32

Thursday, October 5, 1989

Home again, as I made my way through the squeaky gate, I could hear Lucky wailing. I thought his dog must have died, but when I reached the backyard, I saw Killer staring him in the face transfixed, wagging his doggie tail. What an amazing beast he was, with his short black coat, tawny yellow lion ruff, and a face the size and shape of a bear’s with the added oddity of an orange dot over each eye. Lucky was beside himself and Pearl was running short of patience. “Would you listen to yourself?” she said.

I looked from one to the other. “What’s up?”

“This lug got his bed back at Harbor House.”

I put my hands on my cheeks. “Oh no!” I said, as though the news were tragic. I was about to carry on, but a look at Lucky’s face showed such misery, I couldn’t bear to tease him. “Sorry. I was being stupid. Why is that a problem?”

“They won’t let me bring my dog.”

“What’s Harbor House gonna do with a dog?” Pearl snapped. “Next thing you know, every panhandler with a borrowed pup is gonna want to bring it in. It’d be like a kennel with all the barking and dog poop. The homeless deserve better.”

I looked from her to Lucky, saying, “I thought you told me he’d been with you twelve years.”

He sniffed and rubbed a teary eye with a knuckle. “Since he was six weeks old.”

“So if Harbor House put up with him for that long, why not now?”

“Dog was never at Harbor House,” Pearl said scornfully. “That’s against the rules. Lucky comes to town, spends one night at the shelter, and sneaks Killer into bed with him. He’s drunk . . . I’m talking Lucky, not the dog. House manager spots the dog and escorts both to the door. That’s when Lucky turns around and tears the place apart.”

To him, she said, “Would you quit your bellyaching? I’ll keep the dog. He’s better company than you are anyway. He don’t fart at night.”

I let myself into the studio and sat down at my desk. It was while I was pawing through my shoulder bag, looking for my index cards, that I came across the mail I’d stuck in the outside flap earlier. I extracted the handful and did a quick finger walk. I’d received checks from two different clients, both of them slow-pays. That cheered me up no end. The rest of the collection was the usual crap except for one plain white number ten envelope with a Perdido return address. When I opened it, I found a fold of white paper with a telephone number in the 406 area code and the name Hazel Rose, someone I’d never heard of. I couldn’t remember ever calling anyone with a 406 prefix and I had no idea what part of the country it was associated with.

I opened my bottom drawer and grabbed the telephone book. Up front, in the pages devoted to community services, emergency numbers, government offices, and public schools, there was a handy-dandy map of the United States, with the progression of time zones displayed in pastel colors, and the many and various area codes indicated state by state. Starting on the West Coast, in the Pacific Time Zone, I ran a finger down the page, zipping past Washington State, Oregon, California, and Nevada. I moved on to Mountain Time and quickly came across 406, which covered the whole of Montana, where I knew absolutely no one. I took out my atlas of the United States and flipped through the alphabetized listings until I came to Montana, which was sandwiched between Missouri and Nebraska. From the itty-bitty print in a box to one side, I learned that the population of Montana was over a million and a half souls spread out across approximately one hundred and forty-five thousand square miles. I was now in possession of many facts about a state I’d never visited, and I still didn’t have a clue about Hazel Rose. I went back to the return address, which looked familiar now that I was seeing it again. When the answer popped into my head, I said the word “Ah!” in a jolt of recognition. This was Phyllis Joplin’s new home address in the condominium complex where Ned Lowe had lain in wait and beat the shit out of her. Hazel Rose had to be Celeste Lowe’s alias. Her new location must be somewhere in Montana, which didn’t narrow it down that much. Ned had torn into Phyllis’s moving boxes searching for the information, which she’d had the foresight to put in the mail to me.

I sat and thought about it briefly and then picked up the handset. Then I put it down again. Ned had managed to tap the phone at my office, so why not here as well? I took apart the handset and studied the interior, which appeared to be clean. Before I crawled around on the floor, eyeballing the baseboards in search of spike mikes and related eavesdropping devices, I hauled out the small-band receiver I’d purchased years before from RadioShack. I unearthed the gadget at the back of my top desk drawer and then hunted down fresh batteries. I swept the area until I was satisfied there wasn’t a transmitter planted on the premises, and then crawled around on my hands and knees. One can’t be too careful about these things.

I went back to the fold of paper and punched in the number I’d been given. After six rings, the call was picked up by a machine on the other end.

Nothing. No voice message and no instructions. Just that silence followed by the sound of the beep.

