The Hidden

by Bill Pronzini

  The prospect of life without her scared the hell out of him. Barren. Lonely. Yet even if she was willing to put up with him over the long haul, he wasn’t willing to become any more of a burden to her than he already was. If the situation grew unbearable, as it was liable to pretty quickly, he’d be the one to do the walking. He’d promised himself that and he wouldn’t renege. His gift to her, the best gift he could ever give her—her freedom.

  He didn’t know where he’d go or what he’d do if it came to that. Except to get the hell out of Cupertino, put as much distance between them as he could. Head for Tucson, maybe. Tom would take him in, at least for a while; they weren’t close anymore, but his younger brother was a strong believer in family values, family support. But Tom and Jenna had three kids and a mortgage and bills to pay—they couldn’t afford to shelter him for long, even if he could find some kind of work to pay for temporary room and board. He’d be a burden on them, and he couldn’t allow that to happen either. Better to spare Tom and his family and not go to Tucson at all.

  What, then? Crawl into a warm little private hole somewhere? He’d be able to manage alone if circumstances allowed him to earn a living wage, but the one thing he’d never do was to go on welfare. If things got that bad, if there was no longer any hope and he was of no use to himself or anyone else, he’d take himself out. There were ways, painless ways, and he’d done enough soul-searching to know that he was capable of it.

  Quality of life. A phrase people used a lot nowadays, one that was absolutely true. No quality, no point to living. Simple as that.

  They were in Fort Bragg now, crossing a long bridge that spanned the entrance to the harbor. Small seaside town, population seven or eight thousand, that had once been the home base for Georgia Pacific, the largest lumber mill on the north coast; now it was the fishing industry and tourism that supported it. There wasn’t much of either this time of year. Under that dark, threatening sky it, too, had a bleak aspect that an array of lighted holiday decorations failed to alleviate.

  Beneath the bridge and along the harborfront to the east there was a collection of restaurants, fish shops, and docks for commercial fishing boats and whale-watching and sportfishing charters. Shelby had no interest in the town or in stopping for lunch—she spoke to him in short, clipped sentences, when she spoke at all—but he drove down to the harbor anyway. Her favorite fish was wild salmon; he thought maybe a couple of fresh sockeye filets for dinner would put her in a better mood. Pathetic peace offering, but he didn’t have any other kind to make.

  She waited in the car while he went into one of the fish shops. Just as well, because there was a newspaper rack in front and the Santa Rosa paper’s front-page headline jumped out at him as he went by.

  SEARCH FOR COASTLINE KILLER INTENSIFIES

  Long, silent ride back down Highway 1. Macklin didn’t even try to make conversation. The rain continued to hold off, but by the time they passed the mouth of the Navarro River the wind gusts were fierce and there was more black than gray in the cloud churn overhead. It wouldn’t be long before the skies opened up and the rain spilled out.

  Coming from the north, he missed the Ocean Point Lane intersection and had to turn around and retrace a quarter of a mile. Mr. Inept. The first drops of rain from the bloated cloud bellies had begun to speckle the windshield as he drove through the jog in the road past the big estate. At almost the same instant he saw the vehicles parked in front of the Lomax house.

  “Now what the hell’s going on?”

  Shelby stirred beside him. “What?”

  “Up there. Look.”

  Macklin put on the wipers to clear away the rain mist. Shelby still had to lean forward, squinting, because of the sticking blade on her side. There were two cars, a dark-colored sedan angled into the entrance driveway and a sheriff’s department cruiser on the blacktop.

  “You don’t suppose Lomax really hurt her this time?” he said. “Bad enough to put her in the hospital?”

  Shelby’s jaw tightened; she shook her head.

  “Or maybe she did something to him. If it’s bad, I hope that’s the way it was.”

  “It may not be anything at all.”

  Instead of turning into the cottage’s drive, he rolled on past fifty yards or so—close enough to make out a seal on the driver’s door of the parked sedan. Highway patrol.

