"Dwight?"
He said, "I thought I was in love with her."
Careful, I thought. Take care. The moment is fragile and his trust is tenuous. "It must have been a tough time. Karen was diagnosed with MS right about then, wasn't she?"
He set the glass down again and his gaze met mine. "You have a good memory." I kept silent.
He finally took up the narrative thread. "She was actually in the process of being evaluated, but I think we knew. It's staggering how something like that affects you. She was bitter at first. Withdrawn. In the end, she was better about it than I was. God, I couldn't believe it was happening, and then I turned around and Jean was there. Young, lusty, outrageous."
He was quiet for a moment. I said nothing, letting him tell it his way. He didn't need any prompting from me. This was a story he knew by heart.
"I didn't think Karen would survive anyway because the first round was acute. She seemed to go downhill overnight. Hell, I didn't think she'd live till spring. In a situation like that, your mind leaps ahead. You get into survival mode. I remember thinking, 'Hey, I can make it. The marriage isn't that great, anyway.' I was only what, thirty-nine? Forty? I had a lot of years ahead of me. I figured I'd marry again. Why not? We weren't perfect, the two of us. I'm not sure we were even very well suited to each other. The MS changed all that. When she died, I was more in love with her than I'd ever been."
"And Jean?"
"Ah, but Jean. Early on" – he paused to shake his head –"I was crazy. I must have been. If that relationship had ever become public knowledge... well, it would have ruined my life. Karens, too... what was left of it."
"Was the baby yours?"
"I don't know. Probably. I wish I could say no, but what could I do? I only found out about it after Jean died. I can't imagine what the consequences would have been... you know... if the pregnancy had come to light."
"Yeah, unlawful sexual intercourse being what it is."
"Oh God, don't say that. Even now the phrase is enough to make me sick."
"You kill her?"
"No. I swear. I was capable of a lot of craziness back then, but not that."
I watched him, sensing that he was telling the truth. This wasn't a killer I was listening to. He might have been desperate or despairing. He might have realized after the fact how perilous his situation was, but I didn't hear the kind of rationalization killers get into. "Who else knew about the pregnancy?"
"I don't know. What difference would it make?"
"I'm not sure. You can't really be certain the baby was yours. Maybe there was somebody else."
"Bailey knew about it."
"Aside from him. Couldn't someone else have heard?"
"Well, sure, but so what? I know she showed up at the school very upset and went straight to the counselor's office."
"I thought the guidance counselors only handled academic matters – college prep requirements and stuff like that."
"There were exceptions. Sometimes we had to screen personal problems and refer kids out for professional counseling."
"What would have been done then, if Jean had asked for help?'
"We'd have done what we could. San Luis has social agencies set up for things like that."
"Jean never talked to you herself?"
He shook his head. "I wish she had. Maybe I could have done something for her, I don't know. She had her crazy side. We're not talking about a girl who'd agree to an abortion. She never would have given that baby up and she wouldn't have kept quiet. She'd have insisted on marriage, regardless of the price. I have to tell you – I know it sounds horrible, but I have to say this – I was relieved when she died. Enormously. When I understood the risk I'd taken... when I saw what I had at stake. It was a gift. I cleaned up my act right then. I never screwed around on Karen again."
"I believe you," I said. But what was bothering me? I could feel an idea churning, but I couldn't quite sense what it was.
Dwight was going on. "It was a bit of a rude awakening when I heard the stories going around after she'd been killed. I was naive enough to think we had something special between us, but that turned out not to be the case."
I kept picking at it like a bone. "So if she didn't turn to you for help, she could have turned to somebody else."
"Well, yes, but she didn't have much time for that, as I understand. She had the test done in Lompoc and got the results that afternoon. By midnight she was dead."
"How long does it take to make a phone call?" I said. "She had hours. She could have called half the guys in Floral Beach and some in San Luis, too. Suppose it was someone else? Suppose you were just a cover for another relationship? There must have been other guys with just as much to lose."
