F is for FUGITIVE

by Sue Grafton

  “Sorry I can’t interrupt what I’m doing,” he said mildly. “What can I help you with?” His tone had a light mocking quality, as if something amused him that he might or might not reveal.

  “I take it your father called. How much did he tell you?”

  “That you’re investigating the murder of Jean Timberlake at his request. I know, of course, that he was hired to represent Bailey Fowler. I don’t know what you want with me.”

  “You remember Jean?”

  “Yes.“Yes.”

  I had hoped for something a little more informative, but I was willing to press. “Can you tell me about your relationship with her?”

  His mouth curved up slightly. “My relationship?”

  “Somebody told me she used to hang out at the Baptist church. As I understand it, you were a classmate of hers and headed up the youth group back then. I thought maybe the two of you developed a friendship.”

  “Jean didn’t have friends. She had conquests.”

  “Were you one?”

  A bemused smile. “No.”

  What was the damn joke here? “Do you remember her coming to church?”

  “Oh yes, but it wasn’t me she was interested in. I wish I could say it was. She was very particular, our Miss Timberlake.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning she’d never have tumbled for the likes of me.”

  “Oh, really? Why is that?”

  He turned his face. The whole right side was disfigured, right eye missing, the lid welded shut by shiny pink and silver scar tissue that extended from his scalp to his jaw. His good eye was large and dark, filled with self-awareness. The missing eye created the illusion of a constant wink. I could see now that his right arm was also badly scarred. “What was it?”

  “Automobile accident when I was ten. The gas tank blew up. My mother died and I was left looking like this. It’s better now. I’ve had surgery twice. Back then, the church was my salvation, literally. I was baptized when I was twelve, dedicating my life to Jesus. Who else would have me? Certainly not Jean Timberlake.”

  “Were you interested in her?”

  “Sure, I was. I was seventeen years old and doomed to be a virgin for life. My bad luck. Good looks ranked high with her because she was so beautiful herself. After that came money, power… sex, of course. I thought about her incessantly. She was so completely venal.”

  “But not with you?”

  He went back to his work, sliding pills into the trough. “Unfortunately not.”

  “Who, then?”

  The lips curved up again in that nearly beatific smile. “Well, let’s see now. How much trouble should I make?”

  I shrugged, watching him carefully. “Just tell me the truth. What else can you do?”

  “I could keep my mouth shut, which is what I’ve done to date.”

  “Maybe it’s time to speak up,” I said.

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “Who was she involved with?”

  His smile finally disappeared. “The Right Reverend Haws. What a pal he turned out to be. He knew I lusted after her, so he counseled me in matters of purity and self-control. He never mentioned what he did with her himself.”

  I stared at him. “Are you sure of that?”

  “She worked at the church, cleaning Sunday-school rooms. Wednesdays at four o’clock before choir practice started, he would pull his pants down around his knees and lie back across his desk while she worked on him. I used to watch from the vestry… Mrs. Haws, our dear June, suffers from a peculiar stigmata that originated just about that time. Resistant to treatment. I know because I fill the prescriptions, one right after the other. Amusing, don’t you think?”

  A chill rippled down my back. The image was vivid, his tone matter-of-fact. “Who else is aware of this?”

  “No one, as far as I know.”

  “You never mentioned it to anybody at the time?”

  “Nobody asked, and I’ve since left the church. It turned out not to be the kind of comfort I was hoping for.”

  The San Luis county clerk’s office is located in the annex, right next door to the County Courthouse on Monterey. It was hard to believe that only yesterday we were all convening for Bailey’s arraignment. I found a parking place across the street, inserted coins in the meter, then headed past the big redwood and into the annex entrance. The corridor was lined with marble, a cold gray with darker streaks. The county clerk’s office was on the first floor, through double doors. I set to work. Using Jean Timberlake’s full name and the date of birth I’d pulled from her school records, I found the volume and page number listing her birth certificate. The records clerk looked up the original certificate and, for eleven dollars, made me a certified copy. I didn’t much care if it was certified or not. What interested me was the information it contained. Etta Jean Timberlake was born at 2:26 A.M. on June 3, 1949, 6 lbs., 8 oz., 19 inches long. Her mother was listed as gravida 1, para 1, fifteen years old and unemployed. Her father was “unknown.” The attending physician was Joseph Dunne.

  I found a public phone and looked up his office. The number rang four times and then his answering service picked up. He was out on Thursdays, not due in again till Monday morning at ten. “Do you know how I can reach him?”

  “Dr. Corsell’s on call. If you’ll leave your name and number, we can have him get in touch.”

  “What about the Hot Springs? Could Dr. Dunne be up there?”

  “Are you a patient of his?” I set the receiver back in the cradle and let myself out of the booth. Since I was already downtown, I debated briefly about stopping by the hospital to see Royce. Ann had said he was asking for me, but I didn’t want to talk to him just yet. I drove back toward Floral Beach, taking one of the back roads, an undulating band of asphalt that wound past ranches, walled tract “estates,” and new housing developments.

  There were very few cars in the spa’s parking lot. The hotel couldn’t be doing enough business to sustain the good doctor and his wife. I angled my VW in close to the main building, noting as I had before the dense chill in the air. The sulfur smell of spoiled eggs conjured up images of some befouled nest.

