Mourners nd-31

by Bill Pronzini

  Down off Potrero Hill, south on 101, west on 280. But he wasn’t going home yet. He stayed on 280 until the Daly City interchange, swung off on John Daly Boulevard and from there onto Skyline north, past Fort Funston and Lake Merced. Heading for the beach? Right. He took the cutoff onto the Great Highway, then turned into the narrow beachfront parking area at the foot of Sloat Boulevard. I drove on past, circled the block onto Sloat, and crossed into the parking area from there.

  The BMW was dark, slotted about halfway down. I pulled up between it and one other car parked there, close enough to the BMW for my headlights to wash over it and let me see that it was empty. I shut off the lights and got out and went to where I could see down beyond a shelf of broken shingle to the beach.

  Broken clouds tonight, restless and shifting under the lash of a stiff, cold wind that had driven the temperature down into the low forties. The three-quarters moon was obscured at first, the beach like an expanse of black velvet except for the trim of faint luminiscence where the surf broke and creamed over the sand. I stayed put, braced and shivering, until the moon broke free and I had a clearer view. One man down there, moving in hunched walk toward the waterline. Troxell, who else? Anybody’s guess what quirk or impulse or demon sent him beach-walking at night, in frigid weather like this.

  Back in the car, I sat on my hands until they warmed up and then called Jake Runyon’s cell phone number. “Troxell went up to Potrero Hill again, but he didn’t stay long. He’s back at the beach now, taking a moonlight stroll.”

  “Going home from there, you think?”

  “Probably.”

  “Be a good time for me to use that key.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Worth the risk. My opinion.”

  I hesitated, but not too long, before I said, “If you’re game, I suppose I am, too. You won’t take anything, disturb anything?”

  “You know I won’t.”

  “Sure. Worry mode tonight.”

  “Go ahead then?”

  “Go. Let me know when you’re finished.”

  I sat fidgeting, paying too much attention to the time, thinking that I ought to call home again and telling myself to quit worrying for no good reason. Eight thirty wasn’t late; if Kerry and Emily weren’t home by ten or eleven, that was the time to start fingering the panic button.

  Less than half an hour dribbled away before Troxell trudged back to his car. Too cold on the beach tonight even for him. Go home now, brother, I thought, when he headed out of the lot.

  And that was what he did.

  They were at the condo when I got there, both of them. Relief didn’t hang around long; as soon as I knew they were safe, it gave way to a simmer of other emotions, one of them being low-grade anger. I had a headache, I was hungry, I wanted a beer and some aspirin and some food and some explanations. I got all of that, more or less, but none of it made me feel any better.

  Kerry was sitting in her recliner in the living room, in the dark, alone except for Shameless curled up in her lap, the drapes open over the picture window and the lights of the city shining hard and bright in the distance. Emily was in her room with the door shut; I could see the light under the door. I called out to Kerry, got a lackluster response, and detoured into the kitchen. No dinner waiting, hot or cold. So I washed down three aspirin with a long draught from a bottle of Sierra Nevada, ate a cold chicken leg and a couple of carrots out of the refrigerator. Elegant dining in the bosom of home. Then, bottle in hand, I went into the living room to have a little fireside chat with my mate.

  As far as I could tell she hadn’t shifted position. When I switched on one of the table lamps I saw that she was sitting half-slouched, a sloppy posture she almost never adopts, and that she had a glass of white wine in one hand. She glanced up, favored me with a skeletal smile, and refocused her attention on the city lights below.

  I said, “So?”

  “So what?”

  “You haven’t been home long. Where were you tonight?”

  “Emily and I went out to dinner.”

  “Uh-huh. How come I didn’t get invited?”

  “It wasn’t planned. I didn’t get home until after six and I didn’t feel like cooking.”

  “I have a cell phone now. You gave it me last Christmas, remember?”

  “You said you’d be working tonight. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “I was a lot more bothered not hearing from you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I should have called.”

