Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

“Jack,” she said, “I need you to come pick me up.”

An edge in her voice put him on alert. “Why? What’s the matter with the van?”

“We’ll talk when you get here. I’m at the clinic.”

“On my way.”

Animal Care Clinic was in the narrow part of Los Alegres east of the river that longtime residents called “the DMZ” — a section of older, lower-middle-class homes, small businesses, and light industry that lay between the long-established west side and the newer east-side tracts and malls. It was an old wood-and-brick building, once an irrigation supply company’s office and warehouse, with a customer parking lot on the near side and a tiny lot for employees tucked away behind the kennels at the rear.

When Hollis arrived he found Cassie in the employee lot, in conversation with the bearded driver of a tow truck that was drawn up behind her van. All four of the van’s tires were flat, so that it seemed to be resting on the ground itself; he couldn’t tell from a distance if anything else was wrong with it. There was no room in the lot for the Lexus; he left it outside and walked in with his body bent against the cold wind.

The tow-truck driver was saying, “It’s sugar, all right, Mrs. Hollis. No point in trying to fix the flats here, either. All I can do is tow it in.”

“Yes, thanks. Go ahead.”

She came over to where Hollis waited. He said thinly, “More vandalism.”

“Sugar in the gas tank — the empty sack was lying right there in plain sight. One tire punctured with a sharp object, the other three with the air let out and the valve caps taken away.”

“What about the interior?”

“I always lock the doors, fortunately.” She had one hand in her jacket pocket; she took it out with a sheet of paper in it. “This was under the windshield wiper.”

He did not have to look at it to know what it said. He looked anyway. SUFFER! Printed in capital letters with a black marking pen this time. Sloppy, back-slanted printing, possibly in an attempt to disguise the person’s hand. Nothing about it struck him as familiar.

“Twice in two days,” Cassie said. “It’s so damn childish, as if...”

“As if what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “All I know right now is that I’m scared. Where does it go from here? And how soon?”

Hollis made no reply. He watched the bearded driver begin to work the winch on his truck.

“Nobody saw anything. I asked in the neighboring places after I phoned you. Whoever it is is careful, sly. And lucky.”

“Yeah. Whoever it is.”

“Not Ryan, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Just what I’m thinking.”

“No,” she said. “When I took Kenny to day care this morning I asked him about that Saturday in May, his lunch with Mommy and Daddy. We thought it was just the three of them, but it wasn’t. Rhona was there, too.”

“So what?”

“Ryan went home with her afterward.”

“Kenny told you that? He’s six years old, Cass. You can’t trust a six-year-old’s memory.”

“Let me finish. I called Rhona after I dropped Kenny off. She confirmed it. Ryan spent the rest of that day with her and her family. Had dinner with them, didn’t leave their house until after eight o’clock.”

“And you believed her. How do you know she wasn’t lying?”

“Would her husband lie, her kids? They were there, too. Why would Ryan ask them to lie for him? There isn’t anything to connect him to Rakubian’s death, no reason for him to prepare an alibi for himself.”

He couldn’t argue with the logic of that, and he didn’t try. But he remained unconvinced until after they got home and he talked to Fred Gugliotta on the phone. Pierce had spent the entire day on the ranch, working with Fred and two others baling hay. From 8 A.M. until 4:30 he hadn’t been out of Fred’s sight for more than a few minutes.

Tuesday Morning

Even with the living room closed off, the house had an oppressive feel after Cassie left with one of her co-workers for Animal Care. Yesterday, home alone, he hadn’t been so aware of the aura of violation because he’d had ways to keep his mind occupied; there weren’t enough distractions today to fill the time until his one o’clock appointment with Stan Otaki. Neither Camden Home Security nor Tom Finchley could get started until later in the week, and sitting around doing nothing, waiting for the mail, waiting for something else to happen, would have him climbing the walls. Work was what he needed. Human contact and the illusion of normalcy.

He let Fritz in from the back porch, giving the Doberman free run of the house. The dog was housebroken and well trained; there wouldn’t be any problem unless somebody tried to break in again. Hollis found himself wishing that would happen. That he’d come home later, find Fritz growling over a bloody, chewed-up, half-dead intruder in the front hallway. The image made him smile with his lips flat against his teeth. He’d buy the Doberman a steak a day for the rest of his life if that happened.

He drove to the office at nine-thirty. The morning went well enough except for a call from Pete Dulac about a minor problem with the Chestertons’ master bedroom. Every time he had contact with Dulac or Shelby Chesterton these days, he felt twinges of guilt and shame, and it was worse now that he knew how wrong he’d been about Eric; he stayed on the phone just long enough to provide a solution to the problem and to find out that PAD Construction was still on schedule for completion at the end of September.

Mannix arrived shortly after eleven. Late as usual and in one of his uncommunicative moods. With Gabe there, the illusion of normalcy faded and left Hollis tense, unable to concentrate.

Gabe wore a black sweater and black slacks; hunched over his board he seemed almost predatory, like a giant bird of prey. Ridiculous image, but once lodged in Hollis’s mind it would not go away. He kept glancing over there, watching Mannix consult spec sheets and code books, the quick jerky movements of his hands as he manipulated T-square and pencil. Big hands, strong hands. It’s not Gabe, it’s not Gabe ... like song lyrics beating percussively until they lost all sense or meaning. And still, in spite of himself, his eyes kept shifting, watching, as though they were independent organisms no longer under his control.

After a while Mannix sensed it and swiveled his head, scowling. “What?” he said.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

“My fly open, piece of snot hanging out of my nose?”

Gloria was listening. She said, “Now, that’s disgusting,” and laughed appreciatively.

Hollis said, “I’m twitchy today, that’s all.”

“So am I. You’re not making it any better.”

“Another hangover?”

“King-size. I collect ’em like bottle caps, didn’t you know?”

“Sorry,” he said again.

“Don’t apologize. Just let me suffer in peace.”

Suffer. SUFFER!

Hollis stood and went into his cubicle. Developing a headache now. He opened the blinds, stared out. Downriver, the drawbridge was parted into two upslanted halves; a tall-masted sailboat with its sails furled was gliding in toward the turning basin, its hull and superstructure cream-colored against another overcast sky. Restless, that sky, the clouds being driven inland by high winds. The colors up there were varying shades of gray, with traceries of black like poisonous veins.

Poison, he thought.

An evil time bred that, too, a slow, insidious psychological contamination that changed your outlook, ate away perspective, turned you sick and withered inside. You saw people differently, as if through a dark filter. Everyone seemed to be a potential enemy, or at best a hindrance or an irritant — close friends, even members of your own family. It was happening to him, here and now. He couldn’t be in the same room with his partner and best friend without wondering if maybe, just possibly, despite all the arguments against it, the stalker was Gabe. The same thing had happened with Ryan Pierce. Hating him, condemning him without any real justification. Who would he start suspecting next? Gloria, who didn’t have a mean bone in her body? Pete Dulac? Shelby Chesterton? Eric again? Cassie, for God’s sake?