F is for FUGITIVE

by Sue Grafton

  “Jesus, people in this town have sure been content to make Bailey the scapegoat.”

  Cherie stirred restlessly. “I have to get home.”

  “If you think of anything else, will you let me know?”

  “If I’m still around, I will, but don’t count on it.”

  “I appreciate that. Take care.”

  But she was gone.

  Chapter 20

  *

  It was eleven o’clock when I finally eased into bed. Exhaustion was making my whole body ache. I lay there, acutely aware of my heartbeat as it pulsed in my throbbing forearm. This would never do. I hauled myself into the bathroom and washed down some Tylenol with codeine. I didn’t even want to think about the day’s events. I didn’t care what had happened seventeen years ago or what would happen seventeen years hence. I wanted healing sleep in excessive doses, and I finally gave myself up to a formless oblivion, undisturbed by dreams.

  It was 2:00 A.M. when the ringing telephone woke me from the dead. I picked up the receiver automatically and laid it on my ear. I said, “What.”

  The voice was labored and slow, low-pitched, gravelly, and mechanically slurred. “You bitch, I’m going to tear you apart. I’m going to make you wish you’d never come to Floral Beach…”

  I slammed the phone down and snatched my hand back before the guy got out another word. I sat straight up, heart thudding. I’d been sleeping so soundly that I didn’t know where I was or what was going on. I searched the shadows, disoriented, tuning in belatedly to the sound of the ocean thundering not fifty yards away, discerning in the tawny reflection of the streetlights that I was in a motel room. Ah yes, Floral Beach. Already, I was wishing I’d never come. I pushed the covers back and padded, in my underpants and tank top, across the room, peering out through the sheers.

  The moon was down, the night black, surf tumbling its pewter beads along the sand. The street below was deserted. A comforting oblong of yellow light to my left suggested that someone else was awake ��� reading, perhaps, or watching late-night TV. As I watched, the light was flicked off, leaving the balcony dark.

  The phone shrilled again, causing me to jump. I crossed to the bed table and lifted the receiver cautiously, placing it against my ear. Again, I heard the muffled, dragging speech. It had to be the same voice Daisy had heard at Pearl’s when someone called to ask for Tap. I pressed a hand to my free ear, trying to pick up any background sounds from the caller’s end of the line. The threat was standard fare, real ho-hum stuff. I kept my mouth shut and let the voice ramble on. What kind of person made crank calls like this? The real hostility lay in the disruption of sleep, a diabolical form of harassment.

  The repeat call was a tactical error. The first time, I’d been too groggy to make sense of it, but I was wide awake now. I squinted in the dark, blanking out the message so I could concentrate on the mode. Lots of white noise. I heard a click, but the line was still alive. I said, “Listen, asshole. I know what you’re up to. I’ll figure out who you are and it won’t take me long, so enjoy.” The phone went dead. I left mine off the hook.

  I kept the lights off while I pulled my clothes on in haste and gave my teeth a quick brushing. I knew the trick. In my handbag I carry a little voice-activated tape recorder with a variable speed. If you record at 2.4 centimeters per second and play back at 1.2, you can produce the same effect: that sullen, distorted, growling tone that seems to come from a talking gorilla with a speech impediment. There was no way to guess, of course, how the voice would sound if it were played back at the proper speed. It could be male or female, young or old, but it almost had to be a voice I would recognize. Else, why the disguise?

  I unlocked my briefcase and took out my little .32, loving the smooth, cold weight of it against my palm. I’d only fired the Davis at the practice range, but I could hit damn near anything. I tucked my room key in my jeans pocket and eased the door open a crack. The corridor was dark, but it had an empty feel to it. I didn’t really believe anyone would be there. People who intend to kill you don’t usually give fair warning first. Murderers are notoriously poor sports, refusing to play by the rules that govern the rest of us. These were scare tactics, meant to generate paranoia. I didn’t take the death-and-dismemberment talk very seriously. Where could you rent a chain saw at this time of night? I pulled the door shut behind me and slipped down the stairs.

