A wasteland of strangers (15 page)

He came after me, clawing for the gun. I squeezed off a wild shot close to his face, the report like a blow to the eardrums, and then we were in tight together and grappling. He had size and weight and strength advantages, but I wouldn't let him pry the weapon loose. Never give up your piece. Drummed into our heads at the academy. Ifaperp gets control of it you re dead meat. Even when he clubbed me in the face with a rocklike fist, smashed my nose, sent me reeling backward and down and skidding on my ass, I kept possession of the revolver.

I scrambled around, up onto one knee. Blood spurted from my nose, warm and slick and salty on my mouth; some of it got in my eyes, so I couldn't see him except as a looming figure backlit against the red-swirled sky. I managed to shift the weapon into my right hand, raked my left over my face to clear off some of the blood; still couldn't see him clearly. I leveled the gun and fired anyway.

Missed.

He was running by then. In a low, stumbling crouch, past the cars and into the tree shadows.

I heaved to my feet, ducking my head against my uniform jacket, blinking furiously. By the time I could see well enough to give chase, he was out of sight. Heading for the lake, I thought, on the lawn toward the lake. I ran that way, sucking in air, and when I got to where the lawn began its gradual downward slope, he was visible again, at an angle to the right of the pier. Nothing in that direction but the black water, a section of rushes, a series of low rock shelves that rose to fifty yards of high ground and then fell away again to the waterline. He'd trapped himself.

I pulled up and steadied my arm and fired another round.

Hit him with that one. He reared up, staggered—but he didn't go down.

I triggered a third shot. That one was a clear miss: He kept right on running. But he had nowhere to go except up onto the shelves, and when he did that he'd be silhouetted against the sky. Fm a good shot; I wouldn't miss that kind of target at fifty yards.

Down the lawn, taking the same angle he was. The grass was night-damp and I slipped once, almost fell. When I had my balance I saw him start onto the first shelf. . . and then at the last second he changed his mind. His only other option was the lake, frigid at night this time of year, too cold for any kind of distance swimming, but either he didn't realize that or he was consumed by panic. He went straight off the rocky sliver of beach and into the lake in a flat, running dive.

It took me less than a minute to get to where he'd gone in, but as dark as it was I couldn't make out any sign of him from the water's edge. I climbed onto the first shelf, then the next, and the next, and I still couldn't spot him anywhere. Sank to the bottom, dragged down by the weight of his shoes and clothing? Drowned? I climbed higher; as far as I could see the lake's surface remained unbroken except for wind-made wavelets. With the bullet I'd put into him he couldn't have made it all the way around the rocks yet, be hidden among the cattails farther down,

not unless he was an Olympic-caliber swimmer. He had to've gone down.

But I didn't believe it. I couldn't make myself believe it.

Sirens had begun to wail in the distance. Or maybe they'd been wailing for some time and I hadn't been hearing them. The backup unit and the ambulance, close now. Go up and meet them. But I didn't do it. I stayed put on the rocks, the blood still pouring out of my busted nose, barely even aware of the pain. Thinking of her up there in the house with her skull crushed in, scanning the black water and the muddy shore and not seeing any sign of Faith and still not believing the son of a bitch was as dead as Storm, Storm, Storm, Storm ...

Part III

Saturday

Verne Erickson

IT'S BEEN A zoo around here all night. Just a damn zoo, ever since the Chief radioed in with the news about Mrs. Carey and John Faith. My wife and I have lived in Pomo eleven years and I can't remember another time that even comes close to the past few hours. But then, there's never been a homicide in Pomo County like this one—prominent citizen bludgeoned to death, chief of police beaten up in a fight with the alleged perpetrator, the suspect an outsider with a cloud over him anyway, shot trying to escape and either drowned or dead of hypothermia. Or maybe not dead, if Dick Novak's right in what he thinks. Anyhow, no sign of Faith or his body has turned up so far, and it's been more than six hours since he disappeared into the lake.

The whole town's caught up in it, seems like. Word spread like wildfire, and for a couple of hours after midnight the streets were jammed with cars and people. Young punks in groups, swilling beer, and some no doubt using controlled substances; drunks emptying out of the bars; cars cruising, horns honking; a lot of yelling and wild talk and trespassing on private property. For a while there things got pretty dicey. Looked as though we might have rat-pack vandalizing and maybe some looting. But with the help of Sheriff Thayer and several of his deputies, we managed to defuse the situation, get the crowds dispersed and the traffic thinned away and a handful of toughs arrested or cited without any real trouble starting up.