  “Yes, you should have. How was work today?”

  “Work?”

  “You know, the daily grind at the city’s leading ad agency.”

  “I took most of the day off,” she said.

  “I know. I called your office before I left the agency.”

  She glanced at me again, but only briefly; the city lights and the contents of her wineglass seemed to hold more appeal for her than I did. I sat down in my chair. The cat opened one eye for the first time, closed it again almost immediately. He wasn’t interested in me tonight, either.

  “I had a lunch date with Cybil,” she said.

  “Must’ve been some marathon lunch.”

  “And some things to do afterward.”

  “Such as?”

  “Things,” she said. “Are you interrogating me?”

  “I’d have to suspect you of something for it to be an interrogation.”

  “Do you suspect me of something?”

  “Nope. I’m just making conversation. Or trying to.”

  Silent communion with her wineglass.

  “How’s Cybil?” I asked her.

  “All right.”

  “What did the two of you talk about?”

  “What do you think we talked about?”

  That pushed the wrong button, turned up the heat under my frustration. “Kerry, dammit, what’s the matter with you? Talk to me. Please.”

  Some time went by. She still wasn’t looking at me. Shameless got up, stretched, yawned, turned around twice and settled down again with a little trilling sigh.

  Kerry matched the sigh. “I’m not angry with you, you know.”

  “Angry with me?”

  “I ought to be, but I’m not. With you or with Cybil.”

  “Oh, Christ. So that’s it.”

  “I understand the two of you were only trying to protect me, but I have the right to know the truth. More right than anybody in this world. More reason, too.”

  “Cybil told you, then. All of it?”

  “All of it. I dragged it out of her at lunch.”

  “How long have you suspected?”

  “Since Dancer died. Even before that. Something about the way the two of them interacted the few times I saw them together, as if there was a secret between them… it always made me uneasy.”

  “You never said anything-”

  “We don’t tell each other everything. No matter how much we pretend otherwise.”

  “Kerry, I’m sorry. I promised Cybil-”

  “I know. I also know you figured it out and confronted her with it. Would you have told me if you hadn’t promised?”

  “… I’m not sure. I hate keeping secrets, but I didn’t want to hurt you without reason. Keeping quiet seemed the lesser of the two evils.”

  Two swallows of wine before she said, “Without reason? Dancer’s child, rape child.”

  “No. He wasn’t your father, Ivan was. Cybil’s convinced of that.”

  “But I’m not. Not as long as there’s even the remotest chance.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Have a DNA test done. Cybil has a lock of Ivan’s hair.”

  “It’s that important to you to know for sure?”

  “Yes. It’s that important.”

  “Why now, all of a sudden?”

  “What do you mean, all of a sudden?”

  “It’s been three months since Dancer died. If you suspected then, why didn’t you say something? Why wait so long to get it out into the
open?”

  “You’re interrogating me again,” she said.

  “I’m not. I’m only-”

  “Denial, all right? It took me a long time to face up to it, make up my mind.”

  Logical answer, but I had the feeling it was only a half-truth, an evasion. She wasn’t looking at me when she gave it, and there was a flat, defensive quality in her voice. Her face, lamplit in profile, seemed tight-set, little white ridges of muscle showing around her mouth.

  I said, “When are you going to have the test done?”

  “Right away. I’ve already made arrangements.”

  “Well, that’s good. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can all get past this.”

  “If Ivan’s DNA is a match with mine.”

  “It will be.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “All right, suppose it isn’t. What then?”

  “I’ll deal with it,” she said.

  “Would it change how you feel about your life, yourself?”

  “I said I’d deal with it.” Snappish now. “One way or another.”

  An uncomfortable little silence built between us. I could feel the tension radiating out of her; it was strong enough to prickle the hairs on my neck. The cat felt it, too. He got up, gave her a sideways look, made a noise in his throat, and jumped down.

  “Kerry,” I said, “what is it you’re not telling me?”

  Her head turned briefly, turned away again.

