He repacked the books in the order he’d found them, opened the second carton. Manila file folders, more than a dozen of them, each with a woman’s name printed on the front with a black felt-tip pen. One of the names was Erin Dumont; he recognized three of the others as violent-crime victims whose funerals Troxell had attended. All the names, he found, belonged to victims of either random or domestic violence. Each folder contained a sheaf of newspaper clippings detailing the circumstances of the crime, follow-up news and feature stories, resolution if any; and receipts for floral and memorial offerings. There were four times the number of receipts in the Dumont folder as in any of the others—for flowers sent once or twice weekly, the marble headstone, an annual upkeep payment on her grave. That was all. No notations in Troxell’s hand, no additional contents of any kind.
Two other items in the box. One was a thick bunch of nonreligious Hallmark cards bound together by a rubber band. All new and of more or less the same design, with simple messages: deepest sympathy, heartfelt condolences. Ready to be signed with something anonymous like “A Friend” and sent to victims’ families with or without floral offerings.
The final item in the box was the most interesting of the lot. Pad of ruled yellow foolscap, new, with none of the sheets having been torn off. Five pages had writing on them, all of it in Troxell’s crabbed hand. The top sheet had been done with a ballpoint, the penmanship good and the rows orderly until the last few sentences; those sentences sprawled and had been written with enough pressure to tear the paper in a few places. Rough draft of a letter that had never been sent:
To the S.F. Police Department—
Three nights ago, at approximately 7 p.m., I was at Lloyd Lake in Golden Gate Park. I stop there sometimes on my way home from work, sit at Portals of the Past and watch the ducks, it’s a quiet place to unwind.
I was returning to my car when I noticed a man and a woman talking alongside a car parked across the road from mine. There was no one else in the vicinity. The man was holding the door open. The woman hesitated as if she was reluctant to get inside, then relented. The man got in after her. I don’t believe either of them noticed me.
He didn’t start the car or put on the lights. As I was buckling my seat belt, I saw them talking and the woman began to laugh. It seemed to make him angry. He said something to her and she stopped laughing. She tried to get out of the car. He grabbed her, dragged her back. I think he might have hit her then. No, I’m sure he did, he punched her in the face, the dome light was on and I saw her head bounce off the door glass and her body slump down on the seat. He pulled the door shut. He started the car and drove away.
I could have followed them but I didn’t.
I sat there a while longer and then I drove home.
I didn’t do anything.
It was dark and I didn’t get a clear look at the woman but she was young and she was wearing a light-colored jogging suit. I think she might be the woman who was raped and murdered that night.
I can’t identify the man, I didn’t get a clear look at him.
I can’t identify the make or model of the car.
I couldn’t read the license plate number.
I don’t really know anything.
I didn’t do anything.
I can’t I couldn’t I don’t I didn’t
The other four pages had been written with a black felt-tip pen. Some of it was the same crabbed handwriting as the letter draft, some was in block printing, a few words had been formed in thick, heavy, doodlelike strokes. Done at different times, but in each case during a period of emotional upheaval.
The first:
american? japanese?
2 doors 4 doors?
dark color but what color? dark blue dark green dark brown?
license plate? 2 something U or O or D but that’s all
big man but just husky or fat?
what kind of cap? baseball racing sun what?
don’t know can’t remember couldn’t tell in the dark
didnt pay enough attention
why not?
you coward you know why not
The second:
cant
cant
coward
cant
coward
coward
coward
The third:
why why why why whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy
WHY
WHY!!!!!
The last:
cant stop any of it from happening
cant understand it
cant get away from it
in the midst of life we are in death
its all around us everywhere
SO
MUCH
DEATH
Runyon used the small digital camera he carried to photograph each of the five sheets. Then he replaced the pad, closed the carton. There was nothing else to see in the studio; he’d seen enough, more than enough.
He went back out into the cold night.
Christ,” Bill said, “I was afraid of something like that.”
“Better to know than not. For everybody.”
“Except us. Evidence obtained by illegal trespass. We can’t sit on it, and that puts us smack between a rock and a hard place.”
“I’ll take responsibility if it comes to that. You didn’t order me to get the key.”
“I didn’t order you not to, either.”
“How do you want to handle it?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll need to sleep on it, take a look at those digitals, talk to Tamara. One thing for sure: We’re off this case, as of right now.”
Runyon didn’t argue. He put his cell away, started the car. The Troxell surveillance might be finished, but not the Erin Dumont homicide investigation. Not for Risa Niland. And not for him.
Still nobody home at the Johnson number in Morgan Hill.
McRoyd’s Irish Pub was noisy and crowded, standing-room only at the bar, two bartenders on duty and both needed. The older of the barkeeps was Sam Mc-Royd, a bantam of a man in his sixties, white-haired, garrulous—a court-holder who spent as much time arguing and bantering with his customers as he did mixing drinks. It took Runyon ten minutes to claim a stool, another fifteen minutes to get McRoyd’s ear and ask his questions.