  The light was on in the office, but the door leading into the Fowlers’ living quarters was closed. Bert was asleep. He sat behind the counter in a wooden chair, his head angled to one side. The snores flapping through his lips sounded like a whoopee cushion, flat and wet. His suitcoat was neatly arranged on a wire hanger on the wall. He’d pulled on a cardigan, with cuffs of paper toweling secured by rubber bands to protect his sleeves. From what, I wasn’t sure. He didn’t seem to have any work to do aside from manning the desk for late-night arrivals.

  “Bert,” I said. No response. “Bert?”

  He roused himself, giving his face a dry scrub with one hand. He looked at me blearily and then blinked himself awake.

  “I take it the calls I just got didn’t come through the switchboard,” I said. I watched while the electrical circuits in his brain reconnected.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I just received two calls. I need to know where they came from.”

  “Switchboard’s closed,” he said. “We don’t put calls through after ten o’clock.” His voice was hoarse from sleep and he had to cough to clear his throat.

  “News to me,” I said. “Bailey called me the other night at two A.M. How’d he manage that?”

  “I connected him. He insisted on that or I wouldn’t have done. I hope you understand about my contacting the sheriff. He’s a fugitive from ���”

  “I know what he is, Bert. Could we talk about the calls that just came in?”

  “Can’t help you there. I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Could someone ring my room without coming through the switchboard?”

  He scratched at his chin. “Isn’t any way I know of. You can phone out, but you can’t phone in. Ask me, the whole business is a pain in the neck. Over at the Tides, they don’t even have phones in the rooms. System costs more than it’s worth anyhow. We had this one installed a few years back, and then half the time it’s down. What’s the point?”

  “Can I see the board?”

  “You’re welcome to take a look, but I can tell you right now no calls came through. I been on duty since nine o’clock and there hasn’t been a one. I’ve been doing accounts payable. Phone hasn’t made a peep.”

  I could see a pile of envelopes tucked in the box for outgoing mail. I ducked under the counter. The telephone console was on one end, eighteen inches wide, with a numbered button for every room. The only light showing was my room, 24, because I’d left my phone off the hook. “You can tell when a phone’s in use by the light?”

  “By the light,” he said, “that’s correct.”

  “What about room-to-room? Couldn’t a motel guest bypass the switchboard and dial direct?”

  “Only if they knew your room number.”

  I thought back to all the times I’d given out my business card in the last couple of days, the telephone number at the Ocean Street neatly jotted on the back ��� my room number too, in some cases… but which? “If a phone’s in use, you can’t tell from the light whether a call is to the outside, room-to-room, or off the hook, right?”

  “That’s right. I could flip that switch and listen in, but of course that’d be against the rules.”

  I studied the console. “How many rooms are occupied?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “What, we have national security at stake here?”

  He stared at me for a moment and then indicated with a put-upon air that I could check the registration cards in the upright file. While I flipped through, he hovered, wanting to be certain I didn’t pocket anything. Fifteen rooms out of forty were o
ccupied, but the names meant nothing. I don’t know what I’d expected.

  “I hope you’re not fixing to change rooms again,” he said. “We’d have to charge extra.”

  “Oh, really. Why is that?”

  “Motel policy,” he said, giving his pants a hitch.

  Why was I egging him on? He looked as if he was about to launch into a discourse on management strategies over at the Tides. I said good night and went back upstairs.

  There was no possibility of sleep. The phone began to make plaintive little sounds as though it were sick, so I replaced the receiver and disconnected the instrument at the jack. I left my clothes on as I had the night before, pulling the spread over me for warmth. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling while I listened to muffled noises through the wall: a cough, a toilet flushing. The pipes clanked and groaned like a clan of ghosts. Gradually, sunlight replaced the streetlights and I became aware that I was drifting in and out of consciousness. At seven I gave it up, dragged myself into the shower, and used up my allotment of hot water.

