Mourners nd-31

by Bill Pronzini

  When the last of the daylight was gone, Runyon left the car and crossed the street to the Victorian. There was enough space between it and its near-side neighbor for him to see that the property ran steeply downhill, and that the rear windows were as dark as the ones in front. But there was light somewhere behind and below, a pale glow that spread out from an invisible source. Night-light? Separate building?

  He walked past the house, taking his time. Three pot-metal numbers were arranged vertically on one of the rounded porch pillars, just readable in the darkness; he made a mental note of them. The path Troxell had taken was like a short, hollow tube that ended in a wood-and-wire gate set into an eight-foot-high frame joined to house and garage. Nothing was visible beyond it except shadow shapes given faint definition by the diffused light glow. All the windows on that side of the house were dark as well.

  No cars on the street at the moment, no one on the sidewalks. Runyon stepped quickly into the tube. The wind made sounds in the night; there were other sounds, too, but they were all muted city noises, none close by.

  It wasn’t until he reached the gate that he could see what lay behind and below. There was more room back there than he’d expected; an overgrown boundary fence was visible two-thirds of the way down the incline, so that most of the available yard space belonged to the Victorian’s owners. Between the house and the fence was a shelf, natural or man-made, and another building squatted there-a low, blocky structure maybe forty feet square, with a door and window on the near side. A set of wooden steps angled down to it from the gate. Granny unit, probably, either built to conform to city codes or put up without permits. One large room or two small ones, plus bath. Nice and private. The light came through the single window, filtered by closed blinds. No way to tell from here if Troxell was alone inside or not.

  Runyon tested the gate latch. Locked, of course. You could climb over the frame, but you couldn’t do it without making some noise. He was trespassing as it was; no point in compounding the offense. He retraced his steps to the sidewalk, made sure he was unobserved as he came out, and climbed back up to the Ford.

  Long wait this time. After a few minutes, he cranked his mind down to basic awareness and just sat there, low on the seat, not moving until leg and shoulder and back muscles protested and then just enough to ease the cramping.

  At 10:24 by the dashboard clock Troxell reappeared and walked in deliberate strides to his wheels. Nothing in his hands now; they swung open at his sides. Runyon moved as quickly and easily as if he’d been sitting still for two and a half minutes instead of two and a half hours. He started the engine, waited until the BMW was away from the curb and heading downhill before he made a dark U-turn, then put on his lights and followed.

  Subject went home, straight home, following the identical route he’d taken to Wisconsin Street. Runyon parked in the same place he’d waited earlier. It was only after the last of the house lights went off upstairs, half an hour later, that he was satisfied Troxell was in for the night.

  Home himself then, a short drive up Nineteenth Avenue to his apartment on Ortega-four nondescript furnished rooms on the third floor of an equally nondescript stucco building. He hadn’t eaten since a late lunch, hadn’t been hungry enough to bother before tonight’s surveillance. He made himself a cup of tea, found half a container of Chinese takeout in the refrigerator. Colleen’s drink, Colleen’s favorite food. His, too, now. In some way he didn’t quite understand he needed to maintain the patterns the two of them had followed when she was alive. Continuity, maybe. Or a way to hang on to the hope that she was still alive, somewhere, on some other plane of existence, even though he wasn’t religious and did not really believe in either an afterlife or immortality.

  He ate at the dinette table in the kitchen, then added hot water to his teacup and took it into the front room. At the secretary desk in there was a copy of the reverse city directory; the agency had a copy, but he liked having his own for situations like the one tonight. The occupants of the blue Stick Victorian had a listed phone number and the reverse directory identified them as Ralph and Justine Linden. He booted up his laptop, wrote out a detailed eight-paragraph report on the evening’s surveillance that included the property owners’ names, and e-mailed it to Tamara.

  6

  JAKE RUNYON

  Olivet Cemetery, Colma.

  Troxell’s second stop on Thursday morning. His first had been the florist shop on West Portal that Bill had followed him to the day before, where he’d picked up a large, white-flowered wreath. He must have been a good customer; there’d been a CLOSED sign on the shop’s front door and he’d had to knock to gain admittance. Then he’d driven straight out Nineteenth Avenue to the 280 Freeway and on down to Colma.

  Overcast morning, cold, damp from thin streamers of blowing fog. The weather and the early hour combined to keep the mazelike grounds mostly deserted. Only one other car was parked in the section Troxell went to, two-thirds of the way in-a maroon Datsun, no sign of its occupant. Subject parked his BMW a short distance behind the Datsun; Runyon pulled up fifty yards away. He watched Troxell take the wreath from the trunk and carry it in among the graves, moving as if he were passing through a narrow tunnel, eyes front all the way; he seemed to have no interest or awareness in what lay behind or to either side of him. Man with a single-minded purpose-to reach the end of the tunnel and whatever waited there.

