by Sue Grafton
A flash of Shana’s face popped into my head. She’d been bludgeoned to death, from the look of her, shoved into the narrow space under the hot tub until someone could dispose of her ��� if that was the intent. Maybe that’s what Elva had trudged up there in the dark to do. I couldn’t decide if I should believe her claim about the phone call. Had she killed Shana Timberlake? Killed her daughter seventeen years before that? Why the lag time? And why Ori Fowler? Given Elva as the killer, I couldn’t come up with a scenario in which Ori’s death made any sense. Could the phone call have been meant to trap me up there? As far as I knew, the only two people who were aware of where I’d be were Jack Clemson and Bert.
I halted again. The ground was beginning to slant downward, and I found myself squinting through the dark at a sharp drop-off. Below, a gray ribbon of road curled along the base of the hill. I had no idea where it led, but if the cops were smart, they’d be calling for backup cars, which might be cruising by any minute, hoping to cut me off. I scrambled down the rocky incline as fast as I could, half-humping, half-sliding on my backside, preceded by a tiny landslide of loose stones and dirt. I could hear approaching sirens as I skidded the last few feet. I was panting from exhaustion, but I didn’t dare stop. I hightailed it across the road, reaching the far side just as the first black-and-white rounded the bend maybe six hundred yards away.
I plunged into the brush, hugging the ground as I belly-crawled my way through the weeds. Once I was safely in the cover of the trees, I paused to reorient myself, rolling over on my back. Against the encroaching fog bank I could see the reflection of the vapor lights that lined Ocean Street. Floral Beach wasn’t far. Unfortunately, what lay between me and the town was the posted property belonging to the oil refinery. I studied the eight-foot chain-link fence. Strands of barbed wire were strung along the top. No crossing that. Big oil storage tanks loomed up on the far side, painted in pastel shades, like a series of cakes.
I was still close enough to the road that I could hear the squawking of the sheriff’s cars in position along the berm. Lights raked the hillside.
I hoped the suckers hadn’t brought dogs. That was all I’d need. I crawled to the base of the fence, clinging to it doggedly as I pushed on. In the dark, it served not only as a guide, but as a needed support. More warning signs. This was a hard hat area… and me with no hard hat. I was winded and sweating, my hands torn, nose beginning to run. The smell of the ocean was getting stronger and I took comfort from that.
Abruptly, the fence took a hard cut left. What opened up in front of me was a dirt path strewn with trash, a lovers’ lane perhaps. I didn’t dare use my penlight. I was still in the hills above Floral Beach, but I was getting closer to the town. In less than a quarter of a mile, I found myself at the tag end of the lane that spilled into a cul-de-sac. Oh glory, now I knew where I was. This was the bluff above Jean Timberlake’s old apartment building. Once I reached the wooden stairway, I could climb down to the rear door of her place and hide. To my right, I spotted the glass-and-frame house where I’d knocked earlier. Lights were on inside.
I skirted the house, groping my way along the property line, marked by waist-high shrubs. As I passed the kitchen window, I caught sight of the occupant looking straight out at me. I dropped, realizing belatedly that the guy must be standing at the kitchen sink. The window would be throwing his own reflection back at him, effectively blocking out the sight of me, I hoped. Cautiously I rose and peered closer. Dwight Shales.
I blinked, debating with myself. Could 1 trust him? Was I safer up here with him or hiding in the abandoned building below? Oh hell, this was no time to be shy. I needed help.
I doubled back to the front porch and rang the bell. I kept an eye on the street, worried a patrol car would cruise into sight. At some point they were going to realize I’d slipped through the net. Given the impenetrability of the oil company property, this was probably the logical place to end up. The porch light came on. The front door opened. I turned to look at him. “Kinsey, my God. What happened to you?”
