Spook

by Bill Pronzini

  Spook’s identity was pretty much established now; some sort of corroborating evidence was all that was missing, and Hickox should be able to supply that. In the days when he still had Colleen, the manhunter in him might’ve chafed at quitting an investigation while parts of it were still hot. Now it just didn’t matter. Employee doing a job, grunt taking orders — that was all he was and all he cared to be.

  When he finally reached Mammoth Lakes he found himself in an upscale mountain resort community already teeming with holiday ski crowds. SUVs, vans, ski-laden cars clogged its neatly plowed streets; by the time he maneuvered through the traffic and located the sheriff’s substation, he was better than fifteen minutes late for his appointment.

  Lawrence Hickox didn’t seem bothered by the delay. He was in his fifties, ruddy-featured, broad head coated in gray fuzz, friendly manner tempered with reserve. They went into his private office to talk. The reserve faded once Runyon mentioned his background and provided a more detailed rundown on the investigation: two professionals on more or less equal footing.

  “Anthony Colton, after all these years,” Hickox said. “I figured him for dead long ago.”

  “I would’ve, too, in your place.”

  “Pure crazy luck, him squeezing through the dragnet that summer, disappearing without a trace. Seemed like he had to be dead. I mean, he was no Richard Kimble. You know, ‘The Fugitive.’ Colton wasn’t half that smart or resourceful.”

  “What kind of man was he?”

  “Average. Model citizen until the day he snapped. Lived quietly, no bad habits, never in trouble of any kind. Didn’t hunt or do much hiking or fishing — didn’t have any survivalist skills. I’d love to know how he got out of the Toiyabe after he abandoned his car; we never found anybody who might’ve given him a ride. By all rights a man like Colton, wandering around in that wilderness, ought to’ve been dead inside a week. That’s what I told those TV people that came sucking around.”

  “TV people?”

  “Scouts for one of those fugitive shows that were popular awhile back — ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ ‘Unsolved Mysteries,’ one of those. They hung around a few days, asked a stream of questions, then went away and we never heard from them again. Maybe my saying Colton must be dead had something to do with it. More likely, they decided the shootings were too cut and dried, or the sex angle too gamy for TV. Two of the victims naked in the sack when they were shot... that’d be hard to adapt for a network show, even these days.”

  Runyon had nothing to say to that, just nodded.

  “So,” Hickox said. “You’re convinced this dead homeless guy in S.F. is Colton?”

  “Everything points to it.” He went into more detail: Spook’s ghosts, the high school yearbook page, the rest of the trail that had led to Mono County. “SFPD didn’t get onto the connection because there was no match when they ran his prints through NCIC.”

  “That’s because he was never officially fingerprinted — no military service, no police record, no sensitive job, etcetera. Things were hectic as all hell at the crime scene that first day, people in and out, but we did manage to lift a few clear latents we were reasonably sure were Colton’s. A few others from his office, too. But we had nothing to match them against for verification. Sheriff turned the lot over to the FBI after they came in, but I guess the prints never made it into their database.”

  “I saw the body in the morgue,” Runyon said. “Did Colton have a strawberry birthmark on the upper right arm? A scar a couple of inches long under his chin? Three mutilation scars in the genital area?”

  “Birthmark rings a bell.” Hickox opened a folder, shuffled through a sheaf of computer printouts. “I pulled up the file after you called. We don’t usually put old cases into the system, even unsolved ones, but I made sure the Colton casefile got saved... Here we go. Birthmark, upper right arm. Doesn’t say if it was strawberry or not, and I don’t recall where the information came from. One of the victims’ relatives, probably.”

  “Location seems conclusive enough.”

  “Agreed.” Hickox was still studying one of the printouts. “Nothing here about any scars. Did you say mutilation scars in the genital area?”

  “Possibly self-inflicted.”

  “Suicide attempt? Well, that’d be in character for a man ended up as crazy as you say he was. Bad cuts?”

  “Bad enough.”

  Hickox shook his head. “That kind down there don’t heal by themselves. He must’ve had professional treatment. And if it was a suicide attempt he’d’ve been held for observation. All that attention... and nobody realized he was a wanted man.”

