F Is for Fugitive Read online

  "Whatever you can tell me. Bailey Fowler's father hired me to see if I could come up with some new evidence. I thought I'd start with Jean and work forward from there."

  "Why come to me?"

  I told him about my conversation with Daisy and her suggestion that he might be of help. His manner seemed to shift, becoming less suspicious, though a certain wariness remained. Idly he lifted the mold's upper plate and stuck his finger in, feeling the crowded lower incisors. If I had banged a fist down on the mold, I could have bitten his finger off. The thought made it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. "I've been thinking a lot about the murder since Bailey Fowler's arrest. Terrible thing. Just terrible."

  "Were you in that group of kids who found her, by any chance?"

  "No, no. I'm a Catholic. That was the youth group from the Baptist church."

  "The one in Floral Beach?"

  He nodded and I made a mental note, thinking of Reverend Haws. "I've heard she was a bit free with her favors," I said.

  "That's the reputation she had. Some of my patients are young girls her age. Fourteen, fifteen.

  They just seem so immature. I can't imagine them sexually active and yet I'm sure some of them are."

  "I've seen pictures of Jean. She was a beautiful girl."

  "Not in any way that served her. She wasn't like the rest of us. Too old in some ways, innocent in others. I guess she thought she'd be popular if she put out, so that's what she did. A lot of guys took advantage." He paused to clear his throat. "Excuse me," he said. He poured himself half a tumbler of water from the thermos sitting on his desk. "You want some water?"

  I shook my head. "Anybody in particular?"

  "What?"

  "I'm wondering if she was involved with anyone you knew."

  He gave me a bland look. "Not that I recall."

  I could feel the arrow on my bullshit meter swing up into the red. "What about you?"

  A baffled laugh. "Me?"

  "Yeah, I was wondering if you got involved with her." I could see the color come and go in his face, so I ad-libbed a line. "Actually, someone told me you dated her. I can't remember now who mentioned it, but someone who knew you both."

  He shrugged. "I might have. Just briefly. I never dated her steadily or anything like that."

  "But you were intimate."

  "With Jean?"

  "Dr. Poletti, spare me the wordplay and tell me about your relationship. We're talking about things that happened seventeen years ago."

  He was silent for a moment, toying with the plaster jaw, which seemed to have something on it he had to pick off. "I wouldn't want this to go any further, whatever we discuss."

  "Strictly confidential."

  He shifted in his chair. "I guess I've always regretted my association with her. Such as it was. I'm ashamed of it now because I knew better. I'm not sure she did."

  "We all do things we regret," I said. "It's part of growing up. What difference does it make after all this time?"

  "I know. You're right. I don't know why it's so hard to talk about."

  "Take your time."

  "I did date her. For a month. Less than that. I can't say my intentions were honorable. I was seventeen. You know how guys are at that age. Once word got out that Jeannie was an easy lay, we became obsessed. She did things we'd never even heard about. We were lined up like a pack of dogs, trying to get at her. It was all anybody ever talked about, how to get in her pants, how to get her in ours. I guess I was no better than the other guys." He shot me an embarrassed smile.

  "Go on."

  "Some of 'em didn't even bother going through the motions. Just picked her up and took her out to the beach. They didn't even take her out on a date."

  "But you did."

  He lowered his gaze. "I took her out a few times. I felt guilty even doing that. She was kind of pathetic... and scary at the same time. She was bright enough, but she wanted desperately to believe someone cared. It made you feel sheepish, so you'd get together with the guys afterward and bad-mouth her."

  "For what you'd done," I supplied.

  "Right. I still can't think about her without feeling kind of sick. What's strange is I can still remember things she did." He paused for a moment, eyebrows going up. He shook his head once, blowing out a puff of air. "She was really outrageous... insatiable's the word... but what drove her wasn't sex. It was... I don't know, self-loathing or a need to dominate. We were at her mercy because we wanted her so much. I guess our revenge was never really giving her what she wanted, which was old-fashioned respect."

