“Not much. Comes from a burg down by Fresno. A tough kid, but no brains. Doesn’t fit Bollo’s scene anymore, now that Bollo’s into legitimate businesses instead of strong-arm stuff. I think Rodman may have a job with one of Bollo’s outfits, but no rough stuff. Clean as a spinster’s twat.”
“What’s Bollo into now?”
“Let’s put it this way. If you go into a Market Street bar, buy a drink and a pack of cigarettes, play the jukebox, and put a quarter in one of those frigging electric Ping-Pong games, you’ll be contributing to Duckie’s retirement with every nickel you shell out.”
“Does Duckie connect with anyone else? LA or Vegas?”
“Who knows for sure? This is a pretty small town in syndicate terms. They have more action in Oakland and San Jose.”
“Got anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Ever hear of a woman named Sara Brooke?”
“Nope. Should I?”
“No. Forget the name.”
“I never forget. Got to go feed the fish now, Tanner. You got enough for one day.”
“Thanks for the time, LaVerne.”
“Okay. Next time you see some fucker take a swing at me do me a favor and let him hit me. I got a bunch of bad teeth I want to get rid of.”
“You got it.”
I hung up as Ruthie came back in with the coffee. We sipped away in a comfortable silence. I was worried about Claire Nelson but I didn’t know what to do with what I had just learned about her boyfriend. Maybe Sara could help me decide.
“How’s business?” Ruthie asked after a while.
“Fair. I work more days than I don’t. But not many.”
“That’s the way you want it, right?”
“That’s the way I want it.”
“Harry’s decided to retire at the end of the year.”
“Really? That’s great.”
“I guess so.”
“Any special plans?”
“Oh, he wants to go to France. Harry landed at Normandy during the war, you know. Other than that, not too much. We may move to Oregon.”
“Why?”
“Harry wants some land, and we can’t afford even a cesspool in this state. It’ll be hard to leave our friends, though. I kind of hope Harry changes his mind.”
“Me too. You ever hear Harry mention a girl named Claire Nelson?”
“Sure. She’s a client.”
“She wants to get in touch with Harry.”
“Don’t I know. She calls five times a day.”
“She wanted me to ask Harry to give her a ring.”
“You know he will whenever he gets back, Marsh. Is she any relation to that Roland Nelson?”
“Daughter.”
“You’re traveling in fast company these days. Must feel pretty good.”
“I’ve felt better.”
The doorbell rang. Ruthie motioned for me to keep seated and went to buzz it open. Two pairs of shoes clomped up the stairs. The men in them couldn’t have looked more like cops by wearing beanies that said so.
One was as big as a boulder and just as bald; he was still puffing from the climb. The other was short and squat and nervous. He flitted around the big man like one of Saturn’s moons.
“Mrs. Spring,” said the big one, “I’m Inspector Fannon and this is my partner, Inspector Blackstone.”
I knew Fannon. He liked to hurt people, especially kids. There were several men like Fannon in the department, and several more who were lining their pockets with everything they could shake out of the tree. The new chief and a bunch of the younger cops were trying to change things around, but for too many of the top brass religion and heritage still mattered more than ability, and willingness to participate in the graft and the brutality mattered most of all.
Ruthie introduced me and Fannon asked what I was doing there.
“Having coffee and thinking pure thoughts,” I said. “How about you?”
“We’re here to talk to Mrs. Spring.”
“Good. You’ll enjoy it.”
“I may, but I don’t think she will,” Fannon said gruffly. “Why don’t you take off, Tanner?”
“Because I want him here,” Ruthie announced.
“If that’s the way you want it, Mrs. Spring.”
“What’s this about, Fannon?” I asked.
“We’d like to know where your husband is, ma’am,” Fannon muttered. He was looking at something on the wall and fidgeting. Something was wrong, because Fannon wasn’t the nervous type.
“Why? What difference does it make where Harry is?” Ruthie asked.
“I’ll get to that. But first could you please tell me if he’s here in the city?”