  “Two official cars parked out there like that,” he said. “It’s sure not a social visit.”

  “Not an emergency, either. No flashing lights and I don’t see an ambulance.”

  “Could be parked inside the fence. Or it hasn’t gotten here yet.”

  She said, to herself as much as to him, “I wish I knew what happened.”

  “Well, we can’t go up and ask. We’ll probably never know.”

  F O U R T E E N

  THEY HAD BEEN IN the cottage less than fifteen minutes and Jay was making noises about going out to the lane “to see if the law’s still up there” when the doorbell chimed. He glanced at Shelby, muttered, “What the hell?” and went to open the door on its chain lock.

  She saw him stiffen slightly as he looked out. “Yes, what is it?” The quickened beat of the wind blurred the voice outside, but whatever it said convinced him to remove the chain and pull the door wide. Two men came inside, one wearing an unbuttoned overcoat over a suit and tie, the other in a deputy sheriff’s uniform. Both wore grim, tight-lipped expressions. The man in the overcoat saw Shelby, approached her with a leather ID case open in his hand.

  “Mrs. Macklin?”

  “Hunter,” she said automatically, looking at the badge inside the case. “Shelby Hunter.”

  “I understood you and Mr. Macklin were married.”

  “We are. I kept my birth name.”

  “Oh, I see. Well.” He put the ID case away. “My name is Rhiannon, Lieutenant George Rhiannon. I’m an investigator with the highway patrol. This is Deputy Randall Ferguson, county sheriff’s department.”

  She nodded. Jay’s eyes were on the deputy—a big, youngish man with a bristly mustache and flat green eyes, standing in a ruler-backed posture like a soldier at attention.

  “You’re the officer who led us out here the other night,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well … what can we do for you?”

  “We won’t take up much of your time,” Rhiannon said. “Just a few questions, if you don’t mind.” He was in his forties, with an ovoid body on short stubby legs and a dark, pointy, long-nosed face. Like a dachshund that had acquired human features and learned how to walk on its hind legs, Shelby thought. But there was nothing comical about the man or his demeanor. His movements, his words had a sharp professional economy.

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “I understand you spent some time with your neighbors and their houseguests Sunday night.”

  “Just long enough to have a drink with them. We went there to borrow matches when the power went out.”

  “Everything seem to be all right with the four of them?”

  “They’d been drinking pretty heavily,” Jay said. “We picked up on a lot of tension.”

  “Any specific cause?”

  “Not that we could tell.”

  “Conflict between Eugene Decker and anyone in the party?”

  “His wife. They were at each other’s throats.”

  “Between Decker and the Lomaxes?”

  “There was some sniping. None of them were getting along.”

  “Have you seen Mr. Decker since then?”

  “No.”

  “Any of the others?”

  “Mrs. Decker. Yesterday morning, at the store in Seacrest. She was on her way home to Santa Rosa.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Briefly.”

  “She tell you why she was leaving, going home?”

  Jay related the gist of the conversation.

  “Any other contact with any of the four since Monday?” Rhiannon asked.

&nbs
p; Shelby said, “I saw Mrs. Lomax—Claire. On the beach yesterday morning. We had a brief conversation.”

  “About what?”

  “Is that important?”

  “She has some facial injuries,” Rhiannon said. “She have them then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell you how she got them?”

  What Claire had told her had been in confidence; Rhiannon hadn’t given a reason for her to break it. “It wasn’t any of my business.”

  “She told us she tripped and fell and her husband backs her up. But it looks more like an assault. What do you think?”

  “Is she all right now?”

  “No further injuries, if that’s what you mean. You haven’t answered my question, Mrs., ah, Hunter.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think, does it?”

  “What’s going on?” Jay said. “If Lomax and his wife are both okay, how come you’re here? Did one of them call you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Decker, then?”

  Ferguson said, “He can’t call anyone. He’s dead.”