  "And what was hers?"

  "Revenge? I don't know. Creating that heat. Reminding us that she was the only source, that we could never have enough of her or anything even halfway like her for life. She needed approval, some guy to be nice. All we ever did was snicker about her behind her back, which she must have known."

  "Did she get hung up on you?"

  "I suppose. Not for long, I don't think."

  "It would help if you could tell me who else might have been involved with her."

  He shook his head. "I can't. You're not going to get me to blow the whistle on anybody else. I still hang out with some of those guys."

  "How about if I read you some names off a list?"

  "I can't do that. Honestly. I don't mind owning up to my own part in it, but I can't implicate anybody else. It's an odd bond and something we don't talk about, but I'll tell you this – her name gets mentioned, we don't say a word, but we're all thinking the same damn thing."

  "What about guys who weren't friends of yours?"

  "Meaning what?"

  "At the time of the murder, she was apparently having an affair and got herself knocked up."

  "Don't know."

  "Make a guess. There must have been rumors."

  "Not that I heard."

  "Can you ask around? Somebody must know."

  "Hey, I'd like to help, but I've probably already said more than I should."

  "What about some of the girls in your class? Someone must have been clued in back then."

  He cleared his throat again. "Well. Barb might know. I could ask her, I guess."

  "Barbara who?"

  "My wife. We were in the same class."

  I glanced at the photograph on his desk, recognizing her belatedly. "The prom queen?"

  "How'd you know about that?"

  "I saw some pictures of her in the yearbook. Would you ask her if she could help?"

  "I doubt if she knows anything, but I could mention it."

  "That'd be great. Have her give me a call. If she doesn't know anything about it, she might suggest someone who would."

  "I wouldn't want anything said about..."

  "I understand," I said.

  I gave him my card with a little note on the back, with my telephone number at the Ocean Street. I left his office feeling faintly optimistic and more than a little disturbed. There was something about the idea of grown men haunted by the sexuality of a seventeen-year-old girl that seemed riveting – both pitiable and perverse. Somehow the glimpse he'd given me of the past made me feel like a voyeur.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  At two o'clock I slipped up the outside stairs at the motel and changed into my running clothes. I hadn't had lunch, but I was feeling supercharged, too wired to eat. After the hysteria at the courthouse, I'd spent hours in close contact with other human beings and my energy level had risen to an agitated state. I pulled on my sweats and my running shoes and headed out again, room key tied to my laces. The afternoon was slightly chilly, with a haze in the air. The sea blended into the sky at the horizon with no line of demarcation visible between. Southern California seasons are sometimes too subtle to discern, which I'm told is disconcerting to people who've grown up in the Midwest and the East. What's true, though, is that every day is a season in itself. The sea is changeable. The air is transformed. The landscape registers delicate alterations in color so that gradually the saturated green of
winter bleaches out to the straw shades of summer grass, so quick to burn. Trees explode with color, fiery reds and flaming golds that could rival autumn anywhere, and the charred branches that remain afterward are as bare and black as winter trees in the East, slow to recover, slow to bud again.

  I jogged along the walkway that bordered the beach. There was a sprinkling of tourists. Two kids about eight were dodging the waves, their shrieks as raucous as the birds that wheeled overhead. The tide was almost out and a wide, glistening band divided the bubbling surf from the dry sand. A twelve-year-old boy with a boogie board slid expertly along the water's edge. Ahead, I could see the zigzagging coastline, banded with asphalt where the road followed the contours of the shore. At the road's end was the Port San Luis Harbor District, a fuel facility and launching area that serviced the local boats.

