Hardcase

by Bill Pronzini

  There was one other avenue to be explored here. If anyone had the details of a violent act that had taken place in 1971, it was the local cops. Small-town policemen can be cooperative with private investigators, if properly approached and if they don’t perceive you as a threatening or disruptive influence. On the one hand, a cover-up on a felony meant police sanction, and no cop who’d been around in 1971 was going to admit to that. On the other hand, twenty-three years is a long time and there might not be any veterans of that era left on the force, in which case I might be able to wangle a look at the complaint files for February, March, and April of ’71. Worth a shot.

  The police station was on Fifth Street. Or rather it was half of an old building on Fifth; the second half belonged to an office of the highway patrol. A lone, uniformed officer held down the desk inside, and one look at him told me I’d wasted my time. He’d been here in 1971, for sure; he might even have been here in 1951. He was gray-haired and pushing retirement age, with the stolid look and vaguely bored manner of a career cop who has spent most of his duty time in the same small town. A bar tag on his uniform said he was a sergeant and his name was Kresky.

  I went into my pitch anyway, keeping it low-key and polite. For all the reaction and interest he showed, I might have been a tourist complaining about a busted parking meter. Yes, he’d been on the force in 1971. Didn’t remember a rape or any other violent crime, though. Never heard of Paul or Claire Aldrich. Hell, no, it wouldn’t be possible for me to have a look at the ’71 complaint files. Against regulations. Ought to know better than to ask, a smart city detective like me.

  I thanked him and started out. He let me get to the door before he called, “Just a second,” and turned me around.

  “Yes?”

  “Good friend of mine called a few minutes ago. Ev Yarnell. Asked me to give you a message if you happened to stop by.”

  “I’m not surprised. I’ll bet I can guess the message too.”

  “Think so? Go ahead.”

  “Keep working hard and do my stepping on toes somewhere other than Marlin’s Ferry.”

  “Close enough,” Kresky said. “Another thing Ev mentioned, you asked how our town got its name. He couldn’t tell you because it slipped his mind. Hasn’t slipped mine. I could tell you.”

  “I’m sure you could tell me a lot of things, Sergeant. Could but won’t.”

  “Really are a smart fellow, aren’t you?”

  “Sometimes. Not today.”

  “No, not today. Well, you take it easy. Drive carefully on your way out of town.”

  “Oh, I will,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to get a ticket, would I?”

  Chapter Six

  AS SOON AS I TURNED OFF 88 onto Highway 49 just north of Jackson, the first stirrings of unease began. At a deep level I’d known this would happen but I hadn’t let myself think about it. The unease had nothing to do with the adoption case. It had to do with the fact that Jackson was less than fifty miles from a place called Deer Run, in the mountain wilderness north of Murphys—a place where, five years ago, I had been chained to a cabin wall and left alone to die a slow, agonizing death.

  Ninety days I had been trapped in that cabin before I was able to escape. The ordeal had changed me in profound ways, hardened me: I tracked down my jailer with the intention of killing him in cold blood, and I’d come within a hair of doing just that. For almost a year afterward I’d been plagued by nightmares, both sleeping and waking; by severe anxiety attacks during which I could barely function; by the kind of chronic edginess I was feeling now. Gradually each of the stress reactions faded and then disappeared; the last nightmare ride had been more than a year ago. But this was the first time in five years that I had been back up here, and even with fifty miles separating me and Deer Run, I could literally feel the nearness of the cabin. It was like entering a magnetic field at the end of which was a yawning abyss. Even now, after the passage of so much time, I knew I didn’t dare let myself get much closer to Deer Run than I was at this moment. If I got too close I would be drawn inexorably to the prison site, and I couldn’t handle that. Stand at the edge of the abyss and it would suck me in again, down into the same darkness....