“Hello, Dwight. Can I come in?” He held the door open, stepping back. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“That would cover it,” I said. My explanation was worthy of a box top, twenty-five words or less, tendered while I followed him through the foyer ��� all raw woods and modern art. We went down a step into the living room, which was dead ahead: two stories of glass looking out toward the view. The roof of Jean’s apartment building wasn’t visible, but I could see the lights of Floral Beach stretching almost as far as the big hotel on the hillside half a mile away.
“Let me get you a drink,” he said. “Thanks. Do you mind if I clean up?” He nodded to his left. “Straight down the hall.”
I found the bathroom and ran some water, scrubbing my hands and face. I blotted my face dry, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. I had a big scratch on my cheek. My hair was matted with dirt. I found a comb in his medicine cabinet and ran it through my mop. I peed, brushed myself off, washed my hands and face again, and returned to the living room where Dwight handed me some brandy in a softball-sized snifter.
I took it neat and he poured me a second.
“Thanks,” I said. I could feel the liquor defining my insides as it eased through. I had to breathe with my mouth open for a bit. “Whew! Great.”
“Sit down. You look beat.”
“I am,” I said. I glanced anxiously toward the front door. “Are we visible from the street?”
The narrow panels on either side of the front door were frosted glass. It was the exposed living room that bothered me. I felt as if I were onstage. He crossed the room and closed the drapes. The room was suddenly much cozier and I relaxed a bit.
He sat down in the chair across from me. “Tell me again.”
I went back through the story, filling in the details. “I probably should have just waited for the cops.”
“You want to go ahead and call them and turn yourself in? The phone’s right there.”
“Not yet,” I said. “That’s what I kept telling Bailey, but now I know how he felt. They’d just keep me up all night, hounding me with questions I don’t have the answers for.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Don’t know. Get my head together and see if I can figure this out. You know, I was up here earlier and knocked on the door, but you weren’t home. I wanted to ask if anybody up here ever saw Jean using the stairs.”
“The stairs?”
“Up from the Timberlakes’ apartment. It was right down there.” I found myself pointing to the floor to indicate the base of the bluff.
“Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten about that. Talk about small towns. I guess none of us are that far from anybody else.”
“That’s for sure,” I said. At the back of my mind, uneasiness was beginning to stir. Something about his response wasn’t quite ringing true. Maybe it was his manner, which was suddenly too studiously casual to be believable. Pretending to be “normal” is a lot harder than you’d think. Did it mean anything, his having lived this close? “You forgot Jean Timberlake lived thirty feet away?”
“No big deal,” he said. “I think they only lived there a few months before she died.” He set his brandy snifter on the coffee table. “You hungry? I’d be happy to fix you something to eat.”
I shook my head, easing him back toward the subject that interested me. “I realized this afternoon that the back door of the Timberlake apartment opened right onto the stairs. I figure she could easily have used the road up here as a rendezvous point for the guys she screwed around with. You never saw her up here?”
He considered the possibility, searching his memory. “No, I don’t believe so. Is it that important?”
“Well, it could be. If somebody saw Jean, they might have also seen the guy she was having the affair with.”
“Come to think of it, I did see cars up here at night on occasion. I guess it never occurred to me it might be somebody waiting t
o pick her up.”
I love bad liars. They work so hard at it and the effort is so transparent. I happen to lie well myself, but only after years of practice. Even then, I can’t pull it off every time. This guy didn’t even come close. I sat and looked at him, giving him time to reconsider his position.
He frowned with concern. “By the way, what’s the story on Ann’s mother? Mrs. Emma called about an hour ago and told me Bailey switched the medication. I couldn’t believe it…”
“Excuse me, could we get back to Jean Timberlake first?”
“Oh, sorry. I thought we were done, and I’ve been awfully worried about Ann. It’s unbelievable what she’s been through. Anyway, go ahead.”
“Were you fucking Jean Timberlake yourself?”
The word was just right, crude and to the point. He let out a little laugh of disbelief, like he must not have heard me right. “What?”
“Come on. ‘Fess up. Just tell me the truth. I’d really like to know.”
