F is for FUGITIVE

by Sue Grafton

  “Where’d Tap go?” I said when she had worked her way down within range of me.

  “He got a phone call and took off.”

  “Just now?”

  “Few minutes ago. He still owes a couple bucks on that tab.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. I laid a five on the bar and waved away any change.

  She was looking at me. “You know Tap’s the biggest bullshitter ever lived.” “I gathered as much.”

  Her gaze was dark. “He might have been in trouble some years ago, but these days he’s a decent family man. Nice wife and kids.”

  “Why tell me? I’m not hustling his buns.”

  “Why all the questions about the Fowler boy? You been pumping him all night.”

  “I talked to Royce. I’m curious about this business with his son, that’s all.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “It’s just something to jaw about. There’s nothing else going on.”

  She seemed to soften, apparently satisfied at the benevolence of my intent. “You here on vacation?”

  “Business,” I replied. I thought she’d pursue it, but she let the subject drop.

  “We close about this time weeknights,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay while I lock up in back, but Pearl doesn’t like anyone around when I close out the register.”

  I realized then that I was the last person in the place. “I guess I better let you get on with it, then. ��� I’ve had enough anyway.”

  The fog had curled right up to the road, obscuring the beach in a bunting of yellow mist. In the distance, a foghorn repeated its warning note. There were no cars passing and no sign of anyone on foot. Behind me, Daisy flipped the dead bolt and turned off the exterior lights, leaving me on my own. I walked briskly back to my motel room, wondering why Tap hadn’t said good-bye.

  Chapter 8

  *

  Bailey’s arraignment was scheduled for room B of the Municipal Court, on the lower level of the San Luis Obispo County Courthouse on Monterey Street. Royce rode with me. He didn’t really seem well enough for the trip into town, but he was determined to have his way. Since Ann was taking her mother to the doctor that morning and couldn’t accompany us, we tried to minimize the exertions he’d be subjected to. I dropped him out in front, watching as he made his way painfully up the wide concrete steps. We had arranged for him to wait for me in the airy lobby coffee shop with its skylights and potted ficus plants. I had already briefed him in the car coming over and he’d seemed satisfied with the state of my inquiries to that point. Now I wanted the opportunity to bring Jack Clemson up to speed.

  I left my car parked in a small private lot behind the attorney’s office, a block away. Clemson and I walked over to the courthouse together, using the time to talk about Bailey’s frame of mind, which he found worrisome. With me, Bailey had seemed to alternate between numbness and despair. By the time he and Clemson chatted later in the day, his mood had darkened considerably. He was convinced he was never going to beat the escape charge. He was certain he’d end up at the Men’s Colony again and equally certain he’d never survive incarceration.

  “The guy’s a basket case,” Jack said. “I can’t seem to talk any sense into him.”

  “But what are his chances, realistically?”

  “Hey, I’m doing what I can. Bail’s been set at half a million bucks, which is ridiculous. We’re not talkin’ Jack the Ripper here. I’ll enter a motion to reduce. And maybe I can talk the prosecuting attorney into letting him plead to escape for the minimum. The time’ll be added on, of course, but there’s no way around that.”

  “And if I come up with some convincing evidence that someone else killed Jean Timberlake?”

  “Then I’d move to set aside the original plea, or maybe file a coram nobis. Either way, we’d be set.”

  “Don’t count on it, but I’ll do what I can.”

  He flashed a smile at me, holding up crossed fingers.

  When we got to the courthouse, he left me in the lobby while he went down to meet with the prosecuting attorney and the judge in chambers. The coffee shop was really no more than a wide expanse of central lobby, jammed with people now, the press in evidence. Royce was seated at a small table near the stairs, his hands folded across the top of his cane. He seemed tired. His hair had that matted, slightly sweaty cast of someone in ill health. He had ordered coffee, but it sat in the cup looking cold and untouched. I took a seat. The waitress swung by with a fresh pot of coffee, but I shook my head. Royce’s anxiety enveloped the table like a sour, hopeless scent. He was clearly a proud man, accustomed to bending the world to his will. Bailey’s arraignment already bore all the trappings of a public spectacle. The local paper had been running the story of his capture on the front page for days, and the local radio stations made mention of it at the top of each hour and again in the quick news summaries on the half hour.

