Bill Pronzini - Mourners

I couldn’t read the license plate number.

I don’t really know anything.

I didn’t do anything.

I can’t I couldn’t I don’t I didn’t

The other four pages had been written with a black felt-tip pen. Some of it was the same crabbed handwriting as the letter draft, some was in block printing, a few words had been formed in thick, heavy, doodlelike strokes. Done at different times, but in each case during a period of emotional upheaval.

The first: american? japanese?

2 doors 4 doors? dark color but what color? dark blue dark green dark brown? license plate? 2 something U or O or D but that’s all big man but just husky or fat? what kind of cap? baseball racing sun what? don’t know can’t remember couldn’t tell in the dark didnt pay enough attention why not? you coward you know why not

The second: cant cant coward cant coward coward coward

The third: why why why why whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy

WHY

WHY!!!!!

The last: cant stop any of it from happening cant understand it cant get away from it in the midst of life we are in death its all around us everywhere

SO

MUCH

DEATH

Runyon used the small digital camera he carried to photograph each of the five sheets. Then he replaced the pad, closed the carton. There was nothing else to see in the studio; he’d seen enough, more than enough.

He went back out into the cold night.

Christ,” Bill said, “I was afraid of something like that.”

“Better to know than not. For everybody.”

“Except us. Evidence obtained by illegal trespass. We can’t sit on it, and that puts us smack between a rock and a hard place.”

“I’ll take responsibility if it comes to that. You didn’t order me to get the key.”

“I didn’t order you not to, either.”

“How do you want to handle it?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll need to sleep on it, take a look at those digitals, talk to Tamara. One thing for sure: We’re off this case, as of right now.”

Runyon didn’t argue. He put his cell away, started the car. The Troxell surveillance might be finished, but not the Erin Dumont homicide investigation. Not for Risa Niland. And not for him.

Still nobody home at the Johnson number in Morgan Hill.

McRoyd’s Irish Pub was noisy and crowded, standing-room only at the bar, two bartenders on duty and both needed. The older of the barkeeps was Sam Mc-Royd, a bantam of a man in his sixties, white-haired, garrulous-a court-holder who spent as much time arguing and bantering with his customers as he did mixing drinks. It took Runyon ten minutes to claim a stool, another fifteen minutes to get McRoyd’s ear and ask his questions.

“Weighed three hundred pounds, ye say? Wore his hair in one of them ponytails?”

“That’s right.”

“And a uniform?”

“Might have worn one in here, might not.”

“Don’t place him. Not a regular customer. Let me think on it a minute.”

Runyon ordered a draft beer. McRoyd went to draw it, and when he came back he said, “Now I recall the lad. Giants fan. Steroids.”

“Steroids?”

“Didn’t see nothing wrong with players like Barry Bonds using ‘em. Winning was all that mattered to him, never mind fair play. We had a few sharp words about that nonsense, one night.”

“What else can you tell me about him?”

“Drank Guinness. The right way, slow, to savor the taste. Quiet except for his Giants fever and his crap about steroids. Wore a Giants cap. Turned around with the bill in back, like a catcher before he puts on his mask.”

“Every time he was here?”

“Seems like. Never took it off.”

“But no uniform?”

“No uniform,” McRoyd said.

“Did he talk to anybody besides you? Another customer?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Give you any idea where he lived or worked?”

“Baseball, that’s the sum of it.”

Runyon took a little more than that away with him. Giants fan, Giants cap, didn’t wear a uniform after working hours. Not much, but something. big man but just husky or fat? what kind of cap? baseball racing sun what?

And maybe more than just a little something.

In his cold apartment he brewed a cup of tea and then downloaded the five digital photos onto his laptop. They were all good shots, the writing clearly readable in each. He created and saved a file for them, e-mailed the file to Tamara’s computer at the agency.

He carried his cup into the bedroom, sat on the bed and looked at the silver-framed portrait of Colleen on the nightstand. Her smiling image held his attention for a long time, until the tea was gone and his eyes began to ache and his vision to swim a little at the edges. Then he got up, returned to the living room, switched on the TV for noise. Sat staring at the screen without seeing it.

There was a tight strain of anger in him now. Troxell. The world at large. But mainly it was for himself, for letting the loneliness and the grief get to him again and because he still couldn’t get Risa Niland out of his mind.

Lynn Troxell wasn’t alone when I showed up at her home for our late Friday morning appointment. I wouldn’t have minded if her other visitor was Charles Kayabalian. I wanted to talk to him, in fact had tried to arrange a joint meeting with the two of them, but he was tied up and unavailable until later in the day. A one-on-one conference with Mrs. Troxell was the next best choice. I wasn’t prepared for or comfortable with a one-on-two with her and Drew Casement.

The way she looked didn’t help the situation much, either. Dressed in a black pants suit and a dark blue blouse, no color anywhere, her face pale without makeup, her expression bleak and that quality of deep sadness more pronounced. Expecting the worst and put together accordingly. Another mourner.

She greeted me gravely, as a widow might, and ushered me through a formal living room filled with the kind of antique furniture nobody ever sits on, into a large and more comfortable family room with a row of windows overlooking a rear garden. And there was Casement, on his feet and wearing an expression to match hers. At least he didn’t look like he was on his way to a funeral: light blue golf shirt and beige slacks, the picture of health with that tanned skin and rugged manner.

I couldn’t keep a frown off my face when I saw him. He said, “Lynn said it’s okay for me to be here. I’m just as worried about Jim as she is.”

She said, “Please, it’s all right. I want Drew to stay.”

It wasn’t worth arguing about. “Whatever you say, Mrs. Troxell.”

She did the hostess thing, offering coffee or something else to drink, and I declined, and we all got settled in a little half-circle, her on a rose-patterned sofa and Casement and me on chairs. Out in the garden there were pale sunshine and noisy birds working around a pedestal feeder, but in here it was hushed and darker than it should have been despite all the light outside. Too much melancholy on my mind, maybe, but the atmosphere was such that I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear sepulchral music playing soft and low in the background.

Nobody said anything as I opened my briefcase and took out the report Tamara had prepared. She and Runyon and I had held a conference earlier, after I looked at the digital photos he’d taken, and we’d agreed on the only viable course open to us if we wanted to avoid potential repercussions. So the report was a slightly doctored account of our investigation-accurate except for any mention of Runyon’s illegal trespass last night and details on what he’d found in the rental unit. The Erin Dumont case was a focal point, but presented in allusions and inferences couched in general terms-“confidential sources indicate” and “we have good reason to believe.” None of us liked doing it this way, but we liked the prospect of heavy legal expenses and possible license suspensions a hell of a lot less. Sometimes you have to bend the rules a little to get at the truth, and when you do that, sometimes you have to bend them a little more for maintenance reasons. It’s that kind of business; it’s that kind of cover-your-ass world.