Crazybone (12 page)

The wind made chuckling sounds in the trees as I returned to the car. Or maybe it was that rough, tough action hero, Sam Leatherman, laughing at me from somewhere up in pulp heaven.

As I drove toward the village, something began bothering me — a nagging little irritation at the back of my mind. It was not clear enough to identify, and I couldn’t seem to catch hold of it. Something I’d seen or hadn’t seen or should have seen at the Hunter place; something that was off in some small way. Might be significant and might not. I’d have to figure out what it was before I could tell.

Come to me sooner or later. Picking at it would only drive it in deeper.

Anita Purcell had returned from her trip to LA.; she was just opening her fine arts shop when I got there. She was short, gray-haired, energetic, and steely-eyed, and as I might have predicted, she didn’t want anything to do with me or my ilk. Those were almost her exact words when I introduced myself: “I want nothing to do with you or your ilk.”

I was tempted to ask her what she thought my ilk was. Instead I said, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, Ms. Purcell. But you may have information about Sheila Hunter—”

“You’ll get no information from me.”

“Your niece told me you—”

“My niece had no business telling you anything. She won’t make that mistake again.”

Which meant that Gretchen Kiley had fessed up and her aunt knew all about my previous visit. Closed issue, as far as Ms. Purcell was concerned. I made one more stab at trying to pry it open.

“What would you say if I told you Mrs. Hunter and her daughter left Greenwood suddenly on Friday and won’t be coming back?”

The steely eyes had heat in them, like metal in a forge. “Yes? If that’s true, and I doubt it is, you’re responsible for driving them away. You and your hounding and bullying.”

“Is that what she told you? That I was hounding her?”

“Do you deny it?”

“She’s in trouble,” I said. “She and Emily both.”

“What kind of trouble could a grieving widow and a little girl be in that wasn’t generated by you and your employer?”

“I’m not sure of the specifics. All I know is—”

“Nonsense. That kind of talk cuts no ice with me.”

“It isn’t nonsense. I’m not looking to harm the Hunters, I’m trying to help them. And I can’t do that unless you help me find out where they went. It’s possible Mrs. Hunter confided in or is staying with a woman named Karen, a stained-glass artist who lives somewhere up the coast. All I’m asking is any information you may have about this woman. Her full name, a telephone number—”

“My God,” she said, “what amazing gall you have. If I weren’t a lady, I’d tell you what else I think you’re full of.”

Hopeless. Sheila Hunter had planted an image of me as the relentless pursuer in Ms. Purcell’s mind, one enhanced by what she considered to be the profligate tongue of her niece, and no amount of appeal, disclosure, or wheedling was going to change it. There was nothing for me to do but take what she thought I was full of away to dump on somebody else.

Sunday was a big day at Emerald Hills Country Club. Both tiers of the parking lot were jammed; I had to leave my car with a few other late arrivals along the edge of the entrance drive, a good three hundred yards from the main building. Not all of the cars would belong to golfers, although men and women and carts littered what I could see of the fairways and greens. Brunchers, lunchers, social drinkers, serious drinkers, and kibitzers would be plentiful, too.

A different guy was manning the security desk this morning, just as polite and not quite as supercilious. He let me sign in and pass by with a minimum of scrutiny. I went first to the Greens Room, on the chance that I might find Dale Cooney alone and getting an early start at the bar. No such luck; she wasn’t anywhere in the room. So I’d have to try to brace her at home after all, a gloomy prospect but a necessary one if I was going to get anything out of her today.

Outside, the terrace was packed with people eating and paying little or no attention to a string quartet that was making pretty music on the far side. I went down the steps and started along the path to the pro shop. Three men in golf togs were coming toward me, two of them in animated conversation and the third a couple of paces behind with his head down and his face set in brooding lines. The lagger was the self-proclaimed guiltless dentist, Doc Lukash.

I eased over and cut between the two talkers and Lukash, so that he was forced to pull up short to keep from running into me. I said through a friendly smile, “Morning, Doctor.”

