Stalking Horse (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “For the last five years or so, I did. Before that, she used to work for me. I’ve got another place, a neighborhood bar, out in the Mission. She used to work there, hit or miss. But then—” He shook his head. “She started screwing up so bad, I had to tell her to just stay home.”

  “You’re not married, I gather.”

  “No. I’m divorced. I’ve been married. Twice. That’s enough.”

  “Did your sister ever marry?”

  “No. Never.” As he said it, he shot me a sidelong look.

  “What’s her story?”

  “Her story?”

  “How’d she—” I hesitated, groping. “How’d she become what she—became?”

  “Crazy, you mean.”

  “I mean, what’s her history? I gather that she lived down south for a while—Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.”

  “She never really lived in Santa Barbara,” he said. “She mostly lived in Los Angeles.” As he said it, he looked carefully at me, assessing my reaction.

  “Her son was born in Santa Barbara.”

  “Yeah. Well—you know. I guess she wanted to get out of town. You know. In those days, things weren’t as free and easy as they are now.” He shifted uncomfortably and tugged again at his bathrobe. With the mention of his sister, his aggressive, truculent assurance seemed to have deserted him. For most of his life, apparently, she’d been his cross to bear.

  “How long has she lived in San Francisco?”

  “About ten years.”

  “Did she grow up in Los Angeles?”

  “No. Both of us grew up in Dayton, Ohio. The family moved out to Los Angeles during the war to work in defense. You know, Lockheed. I came up to San Francisco when I was twenty-five, twenty-six years old, but Juanita stayed down there. She always wanted to get into the movies.”

  “Did she?”

  He snorted: a harsh, flatulent sound. “You might say she did. She had lots of walk-ons, and a few times she even had a few lines. But that was it. She had the looks, at least in the beginning. But she didn’t have anything else. No brains, no talent. Nothing. If she’d been half smart, with her looks, she could’ve done something for herself, got someplace. But—” Shaking his head, he let it go unfinished.

  “How old was she when she had Frederick?”

  “She was—let’s see. She’s fifty-two now, and he’s twenty-six, so she was twenty-six years old. She had Fred and then she started to drink. And that was it. Between the booze and that kid of hers, it was the beginning of the end.” With a shrug and another flatulent snort, he dismissed the rest of his sister’s life.

  It was the kind of life that appears regularly on police blotters: a short, sad chronicle of futility and despair, gathering momentum as it rushes downhill toward oblivion. Her parents had migrated from the Midwest, looking for better pay. Because she’d been good-looking, she’d wandered into the skin trade. She’d gotten in over her head. Next came the drinking, or the drugs, or both. Now, at age fifty-two, she was living on borrowed time, waiting for a death that only her brother had managed to postpone.

  “Her son was always a problem, then,” I said, probing.

  Vehemently, he nodded. “From the start, that kid was a pain in the ass. From the first day he was born.”

  “So she eventually came to San Francisco to be near you. Is that it?”

  “I suppose you could say that,” he said. Disgustedly, he shook his head.

  “Where is your sister? Which sanitarium?”

  “Brentwood. It’s down near Daly City.”

  “Is it a private sanitarium?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’re paying her bills. Still.”

  He shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”

  “You could put her in a state hospital.”

  “Not with my assets, I couldn’t. I checked.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I answered. Except that he wasn’t right. Only a spouse’s income was considered, qualifying a patient for state aid.

  “Did you have her declared legally insane?” I asked.

  “Yes. I already told you.”

  I sat silently for a moment, studying him. He owned a well-known club, plus a neighborhood bar. Plus an apartment building that was probably worth two million dollars. Somehow he didn’t look the part. He looked aggressive enough, but not smart enough. He looked street smart, but not financially smart, not sophisticated or subtle.

  “Over the years,” I said, “it sounds like you’ve spent a fortune on your sister’s troubles.”

  “That’s right,” he said heavily. “That’s it exactly. Which is the reason that, as far as I’m concerned, you can put Fred back in jail and throw away the key. I’m finished with him. I’m through. Period.”