He laughed again, shaking his head as though to clear it. “My God, Kinsey. I’m a high school principal.”
“I know what you are, Dwight. I’m asking you what you did.”
He stared at me, apparently annoyed that I’d persist. “This is ridiculous. The girl was seventeen.”
I said nothing. I returned a look of such skepticism that his smile began to fade. He got up and poured himself another drink. He held the brandy bottle toward me, mutely asking me if I wanted more. I shook my head.
He sat down again. “I think we should move on to something more productive. I’m willing to help, but I’m not going to play any games with you.” He was all business now. The meeting was called to order and we were going to get serious. No more silly bullshit. “I’d have to be crazy to get involved with a student,” he went on. “Jesus. What an idea.” He rolled his shoulders. I could hear the joint pop. I knew he wanted to convince me, but the words carried no conviction.
I dropped my gaze to the tabletop, pushing my empty snifter an inch. “We’re all capable of astonishing ourselves when it comes to sex.”
He was silent.
I focused on him intently.
He recrossed his legs. Now it was him, not looking at me.
“Dwight?”
He said, “I thought I was in love with her.”
Careful, I thought. Take care. The moment is fragile and his trust is tenuous. “It must have been a tough time. Karen was diagnosed with MS right about then, wasn’t she?”
He set the glass down again and his gaze met mine. “You have a good memory.” I kept silent.
He finally took up the narrative thread. “She was actually in the process of being evaluated, but I think we knew. It’s staggering how something like that affects you. She was bitter at first. Withdrawn. In the end, she was better about it than I was. God, I couldn’t believe it was happening, and then I turned around and Jean was there. Young, lusty, outrageous.”
He was quiet for a moment. I said nothing, letting him tell it his way. He didn’t need any prompting from me. This was a story he knew by heart.
“I didn’t think Karen would survive anyway because the first round was acute. She seemed to go downhill overnight. Hell, I didn’t think she’d live till spring. In a situation like that, your mind leaps ahead. You get into survival mode. I remember thinking, ‘Hey, I can make it. The marriage isn’t that great, anyway.’ I was only what, thirty-nine? Forty? I had a lot of years ahead of me. I figured I’d marry again. Why not? We weren’t perfect, the two of us. I’m not sure we were even very well suited to each other. The MS changed all that. When she died, I was more in love with her than I’d ever been.”
“And Jean?”
“Ah, but Jean. Early on” ��� he paused to shake his head ���“I was crazy. I must have been. If that relationship had ever become public knowledge… well, it would have ruined my life. Karens, too… what was left of it.”
“Was the baby yours?”
“I don’t know. Probably. I wish I could say no, but what could I do? I only found out about it after Jean died. I can’t imagine what the consequences would have been… you know… if the pregnancy had come to light.”
“Yeah, unlawful sexual intercourse being what it is.”
“Oh God, don’t say that. Even now the phrase is enough to make me sick.”
“You kill her?”
“No. I swear. I was capable of a lot of craziness back then, but not that.”
I watched him, sensing that he was telling the truth. This wasn’t a killer I was listening to. He might have been desperate or despairing. He might have realized after the fact how perilous his situation was, but I didn’t hear the kind of rationalization killers get into. “Who else knew about the pregnancy?”
“I don’t know. What difference would it make?”
“I’m not sure. You can’t really be certain the baby was yours. Maybe there was somebody else.”
“Bailey knew about it.”
“Aside from him. Couldn’t someone else have heard?”
“Well, sure, but so what? I know she showed up at the school very upset and went straight to the counselor’s office.”
“I thought the guidance counselors only handled academic matters ��� college prep requirements and stuff like that.”
“There were exceptions. Sometimes we had to screen personal problems and refer kids out for professional counseling.”
“What would have been done then, if Jean had asked for help?’
“We’d have done what we could. San Luis has social agencies set up for things like that.”
“Jean never talked to you herself?”
