Mourners nd-31

by Bill Pronzini

  “Well, she could’ve changed her routine for some reason without telling the sister.”

  “Could have, yeah.”

  “But you don’t think so. What’s the rest of it?”

  “She was already dead when he raped her,” Tamara said.

  “Jesus.”

  “Violent sexual assault, vaginal tearing but almost no blood. Blood on her face, though-busted nose, skin torn by something sharp-edged like a ring. She might’ve been unconscious when she was strangled.”

  “Small mercy if she was.”

  “Finger marks on her throat indicate a man with big hands, strong. Her windpipe was crushed. But she put up a fight first. Marked him. Skin and blood under all the fingernails on her right hand.”

  “No DNA match yet, obviously.”

  “No.”

  “So he’s either a first-time offender or a repeater who’s never been caught. They find semen or did he use a condom?”

  “Semen. But that’s not all. Tear tracks on her breasts and belly.”

  “ Tear tracks?”

  “He put his head down on her and cried afterward. Cried for a long time-large sections of her skin smeared with dried tears.”

  The line hummed in her ear for a time before Bill said, “Sudden remorse doesn’t fit the profile of a violent predator.”

  “Neither does this: he put her clothes back on before he dumped her.”

  “All her clothes?”

  “Everything, including panties and bra. Dressed her real neat, the report says. Laid her on her back on a grass patch inside those bushes, folded her hands across her chest.” Tamara paused to lick moisture over dry lips. Reading and then repeating the words in the reports had built a dry, hot, impotent fury in her. “Sick motherfucker,” she said.

  “Psychotic. You see that kind of thing in serial profiles.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a serial to me.”

  “You don’t believe she was a random victim?”

  “No condom, those tear tracks, putting her clothes back on, taking her back near where she lived, laying her out. Obsessive love-hate shit. Somebody who wanted her, nobody else.”

  “Stalker?”

  “Kind she knew about or the kind she didn’t.”

  “SFPD figure it that way?”

  “No mention in the reports. Inspectors interviewed her boyfriend, some other friends, neighbors, the people she worked with. If there was anything along the stalker lines, they missed it.”

  “Or didn’t ask the right questions.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I don’t see Troxell as the perp. No indication he ever knew Erin Dumont, and his wife couldn’t help but notice if he’d been marked. But it’s possible he’s linked in another way.”

  “What way?”

  “Witness,” Bill said. “Either to the abduction or to the dumping of the body. His friend Casement told me Troxell saw something that disturbed him pretty badly, and the timing is right. All Troxell would say about it was that he wished to God he’d gone straight home that night.”

  “If he did see something, why didn’t he go to the cops?”

  “The usual reason-didn’t want to get involved. Maybe he didn’t see enough to be sure of what was happening, didn’t get a license plate number, couldn’t describe the man or the car. Rationalized it that way.”

  “So he reads about it in the papers next day, feels guilty, and starts sending flowers and pays for Erin Dumont’s headstone.”

  “It could also be the basis for his obsession with victims of violent crimes, funerals, all the rest of it. Makes sense psychologically.”

  Tamara said, “Suppose he did see something that’d lead the cops to the perp? Suppose he’s been keeping it to himself all this time?”

  “Everything about him says he’s a responsible citizen, but if he is holding back, then he’s a lot more damaged than we suspected.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Just what we’ve been doing. We can’t alert the police without some kind of proof of his involvement. Where’s Jake now?”

  “On his way back from seeing Ralph Linden.”

  “And?”

  “Troxell’s the one renting the granny unit. Jake can get in if we want him to go ahead. Linden offered him a spare key.”

  “Offered being the operative word?”

  “That’s what Jake said.”

  “Does he have the key yet?”

  “No. Shouldn’t take more than a phone call.”

  Bill chewed on that for a time before he said, “There may not to be anything to find. Then again there may be more in that unit than we’re bargaining for. It’s a risk either way.”

  “Only one way to find out. Won’t be the first time a law got broke in a good cause.” Like last spring, when she’d got herself into the mess in San Leandro and Bill and Jake had had to commit a B amp; E on the way to helping her out of it. But she didn’t say anything about that. Didn’t want to think about it. Those twenty-four hours still gave her nightmares.

  “Bent, not broke. There’s a subtle distinction.”

  “Uh-huh. Tell him to go ahead?”

  “As far as setting it up with Linden for the key. Before we go any further than that, let’s see what Troxell does tonight.”

  “You want Jake to keep up the surveillance?”

  “No, I’ll take it. That’ll leave him free to do the bending if it works out that way. Meanwhile he can follow up on the stalker angle-talk to Erin Dumont’s sister, boyfriend, friends, the people she worked with.”

