F is for FUGITIVE

by Sue Grafton

  I listened with both eyes and one ear, trying to discern what was really going on. Ostensibly, we were discussing how we spent our leisure time. He gravitated toward backpacking, while I tended to amuse myself with the abridged California Penal Code and textbooks on auto theft. While his mouth made noises about an assault of ticks on a recent day hike, his eyes said something else. I disconnected my brain and fine-tuned my receiver, picking up his code. This man was emotionally available. That was the subliminal message.

  A chunk of lettuce dropped off my fork and my mouth closed on the bare tines. Ever the sophisticate. I tried to act as though I preferred to eat my salad that way.

  Midway through the meal, I changed the tenor of the conversation, curious what would happen if we talked about something personal. “What happened to your wife? I take it she died.”

  “Multiple sclerosis. She went into remission numerous times, but it always caught up with her.

  Twenty years of that shit. Toward the end, she couldn’t do anything for herself. She was luckier than most, if you want to look at it that way. Some patients are rapidly incapacitated, but Karen wasn’t in a wheelchair until the last sixteen months or so.”

  “I’m sorry. It sounds grim.”

  He shrugged. “It was. Sometimes it looked like she had it licked. Long periods symptom-free. The hell of it was she was misdiagnosed early on. She’d been plagued by minor health problems, so she started seeing a local chiropractor for what she thought was gout. Of course, once he got hold of her, he mapped out a whole bullshit program that only postponed her getting real help. Class three subluxation. That’s what he said it was. I should have sued his ass off, but what’s the point?”

  “She wasn’t a patient of Dr. Dunne’s, by any chance?”

  He shook his head. “I finally forced her to see an internist in town and he referred her to UCLA for a workup. I guess it didn’t matter in the final analysis. Things probably would have come out the same, either way. She handled it much better than I did, that’s for sure.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say to him. He talked about her for a while and then went on to something else.

  “May I ask you about your relationship with Shana Timberlake?”

  He seemed to debate briefly. “Sure, why not? She’s become a good friend. Since my wife died,

  I’ve spent a lot of time with her. I’m not having an affair with the woman, but I do enjoy her company. I know tongues in town are wagging, but to hell with it. I’m too old to worry about that sort of thing anymore.”

  “Have you seen her today? I’ve been trying to track her down.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  I looked over to see Ann Fowler coming in the door. “Oh, there’s Ann,” I said.

  Dwight turned and caught her eye, motioning to her with pleasure. As she approached, he got up and borrowed a chair from a nearby table and moved it over to ours. The dark mood was still with her. She radiated tension, her mouth looking pinched. If Dwight was aware of it, he gave no sign.

  He held her chair. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes, sherry.” She signaled for the waitress before he had a chance. He sat down again. I noticed she was avoiding eye contact with me. And drinking? That seemed odd.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked.

  “You could have told me you wouldn’t be with us for dinner tonight.”

  I felt my cheeks heat at her tone. “I’m sorry. It didn’t even occur to me. I was going to take a nap when it dawned on me I hadn’t eaten all day. I took a quick shower and came straight over here. I hope I didn’t put you out.”

  She didn’t bother to reply to that. I could see that unconsciously she’d adopted her mother’s strategy, hanging on to her martyrdom and milking it. I’m not crazy about this as a mode of interaction.

  The waitress arrived and asked Ann what she wanted. Before she disappeared, Dwight snagged the woman’s attention. “Hi, Dorothy. Has Shana Timberlake been in today?”

  “Nope. Not that I’ve seen. She’s usually here for lunch, but she may have gone in to San Luis. Thursday’s her day to shop.”

  “Well, if you see her, tell her to give me a buzz if you would.”

  “Will do.” Dorothy moved away from the table, and he turned back to us.

  “How are you, Dwight?” Ann said, with forced pleasantness. It was clear she was cutting me right out of the loop.

  I was too tired to play games. I finished my coffee, tossed a twenty on the table, and excused myself.