  “You’re holding something back, hiding something.”

  “Like you did the past three months?”

  “Punishing me, is that it?”

  “No. Don’t be silly.”

  “All right, then. Why? What is it?”

  No answer.

  “Is there some other reason you’re in a rush for that DNA test?”

  No answer.

  “Kerry, please, no more secrets. Just talk to me.”

  She looked at me again, locked her gaze onto mine. Slowly her face lost some of its tautness, and her eyes softened and she wet her lips and started to say something And my goddamn cell phone went off.

  The thing was in my coat pocket, but it had one of those chirpy rings that seem overloud even when muffled. It startled both of us; worse, it changed Kerry’s mind, closed her off again. In the time it took for a second loud chirp, the muscles in her face retightened and her attention shifted back to the city lights.

  “You’d better answer that,” she said.

  “It’s probably Jake Runyon, he’ll call back. Kerry-”

  “I think I’ll have another glass of wine,” she said, and got abruptly to her feet and walked out of the room. I knew that walk, the stubborn set of her head and shoulders. No matter what I said or did, I would not get anything more out of her until she was good and ready to give it to me.

  15

  JAKE RUNYON

  The key was in the Lindens’ mailbox, attached by a chain and hook to a hunk of varnished driftwood. Justine Linden’s doing, probably. Afraid of it being lost, or maybe the driftwood was a feeble attempt to annoy him. He wasn’t annoyed; there were too many large concerns for him to be bothered by the pettiness in people.

  He came down off the front stoop, went around onto the path at the side. The key opened the gate lock as well. There were lights showing at the front of the house, but none back here. All the windows looked to be blinded or draped. Throbbing music, something jazzy with heavy emphasis on saxophone and trumpet, came from inside-loud out here, which meant it must be deafening inside. They didn’t want to know if and when he came prowling around. The old, false credo: what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

  The outbuilding was dark except for a reflected gleam where moonlight touched window glass. Runyon crossed the patch of damp grass to the entrance. The key let him into shadows and silence, and the faint musty smell of a place that hadn’t been aired out in some time. He shut the door behind him before he felt around for a wall switch.

  The switch operated a pair of lamps set well apart from each other, both with low-wattage bulbs which allowed his eyes to adjust immediately to the light. One big room, with a fake knotty pine partition that separated a third of it into a bedroom area, and a closed door at that end that would lead to the bathroom. The other two-thirds was a combination living room and kitchenette, no separation between them. Single-beam ceiling covered with white acoustical tile, walls paneled in more fake knotty pine. Pretty rudimentary. Justine Linden and her brother must not have thought much of their mother. Either that, or they’d built the unit on the cheap out of necessity or parsimony.

  Carpeted floor, threadbare in places. Not much in the way of furnishings: sofa, Naugahyde chair, coffee table, end table, TV and VCR on a rolling stand, day bed, dresser, two-burner stove top, tiny refrigerator, stainless-steel sink set into a narrow Formica countertop. No visible phone. Light film of dust on the furniture, and that musty smell: Troxell hadn’t bothered to clean the place. But he hadn’t messed it up any, either. There was nothing on any of the tables or countertop. The only evidence of his occupation were two medium-sized cardboard boxes on the floor next to the couch, a tall pile of newspapers beside the coffee table, and a pair of video cassettes on top of the VCR.

  Runyon went around the partition into the bedroom area. The day bed was unmade, no sheets or blankets anywhere. A tiny closet contained dust bunnies and empty hangers. The dresser drawers were empty. Nothing in the bathroom except a bar of soap on a tray that hadn’t been used in so long it had turned stone-hard and developed cracks. He crossed to the other end and opened the refrigerator. Empty. Under the sink was a wastebasket; nothing in there, either.

  One of the videos was a slasher film called Bloodbath, the usual crap about a psychotic slaughtering young women. The other was a graphic reality thing in a plain box with a typed title- True Terror: The Most Horrifying Deaths Ever Captured on Film. Touching it made Runyon want to go wash his hands.