  I was sweating as I drove down the long hill into Jackson. On the hillside above town the gallows frame of the old Kennedy gold mine stood outlined against the flat blue sky. The Kennedy and its nearby rival, the Argonaut, were the deepest gold mines in North America, both sunk more than a mile into the earth. No longer operating, either one. End of another era. I made myself concentrate on that, and on how much Jackson had grown since I’d last seen it, sprawling outward along the highway, and on how it had contracted the urban-suburban blight of dinky shopping centers full of fast-food eateries and boutiques and junk shops masquerading as antique emporiums, and wouldn’t the rowdy gold rush miners be appalled to see what had happened to it and the rest of the mother lode camps. By the time I turned off 49 onto Main Street I was all right again. A little shaky, but with the demons at bay.

  Food and something to drink—that was the first order of business. I parked in front of the old Marré liquor warehouse, now another antique dispensary, and went into a café and filled the cavity under my breastbone with a sandwich and a couple of glasses of iced tea. Better still. Even the shakiness had vanished when I was done. I might have been anywhere then, instead of fifty miles from the door to hell.

  Next to the café was a notions shop. I bought a map of Amador County that included a street plan of Jackson, and talked the clerk into letting me have a look at the store’s copy of the local telephone directory. There was no listing under Gardeners for a J. Jenkins, but when I checked Gardening Supplies I found: Joseph Jenkins, Outfitters for the Outdoors—Mowers, Tillers, Trimmers, Sprinklers, Lawn & Garden Accessories, “We Have Everything You Need. ” The address was on Jackson Gate Road.

  But the Amador County courthouse was only a couple of blocks away, so I went there first. The county clerk’s office had records of the births of three female babies on November 19, 1971; none were in the southern part of the county, and all were to married women evidently residing with their husbands. I wrote down the names and addresses. If I turned up blanks everywhere else, I would check these out as a matter of course. And also check for any recorded November 19, 1971, births in Calaveras County, which would mean a drive south to its seat, San Andreas. I wouldn’t do that except as a last resort. San Andreas was seventeen miles closer to Deer Run.

  Jackson Gate Road ran in a long, looping parallel to Highway 49 on the north side of town. Joseph Jenkins, Outfitters for the Outdoors, turned out to be a big cinder-block building with a fenced side yard and a graveled parking area in front, sitting by itself in a rural section near China Graveyard Road. There were no other vehicles in the lot when I drove in. And nobody inside except for a middle-aged woman listlessly arranging small bags of potting soil on a shelf.

  Yes, she said, Mr. Jenkins used to be a gardener and general handyman; but that was years and years ago. No, he wasn’t here right now but he should be back pretty soon. She consulted her watch. “He said he’d be in by four and it’s a quarter of now. If you’d like to wait . . .”

  “I’ll do that, thanks.”

  I waited in my car, so as not to bother the woman. Four o’clock, it developed, was a poor estimate; it was nearly four-thirty before a white van with the company name painted on the side turned in to the parking area. The driver and I got out at the same time and I braced him before he reached the building.

  “Mr. Jenkins?”

  “That’s right. Help you with something?”

  “I hope so. How’s your memory?”

  “Memory?”

  “The reason I’m here is something that happened twenty-three years ago. November of nineteen seventy-one, to be exact.”

  Jenkins frowned. He was past fifty now, with half the hair he’d had at half the age. The thick salt-and-pepper mustache he wore may or may not have been an attempt at compensation. His eyes we
re an odd pea-green and shrewd without being intelligent.

  “That’s a hell of a long time,” he said. “What is it I’m supposed to remember?”

  “A family you worked for at the time—Paul and Claire Aldrich, from San Francisco. They had a summer cabin near Sutter Creek. You did gardening and handyman work for them.”

  He nodded. “Them and about a hundred others. What’s so special about November of seventy-one?”

  “That’s when their daughter was born. Melanie Ann. Remember her?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Did you know she was adopted?”

  “No. Listen, who are you?”

  I told him, let him have a look at my license. “Melanie Ann hired me to find out who her birth parents are, if they’re still alive.”