I said, “Hello. My name is Kinsey Millhone. We met at your home in Cottonwood six months ago. This number was given to me by a mutual friend who’s recently suffered serious injury. I’d appreciate it if you’d return my call. You don’t need to mention your name or location, but it’s imperative that we talk.”

I recited my home phone number twice and then hung up. For all I knew, Celeste had been standing right there listening to me. I’d have to wait and see what she decided to do in response to the news that I’d passed along. In the meantime, I hid the fold of paper in my bra, where I knew it would remain undisturbed. Sorry state of affairs, isn’t it?

I had no choice but to turn my attention to the job at hand.

I checked my notes for the contact information Margaret Seay had given me for Steve Ringer, Roland Berg, and Patti Gibson, whose married name I didn’t have. I noticed that Steve and Roland shared an address in a singles development in Colgate. I hit the 101 and headed north. Iris had mentioned their throwing a homecoming party for Fritz, so I deemed them a likely source of information regarding his current whereabouts.

The two-story apartment buildings must have gone up in the sixties. The units on the second floor boasted high, slanted rooflines, punctuated by skylights. The stucco structures were arranged in groupings of four, each with laundry rooms, a workout center, and an enormous resort-style swimming pool in the center. Ground-floor units had patios sufficient to accommodate impromptu parties. Given the warm autumn afternoon, many louvered windows had been cranked open and music spilled out onto the balconies, most of which were furnished with Weber grills, lawn furniture, bicycles, and houseplants. Wet bathing suits were strung over the wrought-iron railings and whiffs of marijuana drifted out of every third door. Parking was generous. No pets allowed. The Santa Ynez Mountains formed a hazy backdrop to the north.

I was surprised by the number of residents in evidence. This was early afternoon and my guess was that employment consisted of waitressing and barkeep jobs that started at eight in the evening and went on into the wee hours. The apartment where Steve Ringer and Roland Berg lived was in a building that overlooked the freeway. Passing traffic mimicked the ebb and flow of the Pacific, with copious exhaust fumes added.

I climbed to the second floor and knocked on the first door, which was opened by a tall, thin fellow in flip-flops and a ratty knee-length green chenille robe, with his hair in a ponytail and an embarrassingly thin goatee. He was in the process of blowing his nose vigorously on a tissue. I placed him in his midtwenties. It was the nut and bolt in one ear that triggered the flash of memory.

I pointed at him. “You’re the guy from the camera shop.”

He shook his head in the negative as though I’d accused him of ditching school. “I called in this morning and Kirk said take the day off. He doesn’t want us coming in to work if we’re sick.”

“I’m not the health police. I met you a couple weeks ago when I came to the store and asked about duplicating a tape.”

He pointed back at me. “The exhibitionist.”

“That was work-related.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I’m a private detective. Kinsey Millhone,” I said.

I held out a hand as though to shake his and then thought better of it. He’d already held up both his hands as though at gunpoint, declining to expose me to his upper respiratory woes.

“You can come in if you like, but we’re better off out here,” he said, honking into his tissue again.

I caught a glimpse of orange shag carpet. I suspected the kitchen appliances would be avocado green. “Fresh air works for me,” I said. “Are you Stringer?”

“That’s right.”

I handed him a business card. “I’m hoping to track down Fritz McCabe. He’s been spending time with friends and I was hoping you’d know who.”

“That’s us,” he said. “He was here a couple of weekends, but that got old fast. I read in the paper he’s out of prison and suddenly he’s on the phone, dropping these not-so-subtle hints about getting the old gang together again. This was a couple of days after he got back.”

“You had a welcome home party for him.”

“Strictly his idea. Roland and I weren’t all that thrilled about picking up the relationship. I feel sorry for the guy, but that doesn’t mean he can attach himself like a barnacle. Kid’s a basket case, you know? Okay, so on one hand, he’s been in prison and he’s Mister Tough-Guy. Mister Know-It-All. On the other, it’s like he’s still fifteen years old and completely out of it because he’s stuck back in time. I didn’t like him much to begin with and I thought it was pushy asking us to pitch a party for him. Talk about a weird vibe. None of us had a good time. It was just so freaking awkward, but what were we supposed to do? He put us on the spot. We agree to it once and he takes it for granted he can latch on for life. Next thing we know, he’s spending nights on our couch.”

“Did you see him this past Friday?”

“Briefly. Is there a problem?”

“A big one. Fritz was last heard from on Friday. There hasn’t been a peep out of him since.”