The media made matters that much worse. Reporters from Ukiah and Santa Rosa and two or three other towns in Lake and other nearby counties, TV camera trucks, even a helicopter from one of the TV stations down in San Francisco that flew over Pomo and the lake and took live pictures and made too much noise and stirred things up again just as they were starting to settle down. We've had reporters and cameramen and photographers traipsing in and out of the station off and on all night, getting in the way and sticking microphones or flashing bulbs in everybody's face. Mayor Seeley and Joe Proctor, the county D.A., talked to them; so did Thayer, who's a blowhard and likes to be the center of attention. Around three or so the Chief came out briefly for a conference interview, not because he wanted to but because the media kept clamoring for him and the mayor figured he'd better oblige. Seeley's big on maintaining friendly relations with the press and civic responsibility and all that. But Novak didn't stick with it very long. Once the reporters got a look at the condition of his face, it was like a feeding frenzy: volleys of questions, Minicams and regular cameras grinding and popping as close as they could get. He cut off the interview after three or four minutes and shut himself inside his office and hasn't done much talking to anybody since.

Fact is, the Chiefs in a bad way, physically and mentally both. It's personal with him, and not just because Faith busted his nose. (Busted it bad. Paramedics couldn't stop the bleeding out at the Carey house, but it was an hour before anybody could drag him off to Pomo General's ER. Doctor there packed it and bandaged it and tried to convince him to spend the night or at least go straight home to bed, but he said no way; wouldn't take anything for the pain, either, except some aspirin. Just went right back out on the job. A smashed nose causes swelling and discoloration around the eyes and across the cheekbones; that was what excited the reporters when he came out. By then he was already starting to look like a victim of Eastwood's wrath in a Dirty Harry movie.) No, it's not just the broken nose. Novak and Storm Carey had an affair a while back, and it's plain enough he's been carrying the torch. You can't blame him, I guess. She was quite a looker. There's no more happily married man in this county than me, but even I'd've been tempted under the right, or wrong circumstances. Promiscuous as hell, Mrs. Carey was—the media got wind of that in a hurry, and that's another reason they're so hot on the story—but she had class and she was always polite and friendly, even with the bluenoses who snubbed her on the street. She sure as hell didn't deserve to die the way she did. Nobody deserves that kind of death, and when it's a person you know well, maybe even loved . .. well, it's no wonder the Chiefs in the state he's in right now.

He won't go home and he won't let up, on himself or on the rest of us. He's been back out to the Carey house twice to supervise the hunt for Faith's body. And earlier, he had a shouting argument with Thayer that might've come to blows if Seeley hadn't gotten between them. Novak wanted to put up roadblocks at both ends of town, in case Faith managed to survive the lake and elude the patrols and steal a car, and the sheriff kept insisting it wasn't necessary because Faith was sure as hell dead and, besides, city and county combined didn't have the manpower for it. That was while the young punks were congregating and it still looked

as though we might have a near riot on our hands. It's not often I agree with Leo Thayer, but in this case I did. It was more important to keep the peace than anything else right then, and roadblocks would only have complicated matters and provoked hostility. But even though Thayer wouldn't provide even one deputy and we're shorthanded, Novak wouldn't back down on stationing a car at each of the three exits from town. The officers are still out there waiting and watching and not seeing a damn thing.

The Chiefs also got a search team continuing to work the shoreline north and south of the Carey property. Half an hour ago I took a short break to get some fresh air and have a smoke, and when I went across into Municipal Park I could see the searchlights on the curve of land up there, in the sloughs and tule marshes on the north shore. They made the lake seem even darker under the cloud-packed sky, thicker somehow, more like a vast sink of oil or tar. Made me cold, looking at it and thinking what it would be like to die under all that heavy black out there.

I agree with Thayer on that issue, too. John Faith's dead. The Chief said to me when he first came into the station after his visit to the ER, "The son of bitch is still alive, Verne. I won't feel any different until I see his corpse stretched out on a slab." Obsession talking, not good sense. I understand how he feels, but I've always believed that obsession and police work don't mix. You have to keep an open mind, be objective, or lose perspective and then you not only don't get the job done, you wind up causing friction and making enemies.