  “You’re leaving us?” Dwight said, with a quick look at his watch. “It’s not even nine-thirty.”

  “It’s been a long day and I’m beat.”

  We went through our good-night maneuvers, Ann being only minimally more polite than she had been. Her sherry arrived as I left the table and headed for the door. I thought Dwight seemed slightly disappointed at my departure, but I might have been kidding myself. Martinis bring out the latent romantic in me. Also headaches, if anybody’s interested.

  Chapter 19

  *

  The night was clear. The moon was a pale gold, with gray patches forming patterns across the face of it like bruises on a peach. The door to Pearl’s Pool Hall was standing open as I passed, but there were no pool players in evidence and just a handful of people at the bar. The jukebox was playing a country-western tune of some haunting melodic sort. There was one couple on the dance floor, the woman stony-faced as she looked over the man’s shoulder. He was doing a hip-swaying two-step, moving her in a circle while she pivoted in place. I slowed, recognizing them from the arraignment. Pearl’s son and daughter-in-law. On an impulse, I went in.

  I perched on a barstool and turned so I could watch them. He seemed self-absorbed. She was bored. They reminded me of one of those middle-aged couples I see in restaurants whose interest in one another has long ago expired. He was wearing a tight, white T-shirt that bowed slightly at the waist where his love handles bulged out. His jeans were low-slung, too short for the heel on his cowboy boots. His hair was a curly blond, damp from all the styling mousse, which I had to guess was going to smell as pungent as buffalo musk. His face was smooth and full, with a pug nose, a sulky mouth, and an expression that suggested he was very smitten with himself. This guy spent a lot of time in front of bathroom mirrors, combing his hair while he decided which side of his mouth to hang his cigarette from. Daisy approached, her gaze following mine.

  “That’s Pearl’s son and daughter-in-law?”

  “Yep. Rick and Cherie.” “Happy-looking pair. What’s he do?”

  “A welder at a company makes storage tanks. He’s an old friend of Tap’s. She works for the telephone company, or at least she did. She quit a couple weeks back and they been squabbling ever since. Want a beer?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Pearl was on the far end of the room in a conversation with a couple of guys in bowling shirts. He nodded when he saw me, and I gave him a wave. Daisy brought my beer in a frosty Mason jar.

  The dance number ended. Cherie left the dance floor, with Rick close behind. I put a couple of bucks on the bar and crossed to their table just as they sat down. Close up, her features were delicate, her blue eyes set off by dark lashes and brows. She might have been pretty if she’d had the resources. As it was, she was thin in a way that spoke of poor nutrition: bony shoulders, bad coloring, lifeless hair pulled back with a couple of plastic barrettes. Her fingernails were bitten right down to the quick. The wrinkles in her sweater suggested that she’d snatched it, in passing, from a pile on the bedroom floor. Both Rick and Cherie smoked.

  I introduced myself. “I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.”

  Rick lounged in his seat, hooking his arm over the back of his chair while he checked me out. His legs were now extended insolently into my path. The pose was probably meant to look macho, but I suspected his waistband had jammed his stomach right up against his spleen and he was affording himself some relief. “I heard about you. Y
ou’re that private detective old man Fowler hired.” His tone was knowing. Nobody was going to put one over on him.

  “Could I sit down?”

  Rick motioned me to a chair, which he kicked out with his foot ��� his notion of etiquette. I sat down. Cherie didn’t seem thrilled with my company, but at least it saved her being alone with him. “So what’s the deal?” he said.

  “The deal?”

  “Yeah. What do you want with me?”

  “Information about the murder. I understand you saw Bailey and Jean together the night she was killed.”

  “What of it?”

  “Can you tell me what happened? I’m trying to get a feel for what was going on.”

  From the far side of the room, I saw Pearl’s attention focus on our table. He extracted himself from his conversation and ambled over. He was a big man, so that even the exertion of crossing the room left him breathing heavily. “I see you’ve met my boy and his wife.”