  I tried the Ocean Street Cafe for breakfast, downing cups of black coffee with the local paper propped up in front of me so I could eavesdrop on the regulars. Faces were beginning to look familiar. The woman who ran the Laundromat was sitting at the counter, next to Ace, who was getting ragged again about his ex-wife, Betty, seated on his other side. There were two other men I recognized from Pearl’s.

  I was in a booth near the front, facing the plate-glass windows, with a view of the beach. Joggers were trotting along the wet-packed sand. I was too tired to do a run myself, though it might have perked me up. Behind me, the customers were chatting together as they probably had every day for years.

  “Where you think he’s at?”

  “Lord only knows. I hope he’s left the state. He’s dangerous.”

  “They better catch him quick is all I can say. I’ll shoot his ass if I see him anywheres around here.”

  “I bet he’s got you peekin’ under your bed at night.”

  “I peek every night. ‘At’s the only thrill I get. I keep hopin’ to find somebody peekin’ back at me.” The laughter was shrill, underscored with anxiety.

  “I’ll come over there and help you out.”

  “Big help you’d be.”

  “I would. I got me a pistol,” Ace said.

  ” ‘At’s not what Betty says.”

  “Yeah, he’s loaded half the time, but that don’t mean his pistol works.”

  “Bailey Fowler shows his face, you’ll see different,” Ace said.

  “Not if I get him first,” one of the other men said.

  The front page of the local newspaper was a rehash of the case to date, but the tone of the coverage was picking up heat. Photographs of Bailey. Photographs of Jean. An old news photo of the crime scene, townspeople standing in the background. The faces in the crowd were blurred and indistinct, seventeen years younger than they looked today. Jean’s body, barely visible, was covered with a blanket. Trampled sand. Concrete steps going up on the right. There was a quote from Quintana, who sounded pompous even then. Probably bucking for sheriff since he joined the department. He seemed like the type.

  I wolfed down my breakfast and went back to the motel.

  As I went up the outside stairs, I saw one of the maids knocking on the door of room 20. Her cart was parked nearby, loaded with fresh linens, vacuum cleaner mounted on the back.

  “Maid service,” she called. No answer.

  She was short, heavyset, a gold-capped tooth showing when she smiled. Her passkey didn’t turn in the lock so she moved on to the room I’d been in before Bert had so graciously consented to the change. I let myself into room 24 and closed the door.

  My bed was a tumble of covers that beckoned invitingly. I was buzzing from coffee, but under the silver shimmer of caffeine my body was leaden from weariness. The maid knocked at my door. I abandoned all hope of sleep and let her in. She moved into the bathroom, a plastic bucket in hand, filled with rags and supplies. Nothing feels so useless as hanging around while someone else cleans. I went down to the office.

  Ori was behind the counter, clinging shakily to her walker while she sorted through the bills Bert had left in the box for outgoing mail. She was wearing a cotton duster over her hospital gown.

  Ann called from the other room. “Mother! Where are you? God…”

  “I’m right here!”

  Ann appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing? I told you I want to do your blood test before I go up to see Pop.” She caught sight of me and smiled, her dark mood gone. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Ann.”

  Ori was leaning heavily on Ann’s supporting arm as she began to shuffle into the living room.

  “You need some help?” I asked.

  “Would you please?”

  I slipped under the counter, supporting Ori on the other side. Ann moved the walker out of her mother’s path and together we walked her back to the bed.

  “Do you have to go to the bathroom while you’re up?”

  “I guess I best,” she said.

  We did a slow walk to the bathroom. Ann got her settled on the commode and then stepped into the hall, closing the door.

  I glanced at Ann. “Could I ask you a couple of questions about Jean while I’ve got you here?”

  “All right,” she said.

  “I took a look at her school records yesterday and I noticed that you were one of the counselors who worked with her. Can you tell me what those sessions were about?”