“No. He isn’t.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know for sure. Some town in the valley, I think,” Ruthie answered.
“How long’s he been there?”
“Four or five days.”
“Could he be in Oxtail?”
“I guess. It’s in the valley, isn’t it? But like I told you, I don’t know where he is for sure.”
“What’s he doing out there?” Fannon went on.
“Okay, Fannon,” I interrupted. “Let’s cut the fun and games. It’s none of your business what Harry Spring is doing in Oxtail or anywhere else.”
“I’m not playing games, Tanner. Why don’t you shut your face for a minute and let me talk to Mrs. Spring.”
“Why don’t you leave the tough talk in the same toilet you found it in, Fannon. Ruthie’s not some teen angel who’s going to get weak in the knees when you flash a badge.”
“I know that, Tanner. That’s why we’re here. Usually we’d do it by phone, but since Mrs. Spring used to be a deputy, and so did her husband, well …”
“Well, what,” Ruthie said harshly. “What are you trying to say, Fannon? What do you usually do by phone?”
“Okay,” Fannon said. “You want it straight, I’ll give it straight. Your husband’s dead, Mrs. Spring. That’s why we’re here. To tell you in person, like we do for all department widows.”
“Dead? Harry? How do you know?” Ruthie said levelly. The voice was firm but her hands were clenched at her sides.
“They found IDs in his wallet. Of course you’ll have to go make an official identification of the body. Routine, you know.”
“Go where?”
“Oxtail. That’s where they found him. Just outside of town as I understand it. Shot twice in the head.”
Oxtail. I’d been there once, tracking down a thirteen-year-old girl who was fleeing a tract house in San Mateo and the values that went with it. Oxtail lay on the east rim of the San Joaquin Valley like a wart on a dancer’s thigh, hot and dusty and ugly, with people to match. They watched strangers with the same resentment generals have for civilians and prisoners have for guards.
As Fannon spoke Ruthie sank slowly to her knees, as if the bullet that killed Harry had drifted up out of the valley and finally reached her. Then she began to rock, back and forth, back and forth, her head thrown back, her fists knotted on her thighs, her breath hissing like something wild and wounded. I kneeled beside her and tried to fit her into my arms, but she wouldn’t let me. She crouched, moving like an Indian in a war chant, and there was nothing I could do for her.
I got up and motioned for Fannon and Blackstone to follow me into the hallway. “You can take off now,” I told them. “I’ll stay with her.”
“We’re supposed to ask her some questions.”
“Not now. Not today even. I’ll bring her down tomorrow when she’s pulled herself together.”
“She has to go to Oxtail and identify the body.”
“Okay. You call the sheriff out there and tell him I’ll drive her out tomorrow. That way he can ask his questions himself and I won’t have to bother you gentlemen.”
“Good idea, Tanner,” Fannon growled. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy chatting with you some more. I’ve been a big fan ever since you cut me up on the sta
nd back when you were a shyster instead of a shamus. Really broke me up when they kicked you out on your ass.”
“Just like it broke me up when the judge dismissed the case against that kid you were trying to frame.”
“That kid was the biggest fence in south city.”
“Maybe. But he wasn’t trying to fence that stereo you planted in his pad.”
“I got him a year later, Tanner. No one walked him out that time.”
“Great,” I said. “Every time I think it would be nice to be practicing law again someone like you comes along and reminds me how crooked the game is.”
Fannon and Blackstone turned and started down the stairs. I went back to watch Ruthie cry for her dead husband.
TEN
There are as many varieties of grief as there are causes of it. Most of the grief we see, the kind flaunted by politicians and movie stars and insurance salesmen, is as phony as an aspirin ad. But Ruthie’s grief was the private kind, the kind that stays behind closed doors and lowered shades and phones off the hook, the kind that’s as real as an abscessed tooth.
She was just where I left her, but motionless, as if listening for some soft and lovely sound. I found a blanket and draped it over her, then sat down beside her. We sat there for a long time.
