The Shape of Dread

by Marcia Muller

  The wooden steps groaned as I mounted them. In the shadows of the porch lurked a motley collection of wicker furniture and a rusted old-fashioned glider swing. I was certain no one had sat on any of them in years. I tried the door, found it locked, then checked the shutters and found them secure. Next I went down the steps and over to the garage.

  The padlock held its doors firmly, but there was a side window that hadn’t been shuttered. I went up to it, rubbed off some of the accumulated grime, and looked inside. Nothing but a potting shelf with a rusted metal watering can on it, and a jumbled assortment of garden tools.

  I circled the house, hoping to find a similarly unshuttered window, but met with no success. Behind the building was a stand of pepper trees that blocked the view of the river. I made my way through them and climbed the levee. Beyond it, the land dropped off to a dilapidated dock; a derelict fishing boat was beached on its side perhaps twenty yards from the shoreline. The boat lay under the drooping limbs of a willow; a flat-armed cactus had grown up over its gunwales. Once the gunwales had been trimmed with blue, the rest of the boat white, but now it was all speckled with rust and faded. The sides of its tall cockpit had caved in.

  The river was wider here than at the public fishing access; its gray waters rippled and gleamed dully. To my left I could see the docks of the houses I’d passed earlier, and the power- and sailboats tied up at many of them, even at this time of year. To my right the river stretched toward San Pablo Bay; the bridge I’d crossed earlier spanned it, soaring and graceful. Several powerboats moved in the channel.

  The wind blew cold and steadily here. I shivered, stuffed my hands in my pockets, and moved toward the shelter of the willow tree. There I leaned against the splintered bow of the boat, turned my collar up, and thought, Why?

  I felt reasonably certain that this deserted cottage had been Tracy’s destination on that winter night. The Barbours who owned this place had to be connected with her roommate Amy; it would be too much of a coincidence otherwise. Also too much of a coincidence that she’d received a traffic citation at the beginning of a road that dead-ended here. A citation in a stolen car, the report on which hadn’t yet been entered into the computerized network when the highway patrol stopped her. A car that had been stolen off the lot at Café Comedie, where she worked and had access to keys.

  But why steal a car? Why not just borrow one? Or rent one? And what had someone with Tracy’s dislike of driving-a dislike so strong she refused to own a car-been doing journeying over dark country roads in the middle of a rainy night? Why come here at all?

  And where had she gone next?

  The wind blew stronger. The storm clouds had moved down from the hills and over the bay. I glanced at my watch. Only two-fifty. It seemed later because of the impending storm. There was nothing else to see here; I’d do well to go back to my car-

  But there was something more to see. Over to one side, in my peripheral vision. A motion, something wafting about in the wind.

  It was a long strand of yarn. No, a piece of cloth that looked to have been torn from something. Wool. Once red, perhaps, now faded to pink.

  I scrambled up onto the boat and reached for the strand. It was wool all right, held firm between the jagged edges of one of the cracked boards of the pilot house. I fingered it, looking down into the sharply canting cockpit. My flesh rippled unpleasantly. I felt in my bag for my flashlight, shone it through the opening.

  Nothing but warped planking. And a hatch cover that shouldn’t have been there…

  I lowered myself into the cramped space and shoved at the hatch cover. It moved only a few inches. I set the flashlight down and tugged. It came up with unexpected ease, throwing me off balance. I let it crash backward and regained my equilibrium. Then I grabbed the flashlight and shined it through a large hole in the floorboards.

  What I saw first were the exposed ribs of the boat. The air in there was dank and musty. I moved the flash down, to where the ribs formed a V at the keel.

  She was there. What was left of her.

  Nothing but bones now, and those appeared to have been disarranged by small animals. The llama’s-wool cape and jeans were largely eaten away, but most of the red rubber rain boots remained, faded and pitted like swiss cheese. I drew back, grasped the hatch cover for support, shut my eyes against the sight.

  Even in the blackness behind my lids I could still see her pitiful skeleton.

  Poor funny lady-all that talent and ability to bring forth laughter reduced to bone fragments and a few scraps of cloth. Somehow degrading that the red rubber boots could outlast the human being.

  I opened my eyes, felt them sting with tears. Then I snapped off the flash and backed out of the cockpit. When I jumped down from the boat, I took in the fresh, ozone-charged air in great gulps. My knees were trembling, but I didn’t want to lean against the ruin that had served as Tracy’s coffin.

  The feelings of elation that had buoyed me as I drove up here were gone now, replaced by a deep gloom. I’d found what I wanted-indisputable proof that Bobby Foster’s confession was false-but while it would open up a whole new line of inquiry, it might still lead right back to my client. The police could claim that he’d concocted the confession expecting not to be believed, as a smoke screen to keep them from finding out what he’d really done with her. Given the condition of her remains, there would be no way of pinpointing the exact time and date of death; even though Bobby had been at the club at about the time Tracy had received the traffic citation, it could be argued that he’d come up here at some other time and killed her, then ditched the car down south in an effort to confuse investigators.

  But whatever had happened, she had certainly been dead the whole two years. Had probably been dead since the early hours of that February morning. All this time, while the people who loved her had waited and hoped and suffered….

