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  SPEAKING VOLUMES, LLC

  NAPLES, FLORIDA

  2015

  Sentinels

  Copyright © 1996 by Bill Pronzini

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  9781628152784

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  Table of Contents

  Other Books by Bill Pronzini

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

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  —Rod, Carolyn, and

  My godsons, Patrick and Alex

  Chapter One

  I probably would not have taken on the McDowell case if circumstances hadn’t contrived to prod me into it. If I hadn’t taken the case, then I wouldn’t have been away from San Francisco for most of the last week in April. And if I hadn’t been away from the city, and caught up in a different, highly volatile set of circumstances . . .

  The old “what-if” game. Play it long enough and you can make yourself a little crazy.

  Truth is, circumstances shape most things we do, nearly every day of our lives. Not just those in which we have a direct hand—the actions of strangers as well as people we know, that affect our lives in ways large and small, good or bad, known or unknown. The ripple effect. There’s a theory I once heard: If someone were to invent a time machine and travel back into the dim past, to the Paleolithic era, say, and kill a prehistoric man or animal, or even crush a flower, the ripple effect of that single act through the centuries could conceivably alter the entire course of history. Alter it enough, in fact, so that the present would be nothing at all like it is now.

  Sounds far-fetched, but I don’t think it is. Consider this: You’re driving to work and some idiot runs a red light at fifty and you narrowly manage to avoid a fatal collision. But what if you’d gotten up three seconds later that morning? Three seconds. If you had, you wouldn’t have avoided the collision. If you had, you’d no longer be alive.

  Circumstances.

  And the old “what-if” game.

  See what I mean about making yourself a little crazy if you play it long enough?

  It was a missing persons case. Or to look at it the way I did when I first heard of Helen McDowell’s problem, a worried mother job. I don’t much like worried mother jobs; I’d had another one recently and it hadn’t turned out well for any of the parties concerned. There’s usually too much emotion involved, particularly when the missing person is an only child—a daughter, in this case—and the mother lives alone. Matters get exaggerated, blown out of proportion. Feelings run high. And the one who is liable to wind up caught in the middle is the detective, the outsider. Me.

  So I was leery of the McDowell case, even if I did sympathize with what she was going through. My instincts said to turn her down, refer her to another agency. Easy enough over the phone; you’re saying no to a disembodied voice. She wanted me to come over to Lafayette so we could discuss the details in person; she ran a boutique there and didn’t want to leave for any length of time during business hours in case her daughter called, or the authorities called with news of the daughter. She was sure I understood—didn’t I? I understood, all right. I should have said no anyway, and would have if it weren’t for the circumstances.

  The first was that I was out of the office when her call came in. My part-time assistant, Tamara Corbin, took it and the particulars. Tamara is feisty as well as a whiz with computers, and is not afraid to speak her mind on any subject. She is also a college student majoring in computer science at San Francisco State, and about the same age as Allison McDowell, the missing daughter. Sisterly empathy, therefore, for Allison—and for the mother.

  “You’ve got to help her,” Tamara said when I’d finished listening to the tape of her conversation with Mrs. McDowell. Taping all incoming and outgoing calls, hers and mine both, for future reference had been Tamara’s idea, and a good one it was. So good and so logical that I felt inept for not having thought of it myself years ago. “I mean, this poor woman is half out of her head. Tries to hide it, but you can tell. She’s got nobody else.”

  “She didn’t say that.”

  “Didn’t have to, did she? You’re the man.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “Far as I’m concerned.”

  “You don’t mind if I talk to the woman myself before I make any decisions?”

  “Go ahead, talk to her.” Ms. Corbin fixed me with her brown stare—and that refers to eye color, not to the rich chocolate hue of her skin. “In person, not on the phone. And then you go ahead and find that missing girl.”

  The second circumstance was almost a coincidence. I was scheduled to deliver a subpoena in Walnut Creek at one that afternoon, and Walnut Creek, way out in Contra Costa county, is next door to Lafayette. I had to drive right by one to get to the other. And In the Mode, Helen McDowell’s boutique, was in downtown Lafayette, two minutes off the freeway.

  Third and fourth circumstances: This was a Monday and the only work I had lined up for the rest of the week was the subpoena delivery and a routine skip-trace. If I’d had the usual full workload, I could not have afforded to take four or five days away from the office; as things were, Tamara could handle the skip-trace just as well as I could. Better, thanks to her trusty Apple PowerBook. There was also the fact that I’d just lost out to one of the city’s larger detective agencies on what promised to be a lengthy (and lucrative) investigation for the defense in a high-profile murder trial, a job I’d been counting on to pay a good percentage of the bills over the next few months. As a consequence, I was fretting more than usual about money.

