Illusion? False mysticism? Maybe. All he knew for sure was that the concept seemed real to him. If the story Casey had told was essentially factual, he was obligated to continue watching out for her, to provide her with a reason to go on living. Otherwise none of today’s happenings would mean anything and his relationship with the Valley would never be quite the same again.
He wondered if he could make her understand this. He wondered if he should even bother to try. She’d probably think he was crazy. Hell, maybe he was. But it was a benign form of lunacy, the kind that allowed a man to live at peace with himself.
At first light he went for a five-mile roundabout hike that eventually brought him back to the Jeep. By then the day’s heat was just beginning to seep through the night chill. He drove out of the canyon to Stovepipe Wells, a smaller food and lodging settlement on the desert flats; filled the Jeep’s gas tank and then went into the restaurant for coffee and a plate of eggs and toast.
Will Rodriguez called as he was about to start the thirty-mile drive to Furnace Creek Ranch. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday, amigo. I couldn’t get hold of a couple of people until this morning.”
“What did you find out?”
“The woman seems to’ve told you a straight story. She brought a legitimate kidnapping charge against her ex-husband four months ago. Still outstanding. He and the kid have dropped completely off the radar.”
“What about the theft charge against her?”
“There isn’t one,” Will said. “No warrant of any kind.”
“Sure?”
“Positive.”
“So Vernon Young didn’t file a complaint after all.”
“Why wouldn’t he? Two thousand bucks is two thousand bucks.”
“He may not know yet that the money is missing. Or if he knows why she took it, maybe he feels sorry for her.”
“Or she has some reason to lie to you about the theft.”
“She have any history with the law I should know about?”
“No. Clean slate.”
“The husband, Court Spicer?”
“Court short for Courtney. He’s another story. Three arrests, one for aggravated assault—bar fight—and two for drunk and disorderly. The most recent D&D was six months ago, right before the custody hearing. One reason why the judge ruled against him, probably.”
“Casey told me he hid assets before the divorce, that that’s how he financed his disappearing act.”
“Could be, but it didn’t come from his job.”
“Musician, right?”
“Right. Piano player—solo lounge jobs or with small jazz groups.”
“What’d you find out about the detective, Sam Ulbrich?”
“Operates in San Diego under the name Confidential Investigative Services,” Will said. “Former police officer like most, in business for himself about fifteen years. Brought up before the Department of Consumer Affairs five years ago for overcharging a client. He claimed it was bogus; the judge agreed and his license wasn’t suspended. Otherwise, he seems to have a decent rep.”
“Okay. Anything else I should know?”
“That’s the whole package. So what’re you going to do?”
“About Casey Dunbar? I’m not sure yet. Depends on her.”
“Well, whatever you do, just don’t all of a sudden drop off the radar yourself.”
Casey was waiting for him in her cabin, with the air conditioner cranked all the way up to near chilly. Dressed in clean clothes, her hair washed and brushed, her sun-blotched face and arms greasy with burn ointment. The deep cracks in her lips had already begun to scab over.
“Feeling better this morning?” he asked.
“I suppose so.” She seemed to mean it; the dull, hopeless look had faded. Not exactly glad to be alive, he thought, but no longer wishing she weren’t. “Had breakfast?”
“No. I didn’t want to go out looking like this.”
“You can get room service here.”
“On your money? No, thanks.”
“You need to eat,” Fallon said. He went to the phone, put in an order for a light breakfast without consulting her about the contents.
“You’re pushy as hell, aren’t you?” she said when he hung up. There was spirit in the words, but no rancor. She wasn’t angry at him, but at herself and what she saw as the hopelessness of her situation.
“Sometimes. When I need to be.”
“How long are you going to keep it up? All this Good Samaritan stuff.”
“As long as you’ll let me.”
“What would your wife say if she knew?”
“I’m not married. Not anymore.”
“So you say.”
“I can prove it to you, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Okay, so you’re unattached and full of the milk of human kindness. And you expect me to believe there’s nothing in all this for you?”
“There’s something in it for me.”
“Uh-huh. Now we get to the bottom line.”
“The bottom line,” Fallon said, “is I might be able to help you find your son.”
The hazel eyes widened. “What’re you talking about?”
“Just what I said. Find your son, get him back to you.”
“. . . You can’t be serious.”
“Never more serious.”
“My God. Then you must be out of your mind. Weren’t you listening when I told you about the money I stole?”
“I was listening. You’re not wanted by the police, Casey. Vernon Young hasn’t filed theft charges against you.”
“He . . . how do you know his name?”
“Does it matter?”
Reflexive headshake. “Are you sure he hasn’t filed charges?”
“I’m sure.”
She bit her lower lip, grimaced because her teeth caught one of the scabbed places.
“If he knows the money is missing,” Fallon said, “he understands why you took it. He may be waiting to hear from you, hoping you’ll decide to pay it back. It’s only been a few days. Grace period.”
“But I don’t have it, I can’t pay it back.”
“Not right away. Arrangements can be made.”
