Mourners nd-31

by Bill Pronzini

  “How am I supposed to’ve done that, smart guy?”

  “Couldn’t have been too hard. You knew how to manipulate him-you as much as told me so yourself, all that stuff about getting him to tutor you in school, arranging for him to lose his virginity. Strong, confident jock, weak and emotionally screwed-up nerd. Not much of a contest at all. Reinforce his low self-esteem, lead him to believe his situation is hopeless and he’d be doing it for his wife as much as for himself, shore up his resolve and courage, finally offer to help him do the job.”

  That must have been pretty close to the way it happened. Casement fidgeted again, slugged more whiskey-about as much reaction as I was going to get out of him.

  “You went to work on her, too,” I said. “Kept telling her how worried you were about her husband and his mental state. Suggested she hire detectives to follow him. You wanted her to know just how bad off he was.”

  Between his teeth: “Why would I hurt her like that if I’m so much in love with her?”

  “To make her need you, lean on you. It was also a way to set Troxell up for the final push over the line. You must’ve been happy as hell with my report, the suggestions I made, the weekend grace period. After I left you talked her out of notifying the family doctor; Kayabalian told me that. You didn’t want any medical interference that might keep Troxell from listening to anybody but you after the confrontation. You spent a long time alone with him Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday-working on his hopelessness and death obsession, maneuvering him into a state where he could blow himself away.

  “Mrs. Troxell hid his car keys Saturday, in a place he’d never think to look. But Kayabalian told me you were with her when she did it. Troxell didn’t find those keys on his own; he’d’ve had to tear the place apart and he didn’t, he slipped out of the house almost immediately after he got out of bed. He got the keys from you. You took them from the hiding place and handed them over before you left that afternoon.”

  I watched Casement’s face closely as I spoke. No expression except for tight lips and a faintly throbbing vein in one temple. No sign of guilt or remorse. Incapable of either emotion; I had him pegged that way. Cold bastard. Self-involved, borderline sociopath.

  “Why would a man like Troxell use a gun on himself?” I said. “That bothered me almost from the first. Wouldn’t be his choice if he were doing it on his own-the idea had to’ve been planted in his head, nurtured. ‘A small caliber handgun is quick and painless, Jim, you do it somewhere outside the home, out on the beach, say, and there’s not much mess for anybody to clean up.’ When he says he doesn’t think he can shoot himself, you keep telling him he can, and show him just how to do it, and eventually you’ve got him convinced. ‘With help you can find the necessary courage to go through with it. And I have all the help I need now.’ Troxell’s words to me on the phone Saturday night. I thought he was talking about going to the police, but what he was really talking about was putting that bullet in his brain.”

  “Bullshit,” Casement said again.

  “Then there’s the clincher,” I said, “the weapon itself. Brand-new twenty-two-caliber automatic. Where did he get it?”

  “How should I know? Bought it someplace.”

  “Where?”

  “A gun shop, where else.”

  “That’s what you said this morning. But you know and I know nobody can buy a handgun in this state without a valid permit. Troxell never applied for one. I checked.”

  “So what? So some sleazeball dealer sold it to him under the counter. Or he bought it on the street.”

  “There aren’t that many sleazeball dealers who’d risk a stiff fine and a jail sentence on such a small illegal sale. How would a man like Troxell, an advocate of gun control, go about finding one in the first place? Same thing for a street buy-how would he know where to go and who to approach? No, he had to’ve gotten the piece from somebody he knew.”

  “Not me.”

  “Closed-off type like him, no close friends except you-it couldn’t be anybody else. You sell sporting goods, you have easy access to target weapons like the twenty-two he used.”

  “You can’t tie that pistol to me,” Casement said. “No way.”

  “Pistol. Right. That’s another thing you said this morning. I told you and Mrs. Troxell that he’d shot himself, she said why did he do it that way. And you said, ‘A pistol… that’s as quick as it gets.’ ”

  “Gun, pistol, what’s the difference?”