  Tamara sat quiet for a time before she called Runyon. Her throat felt clogged up, as if she’d swallowed a bone. Images conjured up by the reports moved dark and ugly across the screen of her mind; she’d never laid eyes on Erin Dumont alive or dead, didn’t even know what the woman looked like, yet she could almost feel her terror and pain that last night of her life. Always been against the death penalty in principle, but whenever she came up against one of these inhuman scumbags, all her liberal attitudes went slipping and sliding away. This rape-homicide case, even though there was no personal connection, was having the same effect on her as the near-lethal encounters with the lunatic gunman last Christmas, the kid-abductor this past spring. Stalkers, rapists, child molesters, all the sadistic predators who preyed on women-they were the criminals she hated most. Lethal injection wasn’t enough for them. Every first-time offender convicted of a violent sexual crime ought to have his genitals whacked off; then there wouldn’t be any repeat offenders. If they used their dicks as weapons, they didn’t deserve to keep them. Why wasn’t that the goddamn law anyway? Because men made the laws. Cruel and unusual punishment, they said, the same self-righteous, pious bastard politicians who wanted to repeal the abortion laws and let women start dying again in agony and shame in back-alley rooms. What the hell was that if not cruel and unusual punishment?

  Real easy, she thought bitterly, to understand why some women hated men, all men. Be real easy right now for her to count herself among that sisterhood.

  12

  JAKE RUNYON

  Scott Iams, Erin Dumont’s boyfriend, worked for a catering company on Union Street on the edge of Cow Hollow-one block from the boutique FashionSense, where she’d been employed. Upscale neighborhood, mostly residential, tucked between Pacific Heights and the Marina, so named because city farmers and ranchers had kept dairy and beef cattle there during the Gold Rush years. Choice real estate nowadays, the kind of district where young, unskilled people worked and counted themselves lucky for their above-average salaries, but still couldn’t afford to live.

  Iams was twenty-four, red-haired, linebacker-sized. He had the kind of face that would normally be good-natured, easygoing, but that was marked now by the filaments of tragedy. His blue eyes were mournful, his manner dull and listless. Runyon’s name and ID stirred up a little animation but no surprise; Risa Niland had called him earlier, he said, told him about her meeting with Runyon at the cemetery and his offer of help.
He had a break coming and suggested they go for a walk while they talked. “I can’t seem to sit still since it happened. Seems like I have to be moving all the time, even in the middle of the night.”

  Outside, Iams set a fast, long-striding pace that Runyon had to work to match. It was cold and windy here, this close to the bay, and there were twinges again in his bad leg. Exercise was good for the rebuilt bone and muscle; he’d learned to relish the pain, convert it into positive energy.

  Iams said, “I don’t know what I can tell you, Mr. Runyon. Some nights I’d go jogging with Erin, but that night I had to work late. That night of all nights. Jesus, it makes me half crazy every time I think about what she must’ve gone through. I loved her, you know? I mean I really loved her.”

  “How long had you been dating?”

  “Six months, about. We met at Perry’s, that’s a bar up the street. We hit it off right away. I don’t believe in love at first sight or anything like that, but this was pretty close. You know?”

  “Was she seeing anybody else at the time?”

  “Not really. She had a lot of dates, she was so beautiful…” His voice caught on the last two words; he shook his head and repeated them, more to himself than to Runyon this time. “So beautiful.”

  “Any steady boyfriends before you?”

  “A couple, sure.”

  “Relationships end on friendly terms?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Was there anybody she had problems with?”

  “Problems?”

  “Men she dated who came on too strong, men she rejected who wouldn’t take no for an answer, kept bothering her?”

  “Cops asked me that, too.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t think so,” Iams said.

  “But you’re not positive?”

  “She’d’ve told me if there was.”

  “It wouldn’t have to have been recently. Before she knew you, at any time.”

  “No, she’d’ve told me. We told each other everything about ourselves. That’s how serious it was getting between us… ah, Jesus. Jesus. Why her? Of all the people in this city, why Erin?”

  There was nothing for Runyon to say to that.

  Iams said, “I’ve been thinking the guy must’ve been a stranger, one of those crazy random things. But I guess he could be somebody she knew. And he wouldn’t’ve had to be hassling her, right?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  There was a little silence before Iams said, “Fatso.”

  “Who would Fatso be?”

  “A guy who was hanging around her for a while. But it couldn’t be him.”

  “Why couldn’t it?”

  “Well, it was a couple of years ago, before we hooked up. And he didn’t hassle her, not the way we’ve been talking about.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Just kept showing up, following her around like a big fat dog.”

  “Is that the phrase Erin used, a big fat dog?”

  “Yeah. She said he was humongous.”

  “How big is humongous?”

  “Three hundred pounds or more.”

  “Where was it he kept showing up?” Runyon asked. “In this neighborhood? Where she lived? Someplace she went regularly?”

  “… I don’t know. All she said was he was around for a while and then he was gone, like maybe the Animal Control people came and carted him off to the pound. She thought it was funny. She was laughing when she told me about him.”

  “What was his real name?”

  “All she called him was Fatso.”

  “She know what he did for a living?”

  “If she did, she didn’t say.”

  “He followed her around, you said. Literally?”

  “I don’t think she meant it like that,” Iams said. “Just that he kept turning up places she went.”

  “Did he approach her, strike up a conversation?”

  “Hi, how are you, that kind of stuff.”

  “Ask her to go out with him?”

  “Once. She blew him off.”