“What do you mean, arrangements?”
“Monthly payments. Or if necessary, a loan to pay it back all at once.”
“Nobody would loan me that much money.”
“I might,” he said, to see what she’d say.
“What are you . . . oh, come on. Two thousand dollars?”
“I can afford it.”
“No. I wouldn’t feel right accepting that much money from you.”
“We could have a legal paper drawn up and notarized.”
“How do you know you could trust me?”
“I don’t.”
“Oh, but you’d be willing to take the risk.”
“Maybe. If it comes down to that.”
“If you think it would get me into bed with you—”
“Oh, Christ. What kind of man would I be if I expected that, after all you’ve been through?”
“I don’t know what kind of man you are, not really.”
“I’ll say this one last time: I don’t want anything from you.”
“Right.” Edge of sarcasm in her voice now. “You saved my life, a stranger, and now you’re willing to loan me two thousand dollars and help me find my son. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does to me.”
“What can you do? You’re not a detective—” She broke off, blinked, and said, “Or are you?”
“In a way. I work for a big pharmaceutical company in L.A.—assistant to the head of security. That gives me resources. It’s how I found out that no theft charges had been filed.”
“Checking up on me.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No. But . . . finding people? Do you know how to do that? The police, the FBI couldn’t find Kevin. Neither could the detective I hired.”
“Maybe no
ne of them tried hard enough. Or looked in the right places.” She kept on staring at him. “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “I’m not used to dealing with somebody like you. Most of the people I’ve known in my life are takers, not givers.”
“Like your ex-husband.”
“Yes. Exactly. Court . . . you don’t know him. He meant what he said about killing me. He’d kill you too, if you got in his way.”
“I’m not afraid of men like Court Spicer. He may be off the rails, but he’s also a coward. Sending Banning after you proves that.”
“But you’d still be risking your life for a stranger, two strangers. Saint Rick? I don’t believe that.”
“My soon-to-be ex-wife said I used to be a fighter, somebody who welcomed challenges, but that I’m not that way anymore. I think she was wrong.”
“Meaning you want to prove her wrong.”
“It’s not like that.”
“How is it, then?”
“The split wasn’t ugly like yours. I don’t have anything to prove to her.”
“To yourself, then?”
He shrugged. “There are other reasons. Some you’d understand, some you might not.”
“That’s an evasive answer.”
“All right. I’ll tell you the main one.” Fallon opened his wallet, removed the snapshot of Timmy from its glassine pocket, handed it to her. “My son. Timothy James Fallon.”
She said, staring at it, “He . . . looks like Kevin.”
“He would’ve been the same age.”
“Would’ve been?”
“He died,” Fallon said. “Three years ago.”
He thought he saw the shape of her expression change. She sat motionless, looking at the photo. “How?”
“An accident. A stupid accident. He climbed a tree with some other kids on a dare, lost his balance, hit the ground on the back of his head. Inoperable brain damage. He was in a coma for three weeks before he died.”
“God.”
“I was at work when it happened,” he said. “There wasn’t anything I could do to save him. Maybe there’s something I can do to save your son. Do you want me to try?”
She sat holding the snapshot of Timmy, alternating her gaze between it and Fallon. Making a decision.
“Yes,” she said at length. “I want you to try.”
SIX
WHILE CASEY ATE HER room-service meal, he quizzed her about her ex-husband, her son, and the man who called himself Banning.
Court Spicer first. Fallon asked for his description, since she had no photograph to give him. Average height. Lean and wiry, about 160 pounds. Black curly hair that he wore long, so long the last time she’d seen him that he’d had it in a ponytail. Clean-shaven then. Blue-gray eyes, very intense. Long-fingered hands. Mole on his left cheek, near his mouth. “I used to think he was good-looking. Now,” she said bitterly, “I think I must have been out of my mind.”
Nothing much there, except maybe for the mole. Mr. Average. And weight can be gained, hair cut and dyed, beards or mustaches grown, a man’s appearance changed in a dozen other ways.
“Tell me about your relationship with him,” Fallon said. “Start with how you met.”
Talking about Spicer was difficult for her. She spoke haltingly, her gaze slanted off much of the time in a fixed stare. She’d gone with a friend to a small club in San Diego’s Old Town district, she said, where Spicer had been playing piano. He’d noticed her, kept looking at her and smiling, and on his break he’d gone to their table for introductions, bought a round of drinks. She was flattered by the attention, but not attracted to him enough to say yes when he asked her for a date.
Two days later he’d surprised her with a phone call. She hadn’t given him her home number; he’d gotten it some other way. The persistent type. She was lonely enough to agree then to have drinks with him.
That casual date led to others. He didn’t try to talk her into sleeping with him. Kept it low-key. He could be charming, she said. Amusing, fun to be with. He took her to good restaurants, shows, jazz clubs, and improv sessions where he sat in from time to time—a whole new world for her.
She’d been seeing him off and on for three months when he proposed. She said no, but she kept on dating him, and he kept on asking her, and one night, after too much to drink, she let him take her to bed. The next morning he asked her again and she said yes. They were married in City Hall two weeks later.