  “You don’t know where we can find him. You can’t give me any idea where to look.”

  “Right. He just disappeared. Zip. That was it.”

  “Can you think of any friends that he had?”

  “He doesn’t have any friends. None.”

  “Do you mind if we search his room?”

  “Hell, no.” He rose and padded into the living room in his bare feet. A moment later he was back, dangling a key from his forefinger. “When you’re finished,” he said, “just put it in my mailbox. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I took the key, walked to the door, and handed him my card. “If you hear from him, or about him, give me a call. It’s important. Very important.”

  “What’s it about, anyhow? What’s he done? You never told me.”

  “I know.” I smiled, nodded goodbye, and opened the door.

  Fourteen

  “YOU REALIZE, OF COURSE,” Friedman said, “that there’s practically no percentage chance of us finding him. Not unless he shows himself. We don’t have any known haunts, no MO, no friends, nothing. What we’ve got here—” He tapped the printout sheet that lay on my desk between us. “What we’ve got here is an atypical criminal. And they’re the worst kind to find.” He picked up a copy of Tharp’s picture and studied it. “He’s a handsome devil,” he observed. Then, smiling, he tapped the printout again. “I like that one comment, the one that says baby-faced crooks are the worst. Because he’s right. Absolutely right. Have you ever noticed?”

  I nodded. “Definitely.”

  “Are you considering telling the FBI?”

  “About Tharp, you mean?”

  He nodded.

  “No. I thought I should talk to you first. What d’you think?”

  “You know what I think,” he answered. “I think we should keep it to ourselves for, say, twenty-four hours. After all, it’s only Sunday, and the dedication ceremonies aren’t until Wednesday. Why don’t we give it until Monday noon before we call Richter? That way, if we haven’t been able to find Tharp, Richter’ll still have time to fall on his ass, too, before Wednesday.”

  “If we give Richter the reports, and he sees the dates, he’ll know we’ve been jerking him around.”

  “What reports?” Friedman asked innocently. “After all, you were sworn to secrecy by the great man himself. If you put anything in writing, you’re breaking your word to Donald Ryan.”

  “That’s true.”

  In silence, we both stared at the picture and the printout. Friedman was frowning thoughtfully as he said, “The big unanswered question is why Ryan turned us on to Tharp. Where’d he get the name, for God’s sake? What’s his connection to Tharp? How’d he know he’s in prison? How did he—”

  My intercom sounded: two long buzzes. It was something important, probably concerning the Ryan case.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Culligan, Lieutenant.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “It was all done very simply. One, two, three, you might say. He gave a chambermaid forty dollars to put the letter under Ryan’s pillow. Twenty dollars when he gave her the letter, twenty dollars when she did the job. It was done in the morning before Ryan arrived, when there really wasn’t much security.”

&nbs
p; “Did the chambermaid identify Tharp from the picture?”

  “She sure did. She said he told her that he was devoted to Ryan. She thought she was putting a fan letter under his pillow. She’s not very bright.”

  “Did anyone else see Tharp on the hotel premises?”

  “No. At least no one’s told me, if they did.”

  “How many people have we got at the Fairmont?”

  “Four, including me.”

  “All right. Stay in the lobby. Keep the desk and the elevators under surveillance.”

  “Yessir.”

  “And you’d better figure out some kind of a rotation with the teams at Byron Tharp’s building and Trader John’s.”

  “Yessir.”

  “By the way, don’t show the FBI the pictures of Tharp. It’s my ass, if they find out about him at this point. Understand?”

  “Yessir,” Culligan answered, knowingly laconic. “I understand.”

  “Keep me advised.” I broke the connection, and told Friedman what Culligan had said.

  “Tharp is smart,” Friedman observed thoughtfully. “He’s smart, and he’s shifty.” He paused, then said, “I hope you remember my prediction that, basically, extortion is what he’s got on his mind. Because I think that’s it. I don’t think he’s a mad-dog killer. I think he wants that million dollars.”