“Well, I saw him Friday afternoon. Thursday morning, he called, kind of like he was expecting an invitation. I told him we were busy and then he asked if he could crash here anyway and I said, ‘No, dude, you can’t.’ I mean, shit. The guy can’t take a hint. I said maybe some other time, just putting him off, and then told him Roland was waiting for a call, so I had to go. He called again Friday morning, all jazzed, because he’d actually gotten his hands on the twenty-five thousand bucks.”

“So I heard. He intended to pay the extortionist?”

“I guess so, but next thing you know, the story’s changed. He shows up at my door and there’s this big switcheroo. Fritz says it was all a misunderstanding. The guy didn’t intend to play hardball. He needed the money and couldn’t think of any other way to get it. Fritz was stoked and told him he’d be happy to help out. He’s acting like it’s a short-term loan the guy promised to pay back in a couple of weeks.”

I stared at Stringer like he’d grown a second head. “Are you serious?”

“I’m just telling you what he told me.”

“That makes no sense. Was this someone he knew?”

“Sounded like it to me. I mean, it must have been, right? You wouldn’t lend twenty-five grand to some schmo off the street.”

“He didn’t tell you who it was?”

“Nope.”

“Did you ask?”

“Why would I ask when I didn’t give a shit? I was happy to have him off our hands.”

I found myself squinting, trying to make sense of this unexpected turn of events. “The extortionist was supposed to pick him up downtown. So is that how he got to your place?”

“Absolutely. The guy drove him out here. He and this dude were going camping at Yellowweed, which was why he stopped by—to borrow a sleeping bag.”

“He didn’t have one of his own?”

“He did, but he didn’t want to go back to his place in case he ran into his mom and dad.”

“That’s nice of him. They’ve been worried sick,” I said. “You know what? I don’t like this. How did we get from blackmail to a chummy little camping trip?”

“I don’t like it either, now you mention it. Especially if no one’s heard from him since. That area up near Yellowweed is isolated. If Fritz thought there was any danger, why would he go?”

“Maybe the guy came up with the proposal about a camping trip to get him to cooperate.”

“Could be,” he said. “You’ve met Fritz, right?”

“Shortly after I was hired.”

“Not meaning to diss the guy, but he’s pathetic. He’d do anything if he thought he could get you to like him. Know what I mean? He’s one of those people who doesn’t believe anyone would take advantage. To him, it feels like friendship. Understand, I didn’t lay eyes on this so-called pal of his because he waited in the car. I’m judging from what Fritz said.”

“What if this was someone he knew in prison? That might explain his being so cheerful. Might have been a guy released about the same time he was and now he’s trying to jump on the gravy train. Either that or it’s someone from Climp.”

“If it was one of the kids from Climp, why be so secretive?”

“Maybe he was being secretive because he knew you knew the guy.”

Stringer shrugged, not really interested. “Anyway, he needed a Coleman stove and lantern, so I let him take mine. I’m being sarcastic, saying, ‘Sure you don’t want my tent?’ And he says oh no, they have one. So I go, ‘What the hell are you going to do up at Yellowweed?’ He’s looking at me like I’m nuts and he says, ‘What do you think? A doobie and a twelve-pack.’ A doobie? We haven’t called ’em that for years. I don’t want to pick a fight with the guy. He just irritates me. At least lending him a bunch of stuff was better than having him hang out.”

“What about Roland? Could he have heard from Fritz?”

“If he had, he would have mentioned it.”

“Fritz still has your camping gear?”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t using it anyway. I’m hoping he’ll get it back to me, but if not, no biggie.”

I stared out toward the horizon, thinking about what he’d said. In the distance, along the ridge where the Santa Ynez Mountains spilled into the valley beyond, I saw birds riding the thermals, circling like dark specks.

“When’s the last time you ran into Austin Brown?”

“Gotta be ten years. Dude’s been gone since Fritz shot off his big mouth and blabbed to the police.”

“Iris Lehmann thinks she saw him twice last week.”

“No way. What’s she talking about? He might be a badass, but he’s not a fool. Cops would pick him up in a heartbeat.”

“Why would she make a claim like that if it wasn’t true?”

“She’s a flake. What she says doesn’t mean shit and never did.”

I said, “Well, I appreciate the information.”

“Anytime.”

As I turned to go, an issue popped to mind. To this day, if pressed, I couldn’t identify the impulse that made me ask because this wasn’t a matter I’d given conscious thought to. “One quick question,” I said.

