Bill Pronzini: The Other Side Of Silence

Two days later he’d surprised her with a phone call. She hadn’t given him her home number; he’d gotten it some other way. The persistent type. She was lonely enough to agree then to have drinks with him.

That casual date led to others. He didn’t try to talk her into sleeping with him. Kept it low-key. He could be charming, she said. Amusing, fun to be with. He took her to good restaurants, shows, jazz clubs, and improv sessions where he sat in from time to time-a whole new world for her.

She’d been seeing him off and on for three months when he proposed. She said no, but she kept on dating him, and he kept on asking her, and one night, after too much to drink, she let him take her to bed. The next morning he asked her again and she said yes. They were married in City Hall two weeks later.

“It wasn’t a bad marriage at first,” she said. “He could be moody sometimes, but mostly he was sweet to me. But that all changed when I made a mistake with my birth-control pills and got pregnant.”

“How’d he take the news?”

“He just… blew up. He didn’t want kids, not right away. He was so furious, I thought he was going to hit me. That was the first time I saw the other side of him… the first time I was afraid of him.”

Spicer wanted her to have an abortion. She refused. They fought about it and when she wouldn’t give in, the marriage turned rocky. He joined a trio that played road gigs, keeping him away from home for several weeks at a time. When he came back to San Diego, he spent little time at home with her. He was gone somewhere the night her water broke. She had to call for an EMS ambulance to take her to the hospital.

She’d come close to divorcing him at that point. But when he finally showed up at the hospital he’d been apologetic and full of promises; fawned over his new son. So she’d stayed with him, more for Kevin’s sake than her own.

For six years Spicer more or less lived up to his role as husband, father, and family provider. He worked steadily, mostly in the San Diego area, though the money he made combined with her modest income was barely enough to pay the bills. When Kevin was six months old, Casey had found a woman to take care of him during the day for a reasonable fee and gone back to work for Vernon Young Realty, the sales rep job she’d had when she met Spicer. It was the only way, she said, that they could make ends meet.

What finally sent the marriage skidding downhill was Spicer’s professional failures and frustrations. Better gigs eluded him; every tryout with a topflight band failed. And no one in the profession liked the elaborate piano compositions and band arrangements he wrote. He grew more and more moody and depressed. Lost his temper at the slightest provocation, threw screaming fits. Accused Casey of having affairs with neighbors, coworkers, strangers. Began drinking heavily, staying away from home for days at a time without explanation. Lost or quit one job after another.

Then, three years ago, things had gotten better for a time. Spicer’s whole attitude changed after his return from a road trip, became upbeat, cheerful. Their financial troubles were over, he told her, and proved it by paying off some of their debts and buying her and the boy presents. He claimed to have found a new, well-paying gig at the Beach Club in La Jolla, to have sold one of his jazz compositions to a large recording company. But he wouldn’t let her go with him to La Jolla to hear him play, and he was evasive when she asked who’d bought the composition.

She grew suspicious enough to drive to La Jolla alone one night. He wasn’t at the Beach Club; the management had never heard of him. In their apartment she went through his desk looking for, and not finding, a copy of the recording company contract he claimed to have signed. She confronted him the next day. He flew into a rage, refusing to explain why he’d lied to her or where the extra money was coming from. Warned her not to meddle in his private business.

“You don’t have any idea how much he had or was getting?” Fallon asked.

“No, but it had to be a lot from the way he was spending at first. Thousands.”

“More coming in over a period of time?”

“Yes. I think so.”

Spicer’s mystery income wasn’t enough to keep him happy. Not long after the confrontation he underwent another change, back to his Hyde persona with a vengeance. Long absences, verbal abuse when he was home, more heavy drinking, and the bar fight that led to his arrest for aggravated assault. Finally she’d had enough. Told him she wanted a divorce. He shoved her, threw her down on the couch-the closest he’d come to physical violence. Accused her of leaving him for another man. Threatened to “make her pay” if she went through with the divorce.

“That was the last straw,” she said. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. I hired a lawyer and took Kevin and moved out. He found out the new address and kept calling up at all hours, drunk or stoned and yelling obscenities. Then he got his own lawyer and sued for custody. Spite and hate, that’s all it was. He doesn’t give a damn about Kevin.

“I had no trouble getting the divorce, but the custody trial dragged on and on. Court put on a good show, the loving, misunderstood father, all that crap. The judge saw through it and gave me full custody.”

“What was Spicer’s reaction?”

“None at first. He didn’t make a scene or bother me afterward. But he had visitation rights, one weekend a month-there wasn’t anything I could do about that. The first few weekends, he brought Kevin home when he was supposed to. Then the last time he didn’t. He’d packed up and left, without a word to the landlord or anybody else. The police found his car later, abandoned, in El Cajon. If he bought another one, he must have done it under a different name.”

“Or had someone buy it for him,” Fallon said. “What about his friends?”

“He didn’t have any, at least none that I knew about. Just casual acquaintances, almost all of them musicians.” She paused and then said, “Eddie Sparrow.”

“Who’s he?”

“A trumpet player Court worked with once. That’s how Sam Ulbrich managed to trace Court to Las Vegas-Eddie Sparrow.”

Ulbrich had found out that Sparrow was playing with a jazz band at a club off the Vegas Strip, and gone there to interview him. Sparrow told him he’d run into Spicer at a private jam session the weekend before last, but hadn’t talked to him and didn’t know where he was living.

Fallon asked, “The club where Sparrow’s working-what’s it called?”

It took her a little time, but she dredged the name out of her memory. The Hot Licks Club.

“All right. Can you think of anyone Spicer might know in Vegas besides Eddie Sparrow?”

“No.”

“Did he ever take you to Vegas?”

“No.”

“Go there by himself?”

“The trio he was with had a four-week gig there once.”

“When was that?”

“A few years ago.” She paused. “You know, it was right before he came into all that extra money.”

“So the money may have come from some source in Vegas. Did he go back there after that?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did Ulbrich check with the musicians’ union to find out if Spicer’s working there now?”

“Yes. Court’s union card is still valid, but they wouldn’t give out any information about him.”

Fallon said, “Okay. Now tell me about Kevin.”

“Tell you what? Except for his asthma, he’s just a normal boy.”

“How bad is the asthma? Does he need to see a specialist?”

“No. Any doctor can prescribe his medication.”

“How do you think he reacted to being taken by his father?”

“Scared and bewildered. How else?”