“Pot and beer.”
“That why you beat her up?”
“I lost my head.... I don’t remember. . . .”
“Did you know Jody got pregnant?”
“Pregnant? No. No, I didn’t know that. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. She had the baby, a girl. Her sister insisted on giving the child up for adoption. A San Francisco couple named Aldrich took her and raised her as their own.”
“Is that who hired you? This Aldrich couple?”
“No, they’re both dead now.”
“Then . . . the girl?”
“That’s right. They didn’t tell her she was adopted; she didn’t find out until a month ago.”
Chehalis made the rest of the martini disappear. “Didn’t tell her because they didn’t want her to know how she was conceived.”
“Probably.”
“And now she wants to know who her real parents are.”
“Yes.”
“You must be good,” he said.
“Good?”
“To’ve found out after all these years.”
“I had some luck.”
“How’d you track me down?”
“I talked to your folks yesterday in lone. And your wife on the phone this morning.”
He didn’t like any of that. He said, “Did you have to see my mother? Drag all the crap up and make her smell it again?”
“I didn’t mention the rape. Or tell her the real reason I wanted to get in touch with you.”
“Say anything about it to my wife?”
“Not her either.”
“Well, that’s something. My mother . . . how is she?”
“Her arthritis is pretty bad.”
“Yeah. I wish I could help her, move her out of there and get her decent medical treatment. But she won’t take money and she won’t leave the old man.” The shape of his mouth changed, bent at one corner—the same mouth John Chehalis had made in Doniphan’s Bar, the same expression of bitterness. “You talk to him too?”
“Separately.”
“I’ll bet he mentioned the thing with Jody. I’ll bet he called me a rotten piece of shit and said I ruined his life.”
“Among other things.”
He signaled the waitress, pointed to his empty glass. Boozer like his father—another legacy. “Rotten shit, that’s his favorite expression. He started calling me that when I was nine, the year his drinking got out of hand and he turned mean. He took it out on her too.”
“You mean physical abuse?”
“Slapped her around now and then. But mainly he just wore her down with his mouth.”
“He slap you around?”
“Until I got old enough to stop him. Was he drunk yesterday?”
“Not when I saw him.”
“Too bad. I’d like him to be knocking down a quart a day right about now. The more the son of a bitch drinks, the sooner he’ll die and give her some peace.”
What a pair they were, father and son. Each hating the other from afar, wishing the other dead; each sucking up booze and spewing out venom. I watched Chehalis’s hands clenching and unclenching on the table, as if he were squeezing something between them—his old man’s neck, maybe. The violence that had led to his rape of Jody Everson was still in him, still seething; John Chehalis had been right about that much. The question was whether he still acted on it or had it screwed down under a lid with a permanent seal.
The waitress appeared with his fresh martini. As she leaned forward to set it down, somebody bumped into her from behind and caused her to jostle the glass. A little of the gin and vermouth spilled over on the table, a few drops on the back of Chehalis’s hand. From his reaction it might have been acid: he jerked upright, scrubbed at the hand, and snapped at her, “For Christ’s sake, watch what you’re doing!”
“I’m sorry, sir, it was an accident. . . .”
He glared at her through slitted eyes, a glare so piercing, she flinched away from it. “I don’t want half a drink. Go get me a full one.”
“Yessir, right away.”
He said to her back, “Bitch,” loud enough for her to hear. She stiffened but kept on going to the bar. “Stupid bitch,” he said more quietly, and scrubbed again at his hand, and then realized I was watching him. The smile he worked up was thin and sheepish. “I shouldn’t let things get to me like that. But it’s been a long, rough day.”
I didn’t say anything.
He took a breath, blew it out the way he had before. The big hands finally relaxed: control reestablished. He said then, “What’s the girl’s name?”
“Girl?”
“Jody’s kid.”
“Melanie Ann.”
“Pretty name. You tell her about me yet?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Find out if I care to have anything to do with her?”
“That’s one reason. Do you?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“I’d have been surprised if you had.”
“All these years . . . the way she was conceived . . .” Headshake. “I wouldn’t know what to say to her, she wouldn’t know what to say to me. It’d be awkward for both of us. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“My wife and I, we never had kids. I was sorry for a while, but the older I got . . . well, I was relieved. Truth is, I never really wanted to be a father, not like most men do. I don’t know, I guess I figured I’d be a lousy one like my old man. Now here you are telling me I am a father because I lost my head and forced an underage girl. I can’t handle a relationship with that kind of daughter. She’d be a constant reminder of Jody, what I did—”
“You don’t have to justify your feelings to me.”
“I know that, but I want you to know how I feel. It wouldn’t benefit her to have a man like me in her life.”
“No,” I said, “it wouldn’t.”
“So don’t tell her, all right? About me, Jody, any of it.”
“I have to tell her about her birth mother.”
“Why?”
“Brain tumors can be hereditary. I’m not going to keep that part of it from her.”
“You’re right. But the rest of it ... just let sleeping dogs lie. Will you do that?”
I’d had enough of this, of him. I said, “I’ll be going now,” and pushed my chair back and got to my feet. “You can rest easy tonight. Maybe I can too.”