  Shelby blinked her surprise. Jay said, “Dead?”

  “Found in his Porsche down the coast this morning.”

  “An accident?”

  “No, not an accident.”

  “Natural causes?”

  “He was shot through the head.”

  “… My God. The Coastline Killer?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Rhiannon gave the deputy a sharp look before he said to Jay, “We don’t know anything for sure right now.”

  “Except that it wasn’t suicide,” Ferguson said. “No weapon in the car.”

  Shelby’s throat felt clogged, as if she’d swallowed something small and hard that wouldn’t go down. “Coastline Killer? Who’s that?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Funny. Your husband seems to. Ask him.”

  Jay wouldn’t look at her. He said to Rhiannon, “When was Decker killed?”

  “Sometime yesterday. According to the Lomaxes, he decided to go on home himself and left sometime in the afternoon.”

  “They tried to talk him out of it because he’d been drinking,” Ferguson said. “He should’ve listened to them.” The deputy had begun to move around the front room, looking here and there as if he were checking out a crime scene. “Were you here yesterday afternoon, Mr. Macklin?”

  “Yes.”

  “All afternoon?”

  “Yes, all afternoon. Why?”

  “We’re trying to determine the exact time Mr. Decker left,” Rhiannon said. “Neither of the Lomaxes is certain.”

  “Well, I can give you a pretty good idea. We were coming up from the beach when we heard him drive by out front. It was a little before two thirty.”

  “You’re sure about the time?”

  “Sure enough. I glanced at my watch just after we came inside. Two thirty on the nose then.”

  Rhiannon scribbled in his notebook, closed it, and slid it into his overcoat pocket. “I think that’s about all, then. Thanks for your cooperation.”

  Ferguson said, “You folks wouldn’t be planning to leave right away, would you?”

  “No. Not until New Year’s Day.”

  “Are you going to want to talk to us again?” Shelby asked.

  Rhiannon said he doubted that would be necessary.

  Ferguson was still looking at Jay. “Reason I asked, there’s a bad storm coming—worse than the one Sunday. Once it hits, the highway’s liable to be pretty hazardous for the next twenty-four hours or so. Be a good idea for you to stay here until it blows through.”

  “We’ll do that,” Jay said. “Right here.”

  When the two men were gone, he put the chain back on the door and threw the bolt lock. He said then, “I don’t like that deputy. Did you see the way he kept looking at me with those funny eyes of his?”

  Shelby kept still.

  “Suspicious, just like the other night. What the hell reason does he have for being suspicious of me?”

  She didn’t respond to that, either.

  “Lomax, yes, sure. One look at Claire’s face and they had to know what kind of bastard he is. Make any cop suspicious. But people like us—”

  “Quit trying to avoid the issue, Jay,” she said. “Who the hell is the Coastline Killer?”

  His expression changed. “Ah, God,” he said.

  “Who, dammit?”

  For a few seconds she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then, as if the words were being dragged out of him, “Some lunatic who’s been shooting people along the coast over the past several months. They don’t have any idea who or why.”

  “Shooting people. How many people?”

  “Five now, maybe more.”

  Five, maybe more. Lord!

  “Where along the coast?”

  “Different places,” he said. “The first ones … those two kids in sleeping bags, down by Fort Ross, remember? Picks his victims at random.”

  “And the latest was Gene Decker.”

  “You never think it can happen to somebody you know, even slightly, somebody so nearby … Christ, it gives you the willies. Poor bastard must’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Talking too fast, almost jabbering. Still not meeting her eyes. “I wonder how Paula’s taking it. Fed up with him playing around, thinking about a divorce, but still—”

  Shelby said, “How long have you known about this Coastline Killer? Since before we left home?”

  “No,” he said. “Only since yesterday, from the man at the service station in Seacrest.”

  “And you ‘forgot’ to tell me, like you ‘forgot’ about the storm.”