  And then I thought of George.

  What was it he’d said to me?

  Please don’t find Tracy alive, Sharon. And if you do, don’t bring her back to me.

  Well, I hadn’t. But I doubted that would ease his pain. What he had thought unbearable two days before would now seem infinitely preferable to the reality of his daughter lying for close to two years in this makeshift grave. And what he had thought bearable would now seem intolerable.

  Much as I dreaded it, I felt that I had to be the one to break the news to him.

  11

  The windows of George’s borrowed house were dark when I arrived there at a little after eight that evening, but a light shone in the Moorish arch that framed the front door. A piece of paper was taped to the door itself, fluttering in the chill wind. I hurried up the walk to read it.

  I was tired and edgy after spending over two hours dealing with the Napa County sheriff’s department. They’d been understaffed due to the holiday, and therefore slow in responding to the call I’d made from a cottage several doors down from the Barbour place. The medical examiner’s people were even slower, their work hampered by the rain. The investigator in charge-a man named Stan Gurski, who looked like a former linebacker and spoke as softly as a minister-questioned me in detail about my case. Afterward he said he would contact Tracy’s parents to break the news and request the name of her dentist so records could be obtained for making an identification. I explained that her mother was in poor emotional health and ought not to be notified by a stranger. And, I added, I would like to break the news to her father; I knew him and felt I owed him that much.

  Gurski was agreeable, so I called George and told him how I had found her. He was badly shaken but in control. When I asked about dental records, he said he didn’t know who Tracy had gone to in recent years; the family dentist had died shortly after she’d moved to San Francisco. Then I remembered Jay Larkey mentioning that he offered his employees a full medical and dental package at the Potrero Clinic. George said yes, he recalled that, too, and asked that I tell the sheriff’s department to contact the clinic.

  Then he was
silent a long time before adding, “When you’re done up there in Napa, would you come here, please?”

  I didn’t have to ask why. I simply agreed.

  After I hung up, I told Gurski about the clinic and offered to expedite the release of Tracy’s records by calling Jay Larkey. Reaching the club owner proved to be a problem, however. Café Comedie was closed, and there was no answer at Larkey’s home number. Finally I thought of the Sorianos; perhaps they knew where he was. Gurski obtained their unlisted number in the affluent Marin County suburb of Tiburon and again allowed me to make the call. I spoke with Kathy, explaining briefly about finding Tracy’s body. She displayed no emotion whatsoever, just said she and Rob had no idea of Jay’s whereabouts but, if he got in touch, would tell him to contact the Napa authorities.

  “He’s going to be upset about this,” she added accusingly, as if I’d deliberately contrived to wreck his holiday. When I hung up, I banged the receiver down harder than was necessary.

  Gurski gave me a sympathetic look and said, “Thanks for your help. If we can get hold of her records today, we can make an ID tomorrow. Tuesday, latest.”

  “That’s fast, considering tomorrow’s a holiday.”

  He smiled thinly. “This is an important case. Capital case that was mishandled badly from the start. We’ll move on it.” From the way he spoke, I gathered he harbored visions of showing up the SFPD; a case like this could be a career maker for Gurski.

  I said, “I hope there’s not going to be a lot of publicity until you know for sure.”

  “Do you see any reporters around here?”

  “Well, no, but there might be a leak-”

  “I don’t tolerate leaks in this office.”

  I believed him. After telling him I’d check in with him the next day, I sped back to the city, keeping a wary eye out for the highway patrol.

  Now, as I approached George’s door, I saw that the piece of paper taped to it was a note, addressed to me. It said, “Look for me by the lagoon.”

  I went back down the path and crossed the street. Unlike up in Napa, the weather here was clear. The rotunda and colonnade of the Palace of Fine Arts were floodlit, pinkish against the black of the trees and sky. Occasional arc lights shed a soft-white glow on the cement path and set the lagoon’s water glimmering; the gently sloping lawn was deep in shadow. Not a soul was in sight save the dejected silhouette of a man slumped on a bench near the water’s edge. I quickened my pace and went to stand in front of him.

  George looked up at me, his eyes as sheened and unfathomable as the lagoon, his rough-hewn features sharpened by pain. For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then I said, “I’m sorry,” and extended my hands toward him.

  He grasped them and drew me down onto the bench beside him. His fingers were icy, but he didn’t seem to feel the chill.

  I asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I just couldn’t stay in that ridiculous house. Even the dark is preferable. Did the sheriff’s department arrange to get hold of Tracy’s records?”

  “Not yet, but they’ll have them soon.”

  He merely nodded.

  “Have you told Laura?” I asked.

  “No, no one. Not until…No one.”

  We sat holding hands for a while. I had no words of comfort to offer him; there were none that could comfort. He asked me for no more details, and I didn’t volunteer them. It was too soon for that, or to discuss the implications of when and where she had died. The wind rose, rippling the water of the lagoon, and I shivered, thinking of the rippling water of the Napa River. George pulled me into the circle of his arm, his fingers tangling in the hair that tumbled about my shoulders.