  “Pistol refers to a semiautomatic handgun. You damn well know that in your business. But I didn’t say what kind of weapon Troxell used. It could’ve been a revolver, or a even a shotgun or rifle.”

  “I just assumed it was a pistol. You can’t prove any different.”

  “No?”

  “No. Can’t prove a goddamn thing you’ve said.”

  “I could try.”

  “Go ahead. You won’t find anything.”

  “The police might,” I said.

  “Take this crap of yours to the cops? You do, you’ll be one sorry son of a bitch.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Damn right it’s a threat. Any hassle, and I’ll sue you for slander and defamation. I’ll take everything you’ve got.”

  “You’d have to prove malicious intent. The malice here is all on your side.”

  “I’m warning you. Back off.”

  “No. I may or may not talk to the police. I am going to talk to the widow.”

  Blood-rush darkened his face even more. He said savagely, “You stay the hell away from Lynn.”

  “She has to know what you did.”

  “She wouldn’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth. She’ll believe it eventually.”

  “Goddamn you, I won’t let that happen!”

  “You don’t have a tenth of the influence with her you did with her husband. If you did, you wouldn’t’ve had to help him die to get your hands on her.”

  He slammed the glass down on the bar top, lunged off the stool and up close to me. I set myself again, arms out away from my body, but all he did was get into my face. “Stay away from her,” he said, spitting the words, spraying saliva.

  “All for nothing, Casement. She’ll hate your guts, she won’t have anything to do with you.”

  “She will, she’s mine now! You’re not gonna take her away from me, not now, not you or anybody else.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He grabbed handfuls of my shirt and jacket, yanked me up on my toes. “I’ll kill you, you hear me? I’ll kill you!”

  I drove the heel of my left hand up hard against the tendons in one wrist, at the same time chopping down with my right on the other wristbone. The force of the moves made him yell, broke his hold and exposed the upper part of his body. I gave him a hard shove, two-handed against his chest. He went staggering backward, would have gone down if he hadn’t collided with the bar stool; he caught it and used it to steady himself. If he’d charged me then, we’d’ve been into it hot and heavy and the advantage would have been his. But he didn’t. He hung there, breathing hard, his face congested, glaring hate and rage at me.

  “I’m half your age, old man,” he said thickly. “I could break you in half.”

  “You could try.”

  “Beat the shit out of you and claim you attacked me.”

  “You wouldn’t get away with that either. I go back a long way in this city-I was a cop before I went into private practice. Lies about me and my methods don’t get believed.”

  He didn’t say anything to that. Heavy silence for a few seconds, broken only by the ragged rhythm of his breathing. Then he scraped his beard crust again, straightened, pushed the stool away from him. In a choked voice he said, “Get out of here. Get the fuck out of my house.”

  “Gladly.”

  I moved away from him sideways, keeping him in sight, in case he had any ideas about mixing it up again. No ideas, but more vicious words as I reached the hallway. “I meant what I s
aid. You take Lynn away from me, I’ll kill you.”

  For an answer I showed him the wolf grin one more time.

  Outside the wind chilled me, brought the realization that I was sweating. I took a couple of long breaths, calming down, as I climbed to the street. In the car I took the voice-activated recorder from my coat pocket and ran the tape back far enough to be sure it was all on there. The recorder, one of Tamara’s recent purchases for the agency, was state-of-the-art; both our voices were clear and distinct. Okay. I hadn’t been able to maneuver Casement into a direct admission of guilt, so I probably still didn’t have enough to go to the law. Kayabalian could tell me when I played the tape for him.

  One thing for sure: Casement had said more than enough to convince Lynn Troxell when she heard it.

  29

  JAKE RUNYON

  When he pulled up in front of the multiunit apartment building on Twenty-seventh Avenue, he unlocked the glove compartment and slid his. 357 Magnum from inside. He checked the action and the loads, fastened the holstered weapon to his belt above the right hip so the tail of his jacket would cover it. Then he went to ring the bell to Sean Ostrow’s apartment.

  No response.

