Bill Pronzini - The Stalker

Moments later she’d heard him leave the shack.

Her fear, now, was almost evenly divided. She feared for her own welfare; there was the uncertainty of whether or not he would come back—and if he did, what he would do to her. And she feared for Steve’s welfare; she knew that he was in danger, terrible danger, that something of which she knew nothing, something of great magnitude, was terribly, terribly wrong.

But she could only lie there as she had done for the past hour, lie there cold and frightened and in the darkness and listen to the rain and wind, to the imagined gnawings of a dozen rats in the sucking mud beneath the closet floor.

Lie there and wait.

Just wait.

For—what?

Oh God, for what ?

17

Inspectors Neal Commac and Pat Flagg arrived at the Caveat Way, Twin Peaks, address of Steven Kilduff a few minutes past eight-thirty. Flagg parked the plain black departmental sedan directly opposite the building, and they hurried across the rain-flooded width of the street and through the single glass-and-wood door in the glassed entranceway.

Commac took off his hat and brushed the beaded droplets of water from the crown. He said, “I wish this goddamned rain would let up. It puts me in a mood.”

“Yeah,” Flagg said. “I know.”

They climbed the inside stairs and walked down the hallway and stopped before the door to Kilduff’s apartment. Commac put his right forefinger on the ivory button of the doorbell, opening his suit coat with his left hand and pushing the tail back over the service revolver at his side belt. Flagg did the same. They had talked about it driving over in the sedan, and even though they didn’t anticipate any trouble, they were being occupationally cautious.

They waited in the quiet hallway. There was no response, and no sound from within the apartment. They looked at one another, and then Commac shrugged lightly and depressed the bell button again.

Nothing.

Flagg said, “He’s not home.”

“Looks that way.”

“Do you think he’s flown?”

“Maybe,” Commac said. “Let’s see if the building manager knows where he is.”

They walked downstairs again and looked at the redwood-framed bank of mailboxes set into the stucco-and-mica wall of the vestibule. Then they went back up one flight and knocked on the door of Apartment 204.

After a moment, a tall, handsome woman with reddish-brown hair opened the door and looked out at them quizzically. “Yes?” she said. “May I help you?”

“You’re Mrs. Yarborough, the manager?” Commac asked.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“We’re police officer,” he said. “We’d like to ask you a couple of questions about one of the apartment holders.”

She blinked at the badge pinned to the inside of the leather case in Commac’s hand. Then she said “Which one?” a little breathlessly.

“Steven Kilduff.”

“I knew it!” Mrs. Yarborough said. Her eyes were brightly sparkling. “I just knew it, the way he ran out of here a little while ago, acting so peculiarly, it just had to be something else beside the fact that Andrea was—”

Commac said, “Andrea? That would be Mr. Kilduff’s wife, is that right?”

“Yes, well she’s his wife now but she left him, you know, last Saturday although I didn’t find out about it until last night when she called me, but just the mere fact that Andrea was spending a few days at their fishing cabin, poor thing, to think things over wasn’t why he was acting so peculiarly, of course I don’t exactly know what it was but since you’re here I imagine it must be something very important?” She stopped, looking at them expectantly.

Commac touched the lobe of his right ear. “You said something about a fishing cabin, Mrs. Yarborough. Is that where Mr. Kilduff went, to the best of your knowledge?”

“Well, I suppose it is,” Mrs. Yarborough said. “Of course, he didn’t say, you understand he was acting so peculiarly and I make it a practice never to pry into the affairs of my neighbors but I just had to tell him about Andrea, poor thing, all alone and simply pining away for him, now you understand she’s not involved in this police business, whatever it is, I can vouch for her character she’s such a sweet girl, but if you could just tell me what it is Mr. Kilduff has done perhaps I—”

“Would you happen to know where this fishing cabin is, ma’am?” Flagg asked patiently.

“Well, not exactly, it’s in Marin County somewhere, on that little river that runs into San Pablo Bay—”

“Petaluma River?” Commac asked.

“Yes, I think so, but now—”

“You don’t know the exact location of the cabin?”

“In some slough or other, I think, Andrea mentioned it but I can’t seem to recall, now really, Officers, don’t you think I’m entitled to know why you want to talk to Mr. Kilduff, I’ve been cooperative, haven’t I? and I think as the manager of the building that I’m—”

“What exactly did Mr. Kilduff say to you prior to his leaving, ma’am?” Flagg asked.

“What did he say?” Mrs. Yarborough put her hands on her hips and looked at them in an exasperated way. “Well, I was telling him about Andrea and all of a sudden he grabbed me by the shoulders, very roughly, and he demanded to know what time she had called and I told him it was after eleven sometime, and that was when he got this very peculiar look in his eyes and ran out of here, now if you don’t mind, Officers, I’d like to know just what it is—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Yarborough,” Commac said quietly. “We appreciate your assistance.”

He nodded to Flagg and they turned and started for the stairs. Just as they reached the landing, there was the sound of a door slamming, very loudly, behind them. As they started down, Flagg said, “What do you make of it?”

“I’m not sure,” Commac said.

“Do we follow it up?”

“I think we’d better.”

“So do I.”

“I don’t see why Boccalou won’t give us the okay, as long as the duty roster’s clear enough,” Commac said. “There’s something more to this whole thing than just an eleven-year-old armored-car robbery, we both agree to that. I think he sees it that way, too.”

Flagg nodded.

“We’ll have to have the Marin County Sheriff’s Department run a check on property owners, to find out where this fishing cabin of Kilduff’s is located. They could have the information for us by the time we pulled into San Rafael to pick up one of their boys.”

They reached the vestibule. “It’s still raining, for Christ’s sake,” Commac said rhetorically, a little sourly, and they went out and ran across the street to the unmarked departmental sedan.

I still love her, Steve Kilduff thought.

I never stopped loving her at all.

He had just come down off Waldo Grade, and was approaching Richardson’s Bay Bridge. Traffic was relatively light northbound, although the always-heavy southbound commuter traffic was predictably snarled by the rain and the attendant poor visibility. He was driving very fast for conditions, upwards of seventy-five, passing cars and changing lanes automatically, praying with a small part of him that he wouldn’t encounter a Highway Patrolman, praying with the rest of him that Andrea was still alive. That was when he realized consciously what he had felt and known deep within him all along—that Andrea was an integral, inseparable part of his mind and of his soul; that a portion of his being had died when he believed she had died, and been reborn with the fervent chance that she was still alive, and would die again if this were not to be so; that he loved her as much now as he had that first day in Sugar Pine Valley.

And he knew other things then, just as certainly.