"I'm sure it's possible," he said, but he sounded dubious.
The phone rang, a harsh sound in the stillness of the big house. Dwight leaned back, reaching over to pick up the receiver from the end table by the couch. "Hello? Oh, hi."
His face had brightened with recognition and I saw his eyes stray to my face as the person on the other end of the line went on. He was making "unh-hunh" noises while someone rattled on. "No, no, no. Don't worry. Hang on. She's right here." He held the phone out and I took it. "It's Ann," he said.
"Hi, Ann. What's happening?"
Her voice was cold and she was clearly upset. "Well. At long last. Where the hell have you been? I've been looking for you for hours."
I found myself squinting at the phone, trying to determine the reason for the tone she had taken.
What was wrong with her? "Is there a deputy with you?" I asked.
"I think we could say that."
"You want to wait and call me back when he goes?"
"No, I don't, dear. Here's what I want. I want you to get your ass down here right away! Daddy checked himself out of the hospital and he's been bugging me ever since. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" she shrieked. "Do you have any idea... do you have any IDEA what's been going on? DO YOU? Goddamn it!..."
I held the phone away from my ear. She was really building up a head of steam here. "Ann, stop that. Calm down. It's too complicated to go into right now."
"Don't give me that. Don't you dare ever, ever give me that."
"Don't give you what? What are you so upset about?"
"You know perfectly well," she snapped. "What are you doing over there? You listen to me, Kinsey. And you listen good..."
I started to interrupt, but she'd just put a palm across the mouthpiece, talking to someone in the background. The deputy? Oh hell, was she telling him where I was?
I replaced the receiver in the cradle.
Dwight was looking at me with perplexity. "You okay? What was that about?"
"I have to go to San Luis Obispo," I said carefully. It was a lie, of course, but it was the first thing that occurred to me. Ann had told them where I was. Within minutes this whole cul-de-sac would be blocked off, the neighborhood swarming with deputies. I had to get out of there, and I didn't think it was wise to let him know where I was headed.
"San Luis?" he said. "What for?"
I moved toward the front door. "Don't worry about it. I'll be back in a bit."
"Don't you need a car?"
"I'll get one."
I closed the door behind me, leaped off the porch, and ran.
Chapter 25
* * *
The Ocean Street Motel was only four blocks away. It wasn't going to take the cops long. I kept to the pavement until I caught the sound of a vehicle accelerating up the hill. I took a dive into the bushes as a black-and-white sped into view, heading straight for Dwight's place. Lights flashing, no siren. A second black-and-white gunned up the hill after the first. Hotdoggers. The deputy in the second car was probably twenty-two. Big career ahead of him, careening through Floral Beach legally. He must have been having the time of his life.
The solution to so many problems seems obvious once you know where to look. My conversation with Dwight had generated a shift in my mind-set and
the questions that had troubled me before now seemed to have answers that made perfect sense. Some of them, at any rate. I needed confirmation, but at least now I had a working premise. Jean Timberlake had been murdered to protect Dwight Shales. Ori Fowler had died because she was meant to die... to get her out of the way. And Shana? I thought I understood why she had died, too. Bailey was supposed to take the rap for all of it, and he'd fallen for it like a chump. If he'd had sense enough not to run – if he'd just stayed put-he couldn't have been blamed for everything that'd happened since.
I approached the motel from the rear, through a vacant lot filled with weeds and broken glass. Many of the motel windows were ablaze with lights. I could imagine all the uproar caused by the presence of sheriffs' cars. I suspected there was still a deputy posted somewhere close, probably just outside my room. I reached the Fowlers' back door. The kitchen light was on, and I could see the shadow of someone moving around in the back part of the apartment. A little black-and-white television now sat on the counter, a taped newscast flickering across the empty room. Quintana was making mouth noises on the courthouse steps. Must have been this afternoon. A picture of Bailey Fowler followed. He was being led, in handcuffs, to a waiting vehicle. On came the announcer, turning to the weather map. I tried the kitchen door. Locked. I didn't want to stand out there trying to pick the lock.