  Back in the car, he drove out Twenty-ninth Avenue to Risa Niland’s block. He scanned the parked cars on both sides as he rolled along; none was familiar. The only free curb space on the block was too short for the Ford, but he jockeyed it in there anyway. The overhang into one of the driveways was enough to piss off the owner or tenant but not enough to block access.

  No response to her bell either.

  He didn’t like that; she should be home by now. Unless she had a date, and if she did, what if it was with Ostrow? No easy way of finding out one way or another, nothing much he could do except wait it out. Maintain a revolving surveillance between here and Ostrow’s building until one of them showed up.

  On the sidewalk again, he paused and then went to the corner to eye-check the cars parked on the uphill and downhill sides of Anza Street. An older brown model midway up on this side caught his attention. Ford Taurus? He climbed to it. Taurus, all right. And the license number was 2UGK697.

  He liked that a hell of a lot less.

  When he got back to the corner, a young Chinese woman with a dog on a leash was just turning in under the canopy above the entrance to Risa’s building. Runyon hurried after her. She was at the door, with her key out, when he came into the foyer. The dog heard him and made a friendly rumbling sound, and that brought her around. He wasn’t anybody she knew and his sudden appearance put her, if not her animal, on guard. He saw her shift the keys in her hand, one of them protruding between the index and middle finger, the way women were taught in self-defense classes. Good for her.

  She said warily, “Are you looking for someone?”

  “Risa Niland.”

  “Oh. Well, she’s home.”

  “I just rang her bell. No answer.”

  “No? I saw her a little while ago, in the lobby.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know, about half an hour. They must’ve gone out.”

  “They?”

  “She was with somebody.”

  “Guy in his twenties, big, sandy hair?”

  “That’s right…”

  Runyon said, keeping his voice calm, “Open the door, please, miss.”

  “What?”

  He slid the license case out of his pocket, flipped it open and held it up long enough for her to verify his photo and identify the official state seal. If that didn’t work, he’d have no choice but to show her the Magnum. “Open the door, please,” he said again. “The man with Risa Niland may be the one who murdered her sister.”

  “My God! Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious.”

  Hesitation, but only for a beat or two. She used her key and then stepped back quickly, pulling the dog with her.

  He said, “Better lock yourself in your apartment,” and went through into the lobby. He bypassed the elevator, took the stairs in a light-footed run. Near the third-floor landing he drew his weapon, held it down along his leg as he shouldered through into the short hallway. Empty. Three-A was the door on the left; he eased over to it, laid his ear against the panel.

  They were in there, all right. Muffled voices, the words not quite distinguishable but sharp-toned and a few octaves above normal. He could almost feel the tension in them.

  He tried the knob with his left hand. Locked. The door looked solid, the lock was a good-quality deadbolt. You wouldn’t be able to force it; kick it in, maybe, but it would take more than one or two kicks. Shooting it open wasn’t an option. That left only one way to go.

  More sounds in there. Words, movement.

  He shifted the Magnum to his left hand, pounded on the door with his right-fast and hard, rattling it in its frame.

  Scrambling noises, some kind of brief struggle. And then a woman’s voice, Risa’s, crying for help.

  Runyon shouted, “Open up! Police!”

  Man’s voice, exclaiming something. Another cry from Risa.

  Then she screamed, a rising sound suddenly sliced off.

  He felt the scream as much as heard it, as if it were something thin and hot that had pierced his flesh. He had to try to get in there. He stepped back for leverage, drove the bottom of his shoe against the panel next to the lock. No give, like kicking a wall. He yelled in frustration and kicked out again, same result, and in his half frenzy he made the mistake of trying it the other way, by lowering his shoulder and hurling his weight forward into the door. He hit it squarely, but the lock still held and the solid wood bounced him off.

  At almost the same time there was a sharp snick of metal, the lock being thrown inside, and the door was suddenly yanked open. And for an instant he was looking into Sean Ostrow’s wet, wild eyes.

