Bill Pronzini: The Other Side Of Silence

But all he said was, “We can talk about that later.”

“We’ve talked enough. I have, anyway. You know my story, so now I’m supposed to listen to yours?”

“No.”

“Then we don’t have anything left to talk about.”

“I think maybe we do,” he said, and let it go at that.

FURNACE CREEK RANCH WAS a sprawling tourist oasis that Fallon avoided except when he needed to buy gas and supplies. Eighteen-hole golf course, the world’s lowest at 214 feet below sea level. Two hundred and twenty-four moderately priced rooms and cabins. Restaurants, saloon and cocktail lounge, shops, a Borax museum, swimming pools fed by underground springs, tennis courts, stables, airstrip, RV and trailer parking, service station. Too crowded, too much engine hum.

It was midafternoon when they drove past the lushly landscaped grounds of the Furnace Creek Inn, just down the road from the Ranch. The Inn catered to those who preferred luxury accommodations and meals at a four-star restaurant. He’d stayed there once with Geena, at her insistence. It had everything you could want-everything she could want, anyway. The engine sounds were more muted there, but he could still hear them, and he missed the silences and wide open freedom of the remote sections of the Valley. He’d never been back to the Inn.

Before he delivered Casey to the infirmary on the palm-shaded Ranch grounds, he repeated the lost-by-accident story he was going to tell and warned her not to say anything to contradict him. Her response was a head bob. She seemed to have lapsed back into a brooding lassitude.

“I’ll have to tell it to the park rangers, too,” he said. “They may or may not want to talk to you, now or later. If so, just stick to the story.”

Another head bob.

There were no problems at the infirmary. The woman on the desk asked for Casey’s address and medical insurance card. Casey said she didn’t know where her purse was, and Fallon said it was in the Jeep. He went out, checked her wallet and found a Kaiser card. Her driver’s license had been issued within the past year, so the address on it-716 Avila Court, San Diego-was probably current. He slipped the license out and took it and the insurance card inside, leaving the purse where it was.

From the infirmary he made his report to the ranger on duty and went from there to the Ranch office. Even though the resort throbbed with people, there was usually space available at this time of year. Today was no exception. He used one of his credit cards to secure a cabin for two nights in the name of C. Dunbar.

At the cabin, he brought her luggage and purse inside and laid them on the bed. Neither bag was locked. With the door shut, he went through them. Nothing but cosmetics and personal hygiene stuff in the overnight bag; no drugs other than a prescription vial of Ambien sleeping tablets. The suitcase contained a skirt, a pair of slacks, a couple of light-colored blouses, a thin poplin jacket, underwear. And wadded up inside one of the liner pockets, a pair of torn cotton panties and a third blouse, white, also torn, and spotted with streaks of dried blood.

He closed both cases and checked the purse again. The name and address on the Toyota’s registration was the same as the one on her driver’s license. He put that aside and removed the other items one by one. Wallet. Coin purse. Leatherette business-card case. Cell phone. Lipstick, compact, nail clippers, tissues. The last item was a small, round chunk of plaster of paris with the words “For Mom, Love Kevin” etched into it-the kind of thing grade-school kids make and loving parents cherish. Timmy had made something like it for Geena. And for him, a crude wood-modeled keychain that he still carried in his pocket.

He still had Casey’s license and insurance card; he returned them to the wallet, then opened the leatherette case. A dozen or so glossy business cards, all done in red and black embossed lettering, all the same: Vernon Young Realty, 14150 Las Palomas Avenue, San Diego. Casey Dunbar, Sales Representative.

The cell phone was charged and working; you could almost always get a satellite signal in this part of the Valley. He opened the cell’s address book. Around a dozen entries, listed by first name or initial or type of business or institution such as “School”; most had telephone numbers only. The few addresses were all in San Diego and environs. The final entry was “S. Ulbrich,” with a phone number but no address. He wrote the number down on a sheet of paper from the writing desk.

The wallet next. Other than the one credit card, probably maxed out, and the twelve dollars in cash, there was nothing but the driver’s license, medical card, and snapshots of her son. He looked at the snaps again-six of them, ranging from when Kevin was a baby to his present age. The physical resemblance to Timmy was not that strong, really, and yet the boy’s image brought memories flooding back. Fallon resisted an urge to take Timmy’s photo from his own wallet and compare the two side by side. He closed Casey’s wallet and returned it and the rest of the items to her purse.

All right.

Outside he retrieved his cell phone from his pack, took it back into the cabin. The digital clock on the nightstand gave the time as 4:30. Will Rodriguez should still be at Unidyne. He put in a call, waited through a five-minute hold before Will’s voice said, “Hey, amigo. I thought you were going packing in Death Valley.”

“That’s where I am.”

“Everything okay?”

“More or less. Listen, Will, are you busy right now?”

“No more than usual. Why?”

“I stumbled into a situation here and I need a favor.”

“You got it. What kind of situation?”

“It involves a woman-”

“Ah.”

“No, nothing like that,” Fallon said. “She’s in trouble. I need some information on how bad it is.”

“Felony kind?”

“Yes. But I think it might be fixable.”

“By you?”

“Depends. Maybe.”

“Careful, man. You’re pretty vulnerable right now.”

“So is she.”

“… Okay. What can I do?”

“Make a couple of phone calls, do an Internet check. You still know people in law enforcement, right?”

“Some. I’ve been off the job for years, you know that.”

“This shouldn’t take much effort. The only serious crime involved seems to be parental abduction-not by the woman, by her ex-husband. She apparently had custody of the child.”

“What’s her name?”

“Casey Dunbar. Seven-sixteen Avila Court, San Diego. Ex-husband is Court Spicer, the kid is Kevin Spicer, age eight and a half. Abduction happened four months ago. She hired a San Diego private detective named Sam Ulbrich and he traced Spicer and the boy to Las Vegas. I’m wondering how reputable he is.”

“How do you spell Ulbrich?”

Fallon said, “U-l-b-r-i-c-h,” and read off the phone number he’d found in Casey’s address book. “One more thing. She did something stupid when she ran out of money. Stole some cash from the real estate outfit where she works to pay off a guy in Vegas who claimed to know where Spicer and the boy were living.”

“How much cash?”

“She says two thousand dollars. The company is Vernon Young Realty, 14150 Las Palomas, San Diego.”

“And you want to know if theft charges were filed. And if the amount is more than two thousand.”

“If she’s been straight with me or not. Right.”

Will said, “Pretty late in the day. I may not be able to get back to you until tomorrow morning.”

“That’s soon enough. Call me on my cell. And thanks, Will.”

“Por nada. Just remember what I said about being careful. Don’t get yourself mixed up in something you’ll live to regret.”