  This time I bypassed the spa entrance and went around to the front, up wide concrete stairs to the wraparound porch. A row of chaise longues lent the veranda the look of a ship’s deck. Under a canopy of oaks, the ground sloped down gradually, leveling out then for a hundred yards until it met the road. On my left, in an area cleared of trees, I caught a glimpse of the deserted swimming pool in a flat oblong of sunlight. Two tennis courts occupied the only other portion of the property graced with sun. The surrounding fence was screened by shrubs, but the hollow pok… pok suggested that at least one court was in use.

  I pushed through a double-wide door of carved mahogany, the upper half inset with glass. The lobby was built on a grand scale, rimmed with wooden balustrades, flooded with light from two translucent glass skylights. The main salon was currently undergoing renovation. The carpeting was obscured by yards of gray canvas dropcloth, speckled with old paint. Scaffolding erected along two walls suggested that the wood paneling was in the process of being sanded and refinished. Here, at least, the harsh smell of varnish overrode the pungent aroma of the mineral springs that burbled under the property like a cauldron.

  The registration desk ran the width of the lobby, but there was no one in evidence. No reception clerk, no bellman, no painters at work. The silence had a quality about it that caused me to glance back over my shoulder, scanning the second-floor gallery. There was no one visible. Shadows hung among the eaves like spiderwebs. Wide, carpeted hallways extended on either side of the desk back into the gloomy depths of the hotel. I waited a decent interval in the silence. No one appeared. I pivoted, doing a one-eighty turn while I surveyed the place. Time to nose around, I thought.

  Casually, I ambled down the corridor on the right, my passage making no sound on the densely carpeted floors. Halfway down the hall, glass-paned doors opened into
a vast semicircular dining room with a wooden floor, furnished with countless round oak dining tables and matching ladder-backed chairs. I crossed to the bay windows on the far side of the room. Through the watery ripples of old glass, I saw the tennis players leave the courts, heading my way.

  There were two sets of wooden swinging doors down to my left. I tiptoed the length of the room and peered into the hotel kitchen. A dull illumination from the kitchen windows cast a gray light against the expanses of stainless-steel counter. Stainless-steel fixtures, chrome, old linoleum. Heavy white crockery was stacked on open shelves. The room might have been a museum exhibit ��� the “moderne” style revisited, the kitchen of the future, circa 1966. I moved back toward the corridor. The murmur of voices.

  I slipped into the triangle formed by the dining room door and the wall, pressing myself flat. Through the hinged crack, I saw Mrs. Dunne pass in a tennis outfit, racket under one arm. She had legs about as shapely as a pair of Doric columns, capped by the rims of her underpants, which extended unbecomingly from the flounce of short skirt. A varicose vein wound along one calf like a vine. Not one strand of her white-blond hair was out of place. I assumed her companion was her husband, Dr. Dunne. They were gone in a flash, voices receding. The only impression I had of him was of curly white hair, pink skin, and portliness.

  As soon as they’d disappeared from sight, I slipped out of my hiding place and returned to the lobby. A woman in a burnt orange hotel blazer was now standing at the registration desk. Her gaze flicked toward the corridor when she saw me emerge, but she was apparently too schooled in proper desk-clerk behavior to quiz me about where I’d been.

  “I was just having a look around,” I said. “I may want to book a room.”

  “The hotel’s closed for three months for renovation. We’ll be open again April first.”

  “Do you have a brochure?”

  “Certainly.” She reached under the counter, automatically producing one. She was in her thirties, probably with a degree in hotel management, no doubt wondering if she was wasting her professional training in a place that smelled like a faulty garbage disposal. I glanced at the pamphlet she’d handed me, a match for the one I’d seen at the motel.

  “Is this Dr. Dunne around? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “He just came in from the tennis courts. You must have passed him in the hall.”

  I shook my head, baffled. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  “Just a moment. I’ll ring.”

  She picked up an in-house telephone, turning away from me so I couldn’t read her lips while she murmured to someone on the other end. She replaced the receiver. “Mrs. Dunne will be right out.”

  “Great. Uh, do you have a rest room close by?”

  She pointed toward the corridor to the left of the desk. “Second door down.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I was telling a little fib. The minute I was out of sight I race-walked down the corridor to the far end where it met a transverse corridor with administrative offices on either side. All of them were empty except for one. A nice brass plaque identified it as Dr. Dunne’s. I went in. He didn’t seem to be there, but the chair was piled with sweaty tennis togs, and I could hear the patter of a shower being run behind a door marked Private. I took the liberty of a stroll around his desk while I waited for him. I let my fingers tippy-toe among his papers, but there was nothing of interest. A detail man had been there and had left some samples of a new anticholinergic, with accompanying literature. The glossy color enlargement showed a duodenal ulcer as large as the planet Jupiter. Oh, barf. Picture that sucker sitting in your gut.

  The file cabinets were locked. I had hoped to explore his desk drawers, but I didn’t want to push my luck. Some people get cranky when you snoop around like that. I cupped one hand to my ear. Shower off. Ah, that was good. The doctor and I were going to have a little chat.