  He said, “I must have sounded like a high-minded son of a bitch the other day, loftily telling you I didn’t want my daughter back because of the ‘monstrous thing’ she might have done.”

  “To some people you might have sounded that way. To me you didn’t because, frankly, I didn’t believe you.”

  His arm tightened around me. “Oddly enough, I believed myself-at the time. But when you called and told me you’d found her-where and how you’d found her-I knew how badly I’d deluded myself. Anything-no matter how monstrous-would have been preferable to this.”

  “I know.”

  Now he shivered. I moved closer to him, my cheek grazing the front of his down jacket. He put his other arm around me and held me tight; his body pulsed with restrained tension. When I looked up at his face, I saw a white stone mask, immobile except for two tears, one sliding slowly down either cheek. I reached up, wiped one away. He touched my hand with his lips.

  For a moment I wanted to pull back, to run from this man who had already made a crack in the wall I’d so carefully erected around my emotions. But I remained still as he put his fingers under my chin, tilted my face up toward him, and kissed me. He drew away, looking quizzically at me, then kissed me again. And I felt the foundations of my self-protective isolation begin to crumble.

  After a time he moved back, smiled at me, smoothed my hair, straightened my collar. He said, “I’ve wanted you since you made me open up about Tracy. You touched me in a primal way that no one’s come close to in a very long time. And because you made me remember her as she really was, rather than the idealized version I’d manufactured out of my grief, in a sense you gave my daughter back to me. Gave me hope.”

  “And then took her away again. Took away the hope.”

  “No, at a gut level I’ve always known she was dead. And the hope was for myself, for a life beyond all of this.”

  I tried to read what was in his eyes, to confirm that he really believed what he’d said, but they were like shiny pebbles in the reflected light. I couldn’t help but wonder if in some way he didn’t blame-

  “No,” he said, “I don’t feel any resentment against you for bringing me the news. I don’t, and I never will.”

  Promises, I thought. If only we could always keep our promises.

  “We’ll go to the house now,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “The psychologist in me warns that this is a predictable and banal reaction to a death. The man in me doesn’t give a damn.”

  The investigator in me warned the same thing. But the woman in me didn’t give a damn, either.

  The master bedroom was all antlers and moosehide, just as George had described it. Somehow the tasteless décor didn’t matter. As I’d so coyly speculated on the occasion of our meeting, he was a man who gave himself wholeheartedly, and in our lovemaking we managed to leave death and tragedy behind. But dreams are another thing entirely….

  The first time I awoke, George was thrashing about in the throes of a nightmare. I shook him awake and held him for a while; then he slept more peacefully. Later my own sleep was disturbed by visions of rain and wind and darkness. The rain’s sound was persistent, and I woke to realize it was pelting the roof. I reached for George, but he wasn’t there. When I sat up, I saw him standing naked by the window, staring out through the water-streaked glass. I went to stand beside him, and he drew me into the circle of his arms, fitting my body to his.

  A pair of security floodlights were mounted on the wall of the house beyond the back fence. They silvered the rain. The black bushes and trees were whipped about by the wind. I could imagine what George was envisioning: the lonely stretch of riverbank and rotting hulk of a boat where she’d lain through the damp and cold of many such rains; through fragrant spring days that promised life to everything and everyone but her; through the relentless heat of two long summers; through the dying, swiftly cooling days of two autumns.

  As if he realized I understood his thoughts, he said, “Nearly two years. Such a long time for her to lie there.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought I’d done all my grieving. Now it starts again.”

  “I’m sorry I ever went up there.”

  “Don’t be.” He released me, then cupped my face in his hands. “I had to know. And now I have you to help me through
it.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “Then do this for me-find out what happened.”

  “I’ll try.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. I led him back to bed, and we made love again. Then he slept deeply, while I lay awake and thought about the death of his daughter.

  I dozed off at some point and woke before dawn to find him gone again. I slipped out of bed, the moosehide of the throw rug rough against my bare feet. There was a robe hanging from a bad-taste clothes rack fashioned from a set of antlers; I put it on and went out onto the gallery.

  Sound came from the living room-the TV tuned low. A woman’s voice, then laughter. George hunched in one of the uncomfortable chairs, watching the screen intently. I went over there, stood behind him with my hands on his shoulders, and watched, too.

  I’d seen photographs of Tracy in the newspapers, but they didn’t begin to do justice to the living, moving young woman on the videotape. Blond-haired like her mother, strong-featured like her father, tall and spare, she moved expressively while delivering her lines in a deadpan fashion, never once spoiling them by laughing at her own humor. As she slipped effortlessly from character to character-from a single mother named Gloria to a bewildered feminist named Fran-she became immersed in each new persona, portraying her so convincingly that I could forget momentarily that this was Tracy Kostakos, the daughter George mourned, the subject of my investigation. I found myself laughing at the feminist’s dilemma, which ended in the punchline: “If God had meant for us to have hairy armpits, would She have given us Nair?” It was the line Kathy Soriano had quoted on Thursday night, and the triviality of the problem made it ring true.

  George was laughing, too. “Jesus, she could be funny,” he said. “I don’t even like stand-up comedy much, but I could watch her for hours.”