  “I didn’t see how it could have any effect on us. None of the shootings was in this immediate area—” Another headshake, then a small, empty gesture. “I’m sorry, I know I should’ve told you.”

  “I don’t want to hear that,” she said.

  “I really am sorry—”

  “I said I don’t want to hear it.”

  She went over and sat down at the dinette table. Outside the wind whistled and cried and rain thrummed on the roof, ticked against the seaward walls and windows like handfuls of flung pellets. Water streaked and ran on the window glass; everything out there had a smeared, indistinct appearance, like faulty underwater photography.

  “I’d better go bring in some more wood,” Jay said, “before the weather gets any worse.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He went away and a little while later he came back. He said something to her, but she didn’t listen to it. The rain and wind sounds seemed magnified now, as if they’d somehow gotten inside her head. It wasn’t until he said her name, sharply, that she lifted her head to look at him. And when she did, it was as if he wasn’t even there, as if he had finally and completely disappeared.

  “Shel? Are you all right?”

  “I want a divorce,” she said.

  F I F T E E N

  DARK PLACE, WARM, SAFE. Sleeping.

  Not sleeping anymore. Listening.

  What’re those noises? Loud, weird.

  Thump. Grunt, slurp, screech, squeal. Thump thump thump.

  Something’s out there.

  Something … terrible.

  I have to find out what it is. But I don’t want to. I’m afraid.

  Squeal, howl, slurp. Thump thump thump thump thump.

  Oh God, what if it tries to hurt me?

  Stay here, don’t move.

  No, I can’t, I have to find out what it is …

  … And he was through it and out of it, sweating, struggling for air. Disoriented at first—he didn’t know where he was. Not in bed; the surface under him was cold, leathery, and Shelby wasn’t beside him. Moment of panic, and then he was awake enough to remember that he’d sacked out on the living room couch under a blanket. “I don’t want to sleep with you tonight,” she’d said, and he hadn’t argued, let her have the main bedroom. He could
have slept in the guest room but it was too cold back there. Cold out here now, too, nothing left of the fire but a collection of ashes and dying embers.

  The dream images were still vivid. The same, always the same. And yet there was something just a little different about this one … the creature’s snarling, howling words at the end, that were somehow like whispers so he couldn’t make them out. This time they’d seemed louder, almost but not quite understandable. Ugly, terrifying words he never wanted to hear … except that at a deeper level of perception, he did because he sensed they might explain the nightmare.

  He rubbed sweat off his face with a corner of the blanket, listening to the runaway pumping of his heart. It stuttered every few beats and his breathing came short and hot in his chest. One sudden savage burst of pain and it would be all over for him, no more confrontations with his night monster, no more bitter defeats, just blackness and peace. But it didn’t happen. The thudding slowed, the sensation of gripping tightness eased, his respiration gradually slowed to near normal.

  They were coming more often now, the nightmare rides. Two in two nights, the first time that had ever happened. Stress-induced. Or maybe there was some sort of physiological link. He had no control over them in any case, no way to put a stop to them. Ironic in a bitter, devilish way. Asleep, in the dream, he was at the mercy of a hideous being that ripped him apart and devoured him; awake, he was at the mercy of other demons beyond his control, real ones like failure and decay, that were in literal ways ripping him apart and devouring him.

  A sudden blast of wind shook the cottage, rattled the windows in their frames. It had been storming heavily when he drifted off to sleep, but the storm seemed even worse now—elemental fury out there. The rain was torrential, making a steady jackhammer sound on the roof. Wind drafts in the chimney swirled up ashes and thin sparks and blew them out across the hearth. The night seemed alive with shrieks, whistles, fluttery moans.

  The sweat on him had dried and even under the blanket he was shivery cold. When he was sure his legs would support him, he got up slowly and made his way to the draped windows. The baseboard heater under them made ticking sounds when he turned it up full. So the power was still on, something of a surprise given the way the storm was raging. But it would go out sooner or later. Damn well be sure of that.