A Wasteland of Strangers

by Bill Pronzini

  Two of the reporters took cabins last night, one from the San Francisco Chronicle. He said he’d use my name and mention Lakeside Resort in his story—more free publicity. I had two other cabins rented before that, by weekenders up from the Bay Area to gamble at the Brush Creek casino, and the last two went after all the excitement died down to a couple from Ukiah who didn’t want to drive back so late and to another couple, young and sure not married, that I figured were out for an all-night sex binge. I told the boy the rate was seventy-five and he paid it without an argument. None of my business what people do inside one of my cabins, long as they don’t trash the place or steal sheets or towels or the TV.

  I didn’t have much time to myself this morning, either. Folks checking out, a few more rubberneckers, arguing on the phone with Maria Lorenzo because she wouldn’t come in early like I asked her to. Had to go to a christening, she said. Her and her religion. One of the worst things the white man ever did, you ask me, was to convert the heathens to Christianity. She finally showed up at eleven-thirty, half an hour later than she’d promised, with a lame excuse about the start of the christening being delayed. I told her she’d better have all the cabins done by two and then went in to eat my lunch a little early. There’s nothing like making money for a change to give a man an appetite.

  Fixing lunch made me realize I was low on items like milk and bread and cold meat. I could’ve sent Maria out to buy my groceries when she was finished with her cleaning—I’d done it before—but then I’d have to pay her a couple of bucks extra. And it was a nice day, sunny, and I felt like getting out in the car for a while. I waited until the noon news came on the Santa Rosa channel, to see if they’d show my interview. They didn’t. Long story about the murder, interviews with three other locals but not mine. A little miffed, I went out and yelled at Maria to keep an eye on the office. Then I got the car out and drove south to Brush Creek.

  The grocery store there is the only shop in the village still open on Sundays. One of the few stores still open for business, period. The place looks like a ghost town with all the empty and boarded-up buildings. If Miller’s Grocery dies, what’s left of Brush Creek will die along with it and then it’ll be a ghost town.

  On the way back, on the stretch of road that runs close to the lake just north of the village, I noticed a boat heading shoreward on this side. It was well beyond the Bluffs, several hundred yards offshore. Looked like Audrey Sixkiller’s old Chris-Craft. In fact, I was sure it was. There’s no other like it on this part of the lake, and even at a distance you can’t mistake those boxy lines and dark, burnished hull. Besides, this time of year she’s about the only one you’re likely to see out on the water. Crazy damn Indians’ll do things a white man wouldn’t if you paid him.

  I drove on up and over the high ground, down past Nucooee Point, and it wasn’t until I neared my resort that I had a wide view of the lake again. And there wasn’t any sign of Audrey’s boat anywhere. Not then and still not when I pulled into the Lakeside and took another look from there. Puzzled me. The shoreline above and below the Bluffs is too rocky and overgrown for even a fisherman’s skiff to put in. There’s only one spot you can dock along the two-mile wooded stretch where she’d been heading, and that had to be where she’d gone. The question was why.

  Why in hell would Audrey Sixkiller want to put in at the ruins of Nucooee Point Lodge?

  Zenna Wilson

  HOWARD AND STEPHANIE came into the kitchen just as I hung up the phone. They both had their jackets on. And Steffie was wearing that dreadful Hootie and the Blowfish sweatshirt she’s so fond of. Howard should never have bought it for her. That singing group may not be as bad as most nowadays, the ones with their filthy language and suggestive lyrics, but it’s still not the proper music for an impressionable nine-year-old to be listening to and admiring.

  “Well,” I said, “where are you two off to?”

  She said, “The park.”

  “Not Municipal, I hope. It’s still a madhouse downtown, and the police station’s right across the street. You know what I mean, Howard.”

  “Highland Park,” Steffie said before he could answer.

  “Oh, well, that’s all right. But why don’t you change first, sweetie? Put on a sweater and skirt.”