  I rose halfway from my seat and shook his hand. “How are you, Pearl? Are you joining us?”

  “Could.” He pulled out a chair and took a seat, signaling to Daisy to bring him a beer. “You fellas want anything?”

  Cherie shook her head. Rick ordered another beer.

  “How about you?” Pearl said to me.

  “I’m fine.”

  He held up two fingers and Daisy began to fill a jar from the dispenser hose at the bar. Pearl turned back to me. “They catch Bailey yet?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Heard Royce had him a heart attack.”

  “An attack of some kind. I’m not sure what it was. He’s in the hospital now, but I haven’t really talked to him.”

  “Fella’s not long for this world.”

  “Which is why I hope to wrap this thing up,” I said. “I was just asking Rick about the night he saw Jean Timberlake.”

  “Sorry to interrupt. You go right ahead.”

  “Not much to tell,” Rick said uncomfortably. “I drove by and spotted the two of ‘em getting out of Bailey’s truck. They looked drunk to me.”

  “They were staggering?”

  “Well, not that, but hanging on to each other.”

  “And that was midnight?”

  Rick made a visual reference to his father, who had turned at Daisy’s approach. “Could have been a little after that, but right around there.” Daisy put the two beers on the table and went back to the bar.

  “You see any cars passing? Anybody else on the street?”

  “Nuh-unh.”

  “Bailey says it was ten o’clock. I’m puzzled by the discrepancy.”

  Pearl intervened. “Coroner put the time of death close to midnight. Naturally, Bailey’d like everybody to believe he was home in bed by then.”

  I glanced at Rick. He should have been home in bed himself. “You were how old, seventeen at the time?”

  “Who, me? I’se a junior in high school.”

  “You’d been out on a date?”

  “I’d been at my grammaw’s and I was on my way home. She’d had a stroke and Dad wanted me to stay with her till the visiting nurse got there.” Rick lit another cigarette.

  Cherie’s face was expressionless, except for an occasional flicker of the mouth ��� meaning what? She checked her nails and decided to give herself a manicure with her teeth.

  “Which was when?”

  “Ten after twelve. Something like that.”

  Pearl spoke up again. “Nurse on ��� the early shift called in sick so I had Rick sit in till the other one got there.”

  “I take it your grandmother lived in the neighborhood.”

  “Why all the questions?” Rick asked,

  “Because you’re the only witness who can actually put him at the scene.”

  “Of course he was there. He admits that himself. I saw the two of ‘em get out of his truck.”

  “It couldn’t have been somebody else?”

  “I know Bailey. I’ve known him all my life. He wasn’t any farther away than here to there. The two of ‘em drove down to the beach and he parked and they got out and went down the steps.” Rick’s eyes strayed back to his father’s face. He was lying through his teeth.

  “Excuse me,” Cherie said. “Does anybody mind if I bug out? I got a headache.”

  “You go on home, baby,” Pearl said. “We’ll be there in a bit.”

  “Nice meeting you,” she said to me briefly, as she got up. She didn’t bother to say anything to Rick. Pearl watched her departure, clearly fond of her.

  I caught Rick’s eye again. “Did you see anybody coming in or out of the motel?” I knew I was being persistent, but I figured this might be the only chance I’d get to question him. His father’s presence probably didn’t help, but what was I going to do? “No.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  “I already told you that. It was just regular. Normal.”

  Pearl spoke up. “You’ve about exhausted the subject, haven’t you?”

  “Looks like it,” I said. “I keep hoping I’ll pick up a lead.”

  “It’d be nothin’ more than damn luck after all this time.”

  “Sometimes I can make luck,” I said.

  Pearl leaned forward, thrusting his double chins at me. “I’ll tell you something. You’re never going to get anywhere with this. It’s no point. Bailey’s confessed and, by God, it’s gonna stick. Royce don’t want to believe he’s guilty and I can understand that. He’s near dead and he doesn’t want to go to his grave with a cloud hanging over him. I feel sorry for the old fool, but that doesn’t change the facts.”