  “It happens,” Runyon said. “People slip through the cracks, homeless and mentally ill more easily than anybody else.”

  “Sure, but he kept slipping through for seventeen years, Christ knows how many times. Phenomenal run of luck.”

  “Everybody’s luck runs out sooner or later.”

  “Yeah. Shot with a forty-one caliber weapon, you said?”

  “One bullet, back of the head execution-style.”

  “You think whoever did it knew his real identity?”

  “We’re not being paid to find out who or why, just the ID.”

  “I’m asking your personal opinion.”

  “Then yes, that’s what I think. Shooter knew him, had reason to want Anthony Colton dead, not a homeless crazy known as Spook.”

  “Seventeen years is a long time to nurse that kind of hate.”

  “Not if you were related to one of his victims.”

  “That occurred to me, too. Anybody specific in mind?”

  “Robert Lightfoot, for one.”

  “The wife’s father? I didn’t know he was still alive.”

  “Lives in a trailer park in Bridgeport. Had a stroke sometime back, confined to a wheelchair.”

  “If he’s in a wheelchair, that lets him out.”

  “Not necessarily. He knew Spook was Colton before the shooting. How, I don’t know.” Runyon explained about the phone call to Human Services. “Lightfoot’s involved in the first homicide, if not the second. He threw down on me with a pump gun when I tried to talk to him yesterday.”

  “Then you make it a two-man operation?”

  “Adds up that way. The shooter somebody with just as much motive to want Colton dead.”

  “Another relative?” Hickox said. “Well... maybe. I can think of one who fits the bill.”

  “Thomas Valjean?”

  Raised eyebrow. “You do dig deep, don’t you? That’s right, Lucas Valjean’s brother. According to him, Colton didn’t just murder one member of his family that day, he murdered three. Father and mother both died within a year or so of the shootings, couldn’t seem to reconcile the loss of their son and just gave up on living. Tom was always a hothead. For a long time afterward he came around the department every few weeks, demanding to know why Colton still hadn’t been caught. Once he pitched a scene and we had to put him in a cell to cool off.”

  “Sounds like a man capable of violence.”

  “Oh, yeah. Beat up a drunk in a bar fight one time, put him in the hospital. Arrested another time for poaching deer out of season. Big hunter. Collected guns, too, come to think of it.”

  “You remember if he has a large facial mole? Next to his nose, left side.”

  “Mole? That’s right, sure, Tom has one.”

  “A man answering that description was in the city a few days before the shooting, hunting for Spook.”

  “Then Valjean sure does figure to be the shooter, doesn’t he.”

  “I checked the local directory — he doesn’t live up here anymore. Any idea where he’s living now?”

  “Seems to me I heard he got married and moved away,” Hickox said. “Offhand I don’t recall where, but I know somebody who can probably tell me. Friend he used to go hunting with, lives here in Mammoth Lakes.”

  Runyon watched the deputy make a call, listened to his side of a three-minute conversation. When the call end
ed, Hickox said, “They’re still in touch. Valjean lives down your way, all right. Vallejo. And he’s had a load of hard luck lately — IRS troubles, lost his business, wife left him. Enough right there to shove a man like him to the edge.”

  “And Colton turning up pushed him over.”

  “Yeah. Who’s handling the homicide investigation at SFPD?”

  “Lieutenant Jack Logan’s the man to talk to. Friend of one of my bosses. He knows by now that the John Doe was Colton.”

  “I’ll give him a ring, fill him in about the birthmark and the rest of what we’ve discussed. You want to talk to him?”

  “No need. My job’s finished — we’re out of it now.”

  “Good job, too. Heading home then, get back in time for Christmas?”

  Home. Christmas. Just words.

  “Yes,” Runyon said. “Heading back to San Francisco.”

  22

  Tamara

  Monday night:

  Pop said, “Sweetness, why didn’t you let us know you and Horace are back together?”

  “We’re not back together. I was gonna call you—”

  “You’re sharing the apartment again. What’s that if not back together?”