  She wrinkled her mouth in that pouty way she has lately. Lord knows which of her schoolmates she learned that little trick from. “We’re gonna play Frisbee. You can’t play Frisbee in a sweater and skirt.”

  “At least put on a different top.”

  “I like this one. Dad, what’s wrong with this one?”

  “Nothing, baby.” Taking her side, naturally, the way he always does. “You look fine. Go on out to the car. I’ll be along in a minute or two.”

  “Okay. ’Bye, Mom.”

  She skipped off and banged the door behind her. I swear she does it on purpose sometimes because she knows it annoys me.

  Howard said, “I don’t suppose you want to come with us.”

  “No, you go ahead. I have some things to do here.”

  “More phone calls?”

  “Howard, please don’t start. Lunch will be ready at twelve-thirty, so be sure you and Steffie—”

  “You’re glad Storm Carey’s dead, aren’t you? I mean, really happy about it.”

  “… That’s ridiculous. What on earth makes you say such a thing?”

  “You sounded happy on the phone a minute ago.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “A shocking murder not two miles from our home—that’s hardly cause for rejoicing.”

  “I heard what you said to Helen Carter. ‘The Jezebel got exactly what she deserved. We’re all better off rid of the likes of her.’”

  “Well? Aren’t we better off?”

  “No. She wasn’t a whore, Zenna.”

  “Of course she was. How can you defend her?”

  “I’m not defending her. I’m saying she wasn’t a whore or an evil person just because she slept around. She had problems—”

  “Problems!”

  “Yes, problems. Losing her husband the way she did, for one. And she did plenty of good for this community.”

  “Fornicating with every man she could lay hands on, married as well as unmarried, flaunting her drunken ways in public … I don’t see any good in any of that, Howard. You can’t mock the Lord and His teachings without suffering the consequences.”

  “So you are glad she’s dead. A woman who never did anything to you, never harmed anyone except herself—brutally murdered—and you’re downright ecstatic.”

  “I am not ecstatic!” He was making me very angry.

  “Yes, you are. Ecstatic she’d dead, ecstatic it was that stranger who killed her because it vindicates your judgment of him, too.”

  “My judgment? He was a degenerate, for heaven’s sake! Anyone with half a mind could tell that.”

  “Cause for rejoicing, after all. Not one but two of Satan’s minions destroyed in one night.”

  “All right! Yes, I’m glad they’re dead, both of them, glad they’re suffering in the Pit where they belong! Why shouldn’t I be? Any good Christian should shout hallelujah and fall on his knees with joy when the Almighty cleanses away evil, and a good Christian woman is what I am and I won’t apologize for it to you or anyone else.”

  The way he was staring at me stirred a coldness into my anger. “My God,” he said in a tone I’d never heard from him before. And then again, before he went out, “My God.”

  I don’t understand that man sometimes. I swear I don’t. Even after more than ten years together under the same roof, there are moments when he’s a complete stranger to me.

  Audrey Sixkiller

  WHEN I FOUND the bathroom window broken, my first thought was that it must’ve been done by the stalker—that he might still be inside the house. Irrational, because I’d been home from the rancheria three or four minutes by then and nothing had happened, but that didn’t prevent me from rushing to my purse and taking out the Ruger automatic
. I’d put the gun in there this morning, after the phone call; it was illegal for me to carry it without a permit, but under the circumstances I didn’t much care about technicalities and Dick hadn’t either when I told him. With the Ruger in hand, I checked through the house room by room.

  No one there but me.

  But someone had been inside. I could feel it by then, the faint aura of intrusion, even though at first I didn’t notice anything disturbed or missing. That came on closer inspection, on my second pass through.

  A few items gone from the bathroom cabinet. Peroxide … gauze pads … adhesive tape. Anything missing from the bedroom? Yes. Empty space on the closet shelf where I’d kept my extra blankets. The living room? No. The kitchen? Yes. Orange juice and two apples from the fridge. My office? No. The back porch? No.

