Mourners nd-31

by Bill Pronzini

  “Risa? Just for a few minutes?”

  “Are you all right? Has something happened?”

  “No, I just… I can’t keep it inside me anymore.”

  “Can’t keep what inside you?”

  “What happened, what I did. It’s tearing me up.”

  “The accident, you mean? Your girl?”

  “Yes… my girl. Please, Risa.”

  Compassion rose in her. She knew that ravaged look all too well; she’d seen it often enough in her own reflection after Jerry, after Erin. She didn’t really want to talk to anyone tonight, least of all someone who was hurting as much as she was, but she couldn’t bring herself to deny him.

  “All right,” she said, “for a few minutes. Help me with the groceries?”

  He nodded, picked up the sacks while she keyed the front door. They had to wait for the elevator; somebody was coming down. Anna Cheung and her big chocolate lab, Arnold, on the way out for their after-work walk.

  Anna said hello to her and then glanced curiously at Dave. He was watching Arnold. The dog was a crotch-sniffer; it tried to stick its snout between Risa’s legs. She fended it off gently and immediately it tried to do the same to him. He backed away as if he were afraid it might attack him.

  Anna jerked the leash. “Arnold, no. Sorry about that,” she said to Dave. “I’ve tried everything to break him of that habit.”

  He stepped into the elevator without answering.

  On the way up he said, “I don’t like dogs. People shouldn’t have them in apartment buildings.”

  “You’d never know Arnold lived here,” Risa said. “He never barks. Crotch-sniffing is his only bad habit.”

  “Still a dirty animal.”

  Inside the apartment she started toward the kitchen, but he stopped in the living room and stood looking around. Stared hard at something, then, and she saw that it was the framed photograph of Erin on the mantel over the gas-log fireplace.

  “My sister,” she said. “Erin.”

  He put the grocery sacks down on the coffee table, went to the fireplace for a closer look. “She was beautiful.”

  “Yes. Yes, she was.”

  “So beautiful.”

  There was an odd inflection in his voice. He seemed… different, somehow, now that they were up here. A little strange. She wondered if she hadn’t been too hasty in inviting him. She didn’t really know him, after all, or anything about him. Well, it was too late now. Make the best of it and ease him on his way.

  “I’ll put the groceries away,” she said. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “What?”

  “Something to drink?”

  “No. I don’t want… no.”

  She carried the sacks into the kitchen, put the milk and a couple of other perishables into the fridge. The red numeral 2 was blinking on the answering machine-two messages. Listen to them now or wait until Dave was gone? Might as well wait, they wouldn’t be important anyway. She sighed and went back into the living room.

  He wasn’t there.

  She blinked, surprised. Where? The bathroom without asking?

  Small sounds reached her, and the surprise gave way to stirrings of alarm. Not the bathroom-one of the bedrooms. She hurried down the hall. She kept the door to Erin’s room shut, but now it was open. That was where he was, inside, standing next to the bed with his back to the doorway.

  “What’re you doing in here?”

  He turned, and what she saw then made the skin crawl across her neck and shoulders. He’d taken Mr. Floppy off the dresser, was clutching the stuffed dog against his chest with both hands. And crying. Silent tears, big and wet, rolling down both cheeks, his mouth drawn into a grimace of agony.

  “Hers,” he said. “Hers.”

  “Put it down. What’s the matter with you?”

  His shoulders trembled; more tears flowed. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “For what?”

  “I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t keep it inside. I wanted to tell you every time I saw you, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t until now.”

  “Dave, you’re not making sense-”

  “Sean,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Sean, not Dave, Dave’s my middle name. Didn’t she tell you about me? Sean? I told her my name, I know I did. Didn’t she say it even once?”

  Understanding came in a single sharp burst, like something breaking open inside her. She was cold, hot, sick, furious all at once. “Oh my God!”

  “I loved her,” he said.

  “You did it! You’re the one! You killed Erin!”

  “I loved her, I never meant to hurt her, you have to believe that-”

  She flung herself at him, clawing with her nails, kicking at his shins. He dropped the stuffed dog and tried to push her away, saying, “Stop it, stop it!” One of her kicks landed squarely. He yowled and grabbed her, twisted her around in his grasp, one arm wrapped across her collarbone. She dipped her chin and bit him, hard, on the wrist. He yowled again and let go of her, and she spun away from him, ran away from him into the hall, into the living room. He was right behind her, stumbling into the wall, calling her name.

  Kitchen, a weapon, a knife The door buzzer sounded.

  The sudden noise threw her off-stride, caused her to change direction. But the door was too far away; he caught her before she could get there and push the button to unlock the downstairs door. His arms were like a vise closing around her, mashing her breasts painfully as he yanked her back against his body. He whirled her off her feet, her legs flying outward. The scream building in her throat died in an explosive “Uff!” as he slammed her against something yielding, the back of the couch. She bounced down onto the cushions, the two of them still twined together and his crushing weight on top.

