Step to the Graveyard Easy

by Bill Pronzini

  One chance left. Just one.

  He beat it out of there, fast.

  28

  Rubicon Bay.

  As before, the gate to the Vanowen property stood open. Cape accelerated through and down, not trying to be quiet about his arrival. The house was lightless until he rattled to a stop in front and swung out; then one came on inside. Stacy Vanowen’s BMW was the only car drawn in under the carport.

  The shaded porch bulb sprayed whiteness over Cape, but the door stayed shut. He leaned on the bell. It was another thirty or forty seconds before the door finally opened. Stacy Vanowen peered out at him, wide-eyed. She wore a robe and slippers, but her haggard expression, the smokelike marks under her eyes, her twitchy movements, said he hadn’t woken her up.

  “My God,” she said, “what’re you doing here?”

  “I have to talk to you.”

  Side-to-side head movement, as though she were trying to throw off confusion. “It’s almost five A.M. Whose truck is that out there? Where’s your car?”

  “Inside. Please.”

  “You look… Have you been in a fight?”

  “Not the kind you mean.”

  He moved forward, crowding her slightly. She gave ground, her eyes showing bewilderment and more than a little fear.

  “I don’t understand what you’re doing here,” she said.

  “You will. Where can we talk?”

  “… The living room.”

  She led him into a darkened room, put on an overhead light. Cape had an impression of space, blue-and-brown color scheme, native stone, beams, paintings, objets d’art. None of it registered clearly. The hammering in his temples was acute now; pain radiated along his spinal column, up the back of his skull, and his vision had lost clarity.

  Stacy Vanowen said, “You’d better sit down. You look ready to collapse.”

  “Feel like it.”

  “Do you… want a drink? Brandy?”

  “Brandy, yes.” He sank down on soft cushions, leaned his body forward instead of settling back. Too comfortable, and he might not be able to remain alert. “You’d better have one yourself.”

  “Not at this hour.”

  “You’ll need it when you hear what I have to say.”

  For a few seconds she watched him, chewing on her lower lip. Then she went away; came back pretty soon with a well-filled snifter in each hand. Cape drank half of his. It was like swallowing fire. He watched her sit down a distance away from him, knees together, tucking the folds of the robe around them, clutching her snifter tight between both palms as if they were cold and she was using it to warm them.

  “Now what’s this all about?” she said. “What happened to you tonight?”

  “Same thing that’s been happening to me ever since I came to Tahoe. Tied up in chains, put into a box.”

  “Chains, box… you’re not making sense.”

  “I know who killed your husband,” Cape said.

  Blink. Blink.

  “Who, why, how, the whole thing. You won’t want to believe it, but it’s true.”

  “Why won’t I want to believe it?”

  “Too close to home.”

  “You’re still not making sense. The man in the ski mask… you know who he is?”

  “A landscape gardener, ex-con, and drug dealer named Rolando Tarles. Rollo for short. That’s his pickup outside. He pulled the trigger, but your sister did the cocking and aiming.”

  Bug-eyed stare. “Lacy? You… that’s… why would she—”

  “Money and hate. In that order.”

  “What money? You can’t mean Andrew’s. She’s not in his will—”

  “No, but you are. Property, bank accounts, stock portfolio—you get it all, don’t you?”

  “Lacy and I aren’t close, you know that.”

  “You still let her come around whenever she feels like it, dole out pocket money, presents. She’s smart, manipulative. Play her cards right, patch things up with you, and she’d wind up with plenty for herself. Big gamble, big payoff.”

  Stacy Vanowen sat rigidly. Her face had a milky cast, more alabaster than marble, the veins beginning to show. Abruptly she brought the snifter to her mouth, spilling some of the brandy, and drained it in one convulsive swallow.

  She said, “What reason would Lacy have to hate Andrew?”

  “He had everything she didn’t, for one. She called him an arrogant bastard, a prick, a control freak, a serial fornicator. Said he made a pass at her once at a party.”