  “Temporary arrangement. For the holidays.”

  “Claudia said—”

  “You believe everything she says? Big sister knows all, tells all, can’t do no wrong?”

  “Now where’s this anger coming from? You think we favor Claudia?”

  “Well, don’t you?”

  “Of course not. If that’s why you resent her—”

  “Only times I resent her is when she tries to run my life.”

  “She helped you make peace with Horace, didn’t she?”

  “What I mean, Pop, what I mean! All she did was make things harder on me.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “Looking to make my decisions, thinks she knows what’s best for me. Ever since we were kids.”

  “And you’re saying she’s never been right?”

  “Sure she has, but that’s not the point.”

  “What is the point? You haven’t always made the right decisions on your own, you know.”

  “You gonna start in on all the crap I put you and Ma through when I was a teenager? My rebellious years?”

  “No. Ancient history.”

  “Uh-huh. Claudia doesn’t think so. Still harps on it sometimes.”

  “Well, she’s not perfect either. Nobody is.”

  “Close to it, though, huh? No rebel in that child.”

  “Didn’t think there was any left in you. Was I wrong?”

  “I’m my own woman, Pop. That’s what I’m trying to get across.”

  “I know it. Don’t you think we want you to be independent?”

  “Sure, when you approve of what I’m being independent about.”

  One of the famous Corbin sighs. “Let’s not go any more rounds tonight, Tamara. I’m tired, you’re tired, we’ll just end up saying things we’ll both regret. It’s almost Christmas, let’s have some peace in the family. You are coming down on Christmas Eve?”

  “Tradition. You know I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. Horace, too?”

  “Both of us. We already talked about it.”

  “Okay, good. Just tell me how you want us to handle the situation.”

  “What situation?”

  “You and Horace. As a couple? Friends? What?”

  “Well, we’re still sleeping in the same bed for now.”

  “For now. What about next month?”

  “He’s leaving for Philly on the fourth.”

  “Doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I can’t answer it. Not yet.”

  “... All right. Promise me one thing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Good behavior on Christmas Eve. No arguments, no hassles.”

  “Me spoil the party? Hey, Pop, don’t worry. I’ll be your sweetness, a perfect little lady. Just like Claudia.”

  Monday night.

  Claudia said, “Well, what was I supposed to tell Pop? You did move back in with Horace. That’s getting back together in my book.”

  “Not mine. Just means we’re fucking again.”

  “For God’s sake. I hope you didn’t use that language with Pop.”

  “He knows what the word means.”

  “Why do you have to be so vulgar?”

  “Why do you have to be so tight-assed?”

  “You’re twenty-five, an adult — act like it.”

  “Yes, Ma. Okay, Ma.”

  “Sometimes... I think you actually hate me.”

  “Wrong. No hate for anybody in this girl.”

  “Resent me, then.”

  “That’s what Pop thinks. Told him only when you try to boss my life.”

  “I’ve never tried to boss your life.”

  “And when you pretend you don’t and never did.”

  A Claudia sigh. Little softer, little more drawn out than one of Pop’s. Two of them ought to do a duet, get Horace to play accompaniment on his cello. “Sonata of Sighs in D Flat,” something like that.

  “Tammie, you know I care about you—”

  “Don’t call me Tammie. I hate that fool name, knamean?”

  “Knamean. That’s another thing. Street slang, ebonies... half the time you talk like somebody from the projects.”

  “That what you think I am? Ghetto stereotype?”

  “I know you’re not. I just wish—”

  “What, sistah? That I’d talk white folks’ talk like you?”

  “I don’t ‘talk white folks’ talk,’ I speak correct English. There’s a big difference.”

  “Is there? Yeah, well, it’s whitey’s world and you just trying to get along.”

  “That’s right,” Claudia said, “it is still whitey’s world. But it’s changing, and I’m trying to do what I can to help. By working within the system.”

  Lawyer talk now. “And I’m not, that what you’re saying?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I respect you, the way you’ve turned your life around. I just want you to fit in—”

  “Turned my life around. Fit in. Whoa, girl. Way over rap. Off da hook!”