He looked at me blankly for three or four seconds. Recognition, when it came, dragged his thin mouth and chin down even further, out of a brood into a scowl. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

“Talking to people. You have a bad round?”

“What?”

“Your golf game. You don’t seem very happy this morning.”

“Neither my golf game nor my mood is any of your business. Are you still investigating Sheila Hunter, for God’s sake?”

“That’s right. And with more reason now than before.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s left town. Looks like she won’t be coming back.”

“...I don’t believe you.”

“Truth, so help me.”

“Why would she do that? Unless you had something to do with it...”

“I had something to do with it, yes, but that’s not the main reason she left. She’s got troubles, big troubles. Something that happened years ago, before she moved to Greenwood.”

“Something... what trouble? What happened?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I have no idea. How would I know?”

“Well, you were pretty close to her once. I thought maybe she—”

He bristled. Part of it was a pose of indignation, but underneath there was a tremulous emotion that might have been fear. “I told you before,” he said. “I have never been involved with Sheila Hunter, romantically or otherwise. Malicious gossip, that’s all it is. If you repeat it, if you bother me again, I’ll sue you and that insurance company of yours for harassment and slander. Is that clear?”

“Clear enough.”

He stepped around me and headed for the steps, moving in that slow, jerky way of people under tight restraint — as if he’d rather have run than walked away from me.

Just what are you afraid of, Doctor? I thought. Your reputation? Or is it something you know about Sheila Hunter’s past that you wish you didn’t?

I went on to the pro shop. Trevor Smith wasn’t there; the towheaded kid behind the counter said he was out on the links, giving a lesson to one of the members, and that he wouldn’t be back until around twelve-thirty. Fine, dandy. Now I had another forty-five minutes or so to kill.

I wandered back inside the main building. A quick lunch would have been good, even at Emerald Hills’ prices, but reservations were probably required and a nonmember would have trouble getting a table anyway. Into the Greens Room again. Still no sign of Dale Cooney. Lukash was in there drinking his lunch, but he wasn’t alone, and I wouldn’t have bothered him again if he was — not just yet. I managed to carve a piece of standing room at the bar, where I had an elegant lunch of a Bud Light and a handful of salted nuts and pretzel sticks. The beer cost five dollars, just about the price of an entire six-pack where Kerry and I did our shopping. By the time twelve-thirty rolled around, I was in a mood to, in that good old pro football cliché, kick some serious butt.

Trevor Smith showed up in the pro-shop at twelve-forty. He looked hopeful when he first saw me, then worried by my expression, and finally resigned when I took him aside and told him I hadn’t found out anything yet. “Information’s the reason I’m here,” I said.

“What kind of information?”

“For one thing, an address for Dale Cooney.”

“Mrs. Cooney? What do you want with her?”

“She was having an affair with Jack Hunter. Pretty serious, from what I gather. Maybe he was less careful about letting something slip in the sack than his wife was.”

Smith said with a flare of anger, “That’s damn crude.”

“All right, maybe it was. But none of this business is of high moral caliber and I don’t feel like being polite about it anymore. With you or anybody else. Can you tell me where Dale Cooney lives?”

“Yes,” he said, thin-lipped. “Burnt Leaf Road, not far from here. I don’t know the number but I’ll find out.”

“You do that. But first, answer some questions about Doc Lukash.”

Caught him off guard again. “What about Mr. Lukash?”

“Did he have an affair with Sheila?”

Smith made a grinding noise with his teeth.

“Come on, now,” I said.
“Was
he one of her lovers?”

“You make it sound as if she had a whole string—”

“Yes or no?”

“No. There was some gossip about it a while back, before Sheila and I got together, but that’s all it was.”

“How do you know that’s all it was?”

“Sheila said so. I asked her... I wanted to know... and she said absolutely not. He made a pass at her, more than one, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. I believe her.”

That makes one of us, I thought. As if people who cheat on their spouses never lie; as if the current occupant of the White House never lied. “What can you tell me about Lukash? Married, family man?”

