In an Evil Time

by Bill Pronzini

  “Then we’ll think of something else.”

  21

  Wednesday Morning

  MACATEE couldn’t help them.

  “I talked to at least two dozen people acquainted with David Rakubian,” he said. “They told me pretty much anything I wanted to know about his professional practice, background, ethics or lack of ’em. But none of those people, his office staff included, had anything but a superficial knowledge of his private life. He guarded that like a miser. All we really know about it came from your daughter, Mr. Hollis, and she couldn’t give me any idea who he was involved with before he met her.”

  “Wasn’t there anything in his house—old letters, photographs …”

  “Not a thing,” Macatee said with weary patience. “My advice is the same as the last time we talked—quit worrying about David Rakubian. Quit wondering what happened to him or who might’ve had something to do with the disappearance. Count your blessings and let it be.”

  After he put the phone down, Hollis rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Tired, logy today. Stress, not enough sleep … oh, he was in fine shape. He stood and slogged out of the study, into the kitchen to talk to Cassie. She had gone there to listen to the conversation with Macatee on the extension.

  Now she was at the catchall desk in one corner, rummaging intently through the drawers. “I know I put them in here somewhere,” she said when she heard him come in.

  “What’re you looking for?”

  No response. Then, “There they are!” She straightened and turned, holding up what she’d found.

  “Keys?”

  “Angela’s. To Rakubian’s house and alarm system. The night she left him and came home, she swore she’d never go back and threw them on the floor. Remember? I put them in the desk and forgot all about them until just now.”

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “Well, even though she waived community property she’s still entitled to claim her personal possessions. Technically, anyway. And we’re her parents, we have a right to go there on her behalf.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “You heard what Macatee said. He searched the house, probably more than once, and didn’t find a thing.”

  “It’s possible he overlooked something. Why not go down there and see?”

  She had a point. He didn’t much care for the idea of prowling again through those dark, oppressive rooms, but the prospect of more passive waiting had no appeal at all. “It’s worth a try,” he said.

  “We can leave right away. I’ll call the clinic, tell them I won’t be in today.”

  “If that’s going to leave them shorthanded, I don’t mind going by myself.”

  “Uh-uh. It’s a long drive to the city and back.”

  “I feel strong enough today.”

  “Don’t try to be Superman again, okay? It’s all right to lean on me a little sometimes, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Besides, I want to go. And two can search more thoroughly than one.”

  “Call the clinic,” he said. “I’ll get our jackets.”

  It was one of those inverse-weather-pattern days, overcast in the North Bay but mostly clear in San Francisco. The sunlight hurt his eyes as they started through the park to Nineteenth Avenue; he put on dark glasses to shield them. When Cassie turned her van—she’d picked it up at the repair shop the night before—onto Sloat Boulevard and they entered St. Francis Wood, he felt a curl of tension forming. Criminal returns to scene of his crime, he thought, and then realized he’d spoken the phrase aloud.

  “Don’t, Jack.”

  “I’m not looking forward to this.”

  “You think I am?”

  Quiet summer morning in the Wood: dog walkers in the park, mailman making his deliveries, sun-hatted woman working in her garden in the block below Rakubian’s. Cassie parked directly in front of the Spanish stucco, no reason not to. The property seemed subtly different to him dappled in sunlight and shadow, less imposing, less bleak. Just another expensive home in one of the city’s best neighborhoods. Yet the tension remained as they got out, walked up onto the porch.

  The alarm system was on; he shut it off with Angela’s key. Cassie was looking in the mailbox. “Empty,” she said, “but he must still be getting mail. I wonder what’s happened to it.”

  “Police made arrangements for a temporary hold, probably.”

  “I don’t suppose there’d be anything in it anyway.”

  “Doubtful.”

  When he opened the door he expected a heavy, closed-up feel and smell, but that wasn’t the case. Cold air, faintly damp, faintly musty. Cassie noticed it as well. “Feels as though the place was aired out not long ago,” she said.

