Nightcrawlers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery)

by Bill Pronzini

  His head hurt a little now and the cold made his teeth chatter. He turned and hurried back inside the barn and found his jacket and put it on. The first thing he saw when he put on the lights was Angie’s dollhouse. Pride swelled in him when he looked at it. Best damn dollhouse anybody ever built for his kid. Biggest, too. Too big for the trailer. But he just couldn’t stop adding stories, adding rooms—it was three stories now and twenty-two rooms. When he finally finished it, got it all smooth-sanded and trimmed and painted, Angie would be so excited she’d probably wet her pants. She didn’t know what he was building out here in his workshop. Mia didn’t know. His secret. His big surprise for his little girl.

  Put a smile on his mouth, thinking about how her face would light up and she’d throw her arms around his neck and tell him it was the best present she’d ever had. Made him want to do some more work on the dollhouse, as early as it was. He took a piece of plywood from the stack, measured it carefully, then turned on the bench saw and put on his goggles and cut four new wall sections. He added those to the stack he’d already cut—a pretty tall stack, now, but you never knew how many wall sections you might need. When he was done with that, he used the belt sander on some of the sections he’d already fitted until the grain felt smooth as glass.

  The ache behind his eyes got worse and finally made him stop. He took two more Percodan—getting low, he’d have to finagle a new supply pretty soon—swallowed them with the last of the mineral water, and sat down on the cot and lit a cigarette and waited for the pain to go away. But it didn’t. Dulled a little, that was all. He got up and went to the front of the barn and stepped out again into the cold morning.

  Lights on in the trailer. Mia, Angie . . . only it wasn’t, not anymore. That little girl in there wasn’t his little girl. Looked like her, but she wasn’t Angie. And the woman wasn’t Mia. Black, not white—Dark Chocolate. Strangers.

  He went back into the barn and sat on the cot again. Angie, gone. Mia, gone. For three long years he’d been alone.

  Alone.

  Except for strangers in the trailer. Two of them this time. Why had he brought them here? The little girl, yes, because for a while he’d tried to make himself believe she was Angie. But Dark Chocolate, why her? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t think straight. His head hurt so bad now he felt sick to his stomach.

  But he knew what he had to do. He didn’t have to think about that. He knew in his gut, and that made the hurt even worse because he never wanted . . . he only wanted . . . all he ever wanted . . .

  He got up and found his shovel and pick and and took them out the rear door and around past the blackberry tangle and through the trees and up onto the little knoll. The grass grew tall up there—grass and ferns and milkweed. So tall he couldn’t see the graves even when he was standing right in front of them.

  He tore some of the grass away, pulling up huge clumps and hurling them away. Then he could see the graves. One large, one small. No markers . . . he didn’t need markers to know . . . they deserved markers, didn’t they? A little moan came out of his throat. Wetness leaked from his eyes.

  Angie. Mia.

  Alone.

  For a long time he stood looking down at the grassy mounds. Cold wind dried his cheeks, started him shivering again. He listened to it in the trees, in the eaves of the barn. It made sounds like a shrieking harpy’s voice. Mia’s voice. Screaming at him that last night, calling him names, telling him she’d get a restraining order if he didn’t leave her alone, telling him she was going to sell the property and take Angie away, back east someplace, telling him he’d never see her again never see her again never see her again until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he’d stopped the shrieking harpy’s voice . . . he’d lost control and he’d . . . and Angie, she’d come out of her bedroom crying and saying Don’t hurt Mommy leave Mommy alone! and he’d . . . his head felt like it would burst and he’d swung out blindly and the crying stopped too and Angie . . . all the blood on her face where she’d hit the wall and she didn’t move . . . both of them lying there so still . . . oh God no! . . . not Angie, his baby, she couldn’t be . . . he couldn’t have . . . she wasn’t dead she wasn’t dead!

  She was dead.