  A crew with a minicam passed just to the right of us, heading down the stairs without realizing Bailey Fowler’s father was sitting within camera range. He turned a baleful eye on them and the ensuing smile was bitter and brief.

  “Maybe we better go on down,” I said.

  We descended the stairs, walking slowly. I controlled an urge to give him physical support, sensing that he might take offense. His stoicism had a hint of self-mockery to it. He was grimly amused to have prevailed thus far, forcing his body to do his bidding regardless of the cost.

  The corridor below was lined on one side with big plate-glass windows, with two exits into a sunken courtyard. Both the interior passageway and the exterior stairways were filling with spectators, some of whom seemed to recognize Royce as we passed. There was a silent parting in the crowd; gazes averted as we made our way into the courtroom. In the third row, people squeezed together to make room for us. There was the same hushed murmuring as in a church before services start. Most had dressed in their Sunday best, and the air seemed to stir with conflicting perfumes. No one spoke to Royce, but I could sense the rustling and nudging going on all around us. If he was humbled by the reaction, he gave no sign. He had been a respected member of the community, but Bailey’s notoriety had tainted him. To have a son accused of murder is the same as being accused of a crime oneself ��� parental failure of the direst sort. Unfair though it may be, there is always that unspoken question: What did these people do to turn this once-innocent child into a cold-blooded killer of another human being?

  I had checked the docket posted in the upstairs corridor. There were ten other arraignments scheduled that morning in addition to Bailey’s. The door to the judge’s chambers was closed. The court clerk, a slim, handsome woman in a navy blue suit, was seated at a table below and to the right of the judge’s bench. The court reporter, also female, sat at a matching table to the left. There were a dozen attorneys present, most in dark, conservatively cut suits, all with white shirts, muted ties, black shoes. Only one was female.

  While we waited for the proceedings to begin, I scanned the crowd. Shana Timberlake was seated across the aisle from us, one row back.

  Under the flat fluorescent lights, the illusion of youth vanished and I could see the dark streaks at the corners of her eyes, suggesting age, weariness, too many nights in bad company. She was wide-shouldered, heavy-breasted, slender through the waist and hips, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. As mother of the victim, she was free to dress any way she liked. Her hair was nearly black, with a few strands of silver here and there, combed straight back from her face and held with a clip on top. She turned her hot, dark eyes on me and I looked away. She knew I was with Royce. When I glanced back, I could see her gaze lingering on him with a blunt appraisal of his physical condition.

  One other woman caught my attention as she came down the aisle. She was in her early thirties, sallow, thin, wearing an apricot knit dress with a big stain across the hem. She had on a white sweater and white heels with short white cotton socks. Her hair was a dishwater blond, held back with a wide, tat
ty-looking headband. She was accompanied by a man I assumed was her husband. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with curly blond hair and the sort of pouty good looks I’ve never liked. Pearl was with them, and I wondered if this was the son he’d referred to who had seen Bailey with Jean Timberlake the night she was killed.

  There was a faint escalation of murmurs at the rear of the courtroom and I turned my head. The crowd’s attention focused in the way it does at a wedding when the bride appears, ready to begin her walk down the aisle. The prisoners were being brought in and the sight was oddly disturbing: nine men, handcuffed, shackled together, shuffling forward with their leg chains. They wore jail garb: unconstructed cotton shirts in orange, light gray, or charcoal, and gray or pale blue cotton pants with JAIL stenciled across the butt, white cotton socks, the type of plastic sandals known as “jellies.” Most of them were young: five Latinos and three black guys. Bailey was the only white. He seemed acutely self-conscious, high color in his cheeks, his eyes downcast, the modest star of this chorus line of thugs. His fellow prisoners seemed to take the proceedings for granted, nodding to the scattering of friends and relatives. Most of the spectators had come to see Bailey Fowler, but nobody seemed to begrudge him his status. A uniformed deputy escorted the men into the jury box up front, where their leg chains were removed in case one of them had to approach the bench. The prisoners settled in, like the rest of us, to enjoy the show.