“It wasn’t a bad marriage at first,” she said. “He could be moody sometimes, but mostly he was sweet to me. But that all changed when I made a mistake with my birth-control pills and got pregnant.”
“How’d he take the news?”
“He just . . . blew up. He didn’t want kids, not right away. He was so furious, I thought he was going to hit me. That was the first time I saw the other side of him . . . the first time I was afraid of him.”
Spicer wanted her to have an abortion. She refused. They fought about it and when she wouldn’t give in, the marriage turned rocky. He joined a trio that played road gigs, keeping him away from home for several weeks at a time. When he came back to San Diego, he spent little time at home with her. He was gone somewhere the night her water broke. She had to call for an EMS ambulance to take her to the hospital.
She’d come close to divorcing him at that point. But when he finally showed up at the hospital he’d been apologetic and full of promises; fawned over his new son. So she’d stayed with him, more for Kevin’s sake than her own.
For six years Spicer more or less lived up to his role as husband, father, and family provider. He worked steadily, mostly in the San Diego area, though the money he made combined with her modest income was barely enough to pay the bills. When Kevin was six months old, Casey had found a woman to take care of him during the day for a reasonable fee and gone back to work for Vernon Young Realty, the sales rep job she’d had when she met Spicer. It was the only way, she said, that they could make ends meet.
What finally sent the marriage skidding downhill was Spicer’s professional failures and frustrations. Better gigs eluded him; every tryout with a topflight band failed. And no one in the profession liked the elaborate piano compositions and band arrangements he wrote. He grew more and more moody and depressed. Lost his temper at the slightest provocation, threw screaming fits. Accused Casey of having affairs with neighbors, coworkers, strangers. Began drinking heavily, staying away from home for days at a time without explanation. Lost or quit one job after another.
Then, three years ago, things had gotten better for a time. Spicer’s whole attitude changed after his return from a road trip, became upbeat, cheerful. Their financial troubles were over, he told her, and proved it by paying off some of their debts and buying her and the boy presents. He claimed to have found a new, well-paying gig at the Beach Club in La Jolla, to have sold one of his jazz compositions to a large recording company. But he wouldn’t let her go with him to La Jolla to hear him play, and he was evasive when she asked who’d bought the composition.
She grew suspicious enough to drive to La Jolla alone one night. He wasn’t at the Beach Club; the management had never heard of him. In their apartment she went through his desk looking for, and not finding, a copy of the recording company contract he claimed to have signed. She confronted him the next day. He flew into a rage, refusing to explain why he’d lied to her or where the extra money was coming from. Warned her not to meddle in his private business.
“You don’t have any idea how much he had or was getting?” Fallon asked.
“No, but it had to be a lot from the way he was spending at first. Thousands.”
“More coming in over a period of time?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Spicer’s mystery income wasn’t enough to keep him happy. Not long after the confrontation he underwent another change, back to his Hyde persona with a vengeance. Long absences, verbal abuse when he was home, more heavy drinking, and the bar fight that led to his arrest for aggravated assault.
Finally she’d had enough. Told him she wanted a divorce. He shoved her, threw her down on the couch—the closest he’d come to physical violence. Accused her of leaving him for another man. Threatened to “make her pay” if she went through with the divorce.
“That was the last straw,” she said. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. I hired a lawyer and took Kevin and moved out. He found out the new address and kept calling up at all hours, drunk or stoned and yelling obscenities. Then he got his own lawyer and sued for custody. Spite and hate, that’s all it was. He doesn’t give a damn about Kevin.
“I had no trouble getting the divorce, but the custody trial dragged on and on. Court put on a good show, the loving, misunderstood father, all that crap. The judge saw through it and gave me full custody.”
“What was Spicer’s reaction?”
“None at first. He didn’t make a scene or bother me afterward. But he had visitation rights, one weekend a month—there wasn’t anything I could do about that. The first few weekends, he brought Kevin home when he was supposed to. Then the last time he didn’t. He’d packed up and left, without a word to the landlord or anybody else. The police found his car later, abandoned, in El Cajon. If he bought another one, he must have done it under a different name.”
“Or had someone buy it for him,” Fallon said. “What about his friends?”
“He didn’t have any, at least none that I knew about. Just casual acquaintances, almost all of them musicians.” She paused and then said, “Eddie Sparrow.”
“Who’s he?”
“A trumpet player Court worked with once. That’s how Sam Ulbrich managed to trace Court to Las Vegas—Eddie Sparrow.”
Ulbrich had found out that Sparrow was playing with a jazz band at a club off the Vegas Strip, and gone there to interview him. Sparrow told him he’d run into Spicer at a private jam session the weekend before last, but hadn’t talked to him and didn’t know where he was living.
Fallon asked, “The club where Sparrow’s working—what’s it called?”
It took her a little time, but she dredged the name out of her memory. The Hot Licks Club.
The Other Side of Silence Page 4