“Weighed three hundred pounds, ye say? Wore his hair in one of them ponytails?”
“That’s right.”
“And a uniform?”
“Might have worn one in here, might not.”
“Don’t place him. Not a regular customer. Let me think on it a minute.”
Runyon ordered a draft beer. McRoyd went to draw it, and when he came back he said, “Now I recall the lad. Giants fan. Steroids.”
“Steroids?”
“Didn’t see nothing wrong with players like Barry Bonds using ‘em. Winning was all that mattered to him, never mind fair play. We had a few sharp words about that nonsense, one night.”
“What else can you tell me about him?”
“Drank Guinness. The right way, slow, to savor the taste. Quiet except for his Giants fever and his crap about steroids. Wore a Giants cap. Turned around with the bill in back, like a catcher before he puts on his mask.”
“Every time he was here?”
“Seems like. Never took it off.”
“But no uniform?”
“No uniform,” McRoyd said.
“Did he talk to anybody besides you? Another customer?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Give you any idea where he lived or worked?”
“Baseball, that’s the sum of it.”
Runyon took a little more than that away with him. Giants fan, Giants cap, didn’t wear a uniform after working hours. Not much, but something.
big man but just husky or fat?
what kind of cap? baseball racing sun what?
And maybe more than just a little something.
In his cold apartment he brewed a cup of tea and then downloaded the five digital photos
onto his laptop. They were all good shots, the writing clearly readable in each. He created and saved a file for them, e-mailed the file to Tamara’s computer at the agency.
He carried his cup into the bedroom, sat on the bed and looked at the silver-framed portrait of Colleen on the nightstand. Her smiling image held his attention for a long time, until the tea was gone and his eyes began to ache and his vision to swim a little at the edges. Then he got up, returned to the living room, switched on the TV for noise. Sat staring at the screen without seeing it.
There was a tight strain of anger in him now. Troxell. The world at large. But mainly it was for himself, for letting the loneliness and the grief get to him again and because he still couldn’t get Risa Niland out of his mind.
16
Lynn Troxell wasn’t alone when I showed up at her home for our late Friday morning appointment. I wouldn’t have minded if her other visitor was Charles Kayabalian. I wanted to talk to him, in fact had tried to arrange a joint meeting with the two of them, but he was tied up and unavailable until later in the day. A one-on-one conference with Mrs. Troxell was the next best choice. I wasn’t prepared for or comfortable with a one-on-two with her and Drew Casement.
The way she looked didn’t help the situation much, either. Dressed in a black pants suit and a dark blue blouse, no color anywhere, her face pale without makeup, her expression bleak and that quality of deep sadness more pronounced. Expecting the worst and put together accordingly. Another mourner.
She greeted me gravely, as a widow might, and ushered me through a formal living room filled with the kind of antique furniture nobody ever sits on, into a large and more comfortable family room with a row of windows overlooking a rear garden. And there was Casement, on his feet and wearing an expression to match hers. At least he didn’t look like he was on his way to a funeral: light blue golf shirt and beige slacks, the picture of health with that tanned skin and rugged manner.
I couldn’t keep a frown off my face when I saw him. He said, “Lynn said it’s okay for me to be here. I’m just as worried about Jim as she is.”
She said, “Please, it’s all right. I want Drew to stay.”
It wasn’t worth arguing about. “Whatever you say, Mrs. Troxell.”
She did the hostess thing, offering coffee or something else to drink, and I declined, and we all got settled in a little half-circle, her on a rose-patterned sofa and Casement and me on chairs. Out in the garden there were pale sunshine and noisy birds working around a pedestal feeder, but in here it was hushed and darker than it should have been despite all the light outside. Too much melancholy on my mind, maybe, but the atmosphere was such that I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear sepulchral music playing soft and low in the background.
Nobody said anything as I opened my briefcase and took out the report Tamara had prepared. She and Runyon and I had held a conference earlier, after I looked at the digital photos he’d taken, and we’d agreed on the only viable course open to us if we wanted to avoid potential repercussions. So the report was a slightly doctored account of our investigation—accurate except for any mention of Runyon’s illegal trespass last night and details on what he’d found in the rental unit. The Erin Dumont case was a focal point, but presented in allusions and inferences couched in general terms—“confidential sources indicate” and “we have good reason to believe.” None of us liked doing it this way, but we liked the prospect of heavy legal expenses and possible license suspensions a hell of a lot less. Sometimes you have to bend the rules a little to get at the truth, and when you do that, sometimes you have to bend them a little more for maintenance reasons. It’s that kind of business; it’s that kind of cover-your-ass world.
Immediately I handed the report to Mrs. Troxell, Casement got up and went to sit beside her on the sofa so he could read along with her. I looked out into the garden and watched the birds chattering at the feeder. When I shifted my gaze back to the two of them, Mrs. Troxell’s face was the color of buttermilk and Casement had his arm around her shoulders. The only change in his expression was a tightening of the muscles bracketing his mouth.