  And he put her in the ground, put Mia in the ground, and went away and tried to pretend none of it ever happened, Angie was still alive, none of it ever happened. And then one day he saw her playing on the street, he was so sure it was her. And he took her. And brought her up here and put the screens on the trailer windows and kept her here and tried to make her play the game in the woods, play with her toys, play on the swing set, showed her his dollhouse surprise, but she wasn’t Angie and all she did was cry and cry, like the other one who wasn’t Angie cried and cried, like the one in the trailer now who wasn’t Angie cried and cried . . .

  The first two were over on the far side of the knoll, by the trees; he didn’t want strangers sleeping too close to his family. He took the pick and shovel over there and found new places and dug two more graves in the soft earth, one large and one small. Dug them deep, deep, like he had all the others, so animals would leave them alone and they could rest in peace.

  When he finished he was tired and thirsty, but his head didn’t hurt so much anymore. He put the tools back in the barn and made sure the gun was still in his jacket pocket and then went out again and walked slowly to the trailer.

  Now that it was time, he’d do it quick like he had before. The last thing he wanted was for anybody to suffer.

  26

  TAMARA

  She’d just woken up, flat on her back on the single bed, held there by the weight of exhaustion, when the skirling noise of the power saw cut through the early-morning stillness. Deep into the night she’d worked on that screen, until her arms and body were a mass of hurt and she was too weak to lift and maneuver the frying pan. All but collapsed on the bed and passed out for a while and then alternately jerked awake and fell back into a matrix of crazy, terrifying dreams.

  She was so foggy she thought at first she was dreaming the saw noise. Then it was like getting a jolt of something, adrenaline or speed, and all at once she wasn’t foggy or exhausted or lying down half dead. On her feet, the frying pan clutched in stiffened fingers, ripping at the screen and that last clinging screw with all the strength she had left. It was close to coming out, had to be almost free, this kind of hell-with-the-noise effort was all it would take. Had to be!

  The shriek of metal slicing through wood stopped and pretty soon the other burring sound started up. That was even better because it stayed loud and steady instead of stop-and-go. She manipulated that pan in a frenzy, prying and twisting. Her fingers were already scratched and bloody; scabbed cuts began to bleed again and she opened another rip in her thumb when the handle slipped and snagged flesh on a sharp edge of the screen. Blowing like a horse, sweat in her eyes, her tongue like a fat lizard in a sand hole. Thinking: Keep it up out there, you son of a bitch, just give me a little more time, a little more time . . .

  Breaking loose?

  Yes! Squeal of ripping metal, the pan slipping again as the gap suddenly widened and the screw came flying out.

  A kind of wild joy welled up in her. She threw the pan down, stepped back for leverage, slid her fingers through the mesh. Now that the one side was free, she was able to bend the screen away from the window; the other side of the frame dug into the wall, putting enough pressure on those two screws to bend them sideways. The gap widened, kept widening. Another few inches and it’d be wide enough for her to get up to the window—

  The burring sound quit.

  Quiet again. Dead quiet.

  No, not when she was this close! Come on, come on!

  Birds chattering, nothing else.

  She let go of the screen, staggered into the kitchen to the window. Her stomach churned. Skin on her neck crawled.

  Lemoyne was standing in front of the open barn door. Just standing there, looking at the trailer.

  But he hadn’t come outside bec
ause he’d heard her. Looking was all he was doing. Ten seconds, fifteen he stood there . . . and then he turned back into the barn, shut himself inside again.

  Back to the bedroom, shaky, wiping her face. There was a folding chair in there; she positioned it under the window, waited a couple of minutes, but Lemoyne didn’t start using the power tools again. Couldn’t afford to wait any longer. She got up on the chair, took hold of the screen.

  A couple of pulls, pause to listen, check the gap. Again. Again. Again. Wide enough? She moved the chair and tried to squeeze her body up between the bent screen and the window. Almost, not quite—wedged her shoulders, scraped skin off one arm. Too goddamn fat! Get out of this, she’d lose another twenty pounds if she had to turn anorexic to do it.

  Pull, pull, pause.

  What was he doing in that barn now?

  Pull, pull. The deadness was back in her arms and upper body. Couldn’t keep this up much longer.

  Pull, pull, check the gap.