  “I thought the Aldriches were her real parents,” Jenkins said. “Nobody said any different when Mrs. Aldrich brought the kid home.”

  “Nobody said any different to Melanie Ann either. She didn’t find out the truth until Claire Aldrich died a month ago.”

  “So why come to me? Who gave you my name?”

  “Melanie. She identified you in an old photo taken at the cabin.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t tell you anything.”

  “You already did,” I said.

  “I already . . . what?”

  “You said nobody told you Melanie wasn’t the Aldriches’ natural child when Mrs. Aldrich brought her home. Meaning home to the Suitter Creek cabin, right?”

  “So?”

  “In late November. Gets pretty cold up here at that time of year. Why bring a newborn baby all the way to Sutter Creek instead of to San Francisco? Why come up to their cabin at all?”

  Jenkins shrugged. “You tell me.”

  “Only one reason I can think of,” I said. “The baby was born somewhere nearby, in a hospital or private home. How long did the Aldriches stay at the cabin that November?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You were there when the baby arrived. You as much as said so.”

  “One day. I happened to be doing some work for them.”

  “Gardening work in late November?”

  “You ever heard of leaves piling up?”

  “Sure. But why wait until the start of snow season to tidy up the grounds?”

  There were answers for that, but his mind didn’t work quickly enough to think of one. His response was a flat stare.

  “A lawyer down in Marlin’s Ferry handled the adoption,” I said. “Lyle Cousins. Name ring any bells?”

  “I don’t hear any.”

  “There’s a better than even chance that at least one of the birth parents lived in or near Marlin’s Ferry, and that they weren’t married. There’s also a better than even chance either domestic violence or rape was involved.”

  Jenkins had a good poker face to go with his shrewd eyes, but it wasn’t perfect. One corner of his mouth lifted a quarter of an inch; he brought a hand up to yank at the salt-and-pepper brush above it, as if the mouth quirk were the mustache’s fault. “How’d you find that out?”

  “Detective work.”

  “What else you dig up?”

  “Not much. Except that you know something about it.” A spark of anger showed in his eyes but it didn’t kindle any real heat. “Listen,” he said, and then didn’t tell me what it was he wanted me to listen to.

  “Why lie about it, Mr. Jenkins? Why not just unburden yourself, make life a little easier for an unhappy young woman. Unless you’ve got a reason to hide the truth—involvement in a crime, for instance.”

  “That’s a laugh. Do I look like a criminal?”

  “One of the worst criminals I ever encountered had the face of a saint.”

  “I never did anything wrong,” he said.

  “Fine. Then tell me what you know about the adoption. Did you put the Aldriches in touch with Melanie’s mother?”

  “No.”

  “But you know who did.”

  He licked his lips, tugged at his mustache again. You could almost see the cogs and wheels working inside his head. Almost hear the whir-click! when he made his decision. I knew what it was even before he spoke.

  “Melanie must have money,” he said, “if she can afford to hire a detective. You guys don’t come cheap, from what I hear.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “The Aldriches had plenty of money, and if they’re dead, that means the girl inherited it.”

  I said thinly, “How much, Jenkins?”

  “How bad does she want to know where she came from?”

  “It’s me you’re dealing with, not her.” I got my wallet out and fingered through the bills inside. “Fifty dollars.”

  “Fifty?” he said, as if I’d insulted him. “I was thinking more like five hundred. Maybe a thousand.”

  Nothing from me.

  “What’s a thousand bucks to a rich girl?” Jenkins said. “Pocket money, that’s all.”

  I waved a hand at the cinder-block building. “You’ve got a nice little business here. You don’t need to gouge money from a twenty-three-year-old who’s all alone in the world.”

  “She’s not alone if she’s got money.” His voice was bitter now. “Besides, this nice little business of mine is mortgaged to the hilt, the economy is piss-poor, and I got a wife and two kids still living at home. So don’t lecture me, mister. A man’s got to make a buck wherever and however he can. That’s the American way, isn’t it?”