  Medical supplies, blankets, food.

  It didn’t make sense. Or did it?

  It could be the stalker, in an attempt to devil me—but I doubted he was that subtle. A man who tries to break into a woman’s home in the dead of night wearing a ski mask, who makes the kind of phone threat he’d made to me, wouldn’t break a window for any reason except to get in and at his victim. He wouldn’t bother to steal a few inconsequential items, either.

  Neither would a burglar; there were too many items of value, like my Apple PC, that hadn’t been touched.

  Neither would kids playing games. For the same reason, and because there was no sign of vandalism, nothing out of place.

  It had to be someone who needed exactly what was stolen. Medical supplies, blankets, food. Someone hurt. And hungry. And cold and perhaps wet.

  John Faith?

  Not possible, I told myself. John Faith is dead, drowned in the lake. But of course it was possible. Dick believed the man was still alive, and his professional instincts were trustworthy. The prospect chilled me. John Faith in my house, a murderer in my home—

  And then out of it again. Where would he go from here, with the things he’d taken?

  The boat!

  I threw my jacket on and ran out to the dock. The Chris-Craft was still there inside the shed, on the hoist and wearing its tarpaulin cover. But I went out on the dock anyway. The security door was unlatched, not that that meant anything because I wasn’t always as careful as I should be about making sure it was closed tight. On an impulse I climbed down the ladder, went in along the float.

  Even in the shadows I could see that the hoist frame was wet, and the long, fresh scrape on the port side of the hull above the waterline.

  I stepped up on the frame, untied the tarp and folded it over, and climbed aboard. When I raised the engine housing, heat and the smell of warm oil radiated out at me. The deck had been washed down hastily, I thought, and not very carefully. On the rear of the pilot’s seat was a stain of something crusty that looked like dried blood. Wool fibers, blanket fibers, were caught where the seat was bolted to the deck. I checked the storage locker. A spool of fishing line, a lead sinker, and my flashlight were gone.

  Someone had had the boat out in my absence, and brought it back no more than an hour ago—someone who’d been careless docking it here or elsewhere. That much was clear. What wasn’t clear was why the boat was here now. If it’d been John Faith, there was no earthly reason for him to bring it back …

  I climbed out, and when I finished retying the tarp I had the answer. Not one person—two. John Faith and an accomplice who’d taken him to an unknown destination and then returned alone, hoping I wouldn’t notice immediately that the boat had been used. That person was the one who’d broken into the house. Blood here but none inside.

  It seemed fantastic, yet it was the only explanation that fit the facts. But who in Pomo would help a stranger like John Faith, a suspected murderer?

  I was on my way back to the house when I remembered what I’d forgotten in all the chaotic events of last night and this morning. The appointment I’d made for nine o’clock, here, with Trisha Marx.

  Lori Banner

  I WAS PRETTY surprised when I opened the door and saw Trisha Marx standing on the porch. I knew her from the cafe; she’d been in dozens of times on my shift, usually with that good-looking Mexican boyfriend of hers and the rest of the semi-tough crowd she hangs out with. But she’d never been particularly friendly to me. And she’d sure never come to the house before, or even said two words to me anywhere outside the Northlake.

  “Can I talk to you, Mrs. Banner?” Mrs. Banner, not Lori like in the cafe. “It’s really important.”

  “Well …”

  “Really important.”

  “If it’s about the fight last night—”

  “Fight? What fight?”

  “Your dad didn’t tell you about it?”

  “No. He had a fight with somebody? Who?”

  “John Faith.” Saying his name brought back the down feeling I’d had when I first heard about him and Storm Carey. It was so hard to believe they were both dead. “At the Northlake, around ten-thirty.”

  “Oh, God. Was it about John giving me a ride home?”

  “Yeah. Your dad accused him of trying to molest you and then took a sock at him. Knocked him down.”

  “What’d john do?”

  “Nothing. Walked away.”