  The bailiff went through his “all rise” recital, and we dutifully rose as the judge appeared and took his seat. Judge McMahon was in his forties and bristled with efficiency. Trim and fair-haired, he looked like the kind of man who played handball and squash, and risked dropping dead of a heart attack despite his prior history of perfect health. Bailey’s case was being called next to last, so we were treated to a number of minor procedural dramas. A translator had to be summoned from somewhere in the building to aid in the arraignments of two of the accused who spoke no English. Papers had been misfiled. Two cases were kicked over to another date. Another set of papers had been sent but never received, and the judge was irked about that because the attorney had no proof of service and the other side wasn’t ready. Two additional defendants, out on OR, were seated in the audience and each stepped forward in turn as his case was called.

  At one point, one of the deputies pulled out a set of keys and unlocked an accused’s handcuffs so that he could talk to his attorney at the back of the room. While that conference was going on, another prisoner engaged the judge in a lengthy discussion, insistent on representing himself. Judge McMahon was very opposed to the idea and spent ten minutes warning and admonishing, advising and scolding. The defendant refused to budge. The judge was finally forced to concede to the fellow’s wishes since it was his right, but he was clearly cross about the matter. Through all of this, an undercurrent of restlessness was agitating the spectators into side-conversations and titters of laughter. They were primed for the lead act, and here they were, having to suffer through this second-rate series of burglaries and sexual assault cases. I half expected them to start clapping in unison, like a movie audience when the film is delayed.

  Jack Clemson had been leaning against the wall in murmured conversation with the attorney next to him. As the time approached for Bailey’s case to be called, he broke away and crossed the room.

  “FREEZE!” he yelled. “Everybody just hold it right there.”

  He fired once, apparently to make his point. The boom from the gun was deafening and the blast took one of the overhead lights right off its chain and sent it crashing to the floor. Shattered glass rained down like a cloudburst, and people screamed and scrambled for cover. A baby started shrieking. Everybody hit the floor, including me. Bailey’s father was still sitting upright, immobilized by surprise. I reached up and grabbed him by the shirt front. I pulled him down to the floor with me, sheltering him with my body weight. He struggled, trying to get up, but in his condition it didn’t take much to subdue him. I glanced over in time to see one of the deputies belly-crawl up the aisle to my right, shielded from the gunman’s view by the wooden benches.

  I’d caught a glimpse of the gunman and I could have sworn it was Tap, his hands shaking badly. He seemed too small to be a threat, his entire body tensed by fear. The true menace was the shotgun, with its broad, lethal spray, the indiscriminate destruction if his finger slipped. Any unexpected movement might startle him into firing. Two women on the other side of Royce were burbling hysterically, clinging to one another like lovers.

  “BAILEY, COME ON! GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!” the gunman screamed. His voice broke from fright and I felt a chill as I peered over the seat. It had to be Tap.

  Bailey was transfixed. He stared in disbelief and then he was in motion. He leaped the wooden railing and ran, pounding down the aisle toward the rear door while Tap blasted again. A large framed photograph of the governor jumped off the wall, disintegrating as the pellets ripped through glass, wood frame, and matting in a spray of white. A second round of wails and screams erupted from the crowd. Bailey had disappeared by then. Tap cracked the shotgun and jammed in two more shells as he backed out of the courtroom. I heard running. An outside door slammed and then there were shouts and the sound of shots.

  In the courtroom, there was chaos. The clerk and the court reporter were nowhere to be seen and I could only guess that the judge had made his way out of the room at floor level, crawling on his hands and knees. Once the immediate threat was gone, people surged forward in a panic, shoving toward the bench, pushing through to the safety of the judge’s chambers beyond. Pearl was hustling his son and daughter-in-law out the fire exit, setting off an alarm bell that clanged at a piercing pitch.