  “That… doesn’t surprise me. I knew he had other women, not all of them strangers to me. Lacy may have hated him—I hated him myself sometimes—but enough to plan his death? No.”

  “She hates all men,” Cape said. “The kind of hate that breeds destruction. Blame it on your father, what he did to her when she was a child.”

  Stacy Vanowen winced, said nothing.

  “She’s ruthless when it comes to men. Uses and abuses them whenever she can—she as much as admitted that to me. She used Rolando Tarles. She used Boone Judson. She used me.”

  Silence.

  “The whole thing was a setup, start to finish,” Cape said. “Rollo works at Lakepoint Country Club, she plays golf there—I saw the two of them talking there the other day. She found out he’d been in an Arizona prison. Seduced him probably, gave him a chunk of cash, promised him a bigger payoff later—wrapped him up so tight he’d do anything for her.”

  Headshake. Denial or reflex, Cape couldn’t tell which. She was no longer looking at him.

  “Rollo brought Boone Judson into it,” he said. “Prison connection—they were both in Yuma at the same time. The plan was to let Judson believe it was a gambling scam, his bread and butter, with you and your husband and Vince Mahannah as the marks. That’s one reason he was picked. The other was his size and build, same as Rollo’s. Lacy got her hands on the photos of Vanowen and Mahannah; Rollo took the ones of you. He sent them to Judson as the convincer, used some excuse to make sure Judson kept them in his possession. The photos and his body type made him the perfect fall guy for your husband’s murder.

  “So far, so good. But then things began to go wrong. Judson had picked up a partner, Tanya, he didn’t tell Rollo about. He figured he’d need seed money for the gambling scam here, so he and Tanya worked another one in San Francisco first. He made the mistake of inviting me into the Frisco game. And another by bringing Tanya with him to Tahoe.”

  Cape’s mouth was dry. He drank off the rest of the brandy, swirling it through his mouth, before he went on.

  “Tanya complicated Lac/s plans. She didn’t fit into the frame as it was originally conceived. Then Tanya began to smell a rat. She wanted out, only she had no money of her own. Rollo must’ve let it slip that I was here—that’s what brought her to my room at the Grand. When she couldn’t get any money out of me, she went back to the motel where they’d been staying. My guess is Rollo was there alone, waiting for her—by then he’d already moved Judson to his own house for safekeeping. She was so desperate she tried to shake him down. He strangled her instead.”

  Stacy’s head jerked up. “He… what?”

  “Strangled her. Hid her body in the trunk of their rental car—later that day, after dark. I found it there tonight.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “But that didn’t change Lacy’s plans,” Cape said, “any more than my showing up with the photos had at first. She figured to lay Tanya’s murder off on Judson. And mine. She used sex to find out how much I knew, decided it was a little too much, and told Rollo to kill me, too, during the fake robbery.

  “When I talked to her yesterday, I said some things that convinced her I was even closer to the truth. And she said something that should’ve told me then that she was involved, only I didn’t realize it until tonight.”

  “What did she say?”

  “It’s not every night you see a man get his face shot off.” She claimed she didn’t know what had happened at the poker game until she heard the news on the
radio. Sheriff’s department wouldn’t have given out that kind of explicit information, and the media wouldn’t use it if they had. ‘Brutally murdered,’ yes. ‘Face shot off,’no.”

  “That’s not…” The rest of the words caught in her throat; she coughed them loose. “That doesn’t prove Lacy did all you say she did.”

  “What happened tonight does. She still wanted me dead. So she tried to include me in the frame against Judson, make it look like we were partners and had a falling-out and killed each other. Right after I talked to her, she and Rollo set up a trap at the motel. But it was clumsy and obvious, and I didn’t walk into it. If I had, I’d be dead now. Even so, I made the mistake of letting Rollo get away, and he boxed me in with the law. I’ve been running around all night, trying to find him or Lacy to get myself out of the box.”

  “Did you?”

