Bill Pronzini: The Other Side Of Silence

The Youngs had been lucky: the section of Wildwood Road where they lived had escaped devastation. No scars, no new construction visible in the immediate area. The homes and outbuildings all stood on large parcels, built onto the hillsides and atop canyon walls, with stilt-supported decks overlooking the agricultural preserve spread across the valley floor below. Million-dollar properties, minimum. Vernon Young had done all right for himself in the real-estate business.

Fallon’s timing couldn’t have been better. His watch showed a few minutes past three when the Jeep’s GPS guided him to a stop in front of 12559 Wildwood-a redwood-and-glass structure that was all juts and odd angles, as if the architect who’d designed it had been drunk or stoned. The car that had been following him for the last mile or so, a silver-gray BMW, rolled past and turned into the Youngs’ driveway. He moved fast enough to intercept the woman who emerged before she could cover the distance between her car and the front door.

“Mrs. Young?”

She stopped and turned, shading her eyes against the lowering sun. “Lucia Tibbets. Yes?”

“You are Vernon Young’s wife?”

“I prefer to use my maiden name. What is it you want?”

“Your husband. I’m trying to locate him.”

“Yes?”

“Regarding a valuable property in Escondido. The people at his office said he hasn’t been in all week.”

“And they sent you here?”

“No. My idea. I thought you’d know where I can reach him.”

“Well, you were wrong. I haven’t seen or talked to my husband since Sunday night.”

She started toward the house. Again Fallon moved quickly to block her way. Her body stiffened; irritation showed in eyes that were a peculiar pale gray, almost white in the sun. He took her to be in her late forties, with dyed chocolate-brown hair and the too-smooth features of women who have been repeatedly nipped and tucked and Botoxed. There was a brittleness about her, a brittleness in her voice, that gave him the feeling she kept herself tightly wrapped.

“I really do need to talk to Mr. Young right away,” he said. “It could mean a substantial commission-”

“I have nothing to do with my husband’s business dealings.” Her tone said the choice was his, not hers.

“If you could just give me some idea of where he might be…”

One shoulder lifted in a faint shrug. “He comes and goes when and where he pleases. As do I.”

So it was that kind of marriage. Fallon wondered if she knew Young had a mistress. Probably. Knew it and didn’t care much, if at all, just so long as he paid the bills.

“Please, Mrs. Tibbets. There must be-”

“Ms. I don’t like the word missus.”

“There must be some place he goes when he wants to get away by himself.”

“My husband doesn’t go anywhere by himself.”

“For privacy, then. Do you have a second home?”

“Oh yes, we have a second home,” she said, and the words came out sounding bitter. “That ranch of his.”

“Ranch?”

“He bought it fifteen years ago.” Over her objection, her tone implied. Sore subject with her. She was the type who’d prefer a beach cottage or mountain hideaway to a ranch. “He worked on one when he was a boy, as if that’s sufficient reason for buying one. At least it pays for itself. He had the good sense to lease the date groves.”

“You said… date groves?”

“That’s right. Dates. The nasty sweet fruit.”

“Where is this ranch?”

“In the desert, of course. Near Indio.”

Indio. The snapshot in Casey’s stash: “V. and me, Indio, 7/03.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d let me have the address.”

“I don’t remember the address. I haven’t been there in a dozen years. When I go to the desert, I go to Palm Springs.”

“Could you look it up for me?”

“No, I don’t think so. When he goes there, he doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

“Not even for a real estate deal that involves a lot of money?”

“Not for any reason. Why don’t you talk to someone in his office? All of his people are perfectly competent.”

“I’d rather deal directly with-”

He broke off because he was talking to her back. She was already on her way to the house in long, stiff strides, her hips barely moving inside her white dress as if they, too, had been tightly nipped and tucked.

She must really hate him, he thought. The kind of hate that happens in some marriages when people stay together for the wrong reasons. The kind of hate he was glad Geena had never come to feel for him, or he for her.

The nearest Internet café was in a shopping center a few miles away. It might have been quicker to call Will Rodriguez and ask him to run a property search, but Fallon had bothered him enough as it was. It wouldn’t take him too long to do the job himself. Property searches are simple enough because the information is readily available, no fees required.

Indio was in Riverside County, in the desert twenty-some miles east of Palm Springs, but it seemed likely the tax bills for Young’s date ranch would be sent to his primary address. So Fallon did a search of the San Diego County property records, typing Young’s name and the Wildwood Road address into the rented computer.

Right. The ranch’s address was 5900 San Ignacio Road, Indio.

THE DISTANCE FROM San Diego to Indio was better than a hundred and sixty miles, a straight-through drive that should have taken no more than two and a half hours. It took Fallon three because he got hung up, as he had coming in, in the damn stop-and-go commute traffic. He was wired up tight, gritty-eyed and functioning on adrenaline and a simmering anger, by the time the Jeep’s GPS took him onto San Ignacio Road.

It was some miles outside of town, in the part of the Coachella Valley that was still primarily agricultural. Indio had once been surrounded by date-palm groves that produced a large percentage of the country’s date crop, but residential and recreational development had gobbled up all but sections on the south and southeast. More desert land forever lost. One day, sure as hell, there wouldn’t be any more of the Old World agricultural staple that had once been the region’s lifeblood. Just as there weren’t any more orange groves in the San Fernando Valley.

Now, though, geometrical rows of date palms still dominated sections of the sandy desert soil, their crowns swaying in a warm evening breeze. He passed several small ranches, then a Spanish adobe ranch store that looked as if it might be a century old, its illuminated sign claiming it was the home of the finest Medjool dates in the Coachella Valley. Darkness had settled when he reached the access lane marked with the number 5900.

The lane was paved, wide near the entrance, then narrowing somewhat as it led in among the close-packed palms. A shallow drainage culvert ran along the left-hand side. Once Fallon made the turn, he could make out a whitish glow beyond where the lane jogged to the left. Lights from the ranch buildings, he thought. But the guess was wrong.

When he cleared the jog, he was looking at a pair of headlights ahead on his left, a high-beam glare that illuminated the trees in the rows nearest the lane.

Automatically he slowed, eased over to the right. But the other car wasn’t moving; it had been drawn up at the edge of the lane where the culvert was. And somebody was in the grove over there-somebody using a not-verypowerful flashlight in erratic, bobbing sweeps that created weird light-and-shadow effects among the tall, straight palm trunks.

The sidespill from the Jeep’s headlamps picked out movement in the grove to Fallon’s right-just a brief, sliding-past impression of a darting shape. A few seconds later, as he neared the parked car, he could see that its right front wheel was on the edge of the culvert, that the driver’s door stood wide open.