  “How do we even know what the facts are at this point?” I said. “She died seventeen years ago. Bailey disappeared the year after that.”

  “My point exactly,” Pearl said. “This is old news. A dead horse. Bailey admitted he was guilty. He could’ve been out by now instead of starting all over. Look at him. He’s taken off again. Who knows where, doing who knows what. We might any of us be in danger. We don’t know what’s going through his head.”

  “Pearl, I don’t want to argue with you, but I won’t give up.”

  “Then you’re a bigger fool than he is.”

  I’d just about had my fill of argumentative old men. Who asked him? “I appreciate your assessment. I’ll keep that in mind.” I glanced at my watch. “I better get back.”

  Neither Rick nor Pearl seemed sorry to see me go. I could feel their eyes on me as I left the place, giving me the kind of look that makes you want to step up your pace a bit.

  I walked the two blocks to the motel. It was just after ten, and two black-and-whites were parked side by side across the street. Two young cops were leaning on the fenders, coffee cups in hand while their radio kept up a running account of what was going on in town. I kept thinking about Rick. I knew he was lying, but I had no idea why. Unless he killed her himself. Maybe he’d made sexual advances and she’d laughed him off. Or maybe he’d just been trying to look important at the time, the last man who’d seen Jean Timberlake alive. It was bound to lend him status in a community the size of Floral Beach.

  I took my keys out as I went up the outside stairs. It was dark on the second-floor landing, but I caught a whisper of cigarette smoke. I stopped.

  There was someone standing in the shadow of the vending machine across from my room. I reached for the penlight in my handbag and flicked it on.

  Cherie.

  “What are you doing here?” She stepped out of the dark, the dim glow of the flashlight washing her face with white. “I’m sick of Rick’s b.s.”

  I moved to my door and unlocked it, glancing back at her. “You want to come in and talk?”

  “I better not. If he gets home and I’m out, he’ll want to know where I’ve been.”

  “He’s been lying, hasn’t he?”

  “It wasn’t midnight when he saw them. It was closer to ten. He was on his way to see me. He knew if his Daddy found out he’d left his granny by h
erself, he’d get the crap beat outta him.”

  “So what happened then, he left and went back?”

  “Right. He got back by the time the visiting nurse showed up for her shift. Later, when it turned out Jean Timberlake had been murdered, he said he saw her and Bailey. He just blurted it out before he realized how much trouble he’d be in. So then he had to make the time different so he wouldn’t get his ass whipped.”

  “And Pearl still doesn’t know?”

  “I’m not sure about that. He’s real protective of Rick, so maybe he suspects. It didn’t seem like it mattered, once Bailey pleaded guilty. He said he killed her, so nobody really cared what time it was.”

  “Did Rick tell you what really happened?”

  “Well, he did see ‘em get out of the truck and go down to the beach. He told me that at the time, but Bailey really could have gone back to his room and passed out like he claimed.”

  “Why are you telling me?”

  “It’s no skin off my butt. I’m leaving him anyway, first chance I get.”

  “You never told anyone else?”

  “With Bailey gone all those years, who was I going to tell? Rick made me swear I’d keep my mouth shut and I’ve done it, but I can’t stand listening to any more bull. I want my conscience clear and then I’m heading out.”

  “Where will you go if you leave Floral Beach?”

  She shrugged. “Los Angeles. San Francisco. I got a hundred bucks for the bus and I’ll just see how far it goes.”

  “Is there any chance Rick could have been involved with her?”

  “I don’t think he killed her, if that’s what you mean. I wouldn’t stick with him if I thought he did that. Anyway, the cops know he lied about the time and they never cared.”

  “The cops knew?”

  “Sure, I’d assume so. They probably saw her themselves. Ten o’clock, they’re always down at the beach. That’s where they have their coffee break.”