Bill Pronzini: The Stalker

He stood there, motionless, and after a long moment thick, liquid, tremulous words came out of his throat: “How... how did it happen? God, how . . . ?”

“We have no way of being certain,” Fazackerly said quietly. “It’s been storming heavily up here for the past couple of days. There’s the possibility that she was walking along the bank for some reason, and an undermined section gave way and toppled her into the slough. That water can be treacherous at this time of year, as you surely know. Was your wife a good swimmer?”

“She couldn’t swim at all,” he said numbly. “How—long has she...?”

“It appears as if she was in the water about twelve hours, Mr. Kilduff.”

“Twelve hours.”

“I’m sorry to have to break such tragic news over the telephone,” Fazackerly said. His voice was sympathetic. “But we’re understaffed here and we couldn’t send a man down personally. I hope you understand.”

“... yes...”

“We haven’t moved the—remains as yet; we’d like a positive identification first. Will you be able to come to Duckblind Slough right away?”

“Yes, within an hour . . . within an hour . . . ”

He broke the connection. He put his thumb on the button and held it down, the receiver still clasped tightly in his left hand. He was trembling now, and his face was flushed and sheened with tiny globules of sweat, and there was ice on his back and under his arms and between his legs.

Andrea was dead.

Andrea was dead!

He dropped the receiver suddenly and turned and ran into the kitchen. He stopped by the table, putting his hands flat on the Formica top. He looked wildly about him. The walls began to move—he could see them moving—pale white vertical planes reaching for him, going to crush him, and he choked off the scream that spiraled into his throat, and turned again and ran into the living room. He fumbled at the pull-catches on the sliding glass window-doors, breaking a fingernail, and then he had them open. He ran out onto the balcony and stood there with his palms braced against the slippery wet iron railing.

Andrea was dead.

He opened his mouth and sucked ravenously the cold wet air, his chest heaving as if it were a blacksmith’s bellows. The shock of it entering his lungs eased the pressure that had been forming within his skull, and he straightened up, pivoting, looking back into the apartment. He felt the rain then, and the frigidity of the morning, and he stepped forward into the warmth of the living room again, shutting the window-doors behind him. Duckblind Slough, he thought, and he went on enervated legs into the bedroom and opened the paneled door on his half of the walk-in closet and took out his heavy wool topcoat. He laid it over his arm, walking back into the living room now, walking swiftly, and he went to the front door and threw it open.

The woman standing in the hallway outside said “Oh!” in a small, startled voice, and took a step backward.

Kilduff said, “Christ!” He tried to move around her.

But the woman had recovered now, and she came forward again, blocking him. She was tall and angular, middle-aged, with short, layered reddish-brown hair. She held her hands as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, elbows in close to her sides, palms turned upward, fingers spread and somewhat overlapping. She wore a multicolored silk muumuu and an old gray sweater around her shoulders.

He said, “Mrs. Yarborough, for God’s sake!”

“I have to talk to you, Mr. Kilduff,” she said rapidly, as if she wanted to get those words out—and the ones which were to follow—before she forgot them. “I really do, it won’t take very long, now you know , Mr. Kilduff, that I’m not a woman to pry into the affairs of my neighbors but I really do like you and Andrea, she and I have become very close friends you know, of course when I didn’t see her these past few days I thought perhaps she was visiting her sister, I had no idea you were separated , I really didn’t, until...”

Not now, not now! Oh goddamn it, why did she have to come around now ? He wanted to tell her to shut up, shut up, he wanted to tell her Andrea was dead: “Do you hear me, Andrea-is-dead!” But all he could say was her name, Mrs. Yarborough, and that was ineffective against the rushing, breathless flow of words.

“... until she called me last night to ask if you had moved away because she’d tried to call you and you weren’t home and she was naturally upset, of course I told her no you hadn’t moved away, at least not that I knew about and you would surely tell me if you had since I’m the building manager, but you can’t imagine how surprised I was to hear from the poor thing like that, oh she sounds so miserable, Mr. Kilduff, she really does, that’s the reason I came up here this morning, now you understand I’m not a woman to pry into the affairs of my neighbors but I thought perhaps if you were to drive up to that fishing cabin of yours and just talk to her, I mean well she’s been there for five days now, I feel so sorry for her, Mr. Kilduff, she sounded so helpless, after all it was the middle of the night and I didn’t sleep at all not a wink after we hung up, thinking of her out driving alone in all this rain we’ve been having, alone up at that cabin—”

“What?” he said. “What did you say?”

She opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She looked at him blankly. He reached up and took hold of her shoulders, roughly, and his eyes bored into hers, making her cringe a little at the sudden fire which burned brightly there.

“What did you say?” he repeated. His voice was flat now, without inflection, and very soft.

“I... well, I don’t know what you—”

“The middle of the night. You said Andrea called you in the middle of the night.”

“Well, it wasn’t really the middle of the night, I suppose, I go to bed early during the winter months because of—”

“What time did she call you!”

“It was... after eleven sometime,” Mrs. Yarborough said hesitantly, a little frightened now. “I ... I’m not sure what the exact time was, but it was after eleven...”

After eleven sometime. After eleven. He released her shoulders and stepped back, and his heart was hammering loudly, crazily, against his chest cavity. After eleven sometime.

It appears as if she was in the water about twelve hours, Mr. Kilduff...

Twelve hours. Found at seven this morning. Twelve hours. Time of death would have to have been around seven last night, but she had called Mrs. Yarborough after eleven. Eleven P.M. to seven A.M. Eight hours. Less than eight hours. And Fazackerly had said twelve hours, and a doctor or a coroner or a medical examiner or whoever the hell it was who examined a dead body couldn’t make a mistake of four hours, could he? No, it was impossible, impossible.

Then-?

Fazackerly had been lying.

Sweet Mother of God, Fazackerly had been lying and the only reason he could have been lying was because he wasn’t a deputy sheriff with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, wasn’t even named Fazackerly; he was the killer, the nameless and faceless murderer of five men, setting up Number Six, the last one left. What better spot than Duckblind Slough—isolated, desolate—what more fitting spot? How he had known of the shack there wasn’t important; he had known and he had gone there and Andrea had been there, Andrea had been there for the past five days...

But he had lied about the twelve hours.

Andrea had been alive, and safe, between eleven and midnight. If she was dead, if he had killed her, why had he lied about the twelve hours? What reason would he have for lying about that?