  For that reason, Runyon followed more closely than he would have otherwise, on a zigzag course among the headstones and obelisks and wooden markers. There were no paths here, all the graves set into barbered lawn shaded by cypress, yew, and palm trees. The grass was slick with dew, and he was careful of his footing. He could feel the cold and damp stiffening his bad leg. Nearly six years since the car accident that had fractured the tibia in three places, forced him to endure two rounds of surgery, and then to take a partial disability retirement from the Seattle PD, and he still had twinges and the slight limp in cold, damp weather. But it wasn’t much of a cross compared to what had happened to Ron Cain, behind the wheel when their high-speed fugitive pursuit turned deadly. If he closed his eyes he could still see, as if the image had been burned into his retinas, what was left of his partner lying crushed and bloody inside all that twisted metal.

  Troxell had been to this part of the cemetery before, more than once-evident from the fact that he neither slowed his pace nor glanced at any of the markers he passed. He knew which grave he wanted and he went straight to it. Two things set it apart from its neighbors. One was the headstone-larger and taller than most, made of shiny new white marble, with gold lettering and filigree work. Expensive. The other thing was the number of wreaths and bouquets that draped the grave and covered the lower section of the stone. More than half a dozen, all of them of real flowers, not the artificial variety that decorated most of the other burial plots; some fresh, some starting to wilt, one spray of white carnations that had turned brown and brittle.

  Troxell transferred the dead carnations to a nearby trash receptacle, then carefully placed the new wreath where the carnations had lain. When he was satisfied, he straightened and stood stiffly, unmoving, his head bowed as if he might be praying. He stayed like that for a long time, the fog wisps swirling around him, as oblivious to the cold as he was to his surroundings.

  Runyon was so intent on Troxell and the gravesite that he didn’t see the woman until she walked into the periphery of his vision.

  His first look at her was brief and indefinite; she came at an angle from his right, and she was wearing a bulky coat, a muffler, and a knitted cap that obscured much of her bent head. He paid some heed to her when he realized she was heading in Troxell’s direction, enough to tell that she was young, long-legged, red-haired. But she didn’t have his full attention until she approached the grave where the subject stood and halted next to him.

  Her presence surprised Troxell; she said something that made him jerk, swing half around. Runyon was moving by then, on the same trajectory. The woman
spoke again, but there was enough wind sound to block out the words. Subject’s head wagged; his reply caused her to reach out and pluck at the sleeve of his coat. He recoiled as if she’d tried to strike him, said something to her in a raised voice. Part of it carried to Runyon, the words “I’m sorry.” Then Troxell spun away from her and hurried back toward the road, bypassing Runyon in a blind rush. The woman stayed where she was by the grave, looking after him-her head raised now, the muffler down off her mouth and chin.

  Runyon’s first clear look at her was a glance that immediately morphed into a rigid stare. Jolting sensation inside him; his chest tightened, his breath came short. Momentary confusion, a feeling of disorientation, ran James Troxell right out of his head.

  Colleen.

  She looked like Colleen.

  From a distance, in the hazy morning light, she might have been Colleen.

  He started toward her, a reflex action so abrupt it brought a twist of pain in his bad leg. In that same moment she moved, too, cutting away across the lawn. “Wait!” she called after Troxell. “Wait!” But he neither slowed nor turned his head, just kept fast-walking to where he’d parked his BMW.

  Runyon cut ahead to the flower-banked grave, paused there just long enough to read the inscription on the marble headstone.

  IN MEMORY OF

  ERIN DUMONT

  1980–2005

  “In the midst of Life there is Death”

  The woman seemed to have realized that she was running across gravesites instead of in the grass strips that separated them; he saw her falter, then slow and shift her route sideways. Troxell was already inside the BMW, a hundred yards away. There was enough time for Runyon to get to the Ford and reestablish pursuit, but he didn’t do it. The woman had halted next to a marble bench, and when Troxell pulled away she sank down on it, unmindful of the fact that it was a memorial rather than a public bench and wet with mist besides. She lowered her head into the splayed fingers of one hand.

  Runyon approached her slowly. She didn’t seem to know he was there, even after he stopped in front of her, until he said, “Excuse me, miss.” Then her head snapped up and she blinked at him.

  Up close, the resemblance to Colleen wasn’t nearly as strong. Younger, no more than thirty. Face longer and thinner. Hairstyle similar, shoulder length, parted in the middle, but the color was several shades lighter than dark burgundy. Eyes blue, not green, faintly slanted, and liquid with an emotion that he recognized as pain. Mouth wider, the upper lip thicker. Still, there was enough similarity, too much similarity. His mouth was dry. He could feel his own hurt like a fresh probe moving through him.

  “What is it?” she said. Voice different, too, pitched lower and not as soft as Colleen’s. The blue eyes were wary. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “I’m sorry. You… remind me of someone.”

  She said, “Oh for God’s sake,” in a tone of weariness mixed with disgust.

  “That’s not a line and I’m not trying to pick you up. I just want to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “The man you spoke to at Erin Dumont’s grave.”

  Abrupt change in her expression; she was on her feet in one quick motion. Almost eagerly she said, “You know who he is?”

  “That’s one of the questions I was going to ask you.”

  “Why? Do you know him?”

  “I know who he is. I followed him here.”

