the license case out of his pocket, flipped it open and held it up long enough for her to verify his photo and identify the official state seal. If that didn’t work, he’d have no choice but to show her the Magnum. “Open the door, please,” he said again. “The man with Risa Niland may be the one who murdered her sister.”

  “My God! Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious.”

  Hesitation, but only for a beat or two. She used her key and then stepped back quickly, pulling the dog with her.

  He said, “Better lock yourself in your apartment,” and went through into the lobby. He bypassed the elevator, took the stairs in a light-footed run. Near the third-floor landing he drew his weapon, held it down along his leg as he shouldered through into the short hallway. Empty. Three-A was the door on the left; he eased over to it, laid his ear against the panel.

  They were in there, all right. Muffled voices, the words not quite distinguishable but sharp-toned and a few octaves above normal. He could almost feel the tension in them.

  He tried the knob with his left hand. Locked. The door looked solid, the lock was a good-quality deadbolt. You wouldn’t be able to force it; kick it in, maybe, but it would take more than one or two kicks. Shooting it open wasn’t an option. That left only one way to go.

  More sounds in there. Words, movement.

  He shifted the Magnum to his left hand, pounded on the door with his right—fast and hard, rattling it in its frame.

  Scrambling noises, some kind of brief struggle. And then a woman’s voice, Risa’s, crying for help.

  Runyon shouted, “Open up! Police!”

  Man’s voice, exclaiming something. Another cry from Risa.

  Then she screamed, a rising sound suddenly sliced off.

  He felt the scream as much as heard it, as if it were something thin and hot that had pierced his flesh. He had to try to get in there. He stepped back for leverage, drove the bottom of his shoe against the panel next to the lock. No give, like kicking a wall. He yelled in frustration and kicked out again, same result, and in his half frenzy he made the mistake of trying it the other way, by lowering his shoulder and hurling his weight forward into the door. He hit it squarely, but the lock still held and the solid wood bounced him off.