“Sure.”

“You were one of the kids at Margaret Seay’s house the day Sloan’s room was emptied, right?”

“Yes.”

“Who found the tape?”

I could see him process the query, which seemed to have taken him by surprise.

“Nobody. No one came across anything. The police had already been through her room, so there was nothing to find.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Sure, I’m sure. What made you ask?”

“Simple assumption, I guess. That was shortly before Fritz was released.”

Cautiously, he said, “Okay, but I don’t get the connection.”

“I thought the tape came to light that day. There were six of you and I can’t believe someone didn’t set up a whoop at the discovery.”

“No whoop. No discovery. Scout’s honor,” he said, holding up his right hand as though to attest to his honesty.

I had no choice but to accept his account, but I was having trouble adjusting my mental picture. From the outset, I’d taken for granted the fact that the blackmail scheme had been set in motion by the discovery of the tape. Either the tape wasn’t discovered that day or Stringer knew nothing about it.

Feeling unsettled, I trotted down the stairs to my car. My immediate concern was Fritz’s whereabouts. He reminded me of Pinocchio. As clever as he thought he was, he was gullible, likely to fall into bad company. If his goal was to be liked? Hand over twenty-five thousand bucks and see how popular you are. From his perspective, he’d solved the problem. Once the twenty-five grand was paid, that would be the end of it. He could call it a loan if he liked, but his chances of getting the money back seemed minuscule. Not that it would matter to him. He was probably having fun. He’d outmaneuvered his parents, outwitted the bank, and everything had gone as planned.

It was time to see if I could run him to ground. Being a big fan of the obvious, I decided to start up at Yellowweed since that’s where he was headed at last report. As a place to transact off-grid business, the abandoned campsite was isolated and therefore offered privacy. If Fritz had gone up there with this guy on Friday, why hadn’t he come home? Maybe the original plan was to get him up there and relieve him of the money. The guy must not have realized how pointless cunning was when Fritz was so eager to hand over the cash.

I stopped off at a service station and topped off my tank on the way to the 101 and then I headed for the pass. As I wound my way up the mountain, I could see the turkey vultures wheeling in the sky overhead. I counted four of them, their wings held in a shallow V, occasionally tipping from side to side, which caused the flight feathers to look silvery in the late afternoon light. The turkey vulture forages by smell, which is apparently uncommon in the world of birds. Flying low to the ground, they’re capable of picking up the scent of gasses that herald decay in dead animals. The turkey vulture feeds on carrion, looking at road kill as life’s perpetual banquet.

I parked at the side of the road, pulling my Honda in close to the rising hillside. This must have been roughly the spot where Troy had parked his pickup truck the night Sloan was killed. I started the climb. The Boy Scout camp at Yellowweed had been deserted for years. The trail was overgrown and I was probably wading through poison ivy that would net me a nasty rash later on. The signs along the trail were faded, some posts broken off at the midpoint, leaving a ragged bouquet of splinters. As is usually the case, the hike made me conscious that I was out of shape. The aggravating thing about exercise is that it prepares you solely for the one you’re engaged in. Biking, hiking, running, or lifting weights—the activity conditions you for that activity, but not necessarily for anything else.

At the summit, where the ground leveled out, I stopped and took stock. At first glance, I had no way to guess if Fritz and his pal had been here. Visitors usually accessed the area by way of the old gravel road, which in drought conditions such as ours would yield no tire prints. A fine haze of dust had settled on the scrub brush, but it might have been there for months. I counted eight more vultures congregated in the trees, which were otherwise bereft of leaves. The dry weather had created a premature change of season and the foliage had dropped without ceremony.

The vultures occupied the lower limbs of a stand of trees fifty yards away. Branches sagged under their weight. Some hopped awkwardly across the bare ground, picking their way as far as the foundation of one of the cabins leveled long ago. Two of them waddled on flat feet, making hissing and grunting noises, as graceless as penguins on dry land. One stood with wings spread, drying his feathers, his legs streaked with white as though he’d defecated on himself. It was clear the meeting had been called to order, but the minutes hadn’t been read. The buzzards had gathered in anticipation of a tasty snack, but nothing was forthcoming. In consequence, they seemed ill-tempered and out of sorts. I kept an eye on them, hoping they wouldn’t regard me as a canapé.

