Bill Pronzini: Mourners

Arlene Burke wasn’t on the checkout desk or the floor in the housewares department. One of the other clerks said she was working in the stockroom and went to fetch her. She had the photograph in her hand when she came out. She gave Runyon a wan smile, said, “We can talk back there,” and led him to a corner near the stockroom door. The whole time she held her body turned a quarter to the left, to keep the right side of her face out of his line of vision. But he’d already seen the bruise along the cheekbone that a heavy application of makeup hadn’t quite covered. He didn’t say anything about it. She had enough hurt in her life as it was.

The photograph was a five-by-seven candid color shot taken at some sort of small dinner party by someone without much camera skill. It was more or less in focus, but off-center so that Sean Ostrow’s right arm was missing from the frame. The rest of him was there from the waist up. Over six feet tall and suety fat-three discernible chins, bulging belly that seemed to start under his collarbone and showed beneath the hem of a tentlike blue T-shirt. Sandy hair pulled back tight on his massive skull, part of the ponytail visible behind one shoulder. Irritated frown on the thick-lipped mouth, as if he hadn’t wanted his picture taken. Pretty much the image Runyon had expected to see, but that wasn’t why Ostrow seemed vaguely familiar.

“You said this is a good likeness of your brother, Mrs. Burke?”

“As he looked back then,” she said. “That was taken, oh, it must be four years ago.”

“He’s changed since?”

“Lord, yes. I almost didn’t recognize him when he moved down from Sacramento.”

“Why is that?”

“I’d never seen him that thin before.”

“Thin? You mean he’d lost weight?”

“You didn’t know about that? I thought you did, or I’d’ve said something on Saturday.”

His fault, dammit. He hadn’t asked the right questions. “How much weight did he lose?”

“Sixty pounds by then.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“He said he was sick and tired of being fat. I thought he looked good at about two-fifty, but he wasn’t satisfied.”

“Kept on losing?”

“Oh, yes. It was like he was obsessed with being thin. Or on a mission to change his life. He hardly ate anything, twelve hundred calories a day, never any more. He always hated exercise before, but he’d started jogging and joined a gym and worked out regularly. He kept on the same program while he was here.”

“How much weight had he lost the last time you saw him?”

“Close to a hundred pounds. Isn’t that amazing? No more ponytail, either-his hair cut short and styled real nice. He looked wonderful, like one of the people on that TV show, Extreme Makeover. A new man, you know? I was so proud of him.”

A hundred pounds. A new man. Runyon looked at the photograph again, worked on it with his imagination until he had a clear image of the man as he must look now-leaned down, the sandy hair cut short and restyled. Then he knew why the image was familiar.

The young guy Risa Niland had been talking to in front of her apartment building Saturday afternoon was Sean Ostrow.

On his way to the parking garage, he called the Get Fit Health Club. Risa wasn’t there; the man who answered said she’d left early, around four o’clock, he didn’t know why. Runyon tried her home number. She wasn’t there either; her machine picked up. He left a terse message asking her to call him as soon as she got in.

Sean Ostrow was the perp, all right. No doubt about it now. Obsessed with being thin, on a mission to change his life-that was why he’d quit SunGold and left San Francisco two years ago. Starting over, making himself into a new man. Motivated by an even greater obsession: Erin Dumont. Took two years before he was satisfied with the change, and then he’d moved back to the city and presented the new Sean Ostrow to Erin Dumont. And she’d rejected him again. Two years, all the sacrifice-for nothing. Rage and hatred consumed love and worship, and that was why Erin Dumont had been slugged, strangled, and raped.

What wasn’t clear was why now, two months later, he was hanging around Erin’s sister. The way he and Risa had been on Saturday-not like strangers meeting for the first time. How long had she known him? What was their relationship? What was brewing inside his head this time?

Runyon got the car out of the garage and onto the freeway headed south before he called the agency. He told Tamara about Ostrow’s weight loss, and the fact that Ostrow had made contact with Risa Niland. She didn’t waste any time with questions or speculations; she said, “You were right about him-he’s the perp,” and let it go at that. “Right about the Giants baseball angle, too. I talked to the vice president of guest services, man does the hiring at S.F. Baseball Associates. Ostrow was an usher at SBC Park.”

“Was?”

“Hired in late March, fired in mid-April.”

“Why was he fired?”

“He only worked one game, opening day. Called in sick the second day, didn’t show up or call in the next two games.”

“Mid-April,” Runyon said. “Just a couple of weeks after the murder.”

“Too sick over what he did to care about his dream job anymore.”

“Fits along with the rest of it. You get his new address?”

“Not yet. Against SFBA policy to give out personal information.”

“Yeah.”

“But I think I’ve got a line on it. Felicia at SFPD. That’s why I didn’t call you. Waiting for her to get back to me.”

“Today?”

“She said maybe. Let you know as soon as I hear from her.”

Tamara called back forty minutes later, as he was climbing Waldo Grade to the tunnel above the bridge. “Got it,” she said. “Eleven ninety-seven Twenty-seventh Avenue.”

That was only a few blocks from where Risa lived, where Erin had lived. Ostrow had found a place as close to his obsession as he could get.

“Okay. Thanks, Tamara.”

“What’re you planning to do?”

“Find Risa Niland and warn her. Talk to Ostrow as soon as I can find him.”

“Jake… go easy. You know what I’m saying?”

“I won’t cross any lines if I can help it.”

RIST NILAND

He was waiting for her when she got home.

Street parking in the neighborhood was always a problem, after four p.m. especially. Tonight she had to drive around for ten minutes until she found a space, way over on Balboa, and walk back uphill lugging the three heavy plastic grocery sacks. She was beginning to hate this city. So wonderful when she first moved here all dewy-eyed from Green Bay-magical, as she’d said to Jake Runyon. Now, after seven years, the allure had worn off; now it seemed dirty, chaotic, inconvenient, cold, dangerous, ugly. And yet, as often as she’d vowed to leave if and when Erin’s murderer was caught, move back to Green Bay or Milwaukee, start a new life there, she wondered if she could actually go through with it. Despite what had happened to Erin, despite the ugliness and the hatred she was feeling, San Francisco was home, California was home. Her job was here, most of her friends were here, Jerry was here… no, the hell with Jerry, he didn’t fit into the equation anymore. Did he? Oh, God, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. Yes, she did-she wanted things back the way they were, Erin alive, the good times with Jerry, life to be uncomplicated again. She wanted to be naive and carefree, to live in a never-never land of magic and make-believe.

She sighed heavily as she reached her building. Another bad day, compounded by a mild hangover, and another bad night coming up. In the foyer she set the sacks down, fumbled in her purse for her key.