  For a few seconds she couldn’t breathe. Black spots and needles of light pinwheeled behind her eyes. Then some of the crushing weight lifted, she was able to suck in air in openmouthed gasps. Another scream formed in her throat. He clapped one hand over her mouth, the other tight against her windpipe.

  Dimly she heard the door buzzer again.

  “Don’t scream,” he said, panting, “don’t fight me anymore. I don’t want to hurt you. Please don’t make me hurt you.”

  She stopped struggling.

  After a few seconds his hand loosened across her mouth, slowly lifted. “I mean it, don’t try to scream. I will hurt you if you do.”

  She didn’t move, made no sound. His other hand was still a heavy pressure at her throat. The rattling wheeze of her breath and his filled her ears. Whoever had been ringing from downstairs had gone away.

  “Listen to me, Risa, you have to understand. I didn’t want to hurt your sister. I swear to God. I loved her. I loved her so much.”

  He was still crying; his face was smeared with wet. His eyes begged her. She flashed hate at him in return.

  “But I wasn’t worthy of her. I knew that. She was so beautiful and I was nothing, a nobody, a fat slob. That’s why I went away. To make myself worthy, so she’d love me the way I loved her. Two years. I lost a hundred pounds, cut my hair, didn’t go anywhere or do anything except work and save money for when we were together. It was hard but I did it. For her.”

  Fatso! Oh God, that’s who he was… Fatso!

  “Two years. I couldn’t stand not seeing her, so I drove down sometimes and watched her to make sure she was all right. She never knew, I never let anybody know. All those guys she dated, they weren’t important to her. She was waiting for the man who was worthy.” He was making little hiccuping sounds now, as if he might start to hyperventilate. “Two years and I was ready, I got the kind of job I always wanted, a nice apartment for us, all the money we’d need for a while. I went to see her after she got off work. I didn’t tell her who I was, I wanted to see if she’d recognize me. She didn’t. I asked her out, I wasn’t even shy about it, but she said no. She didn’t want anything to do with me. The next night I went to see
her again. In the park, while she was jogging. I got her to sit in the car with me and I told her then who I was and what I’d done for her. But she still didn’t want anything to do with me. She said she was going to marry somebody else, she said even if she wasn’t she could never be with me. She said… she said every time she looked at me she’d remember the way I used to be, how fat I was, like a big fat dog, and she laughed.. she laughed at me… two years and everything I did for her and she was laughing at me…”

  His hand was no longer at Risa’s throat; now he held her pinned at the shoulders. His face loomed close enough for her to smell his breath, feel the heat of it. She’d never seen more suffering in any human being-and it made her hatred burn even hotter. She wanted nothing more in the world than to rip that face off his head, shred his suffering between her fingers until there was nothing left.

  “I don’t remember what happened after that,” he said. “I swear to God, I don’t remember. I-”

  “You beat her! You strangled her! You raped her!”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t, I don’t, I must have been crazy-”

  “You raped her after she was dead!”

  “No! I didn’t know she was dead, Jesus I didn’t know, I don’t remember, I woke up and she was naked and I… she… I couldn’t have done that to her but she… I don’t… Erin… I’m so sorry…”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I can’t work, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I tried to give myself up to the police but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t tell anybody but you. I had to be close to you because you were close to her… Forgive me, Risa. Please. Please. Please

  …”

  She couldn’t stand to hear any more. His words hammered in her ears, inflamed her with such fury that she couldn’t think. Bile rose into her mouth. “I’ll never forgive you, never!”

  “Risa…”

  “I hope you rot in hell!” And she hurled globs of spittle and vomit straight into that ugly suffering face.

  Mistake, oh God, she realized that as soon as she did it.

  An animal sound ripped out of him. One hand and then the other clamped like an iron collar around her throat.

  28

  The address was a private home in Forest Hills, one of the city’s older residential neighborhoods west of Twin Peaks. You couldn’t tell much about it from the street. More modern than some of the homes in the neighborhood, a hillside split-level on a narrow lot, with an unobtrusive redwood and brick facade. A curving set of stone steps led down to it through a southwestern-style rock-and-cactus garden. If you stood off at a side angle, you could tell that there were broad decks on both levels that would command views of Mount Davidson and portions of downtown and the bay.

  It was nearly five o’clock when I got there. I went down and rang the bell. Nobody opened the door. I climbed back up and checked the enclosed platform garage along one corner of the property at street level. But it was just a box with no doors or windows so I couldn’t tell if it was empty or not.

  I sat waiting in the car. Might be a long wait, but now that I was here I was inclined to stay put at least a couple of hours and probably longer; I have more patience than usual when it comes to specific business. Get this done tonight if at all possible.

  The wait lasted exactly forty-seven minutes. A car came too fast around a curve in the street behind me: black Ford Explorer, big as hell, just the kind of wheels I expected him to have. Brakes squealed; he swung sharp into the driveway. The door ground up and the SUV disappeared inside. When he came out, pausing to close the door with an inside button, I was waiting for him.

  He squinted at me out of bleary eyes. “Hey,” he said, “what’re you doing here?”

  “Talk to you for a few minutes?”