“Yes. Wife and two sons, both at Stanford.”

“What is euphemistically known as happily married?”

“I don’t see how, if he’s making passes at other women. Besides, his wife’s a bitch.”

“Yes?”

“Bosses him around. Bosses everybody around.”

“So he’s a chaser.”

Smith shrugged. “The only gossip I’ve heard is the crap about him and Sheila.”

“What would his wife do if she caught him cheating?”

“Divorce him. Or Bobbittize him. She’s the type.”

So maybe that’s what’s scaring him, I thought. Doesn’t want the wife to find out about the lust in his heart for Sheila Hunter, requited or not.

I said, “Back to Sheila. If she wasn’t seeing Lukash, who was she seeing before you?”

He ground his teeth again. “Nobody.”

“No gossip about her and anybody else?”

“There’s always gossip floating around here.”

“Linking her and which men?”

“Listen, I don’t want—”

“I do want. Names, Trevor.”

“Why? The men... they don’t know anything about where she and Emily went.”

“Let me find that out for myself.”

“Cheap gossip, that’s all it is. You just remember that.”

I waited.

“All right.” He spat three names at me as if they were a bad taste in his mouth.

“They all live in Greenwood?” He nodded, and I said, “I’ll need addresses for them, too. And occupations and anything else you can tell me so I’ll have some idea of who I’m dealing with if I have to talk to them.”

“I won’t do it except as a last resort. And if I do, I won’t mention you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Look,” I said, “the bottom line here is that I’m on your side and Sheila and her daughter’s side. I think I told you that before. Don’t make me say it again.”

“Okay,” he said heavily. “Okay. I’m worried about her, that’s all.”

“Believe it or not, so am I.”

“I’ll get those addresses.”

Burnt Leaf Road was a snaky passage that led up into the hills. Dale Cooney had told Charles, the bartender, that she lived exactly one mile from the country club. Not so, according to my odometer, which measured the distance at 1.1 miles. Maybe the odometer in her Mercedes was off; mine had always been reliable. Or maybe she’d just rounded off the number for convenience or because it sounded better and what the hell did it matter anyway? Only somebody like me would even notice a thing like that and then ponder it as if it were one of life’s weighty issues.

There was a brick arch over the entrance to the driveway, an iffy proposition in earthquake country, though the bricks were moss-studded and looked old enough to have survived most big shakes since 1906. I drove on through and down a long gradual slope. The house, brick and rough-hewn wood, was also close to being a centenarian; it sat on a flat section, natural or man-made I couldn’t tell, about halfway down. Below it the slope was steeper and ended at a narrow creek and a section of dense woods. Over the tops of the trees I could see all the way to San Francisco Bay in the hazy distance. You’d have the same wide-angle view from inside the house.

A garage large enough for three cars sat off to the left. I parked a short distance in front of it and stepped out into a woodsy silence punctuated by birdsong. A redwood-bark path led me to the house. I had a story ready in the event Frank Cooney answered the door; if it was Dale Cooney, I’d arrange to meet her somewhere and make sure she understood that I meant business.

All well and good, except that nobody responded to the door chimes.

Now what?

I could hang around Greenwood and come back later, or I could leave a note, or I could set up a meeting by phone at some point. None of the choices had much appeal. I leaned on the bell again, mainly out of frustration, and the lack of response only increased it. Grumbling, I returned to the car.

Something caught my attention as I opened the door — a faint acrid smell that didn’t belong with the sweet woods flavor. I stood with my head up, sniffing like a hound. Faint, and familiar. Too familiar. I looked over at the garage. And the skin began to crawl on the back of my scalp, a sensation that worsened when I started over that way. Coming from inside the garage, all right.

There were no outside handles on the double doors: electronically controlled and locked down tight. No window or door on the near side; I ran around on the downhill side. Door there, but it was locked or jammed. Alongside it was a window, unshaded and unobstructed. When I put my face up close to the glass I had a dim view of the interior.