I circled the building, hugging the outside wall, checking darkened windows for one left ajar. What I found instead was a side door that was located just across from the stairway inside the back hall. The knob turned in my hand and I pushed the door open cautiously. I peered in. Royce, in a ratty bathrobe, was shuffling down the hall toward me, slump-shouldered, eyes on his slippers. I could hear the hum of his weeping, broken by intermittent sighs. He was walking his grief like a baby, back and forth. He reached the door to his room and turned, shuffling back toward the kitchen. Now and then he murmured Ori's name, voice breaking off. Lucky is the spouse who dies first, who never has to know what survivors endure. Royce must have signed himself out of the hospital after Reverend Haws paid his call. Ori's death had pushed him past struggling. What did he care if he sped death along?
The lights from the living room gave the uncomfortable sense of other people very near. I could hear two women in the dining room, talking in low tones. Was Mrs. Emma still with Ann? Royce was reaching the kitchen, where I knew he'd turn again, coming back.
I closed the door behind me, crossed to the stairs, and took them two at a time, moving silently. I should have put two and two together when I saw that the maid's master key wouldn't open room 20. That room had probably been sealed off, part of the Fowlers' apartment upstairs.
The second floor was dark, except for a window on the landing through which a soft yellow light now spilled. I was disoriented. Somehow this didn't look the way I'd expected it to. There was a short corridor to my left, ending in a door. I crossed to it, stopped, and listened carefully. Silence. I tried the knob and pushed the door open a crack. Cold air wafted in. I was facing the exterior corridor that ran right by my room. I could see the vending machine and the outside stairs. To my immediate left was room 20, next to that room 22, where I'd spent my first night. There was no sign of a deputy on duty. Did I dare simply mosey down, use my key, and go in? What if the deputy was waiting inside?
I reached around and tried the knob from the outside. Ah, locked. Once I went out this door, I couldn't get back in unless I jammed it open. I stayed where I was, easing the door shut. The door to my left was unlocked. I slipped inside, taking out my penlight. Like the rest of the Fowlers' living quarters, this had once been a regular motel room, converted now to office space.
Sliding glass doors along the front opened onto a second-floor balcony overlooking Ocean Street. The drapes were open and I could make out a desk, a swivel chair, bookcases, a reading lamp. I swept the room with the narrow beam of the penlight, getting my bearings. The book titles were half fiction, half college textbooks in psychology. Ann's.
On the desk was a photo of Ori in her youth. She really had been beautiful, with large luminous eyes. I searched the desk drawers. Nothing of interest. Checked the closet alcove, which was filled with summer clothing. The bathroom held nothing. The door that connected this room to room 20 was locked. Locked doors are always more interesting than the other kind. This time I got out my set of key picks and set to work. In TV shows, people pick locks with remarkable ease. Not so in real life, where you have to have the patience of a saint. I was working in the dark, clamping the penlight in my mouth like a cigar while I used the rocker pick in my left hand and the wire in my right. Sometimes I do this efficiently, but that's usually when the light is good. This time it took forever, and I was sweating from the tension when the lock finally gave.
Room 20 was a duplicate of the one I'd occupied. This was Ann's bedroom, the one Maxine was not to clean. I could see why. On the closet floor, dead ahead, was a Ponsness-Warren shot shell reloader with a built-in wad guide, an adjustable crimp die, and two powder reservoirs filled with rock salt. I crossed to the closet and hunkered down, inspecting the device, which looks like a cross between a bird feeder and a cappuccino machine, and is designed to pack a shell with anything you like. A blast of rock salt, at close range, usually ends up buried under your skin where it stings like a son of a bitch, but doesn't do much else. Tap had found out just how ineffectual salt can be in staving off the sheriff's deputies.
