The Vanished

by Bill Pronzini

  End of the line.

  In the beginning he had wanted an investigation, because that investigation would begin with the Eugene angle-the wires to California-and would eventually turn up the hotel angle, the packed suitcase, would eventually conclude with the logical assumption that the baffling disappearance had happened in Oregon. That was why no wire had been sent to Elaine Kavanaugh-to deepen the mystery. And he had figured, rightly, that a hat and a muffler and a turned-up collar would be an effective disguise-no one else but Holly knew about the beating- and that an investigator would have no reason to doubt that the man had been Sands, that a scrawled signature in a hotel register was authentic.

  But my particular investigation had not stopped at the dead end in Oregon. Elaine Kavanaugh had insisted that I go to Germany, and this was something the killer had not bargained for. He had not wanted me snooping around over there, uncovering the connection between Sands and Diane Emery, and so in panic he had made those threatening telephone calls to Elaine and me in the wild hope that they would prevent excavations at Kitzingen. All they had succeeded in doing, of course, was assuring me that there was something to be learned in Germany-but panic and fear are usually irrational, especially when murder is their catalyst.

  So it had to be someone Sands knew well; someone who had been aware of the debts incurred in the poker game, the amount of those debts, in order to send the wires from Eugene; someone who had hated Roy Sands for an as yet undetermined reason, and who had known he was coming to Roxbury, and who had followed him, and who had waited his chance and then moved in and killed him. It had to be the same man who had stolen the portrait from my apartment, who had made the calls. Nick Jackson was out of it now; he could not have known about those poker debts, or that Sands was coming to Roxbury- much less about the portrait of Sands and that Elaine Kavanaugh had given it to me, or about my trip to Germany in the few hours elapsed between the decision and the threatening calls. No, it had to be one of Sands’ three service buddies, the way it had seemed all along- Hendryx or Rosmond or Gilmartin.

  Which one?

  Which one?

  The portrait-why was the portrait important, why had it been stolen? To prevent me from showing it in Eugene, because in its clear, sharp detailing it was better than any photograph and might perhaps destroy the careful masquerade the killer had undertaken there? Yeah, that was certain to be part of the reason; but I had the feeling that there was more to it than that, something deeper and, if less rational, even more important to the man who had murdered Roy Sands. A pattern was beginning to take shape now, and it was an ugly pattern, one of jealousy and love and hate, one of twisted human emotions that had culminated in cold-blooded murder…

  I stood with all of these answers and half-answers spinning free-fall inside my head, with the thing that had been Roy Sands lying crushed and huddled in the shallow grave a few feet behind me. I turned away, stumbling a little, and started back along the path toward the bridge and my car. The one thing I knew I had to do immediately was to contact the authorities.

  My shoes scuffling through the profusion of leaves was the only sound-and then there was another, suddenly, an unmistakable metallic sound.

  I stopped abruptly to listen. Nothing now, no blackbirds, no jays, just the teasing wind. My heart began to slug faster, and I went forward again, coming to the junction of slope and path and creek, moving past it, around the slope to where I could see the picnic grove and my car-my car with the hood raised and somebody, a man, I could not see his face, jerking at something inside there.

  I began to run.

  I ran along the path without thinking, acting on reflex, opening my mouth to shout, and strangling the cry; needles of pain lanced through my body from the exertion of aching muscles. I reached the bridge and started over it, too late remembering how noise carries in a quiet forest area; the slap of my shoes on the wooden planking was like the hollow cracking of whips. He looked up, the briefest of glances in my direction, and I still could not see his face, he had a plaid hunter’s jacket on and a hunter’s cap pulled down and he had a rifle held loosely by the stock; I felt the instinctive urge to throw myself flat and gain some kind of cover, faltering, running toward the center of the picnic grotto in a diagonal trajectory because cover was there.

  The guy turned and fled.

  Dark trousers and the jacket flapping loose above, the rifle extended out on his right and him running spindle-legged down the road. My lungs were on fire, but I managed to change direction, going after him, seeing him disappear around the bend in the road, vaulting the double-link chain, stumbling past my car, almost falling, mouth open and sucking air like a blowfish, thinking: Let him go, he’ll kill you, he killed Sands, you’re no goddamn hero. But I kept on running; it was as if I could not bring myself up, as if I was running on a belt with no way to stop.

  A sudden roaring dissolved the stillness of the woods, an automobile engine coming to life; he had wheels parked somewhere along the road. I staggered around the bend, and a hundred yards ahead a car was pulling away, tires howling, spraying soft dirt-a green car, a green Pontiac, the same green Pontiac I had seen in front of number seven at the Redwood Lodge a little earlier that same morning.

  I stopped running, gasping, watching the car hurtle down the road. He followed me up here, I thought, he followed me from San Francisco, followed me out to Hammock Grove this morning-and I turned, running again back to my car.