  There! Tight fit, but she could make it. Had to make it. Would make it.

  In the other bedroom Lauren lay so still under the blanket that Tamara, coming in, was afraid she might’ve slipped into a coma. No, just deeply asleep. Still running a high temp, her breathing labored and wheezy, but her color seemed better than it had yesterday. Or maybe that was just imagination, wishful thinking. She lifted the child, making sure the blanket stayed tucked around her, then shook her gently, talking to her, until she was awake and more or less alert.

  “We’re going home now, honey. You understand? Home to your mommy and daddy.”

  “. . . Honest?”

  “Honest. But you have to do exactly what I tell you, okay?”

  “I promise.”

  Tamara told her. Twice, slowly, to make certain the kid understood. Then she climbed up on the chair again, holding Lauren in the crook of one arm, and slid the window open.

  Sounds came to her then, faint, from somewhere over past the barn. Digging? Lord . . . hurry, now, hurry!

  She unwrapped the blanket, slung it over the back of the chair. Thank God Lauren was a featherweight; no problem lifting her up and through the window, hands under her thin arms. Her own shoulders jammed in the opening and she had to wiggle sideways to free them so she could lean out, lower Lauren down the outer wall. Even when she slid first one hand up to grasp the girl’s, then the other, dangling her as far down as she could reach, there was still a drop of a foot or so. Lauren didn’t struggle, just hung there as she’d been told. Ground looked soft enough—grass and pine needles. Tamara said a silent prayer and let go.

  The child was weak from the fever; her legs collapsed as soon as she hit the ground. But she wasn’t hurt. Didn’t make any noise, just rolled over and then crawled back to the wall and huddled against it a couple of feet to one side.

  Tamara dropped the blanket out to her, watched her wrap herself in it again. Okay, here we go. Couple of deep breaths and she was ready. She leaned up, wiggled her shoulders through the window as she had before, twisted sideways, sucked in her belly, and shoved upward, the chair skidding and toppling over behind her. The thrust got her about half out. She fumbled along the outer wall, hunting a handhold, but there wasn’t anything except the window frame and she couldn’t get enough purchase on that to pull herself through.

  Stuck.

  No, dammit, she wasn’t stuck, no way was she stuck, she’d haul herself out if she had to scrape her chubby hide raw. She twisted again, leaned forward as far as she could, got her palms flat against the cold metal, and wiggled her body and pushed with her hands. Damn big boobs kept her hung up for a little time, and then when she squeezed them through, it was her fat booty. She kept twisting, pushing, aware of stinging pain in two or three places and ignoring it. Aware, too, that she was making little grunting sounds; she locked her throat to hold them in.

  Sweat greased her body, slicked her clothing. Maybe that was what finally did it. For long struggling seconds she stayed lodged there, two-thirds of the way free like a cork that wouldn’t come out of a bottle. And then her hips finally scraped loose and she popped out, headfirst, tumbling down into the grass and pine needles.

  She got her head turned and her arms up in time to break the fall, take most of the impact on her forearms. But her left leg got bent somehow and there was a searing burst of pain in the ankle.

  She flopped over on one hip, peered at the ankle, felt it with shaky fingers. Breath hissed out of her throat. Not broken. Tender, sore . . . could she stand on it? Her gaze shifted, past the trunk of the big pine growing there toward the barn. Seemed like she’d made a lot of noise flopping down, but nothing moved over that way. Three or four seconds to catch her breath, then she pushed up one knee and managed to stand with most of her weight on the right foot. Pain erupted again when she shifted weight to the left one. Grimacing, she took a couple of experimental steps. The pain was bad—sprain, maybe a torn tendon—but at least she could hobble without falling down.

  Lauren was watching her with huge, frightened eyes. Tamara forced a smile, bent and lifted her and adjusted the blanket to keep her warm.

  A jay squawked loudly somewhere close by. It was the only sound in the morning hush, she realized then.

  Lemoyne wasn’t digging anymore.

  She’d made noise falling out the window, he might’ve heard—

  Get out of here!