When the tears were dry I coaxed Ruthie to her feet and into her bedroom. When she was comfortable I called a doctor I knew and persuaded him to come over and look at her. Then I remembered that the woman who lived above them was a friend, so I went up and told her what had happened. Her name was Ethel and she was crying before I finished. She told me she would get some things together and come down prepared to spend the night.
When I got back to the bedroom, Ruthie was propped up against the headboard and looked pretty good. When she saw me she tried on a smile for size and it almost fit. I sat in a chair beside the bed and took her hand and told her about the doctor and the friend. When I asked if she needed anything she told me she needed Harry. Then she told me she would be all right.
It hadn’t really hit me yet; there were too many other things to think about. Ruthie and Claire Nelson and Al Rodman and who might have pulled the trigger and why. But one of these days it would happen, probably on some foggy afternoon when I didn’t have anything to do but think about what might have been, when I was sick of myself and my life and my world. Then I’d try to think of something that would make it all seem better than it was, and I’d think about Harry Spring because Harry did just that, and then I’d remember he was dead and I’d cry for him and for Ruthie and for me. Maybe I’d go to the bar in North Beach where Harry and I first met and order a few drinks and wish a lot of things were different and a lot of words had been said and a lot of times could be brought back for one more round. Then I’d go home and maybe by morning I’d start thinking about something else and Harry would slip away. Until the next time.
I told Ruthie I would be back in a minute and went down the hall to Harry’s desk and called the sheriff’s office in Oxtail. The sheriff wasn’t in and the deputy who answered didn’t know much. The body had been found by a hitchhiking migrant on his way to the next crop. Harry had been shot twice in the back of the head. No one knew how he had ended up in the ditch. They found his car at the Laurel Motel, where he was staying. Neither the car not the room gave any indication why Harry had been killed. They hadn’t found the murder weapon or anything else. I left a message for the sheriff, telling him Ruthie and I would be in Oxtail by noon the next day, and went back to the bedroom.
“They teach us a lot of things when we’re kids, don’t they, Marsh?” Ruthie said as I sat down. “They teach us to tell the truth and do what’s right and work hard and trust in God. And they say if we do all that then everything will turn out just fine. Well, what if it doesn’t turn out just fine, Marsh? What if it turns out real shitty. What are we supposed to believe then?”
“I don’t know, Ruthie. I’m not much good at believing things.”
“Do you know why we never had any kids?”
“No.”
“I couldn’t, that’s why. Barren as Death Valley.”
I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything.
“Do you know the first thing Harry said to me the morning after our wedding night?” she went on.
“What?”
“‘That was for fun. But now we start working on a houseful of screaming brats.’ That’s what he said, exactly. He wanted children more than anything in the world, and I couldn’t give them to him. Oh, he pretended it didn’t make any difference, and he still loved me, but it hurt him bad just the same. Seems like Harry never really got anything he wanted. He wanted kids and he wanted to go to France and he wanted some land and now he’s dead and he’ll never have any of those things and there’s nothing I can do for him to make up for it. I wasn’t even there when he died, Marsh. He died alone in a dirty old ditch.”
Her voice trilled the grace notes of hysteria. I told her to take it easy and reached for her hand. “Harry had the thing he wanted most of all, the only thing in the world that mattered to him,” I said.
“What?”
“You.”
“He was a good man, wasn’t he?” She took my hand and squeezed it hard.
“The best.”
“What am I going to do, Marsh?”
“You’re going to do what you’ve done all your life, what you do better than anyone I know. Make the best out of a lousy deal and go on with the game. And come out a winner.”
“I don’t know if I can this time. This one hurts bad. Worse than any of the others.”
“Would you rather it didn’t hurt? Would it be better if what you and Harry had was so worthless you didn’t even notice when he was gone?”
She was quiet for a while. I lit a cigarette for each of us. Mine tasted as hot as the wind off a grass fire.