  Sigh. “Are you going to act like this on Christmas Eve? Spoil the holidays for the rest of us?”

  “Just like Pop. Same worry out your mouth.”

  “What answer did you give him?”

  “Gonna be a perfect little lady, just like you.”

  “I hope you mean that. Are you bringing Horace?”

  “Are you bringing the oreo?”

  “Brian is not an oreo! Stop calling him that. He’s a good man, a brilliant attorney, and you’d better get used to him. You’re going to be seeing the two of us together for a long time.”

  “Don’t tell me that silky dude proposed to you?”

  “Not yet, but he will. Soon.”

  “Thinking on a big wedding, huh? The whole nine yards?”

  “I’d like a formal wedding, yes.”

  “Whoo. You in a white dress, Brian in a tux — be just like watching a glass of milk and a big old cookie exchanging vows.”

  “... God, Tamara, you can be a bitch sometimes!”

  “Guess who I learned it from, big sister.”

  Monday night.

  Horace said, “Why do you act like that with your family?”

  “What, you eavesdropping on me now?”

  “You were talking loud enough for the neighbors to hear.”

  “Don’t you be ragging on me too.”

  “I’m not. I’d just like to know why you can’t get along with your family, why every conversation has to turn into a sniping match.”

  “Always my bad, right?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Didn’t have to. Better stay on your own side the bed tonight.”

  “So now it’s my turn to get chopped.”

  “Tomor
row night, too.”

  “Dammit, woman. Did you mean what you said to Claudia and your father?”

  “Mean what?”

  “We’re not really back together, all we’re doing is sharing a bed for the time being.”

  “Well, duh. One day at a time, like you said.”

  “I know what I said, but I keep hoping...”

  “That I’ll change my mind? Marry you, move back east?”

  “Marry me at least. Would that be so bad?”

  “Wouldn’t be so good.”

  “What about the promise you made me?”

  “What promise?”

  “At Claudia’s. That you won’t give up on us.”

  “If I’d given up, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “But you won’t make any kind of commitment.”

  “Like the one you went and made all by yourself?”

  “Baby, it wasn’t a choice between you and my music—”

  “No? You gonna leave your cello behind when you go?”

  “What? Of course not.”

  “Same way I feel about my job.”

  “It doesn’t have to be us or our careers, one or the other, all or nothing. Why can’t you believe that?”

  “ ’Cause I stopped believing in fairy tales when I was six years old.”

  Tuesday morning.

  Sad and lowdown when she got to the office. Still on edge, too, so it was a good thing the boss man was planning to be out most of the day, business interview and Emily’s school pageant, and Jake Runyon wasn’t back from Mono yet. She might’ve gone off on one of them for no good reason, the way she kept doing lately, make herself feel even worse.

  Quiet in there, sitting at her desk. Gave her time to scrape around inside her head, take an objective look at what she found. Didn’t like it much, but there it was and might as well admit it. Person she was really upset with, person who’d needed bitch-slapping all along, was herself.

  Pop, Ma, Claudia, Horace, Bill... they all cared about her, wanted good for her. So why did she keep fighting and ragging on them, keep turning into the angry smartmouth like some black-sister Jekyll and Hyde? Oh, they were always so sure they knew what was best, wouldn’t let her be her own woman, live her own life her own way. Only problem was, sometimes she ran a little scared. Felt insecure, vulnerable. Didn’t know what she should do, didn’t feel sure of herself, needed help figuring out what was best for her. Purely hated being dependent on anybody, but those times she just had to reach out. That was why she’d moved in with Claudia when she left Horace, why she’d let him take her to bed last Friday night, why she’d moved back in with him so quick and easy. Why she drove down to Redwood City every few weeks to spend time with the folks. What she partly was, like it or not, was a woman who didn’t want to be alone, needed somebody close to lean on. Only she couldn’t just lean, uh-uh, not her. The more dependent she became, the more she started hating herself, and blaming other people for her insecurity, and before she knew it she’d lapsed right back into her old ’tude.