Bill Pronzini: Nightshades

Yep, I thought as Kerry came hurrying back into the room, I was right this morning. I sure was right.

Today had been a real humdinger.

Kerry and I spent two more days and nights in Redding before we were allowed to go on our not-so-merry way. And a few more things of minor significance happened while we were there.

Gary Coleclaw hadn’t been taken into custody on Monday night-or rather, Tuesday morning-because he’d left Musket Creek by the time Telford and his deputies got out there; his father and mother had left too. But the three of them didn’t get far. The Coleclaws were sad people who had never got far their entire lives, and never would. A Highway Patrol officer spotted them in a diner in Lake County late Tuesday afternoon and arrested them without incident.

I felt sorry for Gary. He was also a victim; guilty of homicide, yes, but not much more guilty than his father or any of the others in Musket Creek who had preached sermons of hatred and violence. It wasn’t going to go too badly for him, though: a second-degree murder charge and eventual institutionalization in a state hospital.

I felt a little sorry for the rest of Musket Creek, too-people like Penrose and Ella Bloom in particular. Treacle had decided he wanted no more part of a Musket Creek Disneyland, no more part of land development of any kind; he was folding Northern Development, putting the corporation’s holdings up for sale, and “getting the hell out of Northern California.” So the residents of Musket Creek had won their fight-except that it was a hollow victory, tainted, and for some, like the Coleclaws, it was no victory at all. Musket Creek really had died on Monday night. And its spirit had burned up along with the shades of Ragged-Ass Gulch. Some of the people would move away now; the ones that didn’t would isolate themselves even more than they had in the past, live out their unhappy lives in solitude. No, nobody had won the big fight. In one way or another, everyone concerned was a loser.

And because that was the case, I didn’t say much to the authorities about my fear of mob violence that night. Even if I was sure my perception of the situation had been right-and I wasn’t, not by any means-it was over now, it was something that had happened, something else that might have happened, it just didn’t matter any longer. I did not hate any of those people; I only felt sorry for them.

The one person I didn’t feel sorry for, aside from Kerry, was Shirley Irwin. She hadn’t confessed-she wasn’t saying anything on advice of her public defender-but she was guilty, all right. Her murderous attack on Kerry, the money Kerry had found in O‘Daniel’s briefcase, Tom Decker’s sworn statement linking her with O’Daniel and establishing her familiarity with his houseboat-these all proved it, at least to my satisfaction. So did a careful audit of the company books, which revealed her complicity in the embezzlement. So did the anonymous threatening note, because the authorities had matched the paper it was written on to a pad found in Irwin’s house. So did the fact that she could not satisfactorily account for her whereabouts for several hours prior to the explosion, even though she’d arranged an alibi for the exact time the boat blew up. And so did a fingerprint of Irwin’s that had been lifted off the back door of the O’Daniel house, a fingerprint that had to have been put there, because of its location, by the person who’d broken in on Sunday night.

Once Kerry and I were allowed to leave, we went straight back to San Francisco. No vacation. We’d both had our fill of Trinity County for a while, and I wasn’t in any physical shape to lie around in the sun, or sit around in it fishing. Plus I had lost my enthusiasm for boats.

Things were a little strained between us for a few days, on my part anyhow; I nursed my annoyance at her longer than I should have because of my wounded pride. For her part, she was chipper as hell. No more brooding about her whack of an ex-husband-or at least none that got taken out on me. She went around smiling a lot, looking pleased with herself. Very pleased with herself.

“You know,” she said to me once, “maybe I’ll do some more detective work one of these days. Now that I’m no longer a virgin, so to speak.”

“Not much chance of that. ”

“Why not? You’ve got to admit I’m not bad at it.”

“You got lucky, that’s all. ”

“Hah,” she said. “Lucky. Well, maybe I’ll get ‘lucky’ again on another case.”

“What other case?”

“One of yours. In the future.”

Like hell she will.

So it was over and everything was back to normal, more or less. Kerry was happy. Barney Rivera and his bosses at Great Western Insurance were happy, or happier than they would have been if they’d had to fork over $400,000 instead of $200,000 to Martin Treacle. Eberhardt was happy; he’d found his missing rich-girl up in the Napa Valley and talked her into coming home. I was happy too, I suppose. I had Great Western’s check, and Kerry, and most of my hide intact; my wounds were healing and I wouldn’t have any scars.

But there was one thing that kept itching at my mind at odd moments, troubling my sleep. Had I been right about the aura of mob violence in Musket Creek that night? Or had it been my imagination, a product of the darkness and the fire and the brush I’d had with death? Would they have assaulted me, maybe killed me, if Treacle and Ragsdale hadn’t shown up when they did?

Those were questions that would trouble my sleep for a long time, because there was no way now I would ever know the answers.