Bill Pronzini: Nightshades

She said, “A prowler at the O’Daniel house? That’s interesting.”

“Sure. All I need to do now is figure out what he was after and who he is. Any ideas?”

“Me? You’re the detective; I’m just along for the ride. Not too bright, but reasonably attractive and a pretty good lay.”

“Pretty good,” I agreed. “How about me?”

She batted her eyelashes at me. “Oh, baby,” she said, “you’re incredible. I see skyrockets every time.”

Putting me on again. I sat there feeling wounded.

Kerry fell silent too and stayed that way. Brooding about her whacky ex-husband again, I thought. I took another quick swim, and when I came out she was still brooding. I asked her if she wanted to go to the lounge next door for a drink; she said no, she just wanted to sit there for a while, maybe have another swim.

I went to the room alone, and showered, and as I was getting dressed the stone cup caught my eye again. I could see the fossils on it where Treacle had rubbed off the soot the other night. For some reason the thing held my attention. I stopped fumbling with my pants and went over and picked it up.

Those fossils… what was it Treacle had called them? Bryophytes, that was it. Bryophyte fossils, common to this area, etched in different kinds of rock…

Rock, I thought.

Rocks.

Things began to stir inside my head. Then they began to run around, tumbling together like little rocks in a landslide. Things I should have added up before. Things that got me a little excited because maybe, just maybe, they were some of the answers I had been looking for.

I finished dressing in a hurry and hustled out to where Kerry sat by the pool. “I’ve got to go to Musket Creek,” I said.

She squinted up at me. “Again? What for?”

“There’s something I want to check on.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you when I get back.”

“Great,” she said. “Secrets, now. I suppose that means I can’t come along?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. I’ll be back by eight or so.”

“So go,” she said, and shrugged. “I’ll find something to do.”

I went.

It was a quarter to seven when I came down between the cliffs and back into Musket Creek. The sun had dropped behind the wooden slopes to the west; evening shadows lay across the valley, giving it a soft, peaceful look. Even the ghosts along the creek seemed less decayed, less forlorn than they had during yesterday’s thunderstorm. Funny how light and weather conditions changed the atmosphere of the place. I wondered if the people who lived here noticed it too, or if they only saw it one way, in one light.

The car rattled along the road toward the Musket Creek Mercantile. When I got close enough I could see two men standing on the apron near the single gas pump; they were looking in my direction. I could also see that half a dozen cars were parked near the frame cottage in back, among them Paul Robideaux’s jeep. The way it looked, the residents were having some kind of town meeting.

The two men on the apron were both Coleclaws-Jack and his son. Gary must have recognized my car, and the imparted knowledge seemed to flare up an argument between them: Gary pointed, jumping around a little in an excited way, and his father made an angry shooing gesture toward the store. When I was maybe twenty yards away Coleclaw shoved the kid, hard enough to stagger him, and then wheeled around and waved a beckoning arm to me. For some reason he wanted me to swing in there-he wanted to talk.

I hesitated, touching the brake. Then I thought: All right, see what he wants-and I cut the wheel sharply and brought the car around to a stop near where Coleclaw was standing. Gary had gone inside the mercantile, but as I got out I could see him behind the screen, watching.

Coleclaw said, “What’re you doing back here?” But there was no heat in his voice or in his eyes. If anything, he sounded even more worried than he had the last time I’d seen him, outside the sheriffs department.

“I’ve got business here,” I said.

“What kind of business?”

“You know what kind, Mr. Coleclaw. Besides, I don’t like to be threatened. Or didn’t Gary tell you about the little meeting he arranged yesterday?”

“He told me,” Coleclaw said. “Listen, he’s slow, he don’t know what he’s doing sometimes. He didn’t mean anything bad. He wouldn’t hurt anybody, not on purpose.”

“He had a gun,” I said.

“That old Colt? It don’t shoot; firing pin’s rusted and the cylinder won’t revolve.”

“I didn’t know that at the time. And I still don’t like to be threatened.”

“You want me to, I’ll get him out here and have him apologize.. ”

“No, there’s no point in that.”

“You got to understand,” he said, “feelings been running high around here. The fight with those developers, Randall getting killed, now O’Daniel dead too, and county deputies all over the place asking questions… we’re all stirred up.”

“Is that the reason for the summit meeting?”

“The what?”

“It looks like you’re entertaining everybody in town tonight,” I said. “Or do you all get together regularly for coffee and cake?”

“What we do of an evening is our business,” he said. Something had changed in his manner, and not so subtly; he sounded both secretive and defensive now.

“Okay,” I said, “feelings are running high and you’re all stirred up. Why not cooperate with me and with the authorities? Why not get to the bottom of what’s been going on?”

“All we want is to be left alone, mister.”

“Sure. That’s what I’m saying to you. Cooperate, get to the bottom of things, and you’ll be left alone. Northern Development’s just about finished, now that Randall and O’Daniel are dead. Unless somebody with the same ideas buys them out, the plan to develop this area is dead too. It’s in your own best interests to help put an end to all the trouble.”

He shook his head in a stubborn way and didn’t say anything.

In the dusk’s stillness I heard the sound of an approaching car, and when I glanced out at the road I saw a Land Rover coming toward us from down by the fork. Hugh Penrose’s, probably, I thought. And it was: it came rattling in on the other side of the pump, and Penrose hopped out and hurried to where Coleclaw and I stood.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said to Coleclaw. “I was writing and I lost track of the time.” Then he took a good look at me; recognition put a stain of anger on his tragic face. “You!” he said, and the word was a bitter accusation. “You lied to me the other day, you were just trying to get information out of me. You and that woman you were with. ”

“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Penrose,” I said. “I didn’t intend-”

“Liar. Liar!”

Coleclaw said, “Hugh, why don’t you go on inside. Tell the others I’ll be in directly.”

“The meeting hasn’t started, then?”

“No, not yet. You go on. ”

“All right,” Penrose said. He glared at me again with his mean, unhappy little eyes and then stalked off toward the house.

“Anybody in particular you’re here to see tonight?” Coleclaw asked me.

“No. Nobody in particular.”

“They’re all inside, you were right about that.”

“I’m not here to see anybody,” I said.

“Why’d you come then?”

“If you don’t confide in me, Mr. Coleclaw, why should I confide in you?”

We exchanged silent stares for a time in the fading daylight. Then, abruptly, he turned and went off after Penrose and disappeared around the far corner of the mercantile.

I glanced over at the store entrance. Gary Coleclaw wasn’t there anymore behind the screen. Somewhere out back I could hear a dog yapping-the fat brown-and-white one, no doubt. Otherwise I was standing there in silence, in a ruffly little night wind that had sprung up and that raised a few goosebumps on my bare forearms.