  I reached the frontage road and angled left, jogging along the causeway that spanned the slough. Up on the hill to my right was the big hotel with its neatly trimmed shrubs and manicured lawns. A wide channel of seawater angled back along the fairways of the hotel's golf course. The distance was deceptive and it took me thirty minutes to reach the cul-de-sac at the end of the road where the boats were launched. I slowed to a walk, catching my breath. My shirt was damp and I could feel sweat trickling down the sides of my face. I've been in better shape in my life and I didn't relish the misery of regaining the ground I'd lost. I did the turnaround, watching with interest as three men lowered a pleasure craft into the water from a crane. There was a fishing trawler in drydock, its exposed hull tapering to a rudder as narrow as the blade of an ice skate. I found a spigot near a corrugated metal shed and doused my head, drinking deeply before I headed back, my leg muscles protesting as I increased my pace. By the time I reached the main street of Floral Beach again, it was nearly four and the February sun was casting deep shadows along the side of the hill.

  I showered and dressed, pulling on jeans, tennis shoes, and a clean turtleneck, ready to face the world.

  The Floral Beach telephone directory was about the size of a comic book, big print, skimpy on the Yellow Pages, light on advertising space. There was nothing to do in Floral Beach and what there was, everybody knew about. I looked up Shana Timberlake and made a note of her address on Kelley, which, by my calculation, was right around the corner. On my way out, I peered into the motel office, but everything was still.

  I left my car in the slot and walked the two blocks. Jean's mother lived in what looked like a converted 1950s motor court, an inverted U of narrow frame cottages with a parking space in front of each. Next door, the Floral Beach Fire Department was housed in a four-car garage painted pale blue with dark blue trim. By the time I got back to Santa Teresa, it would seem like New York City compared with this.

  There was a battered green Plymouth parked beside unit number one. I peered in the window on the driver's side. The keys had been left in the ignition, a big metal initial T dangling from the key ring – for Timber-lake, I assumed. Trusting, these folk. Auto theft must not be the crime of choice in Floral Beach. Shana Timberlake's tiny front porch was crowded with coffee cans planted with herbs, each neatly marked with a Popsicle stick labeled with black ink: thyme, marjoram, oregano, dill, and a two-gallon tomato sauce can filled with parsley. The windows flanking the front door were opened a crack, but the curtains were drawn. I knocked.

  Presently, I heard her on the other side. "Yes?"

  I talked through the door to her, addressing my remarks to one of the hinges. "Mrs. Timberlake? My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private detective from Santa Teresa. I wonder if I might talk to you."

  Silence. Then, "You the one Royce hired to get Bailey off?" She didn't sound happy about the idea.

  "I guess that's one interpretation," I said. "Actually, I'm in town to look into the murder. Bailey says now he's innocent."

  Silence.

  I tried again. "You know, there never was much of an investigation once he pled guilty."

  "So what?"

  "Suppose he's telling the truth? Suppose whoever killed her is still running around town, thumbing his nose at the rest of us?"

  There was a long pause and then she opened the door.

  Her hair was disheveled, eyes puffy, mascara smeared, nose running. She smelled like bourbon. She tightened the sash on her flowered cotton kimono and stared at me blearily. "You were in court."

  Yes.

  She swayed slightly, working to focus. "You believe in justice? You b'lieve justice is done?"

  "On occasion."

  "Yeah, well, I don't. So what's there to talk about? Tap's been shot down. Jean's choked to death. You think any of this is going to bring my daughter back?"

  I said nothing, but I kept my gaze on her, waiting for her to wind down.

  Her expression darkened with contempt. "You prob'ly don't even have kids. I bet you never even had a dog. You look like somebody breezing through life without a care in this world. Stand there talking about 'innocence.' What do you know about innocence?"

  I kept my temper intact, but my tone was mild. "Let's put it this way, Mrs. Timberlake. If I had a kid and somebody'd killed her, I wouldn't be drunk in the middle of the day. I'd be out pulling this town apart until I found out who did it. And then I'd manufacture some justice of my own if that's what it took."

  "Well, I can't help you."

  "You don't know that. You don't even know what I want."

  "Why don't you tell me?"

  "Why don't you invite me in and we'll talk."

  She glanced back over her shoulder. "Place looks like shit."

  "Who cares?"