  “But if he doesn’t get it, he’ll sure as hell try to kill Ryan.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Obviously he’s following a plan. He’s started slow, and now he’s increasing the pressure. Maybe he even knows that Ryan’s sick.” Friedman paused again, looking thoughtfully away. “If he knew Ryan was sick, then all he’d have to do is fire a shot across Ryan’s bow, so to speak, to sink him. He wouldn’t have to score a direct hit. Ever think of that?”

  “He’d die of a heart attack, you mean.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Once Ryan’s dead, though, there’s no hope of Tharp’s getting his million dollars. Did you ever think of that?”

  Friedman shrugged. “That’s the risk every extortionist runs. His stock in trade is the fear of death or injury, not the actual fact of it.”

  “Are you going to be here for a while?” I asked.

  “It looks like it.” Friedman glanced at the clock. It was two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. “Why?”

  “Because I think I’ll go see Juanita Tharp.”

  “Before you see Ryan?” Friedman spoke dubiously. But after a moment’s thought, he nodded approval. “It might be a good idea. From the mouths of loonies, I’ve discovered, the truth often comes.”

  Fifteen

  “JEEZE,” CANELLI SAID, PULLING into the parking lot and staring at the white colonnade and brick facade of the Colonial-style administration building. “This is some layout. What’s the name of it, anyhow?”

  “Brentwood Sanitarium.”

  “Pretty fancy,” he said. “And pretty expensive, I’ll bet.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Who’s in here, anyhow?” He switched off the engine and set the parking brake. “Does this have something to do with the Ryan case?”

  “Canelli, I’ve already told you that a lot of this is classified. I tell you what you need to know, but no more. Right?”

  With his soft brown Italian eyes, he looked at me reproachfully. I’d hurt his feelings. Again.

  “Just stay in the car,” I ordered. “I won’t be long. If Lieutenant Friedman wants me, come inside and get me. Clear?”

  “Yessir,” Canelli said, sighing heavily and settling down sulkily behind the steering wheel. “That’s clear.”

  “This way, please.” Walking slightly ahead, the orderly guided me down an intersecting hallway that led past a large common room. I saw a handful of patients, each one struggling with his own particular demon. Some sat frozen, conversing with imaginary friends or enemies. Some repeated one movement or gesture over and over. Some simply wandered around the large, sunny room, searching for a way out. Looking bored but watchful, three attendants sat silently, waiting for their shifts to end.

  The orderly turned a corner and stopped in front of a door, taking out his key. He rapped lightly on the door, listened, rapped again, then unlocked the door. “Stay out here for a minute,” he said. “I’ll just see if she’s presentable.” He opened the door, slipped inside and left the door slightly ajar. Standing alone in the corridor, I became aware of the background sounds: monotonous mutterings and mumblings mingled with small, stifled screams. The sounds, I realized, differed little from those at state-run institutions. Only the decor was different, and the noise level.

  The door swung open. The attendant stepped out in the hallway, drew the door closed and said softly, “This isn’t one of her better days, Lieutenant. Could you come back tomorrow, please?” He spoke in the flat, impersonal tone of institutional authority, as if he took obedience for granted. He was a young, delicately made man with his hair done in ringlets. He spoke with a lisp, faintly petulant.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to see her.” I took a purposeful half-step toward the door. “It’s important.”

  “Oh, all right.” He stepped aside. His eyes, improbably guileless and childlike, reproached me.

  I pushed open the door and stepped into a small room. The bright rose-printed pattern of the matching bedspread and drapes dominated the room. A bureau, a small desk, a straight-backed chair and a small plastic-covered armchair completed the room’s furnishings. As if to cancel the bedspread and drapes, the walls were painted an institutional green. There were no pictures on the wall, and none on either the desk or bureau. Light came in from a single window and a glass door leading to a vest-pocket patio.

  Juanita Tharp sat in the armchair near the window. She was staring out at the low, fog-covered hills that receded into white mists gathering beyond Brentwood’s manicured lawns and shrubbery, suggesting a Japanese landscape.