“You’re a good man, too, Marsh,” she said finally. “You work pretty hard at hiding it, but you are.”
I changed the subject. “You should go to Oxtail tomorrow and identify and claim the body. I’ll take you.”
“Do I have to?”
“Shall I try to get you out of it?”
“I guess not. I should go out there and get him and stay with him when they bring him back.”
“Okay. I talked to a deputy. They think Harry was mugged.”
“Probably some goddamned hype.”
“I don’t think so, Ruthie. It doesn’t sound like a mugging to me. I think he was murdered because of something he knew or was about to find out.”
“Like what?”
“I hoped you could tell me,” I said. “What about his cases? Was he working on anything touchy—something that might make someone react like this?”
“I don’t think so. I told you, he’d decided to retire. He was cutting way back on his clients, turning away a lot of business. Just doing things for old friends mostly.”
“How about old cases? Anyone ever threaten him?”
“No. Oh, a few hotheads in the days when we were with the sheriff. But nothing since. That I know of.”
“Was he upset lately? Anything at all unusual?”
“No. Same old Harry.” She smiled, as though Harry had just walked into the room.
“I want to look at his files,” I said.
She frowned. “I can’t, Marsh. You know how Harry felt about that. Things people told him were sacred. He used to say he was just like a priest, except priests got laid more than he did.”
“Ruthie,” I said harshly, “Harry’s dead. Someone killed him, and it’s most likely someone connected with one of his cases. That’s the logical assumption. Right?”
“I guess.”
“Then let me find out who had a reason to want Harry dead. Please. If we leave it up to some hick cop in Oxtail we may never find out who did it. What do they care about a sixty-year-old PI from San Francisco?”
Tears slid down her cheeks. “Oh, shit,” she muttered. “Harry’s not around
anymore. Is he, Marsh? He’s not here and he won’t be here ever again. Why should I care about his goddamned precious clients?”
There was an answer to that but I wasn’t going to give it. I wanted to find out who killed Harry.
“I’m going to try to sleep,” Ruthie said and turned over and pulled the covers over her head. “Make yourself at home. Take whatever you need. Just don’t tell me about it.” The blanket muffled her last words, making them fuzzy and faint, as though they came from underground.
I waited until her breaths were smooth and regular, then I went to the office and began to paw through Harry’s files. It didn’t take long.
Ruthie was right; Harry didn’t have many active cases. There were several domestic matters, two skip-trace jobs for a local bank, an industrial security problem in which Harry was acting as a consultant, and a runaway. And Claire. That was it. None of it seemed dangerous, or even threatening. But you never can tell. Husbands being tailed into some bimbo’s bed have been known to gun down their pursuers. Or Harry might have stumbled onto something big merely by accident. There was certainly enough corruption around to be stumbled over.
I’d saved Claire Nelson’s file till last. Just as I picked it up an idea squirted through my brain and I put down the file and picked up the phone.
LaVerne was still home. I had to listen to his standard gripe about being disturbed, but when he paused to cough up a hunk of phlegm I broke in. “LaVerne, I need to know the town Al Rodman comes from.”
“Why? They won’t claim him, believe me.”
“Come on, LaVerne. Exercise that famous memory.”
“Okay, okay. Shut up a minute.”
I did, and spent the time hoping I was wrong. But I wasn’t.
“Oxtail,” he said. “Out in the valley, like I told you before.”
“Thanks.”
“You owe me, Tanner. You find Roland Nelson in bed with a ten-year-old, I want to know it first.”
“Sure,” I said and hung up.
There it was. Claire Nelson was why Harry was in Oxtail. He wasn’t trying to find Roland Nelson’s mistress; he was checking on Al Rodman. It had to be. And checking on Al Rodman had gotten Harry dead.
I opened Claire’s file and swore. It was all on one sheet of yellow paper. At the top were Claire’s name, address, and telephone number. Below that was Roland Nelson’s name and a date—July 12, 1958—followed by the name Mary Elizabeth. That was all.
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