  Lungs screaming, I leaned over the fender, looking into the engine compartment. He had pulled all of the spark-plug wires loose, and the rotor was missing. If he had taken that goddamn rotor with him…

  I made a soft, meaningless sound in my throat, and rubbed thick sweat out of my eyes, and tried to get my breathing down to normal. Goddamn cigarettes, the goddamn weeds, oh, the goddamn filthy goddamn coffin nails! directing rage and impotent frustration at the handiest outlet. I pressed my cheek against the cold metal surface of the fender, and after a hellish long time my lungs cleared and I could function.

  I went looking for the rotor, maybe he had thrown it away, he had to have thrown it away. Another five minutes went by, a year went by, and there it was, lying on a bed of leaves thirty feet from the car. I took it back and got it into place, and then went to work on the plug wires. It took time, time, and I could not seem to locate the proper sequence; the car was old and the firing order had not been stamped on the engine block, as with the newer models. I discovered once that I was shouting obscenities, and closed my mouth to cut that off, and the sweat ran in rivers along my body. My lungs ached and my body ached. I wanted to lie down somewhere in the cool shade of one of the redwoods, to sleep, to rest. But I kept at it, and finally I knew I had the right progression; when I kicked the engine over this time, it caught and held.

  I got the hood down and backed the car around and headed back to Roxbury. I drove too fast, hunched over the wheel, trying not to think, to concentrate only on the driving. But I was thinking just enough, just enough.

  Why hadn’t he killed me back there, with that rifle? Why hadn’t he shot me when he had the chance, why had he just disabled the car and not very effectively at that? One answer, one possibility, and I felt physically sick because it was too late now, I knew in my mind that it was too late now.

  I came into Roxbury and off on the left was the Redwood Lodge. The green Pontiac was there, in front of number seven, slewed up to the front porch. Too late, too damned late. My foot came jamming down on the brakes, and I heard them lock with a screaming of metal and the tires screaming in a different cadence on the macadam, the machine yawing this way and that. I fought the wheel, wrenching it hard to the left-more screaming-and then I was onto the graveled half-moon and braking next to the Pontiac, jumping out with the engine still throbbing, swaying up onto the porch. The door was standing partially ajar, oh Jesus, and I put the flat of my hand against the wood and shoved it wide.

  He was there.

  He was turning, very slowly, in the center of
the room, suspended from one of the rafter beams by a length of hemp rope looped around his neck, his head lolling to one side, neck broken, eyes staring, turning, dead.

  Doug Rosmond had hanged himself, just as Diane Emery had done in Kitzingen, Germany, less than three months before.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The only thing I could think was: What am I going to say to Cheryl, what am I going to say?

  I stood motionless in the doorway, staring at Rosmond, watching him turn at the end of that taut rope, hearing the rope creak slightly, nightmarishly, from his weight. I stood there for long, frozen seconds, asking myself again and again in a kind of frightening singsong, like the words of a monstrous jingle running through my mind: What am I going to say to Cheryl, what am I going to say? Then, finally, I was able to move and I stepped inside and shut the door behind me and leaned against it, still staring at Rosmond, and his face dissolved like something in quicklime and became Cheryl’s face and I was filled with an ugly, suffocating, poisonous bile.

  I took another step forward, and I could not look at him any longer. I turned away and there was a mirror on the wall over the room’s writing desk. I could see myself clearly reflected in the glass. I had an insane urge to smash the mirror, the hideous, twisted, red-orange-black-pink face that stared back at me. I fought it down, turning again, and Rosmond filled the room, his body and that goddamn gallows creaking, creaking, as he turned there on the stretched rope. The bile churned in my belly and I started to back up, wanting air; for the first time, then, I saw on the varnished top of the writing desk some sheets of paper folded in half-motel stationery-and something written in heavy pencil on the back of the facing sheet.

  It was my name.

  I put my hand out and touched the papers and then took it away again. I did not want to read what was there, I wanted to read what was there, I did not want to know, I had to know. I swept the papers up and got to the door, pulling it open-and Jardine was out there with a couple of people. They stared at me, backing off a few steps when they saw my face, and Jardine said, ‘My God, what happened to you? What are you doing in there, that’s not your-’

  ‘Shut up,’ I said.

  ‘Listen-’

  ‘There’s a dead man in there, call the police.’

  Somebody gasped, and Jardine looked pale and faint. ‘What? A dead man? Oh God, you-’

  ‘Call the police,’ I said. ‘Call the police.’