  Moving quietly, I took the straight-backed chair and placed it before the window. She took no notice of me as I sat down to face her. She wore a plain cotton housecoat over a pink silk slip. Her open-toed sandals were glittering gold party slippers. Her toenails were painted red. But her matching fingernails had been bitten to the quick. Her gray-streaked brown hair fell in half-wild coils around her face and neck, even though her hair was clean and looked as if it had been freshly curled. Except for lipstick and eyebrow pencil, both drawn too boldly, she wore no makeup.

  Yet even though she was disheveled, and her expression was utterly empty, I could see that she’d once been beautiful. Moviemakers and photographers talk of “good bones.” In Juanita Tharp’s face I could see what the moviemakers meant. The bones of her face made a beautifully sculptured whole: the classic American beauty, even in ravaged middle age.

  But, stretched taut over the facial bones, her skin was dry as yellowed parchment, making a skull of the face. Beneath black-penciled eyebrows drawn in a wide, theatrical arc, her round mannequin’s mouth was shapeless: a grotesque red-painted scar that looked as if it had been drawn for a stranger’s face, not hers. Beneath the pink slip, her body was a gross, slack, sagging relic of something that once must have been exciting.

  About to speak to her, I hesitated. Was the right word “Miss”? I compromised on the obvious, saying, “Ms. Tharp?”

  Still no response.

  I drew a deep breath, hitched my chair closer to hers and spoke in a louder, deeper voice: “Ms. Tharp. Juanita. It’s Frank.”

  She blinked. Frowned. Turned her head, slowly seeking the sound of my voice.

  “It’s Frank,” I repeated, leaning closer. “I’ve come to see you.”

  Uncertainly, her tongue-tip circled her lips. Then she pursed her mouth and squinted at me. Finally, with great effort, she said, “Frank?”

  “Yes. Frank Hastings. I knew you in Los Angeles. Years ago. Remember?”

  “Were you—” She frowned. “Were you at Warners? That Frank?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Warners. I was with Wa
rners for three years.”

  The black-penciled frown deepened. “Three years? All that time?”

  “Well, almost three years. I should have said two years. Two and a half years, really.”

  “Oh. Yes.” She nodded woodenly. “Yes. Two and a half years. I remember. I was at Twentieth for a while. And then Victor for a while. But just for a while. Just for a little while.” She sighed and turned her head again toward the window. For a time she sat in an eerie, echoing silence. From somewhere behind me I heard the sound of a long, thin wail, then an answering wail. I remembered hearing, as a child awake in the night, dogs howling: first one dog, then another dog, and another.

  Finally she began speaking. She spoke in a thin, halting voice, as if she were reading from a script and was uncertain of her lines.

  “I was always pretty,” she said. “I was always a pretty little thing. That’s what Daddy used to say. He’d take me on his lap, and put his arm around me and tell me how pretty I was. And of course I always believed him. My daddy had a certain smell. And I remember his hands. And his fingers, too. I remember his fingers very well, because I could look down and see them disappearing.” As she spoke, she moved her bony, blue-veined hands slowly down her thighs until they touched the hem of her pink slip, stretched across her legs just above the knees.

  “I always loved my daddy’s hands,” she said. “I always loved how they felt and how they made me feel. Even when I looked down and couldn’t see them, I knew they were there. Because I could feel them.” She spoke in a small, vague voice. It was a little girl’s voice. Watching her, I saw the harsh, skull-like lines of her face soften. Her eyes were far away, blurred by distant memory. She was returning to her childhood.

  “I could feel them,” she repeated. “I can still feel them. First he touched me with his hand. Then his hand went inside. First his hand, and then the rest of him.” As she spoke, I saw the fingers of her left hand disappear under the hem of the slip and begin stealing up the inside of her thigh. The flesh of her thigh was white, obscenely raddled. Now her right hand moved to the arm of the chair, gripping it hard.

  “Daddy was southern,” she said dreamily. “He came from Memphis. He never liked Byron. He used to take off his belt and beat Byron. I used to cry whenever I heard Byron screaming. And once I saw his blood on the floor. The drops were small. They were very small, but very bright. Very, very bright.”