  “If he does it legally.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I’m going to get in my car and drive down to city hall and file a complaint against you for attempted extortion.”

  “What! Christ, you can’t do that—”

  “No? Watch me.”

  I turned away from him, went around the rear of my car to the driver’s door. He was right behind me. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Wait a minute. I never tried to extort any money!”

  Technically he was right. Technically he hadn’t committed any crime and if I filed a complaint against him based on our conversation, any judge in the country would throw it out in ten seconds flat. But Jenkins was something of a dim bulb; chances were he didn’t know what did or didn’t constitute attempted extortion. And Jackson was a small town, and he was a small businessman dependent on the goodwill of his friends and neighbors for his livelihood. An extortion charge, valid or not, would make the local paper and do him all kinds of harm. If I’d gauged him right, that was what he was thinking and it was scaring him plenty.

  I opened the car door. “Wait a minute,” he said again, almost frantically this time. I didn’t even look at him; I slid in under the wheel and shut the door. “Man, don’t do this to me.”

  “You did it to yourself. I asked you politely to be a good citizen, help a young woman at a difficult time in her life. But no, you get greedy, demand a thousand dollars—”

  “All right,” he said.

  “All right what?”

  “I’ll tell you what I know. All of it.”

  “For how much?”

  “For nothing. I’ll tell you and you don’t make any complaints, don’t hassle me, just go away and leave me alone.”

  “Funny, but that’s just the way I wanted to do it in the first place. Okay, get in the car.”

  Jenkins went around and eased himself inside, as if the seat might be wired with an electrical charge. He shut the door without looking at me, fumbled in his shirt pocket and came out with an unfiltered cigarette and a book of matches.

  I said, “If you’re going to set fire to that thing, roll the window down and blow the smoke outside.”

  “Yeah.” He worked the window crank, lit his weed, and did what I’d told him with the carcinogens. “All right. Where you want me to start?”

  “Start with the Aldriches. Did they approach you about getting them a baby, or did you approach them?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “How was it t
hen?”

  “They came up early that year, middle of May, to get the cabin ready for the summer.” He still wasn’t looking at me. “Aldrich had me come out to do some yard work. It was right after the wife and I had our second kid, and I showed him a picture. He said him and his wife wanted kids real bad but she’d lost a couple and couldn’t have any more. I said why didn’t they adopt. He said they’d tried once, waited two years and finally got a baby and then something happened and the whole thing fell through. He wanted to try again but she was afraid of another long wait and another screwup at the end of it. He said about the only way she’d agree to adopt again was if she woke up some morning and somebody handed her a kid and said here, this is yours to keep.”

  “Uh-huh. And this put ideas in your head.”

  “No. I never had any ideas, not on my own.”

  I believed that. “Keep talking.”

  “Well, a couple of weeks later the wife and I were out to dinner with Joe Badger and his girlfriend. Her name was Elizabeth. Joe was a buddy of mine, sold State Farm insurance, and she lived down in Marlin’s Ferry. The women started gossiping the way they do, and Elizabeth said remember that poor girl I told you about a few months ago? Well, things got even worse for her —turns out she’s pregnant. My wife asked was she going to have the baby. Elizabeth said she was because the family was strict Catholics and didn’t believe in abortion—”

  “Not so fast. This girl Elizabeth was talking about—how’d she get pregnant?”

  “Some guy raped her. Beat her up and raped her.”

  “How old was she at the time?”

  “Sixteen, seventeen.”

  “Name?”

  “Oh, Christ, I don’t remember. Twenty-three years . . .”

  “Try.”

  I watched him try. Whir-click, click-whir, and: “Might’ve been Jane. Or Judy. Something like that. Last name . . . it’s gone. But she had a sister and they lived together—their folks were dead, I think. And she had something wrong with her. Before the rape, I mean.”