  He still had his balance, but his feet weren’t braced and he had no time to set them. Ostrow came through the doorway in a blind rush, hit him full on and drove him backward into the hallway wall. The impact jarred him enough to loosen his grip on his weapon, nearly drop it. By the time he got his equilibrium back, Ostrow was pounding down the stairs.

  The apartment door was wide open. Runyon shoved over there first, bent a look inside. Risa was down on one knee in front of a long couch, her head up and her eyes as wild as Ostrow’s. A thin line of blood made a jagged lightning slash on one cheek. She saw him and flapped one hand in a shooing gesture, saying, “I’m all right, I’m all right, don’t let him get away, he killed my sister!”

  Runyon turned away immediately. He could still hear Ostrow on the stairs, the flight from the second floor to the lobby now. He shoved the Magnum into its holster and plunged down himself, vaulting over two and three risers at a time, using both hands on the railing to keep his balance. The lobby was empty by the time he reached it; so was the sidewalk out front under the canopy. He banged through the door, onto the sidewalk looking left, right, left again. No sign of Ostrow.

  The Anza Street corner, the parked Ford. Runyon ran that way, slanted a look uphill. And there he was, staggering around to the driver’s door of the Taurus.

  “Ostrow!”

  The shout twisted the sandy head around, froze him for a second in the street. Runyon didn’t draw his piece, didn’t even think about it; he had no legal right to run around waving a loaded weapon on a city street, and it was a damn good way to get yourself shot by a passing cop or a citizen playing Dirty Harry besides. He yelled Ostrow’s name again and went charging up there.

  Ostrow had no time to get into the car, get it started, get away. His freeze lasted another second, and then he broke into a run himself, uphill in the street.

  Thirty yards separated them when Ostrow reached the top of the hill. He threw a look over his shoulder, saw how close behind Runyon was, and put his head down and veered to his left across Thirtieth Avenue. Brakes screeched and a minivan rattled by, the driver’s startled face framed in the side window, as Runyon reached the
crest. Ostrow was running diagonally, up onto the opposite sidewalk toward where the street humped and fell away downhill. But he didn’t go that far. He cut sideways onto a narrow stretch of unpaved ground between the sidewalk and the cyclone fence that enclosed Washington High School’s athletic buildings and football field.

  Ahead of him, the fence made a perpendicular jog from where it bordered the far edge of the unpaved ground, back along the edge of the sidewalk. The perpendicular section was maybe a dozen feet wide and lower than the rest of the fence, no more than six feet high, because of a tall cedar tree growing on the inside. Ostrow didn’t slow down; he hit the six-foot section at full speed, clawed his way up over the top, dropped down in an awkward stagger, and plowed into the cedar’s trunk when he tried to right himself. Exposed roots tripped him. He slid on his ass down a short grassy embankment out of sight.

  Runyon didn’t slow down, either. He hit the fence just as hard, tore up his hands on the sharp jutting wire ends at the top as he heaved his body up and over. The pain was like an adrenaline rush. He steadied himself against the tree trunk, looking for Ostrow. Spotted him running along the red composition rubber track that circled the football field. Runyon avoided the cedar roots, managed to keep his footing to the bottom of the incline.

  Ostrow saw him coming and veered off the track onto the broad, empty field. But he was either tiring or losing the panic-stimulus for his flight, stumbling and lurching a little now each time he cast glances over his shoulder. Runyon was winded too but running on thick, newly mowed grass was easier than doing it on asphalt and he didn’t slow, didn’t waver. The gap between them closed to twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten.

  Ostrow went down.

  One more backward look, and all at once his legs seemed to give out and he fell, sprawling on his side, rolled over, crab-crawled and then tried to stand up. But Runyon was right there, looming above him, the Magnum out now in case there was any fight in the man, the weapon close to his chest and his body shielding it from the street above.

  No fight. Ostrow quit trying to get up and knelt there gasping, staring up at Runyon with sick-dog eyes. Damp grass clippings clung to one side of his face. A thin band of foamy drool dribbled from his mouth.