  “How did she blow him off?”

  “How?”

  “Cut him short, let him down easy, laugh at him?”

  “She didn’t say anything about that. But Erin… she wasn’t a cruel person. She made jokes about him, sure, but she wouldn’t’ve done it to his face.”

  “How did he take the rejection?”

  “Like it was what he expected. Went off with his tail between his legs, Erin said.”

  “Did he keep coming around after that?”

  “I think maybe once or twice.”

  “How long altogether?”

  “Not very long. Maybe a month.”

  “Then he just disappeared? No reason or provocation?”

  “Nothing she said or did, no. There one day, gone the next.”

  “Did she see him again after that?”

  “No. Erin said they probably put him to sleep at the pound because nobody would want to adopt him, he’d cost too much to feed. She was really pretty funny, all that dog stuff.”

  “Sure,” Runyon said. “Funny.”

  “He couldn’t be the one, could he? I mean, he never really bothered her or anything. And it’s been a long time…”

  “Do you know if Erin told her sister about this man?”

  “Well, she probably did. They were close.”

  “How about girlfriends she might have confided in? Or who might’ve been with her when Fatso was hanging around?”

  “Well… she had a lot of friends, and I don’t know all of them. Risa could tell you better than I can.”

  “I’ll ask her,” Runyon said. “One more thing. Did you tell the homicide inspectors about Fatso?”

  “Yeah, I did. But they didn’t ask nearly as many questions as you did.”

  Which meant they didn’t see much in it and wouldn’t have spent a lot of time on the lead. Maybe they were right. And maybe they weren’t.

  The two women who owned FashionSense had nothing to tell him. At first there was a pretense of restrained cooperation, but after a handful of questions it was plain that they resented the intrusion. One of them, Joy Something, a sleek blonde in her early thirties, ended the pretense finally by saying, “Oh, Lord, we don’t know anything about what happened to Erin, if we did we’d have told the police. We’ve answered these same questions so many times already. Really, it’s becoming tedious.”

  “Tedious,” Runyon said flatly. “A young woman who worked for you was brutally raped and murdered less than two months ago, the man responsible still hasn’t been identified, and you find the investigation tedious.”

  The other woman, dark-haired, Tess Something, said, “For heaven’s sake, Joy didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Of course I didn’t,” Joy Something said. “We’re not insensitive people. But you have to understand our position, Mr… what was your name again?”

  “Runyon.”

  “Mr. Runyon. Policemen and now a private detective trooping in and out, asking questions… it isn’t good for business. We’re just making ends meet as it is, and the landlord is threatening to raise our rent again…”

  “Who hired you anyway?” Tess Something asked. “Erin’s sister?”

  He just looked at her.

  “I didn’t think she had enough money. And besides, what can you do that the police haven’t?”

  “We’d help if we could,” Joy Something said. “We liked Erin, she was a pleasant girl, a good employee, what happened to her was a terrible thing, but we just don’t know anything.”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “And we do care, even if you don’t think so.”

  “But you can only grieve for someone so long, especially someone you didn’t really know well. Life has to go on. You can’t expect us to put ours on hold.”

  Runyon still didn’t trust himself to speak. He put his back to them and walked out, fast, before the anger in him boiled over and he said or did something he w
ould later regret.

  Risa Niland said, “Fatso? Yes, I remember Erin mentioning him. But that was two years ago, and she didn’t have any trouble with the man.”

  On the phone her voice sounded lower, with some of the same huskiness as Colleen’s. Imagination? He tried not to focus on it as he said, “Are you sure about that?”

  “She’d have told me if she had.”

  “What did she say about him, exactly?”

  “Just that he was worshipful, like a big dog. She laughed about it.”

  “Did she say where and how she’d met him?”

  “Let me think… In the park somewhere, the first time. Stow Lake? Yes, Stow Lake. She was there with one of her girlfriends and he came up and spoke to her. I guess it surprised her.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, he weighed three hundred pounds.”

  “You saw him yourself?”

  “No, that’s what Erin said. I never saw him.”

  “Did she describe him in any other way?”

  “… Yes. Long hair in a ponytail.”

  “What color?”

  “I don’t remember her saying.”

  “Age?”

  “Around her age. Not much older or she wouldn’t have found him so amusing. She had a thing about older men hitting on her.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “Apparently he was shy and stumbled over his words. Afraid of rejection, I suppose. He must have had a lot of it in his life. Oh, and she said he looked silly in his uniform. She laughed about that, too.”

  “Uniform?”

  “That’s all. Not what kind it was.”

  Runyon asked, “The first time she saw him at Stow Lake-what did he say to her?”

  “He offered to buy her a soda. Erin said no, and that was the end of it.”

  “Did he tell her his name?”

  “Well, he must have at some point, at least his first name.”

  “But she didn’t mention it and you didn’t ask.”

  “I didn’t see any reason to.”

  “How soon did he turn up again after Stow Lake?”

  “A few days later. At a tavern on Geary where she went sometimes.”

  “Talk to her there? Hit on her?”

  “No, nothing like that. Just said hello and bought her a drink.”