  The SUV was so close, the quickest means of escape, but he’d have the keys on him and even if he didn’t, it was sitting right out there in the open. Only thing she could do was get Lauren and herself into the woods, fast. The dark wall of pines rose up fifty yards beyond the trailer; she went hobbling that way on a diagonal line, ignoring the pain in her ankle, using the trailer as a shield between them and the barn. Kept casting backward looks as she passed the playset, but she quit that when she stubbed against something in the tall grass and it nearly tripped her. Couldn’t watch where you were going and your backside at the same time, just get the hell into those trees.

  They loomed ahead, so dense daylight didn’t seem to penetrate more than a few yards. She was panting and staggering when she reached them. One more quick glance behind . . . still no Lemoyne . . . and then she was into their thick clotted shadow.

  Chilly, dank, smells of resin and rotting pine needles. Jutting trunks, lots of stuff growing on the ground. Hard to see. She felt an immediate fear of getting lost. She was a city girl, streets and sidewalks were her thing. What did she know about finding her way through thick woods like these?

  All right, don’t go in too far. Stay close enough to the clearing to keep herself oriented. She set off through the carpeting of needles, around and through the moss-hung trunks, avoiding bushes and ferns; trying to be as quiet as she could, but she couldn’t help making some scuffing noise because of her bad leg. Once her foot came down on a dead twig; it made a sound like a firecracker and the skin on her back tried to crawl up her neck.

  Off on her right she made sure she had glimpses of the clearing, the rutted driveway, the SUV sitting there in the sun. So far so good. Lauren didn’t make any noise, just clung to her with sweaty fingers. Ahead, then, she heard the fast-running gurgle of water. When she got across the creek she could start paralleling the driveway. And once she got to the road, follow that until she found a house or somebody came along. Plan. Good plan, if her leg didn’t give out, if Lemoyne would just stay in that damn barn.

  She almost blundered into a half-hidden deadfall, veered away just in time. Then she was at the creek. Not much more than six feet wide, low banks, rushing water maybe a foot deep. She took a two-handed hold on Lauren, eased down to the rocky bed, picked her way across through the icy water, bent low so she could see to avoid the larger rocks. The sudden cold aggravated the pain in her ankle; it throbbed and burned so much when she put weight on it that she had to practically crawl up the far bank on one hand and one knee. She leaned hard against one of the tree trunks to rest and wait for the pain to subside.

&nbs
p; All right, that’s long enough—move.

  She moved, deeper into the trees, keeping both the creek and the driveway in sight. The pines didn’t grow as close together here, and ahead they thinned even more. Through the gaps between them she could see almost all the clearing—the trailer, the SUV, the barn.

  And Lemoyne.

  Standing near the trailer, in the shadow of the trailer—standing still the way he had in front of the barn earlier, only this time he was all tensed with his head craned forward. Staring toward where she was in the woods.

  She made like one of the tree trunks, a sick, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her heart skipped a beat, stuttered, skipped another.

  Lemoyne broke into a run, heading straight at her.

  Saw us!

  Panic spun her around, sent her plunging away from him, away from the creek and the driveway, deeper into the woods.

  27

  JAKE RUNYON

  Five minutes in Nevada City, and you knew two certainties about the place. The steep streets, narrow lanes, old and false-fronted buildings, and business and street names told you it was an old mining town dating back to the California Gold Rush. And the bookshops, antique stores, boutiques, restaurants, saloons, and bed and breakfasts told you the rich ore being mined there nowadays was the tourist dollar. It was the kind of place Colleen would’ve liked; she’d shared his interest in history, and she’d loved to prowl bookshops and antique stores. He didn’t have an opinion one way or the other. Now that she was gone, it was just a place like all the other places.

  They pulled into the center of town a couple of minutes past seven. Two hours to kill, so Runyon found a café that was open on a side street off the main drag and they went in there and crawled into a booth. He was tired, gritty-eyed, but not as bad off as Bill. Hollow-cheeked, bags under his eyes, beard stubble stark against a splotchy pallor. They both needed about ten hours’ sleep. Caffeine and something in their stomachs would be enough for now.