  “Get myself out? Not yet.”

  “Find Lacy. Or this man Rollo.”

  “Rollo, yes. Baxman Marine, in Pine Beach.”

  “I don’t… Why would he go there?”

  “He keeps a boat there. And the owner has a sideline—dealing drugs. Rollo may have been in on it with him. He was strung out after killing Judson, went to Pine Beach to get some of whatever he was using, and gave himself an accidental overdose.”

  “… You mean he’s dead?”

  “Not yet. Barely alive.”

  “Will he die?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” Cape said. “If he doesn’t, the law ought to be able to get a confession out of him. Even if he does die, there’s enough evidence to implicate him.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “Money and items from the robbery, among other things. At his house. Nothing there that points directly at Lacy, but I’m banking that there’s hard evidence against her somewhere. She’s improvised and screwed up too damn much.”

  “I don’t understand why you came to me,” Stacy Vanowen said. “Why didn’t you just go to the authorities?”

  “None of the evidence against Rollo exonerates me,” Cape said. “I don’t want to give myself up cold if I can avoid it. I need help, some kind of leverage, and you’re the only person I can turn to.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “Have you got a tape recorder?”

  “Tape recorder?”

  “Is there one in the house? Voice activated, preferably.”

  “Yes. Andrew had one.”

  “Call your sister, ask her to come over here. I’ll confront her, try to get her to admit something incriminating in front of you and on tape.” Giving voice to the notion made it seem desperate, a little wild. The way he felt right now. “If that doesn’t work, you could go with me when I turn myself in, tell Captain D’Anzello you believe me.”

  She bit her lip, still not making eye contact.

  Cape said, “You do believe me?”

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “You know your sister, what kind of person she is. You know she’s capable of everything I’ve said.”

  “Yes, I know what she’s capable of.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “I don’t… I can’t seem to think clearly. Another brandy…”

  She stood, walked slowly across the room. Cape resisted an impulse to lean back and close his eyes; rubbed grit out of them instead. Tension, exhaustion… his thoughts had fuzz on them now. Better get up, move around, breathe some fresh air. The warmth in here was making him logy—

  Car coming.

  The sound, filtered but distinct, brought him alert. He started up out of the chair.

  “Stay where you are. Don’t move.”

  Cape swung his head. Stacy Vanowen was walking back toward him with a short-barreled revolver in her hand.

  He stared at her, at the gun. She must’ve had it in the pocket of her robe all along. Another goddamn gun pointing at him.

  “What’s the idea? Who’s that outside.”

  “Shut up. Damn you… just shut up.”

  The car noise stopped. A few seconds later the front door opened, letting the wind thrum in briefly before it banged shut again. Quick footsteps.

  Lacy.

  She came into the room, swung her gaze from her sister to Cape and back again. She said, “You’d better let me have that,” and plucked the revolver from Stacy’s fingers.

  “What took you so long? I couldn’t’ve stood listening to him much longer.”

  “I was almost home when you called. You did fine, honey. Just fine.”

  Stupid Cape.

  Snake-eyes Cape.

  The two of them were in it together.

  29

  Now that Lacy had the gun, her eyes remained fixed on him, flat, cold, unblinking, like a bird’s or a reptile’s. Stacy Van-owen’s marble look was nothing more than a thin veneer; her sister was the hard one—hard all the way through, except for a core of dirty ice.

  Stacy leaned against the back of a couch, wobbly now, pale. Cape had already ceased to exist for her; all her attention was on the older woman. She said, “He knows everything.”

  Cape said bitterly, “I do now. Some act the two of you put on yesterday. Some act you put on just now. I fell for it both times.”

  He might just as well have been talking to himself. Lacy said, “It doesn’t matter what he knows. Did he tell anyone else?”

  “He says he didn’t.”

  “Then we’re all right. How’d he get hold of Rollo’s truck?”

  “I don’t know. But he found Rollo somehow.”

  “Where?”