  Chapter 17

  *

  Dr. Dunne emerged from the bathroom fully dressed, wearing kelly green slacks with a white belt, a pink and green plaid sports shirt, white loafers, pink socks. All he needed was a white sportcoat to constitute what’s known as a “full Cleveland,” very popular among middle-aged bon vivants in the Midwest. He had a full head of white hair, still damp, combed straight back. Tendrils were already curling up around his ears. His face was full, his complexion hot pink, eyes very blue under unruly white brows. He was probably six foot two, toting an extra fifty pounds’ worth of rich food and drink, which he carried in the front like six months’ worth of pregnancy. How come all the men in this town were out of shape?

  He stopped in his tracks when he caught sight of me. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, in response to some question I hadn’t asked him yet.

  I infused my tone with warmth, feigning graciousness. “Hi, Dr. Dunne. I’m Kinsey Millhone,” I said, extending my hand. He responded with a minimal squeeze, three fingers pressing mine.

  “Personnel’s down the hall, but we’re not hiring presently. The hotel won’t open for business until April first.”

  “I’m not looking for work. I need some information about a former patient of yours.”

  His eyes took on that doctor-privilege look. “And who would that be?”

  “Jean Timberlake.”

  His body language switched over to a code I couldn’t read. “Are you with the police?”

  I shook my head. “I’m a private detective, hired by ���”

  “I can’t help you, then.”

  “Mind if I sit?”

  He stared at me blankly, accustomed to his pronouncements being taken as law. He probably never had to deal with pushy people like me. He was protected from the public by his receptionist, his lab tech, his nurse, his billing clerk, his answering service, his office manager, his wife ��� an army of women keeping Doctor safe and untouched. “I must not have made myself clear, Miss Millhone. We have nothing to discuss.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said equably. “I’m trying to find out who her father was.”

  “Who let you in here?”

  “The desk clerk just talked to your wife,” I said, which was true but not relevant.

  “Young lady, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. There’s no way in the world I’d give you information about the Timberlakes. I’ve been the personal physician to that family for years.”

  “I understand that,” I said. “I’m not asking you to breach confidentiality ���”

  “You most certainly are!”

  “Dr. Dunne, I’m trying to get a line on a murder suspect. I know Jean was illegitimate. I’ve got a copy of the birth certificate, listing her father as unknown. I don’t see any reason to protect the man if you know who he was. If you don’t, just say so and save us both some time.”

  “This is a damn outrage, barging in on me like this! You have no right to pry into that poor girl’s past. Excuse me,” he said darkly, crossing to the door. “Elva!” he yelled. “El!!”

  I could hear someone thumping purposefully down the corridor. I put a business card on the edge of his desk. “I’m at the Ocean Street Motel if you decide to help.”

  I was halfway out the door when Mrs. Dunne appeared. She was still in tennis clothes, her pale cheeks flushed. I could see that she recognized me from my first visit to the place. My return wasn’t greeted with the delight I had hoped for. She was holding her racket like a hatchet, the wooden rim edgewise. I eased away, keeping an eye on her. I don’t usually feel that threatened by horsey women with big legs, but she had already stepped across the line into my psychological space. She moved forward a step, standing so close now I could smell her breath, no big treat.

  “I was hoping to get some help on a case, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “Call the police,” she said flatly to him.

  Without any warning, she lifted the racket like a samurai sword.

  I skipped back as the racket swopped down at me. “Whoa, lady! You better watch that,” I said.<
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  She struck out at me again, missing.

  I had dodged in reflex. “Hey! Knock it off!”

  She whacked at me again, fanning the air within an inch of my face. I jerked back. This was ludicrous. I wanted to laugh, but the racket had hissed with a savagery that made my stomach lurch. I danced backward as she advanced. She swatted again with the Wilson and missed. Her face had taken on an expression of avid concentration, eyes glittering, lips parted slightly. Behind her, I was dimly aware that Dr. Dunne’s attitude had shifted from wariness to concern.

  “Elva, that’s enough,” he said.

  I didn’t think she’d heard him, or if she had, she didn’t care. The racket whacked at me sideways, wielded this time like a broadax. She shifted her weight, her grip two-handed as she sliced diagonally, and sliced again.

  Whack, whack!

  Missing me by a hair’s breadth and only because I was quick. She was totally focused and I was afraid if I turned to run, she’d catch me in the back of the head. Take a crack like that and you’re talkin’ blood, folks. Not a fatal impact, but one you’d prefer to skip.

  Up came the racket again. The wood rim descended like a blade, too swift this time to evade.

  I took the brunt of it on my left forearm, raised instinctively to shield my face. The racket connected with a cracking sound. The blow was like a white flash of heat up my arm. I can’t say I felt pain. It was more like a jolt to my psyche, unleashing aggression.

  I caught her in the mouth with the heel of my hand, knocking her back into him. The two of them went down with a mingled yelp of surprise. The air around me felt white and empty and clean. I grabbed her shirt with an unholy strength, hauling her to her feet. Without any thought at all, I punched her once, registering an instant later the smacking sound as my fist connected with her face.