I had really hit the jackpot. On the floor beside the reloader was a microcassette recorder with a tape in it. I pressed the rewind button and then pressed play, listening to a familiar voice slowed down to a series of quite nasty gravel-throated threats. I rewound, switched the tape speed, and tried it again. The voice was clearly Ann's, spelling out her intentions with an ax and a chain saw. The whole thing sounded stupid, but she must have had a ball. "I am going to get you..." We used to do shit like this as kids. "I am going to cut your head off..."I smiled grimly, remembering the night those calls had come through. I'd taken comfort from the fact that someone two doors away was wide awake like me. The square of light had looked so cozy at that hour. All the time she'd been in here, dialing room-to-room, part of her campaign of psychological abuse. At this point I couldn't even remember when I'd had an uninterrupted night's sleep. I was being carried on adrenaline and nerve, the momentum of events sweeping me willy-nilly down the path. The night my room was broken into, all she'd had to do was use her passkey and jimmy up the sliding glass door afterward so it would look like the point of entry. I got to my feet and checked the shelf above. In a shoebox, I found a windowed envelope addressed to "Erica Dahl" containing quarterly dividends and year-end tax summaries for IBM stock. There must have been more than a hundred such envelopes neatly packed into the box, along with a social security card, driver's license, and passport – with Ann Fowler's photograph affixed. The statements from Merrill Lynch showed a $42,000 investment in shares of IBM back in 1967. With stock splits in the intervening years, the shares had more than doubled in value. I noticed that "Erica" had dutifully paid taxes on the interest that accrued from year to year. Ann Fowler was too shrewd to get tripped up by the IRS.
I flashed the penlight through her living room and kitchenette, doing a one-eighty turn. When the narrow beam crossed the bedstead, I caught an oval of white and flashed the light back over it again. Ann .was propped up in bed watching me. Her face was dead pale, her eyes enormous, so filled with lunacy and hate that my skin crawled. I felt as if I'd been pierced with an icy arrow, the chill spreading from the core of my body to my fingertips. In her lap she held a double-barreled shotgun, which she raised and pointed right at my chest. Probably not rock salt. I didn't think the spider story was going to work with her.
"Finding everything you need?" she asked.
I raised my hands just to show I knew how to behave. "Hey, you're pretty good. You almost got away with it."
Her smile was thin. "Now that you're 'wanted,' I can do it, don't you think?" she said
conversationally. "All I have to do is pull the trigger and claim trespass."
"And then what?"
"You tell me."
I hadn't quite worked the whole story out, but I knew enough to make a flying guess. Why you have chats with killers in circumstances like these is because you hope against hope you can (1) talk them out of it, (2) stall until help arrives, or (3) enjoy a few more moments of this precious commodity we call life, which consists (in large part) of breathing in and out. Hard to do with your lungs blown out your back.
"Well," said I, hoping to make a short story long, "I figure once your daddy dies and you unload this place, you'll take the proceeds, add them to the profits from the forty-two thou you stole, and sail off into the sunset. Possibly with Dwight Shales, or so you hope."
"And why not?"
"Why not, indeed? Sounds like a great plan. Does he know about it yet?"
"He will," she said.
"What makes you think he'll agree?"
"Why wouldn't he? He's free now. And I will be, too, as soon as Pop dies."
"And you think that constitutes a relationship?" I said, astonished.
"What do you know about relationships?"
"Hey, I've been married twice. That's more than you can say."
"You're divorced. You don't know dick."
I had to shrug at that.
"I bet Jean was sorry she confided in you."
"Very. At the end, she put up quite a fight."
"But you won."
"I had to. I couldn't have her ruining Dwight's life."
"Assuming it was his," I said.
"The babe? Of course it was."
"Oh great. No problem, then. You're completely justified," I said. "Does he know how much you've done for him?"
"That's our little secret. Yours and mine."
"How did you know where Shana would be Wednesday night?"
"Simple. I followed her."
"But why kill the woman?"
"Same reason I'm going to kill you. For screwing Dwight."