  The fifth and final and maybe most significant circumstance: I was in what Kerry calls my “tender frame of mind,” tender being a synonym for soft-hearted-and soft-headed. In that disposition I
tend to lose perspective and respond to distress signals with disregard for my better judgment. The last time I’d been “tender,” round about April Fool’s Day, I had become the not-so-proud parent of a half starved and flea-riddled kitten I’d found foraging in the garbage cans behind my apartment building. One of its parents anyway. The kitten now lived in Kerry’s condo, since she was home more than I was; it had begun to grow fat and sassy, and kept trying to sleep on me whenever I spent the night there.

  So I didn’t say no to Helen McDowell any more than I’d said no to the kitten. On the phone, after I’d listened to her outline once again the central facts of her daughter’s disappearance, I said I’d stop by In the Mode around two o’clock and she could fill me in on the details. I didn’t commit myself beyond that, but I might as well have. By agreeing to a face-to-face meeting I was already committed. I wouldn’t say no to her in person, either, and I damned well knew it going in.

  Lafayette, tucked into the low, rolling hills east of Oakland, was born as a tiny farm center, began to grow rapidly in the years following World War II, and by 1970 had earned dubious status as an upscale bedroom community. Even so, it managed to maintain most of its rural character. Like its west-side neighbor, Orinda, it is an upper-middle-class enclave catering to those individuals who can afford to live comfortably and quietly in homes on large tree-shaded lots that sell for a minimum of a quarter-million and run to as much as eight times that for hillside estates.

  The older section of downtown Lafayette has buildings dating back to the turn of the century. Face-lifts and interior renovation have kept them looking fresh without sacrificing any of their old-fashioned charm. In the Mode was in one of these dowagers, on a side street just off Mt. Diablo Boulevard. The storefront was narrow and so was the store itself; every available space was tightly packed with articles of women’s clothing and accessories, on floor and wall racks, in glass cases, on display cubes. The effect was not one of clutter, nor was the arrangement haphazard; it was all set out with an artist’s eye for maximum sales appeal. The clothing ran to paisley prints, bright colors, sequins, and tasteful embroidery—the kind of stuff Kerry would probably have called casual chic. Half a dozen full-length mirrors placed at strategic intervals made the shop seem larger than it actually was.

  There were no customers when I walked in a couple of minutes past two, just two middle-aged women talking quietly behind the sales counter. I knew immediately which of them was Helen McDowell. She was tallish, on the thin side, with light brown hair cut short; wearing a beige suit and a blue silk scarf. She was forty-five or so, but the facial baggage she carried that makeup couldn’t hide, the drawn and pinched features, the worry that darkened her eyes, made her seem ten years older. It had been eight days since her daughter’s disappearance; she and sleep, the way it looked, had been strangers most of that time.

  I look exactly like what I am, so as soon as she saw me she murmured something to the other woman and came over to greet me. “Thanks so much for coming.”

  I nodded. “Still no word?”

  “None. It’s so frustrating . . . I’m at my wits’ end.”

  “Is there someplace private we can talk?”

  “My office. This way.”

  Her office was at the rear, not much more than a cubicle jammed with a desk, two chairs, articles of clothing, bundles, piled boxes. “I’m sorry for the mess,” she said, “but we just don’t have enough room here. I’d like to move to a larger location, but the rents in this area . . . Oh, God, you don’t care about that. Neither do I right now.”

  There was nothing for me to say to that. On the desk was a framed photograph of a smiling young woman wearing a dark sweater and a string of pearls—formal head-and-shoulders portrait, and from the look of it, professionally taken. I gestured toward it. “Your daughter?”

  “Yes, that’s Allison.” She picked it up, looked yearningly at the photo for a few seconds, bit her lip, and then handed it to me. “Taken about six months ago.”

  Allison McDowell appeared to be slender, almost slight. Pale blond hair worn long with a center part—maybe dyed, maybe not. Snub nose, high cheekbones, small mouth, almond-shaped brown eyes that gave her face a faint Asian cast.

  “She’s very attractive.”

  “Yes. Yes, she is.”

  I returned the photo, and as she sat in her chair she set it back on the desk, turning the frame so we could both see the smiling face. She cleared her throat before she said, “I don’t remember how much I told you and your secretary on the phone. I’m afraid I’m not tracking very well . . . you’ll have to excuse me.”

  Tamara Corbin would not have taken well to being called my “secretary”; but there wasn’t any point in correcting Mrs. McDowell. I said, “It’s all right. Why don’t you just start again at the beginning.”