  “Followed him? I don’t… my God, are you a policeman?”

  “Private investigator.” He flipped open the leather case Colleen had given him as a birthday gift, showed her the photostat of his California license. She studied it-memorizing the information, he thought-before she met his gaze again.

  “Why are you following that man, Mr. Runyon?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Confidential.”

  “But is it because you think… somebody thinks… he might have something to do with what happened to Erin?”

  “No. That’s not the reason my agency was hired.”

  It was not what she wanted to hear. She bit her lower lip, sank down again on the edge of the bench as if she were suddenly tired.

  Runyon said, “Do you mind telling me your name?”

  Brief hesitation. “Risa Niland.”

  “Risa?”

  “Short for Marisa.”

  “Erin Dumont was a friend or relative?”

  “She was my sister.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say that. I’m tired of hearing it from strangers who don’t really mean it. You didn’t know Erin, you don’t know what it’s like to lose someone close to you in a terrible way.”

  He was silent.

  After a few seconds, she said more softly, “But you have lost someone, haven’t you? I can see it in your face.”

  “What happened to your sister, Ms. Niland? Or is it Mrs.?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Somebody killed her. Raped and strangled her.”

  “… When?”

  “A little over two months ago.”

  “And the man responsible hasn’t been caught or identified?”

  “No. There were no witnesses, no physical evidence.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “In the city, where else?” Bitterly now. “When I first came out here I thought San Francisco was fascinating, beautiful, a magical place. But it’s no different than any other big city-just as dirty, just as vicious.”

  “What part of the city?”

  “The neighborhood where we… where I live. Outer Sunset, one of the supposedly safe neighborhoods.”

  “You shared a place with her?”

  “An apartment near Golden Gate Park. Erin went jogging every evening between six and seven. Sometimes in the park, sometimes just around the neighborhood. That night she didn’t come home. A man walking his dog found her the next morning, in some bushes inside the park.”

  “Nobody saw anything, heard anything?”

  “Or won’t admit it if they did. That’s another thing I hate about the city-mind your own business, don’t get involved. If it weren’t for that bastard still being loose, I’d quit my job and move back to Wisconsin. I swear that’s what I will do when the police catch him. If they catch him.”

  “The man I’ve been following-you ever see him before today?”

  “Once. At Erin’s funeral service.”

  “Speak to him then?”

  “I tried to. He avoided me that day, too.”

  “Possible he worked with your sister, had a relationship with her?”

  Risa Niland shook her head. “She worked for two women… a women’s boutique on Union Street. And she never dated older men. She had a steady boyfriend, a guy her own age she was serious about.”

  “Name?”

  “Scott Iams. He’s in even worse shape than I am.”

  Runyon said, “That marble headstone looks expensive. Did you arrange for it?”

  “My God, no. My family and I couldn’t afford one like that.”

  “Her boyfriend, then?”

  “Scott couldn’t afford it, either. And her employers barely cared enough to come to the funeral. I don’t know who paid for that stone. I tried to find out, but the cemetery people… anonymous order, they told me, paid for in cash.”

  “What about all the flowers?”

  “Same thing. Every week since it happened… wreaths, bouquets. I told the police, but they didn’t seem to think it was worth investigating. I do. That’s why I came here this morning, why I’ve been coming here every chance I could the past couple of weeks. The man you’ve been following, he has to be the one.”

  “He did seem almost afraid of you.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Did you identify yourself to him?”

  “No. I asked who he was, how he knew Erin… just blurted it out. Then I asked if he was responsible for the headstone, all the flowers. He shook his
head and said ‘I’m sorry,’ twice, that damn phrase. That’s all.”

  Runyon was silent again.

  Risa Niland said, “Why would he act like that, a complete stranger, if he doesn’t have something to hide?”

  “There could be an innocent reason.”

  “Such as?”

  “One connected to the investigation I’m working on.”

  “But you won’t tell me what it is. Or who he is.”

  “I can’t. It’s not clear yet, anyway.”

  “Confidentiality.” The bitterness was back in her voice. “Professional ethics.”

  “That’s right. But I may be able to help you in another way.”

  “Help me? Oh, I see. Drumming up business. Well, you can forget it. Don’t you think we’d have hired a detective by now if we could afford it?”

  “You won’t need to hire me. My agency already has a client.”

  Cynically: “Just how far do your ethics extend, Mr. Runyon?”

  “I’m not sure I understand the question.”

  “Don’t you? If you expect something from me besides money…”

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “I don’t expect anything, I don’t want anything from you.”

  “Then why help me? Why should I trust you?”

  “Helping people is part of my job. I’m good at what I do and well paid for it and I can give you a list of references-others who’ve put their trust in me and the people I work for.”

  She held eye contact for several seconds, bit her lip again and shifted her gaze. “Look, I guess I’m just not used to kindness from strangers, even at the best of times…”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you really think you can help?”

  “At least to the point of finding out if this man had anything to do with your sister’s death. If he didn’t, and if he did buy the headstone and all the flowers, maybe I can explain the reasons.”