Spook Page 16
“You’re right,” Runyon agreed. “So what was Colton’s reason?”
“Oldest one there is. Come home when he wasn’t supposed to, found his old lady screwing his best friend. Luke Valjean, worked at Sullivan’s garage, they were buddies since high school, and there was Luke banging Dottie in the poor bugger’s own bed. Dottie Colton, that was her name. Not that you could blame Luke. Pretty woman offers a man a free piece, it ain’t easy to turn down. He wasn’t the first, neither. That come out later. Usually it’s the guy looking to get some strange, am I right? Not this time. Uh-uh. She’d had two, three others before Luke, one a goddamn politician over in Bridgeport. Tony never had a clue, I guess. Must be why he snapped the way he did when he come in and heard that old bed of his singin’.”
“Shot them both in bed?”
“Both naked, that’s right,” O’Sheel said. “Sidearm was Dottie’s, belonged to her old man, he taught her how to shoot when she was a little kid. Tony, though, he’d never fired one in his life until that day. Funny, ain’t it, him not even liking guns? What’s that word they got for something like that?”
“Irony,” Runyon said.
“Yeah. Irony. He emptied that Colt, got Dottie once and Luke twice. Blood all over everything. Then he run out the house and that’s when the other poor bastard got it.”
“Victim number three.”
“Right. Neighbor, old Vern Snow. Heard the shots, come running over to see what it was all about. Might be alive today if he’d minded his own business. Got there the same time Tony run out. Tony sees him, Vern gets in the way, and Tony pops him too. Once in the back, shattered his spine. Another D.O.A.”
“What’d Colton do then?”
“Jumped in his car and drove off like a bat outta hell. Straight out of town. Straight into the goddamn Twilight Zone.”
“The what?”
“That’s what somebody said, I forget who.”
“You’re saying he got away?”
“Clean away. Ask me how that could happen in wide-open country like this, deputies and highway patrolmen everywhere, helicopters, spotter planes, I can’t give you an answer. Shouldn’t’ve been possible, but it happened just the same. Found his car abandoned a couple of days later, over in Nevada. But not a trace of Tony, then or since.”
“So they never caught him.”
“No sir,” O’Sheel said. “Straight into the Twilight Zone, like I said. That’s why it ain’t finished. Seventeen years since Tony Colton blew away his wife and Luke and Vern Snow and they ain’t caught him yet, don’t have a clue what happened to him. He just plain disappeared.”
20
Yet another Tamara showed up for work Monday morning. Last week we’d had Old Tamara, Hurt Tamara, Angry Tamara, Resigned Tamara. Today we had Wistful Tamara. Soft little moans, long gazes into the distance, an expression that seemed to be caught halfway between happiness and melancholy. Men have mood swings. Women have mood leaps, mood swirls, mood loop-de-loops.
“What happened over the weekend?” I asked her.
“I got laid and moved back with Horace.”
More information than I wanted. “Well,” I said. “So you two had a talk and worked things out.”
“No. Uh-uh.”
“You didn’t? You just said you’re back together.”
“Living together. Sleeping in the same bed.”
“But you still haven’t resolved your differences.”
“No. Just together for the holidays.”
“Then what?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“You haven’t changed your mind about marrying him?”
“No.”
“And he hasn’t changed his about leaving.”
“No. He’s going to Philly.”
“And you’re staying here.”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“What I said.”
“Tamara...”
“Man loves me, I love him. How can I give him up?”
“You don’t have to. Lots of couples have long-distance relationships.”
“Not us. Wouldn’t work.”
I said slowly, “You’re not actually considering going with him, are you? Giving up your career here?”
“Got to give up one or the other, sooner or later.”
Patience, I told myself, patience. “It’d be a big mistake. Opportunities like the one I offered you don’t come along very often.”
“I know it.”
“It’s not me I’m thinking of,” I said. “I can go along for a while with Runyon’s help, then sell out to him or somebody else when I’m ready for full retirement. What concerns me is you, your future.”