“You’re not going to tell her about me?”
“Mr. Chehalis,” I said, “as far as I’m concerned you don’t even exist.”
Chapter Eleven
SO MY DECISION WAS FINALLY MADE, or finally committed to. Now I had to face Melanie Ann, make her unhappier than she already was—a distasteful prospect that I wanted over and done with as quickly as possible. With that in mind I returned to the office and wrote a report composed of facts, lies, and half-truths, and then totaled up my base rate and expenses and typed an invoice to go with the report. It was after seven when I rang her number.
She wasn’t there. Her machine talked to me instead. I told it I had information for her and would be home tonight and to call any time before eleven, the number was on my business card. Otherwise she could contact me at the office in the morning.
Home to my empty flat: Kerry was working late tonight too. I ate and tried to read and then tried to watch a forties film noir on the AMC cable channel. No good. I kept listening for the phone to ring—it never did—and I kept thinking about Stephen Chehalis.
Everything about him bothered me. The things Evan Yarnell and Lyle Cousins and John Chehalis had said about him; the violence that had been naked in him this evening; the clenching and unclenching of those big hands; the look he’d given the waitress when she spilled his drink. It was that look more than anything else. At the time it had seemed piercing and hostile, but impersonal, momentary. In retrospect I felt it had been more than that—a look of hate, the same raw, destructive hate he and his father felt for each other. I hadn’t liked Chehal
is much before I’d witnessed that look, but I could have gotten him out of my mind once we parted company, eventually forgotten him. Now he was lodged in there like a splinter that I couldn’t pry loose.
I heard his father’s voice saying Evil . . . mean and evil ... liked to hurt girls with his fists–and I couldn’t stop wondering if he was and if he still did.
FRIDAY MORNING Martin Quon brought up two sheets of fax paper containing the TRW information on Chehalis. The fax paper put the idea in my head that I ought to buy one of those machines, too, along with the computer equipment Tamara Corbin would be bringing in. They weren’t expensive, according to Martin. And even a technodolt like me could operate one.
There was nothing in Chehalis’s credit history to support or deny my fears about him. He had defaulted on a car loan eighteen years ago and the vehicle had been repossessed, and he’d had some other credit problems at about the same time; he’d been single then. Since his marriage to Sally Cummings seventeen years ago, his financial situation had grown progressively more stable. He paid his bills on time and didn’t run up any large debts. The biggest current balance on any of his four major credit cards was $384.56. His employment record was also stable. He had worked for Med-Equip for twelve years; before that he’d been with another medical supply outfit, Harvard Hospital Supply, in South San Francisco for six years as an “in-office salesman.” Those two jobs seemed to be the only ones he’d held for any length of time.
He still bothered me. And I still wondered.
Melanie Aldrich didn’t return my call. At a quarter to five, on the chance that her machine had malfunctioned, I rang her number again, and again the machine picked up. Away somewhere, I thought, with a friend or on a modeling job. I repeated my earlier message, added Kerry’s home number, and urged Melanie to call any time over the weekend. I had never had a client I craved to be an ex-client more than Melanie Ann Aldrich.
IT WASN’T MUCH of a weekend. Kerry had to work most of Saturday, and on Sunday morning two of her women friends came and hied her off to a concert out at the Concord Pavilion, leaving me at loose ends again. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have minded too much; it was being together next weekend, alone in Cazadero, that really meant something. But I heard nothing from Melanie Ann, and every time I shut my eyes I could see Stephen Chehalis and his big hands and his malevolent glare. The combination made me increasingly restless and irritable.
I could not find anything I cared to do. I watched the 49ers-Saints game for a while. Shut it off at the half and drove down to Union Street and bought myself lunch. Came back to the flat and got my tackle box and trout rod and reel out of the back-porch storage closet. The house in Cazadero was on Austin Creek and the owner, Tom Broadnax, had told Kerry there was a pool nearby where trout could be had. I hadn’t been fishing in a while and seeing Yarnell and Cousins with their lines in the Mokelumne River had given me a twinge of envy. Besides, there is no better gastronomic treat than pan-fried trout.
I fiddled with the equipment for a time, got bored with that, remembered the clutter in the storage closet, and decided to purge it. For the better part of an hour I surrounded myself with piles of the useful, the dubious, and the useless, wondering how I’d managed to accumulate so much crap and what I was going to do with half of it. Then the whole project began to overwhelm me, and I ended up shoving most of the stuff back into the closet, helter-skelter, and slamming the door on it.
Now what?
Now, I thought, you do something about Chehalis before he drives you crazy.
Such as?
Call his wife, go talk to her.
Sure, right. Excuse me, Mrs. Chehalis, but your husband strikes me as a very violent man with a deep-seated hatred of women and I wonder if you’d mind telling me: Has he ever beaten you up? Do you have reason to suspect that he’s beaten and raped other women since you’ve been married to him?
Just talk to her. Subtle questions, feel her out a little. She may know or sense something.
From the way she sounded on the phone the other day? You can’t put any stock in that.
I can if she gives the same impression in person.
She may not be willing to see you.
I’ll call her and find out.