On closer inspection, I could tell someone had been here recently. Wood had been gathered and piled to one side. I could see the remnants of a campfire that had been doused with water. When I checked with my bare hand, the ashes were cold. There was a flattened spot where a tent had been erected. The tent stakes had been driven into the hard ground in the shape of a hefty square. Various scuffle marks suggested that the tent had been taken down and stowed in some form. I’m not a camper, so I don’t really know how these things are done. A palm frond had been used as a makeshift broom before it was tossed aside. A fine sweep of dirt formed a fan shape, but there was no way to judge what had been there before.

A large plastic trash bin had been dragged into the clearing. Someone had tossed in a plastic grocery bag loaded with empty baked bean cans, the packaging for hot dogs, and an empty cellophane wrapper for the hot dog buns. They’d rounded out this wholesome repast with a bag of Fritos, also depleted. I was starving to death and found myself staring wistfully at the wrappings from a packet of moon pies.

I walked the periphery of the campsite. No empty beer cans. No rolling papers or joints. I wasn’t sure what they’d done to amuse themselves. A number of the old cabins had been bulldozed and the construction debris had been used to fill the old swimming pool. The concrete rim looked like the edging for an Olympic-sized flower bed. I could almost hear the nine-year-old boys shrieking as they did cannonballs off the side. The “fill” was a treacherous-looking tangle of old fencing and broken-up lumber where the cabin remnants had been pushed into this final resting place. There must have been an argument about the virtues of removing the rubble versus leaving it where it was, but since the twice-abandoned campground wasn’t slated for further use, economic imperatives had prevailed. The pool was tucked in among the ancient trees, so the sunlight wouldn’t have penetrated far and the surface of the water would have been subject to slime where falling leaves rotted.

Some of the underbrush had been broken off or crushed underfoot. The raw pith indicated that a vehicle might have been driven across it recently. In the meantime, the buzzards kept a close eye on me. One of them, with a great flapping of wings, managed to become airborne and two others followed suit. What worried me was the occasional whiff of dead dog. This might have been a deer carcass, but I didn’t think so. The odor wasn’t directional. I turned this way and that but I couldn’t pinpoint the source. This was now Thursday and Fritz had been missing since the previous Friday. I peered down the steep hillside. Maybe twenty-five yards down the slope, I saw a crumpled form. It looked like someone had fallen down the hill and now lay in a clumsy tangle, dead to the world.

Gingerly I sidestepped my way down, trying to keep my balance as the loose dirt slipped out from underfoot and traveled in a mini-avalanche in advance of my approach. When I reached the form, I realized it was a discarded sleeping bag, empty to all appearances. I peered closely at the opening where the zipper was caught in a fold of fabric. No bullet holes or dried blood. I left it where it was. Impossible to tell how long it had been there. I made the return climb, sending a shower of additional dirt down the hill.

When I reached the top, I stood in the clearing and did a complete 360 turn. I could have been smelling sewer gas, but it occurred to me that a campground like this, in the midst of a wilderness, couldn’t be connected to the city sewer system because the logistics would have been impossible. Which suggested a septic tank. Septic systems are meant to be as inconspicuous as possible. Once they’re installed, the grass grows back, time passes, and few visual cues remain. I crossed to the ruins of one of the cabins, circled the foundation until I located a four-inch pipe at the point where it surfaced outside. I figured the septic tank would have to be ten to twelve feet from the nearest structure, so I paced off twenty-five giant steps and began to walk. Seven minutes later, I located a rectangle of concrete, easily five feet by eight. Here, the smell was strong enough to activate my gag reflex. I used the hem of my T-shirt to cover my mouth and nose. This filtered the odor to some extent. There was a single 4-by-4-foot concrete lid in the center of the rectangle that bore an enormous iron ring. One try and I knew the cap was too heavy and awkward to manage on my own.

One of the vultures sailed down within range and landed on the concrete with a series of hops. He tilted his head, peering at the source of the smell, and then fixed me with a black and beady eye. His head was small in proportion to his body, red in color, his long neck bald. I’ve been told the paucity of feathers works to the bird’s advantage when so much of his time is spent with his head in the bellies of dead animals. He made an aggressive feint in my direction and I backed away step by step.

I returned to the highway on the old gravel road, carefully making my way down the hill. I returned to my car and drove as far as the nearest scenic turnout, where I’d seen a call box. I punched in 9-1-1 and talked to a dispatcher, detailing where I was, what I knew, and what I suspected. Then I waited for the first patrol car to arrive. Though I wouldn’t have confirmation for another few hours, Fritz McCabe wasn’t far away.