  He didn’t answer. His memory had begun to flare open, to disgorge images from that nightmare Saturday. Ghosts, baby phantoms. In his mind, and in the cold stillness and shadowy corners in here. But they couldn’t hurt him unless he permitted it to happen, and he would not.

  He located the light switch, flicked it. The electricity was still on; a pale amber glow chased away some of the gloom in the foyer and hallway.

  “That’s a relief,” Cassie said. “I thought we might have to do this by flashlight. Who do you suppose is paying the bill?”

  “May have paid it himself a month or two in advance. Even if he didn’t, it hasn’t been long enough for PG&E to shut the power off.”

  “Where should we start?”

  “Library, I guess.”

  “Is that where—?”

  “Where I found him. It’s also where he kept most of his papers.”

  They moved ahead, their shoes clicking on the terracotta tiles. At the library arch he hesitated, but only for an instant before he stepped through. Cassie was a pace behind him, so that when he stopped abruptly, staring at the floor in front of Rakubian’s desk, she bumped into him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The carpet,” he said. “It’s gone.”

  “What carpet?”

  Memory flash: The tiles so bare after he dragged the body out and wiped up the blood; didn’t look right, so he’d rolled up the smaller but similar Sarouk in the formal living room and spread it out in here. Now the tiles were bare again. He pivoted around past Cassie, hurried up the hall.

  The three-by-five Sarouk had been put back in its original spot in front of the fireplace. And the furniture … all of it was placed as it had been before he’d shifted it around, back to Rakubian’s original arrangement.

  “My God,” he said.

  “Jack?”

  He explained as they returned to the library. She said, “The police wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

  “No. They’d have no way of knowing the original placement anyhow.”

  “Why would somebody else …?”

  His gaze roved the dark room. The wall hangings, the screaming souls in the Goya “black” seemed to stare back at him. And on the fireplace mantel—

  Black statuette.

  A bird, a raven—Poe’s Raven.

  Dry-mouthed, he stepped over for a closer look. Replica of the murder weapon and the statuette in Rakubian’s office, except that this one was slightly larger and more ornate. It even had a Nevermore! plaque.

  “It’s as if somebody is trying to erase what happened,” he told Cassie. “Not for the reason I did, to cover up … By putting everything back as it was, as though the murder never happened at all.”

  “His killer?”

  “Nobody else would have a reason.”

  “Then it has to be a woman,” she said. “Somebody full of guilt and remorse … somebody who loved and hated him both. The hate killed him, the love drove her back here. To the scene of her crime.”

  They hunted through Rakubian’s desk, the rest of the library. Paper files, computer disks—all neatly arranged. The woman again: the police would not have left everything in such pristine order. There were a few obvious gaps,
items taken away by Macatee for one reason or another and still in his possession. None of the paper files revealed anything. The disks were all labeled with year and month and content—bills, business expenses, charitable donations. Any that might have contained personal references were missing, appropriated by either Macatee or the woman. There didn’t seem to be much point in going through the remainder, here or later at home.

  There was nothing else to find in the living room. The guest bathroom seemed the same as he’d left it two months ago; the spare bedroom and small sitting room next to it were dusty, musty, and empty of anything revealing. They went across the hall to the master bedroom. The door was shut; Cassie pushed it open.

  “Oh!” she said.

  Incense. That was the first thing that struck him—the faint but still pungent odor of burnt incense. Then his eyes adjusted to the gloom in there, and he saw what Cassie, with better vision, had seen immediately.

  Candles.

  Dozens of them, fat and thin, tall and short, in a variety of dishes and holders. On the furniture, on the carpet ringing the bed, on every flat surface in the room.

  “Lord,” Cassie murmured, “it’s like a shrine.”

  He put the ceiling light on. The big double bed was made, but the counterpane lay crooked and a little wrinkled at the bottom. The doors to the walk-in closet and master bath were closed. That was all there was to see except for the candles; they dominated the room, phallic images in red, white, green, and yellow wax. Even the bowl on the dresser where the incense had been burned had a long taper jutting from its center.

