Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

Took them from her. He must have.

Before he killed her?

Up here alone with her, hit her, knocked her out, put her under the wheel, wedged the accelerator down with the emergency brake on, jerked the brake off so the car would shoot downhill and off the road?

Monstrous … senseless …

Before he murdered her?

Harold Zachary's ranch buildings were old, weathered, in need of paint—a reflection of the difficult times rather than neglect, because the grounds were orderly and the fences in good repair. The woman who answered the door at the house said she was Mrs. Zachary and her husband was probably in the dairy barn. Dix found him there, working from a toolbox on one of the automatic milking machines.

Zachary was a spare man, with a wild shock of ginger-colored hair and sweat glistening in deep creases on his neck. Not unfriendly, and sympathetic enough when Dix introduced himself, but wary at first. “Don't know what I can do for you, Mr. Mallory. The accident happened on my property, but that's a county road out there. Just not my responsibility.”

“I know. That's not why I'm here.”

“Then?”

“I can't help but wonder why my wife was up here that night. As far as I know, she didn't know anybody who lives off Lone Mountain Road.”

“Can't help you there either.”

“There was no one else around that night, no other car, when you reached the scene?”

“Didn't see anybody, no.”

“How soon did you get there after the crash?”

“Few minutes. Not more than ten,” Zachary said. “Knew it was bad as soon as I heard the explosion and saw the flames. Told my wife to call nine-eleven, and lit out in my truck.” His eyes shifted away from Dix's. “Wasn't nothing I could do for her. Wish to God there had been.”

“Thank you. The Herald printed a photo of my wife. Did you see it?”

“I saw it.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“I never knew your wife, Mr. Mallory.”

“No, I mean had you ever seen her before?”

“I see people every time I go into town. Can't remember them all.”

“Not in town,” Dix said, “up here. On Lone Mountain Road.”

“Hard to tell from a newspaper photograph.”

“Does that mean you might have?”

“Might have. Once.”

Dix took Owen's portrait photo of Katy from his wallet. “This is a much better likeness of her,” he said.

Zachary studied it for a few seconds. Returned it without saying anything. His mouth had a pinched whiteness at the corners.

“Mr. Zachary?”

“Couldn't tell much about her car that night, by the time I got there. The fire. Paper said it was a Dodge.”

“That's right. Three-year-old Dart.”

“What color?”

“Burgundy. Dark red.”

“Personalized license plate?”

“KATYDID. Her name was Katy.”

“All right,” Zachary said. He still wasn't meeting Dix's eyes.

“You did see her, didn't you.”

“Once. Just once.”

“When? How long ago?”

“Can't say exactly. Three, four weeks before.”

“Before the accident?”

“Yeah.”

“Driving on Lone Mountain Road?”

“No,” Zachary said. “Parked.”

“Alone? Or with somebody?”

“Alone. Waiting for somebody, she said.”

“You spoke to her, then.”

“Middle of the afternoon, sitting there all by herself. My property. I was on my way to town, so I stopped, asked her what she was doing there.” He paused. “Thought maybe she needed some help.”

No, you didn't. That's not what you thought at all. “And she said she was waiting for somebody.”

“That's right.”

“Did she say who?”

“No.”

“Or why?”

“No.”

“What else did she say?”

“I told her she was on private property and she said she was sorry and she'd leave as soon as her friend showed up. I said all right. Seemed like a nice lady. Polite. None of my business, really.”

“Did you pass anybody on the way down—the person she was meeting?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Where was it she was parked?”

“Right up the road from where the accident happened. Patch of old oaks. Kids sometimes—” He bit off the rest of it, shifted his feet and tried to hide his discomfort by bending and picking up a pair of Channellocks. But Dix knew what he had been about to say.

“I won't take up any more of your time, Mr. Zachary. Thanks for talking to me.”

“Shouldn't have, maybe.”

“No, I appreciate it. I needed to know.”

He started away, and behind him Zachary said, “Mr. Mallory? Don't mean much, I guess, but … I'm sorry.”

Dix nodded and went on without looking back. Hearing Harold Zachary's pity was hard enough; he did not want to see any more of it written on the rancher's face.

He drove straight to the university, to keep his two o'clock appointment with Lawrence Hampton at Guiterrez Hall. He didn't relish the meeting; he wished as he walked across campus from the faculty parking lot that he hadn't agreed to it this morning when Hampton returned his call. But he'd felt that it was important to maintain a tight grip on the normal patterns of his life, and it had seemed best to get the meeting over and done with as quickly as possible.

Hampton was a decent sort but inclined to be pedantic. He lectured his fellow professors as if they were his students; the joke in the department was that there were two ways to teach and interpret U.S. history, the accepted way and the Hampton way. In Lawrence's stuffy office—he considered air-conditioning to be unhealthy—Dix endured an hour-long discourse on Jacksonian democracy and economic sectionalism. Complete with graphs and charts and pages of detailed notes to support the not very original Hampton theories.

On the way out of the building he passed Elliot Messner's office. Elliot wasn't there, which was a relief; he might have wanted to talk, ask if there had been any more phone calls. Dix wasn't up to that. He still regretted opening up to Elliot on Saturday. And after what he'd learned today, the suspicions that were building in him, the only person he could or would confide in now was Cecca—and her only up to a point because he didn't want to panic her. Until he had a better idea of what had happened on the night of August 6, and why, there was not even much point in relaying his suspicions to Lieutenant St. John. Or the highway patrol, or the county sheriffs department. Without some kind of evidence, he had no leverage to convince any of them to reopen an investigation into Katy's death.

He drove straight home from the university. As soon as he walked into the kitchen he was aware of the message light flashing—twice—on the answering machine. The telephone company hadn't been able to get somebody out today; tomorrow morning between eight and noon, they'd told him. He stood watching the red light blink. One of the calls would have been from the tormentor; he had no doubt of that. And the message? Something about Katy's earrings, probably. Words he didn't want to hear.

He ran the tape back to the beginning without listening to either message. And felt better for having won even a tiny victory in this ongoing war of nerves.

NINE

Bright Winds Gallery was on the second floor of the Mill, the riverfront complex that also housed Romeo's. The cavernous building had once been a feed mill, Kraft Bros. Feed & Grain, in the days when Los Alegres was an agricultural and poultry-producing center and goods were regularly shipped downriver by barge to San Francisco. When the town began to lose its agricultural identity in the sixties, the descendants of the Kraft brothers had gone bankrupt. A local developer had bought the old mill in the early seventies and converted it into a unique kind of shopping mall on two levels—boutiques, craft shops, galleries, eating and drinking establishments. To Cecca's surprise, Los Alegresans had taken to it as readily as tourists, mainly because the developer had been smart enough to preserve much of the original interior: exposed piping, pieces of milling equipment, the rough-wood and cement floors. He'd also added other historical artifacts and numerous old photos of the town dating back as far as 1870. With this kind of ambiance, the Mill had soon become the place to go with friends or to take out-of-town visitors.