  He retreated and the others went with him, staring at me. Then they began to run in a pack toward the lodge office. I sank down onto the porch steps and my eyes were on the crumpled sheets of paper in my hand. I stared at them for a long moment, and then I opened them and read the hurried pencil-scrawled lines covering the white inner surfaces:

  Its been coming to this for a long time & when I saw you out there this morning going toward his grave I knew this was the only way out. I couldnt shoot you even though thats what I thought I would do, I couldnt do it. I had you in the sights walking over there on the slope but I couldnt pull the trigger, I kept thinking of Cheryl & what you mean to her, how she’s come alive these past few days. She was dead til she met you, she didnt care about anything, then you came, I couldnt shoot you. I love my sister & if I killed you I would be killing her too you see. Its better me because of what I did. I dont know if you found his grave or not but it doesnt matter now, its there under a cluster of rocks by a gutted stump. I killed him, you would have found out it was me, I was staying here at this motel when he died. Cheryl told me you were back from Germany & going away again today & didnt want me to know so it had to be youd found out about Diane & Roxbury & this was where you were going. She didnt want to tell me because of her promise but I dragged it out of her, I knew she saw you it was in her eyes yesterday morning. She didnt know she could be helping to kill you & thats another reason I couldnt shoot you. Maybe you know already why I killed Sands but maybe not all of it & I better put it down here. I did it because of Diane. He was laying her for months, he kept it a secret because of Elaine but finally he had to tell somebody about it & it was me. He wanted to break it off with her but he couldn’t do it, every time he tried she wouldnt listen & got him into bed with her so he wanted me to do it. I said I would, we were buddies, & I went to Diane & tried to get her to break it off but she loved him, she couldnt help it she loved him. It was crazy but then I fell in love with her, I never loved nobody before not that way, I never thought I could. I loved Diane though, I told her I loved her after awhile but she wanted him & I was going crazy with loving her knowing he was with her all the time & not caring anything about her except she was a piece of ass. I began to hate him as much as I loved her, then she got knocked up & wanted him to marry her but he wouldn’t do it he had Elaine. She hung herself over him, I almost died when I found out. I had my service 45 & I was going to use it on myself that night but then I thought no, that would be too easy, what about Sands, he had to be punished, it was his fault she was dead. I knew I was going to kill him then but he stayed on Larson & I just had no chance to do it, not until SF & he told me he was going up here to see her parents, he was still feeling guilty over her being dead on account of him. I rented a car like I did to follow you and followed him when he walked out to the Emerys, I was going to kill him when he started back but that hired man picked him up in the truck. I was behind them going out to the grove & I watched the hired man beat Sands up when they got there. I went half crazy seeing it and when the hired man left & Sands was lying there all bloody I drove up & took the tire iron out and killed him with it. I took his body over to those rocks and buried him, then I got the idea to take his stuff to Oregon & send the telegrams to put everybody off the track. I thought I had this perfect murder but theres no such thing. You came along & you had that picture of Roy, Chuck told me about it & I knew Diane had drawn it. I couldn’t let you show it around Eugene, maybe that hotel clerk would see it wasnt Roy who checked in that night & I wanted it because Diane had drawn it even if it was of him, I wanted it the minute I heard about it I cant explain it any better than that. I couldnt think of any other way except to break into your place, it was a stupid thing but I had to have it & I knew you were out with Cheryl. Then you said you were going to Germany & I tried to stop you with those calls, I wouldnt have killed you or Elaine then but I thought I could scare you, I didn’t want you to find out about Diane & I knew you would because you had the name of that gallery, I knew if you went it would be all over, you find out somehow about me & Roxbury. I think I knew right when you didnt pay any attention to the warning & went anyway it was going to come to this. I shouldnt have come up here, but I did it & I couldnt kill you & now its over, now I know what I have to do. I cant stand the idea of being locked up in a cage & anyway whats left for me, Diane is dead & I revenged her with Sands & I dont have anything to live for, only Cheryl & now she has you somebody decent & its better for her this way with me dead & you to take care of her, its better for all of us this way. Take care of her, love her, & I’m sorry about Elaine but not sorry about Sands, I cant wait any longer now I have the rope from the hardware store

  Doug Rosmond

  I lowered the pages and put my head in my hands. Take care of her, love her… Oh, God, love and hate and death, why can’t it be simple, why can’t it be uncomplicated, why can’t love triumph and goodness triumph and there be no death and no pain? Two women sitting back there in San Francisco, waiting, waiting, and I have to tell them that the two men closest to them are dead, dead of love, dead of hate, dead of this goddamn frigging unyielding world, and how am I going to tell them, Elaine and Cheryl-Cheryl, take care of her, love her…

  Siren sounds. I raise my head, and a powder-blue police car comes hurtling into the Redwood Lodge, rocks to a stop. Two uniformed cops come out, one of them the blond guy I spoke with the day before, running with drawn guns in their hands. I get to my feet, still clutching the papers, and go to meet them on trembling legs.

  What am I going to say to Cheryl?


  What am I going to say?

  Bill Pronzini

  ***

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