  “She’s been sleeping in here,” he said.

  “In his bed. Yes.”

  “How often, that’s the question.”

  “It’s hard to tell. Not every night … I don’t think she’s living here, at least not regularly. The incense odor isn’t fresh.”

  “Sick. Certifiable.”

  “Unstable to begin with,” Cassie said, “and killing him pushed her over the edge. All that love and hate mixed up together.”

  He crossed to the closet doors, swung them wide. Suits, shirts, ties, a few items of casual wear—all Rakubian’s, all carefully arranged on hangers and racks and shelves. Untouched since his death, probably. A small section at the rear contained women’s clothes, a rack of women’s shoes. Cassie went in to look through them.

  “Angela’s,” she said. “This silk blouse—we gave it to her for Christmas two years ago.”

  “All of the clothing hers?”

  “I think so. Everything she left behind.”

  They searched the bathroom. The shower stall and circular tub were both dry. The only item that seemed to have been used recently was a toothbrush; its bristles were dry, but it lay beside the sink rather than in the chromium holder with two others. The medicine chest held nothing that could not have belonged to Rakubian or to Angela.

  In the bedroom again they opened dresser drawers, nightstand drawers. Same thing: all the contents were his, could have been Angela’s.

  The incense, a smell he’d never liked, was making his sinuses ache. He left Cassie still poking around the bedroom, went to check the kitchen. The refrigerator was empty; so was the trash container under the sink. The woman was not eating her meals here, or if she was, she brought them in with her and took the remnants away when she left. Cassie joined him and they examined drawers, cupboards, cabinets there and on the rear porch. But they were only going through the motions and they both knew it.

  No clue here to the woman’s identity.

  At least now they had a way to find out who she was. If she came back to spend another night; if she did it soon. Hire a detective, have the house put under surveillance. It might be expensive and time-consuming, it meant more waiting, but it was all they could do. And it was something.

  In the van they discussed doing the hiring immediately, trying to make arrangements in time for someone to be on watch tonight. Not feasible. He was fading, starting to feel tired and a little shaky—that was one reason. The other was that it took time to choose and hire a detective. You didn’t just pick a name out of the phone book and walk into an office unannounced and expect an experienced investigator to be available and willing to drop everything to do a job for you, the way it was done in books and films. You had to select the right person for the job, make an appointment, discuss the matter, settle financial arrangements—the same as with any other professional business dealing.

  They drove straight home, to take care of the preliminaries from there.

  Wednesday Afternoon

  The San Francisco telephone directory contained two full pages of listings for private investigators—large and small agencies, individuals, numerous boxed ads outlining services. The first six they tried, picked at random, were wasted calls. Four said they didn’t do that sort of surveillance work; one told them he could handle it but not until next week, he was booked solid until then; the sixth was an answering service. Then Cassie pointed out that more than a few of the agencies were operated by women and suggested that a woman investigator might be better in their case. Hollis thought so, too.

  The seventh call went to McCone Investigations at Pier 24½ on the Embarcadero. They spoke to the owner, Sharon McCone, who seemed both professional and amenable. If she agreed to take their case after meeting them in person and hearing all the particulars, she said, she could have one of her operatives on surveillance by tomorrow night. They set an appointment for one-thirty the next afternoon at her offices.

  Wednesday Evening

  An early dinner at the Mill with Angela and Kenny and Pierce. Angela’s idea; she seemed to need family closeness now more than ever, and for Cassie and him to accept Pierce as part of the unit again. “Drawing us around her like shields,” Cassie said. Hollis felt better after a nap, so how could they refuse her?