  “The beginning. Well, Allison is a junior at the University of Oregon. Studying architecture. That’s not a common field for a woman, I’m sure you know that, but Allison isn’t a common person in any way. I know that sounds like a mother’s pride, but it’s true. She’s quite intelligent—her IQ is one twenty-five—and quite dedicated to her studies. Her grade point average is three point nine . . .”

  When I nodded without speaking, she said, “I’m telling you all this because it’s important that you know Allison is a serious young lady. Not frivolous or silly or boy-crazy, like some girls her age. She’s concerned with women’s issues, campus politics, environmental causes—an activist, though not in any disruptive way. Serious and responsible, that’s my Allison. She wouldn’t take it into her head to just . . . run off somewhere for more than a week without letting me know, especially not when I was expecting her home. She simply isn’t capable of that sort of reckless behavior.”

  “It might not have been her idea,” I said.

  “Her new friend, you mean? Did I tell you about him?”

  “Yes. You said you had the impression your daughter is serious about him. If she’s in love . . .”

  Mrs. McDowell was shaking her head. “No. That’s why I told you what I just did about Allison. The Lassen County sheriffs captain I’ve been dealing with—his name is Fassbinder, Ralph Fassbinder—keeps harping on the idea that she and this young man of hers took it into their heads to run off together, elope or whatever. But he’s wrong. I know my daughter. No matter how much in love she might be, it wouldn’t change the way she is and always has been. She would never willingly worry me like this, hurt me . . . we’re not just mother and daughter, we’re best friends, we’ve always been extremely close . . . no. Something’s happened—I know it, I can feel it, I . . .” She was becoming badly agitated and she realized it. She took several deep breaths; the effort it cost her to compose herself was palpable. “I’m sorry,” she said at length. “I promised myself I wouldn’t become emotional, and I won’t.”

  I said gently, “You don’t need to apologize to me, Mrs. McDowell. ”

  “Thank you. But I want to be as businesslike as possible.”

  “About this new boyfriend. You don’t know anything about him, not even his name?”

  “Nothing at all. The first I knew Allison was seeing someone new was when she called from Eugene ten days ago.”

  “Just what did she say?”

  “That she was taking a few days off from her job—she works part-time in a bookstore—and driving home with a friend she wanted me to meet.”

  “A male friend.”

  “Not even that, but I assumed it was.”

  “Why?”

  “Her tone of voice. She was excited, bubbly . . . I hadn’t heard her quite so animated in some time. The inflection when she said the word ‘friend’ . . . well, if you were a woman, a mother, you’d understand.”

  “Did you ask the friend’s name?”

  “Yes. She said it was a surprise.”

  “A surprise?”

  “Allison loves surprises. Springing them as well as being on the receiving end. Ever since she was a little gi
rl. It’s . . . she has a mischievous side, you see.”

  “How do you mean, mischievous?”

  “When I said she was serious, a serious young woman, I didn’t mean to give you the impression that she’s that way all the time, that she doesn’t have a sense of humor. She’s fun-loving too. And she can be impish at times. I think that’s why she didn’t tell anyone, not even her roommates, about this new young man.”

  “Sorority roommates?”

  “No. She doesn’t belong to a sorority. She and three other girls share a house off campus. I spoke to two of them, Karyn Standish and Chris Hammond. They were as surprised she was seeing someone new as they were about her dis—about her not arriving home as planned.”

  “She did tell them she was driving down to the Bay Area?”

  “Yes, but she let them think she was making the trip alone.”

  “Didn’t they think that was odd? Her leaving school so suddenly?”

  “Allison didn’t leave school. It was Easter break week at the university.”

  “Oh, I see.” I paused because she was looking at the photo again. Her eyes were moist. Don’t cry, I thought, don’t do that to either of us. She didn’t; her control now was under a tight rein. “You believe Allison kept the new boyfriend a secret from her roommates for the same reason she kept it from you? So she could surprise them at some point?”

  “It’s the sort of harmless little game she loves to play.”

  Maybe not so harmless after all. But I didn’t put voice to the thought. I asked, “Has she ever done anything like that before? Been . . . impish about her relationships with men?”

  “No,” Helen McDowell said. “That’s what makes me so certain this new young man is someone special.”

  “How special? Engagement, marriage?”

  “Entirely possible. Allison can be impulsive now and then, and her commitments tend to be deep and intense. With the right man, someone she considers a soulmate . . . yes, she’s quite capable of falling in love quickly and just as quickly deciding to marry.”