“Sure. Big Daddy.”
It wasn’t sarcasm; her tone said she meant the phrase affectionately. “Better give it careful thought before you make a decision. Use your head, not your emotions.”
“That’s what Claudia says.”
“Claudia’s right.”
“Be the first time, if she is. Don’t worry, I’m on it. Not gonna leave you hanging.”
“What worries me is you leaving yourself hanging.”
The phone ringing put an end to the discussion. Just as well. I might have been able to push the issue with one of the other Tamaras, even Angry Tamara; but Wistful Tamara was off in her own little space, unreachable by a sixty-one-year-old male Caucasian. Even if the sixty-one-year-old male Caucasian were capable of sage advice to the young and lovelorn, which he wasn’t. Kerry? She might be. Same sex, same language.
The call was for me. Jack Logan. We spent a minute or so kicking around the retirement thing, then he got down to the real reason for his call.
“Big Dog,” he said. “He’s no longer a fugitive.”
“In custody?”
“In the morgue.”
“What happened?”
“Somebody blew him away. Friday night sometime.”
“Where?”
“Body was found yesterday morning. Behind a plastics company warehouse on Army, next to a Dumpster. Shot twice with a forty-one caliber weapon.”
“Same gun that killed Spook?”
“No report from Ballistics yet — they’re backlogged as usual. But you can bet it was the same weapon and the same shooter.”
“The wages of blackmail,” I said.
“Looks that way. ID on him just came through from NCIC. Joseph Gorley, age forty-six. Ex-navy, thrown out in ’seventy-nine for drunken misconduct and striking an officer. Long rap sheet dating back to the early ’eighties, mostly D&D and aggravated assault. One less cretin to clutter up the streets and the court system.” Harsh assessment, but true enough. Sentimentality in any form is anathema to police work.
“Anything at me scene?”
“Nope. At first it looked like just another street killing, so the tech boys did a cursory. You know how it is with those cases.”
“Yeah.”
“Once the link was established, we sent a team back out for another sweep. Same result.”
“Killed there or somewhere else?”
“There. Bloodstains that the rain didn’t wash away, drag marks twenty feet or so to the Dumpster. Driven there on the promise of more money, probably, and paid off with a bullet.”
“Double homicide makes it a priority case now, right?”
“Right,” Logan said. “Your new guy, Runyon, happen to be in?”
“No. Why?”
“He was out looking for Big Dog the other night. Inspector in charge, Gunderson, turned that up.”
“If he saw anything or knew anything, you’d have heard from him by now. He’s a by-the-book player, Jack. We wouldn’t’ve hired him if there was any chance he wasn’t.”
“I’ll take your word for it. But I’d still like to talk to him.”
“When he comes in, I’ll have him call you. Might be tomorrow sometime.”
“No problem.”
Tamara had been listening to my end of the conversation. When
I put the phone down, she said, “So Big Dog got himself put down.”
“Yeah. I don’t like the way this case is shaping up. My gut feeling says none of us is going to be happy with the outcome, including our client.”
“Long as Mr. Taradash pays the rest of his bill. Want me to try calling Runyon on his cell?”
“Not yet. Give him time to make the rounds up in Mono. Meantime, you might ask Felicia to find out if there’s anything on Dorothy Lightfoot and the others in the NCIC.”
“Already done. E-mailed her while you were on the phone.”
“Is that a good idea? I mean, she could lose her job if the brass finds out she’s doing favors outside the department.”
“We got us a little code worked out, knamean? Anybody sees that e-mail I just sent, they won’t have a clue what it’s about.”
“My partner, the cryptographer.”
“Yeah. Your partner.”
And another little moan, another long silent gaze into space.