  More screams sounded from the corridor, where someone was shouting incomprehensibly. I headed in that direction, bent double until I could get a sense of what was happening. If more gunfire broke out, I didn’t want to get caught by flying bullets. I passed a woman bleeding badly from the glass shards that had cut into her face. Someone was already applying pressure to the worst of her wounds, while beside her, two little children huddled together and wept. I reached the rear door and pushed out. Shana Timberlake was leaning against the wall to my left, her face blanched, the shadows under her eyes as emphatic as stage makeup.

  Outside, police sirens were already spiraling against the morning air.

  Through the big plate-glass walls that formed one side of the corridor, I could see uniformed police officers spilling down the steps into the courtyard outside. Several women screamed in continuous shrill tones, as if the shooting had unleashed years of suppressed anguish. The jam of hysterical people in the hallway surged forward and then parted abruptly.

  Tap Granger lay on his back, his arms flung out like he was taking a sunbath. The red ski mask had been pulled back off his face and it rested on the back of his head, as flabby as a rooster’s crest. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and I could see where his wife had ironed the creases in. His arms looked skinny. His whole body looked dead. Bailey was nowhere in sight.

  I went back into the courtroom, aware for the first time that I was crunching my way through broken glass and grit. Royce Fowler was on his feet, swaying uncertainly among the rows of empty benches. His mouth trembled.

  “Tell me you had nothing to do with this,” I said to him.

  “Where’s Bailey? Where’s my boy? They’ll shoot him down like a dog.”

  “No, they won’t. He’s unarmed. They’ll find him. I take it you didn’t know this was going to happen.”

  “Who was that in the mask?”

  “Tap Granger. He’s dead.” Royce sank onto the bench and lowered his head into his hands. The debris underfoot made a crackling sound. Looking down, I realized the floor was littered with white specks.

  I stared in confusion, then bent down and picked up a handful. “What is this?” I said. Comprehension came in the same moment, but it still made no sense. Tap’s shotgun shells had been loaded with rock salt.

 
Chapter 9

  *

  By the time we got back to the motel, Royce was close to collapse and I had to help him into bed. Ann and Ori had heard the news in the doctor’s office and they came straight home, pulling in soon after I did. Bailey Fowler was being billed as “a killer on the loose, believed armed and dangerous.” The streets of Floral Beach already looked deserted, as if in the wake of some natural disaster. I could practically hear the doors slamming all up and down the block, little children jerked to safety, old ladies peering out from behind their curtains. Why anyone thought Bailey would be foolish enough to come back to his parents’ house, I don’t know. The sheriff’s department must have considered it a good possibility because a deputy, in a tan uniform, stopped by the motel and had a long, officious chat with Ann, one hand on his gun butt, his gaze shifting from point to point, searching (I assumed) for some indication that the escapee was being harbored on the premises.

  As soon as the patrol car pulled away, friends began to arrive with solemn expressions, dropping off casseroles. Some of these people I’d seen at the courthouse and I couldn’t tell if their appearance was motivated by sympathy or a craven desire to be part of the continuing drama. Two neighbor ladies came, introduced to me as Mrs. Emma and Mrs. Maude, aging sisters who’d known Bailey since he was a boy. Robert Haws, the minister from the Baptist church, appeared along with his wife, June, and yet another woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Burke, the owner of the Laundromat two blocks away. She just popped over for a minute, she said, to see if there was anything she could do. I was hoping she’d offer cut rates on the Fluff V Fold, but apparently this didn’t occur to her. Judging from Mrs. Maude’s expression, she disapproved of the store-bought frozen cheesecake the Laundromat lady handed over so blithely. Mrs. Maude and Mrs. Emma exchanged a look that suggested this was not the first time Mrs. Burke had flaunted her lack of culinary zealousness. The phone rang incessantly. Mrs. Emma appointed herself the telephone receptionist, fielding calls, keeping a log of names and return numbers in case Ori felt up to it later.