  “Lynn’s sister is staying with her, if that’s what you-”

  “Kayabalian told me.”

  “Poor kid. She’s in a bad way right now, but she’ll get through it.”

  “With your help?”

  “Right. Anything I can do. So what’s on your mind?”

  “How about we talk inside. More private.”

  “Sure, sure. No problem.”

  Down the flagstone steps again. He let us in, led the way through a wide foyer past a staircase to the lower level, into a living room that took up the entire width of the main floor. Wine-colored drapes were partly open over a picture window and sliding glass doors to the deck.

  Casement said, “Man, I’m beat,” and scrubbed a hand over his heavy crust of beard. In the house’s stillness it made an audible sound like sandpaper on wood. “I need a drink. Get you one?”

  “No.”

  There was a well-stocked bar along one wall, trimmed in leather with matching stools in the same wine color. Behind it, he rattled a bottle against the rim of a crystal tumbler. I gave the room a quick scan. White brick fireplace on the side wall opposite the bar. Burgundy-colored leather furniture, the floor polished hardwood with burgundy and white throw rugs. Half a dozen paintings, all modernistic abstracts, all with the same colors in them.

  Casement came out from behind the bar with a half-filled glass, Scotch or bourbon. He’d seen me looking around; he said, “Some decorating job, eh? My ex-wife. She had shitty taste in everything except me.”

  He laughed at his own wit, took a long pull of his drink. I stood there watching him.

  “Ahh,” he said, “that’s better. How about we sit down, put our feet up?”

  “You go ahead. I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself.” He flopped into a chair at an angle to the fireplace. I moved around in front of him. “What’re we talking about?”

  “Tell you a little story first,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”

  “Story? What kind of story?”

  “About a friend and partner I had once. His name was Eberhardt, a former cop like me. Good man, basically, but he made mistakes and he had more demons than most of us. When our partnership and friendship busted up, he opened his own detective agency. But he couldn’t make a go of it. He started drinking heavily, made more mistakes and slid into a deep hole he couldn’t get out of. Things got so bad for him he lost his will to live, decided to take the coward’s way out. He sat in his car one night in an alley off Third Street and tried to make himself eat his gun. Only he didn’t have the guts to do it on his own. He called the one person left in his life who cared about him, and she came down, and he begged her until she gave in. He pulled the trigger but it was her hand that helped him do it.”

  Casement’s expression was blank; I might have been telling him about the weather. He said without meaning it, “That’s too bad. But why tell me?”

  “You could say,” I went on, “that Eberhardt committed suicide. He wanted to die, it was his finger on the trigger, he just needed a little assist. But you could also say that the person who gave him that assist was guilty of murder. By law in this state, that’s what assisted suicide is-a willful act of murder.”

  He was getting it now. His thick eyebrows drew together; he shifted position on the chair and slugged more whiskey. “That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “I think it does.”

  “Yeah? Well, spit it out then.”

  “Troxell also had help committing suicide. Your help, your assist.”

  “You’re crazy, man! I wasn’t anywhere near Ocean Beach last night.”

  “You didn’t have to be. But your hand was on that gun just the same. And that makes you guilty of murder.”

  “Jim was my friend, for Chrissake. Why would I want him dead?”

  “Because he was in the way.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what it means. You’re in love with his wife.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s plain enough,” I said. “The way you look at her, act around her. You love her and you want her and you knew the only way you could have her was if Troxell was dead.�
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  Casement threw down the last of the whiskey, shoved onto his feet. I set myself, but he wasn’t coming my way. He swung across to the bar to slop more liquor into his glass. Stayed there with it instead of returning to the chair, cocking a hip onto one of the leather stools, as if he wanted distance between us while he regrouped. I didn’t let him have it. I walked over there, slow, and stood even closer than before, just a few paces separating us.

  Up went his glass. When it came down again, he said, “Maybe I do love Lynn in my own way. I never made any secret that I care about her. That doesn’t mean I wanted my best friend dead so I could move in on her.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “What put that goddamn crazy notion in your head, anyway?”

  “Little slips you made, little things she and Kayabalian and Troxell himself told me. Bits and pieces that add up to the same conclusion.”

  “Wrong conclusion.”

  I grinned at him. Wolf grin, just the baring of teeth. “Here’s the way I see it. Sometime after Troxell witnessed what happened in the park, he came to you and told you about it. Or you dragged it out of him. Doesn’t matter which. He couldn’t make himself go to the police and he couldn’t confide in his wife, he wasn’t made that way. But he was full of guilt and starting to unravel and he needed to talk to somebody. Who else but you, his best buddy since high school.”

  “Blowing smoke, man, that’s all you’re doing.”

  “He confided his obsession with death and suicide, too. And not in an offhand way, like you made it seem-straight from the gut. He was serious about putting himself out of his misery, he’d been building to it even before the Erin Dumont trigger. But some men, men like Eberhardt, men like Troxell, just can’t do it on their own, no matter how much they want to die. You saw that. Saw your opportunity, hatched your little scheme, and went to work on him.”