She worried me, she really did. The thought that Wistful Tamara might knock Sensible Tamara on the head and turn into Trash-Her-Future Tamara was depressing in the extreme. Better get Kerry involved in this right away. If anybody could talk turkey to a stubborn, moody, lovesick, borderline head case, it was Kerry. Hell, she’d had plenty of practice with me all these years, hadn’t she?
“No,” Kerry said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“What part of the word don’t you understand? It’s not a good idea.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“It just isn’t. What makes you think she’d listen to me?”
“Voice of experience. You’re a woman, she’s a woman—”
“Yes, and no woman wants another intruding on her personal life with unsolicited advice. If Tamara were to ask me, fine. But she hasn’t.”
“I’m asking you. Please.”
“No.”
“If you’d just...”
“What did you say?”
“Dammit!”
“What? I can barely hear you.”
“Damn car phone cuts out in parking garages sometimes.” I shook the receiver, fiddled with the unit. “Better now?”
“A little. Why are you calling from a parking garage?”
“Well, I couldn’t do it from the office, could I, with Tamara right there. I made an excuse and came over here to the car.”
“Terrific,” she said. “Sneaky games at your age.”
“What?”
“Never mind. When are you going to break down and buy yourself a cell phone?”
I ignored that. “So you won’t talk to her, not even a few words?”
“Not even one word. Be realistic. What could I tell her? She’s young and black and I’m old and white.”
“You’re not old.”
“From Tamara’s point of view I’m fodder for assisted living.”
“You could tell her not to screw up her life.”
“It’s her life. Her choices.”
“Kerry, listen...”
“You listen. Leave her alone. Don’t try to interfere, don’t try to get anybody else to interfere. Especially not now, with Christmas so close.”
“What does Christmas have to do with it?”
“You want to spoil her holidays?”
“No, but—”
“She’s level-headed, she knows what’s best for her. And it isn’t giving up a good career opportunity to be the wife of a Philadelphia symphony cellist.”
“Love’s blind, kiddo, or hadn’t you heard?”
“Oh, Lord, don’t give me clichés. Just trust my instincts. Leave the woman alone, let her work this...”
“What? This effing phone...”
“Effing,” Kerry said. “You really must be upset.”
“Of course I’m—”
“What?”
“I said—”
“What? You’re cutting out again. Listen, I can’t talk any... have to... work... that new ad campaign I...”
“What?”
“Just remember... told you. Don’t inter...”
“What?”
Too late. She’d already hung up.
When I came back into the office, Tamara said, “Felicia just called.”
“And?”
“One NCIC hit. Anthony Colton.”
“And?”
“Fugitive warrants out on him, state and fed both.”
“For what crime?”
“Big enchilada. Homicide, multiple.”
“The hell. How many victims?”
“Three. Seventeen years ago in Aspen Creek. Mono County Sheriff’s Department put out the original warrant, FBI issued theirs not long after.”
“In nineteen eighty-five?”
“Yep. Colton’s been at large ever since.”
“Details? Victims’ names?”
“Not yet. Felicia’s got a request in for specifics.”
And you never knew how fast you’d get a response on that kind of request. The NCIC processes thousands from law enforcement agencies nationwide every day; the simple ones usually come back fast, detailed case files take longer. It all depended on how busy they were, and on the exact nature of Anthony Colton’s crimes and how high on the FBI’s fugitives’ list he rated after seventeen years.
I said, “Any other felonies on Colton’s record?”
“Not in California. Might be a spree.”
“Might be. Two of the victims have to be his wife and Vernon Snow.”
“And number three’s Luke, whoever he was.”
“Which makes Anthony Colton—”
“Spook. Uh-huh.”
It seemed a stretch until you thought about it, put it in the right perspective. Seventeen years on the run. Unbalanced from the first, riddled with guilt over what he’d done, deteriorating physically and mentally under the strain to the point where he attempted suicide by self-mutilation, finally ended up down and out, addled and harmless, gabbling to the ghosts of his victims on the streets of San Francisco. Who’d figure a passively disturbed homeless man for a fugitive multiple murderer? Well, somebody had. It was the only explanation for his murder that made sense. Whoever had fired that bullet into Spook’s head, and then put Big Dog down, was connected in some way to the triple homicide in 1985.