Bottom line is that Lake Pomo is fed by volcanic springs and it's butt-freezing cold at night this time of year. The odds of a man with a bullet in him and an open wound, even a big, strong type like Faith, surviving a lengthy swim in waterlogged clothing are pretty near zero. If he didn't drown, hypothermia would've got him quick enough. And if he'd managed to crawl out somewhere, the search teams would've found him by now. There aren't that many possible hiding places along that stretch of shoreline.

They hadn't found his body yet because the lake is deep and the currents plenty strong and unpredictable. Floaters have been fished out a long way from where they went in, as far as ten miles, and more than one has drifted into the sloughs and gotten hung up in reeds or submerged obstructions—in the case of one bass fisherman, on a tangle of broken line and sinkers and hooks in Barrelhouse Slough. Chances are, though, Faith's body is somewhere fairly close to shore near the Carey property, even up on the surface and hidden by the darkness. If so, it'll be spotted as soon as it's light enough. If not, well, it'll turn up eventually. The lake has claimed eight victims in my time here, and it's given every one of them up sooner or later. Fish-eaten and bloated and decomposing, maybe, but with still enough left for a positive ID.

Douglas Kent

SOMETIME IN THE night, in old F. Scott's dark night of the soul, Kent dreamed he was driving on a pitch-black road without headlights. I couldn't see a thing but I seemed to know where I was going, that there was something I had to do when I got there. Once, when I glanced over at the passenger seat, Pa Kent was squatting there and swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniel's, his favorite tipple. He winked at me and said, "You're a fool, boy, just like your old man." A little while later, when I looked again, he was gone and Storm was sitting stiffly in his place. She didn't wink. She hated me with her humid brown eyes. "You're disgusting, Doug," she said. "A disgusting, mean-spirited, irresponsible drunk, and I don't want anything more to do with you." Then she laughed, and I hated her, too, almost as much as I hated myself, and then I wasn't in the car any longer, the car was gone and Storm was gone and I was walking somewhere in the dark and calling her name, only she didn't answer. And a long time after that I heard a loud banging noise that went on and on, and somebody calling my name, saying, "Mr. Kent! Are you in there, Mr. Kent?" But I didn't get up. I was too drunk and too tired to get up. My eyes wouldn't open, or if they did open I couldn't see anything except black, night, black. Where am I? I thought. Where am I going? And from somewhere Pa Kent, the old fook, said, "Straight to the bottom, boy, just like me. Straight to the bottom of the Pit." I said, "No, no." And he said, "Yes, yes. You're already there, Dougie, right there at the gates. Go ahead, take a little peek at where you'll be spending eternity." But I kept my eyes tight shut and curled into a tiny ball and pulled the blackness close around me, cuddling it as if it were a woman.

An even longer time later, the blackness was gone and there was murky light and I was no longer in Fitzgerald country—I was awake,

dream fragments clinging to my mind like cobwebs, but more or less lucid. Lucid enough to wish I wasn't.

Morning. The light came through a crack in the Levolor blinds, falling across my eyes and hurting them when I pried the lids open. Another hangover, a ripsnorter this time. But the pain I felt wasn't only booze-induced; I'd managed to bang up the Kent corpus somehow. I tried to remember. Too soon: The cobwebs clung stickily. Fah down, go boom? Oh yes, yes indeed. And not only that, I'd gone pukey-pukey all over somebody's carpet before passing out. Mine? I rolled over, gingerly, and with an almost superhuman effort Kent sat up and focused on his surroundings. Mine, all right. My carpet, my apartment. Home sweet home. That was one thing about the Kents,pere etfils: No matter how wasted they got of a long, dark night, they generally managed to lurch homeward and somehow arrive more or less in one piece.

My left knee throbbed. Pants leg ripped, blood on the cloth and blood scabbed on the skin underneath. I hunted for other tears, other wounds, and found two—left elbow, right shin. Fah down, go boom all over the place. Hell of a night, eh, Dougie? The old bag of sticks was heavier than usual this A.M., and all thanks to dear Storm.