Even if she is willing, even if she does know or suspect something, what can you do about it?
Dig deeper into Chehalis’s life, find out for sure.
Without a legitimate reason, like a client? Harassment.
Not if he’s dirty.
It’s not your job; it’s none of your business.
It is if he’s dirty.
Stay the hell out of it. No crusades. What’s the matter with you?
I don’t like him, I don’t trust him, I think men who prey on women are the scum of the earth and if he’s one of them I have to know it and do what it takes to stop him. And the hell with all the arguments against it—I’ve been building to this for three days now and it’s time to take some action.
I went into the bedroom and called Sally Chehalis.
She sounded surprised and a little upset to hear from me again. She’d spoken to her husband on Friday and he’d told her about meeting with me, that it was a minor matter involving some money he owed and we’d settled it. I expected that, his having lied to protect himself. So to see what kind of reaction I’d get, I said, “That’s odd. Our talk didn’t have anything to do with money,” and then told her I was a private detective.
Sudden fear in her voice when she said, “Detective? But I don’t ... what did you want with him, then, if it wasn’t about money? Has he done something?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, if you’re a detective . . .”
“What do you think he might have done?”
“Nothing. It wasn’t important, was it? Whatever you talked to him about?”
“Important enough.”
“But . . . you did settle it?”
“Possibly. I wonder if you and I could have a talk, Mrs. Chehalis. In person.”
“Why?”
“Would you mind if I came down to see you?”
“I don’t know.... When?”
“Later this afternoon, if you don’t have plans. I can be there in, oh, an hour and a half.”
A long silence. Then, with the fear stronger in her voice: “He has done something.” And this time it wasn’t a question.
“Shall I drive down, Mrs. Chehalis?”
Almost a whisper: “He won’t like it if he finds out.”
“Then we won’t tell him.”
“... All right. Come down.”
“I’ll leave as soon as we hang up,” I said. “How do I get to Eastridge Road?”
LOS GATOS is an affluent community fifteen miles or so west of San Jose, spread along the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was torn up pretty badly by the Loma Prieta earthquake in ’89—not as badly as the town of Santa Cruz, farther south, but a number of its older buildings were destroyed and others damaged. The residents had worked together to rebuild and repair with surprising swiftness, so very little external evidence of the quake’s devastation was visible today. All the scars, like all the painful memories, were private now.
Eastridge Road was low on a hillside north of town, in an area of modest middle-class homes that was not quite a tract development. The “real nice view” Doris Chehalis had alluded to was of neighboring houses, a schoolyard, and a wedge of the overpopulated Santa Clara Valley. The weather down here was better than it had been in the city—clouds and a watery sunlight that seemed to be dying by inches as dusk approached and shadows thickened along the hillside. But over the valley wedge lay a thin yellowish haze, testimony to the rampant industrialization and urban sprawl of the San Jose area. On hot summer days the pollution index here got to be as high as in the L.A. basin.
The Chehalis house was a small ranch job with a schizoid front yard: half wood chips, gravel, and cactus garden, and half lawn. Parked in the driveway was a blue Geo Prizm.
From somewhere behind the house a thin column of smoke drifted lazily into the darkening sky. There was nobody around except for a teenage kid two houses away, washing his car to the loud accompaniment of a rap music tape.
I went up through the schizoid garden; the throbbing percussion of the rap band made it seem as though I were walking on a huge drum. His family and neighbors must love that kid to pieces. I rang the bell, stood waiting and resisting an urge to stick my fingers in my ears. The door stayed shut. I rang again and still Sally Chehalis didn’t respond. Hell, I thought, maybe she can’t hear the bell. The rap beat was like a constant thunder roll out here and mere wood and plaster wouldn’t mute it much.
When a third leaning on the button didn’t bring her, I remembered the smoke rising from behind the house and took myself over to the driveway. The garage was detached and there was a narrow walkway between it and the house; I followed that, emerged into a fenced rear yard. That, too, was an odd split of cactus garden and lawn, with the addition of pyracantha shrubs and yew trees grown thick and high along the fences for privacy. At the far end was an outdoor incinerator. That was where the smoke was coming from, and that was where I found Sally Chehalis.
She was on her knees in front of the open incinerator door —a heavyset, lemon-haired woman in stretch slacks and a cerise blouse. Face flushed a corresponding red as she fed the last of something made of heavy paper to the flames inside. When I got close enough I could see that the heat wasn’t the only reason for the flush. Her eyes were glassy and only half focused; a thin line of spittle like a snail’s track ran from one corner of her mouth down across her chin. I could smell her then too: the aroma of gin came drifting off her like a bad perfume.
In the hour and a half it had taken me to drive down here, she had gotten drunk—falling-down, toilet-hugging drunk.
Chapter Twelve
WHAT THE HELL? I THOUGHT.
My call had shaken her, yes, but at the same time she’d seemed hungry to know why I was poking around in her husband’s life. A drink or two to steady her nerves . . . but not this kind of sudden reaching for oblivion, not before she heard what I had to say. Something else had been the catalyst, something that had jolted her to the marrow. Whatever it was she’d burned in the incinerator?
Hardcase Page 11