  She focused on me again. She could barely stand up. "How many kids you got?"

  "None."

  "That's how many I got," she said. She pushed the screen door open and I stepped in.

  The place was essentially one long room with a stove, sink, and refrigerator lined up at the far end. Every available surface was stacked with dirty dishes. A small wooden table with two chairs divided the kitchen from the living room, one corner of which was taken up by a brass bed with the sheets half pulled off. The mattress sagged in the middle and it looked as if it would erupt in a symphony of springs if you sat on it. I caught a glimpse of bathroom through a curtained doorway to the right. On the other side of the bathroom, there was a closet, and beyond that was the back door.

  I followed her to the kitchen table. She sank into one of the chairs and then got up again, frowning, and moved with great care to the bathroom where she threw up at length. I hate listening to people throw up. (This is big news, I'll bet.) I moved over to the sink and cleared the dirty dishes out, running hot water to mask the sounds coming from the bathroom. I squirted dish-washing liquid into the tumbling water and watched with satisfaction as a cloud of bubbles began to form. I slid plates into the depths, tucking silverware around the edges.

  While the dishes soaked, I emptied the garbage, which consisted almost exclusively of empty whiskey bottles and beer cans. I peered into the refrigerator. The light was out and the interior smelled like mold, the metal racks crusted with what looked like dog doo. I closed the door again, worried I was going to have to take a turn in the bathroom with her.

  I tuned an ear to Shana again. I heard the toilet galumphing and, after that, the reassuring white noise of a shower being run. Being an incurable snoop at heart, I turned my attention idly to the mail stacked up on the kitchen table. Since I was being mother's little helper, I felt almost entitled to nose around in her business. I walked my fingers through some unopened bills and junk mail. Nothing of interest on the face of it. There was only one piece of personal mail, a big square envelope postmarked Los Angeles. A greeting card? Curses. The envelope was sealed so tight I couldn't even pick the flap loose. Nothing visible when I held it to the light. No scent. Shana's name and address were handwritten in ink, a genderless script that told me nothing about the person who'd penned it. Reluctantly I tucked it back and returned to the sink.

  By th
e time I had the dishes clean and piled in a perilous mound in the rack, Shana was emerging from the bathroom, her head wrapped in one towel and her body in another. Without any modesty at all, she dried herself off and got dressed. Her body was much older than her face. She sat down at the kitchen table in jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot. She looked exhausted, but her skin was scrubbed and her eyes had cleared to some extent. She lit an unfiltered Camel. This lady took smoking seriously. I didn't think unfiltered cigarettes were available these days.

  I sat down across from her. "When did you last eat?"

  "I forget. I started drinking this morning when I got back. Poor Tap. I was standing right there." She paused and her eyes filled with tears again, her nose turning pink with emotion. "I couldn't believe what was happening. I just lost it. Couldn't cope. I wasn't crazy about him, but he was an okay guy. Kind of dumb. A goofball who made awful jokes. I can't believe this is starting all over. What was he thinking about? He must have been nuts. Bailey comes back to town and look what happens. Somebody else dead. This time it's his best friend."

  "Daisy figures somebody put Tap up to it."

  "Bailey did," she snapped.

  "Just wait," I said. "He got a telephone call last night at Pearl's. He talked briefly and then took off."

  She blew her nose. "Must have been after I left," she said, unconvinced. "You want some coffee? It's instant."

  "Sure, I'll have some."

  She left her cigarette on the lip of the ashtray and got up. She filled a saucepan with water and stuck it on the back burner, turning on the gas. She extracted two coffee mugs from the dish rack. "Thanks for cleaning up. You didn't have to do that."

  "Idle hands..." I said, not mentioning that I'd also managed a little of the devil's work.

  She unearthed a jar of instant coffee and a couple of spoons, which she set on the table while we waited for the water to boil. She took another drag from her cigarette and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. I could feel it settle around me like a fine veil. I was going to have to shampoo my hair again and change my clothes.