She finished reading the last page, sat so rigidly she seemed almost to have stopped breathing. It was nearly half a minute before she moved, a sudden spasmodic lifting of head and breast. “God,” she said, “all of this . . . I can’t . . .” She could not seem to articulate the rest of what she was thinking, shook her head and fell silent.
Casement said grimly, “Worse than we expected. A lot worse.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You sure about Jim seeing what happened in the park, not doing anything about it?”
“If we weren’t, it wouldn’t be in the report.”
“So that’s what set him off on all the rest of it—the trigger we were talking about yesterday. Guilt, not being able to face himself.”
“Evidently.”
“Christ. Funerals, cemeteries, a rented hideaway, night walks on the beach—”
Lynn Troxell found her voice. “Jim has always been drawn to water,” she said distantly, not quite a non sequitur. “The ocean, lakes, rivers. They have a calming effect on him.”
Casement said, “He needs more than water. Prozac or Ritalin, maybe.”
“I suppose so, but . . .” She shuddered and looked at me. “I don’t understand about the granny unit. What does he do there?”
What does he do? I thought. He wallows in death, that’s what he does. But I said, “What he can’t do here because he’s afraid you’ll find out and he wants to spare you.” And spare himself at the same time.
“Reads newspapers looking for violent crimes,” Casement said, “so he can attend the victims’ funerals. Broods. Christ knows what else.”
“How can he be that obsessed, that . . . sick and I didn’t have any idea of it?”
“Don’t go blaming yourself, Lynn. He’s so closed off, nobody could’ve known how bad he is.”
“I should have,” she insisted. “I knew about the murders he saw as a child, I should have realized . . .”
Casement tightened his grip on her shoulder. He said to me, “The other thing we talked about yesterday . . . you think he could be building up to suicide?”
I gave him a sharp warning look.
“No, it’s all right, Lynn and I talked about that, too. I told you, we don’t have any secrets.”
She said, “I can’t imagine Jim doing a thing like that. I just . . . can’t.”
“I can,” Casement said, “and I wish I couldn’t. What he said to me that day, the look on his face—he’s capable of it, all right.”
“What are we going to do?” Then, desperately: “We have to do something!”
“Talk to him,” I said, “convince him to get professional help.”
“A psychiatrist?”
“He wouldn’t agree to it,” Casement said.
“He might. What other choice do we have?”
I said, “Frankly, none that I can see.”
She blinked, frowned, pulled her shoulders back the way people do when a sudden thought strikes them. She asked me, “The police . . . you haven’t told them about Jim being a witness?”
“Not yet.”
“Do you have to?”
“I’m obligated to. Withholding information in a homicide case is a felony, no matter who does it or what the reason.”
“When? How soon?”
The correct answer to that was immediately. The one mitigating factor in favor of a delay: two months had already passed since Erin Dumont’s murder, and assuming that what Troxell had scrawled in his notes was the whole truth, he had no specific knowledge that could lead to identification and arrest of the perp. But then there was the unknown factor: his mental state. How close was he to acting on a suicidal impulse? No way to tell from outward appearances. Confronting him might shock him into facing his illness, force him to take action to help himself. It might also push him over the line into an act of self-destruction. For that matter,
so might being detained as a material witness, having the truth about his cowardice come out that way. A risk in any case, and not my decision to make.
I said all of this to Lynn Troxell, adding, “I can give you a little time if you want it. The choice is yours.”
“How much time?”
“Until Monday morning. Either your husband goes to the police voluntarily by then or I’ll have to do it and then they’ll come after him.”
“I don’t know . . . I don’t know what’s best.”
Casement said, “We’ve got to talk to him, Lynn.”
“I suppose so . . . yes.”
I said, “Have Kayabalian—and your family physician—present when you do. Show him the report if you have to.”
“Let Jim know I hired a detective to spy on him?”
“We’ll make him understand you did it for his own good,” Casement said.
Her long, graceful hands moved in her lap, lacing and interlacing in that nervously habitual way of hers. Anguish bent her features into disproportionate shapes, like a face in a Dali painting. Casement and I both watched her struggle with decision, the anguish finally settle into a dull determination that readjusted her features and reestablished her poise.
“You’re right,” she said, “there’s no other way.”
“You won’t have to do it alone. I’ll be right there with you.”
She nodded and asked me, “Does Charles know about any of this yet?”
“No. I have a meeting scheduled with him later this afternoon. I’ll brief him then.”
“All right.” Her voice and her manner were more forceful now. Making the decision seemed to have given her strength. “Please tell him to call me. I’ll contact Jim’s doctor and explain the situation to him and we’ll coordinate a time.”
I said I would.
Casement patted her arm; she returned the pat, absently, and got to her feet. “How much do I owe you for your services?” she asked. “I’ll give you a check before you leave.”
Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) Page 11