  The dinner went all right, better than he’d expected. Pierce was on his best behavior, polite without being deferential; he actually seemed to be enjoying himself. If Angela had told him anything about Rakubian’s death, he didn’t let on. It was obvious that he genuinely cared for her and his son; you could see it in the way he looked at them, interacted with them. You could see, too, if you looked closely enough, the difference he’d made in both their lives already. When he and Angela were first together, and especially after Kenny was born, they hadn’t seemed quite comfortable with each other, with their roles as husband and wife, father and mother. Too young, too immature. The ease was there now, even after such a short time in this new relationship.

  It had been there for a while, Hollis realized. He hadn’t seen it before tonight because he hadn’t wanted to see it—one of the many things he hadn’t seen or wanted to see until Cassie opened his eyes for him.

  Thursday Morning

  Tom Finchley and his helper were due at eight-thirty and arrived, unlike a lot of contractors, on time—one of the reasons he’d chosen Finchley for the renovation work. Neither he nor Cassie cared to be there while the living room was being shoveled out; they drove downtown separately, had coffee and croissants at a café on Main, and parted there afterward. They’d each work half a day, meet again at noon for the drive to the city and the appointment with Sharon McCone.

  When he reached Mannix & Hollis, it was just nine-thirty. Surprise waiting: Gabe was there ahead of him. Talking to Gloria, who seemed a little flustered about something.

  “What’s this?” he said. “In the office before noon? Don’t tell me you’ve found your work ethic again after all these years?”

  Mannix didn’t smile. His mouth, Hollis saw then, was pinched at the corners. “Something like that. I was just about to call you.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Tell him what you just told me, Gloria.”

  She said, “I feel kind of bad about this. I mean, I didn’t think you were having any more trouble ….”

  Hollis glanced at his partner, who shook his head. Mannix’s eyes said: I didn’t break your confide
nce. That’s not what this is about.

  “Go ahead,” he told Gloria.

  “Well, I went to the River House for lunch yesterday. You know how cold it was, right? That’s how come I noticed her, this woman. Sitting out on the patio all by herself, bundled up in a parka, drinking coffee and staring over here. Like she was watching this building, our office. There’s nothing else to see in this direction, not from where she was sitting—no other windows.”

  Hollis felt himself tightening inside. “You get a good look at her?”

  “Good enough to recognize her.”

  “Somebody you know?”

  “No, but I’ve seen her before. Twice.”

  “Where?”

  “Once last week, on the River House patio again. Sitting at the same table, looking over this way. I didn’t think anything about it then. Sunny that day, lots of folks having lunch outside.”

  “The other time?”

  “Sunday morning. At your house.”

  “At my—”

  “She was coming down the front steps when I drove up,” Gloria said. “About eleven-fifteen, when I dropped off the Dry Creek package. I thought maybe she was a friend of Cassie’s. She wasn’t doing anything, just walking down the steps—going away because nobody was home. That’s why I didn’t mention it before. But then there she was again yesterday, three times in less than a week, and the way she was sitting there in the cold staring … it just seemed funny, the more I thought about it. So I told Gabe when he came in and he said we’d better tell you right away.”

  “What did this woman look like? Describe her.”

  “Thirty-five or so. Skinny, not much in the titty department. Dark hair like mine, but cut short. Narrow face, big beak nose. Wears glasses with gold rims.”

  “Christ!”

  Mannix said, “You know her?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know her.”

  Rakubian’s paralegal, Valerie Burke.

  22

  JUST like that.

  You stumble around, speculate, make a glut of false assumptions, exist in a constant state of confusion and frustration—and the answer is right there all the time, obvious and yet not obvious at all until it’s dumped in your lap. Valerie Burke. Close to Rakubian, worked with him for five years, but you never considered her because he seemed always to keep his private life separate from his professional one; because she was older than he and unattractive compared to Angela. What you overlooked is that neither youth nor beauty was what attracted a man like Rakubian. It was vulnerability. He wanted a woman he could dominate, mold like warm plastic into his ideal mate. Only Valerie Burke hadn’t quite fit the bill, for whatever reason, and he dropped her in favor of Angela, and she’d never gotten over it.…