He shook his head. “I wish she had. Maybe I could have done something for her, I don’t know. She had her crazy side. We’re not talking about a girl who’d agree to an abortion. She never would have given that baby up and she wouldn’t have kept quiet. She’d have insisted on marriage, regardless of the price. I have to tell you ��� I know it sounds horrible, but I have to say this ��� I was relieved when she died. Enormously. When I understood the risk I’d taken… when I saw what I had at stake. It was a gift. I cleaned up my act right then. I never screwed around on Karen again.”
“I believe you,” I said. But what was bothering me? I could feel an idea churning, but I couldn’t quite sense what it was.
Dwight was going on. “It was a bit of a rude awakening when I heard the stories going around after she’d been killed. I was naive enough to think we had something special between us, but that turned out not to be the case.”
I kept picking at it like a bone. “So if she didn’t turn to you for help, she could have turned to somebody else.”
“Well, yes, but she didn’t have much time for that, as I understand. She had the test done in Lompoc and got the results that afternoon. By midnight she was dead.”
“How long does it take to make a phone call?” I said. “She had hours. She could have called half the guys in Floral Beach and some in San Luis, too. Suppose it was someone else? Suppose you were just a cover for another relationship? There must have been other guys with just as much to lose.”
“I’m sure it’s possible,” he said, but he sounded dubious.
The phone rang, a harsh sound in the stillness of the big house. Dwight leaned back, reaching over to pick up the receiver from the end table by the couch. “Hello? Oh, hi.”
His face had brightened with recognition and I saw his eyes stray to my face as the person on the other end of the line went on. He was making “unh-hunh” noises while someone rattled on. “No, no, no. Don’t worry. Hang on. She’s right here.” He held the phone out and I took it. “It’s Ann,” he said.
“Hi, Ann. What’s happening?”
Her voice was cold and she was clearly upset. “Well. At long last. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking for you for hours.”
I found myself squinting at the phone, trying to determine the reason for the tone she had taken.
What was wrong with her? “Is there a deputy with you?” I asked.
“I think we could say that.”
“You want to wait and call me back when he goes?”
“No, I don’t, dear. Here’s what I want. I want you to get your ass down here right away! Daddy checked himself out of the hospital and he’s been bugging me ever since. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” she shrieked. “Do you have any idea… do you have any IDEA what’s been going on? DO YOU? Goddamn it!…”
I held the phone away from my ear. She was really building up a head of steam here. “Ann, stop that. Calm down. It’s too complicated to go into right now.”
“Don’t give me that. Don’t you dare ever, ever give me that.”
“Don’t give you what? What are you so upset about?”
“You know perfectly well,” she snapped. “What are you doing over there? You listen to me, Kinsey. And you listen good…”
I started to interrupt, but she’d just put a palm across the mouthpiece, talking to someone in the background. The deputy? Oh hell, was she telling him where I was?
I replaced the receiver in the cradle.
Dwight was looking at me with perplexity. “You okay? What was that about?”
“I have to go to San Luis Obispo,” I said carefully. It was a lie, of course, but it was the first thing that occurred to me. Ann had told them where I was. Within minutes this whole cul-de-sac would be blocked off, the neighborhood swarming with deputies. I had to get out of there, and I didn’t think it was wise to let him know where I was headed.
“San Luis?” he said. “What for?”
I moved toward the front door. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Don’t you need a car?”
“I’ll get one.”
I closed the door behind me, leaped off the porch, and ran.
Chapter 25
*
The Ocean Street Motel was only four blocks away. It wasn’t going to take the cops long. I kept to the pavement until I caught the sound of a vehicle accelerating up the hill. I took a dive into the bushes as a black-and-white sped into view, heading straight for Dwight’s place. Lights flashing, no siren. A second black-and-white gunned up the hill after the first. Hotdoggers. The deputy in the second car was probably twenty-two. Big career ahead of him, careening through Floral Beach legally. He must have been having the time of his life.