21
Jake Runyon
He was waiting on the steps, huddled against wind and blowing snow, when the Mono County courthouse opened at nine A.M. Vital Statistics, first stop. Not much there. No birth certificate for Luke or Lucas Valjean. Nobody named Valjean residing in the county at present, but two others had died in Aspen Creek within a year of Luke: Everett, age 67, in 1986, and Dinah, age 66, in 1987, both of the same address. Luke’s parents? Seemed likely. Vernon Snow had lived in Aspen Creek all his life, been widowed at the time of his death, and had fathered two daughters; one of the daughters had been married in Mammoth Lakes, but there was no current directory listing under her husband’s name or her maiden name anywhere in Mono County.
The Sheriff’s Department had offices in the courthouse, but Runyon didn’t want to walk in there cold. Dealing with newspaper people was a chore he avoided whenever possible. That left the local library. It was open when he got there, and the librarian said yes, they had issues of the weekly Mono County Register on microfilm dating back as far as 1985. She set him up in a cubicle, brought the file dates he asked for, and left him alone.
ASPEN CREEK MASSACRE 3 DIE IN SHOOTING, KILLER AT LARGE
Front-page scare headlines in the issue dated four days after the homicides. Grainy photograph of a lean, hollow-cheeked, nondescript man identified as Anthony Colton that bore no resemblance to the ravaged, faceless corpse in the San Francisco city morgue. The news story was a mix of lurid details and provincial, “this kind of thing doesn’t happen here” outrage. The facts were pretty much as O’Sheel had outlined them the afternoon before. Anthony Colton’s car had been found in the Toiyabe National Forest, a wilderness are
a across the state line a hundred miles or so from Aspen Creek. California and Nevada authorities had cooperated in the manhunt and the FBI had been called in “for assistance” after the car was found. Sure they had. The FBI didn’t assist, they assumed control; and state police agencies squabbled over jurisdiction as often as they cooperated. Confusion, ruffled feathers, and wasted time were the usual result. That and blind luck explained Colton being able to elude capture, find his way out of the mountains and into a hole somewhere.
The follow-up articles rehashed events and expressed frustration and public anger at the continued failure of the authorities to find Anthony Colton. The Mono County sheriff and one of his deputies were quoted; another deputy was mentioned by name. Runyon made a note of those three, and a fourth name: Thomas Valjean, Lucas Valjean’s older brother, who at that time had lived in the village of Mono City and operated a well-digging and septic service. He was quoted twice, both angry denunciations of law enforcement efforts.
From the library, Runyon drove back to the courthouse and the county sheriff’s offices. Two of the three officers named in the news stories, he was told, including the then-sheriff, were no longer with the department. The third, Lawrence Hickox, was now a senior deputy at the Mammoth Lakes substation, fifty miles to the south.
Runyon hunted up a phone — his cell still wasn’t working — and put in a call to the Mammoth Lakes station. Hickox was on duty, and when Runyon said he had new information on Anthony Colton, the deputy sounded eager to see him. They made an appointment for one o’clock.
It was after eleven now. Better check in; they’d be wondering what he’d found out, maybe had something to pass on in return. He made the agency number in San Francisco his second call.
It snowed all the way to Mammoth Lakes, flurries now and then, mostly a light dusting; but the highway was slick and pre-holiday traffic made for even slower speeds. A local radio station, the only one he could get on the car radio, said there would be a partial clearing later in the day but another storm was expected tonight, high winds and up to three inches of snow tomorrow. If he came back up 395 right after the talk with Hickox, he ought to have a fairly easy drive as far as Carson City or Reno. And if the storm held off and road conditions were good in the Sierras, he might even be able to make it all the way back to San Francisco without having to lay over.