Bill Pronzini: Zigzag

I was home that third day, a Friday. One of my nonworking, free to enjoy my semiretirement days. Right. What I was doing when Tamara called was replacing a defective P trap on the kitchen sink. Down on the floor on my already-aching back, wrench in hand and face speckled with scummy drip as I dismantled the old trap and replaced it, Shameless the cat rubbing around me and purring as if he thought I was playing a game for his amusement. I had just finished tightening the upper ring seal on the new trap when my cell phone went off. I would not have answered it if the thing hadn’t been in my shirt pocket and I wasn’t ready for a break to ease the stiffness in my back.

“Sorry to bother you,” Tamara said, “but I figured you’d want to know.”

“Know what?”

“You busy? You sound busy.”

“I was, but I’m almost done. Know what?”

“A woman came in a few minutes ago asking for you. I told her it was your day off and you’d be in the office on Monday, but she doesn’t want to wait that long. Practically begged me to call you. She’s waiting out in the anteroom now.”

“What does she want?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. Has to be you.”

“Why? Who is she?”

“Doreen Fentress. Ray Fentress’ widow.”

Doreen Fentress was one of the saddest-looking women I’d ever seen. It was not just the obvious grief she was suffering; it was a deeply ingrained melancholy, a defining part of her like something in her DNA. She was a too-thin dishwater blonde about the same age as her late husband, or maybe a few years older. It was difficult to be sure because of the lines in a narrow face that gave the impression of drooping, as if it were pale-colored wax instead of flesh that formed her features. One long look at her and another into liquidy brown eyes like those of an abandoned puppy and I was pretty sure of two things: I was not going to like what she wanted of me, yet I might be disposed to accommodate her anyway if I could.

She didn’t seem to mind the fact that it had taken me more than an hour to get cleaned up and drive down to South Park from Diamond Heights. She hadn’t had an easy life, that was plain, but one thing it had taught her was something I lacked: patience. All she said when I walked into the agency and Tamara came out and introduced us was, “Thank you for seeing me. I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.” Diffident and deferential, too. Oh, yeah, she had me hooked already.

We went into my office. She walked stiffly, as if her feet or maybe her back hurt. The connecting door to Tamara’s office was closed, but my partner is an inquisitive and sometimes rash young woman; I would not be surprised to find out later that she had an eavesdropping ear to the panel on her side.

I said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Fentress,” when she and I were seated. The words had a hollow, awkward ring, as they always do when you say them to a stranger.

“Thank you. It was... a terrible shock. Ray was only home a week. Seven days, that was all we had after eighteen months apart. You know he was in prison?”

“Yes.”

“For a foolish crime he committed while he was drunk, God knows why. There’s no doubt he was guilty of that. But what happened up north, what they claim he did there... no. No.”

I didn’t say anything. Family members often staunchly believe their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, are innocent, no matter how serious the crimes or how much evidence there might be to the contrary.

“He didn’t do it,” she said again. “He didn’t kill that man Mears. Or shoot that poor dog, either. He loved dogs... we have one of our own.”

“The crime scene evidence says otherwise.”

Vehement headshake: disbelief, denial. “It’s wrong, that’s all; it couldn’t have happened the way it looked. Ray never owned a handgun. A hunting rifle, yes, he used to go deer hunting sometimes, but not a handgun. He wouldn’t have one in the house.”

Maybe that was because he’d never had need of one before. I could have said as much. I could also have told her how easily almost anybody, and particularly a man who’d just been released from prison, could buy a Saturday night special on the streets on short notice. Or reminded her of the fact that the forensic tests proved he’d fired the one found in his hand. But none of that would have swayed her, so I said nothing at all.

She said, “Whatever Ray’s reason for going to see Floyd Mears, he didn’t bring a gun with him and it couldn’t have had anything to do with marijuana. Please believe me.”

I said carefully, “Mrs. Fentress, it makes no difference whether I believe you or not. It’s strictly a police matter—”

“He had asthma,” she said.

“... How’s that again?”

“Ray. He had severe asthma. He didn’t smoke; he couldn’t stand to be in a room with anyone who did.”

“Well... some asthmatics claim that marijuana doesn’t affect—”

“Ray wasn’t one of them.”

“You do know the investigating officers found a Baggie of it in his coat pocket? Three hundred dollars’ worth.”

“Somebody put it there, the same person who put the gun in his hand.” When I made no comment, she said, “You think he might have picked up the habit in prison,” which was exactly what I was thinking. Cons in lockups like Mule Creek have more ways than you might think of obtaining drugs. “But you’re wrong. He never smoked a joint in his life — he couldn’t, I tell you. His asthma was so bad he had to carry an extrapowerful prescription inhaler to prevent severe attacks. That’s one of the reasons, the main one, we were planning to move.”

“Move?”

“To Arizona or New Mexico, we hadn’t decided which. Someplace where the air is dry. Someplace where nobody knew he’d been in prison.”

“When were you planning to leave?”

“At the end of the next week. I’ve already given notice at the store in Stonestown where I work.” Her mouth bent downward at the corners, making the facial droop seem even more pronounced. “Now... If they don’t hire me back I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“How were you going to finance the move?”

“Finance it? Oh... I managed to save some money while Ray was... away. Not a lot, but enough for a new start. And Ray said he might be able to get a loan to help us out.”

“Oh? From whom?”

“A friend. Joe Buckner.”

“How large a loan?”

“He didn’t say, but it couldn’t have been very much. Joe isn’t well-off; he works as a bartender.”

“Did Buckner agree to the loan?”

“I don’t know if Ray had asked him yet.”

I let a few seconds slide away before I said, “Do you know if your husband was acquainted with Floyd Mears?”

“He never mentioned the name to me. Or said anything about the Russian River — it’s not a place we ever went to.”

“Yet he went to see Mears that night.”

“I can’t imagine why. I wish to God I knew.”

“Where did he tell you he was going?”

“He didn’t. All he said was that he had some business to attend to and he might be back late.”

“How did he seem when he left?”

“Seem?”

“His mood, his frame of mind.”

She chewed at her underlip. “A little... I don’t know, a little nervous. But he was that way from the time he came home.”

“I have to say this, Mrs. Fentress. It’s possible your husband had no intention of asking his friend Buckner for a loan. There’s another way he could have gotten money to help finance your move, another explanation for why he went to see Mears.”

“What do you mean?”

“Marijuana is a highly salable commodity, as I’m sure you know.”