  She had an odd look on her face. “He never said a word. Not one word.”

  “Well, if that’s not why you’re here …”

  “Can we talk in private? Just the two of us?”

  “There’s nobody home but me.” Earle had gone out about ten. He hadn’t said where and I didn’t care anyway. I touched my mouth where he’d hit me yesterday; the upper lip was still sore, but the swelling was gone. One of my teeth was loose, too. He’d been all sorry and lovey-dovey last night, but that was because he wanted to get laid. I wouldn’t let him. I’d had about all I was going to take of his abuse and I’d told him so. He said he’d never hit me again, swore up and down. Well, he’d better keep his promise this time. It’s his last chance.

  Trisha came in and we sat in the living room and the first thing she said was, “Isn’t it awful, what happened to Mrs. Carey?”

  “Worst thing in Pomo since I’ve lived here.”

  “You think he did it? John Faith?”

  “Everybody says he did.”

  “But do you think so?”

  I’d worried that around most of the morning. Sure, he’d looked capable of killing somebody, with his size and that craggy, scarred face and his silver eyes. But I kept remembering the deep-down gentleness in those eyes, and the little-boy-lost sadness in him, and what he’d said about the world being a better place if people quit hurting other people and left each other alone. His last words to me, too, after the trouble with Brian Marx, “See? Not in this lifetime.” He could’ve taken Brian apart real easy, but he hadn’t done anything except stand his ground. He may’ve looked violent, but inside, where it counts, he wasn’t. Just the opposite of Earle. And we were supposed to believe he went out right afterward and beat Storm Carey’s head in?

  “No,” I said.

  “You mean that?”

  “You bet I mean it.”

  “I don’t think he did it either. I know he didn’t.”

  “How could you know it?”

  “I just do. He wouldn’t hurt anybody unless they hurt him first. He’s not what people say he is.”

  “No, not at all.”

  “I’d help him in a minute if I could,” she said.

  “Help him how?”

  “You know, stay out of jail. Get away.”

  “Well, nobody can help him now.”

  “They could if he wasn’t dead.”

  “You don’t think he drowned in the lake?”

  “Maybe not.” She wet her lips. She looked intense, her blue eyes bright and shiny. “What if he’s still alive? What if he’s hurt and hiding somewhere?”

  “Trisha, what’re you trying to say?”

  “Would you help him if you could? If you were the only person who could do what
had to be done?”

  A peculiar fluttery sensation had started under my breastbone. And all of a sudden my mouth was dry. I said, “How badly hurt?”

  “Bad enough. Say, a couple of bullet wounds.”

  “In a vital spot?”

  “No. Like under the shoulder.”

  “Bullet still inside?”

  “Uh-uh. A couple of wounds.”

  “Entrance and exit. That’s better, cleaner. Still, wounds like that can infect pretty easily.”

  “Yeah. He’d need antibiotics and other stuff, right? And somebody who’d had medical training to get it for him and then fix him up.”

  “Where is he, Trisha?”

  “How should I know? At the bottom of the lake, maybe. We’re just talking here.”

  “We’re not just talking. You know where he is, don’t you?”

  “What if I do?”

  “Is it someplace where he’s safe?”

  “Safe enough. You think I should tell the cops?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “They’d just put him in jail, maybe the gas chamber. For something he didn’t do.”

  “I know.”

  “Should I just let him die?”

  “No.”

  “So what would you do? If you knew for sure he was alive and wounded and where he was hiding.”

  “He asked you to talk to me, didn’t he? Last night … I mentioned my nurse’s training and he remembered.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Mrs. Banner.”

  “Lori,” I said. Then I said, “I’d help him.”

  “No shit? Even though it’d be breaking the law?”

  “Aiding and abetting a fugitive, it’s called.”

  “Whatever. You wouldn’t call the cops?”

  “No, I wouldn’t call the cops. I won’t call them.”

  “Swear to God?”

  “Swear to God. Where is he? How’d you find him?”