  He moved over to the cartons. The largest one contained some twenty books, hardcovers and paperbacks both, some with library markings, some new. Serial killer novels. Accounts of high-profile true-crime cases, all involving violent homicide. A sociological study titled The Effects of Violence in American Society, another on the causes and consequences of domestic abuse called Look What You Made Me Do. Abnormal psychology texts: The Killing Mind, Why Did They Kill? The Psychopathology of Rape, Monsters in Disguise: An Illustrated History of Serial Killers.

  He repacked the books in the order he’d found them, opened the second carton. Manila file folders, more than a dozen of them, each with a woman’s name printed on the front with a black felt-tip pen. One of the names was Erin Dumont; he recognized three of the others as violent-crime victims whose funerals Troxell had attended. All the names, he found, belonged to victims of either random or domestic violence. Each folder contained a sheaf of newspaper clippings detailing the circumstances of the crime, follow-up news and feature stories, resolution if any; and receipts for floral and memorial offerings. There were four times the number of receipts in the Dumont folder as in any of the others-for flowers sent once or twice weekly, the marble headstone, an annual upkeep payment on her grave. That was all. No notations in Troxell’s hand, no additional contents of any kind.

  Two other items in the box. One was a thick bunch of nonreligious Hallmark cards bound together by a rubber band. All new and of more or less the same design, with simple messages: deepest sympathy, heartfelt condolences. Ready to be signed with something anonymous like “A Friend” and sent to victims’ families with or without floral offerings.

  The final item in the box was the most interesting of the lot. Pad of ruled yellow foolscap, new, with none of the sheets having been torn off. Five pages had writing on them, all of it in Troxell’s crabbed hand. The top sheet had been done with a ballpoint, the penmanship good and the rows orderly until the last few sentences; those sentences sprawled and had been written with enough pressure to tear the paper in a few places. Rough draft
of a letter that had never been sent:

  To the S.F. Police Department Three nights ago, at approximately 7 p.m., I was at Lloyd Lake in Golden Gate Park. I stop there sometimes on my way home from work, sit at Portals of the Past and watch the ducks, it’s a quiet place to unwind.

  I was returning to my car when I noticed a man and a woman talking alongside a car parked across the road from mine. There was no one else in the vicinity. The man was holding the door open. The woman hesitated as if she was reluctant to get inside, then relented. The man got in after her. I don’t believe either of them noticed me.

  He didn’t start the car or put on the lights. As I was buckling my seat belt, I saw them talking and the woman began to laugh. It seemed to make him angry. He said something to her and she stopped laughing. She tried to get out of the car. He grabbed her, dragged her back. I think he might have hit her then. No, I’m sure he did, he punched her in the face, the dome light was on and I saw her head bounce off the door glass and her body slump down on the seat. He pulled the door shut. He started the car and drove away.

  I could have followed them but I didn’t.

  I sat there a while longer and then I drove home.

  I didn’t do anything.

  It was dark and I didn’t get a clear look at the woman but she was young and she was wearing a light-colored jogging suit. I think she might be the woman who was raped and murdered that night.

  I can’t identify the man, I didn’t get a clear look at him.

  I can’t identify the make or model of the car.

  I couldn’t read the license plate number.

  I don’t really know anything.

  I didn’t do anything.

  I can’t I couldn’t I don’t I didn’t

  The other four pages had been written with a black felt-tip pen. Some of it was the same crabbed handwriting as the letter draft, some was in block printing, a few words had been formed in thick, heavy, doodlelike strokes. Done at different times, but in each case during a period of emotional upheaval.

  The first: american? japanese?

  2 doors 4 doors? dark color but what color? dark blue dark green dark brown? license plate? 2 something U or O or D but that’s all big man but just husky or fat? what kind of cap? baseball racing sun what? don’t know can’t remember couldn’t tell in the dark didnt pay enough attention why not? you coward you know why not