  “Pine Beach. The place where he keeps his boat.”

  “The one damn place I didn’t think to look. Where is he now?”

  “In the hospital,” Cape said, “in police custody.”

  Stacy said, “No, he’s dead…. He has to be dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “Drug overdose.”

  “Well, well. Good. Saves me the trouble.”

  “Lacy, please…”

  “He wasn’t dead when I left him,” Cape said. “He’ll talk when he goes into withdrawal. He’ll sell out both of you.”

  “Shut up, salesman.” Acknowledging him for the first time.

  Stacy said, “What if he isn’t dead? What if he does talk?”

  “Let him. Stupid drugged-out ex-convict—who’d believe him over the two of us? Take it easy, don’t worry so much.”

  “I can’t help it, I’m scared.”

  “I’ll take care of you. Haven’t I always?”

  Cape said, “Sure you have. You’ve taken her right out of all this luxury and put her into a women’s prison for the rest of her life.”

  “I said shut up.”

  “Or else you’ll shoot me? You’re planning to do that anyway. Question is, have you got the nerve to do it face-to-face?”

  “You think I don’t?”

  “It’s one thing to send somebody like Rollo out to do your killing for you, another to do it yourself.”

  “That’s right. But you won’t be my first.”

  “No?”

  “No. Remember what I told you about dear old Daddy, how he finally shot himself for his sins? Well, he didn’t. I’m the one who blew his head off. While he was sleeping in front of the TV, the night he raped my six-year-old sister for the first and last time.”

  Stacy clapped both hands over her ears. “Don’t! Please don’t! You know I can’t stand any talk about that.”

  “I know, honey. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t get caught that time,” Cape said, “so you think you’ll keep right on getting away with murder. But you won’t.”

  “Yes, I will. Only you won’t be around to see it happen.”

  “Too many killings, Lacy. Too many dead people all at once. Vanowen, Judson, Tanya, maybe Rollo. And now me. The law isn’t stupid. They’re not going to buy it. Too many holes, too many leaky patch jobs.”

  “Lacy…”

  “Don’t listen to him, sis. He’s full
of shit.”

  “No, he’s right… too many dead people. My God, it was only supposed to be Andrew, nobody else. But then you had to make it all so complicated…. Tarles and Judson and the poker game. We should’ve just done it with the boat, a simple accident, the way I wanted to in the beginning.”

  “Don’t you start in on me now,” Lacy said. “It was a good plan, and it would’ve worked, nobody else would’ve gotten hurt, if Judson hadn’t brought that woman with him, Cape hadn’t shown up with the photos, Rollo hadn’t gone crazy on speed. None of that was my fault. What else could I do but make the best of things, keep you out of it as much as I could?”

  Cape said, “Don’t believe it, Stacy. Her ass was the only one she cared about. She was afraid you couldn’t handle the pressure. She’s still afraid you can’t.”

  “That’s enough from you.” A vein pulsed in Lacy’s forehead. “One more word, and I’ll kill you right now.”

  “Not here!” Stacy cried. “Not in front of me!”

  “All right, go in the bedroom. Wait for me in there.”

  “Not in the house, Lacy, please.”

  “I’ll make it look like he broke in, tried to attack us—”

  “Not in the house! Outside somewhere, the boathouse, I don’t care, just not in the house. I couldn’t stand to live here anymore….”

  “Calm down. I won’t do it here.”

  “Promise? Promise me.”

  “I promise. Go in the bedroom. Take a Valium, no more than one.”

  “A Valium. Yes. You won’t be long?”

  “I won’t be long.”

  Wobble steps, hurrying, and Stacy was gone.

  Cape said, “She’s about as close to the edge as you can get. She’ll tip over when the police start throwing questions at her.”

  “Not with me there to hold her up.” The gun flicked. “Stand up, salesman. Walk out to the front door.”

  Cape got to his feet, slowly. But that was all he did.

  “Go on. Move.”

  “No,” he said.