  “Her attendance, primarily. The four of us did academic counseling-college prep requirements, dropping or adding classes. If a kid didn’t get along with a teacher or wasn’t performing up to snuff, we’d step in and test sometimes, or settle disputes, but that was the extent of it. Jean was obviously in trouble scholastically and we talked about the fact that it was probably connected to her home life, but I don’t think any of us actually felt qualified to play shrink. We might have recommended she see a psychologist, but I know I didn’t try to function with her in that capacity.”

  “What about her relationship to the family? She hung out here quite a bit, didn’t she?”

  “Well, yes. During the time she and Bailey dated.”

  “I get the impression both your parents were fond of her.”

  “Absolutely. Which only made it awkward when I tried to approach her professionally at school. In some ways, the ties were too close to permit any objectivity.”

  “Did she ever confide in you as a friend?” Ann frowned. “I didn’t encourage it. Sometimes she complained about Bailey ��� if the two of them weren’t getting along ��� but after all, he was my brother. I was hardly going to jump in and take her side. I don’t know. Maybe I should have made more of an effort with her. I’ve often asked myself that.”

  “What about other faculty or staff? Anybody else she might have confided in?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I ever knew.” We heard the toilet flush. Ann stepped back into the bathroom while I waited in the hall. When Ori emerged, we maneuvered her back into the living room.

  She shrugged off her duster and then we struggled to get her into bed. She must have weighed two hundred eighty pounds, all ropey fat, her skin paper white. She smelled fusty and I had to make a conscious effort not to register my distaste.

  Ann began to assemble alcohol, cotton wipe, and lancet. If I had to watch this procedure again, I’d pass out.

  “Mind if I use the phone?”

  Ori spoke up. “I need to keep this line free for business.”

  “Try the one in the kitchen,” Ann said. “Dial nine first.”

  I left the room.

  Chapter 21

  *

  From the kitchen, I tried Shana Timberlake’s number, but got no answer. Maybe I’d stop by her place again in a bit. I intended to press her for information when I caught up with her. She held a big piece of the puzzle, and I couldn’t let her off the hook. The telepho
ne book was on the kitchen counter. I looked up Dr. Dunne’s office number and tried that next. A nursey-sounding woman picked up on the other end. “Family practice,” she said.

  “Oh, hi. Is Dr. Dunne in the office yet?” I’d been told he was out until Monday. My business was with her.

  “No, I’m sorry. This is Doctor’s day at the clinic in Los Angeles. Can I be of help?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I was a patient of his some years ago and I need records of the illness I was seeing him for. Can you tell me how I’d go about getting those?”

  Ann came into the kitchen and moved to the refrigerator, where she removed the glass vial of insulin and stood rolling it in her palms to warm it.

  “When would this have been?”

  “Uhm, oh gee, 1966 actually.”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t keep records that far back. We consider a file inactive if you haven’t seen Doctor in five years. After seven years, records are destroyed.”

  Ann left the room. I’d miss the injection altogether if I strung this out long enough.

  “And that’s true even if a patient is deceased?” I asked.

  “Deceased? I thought it was your medical records we were talking about,” she said. “Could I have your name please?”

  I hung up. So much for Jean Timberlake’s old medical chart. Frustrating. I hate dead ends. I returned to the living room.

  I hadn’t stalled long enough.

  Ann was peering at the syringe, holding it needle up, while she tapped to make sure there were no bubbles in the pale, milky insulin. I eased toward the door, trying to be casual about it. She looked up as I passed. “I forgot to ask, did you see Pop yesterday?”

  “I stopped by late afternoon, but he was asleep. Did he ask for me again?” I tried to look every place, but at her.

  “They called this morning,” she said irritably. “He’s raising all kinds of hell. Knowing him, he wants out.” She swiped alcohol on the bald flesh on her mother’s thigh.

  I fumbled in my handbag for a Kleenex as she plunged the needle home. Ori visibly jumped. My hands were clammy and my head was already feeling light.